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Ex Multus Familia: Part 2

Chapter 23

Sidda didn't remember much from the afternoon besides occasionally waking up and seeing Alec nearby, his worried face amid other faces that were usually half-covered by surgical masks. Most of the time they had her drugged up or completely knocked out. She had been awake earlier, and Alec had explained that she had been through surgery to remove the stake from her leg and stitch up the arteries that had been severed. She had lost a lot of blood when they removed the stake, but she was stable. They just wanted to keep her at the infirmary for at least the night so they could watch her and the baby.

Alec was sleeping next to her in the hospital bed; he had crashed a few hours ago, completely exhausted thanks to letting the doctors borrow his blood for Sidda's operation. He had been reluctant to sleep in the hospital bed with her since he was afraid of hurting her or messing up the couple monitors that she let Sibil keep on her, but after she had asked him to multiple times, he had joined her, extremely careful not to jostle her heavily-wrapped leg. He had fallen asleep quickly, holding her against his chest.

Another pain jolted through her abdomen, and she grimaced. She had woken up about an half an hour ago with this sharp pain in her stomach, but when she glanced at the fetal heart monitor, it looked like nothing had changed with Bean. The only thing she could think it could be was some kind of fake labor, like what she had read about in the book Robin had lent her. It was plausible, unlike the idea that she could have gone into actual labor when she was only eight months along. There was another month to go.

She glanced over her shoulder at Alec. Still asleep. The last time he had woke up was when that X6 medic had come in to give her some medication. Alec had snapped at the poor kid, telling him to get out before he threw him out, but the X6 had apologetically said that he had come to give Sidda something that was supposed to make her sleep and relax. He had injected whatever it was into her IV, apologized again and left before Alec could yell at him anymore. Both she and Alec had fallen back asleep quickly, but her sleep had only lasted about fifteen minutes.

"Oh!" she gasped as another pain hit her, and immediately she looked at Alec, feeling sheepish about having made any sounds. She didn't want to wake him up and have him stress out; he'd had such a long, hard day. He didn't need for his sleep to be interrupted.

"Mmm, you ok?" Alec blinked eyes that were adorably sleepy and heavy-lidded at her. "Does your leg hurt?" Darn it all, he had woken up. If only he wasn't such a light sleeper.

"No," she could say with all honesty. "The leg's not so bad." She lay back in the bed and closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths. Hopefully fake labor didn't last long, because it sort of sucked.

"Well, something's wrong." Alec rose up a bit and leaned on one of his elbows so that he could look down at her face. His eyes were serious, flicking all over her face as if he'd find some sign there that would let him know exactly what was up.

Sidda sighed. "It's some sort of fake labor thing. I remember reading about it in Robin's books. Annoying, but it doesn't really hurt anything."

Alec's eyebrows practically rose to the top of his head. "Fake labor?"

"If you had read Robin's books, you would know," Sidda retorted. She reached over and squeezed Alec's hand. "Don't worry, it can't possibly be the baby. If trauma was going to cause me to have him, I'm pretty sure I would have gone into labor several hours ago, not now."

"I guess you're right," Alec said doubtfully. He sat all the way up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Still, probably best we check, just to be on the safe side."

"You're so paranoid," Sidda muttered. She pulled at his hand as he stood up, trying to convince him to just come back into bed. But then she involuntarily released him as another pain shot through her. "Ugh, this sucks!" she ground out between clenched teeth. It wasn't fair that she had to go through labor pains when she was supposed to have a C-section.

"Sidda!" Alec was leaning over her when she opened her eyes again.

"Fine, fine, call them," Sidda panted as the tension in her stomach released a bit. "Maybe they'll have some sort of drug that will keep me from feeling this. Getting shot might actually be better than labor." She was trying to joke, but Alec wasn't really having any of it.

Alec went over and pressed the button that was near Sidda's bed, then he sat down on the edge of the bed and took one of her hands in his. "Well, based on what I've heard about labor pains, whether they're fake or not, women like to crush their guys' hands. So crush away."

Sidda laughed. "You're ridiculous. But thanks." Though she and Alec bickered a lot, and usually spoke to each other mostly through jokes and sarcasm, there were times when Alec really couldn't hide how caring he was. He would never admit that he had a side that wasn't bad ass, but after he'd traveled across the country to find her, Sidda knew it was definitely there. And whenever she was unsure about it, Alec would do little random thoughtful things like offering to let her crush his hand.

He was such a perfect mate for her.

"Is something wrong?"

Sidda looked up at the familiar voice. "Seth." She blinked. "You're not at home?"

Seth chuckled and moved into the room, then started speaking as he checked all her vital signs on the monitors. "I needed to be here, helping. Robin insisted. She also insisted I update her about you whenever possible, so I figured that you pressing the call-button was a good enough excuse to check in on you." He turned around and looked at Sidda. "Your heart rate keeps jumping."

"Umm…"

"She says she's having fake labor," Alec said, getting to the point as usual.

Sidda gripped Alec's hand tightly as a contraction went through her again. This was definitely hurt more, and it was longer.

When it was done, she realized Seth was lightly resting a hand on her abdomen. He started firing questions at her. "How was that contraction compared to the others? Sooner? Longer? Stronger?"

"D, all of the above," Sidda said, giving him a weak smile as she collapsed against the bed again.

Seth glanced at Alec, and then at Sidda.

"What?" Alec and Sidda both demanded. This time it was Alec's hand that was doing the crushing.

"I'll be back… I have to go get someone who knows more about labor than I do. But I think you might actually be going into labor. Real labor." He hurried off before they could ask him any questions or demand explanations, but Sidda still heard him mutter something about it being too early.

"Alec…" Her voice seemed small and quiet, even to herself.

"That doesn't make sense," Alec said, his brow furrowing as he tried to figure it out. "You were right earlier… trauma shouldn't be causing this. And there was no reason for Bean to come early; they said everything seemed to be on schedule." He was desperately trying to reason out why Seth had to be wrong.

"I guess things never really do work out the way you expect them to," she said. She looked up at the ceiling. What would happen now? Would she actually have to give birth? That wouldn't be so bad, but it was probably going to be hell on her leg. Had something gone wrong inside of her? She idly wondered if this was how she was going to die. What a way for a genetically-engineered soldier to go. It didn't really matter, as long as Bean was ok and Alec kept going.

"Alec," she said, turning her head to look at him, "I need you to promise me something."

Alec's face hardened. "There's no need for that," he said harshly. "You're not dying. I can promise you whatever you want when this is over.

"But just in case," she insisted, pulling on his hand, "Please, listen, Alec. I'll feel better if you do."

He stared at her for a moment, and then his shoulders drooped. "Fine."

"You have to promise to take care of Bean," she said. "No matter what." She jabbed her finger at him with her free hand. "You and you only are allowed to be his parent if something happens. No shrugging the responsibility off on someone else, like Robin."

"First of all, nothing's going to happen, like I said," Alec said angrily. And then he smiled a bit. "Secondly, you don't have to worry about that. I wouldn't let anyone else take care of our kid." He glanced down at her stomach. "As troublesome as he is."

"You won't resent him if something happens?" Sidda asked anxiously. She had to know, had to make sure.

Before he could answer, another pain ripped through her. She fixed her gaze on Alec though and tightened her lips, showing him that she was determined to hear his answer.

He smoothed away her bangs from her forehead. "I won't. I promise." At this point he'd say anything to make her feel better, but he also meant it. He would love Bean because Bean was half Sidda's and half his, and Bean was important to Sidda. Sidda would never have to worry about their kid wanting any love.

"But, hey, can Robin still cook for it?" he asked teasingly. "It might be better for the kid than whatever I might try to make."

Before Sidda could answer, Sibil, Jex, and a technician entered the room. Sibil immediately started talking, effectively stopping Alec and Sidda's conversation.

"You're having contractions?" she asked, even as she started reading the monitors. She nodded at the technician, who started strapping equipment onto Sidda.

"Hey!" Sidda protested.

"It's necessary to make sure we know what's going on," Sibil said. "If you're going into labor, we'll need to move quickly to get the C-section done." She frowned down at some notes she had, then looked up. "Biggest test of course will be to see whether you've dilated any or not."

Sibil made room for Jex to start checking Sidda, and Sibil glanced at Alec. "You ready for this, Alec?"

"Do I have to answer that?" he said, moving farther up the bed while the team started working on his mate.

"It's okay, sugar-pumpkin," Sidda told him, giving a strained smile, "You were never really going to be ready anyway."

"You make the worst jokes when you're in pain," Alec said, toying with her hair and trying to keep her calm, "I think I'll just judge how bad you feel by how terrible your jokes are."

"So, when I start making knock-knock jokes you'll get the defibrillator panels?" she teased half-heartedly.

Alec's face tightened and so did his grip on her hand. "Not a good joke."

She frowned up at Jex as he reached through the collar of her hospital gown and pressed a stethoscope to her chest. "Isn't there a monitor for that sort of thing?" she asked. Besides, he could probably tell even better now that her breathing was speeding up; she wasn't fond of this much attention from medical people. She noticed Alec glare at the man, and she rolled her eyes.

Jex smiled down at her. "Better to trust a person, right?"

"Sure…" Sidda said. She saw him flick his eyes at Sibil, and the co-commander closed her notepad, her lips pressed tight.

The technician, a female X5, was hooking Sidda up to more machines than Alec was comfortable with while Sibil walked to the end of the bed and pulled up a stool. "Sidda, I'm going to check to see if you're dilated. If you're not, then we'll just give you something for the pain and get you back to sleep. If you are, then things will start moving pretty fast."

"Okay," Sidda said, not sounding very sure of herself at all. She gripped Alec's hand tightly and looked up at him with a forced smile. She didn't want him freaking out right now. "Whichever will be fine, but it's probably all right, right, Sibil?"

"I don't understand, actually," Sibil said, "You shouldn't be experiencing labor pains right now, but we'll just check…"

Sidda leaned back against the bed and tried not to pay attention to what the medics were doing. Alec helped by rubbing the back of his hand against her cheek. "Hey, it's going to be fine," he insisted, "I'm right here."

"Thanks," she said, giving him a smile, "Your presence is so very reassuring." Her sarcasm was all teasing; the statement was actually quite truthful.

"I'm going to say that you actually meant that," Alec said, smiling down at her.

"Seems like someone's impatient," Sibil said, interrupting Sidda as she was about to say something back to Alec. "You're three centimeters dilated, Sidda. The baby's coming."

"What?" both Sidda and Alec declared as one. Sidda pushed herself up onto her elbows, ignoring the pain that shot through her leg as she accidentally jerked it.

"That can't be right, it's not time," Sidda said, "Isn't there something you can do?"

Sibil had already moved toward the machines, looking at them again with an intense expression on her face. "Sorry, Sidda, once you're dilated, there's nothing to stop labor."

"Fine, fine, but is the baby going to be okay?" she demanded, her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. Sibil was reminded of the fact that Sidda was very much an alpha female; the instinct to go find somewhere safe and quiet to deliver her baby was at war with the rational side that told her to stay in the hospital since it was safest place even though it wasn't very quiet.

"We're going to do everything we can to take care of both of you." Sibil looked over at Jex. "Call Grey and tell him we're bringing Sidda up. Now."

"No need," Seth said as he stepped through the doorway, "I already let him know. They're prepping the O.R. now." He looked over at Sidda, his eyes questioning. "How long ago did this start?"

"I don't know, an hour ago?" she said.

"That long?" Alec asked, his expression disapproving.

"Yeah…" Things were starting to slow down in her vision now, but she beat her body's attempt to faint back down. "It was about fifteen minutes after that medic came in."

Sibil jerked her head toward Sidda. "What medic?"

"I don't know, I've never seen him before," she said, "He was an X6."

"Did he give you anything?" Seth asked, walking toward the IV bag that was hanging from the pole by her bed.

"It was something that was supposed to make her sleep," Alec said, his face hard as he looked over at his best friend. "What are you thinking?"

Eyes blazing, Seth unhooked the IV bag and put it down on a nearby table while he exchanged it for another one. "We'll handle it later." He glanced down at Sidda, who was leaning her head to the side as another contraction hit. This was possibly the worst moment for her labor to begin. Whatever that little bastard medic had given Sidda was messing with her heart rate, which was already irregular thanks to the wound in her leg.

Every time she had a contraction, her heart rate spiked then dropped, often taking her blood pressure with it. Sidda had already been in surgery once today and would weak going back in. He looked at Sibil, knowing similar thoughts were going through her head. It would probably be better for Sidda if they waited until her body was more stable, but that could put the baby at risk, and Sidda would never go for that. Seth caught Alec staring at them, but he averted his eyes. If Seth had any say in the matter, Sidda was going to be fine after this.

"All right, let's not stand around," Sibil said, getting back to business, "The O.R. team will be waiting for us, and it's best not to let them stay idle for long. They start playing with the instruments, it's a bad situation."

Sidda glanced at Sibil, her eyebrows half-raised. "Was that a joke?"

Sibil forced a smile down at Sidda. "If that's what you'd like it to be." While the rest of the team hurriedly unlocked the wheels of the bed, she moved up the bed to Sidda's side. Leaning over, she pulled the blanket up to Sidda's midsection and started unhooking wires and tubes, besides the portable heart rate monitor. Everything would be hooked up again in the O.R.

She was stopped by Alec's hand landing on her wrist. "I'm going with her," he said, his voice more of a growl than anything else.

Sibil nodded and gently pried his fingers off. "Of course. No one's separating you from her."

Sidda tried to help by reaching over and taking the hand that Alec had grabbed Sibil with. "Hey, come on, play nice."

Alec didn't want to play nice…this whole situation, this equipment, this room… it was all giving him bad vibes. If the other room had been bad, the O.R. was worse. All the surgical instruments were out and ready, the drugs to put Sidda under was being prepared. It was all he could do to control his anger when he saw Sidda blanch with fear.

"It'll be ok," he reassured her, stroking her hand.

Sidda looked up at him, not saying anything, eyes wide. When they were like that her eyes seemed to take up most of her face…it made her look so much more innocent and vulnerable. It made him want to protect her that much more.

The doctors worked efficiently, and if it wasn't such an emergency in Alec's eye, he would've been annoyed at how emotionless they seemed. But he didn't have time for that right now.

"Alec…I know I'll be asleep, but…"

"I'll stay," Alec interrupted her, "And I'll hold your hand the whole time. I promise."

Sidda breathed a sigh and smiled at him. Trust Alec to know what she needed before she even had to articulate it in front of all these other people. "I'm scared," she whispered, finally admitting her fear. She didn't want to go to sleep and never wake up, never see Bean, never see Alec again.

"Everything will go fine," Alec promised. He kissed her. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"Thanks. I'm counting on you for that," she said, smiling up at him. She gasped and clutched his hand harder as a thick IV needle jabbed into her arm.

"Warning?" both she and Alec shot at the poor technician. Grey looked up and chuckled.

"Sorry Sidda, but you have a history of not dealing well with needles. This was the easiest and quickest way, trust me."

"I'm glad to see you feel so bad about that," Sidda mumbled. She stared up at Alec as she spoke, memorizing every bit of his face, as if she didn't already know it. She knew from past experiences that it would take her a little while to fall asleep, but when it hit…she wouldn't even realize she was fading, not really.

They stayed like that for a few moments, simply looking at each other. Sidda smiled as Alec gently stroked her hand every now and then. She could deal with this when he was with her. There were worse ways she could die.

"Sidda." Alec was rushing his words, speaking as if he didn't have much time and he wanted to make sure she heard everything she had to say. "Sidda…after all of this, when Bean's born and everything's ok again, will you marry me?"

Sidda stared at him for a moment, trying to comprehend what he'd said. She must have misheard… wow, so the sleep-drugs really did affect her mental functions.

"Ummm…."

Seth tried to interrupt. "Alec… maybe this isn't the best time…"

Alec glared at Seth than turned back to Sidda, ignoring Seth's advice.

"I know this isn't exactly the most romantic place to ask you," Alec said. "But…well, I can always ask again afterwards. I just want…I needed to know… do you want to marry me?" He suddenly looked very unsure of himself. The worried frown and hesitant eyes made him look almost like an adorable puppy.

Sidda shook her head, trying to clear the fogginess. Well, why not? It would make Alec happy, and she was probably going to die anyways. She knew the risks. "Yes?" she ventured. Hopefully that was the answer he wanted.

"You're sure?" he asked, still hesitant.

"Of course she's not, she's barely lucid," Seth muttered.

Really, what did Alec want? She'd said yes. Whatever, proposals didn't matter right now, it was feelings that counted. "Yeah, yeah, I am…I love you, Alec."

"I love you too," he whispered, "So you better wake up from this and marry me." He leaned down and gave her a long kiss, and when he moved back, her eyes were closed. "Sidda?" he asked worriedly. He looked around but Seth was there, a hand on his shoulder.

"She's fine, she was supposed to go out right about now," Seth said. He shook his head at his friend. 'I can't believe you just proposed to her."

"I had to do it," Alec said, his voice almost monotone. Seth wouldn't really understand, but Alec had had to know. Had to know that she'd be utterly convinced that she had a reason to wake up again. She couldn't doubt that he loved her or his commitment to her when she knew he wanted her to marry him. And he did, he really did. He wanted that official seal of belonging; he wanted them to belong to each other and each other only. The idea fit perfectly with his world of Alpha senses.

"So what's next?" Alec asked. Knowing what was going on would help him remain calm, or so he hoped.

"Well," Seth said, surveying the room first to make sure that everything was getting done that needed to be. "We'll actually administer the anesthesia and give her a tube to make sure she can breathe. Then Grey will begin the operation."

"How long will all this take?" Alec asked.

"Probably about forty-five minutes to an hour, if everything goes as planned." He gave Alec a sympathetic look; he hadn't had to go through this anxiety with Robin yet. "The baby will actually be born fairly quickly though. The longest part is when they sew Sidda up after the baby is born."

Alec cleared his throat. "I might not watch that part," he said. Actually, he was unsure he'd be able to watch the first part either. He wasn't sure he could handle someone cutting into his mate.

"Understood," Seth said. He moved away to talk to one of the doctors, and Alec watched as they quickly moved to prepare Sidda for the surgery. He sure hoped Bean was worth all this fuss. Well, he knew the kid would be… as long as everything turned out fine in the end.

If it didn't…well, Alec refused to think about it.

As they set up the surgical instruments, Alec deliberately turned his body so that he was looking at Sidda's face. He would see her peacefully sleeping during the surgery, and everything would be ok.

Seth was right; it didn't take them long to deliver the baby at all. He was starting to settle down when he heard one of the doctors say, "Ok, let's deliver the baby now."

Alec turned, carefully keeping his gaze above Sidda's stomach. He didn't want to see some hole there; he didn't know how he would react. But he did see the baby emerge, wet and dripping, and he watched in fascination as they cut his cord and cleared the gunk out his mouth.

A him, the baby was a him. Sidda had been right. Alec almost smiled; the poor kid was probably going to be stuck with the name Bean now that he'd actually been born a boy. Of course, that name might have stuck anyway if the baby was a girl.

Because the baby was tiny, that was for sure. Despite its size though, the baby had a giant set of lungs. As soon as it was able, it started squalling.

"Dang, Aiden." They had picked out that name just last night, actually. After Alec had conceded that it could quite possibly be a boy.

Alec couldn't help but grin as Aiden wailed. That was his son there. His and Sidda's. And he was fine… he was moving, screaming, everything a baby was supposed to do.

Alec looked at Sidda again. "See? Everything's going to be fine. Told you."

He glanced up again to watch a couple nurses carry Aiden over to a table in the corner to get him cleaned up, or that's what Seth had said earlier. He turned back to Sidda and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "He's wrinkly and…pink. Sort of prunish, really. You'd be disturbed. But of course he's a boy, just like you said." He didn't care that he was talking to her while she was unconscious; maybe some small part of her would realize that he was still there, still with her, and he wasn't leaving her side.

"Hey, Alec, congrats," Seth said. He was wearing a surgical mask like everyone else, but Alec could tell that he was grinning beneath it. "He looks good, he should be fine. You could hold him in a few minutes, if you'd like."

"Yeah," Alec said, "Thanks, Seth." If Sidda had been awake and capable of fighting with him about it, he might have teased her about holding the baby first…which, knowing Sidda, she would have retorted that she had been carrying him this whole time so she had Alec beat from the beginning.

He turned back to her when one of the beeping machines started to sound different. It was slowing down, like someone was slowly unplugging it from the wall. A few seconds later, another machine started a morbid harmony with the first one, but its beat was fast and staccato.

Alec jerked his head up to see the doctors' movements over Sidda becoming more rapid, more urgent. What the hell was going on?

"Shit, where is that blood coming from?" Grey demanded.

"She's hemorrhaging," someone else declared in a high female voice that Alec didn't recognize.

"Isn't that obvious?" Sibil said, her voice a quiet snarl, "Find it."

"Heart rate's dropping," Seth said over the baby's crying. He was calm but insistent. "BP too." For a moment, he flicked his gaze toward Alec, and Alec despised the fear and anger he saw there. He tore his eyes away from what was going on at the other end of the table and looked at Sidda, wishing the tubes weren't there, wishing none of this was happening.

"Come on, Sidda," Alec said, roughly squeezing the hand that was limp in his. The smell of her blood was going to make him sick. "Come on…be stubborn for me."

"Where the hell is this coming from?" Grey asked, "Sibil…"

"I'm looking," she hissed back at him, "Start a transfusion line."

A shrill, endless note suddenly rang in Alec's ears. He stopped breathing as he looked over at the screens and saw that Sidda's vitals monitor was showing a series of flat line. The wail of the heart monitor matched the baby's crying, a life for a life. Aiden was alive.

Sidda was dead.