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Jordan is staying calm. Fortunately she's good at that, because there was apparently an accident on the road that's delaying the ambulance because the ambulance was in it and there's no timeline available on when they'll get another because the patient is stable and being cared for.
By Jordan.
Who's a vet.
She does not agree with the dispatchers that she will be adequate for treating this small human child but she can't actually force an ambulance into existence here, so apparently she's doing this.
Currently little James is stable but she's using equipment built for animals, not humans, and she doesn't do human medicine.
Fortunately she has phone numbers for some of her wife's relatives.
"Try to keep him calm," Wen Qing says into her ear. "I'll be there in a few hours."
"I'll do my best," Jordan says. James's parents aren't here. Sarah was already out of town and Victoria had to leave to take the cats home, because they were both very loudly losing their minds and that was upsetting James and all together it was making everything worse.
She says goodbye to Wen Qing and hangs up.
James is watching her, but the poor kid can't talk, he's on a ventilator.
"So how about I tell you another story?" she says, and his eyes brighten and he tugs weakly at her sleeve. Jordan knows what he's asking for. "All right. Once upon a time..."
Once upon a time, King Arthur set out on an adventure. King Arthur is very brave, but adventures can be scary. He didn't want to go alone, so he went to talk to his knights because it's okay to tell people you're scared and ask them to help you.
"Come on, Jordan, it's going to be amazing."
Jordan glared at him. "You want me to leave my pregnant wife behind to go to the world below with you."
"I'm six weeks pregnant. If you want me to tell Arthur I'm miserable and suffering terribly and I'll just waste away without you I can do that but wouldn't it be easier just to tell him to go away?" Ziyuan looked amused.
"It's not like it will be dangerous," Arthur wheedled. "We'll go, we'll get Titania's recipe for orange cheesecake, we'll come home and have excellent cake."
Jordan pinched the bridge of her nose. "What if I gave you my grandma's cheesecake recipe?"
"Alas that I couldn't possibly take it with any semblance of my honour intact. She hasn't said I can have it, but I'm working on her too. Anyway, hers is divine for strawberry and lemon, not orange." Arthur was giving her puppy eyes and she has always been embarrassingly weak to his puppy eyes.
Still. "I said no, Arthur."
The knights agreed to join him on his quest, because they loved him so very much -
"He's going to be insufferable about this. Just go. They like you down there, it'll be fine. You haven't been held up more than two days there since our wedding." Ziyuan kissed her sweetly. "We owe him, he's being so good about staying backed off about the baby."
Jordan sighed. "I can't wait for him to be over this baking obsession. Merlin says he usually gets over things by now."
- and they wanted to be sure he would feel safe being brave again. It's still being brave if you have help.
So Arthur and his knights set off on a fine adventure.
"Update." Joey passes her a note.
[Victoria just called. She's really upset. The accident has stopped traffic on the freeway and she didn't realise until she was already in it on her way back. She has her phone if they need to call her for parental consent but she begs you to stay with him until she can get back.]
Jordan nods and turns her attention back to James.
They got to travel in exciting ways. They took a boat -
"I swear I thought I said I'd stab you if you ever made me do this again." Jordan folded her arms.
"You did, and I accept that as a valid expression of your feelings," Arthur said. "I mean, whether I'm making you do it is an open question but I recognise that as your liege I am responsible for a certain compulsive element even to a polite request so when you want to stab me about it just say the word." He grinned and leapt lightly onto the boat.
Jordan sighed deeply and followed.
- that went on a very exciting trip through a big whirlpool that swung it around and around like a merry-go-round.
Jordan wrapped her arms around the mast, held on tight and screamed as they went through Corryvreckan again.
It was lots of fun, like adventures with Arthur always are.
"I hate you," she said when they were through to the peaceful waters beyond the maelstrom.
"After all this time with Merlin and not incidentally my many years as Jiang Cheng's bestie I just hear that as affection." Arthur adjusted the tiller. "I'm a delight."
Next they rode on big, beautiful magic horses that flew into the air as gracefully as butterflies.
Once the flying horses were in the air they weren't too bad, Jordan thought, but the first part of takeoff was an instant churning of both motion sickness and the sheer effort of not falling off. Getting used to this did wonders for her thighs.
"Are you sure you don't want us to drop him in the volcano?" her mount asked. "It'd be no trouble and you could take his whole kingdom for yourself. Even with that friend of his who keeps bringing him back he'll be stuck in there for centuries trying to get out."
"If anything that's an argument for letting him live," Jordan said. "If I took over his kingdom who'd be taking care of your nephew?"
"No-one, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. He's at a very annoying age."
"I know you don't want your sister to hear that."
"Hmph." Her mount tossed his head. "I suppose we can let your king live."
"I do appreciate the offer and I'll keep it in mind if it seems like a necessity."
The flying horses took them all the way to a beautiful magical palace -
His blood pressure is dropping. Jordan pushes epinephrine and adjusts the ventilator's pressure settings. He's stabilising, but how long exactly is she expected to do this?
"One second," she tells James with a smile, and picks up her phone, eyes on the readings.
"Wen Qing."
"I'm not sure how much longer my story will keep him entertained," she says, because Wen Qing is more than intelligent enough to hear I don't know how long I can keep him stable from that. "Can I ruin your day?"
Wen Qing only hesitates a moment. "I'll stop moving so he can find me."
"Thanks." Jordan hangs up and dials a different number.
"Yes? What? I'm busy, can't you - It's you. I suppose I'm not busy if it's you. What do you want?"
"Can you get Wen Qing and bring her to my office? She'll be midair somewhere."
"Does she know I'm doing this?"
"Yes."
"I suppose it must be important. I'll do it as soon as I've finished this, though. Which I admit might be a few hours."
James is watching her. He's too pale.
"Please," Jordan says, simple and earnest. The door opens.
"Ugh. As soon as I'm done. I have important things to do, you know."
Jordan looks towards the door and almost melts with relief as she sees Wen Qing entering. "Thanks," she calls to Merlin, who's behind her.
He looks at James, then back to Jordan. "You really don't call for nothing, do you?" He comes close enough to lean over to her phone. "It's worth hurrying," he says. To himself.
The Merlin on the phone hangs up.
"I'll leave you to it," this one says, and leaves.
Wen Qing is holding James's wrist, looking over the readouts on the monitors and surveying the equipment he's connected to. "You've done well," she says. "Is all of this meant for dogs?"
"No," Jordan says, slumping back against the cabinets. "Some of it is meant for cats, too. Victoria's trying to get back here. We have no idea when we can actually expect an ambulance."
"I've got him," Wen Qing assures her, adjusting the ventilator again in a way that is undoubtedly an improvement.
James reaches towards Jordan weakly, pleading with his eyes.
Jordan forces herself to smile. "Of course. I hadn't finished the story, had I?"
At the magical palace of the Fairy Queen there were all kinds of courtiers and soldiers, beautiful ladies and men, all dancing attendance on the fairest of queens - Titania. She was just the prettiest, with a lovely smile. She welcomed Arthur and his knights to the palace.
"Oh," Titania said. "It's you." She folded her arms. "Trouble in trousers come to bother me again. What do you want?"
Arthur smiled brightly. "Nothing major. I'm simply desperate to bake the perfect orange cheesecake."
"Oh, is that all? Not something trivial like my kingdom or firstborn child, then?" Titania's eyes narrowed. "You have some nerve."
"Oh, always, but it's so important." He clasped his hands together. "You see, my knight's wife is pregnant and we are but months away from the need to celebrate the birth of this magnificent child."
"And?" Titania pursed her lips.
"I am representing the honour of ages past," Arthur said very seriously. "I must contend against the cheesecakes of Sir Jordan's sainted grandmother."
"How much of a challenge can that possibly be?" Titania sniffed.
"Let us away to your kitchens," Arthur said. "Jordan has mastered her recipe. Would you like strawberry or lemon? You can see what I'm up against."
Jordan should have expected this, she really should.
Queen Titania arranged for a marvellous banquet -
"If I catch you spying again I'm going to get creative about my curses," Titania snarled at one of her people. "This is beneath us. If it were a contest of arms or a war then cheating would be perfectly acceptable but you are not going to soil my honour in a baking contest. Either see to the roasting pits or be thrown into them yourself."
- with the most delicious cakes and treats to follow.
Citrus against citrus seemed fair, they'd said, so Jordan set a slice of lemon cheesecake before Queen Titania herself.
The Queen passed Jordan a slice of her orange cheesecake with an air of tremendous ceremony.
Jordan was careful to take her bite just after Titania did. It wouldn't do to eat first but it also wouldn't do to seem to be hesitating.
It was excellent, she thought. Grandma would set this out proudly at the school fete baking competition, which is very much as good as it gets.
Titania was chewing thoughtfully. "Does your grandmother bake this this well?" she asked in a tone Jordan couldn't interpret.
"Hers is better," Jordan admitted. "Arthur's very nice to say I've mastered it and I think I'm close but I'm not quite on her level."
"Hmm." Titania took another bite. "Fine. The problem child may have my recipe on one condition."
Arthur lit up. "And what's that?"
"There are ice giants on the northern border," Titania said. "They're very annoying. Deal with them and you can have it."
"Deal," Arthur said, reaching for the lemon cheesecake.
Jordan slapped his hand. "No. You don't get to have that," she said. "Not when you dragged me here and now there's ice giants."
He pouted. Jordan was unmoved.
The Queen asked very nicely for Arthur and his knights to help her with some ice giants that were stomping around to the north ruining her flower gardens.
"If I don't make it back to my pregnant wife I'm going to haunt you," Jordan said. "I'm going to haunt you so hard. Me and the other knights are going to sing you showtunes in the middle of the night."
"I'd like to think they wouldn't do that," Arthur said thoughtfully, "but honestly, they really would. They like you. I'd be in so much trouble if I let you get killed."
So they set out to tell the giants to leave the Queen's flowers alone. But ice giants can be very grumpy, so it ended up being quite an argument. Arthur even had to fight the giants, but Arthur is very strong and clever, so he was never in real danger at all.
"I swear on my life I'm going to ask Shushu to lay waste to all of western Europe or he doesn't get to hold the baby," Jordan muttered, ducking and rolling.
"Ow. Bloody hell. Ow. Okay. I'm on this. Ow," Arthur said, staggering to his feet. "Honestly, rude, I only asked you if we could talk." He glared up at the leader of the ice giants. "It's on now, boyo."
Arthur fought hard until the ice giants said they were very sorry and promised to leave the Queen's flowers alone. Arthur was totally all right. He didn't even have a scratch.
"You have eleven broken bones, but the good news is only some of them were critical," da-ge said. "You're going to be in bed for a month and not even slightly in the fun way."
"Was it worth it for a cheesecake recipe, you bloody fool?" Merlin seethed.
"Oh, definitely," Arthur said, smiling. "Also the ice giants won't bother Titi for at least a generation."
"He's your problem again," Jordan said. "Merlin, could you be so kind as to drop me home?"
"Of course," Merlin said. "I'd hate for you to be so inconvenienced you stopped going with him. The idiot would get himself killed somewhere we couldn't even get his body back."
"Here," da-ge said, passing Jordan a small box. "It's from Popo. To congratulate you on the baby."
Jordan blinked. "Do I even want to ask how she knows?" They haven't told anyone but Arthur, because he's been helping.
Da-ge smiled. "She's Popo."
James's eyes have drifted closed. "How worried should I be?" Jordan asks Wen Qing.
"He's just falling asleep, it's fine," Wen Qing assures her. She's looking over the monitors. "Do you have IV saline suitable for a human?"
"Some," Jordan nods. "I'll get it."
She's so, so thankful that she's not in charge of the medicine any more.
She comes back with the IV equipment and watches Wen Qing place the line.
"He's going to be fine," Wen Qing assures her with a smile. "I'm impressed."
Jordan sits on the floor and leans back against the wall. "Thank you," she says. "At least he's small. I don't have large animal equipment at this clinic."
Wen Qing laughs, a tiny bit. That always feels like an accomplishment.
"There is that," she says.
Joey leans in the door. "Ambulance service called again. ETA about ten or fifteen minutes." He frowns. "Um. Hello?" He looks from Jordan to Wen Qing and back again. "Who? Where did..."
"My wife's aunt happened to be available," Jordan says. "She's a doctor."
Joey nods. "Cool. Thanks, ma'am." He nods to Jordan. "I'll get back to the desk and let Victoria know things are okay."
James has opened his eyes again. He's looking at her.
And in the end,
she tells him,
everyone got home safely and they all lived happily ever after.