Who: Nicholas & Madeleine Hooke
What: They are both in a lot of pain
Where: Muggle hospital
"Where is my husband?" Madeleine asked the nurse for what had to be the fiftieth time. She wasn't dumb, she knew how long she'd been here, and she knew how long it took to get home from work for Nick, and to the hospital--
two bloody seconds. He could
pop and be here and that was
that. So
where was he? Madeleine's grip on the sidebars of the hospital bed was about ready to break them in half, but she was absolutely refusing to have these children without Nick by her side.
"Ma'am, we're trying to locate him, we've called your house---"
"He would not
be home."
"So--I mean, license plate number? Maybe?"
Madeleine faltered; she had been picking up the mail when her water broke, and their neighbor had taken the initiative in driving her to the hospital. Their
not a wizard wizard neighbor. Madeleine had no time to send an owl to Nick, she could only watch as her neighbor stuck a note on the door and she prayed that Nick got the message.
"I---our car, it is in the--it is not---" Another contraction hit and she let out a shriek that
wherever her husband was, he could hear it.
Ha, Nicholas
wished that he'd just been able to pop to the hospital. As soon as he'd arrived home he knew that something was up - Madeleine didn't pounce him the second he appeared in the living room, for one (although more and more often she latched onto him so she could smack him in the shoulder for 'making her so fat'). He'd found the note in the door upon opening it to look
out of the apartment. Since he didn't know where the hospital
was, exactly, he'd had to go on
foot.
Now, that wouldn't have been a problem ... if he hadn't had the damned wonderful luck of running into what had turned out to be a rather surly thug. In all the chaos of getting himself out the door as quickly as possible he'd left his wand on the radio stand ... and it sure would have come in handy. By the time that he made his way into the hospital,
he probably could have used some attention himself - explaining to a muggle that the 'useless tin coins' you were carrying in your pockets were perfectly suitable for wizarding banks - with his black eye and split lip. Trying to explain to his assailant had just made the man angrier and Nick had finally been able to escape only because he'd thrown a few punches of his own.
The
shriek, though, was perfectly recognizable. He pushed past the nearest doctor and all but shouted, "That's my wife!" Smooth, Nick. Smooth.
"NICHOLAS RICHARD HOOKE," Madeleine let out, hearing his very familiar voice from outside in the corridor. She turned to glare angrily at her husband, but instead she let out another shriek. This one wasn't from the pain (though it was still resonating throughout her body), it was from the sight of her bloodied husband, and tears burst to her eyes. "CHE COSA E---CHE--" she couldn't get out her hysterical question when another contraction coursed through her body.
"VENUTO. QUI!" she demanded, turning to him furiously, even though tears were pouring out of her eyes. Madeleine was sure she had never felt such a jumble of emotions; she was in torture-like pain, she was terrified because her husband showed up as if he had just gotten into a fight, and now she was terrified at the prospect of actually having these kids
out. She loved the idea of being a mother but if
Nicholas could get hurt, so could the bambini and Madeleine felt her heart begin to race even more furiously than it had been before.
He might not have been a particularly smart man when it came to maths or arthimancy, but he knew very well that it wasn't good to have a pregnant woman worked up when she was in bloody
labour. The moment she shouted out his name he shoved the few nurses that were tending to
him out of the way and scrambled over to the bed, ignoring the slight sting of what he could only imagine was a nervous sweat breaking out over a few of the cuts (and what would probably be several nasty bruises in the morning). He gave Madeleine's hand a firm squeeze. "Sono bene, io sono bene," He muttered with a shake of his head (okay, that had been a bad idea).
Nick glanced to the attending doctor expectantly. Hopefully the man was going to tell him how far along Madeleine was, because he certainly had not gotten enough of his breath back to coherently ask a question about the triplets. Merlin, they did not have
room for this many children in their house -- they were going to have to put them in -- in -- drawers!
Taking his hand was a very bad idea as well, because when she screamed again (almost completely blocking out the the doctor's voice when he said she was ready to start pushing) her grip on Nicholas' hand---i'oh, he would have more injuries by the end of this ordeal because of
her. Madeleine couldn't focus on the task at hand which was
remarkable, but went the contraction passed her other hand crossed over her body and grabbed onto Nick's upper arm.
"I can't, non posso, non posso! You are hurt, why are you hurt---I can not do this--!" The healers, the doctors, they had
said that there was a great chance the bambini would be early but Madeleine hadn't thought that
they would go through something like this! Stupido, stupido, she
should have, but a silly part of her told her that Nicholas' magic would make it work out right, that Adamina or Tim or Rosalind would have been there with
their magic, and
Dio it had
never bothered her before but now she felt
silly for not being able to do anything about it,
"I can not do magic!" she cried out stupidly, all of her emotions getting the better of her. Madeleine didn't even think about how insane the doctors were going to think she was.
As if the doctors would say anything about it. The lead doctor gave him a curious glance and Nick merely shot him a venomous look. His attention was focused on Madeleine at the moment, anyway. Nick frowned and let her grab onto him as much as she needed to, bringing one of his own hands up awkwardly to brush her hair away from her eyes. "You can, you
can, Madeleine. I'm here." Wasn't that what was supposed to matter? He caressed his hand over her cheek and bit his lip.
It wasn't as if they had much choice in the matter, anyway. They couldn't very well apparate her in this condition and that would just end up messily with all these doctors and their
neighbour, for some Merlin-awful reason. He was pointedly ignoring her questions about why he was hurt - she was in enough distress with the babies and their being early and
hell, the fact they were in a fucking muggle hospital. "We'll be fine. But you have to keep breathing and listen to the heal--doctor. Okay?"
Someone else was telling her to remember her breathing, but Madeleine turned and snapped them away so quickly that she couldn't be sure if there had actually been a nurse there. Nicholas was telling her she could do this which was the only person she
needed to support her, so those other people could just--they could
leave and go
away and just never speak or look at her again and---Madeleine leaned her head into Nick's chest as the pain became overwhelming, nodding over and over because
Dio it was
time.
"Ti amo, ti amo, ti amo," she muttered over and over, barely looking at the nurse and doctor as they helped get her into position. Her grip on Nick's hand didn't break; no, at the moment it was her lifeline, and after the scare of seeing him hurt, there was no way she was going to
dare let him go away from her again.
Nick knew that Madeleine was certainly
not in any position to let go of his hand even though he was sure he actually broke one of his fingers of that hand trying to scramble away from the man who'd mugged him. That could wait for later, right? It was probably some sort of divine intervention giving him a taste of the discomfort that his wife must have been in at the moment. It didn't mean he had to like it, but he kept his jaw clenched for a moment and then gave her hand a squeeze in return.
"I love you," he murmured into her hair, cradling her against his chest despite his half-on half-off position on the edge of the hospital bed. This was going to be a long night, but he wouldn't have traded places with the richest Wizard in London.
