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Nick let out a strangled cry as he rushed to her side and sank down to his knees. He brushed her hair out of her face with trembling hands to find that she was pale and clammy, but still breathing. “Annie!” he shouted, giving her body a gentle shake. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him with a blank stare. “Annie, baby, what happened?” He wondered whether he should be worried about an intruder in his house, but found it odd that he’d never heard her scream.

“I’m bleeding,” she gasped.

“I know. What happened?” He ran his hands over her body in attempt to find the source.

“I was going to get a tampon,” she whispered, curling herself into a fetal position. “This isn’t normal.”

Holy shit! Nick thought to himself. This amount of blood certainly wasn’t normal, and she was slowly slipping back into unconsciousness. “I’m going to call for help, okay?”

“Tell them I’m A positive,” she croaked as her eyelids closed.

He stood and ran to his room, grabbed his cell phone off the night stand, and raced back to Annie’s room. With trembling, bloody fingers, he dialed 911.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

“My girlfriend. She passed out and she’s bleeding. She’s bleeding a lot,” Nick panted as he dropped back down to his knees beside her, the blood soaking into his pants.

“Is she injured?”

He gulped. “I-- I don’t think so,” he stammered.

“What’s your location?”

After giving the dispatcher his address and confirming his phone number, he stroked Annie’s hair and bent down to kiss her on the forehead. “Help’s on the way, okay, Annie? Just hold on. You’re going to be okay,” he soothed quietly. In his heart, he prayed that was true.

The next few minutes were a blur. EMS workers arrived and loaded her onto a stretcher while Nick looked on helplessly and answered their questions to the best of his ability.

“What’s her name?”

“Annie. Annie Morgan.”

“How old is she?”

"Thirty."

"Do you know her blood type?"

"Um...." Suddenly the last words she uttered to him made sense. "A positive! She's A positive!"

The EMT gave him an affirmative nod and reached for the handheld radio strapped to his belt. "Dispatch 119 to Vanderbilt emergency department. We are en-route with a thirty year old female with severe vaginal bleeding. Temp 97.4. BP 84/55 and dropping. Pulse 140 and irregular. Blood type A positive."

Nick ran to Drew's room and scooped the still-sleeping toddler out of his crib. He raced down the stairs and was in the driveway headed for his rental car from the airport when he realized he was going to need a car seat. He burst through the back door and searched frantically for Annie's keys. A diaper bag was sitting on the kitchen counter, and thankfully, a set of keys was resting on the dark granite beside it. He swiped them from the countertop and slung the blue paisley tote bag over his shoulder before darting back out to Annie's Tahoe. Drew woke up and started crying as Nick was attempting to strap him into his car seat.

“Morning buddy,” Nick huffed as he fumbled with the straps. “It’s probably going to be a weird day, okay?” Drew stopped crying and looked at him with wide eyes-- Annie’s eyes. Nick didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed it before. The child really didn’t look anything like his mother, except that he had her eyes. He choked back a sob and gave Drew a little pat on the head. “Hold tight, Drew.” He jumped in the driver’s seat and sped away, struggling internally with the fact that he felt like he was driving too fast to have a baby in the car, but not fast enough to keep up with the ambulance.

Nick pulled Annie’s car into the emergency department parking lot and screeched to a halt just as they were wheeling her inside from the ambulance bay. He jumped out and unbuckled Drew from his car seat, settled him on his hip and tore across the parking lot towards the sliding glass doors with the red “Emergency’” sign posted above them. He didn’t see Annie, but could hear a commotion behind the curtain in front of him and immediately knew that was where she was.

“Her pressure’s still dropping. Hang the blood and type and cross-match another four units STAT!”

“Call ultrasound and get them down here ASAP. Did someone page doctor Andrews?”

“Is there anyone here with her?”

“There was a man with her. Husband or boyfriend or something.”

“Someone go see if you can get any information from him.”

Nick headed for the closed curtain while Drew clung to him and let out a scared cry, startled by the flurry of activity and noise in the busy emergency room. He was intercepted by a doctor in green scrubs who stepped outside and yanked off a pair of bloody gloves. “Are you with Annie Morgan?”

“Yes. Is she okay?” Nick asked in a shaky voice.

“What’s your relationship to Ms. Morgan?”

“I--I’m her boyfriend.”

“Listen, Mr.--?”

“Carter,” Nick finished for him. “Nick Carter.”

“Mr. Carter, I’m really not supposed to release any information to anyone that isn’t family.”

“Mama...” Drew whimpered, clutching Nick’s sweatshirt tightly in his tiny fists.

The man raised an eyebrow in the toddler’s direction. “Is he hers?”

“Yes,” Nick nodded affirmatively. “We live together.” Technically, that was sort of true and if it got him more information about Annie, he was willing to say anything at that point.

He pursed his lips and studied Nick for a moment. “When was her last normal period?”

Nick stood frozen like a deer in headlights. “I--I don’t know,” he admitted solemnly. The doctor sighed exasperatedly. “I’ve been away on business for a few weeks,” Nick added quickly.

“Do you know if she has any history of problems with her reproductive system? Anything that could cause her to bleed like this?”

Nick looked down at Drew and recalled the story Annie had told him and Brian about how the baby was conceived. “She had an ovary removed a few years ago. I think she has a family history of cancer in that...area.”

“Okay.” The doctor gave him a solemn nod and turned back towards the curtain.

“Wait!” Nick pleaded. “What’s going on with her? Do you think she has cancer?!”

“I don’t know until we give her a thorough examination. Right now, our priority is to try to stop the bleeding and replenish the blood lost. The problem is that we have to find the cause before we can stop it.” He paused to acknowledge a tall woman in a white coat. who was jogging towards them. “Dr. Andrews, this is Annie’s significant other. He says she had an ovary removed a few years back and a family history of female reproductive cancers.”

“Do we have an ultrasound?”

“They’re performing one now.” Dr. Andrews nodded and disappeared behind the curtain.

The emergency room doctor turned back to Nick. “Nick, there’s a waiting room over there.” He pointed across the hall. “I’ll ask a nurse to find you some scrubs to change into.”

Nick looked down at his clothing. It looked like something out of a horror film. “I need to know if she’s okay...” he begged.

“She’s unstable right now due to the blood loss. We’re doing everything we can to make sure nothing happens to her, okay?” he replied curtly and walked back behind the curtain.

Suddenly, Drew was screaming and Nick’s head was swimming. The doctor he had been talking to was replaced by a friendly young female nurse with flowing brown hair. “I’m Emma. I’m going to go see if I can find a set of scrubs that will fit you, and there’s a smaller waiting room down the hall. I’m sure you don’t want to draw any attention to yourself, right?” Nick breathed a sigh of relief. Truth be told, the thought that he might get recognized hadn’t even crossed his mind, but he was thankful the nurse had known who he was and offered to take him somewhere more private.

“What’s his name?” she asked, pointing to Drew.

Nick looked down at the crying child in his arms. “Drew.”

“He’s really cute. Is he yours?”

“No. He’s Annie’s.”

Emma leaned towards Drew and gave him a big grin. “Crazy morning for a little guy, huh? Have you had breakfast?”

Nick smacked himself in the forehead with his free hand. “I didn’t even think that he might be hungry.”

“Of course not. You were worried about Annie. I have a two year old, so I’m used to this kind of thing.”

“I have a diaper bag,” Nick said, gesturing to the bag on his shoulder “But I have no idea what’s in it,” he admitted clumsily.

“Well, I’m sure his mama has it well-stocked. How about I take him while you get changed?”

Nick handed Drew over, grateful to have someone who seemed to know what she was doing there to help him out. He changed clothes quickly in a nearby locker room and washed his hands. As he watched her dried-on blood swirl down the white porcelain sink, he did something he hadn’t done in a long time. He prayed. “God, I know you’re not used to hearing from me, and after all the crap I’ve done over the years, I probably don’t deserve anything from you, but I know you know Annie. And Annie’s special. Please take care of her. Don’t take her away from me. She’s the greatest woman I’ve ever known.” He grabbed a paper towel and dried his hands, then wiped hastily at the tears that had fallen down his cheeks and walked out the door and down the hall to the small waiting room Emma had shown him.

Drew seemed to be in a miraculously better mood. He was no longer in his pajamas, but in a little pair of jeans and a blue, long-sleeved t-shirt and held a sippy cup of juice in one hand while he rolled a little red ball across the carpet towards Emma. “I changed him and got some juice from the cafeteria. He ate a muffin, too,” she told him.

“Thank you,” Nick breathed.

“No problem. I need to get back to work, but is there anything else you need? I made some coffee.” She gestured to a coffee pot in the corner of the room. “And there’s a clipboard on the table with some admission forms if you can try to get them filled out.” Nick’s eyes widened. He didn’t think he’d be able to fill out much information at all. “Her wallet’s in the diaper bag, by the way,” Emma interjected. Nick nodded and started rooting around in the diaper bag.
“The cafeteria’s that way if you want anything to eat,” she offered.

Nick shook his head. “I don’t think I can stomach anything right now, but thanks for the coffee.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I understand. I hope Annie’s alright.”

“Me too,” he said quietly. “Me too.” He stayed busy for the next hour filling out paperwork and attempting to entertain Drew. Drew had settled onto the couch watching cartoons that Nick had found on the television mounted to the wall, and Nick was pouring his second cup of coffee when the middle-aged woman he recognized as Dr. Andrews appeared with Emma in the doorway wearing scrubs and a surgical cap. He stopped pouring and set the coffee pot down, then crossed the room to meet them.

“How is she?” he asked quickly.

“Mr. Carter, let’s sit down.”

Nick’s hands started shaking, and he bent down to put the half-full styrofoam coffee cup on a nearby end table, but he remained standing. “How is she?” he asked again, this time with more urgency.

“Nick, Annie experienced what we call a subchorionic hemorrhage. I’ve been an OB-GYN for twenty years, and it’s the most severe case I’ve ever seen. She lost a really substantial amount of blood, as I’m sure you’re already aware.” Nick gulped and nodded, his heart now pounding erratically in his chest. “We had to transfuse eight units of blood, but she’s stable now.”

“Oh thank God.” Nick closed his eyes and let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.

Dr. Andrews gave him a weak smile and went on. “However, I had to perform an emergency dilation and curettage, or D&C, to get the bleeding under control. I’m sorry, but the fetus wasn’t viable.”