A/N: I left poor Miwa all pregnant at the end of the series, so I felt like this had to be the first one-shot side story.
"WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS?"
There was absolute stillness from the four turtles in the room with her before Mikey broke the silence.
"Which part?" Mikey asked, tipping his head at Miwa right as her face scrunched up in pain. "The having a baby part or the having the baby at home without drugs part?"
Miwa growled at him, which Leo thought was rather impressive considering she appeared to be holding her breath. They all watched as her face gradually smoothed out and she began pacing alongside her bed once again.
"Where is Sam?" she asked.
"He's on his way," Donnie said, suddenly regretting the decision to leave Sam behind at the lab, left to hoof it here on his own.
She stopped pacing and tensed again as another contraction began to build from the base of her back. The pain wrapped its way around her middle and she was quickly losing the ability to talk and breathe and stand all at the same time. "Why isn't he here now? You guys made it," she said between clenched teeth.
"Yeah, but we're faster than everyone else," Raph said.
She bit back a painful groan as the contraction crested. It was more intense than anything she'd ever felt before and she couldn't focus on anything but the pain as she waited and waited for the contraction to loosen its hold over her. When this one finally did, she could feel herself getting frantic.
"I can't do this," she said to her turtle brothers. They were doing their best to stay out of her way as she paced, but weren't offering any actual assistance. "It just doesn't even make sense that this," she waved her hands over her enormous belly, "is going to fit out of there!" she waved her hand a little lower than her stomach. "Right? Right? I mean, how does that even work?!" She watched their bewildered expressions as they began to look to each other. Possibly for an answer but she realized that they may have also been silently communicating an exit strategy.
"D?" Mikey finally asked, his big blue eyes wider than ever.
"I'm not – no - no way, Mikey," Donnie said, throwing his hands up and moving away from Miwa as if she were about to force him to give them all an anatomy lesson.
"We don't really know much about childbirth," Leo said, trying to keep his tone gentle. "Suzu is on her way with your doctor."
Since Miwa had opted for a private home birth, which would allow the majority of her family, especially her father, the chance to meet the baby right after it was born, they had been left with the problem of who was going to deliver the baby. And since they couldn't get a human doctor or midwife into the apartment with a bunch of mutant relatives all sitting in the main room, Suzu had thankfully come up with the idea of bringing in a doctor from her home dimension.
"Not fast enough," Miwa said. She held her breath as the pain began again.
"We could try meditation," Leo offered. "Maybe breathing through the-,"
"Don't be cute, Leo," Miwa growled.
Leo shot bewildered eyes to Raph and then to Mikey and Donnie. He got confused shoulder shrugs in response. Although they'd all been excited to be nearby while their new family member was being born, they hadn't counted on being at all responsible for taking care of Miwa during the process. They'd rushed to her apartment in their excitement when they got the call that she was in labor, but now Leo wondered how wise it had been to rush.
Leo looked to Raph again, silently asking him what they should do.
"Don't look at me," Raph said. "I'm sure I know less about all this than any of you. And between the two us," he said with a smirk, "I'm pretty sure yer the one who'd be carryin the babies."
"Me?!"
"Total compliment," Raph said. "Ya handle pain better than me."
"I'm pretty sure my track record shows that my coping method for pain includes a coma."
"I'm not sure that's a coping mechanism," Donnie said with a frown. "I don't recommend a coma, Miwa."
Miwa rolled her eyes and continued to pace.
"How funny would Leo be with a big belly, though?" Mikey asked. "Imagine him running through a kata like that."
"Miwa's been doing it," Donnie said.
"Yeah, but imagine Leo doing it," Mikey said with another chuckle, egged on when he saw Raphael try to hide a grin.
Miwa stared at her ridiculous brothers before immediately ordering them all out of her bedroom.
Leo gratefully began herding the others out and had almost escaped into the main room himself when he heard Miwa call him back.
So close, he thought to himself before turning and facing her again.
"I can't do this, Leo," she said, pitifully.
He was about to give her a placating smile while still trying to back out of the room shell-first when he noticed that she looked scared. Genuinely scared. So he decided to ignore his discomfort and took a few willing steps back into the room.
"I'm sure you can, Miwa," he said softly. "I mean, I don't know the specifics, but I'm pretty sure women have been doing -,"
"No," she waved a hand at him. "Not that part."
"Oh thank God," Leo said, letting his shoulders sink a little in relief.
"The part that comes after. The mom part, Leo. Why did I think this was a good idea?"
She paused her pacing once again as another contraction began to build. "I didn't have a mom. I didn't have a real dad. I have no idea how to be a parent." She grit out the last words as the contraction, stronger even than the last, took over.
Leo watched her tense and struggle. He realized he may get a black eye for his efforts, but he took a step towards her and quickly assessed where she was tensing the most. His hand moved to her lower back where he applied pressure and watched the instant reaction as her muscles began to slightly relax.
"I'm pretty sure you're supposed to breathe through these things," he murmured.
She released the breath she had been holding and began panting out quick exhales as the contraction finally began to subside.
"I've watched you with Akito and Machi for years, Miwa," Leo said, keeping his tone low. "You're a natural with them."
"A natural aunt."
"A natural as someone who loves them and would do anything for them," Leo asserted. "And that's how you'll be when this little one gets here."
"Sam is going to be a natural," Miwa said, glancing at a picture she had of herself with her cute redheaded husband where it hung on their bedroom wall.
"Which is great, because you're not going to be doing this alone," Leo said. "And you know that our father and any of the rest of us will be over here in a second if you need anything." He watched her as she automatically nodded, but could see she still carried doubt. "I swear, Miwa, as soon as you see this baby, all of these worries are going to disappear."
She lifted her face to his, her expression fierce as she challenged him to say something to make her truly believe him. "How can you be so sure?"
He could see that she was counting on him. She was willing to believe this if only he could show her that he truly believed it himself.
"Cause it's what we do as parents," Leo asserted. "Look, it was a little different with Akito since he was already six years old and I had to switch gears from being his teacher to being his father. But with Machi," he paused and shook his head with a grin. "I loved Machi as mine since the first moment I laid eyes on her. And I was in a lot of pain at the time, so very similar situation," he said, waving one of his hands between the two of them.
"Not similar," she growled at him.
He grinned at her disapproval of his comparison as he stepped forward to apply pressure to her back again.
"Breathe," he said in a low tone, and then waited until she was attempting to do so before he began speaking again. "It was easy to accept my new role as a father, especially with Raphael's help."
"You've been good dads because you had a good dad," she said once the contraction subsided and she could speak again.
But Leo shook his head, secretly happy to hear that the resistance disappearing from her voice. "You're going to love this baby, Miwa," he said. "And the best part is going to be that this baby is going to love you right back."
Miwa's eyes filled with tears and she moved to sit down on the edge of her bed. She glanced over at her doorway and found Raphael there leaning against the doorframe.
"Get in here," she said to him, "but not a word about the crying."
"What crying?" Raph asked with a smile.
"Listen, I want you two to promise me right now that if something were to ever happen to me and Sam, that you'll take care of this baby, okay?"
"Promise," Raphael said without hesitation.
"Of course," Leo said as well, moving in again to put pressure on her back as he recognized the signs of an oncoming contraction.
"You and Sam together are gonna do great," Raph said, chiming into the conversation he had walked in on.
"You think?" she asked, not daring to make eye contact with the red-masked turtle.
"Of course. He'll make sure to dig out the shuriken ya try to sneak into the kid's lunchbox and you'll make sure he doesn't blow up the school with any crazy science fair experiments."
She would've laughed if she could've, but under the circumstances, he only got a glare for his efforts.
"I'm here, I'm here," Sam said, rushing into the room.
Miwa growled in response and noticed the noise was more impressive when she wasn't actively holding her breath.
"I did try to get here faster by asking Donatello to carry me on his shell but he refused," Sam said with a smile.
"Not funny time," she grit out to him.
"She's been shootin down our jokes too, Sam," Raph said.
Leo grabbed one of Sam's hands and said, "Here," as he switched spots with him and pushed Sam's hand into the pressure point he'd found on Miwa's back to help relieve some of the pain. "And remind her to breathe."
"Wait, you guys leaving?" Sam asked, suddenly panicked himself at the thought of being solely responsible.
"You'll be fine," Raph said with a smirk.
"That's right," Leo said as he pushed Raph towards the door. "Teamwork you two."
"Aren't you members of this team?" Sam called out before grinning sheepishly at Miwa's glare.
But the two turtles ignored him and managed to successfully escape to the main room.
Once there, Raph sent Leo a lopsided grin. "Okay, fine," he said in his most put-upon voice. "I guess I'd carry em since you make such a good birthing coach."
"Very funny," Leo said, dryly. "You could've come to rescue me sooner you jerk," he said as he poked a finger into the center of Raph's plastron.
"Nah, she needed ya," Raph said, batting Leo's finger away before pulling him into a hug.
Miwa sat on the sidelines of the dojo, her own father seated next to her, and watched the little girl run through her first ever complete kata.
Miwa's eyes teared up as she watched her five-year old daughter. Leo had been right, the smug turtle. The moment she'd set eyes on Hana, she'd known more love than she ever thought possible. She truly understood why her father looked at her the way he did. And she'd learned fast over the past few years how sweetly painful and wonderful it was to have her heart walking around outside her body.
Hana looked like a determined little warrior right now, but Miwa could easily picture her in her dance class tutu, parading around the house covered in flour after an experiment gone wrong in their kitchen. She thought of being cuddled together for bedtime stories. Of Sam making up goofy songs with her as they walked down the New City sidewalks on their way to school. Of the valentine Hana had brought home from school made out to mommy and daddy.
Miwa had felt like a true member of the Hamato clan for many years before Hana was born, but she realized how solid that bond truly was as she watched her own child play in the sand with the clan's other children every summer. And Hana loved being the baby of the family. She'd follow Akito and Violet until they'd tickle her into the ground at every Sunday night family dinner. She'd sit still and quiet as Machi and Shadow brushed and braided her hair at every opportunity. And she's happily build a pillow fort with Gabe if he agreed to sit in it with her and use different funny voices to read stories.
When the last step of the kata had been completed, the little girl's honey-colored eyes lifted to her sensei and Leo watched as she beamed up at him. He grinned back, and Miwa could see clear adoration in his eyes for his little niece.
"I think you're the youngest Hamato to ever master that kata, Hana," Leo said.
Hana jumped up and down, her little dark pigtails bouncing with her, as she listened to the praise. She turned to look at her mother and grandfather and received smiles from them as well as Miwa wiped away the stupid, wonderful tears from her eyes.
"I had to force her to bed last night," Miwa murmured to her father. "She wanted to keep practicing."
Master Splinter chuckled as he pictured the scene.
A/N: Hana means flower in Japanese
When I was looking for a name for this little girl, and saw that this one meant flower, I immediately pictured Yoshi waking up outside his family's burning dojo, with the belief that both his wife and daughter were dead, holding a flower in his palm. Maybe that's a sad image for this baby's life to begin with, but considering where they all are now as a family, it seemed more like a happy full circle.