Twenty-Four Little Hours

Part Nine

   My contractions are coming every three or four minutes now, lasting about sixty seconds at a time, and I've been having them for about twelve hours (Apparently that means I'm about to start doing the real work of the birth, but I'm convinced whoever wrote that was a man. As if this was an easy ride so far…). When they first started, the others were quick to help me down to the Danger Room, where Hank had already begun the birthing pool simulation. Now, after still having been able to walk around a little bit during the first stage of my labour, I'm in the warm simulated water up to my waist. Warren is holding one hand and Rebecca holds the other; both of them share the same pensive expression. Aside from them, Hank, Jean and the Professor are the only other people in the room – Charles, Rebecca and Jean are providing telepathic anaesthetic as best they can, in addition to the heady cocktail of drugs Hank has injected me with, and Hank has been designated as an honorary midwife. In between my grunts of exertion, brought on by the increasing burning sensation between my legs, I find myself wondering if Warren and I have made the right decision in opting to stay here at the mansion; after all, it was a gamble at best, and folly at worst, and we might end up paying for it in the worst way possible. Then I hear the hum of the Shi'Ar machines all around me (a perfect replica of the med-lab) and I am reassured just a little. With these devices at their disposal, nobody could fail to at least do their best – and Hank's best is far better than anyone else's. It's heartening to know I'm in such good hands… but that's not really my highest priority at the moment, it has to be said.

   A particularly strong contraction makes me clutch compulsively at Warren's hand, squeezing it as hard as I can. "You'll stay, won't you, Warren?" I manage to say, through gritted teeth.

   "Of course," Warren says earnestly, ignoring my vice-like grip as best he can. "We all will. I promise."

   "Me too, Mum," Rebecca adds, her tone soft. She strokes my forehead with her free hand. "Wild horses couldn't drag me away."

   Hank checks a few read-outs on the portable handset that he managed to bring down from the med-lab, and manages a small smile, his milk-white fangs peeking out over his bottom lip. "That's what I like to see," he tells me in his deep bass purr. "You're doing really well, Betsy. Keep this up and we should be out of here in the next hour or so." He hands me a half-litre bottle of water, and says "Here. You should keep your fluid intake up – it'll get you ready for later. I'll bring you more if you need it, all right?"

   Clumsily, my fingers curling like claws, I bring the bottle to my lips and gulp a few mouthfuls in between contractions, before splashing some on my face to try and keep my temperature down, and rinsing my forehead of the sheen of sweat that has begun to coat it. "Thank you, Hank," I say, breathlessly. "I guess… I look a real picture… don't I?"

   A moment before Hank can answer, I let loose my first real cry of pain, screaming as loudly as I can and crushing both Rebecca and Warren's hands in my own, as if to try and transfer my pain to them – and in Warren's case, it works, at least partially. He winces as my agony, muted or otherwise, sparks along our psychic rapport and slams into his frontal lobes like a gunshot. "Oh, God," he mutters, rubbing at his temples with the fingertips of his free hand and swallowing the mild-by-comparison pain of his mangled fingers. "I forgot about that."

   "Just think of them as sympathy pains," Rebecca says, brushing her hand across my forehead gently while she speaks, her face quickly losing its momentary humour. I can feel her telepathic signal latching onto my pain centres and shutting them down one by one, and I wonder if she's doing the right thing. Right now, though, I'm appreciating every bit of help I can get, so I say nothing. "It's going to be okay, Mum," my daughter whispers, kissing me gently on the cheek. "You can handle this."

   "I wish I had your confidence," I say sardonically. "You have no idea how much this hurts…"

*

   "Push, Betsy! Push!" Hank exclaims, his blue eyes wide with wonder.

   "I am pushing, you idiot!" I scream, my throat feeling as raw as uncooked mincemeat. Pain is surging through my body, despite the best efforts of Jean, Rebecca and the Professor, and despite the heady cocktail of drugs coursing through my veins. "Don't be so fucking patronising!"

   Hank smiles faintly. "It's what I do best, Betsy. Warren, perhaps you'd better take over from here."

   "Come on, Betsy," Warren says, with a little trepidation. "You're nearly there, sweetheart – I can see the baby's head. Just a little further…" Almost instinctively, I reach down with unresponsive, scrabbling fingers to try and find my baby's scalp. Seeing what I'm trying to do, Warren finds my hand and guides it towards the soft fuzz that covers my – our – son's head. As soon as I touch it, I can feel a renewed energy flowing into my tired body from somewhere. I would call it a second wind, but I think I used that up about ten hours ago. The already white-hot pain intensifies further as I feel my son's head being forced out of my body, and I do the only thing I can do – scream with everything I have left, until all the pressure has been relieved.

   And then, suddenly, it's over. I sink back against the edge of the birthing pool, panting and sweating, astonished that it's finally all finished. As I try to come to terms with everything that's just happened, Hank wraps my son in a blanket and hands him to me. "Congratulations, Betsy," he says softly. "You have a son, milady; and a fine strapping lad he is, too."

   I nestle my son in my arms and take my first look at him. His small face is scrunched up in indignant horror at being moved out of his home so forcefully, he is squalling loudly, and he is still smeared with flecks of blood and mucus, his blond hair slicked down onto his blue skin.

   He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

   "Oh, Warren, look at him," I murmur, feeling happy tears coursing down my face. For a moment, it occurs to me that I must look incredibly silly… and then I remember that right now I couldn't care any less about that. "Isn't he wonderful?" I adjust my posture a little so as to make him more comfortable, nestling his head close to my left breast, and his cries quieten, becoming contented gurgling sounds instead. He reaches out with one of his tiny hands, and Warren lets him grip his little finger.

   "That's my boy," Warren whispers. "That's my boy."

   Once the placenta has been delivered and dealt with, Rebecca, Warren and I are left to our own devices in the med-lab – with strict instructions from Hank that my husband and daughter are not to exhaust me any more than I already have been, naturally. Rebecca reaches out with a cautious fingertip and gently touches her baby brother on the forehead, as if she is afraid she will hurt him somehow.

   "He's so tiny," she says, stroking her brother's scalp and running her fingers briefly over the gently-pulsing fontanel at the top of his skull. She seems entranced by him, almost. "Is that what usually happens with childbirth? All the yelling and screaming and swearing?"

   "I'm afraid so, button," I tell her tiredly, ruffling her hair with my fingers. "I bet I've put you off having children for life, haven't I?"

   Rebecca looks thoughtful for a moment or two before she replies "No, not really. I just know I want to be knocked out before I have to go through what you just did, that's all."

   "I wish I'd asked somebody to do that to me," Warren says, rubbing his forehead. "I mean, it's bad when you get someone else's headaches through a psychic rapport…" He smiles suddenly, his brilliant white teeth shining against his blue lips. "I don't think I'll ever complain about stubbing my toe again."

   "You'd better not," I retort, finding the energy in me somewhere to smile back at my husband. "I shan't have any sympathy for you whatsoever." Just then, Tom begins to wail loudly, his little face twisting and splitting into a pink, toothless maw. I can sense that he wants to be fed, so I reach up to the buttons at the front of my nightdress with my free hand and offer him the nipple of my left breast, in order that I can nurse him for the first time. He begins to suckle insistently, and I can feel the thin trickle of milk from my breast increasing in strength, almost with every second that passes. After the day that we've both had, I don't blame him for being ravenous. "Good boy," I hear myself cooing, in a tone that I almost never expected to hear from my own lips. "We have to keep our strength up, don't we? It's been a long day."

   After about ten minutes, Tom has had his fill, so I am able to sleep undisturbed for a while after the rest of my family leaves me alone in the med-lab. Warren takes it upon himself to put Tom into the cot beside my bed himself, laying his son gently onto the soft blankets and making sure that he is as comfortable as possible, before drawing the top blanket slowly over Tom's small, fragile body. Before he leaves, however, he bends at the waist and kisses his son on the forehead, letting Tom grasp his finger once more before he straightens up again. "Sleep tight, champ," he murmurs, surprising even me with his manner. "See you in the morning, Betsy. Love you."

   "Love you too," I tell him, automatically. "See you soon."

*

   Surprisingly, Warren is not the first person who comes to visit me.

   The first person to come through the infirmary's doors the next morning is Logan. He looks as scruffy as ever – perhaps even more so, given the early hour (although having said that, Logan is usually up early anyway, so perhaps he didn't intend to do me the disservice of waking me up. Perhaps he thought that since I am also an early riser by nature, he wasn't doing me any harm by paying me a visit. As a creature of habit, Logan is by nature a person that is set rigidly into routines, and finds it very hard to break them).

   That idea is borne out by his first words to me when I open my eyes to find him standing by the door of the infirmary.

   "Oh, shit, Lizzy, I'm sorry," he mutters, embarrassed, an uncharacteristic redness coming to his rough, weather-beaten features. "Forgot you'd probably still be asleep. I'll go if you want me to –"

   "No, Logan, it's all right," I reply blearily, rubbing sleep out of my eyes with one hand. "You can stay if you want to. I don't mind, really." I wave him over to the plastic chair that has sat by my bedside since last night. He walks over to me stealthily, careful not to disturb Tom, who is still slumbering next to me. Once he is sure he won't wake my son up, he leans forward and kisses me on the forehead affectionately, his rough muttonchop sideburns tickling my skin. Blinking away a few last lingering traces of fuzziness from the inside of my skull as Logan sits down, I continue "Come to see your new nephew?"

   Logan shakes his head, his square-tipped fingers finding my hand as he does so. "Nah, I ain't really that good with babies – just wanted to see how you were doin', princess. Not every day somebody spends thirty-five hours in labour, after all. So how you feelin'?"

   "Pretty good, considering I just spent thirty-five hours in labour," I say, raising a small smile. "I'm sore, I'm tired, and I have an absolute bastard of a headache, but I have a baby boy too, and that makes it all worthwhile, don't you think?"

   "Ya know, time was you'd never have even considered doin' this," Logan says thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair and putting one hand to his chin in a contemplative kind of way. "I remember you told me once that you were going to leave the whole 'family' thing for your brother – an' whichever poor sap he roped into sharing it with 'im." He chuckles, his sandpaper-harsh laughter filling the med-lab almost effortlessly. "Guess the universe had other ideas, huh?"

   That makes me laugh. "I suppose so. Then again… I think Rebecca had something to do with it, too."

   Logan raises a shaggy eyebrow, obviously intrigued. "Yeah? How so?"

   "Oh, she made me realise that, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't spend my life just waiting for the next big adventure to come along. I had to take responsibility for something, and she was it." Pausing, I shift a little in my bed, so that I can become a touch more comfortable, softening the dull, persistent ache in my abdomen and easing the pins and needles that I can feel are beginning to prickle in the tips of my feet. "You saw how much I didn't want her to be here when she first arrived – and you saw how much she didn't want to be here, either. I didn't want to be anything to her, and she didn't want to be anything to me. Cable changed that; he bridged the gap between us. Rebecca stopped being a thing that I took care of because I had to, and started being a person that I took care of because I wanted to. She… I can't describe how it felt the first time she said she loved me, Logan, but I knew – right that instant, I knew – that the person I'd been was gone, and I needed to become somebody else, for her sake."

   Logan pulls his cracked lips into a thin, thoughtful line for a moment or so, inclining his head slightly to one side. He scratches one of his sideburns with an uneven fingernail, and blinks once or twice. Thoughts are churning around his skull – I can feel them there, fighting to make sure that they are the ones to be given voice – but he's not sure how to articulate them. It's not often that Logan is lost for words, but I seem to be privy to the majority of those moments these days. "Lizzy, I –" he begins, as if he is unsure of where to go from there. "You know I had had bad vibes about that kid when she first came here, don't you?"

   "I'm a telepath, remember?" I tell him, matter-of-factly. "There's precious little I don't know, at least when it comes to people's emotions."

   "Guess not." Logan strokes his stubbly chin momentarily. "Anyway, what I was gonna say was that I never thought I'd ever like her. Ever. But because of what you did… well, put it this way: if you do the same with that boy of yours, you'll never have any problems."

   "Thank you, Logan." Reaching across to my son, I touch his forehead briefly, almost to reassure myself that he is still there. "That means an awful lot." Turning away from my friend, I glance down at my boy, to check once more that he is in fact all right. He is still awake, but he is still quiet, too – his small blue eyes are trying unsuccessfully to focus on the ceiling, and he is untroubled by hunger (His nappy doesn't need changing, either, thank God…). Slipping my hands carefully under his body, taking an immense amount of care not to upset him, I cradle his head next to my bosom, letting him snuggle down into the warmth of my chest. "It's all right; he just likes to be close to his Mummy," I say, to a clearly uncomfortable Logan. "I'm not going to try and breastfeed him in front of you, if that's what you're worried about."

   "Nah, that's not it, Lizzy," Logan manages, with more than a little difficulty. "I just get worried I'm gonna hurt really little ones – go berserk on 'em somehow. It's never happened yet, sure, but I always feel like I have to keep an extra-tight lid on myself whenever they're around – I think asked Yukio to take Amiko so she'd be protected from me, as much as anything else. I love that kid to bits, but I know she'll never be really safe until she's all grown-up. Least when she's a decent size, she can run fast enough to get away, ya know?"

   "Logan, if a baby made you go berserk, I'd be the first to tell you that there was no hope for you." I nod down towards my son, who is sleepily clenching and unclenching his tiny hands. "Look at him – barring an act of God or a mutant terrorist, there is no way that he would be able to make you angry." I nuzzle Tom affectionately, and he touches my face with his fingers, brushing my cheek for a moment. "Is there, handsome?" That draws a delightful, but probably entirely coincidental, happy sound from my son, which encourages me no end. "So come on, Logan: I want you to hold Tom."

   "Okay," Logan says, accepting defeat. "I know when I'm beaten. So what do I have to do, kid?"

   "Just make sure you support his head and his back, and keep him steady, and that's about it," I say, carefully handing my son over to Logan, who takes Tom into his muscular arms as if he is afraid he is going to snap him in two. "Now you just let him get himself settled, and you should be fine." I try to avoid a rapid intake of concerned breath as Logan tries to make sure that Tom is comfortable, but in the end my fears are unfounded. Tom lies in the corded muscle of Logan's arms as easily as he did in mine, or my husband's. He even sneezes nonchalantly, making Logan almost jump out of his seat. When I can feel Logan's heart slowing down, I say "See? It's not so difficult once you get the hang of it."

   "Easy for you to say," Logan retorts. "You've had more practice."

   "That's no excuse," I say, irritated. "My spending a few hours more with a newborn baby than you have doesn't make me into Susan bloody Richards, you know. I'm just as much a learner here as you are, Logan, and don't you forget it."

   "Sorry, darlin'. Didn't mean to patronise you none." Logan manages to look suitably penitent, so I let him off the hook for the moment. Then, he looks down at my son again, and a rare smile crosses his face as he looks over the small figure that nestles, doll-like, in his arms. "Kid's got his mama's eyes – look." He stands so that he can place Tom back in my arms, and then points out that my son's eyes have the same shape and subtle sky-blue colour of my own eyes. "Shame he's got his daddy's jaw line, though."

   "You know, some people say my jaw line is pretty striking," Warren says dryly, as he stands in the doorway of the med-lab, his arms folded neatly across his broad chest. He looks as if he's just woken up, his chin unshaven and his hair uncombed. "Morning, Logan." He walks past Logan quickly, after the little man has given him a small salute to acknowledge his presence, and kisses me good morning. "Hi, honey. How you feeling today?"

   "Like I've had a tank drive over me. Repeatedly," I say, wearily. "Other than that… I feel pretty good, all things considered. Better now that you're here, I think."

   "Guess I'll leave you kids to it," Logan remarks, before getting up from his seat and clapping Warren on the shoulder with one thick hand. "You got a real handsome cub there, Wings. Gonna be a real lady-killer when he grows up, just like his daddy." He grins at me, winking. "See ya later, Lizzy. Take care of yourself, huh?" And without another word, he is gone.

   "I think that's the closest you're ever going to come to getting a compliment from Logan, Warren," I say, once Logan has left the room. "You'd better make the most of it."

   "I think I'd better do that, too," Warren agrees, before he holds up the large bunch of mixed tulips in his hand. "Here – I brought you some flowers. Had them delivered last night, but you'd fallen asleep by the time they arrived. So… well, here they are now. Hope you like them." Seeing that my hands are somewhat full, he holds them out in order to let me smell them before he puts them in the large glass vase on my bedside table, letting them settle into the clear water. "Rebecca told me to tell you that she'll be along in a couple of minutes. She said she needed to get showered and dressed first, but she promised that she'd be here." He pauses. "Did you both sleep well?"

   "Like a pair of rocks," I reply. "Tom didn't need much coaxing to make him sleep all night – did you, sweetheart?" In response, Tom simply yawns again, making both Warren and myself smile broadly. "I think that's as good an answer as any, don't you, Warren?"

   "Oh, absolutely." Warren leans over, and puts his finger into his son's hand to say hello, prompting Tom to close his fist instinctively. "Hi, champ," he says, his voice little more than a whisper. "Looking good." He brushes his lips gently across the delicate skin of Tom's forehead, and then sits down in the chair that Logan had formerly been occupying. He pulls at his robe to ease out some trapped folds, and then sits back against the chair's padded plastic back rest. "You know you're going to have pretty much the whole mansion coming down here sooner or later, don't you?"

   "Not the whole mansion," I correct him. "I don't think Emma or Bishop will be too eager to play 'hold somebody else's baby', for a start."

   Warren makes a face at me. "Okay, okay – the whole mansion, apart from those two. What I was going to ask you was whether or not you wanted me to ask them not to?"

   "I already spoke to Hank about it after you left last night, after he'd checked me for any haemorrhaging and what-have-you," I say, tucking Tom's powder-blue blankets a little closer around his body. "He suggested making a timetable and getting people to keep to it, so I said I'd talk it over with you and let him know later today. So… do you think that's a good idea?"

   "Certainly better than my idea of boarding up the doors to our room," Warren laughs. "Okay, Betsy… let's do that; at least until you're out of here, anyway. Not much we can do after that, though."

   "Well, by then I should be strong enough to beat them off with a stick, so I suppose we'll have to take our chances, won't we?"

   "Guess so," Warren says thoughtfully, before Rebecca arrives at the door of the med-lab, running a whalebone brush hurriedly through her long blonde hair. She has managed to get herself dressed as smartly as this hour of the morning will allow, her black jeans complemented by a simple white t-shirt and a pair of black flat-soled shoes. Quickly, she ties her hair back with a black band, and tries to look as unflappable as possible while she finds herself a chair to sit down on.

   "Hi, guys," she says when she has done so, wheezing a little from her exertions. "Sorry I'm late."

   "Rebecca," I begin, "nobody was keeping score. You're fine."

   "I know that, but… I don't like telling people I'm going to be somewhere and then not showing up when I say I will," Rebecca replies. "I feel rude, you know?" She clears her throat quietly, and then stands to look more closely at her little brother. "I can't believe how small he still is," she breathes reverently. "Didn't he grow overnight?"

   "No, Rebecca, he'll stay this size for months," I tell her, reminding myself that this is the first time she's seen a baby that wasn't an adult two days later. When she hears that, Rebecca grins – which surprises me.

   "Good," she says, tickling Tom under his chin and making him smile widely. "That means there's more time for us to get to know each other…"