Chapter Two: Archer

Chapter Two

Archer

“You’re needed in the ER.”

I give the medical assistant a quizzical look. “The ER? Are you sure?”

She’s sitting behind a desk in the PACU and just got off the phone. Her eyes dart to it and she nods. “That’s what they said. I asked twice since it’s not your area, but you’re being requested by Dr. Harris.”

Sam is in the ER asking for me? He’s off today and he’s never in the emergency room. Why would he—oh shit.

Quinn.

My phone battery was low, so I plugged it in and left it with my clothes when I changed into surgical scrubs. I rush through the recovery area to get it and see I have missed texts from both Quinn and Sam. The most recent one is from Sam, and I have to read it twice because my brain refuses to believe what I’m seeing.

Someone tried to break in and Quinn got hurt. We’re at the ER. I’ll have you paged.

I scroll up, reading as I run down the hall, stopping only to get into an elevator. None of his other texts give me information, and neither do Quinn’s. I get into the elevator and call Quinn, but I don’t have service in here.

My heart starts to race. Sweat breaks out along my back. Someone tried to break in? Quinn must have been fucking terrified. I curl my fingers into a fist, rage surging through me. Quinn got hurt. Bad enough to come to the ER. If anything happened to the baby…nope. I can’t think like that.

The baby is fine. Quinn is fine.

They have to be.

They’re my life. My family. I knew I wanted the baby from the moment I saw those bold, black words on the pregnancy test, but the thought of having it taken away from me makes my heart ache, making me realize just how bad I want this. The timing might be all wrong, and we might be doing things a bit out of order, but I’m ready.

I want Quinn to have my baby and for us to be together, living happily ever after for the rest of our lives. I want to marry her when the time is right and add another baby or two, hell, maybe even three, to our family. We’ll be loud and crazy, and things will be hectic and chaotic, but it’ll be perfect.

The elevator stops one floor down and an elderly couple takes their sweet ass time getting in with their walkers. I do my best not to glower at them and repeatedly push the button taking me to the main floor.

My heart beats faster with each passing second. Sometimes you don’t realize how much something means to you until it’s taken away. Nothing’s been taken—not really—but the thoughts of what if are bad enough.

I move to the front of the elevator and ask what floor the old folks are going to. Thankfully, it’s the same one, and we start the descent down. It only takes thirty seconds, but it feels like an eternity. I run down the hall, and when people see doctors running, they usually get out of the way, assuming I’m responding to an emergency.

I push through the swinging ER doors and look around for a nurse or attendant to tell me which room Quinn is in. They’ll be able to tell me faster than I could look it up myself. Then I see Sam standing near the nurses’ station, talking with a pretty redhead. He doesn’t look overly concerned, which has to be a good sign.

“Where’s Quinn?” I ask as soon as he sees me. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, I’ll take you back.”

“If she’s fine, why is she here?”

We start walking through the hall. “I was able to get an ultrasound faster in the ER.”

I stop dead in my tracks. “If she’s okay, why does she need an ultrasound?”

“To give her peace of mind,” he says and keeps walking.

“That’s not giving me peace of mind. What happened?”

He slows when we get to the room Quinn is in and lowers his voice. “Some guy was banging on the door asking for you. Quinn unlocked it to let him in, and the guy shoved the door open. The knob got her right in the stomach, but she’s so early in the pregnancy you know she’s most likely fine. She’s bruised and scared, so I made a call and got her in to get an ultrasound, and Dr. Taylor is coming down from delivery when she gets a moment.”

“Thanks, man.” I let out a breath.

“Of course. It’s the least I could do. Quinn’s pretty freaked out. And she hurt her wrist. It’s swelling up, and I told her it might be fractured, but she refused an X-ray.”

I blink, taking all that in. “Someone was asking for me?”

“Yeah. He looked fucked up on something.”

My phone is still in my hand, and I look down to unlock it. I go to my pictures only to remember I don’t have a single photo of Bobby. Logging onto F******k instead, I madly scroll through my mom’s profile until I find a picture of him.

“Is that the guy?”

Sam narrows his eyes, inspecting the photo. Bobby isn’t tweaked out in it, and the filter my mom used makes him look almost healthy.

“Yeah. Why do you—oh fuck. Is that your brother?”

“It is.” I bring my hand to the back of my neck. Bobby was at the apartment. Looking for me. I haven’t even seen him in years, and I didn’t know he had my address. “Why the fuck is he—it doesn’t matter. She’s in here?”

Sam nods and I go in without knocking or seeing if another physician is in there. I need to get to Quinn. As soon as her eyes meet mine, I know she needs me too.

“Archer.” She pushes up off the bed, reaching for me. She’s wearing pajama shorts and my Duke University shirt. Her hair is messy, and her eyes are watery.

“I’m so sorry, babe.” I sit on the bed next to her and take her in my arms. She’s shaking.

“The nurse was just in here,” she squeaks out, voice tightening. “She tried to find the heartbeat with a doppler and couldn’t. I wasn’t really worried before. Sam thought it’d be reassuring to come in and see that everything is okay. But now I’m freaking out more.”

Her words send a jolt of panic through me. All I hear is there was no heartbeat, and I have to force myself to think about things objectively in order to remember dopplers don’t always pick up heartbeats this early.

“That doesn’t mean something happened to the baby.”

“But what if it did?”

“This early on, the baby is well protected in the womb. It takes a lot of force to cause damage.” Keeping my cool and not getting overwhelmed with emotions is part of what makes me a good surgeon. I feel for every one of my patients, I really do. But I don’t let it get in the way of taking the best possible care of them. I have to do the same for Quinn.

She nods and lays back. Goosebumps break out over her flesh, and I get up, going to the cabinet above the sink, and pulling out a white sheet. Shaking it out, I drape it over Quinn and sit back down next to her, squeezing in as much as I can on the small hospital bed.

“Sam said you hurt your wrist.”

She winces as she lifts it up. The swelling isn’t as bad as I anticipated, but she’s obviously hurt.

“It twisted when I fell.”

I close my eyes, gently taking her wrist in my hand, and feel a seething hatred for Bobby rise from deep inside of me. Over the years, there have been many times I’ve wanted to beat the shit out of him. I’ve held back for various reasons: not wanting to upset my mother, risk getting charged with assault, or damage my hands when I need them for surgery.

But now I don’t care. The next time I see him, I’m hitting him as hard as I fucking can.

“Do you think it’s broken?” she asks. “I really don’t want to do an X-ray. The baby is so little and developing major organs right now.”

I carefully examine her wrist, hating seeing her in pain. “No. I think it’s sprained.”

“Thank God. Wait. Sprains take longer to heal, right?”

“Unfortunately, that’s the case many times. And you’re more likely to have issues with it later on.”

“Great,” she mumbles. “I already have wrist pain.” Her eyes fall shut and her jaw tenses. I move a pillow under her arm, propping up her injured wrist. She rests her other hand on her stomach and lets out a deep sigh.

When she opens her eyes, she reaches over and takes my hand.

“It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?” she asks, tears filling her green eyes again.

The words die in my throat, but I force a smile and squeeze her hand. As a doctor, I never promise false hope, never give an overly optimistic answer when I don’t know what the fate will be. But for Quinn, I know I have to lie.

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Arch.” She squeezes my hand back. “Did they pull you out of surgery?”

“No. I just haven’t changed yet.” I smile and playfully nudge her, hoping to make her laugh. “Why, are you getting turned on from my ‘doctor clothes’ as you call them?”

She doesn’t laugh, but her lips do curve up into a smile. “A little. You can play doctor for me tonight.”

“I don’t have to play, baby.” I lean down, putting my lips to hers. Just then, the curtain is pulled back. Thinking it’s Sam, I don’t move away from Quinn just yet.

“Ms. Dawson?” the nurse says, clearing her throat. I move back and see Elena, the nurse I hooked up with a few times, standing at the foot of the bed. Her eyes widen when she sees me. We ended things on good terms, or at least I thought so. Our relationship was never serious, and we were both clear about keeping things casual from the start.

“Dr. Jones,” she stammers, eyes flitting from me to Quinn.

“He’s the father,” Quinn says quickly as if she’s afraid I’ll get in trouble for canoodling a patient or something.

Elena smiles. “I assumed so. Congratulations, Dr. Jones. I didn’t know you were having a baby.”

“Thank you,” I say and put my hand over Quinn’s belly. Quinn tenses and I know exactly what’s she’s thinking: congrats might not be in order if things…nope. I’m not letting myself finish that thought.

“Do you want him to come with you for the ultrasound?” Elena asks.

“Yes,” Quinn says right away and gets up. Holding her left wrist against her body, we follow Elena into another room, and the ultrasound tech is already waiting for us. Quinn gets onto the bed, folds the waist of her shorts down, and raises her shirt a bit, exposing her belly. She has some bruising under her belly button, and I swear to God I’m going to kill Bobby.

“I bruise easily,” Quinn tells me when she sees the concern on my face. “I always have.”

I can only nod, too upset to open my mouth. Taking Quinn’s hand, I move aside, anxiously looking at the screen next to Quinn. Unlike the OB’s office, this room isn’t set up with a big TV for us to look at. This is the ER, and ultrasounds done in here have an entirely different story most of the time.

The tech goes over Quinn’s information with her and then dims the lights. “How far along are you?” she asks and puts the jelly on Quinn’s stomach.

“Eight weeks.” Quinn’s hand shakes. I grip it tighter. Using my free hand, I smooth her hair back, not taking my eyes off the screen.

“And you were hit in the stomach?”

“Yes. By a doorknob.”

“Are you having any pain?”

“I felt some really sharp shooting pains and then felt crampy. It went away though.”

I didn’t know Quinn was feeling any pain at all. Getting hit in the stomach in the first trimester isn’t usually a cause for concern…unless it’s followed by pain or bleeding.

A few seconds tick by and black and white shapes come in and out of focus. And then I see it, a second before the tech stops moving the transducer around. The outline of what looks like a tiny gummy bear, with a fast-beating heart.

“Baby looks good and has a strong heartbeat,” the tech says, and turns her screen so we can see better. She points to each little body part and lets us watch that beautiful tiny heart beating for another few seconds. Then she turns the sound on, and Quinn finally relaxes.

The tech prints out some pictures and gives Quinn paper towels to wipe the jelly from her skin. She leaves, saying the doctor will be in shortly. Annoyed no one has done anything for Quinn’s injured wrist yet, I leave for a few moments and come back with supplies to ice and splint it.

“I never realized how handy it’d be to date a doctor,” she says with a small smile as I finish wrapping her wrist. I sit in the bed with her, wrapping my arms around her slender waist.

“The guy who tried to break in,” I start, working hard to keep my voice steady. Quinn turns to me, eyes meeting mine. And then Dr. Taylor knocks on the door, coming in a second later. She goes over the ultrasound—everything is normal.

“Are you still feeling pain?” she asks Quinn, looking at her chart on the computer screen.

“Not right now. I felt it most when I was moving.”

“Did it feel like period cramps?”

Quinn shakes her head. “Not at first. It was more sharp, like something was being pulled. Then it cramped and went away after a minute. I felt it again when I was getting in the car to come here.”

“Are you bleeding or spotting?”

“No.”

“The first trimester is full of aches, pains, and cramps. Everything looks good, so I feel confident saying those cramps are normal and you’re currently just more aware of them. And the sharp, pulling pain sounds like round ligament pain to me.”

“Isn’t it early for that?” I interject.

“Textbook-wise, yes,” she tells me. “But I’ve had enough patients experience it I know some unlucky women start feeling the aches and pains from the start.” She looks back at Quinn’s chart. “Do you normally have high blood pressure?”

I almost get up to peer over Dr. Taylor’s shoulder. Quinn doesn’t have high blood pressure. If anything, she’s on the low side, and I should—I need to stop. I’m not here as Quinn’s doctor, but as her boyfriend and the father of her child.

“No,” Quinn answers. “I think it’s from the stress.”

“Me too,” Dr. Taylor says and turns to the computer, putting in an order. “I’m going to get you a dose of Benadryl.” She flicks her eyes to me. “Sounds weird, I know, but I’ve been giving this to my pregnant patients for years. It’ll lower your blood pressure and will help you sleep when you get home. Rest will help you feel better. Being stressed and tense will make you all the more aware of those aches and pains.”

“Thanks,” Quinn says with a nod and finally relaxes a bit.

“Take it easy, and follow up with your regular OB at home. And congratulations, both of you.”

“Thank you,” I say, getting up to shake her hand. Elena comes in right after Dr. Taylor leaves, with water and medication in hand.

“Are you sure this is okay for our baby?” Quinn asks me quietly before she pops the pill in her mouth.

“Yes,” I assure her and she takes the Benadryl.

“This makes me loopy,” she says after taking a drink of water.

“I remember,” I say with a chuckle. “I think you were like sixteen or seventeen when you got poison oak all over your arms. Your mom gave you Benadryl and it was like you were drunk. Dean and I might have used you for our entertainment, and for that, I’m sorry.”

“Oh my God! I almost forgot about that.” Quinn shakes her head, laughing. “It was terrible. My goat got out hours before I had to load him up to take to the county fair. He was a muddy mess and I was covered in a rash.”

Elena looks away from the computer for a second, eyeing us both. “Sounds like you two have known each other a long time?”

She’s a good nurse and a decent human being. She’s not going to say anything or cause a scene, but I can sense the jealousy. Quinn turns her head to me, eyes sparkling. It makes my heart speed up.

“I’ve known Archer since I was fourteen,” she says. “He was my brother’s college roommate.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Elena says with a fake smile. “Okay…you’re almost ready for discharge. You can return back to normal activities. If you experience any more abnormal pain or bleeding, come back to the ER.”

“Thank you.” Quinn lets out a sigh of relief, and when Elena leaves to grab the discharge papers for Quinn to sign, I turn to her.

“I need to tell you something,” I rush out.

“What is it?”

“I went out with that nurse a few times.”

“Oh. I thought she looked a little too surprised to find out you’re having a baby.”

“You’re not upset?”

“Why would I be? I’ve dated other people too, Archer. And you met Jacob already, who’s my ex.”

“Right. She wasn’t really my girlfriend, just—”

“Spare me the details.” She takes my hand. “You’re mine now, Archer Jones.”

I smile. She has no idea that I’ve always been hers.

“So now that I know the baby is okay, I can say how much my wrist fucking hurts.” She holds up her arm, wincing. “Are you sure it’s not broken? It feels broken.”

“You should have said something.”

She makes a face. “I didn’t want the attention to be taken away from the baby, in case…in case.” Tears fill her eyes and her bottom lip quivers. “I don’t know why I’m crying,” she says, trying hard to stop the tears from falling. “Everything is okay.”

I pull her into my arms. “It was a lot to take in. It’s overwhelming.”

“Oh my God. Work. How am I going to be able to work? I can hardly move my arm.” And then she bursts into tears, and I don’t think it’s possible to feel any more hatred for my brother than I do right now. “I’m sorry I’m crying,” she sobs. “I don’t usually cry. It’s just…it’s just the hormones.”

“Babe, it’s okay.” I cradle her against me, being careful not to hurt her wrist. I don’t think it’s broken. She can move it along with all her fingers and the swelling is minimal.

“I can order you an X-ray still,” I tell her.

“No,” Quinn mumbles. “I don’t want to expose the baby to anything like that. If it gets worse, I’ll let you know.”

I brush her hair back and kiss her forehead. “You’re going to be a good mom.”

Quinn’s bottom lip quivers and more tears pool in her eyes. Elena comes back in, looking alarmed.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Quinn sniffles. “Everything caught up to me and I was so scared.” She takes my hand and brings it to her stomach. “I really thought we might lose the baby.”

“He’s safe in there,” I assure Quinn.

“She’s safe in there, you mean,” she says with a smile. “I agree with my mom on this one. It’s a girl.”

*

Quinn looks at the ultrasound pictures, eyes glossing over. We’re headed home, and I steal a glance away from the road to see her beautiful face. Her eyes are brimming with tears.

“What’s wrong, babe?” I put my hand on her thigh.

“Nothing.” Tears roll down her cheeks.

“Why are you crying?”

“I was thinking about bald eagles.”

“Bald eagles?” I raise an eyebrow. “Bald eagles make you cry?”

“They used to be endangered. But they’re not anymore. They’re so majestic and beautiful and I’m just so happy they’re not endangered anymore.”

I don’t mean to laugh, but dammit, she’s so fucking adorable. “Remember how you said it wasn’t fair that I didn’t get to experience drunk-Quinn?”

“Yeah.”

“I am now.” I wink and squeeze her thigh.

She sniffles and laughs, wiping her eyes. “Yeah. I guess so.” Her eyes squeeze shut, and more tears stream out.

“Stop thinking about eagles, babe,” I try to say seriously but end up laughing. Quinn laughs too, shaking her head. She inhales and looks back down at the ultrasound. She mumbles something about taking a picture of the baby to send to her mom and fumbles with her purse until she finds her cell.

When we get back to my apartment, I get out and immediately lock the doors to the Jeep and look around for my pathetic excuse for a brother. Not seeing him, I unlock the door and help Quinn out.

“You were supposed to leave tonight,” I remind her when we get through the door. Sam’s already here, and I lock the deadbolt behind us.

“I’ll stay tonight,” she mumbles, eyelids heavy.

“Do you need to call about your flight?”

“No. I never scheduled a return flight. I was going to today. The driver…no, the flyer…the…the…”

“Pilot.”

“Yeah. That guy. He was going to pick me up whenever I was ready.” She scrunches up her nose. “I sound like a rich asshole, don’t I?”

“You’re basically Bruce Wayne when he’s trying to convince the world he’s still a billionaire playboy and not a superhero.”

“Damn,” she says, not missing a beat. “Hopefully I’m giving more of a Christian Bale performance over Ben Affleck.”

“It’s Oscar-worthy.” I hook my arm around her, seeing the dark circles under her eyes. After all she’s been through today, I know she’s exhausted. We get settled into bed, and I pull the blankets up around her shoulders. Resting her head on my chest, I run my fingers through her hair.

The words I’ve been wanting to say bubble up inside me but are quickly squashed down by the memories of my brother. I’ll have to face him eventually, and worse, I’ll have to explain everything to Quinn. I look down at her beautiful face, eyes closed but still a bit swollen from crying. There is no one else for me but her, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right.