This chapter loops us back to Chapter 1, so hold tight!

"If I told you this was only gonna hurt
If I warned you that the fire's gonna burn
Would you walk in? Would you let me do it first?
Do it all in the name of love
Would you let me lead you even when you're blind?
In the darkness, in the middle of the night
In the silence, when there's no one by your side
Would you call in the name of love?"

(In the Name of Love- Martin Garrix feat. Bebe Rexha)

Maia lay on their cot alone, stroking her belly. Sarah said she was too skinny, but they didn't feed her enough for her to have put any weight on for her baby, even with L feeding her everything she could stand. Sarah and L both kept telling her that the baby was fine though, Sarah even seemed content with the baby's size as Maia neared the end of her pregnancy. L's favorite past time was to curl up next to Maia and hum to their daughter as he listened to her heartbeat. He was a giant sap, and Maia loved him with all her heart.

L had been gone for several days, and both she and the baby were at their wits end. Maia hissed, stretching slightly, but keeping her back as to the camera as possible. She was in labor, had been for about two hours, and their little girl was pissed. She'd been kicking the crap out of Maia off and on since L had been taken away, and Maia had the bruises on the right side of her stomach to prove it. L was going to be pissed. He got frustrated when their daughter made her grimace by moving around too much. Bruises were going to make one of the veins in his forehead pop. He was going to be a great dad though.

Maia burst into tears at that thought, for what had to have been the fifteenth time since he'd been gone. What the hell was she doing to do if he didn't come back before someone realized she was in labor? The contractions are far enough apart that she was pretty sure she had a while to got before they started making her scream her head off, or so her high school health class knowledge told her. She took a minute to day dream and dry her face a bit.

The door to their cell opened, and she shot up from the cot, glancing towards the camera. L crossed the room in a blur, and pinned her to the wall in one swift motion. Maia screamed a little, surprised by his sudden reappearance and rough treatment of her. He shoved her dress up to her hips and pulled his shorts down, entering her without too much preamble. She was overly sensitive, and knew she was making a fool of herself with all the noises she made as he thrust into her. She'd missed this. Since they'd realized she was pregnant he'd treated her like a porcelain doll. Maia threw her head back and pushed against his shoulders to get him to shift inside her a bit to keep pressure off her cervix. Damnit, she wanted to be able to enjoy this reunion. At last, L groaned, thrusting into her one last time and stilling there. She needed to distract him from the fact that she hadn't come so she could get him to focus. So she hit his shoulders repeatedly and yelled, "You son of a bitch!"

L responded by nuzzling into the side of her neck, and she slid her hands into his long hair. She kissed the side of his face, "I was so scared they'd hurt you. You okay?"

He growled, "Mine", before pulling off her and nipping the side of her neck, moving down her body. He nuzzled her stomach, and she smiled, answering his probing thoughts, "We're okay. Baby's just upset that Mommy got a little too anxious, kicked the crap out of me."

He growled, pissed like she'd been afraid he would be, and pulled her dress up, revealing her stomach, which was mottled with bruises on the right side. He put his hand over the bruises, a furious expression on his face. She put one of her hands over his and put the other on his face, making him look her in the face, "Hey, I'm fine, honest." She giggled shortly, "Better then fine after that greeting." He glared, but she ignored him, smoothing her dress down, "I swear these look worse then they are." He wasn't convinced.

Another contraction had her grabbing her stomach suddenly. Right, sex was a way to speed up labor, she remembered that now from her class, "Oh, have to say that greeting probably wasn't the best for my current situation." L was stunned, but followed her thought process. She laughed at his panicked thoughts, "Yeah, seems our little bug really didn't like you being gone." She was genuinely alarmed for the first time, "I don't suppose you know anything about childbirth, do you?" He just looked at her, horrified. Neither one of them wanted anyone else involved though.

Maia wanted to kick him. His dick had gotten her into this mess in the first place, and now his dick had made things worse. She would have been yelling at him if he hadn't been panicking so badly. Honestly, she hadn't expected him to be so terrified, but she should have. Every time her face scrunched up, he felt horrible, "Cut that shit out. We did this together, you don't get to blame yourself. Women have been having babies for thousands of years just fine. I can do this. We can do this." He wasn't convinced.

Then the door to the cell opened again, and the pair both turned to face it, clutching each other. Maia cursed at the sight of a herd of armed guards, "Oh, hell no, you're not taking him again."

But they weren't after L, they were after her. The guard who had replaced the one she'd killed yelled, "Get back, Weapon X, or we'll put a bullet in her brain. Eyes down, whore."

Maia fought beside L, relying on the months of training he'd given her, but she had to hold back for their daughter. In the end, another contraction made her stumble, and she was caught by two of the guards, who kept screaming, trying to get her out of the room to her sister, where they were imagining horrible things were in store for her and her baby. Maia bit one of the men holding her just as L got close. Maia screamed reflexively as gunfire rang out, and felt herself hit the floor, knocked off balance by something.

L roared, but she couldn't focus on him. She'd been shot. Blood welled from her chest, more of her own blood than she'd ever seen in her life, and when she coughed reflexively, blood bubbled out of her mouth. Maia found an entry wound just above her right breast, and stared at the blood on her hand in horror. Her whole body was suddenly freezing. Another contraction minimized the agony from the sucking burning of the gunshot wound enough for her to yell for L.

He was at her side in an instant. "Maia?"

Maia had never seen him so panicked, had never heard him say her name, but the joy that one uttered word would have brought her any other day was no where to be found. An eerie calm came over her. So this was how it ended. She'd been playing with death for so long now, it was easy to see what she had to do. "Take her." Consciousness was ebbing away already, and it was exorbitantly difficult to breathe. A collapsed lung, her brain supplied, one that was crushing her heart with it's own blood. Her words were gasped out, but she knew he understood every one of them, "Save her, L. You have to save her." She smiled up at him, "I won't live long enough for her to be born." She knew that, could feel her heart beating slower, could see her own blood on the floor around her, could tell that every strangled beat of her heart brought her closer to death. They still had hours of labor left, her water hadn't even broken, but she didn't have hours. Maia clutched L's hand, looking him in the eyes, as she moved his clawed hand to her stomach, channeling all her pain into her words, "I love you. But I don't matter, she does. Get her out."

He fought her, tears in his eyes as he muttered her name over and over again, but he couldn't save her, they both knew that. She said it one last time, staring into his eyes, "Get her out." Her field of vision slowly narrowed, and she couldn't speak anymore. Maia let her head fall back, and all she felt were the twin sensations of his lips on her cheek and a careful claw cutting her belly open. Her eyes closed, and she focused solely on how much she loved them both. She imagined, as she passed out of consciousness, that she heard his gruff voice tell her he loved her over the screams of a newborn. After that, nothing.