Chapter 29: Love's Labours Started

Disclaimer. What I own: Copies of the Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, DVDs of the films. What my son owns: various lego LOTR characters. What neither of us own (sadly) – any intellectual property rights for any of the above. Sniff.

Sorry for the long gap between chapters. We've been on our holidays, up to the West Riding, (or, as they say in Leeds, "we've bin on us holidays").

I've had to have words with Lego Legolas. Following a trip to the Royal Armouries Museum today, my son was inspired to make his own elephant armour out of lego for a cuddly toy elephant. I found Lego Legolas on top of the elephant's head pointing his arrow at the beast's neck (actually, "beast" sounds wrong given that this is a plush cuddly elephant we're talking about). He is now in time out, writing a hundred lines: "I must not shoot elephants, even if they do look a bit like mûmakil." (The Royal Armouries is brilliant, by the way: we went to a jousting demonstration which was absolutely incredible, and the riders included a Dutch woman who must be the reincarnation of Éowyn – she scored several "targés" and shattered several lances on her opponents).

Huge thanks to to Lady Peter for reading this through for me and giving me her helpful suggestions.

Quick word of warning – while this is not a scary description of childbirth (I hope it's a million miles from the clichéof screaming agony while hanging off the cast iron bedstead much beloved by the authors of old-fashioned 'bodice ripper' novels) it does contain some details of various physiological processes associated with birth, so if you're squeamish, you may want to skip bits. And there's no getting round the fact that it hurts.

PS did anyone see the recent Private Eye front cover following a certain rather widely reported birth? Brilliant! It just said (40 point) "Woman has baby."

The day after they finally got back from Skye, Helena had to go to the antenatal clinic. She met Legolas in the cafe after the appointment. It was obvious that she was upset, but Legolas didn't really want to ask her about it with his boss and Cathy within earshot. When they finally got home alone, Legolas set about trying to find out what was wrong. He guessed that she was still coming to terms with the shock of the last few days. He reached over the table and took her hands in his.

"I am so sorry I had to go to war once more, meleth nin. I know that you worry for my safety, and that you do not like violence. But sometimes the threat posed by avoiding war is yet greater still," he said.

"No, if ever anything was a 'just war', going to fight a demon-possessed politician who wasn't exactly the nicest of people even before he got possessed, and now has his own private army of orcs probably counts," said Helena, with a wry smile. "But I was very, very worried about you, probably would have been at the best of times, and pregnancy makes me more emotional than normal, and the thought of our babies having no father... Of me not having you..." Her voice trailed off. Legolas walked round to her side of the table, and knelt beside her, before sliding his arm round her back. Helena continued, "But there's something else. At the hospital appointment. You know how the dating scan was wrong because our babies aren't growing as fast as they think they should be, so they've got me down as 37 weeks when in fact I'm more like 40 weeks, going off when I think we really conceived?"

"Yes," said Legolas.

"Well, normally they'd want to deliver human twins at 38 weeks, so the obstetrician is putting me under enormous pressure to be booked in for an induction next week. And I'm terrified it's just too early for the babies. What do we do?"

"The only thing I can think of is to go back to see the obstetrician together, taking Tom with us, and get him to show him the results of the genetic tests he ran on me. And hope that he doesn't think we're suffering from some sort of strange, collective delusion. Either that or go back to the north of Scotland and hide out in a bothy in the middle of nowhere till you reach term," Legolas added, smiling softly. He kissed her forehead. "We'll think of something, meleth nin. It will all be alright. I didn't fight a Nazgul only to have you scared by a doctor." Helena gave a small, wavering smile in return.

"Come, meleth nin, let's go to bed." He drew her gently to her feet and led her into their bedroom.

"It's not fair," said Helena, "We finally get rid of all the bloody elves with their extra good hearing, and now I just feel knackered and uncomfortable and huge. Like a bloody beached whale."

"You don't look like a whale, you look beautiful. Everything about you is beautiful, including this," Legolas said, running his hands over her belly. "But it's alright, I am more than content simply to hold you. Just to be with you soothes my soul."

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

In the end, they had done more than hold each other. Gently affectionate kisses had grown gently passionate, and Helena had let her hands wander to regions which left Legolas in no doubt as to her change in mood. But it had not been one of those occasions which left the room spinning; rather it had been a slow, leisurely, almost lazy love making, which had left them both sleepily satisfied, tangled in each other's limbs. Legolas reflected that sometimes fireworks were not the be all and end all. In that moment, he felt that this sense of languorous contentment was worth more than all the jewels ever mined by the dwarves of Middle Earth. The woman he loved slept peacefully in his arms.

Suddenly, he became aware of Helena moving against him. She twitched, a sharp jerking motion, and woke with a start. Her eyelids fluttered open, her face grimacing in pain.

"Ow," she muttered, then seemed to gasp for breath.

"What is it, meleth nin?" Legolas asked anxiously. He had to wait for a long moment which seemed to stretch out as she struggled to get her breath back enough to form words. Eventually she managed to speak.

"Ow, crampy pains like period pains," she said.

"What do we do? Should I call the hospital?" Legolas said, sounding a bit panicky. Facing the massed armies of Sauron was one thing, seeing the woman he loved in labour struck him as an entirely different proposition.

"It's alright, it's probably only Braxton-Hicks – you know, the practise contractions they told us about in the classes."

"Are you sure?" Legolas asked, painfully aware of Helena's seemingly endless capacity for ignoring the obvious when she was frightened or out of her depth emotionally.

"Everything's fine, I'm going to go back to sleep," she said, and lay down on her side, leg draped over the pillow that now got a rather larger share of the bed than Legolas. He lay down behind her and wrapped his arm round her midriff. She shut her eyes, and gradually her breathing slowed. After about 20 minutes, Legolas could sense her drifting off to sleep. Then she jerked once more. This time he felt her belly go hard as granite under his hand.

"Ooh, that hurts," she said again.

"Now can we call the hospital?" said Legolas.

"Not yet, the first thing we do is wait for the next one to see how far apart they are," Helena said. Remember the midwives said not to go in till they were five minutes apart. They'll only send us home again if we go in too soon. Besides which, it could be hours before I get to that stage, and I think I'd sooner be at home." She smiled at him. "Looks like the old wives' tale about sex starting babies off isn't an old wives' tale after all."

"Helena, are you sure about this? Didn't they say that twin pregnancies were different?"

"No, I'm sure five minutes was the magic number," Helena replied, rather too breezily for his peace of mind. "I'd much sooner be here than stuck in hospital covered in wires and stuff." She snuggled up under the duvet again. With a slightly exasperated sigh, Legolas settled down beside her again. Feeling tense and on edge, he waited. This time, even Helena didn't manage to doze. Sure enough, after another twenty minutes or so, Helena gasped with pain and held Legolas's hand tightly.

"This time, we make a note of the time," he said. When, after a minute or so, she relaxed in his arms, he picked up the clock. "4.43," he said.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

By 7.30, Helena had abandoned her rather pointless attempt to cat-nap between contractions. She was perched back-to-front on one of the dining chairs trying, and failing, to watch a DVD. The contractions were coming roughly every quarter of an hour, and Legolas sat beside her, ready to massage her back when they happened which seemed to help a bit. He'd just put in another plea to call the hospital when the door to the sitting room opened, and Gimli entered, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"I thought I heard the two of you up and about," he said.

"We think Helena's babies are on the way," said Legolas.

"What! Now? Shouldn't you be doing something? Should I boil some towels and fetch water or something? Or boil the water and fetch towels?" Gimli burst out. Legolas laughed at his panic, then sobered somewhat.

"Helena assures me that all is well, though I think she should go to the house of healing,"the Elf said.

"Is she sure? I think if you are in doubt, then you should call upon the healers," said Gimli.

"Gimli agrees with me, we should call the hospital," Legolas translated.

Helena got up from the chair and started to pace round the room.

"Will you two stop clucking like a pair of mother hens?" Suddenly she grabbed the back of the armchair and bent forward slightly, her breath coming in short bursts. "Ouch, that really, really hurts," she gasped. Legolas came over and put his arms around her shoulders. After a minute or so, she straightened up.

"Could you tell Gimli that I don't want to be rude, but I really don't want an audience for this. Do you think he could go round to see Elladan and Elrohir?" Legolas translated, and Gimli nodded his assent, rather relieved to have an excuse to leave. He'd chopped off enough orc heads to be convinced that he was no longer squeamish, but really, there were some situations a dwarf just didn't want to face. And this was one of them.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

The rest of the day passed in a strange mixture of tension and boredom. The contractions settled at 15 minute intervals for several hours, then seemed to ease off again in the early evening ("See," Helena had said triumphantly, "This is why you don't rush straight into hospital.") Late at night, however, they had returned with renewed strength. Legolas had repeated his request that they phone the hospital and this time, tired of the pain and starting to feel the lack of a decent night's sleep the previous night, Helena had finally acquiesced. Legolas felt slightly aggrieved at the reaction. He had received a tremendous ticking off from the midwife at the other end of the phone. Yes, they should have come into hospital immediately given that it was twins, no, he shouldn't have listened to Helena, he should have phoned up to check. However, one look at Helena's face told him that saying "I told you so" would probably be a more foolhardy proposition than attacking a Balrog armed only with his pair of daggers. Instead he set about phoning round taxi firms trying to persuade one that, armed with enough towels and plastic sheet, their seats would survive the risk of taking a woman in labour to hospital.

"Call Lottie, she's got a car," said Helena.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Lottie arrived within 10 minutes, to find Helena mid contraction, bent double, clutching the back of a chair.

"They seem to be coming much more frequently all of a sudden," said Legolas, clearly worried. "And I think her waters broke about 5 minutes ago."

"How frequently?" asked Lottie.

"Less than 3 minute gaps now," Legolas replied.

Helena straightened up. "I want to push..."

"OK, can you do your best not to push just yet? Before I get you in the car I want to take a quick look. Is that alright, Helena?" asked Lottie. Helena nodded, and Lottie helped her with her underwear. "How are you most comfortable?"

"Standing up," said Helena.

"Alright, I'll do my best." Despite being increasingly worried, Legolas could see the funny side as Lottie got down on all fours and peered up between Helena's legs.

"Oh Christ, I can see the head!" Lottie said. "Legolas, call 999, NOW! Helena, down on all fours with your bum in the air, don't push, and try to pant every time you get a contraction."

Helena did as she was told, and Lottie knelt beside her. In the background she could hear Legolas on the phone. "Okay, we've got a moment between contractions. Where do you keep the towels?" She ran out of the room. Helena heard the sound of the bathroom tap running; Lottie was obviously 'scrubbing up'. Just as another wave of pain hit, Lottie returned with armfuls of towels. She got back down on her knees. "Just pant, pant, don't push." Helena gave a series of loud groans of pain, then as the contraction subsided, launched into an inventive string of swear words.

"Legolas, come and hold her hand and get sworn at – you're the one to blame, after all," said Lottie. Legolas found his hand taken in an iron grip. He felt as if the bones were being crushed.

"Helena, the trick is to try to hold off till the ambulance can get here. I have delivered babies, but they'll have all the kit we need. So keep your bum in the air, keep panting, don't push."

"You said that already... Ah shit that hurts..." Another bone-crunching assault on Legolas's hand. "Oh, ow, I don't think I can control it, shit shit shit..."

"Oh," said Legolas, trying to cover his dismay, "I didn't realise you meant that literally." Lottie wiped the mess up with a matter-of-fact air.

"Get a grip, Legolas. It's perfectly normal. Happens to almost everyone. Just don't remind her of it afterwards."

Helena was hit by another contraction. "I can't stop it," she panted. Lottie looked between her legs.

"Okay, you can't hold on till the ambulance arrives. Legolas, hold her under the arms in a squatting position." He did as he was told and helped Helena into position.

"Helena love, try not to push, try to just let it come slowly." Lottie lay on the floor between Helena's legs. Helena gave a yell of pain.

"My God, it feels like I'm shitting a pineapple backwards."

"Yeah, I gather it's known as the 'ring of fire'. But that's the head out. Baby number one should be out with the next contraction." Lottie supported the baby's head, and put gentle pressure on the skin round about. As Helena gave another groan, Lottie gently eased the shoulders round. Moments later the baby slithered out into her waiting hands.

"This one's a girl," she said. Gently but quickly, she dried the baby, wrapped her in a towel.

Wide eyed with astonishment, Legolas stared at his baby daughter. He was hit by a sudden rush of love for the tiny creature. All of a sudden he felt as though he was floating clear of the ground. The baby looked back at him with enormous, alert blue eyes. Then she opened her mouth and gave a wail.

"Help Helena onto the floor for a moment," Lottie said. Helena went back on all fours. "Sit beside her holding the baby," Lottie instructed.

Legolas got down beside Helena. He took the baby in his arms, and rocked her gently. As the warmth of being held calmed her, she stopped crying. He sat cuddling the little elfling with a blissful expression on his face. Helena looked at her child with a stunned smile, her first smile for some time. "She's so beautiful," said Helena. The baby turned her head slightly at the sound of Helena's voice, and the two gazed at each other. "Hello, little tadpole," Helena murmured.

Legolas gave a slight frown. "Shouldn't we cut the cord or something?" he asked.

"We don't have the equipment. It's perfectly safe to leave it," said Lottie. "The cord will stop pulsating in a moment, and we can leave it till after we've delivered the afterbirth. At the moment we have to worry about twin two. Helena, can I do an internal to see if I can feel which way round the next baby is. I'll be as gentle as I can. Let me know if it hurts."

"Mmm hmm," said Helena, who seemed lost in contemplation of her daughter. Lottie very gently probed with her fingers. Helena came back to reality with a gasp of "ouch."

"Sorry," said Lottie. "I think twin two is breech, I think that's its bottom. So hairpin breech. I don't have the expertise to turn it, we'll just have to see how it goes. Legolas, can you lay the baby down just slightly to the side and hold Helena up again. Again, try not to push, we'll just try to let the baby come out as gently as possible."

Another contraction hit Helena, and she yelled. As it subsided, she snarled, "Two bloody pineapples this time. Legolas Thranduillion, you are never coming near me ever again."

Legolas gripped her under her arms, and laid his cheek against her hair. Lottie lay back on the floor. As the baby's bottom appeared, she gently supported it to try to slow its arrival. Gradually, with each contraction, she steered the baby a little bit further into the world, until very gently she could ease the head out. She realised with a start that the cord was round the baby's neck. With great care she slid her fingers in between its neck and the cord and eased the loop over the head. Then she towelled the baby. For a long moment, there was silence. Helena looked anxiously at the baby. Suddenly the tiny child took a great gasp, then bawled.

"Thank goodness," said Helena.

"Congratulations. This one's a little boy," said Lottie. "Argh," she added as the baby felt the effects of the cold air and and an arc of urine hit her square on. "Definitely a little boy." Helena burst out laughing. Lottie wrapped the second baby in a clean towel and handed him to Helena, who reached out a finger and stroked his cheek. The baby opened his eyes and stared back at her, face red and wrinkled. "Let's make you a bit more comfortable."

Legolas helped Helena lie down on cushions from the couch, then took his daughter in his arms again.

"We just have to wait to deliver the placentas now. Might take up to half an hour, more than that and they'll deal with it in hospital," said Lottie. "It shouldn't hurt anywhere near as much as the babies did. We should see if they're hungry. Can you lift your top up and we'll help them find some food?"

There was a ring at the doorbell.

"Better late than never," said Lottie with a huge grin. She got to her feet and went to let the paramedics in.

Author's note: A big thank you to all my real life friends whose birth stories/ partner's birth stories I have shamelessly plundered to write this chapter. That, and Orlando Bloom's very funny (and very touching) interview with Ellen de Generes talking about his wife giving birth to their son. And of course I still remember the totally amazing feeling of looking into my son's eyes for the first time. (Yes, he did pee on the midwife.)

Public service announcement: This is a work of fiction (just in case you hadn't worked that out by now) – if you're ever pregnant, go off what your health professionals advise you, not my version of things. And every birth is different. This one actually progresses rather faster than the average first time birth, though there's a wide variation (friends of mine have done everything from 3 hours to 3 days for a first birth ). BTW I checked the current NHS guidelines before writing this – basically Legolas was right, twin pregnancies are treated differently, and the advice is to go to hospital at the first sign of labour. But as we all know by now, 'Denial' is Helena's middle name.

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Only the epilogue to go now. I feel rather sad – I've had so much fun writing this. But I've got two new fics started and posted/ ready to go in the next day or so. Because I can't keep anything straight-faced for long, but want to try my hand at something serious, I'm going to try to post alternate chapters of a parody and a serious fic. Hopefully I can get all the silliness out of my system in the parody, then write something serious in between.

'Groundhog GDIME' covers the misadventures of a blatant Mary-Sue self-insert as she tries just about every tactic you might ever have heard of to find her way into Middle Earth in pursuit of our favourite elven prince. As the name suggests, something goes horribly (or, when viewed from Legolas's perspective, fortuitously) wrong every time.

'Flower of Ice and Steel' is actually going to be canonical! (Well, close to canonical...) It takes the story of Eowyn's time in the houses of healing, and tries to fill out the details of how she came to fall in love with Faramir in such a short space of time. (I've always found Tolkien's version absolutely convincing on a psychological level: his take being that she had a girlish crush on Aragorn, nothing more, and that, as he himself had seen at first hand, the heightened emotions of wartime often led to people forming relationships in a very short space of time, much quicker than they would have done at any other time. But there's room for a lot more detail than Tolkien's admittedly beautiful sketch gives us).

I've also updated my profile, so there's lots of suggestions for fantastic stuff to read on there (including a rich vein of Eomer/Lothiriel fics which I've been digging my way through).

And I've got ideas for a fic involving Elladan, another about Eomer and Lothiriel, and maybe another piece of Legomance! Watch this space.

Anyway, since this is the penultimate chapter, I thought I'd take a moment to thank everyone who's been reading, or who's helped.

First off, Lady Peter, for invaluable feedback (she hasn't beta-ed all of it, but I've been able to run some of the later material past her, and she's been really helpful). All mistakes are of course mine.

Zees Muse for letting me borrow the Rohirrim cloak-marriage thing, and Borys68 for letting me incorporate one of his reviews into the story.

All of my lovely reviewers, some of whom have been around right since the start: Alexandria Solace, She Elf of Hidden Lore, Seren Lyall, Sandy-wmd, wcbagget, FantasyStarDreamer7, animepercystyle, Xxjigoku-no-HanaxX, Penaattori, Elglor Stargold, Niloriel1701, Katia0203, LotR-HP-PJ, Guest, DepthsofMySubconscious, Borys68, Yuki Suou, anonymous, joyrid3, Person, LadyPeter, Meril-chan o Lorien, Rebecca, The10thHatter, lotrjesusfreak, PinkWolf, Thalthian, RorytheDragon, StormwalkerofLorien.

All of you who've been kind enough to follow/favourite this (in no particular order, just as I managed to get your names out of fanfic's logs): Alexandria Solace, Elglor Stargold, EurydiceKitty, Gingerninjaunicorn, Meril-chan o Lorien, Morwen80, Mrslautner147, Niloriel1701, Orchestra-Eight, Penaattori, RorytheDragon, Sleepy Hollow 5, Thalthian, AnimePercystyle, Joyrid3, ladypeter, lotrjesusfreak, sarathestarkidranger, Ardikani4, Borys68, Bridgid the Fae, FantasyStarDreamer7, Feanre, Kate Chase, Katia0203, Lorento, Nooblebop, Sandy-wmd, SerenLyall, Suheyla, ThefadingdaysofMay, Yuki Suou, fairlysimple16, katnor, obsessiveicequeen, StormwalkerofLorien, Raider-K, Chibi Cheshire, sweet-angel-sc, gOthiCkUrOcHo69.