Emily

Chapter Six

The next morning around nine-thirty Eddie woke up to find the social worker, Laura in the doorway. She smiled and looked over to Emily and saw she was still sleeping. They had all been up most of the night between Emily's nightmares, this time about the accident, and her being in pain they were all a bit restless.

"Hey." Eddie whispered and motioned for Laura to follow her into the hallway.

"How's she doing?" Laura asked as Eddie shut the door.

"She's hanging in there. She had a few nightmares based off the accident last night, we were kind of expecting that though. With the second surgery she's experiencing a bit more pain though. She's using as much morphine as they can safely give her and still hurting. But she's fighting."

"Good. I hate that she can't seem to catch a break, but I am glad she's still hanging on."

"Yeah. She decided she wants to testify against her father. I told her we'd talk to the ADA on the case when she was released. I just wanted to give her some time to change her mind again, but I think she's going to do it. We'll sit down with her one more time before we go to the ADA, just to make sure she's sure and still wants to do it."

"I'm glad she feels up to testifying. I also think one last check-in is a good idea. We don't want her to feel pressured to do it." Eddie nodded.

"Laura, I don't know how you do this with so many kids. I can hardly handle this with just one. That being said we've talked about this and would like to file the paperwork to adopt Emily." Laura chuckled.

"I had a feeling that was coming, I already filled them out, all you three have to do is sign them and I'll file them with the court."

"Thank you. We'll stop by your office on our way home from here when she's released?"

"That should be fine. Just give me a call when you're headed over so if I'm not in the office, I can let my assistant know, she can get the papers out of my office and she's a notary so you could sign them with her, if I am too busy to make it back to the office."

"Okay, we'll call and let you know. Thank you. Did you want to talk to her?"

"No, let her rest." Eddie nodded.

"Alright, we'll see you in a few days." Laura nodded and left. Eddie went back into the room and walked over to Jamie.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, Laura stopped by. She wanted to check in after last night but after I told her about the new nightmares and everything, she decided to just let her sleep. Oh, I told her we wanted to file adoption papers and all we have to do is stop by her office on our way home when Emily's released and sign the paperwork, then she'll file it with the courts."

"That's great, should we let it be a surprise for her and just wait until she sees the paperwork? Let her realize it on her own?"

"That would be fun. It'd definitely give her something to smile about after all this." Eddie agreed.

"How about the baby? How do you want to tell her that?"

"I don't know yet, but maybe something Harry Potter themed? Since she seems to love it as much as we do."

"Yeah, we can look on the internet for ideas."

"Great. What about Reagans?"

"We'll have to figure that out too. I don't have any ideas off the top of my head."

"You could just write it on the cake for Frank's birthday in a few weeks." Emily replied with a grin on her face.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough to know I can't wait to be released from this place. Or to find out if I will have a brother or sister." Eddie chuckled.

"She does have a point, with the cake writing to tell them." Jamie added.

"Yeah, everyone would be sitting, less risk of a heart attack or something." Eddie replied.

"Just have to keep several nosey people from seeing it beforehand." Jamie chuckled.

"That's going to be difficult." Emily chimed in. Eddie nodded.

"When did you find out about the baby?"

"Last night when you were sleeping. How're you feeling?"

"I'm okay. Really sore, but okay." Emily replied as the nurse came in to check her incision site. She took note of Emily's vitals and nodded slightly, pleased with how she was healing.

"The doctor will be in shortly to check on everything for herself, but everything is healing nicely." She said on her way out of the room.

"That's good. Means we should be able to break you out of here sooner than later."

Twenty minutes later the doctor walked in and did her own more extensive exam and came to the same conclusion as the nurse. All her surgical incisions and other injuries were healing properly. She had the nurse come back in they changed her bandages to help avoid infection.

"Emily is healing very nicely, and we should be able release her in about a week barring any further complications, possibly sooner if she continues to heal so quickly." The doctor finally spoke to Eddie and Jamie.

"That's great. Thanks doc." Eddie replied. The doctor nodded and left the room. The nurse finished cleaning up and soon followed the doctor out of the room. Emily was exhausted from the lack of sleep and being poked and prodded, so she fell asleep soon after they left. Eddie and Jamie updated the family on her condition and her expected release in a week or so.