Finding Kate

Chapter Eighteen: Faith, Hope & Charity

Cos this is the day that everything changes
And the world stops turning, running straight,
Into the break lights, you've come to nothing
This is the day that everything changes and your worlds collide
You know in time you'll wake to find you're a little unbroken

Missy Higgins - Unbroken

The waiting room was quiet. Speedle was surprised by how desolate it looked. There were few people besides them parked in the stiff vinyl chairs. Grace Memorial was the hospital of choice for cops; the medical staff knew members of the MDPD by sight and vice versa. It showed in the dedication of the staff and the friendly reassurances that Tim had endured while he listened to Doctor Franklin, a man he had also worked cases with, run through a catalogue of injuries that Kate had sustained.

The list felt endless, shatter ribs, punctured organs, internal bleeding, broken wrist, busted nose, fractured jaw and orbital bone. The doctor had conceded that a minimal amount of surgery would be needed to fix Kate's face, that would come at a later point if she made it through the night. The doctor was brutally honest when Tim asked what her chances were. Two out of ten, he'd said and that was if she didn't have a stroke from the shock.

Speed put his head in his hands and rubbed at his eyes wearily, trying to block out the sights and sounds surrounding him. It was unbearable at the moment, the dull ache revolving in his chest. The collar of his shirt felt constricting; he was sweating, a symbol of anxiety and stress.

Their baby hadn't stood a chance against a fall like that. The doctor had told him death was likely to have been instantaneous. He hoped it was. He was pretty sure that foetus's didn't feel any pain until at least twenty four weeks anyway, and Kate had only just been over twelve by Franklin's estimation.

Their baby would have been developing; it would have a face, and the beginnings of neurological activity, instead of a foetus it would have been becoming a baby. Their baby.

He imagined nights curled up next to Kate, reading from a baby book underneath the blanket on her couch. He could see her in the later stages, wearing maternity clothes as their baby grew happy and healthy inside her. He imagined kicks, cravings, even birth, late night feeds and first steps.

In seconds it had been there and gone again. A fleeting dream, something precious torn apart and destroyed, and that stung more than anything because now it looked like he'd lost everything or rather that he was going to lose everything.

It overwhelmed him, piercing his soul straight to the core when he realized what the stabbing sensation in his chest was. It was grief.

There were tears now, they were scalding his eyes, bitter and salty as they began to leak down his cheeks. His hand was over his mouth to cover the choked sobs that were wrenching at his chest. The only way to breath was through his nose and even that was noisy and painful.

Eric's arm was around his shoulders, his voice was cracking too as he attempted to reassure and sooth the older man, with a conviction that he all too obviously didn't feel. The truth was he was scared; he'd never been more scared in his life, not even when he'd had to tell Megan about sneezing on that flash light. The shock and the fear, all too real and the image of Kate lying there was something he knew was fused into his mind.

Speed wasn't even trying to hide the fact he was crying now, and Eric listened to each one of those long, antagonizing sobs, feeling his heart breaking with each beat. He didn't deserve this, Kate didn't deserve this, she didn't deserve to be fighting for her life in surgery to repair what was left of her diaphragm because her ribs had practically been destroyed.

They hadn't deserved to lose that baby.

No one had known that Kate was pregnant, not even Speed and Eric prided himself on being observant. There had been signs and he knew it now, the excessive Gravol taking, he'd suspected she'd gained a little weight recently but there wasn't a chance in hell he was ever going to mention that. He thought it may have been a little comfort eating over the break up.