OH MY GOD. I looked like total hell. How could I look like this and not remember what had happened to me? How could Reaper look at me and not think I was disgusting? The nurse was checking the machines hooked up to me. I looked at her and hesitated before asking her, but I needed to know. Desperately, I fought back more tears as I spoke.
“Kristina? Can you please tell me what happened to me? I need to know exactly what’s wrong. I can’t remember any of it.” I was so confused, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember anything that happened. That made me angry and frustrated. My head was pounding by then.
She looked at me then at the floor before she took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Grabbing the chair, she sat down beside me. She made me feel better by doing that. Somehow I didn’t feel like she was looking down her nose at me then.
“You went into hypovolemic shock from blood loss and dehydration, suffered abrasions to both wrists and ankles, your cheekbone is fractured, and you have several severely bruised ribs and suffered from a collapsed lung on arrival. You have multiple lacerations to the side of your face, abdomen, and legs, and significant stab wounds to your left breast and abdomen. You also had been… umm… bitten several times.” I watched her face blanche as she tried to maintain a professional demeanor. “The stab wound to your abdomen was what required surgery. Because you had lost so much blood, you received two pints of blood. Thankfully, and fortunately for your recovery, it didn’t severely damage any major organs. It did nick your intestines, but the integrity of the intestinal wall was preserved. In other words, it didn’t go through the intestine. The doctors decided to keep you in a medically induced coma due to the trauma to your head, with a slight brain bleed noted, combined with your cardiac arrest after surgery. You have a fairly long road to recovery, but not as long as it could have been. Oh, but don’t worry, the baby is fine. You were lucky you were so early in your pregnancy, or it could have been much worse.” She finished with a smile.
I knew I was staring at her like she had just sprouted a third eye. I couldn’t close my mouth and I couldn’t find words.
“Excuse me?” Surely I heard her wrong because I was so shocked by all the things that had happened to me, despite my having no memory of it. Perhaps she had looked at someone else’s chart. “I am not pregnant. You must have the wrong information. I have not had unprotected sex, and that was only maybe a few of weeks ago! There is clearly a mistake.” I know I had not had sex with Reaper without a condom. I was sure we didn’t. No way.
“Well, Mrs. Quinn, umm, the hormones don’t lie, but if you want I can have the doctor check again. Of course, the results were blood results, which are usually extremely accurate, but it’s up to you.” She looked a little nervous now, and I felt bad for her. She had no way of knowing. She thought Reaper was my husband after all. Shit. Oh my God, did they tell him? They thought he was my husband! They would have thought he knew. I groaned and covered my face with my hands.
“Are you hurting again? You haven’t used your PCA yet. All you have to do is push the button. If it is time for you to have medication, it will allow the machine to give it to you. Don’t worry about overdosing, the machine is designed to prevent that from happening. Just don’t let anyone else press the button for you.” Kristina was sweet, and I felt horrible for being bitchy to her.
“No, I’m okay. I didn’t know I was pregnant. God, I don’t know what to do. It would have to be Colton’s, right?” My brain wouldn’t function and my brain felt like mush. “What if it’s not Colton’s? Is that possible?” I closed my eyes, but the tears still escaped. My mom held a cool washcloth to my head and whispered words of comfort much like she did when I was little. I lay still against my pillow. “When can I take a shower? I feel gross.” I was shaking, and I just wanted control over something in my life right now.
“I’ll check with the doctor and let you know.” She stood, rested her hand on mine and gave me an encouraging smile before leaving the room. Was my life ever going to be in my control?
Hacker and Hollywood had wordlessly followed me out of the hospital and down the highway at 80 mph as I chased my demons. I couldn’t believe she could think she wasn’t beautiful to me anymore. She was fucking gorgeous. I didn’t care about what she looked like right now. I fucking loved her inside and out. I didn’t care if she had five eyes and no nose, I would still love her. Okay, that was a little extreme, but you get what I fucking mean. Shit. I fucking loved her. When the fuck did that actually happen? When I first saw her again, I told her I loved her, but I didn’t know just how deeply at that time. It became a painful reality when I thought she was dead to me forever, but I honestly believed I’d loved her from the first moment I saw her. She had been my saving grace, my angel, while I was deployed and throughout my hellish recovery. I carried her in the back of my mind this whole time.
When I found out she had given birth to my child? Shit. First I was angry thinking she had purposefully kept my baby from me. It was stupid, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. Who would when they just found out they had been a dad for over two fucking years without knowing? That was quite a shocker. I was an only child, and I had lost my mom my senior year of high school and never knew my dad. Family was a rare and precious commodity to me. Deep down, I knew she wouldn’t do that. She was too good a person, but I was fucking angry and hateful.
She truly touched and unfurled a part of my soul I thought had shriveled up and died in Afghanistan. She made me feel like I had a purpose in life again. What was I going to do if she fucking turned her back on me because she couldn’t get past this? I knew the dark place I was in after leaving the Army. I couldn’t even imagine her being in that hellish place. I needed to fucking be there for her, but if she shut me the fuck out, how did I make her let me in?
We returned to Stephanie’s apartment late that night. Hollywood and Hacker split off to go have some drinks and then head to their hotel. I felt bad that I missed Remi before she went to bed, but I didn’t want her to see me this way any more than I wanted her to see her momma like she was right now. I spoke with Stephanie’s parents briefly, bringing her dad up to speed on what was going on before he headed up to the hospital. Her mom placed her hand on my face and told me to be patient with her and things would work out. She started to say something and then appeared to change her mind. She looked as drained as I felt from being at the hospital most of the day. Feeling completely exhausted, I went to Remi’s room to crash on the floor by her bed where I could listen to her soft, sweet, innocent breaths as I drifted into a restless sleep.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” I woke to Remi shaking the bars of her crib and hollering for me. She smiled her big grin at me when I opened one eye and looked up at her. Her little arm was stretched through the bars toward my head, with her fingers wiggling like it would make them longer to reach me. Smiling back at her, I reached up and took her fingers in mine.
“Hi princess. Daddy’s here.” I groaned as I sat up. Shit, my body couldn’t take all the abuse I had been handing it lately. Once upon a time, I would have crashed on a pile of rocks in the mountains or out on the sand in the desert and slept when and where I could. Damn, not any more. I picked up the quilt I had wrapped around me and tossed it over the end of the crib.
Reaching down into her crib, I swooped her up and into the air, then plastering kisses all over her giggling face. Between this little precious girl and her momma, my heart was gone. They fucking owned it. And now… shit. Hugging Remi to me, I thought about what the doctor had told me. Remi was going to be a big sister. Part of me wondered if it was mine. I didn’t know all the details of her life before we found each other again. I was going through each time in my mind, and I was pretty sure we had used protection every time. No, I wasn’t fucking stupid and I knew they weren’t infallible, but…
I closed my eyes, hugging Remi to me tightly until she began to squirm. I set her down and she ran off toward the living room and kitchen in search of her grandparents and food. I went to brush my teeth and get ready to go see Stephanie. If she would see me….