Everything Changes

Hold On To Hope

The next morning, Olivia still had her head in the clouds about being pregnant because two hours before arriving at work, she and Alex booked an early-morning appointment with Alex's OBGYN to talk about the physical aspect of her getting pregnant and were able to meet with her. In fact, everything checked out for Olivia so well during the physical that they were able to start the beginning stages of the process, and if everything went well, she was going to have a very good chance of getting pregnant.

Had Olivia been completely absorbed in her own thoughts about her family life, she would have missed a very important phone call that came from her desk phone in her office.

It was from Audrey about Bedelia.

In the night, Bedelia had had a nightmare so extreme that it sent her into a panic attack strong enough to case need for a nasal oxygen supply and a need for a slightly longer hospital stay because her blood pressure had risen higher than the doctors would have liked, just from the fear alone.

Olivia was a little upset to be finding out about the panic attack so many hours after the fact, but when Audrey told her that she'd been the only one allowed to stay with Bedelia while she calmed and fell back asleep with help from powerful sleeping drugs, she let go of her anger and thanked Audrey for looking after Bedelia and filling her on the situation.

Things could have gone worse if anyone else had been there, no matter how good their intentions were.

"Aren't you two tired of coming to see me here?"

"No, mama, definitely not."

This was Amanda's response to her mother's inquiry when she and Olivia came to see her.

"Especially considering what happened the last time you got as panicked as this." Olivia added.

"I got scared into labor," Bedelia recalled with a sigh of resignation. "But I'm not pregnant now."

As the oldest person in the room, Audrey decided to be the voice of reason and interjected, "Bedelia, why don't you tell them what your nightmare was about?"

Bedelia didn't want to tell them because she was embarrassed that people kept coming to see her, but she knew that Olivia and Amanda had come for yet another visit not only because it was part of their job description but also because they were her family.

She spoke mostly to Amanda. "I dreamed that your father showed up from wherever the hell he is and took you and your sisters."

"Me, Kim, and Maggie, but not Leon? Is it because he doesn't care about him?"

"Probably. After he took you three, your whole squad looked for you, but bad things had happened by the time you were found. I can't even say." Bedelia took steadying breaths to calm herself. "If it hadn't for my blood pressure being so high, this wouldn't be such a big deal. I'm sorr..."

Her apology stopped abruptly when she caught sight of someone out in the hallway headed towards her suite, looking like he was on some kind of mission. Bedelia became so nervous that the blood pressure monitor she was hooked up to beeped warningly.

"What is it?" Audrey asked her.

"Who is that?"

She pointed in the direction of the person in question and they all followed her line of sight. Audrey didn't recognize the person, but Amanda and Olivia did, and they immediately grew hostile.

It was their number one, enemy, Sergeant Ed Tucker.

Amanda sighed heavily. "That's the head of the Internal Affairs Bureau, Sergeant Tucker. He doesn't like our squad."