A/N: This was an idea that just came over me one night and it wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it down. The format for this story is so very different to what I'm used to, and I was a bit nervous finishing it, but I had a lot of fun doing it. And hey, it's rather fitting for New Year's, is it not?


TEN

You've been stuck in this hospital room since ten in the morning. Admittedly, you should have been aware that something was amiss earlier: your lower back had been aching a lot recently, but it had never forced you to wake up earlier than you usually did. And with your husband still out on a job that took place way up on the northern part of the country, you had no choice but to let it keep you up until it subsided. You had been feeling a lot more chipper when you came to visit the guild, but your stomach kept cramping every once in a while. A few of your friends had taken note of your discomfort, but Bisca was the one to ask you how often they had been coming. The moment you realized just how frequently they had been happening, your guildmates took no time in helping you go to the hospital.

NINE

Nine hours have passed since then, and you're getting really sick of being cooped up in here. Loke was kind enough to help bring a bag of clothes for you as soon as he heard the news, so you didn't have to worry about that. Levy stayed for a while to keep you company before going back to the guild early in the afternoon, but not before leaving you some novels to pass the time. Unfortunately for you, you've managed somehow to read through four 500-page books within the span of three hours (and that was even without your Gale-Force Glasses). Now all you have left to do in between your contractions is to either stare at the plain walls in the room, or to mentally prepare yourself for later. And as much as you want to do the latter, a sense of dread and worry would come along everytime you try to do it. And why wouldn't you be worried? You're not even up to full term.

EIGHT

You're technically still eight months along. Thirty-five weeks, to be exact. Your doctor, as well as the nurses, has tried to assure you that there's absolutely nothing to worry about; that the baby's internal organs have been fully developed already, and that the last five weeks of pregnancy were just so the baby could develop more fat to keep herself warm. You really wish you had that much faith in their words; after all, you did read up on all those pregnancy books that you bought the past couple of months. But right now, all the knowledge and terms that you've learned so far just seemed to have vanished from your head, and suddenly, you don't have a clue about what they're trying to say anymore.

SEVEN

It's seven in the evening, and your husband finally arrives at your room. He staggers in from the door, with an extremely worried look on his pale face. He apologizes for not getting here earlier, telling you about how he tried running to you right away the moment he heard the news from Jet, but his teammates managed to knock him out before he managed to escape from the forest they were in (and you can tell from the extremely annoyed tone in his voice that he's not exaggerating with this claim). He then tells more harrowing stories of being tied up as they searched for the nearest station, the bad luck they had when their ride suddenly broke down mid-destination, and his annoyance when those so-called "bastards" accidentally left him back in the train in his motion-sick state when they finally arrived back in Magnolia. Despite how horrible it actually sounds, you start to laugh at his stories, if only because it helped lighten up your mood from this morning. He spends the rest of the time with you feeding you ice chips and holding your hand when another contraction kicks in.

SIX

It's six minutes to eight, when one of the nurses comes back in for one of their routine check-ups. She tries to engage you with some small talk as she looks at your vital signs. Just as soon as she inspects just how far along you are, she tells you you're already ten centimeters dilated. You're ready to go to the delivery room now.

FIVE

And all of a sudden, you just can't help but think about those five weeks that you will now miss out on. All sorts of questions begin to flood into your mind as you get wheeled into the delivery room. What if those nurses were wrong about what they told you? What if missing those five weeks turned out to be extremely crucial to the baby? Will the baby really be fine when she's born? You're scared. Absolutely terrified about everything that could possibly go wrong.

FOUR

Has it been been, what, four hours since you entered the delivery room? Frankly, you just want it all to be over and done with. Small beads of sweat are falling from your forehead, and incredibly sharp pain keeps coursing through your body with each push, that squeezing your husband's hand throughout the whole process seems to be the only source of comfort in all of this (the fact that he tries so hard not to show his own pain for your sake only serves to make you more annoyed at him). The doctor finally tells you that you just need to push one more time for the baby to be finally out. So with a loud grunt, you give out a huge push as you start to count inside your head. One...two...three...four...

And just right then, you are greeted by the sound of a crying baby.

THREE

The doctors take no time to check up on your newborn daughter. They cut off her umbilical cord, clean her up, check on her health, and record some data on her before finally putting a tag bracelet on her arm. You slump back into the bed in exhaustion, with your husband kissing you on the forehead, thanking you for just how amazing you were in bringing your baby here into this world. You give yourself a moment to take in everything that just happened, because you just can't believe it, that your family of three just grew bigger now (and of course, you wouldn't forget to include Happy with you guys). A nurse offers your husband the chance to hold your baby girl, all bundled up in a soft yellow blanket. And as soon as he does, it then turns into one of those rare moments where he lets you see him cry openly; this time, from tears of joy.

TWO

He then lets you have the chance to hold your baby. A strong surge of feelings come rushing in as you get a closer look on her: you see the wispy pink hair on her head that she clearly got from her father, her tired face, with two brown eyes trying to peer at your own, two little hands with five fingers on each one, and two strong legs that you know very well can kick really hard.

She starts to cry again as she fusses around in your arms. She was safe now. She was healthy. She was perfect. Just absolutely perfect.

With tears streaming down your eyes, you talk to your baby as you try to calm her down. "Hey there. I guess you couldn't wait to meet us, right?"

ONE

It's one minute to midnight, but you don't really pay mind to that.

Because your little one is finally here, and that's all that matters to you now.