Fading Dream Pt. 4
This. Took. Too. Long. But I hope it is worth it,guys! R & R please!
Adam let out a sigh as another round of retching sounded from the bathroom of the quarters both himself and Samus were sharing, before rising off the bed and going to pour a glass of water. Samus had been sick on and off for the past few days, and although he felt for her, this routine (if one could call it that) was starting to get tiring. Despite this, Adam knew he couldn't just leave her like this; in fact, he had gone to Command and asked for some more time off just so he could look after her. He had only been back in office for just under two months, but the leave was given to him on the proviso that, when he returned, he worked longer hour shifts, which he agreed to do. He would happily endure anything to make sure Samus was cared for and came to no harm; the incident on the Bottle Ship had taught him that much.
Having finished pouring the glass of water, he approached the bathroom, being careful to watch where he placed his feet so he didn't trip and spill water everywhere. As he neared the door, he could clearly hear Samus breathing heavily, and his heart twisted in sympathy. Quietly and tentatively, Adam knocked on the door.
"Samus, it's me. Am I all right to come in?" He asked gently.
"Y-yes..." He heard her reply back weakly from the other side of the door.
Adam was a little surprised to find that, upon his entering, Samus was curled up in a foetal position on the cold floor, grimacing in obvious pain. Her arms were wrapped around her abdomen and despite the fact she looked decisively pale and clammy, she was shivering uncontrollably. She generally looked a mess, and to his dismay, all she was wearing was her bed clothes and a dressing gown. Adam crouched down by Samus's side with a sympathetic look on his face, lightly touching her nearest arm with his free hand.
"Here, drink this." He offered her the glass of water.
"You know...I'll just throw that back up later..." She groaned, raising her head to meet his gaze with a pitiful look.
"Nevertheless, you are going to drink it." Adam replied, a hint of authority in his voice. "You need some fluids in your system, or you'll dehydrate and start getting worse. And you are already bad enough."
Samus nodded weakly, and accepted the glass from him, drinking its contents shakily. She had barely drunk any of the water before she decided she didn't want any more and handed the glass back to Adam.
"It isn't much, but I suppose it is a start." He spoke after a sigh. "Listen, Samus, I know you said you didn't want to go down to the medical bay, but I really think you need to see someone."
"Adam! I'm fine!" Samus protested, though this burst of anger drained her strength instantly.
"But that's the point. You aren't. You are sick. It isn't like you to get this ill."
"I probably just ate some dodgy food, or something. I mean, you haven't contracted anything, have you?"
"Again, that's not the point." Adam was frowning now. "Look, I'll make a deal with you. If you are not decidedly better by lunchtime, I'm taking you to the medical bay, whether it's what you want or not. You need checking over, Samus!"
There was going to be no getting out of it. Unwilling to argue, Samus just nodded at him feebly.
"All right. Let's get you somewhere warmer before you get hypothermia, shall we?"
He offered his free hand, which she gratefully took, and he hauled her up gently, guiding her out of the bathroom and back towards the bed. Placing the glass of water on the bedside table, he then proceeded to set Samus on the bed, wrapping her up in the blankets so only her head was visible. As he turned to leave their quarters, he felt her grab his left hand.
"W-where...are you going?" She stuttered at him, her teeth chattering from being so cold. Adam turned back around to face her again.
"To get something to eat." He answered simply. "Also, I need to go sign off a few bits of paper work."
"I thought you got some time off?"
"I did, but Command said that these forms needed signing as soon as, and they can't wait. So..." He paused, kissing Samus on lightly the forehead, "You rest up, and I'll see you in a little while."
"Likewise..." She murmured, watching as Adam left, before flopping down despondently on the bed.
Under the bed sheets, Samus let out a low groan, staring at the clock beside her, whose digital output read just shy of twelve noon. Adam had yet to return, and she had been wondering for the past few minutes just what his definition of 'a little while' was. She hadn't been forced to rush to the bathroom again yet, for which she was thankful for, as she was feeling about as weak as a person could get. However, her temperature had been veering from one extreme to the other in the past hour, and right now, Samus was flushed and uncomfortably sticky, which was making her head begin to throb painfully. As she threw the blankets off herself with the last ounce of strength she had left in her arms, Samus was beginning to come around to Adam's view. Sure, he was a bit...overprotective of her sometimes, but what he said was right – she rarely got ill as bad as this.
'Maybe it wouldn't hurt for me to go get checked over...'
Just as her hazed mind began to think that way, there was a sharp hiss as the door to the quarters opened. The sound made her both flinch (as it fuelled her headache) and breathe a sigh of relief.
"Samus!" Adam spoke almost cheerily as he shut the door behind him. "How are we...?" He was cut off mid-sentence as his grey eyes met her sapphire ones and he saw the state she was in. "Please tell me you've not been like that for long."
"I keep veering from one extreme of temperature to the other..." She tried to explain to him, was interrupted by her own body starting to violently shiver again.
Crossing over to her in two strides, Adam picked up the blanket from where it landed after Samus had thrown it off her and wrapped her up in it again. He then pulled her to her feet, and, noting her shaky stance, allowed her to lean on him for support, with her arm across the back of his shoulders.
"Right." He turned to face her, bending his neck down a little so he could accommodate Samus a bit better. "I'm taking you to this medical room. You all right to walk?"
All she could manage was a weak nod, before the pair slowly exited the quarters to being their long journey to the medical bay.
Suppressing her senses, Samus calmly sat in a medical chair as a doctor plunged a needle into her arm to get some blood for testing. Apart from an occasional shudder, the Hunter didn't move, not even to flinch. To one side of her, though she was now barely aware of his presence, Adam sat on a regular chair, elbows resting on his knees, with his artificial hand wrapped around the other. Like Samus, he was not one for showing his emotions, but deep down, he was worried for her; at a push, perhaps even scared for her. It was the not knowing what was wrong with her that probably frightened him the most, though Adam was sure they would know soon enough. Despite this, he couldn't help but tap a foot impatiently on the cold tiles of the floor. How long did these things take? They had already been in the medical area for at least an hour, during which time Samus had been physically examined and had undergone basic tests, both of which had revealed nothing. Adam let out a hollow sigh, gazing at his companion with a faint trace of worry on his face. He didn't believe in a higher power, but he couldn't help but mentally pray it was nothing serious. After all they had both been through, Samus dying at the hands of a tiny creature, so small they couldn't even see it, would be such cruel irony.
'Please let it not be serious...' He willed in his mind, oblivious to the fact Samus had turned her head around to face him, her bright blue eyes widening as she saw the fear that his own betrayed. Finally, he caught her staring at him, and the emotionless mask slipped back on.
"Hey, Samus." He whispered, barely audible. "Everything will be all right." He spoke like she was the one filled with worry, not he; or maybe he was trying to convince himself everything going to be just fine. Whatever the case, it caused the bounty hunter to think for a minute.
"I hope you are right." Was her simple reply, laced with undercurrents of nervousness, convincing Adam that she, too, was perhaps more fearful than she was letting on.
When the doctor finally came back, it was a relief that was shortly followed by a feeling of dread. From the corner of his eye, Adam spied Samus visibly tensing up, but much of his gaze was held on the doctor, who was leering knowingly to himself, an almost unnoticeable smile on his lips. He frowned suspiciously at him. Here was a very sick patient, and all this man could do was smile? What reason could there possibly be for being happy?
"What are you smiling for?" Samus suddenly snapped, echoing the question in Adam's mind, though her anger quickly drained her.
"I think congratulations are in order!" The doctor beamed at the bemused pair, who blinked at one another before staring at the doctor with confused expressions.
"Congrat...ulations?" The pair questioned at exactly the same time, both their tones nervous. Congratulations was not the thing one would usually say to a person who is very ill.
The doctor nodded. "It's hard to be absolutely sure without further testing, but your blood shows a very high concentration of hormones, most of which is the hormone, progesterone."
"Progesterone?" Adam raised an eyebrow, still speaking in the same confused tone from before.
"Indeed, Commander." The doctor confirmed. It was Samus who eventually spelt it out for him as she delicately and tenderly slid a hand over her belly, rubbing it slightly and gazing down in wonder.
"Progesterone..." She spoke in so quiet a whisper, she nearly thought it, and her tone was one of awe with a hint of excitement, "That means I'm pregnant, right?"
But the doctor heard her clearly enough. "Well, Samus, it is hard to be sure without further examination, but I'd say it was highly likely. I'll need to perform an ultrasound scan just to be sure. I'll just go prep the equipment for you; give you two a few minutes together by yourselves." And with that, he was gone.
Tentatively and shakily, Samus sat herself up in her chair, pulling both legs across so they hung over the edge of the side closest to Adam, before resting an arm over her abdomen. Her sapphire eyes watched as her companion came across to her chair and sat close beside her. Wordlessly, Samus leaned into the one armed embrace of Adam, burying her head into his chest, while he hesitantly placed a hand on the one she held to her belly, softly gripping onto it, and leaned his head on hers. They stayed in this position in absolute silence for a few moments, both lost in their thoughts. He was thinking about the possibility that he might be about to become a father, while she was thinking about the future, which got mingled with memories of the past.
The Baby...
They were both snapped out of their thoughts by the sound of the doctor returning, and they reluctantly pulled away from each other. Rising off the chair, Adam took Samus's hand he had been holding all this time and used it to carefully guide her off the chair and then towards a door – presumably to the sonography room – where the doctor was now waiting for them.
"Can you...come in with me?" Samus asked Adam in an unusually timid voice, noting how he was holding back a little as he guided her forwards.
"Of course, if you want me to." He replied back in a whisper. Very few people knew about him and Samus being together, and despite wanting to keep up appearances, he couldn't refuse her request. Besides, he guessed the doctor already suspected they were together, but either way, he knew the doctor wouldn't say anything; patient confidentiality and all that stuff.
Adam took his place in a chair beside a bed which Samus was sat up in. On the other side of her, there was some sort of machine, which he assumed was the ultrasound, linked up to a probe the doctor was holding in one hand. The machine was making a gentle humming sound.
"All right, Samus, if you could just roll you top a little, I'll apply some gel on you." The doctor produced a large tube of gel seemingly from nowhere in his other hand. After she obeyed his instruction, he smiled sympathetically. "I apologise, but this may be cold."
Samus flinched as the gel was applied and rubbed in with the probe. Cold was an understatement! The gel was like liquid ice on her pale and bare skin, and the cold sensation forced a hiss of surprise from her mouth. She soon felt another cold sensation slowly wrapping around her hand, and when she turned her head in the direction it had come from, she discovered it was Adam wrapping his artificial hand around her own. Samus smiled slightly at him, who returned it.
"Well, it seems you are indeed pregnant, Samus, and therefore what you've been experiencing is likely morning sickness." The doctor confirmed, causing the pair to look at him. He began to point at the screen of the ultrasound, describing what the sonogram showed. "This here is the baby's head, and if you listen carefully, you can hear its heartbeat. I can't tell you the gender yet, but I can tell you the embryo looks as if it is just under a couple months old, and very healthy." He turned the machine off, wiping the gel of Samus's abdomen with a tissue. "Would you like a print out?"
Initially, she didn't respond to the question, but Samus eventually gathered herself together. "Yes, I would, please."
"Then, if you would take a seat back in the other room, I'll get a couple for you."
Feeling Adam grip her hand tighter, Samus let him guide her back into the other room, where they both sat down close together, holding hands, and waited for the doctor to return to them.
"A baby..." Samus held one of the pictures of the child within her an arm's reach above her face. She was laid back on the bed in hers and Adam's private quarters, speaking to the aforementioned person, who was sat on the end of the bed by her feet. "A real baby, growing inside of me; our child..." She trailed off, lowering her arm so she could gaze at Adam, who had an unreadable expression. "Adam..?"
"I just can't take it all in." He let out a sigh. "I mean, what are we going to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I'm a commander, you're a bounty hunter. They are both demanding jobs. It'll be a very big change."
"And I'm ready for it." There was a hint of determination in her reply. "Don't you think it's time we were allowed to settle down and be carefree? I want to keep this child, Adam."
"As do I." He slid down beside her, hugging her from behind, hands crossed over the one she had placed on her abdomen. "But as I said before, it will be a big change. Can you really imagine yourself settled down in one place?"
"That doesn't matter whether I can imagine myself in one location. We'll make it work."
"And what about the others? Command? What do we say to them?"
Samus rolled over to face Adam with this question. "Forget about them. All that matters is that we love each other, and the child that we created. Right?" She replied softly.
"I suppose so..."
"Listen, Adam..." She cupped a scarred cheek with a hand. "Don't worry about all that. We'll work it out. And you'll be a great father, too." She kissed him gently.
Adam returned her kiss with a tender one of his own. "Likewise, you'll be a great mother, too." He pulled her into a loving embrace. He felt her bury her head into his chest and softly begin to cry, so he started stroking her golden hair delicately.
"Adam, I love you..." She choked out through her sobs.
He smiled, resting his head slightly on hers, before whispering in her ear, barely audible:
"I love you too, Samus..."