By Lacy

"You should be outside," Number One approaches and takes me by the arm.

"No," I say without bothering to free myself from her grip. "What was that?"

"Are you family?"

"Her fiancé." It’s not exactly the truth — not anymore. But in this situation, it sounds a hell of a lot better than saying I’m her boss. "I’m Josh Lyman." For the first time since I can recall, I’m hoping that my name will evoke special privileges. You could hear a pin drop, and everyone’s eyes squint in unison as they take a harder look at me.

"Doctor," A nurse interrupts. "BP's normalizing. Heart rate’s up to sixty-five. Fourteen resps per minute."

"Is she coming around?"

"Not yet. Her body temperature is still below 95."

"Mr. Lyman, I'll be out to talk to you when she's stable. Angela, get him out of here."

Number One, who now has a name -- Angela -- tugs on my arm, leading me out of the trauma room and into the corridor. "We're doing everything we can, Mr. Lyman," she assures me. "Dr. Clements will take care of her. Wait here."

As she slips back into the room, I remember there was something I was supposed to ask. Something about the coded medical speak I overheard. What was that? Something about not wanting to take any chances -- and eight weeks.

How far along? That's what the nurse who wasn't Angela asked. How far along? They could have been talking about anything I suppose. But, engulfed by a sea of technical language -- those were words I understood. Those words captured my complete attention.

I pace restlessly back and forth in the corridor, distressingly shut out from the goings-on in the trauma room. I've been here before, but this time it's glaringly different. This time it's my fault.

It's seems like most of my life is spent waiting for something.

I hear the door behind me open and Dr. Clements removes his latex gloves and tosses them into a bio waste can. Before I have a chance to speak, he launches into his medical explanation.

"Mr. Lyman, your fiancée has no less than three severe scalp lacerations, which have precipitated a critical loss of blood. As far as we can tell, she doesn't have any internal bleeding, which is good. She presented with a weak, and abnormally slow heart rate and low blood pressure exacerbated by her hypothermic core temperature. We've replaced the lost blood, but at this time she hasn't regained consciousness. The good news is that the hypothermia slowed down the bleeding enough to allow primary blood clots to form. The bad news is that we're dealing with a head trauma here, and clots could be forming in her brain. With head trauma like Donna's we need to rule out an intracranial bleed, or an epidural hemotoma. Also, we need look for spinal cord injuries, but there's a complication--"

"She's pregnant?" I ask, recalling the coded language I heard in the trauma room.

"Yes. It makes diagnostic imaging tricky."

"She's pregnant."

This is one of those moments in life when everything around you, and inside of you, comes to a complete stop. It's a shot-through-the-heart moment. I no longer must face the prospect of losing only Donna, but now the idea of losing our child is thrust upon me as well. How do you prepare for a concept of this magnitude?

"Is she going to lose the baby?"

"Miraculously, it's hanging in there -- for now -- and we need to keep it that way. Her body couldn't withstand the loss of a miscarriage -- not in her current condition. But it's not uncommon for an embryo to spontaneously abort in the days, or even weeks following a trauma like this. Especially at this stage of gestation."

"Is Donna going to make it?"

"Like I said, we got her vitals to within normal range. We can't check for a bleed until she regains consciousness, and until that happens, I really can't give you a definitive answer to that question. I can tell you, however, that if she doesn't wake up soon we'll have to intubate. Does Donna have an advanced directive we should know about?"

I shake my head. I can't afford to think about 'advanced directives' and 'do-not-resuscitates' right now. My emotional state, fragile now beyond anything I've ever felt before, cannot process any new information. I cannot be expected to consider possible outcomes other than life or death. For now, those are the only choices -- there is nothing in between.

"Can I be with her?" I ask. "I need to be with her."

It's his turn to shake his head. "Until she regains consciousness we're going to have to monitor her constantly. Her vitals are stable at this time, but I can't stress how quickly a situation can turn on a dime with injuries like hers. Once she wakes up, we'll be taking her up to Radiology to rule out internal injuries and skull fractures. You're welcome to come along then. The chamber has a observation window."

"Thank you," I croak.

"Mr. Lyman, we're doing everything we can. Hemorrhagic shock is an immediately life threatening condition. She's hanging in there, and her body isn't fighting our treatment, which gives me reason to hope for a positive prognosis. I need to get back in there," he finishes.

I nod my head to dismiss him. I don't want Dr. Clements wasting his time talking to me when Donna and our baby might need him.

Our baby.

I'm afraid to feel anything. There's this little seed inside of me that wants to burst apart into a million bright colors -- but it can't. I've discovered that hope and despair are twinborn of desire, and all I can think is that it's not supposed to happen this way. This isn't the way I pictured finding out I was going to be father.

Not that I fantasized about it, or anything. After we had our 'baby' discussion, and after the epiphany, I reached an acceptance that certain things in life require delicate timing, and procreation is one of them. I'd convinced myself that when we were ready everything would fall into place. I pictured us making a unanimous decision to start a family, and maybe even having to work at for a while.

But Donna's on the Pill...so I foolishly believed we would be able to have some control over conception. Birth control pills are only ninety-nine percent effective. Ninety-nine. It's written right there on the pamphlet. It's not a big secret. One percent seems like such a small window when you're making plans and postponing the future.

It's looking like a big damn window now.

She must have been pregnant already, when we were discussing the possibility of someday starting a family -- when I was telling her that I wanted to have children with her. When I was having the epiphany, even though she couldn't have known, our child must have been growing inside of her even then. Just a mass of replicating cells protected in the warm safety of her womb.

Donna's going to live.

I'm inexplicably filled with the assurance that Donna is going to make it through this. I'm fully confident with this knowledge. It's part of the plan. I'm being reminded of all the things I could have lost -- could still lose. I'm reminded to hang on tight to all that I hold dear, for they are the meaning of life.

They are the reason I do what I do. Why I must make the world a better place. Without them, my pains and efforts are for naught.

But as sure as I am that Donna will survive, I am equally positive that she will come through the fire altered in some way. I don't know how though, and it's impossible to predict. Will her changes be personality altering as they were for me? Will her behavior be modified in drastic manners -- a mutinous overthrowing of her old self? Or will these changes manifest in smaller, more imperceptible ways?

Will I love her any less if this experience changes the way she thinks, or feels, or makes decisions? I must answer this question now. I struggle to find a resolution to my latest quandary, because it can't wait until the moment of truth arrives. The moment of truth is upon me.

I can. I will. I do. I decided long ago, it seems now, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. That I wanted to grow old in her arms, and in her heart. Nothing can change that, least of all the great and unknown future. There will never be another -- I know that now, and I was stupid to allow my confidence in this to slip, even for just an instant.

I'll have to be even more cautious now, because I have discovered that the difference between an instant and eternity is negligible. The strongest and most beautiful of cathedrals can be reduced to rubble in only an instant. The most sturdy of foundations leveled in the blink of an eye. Entire nations can fall and history can be decimated.

I have no illusions that when she wakes and all is well, we'll be able to pick up where we left off. That would show a decided lack of foresight. I have no illusions that the existence of our child within her will suddenly make things all right. I have not yet fooled myself into believing that earning her trust back will not be the most arduous task of my life.

My capability for creating self-serving illusions has been sterilized and surgically removed over the last forty-eight hours. And all without an ounce of anesthesia. Bit by excruciating bit, my illusions were sliced away like dying tissue. I was given an illusion-ectomy.

I've spent months creating this mirage of health, but I can no longer deny that I am...unwell. My rage last night, so effortlessly attained, was merely a symptom of my illness. After the events of the holiday season and my subsequent diagnosis, I made an irrational attempt to carry on with my life as though my own mental instability were nothing more than a paltry inconvenience. I saw a therapist at regular intervals, I took the medication, and I even did the suggested relaxation exercises. I duped everyone, including myself, into believing that I was aggressively set upon the road to recovery.

But I wasn't.

That's not to say I'm not better. In most respects, I am. I can get through the day without freaking out over the loudest sounds, and I can even listen to music now without hearing the sirens. Of course, dealing with actual sirens is still a bit problematic, and I suspect that thanks to Donna's trauma, they will continue to be so for some time.

I was so close to feeling normal again. Better than normal, even. My nightmares have ceased, and I no longer have issues dealing with people. Donna would be in hysterics if she heard me say that, by the way. She would probably tell me that denial isn't just a river in Egypt. To which, I would reply, denial was never a river in Egypt -- or something equally as witty and charming.

God, I miss her voice.

I think there's just a part of my brain, a switch or a toggle -- or something -- that occasionally doesn't do its prescribed job. The 'anger-management' knob seems to be on the fritz, as does the 'verbal-editor' switch. Actually, I don't think that's entirely true. I remember the voice inside my head clearly telling me to take a timeout just before I gave my anger free rein. Therefore, what needs adjusting must be the 'listen-to-my-inner-voice' lever.

Do you think there's a pill for that?

Leaning up against the wall with my arms crossed against my chest, my musings are interrupted by the sound of Sam calling my name. My head snaps up in the direction of his voice and I see him striding quickly towards me, never missing a West Wing beat.

"They caught him," he announces before he reaches my side. "He went back to his mother's, and they picked him up."

The familiar rage rises in me again, and I want nothing more than to find the bastard who did this to Donna and beat him to within an inch of his life -- and then take that inch. But the inner voices begin their shouting and the 'listen-to-my-inner-voice' lever seems to be in working order today, forcing the 'anger management' knob to crank up a notch. Donna needs me here right now, not running off seeking vengeance on her behalf, and that's all that matters.

"Thanks, Sam," I say.

"How's Donna?"

"Critical," I answer. "Her vital signs have stabilized but her body temperature is still too low. We're waiting for her to wake up."

"You look dead on your feet, Josh. Why don't you sit down?" He points to a row off chairs against the wall just a few feet to my left. I hadn't noticed them before. I nod and amble my over to them. "I'm going to get you some coffee, since I know I'll never be able to convince you to go home and get some rest."

He stops a passing orderly to ask the location of a coffee machine, before disappearing around the corner. In my chair, I lean back against the seat, my head banging gently, and repeatedly against the wall.

"So, the self flagellation portion of the day is in full swing I see." Sam returns with two full cups of coffee, one outstretched to me. I take my cup and stare down into the dark liquid as though it hold the answers to all the questions in the known universe.

"She's pregnant, Sam," I blurt out.

The silence is deafening, as he drops boneless-ly into the seat next to mine. "But I thought--?"

"One percent," I answer his interrupted question.

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"She's eight weeks along, give or take."

"So all that time...? With the epiphany?"

"Yeah."

"Is the baby okay?"

"So far so good," I answer, "but the doctor says it's not unusual for an embryo to spontaneously abort after a trauma like this one. I'm afraid to hope, Sam. He also says that her body couldn't handle a miscarriage right now."

"A baby," he muses. "Wow."

"Yeah," I agree breathily.

"So what does this mean?"

"I wish I knew."

"You'll figure it out. You've got time now," he answers cryptically.

"She's still not out of danger. There could be complications. She could be bleeding in her brain."

He leans forward his, brow furrowing, as his fingers toy with the lid of his coffee. He looks pensively burdened.

"What is it Sam?"

"I went back to the office...." his voice trails off.

"Yeah? So everybody knows what's going on?"

"Yeah. Senior Staff met with the President. Well, everyone except for you, of course."

"What's going on?"

"The President wants you to take some time," he says in a rush.

TBC

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