Warning: Mentions of childbirth.

Please don't kill me for this.

25. Waiting

Vaughn paced across the tile again, his mouth turned so far down that he had resumed his, as Chelsea liked to call it, "before marriage" face.

His hands were balled at his sides, clenched tightly enough to make the skin white and they shook in anticipation.

"Vaughn, man," said a voice, and Vaughn didn't bother to look up at Denny, the man that Julia had rushed to find when her cousin had began to freak out. "You look like hell. Calm down. Chelsea can do this."

The animal dealer had sweat dried across his forehead, his cheeks, his nose—bloodshot eyes paired with a dry mouth and straining veins against his neck, his fingers pressed tightly into his palms. He could feel the crescent shapes his nails had left in his skin.

He didn't even have his usual hat to pull over his face to hide his frustration, set only in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. Denny had tried not to laugh at the man and had easily succeeded when he saw Vaughn's face, as white as a sheet with sharpened eyes and a strained scowl.

Chelsea had gone into premature labour.

A month early, Mirabelle had exclaimed, pushing past Vaughn, Felicity on her heels. They wouldn't let the man in, no matter how hard he pounded on the door, nor cared how fast he was pacing a rut into the tiles of the animal shop.

She would be okay, he kept thinking as he walked, waiting for the inevitable, teeth tearing a hole through his mouth, Chelsea was strong.

The door to his left clicked open just as Vaughn was about to curse Denny out and the trader looked up in an instant, his eyes wide. Felicity stood in the doorway, her face hidden in the shadows, her hands tightened into balls at her waist.

Vaughn didn't bother speaking to her.

Instead, he pushed past her and into the room, only to freeze before he could reach his wife.

Chelsea was propped upright in a bed and was a pale as the sheets, her skin flushed out, not even her usual blush that remained permanent on her cheeks revealing itself in the pale lighting. Sweat coated most of her face and her arms and her legs—her knees were pulled together as though she were trying to hide, her feet crossed. A blanket covered her midsection, but Vaughn could see the blood.

The sheets were streaked shades of red and pink that made his heart stop.

But what really got him was the dejected look on his wife's face—she wasn't even upset. That was a word too undescriptive for his love, the way her eyes were dead in their sockets, the way her chest rose and fell as though she didn't mean for it, the way her mouth was dropped open slightly, as though she was frozen mid-scream.

"Chels," Vaughn whispered one moment and he was at her side in the next, down on his knees, his hands running over her face and her bare shoulders and her sweating skin. She didn't react. "Love, are you alright? Are you in there?"

He didn't turn to see behind him when he heard Felicity let out a muffled sob and closed the door behind her.

" Chelsea," he choked out and suddenly everything in him felt too tight, like it was hard to breathe, "It's okay, you're going to be okay, everything is going to be okay."

His arms went to wrap around her shoulders and he pulled her close to him, her face to his chest, his hands stroking her wet hair, rocking her limp body back and forth in his embrace. "Damn it, Chels, we're going to be alright!"

Maybe if he had taken her to the city, or kept Dr. Trent at hand, or taken more of her work onto his own...

He sighed in relief when he felt her arms weakly find their way to his shirt, clenching tightly at the fabric, even though her grip was frail. "I love you," he murmured into her hair, keeping the pace, rocking her small body back and forth and back and forth, soothing her as much as he could manage with his hands and his mouth and his words. "I love you, Chelsea, it'll be okay."

Vaughn turned his head to finally meet eyes with Mirabelle and he honestly felt his heart split.

In her arms was his child, wrapped in a softened blanket that was reddened and dark. But the child was still, eyes closed, hands and chest and heart unmoving, untouched, unloved. Born too soon, disturbed too early, his child was now gone in the arms of his aunt.

Vaughn had felt pain. He had felt hurt and loneliness and harshness everywhere he had turned when he was young—the man was no stranger to pain. But finding the face of his child blank, unnaturally still, made his entire body tremble with a kind of pain that he couldn't explain, a kind that made his mind darken, his eyes lose whatever light they had left. His chest ached with each breath as though he had swallowed nails, and perhaps, he thought dully, that would have been more pleasant than this.

The man held his wife tighter as he stared vacantly at the face of his baby, hands fisted into the sheets wrapped around Chelsea, his heart pounding in his ears.

A choked noise came from his chest and looked down to see his wife peering up at him with tear-filled eyes, lost in her own sorrow, careful with her words. "She was a girl," she said quietly, so softly that Vaughn had to lean in to hear her, but the words found their mark.

He cradled his wife throughout the night while she cried, as they both cried, and mourned their daughter as they would for a long time.