It happened in the middle of the night… And it was a month early. The soaking wet sheets was what actually woke me up, and surprisingly I wasn't an instant panic. My hand traveled down the length of my body and between my legs. Drenched. Everything was wet. Problem. I rolled over to Finn who was still soundly sleeping next to me and gave his shoulder a gentle shake.
"Finn?" I murmur against his ear. He stretched out and cracked an eye open at me, the only indication that he was awake let alone even listening to me. "You need to go to the castle, and get the midwife. It's happening." That made him snap to attention. His eyes flew open and he whipped the covers off of us, staring at the giant wet spot that lined the bed.
"You're sure?" He asks wide eyed, "It's only been 8 months, perhaps it's an incontinence issue?" He suggests and I shake my head at him.
"The contractions have already started. I just really need you to go back to the castle, get the midwife, get your mother and come back." I say calmly. Lord knows that if I panic, so will he.
"Ok…" He mumbles, nodding his head slowly. "Midwife… Mom… Me." He repeats, sliding out of the bed.
"Faster, sweety." I encourage him, sitting up in bed. He's gone in an instant, and I allow myself to feel some emotions. "Kelly!" I shout at the door. "Kelly!" I should louder. I hear a solid thunk, before there were footsteps approaching the bedroom. She swings the door open, and just by the look on her face I could tell she already knew. "Gonna need you to call my momma." I tell her between gritted teeth. I clearly wasn't prepared for the labor pains that was child birth. God, I wish I had a way to get a hold of Baron.
"Ok." She agrees, darting off to her room for her cell phone. "Where's Finn?" She asks, walking back down the hallway.
"I sent him to go get the doctor." I reply. I let out a painful little cry as a contraction tensed my stomach. "Why do I have a feeling I'm going to be doing this all natural?" I groan, falling back against the bed. She hands me her phone.
"Oh god, baby? It's happening?" My momma answers, "I'm missing it!"
"Momma, I'm gonna need you to get on a plane… Like now." I tell her.
"I'm on my way, yesterday." She says, "I'm so excited!" She exclaims happily.
"Love you, talk to you later." I tell her, trying to hide the pain in my voice. Who knew that the pains would be nearly instant?
"Love you too baby." She replies before I hang up the phone, "You'll probably need to get her from the airport tonight or tomorrow." I say to Kelly. A sharp pain hits me, and I scream, I couldn't hold it in. The same time that happens the lights begin to strobe in the bedroom and hallway. "Oh my god, I can't with these light effects…" I groan when the pain subsides.
"I've never been with anyone while they're had a baby before… Was that normal?" She asks me, sitting on the edge of my bed. She wipes some of the hair that was sweaty and stuck to my face off to the side. "It sounded terrible." She adds.
"It felt pretty terrible." I mutter. Finn, along with Ellena and Sarah the midwife appears at the foot of the bed. "Please tell me that you have something for the pain." I look at Ellena hopefully.
"You're in pain?" Finn asks. He'd gone into totally panic mode. He was sweating through his clothes and his eyes haven't left the 'deer in the headlights' look yet. "What can I do? Is there anything I can do?" He looks from me to his mother and back to me. Sarah had started to pull various tools and things from her bag, placing each one in a spot at the edge of the bed.
"Go downstairs and get her some ice water." Ellena says to Finn. It was her turn to be calm for both of us, between his panic and my pain she was going to be that happy medium. He nods his head frantically, disappearing down the stairs. She walks over to my bedside, smiling warmly at Kelly before offering me something that looked identical to a dark chocolate bar. "Eat this, it will help with the contraction pains." She explains.
"Thank you." I murmur, looking extremely grateful.
"Finn?! Sweety bring up a cool wet cloth as well please!" She calls down to him.
"I'm going to need you to spread your legs for me." Sarah says from the edge of the bed. Ok, I admit that I was still pretty shy around people I didn't really know. I know that Sarah was a doctor and all, and I shouldn't feel awkward, but I did. "Annabelle, this isn't anything I haven't already seen before." She notices and I nod. "You've already dilated… A lot." She says softly. Finn walks into the room, with my water and washcloth. He glances between my legs and I can see the color drain from his face.
"Please don't faint… If you faint, I'll fucking die." I cry out, clamping down from another contraction. He shakes it off, staggering over to my side and setting the water down on the end table. He presses the cool cloth to my forehead and I let out a soft happy sigh.
"I'm fine, my love." He tries to assure me. He slips his fingers into my own. "She's not full term." He tells Sarah, concerned.
"The baby is to term, maybe not 9 months to term but I assure you… Baby is ready. Sometimes they just decide that 8 months is enough. There is nothing to be concerned about Master Balor." She tells him, not even looking up from her work. "There's a lot of dark brown hair here." She smiles up at me.
"Oh my god, you can see it already?" I ask, my mouth dropping open.
"Yes dear, the baby is already crowning." She tells me, "It won't be long. Your labor will be quick." She adds, standing up. "We'll start pushing shortly." She nods.
"I feel out of place." Kelly breathes, looking between everyone.
"Don't you dare fucking leave me." I growl at her, making her chuckle.
"Like I'm going to miss the birth of my niece." She shakes her head. That sharp pain, it was like a knife in the side of my stomach making me scream out again. The lights cut, and the room is pitch black. "Jesus Christ…" She whispers.
"Oh my god…" I scream, my fingers digging into Finn's skin.
"Is she ok?" He asks Sarah in the darkness. The pain passes and the lights come back on. Even Ellena has a shocked look on her face, and Finn, well he was still pale white.
"We can afford to start pushing." Sarah looks at me and I nod. "Hold her other hand." She instructs Kelly who doesn't ask any questions and proceeds to take my free hand. "When I tell you to, push as hard as you can. Understand?" She looks at me. I'm already exhausted, all I can do is nod at her. "Ok… Push." She tells me as I start to feel another contraction start up.
"Push, my love." Finn murmurs against my ear. I grip both their hands and push as if my life depends on it. It took everything I had to not scream at the searing pain in my core.
"Ok, take a breather." Sarah says, giving my leg a pat. "We've almost got a head, and once you can push that out the rest is easy work." She assures me.
"Oh god, I fucking hate you." I glower at Finn. For the first time since this started, he cracked a smile. He used the wash cloth to wipe the sweat off my forehead and flushed chest.
"I love you. So much." He presses a kiss to the back of my hand.
"Push." I brace down, I just needed this baby out of me. I pushed. Hard and for what seemed like an eternity. "We have a head! Keep pushing!" Sarah calls from the end of the bed. I'm crying. I have no idea when I started crying but tears were freely flowing down my face as I continued to push. Ellena has moved to the end of the bed, peering over Sarah's shoulder with delight. "You've done it, take a break." I hear her tell me. Finn's lilps were pressed against my arm, and he was staring at me. I glanced down, between my legs when I heard that first little cry. "Towels Ellena." She says to her. The small cry was followed closely by wails, which was basically like music to my ears. "Mastor Balor?" She looks expectantly at him. He froze, staring back at her. I can see her using the towels to clean off the baby I hadn't seen yet before she wraps it in a blanket, offering the bundle to him.
"Take it." I whisper to him, giving his hand a squeeze.
"Her. Take her." Ellena corrects me with a radiant smile. "And she's beautiful." She adds. Finn takes the little bundle from Sarah, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. He's in complete awe. I let him have his first few moments with her silently, just watching him stare at her. His fingers ran gently were here forehead was and down the side of her cheek, several times.
"She's beautiful." Finn murmurs, lowering her down to my chest. I gently push aside the blanket and big, ice blue eyes looks up at me. I may be biased, but she was the most gorgeous baby I'd ever seen. "Just like her mother." He kisses my cheek.
"Does she have a name?" Ellena asks curiously.
"Katrina." Finn answers her, "It's a name in Annabelle's family."
"Katrina Ellena." I smile. Sarah is messing around down there, feeling along my stomach and pushing more unpleasant liquids out of me. It makes me blanch.
"You did wonderfully." He tells me thoughtfully. "I wish I were near as calm as you." He adds making me chuckle softly.
***…***…***
"I'd really appreciate it if you would go get Baron." I say to Finn the next day. It look like it took him everything humanly possible to not glower at me. "Don't backtalk me." I sigh, "He deserves to see her too." I say to him.
"What time is your mother here?" He asks me. A desperate attempt to change the subject. I'd just finished feeding Katrina, and she was cradled in the crook of his arm as he laid across the couch that he'd moved to the bedroom.
"She's in at 8:43 tonight, Kelly is picking her up and my daddy is coming too. Stop changing the subject." I say seriously.
"I will fetch him." He sighs heavily.
"I"ll take her." Kelly chirps, popping her head into the bedroom. He hands her off and is gone in a second. "You guys reproduce pretty well." She winks at me and I laugh, shaking my head. Sarah said that I should stay in bed for at least a full 24 hours, I was itching to get out of this bed and do something productive.
"She's pretty cute." I shrug confidently, making her laugh with me. A few minutes later Baron's footsteps were clunking their way up the steps, and his large frame appeared in my door. "Hey." I smile at him.
"Kinda a runt, ain't she?" He teases me, looking at Katrina still in Kelly's arms. She offers her to him, and he takes a step back, putting his hands up. "I don't know how to hold those." He mutters, shaking his head.
"Just cradle her body in your arm, against your chest." I tell him simply. "Hold your fucking niece, Baron." I playfully growl at him. He takes a keep breath, and Kelly slips her into his large arm.
"She doesn't weight anything." He says softly. Finn walks in the room, and Baron is so focused on Katrina that he doesn't even look up at him. "She's really pretty." He smiles at me, and glances at Finn. "You did good."
"You said I would." I wink at him, making him smirk.
"She was wonderful." Finn says to Baron. The first non-aggressive words I think he's ever said to this man, and don't think Baron didn't notice that too. He nods at Finn, lowering himself down on the couch. "Damn… Look at those eyes, they almost glow." He murmurs mostly to himself. She had a pair of ocean blue eyes like I'd never seen before. I thought Finn had bright blue eyes, but hers were ever more vibrant that his. "And that hair." He chuckles, letting his fingers run through it. She had thick dark brown hair. I was definitely thankful that my baby wasn't bald.
"It'd be nice if you woke up Sol at some point." I smile at him.
"I will." He agrees easily. "You're ok though, you've got all the help you need?" He asks me.
"I do. Probably more than I need, but I'm not about to complain." I shrug. He stands up, offering Katrina back to me.
"I don't want to intrude on you guys for long, but I'll come back. Tomorrow or soon." He assures me, "If that's alright." He looks at Finn.
"She wants you here. Who am I to argue?" He sighs. Baron nods and we watch him retreat out of the room and down the steps. Finn lets out a long breath, before focusing his attention on Kat once again.
"That was decent of you." I murmur to him. "I'm proud of how you handled that. Like a big boy." I smirk, making him glare playfully at me. "My momma will be here soon, I think I'm going to get some rest before she's here." I say to him.
"Of course my love, get some sleep." He agrees. He slips his arms under Katrina and retreats to the couch with her. It honestly didn't take me too long to fall asleep after that.
A/N I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it!