A fortnight after Alexander's massive fits, he was peacefully asleep when he was woken by a sharp pain in his belly. Again.
"Phai... Phai..." still a bit groggy from sleep, Alexander extended a hand over the empty side of the bed, groping for his lover. He tried to sit up, but another pain caught him and he was unable to move anymore, "PHAI!"
Just then, Hephaestion opened the door, coming into the room with his back turned to Alexander, as he was carrying a plate full of food for Alexander to have for breakfast.
"Here we- Xander?" a look of concern fitted itself onto Hephaestion's face as he saw the contortion of Alexander's features. In his worry, his eyes unconsciously flitted to Alexander's four-months-pregnant naked belly, which he watched in horror as it stiffened and then rippled visibly, the movement followed by Alexander's loud scream of pain.
In his horror at the sight, Hephaestion dropped the silver tray to the carpet, the bread roll bouncing aross the room until it came into contact with the wall and the soup staining the maroon carpet. He then ran over to Alexander's side, yelling for Ptolemy and Cleitus.
They arrived quickly, concerned at the loud distress in the usually calm man's voice. When they arrived at the king's bedchambers, they saw Hephaestion kneeling by the bedside, questioning a very frightened, very much in pain Alexander, his hands feeling his lover's belly.
"Is it another fit, Love? Are you having a fit?"
Alexander painfully shook his head in the negative, tears already streaming from his multicolored eyes. This motion was interrupted by another pain, and Alexander tossed his head back onto his pillow and cried out.
Hephaestion's blue eyes widened as he felt his lover's belly ripple with the contraction before he turned to the two men standing unsuredly a few steps inside the room.
"Get Philip! Right now, go!" he barked.
Both men dashed from the room as if the hounds of Hades were on their heels, knowing time was of the essence and that the life of the unborn prince was at stake.
"I can't do this, Phai..." Alexander let his head roll back and forth on the pillow, his skin already damp with sweat, "It's not time... He will be born too early... And it will be my-"
"It will not be your fault, Xander. It will never be your fault," Hephaestion told him firmly, looking up at him from where he was crouched by the bed, "If Hektor goes to Elysium, it is the gods' will. Just try to stay calm and breathe. I am here, nothing will happen, I promise."
"You can't promise that! Our babe is going to die, Phai! I know he will!"
"I know you're scared, Love, but everything will be alright. I promise. Do you want to try lying on your side?"
At Alexander's weak nod after a moment, Hephaestion stood up and helped him shift his hips so that they were settled further on the bed. Right after he let go, Alexander gripped the pillow that lay underneath his head in a desperate hand and curled his legs underneath himself, almost hiding his small belly from view. Hephaestion watched helplessly as Alexander's belly tightened and the muscles rolled with a pain just beneath his skin.
Alexander had taken to biting his pillow to hide his screams. Every few minutes, he would turn away from Hephaestion as a new pain began and bite hard enough for Hephaestion's own jaw to ache in sympathy, screaming around the cloth stuffed into his mouth. Finally Hephaestion had had enough, and so undressed and climbed onto the bed where Alexander was sobbing even as he bit down on his pillow.
"Come here, Love. Come here, come here," he soothed as he rolled Alexander to face him, "I am sorry to have had a hand in this agony you are suffering now. I have an idea: I want you try to transfer as much of your discomfort as you can onto me. Bite me as hard as you possibly can. I want you to bite me as hard as it hurts inside your belly. Allow me to take some of your pain away. Please."
"No, I can't, I mustn't-" Alexander bit his own lip as Hephaestion watched, and he knew he was considering the idea when his watery, two-colored eyes scanned his body, "NO! I can't! I-!"
"Yes, you can, Love," Hephaestion's voice was soft as he tried to add a kind of balm to Alexander's hurt, "I give you permission. I trust you."
Another contraction hit Alexander, and Hephaestion saw that he was still hesitating, so he swept the hair that had fallen into place on his shoulder off of it, offering the pristine skin to his suffering beloved. Alexander crawled forward slowly before yet another cramp hit him and he gave in to the offer, biting down hard enough for his own jaw to pop, yet not hard enough to break skin.
Hephaestion cried out loudly, almost as if in ecstacy, his hand coming up to cup the back of Alexander's head gently as the man's bitter tears cascaded down onto Hephaestion's dry, warm skin.
Finally, after several tense seconds, the pain ended and Alexander let go. Hephaestion pulled away slightly and Alexander gave a dry sob at the sight of the marks he had left that would surely bruise.
"It's okay, Xander. I am letting you do it so that you can focus on something else other than the pain."
"But... I-" suddenly, Alexander began to weep.
"Love, it's all right. Shh... You need to try to stay calm, or you will make your pains worse," Hephaestion took Alexander into his arms and held him as he cried, unaware that Philip had finally arrived to delay the birth if he could. Hephaestion saw and nodded to the doctor over his love's shoulder, the nod giving Philip permission to approach, "The doctor is here, Love. A few more hours at most and our baby will be relaxed and safe inside your womb once more. Didn't I promise you that everything would be all right?"
Alexander turned over onto his back with Hephaestion's help, his face blotchy and his eyes puffy from crying as he stared at the trio that had just entered the room.
"What in Hades took you so long?"
At his lover's serious statement, Hephaestion began to laugh, rolling off the bed and landing with a heavy thud on the floor in his mirth. This having broken the heavy silence that had invaded the room after Alexander's statement, all four other occupants of the room began to giggle as well. Ptolemy helped Hephaestion to his feet and let him recover.
But the laughter stopped when Alexander's hands flew to his belly and he called out.
In response to his beloved's distress, Hephaestion climbed back on the bed and offered his bitten shoulder, but Alexander turned away, a few more tears leaking unbidden from his eyes.
"All right, all right, shh..." disregarding Alexander's refusal of him, Hephaestion held his love in his arms, being sure to keep an eye on Alexander's belly and thus the babe that it held.
Philip was ordering that teas and poultices be made from the various herbs he had brought with him into the palace to put on the king's brow and belly to try and halt his labor. Ptolemy and Cleitus were put to the task of seeing this done, and went from the room willingly to do what they saw as a duty to their king.
Hephaestion had already taken to his task of keeping Alexander calm and relaxed while the poultices were being prepared. He was laying on his side on his half of their shared bed and running his fingers over Alexander's brow and through his hair while the man laid flat upon the bed, his eyes lidded while he moaned in discomfort from a sore throat and what felt like a belly that had become raw from the inside out due to the harsh pains he was experiencing so frequently.
"All right," Philip said as Ptolemy and Cleitus returned, "Let us see if we can forego another Dionysus, hm?" he smiled at Alexander, who gave a weak smile in return as well as at his joke.
The first poultice was placed on his belly, and Alexander sighed in some relief at the heat it gave off. When the second compress was placed over his eyes and brow, Alexander instinctively squeezed Hephaestion's hand a little harder than before, prompting an immediate response from his lover.
"I am here, Xander. You are not alone. I am here. I will always be here. Shh... Our Little Hector is going to be so impossibly beautiful, Love. With my hair and your eyes, or my eyes and your hair-"
Alexander had raised a hand to bid pause in his love's dreaming, contradicting him thus, "Our boy will not be beautiful, he will be handsome. He is a boy after all."
Hephaestion smiled at Alexander's contradiction before bending down slightly and kissing Alexander's still raised palm. As both a jest and a reflex, Alexander closed his hand over Hephaestion's nose, gripping it slightly.
This unexpected treatment caused Hephaestion to burst out laughing again, causing the doctor as well as the other two men in the room to look up and then give silent twin sighs of relief. The threat of birth, it seemed, was over. All three of them quietly slipped from the room, giving the two lovers their much needed privacy.
When Alexander finally let go of Hephaestion's nose and their shared mirth had calmed somewhat, Hephaestion spoke again.
"Nay, Dearest. Our Little Hecktor will be impossibly beautiful instead of impossibly handsome because he came from you."