by M. S. Parker
Sure enough, by the time Celina came back with a jug of water, another contraction seized me. I closed my eyes and tried to remember everything I'd ever seen about how to breathe correctly. It didn't make the pain any less, but it did help me have something to concentrate on.
When I opened my eyes, everyone was staring at me, and I remembered that Lamaze hadn't been invented yet.
“It helps.”
Gracen squeezed my hand. “I will send someone for the doctor.”
I almost told him not to bother, that I knew more than any doctor in this time period, but then I remembered that I couldn't exactly deliver my own child.
“Send someone for a midwife as well,” Alize said. “I do not know about the doctors here, but in France, a midwife is best for a birth. Men...they do not always know what they are doing when it comes to women.”
Gracen glanced at me, and I nodded. While I couldn't count on modern medical knowledge, as a combat medic, I knew as well as anyone that practical training beat schooling ninety percent of the time. That was why medical students were required to do hands-on hospital time before they graduated.
“I will be right back.” He kissed my forehead and rushed out of the room.
“Honor.” Celina bent down and pulled my hair back. “Do you wish to have Monsieur Gracen in the room? In France, the fathers, they leave this sort of thing to the women and the doctors.”
“I'll tell him,” I assured her. “He has some things he needs to do anyway.”
I didn't add that I wasn't sure I could take Gracen being in here with me. Dealing with my own pain was one thing. Watching him trying to be strong for me while remembering how Silva had died...that, I couldn't handle. I had to stay strong and focused. His fear feeding mine wouldn't do either of us any good.
“Doctor Potter should be here soon,” Gracen said as he came back into the room. “And Sally Kendal is over at her daughter's house, so it will take her longer to arrive.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand. His fingers were warm around mine, and I smiled as he kissed the back of my knuckles.
“Alize and Celina can manage until they get here,” I said. “You should get going.”
“I am not leaving you.” His eyes were full of the anxiety that his voice hid.
“You have to.” I smiled. “If you go now, everyone will be focused on what's happening here, and if anyone asks where you are, we can make up some excuse like you're outside pacing or something. No one will notice you're gone.”
To my surprise, Celina put her hand on Gracen's shoulder. She and Alize were quite affectionate with each other, and she'd touched me once or twice, but I'd never seen her initiate any sort of physical contact with a man.
“We will take care of her,” she said. “Go.”
I could see how much this choice weighed on him. “Please, Gracen. You know how important this is.”
He leaned over and pressed his mouth to mine. The kiss was sweet, gentle, and said everything we couldn’t say at the moment. His gaze held mine for a few seconds before he turned and walked away.
As soon as he disappeared, I let out a shaky breath. Another contraction had hit me almost as soon as he stood, but I knew if he'd seen it, he'd have insisted on staying.
Alize came over with a damp cloth and wiped my face. “Do you have any experience with birthing babies?”
I shook my head. “That's what the midwife is for, right?”
“Rest,” Celina said as she came up next to Alize. “You will need your strength.”
As time wore on, Celina's words proved to be more accurate than I realized. Throughout the day, I thought about the dream I had just before going into labor, the one about Ennis and I racing. It had been as much a memory as a dream. My junior and senior years of high school had been spent improving strength and endurance in preparation for boot camp, and I'd still been forced to push myself to the limit.
Marathons had nothing on childbirth.
I tried to rest as much as I could, fading in and out of a light doze as my contractions continued to get closer and closer together. I was dimly aware of the arrival of a man in his mid to late fifties. Balding, lean, and shorter than me, Dr. Clayton Potter looked like he'd spent the last few hours sucking on lemons. The midwife didn't appear to be any more pleasant.
They took over with the sort of brisk efficiency, however, that told me they at least knew what they were doing. I could handle a shitty bedside manner if it meant they would help me deliver a healthy baby. As much as I wished my mother was present, I could manage without the hand-holding.
The room was stifling, making my head swim. Shadows moved across the floor and walls, telling me that time was passing, but I was unable to focus enough to determine how much. My thoughts bounced around from one subject to another, linked by some tenuous thread that only my subconscious could explain.
Gracen taking a letter to Washington.
My father in full uniform, a stern look on his face.
Seeing the Statue of Liberty when I was seven.
Getting off the bus at boot camp, pulse racing.
Learning to ride a bike on an army base in Texas.
The feel of Gracen's hand in mine as we recited our wedding vows.
The salty, copper smell of hot blood as it poured from a wound.
Dye's warning to stay away.
Bruce waiting impatiently as I dressed for a date, constantly checking his phone.
The pride on my father's face when I re-enlisted.
Every one of those things was as real in that moment as they were when they first happened. The rest of my world seemed less...tangible. The only thing that brought me back was the pain. Each contraction made the world stand out in stark, bold colors, then it all faded away with the pain, hovering at the edges of my consciousness until it was time to come forward again.
Voices were there, in the background. The unfamiliar growl of the doctor. The midwife's low-pitched nasal accent that I knew would eventually become a modern Boston way of speaking. Celina and Alize with their accented English or their rapid-fire French.
Then they were gone. Celina and Alize. When the next contraction hit, and I was jerked back into reality, only strangers surrounded me.
“Ahh!” I ground my teeth together to keep in the scream.
“It will not be long now,” the midwife said. She patted my knee but didn't look at me.
I didn't know what she was talking about until another contraction hit before I could drift back off again. This time, I cried out, every muscle in my body tensing as pain ripped across my stomach. I was so tired, but I knew she was right.
“Alize?” I asked.
“Legs up,” Mrs. Kendal said, bending my leg until my foot was flat on the mattress. I moved the other one as she started to pull up my nightgown.
The doctor came up near my head. “We will need you to push soon, Mrs. Lightwood.”
I nodded. “Where are Alize and Celina? Dr. Potter?”
“Save your strength, Mrs. Lightwood.”
Another contraction nearly took my breath away. I forced myself to breathe through it, making those ridiculous sounding noises as I did. I could feel eyes on me, but I didn't care what they thought. They could chalk it up to me just being a crazy pregnant woman for all I cared.
They were coming faster now, wave after wave of tension and pain, and I focused on breathing through each one. Instead of time stretching out, it now became smaller, more focused. Each minute was an exercise in breathing and existing, in letting my mind and body absorb the pain.
I heard Potter and Kendal talking in low murmurs, but none of that concerned me. The baby was coming. I could feel it. This was one of those instances where instinct trumped medical experience. My body knew what to do, even if my head didn't.
The last of the sun faded as I began to push. My breathing was harsh in my ears, my groans even louder. Kendal and Potter kept encouraging me to push, but there was a strange tension in the air. Som
ething wasn't right.
One of the things I learned both from being a medic and from being in the army, was that when it came to physical exertion and pain, people would get to a certain point where their bodies pushed themselves past what they thought they could handle. A place where adrenaline and other chemicals made the impossible possible.
All of that came together to give me the strength I needed to keep pushing even as darkness closed in. It didn't matter if I lived or died, not anymore. I just needed to have my baby so Gracen wouldn't be alone. He couldn't survive losing us both, not again.
I put everything I had into one final push before falling back against the pillows. My eyes closed, and I could feel consciousness slipping away. I fought against it, wanting to hold my baby, needing to feed him. I heard a faint sound and tried to move toward it, but I was so tired.
The doctor was speaking in a low voice, but I managed to hear a single word… “boy.”
And then I went under.
Chapter 17
The thing about passing out, sometimes you feel rested when you wake up, but sometimes you just...hurt. This was one of those times.
My eyes were weighed down, like I had rocks attached to my lashes. My mouth was so dry I couldn’t even swallow, and every inch of my body hurt.
For a long moment, I couldn't remember why I hurt, why I passed out, but then it hit me.
The baby.
My eyes flew open. It took my brain several seconds to catch up with what my senses were telling me.
I was in bed, but it wasn't the guest room where I'd been before. I was back in my room. Clean. Dry. I was wearing a new shift, one that had been freshly laundered. And I wasn't alone.
Gracen was sitting next to me on the bed, his hand gripping mine. His head was down, but I couldn't tell if he was praying or sleeping. A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Why was I here? Why wasn't Gracen holding our son?
“Gracen?” The word was little more than a croak.
He raised his head, and my heart twisted painfully. His eyes were red, his face drawn. This was not the face of a happy father, but I didn't want to think about what it meant.
He handed me a glass of water, and I greedily gulped down a couple mouthfuls of tepid liquid. I spoke as soon as I finished, unable to stop myself. “Where’s our baby?”
He put the glass back on the table, his hand trembling.
“I thought I heard Dr. Potter say it was a boy before I...”
The words caught in my throat when I saw the tears in his eyes, then, worse, the anguish that came with them. I sat up, ignoring the pain that went through me at the movement.
I gripped Gracen’s arm with more strength than I realized I had. “Where’s my baby?”
“Honor.” His voice cracked. “Love...”
I was shaking my head, denying what he was going to say before he could get the words out. After everything we'd been through to be together...
“The...baby did not...survive.”
“No.” My fingernails dug into his skin, but he didn't even flinch. “I heard him. I heard our son.”
“Yes, it was a boy.”
Tears streamed down Gracen’s cheeks, and I knew it was true. He'd never lied to me, and he wouldn't have started now. Not about this. I'd heard the baby...hadn't I? I'd heard something before I passed out. I knew I had. I hadn't imagined it.
“Let me see him.” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Bring me my baby.”
Gracen’s hand nearly crushed mine. “Dr. Potter had him taken away. He said...” He looked away, the words trailing off.
“Tell me!”
He lifted his free hand to quickly swipe at the tears on his face. “The doctor said that the...baby was deformed.”
I shook my head. “I don't care. I want to see my son!”
Gracen put his hand on my cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. “Dr. Potter said he believed that it would only upset us. We should not see him that way.”
It didn't make sense, any of it. I knew babies were stillborn for a number of reasons. When it was that close to the due date, it was usually something like a detached placenta or the cord around the baby's neck. But I'd felt my son moving around just the other day. And neither the doctor nor the midwife had sounded upset or horrified when they'd seen the baby. None of it made any sense.
“I want to see my baby.” The words cracked and broke along with something inside me.
Gracen's expression crumbled, and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to him even as his own tears continued to fall. I buried my face against his chest and let the agony override my physical discomfort. None of that mattered, not anymore. Nothing could hurt more than the hole inside me.
I couldn't even take comfort from the fact that Gracen was here. All I could think was that I'd failed him, let him down. He'd lost another child, and I should have been able to prevent it from happening. The pain he was feeling, it was all my fault.
All of this was my fault.
Chapter 18
If it hadn't been for Gracen, the agony of having lost a child might have been too much for me. That first day, as the two of us cried together, I could feel myself wanting to go catatonic, to simply shut down and disappear into myself. I'd known soldiers who, unable to cope with what they'd had to do or injuries they'd sustained, had closed themselves off from everything and everyone. I'd never truly understood that until now.
Seeing Gracen's pain was worse than my own, because I knew if I'd never met him, this wouldn't have happened. He could have married Clara and had children with her.
A part of me even wondered if that was why this happened. Maybe my coming to this time hadn't been part of some grand design, but rather a mistake, something that couldn't be corrected but had to be managed. Was this my consequence for falling in love with a man I had no right to be marrying? Had my marriage prevented other children from being born, their absence changing the future? Would fate or time or whatever glitch had brought me here prevent me from bringing new descendants into the timeline?
These were the thoughts running through my head almost non-stop as I tried to comfort my husband. He kept telling me how grateful he was to still have me, that he hadn't lost his entire family, and it was all I could do to keep from telling him how sorry I was that I'd caused this to happen. He would only try to comfort me and convince me that this wasn't my fault, and I didn't deserve to feel better about it.
Celina and Alize came to check on us, bringing with them plates of food that went untouched. Both of them felt as if this had been their fault, that if they'd stayed they could have done something to help, but Gracen and I assured them that nothing could have been done. The most they could have offered us was some closure by letting us see our son, but even that would have been a long shot, and not worth telling them. Instead, we thanked them for their kind words and their attention before they left us alone again.
The next day promised to be the same as the last. Light and restless sleep that gave us no respite. Stifling humidity and oppressive heat that only added to our misery. We forced down a few bites of breakfast, more because it was something to do rather than any real hunger on our parts. I wondered if I'd ever be hungry again. Ever feel anything other than this excruciating loss.
When Celina returned to remove what was left of our meal, I broke my silence for the first time that day. “Where's Dye?”
The girl's expression hardened. “Monsieur Lightwood sent her on an errand two days ago.”
“Two days?” I frowned, my muddled brain struggling to rise out of the fog.
Celina nodded. “After lunch. She was told to take food as it would be a long trip.”
“Where?”
“I do not know,” Celina answered. She put her hand on my arm. “I would not worry about her. She was confident that she would return in a few days.”
As much as I wanted to worry about Dye, I couldn't muster up enough emotion to feel anything else. It was like the only
things I had the strength for were grief and guilt, one warring with the other for first place.
Before I could ask any more questions, Alize rushed into the room. “Monsieur Lightwood is coming.”
It said something about my mental state that I didn't do anything more than shrug. Gracen wrapped his arm around me and pulled me against him. Tension came off him in waves, and I grabbed onto his hand. If Roston said the wrong thing, I wasn't sure what Gracen would do.
“You two need to leave.” The announcement came as Roston stepped into the room. His gaze slid over to Alize and Celina, then back to Gracen. “All four of you.”
“After what we have been through, I think my wife and I shall stay here a little longer.” Gracen's voice was tight.
Roston started shaking his head before Gracen finished his sentence. “Corporal Axe is coming.”
My head jerked up. “What?”
“Quincy Axe sent word to me that he was coming for you both.” Roston glared at me. “I would have handed you over without a word, but I know my son will not give you up.”
Gracen opened his mouth, but I squeezed his arm.
Roston came over until he was standing right in front of both of us. His eyes were on his son, however. “I know there is much wrong between us, but I cannot see you taken as a traitor.”
Traitor.
Traitors were hung or shot.
Gracen.
I couldn't lose him too.
That was the thought that finally broke through.
“How long?” When Roston didn't even look at me, I repeated myself, “How long?”
“Not long,” he answered. “I cannot give you horses–”
“I don't think I could ride very long anyway.” I winced as I stood. I didn't care if that made me sound like a wimp. No man I knew could've put up with what I'd been through and then gotten on a horse two days later. “So we'll just take what we can carry. Less to pack anyway.”
“I cannot know where you plan to go,” Roston said. “I warned you. That is all I can do.”