Author: Regency
Title: Breathe Me
Pairing: Mark Darcy/Bridget Jones
Rating: E/G
Warnings: semi-graphic references to childbirth
Summary: (Spoilers for BJB.) There are two good men with Bridget in the delivery room, but there's only one she needs.
Prompt: The moment when Bridget reaches for Mark during labor.
Author's Notes: Come flail with me about this movie and this couple (or whatever) on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from any incarnation of the Bridget Jones series. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
The miracle of love like the Miracle of Life is painful, but so worth it. Fifteen years from the moment Bridget and Mark clashed as adults to the moment Bridget gives birth and, for her, it could have passed in a blink. All the times she felt small and inadequate, unworthy of him are washed away under a tide of pressure and pain so overwhelming it surpasses suffering to be nearly therapeutic.
Everything she has ever endured, every heartache, all the loneliness, all the self-loathing she survived in her youth to make her stronger today, it's all there and then it's gone. It's led her to this moment, her baptism of fire.
She screams. It burns. From the tears in her eyes to the core of her being, she feels like she's coming apart.
Mark and Jack, they're here with her, rooting her on, encouraging her to be as courageous as they know her to be. She can do this. She can.
She can do anything.
She wishes her Urban Family were here and her parents, but she has Mark and Jack, she has her own resilience. She can be her own light. She always was. And now it will be her son. Her son.
Mark talks to her as she takes the brief, dying interval between contractions to catch her heaving breath. Her heartbeat is pulsing in her ears drowning out just about everything. But here he is, close, stroking her hair from her sweaty face. He calls her strong. Of course, she's strong, she knows that now. And he tells her, with all his heart, how he's always loved her, strong as she was then and resilient as she is now; and no matter whose son she's bearing, he will love him just as much.
She sobs and not just from the pain of waiting this many months to hear that. Pain is survivable. Love, though, it transforms and sometimes it hurts. Sometimes there's a cost in blood and sweat and tears, but it's still worth it. That's the miracle of love. It's priceless.
She all but blacks out under the force of a horrible contraction, burying her teeth in Mark's wrist to keep from making herself bleed. He doesn't offer so much as a flinch, her Mark. I love you. Still. Don't go.
The transition from contraction to contraction shrinks to almost nothing that she can feel. All there is, is pressure and force and the urge to bear down. This is the universe entire, this bed and the bodies orbiting it to bring her little star into existence. This is the stuff that people are made of, and now she's made one. She did this.
Mark hovers over her left shoulder while Jack posts himself at her right. Still encouraging. Still here. Two good men who want the best for her and this baby. Who have given all they had, for good or bad, for months, with no questions asked. She could do so much worse than either of them. Her child could.
A burning greater than any so far pours from the base of her spine, down the backs and insides of her thighs, up to her tensing stomach. Like being yanked to a crouch and turned inside out by her internal organs, where the only relief comes in pushing. It's almost done, she knows intuitively. She twists her hands into the sheets and tries to breathe as they practiced.
But it hurts too much and part of her is scared. No, terrified. What if bravery isn't enough? What if she ruins this. What if she ruins the most perfect person in the world?
Mark gives her his hand to clutch and she takes it, letting him ground her lest her fears take hold. That's what he does and has always done. While she dreams, he gives her something to wake up to. Mark Darcy, her forever safe place to place to fall.
Mark and Jack. Two good men. But only one she needs.
She grabs on to Mark with both hands and holds on tight as another gut-wrenching contraction steals her voice.
Don't leave, she thinks feverishly at the man she loves. Don't leave.
Mark stays.