From across the hallway

Part 38

Missy's heart pounded as she ran through the gleaming hospital corridors.

The place smelled clean. Too clean.

It hit her nostrils as soon as she entered, reminding her of all that time she had spent in the hospital with her Mom, years and years before Wade or even Emily had come onto the scene.

Hospitals were never a good memory for her and that smell....it reminded her of times when Missy would sit here day after day worrying. Then finally the time when she had walked out alone, her face streaked with tears, feeling hollow and abandoned.

It wasn't much different to the pain she was feeling right now if she was honest.

Missy's high-heels click-clacked down the empty hallway and she skidded around the corner, emerging beside a waiting room where two familiar faces stood, almost huddled together, both looking worried.

They turned to look at Missy as she burst through the swing doors and into the waiting area.

"Where is she?" Missy uttered loudly, her eyes flickering between Vanessa and Weasel.

The bespectacled barman worried at his lip and it was Vanessa, the woman she had once thought Wade might have a relationship with, who stepped forwards.

Vanessa grasped Missy's arm gently.

"She's through there..." she said, gesturing with her head to the door just a few feet away from them. "The doctors have been in with her for a while-"

But Missy didn't even wait for Vanessa to finish her sentence. She tore her arm away, striding over and bursting into the room.

Her heart stopped.

Or at least it felt like it did.

For there, lying on a white bed, looking almost blue, was Emily. She was swaddled in blankets, including a silver foil one, her eyes closed.

Missy, barely noticing the two doctors standing at the foot of the bed in white coats talking in hushed voices, rushed over to Emily's side.

Her eyes instantly flooded with tears as she grasped up her daughter's hand. It was as cold as ice and felt even smaller than it normally did.

Missy gave a loud, uncontrollable sob.

"Mommy's here," she uttered in a whisper. "Mommy's here, baby."

How could she have let this happen?

To the person she loved most in the world?

All this was her fault.

As much as she had blamed Wade, she knew none of this was on him. She had snapped...without even realising the true damage she had done to their relationship now.

She wished to god that he was here with her. To hold her. To tell her that everything was going to be ok.

But he wasn't.

And once again...that was no one's fault but Missy's.

Missy leaned forwards, brushing back the short tuft of brown hair from the toddler's temples.

The two doctors were now gazing over at her, having stopped their conversation abruptly the moment she had entered the room.

"You're Emily's mother?" one of them murmured in a soft tone, as Missy's eyes flickered up towards them.

She brushed away tears, giving a shaky nod. "Yes, yes....I am."

The doctors were both men, one younger, with short brown hair, and the other older, in his fifties most likely, with greying-stubble and glasses.