Chapter 43 – The Birth
They arrived at Nibelheim two hours later, just as Cid had predicted, and circled over the huge city searching for the hospital. A map of the city streets displayed on a console before Cid. He had the hospital marked and steered his ship towards it. "Hopefully it will have a landing pad," he thought to himself as he struggled with the precise maneuvers required to guide the ship through the tangle of steel, concrete and glass jungle below.
The other men stood in front of him watching the city pass beneath them through the clear hull. The sprawling hospital complex came into view as they rounded a large skyscraper and they could see the blinking lights of a helicopter landing pad on the roof.
"We'll be making an unauthorized landing. I hope they don't mind visitors," said Cid, not taking his eyes off the console in front of him.
Barret and Cid left the bridge to tell Cloud they were about to land. They found him sitting on the bunk next to a sleeping Tifa. He had let her drift off to sleep and watched her chest rise and fall with her regular breathing, not leaving her side for a minute during the two hour ride to the hospital. He looked up as they entered the room.
"How is she? How are you?" asked Barret.
Now that the adrenaline that had driven his rage against Kadj had faded, his body was screaming at him that it needed food and rest. He smiled at his friends and stood to face them.
"She's sleeping, finally," he said softly.
"We're about to land at the hospital. Let's get her out of here," said Barret, moving to pick Tifa up. Cloud put out a hand and stopped Barret.
"I'll do it," he said quietly. As he lifted her, Tifa's arm fell to her side and she groaned with pain and woke from her sleep. Barret gently placed her arm back across her waist to relieve the pressure on her wounded shoulder. She laid her head back on Cloud's shoulder and closed her eyes against the pain.
They left the ship to find a group of people standing on the landing pad looking up at the ship. They approached Cloud as he stepped onto the tarmac with what looked like an injured girl in his arms. She was obviously very pregnant and bleeding from a shoulder wound. A young doctor stepped forward from the small group and brushed Tifa's hair away from her face. Her skin tone was pale; she had lost a lot of blood. He was concerned about the metal spike in her shoulder. He looked up at Cloud and recognized the look of a man at his end of his rope.
"Lets bring her inside, ok?" he said gently. He motioned to two others in the group who pushed a gurney over to him. Cloud looked at Tifa and gently kissed her forehead. He carefully placed her on the gurney and stepped back and watched as they wheeled her into the building. The young doctor turned back to Cloud and grabbed him by the arm as his knees gave way beneath him. Cloud struggled to regain his footing and shrugged off the other man's hand. The familiar throb that was always present in his arm changed to a piercing pain and he gasped and clutched his arm, sinking to his knees again.
"This man is hurt too," the doctor yelled at the group of nurses behind him. "Bring a chair for him quickly."
"No, I can walk," said Cloud through gritted teeth. He fought against the pain and stood back to his feet. "You take care of her first," he said to the doctor. The young man looked into Cloud's eyes and saw the resolve on his face.
"Ok, let's go and see what we can do for her, shall we?" he said gently. He turned and motioned Cloud to follow him back into the hospital.
Cloud and the others waited outside the room they had brought Tifa to. He wasn't happy that he was not allowed to be with her and Barret and Vincent had to hold him back when they stopped him from trying to get to her.
"You can watch everything we do through this window," said the doctor, trying to reassure Cloud. He put a hand on his arm. "You've done a good job of getting her here. Now let us help her," he said gently.
Cloud nodded and walked over to the glass window separating him from Tifa.
A little later the young doctor returned and walked over to Cloud. He looked tired and concerned.
"We're taking her into surgery now to remove that spike in her shoulder. She's very weak. She lost a lot of blood and of course the pregnancy doesn't make it any easier." He paused and looked up at Cloud. "What do you know about that glow from her belly?"
Cloud sighed and told him everything he knew. The doctor listened silently, interrupting only when Cloud explained that his DNA had been altered by Dr. Hiro. DNA that he had passed on to his unborn daughter.
"So you were with SOLDIER?" he asked.
"Yes, briefly," Cloud responded, shifting his feet on the ground.
"And you have Geostigma?" asked the doctor.
Cloud looked up at him sharply. He smiled back at Cloud. "It's obvious," he said. "Your arm is affected?"
"Yes," said Cloud. He pushed up his sleeve and uncovered the black stain on his skin. The sharp pain he experienced on the landing pad had receded back to the throb he had become so used to.
The doctor probed Cloud's arm with his fingers and mumbled "yes, so many have it now. I wish we had a way to cure it."
"Me too," said Cloud quietly, pushing his sleeve back down to hide the marks. "Tifa, will she be ok?" he asked.
"Yes, I think so. I'll come back and talk to you again when she comes out of surgery. In the meantime, you need to try and rest," said the doctor. He turned and walked back out of the room.
Cloud sat by Tifa as she slept. Her shoulder was wrapped in clean bandages put there after the surgeon had removed the spike. Cloud had drifted off to sleep himself as he sat in the big comfortable chair at Tifa's bedside. She stirred from her slumber and looked around her. Her shoulder ached dully as the pain medication started to wear off. She realized that she was in a hospital and looked down at the bandages on her shoulder. She ran her hand over her swollen stomach and felt that it become as hard as a rock.
"Its time, Tifa," said a soft voice in her mind.
"Will she be . . . normal?" Tifa asked Aeris.
"No child of yours and Cloud's could ever be called normal. She will always be exceptional, but she is your child now, not Jenova's," answered Aeris with a smile.
Tifa felt a growing wave of pain radiating from her lower back around her stomach. She groaned loudly and doubled over, holding her stomach with her good arm.
"Cloud . . .," she called to him to wake him up. "Cloud, I think it's time.
Hours later, Tifa lay on the birthing bed, sweating and panting as she pushed against the next contraction. She had labored hard for an hour now and she was exhausted. Each contraction felt like a thousand knives ripping through her body, but urged on by Cloud and her doctor she continued to push with everything she had left.
"Almost there, Tifa. I see her head. Just one more big push," said the doctor.
"I love you Tifa," Cloud whispered in her ear. He held her hand and let her fingernails dig into his hand as she fought the wave of pain washing over her.
When the contraction came, she bore down and pushed with all her strength, screaming as she felt her insides ripping apart. She felt a sudden woosh as the baby finally passed out of her and was born. She fell back on the bed and closed her eyes. Cloud kissed her and wiped the sweat away from her forehead.
"Look, Tifa," he whispered in her ear. She opened her eyes and saw her baby lying on the bed between her legs. The doctor handed Cloud a pair of scissors and she watched while he cut the umbilical cord. The doctor looked up at Cloud and nodded.
"I'll take care of this personally, you don't have to worry," he said. Cloud had spoken with the doctor just as Tifa had gone into labor and explained that Tifa's stem cells must not fall into the wrong hands. The doctor promised to destroy the cord and the placenta himself.
A nurse placed the naked baby on Tifa's chest and stomach. She lay still listening to her mother's heart beat, opened her eyes and looked at her father.
"She has your eyes," he said softly, smiling through his tears.
Many miles away, high up in the mountains, Yazoo sat in front of a roaring fire in the living room. He was deep in thought when something broke his reverie. He stood up and strained to hear what had caught his attention. Loz looked up at his brother with a question on his face. Yazoo slowly smiled and turned to his brother.
"She's born," he said simply.