Ashley collected her luggage from customs and came out to the terminal. Her mind was somewhere else. Everything around her seemed moving so fast while she in her thought was still stuck in one place.

Her heart felt like pressing with a huge burden as she broke down after holding back for so long. She wanted to leave everything and sit right there, close her eyes and block out the whole world for a moment. She wanted to disappear, she wanted to hide from herself.
Slowly she sat down holding on to the handle of her trolley. She didn't notice the rushing crowd passing beside her. She grabbed her chest trying to subside her aching pain and the numbness of her body. Her mind was not working, she was in the maze of her guilt and grief.
Why did it turn out like this?

She wished Taehyung was there, to just look at her and tell her that everything was going to be alright. She knew nothing was there to change, but still, she wanted him to just hold her close, to love her.
How much she was depending on that man she realized. How come this one person became her entire life she wonders.

She took some time to put herself back together as she remembered that Taehyung must be waiting for her as he came back the day before. When she thought she may never be able to stand up again from her broken state, a rushing panicking sound echoed in her ears. Some scared jitters ranged in her ear and instantly she looked in the direction the chaos is coming from.
There was a crowd forming slowly around something. Her instinct instantly got her up on her feet. She heard the panicked rumbles to know someone collapsed and her heart leaped in the sky as soon as she noticed streams of blood seeping out from under the legs of the standing crowd.

She found herself shouting, "please let me through, I am a doctor!"

She made her way through the crowd pushing others. Her heart skipped a beat as soon as she saw the lying body on the floor. Blood was flowing from in between her legs and she was unconscious. It was a woman in her late twenties. But what concerned her most was her distinct abdomen. She was terminally pregnant.
She knelt beside her and hurriedly checked her pulse. No. There was none.

"Somebody call an ambulance!" She shouted, "Now."

She quickly checked her respiration, her reflex. Terror was fueling in her veins as she found that non-existent.

"You!" She pointed at a strong young man, "get down here."

The man instantly came and sit beside her.

"You know CPR?"

"Yes!"

"Start CPR. Right now." Ashley quickly examined her belly.

"Oh God, oh God! Please no, please please please!" She muttered as she dialed her phone.

She kept it on the loudspeaker,
"please unnie, pick up, pick up, pick up!"

"Hello?" It seemed like the opposite person picked up after a decade.

"Saint Lawrence memorial hospital emergency, what's your need?"

"It's Dr. Ruth, neurosurgery. We have a situation here. Please respond." Ashley spat out as soon as the voice spoke.

"What's the status?"

"Female, pregnant, third trimester. Collapsed and bleeding out from the pelvic cavity. Unconscious, respiration, and pulse unrecognizable at the site, no reflex, no responses." Ashley double-checked as she explained in plain language.

A gasping sound was heard from the opposite side of the phone.

"Possible placental disruption." Ashley stated her assumption, "she had lost lots of blood."

"Take the baby out. Now." A stern voice was heard.

"Su-jin unnie!" Ashely's voice melted in relaxation and worried emotions. She wanted Lee Su Jin to pick up the call in the first place.

"Ash. Take the baby out now. Don't think about her. The mother is most likely dead already. If you wait, the baby will die too."

"Anyone, call the security. I need a sharp knife. Now." Ashley blurted knowing nobody has any sharp object with them as they just came out from the checking.
Ashley didn't stop to see her orders executed, she quickly searched her body.
"Keep doing that," she ordered the young man who was doing CPR fanatically, "Unnie?"

"Don't wait for the paramedics. They can't take out the baby. It's suffocating. Give me the status?" Lee Su jin asked impatiently through the phone.

"Nothing! None!" Ashley cried out as she checked the vitals again.

"Listen to me." The voice was calm and urgent.
"You can do it, Ash. Just hear me out, ok?"

"Unnie?"

"You can do it. You did OB rotation, right?"

"During intern. A long time ago." Ashley was trying to wipe her tears which was blurring her visions for some unknown reasons.

"You can still do it. Just concentrate on me what I say. Ok?"

"She is dead, unnie." Ashley was now sobbing uncontrollably.

"The child will die too if you don't take it out now. Hear my words."

Securities came hurrying,
"What the hell is happening here?"

"I need a knife, please. The sharpest one you have." Ashley wiped her tears with her bloody hand, "you must always find sharp objects from time to time during checking. I need one of them now."

"Nobody moves! Police are on the way." The head shouted to everyone.

"Please, she was pregnant! We have to save the baby!"

"The ambulance will take care of it." The head of the security was stubborn.

"Sir, please. It's Dr. Lee Su Jin from the emergency and trauma unit of Saint Lawrence memorial hospital. Please listen to her, she is a surgeon. Help her. The infant is dying."

The security was unbothered. They don't have time to play good Samaritans and invite troubles here.

"Please, please!" Ashley grabbed the security head's hands, "please I am begging you!"

He thought for a moment and nodded to one of his men who rushed towards the security booth.

Ashley looked around, "I'll perform a c section here. It will be fast and brutal. who can't tolerate, please go away. Please."

"We'll cover the area," An elderly woman spoke softly, "she deserved privacy."

Ashley looked at her and tears pooled her eyes.

"Someone get down here, I need help to take out the baby."

A young woman knelt beside her.

"Ash. Hold yourself," Dr. Lee Su Jin's soft voice echoed from the phone.
Somebody gave a thin, sharp knife in her trembling hand.

"You got it, Ash?"

"I got it," Ashley approached the body lying in front of her.

"Start from the below and left side of the umbilicus, you know the incisions. Don't cut too deep. We don't know what caused the bleeding."

If the woman was alive, she had to go thousands of times more carefully, had to sterilize the knife first and move slowly. But time was measured in seconds now.

Ashley buried her eyes in her sleeve and wiped the tears and focused on her works.

"Did you make the incision yet?" Lee Su Jin asked.

"Yes, I did."

"Underneath the muscle, you'll see a shiny sac, it's not the uterus."

"Its bladder," Ashley replied recognizing the organ.

"Push it aside, you'd have to be careful not to nick it if she was alive. But screw that. Insert your hand, feel for the baby."

"I can feel it!" Ashley replied.

"Be careful, don't force it, be gentle, but quick. Take it out."

"But unnie, it's already out!" Ashley said confusedly.

"Out? Where?"

"It's not in the uterus. It was inside her stomach!"

"Oh god, oh god!" Lee Su Jin blurted out, "How!!...... Ash, feel the uterus, is it ruptured?"

"Yes, it is." Ashley's breathing hitched as she felt the ruptured walls of the uterus.

Somehow the uterus ruptured forcing out the baby from inside, bleeding both internally and externally caused the woman's sudden death. But it will be confirmed by the autopsy later.

"Get it out, now!" her voice was sharp, cold.

"Pull the slit harder, I need to pull out the baby through it," Ashley instructed the young woman who was helping her.

As she followed her instruction to pull apart the cut, Ashley couldn't control her sobbing as she used her full strength to pull the baby out.

" Ash?"

Ashley didn't budge.

"Ash?"

Ashley was in her zone.

"Ash, talk to me."

"It's out."

"Is it breathing? Is it still alive?" Lee Su jin's eagerness was prominent.

Ashley checked the vitals with trembling hands. Fears were engulfing her as she didn't find any.
"Unnie..."

"Rub its back. give CPR. Whatever. Don't panic."

Ashley parted the lips of the newborn and blew air in its lungs, and she started to press the chest with her two fingers.
Blood and tears wetting her face even more so as time passed and her cry grew desperate.

" No response, unnie!" Ashley whimpered uncontrollably.

"Try again."

People around saw a young girl carrying the newborn in a pool of blood crying hysterically as she patted the back of the baby with trembling and desperate hands.

The ambulance came just in time when the baby finally let out a weak cry.
Ashley pressed the baby on her chest as if nothing can take it away again. She won't let them.

"Here, I've got a towel in my suitcase." someone handed Ashley a towel.
Ashley wrapped the tiny body in a towel and hugged it while her whole body trembled in relaxation and pain.

"We'll take it from here," One paramedic mumbled as she reached for the baby.

"It's a girl," Ashley whispered. as the paramedics got busy with the newborn and the dead woman, Ashley just sat there, all bloody and spent.

Someone knelt beside her and she felt a wet cloth pressed against her cheek.
She looked at her side. One young man soaked his handkerchief with a water bottle and smiled assuringly before he continued his hands, carefully wiping out the blood and tear stains off her face. She tiredly reached for the water bottle.

Immediately three bottles were offered to her. She bowed thankfully as someone removed the cap for her and handed her one bottle.
She took a gulp and put down the bottle. Her body trembled as another wave of emotions engulfed her and instantly several hands took her into a warm embrace.

"It's ok, it's ok girl, it's not your fault. You saved the child."
Someone wiped her eyes with so much affection that she sank in her arms.
Several hands joined the woman to take her in an embrace.

Mrs. Kim opened the door to see a wrecked and bloody Ashley on her doorstep.

"Oh my god! What happened?"

"Eomoni!"

She grabbed her hand and pulled her inside, "What happened?? Why there's blood? Do I need to call the hospital?"

She knelt beside Ashley as she broke down on the floor.

"It's not mine, eomoni." Ashley placed her hand on Mrs. Kim's hands who were palming Ashley's face now.

"Whos? Why?"

Ashley sighed as tears again pooled her eyes, "someone's who is no longer breathing."

"Are you ok?"

"No." Ashley shook her head.

Mrs. Kim pulled her in her arms and kissed her forehead, "Wanna talk about it?"

"Why it still hurts eomoni?"

"What hurts?"

"Why she did that? Why she had to do that to me?"

Mrs. Kim instantly caught that this was not only about the previous incident, it was more than that.

"What?"

"I despised myself so much for the last few days for catching up on my ego. What would happen if I went with her back then? Would my life be any different? Would I have a family by now? So much price for holding on some stupid ego!"

Mrs. Kim didn't respond rather made her grip a little tight.

"I constantly questioned myself, what if? What if? She did come back for me, didn't she? I was too adamant to acknowledge that. Now she is gone! We didn't have the time! We could have!"

"Ssshhhh...sssshhhh....." Mrs. Kim tried to soothe her.

"What's funny you know eomoni? I thought she cared for me, that she wanted me, that probably I was wrong! I wanted to believe it so much! Turned out, I meant nothing to her!" Ashley's voice cracked this time.

"What do you mean?"

" Hope is the best enemy you know? I made up so many stories in my head for the last few days, imagined so many scenarios where I don't make the mistake of refusing her, that probably she loved me, wanted me. I loathed myself for a stupid decision that I made."

" What happened?"

"Her first son...Mark, had leukemia. Needed a bone marrow transplant. She came back for me. She needed me to be the donor cause she didn't want to bear another child and I may have been a match as I was her child too!!!"

"Ash...."

"She had to take another child as a support for her elder son as I refused to go back. Why? Eomoni? Why she just couldn't? Why....!"

"Don't cry," Mrs. Kim soothed her affectionately, "It's all gone. You'll be fine, just fine."

"Today I declared the death of a mother. The baby will end up just like me. Alone."

"You ended up being the best person on your own."
Ashley looked up to see Taehyung standing there.

"Come here." Mrs. Kim motioned at Taehyung to come over them.
Taehyung came and knelt beside both of them.

"She'll be fine. Someone will take her in and she'll be showered in love you'll see." Mrs. Kim kissed her head before standing up and eyed Taehyung to stay by her side and left silently.

Taehyung engulfed her into a hug after Mrs. Kim left and showered her head with kisses.
" You need to change. Come with me."

" Tae...."

Taehyung silenced her with a kiss and nudged his nose along hers, "It's ok. It's gonna be ok. We will talk again after you have a shower."

[Sorry for this looong ass hiatus. Was buried in works and life and books 🙃🙃🙃
I just came back from editing the whole book and I feel bad for all of you guys who had to suffer from my crappy ass English and tons of spelling mistakes! I mean how could you still keep up with me with these many errors! You guys are 😘😘😘😘

But I miss all the comments you had left in the chapters, I cherish them so much! Why Wattpad had to remove the comments from the row after editing the lines? I hate it!

Flying for 40+ hours in five days breaks you! Still have to fly for another 15+ hours to two different countries in two days. My days are all upside down with jet lag. I don't know when I doze off when I wake up and why am I hungry all the time!😅😅😅😅.......
Anyways, on the bright side, had plenty of time in the air to go back and edit the chapters and writing new ones. I promise the next updates won't take this long!
Till then, stay fine, stay blessed!]