Chapter 37

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"We want to wean her off the sedation medication, her blood pressure is back to normal and she has no clinical presentations of preeclampsia." The specialist obstetrician was telling Gabe more than a week since Natalia had been admitted. He nodded. They had thrown so much medical information at him the last couple of days that he was at saturation point, like a leaky sponge.

"Natalia has so far remained stable during observations. The baby shows no signs of foetal distress or foetal restriction growth. We will continue to monitor her for the next 24 hours, but after that we will pursue what we call an aggressive expectant management plan. This means that Natalia may be discharged from the intensive care unit, and provided she remains in a stable condition may be discharged to be monitored at home until at least 34 weeks of pregnancy but we can give you more details on that later on."

Gabe breathed a sigh of relief. His whole body sagged into the chair, he had been holding that in for the past week. The toll of trying to remain positive, not pessimistically expecting the worst, for his and Natalia's world to come crashing down around them, and trying to remain strong for Natalia and his child had taken its toll. He barely had any words for the multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals that had been taking care of Natalia. He was intensely grateful, the relief was clear as dawn on his face.

"When will she wake up?" he asked, finding his voice, a deep, overcome with emotion rasp.

"In a couple of hours," the doctor answered and he patted Gabe on the back in a rare slip in his professional demeanour. The attending was a specialist in cases like these, the treatment had been pretty experimental, they had thrown everything and the kitchen sink at making sure Natalia recovered.

"I heard that you made Lima cry," Ty said by way of greeting when he turned up in between shifts on the new gig he and Dan were working on. They had been doing so well they had hired 3 more operatives in the last month. Business was booming it seemed.

"Let me guess, the nurses told you too?" Gabriel sighed.

"Of course they did, I'm hot and I'm not an asshole like you are," Ty scoffed and then added in a stone cold sober tone, "Don't make my girl cry again."

Gabe raised an eyebrow. "You know about this business Lima's been involved in, I'm assuming?" It was easy to infer that it had taken place while Ty had been in Dubai. That had been around the same time Lima had started to be evasive.

Ty shrugged but didn't say anything. Gabe tried to get a read on his face. His dark blue eyes gave nothing away, they had been through the same interrogation evasion training after all. Nothing, not even torture could break that deadlock.

"You couldn't give me a heads up?" Gabe changed tactics, resorting to the bro-code.

Ty sighed, running a hand through his chin length hair, then picking at the hair tie around his sizable wrist to tie his hair into a knot at the back of his head. He was buying time, thinking of what to say and Gabe wondered how bad the situation was.

"Look, had I told you, you would have had to keep it from Natalia. I love your ole girl, she's pretty forgiving but this is one thing she would neither forgive nor forget. So..."

"Thank you for caring about my relationship, truly. I'm honored," Gabe said sarcastically.

"You know me, I do what I can," Ty bid an equally sarcastic smile to his face.

"Tell me this though, whatever it was, did you handle it?"

"You know I did," Ty said, his voice lowering and getting gritty with anger. Whatever it was, just the thought was triggering him.

Gabe's curiosity flared, but she squashed that down. It was none of his business. "Is she safe?" he asked, that's all he needed to know and then he'd drop it.

"I take care of mine," Ty practically growled.

Gabe gave him a side-long look, chuckling to himself internally. Ty had it bad. He was in the trenches. "I don't have enough bandwidth to process that right now, but you two deserve each other," he muttered, dropping the subject.

Nat woke up with a clear head and eyes unimpededly open against the bright lights that had been stunning her into keeping them closed. She knew that she was in the hospital and that she had been coming in and out of a drug induced unconsciousness but she didn't know for how long and the reasons why.

She wanted to stretch and feel her bones move and pop, she would kill for a toothbrush too. The inside of her mouth felt and tasted like the old and tattered upholstered backseats of a London bus, if one had the courage to lick it.

Gradually, she became aware of the murmur of voices around her, two were familiar to her as if they were her own. When the world came into focus she noticed that Lima and Gabe were both seated either side of her bed.

She tried to speak but she was so overcome with a myriad of feelings and questions and sensory stimulation that it all just cumulated into a slide of tears leaking out of her eyes.

"Shush, don't speak. Everything's fine. You're fine and the baby's fine," Gabe was at her side in an instant, carefully reaching for her through all the wires and monitors she was connected to and folding her into his arms. Natalia rested her head on the worn, soft cotton of his shirt and let the comfort he was offering wash through her.

He let her go far too soon, but sat at the edge of her bed. Natalia ran her hands over her belly and the familiar bump. She felt her baby flutter in her stomach in response and she went slack with relief.

Then she started remembering the last couple of days, going to the baby shower seeing her mum and brother and how she had reacted.

"I was so horrible to you," she finally pushed words out of her throat. "I'm so sorry," and she couldn't stop the sobs from forming.

"Hey, none of that. It was nothing," Gabe smiled patiently at her, with a look so full of longing and love, she was awestruck. Her drug cocktail nightmares had been filled with funerals and mourning the family she had lost but she had one right here; the family she had chosen.

"I love you," she told him, needing him to know.

"I know baby, you fought so hard for us. Thank you," he said, palming her face and she knew she had felt that same sensation of his warm, calloused hands many times over throughout the time she had been unconscious. He'd never left her side. He never would.

"Lima!" Natalia croaked when she spotted movement from the corner of her eye, she pulled her gaze from Gabe as much as it pained her. She missed him even though their separation had only felt like hours not days, she wanted to drink in the sight of him for hours.

"Come here," she ordered the younger woman. She could see her pause before she gave Natalia a hug gingerly and pulled away.

"What's wrong?" Natalia asked, searching her face. There was trepidation, and something else. There was a haunted look in her eyes, like she had been so fearful of something it had left an imprint on her.

"I don't want you to be pissed at me."

"Stupid girl, why would I be pissed? You flew 3000 miles to be here when I needed you. If you're okay, then I'm okay."

"Okay," Lima said through tears.

"Okay," Natalia echoed.

"I'm going to get the doctor so he can check you over," Gabe said getting up but not before he gave Natalia a kiss on the cheek and he ran his hand over her bump. He gave Lima a look that was part warning and part indecipherable before he backed out of the room.

"What was that all about?" Natalia asked Lima when he had gone. "Have you two been fighting?"

"No, Gabe's just very protective of you. He's a good man," Lima said with a soft smile. "I love that for you."

"I love that for me too. Hey, Lima..."

"Nah, love. I know what kind of conversation we're going to have and I don't want it."

Natalia laughed hoarsely. "You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"I've watched enough sad movies to know what people say when they get that soft, sappy smile on their face. 'Take care of them, please. They're all I have' first of all. You're all I have. You're me and I am you, nothing's going to happen to you. You're going to have a long, happy life and I get to be fun Auntie Lima."

"Fun Auntie Lima it is," Natalia said chuckling. She would have to broach the subject with her later on. Everyone was much too fragile right now, including her.

There was something else, though. Something Lima wasn't telling her. While she had been in a hospital bed, her friend had been through something that had changed her. She could see it in the way that she moved, cautiously, anticipatory. Something had changed the trajectory of her personality. It wasn't obvious but Natalia knew her better than she knew herself and she was going to get to the bottom of it when her blood pressure wasn't so unpredictable.

There was so much to deal with and to unpack but she needed to take each day as it came. She owed it to herself and her small but growing family to put herself first for once.

Gabe had thanked her earlier for fighting for her own life and that of her baby's, like it wasn't an instinct, like it was a choice. Like she would have made any other choice.

It had kind of broken her heart a little bit. She needed to show him that she was all in, and that she would do anything to make sure the three of them stayed together.

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Another update? Maybe I've been rehabilitated lol. So there we have it, Natalia's awake. Surprise surprise she's forgiven Lima (I am not even sure she was mad in the first place) and she's learnt to mind her own business and put herself first, how is that for character development?

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