Call Me Six

54: 'Lucky' -Tris

TRIS-

I can hear the wails. The strangled cries that shatter you to pieces.

I feel sick. The sound makes me want to hurl my guts up and sink into a never ending pool of sorrow.

It's mixed with shouts. The huddled voices of frantic strangers.

I can't understand them. The words aren't clear but I can hear to voices. I recognise some of the voices; Caleb - I can hear his iconic fumbling over each sound. By it's the low, mumbles that I could recognise in a storm of sounds that comforts me. The sweet utterings that shed undeserved love.

The cries still break through though, fighting to be heard over the rest. And I feel empty, for those cold wails drain all the emotions from me, everything flooding out to the heartbreaking cries.

It's so dark. I'm so numb. I can't even feel my toes.

A heartbeat is the only thing that reminds me I'm here.

This numbness that makes me feel trapped, locked up inside my own body.

I can't even feel my lungs breathing... And that's terrifying.

It's like an instinct, I start choking and gasping, trying to get something to function again.

A heavy weight in my lungs sets in, a throbbing pain shoots across my abdomen, dryness claws at my throat and a bright white light burns my eyes.

I'm hyperventilating, unable to breath comfortably due to a large tube protruding from my throat. People dressed in blue sterile robes surround me, their faces covered by masks, but their eyes hold shock. Machines are beeping furiously, tubes hang out of me everywhere and a large blue sheet shields my view of everything bellow my bust.

I want to scream but I can't. I want to cry but I can't. I want to do anything, anything at all; but I can't.

And then I see them, those stormy blue eyes stare right at me and I lose it. A gloved hand reaches up and he pulls off the surgical mask. "Tris," he says, "everything is going to be okay, just relax."

But I can't.

~

It's been hours. Hours since that frantic awakening.

They removed the tube from my throat, I still can't talk properly though. Everything I say is sore and croaky.

They told me what happened, and I cried out every remaining ounce of emotion in me.

My baby... They delivered my baby three months early.

I wanted to be alone, so here I am, led in a hospital bed, making a list of how many times I fucked up.

It's currently a lot. But that's to be expected. Isn't it?

~

I can see them, Tobias, Caleb, Cara and Will all sat outside my room. They look almost dead, drained of life and craving sleep.

Will's sat in one of the chairs, his knee bouncing and fingers drumming anxiously on the armrest. Caleb and Cara are making quiet conversation, their lips barely moving. Tobias though, he's standing at the small glass window, his eyes not leaving me once.

A nurse walks in with a wheelchair and a clip board, she appears to be rather young. "Miss Prior," she says in such a soft and caring voice. "Are you ready to see her yet?" I nod weakly, a tear betraying my will to be brave. I hadn't wanted to see my child at first... What mother refuses to even see her own baby?

She walks over to me, lining the chair right up by the side of the bed so I have to move as little as possible.

"Okie dokie," she says, trying a more perky approach at cheering me up. "Let's go see your beautiful baby girl, hmm?"

I just nod once more.

She wheels me out the door and slowly starts to go down the drab corridors.

"Tris!" Tobias calls, and she pauses briefly as he catches up with us from where he stood by the window. "Are you okay?" he asks awkwardly; as if he couldn't think of anything else to say.

I just stared up at him from where I was seated.

"We're off to see the baby," the nurse chirped up for me.

"Can I come, please?"

I sighed, uttering out a croaked, "I just need to be alone right now, Tobias. I'm sorry."

He nodded curtly and the nurse kept walking down the hall.

~

It took about five minutes to get to her. And I don't know how to react once I was actually there.

My baby girl... She was too innocent for this. All these tubes and wires attached to her tiny, tiny body. The clothes she was swaddled in seemed to be drowning her.

I'd never seen such a tiny child. Her whole body could probably fit in my palms.

She looked so delicate, her dark caramel skin too soft for existence. She was Uriah's...

"Uri," I sobbed, my forehead resting on the incubator. It was so heartbreaking to see her lying there, too helpless to even breath on her own. No child should be introduced to a world of tubes and coils, but those tubes and coils were the only thing keeping her alive.

I had a baby girl... And I couldn't even hold her.

~

"You're incredibly lucky," one of the doctors said, he was staring down at the clipboard, at his scientific facts. "The baby seems to be showing no signs of FAS or FASD, the only major concern we have right now is how premature she is. We don't currently know how long she'll need to stay in the incubator for or when you'll be allowed to take her home, we still need the father's name to complete the birth certificate and a name for your daughter." He listed everything off robotically.

"Can I- Can I please be left alone for a while? But... Can you ask Tobias to come in, please?"

He frowned. "Of course, ma'm."

The doctor left and just as quickly, Tobias entered; striding over quickly before giving me a much needed hug.

"Did you see... It?" He asked.

"I saw her," I said, subtly answering his unaired question on the gender, "And she's... She's-" I didn't know what to call her. She looked so wrong with all the tubes snaking everywhere, she almost didn't register as a baby. "She's so small and fragile and oh God." I was sobbing again, soaking his shirt as he held me close.  "She's so innocent... She doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve a train-wreck of a mother like me." His gentle grip felt like the only thing stopping me from shattering into a billion, irreparable pieces. "She's Uriah's, Tobias... She's Uriah's."

"Shush," he said, stroking my back softly, "everything will be fine, Tris. Everything will be fine."