"Hey hey, sweetheart," Fang said softly and soothingly, as she tenderly wiped a bit of sweat from her wife's overheated forehead.

Lightning managed to mumble something incoherently, before she nodded back off into an uneasy sleep.

Fang let out a soft, worried sigh as she sat on the edge of their bed and looked down at her sick wife.

It had been three months since their wonderful wedding, and it had been a whirlwind of activity since then, as they prepared to welcome their children into the world. They'd set up the babies room using a bright, cheerful yellow paint for the walls which had been suggested by Vanille. As they all wouldn't discover the children's genders until they were born, Vanille had stated that yellow would be perfect as it was neither a 'boy or girl' colour, and was bright and cheery as sunshine or a sunflower. The birth of Fang and Lightning's children was truly going to be a 'family affair'. Everyone was pitching in and doing their own little things to get things ready for the birth of the twins.

Hope had tapped into a usually hidden artistic side of himself, and with Vanille's assistance they had painted cute little pictures on the cheery yellow walls. Brightly coloured fishes swimming around; a cuddly teddy bear sliding down a rainbow; twinkling stars surrounding a little moon with a happy smiling face, which was courtesy of Vanille who claimed that the 'man in the moon' was a jolly old man who enjoyed looking down at adorable little babies in their crib. And said crib had been built by both Sazh and Snow. It was a nicely-built piece of wooden, mahogany craftsmanship that Fang had been especially impressed to see when the guys had presented it to her and Lightning.

And finally Serah had contributed a beautifully woven baby blanket that tucked perfectly into the crib, and that would keep the two bundles of joy happily snug together.

Lightning and Fang had been touched beyond measure by all that their family had done for them and their soon-to-be-born babies, and they had looked forward with even more excitement and joy to welcoming their children into the world.

But then during the final term of Light's pregnancy during the ninth month, she had suddenly come down with a very bad cold. A cold that had quickly transformed into pneumonia. It had been very swift how it all happened, and no one was certain how Lightning had even first caught the bug. But their doctor suggested that a combination of Lightning having to provide bodily nutrients for herself and her unborn children, and the very strangeness of the Pulsian world which was teeming with undocumented pathogens and creatures, had helped the bug to wreak havoc on Lightning's immune system.

Right now Lightning lay in her and Fang's bed, breathing shallowly and coughing violently every few minutes, while Fang kept wiping away the sweat that continually formed on her wife's brow.

Fang was absolutely terrified for Lightning and the children.

She had tried without success to convince Lightning to let her take her to the hospital, but her wife was incredibly stubborn when she was ready, and had insisted that it was only a passing cold and that she would be better in the morning.

But she hadn't gotten better, and in fact had collapsed into Fang's arms the next morning, which had scared the dark-haired woman more than anything else before in her entire life.

Serah and Vanille had then threatened to bodily bring Lightning to the hospital themselves. Lightning had finally conceded that perhaps she did have something more serious than a bad cold, but had then quietly requested to be able to spend one more night at home. She just...really hated hospitals...people who went to the hospital when they were really sick...didn't usually come back home.

Her mother had never come back home, and her father had soon followed after her mother...and left her and Serah all alone in the world to fend for themselves.

Lightning absolutely refused to ever do that to her children...but she realized after she had collapsed into Fang's arms, that her fear of hospitals was putting the very children she wanted to protect in danger. So she had decided to let Fang check her into the hospital first thing in the morning, after she'd had one final night to spend with her wife together in their home.

Unfortunately for her, she had taken a turn for the worse sometime during the night, and Fang decided that right now was the time to take her very sick wife to the hospital.

So Fang quickly bundled Lighting up in her arms and raced out to their car, and carefully laid her wife down on the backseat. She then ran back into the house for a couple of minutes to quickly call Serah, and tell her she was taking her sister to the hospital. Serah immediately said she would call the rest of their family, and they'd all meet her at the hospital as soon as possible.

Fang then quickly ran back out to the car, slid into the driver's seat, and then driving as if she had the most precious cargo in the world...which she did...Fang made her way to the hospital as quickly as possible.

~o~o~o~

It had been twelve long, excruciating hours of waiting and Fang was about to rip her hair out in fear and worry for her wife and children.

Once she'd pulled up to the hospital and began climbing out of the car to take her wife out of the backseat, Lightning had suddenly began screaming like someone was ripping into her stomach with a hot, jagged blade. Fang had frozen in terror before she swiftly removed Lighting from the backseat of the car, and realized with growing panic that Lightning's clothes and the backseat of the car were soaked.

Fang had quickly realized that Lightning's water had broken, and she quickly rushed her wife through the emergency room entrance. A small team of nurses and a doctor had then swooped in, and quickly and efficiently whisked Lightning away...to try and save her and the babies.

It had been an intense few hours as Fang was forced to stay in the waiting room, as the sounds of Lightning's screaming had echoed chillingly down the hall. The hospital was still fairly new and nowhere near as big as the ones that had once been on Cocoon, so when someone was in mortal pain here most everyone could hear it.

The only thing that was helping to keep Fang's sanity intact was the gentle, reassuring squeeze of Vanille's hand in hers, while Serah gently held her other hand as they all sat in the hard, uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Snow was pacing worriedly back and forth across the waiting room floor, while Hope and Sazh leaned quietly against a wall, staring at the waiting room doors as they all waited tensely for news from the doctor on Lightning and the twin's condition.

Fang had already paced the entire length of the waiting room floor more times than she'd want to count, and had only sunk down into the hard plastic chairs when Vanille and Serah had each taken a hand into theirs, and gently tugged her down to sit. And there she'd been sitting for the last hour, as her overly-tired and anxious mind continued to race. She mentally began praying to Etro to not take away the sources of the greatest happiness she'd known in this life, and to let her wife and children make it through the night safely.

Finally the door to the waiting room swung slowly open, and Fang immediately jumped to her feet, not even registering that Vanille and Serah still had a firm hold of her hands. All of her attention was focused completely on the doctor who had just stepped into the room.

"Fang?" the middle-aged, male doctor asked quietly to those in the room, and Fang slowly stepped forward. Serah and Vanille finally slowly let go of Fang's hands, but stayed close behind her as they all waited to hear what the doctor had to say.

He cleared his throat slightly before he looked down at a clipboard filled with important notes and information he held in his hand.

"There's something I have to tell you...about your wife...and children."

Author's Note - So, I received this 'flame' because it most certainly was not a review -

(NORA -

sorry but... are you serious?

Lightning AND Fang are so OUT OF CHARACTER, it hurts.

Please. Put a little more thought into their behavior before you write such a ... thing. Really. I don't mind fluff, but - it is TOO MUCH, even in only this chapter.

Do you really think, that this is realistic? Or do you just do your audience a favor and don't spend enough time THINKING instead?)

And I had two reactions to it. The first was laughter that someone could be such a coward to hide behind an anonymous review to try to flame my work.

And the second reaction was a touch of sadness. Not because of what the coward flamer said, because all of that negative hate they were spewing is absolute nonsense. I take an incredible amount of pride and joy in my work, and I take exceptional care when I'm writing a character to craft that character to be as canon in personality as possible.

No, what made me a touch sad was that this person's idea of 'in-character Lightning and Fang' is obviously Lightning going around and punching anything and anyone who gets even a little in her face, and Fang swaggering around everywhere she goes flirting with anything that moves. Those are not in-character Lightning and Fang. Those are in fact caricatures of our favourite characters. This flamer obviously has absolutely no concept of what it is to truly write. To delve into the characters very psyche and have them write their stories for you. I don't write Lightning and Fang. They write themselves, and I'm simply their scribe who helps craft their words for them.

Also reading everyone else's wonderful positive reviews, was more than enough to show me that this flamer was just being pointlessly cruel and negative. My reply to them is to not read any more of my work if you don't like it that much. Fanfiction is written to entertain and connect with fellow readers and writers. This person is obviously not here to connect with either. You'll be doing everyone here a favour by simply not reading. Simple as that.

And I just want to send out my most heartfelt thanks to the rest of you amazing readers for keeping my confidence up about my writing skills *bows deeply*

So, please review and let me know what you guys all thought of this chapter! ^.^

Lol, I know I know, I left it on a cliffhanger =p

We'll see how things turn out in the next Precious Moments ^.^