Disclaimers in Part 1
One Samuel Witwicky was glad to be home; he'd been there for two days now, and they were, he thought, the shortest two days on record.
It was early on a Monday morning, after colors. The day shift started work about the same time that dependents who worked or attended school off base left for their obligations; base housing was now quiet.
Which was good, because Carly had put in a rough night, with an ache in her lower back. Danny was anxious to be born, and he expressed that sentiment by kicking—a lot, and strenuously. Sam teased Carly that her son was going to meet the world thinking his name was "Ow stop that!"
His wife had been vastly unamused.
A couple of hours ago, both Carly and the baby had finally gone to sleep. Sam crept out of the bedroom and landed on the couch for a little while, in order not to wake her by turning over in his sleep. But he was too used to getting up and catching the metro to sleep past his alarm, which had apparently internalized itself: seven o'clock Washington time was four AM in Nevada. He was up for the day, which would end about 8 PM Nevada time for him.
Carly had been on a cleaning frenzy prior to his homecoming, and hadn't stopped when he arrived. Diarwen told him that was called nesting, and apparently many pregnant women had that urge when they were near term.
He looked around the living room and winced, pulled on his jeans, and started picking up yesterday's pizza box, newspapers, and junk mail, before Carly got up and freaked out over their pigsty.
A very well-dusted, swept-and-mopped sty, occupied by OCD pigs...the thought made him smile as he collected the clutter.
By the time Brains and Wheelie came out of their alcove, Sam was making scrambled eggs with toast and coffee, just to keep the hunger pangs at bay; he'd need more by the time she got up. Lunch for him, breakfast for her.
"Morning," he said, by way of greeting.
Wheelie chirped, "Mornin', Pops!"
Sam didn't want to know where the little bot had gotten that, and scowled at them. Undisturbed, Wheelie said, "How's Carly?"
"Sleeping, finally, so keep it down. Would you mind checking if the paper is out there? I think I heard Tammy's bike a little bit ago."
Wheelie pulled out his keyring and opened the minibots' personal door. Sam had installed a St. Bernard-sized dog door for their use, one with a lock, making sure they both had their own personal keys to that lock. To do otherwise would have been to treat them like glorified pets.
Sam might have done that once, but he knew better now. He might regret a lot of the mistakes he had made during Brains' and Wheelie's first few years with him, but the lessons they taught him would make him a better parent.
He was also determined to make up for those mistakes. Bumblebee assured him that the minibots hadn't held his errors against him, and were tolerant of his attempts to compensate for past blunders.
Brains and Wheelie were sparked mecha, just as Optimus Prime and Bee himself (although anyone hearing those four names proposed as equals would probably have fallen to the floor laughing). Wheelie was roughly at the developmental level of a college-age human, not that much younger than Sam himself. Technically, Brains was a sparkling, brought online only since the Autobots had arrived on Earth, but Jazz had said he was also a youngling as far as processor development and programming were concerned.
Brains had copied programming he lacked from Wheelie when neither of them knew any better than to do that. Now, though, they were no more alike than any two other Cybertronian younglings raised in the same cohort.
Fortunately no harm had been done, and the jump-start had probably saved Brains' life in the rough-and-tumble early years of his existence.
Wheelie brought the paper in. Seeing nothing to interest him on the front page, he put it on the coffee table and went back to the game that he and Brains had been playing.
Sam set his coffee cup down and turned around to get another helping of eggs.
The skillet tumbled to the floor.
Blood everywhere, white sheets lurid with what seemed like gallons of blood, dripping to the floor beside the bed. He crossed the kitchen and the hall in two steps and threw open the bedroom door.
Carly was out like the proverbial light, with a catch in her throat Sam told himself was not a snore, not a drop of blood in sight. Neither the crashing skillet nor his abrupt entry had disturbed her much-needed rest.
Sam shut the door, and dropped to his knees on the carpeted hallway floor, his heart pounding against his ribs as he gasped for breath. He got his breathing under control, slow deep breaths, focus, ground, center. Then he deliberately replayed the vision, looking for small clues to the who, what, where, when, and why that he needed to know in order to change the possible future that he had just glimpsed.
A discarded rubber glove.
IV tubing.
Someone's foot, in white nurse's shoes, a glimpse of a pants leg from a pair of scrubs.
Polished institutional floor.
Hospital bed.
He dug out his cell phone, shaking so hard it took three tries, and called the number Parker had given him in case he had questions.
"Dr. Parker? It's Sam, Sam Witwicky. Look...sometimes I have visions that turn out to be true. This time I saw blood all over, all over, dripping to the floor beside a hospital bed, and Carly..."
Parker had been given the information about his visions earlier, and didn't stop to make him explain that further. She heard him out, and said instead, "Okay, Sam? Two things. First is that you might have seen the delivery of the afterbirth, which is the placenta. Its job is to feed the baby, and it does that with blood vessels; it's practically nothing but those. After birth, it's shed, and not only does that tear its vessels away from their anchor, it tends to break the delicate vessels inside it too. Afterbirth is really bloody, Sam, and in my rotation through obstetrics I did see what you're describing a couple of times in perfectly normal deliveries, no danger to mom or baby. Second, just to be sure, I'm going to check supplies, and order a few more units of blood from Nellis. It never hurts to take precautions."
He blew a deep breath through the line between them. "Thank you, Dr. Parker. I wish you were delivering Danny."
"Sam, Dr. Wexford from Nellis has thirty years' experience in OB/GYN. I don't. You want that experience, Sam, you really do."
He tried to calm himself. "Dr. Parker, I know that...it's just..."
"It's okay, Sam. It's pretty scary, and I know that. We're going to do everything we can to keep Carly and Danny safe. Everything."
He sounded a bit steadier when he said, "Thanks, Dr. Parker. I really appreciate that."
"No problem," she said. She let him ring off, rather than terminating the conversation.
She resumed her duties, thinking that sometimes, simply being there for a patient or family was the best possible practice of medicine. Not often, not with the enormous skill and knowledge now brought to bear on problems, but when it was, there really wasn't any substitute for simple human kindness.
Well, human. Parker recollected Ratchet and the kindness of his wrenches, and smiled.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Diarwen hummed a new tune as she worked in the small kitchen of her shared quarters, cleaning up now after a long stretch of cooking, with some non-food "cooking" up next.
The dough for the hot cross buns she had made for cakes and ale was rising under its cheery yellow towel, the bowl located in a beam of direct, if wan, March sunlight.
Diarwen carried a tray to the other side of the room and sat at her desk, located under Optimus', safely away from anywhere he might put his peds. She was going to mix the incense for the ceremony, and didn't want the herbs to get in her bread dough. Bay, jasmine, and rose petal were all edible, but would definitely not be tastes anyone was expecting in a hot cross bun. As for copal...well, no.
She was in no hurry. She had plenty of time to get everything ready. The Circle would start gathering after sunset, and the moment of Ostara was not until 10:14 that night.
High above, Optimus was reading reports from a datapad when he sensed her energy fields focus on charging the incense. He took a moment to settle his own fields to a peaceful neutrality, so as not to distract her or introduce the wrong energies into her work area, then turned back to what he was doing.
He was mildly puzzled by the disappearance of two fifty-gallon drums of corn syrup from the galley. A query about it had gone out to all the senior officers on both sides of the Commons. It was probably involved in a prank planned by one of the usual suspects. He flagged the query for Prowl's attention, and went on to the next issue.
Diarwen got out the mortar and pestle she used solely for inedible ingredients, and set to work: her concentration on the task would infuse the incense with devotional energy, useable when they began their ritual.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Carly slept through the first two contractions. They were very mild, less attention-grabbing than some of the Braxton-Hicks contractions that she had experienced intermittently for the past few weeks.
The third one woke her. Her first thought was to call Sam, but she had learned that there was no need to do anything until they lasted around a minute, were five minutes apart, and both conditions had lasted for an hour. She decided to rest a little while longer before creating the uproar that she knew would follow the announcement that she was in labor. After all, at her last checkup she'd been pronounced "doing fine, Carly. All your tests are normal, and I'll have you make the appointment for next week, but I'd be surprised not to see you before then." Dr. Wexford, calm and collected as always; at the Nellis AFB hospital, he had been delivering babies for so long that he was on his second generation of parents.
He had assured her that all her tests were perfectly normal. So, she decided, everything was going to be fine.
Carly dozed off again until the next one reawakened her, and got up to shower and check her bag one last time. "Sam, love, are you ready to go out?"
"Yes, but wouldn't you like something to eat first? I can make more eggs."
"I think I should hold off on that for a bit," she said, smiling at him as he poked his head around the bedroom door.
"What—do you mean it's time? Now?"
"Not quite yet. But I'm fairly sure I am in labor this time."
"And you've checked your bag. I—ah, it couldn't hurt anything to call medbay and give them a heads-up."
"I suppose so. Let me have another look at the baby's bag while you do that."
Sam went out in the kitchen to call, and zipped back in. "Dr. Parker says medbay isn't busy, so we can come over whenever you like and get you settled in. Then when the time comes, she can have Dr. Wexford paged at O'Callaghan. It won't take him any time to get down here."
She smiled. "I guess you're right; there's no sense to doing everything in a rush if they have plenty of room."
Her husband gathered her close, angling around her "sublet" as she called it, and kissed her. "I'll call Bumblebee to take us over when he has a klick."
-Sidhe Chronicles-
"For Primus' sake," Chromia snapped.
Ironhide craned his neck struts. All he saw was Bumblebee, pacing back and forth outside of med bay. He said so to Chromia.
"Yes, yes, yes," she said. "He's distracted to pieces. Take him out to the range and shoot things with him, will you? Keep him there until I ping you. If you can get Sam to go too, that would be best."
But Sam declined, flatly if politely. He occasionally popped out to get something Carly wanted, but most of the time he was right there with her, coaching her through the contractions, rubbing her back or her feet, providing a convenient target when she felt like swearing. Earlier, they had done a bit of walking, but Carly's contractions were now too intense for that.
Sam was with her, though, to provide whatever she needed. He explained this to Chromia using the minimum possible words: "Thanks, Chromia, but I can't. Carly needs me."
Being a grounder from Iacon, Chromia knew little more about Cybertronian separation than she had picked up from Borealis' occasional comments. She knew even less about human birth, though the internet search she embarked upon revealed that she had been operating on outdated information. Modern human fathers usually were present for the debut of their offspring. She smiled. "I understand. I'll stay here to run and fetch for you, if you like."
"Thanks, Chromia, I'd really appreciate that."
Carly called from inside, "Sam! Sam, could you fix this pillow, please?"
"Gotta go."
Ironhide smiled at his departing back, transferred the smile to Chromia and then sent it on to Bee. "Come on, Bee. Chromia's got this under control, and she'll ping us if they need us. We're too big to run their errands, and we're in the way."
Bee chirped assent, and the two left. Chromia transformed to park against the wall by the medbay doors, where she wasn't blocking traffic.
From there, she had a good view of the bustle in Admin, where Sideswipe was currently in charge and keeping an optic on something on a couple of the upper-deck monitors while bantering with Arcee. The humans were working at their stations with the quiet, competent professionalism she had come to expect from them over the years, broken occasionally by a brief outburst of laughter. No cause for concern there.
Further down the Commons, the sparklings, human and Cybertronian, were coloring. Monique had sorted out crayons for D'andre in the same hues as his blocks, given him a big piece of paper, and allowed him to color just as he wished.
"Just as he wished" produced colored squares in the same sequence in which he always ordered his blocks. No one pretended to understand D'andre's worldview, but clearly he was happiest when things were properly organized.
Chromia heard an unfamiliar Earth car park out front and focused on the main entrance at the far end of the hangar. A middle-aged couple entered with a NEST escort, and paused to show the visitors' badges that they had received at the main gate to the guard on duty at the entrance.
Chromia pinged the ward clerk's cell phone, and when she answered, said, "Please tell Sam his parents are here."
Ron and Judy Witwicky were frequent visitors; they lived in Tranquility, a few minutes' drive from the base. The senior Witwickys had been part of the Cybertronians' lives since Optimus and his crew landed, and the relationship was already well-established by the time Chromia's group arrived.
Her first impression had been that Ron tended to be passive, while Judy was flighty, and Chromia had wondered if Sam's mother had the human equivalent of a slow processor. Ron was a veteran of the first Gulf War, though, and she had discovered that when things got dicey he fell back on his training and was actually quite capable: the capable rarely bonded to those who were not. So there was more to Judy than her usual..."ditziness" was the word the humans used...might suggest.
Sam came out and hugged both of his parents. Judy asked, "How long has she been in labor?"
"Since this morning. Dr. Parker says it will be a while—it's not time to call the obstetrician yet. She was walking between contractions at first; apparently that helps to speed up the process."
"How's she doing?" Ron asked.
"Good. Great. Everything's happening the way it's supposed to."
"Can we see her?"
Sam said, "I'll check. Chromia, could you see if you can find them some chairs? I don't think there are any extra in medbay."
"I'll liberate a couple from the mess," Chromia said, and left to do that.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Shad White sat in front of his computer, and his mind wandered. What had happened to those kids who'd left the compound before David...before his dad...before? He hoped they were well and doing fine, at least alive, and happy if they could manage that. Then he fell to thinking how much he would rather be outside, where Shankie waited for him; then he felt guilty, and returned to the math lesson for the day. Graphing a series of linear equations wasn't hard, but boring? There was no graph big enough to express how boring it was. He was very happy when his work timer pinged, signalling the start of a 15-minute break.
A few seconds later, a chat bubble popped up.
LNeilson: Hi Shad!
SWhite: Hi, Leah. Whatcha doin?
LNeilson: Thomas Jefferson & the Declaration of Independence.
SWhite: At least that's interesting. Graphing equations here. Head about to explode.
LNeilson: LOL don't do that, sounds messy.
SWhite: HaHaHa Where did u find a computer?
LNeilson: There's a library close 2 my apartment. They have computers. How are you getting along?
SWhite: Pretty good actually. Place is going baby crazy. This woman is having one.
LNeilson: You mean now?
SWhite: Yep. In medbay.
LNeilson: What's a medbay?
SWhite: Like a mini hospital.
LNeilson: Cool. Know what it is yet?
SWhite: No. I haven't heard whether it's been born yet. How are you doing?
LNeilson: Good. Mom has a job sitting with this old lady upstairs in our building. I'm glad she only has 2 go up the elevator.
SWhite: That's good! Happy she found something. That will help out.
LNeilson: Yeah, a lot.
SWhite: Have you heard from anyone else?
LNeilson: Yes! I was getting some food from the Salvation Army, and I was in line with Mordecai Phillips! He's doing good, but he says he's living in a tent on the riverbank, a hobo camp or something.
SWhite: That sounds awful.
LNeilson: He looked pretty good though. I'm glad we don't have 2 live in a hobo camp.
SWhite: So am I. Anyone else?
LNeilson: No, but if I see Mordecai again I'll ask him. He might know.
SWhite: I'd like 2 know.
LNeilson: Got 2 go, break is almost over, tty tomorrow. Pet Shankie 4 me.
SWhite: Will do. He's doing good BTW; watched your vid of the commands and obeyed them. Bye
LNeilson: Bye
Shad sighed, stretched in his chair, and got up to get some water as the chat window disappeared. When he returned, he still had the last seven minutes of his break left: time enough for a few rounds of Angry Birds.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
::We've been at this a half-joor,:: Bee sent, when the local star was a little past zenith. ::It feels to me like something's looming over Carly and the baby, some threat, and I can't tell what it is.::
::I'll comm Ratchet.:: Ironhide and Bumblebee had been getting perfect scores for the last half-dozen rounds of shooting; probably time to quit anyway.
::Bad time to ask you how things're going?:: Hide sent to the medic.
::No. It's all going fine so far. Wexford says not to be alarmed by the amount of time it takes; first-time mothers are not very predictable, he tells me. Could be today, could go on until tomorrow.::
::Bee's going to be completely unraveled by then, and Sam will be too.::
::Ping the Big Twins. See if one of them will run some laps with Bee. Sam's on his own, unless he wants a tranquilizer. I'll pull a cube for Bee and the Twins from the emergency stores.::
::Good idea.::
While Bee did the equivalent of working up a sweat, or doing a day's cardio, Ironhide went to medbay, to see if Chromia needed anything. He found her with Ron and Judy Witwicky, playing the human card game called "poker."
Judy had a stack of chips three times the size of anyone else's.
Arcee arrived just as he did, and said firmly to Chromia, "I'm spelling you. Go take a few hours off, and come back halfway through sunbathing time, okay? You don't get to have all the fun." She turned to Ron and Judy, and said, "Hi! I'm Arcee, if you don't remember me, Chromia's sister. Give me a minute to ping Ratchet, to let him know I'm here instead of Chromia, and we'll get back to the game."
Judy put her hand down. "I think we might get lunch, if that's all right with you," she said to Arcee. "We'll bring back something for Sam."
So that was fine by Hide, too. He pinged Bee, and got rations for all of them including Sunny, and they had a nice time in the sun.
Chromia returned to medbay, and Arcee came out for some abbreviated sunbathing. The afternoon went on, getting a touch warmer; various bots' fans clicked on and off. Hot Rod went to sit with Borealis, who jealously guarded her once-weekly permission to get out of the berth and sunbathe.
Shankie, Shad White's dog, came to sit with Steeljaw. So far as Shad could tell, each of them thought the other was a weird dog, but another dog was another dog, and they formed a pack of two. No one had any idea which one thought himself alpha.
The Wreckers had Googled "dog behavior," and thereafter begun to refer to themselves as a pack. When Prowl Googled the term after they first used it in his presence, he realized that it explained everything.
Toward sunset Bee and Hide went to the quarters being built for the Pretenders, to see if they could lend a hand. Their help was gratefully accepted, and they spent a few hours moving pipe and I-beams.
Around seven thirty Bee said he had to go see if Shad needed help with his homework; he'd ping Hide when he was done.
Hide went to his workshop, and spent some time doing not much of anything before he realized he was too distracted to be there. He went back to medbay at nine PM, telling Bee where he was.
Ron was talking to Sam, who was white-faced and tired. "What goes around comes around; you know you dragged your feet getting born yourself!"
And there was a story behind that, because Judy's eyes shot sparks and her fields read embarrassment. Cohort business, then. But Sam was too frazzled to note it (which was saying something, Ironhide realized, if he himself had), and then the ward clerk came out to say, "Come on back, Mr. Witwicky." He leapt up and disappeared.
-Sidhe Chronicles-
Things began to go sideways with an alarm from the fetal monitor. Sam knew from his own medbay experiences that medical machinery beeped, tweeted, and whistled: loudly, annoyingly, and usually for no good reason that he could see. Ordinarily, a nurse would come in, check the noisy machinery, quiet it, make some sort of chart notation—and that would be it until the next alarm.
This time, however, the nurse drew Dr. Wexford's attention to the monitor. He checked it. "Hmm."
Carly said, "What does that mean? What's wrong?"
"The baby's pulse is a little slow. It's normal for the fetus' pulse rate to slow down during a contraction, then speed back up again afterwards. Daniel's is still just a bit slow."
"Why?" Sam asked.
"Any number of reasons, Sam. We use multiple monitors to help us pinpoint why. Right now, it's well within the the acceptable range, but we'll keep a close eye on it just in case." He swung to Carly. "I'd like to ask Perceptor to come in and do a set of scans."
"Sure," Carly replied.
The small Cybertronian healer was happy to do so. He hardlined to a monitor so that his human counterparts could view the data.
If Carly was anxious at having a mechanical insectoid the size of a basketball with a plethora of sharp-pointed legs on the bed with her, she handled it with typical British aplomb. Sam flashed back on Scalpel and literally bit his tongue to keep silent.
The doctors, human and otherwise, gathered around the monitor, conversing quietly in medicalese. Even Percy had learned that language.
Carly drew a sharp breath as the next contraction started, then her hand clamped down hard on Sam's. "Ah! Dr. Wexford, it feels—wrong. Really hurts. Not like a normal contraction. Someone tell me what's happening!"
Sam looked down.
A bright red stain was spreading across the sheet.
"Doc, look here, bleeding!"
Medbay erupted. The head nurse gently but firmly removed Sam while everyone else burst into activity, moving equipment and bringing trays of instruments. His last glimpse was of Parker scrubbing in, with the assistance of another of the nurses.
Judy jumped out of her chair. "Sam, what's happening?"
"I don't know, Daniel's monitor went off and then Carly started bleeding, I don't know!"
"Oh, Sam!" His mother hugged him, and he hugged back.
Ron said, "Everyone, sit down! It won't help to panic. They'll tell us what's going on as soon as they can. They're in good hands. Sam, when you told me Dr. Wexford was going to be delivering Danny, I checked him out, and he's the best. They're going to be fine."
Chromia pinged Ratchet. ::What's happening in there?::
::It's apparently a condition called placental abruption. The placenta is the structure that connects the baby to the uterus—the human version of the gestation chamber. Oxygen, nutrition and waste products filter through this structure so that the carrier—the mother, I mean—can provide life support for her creation. This structure is not supposed to be jettisoned until after the creation has been completely separated. In Carly's case, it detached prematurely. They will have to perform what's known as an caesarian section in order to separate the creation very quickly, to save both their lives.::
::I see.::
::I didn't tell you that, if the humans ask. Their HIPPA regulations forbid healers from talking about that sort of thing with anyone other than those who have business to know: the patient and the next of kin.::
::All right. I'll find a way to tell Sam without informing everyone else. What are their chances?::
Ratchet answered that from a perspective of thousands of years' experience in emergency medicine. ::It's hard to tell, Chromia. There's an all-out effort in progress, and I believe the doctor they brought in from Nellis is very competent. He has the benefit of Percy's real-time scans, also. They are much more advanced than anything provided by their own technology. But the kind of severe fluid loss that Carly is experiencing is just as dangerous for humans as it is for us. Let the healers do their job.::
End Part 26