Hiding Place || Tori Kelly

The First 48 Pt.1

The tiny newborn was rushed out of her parents room and immediately taken up to the NICU with Arizona while Tori was quickly tended to by Dr. Montgomery. André watched his wife's primary doctor go with their baby as this new doctor sat on the stool in front of Tori. "Alright, guys. I am doctor Addison Montgomery. I am here to make sure mom is okay and I'm assisting Dr. Robbins with baby. Does she have a name?" Addison asked. Tori caught her breath from just having given birth and wiped her tears of joy and sorrow.

"Abiah. Her name is Abiah," Tori breathed. Addison put on her gloves and started to try and deliver the placenta.

"Abiah. That's beautiful. Do you guys have any other kids?" Addison distracted, knowing that the pressure Tori was going to feel delivering the placenta would be worse than giving birth. Especially when her baby was only 3 pounds.

"We have a seven year old daughter, Iriella," Tori replied, before wincing and grabbing onto André's hand. "Oh my gosh, why can I feel that?" Tori cried. André did his best to comfort his wife, but he could feel the pain through her eyes. They were pleading for it to be over. They were tired.

"Tori, I'm going to need for you to breathe. I'm delivering the sac and it's going to hurt, but you have to calm down. If you raise your blood pressure, you may bleed out and we can't have that. So focus on your girls. You said, Iriella's seven. Is she happy to be a big sister?" Addison asked. Tori bit her lip and nodded.

"Yeah. She wanted another puppy, but she said she would settle for a little sister," Tori forcibly laughed as the pressure subsided and huge dish was placed before her doctor, covered, then removed.

"Kids," Addison smiled. "Alright Tori, the placenta is out. And you don't need any stitches. I'm going to leave you in the hands of Dr. Karev. She will get you up to L&D and settled. I'm going to check on Abiah to get an update," Dr. Montgomery summarized as the nurses situated Tori and got her comfortable and covered enough to transport to the next floor.

The new parents watched their doctor waltz out in good spirits, putting them in a pretty okay mood considering.

1:30 AM

After settling into the room they would call home for a couple of days, Tori glanced at the clock on the wall as the countdown began.

Hour 2

Tori picked at her cover as André paced back and forth on the phone with his dad. "I'm not getting in the middle," he argued. "I don't care what she said! Mom was in the wrong!" He continued. Tori bit her lip, watching the aggravation grow on her husband. She hadn't meant to cause this much strife between he and his family. "How are you going to say she needs to watch her mouth and then tack on all that stuff at the end? That's contradicting!" André yelled. "I don't care! That's my wife and the mother of my kids!" He continued. "The mother of both of my kids! You know what, do what you want!" André said, before hanging up and plopping onto the smaller couch. Tori watched his hand run across his face before his eyes settled on the ceiling tile above his head.

"I'm sorry, Dré. I didn't mean to—"

"No," he said, holding his hand up to stop her. "It's not your fault. You were protecting your own. Our own. They need to understand that your Irie's mother and they can't just say whatever to you and think it's okay," André agreed. He hated to fight with his parents, but as a family man, he couldn't allow his parents to say whatever about his family. And saying that Irie should be with family and insinuating that Tori was anything less, was not going to fly with this papa bear.

"I really am sorry, though. I just get so frustrated with not being Irie's biological mother, that I do my best to make it feel like I am. Because I am her mother. I'm there when she's sick. I help her with her school work. I sit with her when she scared. I play dolls with her when I would want nothing more than to take a nap. I am her mother. It's bad enough that the internet has something to say about it. I really didn't think I would hear anything from our family," Tori sighed. André moved to the bed with his wife and stroked her soft, product less hair.