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Author's Note: So, I accidentally left Waiting Game at home last night. This is what passed the time at work instead of my final chapter. An online article called "The Rescuing Hug" inspired the idea
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Almost from the moment they were conceived, the MacManus brothers turned their mother's world upside down.
Her morning sickness happened not only in the morning, but also at night and sometimes in the afternoon for good measure Her hands and feet swelled to the point where they only thing she could wear was a ratty old pair of her Liam's bedroom slippers and she'd be damned if she didn't have to take a piss every fifteen minutes like clockwork.
Their entrance into the world was no less chaotic. Born 12 weeks early, Connor and Murphy surprised their Ma as much as anybody when the decided that their time in the womb was finished.
It had been a long day of running errands and shopping after a night of fitful sleep and the only thing that Annabelle and Liam wanted was to lay down together and catch a quick kip before dinner.
Snuggling into the crook of her husband's shoulder, sighing contentedly as he wrapped strong arms around her, Annabelle had just gotten comfortable when an oh-so-familiar feeling came over her.
"Christ." She muttered through a sigh, "Not again."
Liam chuckled, pressing a kiss to her temple. "Off to piss are you, m'Belle?
"I swear to God they're playing football with me fucking bladder. Pissants."
The rumble of her husband's laughter vibrated against her cheek. "Don't be talking about me boys that way, they're going to be fine young lads, they'll do you proud."
Still grumbling as she struggled to her feet, accepting the helpful push that Liam provided against the small of her back, she turned to grin at her husband. "They're going to be fucking football stars is what they're going to be, with all the practice they're getting."
Making her way to the bathroom, rubbing her extended belly, Annabelle could feel her boys moving around inside of her. Roughhousing no doubt, typical little boys. She grimaced as one of them landed a particularly hard kick and frowned down at her belly, practicing her best 'Ma face'
"Knock that off, you two." She said softly, stern countenance fading into a smile as she passed through the kitchen, pressing two fingers against the ultrasound picture that was stuck to the refrigerator, a perfect portrait of her unborn sons, nestled against each other, "or I'll tan both your hides."
Gratefully lowering herself onto the toilet, Annabelle swore that once these dossers were out of her womb, she was never going to piss again.
She'd had another ultrasound two days ago, holding Liam's hand as she watched the black and white blobs on the screen, searching for the movement that would identify her sons. They'd chuckled watching the two boys stroke and pat each other through the sacs that separated them and once even make a movement that looked suspiciously like a cuff to the back of the other's head.
"Perfectly healthy." The doctor had proclaimed sending her on her merry way. "We'll see you in two weeks for a checkup."
Another sharp kick shook her from her thoughts and Annabelle realized that she was still sitting on the loo, more so she was still pissing. Blinking in confusion it took her a few moments to realize that it wasn't urine, but clear fluid that was streaming into the toilet.
"Liam?" she called, staring in alarm at the liquid rushing from her body. Surely, it couldn't be what she thought it was, it was much too early for anything like that. But her intuition was stronger that the logical voice and she knew exactly what was taking place. "Liam!" she called again.
"What's the matter 'Belle?" Liam called back, his voice bleary with sleep.
"Liam, I think its time." The words were accompanied by a vicious cramp and she bit her lip on a yelp of surprised pain.
"Time for what?"
Despite her growing alarm, Annabelle rolled her eyes. Fucking genius her husband was. "Time for the babies, you great plonker."
"Stop acting the maggot, darlin', I'm too tired for it."
"I'm not fooling." She said. Christ, would this water ever stop?
"What?" There was no sleep in his voice now.
"I'm not fooling," She winced as another cramp clenched her midsection. "It's time."
"Jesus fucking Christ." He was standing in the bathroom door now, his hair sticking up in wild angles and curls, staring down at her, his eyes showing white all around. "What can I do?"
"Well, unless you want me to have our sons on the bathroom floor, you might want to help me up and get the car."
Taking her hand and hauling her to her feet, Liam ran a hand through his already disheveled hair looking around in bewilderment.
Placing a hand on either side of his face, feeling the prickle of his stubble under her fingers, Annabelle gave him a sympathetic grin. "Get the car, lover, I'm going to pack a bag."
Liam nodded, kissing her soundly before tearing out of the front door with a loud curse.
After throwing a few outfits haphazardly into a bag and making a swift phone call to her doctor, Annabelle stepped out onto their rickety porch just in time to see the taillights of their battered truck as her husband sped down their gravel driveway toward the hospital without her.
For a moment she stood there, staring, completely gobsmacked, tears gathering in her eyes.
He had forgotten her. She was going to have her babies right here on this porch all alone because her stupid toe-rag of a husband had left for the hospital and completely fucking forgotten her.
She watched as the truck made it to the end of their driveway and then watched as it came flying back toward her in reverse.
Liam stopped in front of the porch in a spray of gravel, jumping out and running around to open the door. "Just warming it up for you, darlin'." He said breathlessly. "No need to cry, now."
Lifting a skeptical eyebrow, Annabelle couldn't help but grin at him; he was utterly adorable when he was embarrassed, she'd always thought so. "Is that right?"
"Aye." He said, color staining his cheeks. "Nothing but the best for my 'Belle."
Grimacing as another cramp, not cramp, she corrected herself, contraction, gripped her, she pressed her hands against her belly, covering her twins as though she could soothe them and stop their precarious arrival into the world.
"C'mon now, darlin'," Liam said, ushering her to the waiting truck. "We're about to break some speed limits."
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The hospital lights were glaringly bright and Annabelle squeezed Liam's hand as another vicious contraction ripped through her.
A sweating doctor and wide-eyed nurses came and went. Another ultrasound confirmed that her sons were still alive and, for the moment, safe.
But she couldn't deliver them the normal way, the doctor told her, she was going to have to have surgery. A Cesarean section was what he called it, but Annabelle knew that was only a fancy name for being cut open and having her sons ripped from her.
She wept, clutching at her husband, barely hearing Liam's shaky words of comfort, until the anesthetic swept her into darkness and peace.
The next two days were a blank for Annabelle, filled with pain medication hazy half memories of Liam sitting next to her. On the third day, she woke up aware and clear headed.
She wanted to see her boys.
From the moment she laid eyes on them, Annabelle was certain she was going straight to hell for being a terrible mother. The first thing that came to her mind was not that her babies were beautiful and perfect like most mothers described. Her first impression was that they were the ugliest things she'd ever seen.
The impossibly tiny, wrinkled pink things in separate incubators didn't look anything like all of the healthy, fat, babies she'd seen in the parenting books the library had offered. They swam in the smallest of diapers, each only weighing only a little over two pounds. Both boys were hooked to dozens of tubes and wires, looking more like some twisted science experiment than the hale and hearty sons she had imagined.
But she'd never loved anything more in her entire life than those fragile little creatures.
It killed her not to be able to touch them, to cradle them close to her, or to nurse them. She stroked the clear plastic of the incubators for hours on end, softly singing them every song she knew.
It was two agonizing weeks before she was allowed to hold her oldest, Connor Roarke, the first one plucked from her womb by the surgeon's skilled hands, and see him for the first time without being attached to the multitude of medical equipment that had kept him alive since he had entered the world.
She and Liam took turns cradling their tiny miracle, stroking the downy patch of dark hair that covered his head, and cooing to him in a mixture of Gaelic and English. The nurses brought a rocking chair into the nursery the next day and the small, dim room soon became more familiar to her than her own home.
Connor was beginning to thrive, gaining weight, and learning to nurse at his mother's teat. She and Liam watched with pride as he filled out to a whopping four pounds and peacefully began sleeping his through his newborn days
Her youngest, however was struggling to survive. He had only put on a few scarce ounces since his birth, and had entered the world with a respiratory system that left him hiccupping desperately for enough air. Still unable to touch her other son, Annabelle continued to run her fingers over the unfeeling plastic of the incubator, silently willing her ailing Murphy to get well so he could finally meet his family.
Without warning one night, Murphy tumbled headfirst into critical condition. Shrieking between frantic gasps for breath, his face and bird fragile arms and legs turned an alarming shade of bluish gray, the color of death. Annabelle's heart dropped into her stomach as she watched his vitals plummet, an array of machines frantically declaring her baby's plight and from across the room, little Connor screamed too, as if feeling his brother's distress.
It took three nurses to coax Annabelle away from her youngest as the remaining staff tried furiously to get his oxygen levels up and his heart rate down. There was an array of wires and tubes, medications and orders but nothing worked. After endless minutes, the doctor turned to Annabelle, now sobbing, and told her there was nothing else he could do. That her Murphy was going to die.
For as long as she would live, no hardship and no grief, would ever compare to the agony those words caused Annabelle MacManus.
Finally one of the nurses, a woman with kind eyes and six children of her own, offered the grieving couple a sympathetic look and lifted Connor out of his incubator setting him gently next to the brother he hadn't seen since the womb.
"Let him see his brother before he goes." she whispered softly and Liam nodded, his eyes wet as he tried to console his wife.
Annabelle watched, tears streaming unheeded down her cheeks, clutching at Liam as Connor snuggled next to his failing twin, placing a tiny hand on Murphy's head before awkwardly slipping it down over his shoulders in an affectionate embrace.
Murphy quieted almost instantly, nuzzling into his brother's neck, cuddling as close to Connor as he could manage, and within moments his breathing eased, the disturbing blue-gray of his skin slowly flushing into pink. The frantic beeps of Murphy's cardiac monitor slowed into a steady rhythm and the entire maternity ward watched as the tiny baby's vitals flourished, becoming the best they had been since his birth.
Nothing on heaven or earth could have stopped Annabelle from reaching down to stroke both downy heads with her fingertips, tears still streaming down her face as she watched her sons curl around each other and drift off to sleep.
Ghosting a touch over Connor's back she smiled down at him.
"This won't be the last time you save your brother's life." She whispered in her first, but certainly not last, moment of motherly intuition.
Then she stroked a gentle finger across Murphy's shoulders, "And someday you'll to return the favor."
Connor sighed in his sleep mouth moving ever so slightly as though he understood his mother's words and Murphy cuddled closer to his brother whimpering quietly as though he knew what was to come.
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