"Stay here, Kat. Please, I don't want to run the risk of losing more of my children." Esme said pleadingly, her hands cupped around Katerina's own.
Katerina herself felt conflicted with her mothers begging. On the one hand, she felt like she needed to go along with her parents to hunt because of her power which offered the much-needed offence and defensive power if they were to go against the wolves. But taking one look at Esme's glassy eyes and she was weak to say no.
"We need you to stay here in case anything happens, Kat. You know this already," Carlisle said from where he stood beside the bookcase, watching them both.
She sighed, understanding perfectly well that those same abilities that were effective against the wolves would be what kept her remaining family safe within their home in case they were ambushed.
She had to think about those that would be staying here, defenceless. Her mind flashed to the sickly fragility of Bella and she pursed her lips.
"Fine. But call me if anything goes wrong, ok? If only for my own peace of mind."
Carlisle smiled and pat her shoulder in reassurance. Esme smiled brightly and gave Katerina a tight motherly hug, which she returned.
"I'll go and fetch Jacob, I believe he just entered the house," Carlisle said before leaving up the stairs to collect the wolf.
"So, you're taking Emmett and Jasper, right? Do you need anybody else? Because you know I can handle myself and those left here. I'd rather you both have the extra muscle," she fretted, her mind coming up with the hundreds of ways this plan of theirs could go horribly wrong.
Esme smiled tenderly, rubbing a soothing thumb across her knuckles. "We'll be fine darling, though we'll take Alice and Alex with us, too. She's been too caught up over not seeing this whole baby business that she needs to feed before she hurts herself. It will reassure Alex, also."
Humming her agreement, Katerina turned to face the doorway when Jacob entered, his brows furrowed. He held a single blood bag in his hand and eyed it sceptically.
"So, this is the last of it then, huh?"
"Bella could deliver as soon as tomorrow, and if she's to have any chance of surviving then she'll need plenty of blood."
"And we need to feed ourselves. Soon," Katerina chimed in.
Jacob looked at all their eyes; pitch black and wide in hunger, though they were all vehemently pushing down their thirst it wasn't easy, and the evidence was blatantly obvious with one look.
"They both need to feed," Esme said chidingly. "If they're to help Bella medically then they need to be able to resist the temptation."
Suffice it to say, that Carlisle had solid resistance against the temptation of human blood. Katerina however, though well-versed in her refusal of the mouth-watering allure, still struggled if she was pushed too far.
Helping Bella would be infinitely easier if both doctor and nurse were well-fed and had a semblance of iron-tight control. Both Bella and the baby's safety depended on it.
Jacob wore a conflicted expression for a few moments before it shifted into determined resignation. It seemed he had a plan. Good.
"You're all considered the enemy now, they won't hesitate to slaughter you all..." he began, almost warningly.
When Carlisle's expression didn't change, he sighed and muttered weakly. "You'd risk your lives for her?" Undoubtedly he was referring to Bella.
"Of course we would," Esme said without hesitation. "She's family now, and we protect family with our lives."
"...I can see that." The words were whispered quietly seemingly to himself, but in a room with three vampires, they heard the words loud and clear. "This really is a family...as strong as the one I was born into."
Katerina moved forward and clasped a firm hand on his shoulder, catching his attention. "Our family doesn't just consist of us Cullens. You, Seth and Leah are all considered family now, too," she said kindly.
Jacob's eyes widened slightly but he looked away quickly, whether to hide his shift in expression or something else, she wasn't sure, but with her piece said she moved back, smiling at the warm faces of her parents. She knew it was the right thing to say and they believed it too.
A few moments of silence passed before Jacob turned to them again, his face hard with conviction.
"I know what I have to do."
Sitting anxiously in the living room, Katerina stared at her brother, mentally begging him to say something. She knew he was listening in on their departing family's thoughts, monitoring whether they'd made it past the forest and over the river to safety.
Jacob came back up the stairs with a grave expression, his face downcast. He met eyes with Edward and asked the crucial question.
"Did they make it out alright?"
Edward met Katerina's stare before looking at Jacob again. "Yeah," he muttered quietly.
With an unnecessary relieved sigh, Katerina felt all the tension and panic leave her body at once. The situation still wasn't ideal, and she knew they were far from clear of danger, but for now, her family was safe.
Turning to Bella who was watching everybody in anticipation, she smiled kindly, feeling guilty for ignoring her so far. "I'm sorry, I was a little worried. Though I suppose being related to someone like Alex, that's to be expected."
Bella laughed lightly at her teasing tone, the atmosphere becoming a little more light-hearted. "I'm sure they'll all be ok. Jasper is strong. Emmett and Alex, too."
She hummed, agreeing with the human's assessment of her brothers and husband. They were all strong, and despite wishing things could be different, and having warned Alex it was only to be used in a last-ditch defence, the wolves were just as flammable as any other creature. Not to mention Emmett's insane strength.
She knew they would be fine. However, her worry continued to niggle in the back of her mind. Everything went a little too easily. Things always go wrong. It was too easy.
Too easy.
Rosalie helped Bella to her feet, the girl absentmindedly running her hand across her stomach to soothe the pains. She welcomed Jacob and soon began explaining her thoughts of baby names.
Oh, good lord, not this again...
Edward snorted from across the room and Katerina knew she'd broadcasted her thoughts a little too loudly. How could she help it? The poor human's taste was astonishingly terrible and Katerina feared for the mental state of her new niece or nephew with such an atrocious name.
"Rosalie is trying to persuade Bella out of her baby names," Edward smirked, his gaze meeting her own. "Kat, too."
"They hate them," Bella lamented, eyeing both of her sister-in-law's ruefully.
Rosalie scoffed, raising her nose high.
Katerina shrugged unhelpfully. "Even if I hate them, that won't stop me from spoiling the child rotten," she promised, pursing her lips. "Though name-themed presents will certainly be off the agenda."
"Well, then I'm on your side no matter what you pick," Jacob promised her.
She raised a brow, suddenly interested if the boy would keep his word once the names were revealed.
"They're not that bad..." Bella tried to argue weakly. "Ok, so if it's a boy...EJ. Edward, Jacob."
She turned hopeful eyes toward Jacob and Katerina did everything within her power to stop the loud guffaw from leaving her lips at the sight of Jacob's twitching eyebrow. She raised a hand to daintily cover her mouth, hoping to make the move look casual.
Though by Rosalie's small smirk in her direction, she was doing a lousy job.
"Fine, let's say that one's not awful...why don't you tell him the girl's name?" Rosalie teased.
Bella looked at the floor in embarrassment. "I was playing around with our moms' names... Renee and Esme...and I thought, Renesmee."
Jacob wore a duped expression and when Edward began chuckling behind him, Katerina couldn't hold in her giggles any longer. She covered her mouth in apology but that didn't stop the light sound from slipping through.
Bella knew their humour was in good nature and chuckled along with them. Edward had reassured her plenty of times that he loved the names; that they were unique just like the situation they'd found themselves in.
EJ and Renesmee. Her future nephew or niece. A little one to spoil and love...
Katerina's thoughts of her future family member were broken when the flask Bella drank from fell to the floor and a resounding snap rang throughout the room. Bella was bent backwards in an unnatural angle, her mouth and eyes wide in agony.
Edward rushed forward to catch the girl's fragile head as she fell to the floor, Jacob and Rosalie fretting around them both in fear of such a sudden shift of situation.
"...at...Kat!" Edward's panicked voice cut through her internal shock and she turned wide eyes toward her brother, who was similarly wide-eyed with fear. "Please, I need you to stay with me. You're the only one qualified to do this."
Right. Katerina pushed all her turbulent thoughts to the back of her mind and let herself fall into her nurse mindset. She remembered all those times during war and famine when she'd been faced with much worse scenarios than right now and how she'd powered through them all without trouble.
She had to be confident now. If not for herself, then for her family. She shifted her eyes to the sight of a writhing Bella on the floor. Her family was in danger and their leader was gone. She'd been left in charge; she knew what she had to do.
Take charge. Save her.
With instinctual confidence, Katerina began directing everybody where she needed them.
"Edward, carry Isabella to the room Carlisle set out, lay her down and discard her clothing, there's no time for modesty and I'll need nothing in my way."
Edward nodded in relief at her quick turnaround and sped away with Bella's body, Jacob following close behind with rushed steps. Katerina turned to Rosalie, who was staring at where they'd disappeared with wide eyes. "Rose, get me my kit."
She turned wide eyes toward her sister but nodded and followed her instructions. Turning ready to follow her brother, Katerina was stopped in her tracks upon seeing Lillian peeking into the room by the doorway, biting her lower lip in worry.
Cupping the girl's cheeks, Katerina kept her voice calmer than she felt inside. "Darling, I'm going to need you to stay upstairs for this, ok? I want you to go into our room and enter the code. Keep yourself locked inside. I'm proud of your resistance so far but we cannot push it for a situation so dire. Do you understand?"
Lillian nodded her head, her eyes clear with understanding. Katerina appreciated the girl's maturity at such a time as she couldn't afford to be playing babysitter. "Good, now go. Quickly, love."
At the sight of Lillian's retreating form, Katerina sped into the spare room, where Edward was holding Bella's hand. The girl was writhing upon the reclined hospital table as though experiencing a seizure, though Katerina knew it was only the human body's reaction to crippling pain.
Entering the room Katerina first picked up the bottle of sanitizer and cleaned her hands, not wanting to risk infection with such a delicate procedure. She ignored the girl's painful moans as well as Edward and Jacob's murmurs of reassurance, focusing instead on checking the needle she held.
"Ok, so first, morphine." She spoke out loud for the assurance of those in the room, not wanting them anymore on edge than they already were.
She peeked down below at the bottom of the girl's body and saw the pool of blood that had soaked through the white sheets. Narrowing her eyes in concern she muffled a curse before injecting the needle into Bella's sweat-slick skin.
"What's wrong? What does that mean?" Edward's frantic voice asked and Katerina grimaced, knowing he would have caught onto her frenzied thoughts.
"Placental abruption," she spoke clinically, not wanting to infuse her voice with the worry she felt inside. "It's when the placenta detaches or separates early on in pregnancy."
She carried onto the next needle, piercing the skin with anaesthetic just below Bella's swollen stomach to numb the area as best as possible.
"Is that bad?" Jacob asked rather dumbly.
Katerina didn't warrant sarcasm in such a situation and refrained from pointing out that Bella's clear agonising pain and excessive bleeding were certainly obvious signs of something bad.
Picking up a plastic package and tearing it open to reveal a fresh scalpel, Katerina held it in steady hands with the intention of beginning the caesarean but was stopped with a vice-like grip on her wrist. Looking at Edward in surprise and a little annoyance, Katerina raised a brow in question.
"Would you like to explain why you're stopping me from saving your wife's life?"
Edward gritted his teeth and glanced at Bella's flushed, pained face and narrowed his eyes. "Save her, please. Save her no matter what."
"No!" a weak voice rang out from below and Katerina met Bella's hard gaze. "You promised me, Kat. Please. You promised."
"Katerina? Can I ask you something?" a tentative voice spoke.
Katerina stopped in her motions, looking down at the girl whose hair she was currently brushing through.
"Of course, is there something on your mind?"
Bella bit her lip and shifted in place, her eyes darting around the room consciously. She looked up to meet her gaze and mimed the words she wanted to speak.
'Can anybody hear me? Can Edward?'
Katerina rose a brow at the rather odd question but tilt her head as she listened in on the residents of the house, hearing only Rosalie tinkering around with her car in the garage and Lillian making a racket dancing upstairs.
"Nobody else is within hearing distance," she assured her.
Well, nobody that would particularly notice whatever she wished to say, at least. Both too occupied with their own things.
Bella sighed in relief and nodded her head, seemingly resolved in her determination to say whatever secret she wished to spill.
"When the baby is ready to be born, and if anything goes wrong...I want you to do everything in your power to make sure they survive."
Katerina wasn't shocked by her words, having already guessed something similar would have come up eventually. Instead, she continued brushing through the thin strands of hair, humming to show she was listening.
Bolstered by her lack of outrage, Bella continued.
"Even if it looks like I won't make it, I want you to save my baby. If it's between me and the baby, choose them. Please."
"You do know what it is you're asking of me, correct?" she asked the girl, not letting any inflection in her tone. "It goes against every promise I made as a nurse to let my patient die if I can prevent it. Yet you want me to ignore that and save your child instead."
Bella nodded her head, and though she hunched her shoulders as though ready to be denied, her eyes shone in determination. Like she refused to take no for an answer.
Katerina held the girl's stare for a few tense moments, impressed when she refused to look away, before letting a soft smile shine through, chuckling as the girl's shoulders sagged in relief.
"If it is what you sorely wish, then I can assure you I will give it my utmost best to ensure the child's survival. Even if Carlisle is the one to perform surgery, I will find a way."
A bony hand softly held onto her own and Katerina looked down to see Bella's fragile, skeletal fingers cupping her own smaller ones tightly.
"Thank you," she whispered emotionally. The sight of tears beginning to well in her eyes caught Katerina's attention and she leant forward to wipe them away.
"Don't cry now, having a child is a wonderful experience. No matter how difficult it may seem, I can assure you it will be worth it all in the end. I've delivered plenty of children and there hasn't been a single mother that does not smile in joy when they come face to face with their child."
Bella smiled wistfully at that mental image; her eyes shadowed a little with sadness at the looming threat of not making it to seeing her child. Carlisle had gone over the hard truth and explained how Bella's body was deteriorating at such a rapid pace that despite the child clearly growing faster than normal, it was still dubious if the human would make it out alive.
"Promise me," Bella whispered weakly.
Katerina stayed silent, watching the girl she'd seen grow from an awkward, bumbling stranger – one she'd hated with a passion for the storm she'd brought their family – to the strong and loving woman in front of her. The woman that was asking Katerina to promise her that she would save the child she carried over herself.
Isabella Swan had gone from a selfish teenager infatuated with the idea of falling in love, into a selfless mother who would sacrifice anything to save the baby she had yet to bring into the world.
"I promise," Katerina swore solemnly.
Katerina stroked the sweaty hair from Bella's face, her expression one of sympathy and understanding.
"I'm sorry this is happening, but I promise to get this child out safely. The morphine should have spread enough by now, but you'll still feel some pain. I can't wait anymore for it to be strong enough to dull everything. Are you ready?"
Bella's eyes were shadowed in fear, but she nodded resolutely, gritting her teeth together in anticipation. Smiling at the girl's bravery, Katerina moved back and moved the scalpel back down to her lower stomach again.
[warning: minor graphic description of caesarean]
Making a swift cut above her pubic region, Katerina concentrated on cleanly operating and tried to best ignore Bella's whimpers of pain from above. She made another small incision on the lower part of the uterus.
Blood was flowing out of Bella's body at an alarming rate, likely from a ruptured organ after collapsing earlier. Katerina ignored this; her attention focused solely on the small foot she could see inside Bella's body.
Smiling, Katerina hurriedly – though with care and precision – tugged on the tiny appendage before sliding her other hand inside the incision and scooping the baby's head into her hands, allowing the small body to slip out with ease.
[minor graphic scene over]
A cry rang throughout the room and smiles were shared around, with Bella eagerly trying to see the newest edition to their family. Katerina did a quick check at the baby's genitals before covering them in a swaddling blanket, her lips curling at the edges as she announced to the room, "Renesmee Cullen has a pretty nice ring to it."
Both Bella and Edward laughed in relief and joy at her words and looked at one another in love. Even Jacob was looking toward the new mother in honest happiness.
Knowing that they were wasting precious time – things could still go wrong even after the birthing process – Katerina went back into action. "Rose, I need you to clamp and cut the umbilical cord. Quickly, but be careful."
Rosalie did as she asked, doing an admirable job in ignoring the stench of blood. Once done, she handed the baby to her sister, knowing she'd keep a close eye on the child.
"Now, we're going to finish closing you back up to ensure nothing gets infected," she said out loud, mostly to reassure Bella and Edward.
She gently removed the placenta, before tightly suturing her abdomen. So focused on her work, she was shocked when Bella's heart rate suddenly plummeted. Looking up with wide eyes, she saw how deathly pale the girl had become in the last few seconds, her skin rivalling their own.
Checking her pulse as she was unable to hear for sure over Renesmee's cries, she cursed under her breath when no feint beat could be picked up. Katerina wondered if they'd ever catch a break.
"Edward, start chest compressions," she urged.
Without missing a beat, Edward did as she said, staring at his wife's unmoving face in distress. She turned to her sister who was absorbed in awe at Renesmee in her arms.
"Rose, take Renesmee somewhere else. She doesn't need to be around this."
Rosalie nodded and began softly speaking to the newborn in a soft lull, smiling brightly as she left the room. Jacob was shifting anxiously where he stood staring at the stone-like body of Bella, his face hard in a mixture of distress and anger.
"Is she dying?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"Not if I have anything to do with it."
"And how are you planning on reviving her? Even I can hear she has no pulse," Jacob replied scathingly. He shot an ugly glare Edward's way, his eyes were dark in fury. "This is all your fault."
"If you would please refrain from throwing accusations while Isabella is currently dying, that would be much appreciated," Katerina said sternly toward the hot-headed wolf.
"What are you planning, Kat? What do I do?" Edward asked, his last words pleading with her.
Katerina looked at his frenzied movements, his emotions so high that he was unable to even perform the compressions correctly. Thinning her lips in mounting frustration, Katerina pushed at Edward's chest, shoving him out of the way in sudden anger.
"Stop! Are you trying to kill her? She's still human if you couldn't tell and pushing so hard onto her chest will make it cave faster than quicksand!"
Edward stared at his hands in shock and horror. Katerina felt that it was in moments like this that Edward truly acted his age. Despite being over a hundred, she felt he was such a sheltered soul that he'd never truly grown up like the rest of them had. He had never quite seemed like her younger brother until this exact moment.
"Kat," he whispered brokenly, staring at her with wide eyes that would be filled with tears if possible. "Please, save her. Tell me what to do..."
Clenching her teeth, Katerina made a snap decision. She wasn't sure if she were in the right to do so, and in the back of her mind, she distantly wondered if Carlisle would be proud or disappointed in her decision, but knew it was what needed to be done.
She'd succeeded in her promise to Bella; she'd saved her child. Now it was time to save her.
With a quick prayer to a god she'd long stopped believing in, wishing for the strength to carry this out...
Katerina leant forward and plunged her fangs into Bella's soft, delicate wrist.
I just want to say that I know nothing about birth and watched a youtube video about caesarean's just to write this chapter haha! (Everything that sounds fake, probably is, please bear with me!)
I changed quite a lot in this chapter from the film because honestly, a lot in that scene annoys me...why did nobody search up these procedures beforehand just incase Carlisle wasn't there? Therefore because of Katerina's medical background (which yes, I've been building up all this story JUST for this moment) means that Bella was in much less pain, though the whole stressful ordeal still ended the same, meaning Katerina had to take action...