Dr. Overby had warned them time and time again of the intense risks that was associated with male pregnancy. It wasn't a deformity in a normal male gene for the simple reason that it was completely safe and nothing to worry about. While it was hidden until the man with the gene happened to get pregnant, the pregnancy wasn't smooth sailing like it was for many women, though it was possible to have a perfectly normal baby, carried to term and delivered smoothly. Those cases were a rare diamond in the rough, unfortunately, and there had been several cases where one or both father and child died during the C-section.
Despite the words of caution, and Sebastian's worry and insistence that Blaine could back out any time, he had refused, resolute to have this baby, this little life growing inside of his belly. His boyfriend and the doctor had repeatedly reminded him that, despite it being too late for an abortion, they would do an early C-section and remove the fetus. Nothing had gone wrong thus far in the pregnancy, leading Blaine to have no reason to think he shouldn't carry it for the rest of the nine months.
Fifteen days before his due date, everything started going wrong very fast. Though he knew he shouldn't have been, Blaine had managed to get too stressed out over a very small tiff with Sebastian. His boyfriend had been insisting that he stay off of his feet and get more rest when he had come home from work to find him cleaning up around the house and Blaine had gotten too angry, at how useless he felt with his stomach round and full and Sebastian's constant worry that he wasn't resting enough. The stress had caused him to cramp severely and go into labor the next day.
Both of the fathers-to-be had gone into full panic mode. Sebastian had rushed around, gathering everything they would need, while Blaine waited on the couch, writhing in the utter pain that plagued his body. He knew that his baby, his beautiful baby girl, was in distress and they weren't going to make it to Dr. Overby's office before she died. A sob died on his lips and he suddenly wasn't crying anymore, accepting what was going to happen.
"Sebastian," he called out, though his voice was gentle now. His body was relaxing slightly and he wasn't panicking any longer. The pain was ebbing slowly, like some natural painkiller within his body had started to fog it out. He was slowly coming to terms and making peace with what was going to happen.
The tall man, obviously panic-striken, ran into the living room, breathing heavy, and carrying a little bag. "Come on, baby, just need to get down the elevator and to the car. We're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. Remi's going to be fine," he told his lover frantically, starting to sweat a little from the worrying. His face morphed into a very confused look, noting how calm Blaine was, and trying to put the pieces together. "Are... you okay? Did the pain stop?" he asked, hesitant and uncertain of what that could mean.
Taking in a deep, soothing breath, mostly for Sebastian's sake, Blaine shook his head jerkily. "Love, you know we aren't going to make it. She's in distress and she's going to die. You know how Dr. Overby taught you how to preform a C-section?" He met his boyfriend's eyes, feeling fiercly over-protective once he noted how fear made those perfect green globes shine. "It was for this situation."
Sebastian was immediately shaking his head, dropping the bag and rushing over to Blaine, kneeling on the couch beside him. "No, B, don't say that. Don't say that to me. You know I can't do that and you know you're going to be fine. We just have to leave now," he urged, water pooling in his eyes, and his voice cracked gently on his sadness.
"Seb, no, I know what's going to happen. Me and our baby will die if we try to leave now." He didn't know how he knew, honestly, but his gut was screaming at him that it was the truth, and he had no reason not to trust it. "You have to do it now and save our daughter," he told him, demanding that he do it. There was no arguing with that tone of voice and he knew it; his fear for his own life was nothing compared to the fear for his daughter's.
Giving Blaine the shot of painkillers, prescribed to them directly from Dr. Overby, was nothing, and he was managing to calm himself down. As long as he didn't think about anything other than how there was no other option, he figured he would be fine. He quickly assembled everything he would need, wiping clean the place their doctor had indicated would be best to cut. Sebastian had kept a close eye on Blaine, worried by how calm he was at the moment, but he was quickly forced to pay close attention as he was sterilizing the knife.
Blaine was continually being soothed by both his peace with the present future and the liquid painkillers rushing through his veins. "Baby... I love you. Love you so much. I'm so... so sorry that we fought. It's okay. It's going to be okay," he mumbled, lips lazy, and his tone barely audible.
He heard everything, nodding at each word, and stood up to run his fingers through his lover's hair. Sebastian pressed a firm kiss to his forehead, eyes closing as a tear slipped out and raced down the soft swell of his pale cheek. "I love you too. Just rest, B. It'll be over soon," he whispered into the hot skin of his forehead, then went quickly back to work, beginning the cut because he knew he couldn't put it off, not if he wanted to save the love of his life and his daughter.
It was over soon- too soon; sooner than a life should ever be over. There had been too much bloodloss, the sewing up of the gap in Blaine's skin too mediocre. Though Sebastian had called for an ambulance, red drenching his cell phone, a wailing, bloody baby in one arm, his hand on Blaine's frozen chest told him everything. It screamed of his failure and the loss of everything that had made his life worth it. Blaine was laying dead on his couch and Sebastian was standing, slowly rocking his newborn daughter, wishing for death to swallow him whole.
The ambulance came and went, taking away the two halves of his world in one ambulance while he drove numbly behind it. There were several questions asked at the hospital, but the proof was written out before them, all along the jagged cut in Blaine's stomach. No one could deny that he had been pregnant, and that their little Remi had come from him. Sebastian hovered uselessly in the waiting room, until a gentle nurse retreived him and led the way to where his daughter was, speaking softly as if he was ready to attack.
Staring down at his daughter, in the special chamber because she was a little premature, his heart creaked and groaned like a ship hitting another and he was the captain slowly going down with his passangers. Her tiny little hands grasped around nothing and her head moved slowly to the side, as if she was too restless to find peace even in slumber. Sebastian thought dryly about how he could relate, though he was so awake he was sure he wouldn't sleep again.
His flat was the first thing to go. He hired people to move everything out and into his new apartment, halfway across town from his old one. It was smaller, and less extravagant, but he didn't mind, not while the gaping hole in his chest begged to be filled. Sebastian oversaw all of the work, when he wasn't visiting Remi in the hospital.
It was hard to even look at her the first day she had opened her eyes and stared up at him. They were perfectly round and wide, filled with a beautiful hazel and tiny dots for pupils, surrounded by perfect white with gentle, jagged lines of red veins. He could no longer look at the color red without seeing his blood, cluttered beneath his fingernails. Sebastian had left immediately- those were Blaine's eyes and she didn't deserve to have them- and returned home soon after.
In his rage, Sebastian had managed to destroy the majority of his new apartment, punching several holes in the walls and flipping the dining room table- Blaine had picked out that table. "Why did you leave me?! I can't do this on my own!" he cried out, desperate for answers that would never come and growing angrier when they didn't. "She's our daughter, not mine," he sobbed, cradling his face in his hands and sinking down to the floor of the kitchen, where glass littered the ground but he couldn't care.
Blaine watched sadly from afar, crying and screaming at him to stop. He wanted to reach out and admonish him for how ridiculous he was being, remind him that Remi needed one father, but each attempted touch felt like nothing at all. His fingers met nothing of substance, only air, and ran right through the man's body. He could almost feel how angry he was, the intense emotion touching him like he could remember what it felt like to be that angry, to see someone who was so angry. He had those memories to help remind him of what it was like to be alive but he had a feeling that clinging to them wasn't helping him leave this pain behind and move on.
He couldn't move on, though, not when Sebastian needed him so horribly. There was nothing left on Earth for him to do but weep and mourn for his lost life, no matter how much he wanted to help his lover. When he was nothing but a floating wisp of air, he was of no assistance to his boyfriend, but he could not leave. Even if he wanted to, attempting to float out of the door or a window was like hitting an invisible force. It didn't feel like anything at all, except that something in his mind was holding him back from leaving.
The day after, he returned to the hospital, upon a call that informed him of Remi's perfect health. Over the long night of restless fading in and out of sleep, he had come to terms with his daugther's eyes, and how Blaine would have liked that they shared that gene. She was perfect, and she was a living, breathing reminder of his lost lover; he would never be able to determine if that was a positive or a negative.
Life moved on despite how much he wanted to hold it still. The funeral was coming up and Remi didn't sleep throughout the night; big court dates were planned and he had work to catch up on. Sebastian worked on everything at home, and his daughter stayed with his mother when he absolutely had to leave her, which wasn't particularly often. He went through every day as a robot, doing everything he could to provide Remi with enough love to make up for all of the love he knew Blaine would have given.
Sometimes, his breath still caught in his throat, when their daughter staired up at him with those huge eyes, so familiar and heartbreaking, and tears welled up within his own. At times, in such an inteligent way that he didn't think was possible, Remi would reach out with her tiny hand and her tiny fingers would latch onto any part of him she could reach and hold on tight, like her arm was the string tied to her tiny life boat of a body, keeping Sebastian's head above the watery surface and reminding him to breathe.