Note: inspired by The Atlantis Grail series written by Vera Nazarian. This fanfic is set after the fourth book, Survive.

Contains SPOILERS.

...

Today is a day like no other. There was none like it before this very moment of intense anticipation and there will be none to follow. The room is empty as the med-tech stands there, looking at my beloved Imperial Husband, Aeson Kassiopei, and I. I know what will follow, but I can only think of his steady warm fingers pressing into my shoulders, anchoring me to the here and the now so that I don't give in to the current of anxiety that threatens to drown me completely.

I find that I am shaking.

With a shudder of fear, I tell myself to pull it together. I must. My forehead is blotted with pools of sweat and the familiar weight of my swollen stomach is making it hard to focus as I can only think of what - who - lays nestled inside there. And then my mind goes blank as another contraction returns, paving my endurance with wild, sweeping circles that grip me, tensing every muscle in my body and pulling apart my being. A choked scream rips from my throat as I reach out impulsively to grasp Aeson's arm, digging into his skin with every fibre of my being left. The contraction, worst than all that came before, leaves just like that. I lay there in the sheets, reeling from the impact of the force of pain that consumes me. More will come. The thought makes me want to weep. I don't know if I will survive it.

I do not accept that, I think as my mind injects the last of its strength. But I realize that it doesn't matter if I accept it or not - my body is at its limits, and I simply cannot go on any longer.

Im amrevu gazes down at me, as tears are streaming from my cheeks and my concentration is hazed by it all. He doesn't bother to mask the look of fear in his beautiful lapis-lazuli eyes. But the force of his look sears me with strength, branding me with the means to whisper to him, perhaps, for the last time.

I find that I am sobbing as everything hits me with the unadulterated horror of what is happening. I am going to die. "Aeson – I don't think I can–"

"No." He says in a power voice that cuts through the haze, so strong and potent and desperate that shivers course down my spine and manages to make me focus on the raw intensity of his very soul, reflected in the depths of his deep blue eyes. "No, Gwen, amrevu, you are going to deliver this child and then we will raise her together. We will see this through. You will live to see our daughter."

I am shuddering as I gaze up at him with all my soul, as my mind struggles to process each of his words. And then the magnetized force of our gazes is ripped away when another contraction returns, slamming into my body like a mountain and pulling the force of the pain downwards, pulling me down into the chasms of hell. Rawah-bashtooh, holy mother of shebet, it is the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. Nothing comes close. I hold onto my husband for dear life, biting into his shoulder so as to not let the Logos intensity of my voice rip throughout the building and cause more of a catastrophe. It is all I think about – don't scream – because now I am fighting to grasp what little is left of my strength for the inevitable for which I know is coming. Because I must deliver my daughter, I will at least see this one thing through, even if it is the very last thing I do. I feel my fingernails curl into Aeson's flesh as I grip him with all my strength.

The midwife tells me the words that I dread to hear.

"My Sovereign Lady, it is time for you to push."

And so I grit my teeth and use all the force I can muster to push with every breath of my being. I can feel it - the exhaustion that threatens to debilitate me - tethering at the edges of my consciousness. I fight it, fight the resistance I feel down there, the fierce pressure that pushes back against my effort with equal fervour. My child must live. I am screaming through gritted teeth, pushing until I cannot humanly push any further.

The world halts - my world halts. Pain evaporates and exhaustion is forgotten as the high wail of an infant cuts through the room. I strain against the ache in my lower body to crane my neck to glimpse at where the midwife is working at my propped legs. There is a small bundle, loosely swaddled in a muslin cloth and she is placed on my chest, squirming and screaming as she blindly reaches out with tiny fists. My hands are shaking as I bawl, holding her close, scared that might hurt her because never once have I ever held anything so tiny, so delicate. She coos, blinking up at me, reaching for my face with chubby little hands. Her hair is the same gorgeous gold of her father, matted to her little head with the blood of my womb. Her eyes are a brilliant bright blue, somewhere between her father's lapis and my pale shade, and even now, I see the exotic line circling her small eyelids as she is gazing up at me with awed curiosity.

This moment is like no other. There was none like it before and there will be none like it after. Time is a thing of irrelevance. Nothing matters but this moment right here because this baby, tiny and frail in my arms, is the equivalent of a universe. She is my universe. My child. My daughter. I made her and she is mines – ours.

I'm laughing with unrestrained joy, sobbing and bawling and an overall emotional mess as I turn to im amrevu. He is crying too – gazing at his daughter nestled in my arms and cooing softly. There is a stream of liquid that makes glistening tracks on his bronzed cheeks, a tremor in him that I recognize as wonder. His powerful chest is rising and falling in heightened breath as he turns to look at me, swallowing thickly, holding us – me and our daughter – and then, like a profound wave of gratitude washing over him, his lips come upon mines and sears me completely, sealing in a promise that I know will last the end of time. Our lifetime, together. There are no words because none is needed. Nothing exists but this blissful moment, here with my family.

Margot Arlenari. We decided on it after Aeson and I found out we were having a little girl. Margot, the name of the extraordinary woman who once sat in a moment like I just had and held me close while similar thoughts likely swarmed her head. My late mother passed away a few months ago succumbing to her illness before the Atlanteans could have taken her aboard the ship. The exact fact is that my father-in-law, when he was alive, stalled my family's rescue while they were on still on Earth, and my mother, left without access to her medication, passed away in our family home while Earth was burning in a blaze of resistance from those who did not want to accept the asteroid that would have inevitably killed them all. It was only when Charles Lark, my father, came here onto Atlantis, that he told me that he was guilty of rationing her medication. Mom's death plagued me endlessly, but I've learnt to accept the bitter truth since becoming Imperatris. Mom was dead, but we've decided that she will live on. My children will know their grandmother, maybe not as a person, but a reverent legacy. I once vowed as we left Earth over two years ago that I would not forget my family. Mom is alive, not in body, but in memory. Never forgotten.

Aeson and I look on helplessly as they take Margot back. At the easing of her gentle weight on me, I feel a stab of loss, and I want to reach out and hold her once more. She begins to wail again as she is taken away and nothing – I swear nothing – has ever ripped into me so much as the sound of my baby's cry. I begin to cry also, from stress, exhaustion, leaning into the pillow and looking at my husband. Aeson is sitting next to me, his arms around me, his face still frozen in awe as he stares in our baby's wake.

I give in to the weakness that falls over my body in a muted haze. I can barely keep my eyes open. Deep in my lower body, a slow ache creeps in, along with a fuzzy veil that encompasses over my mind. Overhead, I hear an increase in something, or maybe its just my own ears, and I feel Aeson's large hands holding onto my face, looking down at me with terrifying eyes made of raw emotion.

"Gwen. Gwen."

And then I pass out.