Nami stared at herself in the mirror as she waited for the pregnancy test to form a result. She pulled back her lip to look at her teeth. Her canines looked a little long and extra sharp. She would have to make an appointment to go see the dentist on the base to see what was going on with her teeth. They all had become excessively sharp recently, particularly her incisors. There was also something odd going on with her vision. Everything seemed so excessively bright and clear. She was happy she could see better than usual but it made her want to wear sunglasses all the time. Sounds seemed louder, scents seemed more pungent. Were all of these symptoms of pregnancy? Sometimes she would get so overwhelmed with the sensory overload at work she would have to lock herself in one of the empty closets to calm down.
The timer beeped and she grabbed the small white stick from the back of the toilet. Her eyes stared at the big blue plus sign. Well, the result was evident: she was positively pregnant.
~\..'../~
Kisuke stared at the chart in his hand, flipping through the pages back and forth as if he were searching for something he missed. His eyes momentarily drifted over his assistant who lay on the table in a paper nightgown awaiting an ultrasound. She was pregnant. But how? According to all of his data there was no way it could happen. However, the pregnancy test he administered told a different story. Going by her information and his calculations, she was eight weeks pregnant.
"What have you done, Nami?" he asked, pushing open the gown to reveal her softly rounded pooch. He pressed around on her belly feeling the muscle of the uterine wall. Why the hell was she was so big already? He was getting more questions than answers and it was beginning to irritate him.
"What do you mean, Kisuke?" she queried with feigned innocence. She jumped and squealed when he squirted the cold gel on her abdomen. "You could have warmed that up. That was mean."
"I could have, but you're not being truthful with me, Nami. What's going on?" he demanded, pressing the transducer against her belly. He flipped a switch on the machine and they could hear the heartbeat. There was an extraneous sound, like an echo. "What the hell is going on now?"
Nami rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration as the man commenced to beating on the machine. If it was not already broken, it would certainly be damaged now. Why did men think violence fixes electronics? The resounding heartbeat only got louder. She thought she saw the lima bean shaped and sized white spot divide into two.
"Holy hell mitosis!" Kisuke yelled before he could stop himself and actually think about what he was seeing.
"It's twins, you idiot!" she bellowed back, grabbing the man by his lapels and pulling him away from the machine before he destroyed it.
They both froze and stared at each other momentarily before turning their attention to the screen. There they were: two little forming humans floating in her womb.
"Oh, my god," she gasped, grasping the astounded man's lab coat tighter. "I'm having twins."
"Whose twins?" he asked.
"Shut up, Kisuke."
"So it's happened?"Grimmjow asked when he arrived home to another candlelit steak dinner.
"You're not happy?" Nami inquired, her eyes burning with tears.
"Of course I'm happy," he replied, pulling her into his arms.
Nami did not believe him. Her eyes closed and a lone tear escaped from each of her eyes. She pressed her face against the smooth warm skin of his neck, seeking comfort in his touch despite the stiffness of his body. He was as unyielding emotionally as he was physically. She clung to him anyway, giving into the tears that seared her eyes. Maybe she was just being paranoid and overemotional due to the pregnancy.
Why was he so angry with her? Grimmjow was not sure. He tried to make his body relax while she held onto him tightly as if he were her last tie to her sanity. It was too late now. It had been too late months ago when she went out that night to seek Ichigo. His arms constricted around her neck as he held her against him while she cried silently, her tears wetting his neck while she shivered in his arms.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, stroking her waist length deep brown hair.
Nami could not hold back the heart wrenching sob before it left her lips. She was sorry too. For all of the good it did. Pushing him away, she raised her teary eyes to his blue ones that looked as cold and blue as an arctic iceberg.
"I'm having twins," she announced, staring at him numbly. Without allowing it to affect her, she watched as his eyes widened in shock before he dropped weakly to his knees in front of her.
"Twins," he muttered, enclosing her waist with his hands.
Nami stroked his fuzzy hair that was kept in a short military style cut now. She missed being able to run her fingers through his long hair; to twist it around her fingers idly when kissing him or to pull gently it when he drove her to the edge of oblivion. She longed for when they were closer - when their love flowed freely and without inhibitions. Her fingers drifted over his cheek and slid under his chin to pull it up so she could see his handsome face that she loved so much even now.
"Do you still want me? Do you still love me?" she queried, forcing herself to maintain eye contact with him. She held her breath when he pressed his hand against her belly.
Grimmjow pressed his fingers into her softly rounded tummy, picturing the babies inside. What would they look like? Would they look like her? Or would they look like him? Perhaps they should have taken their chances with an anonymous donor. 'Too late...go from here,' he reminded himself, pressing his forehead against her abdomen that was already distended slightly from the pregnancy.
"Yes, yes I do," he murmured, raising the t-shirt she wore to press his lips against her skin. "I don't care who the father is. I'll be a great daddy to these babies. And I'll always, always be your husband."
Nami bit her lower lip, closing her eyes before the fresh batch of tears had a chance to form and fall. Encircling his neck with her arms, she held him while he pressed his cheek against her belly. She was sure he would be true to his word. He would be a great daddy. He was already a great husband.
~\..'../~
Kisuke sat at his desk going over the paperwork. He had given Nami her sixteen week check up that day complete with an ultrasound and amniocentesis. So far the pregnancy was progressing nicely. The babies were growing and developing normally. The mother was healthy despite having morning sickness that lasted all day and sent her scurrying to the restroom several times during the work day. Even the father seemed to be more happy since he had recovered from the inital shock. Or was there something else going on there that both of them refused to tell him? Shaking his head, he stared at the printout from the computer of the results from the amniocentesis. Something was not adding up. Could the machine be broken?
All of the tests for birth defects were negative which was a very good thing. However, the DNA profile was completely wrong from one of the fetuses. One matched the DNA from the orange haired man who had been with Nami that day he saw them at the mall. He was glad he had kept and ran those hair and saliva samples that had been inadvertently left behind from the man's epically short visit to the lab. Somehow he knew if Nami ever came up pregnant that man would have something to do with it because they all knew she could not get pregnant by Grimmjow. It was a biological impossibility. Or was it?
Jumping out of his desk chair, Kisuke rushed to the computer to pull up Grimmjow's files, particularly his DNA information. Running back to the lab table, he grabbed the piece of paper showing the results of the DNA from the amniocentesis. The profile of one of the budding pieces of humanity growing within Nami fit Ichigo Kurosaki with a ninety nine point four percent rate of certainty. His eyes flicked back and forth from the paper to the screen as he compared the other markers from the second set of DNA.
"Oh, god it can't be," he gasped to himself.
How did this happen? Dropping heavily into the chair behind him, it rolled slightly as he went completely limp and weak from the stunning revelation he had just made. He had accidentally created another hybrid; or rather the expectant and totally clueless parents had. One of the babies Nami was carrying was without a doubt her husband's and another...what the hell would it be?
Kisuke shook his head and scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration as the anxiety grew within him. But how? How was it possible? Unless...unless something changed in Nami. Leaping out of the chair with renewed fervor, he retrieved the vial of blood he had taken from Nami that day. His fingers shook as he prepared the sample to be tested and analyzed. A sick feeling grew in the pit of his stomach and threatened to make him vomit as he waited for the sample to process. Pacing nervously, he impatiently waited for the results. He tried to further distract himself by checking and rechecking the results of the amoniocentesis against the on file analysis from the two men who were, according to the scientific data, the fathers.
When the machine began printing the conclusion of the test, the distraught scientist sprang from the chair sending it rolling backwards into the metal filing cabinets with a loud bang. He snatched the piece of paper from the machine and compared it to Nami's DNA record that was on file. He was glad that Mayuri's mistrust and paranoia had paid off. The original mad scientist had insisted that every employee be put through a battery of tests including DNA profiling as a condition of their employment. The man's psychosis had known no bounds.
"Thank you, you psycho," Kisuke mumbled to himself, pausing to close his eyes and push away the memory of the make up wearing man's last moment. He had willingly and almost gleefully volunteered for the mission to murder Mayuri Kurotsuchi. Unfortunately, he was still haunted by that last moment before he pulled the trigger.
Mayuri's weird golden eyes stared into his as he pressed the muzzle of the heavy, large gauge pistol to the man's forehead which was it's normal color of lightly tanned flesh since there were no traces of the make up. Kisuke had snuck up on the man who was working in his lab at home. He had been horrified to find out what had happened to some of their former employees who had suddenly quit. No wonder they could no longer able to come to work. They could not call in dead or while being held prisoner at the crazy man's home lab while enduring experiments that made the evil taking place at the business laboratory look tame in comparison. He regretted that he would have to kill them as well but maybe that would end their suffering. Shaking his head to clear his mind and come back to the task at hand, he pushed the gun against the man's skull, forcing his head backwards. Mayuri's intense gaze never wavered, although he knew he was about to die.
"Any last words, Kurotsuchi?" Kisuke inquired, focusing on the wall behind him. He could no longer bear to meet the man's affectless and unblinking stare.
"I regret nothing except not killing you and that woman, Nami," he remarked tonelessly, grabbing Kisuke's hand and forcing him to pull the trigger.
"Kisuke," Nami whispered, pressing her palm against the sleeping, disheveled man's cheek. She sprang back when he jumped up from the desk with a sudden burst of movement. His eyes were wild and terrified as if he were not quite sure where he was or who she was. Had he slept at the lab? What was he doing all night and why did he look so frightened?
"What are you doing here Nami? It's the middle of the night," he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face. He felt the rough stubble over his chin and jaw beneath his fingertips. Squinting, he realized sunlight flooded the room. "What time is it?"
"It's seven thirty in the morning. I came in early today. What's going on?" she asked, staring at him quizzically.
Ignoring her as he rifled through the stack of papers maniacally, Kisuke found the pages he was looking for. He glanced from one page to the other, comparing her results from when she first began at the lab to the one he ran last night. Digging through the papers again, he found the page containing Grimmjow's original DNA profile where he had checked off the markers they now shared.
"Oh, god, no...no, no, no," he mumbled rubbing his eyes that burned as if acid had been poured into them.
"Kisuke? You're scaring me," she mumured apprehensively, pulling up a chair to sit beside her normally cheery and easygoing boss. The only time she had seen him even close to being this upset was the last few weeks before everything exploded, quite literally, at the lab. "What's wrong?"
"Nami, I don't know how to put this gently," he said, turning to hold her hands between his.
Nami pressed her lips together as she looked into his eyes awaiting bad news. His seriousness was very disconcerting and the fear in his big gray eyes made her more than a little apprehensive. The nausea welled within her and threatened to drive her to the bathroom for her third round of vomiting so far that morning. She sometimes wondered how the babies received any nourishment at all when she could barely keep water down much less food. Maybe that was the problem. What was wrong with her babies? Pressing her hand to her belly, she made herself continue to inhale and exhale when she felt like not breathing at all.
"No, no, the babies are fine. I think..."
"Kisuke, please - "
"Nami, one of the babies belongs to Grimmjow. You're carrying the children of two men. That's the good news," he informed her, squeezing her hands that suddenly grew cold. Her face paled and he was afraid she would faint.
"G-good n-news?" she stammered, narrowing her eyes and cocking her head questioningly. How in God's name could that be the good news?
"I went over and over the data all night long. Somehow your DNA...changed."
"Changed?"
"You're like him. Like Grimmjow. Somehow...somehow your DNA mixed. It changed," he explained, unable to find the right words because he did not quite understand it himself.
"I-I'm like him? But what am I? One of the babies is his? I-I d-don't u-understand," she stuttered, her body visibly trembling.
"Neither do I. Sweetheart, I don't know what's going on, but I'll figure it out. I'll help you," he assured her, touching her ghostly white cheek. Her eyes met his and he could see the elongated feline like pupil in her terror filled brown eyes. Oh, god...what had she become?