"Birth of a Child" Part 1
~A.C. 179, L2 Colony~
"An abortion? Are you serious?"
"Yes," the tall, skinny yet lean man answered flatly.
"But…you're not even giving it a chance!" His petite wife argued. Her blue eyes shone brightly with tears threatening to fall. She brushed her light brown hair away from her face and looked at her husband who had turned around.
"It doesn't have a chance here. Not with this war going on," he reasoned with her but knew he was fighting a losing battle. He was staring into the mirror. Dark blue eyes, thick black hair and a few stress lines here and there, "be realistic, think this over," he continued. 'I want this child, too…but why bring it into such a horrible world? It deserves better than that.'
"Look, if you don't want this child, you don't have to help in any way raising it. I'll take care of everything then." She couldn't think of any other way to keep the child. She was already three months pregnant.
"sigh…look, I'm gonna leave for a while again. I dunno how long though. I guess as long as this fighting goes on" he tried to change the subject and to break the uneasy silence.
"Again? When are you leaving?"
"Tomorrow morning. I would have told you sooner, but this baby issue came up."
"Okay then…be careful." With that, the conversation ended and they left to do their own work. He left early the next morning and making sure not to wake her.
~Five months and three weeks later, A.C. 180~
*ring ring*…*ring ring*
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" She reached the phone in time and looked at the clock. 4:56 p.m. "Hello?…yes, this is she. How may I help you?…oh, the same one my husband is in." There was a long pause while she listened to the other man's voice. After he had finished, the pause was even longer. "but…how..aren't..I don't…" tears were filling up in her eyes, ready to fall any moment.
"You have to come here and pick up his belongings and verify the body to make sure we didn't make a mistake. The tag says the name, but he could have lent his uniform to someone." The man on the phone explained what she was to do.
"Yes, I'll be there right away." She hung up and walked into her room. She looked in the mirror, her usually happy eyes were now dead, as if her soul was taken away. 'How am I supposed to support myself and my child? This colony is so poor…' She left heading for the base. She arrived home around midnight and cried herself to sleep.
~Two weeks later~
"One more push should do it!" The doctor nearly yelled at her over the hectic sounds of the hospital. The child was finally born, crying and flinging his arms. The nurses went to clean him, weigh him and things like that. The other nurse went over to the mother's side.
"Congratulations, you have a healthy baby boy." The nurse came back with the baby who was wrapped in a baby blue blanket and wide awake. She put him in her arms and waited for her to give him a name.
The baby's big blue-violet eyes were shining brightly like his mother's with dark brown hair sticking up from his warm head. He was smiling from ear to ear and tried to touch her face. She smiled back and hummed a lullaby to try to put him asleep. She felt pretty tired herself and couldn't seem to stay awake. She was weak all over and her energy was slipping, pulse and breathing rate slowing down. The nurses came to her side once they noticed the pulse was abnormally and dangerously slow. The baby boy stopped smiling, somehow feeling the danger of his dying mother.
"I can't think of anything to name you…" she weakly urged out of her throat.
"Breathe in deeply," the nurse shaking her, "someone get a doctor in here!…I don't care if he didn't eat for the past month! Just get one in here!"
Tears rolled down the mother's face, knowing her fate. The child started crying also. "Oh..don't cry. Don't worry, everything will be just fine…don't cry." She let out her last breath, the IV unit letting out a terrifying long beep that pierced through everyone's thoughts.
After the baby was transferred to the ward and the mother taken care of, work in the hospital continued.
"Hey, Sarah! Stop slacking off and get your eyes off the newborns! If we don't get our work done, Erin is gonna be pretty mad and I can't STAND doing double shifts again! Sarah? HELLO?! Are you even listening?!" The nurse walked up next to her friend and looked through the plexi-glass at the sleeping infants.
"Could you be any louder, Janeva? Your voice could bend metal if it got any louder and higher!" Sarah teased Janeva without looking away. "Look at that one, third row, second up."
"Okay…and? Hey, isn't that the kid whose mom died giving birth and doesn't have any living relatives in space?" Janeva trying to recall what happened.
"Yeh..isn't that just so sad?" Sarah finally looking at the brunette next to her.
"It happens everyday in different hospitals and different places. What's your point?"
"Don't you remember the announcement a few days ago?" Her friend shaked her head from side to side. "sigh, you have such a bad memory…they said that all the orphanages are getting over-crowded in these colonies. That little boy may not have a home to go to at all."
"Then send him to the other colonies." Janeva said it so plainly, as if it was the correct answer.
"And you just assume that they're not experiencing the same problem? Besides, the hospital isn't gonna do that any time soon." She paused and saw her friend ready to ask a question. "It's too expensive."
"Oh! Too bad…hey! Isn't there an orphanage somewhere NEAR the L2 colonies? It's organized by uh…those people…Sweep? Sweet? Sweat? Swept?…"
"Sweeper?" Sarah said exasperated.
"YEH! I thought they still had room…I'll go ask." She left, heading for the nurse's station.
"Well little guy, you might actually have a home now." She smiled warmly and left before she got reprimanded for slacking off again.
***
~A.C. 180, L3 Colony~
"Well, you have about another three months to go…give or take a few weeks of course." Doctor Stein announced. "You've been eating correctly, I presume."
"Yes, everything is fine." The woman replied. "Is this appointment over?"
"Hm? Oh um…there is one more thing. I wanted to ask how attached are you to your child?"
The woman was clutching her swollen stomach protectively. "Quite attached. Any mother would be. Why do you ask?" Her eyes narrowed.
"One of my friends, and also a doctor and scientist, needs a newborn, preferably, for a project of his. He needs the baby to be a boy and healthy." He tried to put it as nicely as he could, noticing her attitude toward his question.
"You can get that in any orphanage! I'm not giving my child away for some…experiment!" She turned and headed for the door.
"I see, well thank you for hearing me out at least. Good day then."
The patient left and the phone rang. Dr. Stein decided to pick up instead of his secretary.
"Hello? Dr. Stein speaking."
"Hey, it's me." The man on the other side replied hastily.
"Oh, hey-" The nurse walked in to prepare the room for the next patient. "er…Dr. Johnson."
"Dr. Johnson? Somebody in the room with you?" The man on the phone asked in wonder.
"Yeh, the nurse just walked in. So what did you want to talk to me about?" Dr. Stein's stern expression eased into a kind, wrinkled face. He had a rather large nose and his hair was mostly gray.
The voice on the other side let out a long sigh. "We need to start looking for pilots and start creating the new mobile suits. We can't keep up these jobs forever. Did you contact the others about the amount of gundanium alloy we need? Oh yes, and we need to change our appearances a bit, but that can be done a little bit later. "
The patient who had just left Dr. Stein's office walked back in. "I'm forgetting everything…if my head wasn't attached to my neck, I would forget it too." She walked back into the room and saw the doctor on the phone and the nurse putting away some medical items.
"…she wouldn't agree, but she's the only one so close to giving birth here." The doctor was oblivious of her standing at the door until the nurse said something, he turned and asked what was wrong. The patient pointed to the keys the nurse was holding and he returned to his conversation on the phone.
"Oh, these are yours?" The nurse walks toward her and looks at one of the key chains. "Is this your husband?"
"Yes, it is. We took that picture a few months ago, before he had to go on another business trip."
"He's quite famous for his work." She hands her back her keys.
"He made friends here and there, also enemies…and then there are the rumors."
"That always comes with popularity. Well, I have to go file a few things. Have a nice day." They departed to their separate ways.
She arrived home a little bit before six and tired, as usual. She looked through the mail and sorted out the junk mail from the bills. "Bills…bills…garbage…hm? What's this?" She looked at the olive green envelope that was addressed to her. On the back, the address of a hotel was printed. She opened it and read its contents. "It's a letter from L1, he wrote to me…why didn't he just call?" She threw her keys on the table and glanced at the picture of her husband and her before sitting down to read. "He wants me to come visit him at L1. How thoughtful of him." A smile came across her face. She made arrangements to go to L1, but all flights were booked until next month.
~One month later, L1 Colony~
*knock knock*
"Who could that be?" The man got up and answered the door to see his wife there. "You made it! Come in, come in." He took her luggage and gave a quick peck on the cheek.
"You didn't think I would?" She asked with humor laced around the words.
"No no, that's not what I meant! Haha" He laughed nervously but smiled warmly at her. "Lets just forget about that now. I'm sure you're pretty hungry now. Airplane food isn't exactly what I consider gourmet."
She let out a giggle and agreed to go out and eat dinner. They were having a lovely time together after the first two weeks, when a problem arised.
"What do you mean ARRESTED?! Why would he get arrested?!" Her voice was getting louder with every word. She had received a phone call informing her that her husband was arrested. She asked on what charges, but the ones the man told her weren't true. "Those are just rumors! RUMORS! DO I HAVE TO TAKE OUT A DICTIONARY?!…so that's that, huh? Just like that, no trial, no bail money. Just lock him in and nothing else. Who the hell pressed these charges?! You don't know! But of course! You don't seem to know anything! Get someone who does! They're all busy. Convenient, just REAL convenient!" She slammed the phone back on the cradle and walked to the windows. "Taking down every peacemaker. He wasn't even as well known as Heero Yuy. This was probably all planned…guess I should leave then."
The next day, she prepared to leave, but not without going to the precinct first. When she arrived, everyone was rushing about and ignored her until she bumped into the captain.
"Sorry." He said in a rush and was about to continue until he saw who she was. "What are you doing here? Didn't one of the officers inform you about your husband?"
"Yes, someone did, but I want some answers before I leave today." She had a cold stare on her face.
"I see. Well how about we step into my office?" He showed her the way and sat down at his desk. It was cluttered with files and papers. "So what questions do you have?"
"Who pressed the charges on him?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't release that information." He shrugged to any other answer he could have given.
"In other words…whoever called for the arrest bribed you?" She raised a single eyebrow.
"No, of course not! We carry out the law and reinforce it. We wouldn't accept bribes for any reason a-"
"Except if your job or your life was threatened by someone with a lot of power and influence in today's world. Am I right?" Her voice was as persuasive as a lawyer.
He hesitated to answer it, trying to think of a way to reply to her interrogation. She promptly stood up and started to head for the door. "It seems like I can't get any answers here, I'll be on my way out now."
"So you don't want to see your husband?"
"No, not really. I mean, it's not like you're gonna put him to death anytime soon…unless a higher power tells you to." She was about to walk out the door when she nearly fell on the floor. "Damn! Not now!"
"Are you all right?" He started to stand up and walk over.
"…call the hospital, my water broke." She tried to walk over to the chair but the captain stopped her.
The captain got an ambulance to rush over and take her to the nearest hospital. She demanded for someone to call her doctor but he couldn't be reached. The child was born and sent to the ICU. The baby was about one month premature but doctors said he would make it through. After a week, mother and child could return home. She arrived at the hotel and continued her preparation to leave for L3 the next day.
Early the next morning, she received a phone call from the police precinct again. They called to inform her that her husband was assassinated in his cell late last night. She hung without saying a word and went back to sleep. She woke up to a knock on the door.
She opened the door and saw two men standing before her. "Yes? Can I help you?"
"The child." The man's voice was cold and emotionless.
"My child?" He nodded and headed in when he heard the crying. "NO! You can't take him away!" She tried to restrain him, but the second man grabbed her arm. "NO! STOP! Please!" Tears were streaming down her face.
The man came out with the crying one week old baby boy. His cobalt blue eyes filled with tears. He tried to reach out for his mother who was also trying to reach him. She almost grabbed hold of his tiny hand when she suddenly fell to the floor after the sound of the gun went off. The child lets out a horrible scream and kept crying. The second man put away the gun and took out a syringe. He inserted it into the child's arm and in a few seconds, the boy was sound asleep.
"We don't want anyone to find out who's behind this. Sorry." He was directing it to the dead woman on the floor. They left, leaving the door wide open and left everything the way it was. The two men drove back to where they would get paid for the job.
"What do you want us to do with the kid?" One of the men asked the man before him. The man he had asked looked off to the corner.
"Hey, Odin! Need a helper?" He tilted his head towards the sleeping form.
Odin looked at him and considered the decision for a moment. "Sure."
***