Seasons (Ari AU)

Chapter 34

*Warning, there is mention of a mother passing during child birth

Third Person POV

"Tell me you're joking," Shauna begs her friend, her heart racing and threatening to fall straight to her gut. "Holland, please. I need you to be pulling the biggest prank of your life right now."

  One look at her friend's sad eyes and she knows it's all true. "How the hell could he do that?" she yells, earning a disgruntled look of disappointment from Joy and warning of her name. 

  "How are you surprised right now?" Holland asks. "Had he not given you some type of inclination that he was leaning towards it?"

  Nothing but questions swirl between the two women but zero of them are getting answered, both being as confused as the other although one is certainly more heartbroken than the other. "You, drink your coffee. I'm going to get answers," Shauna announces, standing up and already digging through her bag for her phone. 

  She's not gone ten seconds before there's a call up from the emergency room with a mother who is already crowning. Holland races down to the break room just as she hears Shauna yelling "What did you do?" into her phone. 

  "We've gotta crown coming up," she calls to her friend, signaling for her to hang up. 

  Shauna does so, her face red in anger, sliding the phone into her pocket. "He say anything?" Holland questions as they bustle around the delivery room as quickly as possible. 

  "Voicemail," she grunts, already laying out the stirrups in preparation for the patient. Wails can be heard coming from down the hall. "Showtime," she tells her friend, swinging the door open and ushering in the pained mother and frantic father. 

  What started as quick labor eventually stalls with the baby's heart rate dropping and the mother going into shock. A rush off to the operating room that ends with a beautiful baby boy but the passing of his mother, and an overly distraught father. 

  The father questions doctors and nurses alike, unaware that his wife had a heart problem so severe she should've never attempted having children in the first place. Holland's heart bleeds for the man as she passes his son off to him in the nursery.  "I don't know if I can," his tear filled eyes, and shaky words hits her right in her chest, knowing that in just a few more months she'll be doing the same, all on her own. 

  He doesn't reach out for his son, leading Holland to sit down in a chair next to him. "You can," she says softly, her hand pulling the baby's blanket a little more snug, "and you will.  You won't want to. There will be days where you swear you can't do it at all, but you can, and you will, because this sweet and innocent little boy needs you. He's going to need you to tell him all about his precious mama, and how much she loved him and did everything possible to give him life."  She swallows down tears, and bile, as the man finally opens his arms out to take the sleeping baby. "They'll teach you how to feed him when he wakes, alright."

  "Thank you," he whispers, his eyes never leaving the face of his son.  Holland pats his shoulder before quickly exiting the room, turning a corner just to be met with a pair of hands grabbing her waist from behind.

  "Woah," Ari chuckles, his fingers digging a little into Holland's scrubs. "Where's the fire?"

  Holland's eyes flick behind her for a moment, giving Ari ample time to see the heaviness sitting behind the irises. "What's going on?"  She shakes her head, pushing his hands off her hips before bolting to the bathroom. 

  Ari follows her, calling out and causing several heads to turn in his direction. Most have become so accustomed to him popping in and out over the years they don't give it a second thought. "Holland!"