Rating: R

For: language, sexuality, and all those things we've already gone over

Pairings: 1X2, 3X4, OCXOC

A/N: Man... I really feel bad about all this angst. I wish I could make pink elephants appear sporadically in the coming chapters just to make it less sad. Oh well... no one's dead. You think I'd kill a baby? Sick, man. Freakin sick. Anyway, the Chapter title is from our good buddy Dumbo, and that really sweet song that his mom sings him. Makes me so sad!

Chapter Eleven- Baby of Mine

Lela was folded in half in a hospital waiting room chair, her eyes pressed against the bones in her kneecaps. She couldn't bring herself to sit up and stare around the place that she was, the harsh white walls and the sterile smells and beeping machines. She couldn't move her body or force herself to work out the kinks that were slowly forming along her spine. Her head was swimming with thoughts, ideas and worries. Oh, the worries that plagued her heart and mind. What was wrong with Julian? What would happen? Would he be okay? Where were Duo and Heero? How was she going to pay for this?

Would she have to run again?

Kolya felt an intrinsic obligation to consol this statuesque husk of the girl that he had been kissing only moments before. He had placed his hand on her back and rubbed his fingertips lightly over her shirt, feeling the sharp points of her vertebrae and the thick elastic of her bra. She didn't respond to his touch, but didn't shy away from it either. He tried to think of something else, remove his mind from the state of Julian, but nothing would come into his head.

Trowa sat perpendicular to them, stroking Quatre's hair as the blond slept, curled up against him like a cat. He was watching Lela as his long fingers stroked the soft golden locks that pressed against his chest. His green eyes followed her unmoving, languid form as her arms dragged on the cheap linoleum tile. She was simply lolling there, like a puppet left without any master, abandoned in an attic somewhere, too far away to be found again. The thick sympathy overwhelmed him, yet he did not stir to help her, for fear of shaking his angelic lover into wakefulness. Instead, he watched her, the hefty mourning of a mother who feared the death of her children the way that ordinary people feared the death of themselves. And it was because of this that Trowa could offer her no sympathy; because as the war had trudged, ever-steady on, he could recount all the times he'd wished for death, prayed for and caused it, and all the times he'd caused someone else to feel the pain that Lela felt. But he shook the thoughts from his head; Julian was not dead, nowhere near it, or at least he thought that was it. No one would tell them anything about it, no matter how they begged and pleaded. Trowa had never felt this helpless before.

Kolya slipped down out of his chair and leaned his lips towards Lela's ear, very close, so that when he whispered words in a somber tone of Russian, no one else could hear. "When I was a boy, ten years old, we lived just outside of Stalingrad, my family and I. We needed extra money, so my brother, Dmitri and I went out looking for jobs. One day, we went to the hospital in town, and they said we could help them. They gave up both sticks and cages, and then led us onto a ward. There were chickens everywhere, running around, loose and crazy like they'd had their heads cut off. They told us we had to catch all of them, and then they would pay us." He leaned back into his chair then, crossing his arms over his chest. He stared around for a moment at the cleanliness of the walls that surrounded them, and smiled to himself before adding, "This is a nice hospital. Good hospital."

Lela didn't know she was laughing until it was too late for her to stop. She pulled back mechanically, as though grabbed by the neck, leaning on top of her thighs with hands against her eyes. He body shook with a combination of laughter and oncoming tears. "Lela?" came Trowa's voice from somewhere in the distance that the blackness covering her eyes would not let her see. "What happened?"

She could barely speak through her emotions. "He... he was talking about chickens... in a hospital." And for reasons she couldn't understand, and probably wouldn't want to even if she could, she began to cry, flinging the joy from her voice and exchanging it for bitter tears. They were hot, wet and salty, and rained down in brilliant streaks across her blistering red cheeks. Her breathing intensified, pulsing in sharp, ragged intakes, as her knees pulled up into her chest. She locked her hands around the opposing wrists and buried her eyes in the knees of her jeans. Kolya felt this need, an instinct, and he followed it. He put his arms over her shoulders, skimming down her back with a stray pair of fingers sliding beneath her shirt. She curled herself against him like a toddler clinging to his mother. She could feel the deep, even strokes of Kolya's breathing, and they calmed her, yet she could not stop this idle flow of tears. His chin was atop her head as he rocked her back and forth, wrapped in his arms. She heard him, his voice sinking into a bass as he sang a soft lullaby to her, in Russian. She recognized it; he'd used it on Julian before, and it always hushed the boy.

"You my baby darling,

Fitfully cry at night

I wish you were sleeping

And resting ever on

I wish to hold you

Tight in my arms

And tell you of my dreams for you

Of you being my greatest joy

And that you are my greatest hope."

She felt her tears subsiding, the weight of her eyelids growing. His voice was soothing, deep and rich, like a fine chocolate, or wine. That was what she needed... wine. She wanted to feel the sweet grape subtly burning as it passed over her lips. She dreamt of wine even as his song continued.

"You are my baby darling

The wonderful pride of my heart

I wish I had the money to give you

All the things you wish for.

But, you are still my baby.

I offer you all the love I have

Every drop of care is there

Just for you.

My baby darling."

Lela remembered what had made her stop drinking after Victor died. It was when she had no money and no food and Julian was hungry. She had pressed a wine bottle to his lips, and watched him as he sucked away at it. It took her a moment to sober up as much as was necessary to realize how horrible it was. She had jerked it away from him and thrown it into the alley, against the brick wall that lay on their side.

"You need not be afraid

When you know that I'm around

I hold you safe within my arms

You're my favorite little thing

And I shall never bring you harm

Baby, darling of mine."

She had sworn to herself then that she couldn't let anything get out of hand like that again. She had promised herself in that instant that there was no way she would ever allow herself to hurt Julian like that again. She had to gain control of herself, had to be the person she needed to be, which was probably the only reason she was alive then.

What she knew, right then, was that her son was in the hospital. Instead of her shooting heroin to numb the pain, she was there, in the waiting room, being sung to by a Russian and waiting for any news of his well-being. What she didn't know was whether or not that made her a good mother, and what it would take to make her even better.

Duo shoved the wrinkled green bill into a thin black slot. It wriggled back out at him. He ran it back and forth across the metal sides of the machine and tried again. The bill returned, green lights smirking back at him. He sighed heavily and picked up the bottle he'd already gotten. He'd dig up change somewhere. He strode across the tile, sandals slapping with a vapid echo around the white walls. He'd thrown on the first clothes he'd found (which happened to be a wife beater, baggy black cargo shorts, and orange flip flops) and actually gotten a taxi to take him and Heero straight to the hospital, rather than using the subway which would have taken a gross excess of time that he did not have. He stopped just a foot from Lela, extending the plastic bottle to her. "Diet Coke."

Lela didn't move. She was staring into the plate glass window, into the object inside.

"What happened?" asked Duo, unscrewing the white plastic lid, and trying again. She shook her head.

"They don't know."

He leaned closer to her, regretting how much he'd enjoyed that afternoon, how much fun he and Heero had had before they'd gotten the phone call. They'd been lying there together; savoring the last lingering touches of lust when the phone had rang. Heero had reached over with a languid hand, despite the protest of Duo's lips against the pulsing veins in his neck. From the receiver spewed out a much of jumbled, frantic Russian.

"Kolya?" He sat upright, the blue bed sheet sliding off his chest and pooling around his lap. "Slow down... what are you saying." He paused again, trying to hold onto his Perfect Soldier calm. Duo peered around him, and could hear the hard consonants and smashed vowels echoing outside the plastic chamber. "Get Lela. Kolya. Go get Lela." There was a brief shuffle, and he heard the feminine voice over the line. "What happened?" A pause. "Oh my... is he okay?" Another pause. "Yeah... we'll be there."

"What's going on?" Duo's whole body had gone from a relaxed post-passion extravaganza to a thick, tense ball of sinew. He was sitting up beside Heero now, ready to spring into action at any moment like a wind-up toy.

"Julian's in the hospital."

And that's where they were.

Duo put the bottle to his lips and sucked. An icy wave of carbonation passed through him, and he sighed. He could totally dig some alcohol right now. A good old-fashioned shot of bourbon, like you see in cowboy B-list movies. Or tequila. He could dig exotic right now. He could dig anything right now.

He tried to focus back in on the situation at hand. He turned to Lela, his cobalt eyes thick with compassion. "Are you okay?"

She didn't look at him. She hadn't looked at him all night, no matter what he said. Heero had stopped trying to talk to her not long ago, claiming that he didn't want to make things worse. He was trying to pick up some Russian from Kolya in the waiting room. He saw her frame, her expressive shoulders hunching, and sighed internally. She was much too young for this. "My baby...my little boy is in a box," she whispered, pushing her index finger against the cold glass. It left a foggy sweat print against the surface when she pulled it back. Julian was inside a plastic incubator, hooked up to a couple of tubes and things, looking like a baby doll still in the factory. He was only seven months old. Why was this happening?

"It's rough," Duo answered.

"You don't know, Duo. You don't know the half of it."

"You need to eat something," he replied, abruptly changing the subject. "And you should get some sleep. We're all worried about you."

"I'll sleep when I can hold Julian in my arms. Fuck off if you think I'll do it otherwise."

He could tell from the thick lines around her eyes that she wouldn't be up for long. He took a swig of Diet Coke and decided to let it go.

An hour later, she was slumped against Kolya's shoulder, her mouth just slightly open as she slept fitfully under the fluorescent tube lighting. It was all too much. Duo was angry at Fate. Fate had caused the war, caused the Maxwell Church Tragedy and the plague and the deaths of thousands. Fate had controlled life as they all knew it for as long as he could remember, genocides and ethnic cleanings and population controls.

But, the bastard had taken things too far this time.