Chapter 8 -- Anticipation
Mel mumbled contentedly and snuggled into the warm arms embracing her, closing her eyes more tightly against the morning light filtering through the window. Until consciousness began to intrude enough that she wondered about those arms. Opening her eyes cautiously, she found herself staring into the most beautiful brown eyes she had ever seen.
"Cole…" she murmured, smiling up at him as the last of the cobwebs cleared from her brain.
"Good morning, Mel," he greeted her quietly, making no move to release his tender hold on her. His hands lightly caressed her back and sides.
"Been up long?" she asked automatically, running her hands appreciatively over his bare chest.
"I don't sleep, Mel," he reminded her, smiling faintly at her lapse. "But I spent some time meditating after you went to sleep. I emerged from my deep cycle about an hour ago."
"Oh. And did that… go well?"
Cole smiled and nodded faintly. "It was very centering, Mel. I needed it very badly." He paused for a moment. "I needed many things badly, I think. Thank you for letting me join you, Mel."
She smiled up at him. "Welcome, Cole…"
"How do you feel?" he asked quietly.
"Good, I feel good," she yawned, grinning up at him.
"I'm glad. I should… check on Jenin soon," he began reluctantly.
"Mmm, not yet," she urged. "Gwen's with her. She'll come get you if anything happens."
"Well, it is still early," he admitted, smiling faintly. "I think I could stay like this for a little while longer."
"Good…"
"I like this, Mel. We should do it more often," he told her.
She chuckled and shook her head. "Cole, you--"
There was a loud banging on the bedroom door. "Guys!" Gwen called.
"Coming, Gwen," Cole answered, rising immediately and opening the door.
She looked around his bare chest to Mel in the bed for a moment, her expression not even slightly surprised to find Cole there or Mel still in bed, before returning her attention to Cole. "I think it's time," she announced.
"Okay." He nodded and shrugged on his pants before stepping around her and half-running down the stairs. "Jenin?" he asked gently, entering her bedroom.
The Nodulian was lying on the bed, curled up in a fetal position and panting raggedly. She looked up at Cole with glazed eyes. "There's something wrong," she whispered, hugging her stomach and rocking herself.
"No, there can't be," he whispered, shaking his head in denial and hurrying to her side.
"It never hurt this badly with Sella," she whimpered.
"Human bodies are different, though. I'm told that there is pain, even when things are going as they should…"
She nodded. "There was pain with Sella. Lots. She was turned improperly. I almost lost her. But this… This is worse…"
"You won't lose her," Cole promised her firmly, pushing up her nightshirt and running his hands over her stomach.
"Cole?" Mel asked from the door. "How can we help?"
He looked up. "Run a warm bath, Mel. Gwen, try to find Táhirih." The women gone, he looked down at the girl on the bed. "Be calm, Jenin," he urged, resting his hands on either side of her stomach and releasing soothing energy. "You're too tense."
"How am I meant to be anything else?" she demanded, pulling herself into a sitting position and facing him. "My husband isn't here and my little girl will be raised by strangers, constantly in danger from Zin's people…"
"We won't let harm come to her. Not ever. I promise. Lie down."
She shook her head, biting her lower lip against the cry that threatened as another contraction started. As she tried to curl up again, Cole wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a standing position and holding her against his body, counting to himself.
He was surprised when she actually wrapped her arms around him as she would have with Kres, not just accepting his aid but encouraging it. It was almost unheard of from a Nodulian woman. Most would have pushed him away before they would have taken help from an unrelated male. Even if the husband was absent, she would typically only accept help from her father or an older brother, and then only in the most extreme of circumstances. He stared down at her with wide eyes, aware that he was going to be playing the same role in the birth of Jenin's daughter as he had played in the birth of his own, filling in for the absent father in every respect. For a man who did not know the first thing about human childbirth, the thought was a frightening one. He tightening his grip on her, holding her upright and murmuring encouragement.
"Okay, bath's ready," Mel announced, pausing at the room's threshold. "Cole? Is she okay?"
His nod was shaky. "Think so, Mel. She's very tense, right now. The bath will help."
"Gwen's still trying to locate Táhirih," Mel said, stepping back as Cole supported the girl from the room and into the bathroom. "Kettai is on his way," she added, helping Cole get her out of her nightgown. "We'll leave for the hospital when he arrives."
"Okay." Jenin nodded faintly as Cole lifted her into the bathtub. "Thank you, both."
"You're welcome, honey," Mel murmured.
"Stay here, Jenin," Cole directed quietly, ushering Mel from the bathroom. "But call if you need me."
"Hey, what's going on?" Mel asked quietly as he half-closed the door.
"I don't know anything about delivering human children, Mel," he murmured, shaking his head. Gwen's inability to find Táhirih was alarming to him and he could not help but suspect the worst. "Can you help me?"
"I don't know very much about it either," Mel apologized.
"How can you not… it's your own physiology, Mel!" he protested.
"Well, I'm sorry, but it's never really come up before, Cole."
"I'm sorry, Mel. I'm sorry." Cole sighed and nodded weakly. "It's just… she's looking to me to take care of her, of both of them, and I know nothing. I was expecting Táhirih to be here by this stage. I'm scared, Mel."
Mel nodded and patted his chest gently. "I know you are, Cole. So am I. But Gwen will find Táhirih soon. In the meantime we just need to keep Jenin comfortable. And calm. I think it's important for a human mother to be calm."
"She is not calm, Mel, and I don't think we can ask that of her. She's in pain…"
"Well, yeah. That's a human thing, pain during childbirth."
"For Nodulians it indicates a serious problem. She says it hurts worse than her first daughter's birth, Mel, and Sella was turned improperly… She's scared."
"I'll bet." Mel nodded faintly, glancing quickly at the bathroom door, then in Gwen's direction as the girl paced the living room, cursing into her cell-phone. "What can I do to help?"
"Tell me everything you know," Cole told her.
"That won't take long. Um… 10 centimeters is fully dilated," she offered, thinking. "Uh, and…" She shook her head, annoyed to be so clueless. "I'm sorry, Cole."
"It's okay, Mel. The water won't harm them in that body, will it?"
"Don't think so." Mel considered, then shook her head. "No. Um, some women even give birth in the water, I think. Uh, yeah. Water-birth was popular in the sixties."
"This might be best for Jenin," he decided. "Most familiar."
"What do you mean the baby may be too big?" Gwen shouted into the phone, redirecting their attention away from each other. "Why the anatha wasn't Táhirih apprised of this?" She paused to listen, her expression equal parts worried and livid. "Well find her!" she shouted before breaking the connection.
"That sounded… bad," Mel noted.
"Yeah," Gwen agreed quietly, nodding. "When Kettai gets here, we move. She needs to be in a hospital or we'll lose them both."
Cole spoke quickly, his voice low and harsh. "If the child is too large to be delivered, we may lose them both anyway. Do humans practice… surgical extraction?"
"C-sections, yeah." Mel nodded. "Yeah, we have them. They're supposed to be pretty safe if the doctor knows what he's doing."
"Táhirih has done dozens," Gwen assured them.
No one bothered to point out that Táhirih was nowhere to be found.
***
Táhirih drew her hand across her eyes, yawning and crossing the hospital cafeteria to the bank of vending machines for another cup of coffee. She had spent half the night talking with Kettai and the other half arranging to have a room made ready for the delivery in a recently constructed and still empty wing of the hospital.
"Morning, Doctor Gibbons," a cheerful voice greeted her. "I thought this was your day off."
"Duty calls," she told the intern at the next machine with a smile, smacking her palm against the surface of the vending machine when it did not immediately give her her coffee. "I needed to fax some records to an associate and then I got suckered into a consult in a little while."
"Fun." He rolled his eyes and retrieved his bottle of soda. "Well, hope you get some of your day off to yourself. See you tomorrow."
"Okay, Lucas. Bye."
She smiled until he was gone, then immediately fled the cafeteria. It had been stupid going down there in the first place. She had to avoid getting recognized or risk raising more questions about what she was doing at work on her day off. Even her office was probably not the best place to be at present. Shaking her head, she decided to go give Jenin's room one more going over. She reached for her cell-phone as she walked through the still-empty corridor, cursing softly when she realized that it was not in its normal place. She was reaching for her pager to see if Gwen or Kettai had tried to contact her as she stepped onto the elevator, not really paying attention to the other people inside until the door had already snapped shut.
"James," she whispered in a weak voice, looking past him to another familiar face. "Zin…"
"Doctor… Gibbons," he read off of her tag, smiling serenely as 'James' hit the button to stop the car. "So lovely to meet you in person. Thaler here has told me all about Gweny's friend the doctor…"
She swallowed hard. "Has he now?"
"Mmm hmm." Zin nodded faintly, his cheerful expression never slipping. "Used to be an obstetrician, I understand?"
"Osteologist," she lied quickly, hoping that the two sounded similar enough to a man for whom English was not a first language. Her mind was spinning as she tried to come up with a strategy to save the situation. "Bone doctor."
Zin pursed his lips and shook his head faintly. "Nice try, though…"
Táhirih backed away, nudging the alarm button behind her back. "Look, I'm not going to tell you a damned thing, so just--"
"Oh, we disabled the alarm button," Zin added casually. "Seemed a wise precaution. Wouldn't want our little tête-à-tête interrupted." He approached her, helping himself to a handful of her ponytail. "You tell me where the Nodulian whore is and you may actually walk out of this alive," he hissed.
"Bite me."
Zin shrugged and abruptly grabbed her hand, sinking his teeth into her wrist until they scraped against bone.
"Ah!" she howled, her knees buckling.
"Learn respect," Thaler suggested cheerfully.
She stared at the blood dripping down her arm with wide eyes for a moment, silently making her peace and coming to terms with the fact that she was probably not going to walk out of this one alive. Swallowing hard, she closed her eyes and began praying.
Zin scowled and shoved her to the ground. "No fight at all in his one."
"She comes from a religion of pacifists, I told you," Thaler said. "Thus the praying rather than trying to claw our eyes out as Gwen would do." He hit the button to take them to the parking garage, looking down at the woman cradling her wrist against her body and praying quietly. "Ironic that she's named after one of the martyrs of her faith."
Zin scoffed at the observation. "I have little patience for martyrs, Miss Gibbons," he informed her quietly, grabbing a handful of her hair and jerking her to her feet. "What I do have is an Enixian who can make almost anyone talk."
"Operative word being 'almost'," she whispered, shaking her head. "You think I'm going to sell out my friends or let you go on a damned God-trip--"
Zin backhanded her, trying to cut off the tirade before it became one.
"You think you can render yourself into a god by your actions, but you are wrong. You are no god and you never will be," she informed him quietly. "There is no god but the God…"
"Oh, please!" Thaler scoffed.
"You will be struck down for your heresy and presumption," she told Zin, smiling bitterly. "The Taskforce or the Tracker may well be the hands to hold the blade, but their hands will be guided by His hand…" With these words, she closed her eyes again and resumed praying, not even faltering when Zin cuffed her again.
"Mmm, I think I'm going to enjoy having this one broken," Zin told Thaler, smiling as the elevator door opened into the parking garage. He wrapped a firm hand around her arm and shoved her out of the elevator. "Where is Lana?" he sighed, looking around.
Táhirih took advantage of his momentary distraction to stomp on his foot and head-butt him before breaking into a run. She ran straight into the arms of a young woman who smiled serenely up at her for a moment before applying a stun-gun to her stomach.
"Sorry I'm late, Zin," Lana apologized as Thaler helped the stunned Vardian to his feet. "Couldn't find my purse," she explained with a shrug, slinging the human over her shoulder. "Van's over here. Let's go."
***
"We have a problem," Kettai announced, sweeping into the living room. Mel and Cole were in the bathroom with Jenin.
Gwen nodded. "I know. I know… They tell me that the baby may be too large."
He gently caught her arm and ushered her into the kitchen. "We have another problem," he whispered. "Táhirih."
Gwen frowned. "What about her?"
"No one can find her anywhere."
"So I've heard."
"There's more," he murmured. "She was seen at the hospital this morning by more than one person."
"And she's not there now?"
He shook his head. "And this picture was taken by a security camera in the hospital's front lobby this morning." He reached into his coat and extracted a printout. "Zin and Thaler were there."
She let out an angry shout and crumpled the picture of the two in her hand. "Damn, damn, damn!" she shouted before slipping into Enixian.
"Would you be calm?" Kettai demanded, clamping his hand over her mouth and raising the other to her forehead.
"I would much rather not, thanks!" she hissed, jerking her head away from him.
"Gwen, if Thaler was there--"
"It was only to get my attention. I know." She nodded and stalked into the living room, riffling through her overnight bag. "I know."
"Little early, isn't it?" he asked as she pulled out a flask.
"Little late, actually," she corrected him, taking a swig. "I'll get Jenin to the hospital. You find Táhirih. Preferably alive."
"Okay, my love." He nodded and started for the door. "I'll see if we can find another qualified doctor."
"Any doctor at this point," Gwen corrected him. "Daggon doesn't know much about how humans do these things these things. Be a damned disaster for the two of us to try and handle it." She sighed deeply. "But you find Táhirih, too, baby."
"I'll do my best," he promised. "Gwynlyn, about the child…"
"What?" Gwen looked up, frowning at his tone of voice.
"We've found a couple to adopt her. Novan Starke and her husband."
Gwen frowned and shook her head faintly. "I told you that Miss Porter is going to adopt her."
"You honestly believe that the Council will let her raise this child in Chicago, under Zin's nose? And even if they do, do you honestly believe that it's right to even ask her to rear a child with a man who will have to leave some day?" he hissed.
"Jenin has already selected a family for her child. The Starkes were not mentioned."
"She will be safer with the Starkes. She will be much loved. She will have Nodulian parents."
"So? Since when is race a prerequisite for a loving parent, Kettai?" Gwen shook her head in disgust. "How dare you go over my head like this!" she hissed, grabbing his arm.
"I was trying to help. Damn it, Gweny, Zin lives in Chicago."
"This is mine. You have no right to interfere. Not you, not the Taskforce. I am in charge of this Op and will remain that way. The child goes where Jenin says she goes!"
"You are no longer adequately objective, Gwen." He let out a frustrated sigh. "Forget screwing Zin. Look to the welfare of the child."
"You think I don't care about that little girl and you don't know me nearly as well as you think you do. Now go find Táhirih!" she ordered, pointing towards the door.
"Gwen, my team is on that. We need to talk about this."
"They don't get that child!" Gwen hissed. "Taskforce sympathizers should not be raising the daughter of a fugitive."
"Taskforce sympathizers?" Kettai repeated, raising an eyebrow. His cell-phone rang and he held up one hand, pulling it out. "Hang on, baby. Hello?" He paused, listening for a moment. "You're sure? Okay, I see. Get on it! No, no… prisoners for interrogation are not our top priority. Just… yeah. Go!" He hung up his phone, sighing deeply and rubbing his forehead.
"What?" Gwen asked, frowning.
"The hospital… They found human blood in one of the elevators. It belongs to Doctor Gibbons."
"How much blood?" Gwen whispered, paling.
"Not much. Consistent with a minor injury only and no body yet. Baby… there's no reason to doubt that she's still alive and well. Zin would want her able to talk."
Gwen's nod was shaky. "Right, you're right. Go, bring her back to us."
He nodded and turned to leave, but paused. Turning again, he gently caressed her throat for a moment. "The Starkes will understand," he murmured, nodding sharply and quickly leaving.
"Gwen, sweetie?" Mel asked gently, slowly approaching.
"Miss Porter." Gwen smiled weakly up at her. "Getting Táhirih on time may be a problem."
"She okay?"
"She'd damned well better be," Gwen muttered, brushing her hair out of her face and slipping on a headband. "Zin's paying for this one."
"Gwen?"
"I'm sick of him screwing with my friends and family," she muttered sullenly, rising and grabbing the car keys.
"Family?" Mel repeated, staring at her.
"Forget it. We'll discuss it later, okay?" Gwen gave her a forced smile. "Why don't you tell Daggon to get Jenin ready, hmm?" she suggested.
Mel nodded and returned to the bathroom.
Gwen dropped on to the couch. "Focus, Angelo!" she whispered harshly, shaking her head. "All for a reason. He's toying with you, trying to draw you out…" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "James, big guy, little Gweny needs you now. What do I do?"
It was insane. The number of times that James and Kettai had butted heads over what was best for Gwen, the number of times that human ideals had conflicted with Cirronian ones… They had only ever agreed on one thing, that Gwen was a rash woman, prone to act on emotions rather than intellect when the stakes were particularly high. Zin had Thaler, which meant he had James, which meant that he knew it, too. Zin knew exactly what she was going to do. And she was powerless to do anything else.
She had to get Jenin to the hospital if mother and daughter were to survive.