Bringing Out the Gift of Life

By: Escachick357

A/N: Okay, before I get started on this, I want to explain some stuff about this story. First of all, this is my very first Eureka 7 story and also my recent big attempt to not make this story humorous like I have been doing with my other supposed to be serious story. I also have seen all episodes except for episode 17. I have only seen episode 50 one time and I remember how most of it ended, but I'm just going to screw around with it a little bit. This is gong to take place a little bit before the end of episode 50. This story is mainly focused upon Holland and Talho and their child which was not shown in the anime. Okay, enough of my rambling, so let's get on with my story...

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Sometimes being the leader of something has its many advantages. When somebody is a leader, they get to make the rules, choose who's going where, and almost always become famous for being the leader, whether it be the leader of rebels. Of course, everything that has an advantage also has a disadvantage. Those disadvantages include how to make the situation better if the leader makes a wrong decision, being forced to make decisions that one does not want to do, and being forced to sit around while a valued member of your group was undergoing excruciating pain. I am the leader of the GekkoState and is stuck sitting around while a valued member of the Gekko-go, my wife and pilot of the ship, was undergoing the excruciating pain of the process called "Child-birth."

Four months after the fight with the military which involved my brother blowing his brains out, Talho's stomach was starting to show. Rather than listen to the requests from Mischa to relax, Talho still continued to fly the GekkoState even if we were flying away from the military. The only times she relaxed was when I ordered her to rest...unless you count the couple of times where I had to physically remove her from the pilot's seat and place her onto our bed when the ship was safely on the ground.

At around the sixth month, her stomach got even bigger and she was unable to fly the ship as much as she was able to. She was still able to fly, but she began having problems with the baby kicking her from the inside, causing her to become distracted. Whenever she wasn't able to fly, the ship either rested or I ordered Moondoggie to take over for her. Whenever she wasn't resting or flying, she spent her time in the kitchen, stuffing her face with the weirdest food combinations: Peanut butter and bell peppers sandwiched between two doughnuts, boiled lobster covered in chocolate and honey, and even refried beans(which I knew for a fact that she did not like) mashed with garlic, sugar, mangos, and some other ingredients I couldn't recognize. The other members of the GekkoState paled as they watched her eat whatever weird thing she ate. Thankfully, the weird foods would only last for another few months until the baby was born...unless somebody else on the ship got impregnated(every time I thought of another member getting impregnated, I immediately thought of Eureka).

At around month seven and a half, I ordered her to stop flying the ship all together. It was getting too dangerous, her being almost eight months along with our child and the military hot on our trail. She had to rest. I explained that to her even though she didn't buy any of my reasons for why I wanted her to rest. That's when we started to fight.

"You only want me to sit around until I die and not have any fun!" she would often scream at me.

I tried everything on my mind to calm her down. Usually it worked and she apologized the next day with tears coming from her eyes. However, there were times where it didn't work and the screams got worse. When that happened, I got annoyed with her, so annoyed that I wanted to hit her. Of course, I never did. Instead, I ended up sleeping in the captain's seat or back on the couch in the room we shared.

She was in her eighth month when she was ordered not to fly the ship anymore. She didn't object. She was often tired and finally realized that she needed to rest in order to make sure that nothing happens when the child—our child—was born.

I spent all the time I could with her when she was resting in our room. Whenever I couldn't be with her, the other members of the GekkoState spent some time with her. As far as I knew, her most common visitors were the three youngest members of the ship: Maurice, Maeter, and Linck.

There were multiple times when the kids were warned not to bother Talho not only by Mischa and myself, but also by Eureka and Renton. They never listened and kept going into her room. Eventually, we stopped commanding the kids to leave Talho alone. Besides, she admitted that she enjoyed their company.

There were a few times where I would stand outside the door of our room and listen to what was going on in the room. Talho was often laughing as the three told her stories they made up at the top of their heads about somebody named Marius that went on adventures with a group of others.

I smiled from the other side of the door. It sounded like they were describing the group of us on the GekkoState. I asked Talho if she felt uncomfortable with the three kids being with her all the time.

She said she didn't. She claimed that it started getting her ready for when our child was born.

Now she is not laying down on our bed resting like she would have done before. She is in her ninth month and is lying in an infirmary bed. She is not resting, though. Sweat is rolling down her forehead and screams are echoing out of her mouth. I'm sitting at her side, holding her hand and wincing as her grip tightens as she lets out each scream.

From the end of the bed, Mischa is commanding my wife to keep pushing and taking deep breaths. She'd been doing so for the past hour, since the labor pains became more and more frequent, indicating that the baby was ready to be born.

I was scared. I had been scared for the last three hours when Talho woke me up at 3am, saying that her "water broke" and needed to get to the infirmary. For an instant, I didn't know what she meant by her "water broke," but I quickly realized that it meant that our child was coming. As I carried her off to the infirmary, I got more and more afraid.

Childbirth, though it is a happy thing, could also be a bad thing. Children sometimes didn't make it through childbirth. Mothers were also sometimes lost due to childbirth. I knew. My mother was one that passed away in childbirth...while getting me out. I didn't want to lose my wife through childbirth. I wanted my child, whatever gender it would be, to grow up knowing his or her mother and I didn't want to go through life knowing that I lost her as she brought forth our child.

After a final, loud scream and another command to push, a sharp cry that I had never heard before came. Talho let out a deep breath and fell back onto her pillows. Sweat was still on her face and she was exhausted, but she was still alive and so was our child.

From the foot of the bed, Mischa announced in a calm voice, "It's a boy!"

I couldn't believe it. A son. I actually had a son that lived along with his mother. I was filled with so much shock and relief that I could hardly stop myself from shaking as I cut the cord. Thankfully I was able to complete my task and watched as our son: 22 inches long and weighing 8 pounds 3 ounces, was cleaned off and wrapped in a blanket while still screaming before being placed in his mother's arms. The exact second he landed into his mother's arms, the screaming stopped.

"What should we name him?" I asked Talho.

She looked up at me with a tired smile and answered, "I don't know. You pick. It's a boy, so you get to pick. That was the deal, remember?"

I paused. She was right. When she entered her ninth month, the only names she could come up with were girl names. She couldn't think of any boy names that she liked. I was the same except for I couldn't think of any girl names. It was then that we made a deal: if the baby was a girl, then she would pick the name and if the baby was a boy, I would pick the name.

I took a good look at my son as he rested in his mother's arms. He had a few tiny strands of my hair. His eyes were now open rather than being closed like they had been before and were a very unique set of eyes: blue with a little bit of a golden-ish brown. I couldn't think of anything. I didn't want to think of any names until I at least had the chance to hold him in my arms. Maybe then I would be able to come up with something.

Talho looked and me and subconsciously knew what I wanted. She lifted our child up to me and nodded at me, telling me that it was alright to take him from her.

I carefully lifted the now five minute old child into my arms. At first I was afraid that he was going to end up screaming again, but he didn't. He didn't smile at me but he also didn't start screaming and crying. Instead, he sized me up with his unique eyes. A few names came to my mind, but none of them sounded right. My son grabbed a finger on my sore hand and squeezed. I winced. He had a pretty strong grip for a five-minute-old. He began doing a little baby laugh that caused me to smile at him.

"Can you think of a name?" Talho asked from her bed.

At first I didn't answer because I was still thinking of a name that I liked and that would fit. A name then came to me. It was an interesting name that seemed to fit because I had not met or heard of anybody with a name like it and I loved the unique eyes he had. "Marius." I told her.

Talho blinked after I told her the name I chose. "Marius? That's the name of the character in those stories the kids were telling me." she told me.

I nodded and responded sheepishly, "I know, but I like that name."

She nodded, "Alright then. Our son's name is Marius." She let out a tired yawn and began to close her eyes. "I'm really tired." she mumbled.

I smiled at her and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead, "Go to sleep. You deserve it." She was out a minute later. I held Marius in my arms for another few minutes until he, like his mother, decided to take a little nap of his own. He still lay snoozing in my arms until I placed his body into a crib next to his mother's bed before leaving the infirmary.

I was not surprised when I found that everybody, even Maurice, Maeter, and Linck, was seated outside the infirmary with anxious looks on their faces. My smile was not on my face as I left the infirmary and closed my door. I also did not say anything. I figured that it was time to play a harmless little joke on them. It would be mean, but harmless and fun.

"Is everything okay?" Eureka asked me with a little bit of fear in her voice. I still didn't smile or say anything.

By now, most of the members, if not all, of the GekkoState began to look afraid but didn't say anything. It wouldn't be until a minute later, when Renton actually spoke up in a fearful voice, "Oh my God! They're dead?"

Now it was time for my little joke to end. I smiled at the group and said, "Talho and the baby are fine. It's a boy." Noise started echoing. Half of the members were cheering while the other half shouted at me for playing such mean prank on them. The noise was loud, very loud and I wanted it to stop so that Talho could sleep without being interrupted by the loud noises coming from the hall. I was too tired to yell or swing fists, I placed a finger up to my lips and shushed the people. Almost instantly, the noise stopped.

A tug came from the left side of my pants. I looked down at four-year-old Linck, the one that tugged at my pants, and his five-year-old "sister" and six-year-old "brother".

"What's his name?" Linck asked me in his childish voice.

I knelt down to the height of the three children and answered just loudly enough for the others to hear, "His name is Marius." Maurice, Maeter, and Linck gasped.

"What?" Maurice asked.

"Really?" Maeter squeaked. With the smile still on my face, I nodded.

The three children giggled before asking, "Can we see them?"

I didn't smile as I shook my head, "They're both tired. You can see them later when they wake up from their naps." I turned to the other members of the GekkoState, who started to lean towards the door of the infirmary, "That goes for everybody and if I catch any of you in the infirmary to see them, there will be Hell for you to pay." I meant it and they must have known it, too because they stopped in their tracks, nodded, and headed for the other parts of the Gekko-Go.

The hall was now empty save for the fact that I stood outside of the infirmary and the place was quiet like it had been before. Before heading back to the captain's seat, I opened the door to the infirmary and took another look at the two patients that lay sleeping. Talho, my wife, carried our child for nine grueling months and lived after giving birth to our son. I mentally took my fears of losing either one or both due to Childbirth and ground them into the ground by the heel of my shoe so deep that nobody would ever find them nor would they ever return to me.

Childbirth could kill and sometimes did, but it also sometimes didn't and often ended up bringing a living, breathing person into the world. I didn't believe that at first, but after going through the experience with Talho and Marius, I now believe it. My wife, though exhausted, is still alive and kicking while my son did not die nor was he born sick and weak. Thank God.

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A/N: Okay, that's my story. I've never made a story like this before, so it's probably not all that good. R/R if you want, but please be nice. Oh, I understand that most babies are born bald, but there have been some that were born with a little bit of hair.