Chapter Two

Written: 02 June 2005

Re-written: 01 August 2006

Edited: 18 July 2012

"Anshii..." Utena groaned, "It's time." Anshii blinked.

"Time for what?" The sound of water dripping from the couch onto the floor answered her question.

They always say it's best to stay calm in a crisis situation. Utena's water breaking suddenly during a conversation could, indeed, be classified as a crisis of the first class.

What do 'they' know, anyway?

Anshii was, at the moment, very quietly and very thoroughly panicked. 'Car, hospital...what do I know about giving birth? Think!' As she though furiously, she had the presence of mind to cast around for a phone. She spotted one on the wall near the door, and was halfway to it before something occurred to her.

"Utena? I'm...I'm sorry, but I can't call. I don't know the number or enough English." Utena groaned in response, then waved Anshii back towards her. The smaller girl tugged Utena's arm across her shoulders, helping her walk the few steps to the phone.

"It's...it's 9-1-1 here," she commented as she dialed exactly that, requested an ambulance, and gave her address. By the time she finished answering the rest of the questions as best she could, she was only standing with help from Anshii and the wall. Then she returned, with Anshii's help, to her seat on the couch. Anshii herself couldn't sit – instead, she paced or flitted here and there, fidgeting and constantly glancing back at Utena, as if the pink-haired girl might burst at any moment. Despite her closed eyes, it didn't take Utena long to become uncharacteristically irritated at the sound of Anshii's heels thumping back and forth across her carpeted floor.

"Utena? Are you alright? Is there anything that you need to bring with you? A bag, perhaps?" There was silence for a moment, then Anshii asked again, "Utena?" After gathering her patience – yelling at Anshii was possibly the most counter-productive idea she'd ever had – Utena finally answered.

"I'll be fine. And yes. There's a bag, on the floor, behind the front door. I need that. Dammit, it's early..." She'd decided that perhaps conversation would help her ignore that incessant thumping as Anshii continued to pace and help pass the time until the ambulance arrived.

Anshii frowned, and stopped moving for a moment. "Early? What do you mean?"

"I'm only at thirty-seven weeks..." Then Utena was groaning in pain as her belly cramped horribly. Before Anshii could begin to panic all over again, they heard a knock at the door. Mystified, Anshii put on the chain and opened the door just a dash to look out, only to slam it and yank the chain off as quickly as she could upon realizing that the man at the door wore a stethoscope and was standing in front of a stretcher.

'Maybe I didn't hear the sirens,' she thought to herself as she opened the door wide and gestured for him to come in, barely listening as he said something in English that she couldn't understand – partially because English was suddenly the last thing on her priority list. Utena was already halfway to her feet by the time Anshii returned to her, but leaned on both the other girl and the paramedic as they helped her to the door.

"Don't forget the bag," Utena called as they helped her to sit and then lay on the stretcher. Anshii didn't answer – she was already back inside, snatching up the bag in question along with her own purse. Then she found Utena's keys, shut off the lights, and carefully locked the front door. By then Utena was strapped down and halfway to the ambulance. Anshii trotted to catch up, accepting a hand into the back once the stretcher was locked in place. As soon as the doors were closed, they started moving – without lights or sirens, much to the girl's surprise. And she couldn't even ask why.

Instead, she shifted on the uncomfortable bench seat and held Utena's hand tightly, glancing back and forth impatiently as the paramedic calmly took the pregnant girl's vital signs and asked her several questions. She brushed a bit of the taller girl's hair away from her face and made herself proud by not crying.

The ambulance brought them to the nearest hospital. Luckily for everyone involved, it was the right one. The hospital itself was a whirl of white tile and hospital-green walls that didn't move nearly fast enough for what both girls felt was a rather sizable emergency, but eventually they arrived in the maternity ward, the only people in a what appeared to be some kind of waiting area. Utena had been transferred to a wheelchair at some point. There, they waited a while longer, until a middle-aged nurse bustled in, holding a clipboard and a beige folder in one hand as she plucked a pen from her breast pocket.

"Alright then," she began, opening the folder, "We have one...I can't pronounce this, I'm sorry. Yu-tena..."

Anshii interrupted her as soon as she realized the woman was attempting to pronounce her prince's name, remembering only at the last second to invert the order of first and last name. "Utena Tenjou."

"Utena Tenjou," the nurse echoed, "Right then."

Another check of Utena's vital signs, and then a fresh round of questions, taking place around two contractions. Anshii was fairly certain that her nervous energy would melt her plastic chair any moment if all this ridiculousness didn't come to an end soon. 'How many questions are involved in having a baby, anyway?'

"And last question. What's your doctor's name, hon?"

"Doctor Lipscomb," Utena responded, stumbling only a little over the doctor's name. The nurse nodded and made a quick notation, flipped pages back and forth, and finally hung the clipboard and the attached chart from the back of Utena's wheelchair.

"Doctor should be in shortly, she's already on hospital grounds so she should've been paged as soon as you came in. And your friend, dear? Is she family, or should I have someone show her to a waiting room?" By this point, Anshii was pretty much lost. She understood only the smallest bit of what was going on. But Utena shook her head.

"She is family. I like her to stay, please." The nurse nodded again, and then the door opened and a head popped in, a woman with short, very curly red hair and big black plastic glasses.

"Utena? Oh, there you are! Come on, come back to a proper room. Luckily, I'm free as a bird at this particular moment, although we'll see how free I am when those kids finally decide to leave!" She turned to call out down the hall, "Butch! Come on, can't you see she's about to pop?" It didn't take long for the door to open all the way and for a young blonde man in green scrubs to come through. Waving off the doctor with a grin, he handed her the chart before unlocking Utena's chair and wheeling her out, Anshii at his heels.

Doctor Lipscomb was busily looking over several sheets on her clipboard as they proceeded towards the private rooms, and so didn't notice that there was an extra person with them until they had nearly reached Utena's room.

"Oh? Who's this, Utena? A new friend?" Utena smiled and shook her head, brushing her bangs away from her damp forehead.

"No, she is old friend, from Japan." The doctor nodded and smiled and left it at that, bustling around the room with the cheerful efficiency of somebody's mother and ordering Butch around. The young man just smiled with long-suffering affection and did as he was told.

It didn't take long to get Utena installed in a room with Anshii in a chair right beside her bed. The doctor spoke with Utena for a few minutes, then left. Utena sighed again and leaned back into her pillows, then looked over at Anshii. She extended one hand slowly, and smiled as Anshii took it and squeezed it.

"She's worried." Utena told her in quiet Japanese. "If this is my real labour, it's coming prematurely."

Anshii frowned. "Real labour?"

"Yes. There's something called, um...Brax...uh, Braxta-Hick..." the word came hard to her and she stumbled over it several times before giving up, "Anyway, they're like fake labour cramps. But since my water broke, I'm pretty sure this is for real."

"And what did you mean by prematurely?"

"Oh, um. Technically, a full-term pregnancy is thirty-eight weeks. I'm only at thirty-seven. It doesn't sound like very much, I know, but it can really make a difference in whether babies are born healthy." She rubbed idly at the roundness of her belly, as if soothing the lingering cramps away.

"I suppose that's so. Do you really think there's danger?" Utena laughed softly and shook her head.

"I'm not really worried. I think that they'll both be okay."

They sat in silence for a moment before Anshii blinked, then frowned. "Wait...both? What do you mean, both? You're having more than one baby?"

Utena just laughed, "I knew you would react like that. Yes. I'm having twins, actually..." Anshii just sighed and lifted Utena's hand, gently kissing the back of it and smiling at the faint pink lipstick mark it left on her prince's skin.

"So, twins...do you know if they are identical or not?"

Utena's labour was suspiciously short – medically, anyway – when it finally started almost eight hours later, only about three hours from the first proper contractions to the time that was noted on the second baby's birth papers. To make up for the short time, it was intensely painful, and she screamed herself half raw before the medication kicked in properly. The doctor mumbled something about both babies trying to get out at the same time.

The first baby took about four pushes to get out completely, and the second suddenly learned enough manners to wait for the cord to be cut before demanding to be let out as well. It only took two pushes the second time around, and after that it wasn't long before it was all done with.

She felt the tears prick her eyes again as she looked down at the two wrinkled little brown faces and matching tufts of purple hair that were all she could see of the babies lying on her chest, the memory of labour pain fading just in time to be replaced by the pain of a baby's toothless but strong mouth latching onto the wrong spot. Luckily they got that sorted out quickly enough. She closed her eyes briefly, exhausted, and opened them again to watch as the hospital staff took the babies away to be cleaned up and placed in the nursery once they slept.

She laid back against the pillows, more than ready to sleep herself, and didn't even open her eyes when she heard the door open and close. A familiar presence filled the room, and she smiled tiredly.

"They're beautiful," Anshii said softly, sitting down on the edge of Utena's bed, "What will you name them?" The nurse came bustling back in then, clipboard in hand.

"Alright, Miss Tenjou. We have two very healthy baby girls, born at 1:32 and 1:47 am, five pounds and five pounds one ounce. Now we just need you to name them." Utena translated for Anshii, who covered a giggle with one hand.

Utena smiled, "Yes, I will name them now. Anshii," she addressed her friend in Japanese, "You can't look right now. I'll write them for you later." Anshii just smiled lightly and nodded, and Utena accepted the clipboard from the nurse. Reading over the forms quickly, she nodded to herself and quickly filled in the spots for names. Handing the clipboard back over, she held up one finger to her lips and smiled, "May I have piece of paper, please?"

The nurse quickly supplied her with the paper and a pen, and Utena gestured for Anshii to close her eyes. The purple-haired woman rolled her eyes but closed them anyway. She sat patiently for the moment it took Utena to write the names down, only moving again when Utena told her to open her eyes, then handed her the paper. Looking down at the two pairs of kanji on the page and the furigana above them, she blinked and looked up at Utena again.

"Nishiki and Nishiki. They have the same name?"

Utena blushed and nodded, "Well, yes, just written differently. And I thought we could call the younger one Nishi-ko. She came after her sister in time, so she'll come after her sister in the alphabet too!"

Anshii just smiled.

"They're wonderful names, although the readings are unusual," she said, patting Utena's hand. Utena blushed again and shrugged a little, neither of them noticing when the nurse quietly withdrew from the room.

"I wanted to give them special names, ones that they could be proud of."

"Well...I think that you succeeded." Utena blushed again, then leaned forward to wrap her arms around Anshii's waist, hiding her red face against her companion's belly.

"Anshii...I have something I want to ask you," she said, muffled, "Well, two somethings. I know it's kind of weird, but it's really important, so I don't mind if you want to take a while to think about it. Well, first...I want you to stay with me, and with the babies." Anshii rolled her eyes and curled one finger under Utena's chin, lifting the pink-haired girl's face until their eyes met.

"Of course I want to stay with you, Utena. I spent this long finding you, I'll never let you go again. But what else did you want?" Utena shifted uncomfortably and cast her eyes downwards, without letting go of Anshii's waist.

"Well...I never wanted to be anybody's mother, you should know that! I never thought of myself that way, and I don't think I'll do a good job. It's just not how I see myself. But I can't give up my babies. So I want to...well," She paused and took a deep breath before blurting out her request. "I want to be like a father to them, and I want you...I want you to be their mother."

END CH.2

Notes: Japanese characters generally have more than one possible pronunciation, or 'reading', and while some are more common and/or correct, it's possible to be rather flexible with the readings of characters used in names. Hence the 'unusual readings' of the childrens' names. Nishiki the elder is: 西('nishi', west) 杞('ki', river willow) and Nishiki the younger is: 弐 ('ni', a formal/legalese character for 2) 色 ('shiki', colour) The second character in each name is non-standard, as are the combinations used. The name Nishiko contains a mild wordplay: the 'shiki' character can also be read 'shiko.' 'Furigana' is phonetic notation that goes above uncommonly used kanji or those with alternate readings like names.