The Doctors Delivery Room Nightmares
Red was going into labor, Victor was about to deliver his own child. He encouraged her to keep pushing, that the baby's head was crowning. Everything was going well with the process, until the further the head exited its mother. Victor started seeing an impossible sight upon the baby's little fleshy skull. Stitches. He saw stitches circling the child's head as it inched more and more. As his bewildered eyes gazed, and his hands began to shake, more of the child came out. The eyes were closed, lips unmoving as the entire head was out of her. She was still pushing, willing her baby to life when she hadn't a clue to what he was seeing.
Shoulders, then arms were visible, more stitches covers little joints on the newborn, stitches he had no clue as to how they got there. The chest was becoming visible, the baby's chest was stitched up right above its tiny heart. Good God what was this monstrosity? What was he truly delivering?
The lower half came out, the entirety of the child out of Red's body. It wasn't crying or wailing like normal babies, as he held it in his hands. It's stitched up body was laying limply, lifeless.
Red kept asking to see, she had to hold her baby, but Victor kept ignoring her, looking down at the dead child within his hands. It was as if he held a miniature version of his brother, all those damn stitches making what should have been a cute baby, ugly.
"It's my fault." Victor finally spoke out loud what he'd been thinking. This child's condition was what he got for trying to play God and bring back his beloved brother. God was punishing him, he just knew it. He carried the lifeless baby towards the nearby trash, tossing it in like an unwanted gum wrapper. He could hear Red screaming, having watched his outrageous behavior, but he kept his back to her, walking away from the woman he loved and out of the delivery room.
Slowly, painfully so, the doctor made his way into his office, sitting down as if everything were normal, pulling out a drawer. In this drawer, he kept a pistol, don't ask him why, it had been his other, fake half that had kept the firearm there. Drinking had lead to borderline depression that sometimes delved towards suicidal thoughts. As the doctor handled the gun, making sure it was fully loaded, he promptly pointed the barrel to his head.
"This is my doing. Forgive me, Red." He spoke before pulling the trigger.
-0-0-
Victor woke up with a start, screaming his head off, another horrible nightmare having ruined his slumber. Since Red's pregnancy, these nightmares had been bothering him. If the child wasn't misfigured, it was still born, and in one crazy nightmare he'd delivered twelve wolf pups from his pregnant lady.
All his terrible dreams were unknown to the lovely Red. She was moody enough, Victor didn't want to deal with the wrath of his pregnant counterpart. He handled his troubles like a coward, meaning good old Victor went to the bottle to chase his nightmares away, so that he'd be drunk enough to have a dark, dreamless slumber.
The throbbing headache in the morning was worth the few hours of dreamless sleep. Red was kept in the dark of this behavior as well. With her pregnancy known, Granny had insisted her granddaughter stay at the inn so that she could constantly keep a close eye on her. Red needed guidance during her pregnancy, she'd get the doctor visits from Victor, but she couldn't stay at his house like they had been. It was frustrating, having a routine then having complete and utter chaos.
He had enjoyed their short term living arrangements, waking up to her beautiful body, kissing her good morning and having amazing sex before rising to go about their day. It had been fun while it had lasted. Somedays, Victor had wished that he hadn't been a complete fool and fucked her without a condom. If he'd only held out, had more self control, then Red wouldn't have been pregnant.
Yet here they were, a few weeks before her due date, and everyone was wondering when he'd do the right thing and propose. They were buggy, the citizens of Storybrooke, constantly involving themselves with his personal life. It wasn't as if he didn't love her, Victor just didn't like feeling rushed into anything. He'd get around to it in due time, if and when he survived her pregnancy and his horrific nightmares.
-0-0-
Red was waiting for him, inside the ultrasound room. She had on a simple, white blouse which covered her large belly adequately. It being the middle of summer, the lady wore shorts. The heat caused her to get easily upset, so when she wasn't relaxing at the inn, she donned shorts to help with the constant sweating.
She smiled at him, pleased to see her lover. They both had been seeing less of one another recently, the hospital keeping him rather busy and her Granny coming up with silly wolf traditions for her to complete throughout the pregnancy. It had been difficult finding time for one another, but when they did, they made the best of it.
"What sort of thing has Granny been instructing you to do lately?" He curiously asked, somewhat amused with the old lady's outdated behavior towards the expecting Red.
"Feet soaking." Red answered, a somewhat embarrassed grin on her lovely face.
"That doesn't seem too odd. What have you been soaking them in?"
"You don't want to know." She was blushing, making Victor even more curious.
"Just tell me." He insisted, feeling up to the task of hearing anything she had to dish out.
"Lambs blood." There was a very long pause between them, before he spoke.
"Excuse me?"
"Lambs blood. It's an old trick she used on herself when pregnant. It's suppose to stimulate the wolf within our child..." Red made a sort of 'hehe' awkward chuckle, knowing full well how weird it sounded.
"Does she slaughter the poor creature herself or is it store bought? Never mind. I don't want that answer..." He closed his eyes and tried flushing away the image of Granny luring in poor little lost lambs out in the country. A large butcher knife hiding behind her back as the poor beasts came in for slaughter.
"I know her methods sound...bonkers...but she means well." Red tried defending her Granny, Victor held back an eye roll, wanting to be kind towards Red's family traditions.
"Are you ready for the ultrasound? It will be our last before the delivery." He simply changed the topic, picking up his tool and starting up the machine.
"We still need to think of a name, we've known for four months now that it's going to be a boy." Red remarked, pulling up her blouse for Victor to access.
"I'm terrible with names." Victor spoke his excuse for what felt like the hundredth time. His hands busied themselves, getting everything ready so that they could get one last gander at their baby.
"I've given it some thought, Victor, and I know how much your brother meant to you..." Red began, trying to ease into her kind idea.
"Red, please don't. I don't want to think about him every time I look at our child. I know you mean well, and I love you for it, but I just can't handle that name for him." Victor closed his eyes tiredly as his thoughts drifted back to his last nightmare.
"I...I understand." She was quiet the rest of his time spent prepping the machine. At last, he placed the device on her readied stomach, the black screen on his ultrasound machine coming to life. They both watched as the little body inside red sucked his thumb, curled up and by the heartbeat reading, Victor could tell the baby was sleeping.
"If not that name, then what? Do we really want to be delivering when we come up with a name?" She asked after a long silence had passed between them.
"Ask your Granny, she's sure to come up with something creative." He had been a bit snide in his comment, making her angry with him.
"You don't like her, do you?" She leered at him, displeased as he attempted to ignore her.
"Just say it. Say what you're really thinking." She urged, taking one hand and jerking his arm, messing with the ultrasound.
"I resent her! She took you away from me when we should have been together more during all this. All the time I get to spend with you is here now. I know I'm your doctor but I'm also the father of this child, doesn't that count for something in your grandmothers eyes?" He snapped, taking the device off her stomach quickly and beginning to put away things in a rough manner.
"She only wants what's best! I think she would have been more willing to let you be more involved if we were..." She paused, not finishing her sentence.
"Were what?" He grounded out his words, feeling his anger rising.
"It's nothing, it's just that Granny, she's old fashioned in her thinking. That's all." Red sighed out her words, pulling down her blouse.
"I'm well aware of her old fashioned nature, that doesn't mean I'm inclined to agree to everything she sees as morally correct." He turned to look at her, giving her his full attention.
"Your Granny will never like me, no matter how our marital status might change. I know you'd like to think that if I were to marry you, things would be different. But I am a rational man, Red, I know that it's beyond that point with your Granny." He watched as her eyes grew glassy, her lips pouty.
"I'll be apart of this child's life, Red, but I will not rush into proposing because its expected of us. I'm sorry if that disappoints you, but that's how I feel." He waited for a response, leaving her side when she declined to make a remark.
As he left the room, closing the door behind him, he heard her roar. A feral, wolf like roar of anger and sadness. He kept going, knowing too well that she was better off alone in that state of mind.
He felt internally conflicted, having lashed out when he probably shouldn't have. It appeared that Red wasn't the only hormonal one around here, the way things had turned out, Victor couldn't help but feel that Red's grandmother was to blame. His lover was inclined to listen to the old hag, leaving him out in the cold when it came to binding during her pregnancy. With riled emotions, he left the hospital without informing anyone, determined to settle his emotions the only way he knew how...
-0-0-
Once Upon a Time belongs to ABC.