Chapter Four

"I didn't know that Wolf had a partner stateside or was expecting a child." Sasha said as they could hear Wolf and Hannah shouting at one another down the hallway. They couldn't hear all the words but it was clear they were not happy. Tex had tried to listen in on the argument but Andrea had pulled him back into the kitchen. Where he and everyone else were slowly picking away at the food at the table trying not to hear the argument even though they were curious.

"More like a one time thing and we both tried to contact him about the pregnancy. Are you shagging my brother as well?" Larrin asked, Sasha choked on the beer she had been drinking and coughed looking completely uncomfortable and disgusted at the thought.

"No, no. Most definitely not." Sasha said adamantly shaking her head, Larrin gave a nod as she believed the woman.

"Fair enough, so just friends?" Larrin asked her. She was kind of glad the woman wasn't hooked up with her brother as she

"Yes." Sasha assured her emphatically, as the thought had never crossed her mind even once.

"Knock knock!" Kara said cheerfully from the front door. Those at the table turned and smiled in greeting as Kara and Danny came into the house. Frankie gurgled a happy noise and reached out in their direction wanting to be in their arms.

"Is the TV on?" Danny asked as Wolf and Hannah were still shouting at one another.

"Nope, it's Wolf and Hannah." Tex said.

"Why are they fighting?" Danny asked feeling completely out of the loop as he and Kara took off their jackets and moved to Frankie; stealing her out of Andrea's arms. He'd had a cuddle earlier but wanted to play catch ups.

"Hannah is pregnant and Wolf is the father." Larrin said catching him up as she highly doubted Kara and Danny spent whatever time they had together discussing her brother.

"She's Santa and she's got a present for him." Burk said as if it just dawned on him an then added the joke on the end that had everyone looking at him weirdly.

"What?" Andrea asked just as confused as the others who hadn't been there for when Wolf presumed Larrin to be pregnant on the ship.

"My brother doesn't have voice mail. He has voice to text which is unreliable as hell. One would think if you got over 20 something calls, you'd actually call that number back to see if anything is wrong. But not my brother." Larrin said with a sigh as she rose from the table to get another beer.

"Sounds fierce." Danny said, before he turned to Frankie. "What do you think?" he asked Frankie, the baby girl who'd been constantly peppered with requests for smiles gave a defunct sigh as if to say 'dude, what do I know? I'm just tired'. Everyone at the table couldn't help but laugh as Frankie gave tired look instead of smiling for her daddy.

"I agree with Frankie, can we eat now?" Larrin asked.

"I can't do this." Hannah said as she really just wanted to go back to the granny flat and cry. She deserved everything Wolf had said about her and she had her chance to vent her frustration at him. But now her back ached so painfully that it stole her breath away and made her dizzy. Something wasn't right and then she felt wet warmth spread down the legs of her jeans. Her eyes widen as she either was peeing in her pants or worse her water broke. She felt it trickle past her ankles, not wanting to stand there with an audience she pushed past Wolf and rushed into the ensuite bathroom in Tex's room and shut the door.

Wolf frowned as he heard the snick of the lock to bathroom. They'd been about to make some kind of breakthrough when she rushed into the bathroom. He took two steps towards the bathroom but lost his footing and slipped falling face first towards a side table.

"No dating until you're sixteen." Tex told Kat, much to the amusement of those around the table as they were eating dinner too hungry to wait for the angry couple.

"We're just friends and I only asked how Ray was not if I could have his children." Kat remarked drily as Tex was really getting into being an overprotective father mode. But she liked it as it showed he cared and frankly what he was asking wasn't a lot given he never asked much of her over the years. There's was also the fact that if she was going to date, well she wanted a guy who was around for about 70% of the year and Ray really was just a friend.

Tex opened his mouth to say something that was presumably amusing when a loud crash sounded from his room. Everyone stopped what they were doing at the table with exception of Frankie who was snoring in Danny's arms.

"Should we go check on them?" Sasha asked as they all waited a few moments for some sign that everything was fine. But instead everything had gone quiet from Wolf and Hannah's direction for just a touch too long.

"I'm not going, they might be having sex." Larrin said making a face of disgust. Kara couldn't help but laugh while Tex looked a little disconcerted about his room being trashed even if it was in the name of love.

"Not it!" Burk, Danny and Miller said in unison, Andrea rolled her eyes and placed her napkin on the table as she rose from her chair.

"Children." She remarked, the men looked sheepish at their behaviour but not the least bit apologetic. Andrea walked away from the table and headed to Tex's room. She knocked on the door and waited. After a couple more knocks, and no answer she frowned. "Hey, answer the door or I will come in." she called through the door.

"No answer?" Tex asked her. He pressed his ear to the door and didn't hear anything that was amiss.

"No." Andrea said.

"Ok, brace yourself" Tex said before Andrea had a chance to open the door; he pushed in front of her "I'm coming into my room, so cover your asses!" he told them. He opened the door and part of him did expect to catch them inflagrante but instead Wolf was laying on the floor struggling to get up and Hannah was no where in sight.

"Larrin, get your ass over here!" Andrea called, she noticed a small puddle an trail heading to the bathroom and that Wolf had slipped in it. She pulled on Tex's arm before he had the same mishap.

"What's-Oh." Larrin said her eyes going wide as she joined them. She walked around the liquid on the floor to her brother.

"You broke my side table." Tex said as he was crouched down by Wolf's prone form. The side table was in pieces on the floor beside him.

"I slipped an the table got in the way." Wolf said, he was sporting a bad cut to his forehead with a nice goose egg forming.

"Yeah, you slipped in amniotic fluid." Larrin said with a chuckle as she moved to the other side of him. She checked his pupils and made him follow her finger before asking him some questions assessing his mental capacity before she smacked him on the arm. "You'll be fine with some superglue and Tylenol. Get out of here." she told him.

"Yeah, come on big guy." Tex said as he helped Wolf up to his feet. Larrin rose to her feet and knocked on the bathroom door where Andrea had been trying to talk Hannah out of the room. "Hannah?" she called.

"What?" Hannah asked from inside. She was a doctor, she knew all about labour and how babies were born but right now she was freaking out. There was a vast difference between what was in the textbook and what was happening to her. Not to mention Wolf had slipped in her bodily fluids which was mortifying and disgusting. She knew it made her a hypocrite but she was used to all this happening to other people. Now it was her and she was near panic mode cleaning Tex's bathroom floor as she was just leaking and the man had nothing in his bathroom to help her.

"You ok?" Larrin asked through the locked door.

"Yes, perfect. Please go away, I need some alone time." Hannah told her, she made a face as she couldn't believe she'd just said 'alone time'. She felt like a freak as she wiped the floor with toilet paper and tossed it into the toilet and flushed it. If only the man had more toilet paper, if only she'd been smart enough to realise her back pain was labor pain. Then she would have said something at work but no, she just came home and was now stuck in Tex's bathroom trying not to have a full blown panic attack.

"Hannah, if you're having that baby in there. I'd recommend against it. So why don't you open the door and come out?" Larrin suggested.

"Nope, I'm good." Hannah said as she was firmly in denial for the moment as she had already assessed the situation. She was close to being fully dilated and there was no time for a hospital, no epidural, no happy gas which just made her eyes well up in tears as she had wanted all of that. She had a plan, the normal plan of going into labour; rushing to the hospital and waiting agonising hours with highly trained staff around her offering her drugs. Ok, it didn't really go own like that but in her head it did. This wasn't supposed to happen for another 2 weeks. She had planned on making it past 39 weeks, sure the baby could be born safely. It was facing head own or was at the ultrasound last week, a panicking thought raced through her mind as to what the hell she'd do if the baby had changed position.

She sucked in a breath and held it in to stop herself from sobbing out loud as a contraction hit, her stomach tightening painfully; the pain spreading into her back. She gripped the sink of the vanity and closed her eyes not able to compute anything but the pain and waiting for it to pass.

"You really don't want to have a baby in that toilet. I did some very unhygienic things in there this morning." Tex said through the door.

Andrea gave him an incredulous look and Larrin looked slightly disgusted and amused at Tex as that wasn't what she'd expected him to say. Normally Tex was the one who'd talk people off of ledges but apparently not tonight it seemed.

"That's disgusting." Larrin said trying hard not to laugh as Tex gave a shrug. He wasn't embarrassed at all.

"Just trying to get her out of there." Tex offered with a smile which earned him a death glare from Andrea as no was so not the time for humour given they couldn't get into the bathroom without hurting Hannah in the process.

"How about you go see what the weather is like and see who's sober enough to drive Hannah to the hospital. Then get a mop for the mess out here." Andrea told him in a low voice. Her tone light and polite but there was an undertone that she was giving an order.

"Yes, Ma'am." Tex said leaving the room. Larrin pressed a hand to her forehead and looked to Andrea. They both shared a look of exasperation. They both knew that this was not good for many reasons other than Hannah's choice of location.

"Can you keep her talking. See if she'll tell you anything? I need to call the hospital." Larrin said to her in a low voice so Hannah couldn't hear them.

"Yeah, go." Andrea said as she leaned against the wall; getting comfortable.

"Ow." Wolf winced as Kara was not being gentle in treating his wounds as he sat on a chair next to the dining table. He was a little miffed everyone was eating without him but then he hadn't meant to get into a shouting match with Hannah. It was just that she pushed his buttons and not in a good way. But she had made some very valid points. He'd been a complete asshole towards her in returning her calls. For not even returning one call to Tex's house from which she had call. It made him a terrible brother because he hadn't wanted to face up to Larrin and see her pain mirror his own. So he'd purposefully ignored them and now he realized that he should have assumed so many missed calls to be a possible emergency at least. But he hadn't, he'd did everything to forget what he knew about home, he avoided America and yeah he hooked up with Val.

He did care for her, her death left a tangible mark on his heart as it had started out as fun but felt in retrospect like it could have been something more. But now he was back stateside and Hannah the woman he'd had one night with was pregnant with his kid. He was a chicken as he hadn't wanted to see her again, their night had together had scared him. It had rocked his world but in the afterglow, he felt a sense of content and peace he hadn't been ready for. He'd been scared to feel that so quickly with someone when being intimate when normally sex and emotions were separate for him. So he ran to Australia to find his family and then the rest just happened purposefully out of his own decisions. He hadn't promised to be faithful and Hannah understood it was just a one time thing before he went away.

Now he was in a bind as their child was being born and he had no semblance of a relationship with Hannah. It tore him to pieces more than he thought it would but then he never expected to have a child this way. He'd missed out on the pregnancy and now he was going to miss the birth as Hannah had locked herself away in the bathroom.

"I can't believe you, shouting at Hannah like that." Kara told him disapprovingly.

"I already feel like an asshole and my head is killing me. Can you just be a little gentler?" Wolf asked her.

"You know, Hannah did try to contact you on numerous occasions but you didn't reply and started dating Val. So you don't get the right to be angry or gentle treatment. There, done." Kara told him, as she pushed hard on the tape to make sure the gauze was stuck to his head. Wolf winced in pain.

"I don't need a lecture." Wolf said as he was already giving himself one and trying to figure out what he could do to repair the damage.

"Ok, who has had less than two beers. Raise your hand." Tex said as he and Larrin came out of his room. Larrin moved to the phone and stepped away from the group. The only people who raised their hands were Burk, Sasha, Miller and Kat.

"Is Hannah having the baby?" Kat asked Tex, the question that they were all thinking about.

"Yeah and you're not driving. We'll practice snow driving another day." Tex told her, he looked to the other three. "Who wants to drive to the hospital?" he asked them.

"I can. I know the way." Miller said as it was true given he'd been there to visit Larrin on numerous occasions. He was probably the best candidate out of the three given Sasha didn't know St Louis and Burk was still didn't know the area too well.

"You might want to rethink driving unless you got a snow mobile." Danny said, they all moved to the window and looked out.

"Damn," Burk said summing up their sentiments as it was a snowing heavily to the point there was very low visibility. That and the snow was up to the car tyres. "They said snow, not a blizzard. I thought we were too far south for this." Burk said.

"Not far enough." Miller murmured, he looked to Larrin seeing she was clearly not having any luck either as this was just a mess from start to finish.

"Ok, we got a problem." Larrin said as she finished her call. She had managed to get onto the hospital but they were currently inundated with patients thanks to huge pile up on a freeway. All the ambulances were all out on calls and dealing with the traffic incidents and other medical emergencies.

She had them put Hannah onto the waiting list but the operator who was a friend of Larrin's told her that it would be a long wait as a woman in labour wasn't a critical situation given that woman in labour who didn't have any current signs of complications or distress was low on the list of whatever was happening out there.

"Hospital's backed up and ambos won't be here for a long while as there was a pile up on the freeway. Apparently the snow is causing serious delays with emergency services what?" Larrin asked them.

"We can't drive out. There's no clearance in the snow for the tyres to turn." Miller told her, Larrin moved to the window and looked outside. She then moved to Wolf and punched him in the arm.

"Ow." Wolf griped as he rubbed his arm.

"You couldn't just have a civil conversation or return a freaking phone call to avoid all of this could you?" Larrin asked angrily as this was a crappy situation and her heart hurt for both Hannah and Wolf. Hannah more so as Larrin had no idea how to coax Hannah out of the bathroom let alone why Hannah was hiding. It wasn't her style but then Larrin figured that going into labour was a scary thing no matter what the circumstances.

"It's not entirely my fault." Wolf argued.

"Oh really? over a 20 phone calls, it's lucky I didn't have a real emergency on my hands because you wouldn't have known for months. You wonder why I'm pissed at you." Larrin drawled mockingly.

"Hey, no fighting that's what started this." Andrea said coming out of Tex's room. "What's going on?" She asked looking directly to Larrin for answers.

"We're stuck. The snow is too high and the Hospital and emergency services are overextended thanks to the snow and a car pile up on a freeway nearby" Larrin told her.

"You can deliver the baby with Hannah's instruction." Wolf said.

"I haven't had my OB/GYN rotation yet and Hannah's going to be a little busy pushing a baby out of her vagina to be able to tell me what to do. That's if we can get her out of Tex's bathroom." Larrin told him in an exasperated manner as she was smart but text books only got someone so far until practical experience was needed. Right now she knew Hannah would want someone who knew more than she did. She wasn't insulted in the least by that either. Andrea nodded taking in the information and then clapped her hands together getting everyone's attention.

"Ok, Tex- mop and bucket go clean now." Andrea ordered, she then pointed at Kara "You talk to Hannah you had a baby in the past year so you'll have heaps to talk about. Green, take Frankie to your home and make sure your mother in law is ok and look after Frankie. I'm keeping your wife. Burk, Miller- Rachel is two blocks away from here at the Chandler's; go get her. Larrin, Sasha, Kat; get whatever you think we'll need to deliver this baby here. Trash bags, towels, hot water, a change of clothes for Hannah, blankets, first aid kit, some baby gear especially the bassinet and the newborn clothing...whatever you can think of. Wolf, you just stay out of the way and be quiet and if you get restless you can wash the dishes. Ok, we all good?" Andrea said giving orders, she didn't even wait for a response before she said "Good, now go!" She ordered.

"What are you doing?" Tex asked.

"I'm calling to give Rachel a heads up." Andrea said as she picked up the phone and started dialling the Chandler house number.