Tony’s POV

I woke up to moans of pain and crying which was getting louder and louder. Shit. It was Noortje. I was awake quicker than I ever had been before in my life and pushed myself up on my elbow. I couldn’t see anything but darkness.
“Noortje? Is everything ok?” I panicked.
“No,” She cried in between sobs, “it’s so painful.”
“Ok, umm, let me get some light in here.” I opened the curtain rapidly and took out my phone for extra light.
I saw that Noortje was completely sweaty and had a puffy face that was wet from all the tears. However, that wasn’t what scared me the most. The seats were stained with deep red blood. There was something terribly wrong.
“I’m going to call an ambulance, ok?” I stuttered as I dialed 999 and saw it was already 1 am. I quickly got out of the bunk so I would be able to move around if needed.

After a few dial tones the phone was already answered, “Emergency, which service do you require?”
“I need an ambulance.”
I was connected to someone else, “Ambulance, how may I help you?”
“Umm… My, umm, friend has been complaining about terrible stomach cramps and pain and there’s blood everywhere.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“We were playing a concert and-”
Noortje let out a scream.
“And, she fell over onto her stomach. This was about 4 to 5 hours ago.”
“Ok, are they male or female?”
“Female.” I answered quickly, using my hand to move some hair that was stuck on Noortje’s forehead.
“Is it period cramps?”
Noortje screamed again and started crying even louder.
“No, it definitely doesn’t seem like that.”
“Is she pregnant?”
“Not that I know.”
“Can you ask her.”
“I’ll try.”
I tried to get Noortje’s attention, “Noortje, they want to know if you’re pregnant.”
“I don’t know,” She managed to say through gritted teeth and pants.
“She doesn’t know,” I told the operator.
“Ok, can you tell me the address?”
“Umm, we’re in a bus at the venue, the forum in London. The bus is blue.”
“Ok, I sent an ambulance, can you have someone open the door and look out for an ambulance?”
“I’m alone in here.”
“Ok, can you do it for me then? Make sure you check on your friend as well.”
“Ok.”

I did as I was told and kept the operator on the phone as they wanted me to keep informing what was going on and whether the ambulance was coming or not. It was quite difficult moving for Noortje to outside, back and forth, the entire time, but I didn’t dare move Noortje myself as I was afraid to only make it worse. The only thing I could do for her was take the duvet off of her.

In a matter of minutes I heard sirens in the distance. The flashing lights made it onto the parking lot and eventually no longer moved around. I saw a paramedic jump out of the ambulance and look at me. I waved them over, signalling that I was indeed the person who called. They ran over to me and we went inside the bus, where there was another high pitched wail. People were running all around me and I didn’t know what was going on anymore. Before I knew it I saw Noortje being carried out on a stretcher with her pajamas full of blood, crying and yelling in pain.

I waited for all the paramedics to get out of the bus before I got out. Once I stepped of the asphalt I saw that the party had now come to see what was going on here. This was surely entertaining, and probably sobered up all the drunk people.
“Tony! What happened!” Vic came running over to me.
I watched as Noortje was placed into the back of the ambulance and she screamed even louder and tried to get away. It sounded like she screamed my name, and I wanted to sprint over to her, but I knew I would just be sent away, making it even harder.
“I don’t know. She just-- I don’t know!” My voice started of as a stutter, but turned into a scream.

Vic started asking me more questions, but I tuned him out and looked at the paramedics who were desperately trying to calm down Noortje. The love of my life could possibly be dying right now, and I wasn’t there with her. I would never forgive myself.

A sense of hope came over me as one of the paramedics looked around and made eye contact me before he got out of the ambulance. He ran over to me.
“Are you Tony?” He said with a british accent.
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“You’re going to have to come with us. She’s not calming down and keeps asking for you.”
I nodded again and ran after him, not having the time to tell anybody what was going on.

As soon as I stepped into the ambulance, I reached for Noortje’s hand and held on to it. She looked over to me and instantly started to calm down. I whispered to her to let the paramedics do what they had to do, and the door was slammed shut. Noortje squeezed my hand as another stabbing pain rushed over her. Why did it have to be her? The paramedics quickly placed a mask onto Noortje’s mouth, making it easier for her to breathe. For the entire ride to the hospital my hand was being crushed, and loud muffled screams filled the silence.

----

They wouldn’t allow me to stay with Noortje and now I was stuck, scared to death, in the waiting room. I was resting my elbows on my knees, and kept tapping my foot, hoping to hear anything about her. Vic, Mike, and Jaime said they would be here soon, but in the meantime I was left with my own mind and thoughts.

Was Noortje the one? I mean, I could really see myself spending the rest of my life with he, but do I see myself marrying her? What if she’s dead now, and I’ll never be able to get over even a tiny bit? We haven’t been together for long, but I don’t see myself loving anybody else. I will only ever love her, maybe our children will be an exception, though. God, was I really thinking about having children with her already? Yes, yes I was. She was going to be the one I wake up to everyday and she was the one who was going to have my children. I made my decision, she will be my forever… if she makes it out of this.

I felt someone softly slap my face, and saying my name sternly. I looked up and saw it was Jaime, trying to get my attention. Vic was already sitting to the left of me and Mike was at the reception, talking to somebody behind the counter.
“How are you?” He questioned cautiously.
I sighed and rubbed my face, “I’m fine.”
“We brought you some clothes, if you want to change. You got some blood on your pants.”
I looked down and saw that my right leg was indeed covered in blood. How hadn’t I realised this before? It would be nice to put on some fresh clothes, but I couldn’t risk missing any news about Noortje. I needed to know she was ok.
“I’m fine.” I mumbled again and went back to tapping my foot.
“Tony…” He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m fine.”

Jaime sat down opposite of me and looked at Mike with hopeful eyes, but he just shook his head. There was nothing known about her yet. Mike went to talk to me, but Jaime stopped him before he opened his mouth. Thank god for that. I would burst out in tears if I opened my mouth, That certainly wouldn’t look good. I needed to be strong, be strong for Noortje.

We sat in the same seats for over an hour, watching people being called up and walking away. I was slowly starting to lose hope. There was no way this was going to end well. I was shaken awake by a nurse calling out Noortje’s name and asking for friends and family. We all stood up as fast as we could and scrambled over to her. People gave me weird looks. A look between sympathy and wtf. It probably wasn’t just my tattoos this time, maybe the bloody pyjama pants also played a role.

“So I want to tell you that Noortje is doing fine.” The nurse smiled.
I let out a sigh of relief, urging her to continue.
“So what happened was -- there’s no easy way to say this -- she had a miscarriage.”
She continued on talking, but I tuned everything out. Noortje was pregnant? She was actually carrying a child that we had created… or she used to carry a child. Even though I knew nothing about her being pregnant, I still felt my heart break a little. A child, wait, no, my child, died before it was even born. I couldn’t even think of how Noortje was feeling now, probably 10 times worse than I was. How long was she pregnant for? How do I even know it was mine? I mean, we did break up for a few weeks, maybe it was someone else's. No. She wouldn’t do that. Right? That wasn’t what Noortje was like. I could just feel that this child was mine.

“Is the father here?” The Nurse ended her long dialogue.
“Umm… I don’t think-” Vic started.
I raised my hand still completely shocked, “Yeah, I’m here.”

----
Vic’s POV

I watched as Tony followed the nurse. What did he mean? Was he actually the father? Did he fucking-- No he couldn’t have. He couldn’t have fucking got her pregnant. They weren’t even together… unless they fucked at a hotel once… At the hotel after the Award show, there was a pretty loud couple that kept me up for quite some time… No, they couldn’t have.

“What the fuck just happened?” Jaime stammered.
“Tony got Noortje pregnant,” I opined.
Mike demurred, “Maybe he just said he was the father so he could see Noortje.”
“I don’t know… He seemed pretty shaken up and pale.”
“Well, that’s most likely because he literally was the one who found Noortje covered in blood and in pain.” Jaime argued.
“They probably had meaningless sex.” I didn’t change my opinion.
“Vic! You know they would do that!” Mike scolded.
“They were pretty close lately.”

The next couple of minutes were spent with me being stubborn and Mike and Jaime trying to change my mind. They were arguing that he probably lied about being the father, and if he actually was, that this was all a mistake. Damn right it was a mistake, fucking hurting my best friend like that. He was literally the reason why she was in the hospital right now.

The same nurse from before came up to us and told us we were allowed to join Tony and Noortje. She walked us up to the room, but said she had to go attend some other business, and left us alone. A doctor walked out of the room and smiled at us, I kindly smiled back, but couldn’t get rid of the furiousness I was feeling. I peeked inside and saw Tony standing next to the bed, leaning over and talking to Noortje. Tony kissed Noortje, obviously heartbroken.

Wait. I just witnessed Tony and Noortje kiss. What the actual fuck was going on. I stopped Mike and Jaime from walking in and listened in on Tony and Noortje.
Tony whispered, “I love you so so much, don’t ever scare me like that again.”
He went in for another kiss. They pulled apart and Noortje placed her hand on his cheek, looking into his eyes and rubbing her thumb along his cheekbone.
“I’m not planning on it.” She promised.
Tony grinned, causing Noortje to smile back. He moved down to meet her lips again, but this time is wasn’t just a few seconds like before. The kiss got deeper and more heated. This was getting too much for me, I couldn’t observe this anymore.

I knocked on the door and cleared my throat. The pulled apart and looked at me like deer caught in the headlights. Tony slowly sat down on the chair behind him and grabbed Noortje’s hand. Jaime, Mike, and I sat down on the remaining chairs, against the wall. There was a long silence, why was this so awkward? Oh, wait, I know. Cause my two best friends were just fucking making out!

“So you weren’t lying, I’m guessing,” Mike pointed out.
Tony nodded and brought Noortje’s hand up to his mouth, placing a gentle peck on it. He interlaced their fingers and placed them back on the bed.
“So how long has this been going on?” I interrogated, not wanting any bullshit.
“Nearly 2 months… In 4 days to be exact.” Tony murmured.
“That long already?” Noortje smiled.
“Well, only if you don’t take the few weeks we broke up into account. If you do it would be 6 weeks in total, about two weeks since we got back together.”
There was another long silence. Why didn’t they tell us? Why didn’t we know? But most importantly, why didn’t we notice?
I decided to break the silence once again, “How long were you pregnant for?”
Mike kicked my leg. Ok, maybe I asked that a bit too harsh, but I needed answers.
“8 weeks,” Noortje said barely audible.
Was this relationship based on sex? They have literally been together as long as Noortje had been pregnant.
“Did you know?”
“What’s with all the questions!” Mike reprimanded.
“It’s ok, I know he’s just curious,” She assured, “But no, I didn’t know. I should have though. It was actually very obvious. I was craving foods I normally hate, and got sick even thinking about other foods. Then there was the constant throwing up, the sensitive breasts, jeans no longer being comfortable, fainting during the running, not having had my period, and the….” She mumbled something which I couldn’t make out and she looked at Mike. He chuckled and she stuck her tongue out at him.
Her mood suddenly changed, “But it’s all my fault. I--”
“No, it’s not.” Tony interrupted.
“Yes it is! I told you to keep going, even though you said you didn’t have a condom.”
Tony was about to say something back, but I managed to interject, “Tony. We need to talk.”
He looked at Noortje and then at me before nodding. He stood up and gave Noortje a kiss on the forehead and walked with me into the corridor.

“What the fuck.” Was the only thing I managed to say.
“What?” Tony said both confused and offended.
“What the fuck. You and Noortje. Why didn’t you tell us.”
Tony sighed, “We first wanted to see how it went, before getting you involved. What if everything went wrong? That wouldn’t create any problems in our friendship whatsoever. It almost already happened, and I’m not going to let it happen again. I was actually going to talk to her about telling you guys before all this happened.”
“Are you with her just for the sex?”
“I’m sorry. What?” He took offense.
“You heard me. Are you with her just for the sex?”
“Are you being serious right now! Do you actually think I would do that!”
“Well apparently you already did it when you just got together, or like a day after.”
“That’s a minor thing, Vic!”
“Is it though?”
“Ok, yes. It was soon, but do I think it was a mistake? No I don’t. I fucking love her, ok? She actually makes me happy, everything she does just makes me fall in love with her a little more every time. This is the first time it actually feels right, I can actually imagine being with her for the rest of my life. And yes, we’ve been going pretty fast, but I just know it’s right. I really do love her.”
I was taken aback by Tony’s little speech. Did he really feel about her this way? Oh god, I’m such an asshole. Of course I had to immediately assume the worst and be overprotective of Noortje. I was about to apologize, when the doctor came up.

“Mr. Perry? We’re going to have to keep Noortje here for another day. Her levels seem too uncertain for her to be released yet.” He informed.
“Umm, ok. We were supposed to catch a plane tomorrow…” Tony said.
“It’s ok Tone, you stay here with her. Jaime, Mike and I will go home and sort out the house for you.”
Tony looked at me and smiled, “Ok, I’ll guess that will work.”
It was like Tony knew I was sorry, and was accepting my apology.

We walked back into the room and saw Mike, and Jaime looking at us.
“Well, isn’t it the great Tony.” Mike announced.
They all started laughing and I looked at Tony, but he simply shrugged, also confused about was going on.
“What did you tell them?” Tony carefully approached.
“Oh she told us, all right,” Jaime giggled.
“What do you know.” I urged.
“Oh, just how that one time we went to get food, but they stayed in the bus, and when we came back there was a lot of moaning and swearing, and we decided to wait a bit, but it turned out they were playing video games. Well, if we would have entered like a minute earlier, we would have walked in on something not so pleasant to the eyes. Oh and also at the hotel after the awards, it was totally them being the loud couple.” Mike explained matter of factly.
Tony stared at Noortje with wide eyes. So part of my theory was right. There were the loud hotel sex having couple.
“I didn’t tell them what we did though! Just that we did it!” Noortje defended.
“Ok, so you didn’t tell them that we forgot to use a condom at the hotel... “ Tony realised what he said, “And I was not supposed to say that outloud.”
“You did what!” I shrieked.
“Hey, guys, calm down! At least I’m not pregnant.” Noortje joked.
We all looked at her, confused with what she just said.
“Too soon? Ok, too soon.” She giggled.

How was she so cheerful? Wasn’t she going to be upset about this. There’s many couple that never recover from such an incident, but she’s already making jokes about it? How was she over it so fast?

Noortje sighed, “I know I just had a miscarriage, but it happens. There’s nothing I can do about it. I can be sad and mope around the entire time, but how will that help? I’d rather be happy and continue with my life.”

That was really something Noortje would say. She always managed to find the positive in everything, no matter how bad the situation actually was. Her life had been so messed up, and yet she could do it, while people who have normal lives would complain about every little thing. This was one of the many things I appreciated about her, and I’m sure Tony appreciated it a lot more. He really got himself a good one, didn’t he.

We sat around in the hospital room for a bit longer, just talking to each other, until Noortje yawned and stated she was tired. She curled up against Tony’s arm and he beamed down at her. They really loved each other, and it was a really bad mistake to get mad at Tony. I had to make it right, and I knew exactly how to do it. It might not seem like much, but I’ll get Mike and Jaime to help me move Noortje’s stuff into Tony’s room. It will make sure there’s no confusion for them, and that they will just be able to go to bed if they wanted to.

I checked my phone and saw it was already 6am. We had to go to the airport in about an hour if we wanted to be able to catch the flight of 11am, we need a lot of time for checking in everything, especially when we go home.
“It’s time we leave.” I sighed.
We all said our goodbyes to Tony and Noortje and promised to welcome them home tomorrow evening. I told Tony to take good care of Noortje, and to not fuck it up. Tony laughed and told me there was nothing to worry about.

Back at the bus I checked my phone to see if there was anything Tony and Noortje still desperately needed before we left. All I found was a notification from twitter, telling me that Noortje had posted something:

@NoortjeOtt: Here’s a tip: Don’t fall on a riser. You will wake up in the middle of the night having to go to the hospital.

Notes

So.... I'm sorry, but it had to happen.

What will happen to Tony and Noortje? Did Vic really overreact? And how will the relationship go, now Mike, Vic, and Jaime know?

I also know this isn't how miscarriages go, so sorry if I offended anyone.

- DSN