"Alrighty then." Shader said to Satella cheerfully as she went over some papers on a clipboard a month after the first appointment, "It seems that the 'problem' isn't actually a problem per say."
"Then what's going on with my baby?"
"Well, you see..." Shader started as she lowered the clipboard, "The Harvenheit family are all part Demon and we age at 1/3 the rate of a Human, so it's making your pregnancy progress at the same rate. There's so little Demon in you guys now that this shouldn't have happened, but it seems the baby's daddy was part Demon as well, hence the slower gestation. Luckily, your body seems to have adapted just fine."
It took Satella a frazzled moment to realize that her child was going to be born in 2003. She had a small flip out that Shader patiently waited for her to finish before telling Satella that according to her test results the baby was male. This froze Satella in shock and had Fiore poking her head around the corner to listen better. There had not been a single boy born into their family in the entirety of their genealogy. The gender was a bit dumbfounding to both women.
It was the fall of 2003 when Satella found herself in a hospital going through eighteen hours of hard labour while crushing the life out of Fiore's hand. Not that the older woman seemed to notice any; she just kept calm and reminded Satella to push from the top of her belly down. Satella didn't know it, but Fiore was saving her from getting hernia via pushing in the wrong area, a problem that a lot of women end up with.
At last, with a final push and a relieved cry, the baby was out and wailing at the indignity of being crushed and forced out and into the cold. He was not impressed with the process of being born... And neither was his mother.
"Rainer." Satella gasped, "His name is Rainer..."
"Rainer it is!" Shader chirped as she cut the umbilical cord.
The ex-Sinner cheerfully handed the exhausted, new mother her baby boy while Fiore leaned over a bit to get a better look. Although she was still keeping an emotional distance from her Fiore had still been supportive and helped Satella to understand Japanese culture. Satella had been considering throughout her pregnancy asking Fiore to be Rainer's godmother, but she had decided against it due the constant emotional distance Fiore was keeping. She had a feeling that Fiore's support had been due to a sense of responsibility. It didn't bother Satella as much as she had thought it would have. It was probably because she had been resigned to raising her son by herself and without any help from the moment that she had found out she was pregnant.
Cradling Rainer close the new mother noticed that he had immediately started rooting, looking for a tit to suckle from. Satella smiled down at him and – remembering what she had been told about breastfeeding – complied with his silent demand. Her unspoken fear was that she would loose him, just like she had lost everyone else that she had ever cared about. It was the exact same fear that had caused her to run as far away from Genesis as she possibly could. If he had gotten any further into her heart loosing him would have shattered her completely.
Satella honestly didn't know how she was going to handle being a mother, or the constant fear of something happening to Rainer... But she would do her utmost to raise him properly and to help him to become the best man that he could possibly be. She could do no less for him.
A/N: Next chapter is the tie-in with my other fanfic Red Eyes.