Halcyon

Bad News

Nikki bursts out the mortuary and into the hallway, she grabs hold of the railing as she beings very erratic breathing, the postmortems on the babies had gotten all too much for the expectant mother, she felt sick, dizzy, confused she wasn't herself, seeing those lifeless babies lying before her, she had along just gotten to the third baby when Clarissa came to the cutting room viewing gallery with a new discovery that linked all four babies.

Jack had heard about Nikki bursting out the mortuary in a complete state and is now running down the corridor to where his partner is now crouched on the floor tears streaming down her face, her breathing erratic and just her one hand holding the railing preventing her from falling to the floor. "Nikki, Nikki! oh god Nik, it's okay, I'm here" Jack says as he runs to her frantically, he comes to her side and crouches in front of her, he then kneels on the floor and pulls Nikki into his chest, cradling her like a baby.

She lets go of the railing as soon as Jack pulls her into his chest, she clutches his top so tightly her tears already staining his t-shirt. He sits on the floor allowing the sensation to return to his knees, He pulls Nikki onto his lap and she continues to cuddle into him and cry.

Soon Nikki calms down so Jack decides to talk to her, "What happened in there?" He mumbles against her head and plants a delicate kiss on her head at the same time. "Nik?" He mutters again.

Nikki lifts her head slightly and looks up at Jack, "Those babies..." She mumbles.
"Oh Nik, you should have said it was too much for you" Jack replies and strokes her cheek.
"No, Jack... Clarissa told me her findings... Jack I'm scared" Nikki says coking on her tears.

He holds Nikki close and kisses her head again as Nikki shuffles off his lap and sits on the floor of the corridor with him. She cuddles back up to Jack's side and he places his arm protectively around her. "What are you scared about? Nikki Alexander is never scared... tell me what's wrong."

"I'm scared for our baby" Nikki mumbles, Jack slips his one hand to her bump and strokes it ever so carefully with his thumb.
"Why? what's changed? earlier you were so happy about the baby, moaning because your ankles are huge... laughing at me for talking to the baby, our baby is cooking away nicely in there... there is no way I'm letting what happened to those babies happen to ours" Jack smiles holding his partner close.

They share a kiss and Jack moves and leans forward and plants a kiss on her bump, "But I'm under the same Doctor as all those mothers who lost their babies... it's going to happen to me" She mumbles.

"Nik, if something was wrong with the baby they would have told us by now and you know that... so tell me what was wrong with the babies?" Jack asks.

She takes a deep breath, "each and every one of those babies, had an undiagnosed ventricular septal defect..." She begins.
"but those things close up on birth," Jack says a little bit confused by what she is saying.
"No Jack, baby 1, deformed heart not picked up. Baby 2, born with ventricular and left arterial septal defect undetected... baby 3, enlarged heart, hole in lungs... undetected. baby 4, stillborn, ventricular defect with deformation of the right ventricle" She explains which makes Jack think about everything.

"And who were they signed off by?" He questions.
"I need to have a look at the notes," Nikki says and Jack nods before getting up himself and then holding his hand out to help Nikki up off the floor.

They both walk back to the offices, but first Nikki gets herself out her scrubs and back into normal clothing. Nikki heads back to the office where Jack is sat at his desk waiting for her, she collects the babies medical notes from Clarissa and sits reading through them until she finds a certain match.

After a while, Nikki finds something, "Here look!" Nikki says suddenly making Jack jump.
"What!" Jack says as he jumps out of his seat and looks at her.
"Look each baby was under the name of Dr. Karan Patel... Jack that's my consultant, Oh god..." Nikki breathes uneasily.

Jack places his hand on her shoulder before slipping his arms around her waist and holding her close, "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about..." Jack begins but is cut off by Thomas entering.

"Hate to break up the romance but Dr. Karen Patel from Hamilton Ash Hospital has been called into police custody along with many of her midwifery team... the police have found out there are many alleged accusations about the team not picking up on many deformations of children in the past six years" Thomas explains.

Both Jack and Nikki stare at Thomas both feeling physically sick not only was their unborn child under the care of Dr. Patel but also Poppy was delivered by one of the doctor's team. "I'm going to be sick" Nikki mumbles raising her hand on her head as she paces the room.

Thomas looks at the couple confused, "Thomas... was going to been to get Poppy and the baby checked over" Jack replies starting to feel sick himself.
"Why?" He asks.
"Poppy was delivered and many pre-natal scans were taken by the team when Nikki got back from Australia and this baby is under their teams care," Jack says.

Thomas looks at Jack and then at Nikki who has gone white as a sheet, "Oh lord, I don't know what to say" Thomas says thinking, he adores Poppy and would have for anything bad to happen to her, and he loves seeing Jack and Nikki happy together after years and years of sexual tension around the Lyell from them, he smirks to himself knowing that the sexual tension is being used at home in a good way now.