Rin was a half-demon—literal demonic blood ran through his veins—but he hadn't truly seen hell until seeing Daphne in labor. And this was Daphne he was talking about. Major Daphne Olivia Lux Okumura, the strongest person he had ever met, the woman who had fought and killed unimaginably powerful demons, the exorcist who could take hits like a tank. The pain now had her yelling like Rin had never seen.
And, Jesus, he felt useless.
Daphne's latest cry at the round of contractions died in her throat, and she gasped for air, then glared at him from her seat on the edge of the bed.
"Goddamn it, Rin," she hissed through her teeth, wiping the sweat from her upper lip. "Don't stop. For godsake, don't stop. I'm fine. I'm fine."
He'd been collecting the stuff they'd need for the hospital. The doctor had told them to pack a bag and keep it ready, but the twins weren't due until the end of the month, so they hadn't had anything set, and their hospital bag was a little more complicated than the average parent's, but then Daphne had started screaming—
"Rin!"
"Right! Sorry!"
Jolting to attention, he scurried around the room, just grabbing random shit. He went into the bathroom—toothbrush, toothpaste, tissues, floss, chapstick, hairbrush, bobby pins? Jesus, he didn't know. He went into the closet—clean clothes, underwear, a coat, socks? Did they need socks? When he emerged, Daphne was halfway through pulling Castor out of her back and her teeth were gritted in this expression of intense pain, so Rin dropped the bag and hurried over to the bed to help her. She gasped when the sword came free.
"Do you want these out?" Rin asked.
"No, I started drawing them because it seemed like fun—yes I want them out!"
Rin shut up and pulled when Pollux's grip emerged from the seal. He was surprised at the amount of effort it took to actually remove the sword. It was like the seal had tightened or something. The blade was a little bit hot, too, which was weird given how icy Daph's swords typically felt. Helen of Troy was easier, probably because it was short.
"Thank you," Daphne breathed.
Having the blades in his hands, Rin suddenly remembered the most important thing they would need to bring to the hospital.
"Shit!" he cried, then bolted down the hall to hunt for Aokaze in the twins' bedroom. The sword was right where he'd left it, but in his panic it took longer to find. He brought it back to the bedroom and tossed it into the open bag.
"Will you carry…" Daphne's breath came heavy. "Will you carry mine in your seals?"
He nodded. "I might let them cool off first, though."
She nodded back, squeezing her eyes shut, drawing in one deep breath after another. Eventually her breathing slowed, but she didn't look much better.
"I don't think it's supposed to hurt this much," she said. "Not this soon."
"Do you wanna go to the hospital now?"
Daphne didn't answer for a second. Her entire face had pulled together in an effort to withstand the pain. Eventually, letting her breath out, she nodded. Rin called a cab right away.
While they waited, he finished with the hospital travel bag and sheathed Daphne's blades in their seals on his back. It hurt, but he didn't dare complain—not when Daphne was literally in the process of giving birth to not one, but two demon hell spawn. Though he probably shouldn't refer to his own children as "demon hell spawn." Jesus, he was stressed the hell out. So much so that he jumped when his phone rang. It was the cab driver, letting them know he was outside.
"You ready to go, Daph?" he asked.
She hadn't really moved from her place on the edge of the bed. Her fingers gripped deep in the sheets and mattress, and she was sweating like crazy. She'd pulled her hair up into a bun, but sweat still poured down the back of her neck. Her skin was somehow both flushed and pale at the same time. She nodded.
Rin helped her to her feet and supported her down the hallway and the stairs, into her shoes, and out the door. She gripped his hand like she'd gripped the mattress, and that hurt, but, again, he wasn't about to complain.
"The hospital, please," Rin told their driver.
He felt kind of bad for the guy. It was late, and raining, and another round of contractions hit while they were in the car, so naturally Daphne yelled the whole time. He was really nice about it, though. He even offered to stay and help Daphne inside and make sure they got admitted okay, but Rin told him that was all right. Daphne's death-grip probably would have broken the guy's hand, and that was not something they needed to deal with on top of everything else right now.
The hospital staff, to their credit, recognized that this was an emergency situation and got the pair of them settled at lightning speed.
"You're sure you don't want an epidural?" the nurse asked Daphne for about the hundredth time. Daphne glared at her, and the woman shut up immediately. She said, "I'll see if the doctor is ready," and practically ran away.
"Did you call Yukio and Shiemi? And Shura?" Daphne asked. She lay back on the hospital bed and breathed deeply, trying to manage the pain.
Rin shook his head. "Not yet, but I will right now, if you want?"
"Father Michael, too," she said.
Though he was reluctant to leave her, their room didn't have any cell service, so Rin had to wander around the hospital until he found enough bars to call. Thankfully, Yukio answered on the first ring.
"Daphne's in labor," Rin said without so much as a hello. "I don't know how long it's gonna take, but if you guys could get here when you can, that would be great."
"You remembered the demon sword?" Yukio asked.
Had Rin not been in a persistent half-panic, he would have taken offense at that. As it was, he just said, "Yeah. Yeah, I got it. It's ready to go, and I've got Daphne's blades in my seals, but we'll need help doing the ceremony ritual thing."
"We'll be there as soon as we can," Yukio replied.
They hung up, and Rin dialed Shura.
"The hell do you want, demon boy?" she shouted over the noise of wherever it was that she was. "It's pub quiz night!"
"Daphne's in labor," Rin replied.
"Shit. Say no more."
She ended the call, and Rin stood in the hallway for a second. His hands started to shake. In a matter of hours, he'd be a dad. A real, honest-to-god dad. They'd talked about it and tried so hard and wanted it—really wanted it—but now, on the brink of that reality, he was a little bit terrified. What right did he have to raise a kid? This was a permanent change. His life could never go back to being the way that it was.
Then again, maybe that was a good thing.
He pulled himself together and sent a text in broken English to Father Michael that he hoped would communicate his meaning well enough. One could never be too sure about Google Translate. Then he returned to the hospital room where Daphne was talking with the doctor. The woman was a specialist and, though not an exorcist, had a temptaint, so she was pretty knowledgeable about demons. Rin had only met her a handful of times, but he knew she knew her stuff. They were lucky to have found somebody "specialist" enough to deal with their particular case.
"Your body temperature is rising because you're acting as a gate," the doctor was saying. "At least, that's the best I can figure. You're bringing living beings with demon blood into the world, so for all intents and purposes you're a gateway between Assiah and Gehenna right now."
"Great," Daphne grumbled.
The doctor chuckled. "It'll be over soon enough. Luckily, your body has had plenty of practice, carrying your demon blades."
Daphne nodded. Her eyebrows pulled together in pain, and Rin came forward to take hold of her hand. It was ridiculously slippery with sweat. Daphne gripped on all the same, so tight she probably would have drawn blood had her nails been even a fraction longer.
"Did you get a hold of everyone?" she asked through her teeth.
"Shura and Yukio and Shiemi are on their way." His phone buzzed in his back pocket, so he fished it out and showed the screen, and the text from Father Michael, to Daphne.
"He says he'll be on the soonest possible flight," she reported.
Tucking the phone away, Rin nodded. He couldn't take his eyes off Daphne's face, couldn't stop searching for signs of danger or damage. If only there was something he could do. As it was, he just stood there and stroked the back of her hand and her arm. Somehow, she found the means to smile at him.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
Rin drew in a deep breath and smiled back. "Absolutely."
It took Yukio and Shiemi about forty-five minutes to finally show up, but when they did, Shiemi had food packed and tea brewed and had brought more with her than Rin would have thought it possible to carry—blankets, changes of clothes, books, movies, toiletries. She looked like she was ready to go camping, minus a tent and sleeping bags.
Daphne practically swallowed a sandwich whole, and gratefully drank some of Shiemi's jasmine tea after she'd gone down the hall to get ice from the machine at the nurses' station to cool it down. Shiemi wrapped some of the ice up in a plastic bag and cushioned it against the back of Daphne's neck, then rinsed one of the washcloths she'd brought in cold water and wiped down Daphne's face. She was remarkably calm for someone usually so excitable, but her soothing energy was a welcome one—for Rin as well.
Yukio went to work preparing Aokaze for the ritual, and Shura stepped in to help as soon as she arrived. They made quite a scene, the five of them in the hospital room, and kept getting strange looks from the nurses, but then Daphne would glare, and they'd leave without saying anything.
"We're finished with Aokaze," Shura said, coming over to the hospital bed to give Daphne a thumbs up. "Which of your blades do you want us to prep?"
Daphne shook her head. "I don't care. All of them. Whichever is going to—ah—be the most receptive—ow, Christ."
"You got it, momma," Shura said.
She went to Rin and flipped him around with very little decorum, then patted his shoulder as a cue to release the blades from their seals. It was a bit of a struggle, trying to draw them around his shirt collar, but they managed, and Shura took all three of Daphne's blades over to where she was working with Yukio.
Shiemi returned to her seat on the other side of Daphne's bed, opposite Rin, and replaced the washcloth over Daphne's forehead with a fresh one. She frowned, feeling the old cloth.
"It's so hot," she said. "Maybe we should wrap some ice in them."
"I wouldn't say no," Daphne breathed. "I'm kind of a human Gehenna gate right now."
Nodding, setting her lips in a determined line, Shiemi rose again and collected the baggie from behind Daphne's neck.
"I'll be right back," she said and scurried from the room.
"Looks like it's gonna be Castor, Daph," Shura called. "That okay?"
"Literally could not care less at the moment," Daphne replied.
"Roger!"
As the night wore on, the time between Daphne's contractions grew shorter and shorter, and around eleven, it was time to push. Yukio and Shiemi and Shura were banished from the room for that, and Rin's panic-mode kicked into high gear.
Yelling, counting, breathing, pushing.
Pause.
Yelling, counting, breathing, pushing.
Pause. Holy shit, this was it.
Yelling, counting, breathing, pushing.
Pause—pause, pause, pause. He wasn't ready. Holy shit, he was not READY.
Yelling, counting, breathing, pushing, pushing, pushing, still pushing—
Crying.
Not him, not Daphne, but a new voice. A tiny voice. Rin looked, and there was the first of the twins, covered in blood and birth fluid, but so, so beautiful, surrounded by soft blue flame.
"Our boy first," the doctor said, her eyes crinkling in a smile behind her mask as she held the mewling baby up for Daphne to see. Daphne laughed, smiling too, relieved a little, but only as much as she could be when there was another baby still on the way. The doctor passed the boy off to a nurse to get him cleaned up, and refocused her attention on Daphne.
Fifteen minutes later, at 12:03 the next morning, their girl arrived.
She cried twice as loud, and the flames around her were brighter, stronger. They didn't move her away, but brought her up and settled her in Daphne's arms.
She was so small, and the blue flame was small around her—like the single point on the end of a candle wick. She even had a little tail, just like Rin's. It flicked back and forth and then lay still as the baby relaxed on Daphne's chest. Daphne shut her eyes.
Rin sat and stared at them both. He couldn't help reaching out and stroking the baby's cheek, her back, in spite of how messy she was. She was so soft. Her hair was soft, too—thick and black. She grunted—if you could call it that, it was more like a squeak—and shifted her head around, flexing her tiny, tiny fingers. Tears filled Rin's eyes.
"I love her," he whispered.
Daphne's eyes flickered open and a tired smile crossed her mouth when she looked at Rin and found him sniffling.
"She's perfect," he added, wiping his nose.
Smiling, Daphne shut her eyes again. They lay silent for a long time in the hospital quiet, Rin marveling at his daughter as she fell asleep. Daphne started to drift, too, but a doctor came into the room and brought them both to attention, Daphne reaching out to grab Rin's hand.
"The boy is stable," she said with a kind smile and both of them eased. "He retained some fetal lung fluid, a condition called transient tachypnea. But it's nothing too serious. We've got him settled and on oxygen. We'll know within twelve hours if he's responding to it."
"And that's all?" Rin asked.
The doctor nodded. "Mm. Symptoms usually resolve within three days, and he shouldn't see any lasting health effects. He's ready for visitors now, if you'd like, Mr. Okumura?"
Desperate to go, but reluctant to leave, Rin looked to Daphne and she nodded urgently, letting go of his hand.
"Please, Rin," she said, still nodding.
So Rin got up, his heart beating fast, and he followed the doctor to the special care unit and into the room where the baby boy was lying in a hospital bassinet. He was even smaller than the girl, and the nurses had wrapped him up and put him under a heat lamp. He had an oxygen tube wrapped around his head and in his nose and he was breathing so quickly, his nostrils flaring. His skin looked a little blue, but Rin couldn't tell if that was a symptom of his condition or a refraction of the weak flame that surrounded him.
"Can I touch him?" Rin asked.
The doctor nodded, gesturing to a hand wash station in the corner of the room. When Rin returned, the doctor had pulled up a stool alongside the bassinet. Rin sat down.
"I'll be right outside, and there are nurses monitoring his vitals," the doctor said and left.
Rin got close, lowering his face down right beside the bassinet. He reached a hand in and carefully brushed a finger down the baby's cheek, over his scalp and the black hair that covered it. His rapid breathing did not slow, but he did open his eyes. They were bright blue—which was odd given that babies typically had dark eyes—and Rin watched as the flames died and the baby's eyes grew even brighter.
"Hi, little guy," Rin said, softly because he wasn't sure if the baby's hearing was sensitive. "I'm your dad. Weird, huh?"
The boy tried to focus those bright eyes on Rin, intent even though his vision was fuzzy for sure.
"It's gonna be okay. We're gonna make sure you feel good and you'll get to meet your mom. She's gonna love you." The tears Rin had been holding in finally ran down his cheeks. "We're gonna take such good care of you. I promise." He drew in a shaky breath—so relieved and so, so happy.
"I promise."
Author's Note: Hi, everyone! Thanks ENDLESSLY for your patience with me on this project! I'm so excited to get back into it. The babies are here at last! Haha! I can't promise weekly updates, but I CAN promise that I won't go two months without an update again. Let me know what you think! I love reading your comments!