by Merry Farmer
When Grace saw Danny, her eyes flew wide and she cried out, “Danny!” through tears and pain.
“Grace!” He stumbled down the slanted floor, snowshoes suddenly a hindrance. He didn’t care. He had to get to her. “I’m here, Grace, I’m here.”
He slid to a stop as he reached her, dropping to his knees. Leaves had piled in the corner where Grace lay, giving her some support and cover. She’d lit a fire nearby with loose branches and scrub, but it was on the verge of guttering out. It hadn’t done much to warm the hollow space. Danny yanked the sack off his shoulders and tugged off his coat. He pulled the gun from his pocket and set it aside before throwing the coat over her.
“It’s going to be all right, Grace.” His voice calmed as his pulse pounded. “I’m here. Everything’s going to be all right.”
She grabbed his hand when he reached out to her, clutching it and pulling him closer. Her green eyes were huge with fear and pain. “It’s coming, Danny. I can’t do anything to stop it. It’s coming. I’m so scared.”
“I’m here, Grace.” He squeezed her hand and smoothed back the damp hair from her face. “We’ll do this together. Hold on.”
She cried, weak, and he hugged her as close as he could with his body at odd angles because of his snowshoes. She clung to him for all she was worth, weeping against his shoulder, until another contraction seized her.
“I can’t do this,” she grunted, face contorted in pain. “Make it stop.”
“I can’t stop it, but I’ll help you through it.” He smoothed the sweat-dampened hair back from her forehead, holding her hand and letting her squeeze the life out of his.
She needed his action more than she needed comfort. As soon as the contraction was done, he broke away from her to wrench off his snowshoes. He searched through his sack for a water-skin and anything else he had brought that might help. He had a knife, scant food supplies, the map she’d drawn him, extra socks and a scarf that Mina must have packed.
“Drink some of this if you can.” He pressed the water-skin into her hands.
A new contraction came before she had swallowed more than a few drops. Grace reached for him, but he only took her hand for a moment before moving to where he was needed more. He shifted his coat aside and peeled back the parka she wore. The tilted angle of the floor made it awkward to shift her hips to where he needed them. He had to brace himself with one leg against the wall to balance as he pushed aside her skirt to see how close the baby was to arriving.
Sharp memories of Carrie’s birth, of the blood and panic and helplessness, washed back over him. He didn’t know what he was doing in spite of having assisted in half a dozen births. He knew nothing about birth then and he knew almost nothing about it now. He barely knew what he was looking at.
“Everything is fine.” He forced his voice to be as calm as he could make it, smiling at her over the bend of her knees. “Everything is normal. This is completely normal. We’ll get through this together.”
She nodded, breathing in short, forced breaths, looking for all the world like she believed him. If he was lying it was the best lie he had ever told.
He had no idea what he was doing. The thought played through his mind on a loop.
“Give me the water-skin,” he said, reaching for it.
Grace struggled to hand it over. He poured water on his hands, rubbing them as clean as they would get and drying them on his shirt. They needed disinfectant, bandages, whatever doctors usually used to prevent infection. He had none of it. He watched between Grace’s legs, waiting for nature to play its hand and tell him what he was supposed to do. He continued to wait, alternately holding Grace’s hands and assuring her that everything was perfectly normal.
She began pushing with her contractions without him telling her to.
“I see something.” he called out, blinking in wonder at what was happening right before his eyes. His heart raced with a new energy. “I see it, Grace. It’s coming. Your baby is coming.”
Grace cried out wordlessly, in pain and fear.
“We’re almost there. Keep going. You can do this.”
She pushed. The baby’s head grew steadily larger and more distinguishable. It was coming on its own. He could do nothing but reach out, to open his bruised, blistered hands that had caused more death and destruction than he could ever have imagined, to catch the tiny baby as it struggled into the world. It was determined to come, to be a part of this hard-won world. Danny held his breath as the head slid into his hands. Grace grunted with effort and pain. He closed his fingers around tiny ears.
And then suddenly, it pushed out into his waiting grasp. Grace cried out and collapsed. Danny caught the baby against his stomach, eyes and mouth wide with wonder. Without his prompting the baby burst into a furious wail. Danny gasped.
“It’s a boy.” He blinked, awed. He lifted the wet, screaming boy to his chest. Every detail of his bright pink face was a miracle, his perfect nose, the bow of his lips, his eyes squeezed shut as he wailed. “He’s beautiful.”
He laughed, amazed. The child in his arms cried and flailed, but began to calm as the heat of Danny’s body infused him. Danny held him closer, cradling his tiny head. He was so small, and yet the pulse of possibility swirled around him. This boy was Grace’s. He was hope. He was their chance to right the pitiful wrongs that had brought them to this moment. There was nothing this tiny child in his arms couldn’t do. Danny wanted to weep with the joy that knowledge brought him. He scooted along the floor so that he could show Grace.
“Look at him, Grace.” His voice wavered and cracked as he tilted the tiny boy to show Grace her son. “He’s…he’s beautiful.”
Grace wept uncontrollably. She twisted her head to hide her face. Danny was so transfixed by the baby’s delicate fingers, the flush that infused his skin, that he barely noticed when she covered her face with her hands.
“Look at him,” he repeated, breathless with wonder.
“No.”
“Grace, he’s perfect.”
“No,” she repeated, wracked with sobs. “I don’t want him.”
“Grace—”
“He’s Kinn’s. Take him away. Give him to someone else.”
Speechless, Danny held the boy closer. His heart grew and twisted with love and confusion as the baby’s face pinched in protest. A moment later, Grace groaned again as her body rid itself of the afterbirth. He moved around to Grace’s feet where he had left the water-skin and his pack. With one hand he found the knife.
“You have to at least hold him while I cut the umbilical cord and clean you up.”
She shook her head. He rested the tiny flailing form on her stomach anyhow, then went to work. He cut and tied the umbilical cord with a piece of yarn yanked out of one of the spare socks, staunching the bleeding with the rest of the sock.
As he worked, Grace stretched out her hand to touch the squirming boy’s head. She said nothing, only staring at him.
“The umbilical cord is cut. You can hold him now,” he told her.
Still, she shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “He looks like Kinn.”
Danny didn’t check. He didn’t want to see. His heart was too full of the child to accept anything but hope and wonder for him. He finished washing Grace and cleaning up the mess as best he could, then shifted to take the baby once more. With the last of the water, he wiped him off. There was nothing to wrap him in except for his own coat. He would gladly freeze as long as Grace and the baby were warm.
“Here,” he said, handing the bundled baby to her.
She tried to push him away but was too exhausted to resist for long. She gave up in tears and stopped resisting. Danny tucked the boy into her arms against her breast.
“Are you supposed to nurse him right away?” he asked.
Grace shrugged and shook her head. She peeked at the tiny form in her arms, then glanced away, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Maybe you should try,” he said.
“I can’t.”
/>
“You can, Grace. You have to. For me.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Grace opened her eyes and met Danny’s. Tears streamed down her face and she still wouldn’t look at her son, but she nodded. Danny helped her to unbutton the top of her dress and push it aside to reveal a breast. He lifted the baby to guide him to suckle. To his amazement, the boy closed his tiny mouth over Grace’s breast and sucked. Another miracle that Danny watched in wonder while Grace turned her head away.
When he had done everything he could to make sure Grace and the baby were both clean and warm he wedged himself between them and the wall, circling his arms around the both of them, exhaustion overpowering him. He closed his eyes, resting his head against the side of Grace’s.
The sounds from the baby made him open his eyes again. He stared at the boy, reaching a hand around Grace’s arm to stroke his hair. It wasn’t his baby. He had been conceived in an act of dominance, not an act of love, by the worst enemy Danny had ever known. But watching his impossibly tiny face as he settled into exhausted sleep after the trauma of coming into the world, touching his warm, tender skin, Danny felt a love and pride that he could never have imagined. This was his son. No one would ever be able to tell him anything different.
It had taken him longer to unpack the carefully stored supplies on ES5 to reach the metal crates than Danny had planned on. He had had to move a dozen or more smaller storage bins and boxes that contained the ship’s standard supplies to get to the hidden corner where he and Carrie had tucked the metal crates during their midnight mission. It had taken even more time to move one crate to where he could open the lid. He unlocked it with the old style electric key he hadn’t taken from his pocket since he had started gathering supplies, and stowed the survival book safely under a layer of tarps. By the time he had finished and replaced everything as it should be, the corridor outside of the emergency ship was bright with artificial daylight.
He checked his watch. Nine-fifteen. The meeting would start in half an hour. Private McKinnon could already be searching the ship for him. What he wouldn’t have given for five more minutes to—
“What are you doing?” Carrie hissed as he rounded the corner into the main part of the hallway. She stood with her handheld clutched against her chest, groomed and dressed in the standard work clothes of The Terra Project. Fury radiated from her. “Are you trying to get us caught?”
“No, I was….” He didn’t have an answer.
She grabbed his arm and yanked him down the hall to the main meeting room where the Leadership Team would begin their session before breaking out into smaller groups.
“I swear to God, Danny. Now is not the time for you to turn on me. Do you have any idea what’s about to happen?” She spoke each sentence in a lower and lower hush, ending with a barely audible, “If we’re caught now, everybody on this ship will die.”
She was too tense to be lying. The carelessness that marked her outward attitude was gone. Danny’s adrenaline surged, heightening the closeted smell of the meeting room, the faint hum of the ship’s life support, the glare of the lighting. He breathed in, inching closer to Carrie. “I won’t be kept half in the dark anymore, Carrie. When did this become a death mission?”
Carrie hesitated. Her fury faded to fear.
“It always was,” she said at last. “The ship that’s following us? It’s called Vengeance for a reason. Kutrosky has plans that even I don’t know about, but I know enough. Whatever else happens, we can’t let that ship, Vengeance, get anywhere near us. If you and I are caught—”
The meeting room door slid open and Sean walked through. His head was down, studying his handheld. As soon as he realized the room wasn’t empty, he glanced up. A second later, he flinched in shock. Then his eyes narrowed.
“What are you two doing here?”
Danny and Carrie jerked away from each other.
“I had a few things I wanted to go over with Danny before the meeting started,” Carrie rushed to form an excuse. She put on a smile and circled around the meeting room’s table to him, putting more distance between herself and Danny.
It wouldn’t work. There was no reason whatsoever that Carrie would have to speak to Danny on any level. Sean was too smart not to know that, whatever else his faults. Knowing they were caught, Danny stood aside, slipping his hands in his pockets, feeling the key.
“You’re a little early, aren’t you?” Carrie asked Sean, eyelashes fluttering.
Sean was unmoved. “No more than you. What were you talking about?”
“Nothing important.” Carrie shrugged.
“Nothing important?” Sean narrowed suspicious eyes at Danny.
“None of your business,” Danny answered him.
“Just planning a little surprise for Grace,” Carrie went on, smile turning vapid.
If he could have risked letting his reaction show, Danny would have winced.
Sean glanced from him to Carrie, suspicion growing to alarm. “If you get Grace involved in any sort of questionable activities, you’ll have me to answer to,” he said.
Sean’s possessive tone set Danny’s teeth on edge. “I’ve told you before, who Grace chooses to spend her time with is up to her, not you.”
“You wanna bet?” Sean stepped closer, puffing his chest to its full breadth. “If I hear so much as a whisper of you or anyone hurting Grace in any way, I swear to God, I will kill you.”
“Sean!” Carrie exclaimed, taking a step back. She blinked rapidly, trying to laugh. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”
Sean glared at Danny, his jaw hard. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“It’s nothing, Sean, really,” Carrie insisted. “We were just—”
Danny’s cell rang in his pocket. He jumped at the shrill sound. Carrie slammed a hand to her chest and sucked in a shocked breath. He pressed the cell to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Have they moved our meeting without telling me?” Grace demanded from the other end of the call.
Danny’s heart raced and his eyes flew wide. “They didn’t tell you?”
“No,” she answered, innocently annoyed. “Where are you?”
“In the executive sector. We’ve been moved to room 12.” He met Sean’s shaded eyes as he spoke.
Grace sighed. “When did this happen?”
“Just this morning. I know, I was annoyed too.”
Carrie shifted, brow furrowing in confusion.
“Nice of them to let me in on the secret,” Grace said. Danny arched an eyebrow. She had no idea. “I’ll be down there in five minutes.”
“Hurry. I’ll save you a seat.”
Danny clicked to end the call and slid his cell back into his pocket. It tapped against the key to the crates. “Grace will be here in five minutes, so if you want to kill me for putting her in harm’s way, you’d better do it now.”
Sean tilted his chin up, staring down his nose at Danny with calculation. It was exactly the kind of hesitation that would keep him from ever following through on his promise. In the end, Sean was no more of a threat than Heather.
Still, Danny would keep an eye on him.
A ray of sunlight slanted through ES5’s doorway when Danny awoke. Time had passed, but he wasn’t sure how much. Scruffy was gone. Grace slept heavily against his chest, breathing deeply. She held her baby against her chest. Its tiny fist curled against the patch of pale skin exposed at her breast. Whatever rejections she had voiced after his birth, in sleep her son was her own.
Peace settled in Danny’s heart. He lifted his arm from Grace’s waist to trace his fingers across the baby’s downy head with a smile. The boy’s tiny lips twitched with the instinct to suckle.
“What a world we’ve given to you,” Danny murmured. “You can do better than we’ve done.”
The baby stirred, trembling with clenched fists. His face pinched and he burst into a newborn complaint. His crying woke Grace. She sucked in a breath and pushed against Danny’s chest, trying to sit up. Her efforts caused
her to wince in pain.
“Shh,” he whispered to her. “Take it easy.”
Her grip on the baby loosened. She stared down at it. Emotions flashed across her face, none of them settling.
“What do I do?” she mumbled, defeated and hopeless. In spite of Danny’s caution, she muscled herself to sit straight.
“Take care of him. Love him,” he answered. He helped her to a more comfortable position in his arms. “Maybe he’s still hungry. Try nursing.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“What if you do but haven’t discovered it yet?”
She twisted to study his face. Her confusion was like a sword in his gut. He kissed her cheek, her lips. She responded with a swallowed moan, resting her head against his.
A beat later, she fumbled with the edges and neck of her dress and shuffled the baby to bring his mouth to her nipple. Danny watched the process with a peaceful sense of wonder. The baby fussed, moving his head back and forth, trying to get his bearings. Grace took a deep breath and concentrated on guiding him to nurse as if he was a distant problem for her to solve. When he finally latched on to her nipple and sucked she breathed out a sigh.
“I’ve never been so afraid of anything in my life, Danny,” she whispered at her feeding son’s head.
Danny squeezed her tighter. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” He smoothed the hair back from her face, kissing the side of her head. “I’m here. We’ll do this together.”
She shook her head, breathing in a ragged sigh that brought tears with it. “I don’t feel anything. I look at him and all I see is Kinn.”
“It’s all right.” He soothed her, wishing it was true.
“No, it’s not.” She shook her head. “I can’t…I can’t…” She sniffled. “This is his son. He’ll never leave me alone now.”