Cal's POV - 15 years ago

Elliot wasn't like the other women I've known. She was different. She was perfect.

She was dead.

This was like a nightmare. Fuck, it was a nightmare, and there was no waking up from this one.

I failed her. This was my fault. My own god-damn fault.

I told her that I'd only get her killed. I told her that she'd suffer because of me.
She had told me that she didn't care.

Elliot was a wildfire that had been struck down to less then a snuffed-out candle.
I felt myself shaking as I looked at her bloodied body, the blank stare of her eyes. The wound in her chest had stopped bleeding now, but the light from the streetlamp made it shine bright like some sort of wicked reminder that what I was seeing was real. That I was never waking up from this.

I got angry. She had been assassinated. We hadn't even been doing anything. We were just walking. That's it –shit- what's dangerous about that? We weren't even in a bad area, this place was pretty quiet.

Out of nowhere, a bullet pierced her heart, and she crumpled to the ground. Like a flower being crushed underfoot by a heavy footstep.
The Vigil. They didn't want another like me to clean up after.
"I'm sorry," I choked out, curling my hands into fists, and swallowed a chunk of ice that had formed in my throat. I slid my eyes down to her swollen stomach and hesitated before extending my hand to touch her. "I warned you Elliot," I choked, "Any kid of mine would cause more grief and pain then it's worth." I whispered bitterly, "I'll make those bastards regret this. I promise..."
The only thing that stopped me from going after her killer was a soft movement under my hand.
I looked at her stomach in a mix of agony and shock. He, the kid, was still alive inside her somehow. I remembered something I'd read once, a Niko assigned reading of course, but it was still something I knew.

When a pregnant woman dies, her baby does not die instantly.

I looked back up at her face, and knew what she would have wanted me to do, but I couldn't bare to even think about it.

Instead, they suffocate. The fetus feels pain like anyone else would.

I looked back down at her stomach and felt my own stomach lurch. I had to get him out, I couldn't just let the last I had left of her suffocate and die, when I could do something. How much longer did he have before he was gone too? I didn't want to risk it, but when I reached for my knife, I froze. I couldn't just hack her open.

All of a sudden, in the back of my head, I remembered a conversation we had not even a day ago.

"Would you still take care of the baby if I died during childbirth?" she had suddenly asked. I didn't really think much of it. She was having worse mood swings then me, and she was a healer. She knew more ways people die then she knew of how to save them.
"If that is what you wish," I'd replied sarcastically. Movie quotes always seemed to make her laugh, probably because I rarely ever really sat to watch a movie that didn't have some good gore or porn in it.

"Cal, I'm serious. If it killed me, which it could, would you hate him?" she asked. Him. She'd found out the gender pretty early, and after that, we never called him 'it'. 'It' would just make me further paranoid. Auphe were 'its.' My kid wasn't going to be a god-damn 'it'.

We decided that we were calling him Jack not too long ago. Jackson Niko, there was no better name then that, I thought. It had taken me a long tome to convince myself that he wasn't going to be like them. He was going to be like his mother, and be nothing like me.
Her question did make me think though. Would I? It was being put to the test now, wasn't it? I had told her "No. He would be all I had left of you. But that wont happen. You won't die in childbirth."

Almost funny how I was right.

My knuckles were white, from gripping my knife so tightly. I couldn't wait anymore. Though every move I made was pushing me over the edge, I cut into her carefully, disgusted that I was forced to further mutilate her body. She deserved better. She'd always deserved better, but she'd stuck with me.

I moved my knife to cut deeper. I wasn't getting too far. I didn't want to be doing this but what else could I do? She was the one who did surgeries; I was the one who was normally either outside the room or the one being saved.

At last, after what seemed to be an eternity, I had gone deep enough. I found him and started gently pulling him out of her, hoping- fuck it- at this point, I was praying that he was responsive. Something, anything that told me I didn't just do this to her for nothing.
I was covered in her blood in the middle a street at night with a sniper that may or may not have stuck around. Fifteen minutes, I suddenly remembered. A fetus can survive inside a dead mother for no longer then fifteen minutes. But hell if it won't fuck him up.

I held him with one arm, keeping his neck elevated and I checked his vitals. He had a pulse, but he wasn't breathing. Shit. I wasn't going to lose him after what I just did. I had no idea if CPR is supposed to be different for infants, but I did it anyway.

I pinched his nose that was definitely mine, and blew small, infant sized, breaths into him. Then everything started hitting me harder.

Elliot was dead, and the baby was closer to being with her than me every second. I kept breathing into him until I heard what has got to be the most glorious sound I'd ever heard in my life.

He started crying, and so did I.

Alright, my first fanfiction.. that's been written down at least.

Thank you Airyie for Beta-ing this for me c: Review please and let me know what you think. Chapter one will be up very soon.