expecting; percico

030

"Okay, she's being moved to the NICU, she's -"

"Can we see her?" Nico cut off the doctor, too worried to really think of anything else other than 'Zoella, Zoella, Let me see my baby, Zoella, Zoella,'

"Soon but I must warn you she is in a very unstable condition - I really should tell you what's going on before you work up the courage to go see her. She's going to have a scar all the way down her chest, wires in her nose, she'll be covered in medical tape and you really need to know what you should be expecting before you see it, even people who work in the field need preparation before seeing what you're about to see,"

The two boys had already stood up (which had proven to be very difficult considering he had just pushed a baby out of him hours ago and was slightly sore) but he had braced himself on the end of the bed, plus his hand in Percy's helped, knowing someone was there.

Percy felt broken. He didn't know how to explain it with any other word. Shattered? Maybe Crumbling? He really just couldn't put his finger on the word, but he knew it sucked, he felt like crying, screaming, he wanted to curse the gods, but at the same time, he didn't want to piss of the ones that actually thought keeping the baby would be a good idea.

"Okay," Nico said, Percy felt the younger boy squeeze his hand lightly. The son of Hades looked up at Percy silently asking 'are you ready?' Percy nodded as he looked at the boy's tear-brimmed eyes, the beautiful brown eyes that on any other day would bring a bright smile to his face. "Okay," Percy mumbled.

Nico held eye-contact for a moment longer, searching Percy's eyes for a more intricate answer, but in the end had turned back to Kate, nodding his head, not trusting the words to come out of his mouth.

"Zoella is very sick," She deadpans, which made the two boys sad, even though they already knew that much. "To pinpoint exactly what seems to be the problem, is very difficult, especially after just going in there. You'd think that would be the best way, but in reality, tests and scans are the best way to really know, because we can observe, and watch, and compare, but just going in there it's more heat of the moment. but so far, we know she has PDA, which is basically a heart condition. She has a hole in her Aorta, many preemies have it without some ever really realizing it because the hole is so small, however, Zoella's is a rare case of it being pretty extreme,"

Kate took a deep breath, clearly trying to word it correctly, but she had just spent hours on a surgery and now had to explain to the parents what was wrong. It wasn't exactly enjoyable, plus you have to be extremely careful with every word said, because she knew Nico and Percy would probably cling onto the words as they sat for hours next to their very weak baby.

"We'll be watching her closely for the next 72 hours, and then we'll know what to do by then, hopefully, but now, it's really all theoretical. And I wish I had more answers for you, I really do, but I don't, and the most I can do is prepare you for what you're about to see,"

Nico and Percy didn't know what to say, so the two new parents simply nodded, bracing themselves for what they would hear, and wanting to absorb all information to hopefully make seeing their daughter a little less difficult.

"She can't breathe or eat on her own, so she has a feeding tube, along with a oxygen tube. In reality, the tube itself is small, but so is she, which makes it look a lot worse than it is. Plenty of preemies require these, just Zoella is -"

"A special case," Nico finished for her, his voice breaking. Percy looked down and he knew Nico would most likely never admit it, but Percy could see the emotion on his face. Nico blamed himself. He knew he should say something along the lines of 'stop that, that won't help anything' but at the same time, now wasn't really the time to say that.