Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII. I depend on my daughter, xXxValentinexXx, and on Bjanik for all my information on the subject.
A/N—I'm posting early this week. I'll be at a martial arts tournament out of state this weekend so wish me, Angeal Valentine (the author formerly known as "xXxValentinexXx"), and Bjanik luck. Next week I should be back to my usual Saturday/Sunday schedule.
"Tessa? Tessa?"
Tessa could hear a distant voice calling her over and over. Insistently. No, let me sleep. I can't move. I don't want to get up… Please let me sleep… I can't move…
"Tessa…Tessa…Tessa. Honey, please open your eyes. Tessa."
The voice seemed so familiar and sad. Sephiroth? Sad? Tessa's eyelids wouldn't open. Were they stuck together? She felt Sephiroth's hard, calloused hand in hers, and she twitched her fingers. The hand in hers squeezed her fingers hard—so hard she winced. She was able to crack one eye open then to see him.
"Hi." Tessa breathed the word more than spoke it. Sephiroth jerked forward to kiss her, relieved to see that shining aqua eye.
"Hi, yourself. I'd hug you, but I'm afraid you're in the middle of a nest of tubes."
"Guess so... What happened? The last thing I remember was you and me…" Tessa's voice trailed off. He didn't look well to her. Beyond him she could make out what looked like a private hospital room with several bouquets of flowers nearby. Sephiroth held her hand in both of his kissing her fingers, his elbows propped on the side of her bed.
"You started bleeding, and an ambulance came and brought us here. Zack, Tseng, and Vincent are here, too. They were all here while the doctors operated on you. Took all night, but you and the baby are going to be all right. They took samples for a number of tests during the operation too. Dr. Caperton's been in three times. In a few hours he wants to do an ultrasound on you. He says we'll even get to see the baby."
Tessa's warm laughter bubbled up from deep inside her. Sephiroth looked so tired. He had that look that said "near tears" breaking through his façade.
"Good. We'll see the baby."
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After that Zack, Tseng, and Vincent individually stuck their heads in the room to check on Tessa—such good friends. Tseng and Zack headed back to Shinra. They both had their own responsibilities to fulfill, Zack saying he would contact Tessa's own second, Glenn, to let him know that he would need to run the lab for a few days. Tessa thought this good practice for Glenn in advance of her maternity leave. Vincent, having no official Shinra duties, stayed at the hospital. Tessa would be spending at least one more day there. She slept away the morning while Sephiroth watched over her.
Late morning a nurse wheeled a machine into Tessa's room, removed most of the tubes, and adjusted her gown to spread cold, clear goop on Tessa's stomach. Sephiroth tensed watching. What were they doing to his wife? It looked decidedly odd. At that point Dr. Caperton entered the room, and he nodded the nurse out.
"Good morning, General." Dr. Caperton shook Sephiroth's hand then opened the color-coded file folder he'd carried under his arm with Tessa's name on it and set it on a counter away from the couple. "Dr. Romera, you're looking much better than you did last night. Now let's just see what the ultrasound has to show us today…" He lifted an angled wand from the machine and placed one end in the middle of the goop moving it slowly and smoothly back and forth while he watched traces on a small screen.
Sephiroth cut his eyes to the display. He could see a small human shape about three inches tall on the screen, tumbling about inside his wife. Kicking, bounding as if from a trampoline. Jumping even?! For just a second he thought he saw a spark of electricity flick across the screen, around the baby perhaps? "Hope that's just my imagination…at least for now." He thought. He heard a mental chuckle from Vincent. You're here?
Of course. I want to see too. After all, I missed all this with you.
Did they even have ultrasound back then?
Who knows? Certainly not me.
"Everything looks good. See here, arms, legs, head. All the major parts seem to be present. Might be a girl, but remember, little boys hide sometimes," Dr. Caperton continued. He set the wand in its cradle then pushed a button three times. Three gray images printed out. He put one of the pictures in the file folder then handed two to Tessa and Sephiroth. "Here you are—your first baby pictures."
Sephiroth stared at his picture. He felt his shoulders completely relax and his knees slightly weaken. Finally, everything is all right. I want to take my family home!
"Now, I need to discuss with you both two serious matters from the results of the tests we took samples for last night." Dr. Caperton looked back at the folder then paused taking a deep breath. "First, Dr. Romera, you have a very high mako level, and you've been monitoring it yourself. I sent samples of your blood and of the amniotic fluid over to your lab, and your assistant, Glenn, has sent the results back. For the first time we have a feel for the baby's level. The level of mako in the fluid is significantly higher than your own level. The fluid is currently at 280 (Tessa gasped—the level was close to Sephiroth's 300+ range) while your own level is down to 170 from the 190 of your last exam just two weeks ago. You're down in level even with the mako injections you've been receiving. I'm concerned that the baby is draining your mako, Dr. Romera, in addition to pulling mako in through you from the environment. The transfusions you received during surgery didn't help this situation either." He paused again, seeing Tessa's face drain of color. "We'll need to take another amniotic sample in a few days to be sure, but if we see your levels fall further and the baby's rise, we'll have to come up with a way to further strengthen your level. You're the expert here, Doctor. I'll go along with whatever you recommend."
"Yes." Tessa nodded.
"Second, I have some bad news for you, and I want you both to brace yourselves." The doctor paused and took another deep breath. He hated this sort of thing. Sephiroth could suddenly feel the blood pounding in his temples. Tessa reached for his hand. Both held their breaths. "I am very sorry to tell you this, but the tests indicate that you were carrying twins, Dr. Romera, but there is only one child now... Please remember that you have a child on the way, probably healthy, and we want to keep both you and the baby that way. Now I'm going to give you a few minutes alone, then I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Please excuse me." With that the doctor left the room.
Tessa's head turned jerkily to Sephiroth. She stared at him stunned, her eyes crinkling in pain. Her hand in Sephiroth's started to shake, then so did the rest of her. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "How can losing something you didn't know you had… hurt so much?" she questioned, and she crumpled over, gulping air, sobbing hysterically.
Sephiroth gathered her in his arms and held her against his chest nuzzling the top of her head. He had rarely known Tessa to cry. He had certainly never comforted someone crying this hard, but he had had all night to imagine the whole range of horrible consequences, even losing both of them. Tessa, on the other hand, had just awakened to this awful reality. She was still alive, and they still had a baby. In a sense, nothing had changed.
"Tess, we knew going in that for you to carry my child would be difficult… Now we know just how difficult it is. We will get through this together. We have someone to protect. I completely love you, and I always will."
Gradually Tessa's shaking lessened. She looked up at Sephiroth and smiled weakly. Her hand slipped around his neck and pulled his lips to hers. Her normally active brain had stopped dead at the doctor's words, all whirring had ceased. Sephiroth refocused her on what was important.
"Yes, you're right." She smiled. "I completely love you, too." Sephiroth handed her a tissue, and she wiped her eyes, but then she frowned. The whirring that usually went on in the back of her mind had started again softly, but had quickly escalated to a buzzing. Something was wrong and trying to get her attention. She took a deep breath. "Something about what Dr. Caperton said though… One of the…" she couldn't say it, "returned to the Lifestream… Jenova cells too..." Bits of the Cetra poetry she had absorbed in the Nibelheim lab began to echo through her head.
"What are you thinking?"
"I need… to talk to Vincent. Something about 'terra corrupt.' When Jenova cells die, they enter the Lifestream but they corrupt it, and leave behind stagnant mako. I think I may have stagnant mako in my uterus with the baby!"
Sephiroth pulled back in shock. Is that possible? Do Jenova cells produce stagnant mako upon death? Can stagnant mako harm the baby?
I'm afraid Tessa's analysis is correct. It's almost certain that the stagnant mako will harm the baby, given time. Chaos detected stagnant mako in the blood on your bed last night and destroyed it. This morning he destroyed the blood in the ambulance and in the surgery as well.
Is there anything you can do?
Chaos could destroy the stagnant mako, but he might just kill her to get at it. I don't think it's a good idea.
Tessa waited for Sephiroth to give her Vincent's reply seeing a bit of tightening flash from one corner of Sephiroth's mouth, quickly banished. "Vincent says Chaos detected the stagnant mako in your blood at the apartment last night. He's afraid it will harm the baby."
"Oh." Tessa made a decision then and there. She knew what she was about to suggest would be rejected by her husband outright, but it could well be the only way to deal with the situation. "I'm afraid that I may have to spend some time in a tube in order to have this baby. Long term exposure to pure mako should flush the stagnant mako from my system."
"Damn it! No! I won't have it! I won't let our child be grown a laboratory, in a tube, like some experimental test subject!" Tessa knew Sephiroth was thinking of the clones Hojo had grown from his cells. They had been nearly lifeless, without cognitive function, old before their time, like netted fish,… soulless.
"When Dr. Caperton talked about the baby's and my mako levels, I thought perhaps some form of the slow mako drip that Cloud is receiving, but now, with stagnant mako involved, perhaps spending time in a tube, hopefully just a few days, might be the best thing to do."
"Tessa," Sephiroth held her tightly to him and kissed the top of her head gently. "There's no other choice?"
She shook her head sadly, "none."
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Dr. Caperton returned, and Tessa explained to him that while the divergence in her and the baby's mako levels was a problem, the presence of stagnant mako was an even bigger obstacle. She would be "living" in a tube for a few days.
"Well, you and your husband are the world's experts on mako effects. I've never heard of 'stagnant mako,' but if you believe it's a hazard, then I have to concur with your treatment plan… What can I do to help?"
"Please come by my laboratory and check on me once a day while I'm in the thing. Glenn and my staff can keep an eye on me on, say, an hourly basis."
"Very well. I would suggest you start as soon as possible. In fact you should probably go from here straight into a tube."
"Yes, I think you're right... I'll call Glenn, get him to inspect the tube we have at the lab to be sure it's in good working order, and have him check that we have sufficient mako solution on hand for this feat. I'll let you and my husband decide how long to keep me there. After all, I plan to sleep for several days." She paused, "Dr. Caperton, was there any indication…? Do you know...?" she sighed then whispered, "Boy or girl?"
Dr. Caperton sighed in his turn and looked at the couple, "girl."
Sephiroth felt his wife softly resume crying in his arms, her head nuzzling more snuggly against his chest, and he held her close.
A/N—I've never been sure you can see the baby bouncing around on an ultrasound, but my husband insisted he saw it. I couldn't make out anything for sure when I had ultrasounds taken on me and my daughter.