Never giving up on you - Completed.

10.

Austin

The next morning went by in a haze of more examinations on Hailey, and hours of waiting until my own cardiologist walked into her room. We both looked at eachother in surprise, and then dr. Miller walked up to me and shook my hand.

'Mr. Carlile,' he said. 'I'm surprised to see you here. And –' His eyes went wide when he saw Caity sitting on Hailey's bed. 'Caity?'

'Hi doctor Miller,' Caity said with a sad smile. Dr. Miller sighed and looked at Hailey.

'Is she yours?,' he asked to no one in particular.

'Yes,' Caity and I said at the same time. Our eyes met en Caity's were soft and full of love for a second, until Hailey crawled unto her lap and eyed dr. Miller in suspicion. He seemed to quickly make the link between me and Hailey and smiled at me.

'I never knew you had a daughter...' I huffed and shook my head.

'Neither did I,' I muttered, looking at my hands. Dr. Miller nodded his head once and turned to Caity.

'I will examine her physically and after that I'll look at the ECG and the ultrasound and make a dicision whether or not we can operate her arm. If not, we'll have to make a plan how to treat it, but first I want to make sure she is healthy enough,' he said. Caity was stroking Hailey's weary hair and nodded, not looking at him but biting her lip.

'What about the DNA-tests?,' I asked out loud. I didn't hardly care about Hailey's arm, because that could be fixed any way, but I just wanted to know whether she had Marfan or not.

'It takes around three weeks until we can say anything about that,' dr. Miller answered. I sighed deeply and rubbed my face. He placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. 'Don't worry, Austin. Whatever the outcome, we'll take good care of her.'

'I know,' I said in defeat. Dr. Miller then turned to Hailey, making her inhale, exhale and lay down while listening to her lungs and heart. Although he was an older man, he was playful with Hailey and she underwent all his examinations willingly after he explained exactly what he was going to do. After that, he told us we would hear from his team, greeted us and left. And we waited, again.

Since it was already a Monday and I figured we would be staying here for another night, I decided on calling the guys and our manager to let them know I wasn't able to make it to our meetings in the next few days.

'I'm gonna make a quick call,' I said to Caity. She nodded and didn't look up from holding Hailey, and I walked out of the room, searching for a quiet place before pulling my phone out and diailing Peter's number.

'Austin?'

'Hey Pete.'

'Hey bud, what's up?'

'Ehm...' I squeezed the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger and closed my eyes for a moment. 'Listen, I eh, I won't be able to make it to our meetings tomorrow or the day after.' It stayed silent for a moment.

'What? Why not?'

'I am in the hospital.'

'Are you okay?' Peter sounded concerned now and I realized I hadn't told him the news the correct way.

'Yeah, I'm okay. It's gonna be okay. Listen, ehm... I'll tell you what's going on later on, but for now I just need to cancel our meetings.' Peter sighed.

'Alright... When will I see you again?'

'In a few days. I'll give you a call when I am home.'

'Okay. Take care, Austin.'