Chapter Text
August 11th 2009. Another day, another procedure that felt more like routine than risk. For Jac this was just an ordinary day at work. Operate. Write up notes. Maybe some clinic time.
But something was off.
She'd ignored it at first—the dragging discomfort low in her abdomen, the clenching pull that had started that morning, radiating from back to front like a slow wave. She thought she'd pulled something, or maybe it was the dodgy cheese toastie from the canteen. People had got food poisoning before and she wouldn't be the last.
She was scrubbing out, the procedure over now when the real pain starts to hit. A sharp, searing vice-like pressure twists its way around her lower body and tears a gasp out of her mouth before she can bite it back.
Jac stumbles back from the sink.
"Jac?" Elliot inquires, turning to look at her. "You alright?"
"I'm fine," she spits out, trying to grip the sink infront of her."Just a little—"
Another cramp shoots through her like a bullet, and this time her knees buckle. Whatever this is it's definitely not food poisoning. Maybe it's her appendix. It would be her luck, her body always seems to betray her at inconvenient moments.
"Jac!" Elliot shouts in alarm.
It's a blur of shouting and yells to page this person and the other. Jac drags herself across the floor, trying and failing to stand up straight and soon she's thinking that this is going to be another health scare. Elliot helps Jac to the ground, her back pressed against the cool wall as she slumps against the side of the sinks. Her skin was clammy, with a greyish tone, slick with cold sweat. Her breaths are laboured and strained, she's trying not to scream and as a result every breath she takes is fighting itself way out.
"I said I'm—fine—" she hisses attempting to swat away worried hands and get up, despite the pain tearing through her lower back and pelvis.
Elliot exasperated but still retaining his patiences attempts to reason with her. "Jac, you need to be examined. You're in no condition to argue when you can't you stand. It could be your appendix."
Winded by the pain which has faded away for now Jac stays put, reluctantly accepting that if it is a burst appendix then treatment and not dying from sepsis is probably a wise choice.
A porter brings in a gurney, and they wheel her out swiftly, Jac gripping the rails, gritting her teeth against the pain which has resurged just a few minutes later. Secretly mortified by the shocked faces of her colleagues Jac yells out, "I'm fine it's probably my bloody appendix!"
Thirty Minutes Later, Keller Diagnostics Bay:
Ric presses the transducer to Jac's lower abdomen. She is curled slightly on her side trying to avoid hissing in pain every so often, stubbornly refusing pain relief. Her expression was fixed and stony, but her eyes tell the true story - disbelief. There's no way. It can't be possible. Not her. Not now. Not ever even.
"Jac," Ric says gently knowing the news isn't going to land well and watching the black and white image become clearer as he adjusts the probe, supporting what he already knows. "There's a heartbeat."
"What?" Her voice is strangled , ragged even. It's as if the words have been sucked out of her.
Ric swallowed. "I can hear a fetal heartbeat. You're pregnant. I'm not an expert but the foetus is head down and looks quite far along. I'm almost certain given the intervals between the pain, that you are in active labour."
Silence.
Jac stares at him as if he's spoken another language.
You're wrong. You have to be. The machine is broken.
"I'll call someone form obstetrics to confirm Jac, but it's clear, you're pregnant and very likely in labour." Ric replies, though the shock in his voice is poorly concealed. Jac had run the Holby marathon three days ago, placed third and now it appears she is five seconds away from giving birth.
Fifteen minutes later Jac is still in denial. The obstetrics SHO Clare, had been paged and confirmed what Ric knew and Jac refused to accept. Jac was pregnant. Thirty-nine weeks in fact and in active labour.
"No, I am not - ugh!" Jac utters , shaking her head once, twice, like a glitch in her programming. She curls up a contraction ripping through her body, and lets out a groan she can't seem to hold in. "That's n-not possible."
Clare leans against the counter, arms folded, speaking softly. "I triple-checked. The foetus is measuring 39 weeks. You're full-term. I've examined you, the head is 1/5 palpable. You're having contractions every four minutes. You hear that? That's a heartbeat, you're in labour Jac."
The words hit her like a ton of bricks.
"But I'm not— I'm not pregnant," Jac snapped, more to herself than to them. "I'd know. I'm not pregnant , there's no— ugh!"
"You may have had a cryptic pregnancy," Clare says carefully. "It's rare, but it happens. It's possible. Especially in women with irregular cycles, high-stress careers, high activity levels. If you haven't put on much weight then ..."
"I don't gain weight. I've been the same size for years." Her voice is thin, almost hoarse. That would be the disbelief mingling with the pain. "I did a ten-mile charity run five weeks ago, I've did another three days ago—"
"Jac," Clare says, a little softer. "You are in labour. And this baby is coming now."
***
The contractions are paralysing. Worse than anything Jac could've imagined. Even worse is the was the fear mingling with guilt brewing deep in her chest leaving her asking that one question.
Will be the baby be okay?
"I didn't know," she pants when the midwife came in again. The pain is searing and while she's one to screaming in pain, she wonders if being sedated will give her relief.
"I had wine. Not a lot but the cocktails at the pub." Sushi. Unpasteurised cheese. I haven't taken a folic acid. I barely eat as it is with work. What if the baby...what if I've hurt them?"
Guilt. Blinding guilt.
The midwife's hand was gentle on her arm. "You didn't know. And you're here now where you need to be. That counts."
But Jac's mind is already spinning in every direction, neural tube defects, fetal alcohol syndrome, organ development complications, mental delay. All of it. She knows too much and too little all at once.
"Could you tell them to page me if they need me in theatre, I don't want them to have to cancel electives. If I can't leave here someone needs to replace me, but I could - ugh -." Jac mutters, once again being stopped by the searing pain of contractions.
"You're in labour, Jac," the midwife said, almost amused. "You're not scrubbing in. I know it's hard to believe but it's true."
Jac blinks nodding slowly as she regains her bearings when the pain begins to fade."Right. Baby. I'm having a baby..."
***
The labour was short. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe Jac had been in labour for days and not realised. That was irrelevant. All Jac could think of now was how her baby probably isn't going to live.
The baby didn't cry. Not at all. She was blue and limp. No cord wrapped around her neck as an explanation, just silence and a newborn who looked like she'd left with world before her mother got to know she existed.
The room was a swirl of a chaos and the paediatricians were running down to NICU with her before Jac could hold her. Before she could even see her. She doesn't even know what her daughter looks like and now, now she might have to bury her.
The silence was the most suffocating feeling Jac has ever experienced. When she finally came to terms with the fact she was literally about to push a human out of her body, her mind had flickered to the cries she expected to hear, and how nothing was ever going to be the same again. But rather than the screeching she expected, she was met by a paralysing silence that made her very soul shatter, and did the one thing she never does - she panicked.
Jac didn't know she could scream like that. That fear could dig its hands into her mind in a way that shattered every single inhibition that drives her. She wouldn't listen, wouldn't at still. How could she? As far as she knew her baby has just been stillborn and no one will admit it.
"What's happening? Why isn't she crying? Is she dead? She's dead isn't she...it's my fault."
"No no. She's fine."
"She's not fucking fine, is she?! She's not breathing!"
"I apologise it's a poor turn of phrase, she will be fine. Jac you need to deliver the placenta. She will be fine she's in the best - You don't know that."
Penny who is standing at the nurses station chatting to Donna stops mid-sentence when she hears Jac's screams ringing through the ward.
"Why isn't she breathing? Let me see her!"
"Jac. The placenta. You need to - I don't care about the placenta! Let me see my baby! Is she dead?!"
Maria comes to a halt at the nurses station, turning to look at Donna with shock written deeply into her face.
"Is that...Is that Jac?...Baby? But - what's going on?" She stutters. Something about the sound of Jac's voice the uncharacteristic fear, the way her voice cracks when she asks about the baby makes Maria feel nauseous.
"Cryptic pregnancy apparently." Ric replies coming out of his office. "She collapsed in theatre, Elliot sent her down here. Michael and I were thinking appendicitis or maybe ovarian torsion. Turns out she was in active labour."
"Why does she sound so scared? It's creeping me out. Jac's always so...Jac." Maria mutters.
"She keeps saying the baby's dead. Is it? I don't hear a newborn screaming..." Penny whispers, eyes wide and horrified. "God this is awful."
***
It felt like a century before the news her baby was alive reached her. The weight in her chest is still making every breath feel like a battle because it's barely good news. Alive but not healthy. A heart murmur. They performed an echocardiogram. The words felt like they were being carved into Jac's flesh : dextro-transposition of the great arteries and with an intact ventricular septum. The one heart condition where not having a hole in your heart might kill you. She'll need surgery soon, by the time she's week old if she's going to live at all.
Jac's heart is pounding in her chest as she's wheeled in to see her daughter. Tiny, pale, cocooned into the walls of the incubator with a tangled halo of wires surrounding her. She looks like a stranger.
And still, the thought of loosing this tiny stranger feels like all the oxygen in the room has disappeared. The thought that this stranger might not wake tommorow is too much to bear.
There's a lump in her throat that won't go away. Not because she feels motherly, she doesn't know how to be that. She didn't even know she had a daughter twelve hours ago. But for the first time in her adult life, she was absolutely, entirely terrified. And there's nothing she can do to take control or fix things. Nothing she can do to fix her daughter.
***
Joseph Byrne is sat in the staff room at the start of his on-call shift when he hears it. He's just about to brew some coffee when Daisha walks in with news that makes his head spin.
"Jac had a baby," Daisha says, stunned. "A full-term actual baby."
Joseph freezes, looking at her Daisha incredulously. "A baby?"
"Apparently she collapsed on in theatre whilst she was scrubbing out. Elliot sends her down to Keller thinking it was her appendix or something else. Ric did an ultrasound, couldn't believe it when he saw a baby, paged obs & gynae. Boom. 39 weeks. And I thought finding out about Joe at six months was traumatic..."
His heart sinks and his mind drifts away. Back to that night night. They'd never spoken of it since. He had assumed it was a one-time lapse in judgment. He'd thought she was pregnant but then time and life had shown him she was not. He tried to act like it had it meant anything. And now Jac's given birth.
Thirty-nine weeks back from today put the conception... right there. That night in Faye's flat.
His heart pounded.
Joseph doesn't rush away. Not immediately. Not with everyone watching. But after 11 p.m, when most of the wards are settled, and the jobs list is lighter, he slips away toward the NICU with the delicate steps of tread someone crossing a minefield. He's heard Jac had been there for hours in shock, just sitting by her baby.
He doesn't go inside. He's too afraid to speak to Jac and she's not there, she must be asleep recovering on maternity. He just looks through the glass, eyes locked on the tiny form fighting to survive.
She is wrapped in wires and tubes, no onsie, just a hat and nappy. The monitor's are beeping steadily. Her chest rising and falling with the ventilator, tiny and uneven breaths. Baby Girl, Naylor. No name yet, not that Joseph is judging. Jac looked about as far from pregnant as any woman could be this morning and yet, here was a tiny baby, covered in wires a tuft of red hair sticking out of her hat.
He can't be sure the baby is his, but something tells him. He just has that feeling.
***
The ward is practically silent, except for the ever-present hum of machines and the soft hiss of oxygen flow. And of course the sound of babies crying which mocks her as she's never heard as much as a peep from her own child.
Jac stands by the incubator, her arms crossed so tightly across her chest as if to protect herself. She hasn't said a word didn't she arrived twenty minutes ago. Hasn't moved in the last five. She simply stands there frozen, like a single movement might break something. Break the baby.
Her daughter, though she hasn't called her that aloud yet, is a minute tangle of limbs beneath sea of wires and now a soft blanket she's been given. Connie had been paged, along with a paediatric cardiology consultant Professor Golding. They had explained the defect again, slowly, clearly: dextro-transposition of the great arteries with an intact ventricular septum, significant, but operable. The one heart problem where having a hole in your heart might actually save you. She needs open-heart surgery soon.
Jac just nodded. Said nothing. Tried to conceal her fears. She knew what it was, she's a cardiothoracics registrar and she can't ignore the nagging feeling it's her fault. She didn't know she was pregnant and now her baby - her daughter literally has a faulty heart and could die, even with surgery.
She never expected to have children. Not because she disliked them but being herself she never thought she would. She doesn't hate babies and enjoyed holding Daisha's son Joe last year though she'd tell no one, and she was kind of smug that she was the only person he'd stop crying for.
Now, alone in the sterile blue light of the NICU, she threads a trembling finger through plastic casing and scoots closer.
The baby's eyes were are now, barely. It's the first time she's really seen her up close and she didn't expect for it to feel like this. So raw. So emotional. Looking into her eyes for the first time is the most touching yet most unsettling like her fathers. Blue. Icy-blue. Almost translucent. God, she has Jospeh's eyes. So much for hiding this from everyone.
People aren't stupid and someone will make the connection but that's the least of Jac's worries. Her baby didn't even cry. She was so silent. That will forever be one of Jac's worse memories. The day she gave birth to a daughter she didn't know she was carrying and thought she'd lost her.
"Blue, like your Dad's."Jac murmurs.
She doesn't know if she was talking to the child or herself. Maybe both. Maybe she's still in shock. Actually she's definitely in shock but relieved. She doesn't knew how she even feels about having a baby but she knows she doesn't want to loose her.
"You've got my hair haven't you. Poor thing. My eyes, the shape at least... But not the colour."
She pauses, resisting the urge to reach past the wires and tubing and stroke the infants tiny face. "That could change."
The baby twitches slightly, her chest rising in soft, fluttery breaths. She's looks so perfect yet her heart baby even keep her alive and they're pumping prostaglandin into her tiny body so she doesn't suffocate.
Jac's heart skips as she starts do realise this is her daughter. She looks just like her though she doesn't have her mother's eyes. It could change. It might not, but it could.
***
01:17 a.m.
Joseph Byrne stands just outside the NICU eyes focused on the figure of his ex-girlfriend. He hesitates for the third time. He's stalked the hospital for the last hour. He and Jac don't belong in the other's orbit anymore. But now it's all changed. He hasn't seen the baby, didn't even know if what Daisha said was true. Yet something in him knew. Knew the child must be his.
He inhales stepped in quiet as ever. Jac notices him the moment he crosses the threshold, never one to be caught off guard. Unless you count giving birth without knowing you were pregnant.
She doesn't turn around. Doesn't even acknowledge his presence with words. Her head is drowning in thoughts. She has a kid? She has a child who might die and it's probably her fault.
She drank. Alcohol can cause heart defects and now a child she didn't know about might die. And that thought terrors her. It creates such a deep seated searing pain , rooted in her soul that it scares her. She didn't expect to scream like that when they whisked her baby away. She hadn't meant to resist the midwives instructions when she watched her silent newborn be rushed out, but all she knew at that moment was her daughter might have died before she ever got to hold her, ever got to see her face and it would be all he fault. She ruined her. Just like she ruins everything.
Joseph stepped beside her, gaze locked on the same tiny figure Jac watched over intently.
"She's..." he falters, breath catching. "She's really something."
Jac didn't move. "Too early to say that. She might not make it. Her heart's messed up..."
The statement was flat. Not dramatic. Just...fact.
Joseph swallowed. "Jac, can I ask you something?"
Her eyes flicker over to him. Suspicious. He can't even finish the sentence. But she knows what he wants to say.
"Yes," she replies not looking up. "She's yours."
Joseph stares at her eyes flickering furiously between the incubator and the woman beside it, standing rigid and scared if she's guarding her child. As if she's afraid if she leaves the baby will come to harm.
"How did you not know?" he utters, not accusingly simply bewildered.
Jac laughs bitterly. "Do you think I'd let this happen if I did? I was running marathons, eating sushi and all things you shouldn't when you're prey , sleeping four hours a night at best...God, I was at the gym last night."
He looks at her half-startled, half-dazed.
"I really didn't know ," she continues, the words flying out of her now. "No bump. Nothing."
"A cryptic pregnancy." She mutters almost laughing she the absurdity of it all. "No symptoms. Negative test back in February. Retroverted uterus or something. Rare as we both know. Trust me to be the the statistic. I used to roll my eyes at talk of this in medical school. Now look at me."
Jac's voice sinks into sadness. Into fear
"She didn't cry at first. They thought she might not breathe. I thought she was dead. She was blue. And now..." She swallowed hard. "Her heart's broken. Literally."
Joseph glances at taking in the changes in her stature. She seems so shaken. So afraid. Her typical no nonsense, no feelings persona has been stripped back leaving her feeling raw.
"I don't know what to do. How to do this," she whispers gesturing to the incubator. "I can whip out appendixes in no time and run theatre teams in my sleep. General surgery, cardiothoracics I can do it all.
I'm on my way to two CCT's under my belt. But I don't know how to be a mother. Not now. Especially if she..."
She trails off.
Joseph hesitates, the same thought also tormenting him. "She won't Jac."
***
The hospital gossip approaches its peak by early morning. Jac Naylor had a baby. The same Jac Naylor who placed third in a marathon four days ago and first in another a month ago. No one could believe it.
"Flat stomach two days ago." Donna insisted, spooning sugar into her tea. "I saw her on the treadmill at the gym. Running. Not walking."
"I passed her during the charity half-marathon four days back," One nurse Sarah, put in. "She overtook me on the hill section. Barely broke a sweat."
"No scans. No cravings. No cravings! What kind of pregnant woman doesn't eat weird things?" Another voice muttered.
"Jac Naylor," Donna said, "is a medical anomaly."
"Or a medical miracle," someone else muttered.
"No bump. Not a whisper. And she's been in Theatre practically every day," Donna whispered to Chrissie, who still looked like she hadn't blinked in twenty minutes.
"She's a size eight on a bad day, Donna."
"I know! That's the point."
Ollie looked like he was still processing the news. "I...I saw her at the gym too. Two days ago! I'm sure she had abs!"
"Nature is strange." Ric muttered as he passed by. "Always finds a way."
"You should've heard her screaming. Not in labour, but after the baby was born. It didn't cry. Jac kept screaming about it being dead, begging them to let her see it. I think I'm traumatised and that wasn't even my kid." Maria shudders.
"Gosh. Is the baby alright?"
"No. Mrs Beauchamp's been down in NICU talking to Jac, so has that paeds cardiology Professor. The baby has a heart problem, might need surgery as soon as next week. Apparently it's a girl."
"Poor kid. Jac must be worried. Imagine going from not knowing you're pregnant to having a poorly baby, sounds like a nightmare to me."
***
After trying and failing to convince Elliot and Connie to let her do more than the ward round, Jac sets foot back in the NICU to check on her daughter.
A new nurse is on shift and gives her a warm smile. "She's been quiet today. Eyes open a little more. You can hold her if you'd like, even with the wires and tubes."
Jac froze. "I... I...Not now."
She isn't ready. Thinks the guilt might actually kill her if she cradles her and has to accept her daughter is suffering because of her. She's already been tormented by thoughts reminding her had she gone into labour six hours either side of her shifts and been at home, she'd be staring at the body of her child in the morgue.
The nurse doesn't press just gives Jac one of those sympathetic glances that makes her feel ill.
Instead, Jac sits down and watches her baby, studying her tiny face. Her hair is ginger clearly from
Jac. Same sharp cupid's bow to the upper lip. Same eyebrows too. The eyes though... still that uncanny Byrne blue.
She wonders if they'll turn green. Or stay. She wonders what Joseph is going to do. If he'll vanish, or linger around to ease his guilt. The baby with the broken heart is his daughter too after all.
Jac wonders if she could do this alone. It's so unlike her to think this but even when she thought she could be pregnant earlier this year, she never thought her baby would be fighting for their life. She imagined having to suck up and take maternity leave if Joseph didn't want to be in the picture. She imagined sleepless nights because the baby wouldn't stop crying , not nights where she can't get that soul-crushing silence out of her mind.
And lastly she wonders if her daughter will live at all...