Hush, little baby

This was possibly the most important meeting of his life, and his cell phone was going off.

He sat still, frozen and motionless for quite some time, wondering whether or not he should answer the phone. The doctor at the other end of the table watched him, her dark blue eyes unreadable from his seat. Johnny Farber's eyes flickered to the phone, and he saw Martha's name on the screen. After the last time Martha had called him during a meeting, she never had again, and Johnny was dead certain this was important. Slowly, he reached for the phone watching the doctor as he did so.
"Martha?"
"Jay....I-I'm outside Tegan's school, t-there's been a shooting, I can't f-find her."
"Martha, honey, slow down."
"Someone shot up Tegan's school, and I-I can't find her."

Johnny stood up, looking at the woman across from him.
"Dr. Wilson, I have got to go."
"Dr. Farber, you'll-"
Johnny ignored her, walking briskly out of the most important meeting of his life, almost running down the hallway, trying to calm his frantic wife as he did so.
"Where's Damon, honey?"
"W-with me....Jay-jay..." Her voice was so heartbroken, so grief-stricken that it made Johnny want to cry himself.
"Alright, gorgeous, here's what I want you to do- take Damon, and walk down to the park, alright? Stay within sight of the police, and I'll go get Tegan."
"What if...."
"Martha." She sniffled on the other end of the phone, but Johnny knew that she was listening. "I'm going to find her, okay?"
"Alright. I love you."
"I love you too, gorgeous."

Closing his phone, Johnny pulled up a block out of the school, glad he was still in his lab coat. Slowly he walked toward the line of Police, trying to calm his features. They checked his credentials, and waved him on. He began to walk through the grounds, trying to ignore the three sheet-draped figures on the front lawn. Two were adults, but one was the size of his little tea cup. He pushed on, not bothering to hide the tears as he stopped to treat crying little children, unable to walk by them and not help. It was agonizingly slow work, and Johnny knew that the more time he spent helping the other children, the less likely he was to find his own. Even so, he wouldn't just walk by a little bleeding child. He couldn't.

Two hours later, Johnny had gone through the entire school, with no sign of his daughter anywhere. Her entire class was accounted for. Her teacher was dead. Tears were now flowing down Johnny's face, soft sobs wracking his frame, as he leaned against a wall. The children were evacuated, and the investigators were moving in. The time for finding Tegan was over, and Johnny was left with the brutal reality that the cloth-covered child had been his own. The awful, horrifying numbness that was left slowly ate at Johnny, a long, slow, painful death that he would never recover from.

"Daddy?" The soft voice was taunting, and Johnny shuddered, not knowing how he would be able to return to Martha and their son, admitting that he had been unable to find his daughter. The little gap-toothed six year old was gone. "Daddy, please don't cry. It's too sad." Slowly Johnny turned, and when he saw the little girl with her mother's soft hair, and his eyes, he dropped to his knees, pulling her close. He didn't stop crying. He couldn't. Instead, he cried into the child's hair, kissing the top of her head, holding her close in his gratitude.
"Oh, tea cup....Daddy thought he'd lost you."

The little girl shook her head.
"I was hiding in the bathroom. I didn't know it was safe, until I heard you." Johnny smiled, slowly wiping his own tears, standing up, and lifting the little girl into his arms.
"Let's go home, Tegan." He kissed the top of her head once more, just happy that he'd found her, and that she was safe in his arms.