Chapter 3- First Steps
Author's Note: In case you are unfamiliar, Wawa's are like 7-11's and CVS's are just drugstores, but thanks to American capitalism both of these things now come SuperSized.
"Will you stop hitting every goddamn pothole in the goddamn road!" Kate's face was torn between seething and whining as she pressed one hand to her lower back with a wince.
Sawyer quirked an eyebrow, "You poppin' crazy pills, Baby Maker? Rides been smooth as glass."
"Are you kidding? We've been jostling around for a half an hour!" Exasperated, Kate flung her head against the tattered headrest. Suddenly she winced again, "Ow!"
"What?" Sawyer's eyes darted from Kate to the road as he contemplated which was more important during rush hour freeway traffic.
"I think a spring must've popped in this seat and the potholes must be jamming it in my back." Rubbing her back with both hands she continued, "We need some more of those stick on heat pads, little fuckers are worth twice their weight in gold."
Deciding that since the traffic wasn't going to bitch to him if he pulled over, Sawyer looked for an exit and managed to merge into three different lanes in thirty seconds without killing anyone. He began scanning the distance for possible pit stops because he knew it had been over an hour since Kate's last pee and she was probably due really soon. Up ahead was a giant Wawa, heaving a sigh of relief Sawyer pulled into it.
Giant Wawa's and their like had become a sort of religion with Sawyer. He constantly prayed they would pop up and he got way too excited when he saw that they were the expanded Wawa's with a gas station attachment. Not to mention he was developing an addiction for mixing Slurpee's and the Super CVS stores simply couldn't compete in that department.
They were in the farmlands of PA, lucky for Saywer, he never had to go too long before he found another Wawa. Pulling into the gas station of the Wawa, Sawyer got out to fill up the tank but when he stood up he found his wallet was gone. Looking around his eyes settled on the figure of Kate, who turned waving his own wallet at him as though saying 'You know you love me'. She was waddling to the bathrooms, waddling being the only thing she could do with her nine-months-pregnant-too-big-to-see-her-shoes stomach. Recently that whole natural beauty of pregnancy had faded into constantly feeling like an elephant stomping around a china shop.
The sad thing was that she was too big to fit in a regular stall and wound up waiting for the handicapped stall everywhere she went. But it was handy, she had metal handles to help her out of the toilet (which were, sadly, quite necessary).
Her back was killing her and her lower half was still jiggling and beginning to throb. She thought she had to pee. Badly.
That's why she was taken completely by surprise when she heard a RUSH of water and felt a flood leave her body…but she hadn't peed at all.
Oh dear god…my water broke. MY WATER BROKE!
Trying to calm down Kate assessed her situation. Her water just broke in a Wawa in farm-country Pennsylvania. She and her boyfriend were on the run from the FBI. She was nine months pregnant. Her water just broke. And she couldn't go to a hospital.
Well…here goes nothing.
Kate tried to wipe up the liquid that had dripped onto the seat of the toilet, but luckily most of it had actually gotten in the bowl. Talk about small favors. She flushed and waddled in an almost run out to the truck. Halfway there the first strong pain hit her back and she nearly fell over in pain.
"Kate!" Sawyer was by her side before she realized she needed him to be there. He wrapped an arm around her, "What's wrong, Momma Bear? You get some bad porridge in there or-"
"My water broke, Sawyer." She whispered urgently, "We need to get out of here…now."
Sawyer's face paled, without another word he helped her into the truck and drove.
Maybe the panic made it worse, it certainly couldn't have made it better, but Kate felt like all those hours that are suppose to lapse in between the water breaking and the labor actually happening disappeared. It seemed one minute she was getting into the car and the next she was squeezing Sawyer's hand and screaming as a contraction hit her, forcing him to finally pull over to the side of the road.
Kate swung her legs up so that she was laid across the bench seat of the car, her back against Sawyer.
"Kate…maybe you want to put your legs down?"
"They…want…to be….up." She growled in between contractions, squeezing his hands painfully hard.
"Ow! Dammit!" Sawyer was forced to grit his teeth against the slew of comments that ran to his mouth. Suddenly Kate yelped, it was like a spike of bright red against a black backdrop. The sound itself sounded like blood.
"Why'd you-"
Before he could finish Kate lifted a hand that had flown between her legs. It had blood on it.
"Sawyer…." The whine emitted helplessly from her lips. She was panicking twice as badly and the contractions were getting closer and more intense.
Sawyer had no idea what to do.
"Maybe you want to think about a hospital, Sweet Cheeks?" All he could do was stare at the blood, was blood bad? Can't be good.
"NO!" Kate held her breath against a contraction and began turning blue.
"BREATHE DAMMIT!" Sawyer shook her gently, "Don't you stop breathing on me, Freckles! It's gonna take two of us to do this as it is!"
"Two? TWO! WHO'S DOING ALL THE WORK? I DON'T SEE YOU HAVING DOING ANYTHING EXCEPT SITTING ON YOUR ASS!" She emphasized her works by hitting Sawyer sharply over and over until another wave of pain made her focus.
"HELP ME WILL YOU?"
"What the hell can I do?"
"I don't know…CATCH IT OR SOMETHING!"
A particularly rough contraction seized her and she mewled like a wounded camel before turning on Sawyer, her eye's so dark he swore they were black but blazing like hot coals.
"WE…ARE….NEVER…HAVING….SEX….AGAIN!" A final scream came as the contraction ended. Sighing and sweating Kate turned to him with panicked eyes, "I can't do this. Sawyer I can't do this!"
"Yes.You.Can." The words came out fast like bullets, he took a breath and slowed, "Kate you're the strongest person I know. You got more heart the its fair for any person to have and I know if you wanna do something then dammit it's gonna get done… now you just set your mind to having this baby and it'll all go easier. You just gotta breathe and focus. Breathe and focus. Breathe and-"
"I'M BREATHING!" Another contraction, but this one didn't seem to end. The muscles in her legs were quivering as she pushed.
In that moment Sawyer appreciated the strength of women. Their bodies had it hard-wired inside of them, the knowledge about how to give birth, how to create life. Here they were without any knowledge, any doctor's, any how-to guides and Kate seemed to be getting along.
Growling ferally, Kate hunched over her large stomach and pushed so hard her face was nearly black because it was so red. Taking a sharp breath she kept pushing, baring her teeth like a hissing cat and digging into him with her nails.
He glanced at the clock. 11:03 P.M. Had it really been six hours since this all began?
Kate violently pushed herself up, heaving and straining with everything she had and letting out a scream of intense agony…before collapsing against Sawyer.
"The head…I think the head's out!"
In the cramped space of the truck cab Sawyer couldn't see. So he opened the driver's door and carefully walked around to the passenger's side, opening the door and…
"Woah! That is….a vagina. AND A HEAD!" The stench of fluids he couldn't identify (and frankly had no desire to identify) hit him like a ton of bricks and he had to take a step back.
"DON'T YOU DARE FAINT!" Kate screamed.
"I ain't faintin' girl!" Sawyer came back and pushed Kate's flowered sundress up her knees a little, "I just…I ain't never seen one with a head in it that ain't mine!"
"SHUT UP AND HELP M-" A scream cut off the last part of the sentence as she began to push again.
Without thinking too much Sawyer dove his hands forward and cupped the head of the baby. It was covered in all sorts of goop that he knew he was never going to get out of the truck upholstery. One might push later and suddenly he was holding an whole tiny body, not just a head.
And it was wiggling.
"Stop moving, jitterbug, or I'm gonna drop you and then your Momma's gonna drop me!" He made to move with it when he noticed it was still…attached.
"Kate…I got a uh…" He held up the baby and nodded to the cord, "…an attachment here."
"You have to cut it." Her voice sounded as though she'd been gargling with gravel for an hour.
Shifting the infant so that it was balanced in one arm he took a pocket knife from his jeans and cut the cord. As he did he looked up and saw Kate begin to push again.
"Woah! There isn't another one, is there?" He held the wriggling red newborn to his shirt as though afraid it would start multiplying if unrestrained.
Then a blob of blood, and insides and…
"Dear God, what the hell is that!"
"Placenta." Kate weaked balanced on her elbows and smiled tiredly at him.
"Placenta?" Sawyer repeated.
She nodded.
"How can you say placenta like its French Fries or Ice Cream?"
"Sawyer, can I hold it? What is it?"
He had momentarily forgotten that he was holding their newly born child and suddenly slammed the door to the passenger's side and raced around to hop into his original seat. As he did Kate shifted her torso to see the filthy, gooey mess in his hands.
She looked the baby all over, finally stopping in one particular area.
"It's a girl."
They both broke out into uncontrollable smiles.
Kate adjusted how she was sitting so she wasn't leaning on her hands and held out her arms, "Let me hold her?"
Sawyer obediently passed her over to her mother. He had a daughter. He was a father. He looked at the bundle in Kate's arms.
"She's naked." He stated.
"Um…yeah." Kate smiled at him oddly, "Did you expect her to come out with little booties and some Huggies on?"
"I just…she needs some clothes." Sawyer fumbled in the back seat until he pulled out an old flannel shirt of his and passed it to Kate, "Here, wrap that around her."
As she did the baby gave a little cough and flailed its tiny arms.
That's when the tapping came.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sawyer looked wildly to the window and froze. His heart stopped and he saw Kate clutch the infant to her chest as it started to cry for the first time.
It was a policeman.
Sawyer remembered the gun taped to the bottom of his seat, an easy reach. Quickly glancing to Kate she shook her head. No, they couldn't shoot first anymore.
So he rolled down the window.
"Hello officer…" He couldn't think of how to end the salutation. How did one greet a police officer when you were on the run from the FBI with a girlfriend who had finished giving birth inside your truck (which now smelled like an awful mix of blood, sweat and womb juice).
"Son we got some calls saying there was a truck on the side of the road, might need help." The officer threw a beam of flashlight on Kate and looked around the truck, "Did you just…I mean to say…"
The light beam traveled from Kate's bloodied legs to the liquid dripping all over the car to the uncleaned baby.
"Did you just give birth in a truck, m'am?"
Kate slowly nodded, "Yeah."
The officer was silent. How exactly did one respond to this situation? Obviously this was not a scenario in the training manual.
"Why didn't you go to a hospital?"
Sawyer and Kate shared a look before she said, "It just didn't work out that way… hit us kind of fast."
"You can say that again." Sawyer snorted. He looked at the baby who was nestling against Kate's boobs and making a sucking noise.
"I'll escort you to the nearest hospital, in fact I'll call in some back-"
"That's alright officer. Wouldn't want to make all that fuss…besides the siren's will upset the baby." Coming from Sawyer it would've sounded like a smart ass remark, but coming from Kate it now held maternal weight, "We'll get there ourselves now that the hard part's over."
"You sure m'am?" The officer eyed her suspiciously as she looked down at the baby and realized what it wanted.
"Yeah, pretty sure….now if you don't mind I think she's hungry."
The officer paused as though he expected her to whip out a baby bottle and stood stupidly until Sawyer hissed, "It's feedin' time, not a peep show."
"Oh…right. Safe trip." The officer retreated back to his squad car as though wondering just how he was going to report this one back to base.
The couple watched with a collectively bated breath as the policeman's taillights faded into the distance. When he was finally gone they sighed with more relief than they'd ever felt.
For the first time, the chaos died down and they could finally appreciate that they had a child. They could finally take a good hard look at their daughter.
"Hi." Kate cooed as she used one flannel sleeve to wipe the baby's little red face clean, "Hi there, Sam."
Sawyer reached out a trembling hand to smooth back the shock of blonde peach fuzz. Sam gurgled happily and tried to suckle his thumb.
"I think she really is hungry." Kate looked to Sawyer, biting her lower lip as though shy at what she would have to do.
Sawyer quirked an eyebrow and let his gaze drop unabashedly to Kate's breasts. One of the few perks of Kate's pregnancy was that her chest had more or less tripled in size. Being a breast man the last thing Sawyer was going to do was complain about breast-feeding. In fact he fully planned to go out of his way in convincing Kate that Johnson and Johnson's baby formula was paramount to the anti-Christ.
Blushing as she exposed a breast Kate held the baby to it and gasped as Sam latched on. They sat there for one moment, one perfect moment, both awe-struck and trying to comprehend that this had actually happened. That they actually had a child, that they had made, and it was living and breathing and in their arms, that it relied on them for survival and it was up to them to raise it. No not it. Her.
After a while Sawyer's gaze shifted to Kate. He fully appreciated the power of a woman at that moment. While he was appreciating said power (and other attributes) he realized that she was still sitting in basically the same position she had when she gave birth, and she was still basically laying in a puddle of blood and juices. She also looked positively exhausted, her eyes were moving to close even as she nursed Sam.
He suddenly turned the truck on and shifted into gear, "I think its time we found a shady spot to nestle down in for the night."
Kate nodded and after a great yawn said, "Just don't go in the same direction as the cop."
"This isn't my first time evading the police, Sweetcheeks." He grinned as he merged with the meager late night traffic.
"I know it's not…but it's hers." Kate ran one finger across her daughter's pudgy red cheek.
A look came over Sawyer and a big smile lit his face.
"Well, well…I hadn't thought of it like that." He watched as Sam ceased nursing and yawned just like her mother, "Welcome to the Swiss Family Ford, Smallfry."
Kate rolled her eyes…some introduction.
TBC
Author's Note: Every chapter I start with a much longer plan then I wind up writing…for example the actual birth was supposed to be very short, just a feature of the chapter. But I got so into it that now it IS the chapter. How do we all like Sam?
In other words this is only half of the original chapter…which means it will be 2 chapters until we get significant Jana or PBnJ again.
Things to meditate on: Exactly how do you raise a small child when your running from the FBI? More precisely, how do Sawyer and Kate raise a small child when their on the run from the FBI.
THANKS TO BUTTERFLY FOR CONTINUALLY REMINDING ME THAT I NEEDED TO UPDATE… SHE IS THE REASON THAT THIS CHAPTER WAS BROUGHT OUT NOW AS OPPOSED TO LATER!
Please review!