A baby. The physician's hand drops from knot in the shawl pressed close to her shoulders,, a dead-stone reaction to the transformed and refreshed sight behind her. A palm lifts to scrub gently at her closed eyes, swiftly followed by its companion to work in unison, employed as if to combat her falsely-observing eyes, as if there were some stubborn sleep seeds planted in the corners of her eyes preventing true ocular absorption of the scene proceeding before her.
“B-b-b-ut,” the physician splutters at first, that veneer of calm thrown by the circumstances at hand, at the presentation of the Jernoan before her, at the babe in her arms. Her gaze turns from the babe towards the expected bump below it and, when she finds no lingering sign of the cumbersome convexation of the other girl's middle, the physician blanches.
“Gloria! Did you...did you have her without me? I lost her?” the questions comes in a single heated rush of breathy words, care no longer given to the disruption of those around her.
She'd been about to voice some concern about that bundle, but the mouth that opened to speak snaps closed as other senses are employed. There comes that familiar and viscous scent, tinny and close, pervasive—blood. Any further healthy hue apparent in the woman's countenance bleeds away, replaced with worry. The thought of the baby with the dark eyes is suddenly less important, at least to her sleep-addled brain, than that stomach clenching odor.
“Blood. I smell blood.”