Author's Note: Dark Yugi: I hope you enjoy this chapter!
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." -H. P. Lovecraft
Pegasus tried to steady himself by focusing on the sound of Cecelia's breathing. Although it grounded him some, he couldn't help but flinch every time she struggled to hold back her pain. Although he was panicking internally, he tried to keep his face calm and collected. Inside, though, he was a wreck. Everyone else was perfectly quiet. All except croquet who was still on the phone. Pegasus was so focused on her breathing he almost didn't hear her speaking to him.
"Max?" Her whisper was almost as quiet as a breath.
"Yes my love?" He asked, gently holding her hand in his own.
"I'm frightened." She said, closing her eyes as a tear streaked down her cheek. He wiped it away and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
"I know," he whispered, looking over at the puddle of blood what was slowly growing on the ground. It filled him with the most primal kind of fear. The fear of losing his wife twice in one lifetime. "So am I."
He didn't want to upset her, but he knew he couldn't lie to her either.
Finally, Croquet got off the phone. Pegasus stared at him, irritated.
"Well?!" He snapped. He could see Croquet getting flustered.
"The nearest hospital is twenty minutes away, sir."
Pegasus' frustration grew, but he didn't say anything to Croquet. The words he had in mind were unsuitable to say around a lady- especially his wife.
"It's just a little bit longer, darling. You must hold on for me. Please, stay awake." He begged.
"I'll try." She whispered. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and tried to keep her occupied while the others watched them.
When the helicopter finally started to land, Pegasus reacted so fast that no one could really process what was happening. He scooped his wife into his arms carefully but quickly. As soon as that door was open, he ran. The helicopter had landed on a nearby roof of a building, and it was Pegasus' job to get his wife to the hospital across the street. It seemed simple enough, and it would have been- if the building they landed on hadn't been a twenty five floor skyscraper.
But, that didn't really matter because of one simple fact: Pegasus didn't care.
He threw the roof door open and started climbing down twenty five flights of stairs. His heart was racing, his legs were burning, and he couldn't catch his breath, but he didn't care. He was not going to lose his child or his wife. Not today, and not ever. He counted every flight of stairs. He was insanely dizzy by flight fourteen, but he refused to stop. He passed right by dozens of confused faces but ignored them all. And when he felt like giving up he looked at the woman in his arms and ran even faster. Finally, he hit the ground floor. If he thought he'd been running before that was nothing compared to now. He burst through doors and ran right through the lobby of confused businessmen. He pushed himself to go harder and faster. He thought of the cartoons he had watched as a child, especially Funny Bunny, and pictured his own legs becoming a circular blur as he ran toward the hospital. He was getting so close! Finally, the emergency room doors were within his sight. He put the pedal to the metal and finally got through the doors, he ran to the reception desk.
"Please help." He gasped. "My wife is pregnant and bleeding heavily."
The receptionist called a nurse who got a wheelchair out for her. He set his wife in the chair and grasped her hand as she was whisked away to have an ultrasound. When she was finally laid in a bed, Pegasus was finally able to see her face. She was so pale that she looked more like a corpse than a human (the thought disturbed him more than he ever wanted to admit) and her eyes were lifeless and glassy. Her own grip on his hand was almost nonexistent other than a slight pressure against his fingers.
When a doctor finally came in, Pegasus felt his body sag in relief.
"Mr. And Mrs. Pegasus, my name is Doctor Barton, I'm a gynecologist, and my friend Doctor Akaine is an ultrasound technician. We've looked over your file and it seems that you're having a lot of hemorrhaging. So we're going to look and see how the baby is. Alright?"
They both nodded, and Pegasus sat down in the chair next to her, looking up at the monitor screen. He didn't know if he believed in a God since his parents had never taken him to a church growing up, but he figured now would be a good time to learn how to pray to one. He was still recovering from his endless trek down the stairs, but he unconsciously held his breath as the doctor lifted his wife's dress to put a warm blue jelly on her pelvis, then he took the wand and moved it around until he caught sight of a small bean shape on the screen.
Yet again, he stopped breathing.
That was his baby on the screen. An actual child of himself and Cecelia was on that screen. Of course he had been thrilled to hear that his wife was having a baby, and of course he had already started making plans for when the baby arrived, but he supposed that it hadn't hit him yet that this was really happening and that there was an actual human being growing inside of his wife. But now, seeing that little bean on the screen made it all real. Almost too real. Cecelia gripped both of his hands tightly, not taking her eyes off of the screen.
"How is our baby, doctor?" She whispered, trying to brace herself for the worst.
The doctor seemed surprised. "Well Mrs. Pegasus, this is highly unusual, but despite your bleeding it seems that your baby is unharmed. It's perfectly normal."