"There you go, blow out through your lips. Over now, this one's over," Kris said soothingly but Terry knew it was only words. It wasn't near over, and it wasn't supposed to be this way.
But weird things could happen in genetics. Dr. Viper weird, only without the Katalysts and serums and formulas and chemical interventions. Sometimes the crazy was as simple as a rare but documented birth defect. And sometimes it was crazy enough that the shocking could happen: Terry, a Tom, got pregnant.
He swallows as Kris wipes the sweat from his forehead. "Want some more ice chips?" she offers and he nods, lifting his head a little. He was on hands and knees on the bed, the position he'd tried for the last ten contractions or so.
His hand slides down the side of his swollen abdomen to steady it as he shifts into his hip. "She's not moving much," he states as he relaxes onto his side and plops his head onto the pillow.
Kris glances up, the ice chips in hand and she extends the cup to him. "She's probably getting as tired out as you are," she says lightly. The nurse grabs the mini-doppler, which still worked thank god and adds some gel to his fur before she moves the wand over his stomach. A high pitched and fast 'tup tup tup' rings out and Kris grins. "See? Nice heart tones. Baby's fine and so are you," she adds, and Terry forces a smile around his mouthful of ice, until he grunts and another grimace of pain contorts his muzzle. Kris glances at the clock as she sets the doppler aside and moves around to grasp his wrist as he gets back on hands and knees again. He felt bad for the she-kat- he'd been trying to break her hand during contractions now for hours. She was watching the clock. He didn't have to look. He knew how far apart the contractions were and that they were getting closer and more painful and what that meant.
It was crazy that he was laboring at all. The discreet OB who'd agreed to see him had scheduled a routine c-section on the coming Tuesday. He'd go into the private clinic at the appointed time, have a nice uneventful procedure, rest up a couple days and head home with their brand new kitten. That plan had been blown to splinters yesterday.
The sun was only mid morning high and he'd been having pains for hours and knew, despite the nurse's kind words, no relief was coming without a surgeon intervening and that was a whole new problem. He groans at the peak of the contraction and buries his head into the pillow. Of all the days to go into labor, it had to be today. He'd passed through 'transition' to the pushing stage of labor almost two hours ago, but he'd had no choice but to avoid pushing, which was hard. His body was fighting him, but pushing would only tire him out and possibly injure the kitten. The kitten would never fit through a male pelvis that was unintended for bearing kits. Every time he pushed the poor kit got smashed up against the bones of his pelvis and he expected she was just as tired and annoyed with the process as he was. The one saving grace was that her head was too big to fit through, or else she'd have been in danger really quick.
They knew it was a girl, and Terry wondered. What would she look like? What fur color would she have. Would she grow up a girly girl or a little tom boy? Would she like to get greasy helping her sire work on his car, or would she be a ballet princess in a pink tutu beside him in the studio? Would she learn to pilot? Was she going to like math, or reading? Science? Electronics? History? Would she be 'normal' enough to go to school in the first place? He worried about that the most though he'd been assured time and time again there was no reason to be concerned. He longed to hold her in his arms, not only because then the birth process would finally be over. He had to focus on something, something else, anything to keep from the urge to push that was rippling through him.
"Breathe through with me," he hears Kris say, but it was like her voice had turned watery, like his head was under the surface of Megakat Bay. He frowns, his thoughts thick. Something was different, though it seemed that he was coming out of whatever foggy land he was experiencing. "Terry, I still have dispatch trying to find your husband," Kris says, as the pain fades and Terry can think again. She was rubbing his low back and he feels her adjusting the sheets over his legs. From hands and knees he'd slumped onto his forearms and belly with his legs drawn up beneath him.
He nods, his eyes closed. "I'm sure they'll find him," he agrees, trying to sound confident. He kinda felt bad lying to her like this because the nurse earnestly wanted to find Terry's mate almost as much as he did. But even if every Enforcer in town kept their eyes out for Officer Gren Staten, that didn't help spot him in his guise as Rage, the SWAT Kat.
So close and yet so far. Surely the Enforcers had seen Rage by now. Somebody would see the SWAT Kats and it'd be so easy to say 'Hey, tell Rage his mate is in labor!' But that wasn't an option. As much as Terry longed for his mate to be by his side he knew the security of their secret identities trumped his comfort.
Kris was talking about something but he couldn't quite catch the words. The watery sound was thickening in his ears and Kris's voice faded away entirely until the entire bed shakes and someone is shouting "TERRY!" in his ear. His eyes pop open to the continued shaking, and a flurry of activity around the bed. Kris was shouting and holding something up to his muzzle, oxygen mask he guessed by the cold breeze he could feel. Movement at his left gathers his attention and he spots another nurse, a male one he hadn't seen before hanging an IV. Another nurse was on his right and taking his blood pressure. Kris looks down at Terry and scowls at him. "Don't you scare me like that! You back with us?"
"Did I go somewhere?" Terry whispers, ears flat.
"You passed out! Don't do that!"
Terry blinks at her. "...Oh. The baby?"
There's a pause as the female nurse grabs the doppler and all four kats exhale a collective sigh of relief at the steady tapping.
"Gotta get her out," Terry mutters.
"How long has she been laboring? Maybe another position-"
"No," Terry grumbles under his breath.
Kris shakes her head. "It's been long enough and he's not progressing. We need the OR."
"Don't have any open yet. She's gonna have to keep pushing."
"Done pushing," Terry growls.
"Sweetie we just need to get you moved right and that little kitten will slide right-"
"No more positions damn it!" Terry growls, angry. "I'm done with this laboring shit! Get me a damn doctor!"
"Terry," Kris is hovering over him and Terry realizes he's laying flat on his back and wonders when that happened. "Terry, we still don't have an OR and all the doctors are working as fast as they can but with all the traumas-" she pauses as he grabs her hand and starts to speak softly, forcing her to perk her ears.
"Please, Kris. I can't keep doing this, alright? Somebody's got to get her out or she's gonna -die-. Kris, I'm- ungh!" the tom's face contorts as another contraction flows across his abdomen. He feels like his body is floating and the hospital room drifts away, which is a nice change from the pain ripping at his belly. Shouts and some idiot screaming like a banshee brings him back and even more nurses are in the room this time. Surprisingly, he realizes he's moved to a squat and a couple of the nurses are practically in the bed with him, supporting him, as he bore down through the contraction. The annoying screaming was coming from his own throat. All his mind and body was focused on the splitting pain tearing him apart and when the contraction finally wound down arms caught him as he slumped and guided him back to lay in the bed. Gentle paws tuck the pillow under his head and someone yanks the hospital gown up over his belly.
"Did she make any progre- Kats alive, she has a dick!"
"We're not dealing with a trans female to male, he doesn't have the build to be birthing. This kitten isn't coming." He hears Kris say, her voice earnest and argumentative.
"Oh my god that is crazy. Phyllis you check her, you've got good instincts. I'll um, hold his weiner out of the way."
"No more, can't. Get her -out-" he whimpers, and growls when someone's fingers intrude on his vagina without so much as a warning.
"Oh she's definitely fully effaced. There's no room down here at all, damn. I can feel the kittens little head and there's bone all around it. You got no hips there, honey. Who's his OB?"
"Tomlinfur."
"Ooooh, private practice. Who knows where he's at, he's got privileges all over town. He's probably at some clinic or the other hospital."
"It doesn't matter who her OB is! She's crumping on us, we need to get somebody up here."
Spent, Terry can't even care about the misery and embarrassment that laying there spread eagle with entire genitourinary tract on display should have caused him. He hated being referred to as 'she' and even more humiliating these nurses insisted on touching the part of him that made this all a problem in the first place! But he was too tired to argue with a bunch of nurses who clearly weren't concerned about his male genetics. They were there to help him and he decided he couldn't be bothered to continue to correct their use of pronouns.
"Things aren't working out so well for me today huh?" Terry murmurs to Kris, who looks sympathetic.
She tries to sound soothing as she gets him covered up again. "You're doing so good though."
"Not that good. Piss poor timing," he quipped.
It probably couldn't have been worse. He'd been sitting at the computer in the garage printing out an invoice when the power cut out. Annoyed, he called out to Chance who was already heading down into the hangar to check the emergency power. He'd waited patiently with his hand gently patting the top of his swollen belly and listened for the computer and printer to click, and when they didn't he hauled his unwieldy ass out of the chair and headed for the ladder. "Chance?" he called.
"Everything is dead down here!" Chance called back, voice thick with disgust.
That didn't make sense, so he started down the ladder. "Computers, lights, everything," Chance complained, peering up at him. "Careful," Chance cautioned him as he gets to the bottom rung and he reached out to steady him. Chance had been pretty polite and kind to him now that he was pregnant, compared to their previous relationship. "I can't get the communicator to call up Callie even, see if she knows what's going on. Emergency power won't come up….. Terry this is some weird stuff."
He had frowned, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "...This is dead," he'd commented.
Chance blinked and pulled the land line off the wall. He put it against his ear, and glanced at him with wide eyes. "...No dial tone."
Then they heard shouting that got louder as it got closer. "Hey! Get your tails up here, planes are falling out of the sky!" Jake shouted down the hatch.
Moments later all three of them stood on the deck above the second garage bay and stared at the city. The skyline was dotted with smoke.
"How do you know that's planes?" He remembers asking, voice quiet. Seemed to not be the right time for speech. His hand rested on his low back, because his belly was heavy and it caused his back to ache.
"Saw them fall. Choppers, jets, a passenger plane…." Jake's voice trailed off as the seriousness of what they were watching came home to roost.
"The hell is going on? Power's out, nothing works, nothing'll turn on…" Chance muttered to himself.
"...EMP." Both toms looked at Jake whose eyes were wide and he seemed to be experiencing a shock. "City's been hit by an EMP."
"What, are you serious?!" Chance asked, alarmed. He went flying back down the hatch to the hangar again with Jake right on his tail. Terry contented himself with following at a more sedate speed, holding a hand to his aching back. He had paused at the entrance to the hangar where he could listen. The voice of the two pilots echoed up the hatch as they moved around and talked, and occasionally swore as they tested different items and then came the kicker. His ears perked as the Turbokat was started up. The engines were running, but to his ears something didn't sound quite right. His ears drooped when Jake called up the hatch and told him most of the secondary systems in the Turbokat were dead. Just because the Turbokat's engines came up, that didn't mean it could fly. They were essentially grounded.
An hour later all three toms were in the hangar putting together two-way radios. Jake had bought them years ago and sealed them in do it yourself Faraday Cages he'd researched on Google.
"Sounds like Roxy works," Jake commented when they heard a motorcycle engine. Soon enough Gren climbed down the ladder. He went to his mate first and kissed him on top of the head before sitting down with him to get filled in. He had wrapped his arm around his mate and rested his paw on his round belly.
They made a plan swiftly. Without the radar and other secondary systems on the TurboKat there was no flying it. There was always the Thunder Truck, but it would take hours to put it together without the robotic assembler. The jet packs were working, the cyclotrons all ran but all their electronic firing systems were out.
Jake, Gren, and Chance would suit up and go find out what'd happened and what could be done about it. They'd take the cyclotrons and hope.
Terry hadn't fit in a g-suit for months and couldn't fly WSO this far along. They decided he would keep putting two ways together and assembling antennas so they could actually communicate. The three SWAT Kats suited up and went out, and he kept working.
He had an antenna assembled before the pregnant tom felt the first pain. Curious, his ears pricked and he looked down at his abdomen. "...No." He says sternly, and points his finger at his abdomen. "Do not. Not today, little girl."
The pains returned again then again, and as Terry feared they would they strengthened in intensity and frequency. By ten pm he was sitting in the dark wrapped in a blanket with a candle for light in the waiting area, and trying the SWAT Kat frequency over and over again on one of the two ways. By 3 am he was trying to find his doctor's home address in the paper work in his file and in the phone book. Shortly after he gave up, and started to walk. The bar a mile down the road had a lot of customers, all scared Kats and all looking for answers. They'd gotten there by walking or biking or driving old vehicles that still ran due to the lack of electronics and he'd finally convinced one to drive him into town on their dirt bike. The clinic was closed, which was not unexpected. They dumped him at MKMC.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," he whispers, and Kay gives him a sympathetic look as she wipes the sweat from his forehead with a washcloth. "Shhh. Soon you're gonna have that little girl in your arms, alright? They've got a surgeon coming up, you just focus on that kitten you've worked so hard for."
Meanwhile hundreds of yards below Megakat City the SWAT Kats known as Rage and T-Bone were pressing with their shoulders against a wall of rock that was trying to slide as Razor digs frantically below them.
"Got it!" Razor shouts, and waves his hand. "Go, Rage, then you T-Bone," he urges and the three kats barely squeeze through the opening before the rock slides in again. All three hightail it down the corridor, Razor shaking his head.
"Dang Dark Kat. Does he have to get away every time?"
"I guess. I don't think he's gonna appreciate his EMP bomb very much now that we tore up his lab," T-Bone replies with a smirk. "Rage, you ok?" he asks, glancing at the other tom who seems distracted.
"I need to get home to Ter." Rage mutters. "I have a bad feeling."
Razor pats him on the shoulder. "Probably just the new father to be jitters, buddy. We're out of there and done now, so you can check on him."
"I don't like that the radios didn't work."
"Well I don't either but we're under a mountain of rock." Razor tries to console him. "We'll try again outside."
However Terry didn't answer any of their hails. Forty minutes later the threesome had finally gotten back to the hangar, and found the two-ways assembled along with the antennas, all lined up neatly on a counter.
"Ter?" Gren calls and raises an eyebrow. He hurries to the lockers and starts changing.
"He's probably upstairs," Chance says, and glances up as Gren changes lickety split and hurries up the ladder. A quick cursory glance of the waiting area and their living quarters, including the bedrooms upstairs, (though Terry and Gren stayed at his place now and he didn't expect to find him there) confirmed that the apartment was empty.
Chance yells from the kitchen. "Um….. Gren? Terry's not here."
"I can see he's not here!"
"No, I mean I know why he's not here! I found a note!"
"...What?" Gren rushed back downstairs and and snatched the note Chance held out of the tom's paw.
~Contractions started. Trying to get to clinic or will go to the hospital if nobody's there. Please come.~ It was dated 3 am. Gren glances at his watch, which had been spared the EMP blast since it was a winder. It was nearly 11 am.
"I have to go!" Gren tears out of the garage.
Terry was just coming down into awareness from another contraction when unkind hands start kneading his abdomen. "We're sure it just doesn't need to turn?" A crisp voice asked.
"I checked her, doctor. That kitten can't fit," a nurse answers. "She's too big."
"I've heard that one before. I'll check her myself," the doctor replied and Terry's eyes fly open.
"NO!" He shouts and the doctor steps back, startled. "Why do all you perverts want to keep sticking your fingers up there?"
The doctor, offended, ignores Terry's protest. "I need you to place your heels together and let your knees fall apart, dear," she says clinically. Kris makes a noise that just might be disgusted with the doctor's manner. Tears threatening in his eyes the Tom complies with the order. While she's probably not accustomed to finding male genitalia on her laboring patients the doctor stays professional despite insisting on digitally examining him. "Alright that does seem pretty tight," she says with a frown. "I don't want to do an emergency c-section in these conditions as long as the kitten's not in distress. We could try vacuum forceps."
Kris butts in. "No! No, he's been laboring for hours. You need to do this section, Dr. Belsen. The kitten could be distressed through the contractions and we can't know with the continuous monitoring down, and she's not coming out. There's no way she'll fit. He's done, alright? He's exhausted from pushing and he's going downhill."
The doctor, hesitant, looks over the papers that they'd been using to document on and finally nods. "Alright, let's get moving people. I don't like these blood pressures. I'll get anesthesia up here," she orders as if it were all her idea in the first place.
Twenty minutes later Terry was staring up at the ceiling. He'd been strapped down securely onto the bed and a technician is soaping his fur with disinfectant while instruments are laid out on a table by a nurse. Another was in the corner with an isolette for the baby and blankets and grumbling about all the equipment they didn't have. That was about the sum of it too, no monitors or electric lights. No electrocautery, not so much as a digital thermometer. The surgeon honest to god has a flashlight strapped onto her head with coban tape. She looked like a demented cave spelunker. She had an instrument and was rapping it along the black kat's low abdomen. "Feel that? Sharp or dull?" She asks repeatedly as she goes over his belly. "Your epidural didn't do much did it."
Terry shakes his head. "I'm not worried about feeling you cut if that's it. I don't care if it hurts."
"Well don't worry, there's just enough here. I'll only cut where you've actually got some pain control and even if you feel something I'll have that kitten out in two blinks," she says reassuringly.
He hears a rattle as a chair is dragged across the floor and Kris sits down next to him and strikes his forearm gently with her paw. "Almost through huh? Told you you could do it."
He gives her a bright cheerful smile. "Thanks for putting up with me through this. I needed the encouragement."
"You did good. Model patient."
"Good thing toms don't have to go through this normally. The race would go extinct."
Kris snickers. "I know."
"Whole new respect for she-Kats now," he agrees and then his eyes close as he can feel his abdomen tightening again. "Not another one, come on, somebody up there hates me," he whines and he hears a giggle from one of the staff. The urge to bear down causes him to fight against the restraints to curl his body around his abdomen and Kris is right there rubbing his shoulder. "You've done splendidly through this whole labor. Breathe with me, and remember this is the last one."
He was coming back slowly as the pain faded when he heard a "you're going to feel some pressure," which was true but he didn't feel the sharpness of the scalpel. He relaxes a little, ears perked and starting to feel a little excitement. A couple moments later there's a pattering noise that reminded him of rain on a window. His ears go flat when the attendant at the surgeon's side gasps. "That's….. That's a lot of blood."
"I need suction!" The surgeon orders, and Terry winces when something seems to stretch in his belly.
"We don't HAVE suction!"
"Oh my god! I need to widen this incision. Open up that saline drip!"
Kris jumps to her feet and is grabbing supplies out of a drawer. "Terry you're gonna be fine. We're going to take care of you."
But for the first time Terry thought she looked scared. Then he felt the knife.
Getting to the clinic where Ter had been getting the OB care was a nightmare. Dead vehicles littered the streets, abandoned where they sat by their owners. With the traffic lights out the few cars that were moving had fouled the roads further with jams and fender benders. The ones who were driving seemed to ignore the concept of a four way stop. The motorcycle was able to maneuver around these obstructions. He did finally reach the clinic, and to his relief the doors were open and the greeter was at her desk. She starts to smile at him then blinks at his obvious agitation. "Mr. Staten what-"
"My mate Terry, is he here?" Gren asks.
"Oh... no. No he's not um… Did he go into labor? Has he left to get here? Maybe you missed him on the road," she suggests.
Gren's ears slump. "His note said he left at three am! He would be here even if he walked, by now! I have got to find him."
"Dr. Tomlinfur's assistant was here twenty minutes ago," she breaks in, "He didn't say anything about Terry being admitted. But Dr. Tomlinfur is working at Megakat General, maybe you should try Megakat Memorial?"
The words are barely out of her mouth before he's back down the steps to the street and firing up Roxy again.
Traffic got worse and worse the closer he got towards Megakat Memorial Medical Center, with kats walking the streets and the roads clogged with vehicles that stopped working mid-commute. Already he spotted several episodes of looting. He keeps going. He has to leave Roxy leaned up against the wall of the hospital and fight his way into the ER, which is crowded by katizen's families. The receptionist, when he finally reached her, was not having a good day in the least. She was sighing and making irritated noises as she flips through the notebook in front of her. "No I don't see that name on the medical wards... What's he here for?"
"Check the OB floor please," The receptionist rolls her eyes and starts flipping idly through the papers. "You could've said that earlier. Okay looks like she's admitted. Now to get access to the OB floor we require two forms of ID and your signature on a privacy agreement, also an agreement that-"
"I don't have time for that."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Just point me the right way."
"You can't go up there without signing these papers and you need a visitor badge-"
Infuriated, he finally pulled out his Enforcer badge and shouted "MY MATE IS HAVING A KITTEN DAMMIT now let me get up there!"
When the irritable Enforcer was led away by a volunteer the receptionist kat sniffs deprecatingly. "As if kittens aren't born every day."
On the OB floor he hears Terry screaming from inside the elevator, and soon as the doors open he bursts through them and breaks into a run. He follows the fading scream to a door and shoves it open, fear in his throat. The scene he bursts in on is something out of a chaotic nightmare. Blood is all over the floor. Ter is flat on his back and whimpering as a she-kat with a scalpel cuts into his abdomen. He looks barely conscious, a rebreather mask on his face and two huge IVs of fluids pouring into both arms. The she-kat operating and her assistant are pulling Ter's abdomen open and spreading the incision with retractors. A she-kat in hospital scrubs is sitting close to Ter, leaning in and speaking to him earnestly as she wipes his face with a cool cloth. Two other staff are standing by, one with the equipment for the expected baby and the other is adding medications to the IVs and watching the surgeon, ready to jump in to help if called on.
Gren rushes to his mate and wraps an arm over his chest as he leans over him. "It's okay Ter, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I wasn't here," he murmurs into his fur.
Terry whimpers and seems to collect himself before he opens one eye and says "Hey. Get… lost in traffic?" teasingly. Then his eyes roll back and he groans in torment.
"Got her!" The various staff in the room break into spontaneous cheering and hand clapping as a kitten starts to scream and when Gren looks over the surgeon is just handing his new daughter into the arms of the waiting nurse with a towel. She swiftly moves with her precious cargo towards the isolette and starts rubbing the kitten down and sucking out her little nose with a bulb syringe.
"She okay?" Terry murmurs and the nurse leans into him.
"She's beautiful. You did good, Terry," she says encouragingly.
Gren is torn between going to see the baby and staying with his mate. He keeps one eye on the infant while he purrs at Terry soothingly while stroking his chest. "I'm so proud of you Ter," he says and kisses his forehead.
The surgeon says a foul word and the nurse glances at her, and Gren sees her face go pale. She stands and wraps a paw around the IV, squeezing it to rush fluid in faster.
"Ter?" Gren asks, and strokes Terry's cheek with his fingers.
Terry gives him a faint smile. "I'm fine. The kitten isn't crying anymore? Gren…" Terry is trying to lift his head to see then it falls back with a groan.
The nurse glances down at him. "The kitten is fine, she's just happy to be out of there. You focus on staying awake."
As if on cue: "Are you the daddy?" a voice says at Gren's elbow and the nurse who'd taken the kitten has appeared at his elbow with a bundle wrapped in a pink blanket. "Sit down," she tells him, indicating the chair at the head of Terry's bed and she lays the pink wrapped, mewling bundle into his arms. The kitten yawns and tucks its fist into its mouth. She was a light grey color with a few random strips of black on her fur, sort of a negative of Gren's coloring but less striped.
"She's beautiful Ter - Ter?" Gren glances up and is alarmed by the blank look on Terry's face. "Ter, are you alright?" Gren uses his knuckles to rub hard at his sternum.
Terry flinches. "Ow. We made a kitten. Crazy," He murmurs as his eyes close.
The nurse who'd been trying to force in fluids leans in and starts wrapping a B/P cuff around Terry's arm and inflating it. "Pressure's dropping, guys!"
"What is it?"
"82 over nothing."
"She's bleeding!" the surgeon barks. "Get me more sponges!"
Terry whines in pain as the surgeon stuffs her hand elbow deep into his abdomen and presses down on the top of his abdomen with the other. "Shit, shit shit. This is why I wanted an OR, dammit, I can't fix this here" she says, in a panic.
"What's happening?" Gren asks urgently.
"Maybe we should have the husband go outside-"
"NO," Gren argues, "I'm staying right here. Ter, open your eyes" he says and leans over his mate. Terry cracks his eyes open and Gren touches his cheek. "There ya go boy, stay awake for me," he encourages him and nuzzles his forehead. The kitten squeaks and Gren awkwardly shifts his hold on her so that Terry can see her face. "She's so beautiful, Ter, come on. What are we gonna name her?" he asks for probably the millionth time and Terry smirks.
"WD-40?" he suggests. He'd been coming up with off the wall names for the past nine months.
"I sent someone for blood forever ago! Where are they?!"
"Bank's trying to type and screen, all the type O is gone. It takes longer without the machines."
"Can I donate?" Gren asks. "I'm type O."
The surgeon eyes him. "Someone go back down and drag a phlebotomist up here with a setup for person to person transfer."
Thirty minutes later Gren is relaxing in the chair, with the baby squeaking at him in his arm. Tubing extends from Gren's other arm to Terry's. Terry's eyes are closed but he's breathing even and slow. The nurses had assured Gren that his mate's blood pressure was stable and he was safe. "Finished," the surgeon announces as she starts to pull her blood spattered surgical gear off. "He's going to hurt but he's going to be fine," she says to Gren with a smile, who nods.
The kitten makes a little squeak and her rosebud lips purse as she roots around in Gren's arms.
"Sounds like that little sweetheart is hungry," the nurse who had been there with Terry from the beginning, he thought she was Kris or something like that, leans over Gren with a bottle that was ludicrously small once placed in Gren's paw. "Let's just prop her up here," she tucks the babe against Gren's crossed leg, "and you can feed her one handed and not bother the transfusion."
Tiny eyes watch Gren's face as the kitten has her first meal, and Gren smiles then glances at Terry. He hears a "click" and looks up to see the nurse lowering a camera and her eyes are suspiciously moist.
They hung that picture on the wall for years. It was beautiful and they couldn't of gotten it better were it staged.
The light from the window in the background kind of fuzzed out the scene, almost putting a halo around the trio. Gren feeding the baby with one hand, her little face attentive on her sire with the bottle. His paw on Terry's wrist with the tubing coiled between their arms, and the tender look he was giving the sleeping black tom. It was beautiful. It wasn't supposed to happen that way, but it did. And that was ok.