Content/Trigger Warning: There is a graphic depiction of a deceased infant in this chapter.
There was an annoyingly bright light shining through the translucent skin of Cordelia's eyelids. Something was itching on the back of her left hand, and she moved to pull whatever it was off.
Servos whirred as strong hands secured her right hand gently to her side. "Easy little one, leave that in for now, the fluid hasn't finished entering your body at this moment in time."
Optimus' low baritone surrounded her, booming low due to some impressive acoustics.
Opening her eyes, she saw that she was in a bright, white, clinical room. She lay supine in a hi-lo bed, with the cot-guard up on one side. Optimus sat on her other side, clasping her left hand in both of his own.
She looked down to see the source of the itch on the back of her hand. A cannula had been inserted there, two looping tubes emerging from underneath the sticky plaster. One tube was clear, the other a dark rich, red.
She turned her gaze to Optimus. He looked down at her hand, so delicately clasped in his. His silvery thumbs stroked tender circles into the back of her hands, careful to avoid disturbing the tubes.
He looked tired. His optics were drawn, their pupils tiny, like pinpricks. His mouth was turned down, not in a scowl but in an expression of loss. His shoulders sagged, betraying a hint of the unimaginable weight that he carried within his Spark.
Subconsciously, Cordelia's right hand went down to her stomach.
Her newly flat stomach.
It all came back to her then, in a flash of memories as violent as the birth of her daughter had been.
She heard the heart rate monitor start to speed up, the machine struggling to keep pace with the galloping pace of her fractured heart.
Optimus snapped his head up then, his optics going straight to her face.
She reached weakly for him, and he took her outstretched hand, pulling her carefully into a sitting position.
He curled one long arm behind her fragile body, allowing her to lean her full weight on him.
"Optimus…what happened? Where are we?" Her voice sounded raw and croaky, no doubt from all the bellowing she had done during her hard labour.
There was a mechanical whine as Optimus answered her. "We are in the University Hospital in Southampton. Drift airlifted you after you gave birth and…lost consciousness. You haemorrhaged shortly after you delivered. The doctors here had to give you a blood transfusion. The clear tube is delivering a saline solution drip, to treat any dehydration."
She didn't answer but allowed her foggy brain to digest Optimus' words.
He observed her warily, waiting for her reaction. She tightened her grip on his hand, clutching onto his fingers with feeble strength.
Tears pricked her eyes as she lifted her gaze to meet his sad optics. "Where is Nova?"
His audio covers rotated backwards and then forwards as he leaned towards her to tuck a strand of stray hair behind her ear. "She is here, in the hospital. A midwife took her down to the nursery chapel to bathe and dress her…for if you wanted to see her when you are able."
A sudden wave of inexplicable emotion came over Cordelia. She could not put a name to it, nor could she find adequate words to describe or comprehend it.
It washed over her in a vicious tsunami of visceral pain and loss. The shock of it took her breath away, leaving her gulping in air like she had just resurfaced from a deep ocean.
The pain wrapped itself around her, curling around her exhausted body in poison tendrils, drawing invisible lacerations up one side of her heart and down the other.
Grief was not an accurate word for the emotion and pain that was currently ravaging its way through both her psyche and her body.
It ripped through her with all the devastation of a mesocyclone, destroying everything in its path. Her heart thumped frantically behind ribs that felt as if they were being crushed in a vice, while her lungs burned with the amount of air that she couldn't seem to release.
She was drowning in a sea intent on killing her, and there was no way out except to grit her teeth and endure it.
Then she felt the reassuring presence of Optimus' hand on the small of her back. She used it to anchor her rationale to one place and focused on her emotional swim back to him. He'd thrown her a life line, and she was going to take it.
She surfaced in a rush of panicked breaths and fluttering heartbeats. Her arms found their way around his neck and she moulded herself to him, not caring in the slightest if she dislodged the tubes coming out of the back of her left hand.
He responded in kind, holding her to his body with a grip so fierce that she wondered if anything in the world would ever separate them. She felt him reach up to cup the back of her head, holding her together as she broke to pieces in his arms.
The tears came slowly at first, a slow burn of sadness so deep that it seemed to have no root. Then they upped their speed and their intensity, pouring from her eyes relentlessly.
Soon, the sobs heaved and wracked their way through her shattered body, leaving her feeling like she'd run a double marathon.
Optimus held her whilst she sobbed harder than she had ever done before. She buried her face in the space between his metallic collar and his face, inhaling the strong ozone scent of him, coupled with the strange scent of energon that she could find no name for.
Her hands made claws around the smokestacks that sprouted from where his 'shoulder blades' would have been, slipping slightly on the shiny chrome.
She let herself memorise his body by touch; the strong column of his spine. The feel of the various springs and cogs in his back. Her hands made their way down to the small of his back, coming across an air filter and what must have been a miniaturised crankshaft.
She worked them back up his body to the back of his head, feeling for the vent that he 'inhaled' through. To the base of his ear finials. She rubbed circles into them with her nails, all the way up to the top. He leaned into her touch, letting the full weight of his head fall into her trembling hands.
In turn, his hands drew invisible lines of comfort and love up her arms and over her face. He brushed away each new tear that fell with gentle thumbs, framing her face carefully in his large hands.
She moved her hands from his back and raised them to form small half-manacles around his thick wrists.
He opened his arms and she fell into them, folding herself as small as she could into his safe embrace.
She motioned for him to climb onto the bed next to her, and he did so, deftly stepping over the tubes going into her left hand and settling behind her.
His feet dangled off the end of the bed by at least a foot, but he didn't seem to care. He tucked his legs up and wrapped a long arm around Cordelia's waist, pulling her easily to him.
She settled into the comfort of his loving hold, resting her head on his left forearm whilst he spooned her from behind.
Her sobs had subsided into the quiet, defeated cries of somebody who has been hurt beyond all comprehension, and she made no effort to stop the tears rolling from her bloodshot eyes and onto Optimus' armour.
He stroked her hair with his free hand, bringing one leg carefully over her body, eliminating all space between them.
He worked to stop her emotional bleeding, holding her to him as she fell apart in his arms.
.o
Cordelia didn't know how long she had slept for. What she did know was that she had a tremendous headache. It felt as if she'd been kicked in the head by a horse with an attitude problem, and then hit in the face with a wrecking ball.
She pushed herself into a sitting position on the hospital bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with the back of her right hand.
Sunlight streamed in through the open window, a harsh contrast to the grey and catatonic feeling of her heavy heart.
A glance over her shoulder told her that Optimus had fallen into recharge a while ago.
He'd folded his left arm under his face, using it in place of a pillow. His right arm was still draped loosely around Cordelia's hips, his fingers ever-so-slightly curled.
His bottom lip plate pouted outward adorably, the way it always did when he was deep in recharge. His optics were shut lazily, although he did not look peaceful. His body was tensed like a coiled spring; almost as if he was ready to spring into action at a second's notice.
Cordelia tested this by jostling the bed lightly with her weight, and sure enough, Optimus' optics snapped open straight away.
He bolted upwards into a sitting position, wrapping a large hand around Cordelia's cold one.
"Good morning little one, how did you sleep last night?"
Cordelia sighed and tied her hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. "Not well. I kept waking up every hour on the hour. I just…I just can't stop thinking about her Optimus."
He said nothing but wrapped both arms around her slender shoulders and rested his chin gently on the top of her head.
She loved it when he did that. It made her feel so safe.
She leaned her head into the hollow of his throat, and they stayed like that for a few countless minutes.
They were like two puzzle pieces that fate had thrown together. Two puzzle pieces, that when joined, created a picture so achingly beautiful that it made the beholder's heart hurt just to look at it.
Two halves of the same whole, as Optimus had said, what felt like ten lifetimes ago.
"Optimus…I want to see her." She felt him tense for a heartbeat before he relaxed again.
His deep voice vibrated her bones when he replied.
"Of course little one, I shall arrange for it to happen."
She pushed away from him and went to stand, but had to sit back down with a gasp when a stab of sharp pain shot through her nether regions.
"Cordelia?!" Optimus' voice came out slightly higher than usual, laced as it was with panic.
She held up a hand to reassure him. "I'm okay big guy, just had a sudden jolt of pain, that's all."
He nodded, placated for the moment.
"Very well, I shall go and ask for a wheelchair and make the appropriate…arrangements.
Cordelia watched as he shifted his holoform from his robotic guise to his human one.
Today he had chosen to wear his salt and pepper hair in a scruffy centre parting, along with a face full of stubble that looked as if it had been growing for a few days. The deep lines around his blue eyes only accentuated the tiredness and emotion that she knew she carried within his Spark.
Huh, I guess he's made himself look tired because of what's happened…anybody would look tired after that…
She let her thoughts trail off and quickly washed and dressed herself whilst Optimus was talking to the nurses on the ward outside.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror.
Her pale skin was more grey than ivory, as if she was an item of clothing that had been laundered one too many times. Her auburn hair was dull and lank, more like a dirty copper penny than the red 'sunrise hair' that Optimus always commented on. The green of her eyes was cloudy and muted, almost as if somebody had turned down the saturation on the colour.
All in all, she looked like a reanimated corpse.
Her post-partum belly hung in a jiggly mass between her hips, sagging downwards. She poked it, appalled at the soft and mushy feel of it. She pulled her hand away as if she had been burned.
She pulled a thick woollen cardigan on that had been draped over the end of her bed. It was a grey cable-knit, and made Cordelia feel a little more secure in herself.
Optimus re-emerged then, pushing a hospital wheelchair in through the door.
Cordelia wrinkled her nose.
He held up a hand to stop her tirade, applying the chair's brakes and walking over to her.
"I know that you are not keen on the idea of riding in a wheelchair, but the nurses have informed me that the nursery chapel is quite a walk…and you are still quite weak."
She sighed and said nothing but got up gingerly and walked herself along the bed to get into the wheelchair.
At once Optimus closed the gap between them with one long stride and carefully bundled her into his arms, carrying her bridal style.
It was strange to be held by Optimus when he was using his human holoform. She was used to the firm feel of his armour behind her, and the slightly cold sensation at first when he touched her.
She leaned against his firm chest. He had fashioned his human holoform to look like a man in his mid-fifties or so. He was not what someone would call 'typically attractive', and this had been wholly intentional. He'd made his features non-descript and subtle.
His salt and pepper hair fell shaggily into blue eyes that were framed by deep lines. The strong set of his jaw was covered in a scruffy stubble that tickled her cheek when he straightened back up into a standing position.
As in his robotic holoform, his human one stood at an impressive height of six feet and eight inches tall. His holoform was in good physical shape, with muscular arms and a firm chest, reminiscent of his robotic self.
"Optimus, is this really necessary?" Cordelia asked, crossing her legs over each other as she readjusted her grip around Optimus' neck and shoulders.
He regarded her from beneath thick eyebrows. "I won't have you exerting yourself any more than is necessary. Of course, I can always carry you down to the chapel like this."
She elbowed him lightly in the chest. "Fine. I'll use the damned chair."
He carefully lowered her into the chair, ensuring that she was sitting comfortably before he deftly turned the chair around and manoeuvred it back out of the open doorway.
They emerged onto a long ward. At this end of the corridor, every two metres or so, doors with numbers on them led into private rooms. As Optimus began to make his way down the corridor, the private rooms gave way to little side rooms that were each equipped with six beds.
The occupants of these beds all had the same tired and worn expressions on their faces as Cordelia herself had.
It suddenly dawned on her that she had been put in the maternity ward.
Of course you have, you stupid woman. Where the hell else would they have put you?!
A physical jolt of pain made itself known in her chest when she heard the shrill cry of a newborn baby.
Optimus' hand moved down to squeeze her shoulder tightly in a show of tender solidarity. She reached up and grabbed his hand with her left one, the plaster on the back of her hand catching the cuff of her thick knitted cardigan.
The tubes had been removed while she had been sleeping, and she now had a thick wad of gauze and plaster covering where they had been.
The ride down to the nursery chapel was long, or at least it felt that way. Cordelia took in none of her surroundings as Optimus wheeled her through a maze of corridors and in and out of countless lifts.
At last they emerged around a corner into yet another long corridor.
A non-descript sign on the wall informed them that the nursery chapel was just ahead.
This corridor was painted with hearts and flowers, trains and planes travelling in between them. Periodically, teddy bears holding hearts stared at her with their lifeless eyes as Optimus pushed her towards a pair of double doors at the very end of the corridor.
A numb sense of catatonia encompassed all of her senses, not unlike the feeling of anaesthesia.
A nurse dressed in colourful scrubs printed with Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick Star appeared from behind the double doors.
She wore a sad smile on her round face, emphasised by kindly chocolate-brown eyes.
She approached Optimus and Cordelia, her arm extended.
Cordelia took it, suddenly self-conscious of her dishevelled appearance.
"Good morning, Miss Prime, Mr Prime." Her tone was full of sincerity, and she spoke to Cordelia first before addressing Optimus.
She shook Cordelia's hand warmly and wrapped her other hand around Cordelia's bony one. "Would you like to come on through?"
Cordelia nodded wordlessly and let her hand fall from the kindly nurse's grip.
"Okay sweetie, if you and your dad would just like to follow me. My name is Lisa by the way."
"I'm…Cordelia." Cordelia half-whispered, reaching around to grab Optimus' hand once more.
He pushed the chair through the double doors that swung open to admit them entrance into the nursery chapel.
It was a surprisingly small space, decorated in the same vein as the corridor outside. Teddy bears plastered the walls, accompanied by merry pictures of hot air balloons and rainbows. Cordelia dropped her eyes to the floor, not wanting to see the bright colours that she felt had no place in her field of vision at that precise moment in time.
In the centre of the room, there was a small Moses basket. It was made from grey wicker and trimmed with a pale pink interior. It stood on a matching grey criss-cross frame.
Optimus stopped the chair a metre or so away from the Moses basket.
Cordelia's vision swam as the room suddenly became longer and longer by the second, the Moses basket staying front and centre. Her grip on Optimus' hand tightened considerably as she locked her gaze upon her daughter's resting place.
"You can have as long as you like, as long as you need." Lisa said, unintentionally breaking the spell. "Anything you need, just give me a shout. I'm only outside." She placed a gentle hand on Cordelia's shoulder before she exited the room.
"Optimus…can you take me closer?"
Optimus moved the chair slowly, as if he was pushing it through cement.
As they approached the side of the Moses basket, Cordelia let go of Optimus' hand and reached her hands out to grasp the side of the Moses basket.
She took a deep breath and looked in.
The baby within the basket could have been asleep for anybody unaware. Her eyelids were shut and her tiny little face was clean. Cordelia took time to drink in all of her features, heedless of the tears that had welled up in her green eyes.
Nova had a shock of red hair that was almost as dark as Cordelia's, although it was the thin and wispy hair typical of a new baby. Her round cheeks were slightly mottled, almost as if she had a milk rash. Her slightly upturned nose sat above a perfectly formed philtrum. Pale pink rosebud lips were slightly pursed, giving the child the impression that she was deep in thought.
Cordelia felt as if her hear was going to explode through her ribcage, it was beating that violently and that fast.
She lifted her gaze from her resting daughter to meet Optimus'. He'd shifted his holoform back to his robotic self, and his optics were locked on the tiny baby in front of him.
She thought that he might break apart from the grief that he was displaying. His intakes whined audibly while his audio covers rotated furiously clockwise and counter-clockwise.
Small drops of fluid seeped gently from the inner corners of his optics and came to rest in the grooves of his silvery nose. He used his thumbs to rub away the excess fluid from his optics, and the effect wasn't dissimilar to when somebody used a squeegee to clean a window.
He raised his optics to meet Cordelia's watery eyes. He asked her a silent question with a slight incline of his head, and she knew him so well that she didn't even have to ask him what he wanted to do.
She nodded imperceptibly and watched as he carefully slid his metallic hands into the Moses basket.
He slipped one hand underneath Nova's head and the other underneath her bottom before lifting her so carefully. He walked around and placed her in Cordelia's waiting arms.
Cordelia accepted her tiny weight easily, and nestled her daughter's head into the crook of her left arm. Optimus withdrew his hands and came around to kneel at her side; his huge height allowing him to be at eye-level even from that lowered perspective.
Cordelia tightened her grip around the baby and used her free hand to carefully pull back the blanket that was up to her daughter's neck.
Her tiny hands were folded on her stomach, each in miniature fists. She had been dressed in a pale pink baby-grow with rabbits embroidered onto the neck and feet.
Cordelia lifted a trembling hand to touch one of her daughter's miniscule hands. She gasped as she simultaneously felt how cold her daughter was and the tightening of her breasts. She knew somewhere in the back of her mind that her milk would not come in for at least another couple of days, but right at that moment, she could not have cared less about that.
With more gentleness than she knew she was capable of, Cordelia took one of her baby's hands and carefully unfurled it.
She could not get over how tiny her daughter's fingers and nails were. The fingernail on her daughter's littlest finger was smaller than a grain of rice. She lowered her face and kissed each tiny knuckle, wetting the baby's hand with silent tears.
Then she gently moved her so that her head was up against her shoulder. She cupped the back of her head, feeling the velvet-soft hair. She leaned her cheek against Nova's tiny little ear and allowed herself to go to pieces.
She whispered promises of eternal love and endless, heartfelt apologies into her daughter's ear. She told her how she would never forget her and how she would think of her at the beginning and end of every day for the rest of her life.
She told how there would never be another like her in all the world, nor would there be a child who had been so loved, and by people so special.
She told her daughter to fly high on her angel's wings, but not to forget to drop in and see her mother from time to time.
Cordelia did not know how long she clutched Nova to her breast for, and neither did she care.
She gently folded the baby back into the cradle of her arms and planted a kiss on the velvety softness that was her fontanelle.
"I love you, my little one. I love you more than I know how to say, and I am so, so sorry that I failed in being your mummy."
She looked up then to see Optimus with one continuous stream of fluid coming from each of his agonised optics. His facial plating was scrunched with the emotion that had finally become too much for him to bear.
The vents on the back of his head whined again as he took in large volumes of air, undoubtedly to cool his CPU that had most likely warmed with his increased Spark activity.
Cordelia held her daughter towards Optimus, and his optics widened in shock.
"You'll be fine big guy. I promise."
He made his arms into an awkward cradle shape and Cordelia placed Nova carefully into them.
In Optimus' armoured arms, she looked even tinier than she had in Cordelia's. Her whole tiny body was hardly the length of Optimus' forearm.
Optimus adjusted his grip on Nova and ensured that her head was fully supported in the crook of his arm before he took his free hand away.
He traced his index finger from the top of her head, over her little nose and over her rosebud lips. He took her hand between a finger and thumb, unfurling it as Cordelia had, marvelling at the tiny being in his arms.
"Well, hello Nova Prime. What a pleasure it is to meet you at last." His voice was shaky with emotion and laced with static. Cordelia placed a comforting hand on his other arm.
"I've never held a baby before, so it is my absolute pleasure that you are the first, Nova." He spoke totally to her, never once taking his misty optics from her sleeping face. He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss in the same place where Cordelia had, his lip plates clicking quietly with the action.
He looked up then to look at Cordelia. "With your permission little one, may I say a traditional Cybertronian prayer?"
Cordelia nodded, more tears spilling silently onto her freckled cheeks.
Optimus returned his gaze to the baby and cupped her face with his free hand.
"Nova-" here he looked up at Cordelia. "Lia…did you want to give her a middle name?"
Cordelia gasped. That thought hadn't even crossed her mind. She nodded, already instinctively knowing what the name was going to be.
"Yes. Her middle name is Guinevere. After my mother."
Optimus nodded and bowed his head again.
"Nova Guinevere Prime, may you rest in peace. May Primus guide your soul safely to the AllSpark. May you be reunited in joy and love with our departed brothers and sisters. May your soul live on evermore in the memories of those whom you have left behind."
Cordelia's throat ached at the beauty of Optimus' words. His voice did not waver as he spoke with conviction and pride.
Cordelia took his hand in her own. "Optimus, thank you, thank you so much." She got out of the wheelchair and half sat on Optimus' lap. He held both of them in his strong embrace, and like that, they took the first steps toward healing.
.o
The journey back to the ranch was long and arduous. As they got on the second flight, Cordelia's breast milk had decided to make an appearance.
She'd spent the last four hours grunting in pain every time she moved, fed up of the stinging and tight sensation in her tender breasts.
Optimus sat next to her in his holoform, his legs spread apart to allow him some room. Due to his height, he could not simply sit with his legs in front of him without his knees digging into the seat in front.
They were sharing a plane with Cade, Leo and Viviane, who had decided to take an extended holiday in the United States, starting in Paris, Texas.
Cordelia rested her head against the cold plastic of the aeroplane's window and watched the countless clouds roll by.
"Ahh, you're admiring the cirrocumulus clouds?" Optimus' deep baritone broke her from her long reverie.
"Hmm?"
"The clouds outside," he said, motioning toward a large cluster of clouds. They were arranged in neat rows and each cloud was quite small. They looked as if they had been deliberately placed into that particular arrangement.
"Cirrocumulus clouds are much smaller than other types of cloud, and are among the rarer type. They usually form high up in the sky and only in typically sunny and cold weather. They often appear in parallel rows, such as they have on this occasion. They don't usually last for very long, but they are spectacular when they do appear."
Cordelia smiled weakly at him and leaned her head on his metallic shoulder, enjoying the cool sensation of his smooth armour under her flaming cheek.
They said nothing more for the rest of the long flight, merely content to sit leaning on each other for its duration.