Chapter Eighteen
Present Day – Saturday 21st December – 8:30 PM
"Elly, please you just need to calm down for one minute," Bea pleaded with her older sister.
"When in the history of the world has anybody ever calmed down after being told to calm down, Bea? I'm not going to be calm. I am not going to give birth to my baby stuck in a shipping container alone with the pair of you. I need a hospital, I need doctors, nurses, my birthing plan of a water birth! I am not doing this now! Get me out of here!" Elly shouted at her sister and best friend, even though she knew she shouldn't be taking it out on them that EvilFinn had trapped them alone and her water had broken nearly half an hour ago.
Chloe was still sitting next to Elly but had shifted from leaning against her ex-girlfriend to holding her hand and running her free hand up and down Elly's back, in a small way to try and comfort her, "I know you want a hospital and everything you should have to give birth to this baby but I don't see how we can get out of here until Finn comes back and unlocks the door. At least Finn isn't here, Elly, if you give birth to your baby before Finn comes back, we're here for you and Finn won't be here for the birth."
"I love you, Chloe, but don't think for a God damn second I want you and Bea to be the ones here with me to help me give birth. I need professionals who know what they are bloody well doing! I can't even think about how good it is that I might have this baby before Finn gets back because it's not good at all! What I get to spend a few hours cuddling my baby before he gets back here and takes my baby from me?" Elly shouted, her frustration growing every minute that she barely knew what she was saying.
"We are not going to let that happen," both Bea and Chloe claimed at the same time, before Bea continued, "Chloe and I will find a way to stop Finn from taking this baby, you have our word. We'll fight him to the death to protect both of you."
"We're not leaving this shipping container without you and your baby with us, no matter what it takes, got it, Elly?" Chloe promised.
Wait what did Elly say about me a minute ago...? Ah...stress is causing Elly to say all kinds of things she doesn't mean...
"You're really not comforting me in anyway, either of you," Elly complained in her panic, before groaning loudly as she felt a contraction.
Chloe wrinkled her face as she tried not to wince in pain at the way Elly had clamped down on her hand, "What was that? Was that a contraction?"
"No! I told you I am not having my baby here! Get us out of here and get me to a hospital now!" Elly pleaded.
"Elly, if your contractions have started, I don't think you are going to have a choice in where you give birth. This could take hours...hopefully the baby arrives before Finn comes back in the morning," Bea told her sister.
"There is always a choice! This baby is going to wait until you get us out of here and I am in a hospital, got it!?" Elly insisted.
"Elly, why don't you lean back a bit? Let Chloe hold you from behind and I can...I mean if you'll let me...I'll remove your underwear and you can spread your legs and I'll see if...I have any idea what I'm doing," Bea tried to be confident but realized quickly she was out of her depth.
Wait am I going to be like the birthing partner to Elly? That's amazing and special...I mean if Elly would even want me to...she probably still wanted it to be Shaun...RIP...
Nobody is taking off my underwear here...unless it's months and months from now and it's Chloe and we're alone and just shoot me for having a thought like that at a time like this! Hormones! Guess I should be glad Bea is the one offering to...the last thing I want is to scar Chloe for life of ever wanting to be with me by sitting where Bea is watching me give birth to this baby...which is not going to happen because I am not giving birth here now!
Elly clamped her legs together in desperation to stop the inevitable, "Precisely, Bea. You have no fucking idea what you're doing! The only births you've seen have been on TV and movies and I can tell you right now those cows pretending to give birth have never felt the pain I'm in right now. Get off your asses and find a way out of this fucking place now!"
Bea sighed before standing up, "Chloe, do you want to help me...over here?" Bea nodded her head towards the door of the shipping container.
"Sure," Chloe agreed as she went to stand up but was held back by Elly gripping her hand, "Uh...Elly...my hand...I mean if you want me to stay..."
Why did I have to be so scared of Chloe's hand and all the things her hand...I mean the things Chloe herself made me feel that night we slept together...? I wouldn't be in this situation if I did! Urgh...stop thinking about Chloe that way! She's not yours! She's Pierce's...! Wait did I tell Chloe I love her a few minutes ago...? Get a grip on your emotions!
Elly reluctantly let go of Chloe's hand and Chloe walked over to Bea by the door, asking her in a whisper, "Are we trying to work out a way to get out of here?"
Bea crossed her arms in front of her, whispering back, "Chlo, there is no way out unless Finn returns and opens that door or someone happens upon us. We have a torch and implements to create a fire...that's not going to help us with a locked door."
"What do you suggest we do?" Chloe asked quietly.
"You two planning our escape or talking about me behind my back?" Elly groaned out to the pair.
Bea and Chloe both gently smiled at Elly awkwardly before continuing with their conversation.
"Elly's stressed to the max. We do what she says, attempt to find ways to get out of here. Time her contractions, once they get down to…I don't know 10-15 minutes apart…we sit down with Elly and we…prepare her to have this baby here. She's not going to have a choice. You need to be her birthing partner, keep her as calm and reassured as possible. I'll…help more with the baby being born," Bea whispered.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Chloe asked.
"I don't have a clue what I'm doing but we have no options. I don't think there is a way to open the doors from the inside. Unless someone stumbles upon this shipping container in the middle of nowhere in the next few hours, this baby isn't going to wait until Finn returns at sunrise, we attempt to fight him off to get away, we find a way to get transport or find someone who will help us get to the hospital in time for Elly to then give birth," Bea pointed out.
"So, Elly's going to have her baby here," Chloe concluded, "And we're going to help her."
"How's the plan coming along for escaping?" Elly shouted over to the pair.
Chloe shrugged at Bea before turning to Elly, "Elly, were you conscious when Finn brought you here?"
"No, he knocked me out at home, I woke up in here," Elly answered.
"I was conscious, yelling and screaming at him when he dragged me in here, why?" Bea spoke up.
Chloe glanced at the shipping containers two doors, "The doors open outward from the inside, is the way to lock the doors some kind of bar that goes horizontal in the middle or some kind of pins at the bottom that plug into the ground?"
"I'm not sure…I wasn't exactly paying attention," Bea sighed.
Chloe pushed past Bea, before placing her hands against the right door, shoving against it but the door didn't move. She then moved to the left door and found that it budged forward a couple centimeters before jamming against its lock. Chloe quickly jogged over to the table in the shipping container, picked up the torch and headed back to where she'd been standing.
Pointing the torch to shine a light as she stared down at the gap between the door and where it had been, Chloe announced, "Okay, so it's a pin that is plugged into the ground. That's good, a bar in the middle would've been impossible to budge from the inside. The pin on this door is looser and I can make out the other one."
"So?" Bea asked in confusion.
"We either attempt to shove the left door open or since I can just see the pin on the right side if we have something that we can squeeze through the gap and hook it around the pin to lift it…we'll be free," Chloe answered.
"I like it, I love it, Chlo, you two get working on that. I'll be over here not having this baby," Elly told them positively, "What do we have lying around that you could hook it around the pin?"
Bea looked around the place, "I can't see anything around here. We could try my necklace?"
"I think it has to be stronger than a necklace, sorry, Bea," Chloe decided, "Hey, what about the bench? Can we push that up against the loose door and…hope it and us are strong enough to snap the pin?"
Without waiting for an answer, Chloe and Bea walked over to it but upon trying to lift it from either side they immediately realized it had been bolted to the metal floor of the shipping container.
Bea groaned as she stared down at the bolts, "Urgh these look new…Finn thought to bolt down the table, of course he did. What are we going to need to hook it around the pin to try that instead?"
"It's got to be thin enough to squeeze through the gap of the doors but strong and long enough to loop around the horizontal handle of the pin that I can drag it up without snapping. I don't suppose that bag of food magically has a ball of string in it?" Chloe rolled her eyes.
Bea picked up the bag of food, rummaged through it before tossing it aside, "No such luck, nothing remotely useful. Our only choice is for the pair of us to put pressure on the door that has the pin that's loose and hope we can somehow snap it or loosen it til it…magically lifts up by itself…I don't know."
"Don't forget to pound on the door, make lots of noise so if anyone comes by, they'll hear you and rescue us," Elly reminded the pair.
Chloe and Bea walked back over to the left door and begun doing exactly that, pounding, kicking, pressing their body weights at the door but it was no use. It didn't budge more than the few centimeters it opened.
Four hours later, Chloe and Bea were still at it but were tiring quickly as they'd achieved nothing. Though to be honest, they spent more time focusing on Elly and counting how often she was having contractions. In the first hour, Elly had tried to contain revealing she'd had two contractions, desperate to avoid giving birth in this situation. But by her fourth contraction several hours ago she allowed the pain to show and was panting heavily as she sat alone on the mattress.
When her contractions were only five minutes apart, Bea finally glanced at Chloe and whispered, "It's go time."
Without another word, Chloe and Bea abandoned their attempts to escape the container and walked over to Elly.
"What are you doing? Don't give up, someone could still come, I'm fine over here," Elly insisted, groaning loudly at the end.
As Bea crouched in front of Elly, Chloe sat down next to Elly and wrapped her right hand around Elly's shoulder, "Elly, you're not fine. This baby is coming. You've been in labour for hours and now is the time to accept it. You are going to have this baby any minute now."
Elly tried to shirk out of Chloe's grasp but Chloe gripped onto her tighter, "I can't…not here…on my own, not without someone who knows what they are doing."
Bea sat back and allowed Chloe to convince Elly, knowing the blonde was more likely than her to be able to convince her older sister, "You're not on your own, Elly. Bea and I are here for you. I know we're not who you wanted to be here but we are and you can do this, Elly. You're about to be a mum, this is what you've wanted most of your life. You're gonna do great at this."
"I'll screw it up like I've done with everything in my life," Elly claimed.
"No, you won't," both Bea and Chloe retorted before Chloe continued, "You were born to be a mum. You and the peanut will have an amazing life together and you have so many people in your life who will support the both of you. Now, are you going to let this birth happen naturally or keep fighting us?"
Elly groaned as another contraction hit her, gripping onto Chloe's hand tightly until it ended, "Okay…okay…I can do this…with your help."
"Always," Chloe promised, rubbing her hand up and down Elly's lower back.
Elly sat up a bit more, shuffling a bit awkwardly as she allowed Bea to remove her underwear, "You sure you know what you're doing, sis?"
Bea threw the underwear to the side, "Not a blasted clue, sis! I guess…when you feel it's right…push."
Elly almost rolled her eyes, "Not the inspiring confidence I was hoping to hear from you, Bea!" Elly then felt Chloe pull away and immediately glanced at her anxiously, "Where you going?"
"Nowhere," Chloe reassured as she then began taking off her jacket and handed it over to Bea, "You need something to wrap the baby up in. Your dress won't do anything. I don't think I trust those blankets Finn must've picked up from the local Vinnies charity and…well I was the only one stupid enough to wear a light jacket today even though it was pretty hot."
"You want me to wrap my baby up in your jacket…but it'll ruin it," Elly pointed out before suggesting, "I can have it dry cleaned."
Chloe let out a small chuckle, "It's just a jacket, Elly, I don't need it back. The baby needs it more than I do."
Elly smiled as Chloe curled back up to her, resuming the motion with her hand against her lower back, "I really didn't mean I was going to give the jacket back to you, I'm just trying to do anything I can to distract me from the pain I'm in right now and the pain I'm about to be in trying to give birth here."
Chloe leant over and pressed her lips to Elly's forehead, "That's why I'm here, to distract you as much as I possibly can. I'm good at that."
Yeah you are…damn those lips against my forehead…I need that again and again and again…
"Yeah you are. Alright let's…do this…promise me you'll get me and my baby out of here safely in the morning," Elly pleaded.
"Of course, I will," Chloe promised, "You and the peanut will be home together before you know it."
Elly squeezed Chloe's hand tighter, before gently spreading her legs, "Okay…okay I can do this."
Almost an hour later, after lots of screaming from Elly, in a world of pain, nearly crushing Chloe's hand in the process, Elly finally breathed a sigh of relief when she heard her baby crying for the first time. Bea and Chloe continued to encourage Elly to push until her baby was born.
Finally, Elly found herself leaning her head against Chloe's, as she felt Bea pull the baby from her as the baby continued crying.
Bea grinned as she held the baby up for Elly to see for the first time, "I got a nephew!"
Elly closed her eyes for a moment, almost in disbelief that her baby was finally born, before staring at the baby boy Bea held up, "I got a boy? He's perfect."
"He is," Chloe whispered in agreement.
Bea silently shifted the baby into her lap as she reached for the jacket Chloe had given her and wrapped the baby into it, umbilical cord still attached as she didn't have anything to cut it with nor knew if she should.
Bea gently held the baby boy in her arms for a few seconds before handing him over to Elly, "He's all yours and he's always going to be, okay? We're going to get you both out of here and you'll never have to worry about been separated from him ever."
Elly reluctantly released Chloe's hand as Bea handed her the bundle of joy but felt relieved when Chloe shifted to place her hand on her shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly and leaning her head against Elly's.
Elly stared down at her son as she cradled him in her arms, watching him cry as he laid there wrapped up in Chloe's jacket. Tears filled Elly's eyes. Feeling Chloe's other hand gently swirling around her lower back in comfort, Elly relaxed gently into Chloe's embrace, feeling like the only good thing to have come out of the horror Finn had inflicted on her was the closeness she felt to the woman she loved.
"He's gorgeous, Elly. You're a mum now, you're so in love with him, aren't you?" Chloe smiled at Elly.
Elly took her eyes off her son as she smiled over at Chloe, "I'm so in love with him…as much as I'm in love with you, Chloe."
Before Chloe could make a coherent thought to Elly's confession, Elly leant forwards and pressed her lips deeply against Chloe's, kissing Chloe passionately.