SORRY FOR THE DELAY! There were more homework complications. Okay, I really didn't want to do this yet, but I'm running out of ideas to stave it off. *Sigh* If you think I'm copying anything, please tell me what it is so I can properly say "Not mine!" Let's do this!
Zara's POV:
Swing, hit, block, dodge. Swing, hit, block, dodge. I hit the training dumpy again, blocking the counter-spin of its pole arm, standing in for a knife or what-have-you, and dodged the flailing backspin. I was covered in sweat, and my shorts and sports bra I had put on for my training were sticking to my body. The slight bump where my babies were developing was getting more and more prominent, and before long Alucard would notice something, despite the fact I was keeping as low a profile as possible. My pony-tail bounced as I dodged again, sweat making my hair frizzy as well as plastering it to my head. I took a break, sitting down on one of the benches and drinking long gulps of water.
Have I ever worked out this much? I decided that was a no. My muscles were sharply defined, and I was the picture of physical prowess, despite the bump in my stomach that looked like I was eating way too much. If you took a picture and framed it people would think I was from a gym magazine, I was that fit. It had been a week since First had said my babies were coming soon, a month and a half after the nurse did the ultrasound. Honestly, there was only one thing I hadn't done on my list. Tell Alucard I'm pregnant with his children. Not check. That first time I tried, he had been called away, and there was never a time since where I would have any time to get more than a few words out.
In fact, besides from Integra, I hadn't told anyone. It's not like I didn't want to tell them, it was just that I didn't want to worry anyone, and there had never been any time for that either. Vampires were acting up in the U.K. again. I ran my hand through my hair, breathing deeply and evenly. "You still not worked off that stomach?" My eyes snapped open. Soarece was standing in front of my, looking amused. "It's not for lack of trying. You look great." She said sympathetically, giving me a once-over. "Umm…" I said, sensing this was my only chance to tell anyone. "Soarece, if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone, even Techno?" She nodded, looking interested. I took a long, deep breath.
"Soarece, I'm pregnant with Alucard's kids, and I might give birth any day." I said, watching her closely for an unwanted reaction. She raised an eyebrow. "You're joking, right?" she said, smiling a little. I didn't smile back. Her smile dropped and she sank down on the bench next to me. "Oh my god… you're pregnant?" I nodded. "Yeah. Have been since I got back from Paris and the Vatican." One corner of her mouth twitched. "Paris, hmm?" I glared at her. "Still a virgin, so don't say whatever you're thinking." She frowned, puzzled. "Wait, you said you were pregnant…what?" I traced a random pattern on my wrist. "My reproductively's so strong all I need is a male's DNA. They injected me with some of Alucard's blood, and some other random stuff."
She gasped. "But you're just a kid!" I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, oh ancient one of the mummies' tomb. How much older is grandmother?" She blushed, punching my shoulder. I winced, rubbing it. Stupid vampire super-strength. "Shut up..." she mumbled, blushing. I blinked. "Speaking of relationships, how are you and Techno?" I knew I had hit something interesting when she coughed, avoiding my eyes. "Well…" I glared at her. "Spill it." She coughed again, shifting nervously. "HeproposedtomeyesterdayandIsaidyes!" she said all in one second, before blushing all the way to red and ducking her head.
I, with my more sensitive hearing, picked up on the gist. "Isn't he a bit young to be getting married?" I asked shrewdly, hiding a smile as she smiled wistfully. "Not really…he's much older inside, you know? And besides, if he wants I can turn him into a vampire and we'll have a lot of time to think things over…" I picked up on the misty smile and knew she was lost in happy-land. A smile of my own crept onto my face. Techno getting married to a vampire. Never thought I'd see the day. I walked back to my room, shivering now that my sweat had dried. A shadow flitted behind me, and I smiled. "Hey Alucard." I said, turning around. He looked at me curiously, and then smiled as well.
"Anyone in particular you're doing this for, or are you just working out?" he purred, squeezing my tightly to his chest before letting go and falling into step behind me. I frowned at him as he walked along. "I'm not doing it for you if that's what you're thinking." He pouted, frowning down at me. "Why not?" I rolled my eyes. "This may shock you exceedingly, but you're actually not the center of the universe. People don't have to do things that pertain to you." He gasped in mock hurt. "Really? I had no idea." I threw a dagger over my shoulder without looking, and heard a thump as it connected with his chest. A slight splash and squish was heard, then I was handed back a slightly bloody dagger.
I wiped it off on my shorts. Alucard vanished as soon as I got to my room, explaining that Integra had sent him on yet another mission. In my head I cursed as I shoved the door open. I could've told him but nooo, I was too tired. I took quick shower and changed into my pajamas, lying down on my bed and covering myself with the blankets. A few hours later I woke up, suddenly and violently, twisting as the most indescribable pain possible shuddered through my body. It stopped, and I lay there, panting. What the- oh crap, again!? Another blast of pain tore through me body and I screamed. Through the fog of pain I dimly realized something. Is this my labor!?
Alucard's POV:
When I got back from killing the freak, I experienced a not foreign emotion of satisfaction. It was a fun, gory, difficult kill, the very best. But when I got back, there was a lot more lights on than normal. Then Integra's voice cut into my mind. ALUCARD GET OVER HERE! I phased to her side, expecting rogue vampires or Iscariot assassins. When I there I blinked, confused. She was standing in the medical ward, pacing back and forth on the floor. "Has she told you yet?" she snapped, still pacing. "Told me what?" I rumbled, feeling annoyed. The next sentence literally made me step back a pace. "Zara's going into labor. And she's not doing well."
These were just words, formed into sentences, but they formed an image that made me want to scream. "What? How? WHO?" I roared, feeling hot rage well up within me. She didn't even glance in my direction. "She's been pregnant for a few months now. Iscariot managed to get some of your DNA inside her. Congratulations." My mind started spinning. "But I, but we-" Then I exerted my self control. "How is she?" I asked. Integra glanced at me, and my blood ran cold. It was not an encouraging look. It was an "I'm sorry for your loss" look. "She probably won't make it." She said softly, and I snapped.
I strode into the medical room, seeing Zara laid out on an operating table. Her eyes were glazed and she was breathing in deep, rattling breaths. Doctors and nurses bustled around her, all doing something useful. One caught sight of me. "Hey you, we're busy, get out of-" I threw him a murderous look, and he immediately shut up. He weakly gestured towards Zara. "Umm, I mean, you try to calm her down. She's panicky." I nodded, gliding up to Zara's head. Her eyes rolled in her head, the whites showing through and her breathing escalated. "Shhhh, kitten." I murmured, stroking her forehead.
Her eyes focused on me for a split second, then rolled away. Her entire body was soaked with sweat, and she was tossing like she was in immense pain. Strangled cries escaped her lips with every convulsion, and her nails were shrinking and growing spastically. The doctors sputtered to a stop, staring at them. "Get moving!" I barked, in no mood for delay. "That means she's in pain!" They hurriedly got back to work as I tried to sooth Zara. She wasn't responding to my voice, and touching her only got a second's recognition. Her body suddenly twisted and she screamed, loud enough for all the doctors to wince, but they still kept working, eyeing me from the corner of their vision.
She screamed again and again, shuddering in pain. I desperately tried to reassure her, crooning whatever came to mind, caressing her head and rocking her. She whimpered, eyes coming back into focus long enough for me to see the desperation and agony in them, then they rolled up in her head again. I don't know how long I tried to calm her down before one doctor announced in a tired voice "That's two. Three left." The others all groaned, and I hissed at them. I hadn't the slightest clue what they were talking about, but talking was not helping Zara at all. They quickly scrambled back to their stations. Zara was absolutely soaked in sweat, the blankets and my shirt actually damp with it, her hair as dark as it would be if she had taken a shower.
She moaned nonstop, a long drawn out plea for help, and I kissed her forehead, trying to help her in the only way I could. After a while she screamed again, arching her body and convulsing. I stroked her, talking to her about anything I thought might be comforting, and generally being soothing. This happened twice more before she could even look at me. I didn't know how long this had taken, only that it was light outside now, and it had been dark when I came in. Her eyes were sunken, her whole body somehow thinner, weaker. She whimpered, and I locked eyes with her, but this time they didn't slide away. I smiled at her, and she twitched her lips.
"Oww." She rasped, and I chuckled. "Is that all you have to say?" I teased, feeling much better now she was awake and coherent. Her eyes took on that unfocused look I had come to know in the past few hours, and her lips moved like she was trying to respond, but her words were choked off in an ugly screech of pain. I swore. One of the doctors put a hand on my shoulder. "Sir, you're not doing any good now. She's almost through, and the worst should be over. You can do a lot more good letting us do our work." I glared at him, but my heart wasn't in it. I looked back down at Zara, who was beyond understanding us. "Fine." I said, phasing away. My heart throbbed in my chest, and I honestly didn't know what I would do if I lost her a second time.
Zara's POV:
Everything hurt. There was not one single spot on my body that wasn't a searing inferno of agony. My hips and torso were the worst. If humanity invented a word for that, they would have a new word and meaning for torture. I opened my eyes, trying to focus, but everything was blurry and sound was disjointed. A voice by me said "Only two more." I screamed in pain as a fresh contraction seized me. I can't take this much longer! I didn't hear anything for a bit after that, then "I'm sorry sir, she's still not conscious. You're distracting us from our jobs." I wanted to call out Alucard's name, but my voice didn't work after hours and hours of screaming.
I convulsed as a contraction, worse than any other before it, ripped through me. For one single heart-stopping instant, I couldn't remember who I was, what I was doing, or why I was doing it. I was nothing. I was nothing but pain. They entity and awareness that was me no longer existed inside that pain. I screamed, actually lifting my back off the bed in a futile attempt to escape the pain. I bucked, trying to endure it, but failing miserably. Then it was gone, and I drew in a deep shuddering breath. "Alu…card…" I moaned, reaching out for where he was earlier.
My hand hit cold steel. He was gone. One of the doctors hurriedly pressed my hand. "Mrs., if you can hear me, you need to try to hold on, okay?" I tried to nod, but another contraction hit. I screamed, wrenching my hand away and twisting again. I sank my increasingly sharp nails into the cold and comforting steel of the bed's railing, trying to cope with the pain. They dug in, and even through my screams I could hear the harsh scraping noise they made as my hands jerked along with my body. The bleeping of the machine sped up in frenzy, and it echoed in my ears. The sound suddenly faded, and I cracked an eye open, but everything was getting dark and blurry. I fell back, letting the darkness take me.
Alucard's POV:
I paced inside the waiting room, trying and failing to not think of Zara's life petering out on the cold uncaring surface of the medical table. One of the doctors, the same one who politely asked me to leave, stuck his head in. I whipped around to look at him warily. "You may see her now." He said, looking and sounding utterly exhausted. I shoved past him, staring at Zara as she lay on the hospital bed. She looked and sounded very dead. I stepped forward, noticing the utter silence that seemed so bizarre after her continuous screams.
I reached out for her, touching her cold hand. "She's…" I trialed off, not wanting to complete the thought. The man sighed. "She's still alive, but the worst should be over now. It's up to her if she dies or not." He left, and I sat down with a thump next to her bed. I pulled her hand into my lap, studying it. She had seemed so full of life before now. Her bones felt almost frail, like that of a newly hatched chick. Her skin was waxy and pale, and she seemed to have lost extreme amounts of weight. In short, she had changed from a healthy and strong young woman to a pale, thin, and bony one in a little less than a day. I studied her face, wondering what amounts of pain she must have gone through to look this way.
A voice broke the silence. "Give me my hand back." I blinked. Her voice had changed too; it was faint and whispery, like she had screamed it out. One eye cracked open, and the corner of her mouth twitched. "Don't sit there like a rabbit in headlights. Give." I couldn't help but smirk. Whatever suffering she had gone through, she was still an annoyingly opinionated girl. I placed the hand back in her lap. Then I folded my arms. "When were you planning to tell me you were pregnant?" I said, frowning. She winced. "There was never enough time to explain properly. I couldn't just blurt it out and run off, and I honestly thought I had more time than this."
I nodded. "That is a marginally acceptable answer." I said coldly, the tone ruined by my growing smirk. She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could I kissed her passionately. "If you ever scare me like that again," I muttered "I will tear you limb from limb." She grinned. "Wouldn't I be dead before you did that?" I pulled back, scowling at her. "Don't bring logic into my threats, it'll never work." I warned her, and she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Oh, did you need something?" I turned to see one of the doctors in the doorway. "Sir, Mrs., I need to tell you something about your offspring." She said.
Zara's POV:
I sat up. Okay, so I had at least four live kids. How many lived? She pulled a bassinet forward, but neither of us tried to look. "Two of your children were born dead." She said sympathetically, and Alucard, squeezed my hand. I edged closer to him, and he wrapped an arm around my shoulder. She continued. "One of the others was seriously crippled. He wouldn't have made it past the first few weeks, and even then he would be in immense pain before he died. We did the humane thing." I nodded, sniffling. Three people dead before they could see anything of the world. I feel so guilty. The nurse was actually sniffing a little too, and that must mean something bad. "You're other child died a little after she was born. She was much too small to carry enough body heat by herself."
I choked. Four down, one to go. The nurse took a deep breath. "One child survived. He's healthy, much more so than any of the others." She lifted a tiny baby in black pajamas out of the crib. "He here is." One look, one look, and my heart melted. People say their babies are cute. Personally, I never got how a vaguely human shaped slimy maggot-creature was cute, but to each his own. My kid blew them all out of the water. He made fluffy kittens look like spiny rabid lizards. His hair was a shiny black, a lot like Alucard's, and he had tiny little cat ears instead of normal human ones. Out of the back of the pajamas a tiny little black wisp of a tail waved excitedly.
He looked up at me, and I cooed. Alucard's eyes stared back at me from this little boy's face, only much more wondering and innocent than Alucard's ever were. "Aww." Oh crap, this creature just made ALUCARD coo. He squirmed, looking at the both of us with bleary eyes. His gaze locked on me, and I held my breath. "Mama!" he cheeped, holding out his arms for me, and my heart melted into a gooey shattered mush. He scuttled up the blanket, pulling himself up to my shoulder and curled up, humming furiously. "Mama…" he muttered, sounding blissful and hugging me around the neck. I looked at Alucard. "I think he likes me." He grinned, rolling his eyes. "I think he does too."
I looked at the boy's back, wondering. "I think we should name him Jackal." I said, nodding decisively. Alucard looked surprised, then thoughtful. "Yes, that would be a good name for him." I grinned. "So, Jackal is now both the name of a gun and a kid. OW!" This was caused by a sharp and sudden pain at my neck. I looked down, only to see Jackal sucking at the wound his razor-sharp teeth had made, kneading my shoulder with his tiny but incredibly sharp claws.
"This comes from your side of the family." I muttered through clenched teeth, trying not to yelp again. Alucard looked impressed. "Vampire and cat claws. I'm never feeding him, that's going to be someone else's job. Someone stupid." I glared at him. "Jackal." I said, and to my surprise he looked up. "Yes mama?" he squeaked, looking worshipful. I pointed to Alucard. "Daddy." He turned, seeing Alucard in all his towering impressiveness. "Daddy?" he said, edging away from me. Alucard nodded. "Yes my son." He squealed in joy and leaped at him, landing on his shoulder and scrabbling all over him, climbing up to his head and yanking his hat off. He placed it on his own head, but it immediately fell forward.
Alucard glared at me. "Your side of the family." He growled, tugging his hat and placing it out of our son's reach. Jackal seemed undaunted by this, and nuzzled into Alucard's neck. I grinned, waiting for the bite. Alucard saw the look, but before he could do anything Jackal's teeth locked on his jugular. "This boy certainly does pack a punch." He grunted in surprise as Jackal began sucking blood from him too. We both watched him feed, and it seemed like after he was done he was more toddler size than baby. I picked him off, feeling much better now that my regenerative powers had kicked in. "Shall we go terrorize the populace?" I asked Alucard, who grinned and ruffled the hair on Jackal's head before walking out the door with me.
Jackal's the picture for the title! Just saying! (It may not be updated at the same time as the chapter though) Isn't he adorable? No, the story's not done yet, I still have to do something nasty to Maxwell, and I finally have an idea! Also, this is a must answer question, when I post my Soul Eater story, should I post all the chapters I have, (6 right now), or should I go with the one a day system? Please answer! Still not comments or reviews, but my computer's being slow again, so I'm not yelling at you people. REVIEW, Request, Rcomment. Auf Wedersien!