~7~

Title: Tidal Wave
Rating: PG
Warnings: slight language, off-screen violence, other character death
Characters/Pairings: pre Sheridan/Luis, mentions of Roger and Pierre, mentions of Sam, original character
Summary: prompt: hero. I won't let anything else bad happen to you, he promised.

"Is he…" Sheridan's blue eyes were wide with terror and her hands had a death grip on the railing as she leaned over, staring into the dark, craggy abyss that plunged below the lighthouse. Pierre's body, limp as a rag doll, had landed at a crazy angle, and she knew the truth even before Luis confirmed it. There was no way the French thug could have survived a fall like that. She caught a glimpse of Luis's dark eyes, bright in the flashes of light provided by the rotating lighthouse lamp, and watched him search out the man that had held her prisoner for three exhausting, trying days amidst the whitecaps, and her hand sought out his and held on.

Luis pulled Sheridan into the protective circle of his arms when she began to crumple into tears. "He's not going to hurt you anymore. Not him or Roger." His arms tightened around her momentarily before he gently propelled her backward in order to get a better look at her.

Blood dripped from a small cut over Sheridan's eyebrow, and an ugly bruise was beginning to form on her cheek from the French lowlifes' first attack on her, but she was alive and breathing, and she had Luis to thank for that. Supercop had come through for her, big time. "Luis," she tried as Luis run his hands over her gently, experimentally, cataloguing all her potential aches and hurts. "Luis," she finally captured his hands and his attention again as they came to rest on her taut belly, beginning to tighten with the onset of another contraction, and his dark eyes flew to her face, for the first time noticing its pallor, the dampened hair at her temples.

This time, Luis's own eyes widened with fright, but he only allowed Sheridan the briefest of glimpses of it. "You're in labor."

Through teeth gritted against the pain, Sheridan gasped out a confirmation. "My water broke a couple hours ago. I think…" a guttural moan tore from her throat and she blindly gripped the hands he helplessly offered. When the worst of the intense pain had passed, and she was able to form coherent thought again, she told him, no longer in doubt, "They're getting closer together." Glancing around at their surroundings, a sneaking suspicion began to dawn on her and she pleaded with Luis to put her at ease, "Please tell me you brought back-up."

Luis didn't say anything, merely tugged at her hand and led her back inside the small interior room, where the air was still cold, but the worst of the frigid wind was blocked. He shrugged off his jacket, spreading it out on the floor, and unbuttoned his cuffs to roll his shirt sleeves up.

Shivering from the cold and the pain that seemed to have set up permanent shop in her consciousness, Sheridan looked at Luis incredulously and began shaking her head. "No. No," she snapped, teeth beginning to chatter. "You're crazier than I thought if you think I'm having this baby here."

Grimly, Luis removed his battery-depleted cell phone and tossed it aside in disgust. Moving around the small area, he discovered a scratchy wool blanket of sorts and offered it to Sheridan. "I don't see that you have much choice. I like our chances better here than the stairwell, don't you?" Softening with one look at the scared tears welling up in Sheridan's blue eyes, he told her, "Sam's a good cop. It shouldn't take him long to figure out our location." When Sheridan still didn't look convinced, Luis grabbed onto her hand and squeezed it tightly. "I found you, didn't I?" He combed her messy blond curls back from her face with a tender hand. "I won't let anything else bad happen to you," he promised. "To you or your baby. Now take your pants off."

Her hands shaking, Sheridan struggled to do as he asked, her bloodless fingers making it difficult. When Luis pushed her hands away to take over the job, she tried to smile, but she was shivering too hard. "You've been dreaming about this moment, haven't you, Supercop?"

"Since the day we met, Crane," Luis quipped, tugging her zipper down and kneeling to push her pants the rest of the way down her long legs. His dark eyes never left her face as he removed her dampened panties, and he stood back up, his arms going around her as he helped ease her to his jacket below. "I'm sending you my dry cleaning bill when this is all over," he told her.

"You'll never have to do your own laundry again if you bring my daughter into this world safely," Sheridan vowed.

"When," Luis corrected her, arranging the blanket over her knees to give her as much modesty as they could afford.

Properly chastised, Sheridan nodded, biting her lip against the building pressure she felt in her lower region. "When."

Fumbling for Luis's offered hand, she struggled to breathe like she'd practiced in all those stupid classes (not a single one of them had covered giving birth during hostage situations at heights many would consider not merely frightening but terrifying, forget the extreme weather conditions). Finally, crying out, she swore, "Dammit! I think I need to push."

"Not yet," Luis advised.

"Excuse me, Dr. Lopez-Fitzgerald," Sheridan panted out (with sarcasm, no less), "but I…seriously doubt…you're in…a posi…tion to tell…me otherwise."

She was screaming by the end of her pissed off statement and she'd flung his hand away, but Luis was really in no position to stop her or her body's natural response. All he could do was hold on tightly to her trembling knees and offer his strong, mostly silent, support. By the end of the contraction, he had to admit she'd been right. "Sheridan," he ran his hands up and down her calves comfortingly as the residual tremors seemed to seize her from the inside out. "I see her head."

Her back pressed against the wall behind her, Sheridan struggled to catch her breath for the next contraction, and her blue eyes glittered feverishly at Luis. "You can?"

"She's got a head full of beautiful hair," Luis smiled. "Blonde. Like yours."

Tiredly, Sheridan teased, "I think you just gave me a compliment, Supercop."

"If anybody asks me, I'll deny it," Luis joked. He felt the tension rebuilding in her body, and he offered his hands to her again. He helped her through the contraction with tried and true distraction, and when it was over, Sheridan dropped back against the wall again in near-exhaustion, sweat beading her brow.

"I can't believe this is happening. Why can't I ever do things the normal way?" she lamented.

"It isn't in your DNA," Luis grinned at her, the knowledge real and deep and true, despite the relatively short time he'd known her. "Not in hers either. Look on the bright side," he rubbed his thumbs idly across her kneecaps. "She'll have a really cool story to tell all the other kids at school whenever it's her birthday."

"A cool story, huh? And what part will you play?" Sheridan began to bend forward, stifling a scream in her throat as the next fierce contraction ravaged her body.

Luis's hands cradled the fragile head that had emerged, tufts of wispy light curls tickling his fingertips, and he chanced a glance up at Sheridan as soon as she was sufficiently, though temporarily, recovered. "The part of the hero, of course."

"Where does that leave me?" Sheridan searched his handsome face, alert to the myriad of emotions at play there but in the dark as to most of their meanings.

"Every good story has to have a heroine too," Luis answered her distractedly, sliding his fingers around the tiny shoulders and readying for the next contraction. Looking back up at Sheridan, he encouraged, "Listen. On the next push, I want you to really bear down, okay? I've almost got her shoulders out. It shouldn't take much more to get the rest of her."

For once, Sheridan followed Luis's orders without complaint, and she wrapped her hands around her knees, giving it her all.

Luis's hands closed protectively around the slippery little body, and with one last, determined, decisive push from Sheridan, he was holding the most beautiful little thing he had ever lain eyes on, and he felt a swell of emotion toward the little being the likes of he'd never felt before. Cloudy blue eyes blinked up at him in confusion before he heard a most welcome sound. Shrugging his outer shirt off and wrapping it around the crying infant, he shared a smile with Sheridan. "Listen to that. No doubt about it. She inherited your lungs."

For once, Sheridan didn't even mind Luis's wisecracks. Her arms outreached, she gratefully took the gift Luis gave her, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Oh, Luis. She's so beautiful. Hi, baby. Hi, Emma."

"Emma?" Luis looked to her questioningly, remembering a silly little game Theresa had insisted on ("Let's name Sheridan's baby"), a couple months ago at the Youth Center, and the tiny scrap of paper he'd slipped into the jar when no one had been looking, at least he thought no one had been looking. Something in Sheridan's eyes told him differently.

Sheridan laughed at his own dumbfounded expression. "Over a hundred hours of community service, and you thought I wouldn't recognize your handwriting? Besides, what better way to honor the man that's a hero to both her and her mama? Luisa doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

"Yeah, well," Luis gruffly rediscovered his power of speech. "If you weren't so pigheaded, I wouldn't have had to play hero again."

"Don't let Luis convince you otherwise, Emma," Sheridan murmured into her baby daughter's ear. "He likes us. No matter what he says."

"Is that so?" Luis asked, a traitorous smile playing at his lips. From below, he heard the shouts of Sam and the rest of his men and knew reinforcements were near. Sheridan simply nodded, giving him a radiant smile, and he found he didn't have it in him to argue a false cause. Rising to his feet, he instead told her, "Don't move a muscle. I'm going to go make sure they have a doctor with them. You keep an eye on your mama okay, Emma?"

"We're not going anywhere," Sheridan promised. "Luis," she called before he could disappear, and Luis turned back to acknowledge her.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you," Sheridan uttered sincerely.

Luis took her gratitude in stride. "We're even now."

"Uncle Luis is wrong," Sheridan pressed a kiss into her daughter's soft hair when he had gone. "We still owe him one."

What a hero, huh?

LOL!

I'd say it was love at first sight for Luis and Emma (much like Luis and Emma's mama, if the handsome hunk would admit to it, right?).

Thanks so much, Shaun, for the feedback.

It's much appreciated.

Thanks so much for reading!