Post by Elda Forever on May 22, 2010 13:12:25 GMT -5
Here's my birthday gift to GGJ5! Happy birthday, sisterfriend! <3 I used Erin and her parents, as well as Cassie and Kagayaki. Hopefully I kept them in-character. And LOL at the length. It totaled at over 7000 words! D: This is why Yukirin needs a novel of their own, guys. Just sayin'. Hope it makes you smile!
~~~
“Yukito!” came the shriek from the bedroom. Tripping his way into the front door, he let out a sigh. There were a bunch of bags at the doorway, big, bulky bags with mismatched designs ranging from skulls to plaid, to teddy bears to rocking horses. Bags full of clothes, food and CDs, as well as a portable DVD player they'd gotten as a gift for Christmas last year that Erin had taken to like a fish to water in the past few months. He followed the sounds of frustration to the bedroom and found Erin, surrounded by what he definitely observed to be a small-child hazard zone composed of a huge percentage of Erin's personal belongings. It was everywhere – the floor, the bed, the nightstand – and Yukito could only stare at it.
“What are you doing, Erin?” he mumbled, surprised at Erin's lack of usual tidiness.
“Where have you been?” she exclaimed, exasperated with him already as she angrily tried to fold up a pair of leggings. Then after a moment, she growled and wadded up the black garment, tossing it to its neighbors on the floor, disgusted. “Why don't you ever call, huh? Don't you know how to make a freakin' call? Even to your lame, stupid, fat wife?”
“My... phone died...” was his pathetic reply, making her snarl unhappily. He tiptoed his way around the mess, “Erin...why are you packing all your stuff up? You can't possibly take all of this with you. The hospital rooms are too small...” He peered into one of her half-finished bags, and smirked, “You pack like you are taking provisions with you for a journey on horseback...Do you have food in here?” He reached into the bag and immediately halted, seeing the turbulent look on her face. It was time to fly into reaction mode right about now, but as always, he was at a loss. Should he give her space? Hold her? The tears started to flow, and she bit down on her lip to try and keep it from trembling.
“But Yukito...hospital food is terrible...I've tasted better things out of a garbage disposal...” she whined, not meeting his eyes. Her fingers trailed across the strap of one of the bags, feeling its soft ribbon and trying to pull some sort of comfort out of it. Didn't he get it? She needed to be doing something. She needed to know she had everything she would need when she was in the hospital. She needed to know something was in her control right now, when nothing was.
“It's about the same consistency, too...” He shuddered visibly at that, making her giggle.
“Don't make me laugh,” came her tear-and-giggle ridden command. But she couldn't help smiling when he came up and wrapped his arms around her. “I'm trying to get something done here...I need..” she lifted her head and looked around the room, an object's name just out of the reach of her conscious and bugging her. She was missing something, she knew it. “Crap, where is it?”
“You don't need all of this stuff. Or any of the hundred things out in the hallway. Can't we just pack for this as lightly as possible?”
“No!” she shouted, “You, of all people, shouldn't be telling me about having too many clothes.”
He winced at the jab, but merely let out a slow breath, praying for patience. “You do realize that by the time you get out, most of these clothes won't fit you anymore, right?”
She hesitated a moment, considering. Then, she scowled at his logic, “I hate you.”
“I know...” he smirked, kissing her forehead.
“Grr..now I have to go through it all again, you realize that, right? Ugh...” She rubbed her temples hard, willing away the stress and strain. Everything hurt, everything felt wrong. Why was he so perky? Wasn't it always the other way around? Did that mean he'd been hormonal, or was claiming she was constantly hormonal just Yukito's excuse to get out of trouble? On the other hand, though, being able to fit back into her old clothes sounded absolutely fabulous. Even if she'd been pretty thrifty about it, and managed to find a lot of cute outfits, it was still depressing to even think about the specialized clothing and the excess considerations here.
“Erin...” it was his turn to sound exasperated, “You're gonna be fine. You're not moving in, you're going to have a baby. A baby that will want about three times as much stuff as you everywhere it goes..”
“It,” she grumbled, her hatred of the word evident. “I still can't believe you wouldn't let them tell me if it's a boy or a girl. How am I supposed to tell Cassie what color to paint in the baby's room? And everyone is gonna keep giving us those ugly yellow and green jumpsuits.” Secretly, she liked the idea of the surprise, but it had made everything much more difficult, and much more mysterious, about this baby of theirs. Yukito's hand came to rest on her stomach, the taut roundness beneath his fingertips shifting slightly under his touch, and he distracted her even further from her thoughts by nuzzling her cheek with his nose.
“Our baby will look good even in ugly yellow and green jumpsuits,” he promised, “And we already decided on the bedroom walls looking like musical notes. So it's all sorts of colors.” He made a face. For him, the enormous plate-sized eighth notes that would be adorning the walls in cheerful yellow, red, blue and green had been a little too bright. But it was for the kid.
“Mmm..” she sounded, finding it hard to disagree with him on their unborn child's ability to pull off terrible fashion injustices. Then, she pushed out of his arms and sent him a suspicious look, “What's up with you, anyways? You're in an awfully good mood...”
“Erin...” he rolled his eyes, finding it hard not to smile, “You're ridiculous.”
“What?” she pressed, his words grating her now into a quickly rising temper. She picked up an old jacket off the bed and smacked him on the arm with it, “Tell me-e-e!”
Chuckling through the assault, Yukito took hold of her hand, “I was just thinking today. About after the baby's born.”
“Mmmm...” she breathed again, smiling and warming up to the idea, “Yeah, that's always fun to think about.”
He pulled her closer to him, until the only thing between them was an unfinished child, who was in no position to protest, “It's gonna be pretty scary...Goodness knows I have no idea what to do.”
Erin rolled her eyes, “Oh, come on. Didn't we already go through this? You'll be fine.” About a week into her second trimester, Erin had discovered Yukito smuggling baby books into the house and reading them when she wasn't home. There had been a lot of teasing as she'd brandished 'What To Expect When You're Expecting' and started probing him. His only growled response was that he'd found the pictures to be less than satisfactory.
“I know, I know...” he said flippantly, though he still wasn't so sure fine would ever make an appearance in their lives permanently, “But there are going to be night feedings, endless embarrassments stemmed mostly from your husband's attempts at changing a diaper, endless spit-ups, screams...” He touched foreheads with her, “And then I saw this picture in my head, you know? Of you playing in our living room with some little toddler that we pulled out of nowhere.”
“Well, not nowhere..” she giggled, rolling her eyes. Yukito smiled up at her.
“It was a good picture, either way,” he was trying to console her, but he wasn't sure it was working yet. It was getting harder to tell the further along she got. He ended the statement with a kiss, which quickly crescendoed to familiar heights. Backing them up to the bed and gently pulling her down amongst the tangle of clothes. But immediately, he jolted, feeling a stab of pain in his back from something hidden beneath the deceptively soft surface. Letting out a little growl, Yukito stopped them, reaching behind his back to pry out a hard plastic object. It turned out to a rubiks cube. “Huh? You freakin' hate these things...”
“I was afraid I'd get bored..” was Erin's helpless response, curled up against him. He rolled his eyes, and the smile she'd been subduing flashed across her face, cuddling up against him again. It was a lot harder, now, with Baby in the middle, kicking every once in awhile. When that happened, Yukito tended to laugh, a deep-throated chuckle she adored. But it made her laugh, which only caused the baby to kick more, and...anyways. It was very distracting. It would be nice to not have the baby strapped to her middle every waking hour.
“Yukito..” she murmured not long afterward, pushing his possessive hand off her belly, “I'm hungry, why don't we--” She cut off her own words, biting hard down on her lip. Yukito instantly sprang upright, disheveled hair from the bed and his eyes trained hard on her face.
“What? Is it the baby?”
“Crap-crap-crap-crap..” she chanted in a deep growl of a voice, clutching her stomach, “It's another friggin' contraction...” They'd been disturbing her all day, interrupting her once or twice and hour. The baby was determined to make her insides pay for every extra minute of containment until the birth.
“How long?” The question had gotten old over the past few days. Erin sighed, rolling away from him and painfully pushing herself off the bed.
“Too long, okay?” she snapped, brushing her hair back with her fingertips. She was too hot, and figured it was about time to put her hair up in a ponytail so she could make dinner...
“You sure you don't want to consider inducing? I don't want you to have to keep going through this all the time...” She knew he meant it sincerely, but she sent him a glare anyways.
“I still have a friggin' week left, okay? Some women go overdue for week and still have a happy, healthy baby. I can stand it for a little while longer...” She cursed her aching ankles as she moved to leave the room, abandoning him. “Our baby is coming in his or her own time, and I don't--” He caught her hand, sending her a pleading look. What do you have to complain about? You're not carrying this baby around all the time. Sheesh... Erin yanked her hand out of his, storming out of the room. “I've got to go make dinner.”
“Don't you think we should--”
“No!” came the curt reply. Yukito could only let out a slow breath, still sitting on the end of the bed. It felt like a constant peace treaty was being negotiated with her these days. He was trying hard to keep up the constancy for the both of them, but it was increasingly difficult when she'd snap at him. He knew he couldn't convince her to stay out of the kitchen – something about a nesting instinct – but he could at least clean up her mess in the bedroom. While she hovered over pots and sizzling vegetables and became increasingly irritated at him for reasons she couldn't put her finger on, he carefully straightened up the bed and put the vast majority of her clothes away in their respective places. When he was done there, he pulled in the huge amount of diaper bags and pulled out their contents, laying them out neatly on the bed. He stood back to shake his head in dismay at the way she'd managed to shove anything half a dozen kids could want, as well as a few things he hadn't expected. Without him noticing, Erin slipped back in the room in time to see his dismayed gestured, and her brow furrowed. “What now?”
Turning around slowly to put on as innocent and cautious an expression he could muster, he sent her a little arched eyebrow. “I love you.”
“I know, I know, I'm the hormonal, ridiculous, pregnant wife who--”
“Erin,” he sighed, unable to find the right words to make her feel any better about this. Instead, he turned back to the bed, letting his guard down long enough for her to give his head a little thwack from behind. “Hey!” he turned and growled at her.
“Stop!” she demanded, placing her hands on her hips.
“What!?”” he dropped his previously non-defensive attempts and frowned at her, “You just hit me again for no f--”
“Stop trying to be the nice one and turn me into the witchy one! I'm not!” The tears streamed down her face without her being able to stop them, and she wiped them away furiously, making her cheeks even redder, “I'm not...”
“Well, you're certainly accomplishing that by smacking me,” he muttered, already knowing she'd cut through him and have him apologizing in a few moments anyways. He slipped past her with his arms full of towels she'd grabbed, leaving her crying in the middle of the room, feeling bitter and guilty in the same moment. When he came back and she was sitting on the end of the bed, crying as she tried to shove the 'supplies' back into the diaper bags, he let out a sigh of defeat.
“Erin... Hey, look at me..” He tilted her chin up so she'd be looking at him, but only made his face fall when she determinedly turned the other way, sniffling. “Listen, why don't we try and do this together, eh? That's why it took two to start this whole thing, isn't it? So you have me here for you, and I have you here for me. We're supposed to keep each other stable, or, or something. Logic and skill...” he pointed to himself, than to her, as he repeated himself, “Logic, and skill. We can do this, but you gotta calm down a little and let me have an opinion here without trying to find a reason to yell at me.”
Still, the tears were on her cheeks, but she seemed calmer, and she wasn't creating any fresh tears for the moment. “I'm sorry...I'm being so pathetic here, and I can't do anything right, and I'm sore all over and...Yukito...” She held out her arms to him, “Yukito, hold me..”
“Now there's something I can do...” he said with a smirk, slipping up onto the bed with her.
~~~
The middle of the night kept Erin up since the early hours. She hissed, tossing and turning and struggling to find any comfortable position on the bed – and found none. Yukito continued to sleep on, oblivious to her fussing and blissfully unaware. They had spent most of the evening going through the diaper bags with each other, debating on what was necessary and what was not. They were now down to two, though Erin also had one stashed below her bed with the much-used portable DVD player and her cell phone. She claimed it was just a large purse, and didn't count as another baby bag. He relented, after a lot of necessary 'bribery'.
With another jolt of pain, she knew something was wrong. Another contraction...she gripped the sheets tightly, pinching her lips together and waiting for it to pass. She forgot to glance at the clock to be sure, but she was pretty positive it was very close to the last one. Erin reached over and shook Yukito, who mumbled a little and turned toward her.
“Yukito..” she moaned, “It's the baby...” He shot up, nearly hitting her in the face with his head as he came to sit up in the bed, asking a million questions she didn't have an answer to. Growing irritable at him, she grouched, “You're not helping me any. I'm tired already and I can't sleep and I keep having contractions.” The next hour was spent constantly checking the clock in between watching Yukito rush around getting her whatever he could. Several little spats rose up in the heat of the moment, but they were quickly forgotten at the expression on Yukito face as he held her hand as she whined through another contraction. It took her a moment to notice it, and then to see he was looking at the clock. “What is it? Yukito?”
“Just a second...” He waited for her breathing to even out, indicated that she was relaxing, “Erin... You're four minutes apart right now...”
“What?!”
He nodded toward the clock, “The last three were about four minutes apart.. I think we need to go to the hospital.” Erin looked up toward his face and saw from the bathroom's light that he was grinning at her, her jaw dropped open in a surprised smile, and he bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” She waved her hands, “Go grab the bags and let's go! I wanna get this baby outta here!” She sat up in the bed, her body groaning in protest as she tried to prop herself up. “We should call parents... and Cassie...I need to call Cassie..”
“Sure thing,” he muttered, his own excitement glimmering through his voice as he raced out to the hall to grab their things, glad they'd finished them tonight at last. When he came back in, she was fumbling for her phone, grumbling as the baby gave a cruel kick. He leaned over her and slipped the phone out from her fingers, kissing her forehead. “You can call her once we're out the door, okay? We need to get you loaded up.”
“I'm already loaded!” she cackled, patting her stomach and taking his offered hand. They managed their way out the door to the waiting Volvo, the pavement with a vague glow in the cool morning hours. Yukito got behind the wheel, glancing over to check for her seatbelt and then offering her a beaming smile. It was finally happening. Sure, it wasn't set-in-stone yet, and they had to keep that in mind, but...they both secretly believed tonight was the night. It just had to be...
Erin squealed, the precious four minutes the last time she would sound this energetic and happy for the next several hours. She took her cell phone to start the calls as Yukito drove. First came her parents, but she only got an answering machine. Erin frowned, then took jammed some more buttons and called up Cassie, ignoring the worn-out sounds on the other end of the line, “Cassie? Cassie, it's Erin. It's time!”
“Huh? Time for what...? I know I should be used to this middle-of-the-night calls by now, but you gotta understand I'm--”
“It's time for the baby!” she shouted into the phone, cutting Cassie off abruptly and grinning all the while. She glanced up through the windshield and frowned, sending Yukito a look of dismay, “Your friggin' firstborn is on the way, can we go just a little above granny-speed, please?!” Yukito just smiled at her as Cassie laughed in her ear. Erin let out an exasperated, “Sheesh...”
“I've got my beautiful wife in the car next to me with our child about to find its way out, I'm going to be as slow as I nee-”
“Oh, crap!” Erin shouted suddenly, making him jump and the wheel wobble a little under his fingertips. Cassie started exclaiming into the phone, “Are you alright?! What happened?!”
“Another one...” Erin complained, clutching her stomach, “Gaaah...go faster, Yukito! I don't want to have a kid on the side of the road!”
“You won't, Erin..” he tried to assure her in calm tones, but was ignored.
“I'm heading out the door right now,” car keys jingled on Cassie's end, “I'll call everyone else and let them know.”
“Okay!” Erin hissed, “I need to keep trying my parents, they didn't answer, and I ---” She moaned loudly and felt a rush of embarrassment as the seat got soaked. Swearing loudly, she ignored Cassie's requests to let her go and turned to her husband, “Yukito, hurry,” she cried, not getting the proper response of concern, she added more loudly, “MY WATER JUST BROKE ALL OVER YOUR VOLVO.”
He flicked the wheel to the right and they pulled into the hospital parking lot. It was a long, drawn out twenty seconds to the maternity section of the hospital, and both of them were getting dangerously close to imploding from it all. Yukito grabbed the clipboard and turned around to find Erin already being wheelchair-ed off down the hall, and he found himself starting to panic, beginning to rush after her. “Erin?”
“Call my parents, Yukito!” she called over her shoulder, sounding desperate through her pain.
“Erin..!?”
“Don't worry, they're gonna get her all prepped and ready for the show,” the nurse reassured him, touching his arm firmly, “You just need to take a few minutes to make sure we have everything in order.” She smiled at him, “First one?”
Yukito nodded, and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Oh my God.”
“God's got her in His hands now, and He's given her all the tools she needs. You need anything?”
“How about whatever the hell they offered to give her for labor?” his comment made the nurse laugh, patting his shoulder with her soft, brown hand. He sunk to a nearby chair, taking to the medical records with the speed of a timed test. It was so different this time, from the first time he'd ever taken her to a hospital. He knew the numbers like he knew the little features on Erin's face, and drilled himself on any new information until he could recite it in his sleep. Once he'd gotten through, he handed the clipboard to the nurse and stepped outside, pulled out his cell phone and dialed the Spenser household, still not getting an answer. Swearing, he dialed again, and still nothing. With a frustrated frown, he waited for the answering machine, “Hey guys, it's Yukito. We've been trying to get a hold of you. We just arrived at the hospital – “ he smiled, “Erin's water just broke. Call me back as soon as you can, okay? Love you, bye..” With a casual chuckle he ended the call, then raced back inside to follow Erin.
~~~
“YUKITO-O-O!!” Erin wailed, her eyes not seeing him in the blurry corners of the room, where he remained huddled over, waving off a doctor.
“Hold on just a minute, Erin...I'm trying to stop the bleeding..” Her eyes rolled in the back of her head as Yukito came back into view, still clutching a bloody rag to his nose. “I'm never going to make you angry again... You would have broke it if you had actually been trying to hit me.”
“How about you never make me pregnant again!?” She gasped, reaching out to snatch the now-bloodied ends of his shirt. Yukito lowered his makeshift bandage, still smiling at her. “Why are you so freaking happy!?” came her growl. She shook him a few times, hoping to rid him of that cocky look.
Yukito arched an eyebrow, still grinning, “ I didn't know it would take having a kid, of all things, to make you hit me so much. This is kind of hot, you know.”
Hissing, she shook him again, her voice crackling under the constant strain of the last few hours. “You try squeezing this out of your friggin' vagina and still be so friggin' hilarious!”
“I'm not going to argue you the scary implications of that one,” he muttered, ignoring the amused glances of the doctors and nurses that flew around them. Cassie, on Erin's other side and faithfully holding her hand, seemed to be finally past flustered and onto the patience best friend attitude.
“Erin, you're doing great, really. You just gotta keep it up for a little while longer..” she smiled, “You're doing a lot better than I'd be doing right now, I can tell you that.”
Erin screamed in response, still clinging to his shirt, “I should not be feelin' it this much. I want more drugs. Now. Aaaah!” She hissed out as the pushing continued, and the doctor's face came into view.
“Erin, we're almost there, you just have to give me another big push, and this baby is gonna be out.”
Tears streamed down her face, “But I... I can't...” Instantly, her mother took the hand that Cassie held, and grasped it in her own.
“Erin... querida, you're almost there, you can do this.” Her voice was calm in the midst of the chaos, putting a curtain of stillness around the small group around Erin, “All you have to do is give us a few more deep pushes, and you'll be holding you beautiful new baby.”
“But it's been years...it feels like...years...I want...Yukito..” her voice feeble and hoarse from the screaming, she grasped desperately with her left hand for more of him than the bit of shirt she had been clinging to. “Please, help me.”
He leaned down close to her face, and smiled a little sadly at her. Yukito wasn't sure what to say that would ease her pain at all, anything that would work better than the fretting and protectiveness from the first hour, or the avoiding and fear of the third hour, the unexplainable weariness from the fifth hour that expanded on both of them like a mutual cloud, or even the lame jokes from the sixth hour. He decided to find the words on her very lips, pressing his to hers in a brief reminder of what started this whole runaway train of events. “You can do this, Sunshine. You've been through worse.”
“Like hell,” she snapped back, sending him a glare from her sweaty pillow.
Yukito took hold of her hand, praying for some kind of guidance to give her what she needed, but he was so frustrated with himself, and with the baby, too, for taking so long. Yesterday he'd been hoping to induce and ease her pain, only to find out this morning that yesterday had only been mild discomfort compared to this. “I love you.”
“Yeah, I'm sure you love your friggin' Sunshine now, when she looks like she's been dragged behind a friggen horse for days.”
“I love my friggin' Sunshine because she's my friggin' Sunshine, and she murders obstacles in her way,” he snapped back, “So shut up and get your daughter out of your friggin' va-...self.”
Erin looked up at him, blinking for a few dulled moments through the anesthesia and the dizzying pain. “My--”
Yukito's eyes flickered away, then back to her face, “I peeked.”
She reached up to try and smack at him, only to start screeching in pain again. As she strained, she turned to him, both hands gripping the sides of the bed hard as she hissed, “Oooh..you are so gonna pay...gah!”
“I know...” he mumbled, “I'm sorry...I had to...I had to make sure..”
“Yukito,” Mandi ordered in her commanding tone, “Come over her and hold her hand. The baby's coming. Now.”
He stepped forward and touched the back of her slippery hand, and jumped as she clasped his firmly and suddenly, straining a few more times before a jubilant cry went up into the air. Both Yukito and Erin stopped – their hearts had skipped a beat. Erin was sure she'd just died, as the insurmountable pressure released like a river dam. Yukito's ears rang with the first adamant scream of the baby, and he gripped Erin's hand almost as tight as she was gripping his.
“It's a beautiful baby girl!” came the announcement, and everyone started talking at once, and Erin let out a long sigh of relief as Yukito beamed down at her. He bent down and pressed his mouth to hers, and she responded, reaching up to trail her fingers though his hair. Once he started to pull away, she smiled at him, then tugged hard on the handful of his locks. He hissed, and she smirked at him. “You are so gonna pay for that...”
Wincing and feeling for his latest injury, Yukito nodded, “Yeah, I know...”
“Heeere she is...” the nurse held out the bundle of blankets and crying infant, the others in the room taking a little step back as Erin reached up to take her daughter. A camera flashed, and both parents ignored it. The expression on Erin's face held no words – she was melting against the tiny being in her arms, with its already-thick head of dark hair, large brown eyes and the wide, expressive mouth. Yukito stood over them both with a solemn air, his smile wide and eyes proud.
“Oh my goodness, Yukito!” she whispered, her fingertips reaching up over their hold to draw back the blanket a little more, and see the tiny, fragile fingers. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head, his hand running gently through her hair as he told her, “She's so beautiful...”
“Course she is...” Erin said matter-of-factly, shifting the baby and easing its cries to a quieter protest of whimpers, “She's our baby...” To the infant, she wrinkled her nose and leaned in to give her a 'kitty kiss', touching her nose to the baby's, “Yes you are...you are so beautiful...”
“And tiny!” Cassie cooed, coming closer as she re-entered the room, Kagayaki and Erin's father in tow. They both looked almost as stressed as Erin had been moments before, Kagayaki's hair standing on end from where he'd obviously been pulling on it as he sat in the waiting room.
“Oooh...kawaii!” Kagayaki was ecstatic, his face about to split from the wide grin. Jacob appeared ready to burst from the inside out with pride and elation, though he merely came to the bedside and give Erin a kiss on the head. Erin lifted her face to Yukito, an indescribable glow radiating her face amidst the sweat and tears like a powerful halo.
“Do you want to hold her?” she breathed. Yukito nodded, cautiously taking the baby in his arms, fear flashing through him at the initial passing over of support on the baby's head. He was so scared he would drop her, or hold her too tight, or if she wriggled and tried to escape, or.... “Hold her against you, Yukito,” Erin suggested, giggling. The baby instantly leaned into him as he embraced his daughter for the first time, becoming a kind of proverbial safety net for her. Erin sent her glow up at him, watching him as he smiled awkwardly down at the little, confused face.
“You do good, Erinchan, yah?” Kagayaki said with obvious awe and admiration in his voice, “You been workin' hard!” Erin's response was a little giggle, then a weary sigh as she turned back to Yukito and the baby.
“Hey, there...” he whispered, feeling all sorts of eyes on him, but only catching the baby's, “You just had to make it that hard on mom, didn't you?” He let out a little laugh, daring to reach up one finger and offer it to the tiny hand, feeling the warmth there and the tiny, tiny bones.
“Yuyukun,” Kagayaki added with a giggle, “You and Erinchan make kawaii, ne? You beat now.”
“I think the baby has additional weaponry in this department,” Jacob said with a grin. Cassie and Mandi pressed for a name.
“Rae Suki Maki,” Yukito told them, bouncing the baby a little as he pressed her against his small frame.
“Rae Suki?” Cassie asked, curious. Erin grinned up at her best friend.
“I'm his Sunshine,” she slurred blissfully, somewhere on cloud nine as she laid against the pillows, “So Yukito said she would be 'a little ray of Sunshine'.”
“I gotta admit, that's a little corny, and super-sweet,” Cassie laughed, “How do you live with yourself, Yukito?”
“I get by,” he mumbled, preoccupied with hushing the baby.
“And I insisted we give all our babies a Japanese name, so we compromised and said we'd do middle names, so we chose Suki, which means like or love or something like that...” She sighed again.
“You said 'babies',” Mandi pointed out, walking up to Yukito with her hands out, silently requesting her granddaughter. Reluctantly, he relented. “That means you still want more?”
Erin didn't respond, though she opened her mouth in the middle of a smile with a skeptical – yet amused – expression. Then, she laughed, “Maybe not for a few hundred years, when I've lost my mind again.”
“Or Yukito lose his again...” Kagayaki said, his eyes flickering to the floor as Yukito shoved at him.
“Shut. Up.” he commanded, but a smirk still played at his lips, and everyone was laughing as Yukito went deep crimson.
~~
Erin opened her eyes slowly, feeling so much more rested and so much cleaner and so much newer. It was like she had been polished and refreshed, but her body still told her it was still far too early to be moving yet. The darkness outside indicated that evening had come again, the first day she'd had a baby. That they'd had a baby. She blinked a few times, still feeling groggy and messed up from the anesthesia, and then smiled as she saw Yukito at the window, Rae curled up in his arms asleep. He was silhouetted against the city lights, his gaze locked on the baby nestled safety against her father's chest. She sighed happily, drawing his attention, and his questions.
“I'm feeling much better,” she told him, leaning up a little and groaning, “But not back to 'good' yet. How is she?”
“She's waking up, now that she hears you.” He moved over and sat down on the bed at her side, drawing new smiles with the waking child. “I bet she's hungry, I can imagine if she has anything like your appetite, she'll be stark-raving mad here in a minute...”
“Not fair, Yukito...” she pouted prettily, “Besides, it's not my fault the stupid drugs have kept me woozy all day.”
“You were singing their praises this morning,” he told her with a smirk.
“This morning was this morning. This is now, so hand me our baby. I missed her.” She held out her hands, and he passed the baby over to her like she was a touch-sensitive bomb.
“Are you...?” he trailed off, and she sent him a curious eyebrow, stirring him on, “Do you know what to do? You know, feeding her and all?”
“I'll figure it out. It's not brain surgery, after all...” she told him, touching Rae's chubby cheeks with one gentle finger. “Look at her, Yukito...she's so beautiful...”
“I know...Mother's had a hard time prying me away from her for a minute.” He wasn't sure when he'd started calling her mother instead of Mandi, but it seemed too natural now, as he caressed his child's head, the hair sticking up a little at the movement and making them chuckle.
“In speaking of mothers...” Erin kissed the little crown, her eyes lifting to Yukito's. His face fell, and he let out a weary sigh.
“I called her, at least. She's gone back to Chiba for a month, says she's meeting up with old friends and crap...” He moved a little closer to his family and added, “She says congratulations, and that she misses us.”
“Yukito...” there was an unspoken, oft-repeated apology on her lips and in her eyes, but he just shook his head.
“It's past now, Erin.” Yukito kissed her warmly, “Like you say, 'This morning was this morning, this is now'.”
“Don't use my words against me,” she told him, her rebuke a mockery as she continued to smile at him with sadness.
“I'm not. Now, show me how all this works, before we start feeding the kid yak's milk or something like that.”
Erin's nose wrinkled in disgust, laughter in her eyes, “Yak's milk? Really?” Yukito shrugged, apparently clueless. “I should have let you finish that 'Expect When You're Expecting' book...” She shifted about on the bed, and Yukito hovered around her for a few minutes, getting her blankets and adjusting her pillows and the bed as she needed. “Now,” she muttered, once her and the baby were working together, “We're settled, then. Maybe you can be a little easy on me for a little while? I'm pretty new at this...” She smiled down at the baby, the crook of her arm supporting the short little neck expertly, while Yukito knelt at the bedside, his chin resting on his crossed arms up on the edge of her bed, the scent of the hospital blankets stinging at the back of his memories.
“You look like you actually know what you're doing...” he remarked, and she sent him a look. “Well, you do...” A few more moments passed, and he added, “I didn't really want to know, by the way...that she was a girl.”
“I'm still mad that you kept that a secret from me,” she pouted, though she found it hard not to forgive and forget about it, her hands playing with that little tuft of dark hair on their baby's head. “I wanted to know so badly..” A contented sigh, “So...how did you find out if you didn't 'really' want to know?”
She glanced up in time to see his vague shrug, and added a warning, “Yukito...”
“I was kind of afraid she'd be a boy,” he admitted quietly, reaching up to admire the little bulge that was Rae's foot pushing at the blankets while she ate.
“Afraid?” Erin asked in surprise, laughing a little at the idea, “Stop being ridiculous. We can have a beautiful baby boy, too. I would be happy either way,” Though she was secretly giddy over having a little girl, especially.
“Me too,” he tried to amend, “And it is ridiculous, and it is stupid, but I'm still kind of afraid of creating another Yukito Maki.”
“I happen to like the Yukito Maki I've got,” she told him honestly, her eyes sparkling. Though that was partially with tears. He leaned up and kissed her, and the baby gave a little cry of protest.
“I guess she means to say she's done now, thank you very much,” Erin shifted the baby to him so that she could straighten up and lay the burping cloth against her shoulder, not hesitating a moment before demanding her back.
“Do we burp her right afterwards?” he wondered aloud as he passed her back.
Erin shrugged, “I don't see why not...she's crying already, so that may be it. It won't hurt her any.”
“So how long do we wait before testing the music-thing?” he asked, suddenly with an air of elation in his voice. Erin erupted in laughter yet again. Since the baby book episode, Yukito and Erin had raised a personal bet about teaching the baby musical tastes while still in the womb. They'd taken turns picking out their favorite bands and setting the pair of enormous headphones Erin had given Yukito as a present one birthday back when they were first dating, playing out their top picks for the hard-working fetus trying to turn into a human being. They'd held a little for-fun bet on which bands the baby would warm up to after birth, the prize for the most correct undetermined, but temptingly mysterious and left up to the winner's choice.
“I think the baby needs to leave the hospital first, at least. We're both very tired. You probably haven't gotten any sleep, either.”
“Probably,” he muttered vaguely, switching back to the music topic, “I still can't believe you think she'll like the Beatles.”
“I still can't believe you have this unreasonable grudge against the Beatles in the first place! You hater.” She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned to her daughter again, “I wonder what instrument she'll like... or if she'll like to cook.”
“Probably,” he said again, smirking. Erin looked over at him, seeing the poorly-hidden sleepiness in his face.
“Go get some sleep, Yukito. I'm gonna need you as not-a-zombie when we get out of this prison.”
“I can't sleep. I already tried.”
She finished burping the baby, and started to put her back to sleep. She was eager to see that little sleeping face again. “Why not?” When Yukito didn't answer her, she looked up into his face to see a silent plea there.
“I can't sleep,” he repeated. She smiled, then held out the baby to him.
“Take her for a second, daddy,” she told him simply, then fussing with her blankets and scooting over to one side of the thin, uncomfortable, strange-smelling bed. Once situated, she took the baby back and patted with her free hand the space she had made next to herself on the bed. With a grateful smirk, he crawled in beside her, wrapping his arms around her and sighing wearily at feeling her head against his chest again. It was like letting himself breathe again, feeling her warmth, and knowing she'd be there when he woke up.
“I'll just sleep a little while,” he told her, “I don't want to cramp you or something.” She didn't answer, her eyes trained on their child, their creation, feeling Yukito's breathing against her ear. Erin was determined to let him sleep awhile, now totally awake to love and watch over her child until he woke up rested enough to take over for a little while. In the meantime, she was perfectly content. Perfectly.
~<3~
~~~
“Yukito!” came the shriek from the bedroom. Tripping his way into the front door, he let out a sigh. There were a bunch of bags at the doorway, big, bulky bags with mismatched designs ranging from skulls to plaid, to teddy bears to rocking horses. Bags full of clothes, food and CDs, as well as a portable DVD player they'd gotten as a gift for Christmas last year that Erin had taken to like a fish to water in the past few months. He followed the sounds of frustration to the bedroom and found Erin, surrounded by what he definitely observed to be a small-child hazard zone composed of a huge percentage of Erin's personal belongings. It was everywhere – the floor, the bed, the nightstand – and Yukito could only stare at it.
“What are you doing, Erin?” he mumbled, surprised at Erin's lack of usual tidiness.
“Where have you been?” she exclaimed, exasperated with him already as she angrily tried to fold up a pair of leggings. Then after a moment, she growled and wadded up the black garment, tossing it to its neighbors on the floor, disgusted. “Why don't you ever call, huh? Don't you know how to make a freakin' call? Even to your lame, stupid, fat wife?”
“My... phone died...” was his pathetic reply, making her snarl unhappily. He tiptoed his way around the mess, “Erin...why are you packing all your stuff up? You can't possibly take all of this with you. The hospital rooms are too small...” He peered into one of her half-finished bags, and smirked, “You pack like you are taking provisions with you for a journey on horseback...Do you have food in here?” He reached into the bag and immediately halted, seeing the turbulent look on her face. It was time to fly into reaction mode right about now, but as always, he was at a loss. Should he give her space? Hold her? The tears started to flow, and she bit down on her lip to try and keep it from trembling.
“But Yukito...hospital food is terrible...I've tasted better things out of a garbage disposal...” she whined, not meeting his eyes. Her fingers trailed across the strap of one of the bags, feeling its soft ribbon and trying to pull some sort of comfort out of it. Didn't he get it? She needed to be doing something. She needed to know she had everything she would need when she was in the hospital. She needed to know something was in her control right now, when nothing was.
“It's about the same consistency, too...” He shuddered visibly at that, making her giggle.
“Don't make me laugh,” came her tear-and-giggle ridden command. But she couldn't help smiling when he came up and wrapped his arms around her. “I'm trying to get something done here...I need..” she lifted her head and looked around the room, an object's name just out of the reach of her conscious and bugging her. She was missing something, she knew it. “Crap, where is it?”
“You don't need all of this stuff. Or any of the hundred things out in the hallway. Can't we just pack for this as lightly as possible?”
“No!” she shouted, “You, of all people, shouldn't be telling me about having too many clothes.”
He winced at the jab, but merely let out a slow breath, praying for patience. “You do realize that by the time you get out, most of these clothes won't fit you anymore, right?”
She hesitated a moment, considering. Then, she scowled at his logic, “I hate you.”
“I know...” he smirked, kissing her forehead.
“Grr..now I have to go through it all again, you realize that, right? Ugh...” She rubbed her temples hard, willing away the stress and strain. Everything hurt, everything felt wrong. Why was he so perky? Wasn't it always the other way around? Did that mean he'd been hormonal, or was claiming she was constantly hormonal just Yukito's excuse to get out of trouble? On the other hand, though, being able to fit back into her old clothes sounded absolutely fabulous. Even if she'd been pretty thrifty about it, and managed to find a lot of cute outfits, it was still depressing to even think about the specialized clothing and the excess considerations here.
“Erin...” it was his turn to sound exasperated, “You're gonna be fine. You're not moving in, you're going to have a baby. A baby that will want about three times as much stuff as you everywhere it goes..”
“It,” she grumbled, her hatred of the word evident. “I still can't believe you wouldn't let them tell me if it's a boy or a girl. How am I supposed to tell Cassie what color to paint in the baby's room? And everyone is gonna keep giving us those ugly yellow and green jumpsuits.” Secretly, she liked the idea of the surprise, but it had made everything much more difficult, and much more mysterious, about this baby of theirs. Yukito's hand came to rest on her stomach, the taut roundness beneath his fingertips shifting slightly under his touch, and he distracted her even further from her thoughts by nuzzling her cheek with his nose.
“Our baby will look good even in ugly yellow and green jumpsuits,” he promised, “And we already decided on the bedroom walls looking like musical notes. So it's all sorts of colors.” He made a face. For him, the enormous plate-sized eighth notes that would be adorning the walls in cheerful yellow, red, blue and green had been a little too bright. But it was for the kid.
“Mmm..” she sounded, finding it hard to disagree with him on their unborn child's ability to pull off terrible fashion injustices. Then, she pushed out of his arms and sent him a suspicious look, “What's up with you, anyways? You're in an awfully good mood...”
“Erin...” he rolled his eyes, finding it hard not to smile, “You're ridiculous.”
“What?” she pressed, his words grating her now into a quickly rising temper. She picked up an old jacket off the bed and smacked him on the arm with it, “Tell me-e-e!”
Chuckling through the assault, Yukito took hold of her hand, “I was just thinking today. About after the baby's born.”
“Mmmm...” she breathed again, smiling and warming up to the idea, “Yeah, that's always fun to think about.”
He pulled her closer to him, until the only thing between them was an unfinished child, who was in no position to protest, “It's gonna be pretty scary...Goodness knows I have no idea what to do.”
Erin rolled her eyes, “Oh, come on. Didn't we already go through this? You'll be fine.” About a week into her second trimester, Erin had discovered Yukito smuggling baby books into the house and reading them when she wasn't home. There had been a lot of teasing as she'd brandished 'What To Expect When You're Expecting' and started probing him. His only growled response was that he'd found the pictures to be less than satisfactory.
“I know, I know...” he said flippantly, though he still wasn't so sure fine would ever make an appearance in their lives permanently, “But there are going to be night feedings, endless embarrassments stemmed mostly from your husband's attempts at changing a diaper, endless spit-ups, screams...” He touched foreheads with her, “And then I saw this picture in my head, you know? Of you playing in our living room with some little toddler that we pulled out of nowhere.”
“Well, not nowhere..” she giggled, rolling her eyes. Yukito smiled up at her.
“It was a good picture, either way,” he was trying to console her, but he wasn't sure it was working yet. It was getting harder to tell the further along she got. He ended the statement with a kiss, which quickly crescendoed to familiar heights. Backing them up to the bed and gently pulling her down amongst the tangle of clothes. But immediately, he jolted, feeling a stab of pain in his back from something hidden beneath the deceptively soft surface. Letting out a little growl, Yukito stopped them, reaching behind his back to pry out a hard plastic object. It turned out to a rubiks cube. “Huh? You freakin' hate these things...”
“I was afraid I'd get bored..” was Erin's helpless response, curled up against him. He rolled his eyes, and the smile she'd been subduing flashed across her face, cuddling up against him again. It was a lot harder, now, with Baby in the middle, kicking every once in awhile. When that happened, Yukito tended to laugh, a deep-throated chuckle she adored. But it made her laugh, which only caused the baby to kick more, and...anyways. It was very distracting. It would be nice to not have the baby strapped to her middle every waking hour.
“Yukito..” she murmured not long afterward, pushing his possessive hand off her belly, “I'm hungry, why don't we--” She cut off her own words, biting hard down on her lip. Yukito instantly sprang upright, disheveled hair from the bed and his eyes trained hard on her face.
“What? Is it the baby?”
“Crap-crap-crap-crap..” she chanted in a deep growl of a voice, clutching her stomach, “It's another friggin' contraction...” They'd been disturbing her all day, interrupting her once or twice and hour. The baby was determined to make her insides pay for every extra minute of containment until the birth.
“How long?” The question had gotten old over the past few days. Erin sighed, rolling away from him and painfully pushing herself off the bed.
“Too long, okay?” she snapped, brushing her hair back with her fingertips. She was too hot, and figured it was about time to put her hair up in a ponytail so she could make dinner...
“You sure you don't want to consider inducing? I don't want you to have to keep going through this all the time...” She knew he meant it sincerely, but she sent him a glare anyways.
“I still have a friggin' week left, okay? Some women go overdue for week and still have a happy, healthy baby. I can stand it for a little while longer...” She cursed her aching ankles as she moved to leave the room, abandoning him. “Our baby is coming in his or her own time, and I don't--” He caught her hand, sending her a pleading look. What do you have to complain about? You're not carrying this baby around all the time. Sheesh... Erin yanked her hand out of his, storming out of the room. “I've got to go make dinner.”
“Don't you think we should--”
“No!” came the curt reply. Yukito could only let out a slow breath, still sitting on the end of the bed. It felt like a constant peace treaty was being negotiated with her these days. He was trying hard to keep up the constancy for the both of them, but it was increasingly difficult when she'd snap at him. He knew he couldn't convince her to stay out of the kitchen – something about a nesting instinct – but he could at least clean up her mess in the bedroom. While she hovered over pots and sizzling vegetables and became increasingly irritated at him for reasons she couldn't put her finger on, he carefully straightened up the bed and put the vast majority of her clothes away in their respective places. When he was done there, he pulled in the huge amount of diaper bags and pulled out their contents, laying them out neatly on the bed. He stood back to shake his head in dismay at the way she'd managed to shove anything half a dozen kids could want, as well as a few things he hadn't expected. Without him noticing, Erin slipped back in the room in time to see his dismayed gestured, and her brow furrowed. “What now?”
Turning around slowly to put on as innocent and cautious an expression he could muster, he sent her a little arched eyebrow. “I love you.”
“I know, I know, I'm the hormonal, ridiculous, pregnant wife who--”
“Erin,” he sighed, unable to find the right words to make her feel any better about this. Instead, he turned back to the bed, letting his guard down long enough for her to give his head a little thwack from behind. “Hey!” he turned and growled at her.
“Stop!” she demanded, placing her hands on her hips.
“What!?”” he dropped his previously non-defensive attempts and frowned at her, “You just hit me again for no f--”
“Stop trying to be the nice one and turn me into the witchy one! I'm not!” The tears streamed down her face without her being able to stop them, and she wiped them away furiously, making her cheeks even redder, “I'm not...”
“Well, you're certainly accomplishing that by smacking me,” he muttered, already knowing she'd cut through him and have him apologizing in a few moments anyways. He slipped past her with his arms full of towels she'd grabbed, leaving her crying in the middle of the room, feeling bitter and guilty in the same moment. When he came back and she was sitting on the end of the bed, crying as she tried to shove the 'supplies' back into the diaper bags, he let out a sigh of defeat.
“Erin... Hey, look at me..” He tilted her chin up so she'd be looking at him, but only made his face fall when she determinedly turned the other way, sniffling. “Listen, why don't we try and do this together, eh? That's why it took two to start this whole thing, isn't it? So you have me here for you, and I have you here for me. We're supposed to keep each other stable, or, or something. Logic and skill...” he pointed to himself, than to her, as he repeated himself, “Logic, and skill. We can do this, but you gotta calm down a little and let me have an opinion here without trying to find a reason to yell at me.”
Still, the tears were on her cheeks, but she seemed calmer, and she wasn't creating any fresh tears for the moment. “I'm sorry...I'm being so pathetic here, and I can't do anything right, and I'm sore all over and...Yukito...” She held out her arms to him, “Yukito, hold me..”
“Now there's something I can do...” he said with a smirk, slipping up onto the bed with her.
~~~
The middle of the night kept Erin up since the early hours. She hissed, tossing and turning and struggling to find any comfortable position on the bed – and found none. Yukito continued to sleep on, oblivious to her fussing and blissfully unaware. They had spent most of the evening going through the diaper bags with each other, debating on what was necessary and what was not. They were now down to two, though Erin also had one stashed below her bed with the much-used portable DVD player and her cell phone. She claimed it was just a large purse, and didn't count as another baby bag. He relented, after a lot of necessary 'bribery'.
With another jolt of pain, she knew something was wrong. Another contraction...she gripped the sheets tightly, pinching her lips together and waiting for it to pass. She forgot to glance at the clock to be sure, but she was pretty positive it was very close to the last one. Erin reached over and shook Yukito, who mumbled a little and turned toward her.
“Yukito..” she moaned, “It's the baby...” He shot up, nearly hitting her in the face with his head as he came to sit up in the bed, asking a million questions she didn't have an answer to. Growing irritable at him, she grouched, “You're not helping me any. I'm tired already and I can't sleep and I keep having contractions.” The next hour was spent constantly checking the clock in between watching Yukito rush around getting her whatever he could. Several little spats rose up in the heat of the moment, but they were quickly forgotten at the expression on Yukito face as he held her hand as she whined through another contraction. It took her a moment to notice it, and then to see he was looking at the clock. “What is it? Yukito?”
“Just a second...” He waited for her breathing to even out, indicated that she was relaxing, “Erin... You're four minutes apart right now...”
“What?!”
He nodded toward the clock, “The last three were about four minutes apart.. I think we need to go to the hospital.” Erin looked up toward his face and saw from the bathroom's light that he was grinning at her, her jaw dropped open in a surprised smile, and he bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” She waved her hands, “Go grab the bags and let's go! I wanna get this baby outta here!” She sat up in the bed, her body groaning in protest as she tried to prop herself up. “We should call parents... and Cassie...I need to call Cassie..”
“Sure thing,” he muttered, his own excitement glimmering through his voice as he raced out to the hall to grab their things, glad they'd finished them tonight at last. When he came back in, she was fumbling for her phone, grumbling as the baby gave a cruel kick. He leaned over her and slipped the phone out from her fingers, kissing her forehead. “You can call her once we're out the door, okay? We need to get you loaded up.”
“I'm already loaded!” she cackled, patting her stomach and taking his offered hand. They managed their way out the door to the waiting Volvo, the pavement with a vague glow in the cool morning hours. Yukito got behind the wheel, glancing over to check for her seatbelt and then offering her a beaming smile. It was finally happening. Sure, it wasn't set-in-stone yet, and they had to keep that in mind, but...they both secretly believed tonight was the night. It just had to be...
Erin squealed, the precious four minutes the last time she would sound this energetic and happy for the next several hours. She took her cell phone to start the calls as Yukito drove. First came her parents, but she only got an answering machine. Erin frowned, then took jammed some more buttons and called up Cassie, ignoring the worn-out sounds on the other end of the line, “Cassie? Cassie, it's Erin. It's time!”
“Huh? Time for what...? I know I should be used to this middle-of-the-night calls by now, but you gotta understand I'm--”
“It's time for the baby!” she shouted into the phone, cutting Cassie off abruptly and grinning all the while. She glanced up through the windshield and frowned, sending Yukito a look of dismay, “Your friggin' firstborn is on the way, can we go just a little above granny-speed, please?!” Yukito just smiled at her as Cassie laughed in her ear. Erin let out an exasperated, “Sheesh...”
“I've got my beautiful wife in the car next to me with our child about to find its way out, I'm going to be as slow as I nee-”
“Oh, crap!” Erin shouted suddenly, making him jump and the wheel wobble a little under his fingertips. Cassie started exclaiming into the phone, “Are you alright?! What happened?!”
“Another one...” Erin complained, clutching her stomach, “Gaaah...go faster, Yukito! I don't want to have a kid on the side of the road!”
“You won't, Erin..” he tried to assure her in calm tones, but was ignored.
“I'm heading out the door right now,” car keys jingled on Cassie's end, “I'll call everyone else and let them know.”
“Okay!” Erin hissed, “I need to keep trying my parents, they didn't answer, and I ---” She moaned loudly and felt a rush of embarrassment as the seat got soaked. Swearing loudly, she ignored Cassie's requests to let her go and turned to her husband, “Yukito, hurry,” she cried, not getting the proper response of concern, she added more loudly, “MY WATER JUST BROKE ALL OVER YOUR VOLVO.”
He flicked the wheel to the right and they pulled into the hospital parking lot. It was a long, drawn out twenty seconds to the maternity section of the hospital, and both of them were getting dangerously close to imploding from it all. Yukito grabbed the clipboard and turned around to find Erin already being wheelchair-ed off down the hall, and he found himself starting to panic, beginning to rush after her. “Erin?”
“Call my parents, Yukito!” she called over her shoulder, sounding desperate through her pain.
“Erin..!?”
“Don't worry, they're gonna get her all prepped and ready for the show,” the nurse reassured him, touching his arm firmly, “You just need to take a few minutes to make sure we have everything in order.” She smiled at him, “First one?”
Yukito nodded, and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Oh my God.”
“God's got her in His hands now, and He's given her all the tools she needs. You need anything?”
“How about whatever the hell they offered to give her for labor?” his comment made the nurse laugh, patting his shoulder with her soft, brown hand. He sunk to a nearby chair, taking to the medical records with the speed of a timed test. It was so different this time, from the first time he'd ever taken her to a hospital. He knew the numbers like he knew the little features on Erin's face, and drilled himself on any new information until he could recite it in his sleep. Once he'd gotten through, he handed the clipboard to the nurse and stepped outside, pulled out his cell phone and dialed the Spenser household, still not getting an answer. Swearing, he dialed again, and still nothing. With a frustrated frown, he waited for the answering machine, “Hey guys, it's Yukito. We've been trying to get a hold of you. We just arrived at the hospital – “ he smiled, “Erin's water just broke. Call me back as soon as you can, okay? Love you, bye..” With a casual chuckle he ended the call, then raced back inside to follow Erin.
~~~
“YUKITO-O-O!!” Erin wailed, her eyes not seeing him in the blurry corners of the room, where he remained huddled over, waving off a doctor.
“Hold on just a minute, Erin...I'm trying to stop the bleeding..” Her eyes rolled in the back of her head as Yukito came back into view, still clutching a bloody rag to his nose. “I'm never going to make you angry again... You would have broke it if you had actually been trying to hit me.”
“How about you never make me pregnant again!?” She gasped, reaching out to snatch the now-bloodied ends of his shirt. Yukito lowered his makeshift bandage, still smiling at her. “Why are you so freaking happy!?” came her growl. She shook him a few times, hoping to rid him of that cocky look.
Yukito arched an eyebrow, still grinning, “ I didn't know it would take having a kid, of all things, to make you hit me so much. This is kind of hot, you know.”
Hissing, she shook him again, her voice crackling under the constant strain of the last few hours. “You try squeezing this out of your friggin' vagina and still be so friggin' hilarious!”
“I'm not going to argue you the scary implications of that one,” he muttered, ignoring the amused glances of the doctors and nurses that flew around them. Cassie, on Erin's other side and faithfully holding her hand, seemed to be finally past flustered and onto the patience best friend attitude.
“Erin, you're doing great, really. You just gotta keep it up for a little while longer..” she smiled, “You're doing a lot better than I'd be doing right now, I can tell you that.”
Erin screamed in response, still clinging to his shirt, “I should not be feelin' it this much. I want more drugs. Now. Aaaah!” She hissed out as the pushing continued, and the doctor's face came into view.
“Erin, we're almost there, you just have to give me another big push, and this baby is gonna be out.”
Tears streamed down her face, “But I... I can't...” Instantly, her mother took the hand that Cassie held, and grasped it in her own.
“Erin... querida, you're almost there, you can do this.” Her voice was calm in the midst of the chaos, putting a curtain of stillness around the small group around Erin, “All you have to do is give us a few more deep pushes, and you'll be holding you beautiful new baby.”
“But it's been years...it feels like...years...I want...Yukito..” her voice feeble and hoarse from the screaming, she grasped desperately with her left hand for more of him than the bit of shirt she had been clinging to. “Please, help me.”
He leaned down close to her face, and smiled a little sadly at her. Yukito wasn't sure what to say that would ease her pain at all, anything that would work better than the fretting and protectiveness from the first hour, or the avoiding and fear of the third hour, the unexplainable weariness from the fifth hour that expanded on both of them like a mutual cloud, or even the lame jokes from the sixth hour. He decided to find the words on her very lips, pressing his to hers in a brief reminder of what started this whole runaway train of events. “You can do this, Sunshine. You've been through worse.”
“Like hell,” she snapped back, sending him a glare from her sweaty pillow.
Yukito took hold of her hand, praying for some kind of guidance to give her what she needed, but he was so frustrated with himself, and with the baby, too, for taking so long. Yesterday he'd been hoping to induce and ease her pain, only to find out this morning that yesterday had only been mild discomfort compared to this. “I love you.”
“Yeah, I'm sure you love your friggin' Sunshine now, when she looks like she's been dragged behind a friggen horse for days.”
“I love my friggin' Sunshine because she's my friggin' Sunshine, and she murders obstacles in her way,” he snapped back, “So shut up and get your daughter out of your friggin' va-...self.”
Erin looked up at him, blinking for a few dulled moments through the anesthesia and the dizzying pain. “My--”
Yukito's eyes flickered away, then back to her face, “I peeked.”
She reached up to try and smack at him, only to start screeching in pain again. As she strained, she turned to him, both hands gripping the sides of the bed hard as she hissed, “Oooh..you are so gonna pay...gah!”
“I know...” he mumbled, “I'm sorry...I had to...I had to make sure..”
“Yukito,” Mandi ordered in her commanding tone, “Come over her and hold her hand. The baby's coming. Now.”
He stepped forward and touched the back of her slippery hand, and jumped as she clasped his firmly and suddenly, straining a few more times before a jubilant cry went up into the air. Both Yukito and Erin stopped – their hearts had skipped a beat. Erin was sure she'd just died, as the insurmountable pressure released like a river dam. Yukito's ears rang with the first adamant scream of the baby, and he gripped Erin's hand almost as tight as she was gripping his.
“It's a beautiful baby girl!” came the announcement, and everyone started talking at once, and Erin let out a long sigh of relief as Yukito beamed down at her. He bent down and pressed his mouth to hers, and she responded, reaching up to trail her fingers though his hair. Once he started to pull away, she smiled at him, then tugged hard on the handful of his locks. He hissed, and she smirked at him. “You are so gonna pay for that...”
Wincing and feeling for his latest injury, Yukito nodded, “Yeah, I know...”
“Heeere she is...” the nurse held out the bundle of blankets and crying infant, the others in the room taking a little step back as Erin reached up to take her daughter. A camera flashed, and both parents ignored it. The expression on Erin's face held no words – she was melting against the tiny being in her arms, with its already-thick head of dark hair, large brown eyes and the wide, expressive mouth. Yukito stood over them both with a solemn air, his smile wide and eyes proud.
“Oh my goodness, Yukito!” she whispered, her fingertips reaching up over their hold to draw back the blanket a little more, and see the tiny, fragile fingers. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head, his hand running gently through her hair as he told her, “She's so beautiful...”
“Course she is...” Erin said matter-of-factly, shifting the baby and easing its cries to a quieter protest of whimpers, “She's our baby...” To the infant, she wrinkled her nose and leaned in to give her a 'kitty kiss', touching her nose to the baby's, “Yes you are...you are so beautiful...”
“And tiny!” Cassie cooed, coming closer as she re-entered the room, Kagayaki and Erin's father in tow. They both looked almost as stressed as Erin had been moments before, Kagayaki's hair standing on end from where he'd obviously been pulling on it as he sat in the waiting room.
“Oooh...kawaii!” Kagayaki was ecstatic, his face about to split from the wide grin. Jacob appeared ready to burst from the inside out with pride and elation, though he merely came to the bedside and give Erin a kiss on the head. Erin lifted her face to Yukito, an indescribable glow radiating her face amidst the sweat and tears like a powerful halo.
“Do you want to hold her?” she breathed. Yukito nodded, cautiously taking the baby in his arms, fear flashing through him at the initial passing over of support on the baby's head. He was so scared he would drop her, or hold her too tight, or if she wriggled and tried to escape, or.... “Hold her against you, Yukito,” Erin suggested, giggling. The baby instantly leaned into him as he embraced his daughter for the first time, becoming a kind of proverbial safety net for her. Erin sent her glow up at him, watching him as he smiled awkwardly down at the little, confused face.
“You do good, Erinchan, yah?” Kagayaki said with obvious awe and admiration in his voice, “You been workin' hard!” Erin's response was a little giggle, then a weary sigh as she turned back to Yukito and the baby.
“Hey, there...” he whispered, feeling all sorts of eyes on him, but only catching the baby's, “You just had to make it that hard on mom, didn't you?” He let out a little laugh, daring to reach up one finger and offer it to the tiny hand, feeling the warmth there and the tiny, tiny bones.
“Yuyukun,” Kagayaki added with a giggle, “You and Erinchan make kawaii, ne? You beat now.”
“I think the baby has additional weaponry in this department,” Jacob said with a grin. Cassie and Mandi pressed for a name.
“Rae Suki Maki,” Yukito told them, bouncing the baby a little as he pressed her against his small frame.
“Rae Suki?” Cassie asked, curious. Erin grinned up at her best friend.
“I'm his Sunshine,” she slurred blissfully, somewhere on cloud nine as she laid against the pillows, “So Yukito said she would be 'a little ray of Sunshine'.”
“I gotta admit, that's a little corny, and super-sweet,” Cassie laughed, “How do you live with yourself, Yukito?”
“I get by,” he mumbled, preoccupied with hushing the baby.
“And I insisted we give all our babies a Japanese name, so we compromised and said we'd do middle names, so we chose Suki, which means like or love or something like that...” She sighed again.
“You said 'babies',” Mandi pointed out, walking up to Yukito with her hands out, silently requesting her granddaughter. Reluctantly, he relented. “That means you still want more?”
Erin didn't respond, though she opened her mouth in the middle of a smile with a skeptical – yet amused – expression. Then, she laughed, “Maybe not for a few hundred years, when I've lost my mind again.”
“Or Yukito lose his again...” Kagayaki said, his eyes flickering to the floor as Yukito shoved at him.
“Shut. Up.” he commanded, but a smirk still played at his lips, and everyone was laughing as Yukito went deep crimson.
~~
Erin opened her eyes slowly, feeling so much more rested and so much cleaner and so much newer. It was like she had been polished and refreshed, but her body still told her it was still far too early to be moving yet. The darkness outside indicated that evening had come again, the first day she'd had a baby. That they'd had a baby. She blinked a few times, still feeling groggy and messed up from the anesthesia, and then smiled as she saw Yukito at the window, Rae curled up in his arms asleep. He was silhouetted against the city lights, his gaze locked on the baby nestled safety against her father's chest. She sighed happily, drawing his attention, and his questions.
“I'm feeling much better,” she told him, leaning up a little and groaning, “But not back to 'good' yet. How is she?”
“She's waking up, now that she hears you.” He moved over and sat down on the bed at her side, drawing new smiles with the waking child. “I bet she's hungry, I can imagine if she has anything like your appetite, she'll be stark-raving mad here in a minute...”
“Not fair, Yukito...” she pouted prettily, “Besides, it's not my fault the stupid drugs have kept me woozy all day.”
“You were singing their praises this morning,” he told her with a smirk.
“This morning was this morning. This is now, so hand me our baby. I missed her.” She held out her hands, and he passed the baby over to her like she was a touch-sensitive bomb.
“Are you...?” he trailed off, and she sent him a curious eyebrow, stirring him on, “Do you know what to do? You know, feeding her and all?”
“I'll figure it out. It's not brain surgery, after all...” she told him, touching Rae's chubby cheeks with one gentle finger. “Look at her, Yukito...she's so beautiful...”
“I know...Mother's had a hard time prying me away from her for a minute.” He wasn't sure when he'd started calling her mother instead of Mandi, but it seemed too natural now, as he caressed his child's head, the hair sticking up a little at the movement and making them chuckle.
“In speaking of mothers...” Erin kissed the little crown, her eyes lifting to Yukito's. His face fell, and he let out a weary sigh.
“I called her, at least. She's gone back to Chiba for a month, says she's meeting up with old friends and crap...” He moved a little closer to his family and added, “She says congratulations, and that she misses us.”
“Yukito...” there was an unspoken, oft-repeated apology on her lips and in her eyes, but he just shook his head.
“It's past now, Erin.” Yukito kissed her warmly, “Like you say, 'This morning was this morning, this is now'.”
“Don't use my words against me,” she told him, her rebuke a mockery as she continued to smile at him with sadness.
“I'm not. Now, show me how all this works, before we start feeding the kid yak's milk or something like that.”
Erin's nose wrinkled in disgust, laughter in her eyes, “Yak's milk? Really?” Yukito shrugged, apparently clueless. “I should have let you finish that 'Expect When You're Expecting' book...” She shifted about on the bed, and Yukito hovered around her for a few minutes, getting her blankets and adjusting her pillows and the bed as she needed. “Now,” she muttered, once her and the baby were working together, “We're settled, then. Maybe you can be a little easy on me for a little while? I'm pretty new at this...” She smiled down at the baby, the crook of her arm supporting the short little neck expertly, while Yukito knelt at the bedside, his chin resting on his crossed arms up on the edge of her bed, the scent of the hospital blankets stinging at the back of his memories.
“You look like you actually know what you're doing...” he remarked, and she sent him a look. “Well, you do...” A few more moments passed, and he added, “I didn't really want to know, by the way...that she was a girl.”
“I'm still mad that you kept that a secret from me,” she pouted, though she found it hard not to forgive and forget about it, her hands playing with that little tuft of dark hair on their baby's head. “I wanted to know so badly..” A contented sigh, “So...how did you find out if you didn't 'really' want to know?”
She glanced up in time to see his vague shrug, and added a warning, “Yukito...”
“I was kind of afraid she'd be a boy,” he admitted quietly, reaching up to admire the little bulge that was Rae's foot pushing at the blankets while she ate.
“Afraid?” Erin asked in surprise, laughing a little at the idea, “Stop being ridiculous. We can have a beautiful baby boy, too. I would be happy either way,” Though she was secretly giddy over having a little girl, especially.
“Me too,” he tried to amend, “And it is ridiculous, and it is stupid, but I'm still kind of afraid of creating another Yukito Maki.”
“I happen to like the Yukito Maki I've got,” she told him honestly, her eyes sparkling. Though that was partially with tears. He leaned up and kissed her, and the baby gave a little cry of protest.
“I guess she means to say she's done now, thank you very much,” Erin shifted the baby to him so that she could straighten up and lay the burping cloth against her shoulder, not hesitating a moment before demanding her back.
“Do we burp her right afterwards?” he wondered aloud as he passed her back.
Erin shrugged, “I don't see why not...she's crying already, so that may be it. It won't hurt her any.”
“So how long do we wait before testing the music-thing?” he asked, suddenly with an air of elation in his voice. Erin erupted in laughter yet again. Since the baby book episode, Yukito and Erin had raised a personal bet about teaching the baby musical tastes while still in the womb. They'd taken turns picking out their favorite bands and setting the pair of enormous headphones Erin had given Yukito as a present one birthday back when they were first dating, playing out their top picks for the hard-working fetus trying to turn into a human being. They'd held a little for-fun bet on which bands the baby would warm up to after birth, the prize for the most correct undetermined, but temptingly mysterious and left up to the winner's choice.
“I think the baby needs to leave the hospital first, at least. We're both very tired. You probably haven't gotten any sleep, either.”
“Probably,” he muttered vaguely, switching back to the music topic, “I still can't believe you think she'll like the Beatles.”
“I still can't believe you have this unreasonable grudge against the Beatles in the first place! You hater.” She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned to her daughter again, “I wonder what instrument she'll like... or if she'll like to cook.”
“Probably,” he said again, smirking. Erin looked over at him, seeing the poorly-hidden sleepiness in his face.
“Go get some sleep, Yukito. I'm gonna need you as not-a-zombie when we get out of this prison.”
“I can't sleep. I already tried.”
She finished burping the baby, and started to put her back to sleep. She was eager to see that little sleeping face again. “Why not?” When Yukito didn't answer her, she looked up into his face to see a silent plea there.
“I can't sleep,” he repeated. She smiled, then held out the baby to him.
“Take her for a second, daddy,” she told him simply, then fussing with her blankets and scooting over to one side of the thin, uncomfortable, strange-smelling bed. Once situated, she took the baby back and patted with her free hand the space she had made next to herself on the bed. With a grateful smirk, he crawled in beside her, wrapping his arms around her and sighing wearily at feeling her head against his chest again. It was like letting himself breathe again, feeling her warmth, and knowing she'd be there when he woke up.
“I'll just sleep a little while,” he told her, “I don't want to cramp you or something.” She didn't answer, her eyes trained on their child, their creation, feeling Yukito's breathing against her ear. Erin was determined to let him sleep awhile, now totally awake to love and watch over her child until he woke up rested enough to take over for a little while. In the meantime, she was perfectly content. Perfectly.
~<3~
Yay the cute relationship between Kagayaki/Erin. Let me know if it's too weird. :/ Didn't seem weird to me but I'm weird myself so...
-Mascii(:
