It was dark at 1am. The snow had frozen on the road to Verny's hospital, on which Brent's jeep glided.

Krillin sat at the front, Elliott and Lillian at the back, with Carly.

"Wouldn't there be a lot more screaming?" Asked Lillian, not knowing what to expect.

"I'm just getting started," Carly said quietly, squeezing the handle above the door at every bump and pothole. She was set for several hours of desperate screaming.

Shortly before, despite her insides stretching and squishing she was almost falling asleep. Rolling over in bed one last time, a wave of hot water had soaked her pj bottoms.

"Oh my God. Oh my God. It's real."

Carly wasn't going to make it to November 30th, but after the thirty-seven-week mark it could happen anytime.

She thought she was mentally ready…

Yet only in the process of getting ready to go to the hospital had she fully understood that her life would change in a few hours.

After all that time, Lapis's baby was on the way.

Before getting into the car, Krillin had called Seventeen who hadn't answered.

"Maybe you can tell us what to expect next," Elliott nudged Krillin. "You got a kid already…"

"Eighteen gave birth in twenty minutes and that was it."

Cyborg wife, bad benchmark.

Brent saw that the soon-to-be-mother was stressed enough.

"Hey Carly. A man walks into a café, splash! "

Everyone giggled. Carly wanted to laugh too, but her mind was elsewhere. Too far from there. In the prenatal class she had learned that, unlike the movies, very few labours start with rupture of the membranes.

It was a TV cliché, and it was happening to her.

At the hospital, a nurse had Carly lie downon a cot and attached a monitor to her belly.

She noticed that the patient was accompanied by four different people.

"What have we got here? Mamma Mia?"

Elliott was the only one to grasp the cinematic reference, "Ah no, none of us is the father."

"Two mommas?"

Lillian rolled her eyes, and Carly blurted out, "My boyfriend is in South City, okay?"

"Ohh! I'm sorry ..."

"No, not like that."

Carly listened nervously to the little heartbeat through the monitor.

The nurse didn't look worried,

"How far apart are your contractions?"

Good question.

Unfortunately, as was done in the Centre, hospitals took a labouring woman in only when contractions were reduced to five-minute intervals.

The gang took Carly back and stayed at the chalet with her.

The men took up positions on the sofa in the living room, among pillows and blankets; Lillian relit the stove in the kitchen and the fire in Carly's bedroom.

She stretched out beside her in bed, taking Seventeen's place.

"Here we are. Try to get some sleep. "

She stroked her hair and covered her with the duvet.

Carly yearned for Lapis, hoped he would come back soon, but in the meantime she was glad her friends were there. She wasn't alone.

/

A couple of hours later Carly groaned, crouching on the floorboards in her room every time a contraction cinched.

She no longer knew what position to be in.

"Can you tell us what to do?" Brent pleaded, assuming Krillin could help.

The warrior had no clue, this birth looked completely different from the only one he had taken part in.

He closed the web page he was scrolling.

"It looks like a back birth. Maybe if I...may I?"

Carly whimpered in helplessness, shivering to her brother in law gently laying his hands on the back of her head, then down her spine, massaging as if to untie deep muscular knots. It was meant to heal the sores, dull the pain to some extent.

She let out a sigh of brief relief.

"Here," Krillin affectionately handed Carly a cereal bar. She had to sustain herself, her labour was going to be a long one.

He sat wearily by the cat's basket in the kitchen, taking a video call from Eighteen.

Yes, he knew, he had to go home, Carly had happened to go into labour and he wanted to help.

"You really are a good man."

With that, Eighteen meant he could stay.

Krillin waved hello, looking through the screen at Marron eating at the table, while the cyborg girl frowned at a clearly audible moan.

"I tried Roshi's pressure point massage, it's not really working...I don't know how to help."

"You can't." Eighteen stated in earnest. Childbirth was childbirth, there was no way to have it without pain. "Let me speak to her."

In the bedroom Elliott was trying to reach Defiance, given that Seventeen hadn't yet picked up.

Krillin came through the door holding his phone for everyone to greet Eighteen.

"Hey." The redhead held onto a wall, panting and flushed, "Sooo heavy…"

"You got this, Carly." Lazuli articulated in a resolute way, looking into Carly's eyes like she understood how jarred she was, and wanted to gently coax her to channel her strength.

"You got this. Okay?"

That was all Lazuli said.

Lazuli could have talked like that, Carly wondered, because she was still bearing her beloved brother's blood.

But Lazuli had spoken with a smile. A small, true smile meant only for her, from woman to woman. Never would Carly have thought that Lazuli could care that much.

"Thank you," she sobbed quietly, wishing that she could hug her sister in law.

Eighteen gave her another small smile, then turned to the room,

"Anyone try to hold her belly up. It'll take the weight off her back."

"I can!" Lillian reached a hand out but Carly slapped it.

She set to lift up her belly herself.

"Now try to massage her kidneys again," Eighteen instructed her husband, ignoring that his hands would touch another woman. She focused on the excitement for the imminent arrival of her twin brother's child.

Speaking of which…

"Where the hell is he?" She couldn't see Seventeen anywhere.

"Monster Island. Work." Panted Carly, more relieved than before.

"I can't believe it!"

Eighteen exclaimed, with composed discouragement, like a mother having no option but to clean up her kid's mess.

/

"Rikki, get him out of there!"

Commander Klintsov ordered, worried that the eparrowhawk would hurt Seventeen.

"I'm faint of heart..."

"You command a warship!"

"Yes, but he's just a baby. Get him down."

Rikki turned her attention to John Dubochet, who didn't seem worried in the least. She wondered if they were all like that in the RNP.

"I think you got very lucky. It's odd that we all knew about Miss Dahl, but not about him."

The chief ranger was jealous of Seventeen, "You never asked."

The owner of Monster Island imagined that having a cyborg in his ranks enabled Dubochet to have everything super organised, problems resolved quickly.

John was, in fact, very proud.

"Ah, sure: I trust Seventeen."

"Isn't it a little scary to work with him?"

Seventeen was still too hot-headed for a leader position, but John believed he had already grown.

"He's a one-man army, easy. The only thing I'd be reluctant to have him perform is CPR."

All of John's rangers were trained in first aid, but the thought of having one's chest compressed by Seventeen was too unsettling.

Defiance and the other MIRs, meanwhile, stretched out the parabolic microphones and tried to figure out what the RNP guy and the beast were agreeing on.

Seventeen was still sitting comfortably, looking at the mess the eerie creature had sown on the island.

"I know it's fun, but you can't keep breaking everything. You must go, they can't handle you here."

They called that bird monster, but for Seventeen monsters were something else.

The eparrowhawk was perhaps annoyed by those brutally honest words, it tried to attack with his claws and croaked when one of these broke against Seventeen's forearm.

The island sighed in amazement, Defiance looked with a colleague through the camera.

"Did you get that?"

The MIR did not believe his eyes, "What is that guy made of?"

"He's a cyborg."

The eparrowhawk was hurt and angry, that lesson taught it had to do as the human (who didn't really feel like a human) said.

"Mate, you did everything yourself..."

Seventeen wasn't proud of himself, the animal had got injured just by touching him.

He was realising that seeing pained animals bothered him more than seeing pained people.

Was it weird? Maybe. Did he care? No.

Would he have become an animal rights activist? Please...

Just as simply not being the bloodthirsty killer that Gero had wanted didn't make him a saint, worrying more about other non-human creatures didn't make him an animalist fanatic.

After all, Carly was an animal lover too, without taking it over the top.

Ah, Carly.

He wondered how she was, if she had texted him...

The clicks and trills of the eparrowhawk distracted Seventeen from his brooding.

The bird tore a large piece of flesh from the poor neoceratops and threw it at the feet of the one who had shown enough guts to stand up to it.

The eparrowhawk acted like Pencil cat when she brought Seventeen dead critters or even trash, telling him in her silent language "I killed this for you!"

Seventeen looked at everyone out of the corner of his eye.

"Do I really have to eat this?"

"Accept it!" Ordered Defiance through a megaphone.

"Some animals do this. They offer their prey to their opponent as a sign of respect. If the opponent refuses…"

Defiance explained and laughed to herself, grateful not to be involved in that peace offer.

Seventeen pretended, being used to Marron and her sand cakes.

But the eparrowhawk wasn't Marron: it knew immediately that the weird human had declined his offer.

Offended, it took off maliciously threatening to destroy something else.

"Okay! Look!"

Seventeen pulled down his mask and bit through the super-leathery dino skin.

"Look at what I have to do…"

Just because Monster Island couldn't handle a giant monster.

"Zoom in!" Rikki commanded hotly, the MIR with the camera didn't understand what he was seeing.

"Bullets don't get through neoceratops skin. How did he do that?"

The texture of the dino leg was slimy but stringy, once under the teeth it creaked like sand. Seventeen knew that, in the end, Kate hadn't immunised him with decades of bad cooking.

Why did it all have to be an assault on his senses? Usually it was sight or hearing.

Seventeen already knew that he couldn't dupe that blasted war chicken: he swallowed that vile blob that wanted to come back up, he gagged before the MIR cameras.

He was acting like such a loser, the cameras were even live...

"What if he throws up?" Inquired the Commander.

"Do cyborgs throw up?" Asked a MIR.

What questions...

The eparrowhawk instead asked no questions, it just required not to be fooled.

When it assured that the human-looking thing had swallowed, it gave a kind of smile, one last series of clicks and trills, and flew away without carrying the live neoceratops.

Nobody ever saw it again.

/

Her brother really was the worst.

Leaving his ready-to-pop girlfriend home alone, not answering the phone, being on the other side of the world while his child was coming. If Krillin had remotely thought of doing that to her and Marron, he might not have seen the light of day again.

Figuratively, but still!

And Carly was no better, letting herself be walked on! Eighteen didn't have to intervene but she saw it as a moral obligation: if there was someone who could instil some common sense in Seventeen's head it was her.

And their mother.

Better leave Kate alone, she couldn't fly to Monster Island anyway.

Eighteen thought there would be more people around. She landed from the sky, surprising the ranger in charge of the gates.

Social obligation compelled her to talk to him, "Hi. I must see my brother, he's working here today."

"I'm sorry Ma'am, Monster Island is closed to the public. You're not even wearing a mask." He replied in a Kate-y accent, behind his own mask, getting up from his seat with the intention of removing her from the premises.

"Is this how I talk to people too?" Eighteen disliked his tone, and replied coldly when the man approached her. Coldly enough for him to stop walking.

"If I can't get in, let him out. This is an emergency."

"What's your brother's name Ma'am?" He relented, slipping a tablet out of his desk.

"Seventeen."

The man scrolled through a list, not finding any Seventeen working on the island.

"I'm sorry Ma'am."

Eighteen better not think of the embarrassment Seventeen was putting her through. It was he who was having a baby, yet she was the one keeping calm and working her way through a diplomatic conversation.

"He's here just for today. For the eparrowhawk."

"Oh! The consultant from the North."

The ranger quickly dialled a number from the landline. Eighteen crossed her arms on the desk, in wait.

/

Seventeen came down from the nest and was greeted by everyone's applause, by other cameras planted against his masked face.

They had all expected it to be a tough task, maybe even an action movie fight.

Seventeen himself felt a little deflated, it hadn't been that exciting.

In the end, negotiating with a monster was better than with poachers.

The work was done. Before anyone else from the staff could get to that part of the island, the Northern rangers boarded the White Star and the ship soon docked in South City.

Before leaving, Malina Klintsov gave Seventeen her business card.

John could hardly believe it.

"Are you poaching him too, now? In my face?"

"Dubochet, I'm just talking to the boy. Seventeen, if you ever wanted to work with us..."

Seventeen was fine at the RNP and wasn't interested in Monster Island, at least not for the foreseeable future: in the North there was work for Carly too, she would start when the baby turned five months old.

"And then, no winter here."

"I like winter."

Seventeen was beginning to dislike the confidence the Commander was taking with him.

He was also in a hurry to get back.

Rikki warned John that they had an appointment with a lawyer: the matter that Seventeen had solved on a practical level had to be legally dealt with, regarding the paper trail of the compensation he would receive and other boring things.

After all, Monster Island was a business.

Defiance walked up to Seventeen.

"Hey Terminator, want a little snack?"

"Shut up."

Rikki led the Northerners to one of her drawing rooms.

"No seriously, stop by for the appointment and for tea. But wait, maybe Seventeen doesn't drink because he's a cyborg?"

"Oh yes he does." Defiance cut short, not forgetful of her defeat.

"If you want to do it again, here and now..." He proposed to her, ambiguous.

To hell with tea.

"You know what? Yes!"

"What the heck..."

Seventeen had finally taken off his mask, heedless of Rikki staring at him with a look creepier than the eparrowhawk's. He turned on his cell again and found fifty-two missed calls from Carly, the rest of the gang, Krillin...Eighteen.

It was 4pm, November 15th in South City, but his cell phone marked 7am, November 16th.

The texts with insults weren't spared, another Lillian death threat/text arrived in real time.

His heart began to pound.

"Cor." Defiance caught a glimpse of the barrage of texts and calls.

And when Seventeen made an expression that showed his dimples, Rikki gasped audibly.

"Oh yes. What a beauty."

Seventeen's disgusted / contemptuous expression was tragicomic.

Defiance lost her temper, "Mum! Apologise, immediately!"

Her mother was peculiar, in a benevolent way and never did anything out of malice, but sometimes she really went out of line. The cyborg's phone kept ringing. He had to go.

Malina tried in vain to stop him, "Wait, the appointment with the lawyer?"

John Dubochet would have stayed.

"For that I'm enough, Seventeen has to head back. His child is coming."

There was no more time for a rematch; Defiance ran after him, unable to reach him in the air.

"I'm happy for you, congratulations! But next time I'll wipe the floor with you, remember!"

"Just keep telling yourself that!"

Seventeen winked at her and flew north.

When the lawyer left the De Villiers residence, Defiance dragged her mother in private.

"You were morbid as hell. He has dimples and blue eyes, so what? Shall we make a big deal of it?"

The terminator had nothing to do with anything, he wasn't the reincarnation of her late aunt.

But Rikki seemed exasperated, misunderstood.

It was a big deal!

"Look, Defiance, I'm neither God nor a walking DNA test. But may God strike me dead if that kid isn't a Lang. "

/

Carly came limping to the maternity ward, half carried by Krillin. They had to take a break every time the pains stabbed her in the back.

A quick check revealed that she could eventually be admitted:

the love of #17's life flung herself onto the bed and looked out the open door.

A girl with fake black hair paced back and forth, stoically, on her feet.

A midwife came to get her, "Iris, in you go! Pool's ready."

Carly felt for a moment envious that this Iris girl was having simple contractions, not renal colic.

"As soon as I see him, I'll kill him."

The top ranger mumbled. She hadn't given up on Carly for a second.

"He will come ..."

Even though her voice was thread-thin, Carly never lost hope.

And finally, coming in through the door short of breath, Seventeen found her on that bed. Just from the expression on Carly's face, one could tell the level of pain she was going through.

"You...! Welcome back!" Lillian barked.

But Seventeen had hardly noticed her. He rushed to Carly, tortured to see her suffer like that...because of him.

He had done that to her.

But Carly hugged him, called him softly, "Lapis, Lapis," distraught but with eyes transfixed by love.

There was no fault there: Carly was giving birth to his child, it was the best thing Seventeen had done.

"I love you so much, Lapis."

Seventeen didn't want to part with that embrace.

"I'm here."

/

Evening came again.

Carly didn't even remember if everything was ready at home, she had left a mess in the kitchen.

"So when we go home with the baby we'll find everything messy? It kills me..."

How could she start a new chapter in her life with the house upside down?

Seventeen didn't go with that hormonal flow, "Think we'll go home with the baby."

Carly had spent the last few hours in an almost lethargic state, between the beneficial proximity of Lapis and the annoyance of doctors and midwives examining her with their eyes and hands.

Carly's plans didn't originally include epidural anaesthesia, but shortly after arriving at the hospital she had realised how tired she was.

The pains were relentless, back births were the worst, everyone knew: Carly wanted to come lucid to the moment when it would be her turn to push her and Lapis's child into the world.

Lapis was there next to her, looking at her, touching her, so handsome with his hair down and his earrings.

Carly considered herself, for a moment, the luckiest woman on Earth: because she knew that suffering was the final confirmation that the seed of Lapis had taken in her.

Realising it made her cry with joy, she hugged Lapis and confessed those cheesy thoughts: she had no secrets for him.

/

Krillin hadn't had any news from Eighteen after she'd told him she was headed to kick Seventeen's ass. Chiaotzu had put Marron to bed and the warrior was too hyped to leave, now. Also, the gang didn't intend to leave the hospital until their mate showed up with the baby in his arms.

"So what's it like? Seeing your woman..." Elliott nudged Krillin again, waiting for him to tell.

"Oh. She was just on the floor pushing, then a face came out of her."

It sounded crazy now that he said it aloud.

Lillian gasped in horror.

In all honesty Krillin hadn't found it disgusting to see Marron coming into the world. Eighteen was the most beautiful creature, and he recalled the sense of privilege he had felt being there with her while she gave birth to their precious child.

The men wondered if Krillin and Eighteen could still have a sex life after that.

"It's dissociated," he put it simply.

It was after midnight.

Lillian had dozed off in Brent's arms, suddenly woke up with a great gasp and a "Ahh, fuck!"

"Bad dream, Lilli?"

"I was having an emergency C-section."

"Whaaaat ?! Are you and Bre-"

"No!"

They both silenced Elliott, loudly, and he raised his hands.

"Then surely you're just worried about Carly." Krillin reassured her.

Luckily Carly was fine, things were just dragging on.

"Maybe in a parallel reality it really happened, what do you know?" Krillin shrugged.

Was he talking multiverse? Nerd.

Lillian preferred to stay in her universe.

Brent looked almost elated, "I was there with you, wasn't I?"

The answer came from Lillian vehemently, "Eh don't ask me for details, I can't remember!"

She actually did. Very well.

/

Seventeen looked in wonder -and a little uneasiness- at his Carly as she fought the pinnacle of contractions like a beast, showing him once again how not all strength was measurable in ki and superhuman feats.

He was impressed by how his partner could not die, trying desperately to contain a pain that didn't even let her speak, her heart pounding and her bones spreading open to give way to the baby.

"So...names, love?" Carly wheezed.

Seventeen had to distract her.

"What was the boy's name I liked too?"

"Heathcliff..."

"Heath, yeah. Instead—"

"Come on, Carly. I can see a little head there," the midwife interrupted, her hands on the redhead's thighs.

Carly felt like she was pushing out a pumpkin, her belly was so big and projected that she couldn't see anything beyond her knees - she was, therefore, oblivious to the spectacle Lapis was witnessing.

"Baby has carrot-red hair..." The midwife described.

Lapis shivered unconsciously and Carly felt a wave of fondness.

"Like me, babe! Like me..."

Carly was experiencing the worst pain of her life, despite the anaesthesia but it was an incredible, magical moment: that distant day when she had reluctantly gone down to her father's shop she would never have imagined that, a decade later, that gorgeous boy would see her give birth.

And not even Seventeen, in all his (mis)adventures, would have imagined he'd still have the right to love: that he would resume his life with Carly, seeing her change day by day as his child grew inside her.

And that he would finally be there: from a sterile laboratory to a delivery room.

Seventeen said nothing, but it was he who was humbled.

Carly's face turned bright red as she pushed with all her might.

"Come on. I could bring you some sushi."

Seventeen managed to make her laugh.

And finally, after twenty-five hours, the mother gave the last cry and the baby slipped out of her.

Seventeen watched the midwife remove the scrap of amniotic sac that covered the little face.

And when that was removed Seventeen was struck by slanted, curious eyes looking into his own.

All the way to the heart.

Seventeen's face was the first thing those new eyes saw of life.

Carly looked faint, but the medical staff assured it was just momentary fatigue.

"Dad, would you please hold her while I cut the cord." Called a midwife, seeing him almost dazed.

Was there room for another great love in Seventeen's life? He was intoxicated. Maybe love would kill him.

"Oi, lad? Did you hear me?"

"Seventeen…"

Seventeen reacted only to Carly's voice.

And as soon as she saw him react, the midwife tried to communicate with him by putting the creature in his arms.

"Here, hold her that way."

It took him a while to elaborate, and then he could hold her.

His daughter. The girl he had yearned for.

Seventeen had feared that he would not be able to rejoice. That some mechanism would go off in his head, making him believe he didn't deserve all that plenitude, making it impossible for him to believe that this new life was his blood.

But the terrible things Seventeen had experienced weren't the only ones to define him: there still were wonders in a world that seemed to suck so badly.

And of the greatest wonder, Seventeen was the architect.

How had he lived all that time without her? That baby girl was the reason for everything.

He would love her to the death, that was the only way Seventeen truly loved.

He inhaled with his eyes closed and his face down, hiding in his sleeve.

He was a father. They were a family.

He badly remembered the salty taste of irrepressible joy, the one that cuts to the heart.

The midwife smiled: the tears of new fathers always moved her, especially of tough guys like that one.

His baby girl lay curled up in his hands, perhaps she hadn't yet realised she was no longer in the womb.

The midwife took her back for a routine checkup and then placed her on Carly's chest.

"Congratulations, kids. A beautiful, 3.8-kg girl."

Carly squeezed the result of so much life together: she gently removed the creamy patina that still covered her cheeks and looked in her eyes, already reminding her of the other eyes she could die for.

She had waited nine months for that.

Carly took Lapis's hand and placed it on the little bundle. She thought back to that Sunday in late May, when she had found those four-leaf clovers and had known she was there.

Faith, hope, love and luck.

"She's our good luck. Our Clover."

Seventeen poked her tiny button nose, listened to her first squeals.

"My whole life is for you."

And he loved her forever.