The Huntress -Chapter 16
Warnings: Graphic birth like… woah.
This time, it was different. Dean went into steady labor, one contraction every five minutes, right after his water broke. They seemed painful right from the beginning, even if Dean tried not to show it in front of Ellen.
Sam was gathering their stuff and calling Rania when Sumiko woke up from the couch and started to cry. It was kind of chaotic for a while. Sam had trouble getting Rania on the phone since she was with a patient. Dean was trying to get Sumiko to calm down while Ellen held her. When the third contraction hit, Dean couldn’t help but bend over, cursing, and Sumiko’s cries doubled in intensity. Sam held one of Dean’s arms while speaking to Rania at the same time. He got the essential information, she didn’t want him to panic, but they’d better get to her house as soon as they could. She would leave her clinic right away.
Finally, they were on the road. Dean had to put a folded towel inside his jeans because the water was still dripping steadily and he seemed awfully embarrassed by it. He was also pretty upset about leaving with Sumiko still crying for him. So, yeah, different. Last time, Sam and Dean had been in their own private bubble, both loaded with fear and hope and hanging onto each other like they always had.
Now, they were a family. It was just as exciting, but in another way.
“Oh, Jesus, here comes another one.” Dean muttered, bracing himself.
Sam took a quick look at his watch. Five minutes apart still, and by the way Dean was breathing harshly through his nose and holding on to the dashboard, it must be a strong contraction.
He suddenly wondered if they’d make it to Rania in time. That was ridiculous, he told himself, Dean's water had broken only twenty minutes ago. With Sumiko it had taken several hours, even after the rupture of the amniotic fluid sac.
“We aren't going to make it in time,” Dean said, catching his breath.
“We will. It’s only a forty-five minute ride.”
“No. You don’t get it. The contractions are way stronger than the ones at the beginning with Sue and… and Rania said I was already two centimeters dilated and… I don’t want to give birth in the car, Sam!”
“Don’t worry, we’ll clean it up,” was the only thing Sam could think to say, more out of habit than anything else. He was rewarded by a punch on the shoulder and an outraged glare from Dean.
“I don’t fucking care about getting the upholstery dirty, you dick. I just want Angelia to be born under the supervision of a doctor!”
“Yeah, that’s not what I-“
“I’m sorry, baby,” Dean added, patting the dashboard. “Sam, you gotta drive faster.”
Dean was close to going into full blown panic mode and maybe it was just anxiety, but the look on his face, eyes wide and shining with fear, told Sam it was more than that. Dean knew his body. Hell, he was the one who was pregnant.
Sam pressed the accelerator pedal harder. He was already over the speed limit and he couldn’t push the Impala as much as he wanted to. The worst thing that could happen was being pulled over by a local cop.
“We’ll make it, Dean,” he said, trying to stay calm.
“She wants out of there right now,” Dean replied.
“What? Do you feel her in your mind or-“
“No! I feel it in my body. Oh, crap, the amniotic fluid is still leaking. I mean, how many liters could there be in there?”
“I’ll call Rania back, just to be sure she’s-”
“What? Ready to grab the kid’s head when we get to her place?”
“Dean.”
“Just… all right, call her, okay?”
Rania answered on the first ring over the sound of car horns and the radio. “Sam?”
“So, are you close to home?”
“I’m- Is everything alright?”
“Dean… Dean says it won’t be long. Contractions are five minutes apart and very strong.”
“That happens sometimes when the water breaking starts the labor. I’m… I’m kind of stuck.”
“What?” Sam asked in a flat voice.
“Apparently there's been a car accident and traffic has slowed down to a crawl. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll be home in time. I’m not that far.”
Don’t worry. Don’t worry?! How am I supposed to do that? Sam wanted to yell, but there was no way he was putting even more stress on Dean. So he smiled faintly. “Okay, meet you there.”
“Everything okay?” Dean asked, frowning.
“Yeah. She said the labor can go faster when it’s kick-started by the rupture of the membrane, but she’s not worried.”
“Easy for her to say… Oww, shit.”
Dean grabbed Sam’s thigh and dug his fingers into the muscle, groaning. Had five minutes gone by already? Of course not, Sam realized by looking at his watch. Barely four minutes had passed.
“Come on, Dean, breath through it.”
“Can’t. Hurts,” Dean hissed.
His head was bent down, his chin touching his chest, and he was grimacing with pain, dark red spots on his cheeks.
Sam counted the seconds before Dean began to relax. It lasted for fifty-two counts, fifty-two interminable seconds. That was a long contraction.
“No way,” Dean’s hand was trembling slightly, still gripping Sam’s leg, and he was shaking his head vigorously from left to right. “No way after everything that's happened m’gonna give birth in the freaking car, you understand me?”
“Yeah.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t do this, Sam, you get that? I… not after…”
“Dean. We’ll make it in time. Trust me.”
::: :::
They did make it to Rania’s in time, Dean groaning, then whimpering, then crying harshly through the contractions. Sam was so relieved to see the doctor’s house he could’ve cried.
“Where’s her car?” Dean asked.
He was slumped against the passenger door, breathing quickly, his face covered in sweat.
“I… Damn it, she said she was stuck in traffic, but I thought she-“
“Wha?”
“She was-“
“Take me inside,” Dean cut him off impatiently. “I don’t care if she’s here or not. Fuck, Sam, just take me inside.”
“Yeah. Wait here.”
Sam got out of the car, oblivious to Dean’s protests, and dialed Rania’s cell number again.
“Sam?”
“Where are you?”
“Half an hour away, but things seem to be moving a little faster.”
Rania’s tone had lost his previous professionalism and assurance.
“Well, we’re here and Dean’s contractions are three minutes apart. He's in a lot of pain. I've got to get him inside.”
“Damn it! Okay. Listen to me…”
She told him where her set of spare keys were hidden - not very original for someone familiar with the hunter’s world, under a rock near the veranda - and gave him the code to her security system. Sam opened the door and unarmed the alarm with a sigh of relief.
“Gotta go, call you back,” he snapped when he saw that Dean was trying to get out of the car by himself.
“Dean, wait!”
Dean made it exactly two steps before he stopped and bent in half.
“You stubborn idiot,” Sam muttered, joining him and wrapping an arm around his waist.
“Shit,” Dean panted. “Shit, Sam, she’s coming. I won’t make it inside.”
“’course you will, come on!”
“I can’t,” Dean repeated, holding on to Sam for dear life.
“Is this one over?”
“Jesus, it hurts.”
“Dean! Focus.”
Dean blinked at Sam like he'd just woken up from a dream, then nodded slowly.
They made it to Rania’s medical room in ten minutes, with Dean half carried by Sam for the most of it. He was getting quiet between the contractions, letting Sam drag him along without any protest or smart remarks. The way his face literally lit up with relief when Sam helped him sit on the bed made Sam's heart clench at the sight.
“Wanna lie down now?”
“’Nother one coming. Wait.” Dean murmured, grabbing the edge of the mattress with both hands and moaning through the beginning of the contraction. Sam took the opportunity to take Dean’s shoes off and to raise the bed to a 70 degree angle.
Dean’s moans shifted to more vocal groans. He kept his head down. His grey tee-shirt was damp with sweat and clinging to his skin, molding his taut belly while Dean tried to take short breaths through the pain. When it was over, he collapsed on the bed on his side, his legs still hanging over the side of the mattress.
“Help me,” he rasped.
“Yeah, here we go.”
Sam lifted both of Dean’s legs and turned him on his back. The towel inside his jeans wasn’t absorbing the amniotic fluid and had stained the fabric of his jeans all the way down to the inside of his thigh.
“Sam, she’s close,” Dean said. “Fuck, there's so much pressure down there.”
Sam tried to think rationally about the next step, but it was hard while watching Dean suffer through this, hard to see the fear in his eyes and the helplessness written all over his face. He wasn’t yelling about being so God damn unlucky as to have his doctor stuck in traffic, wasn’t snapping at Sam to freaking do something. He was just lying there, his face a pasty white, his hands gripping the white sheets.
Sam took out his cell and called Rania back. It didn’t even ring this time before she answered.
“How are things going?” She asked at the same time as Sam said, “How far are you?”
“Still moving slowly. Christ, I’m so sorry Sam. I never thought it-“
“Okay, tell me what to do,” Sam cut across her, walking away from the bed. “He says he’s close. He's starting to feel some pressure.”
“Sam!” Dean called in a distressed voice.
Sam took a quick look at his brother who was instinctively trying to curl himself into the smallest ball he could manage.
“You’re okay, Dean. Breath through it,” he said in a voice full of a confidence he was far from feeling.
Focus, he told himself, trying, and failing, to ignore the agonized moan escaping Dean’s throat.
“Tell me what to do,” he repeated to Rania. “I don’t think you’re gonna make it in time.”
Rania got the message and switched immediately to her professional mode, telling him what he needed to get and in which drawer or closet to find it. Sam canted the phone between his ear and shoulder and grabbed everything, putting it on the small medical cart Rania had used so often before.
“You have to check him, Sam,” was what Rania told him next.
“Check him. Okay. What am I looking for?”
“Get him in a gynecological position and I’ll tell you then.”
“Got it. I’m putting you on speaker so…” Sam lowered his voice, although Dean was so lost in his pain he doubted he would pay any attention even if Sam was yelling. “Don’t say anything that could make him panic, okay?”
“Alright.”
Pushing the cart next to the bed, Sam put his phone on it and turned back to Dean. The contraction was over and he was catching his breath, all the muscles of his body still rigid.
“Dean, we have to get those jeans off, okay?”
“Is Rania coming? Is she close?” Dean croaked.
“She’ll be here soon and I’ll help you until then, okay? Trust me, Dean.”
Sam was impressed by his own calm despite the fact that his mind was a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions, shifting and swirling, making him feel dizzy. Driven by his determination to help Dean, to support him, Sam was able to separate himself from everything else.
There was no way Angelia’s birth would be an echo of Dean’s chaotic pregnancy. No way Dean would suffer through another trauma.
You can do it, Sam, he thought, clenching his jaw.
“Come on,” he said, tugging at Dean’s jeans softly. “Can you lift your hips a little?”
Dean nodded, groaning as Sam lowered the soiled pants and pulled them off, uncovering Dean’s thighs which were sticky with clear fluid and rivulets of blood.
“I have to check you. We’ll wait until the next contraction, okay.”
Dean was shivering so badly his teeth were chattering. Sam grabbed a blanket from under the bed and covered him with it, taking his time to brush his fingers through Dean’s wet bangs.
“Everything will be alright, you hear me?”
“M’fucking scared,” Dean murmured, avoiding Sam’s eyes. “What if she’s not okay and Rania’s not here?”
“She’ll be okay. She’s an amazing human being and she hasn't even been born yet.”
“She is, right?” Dean tried to smile but it turned into a grimace.
“Another one?”
“Yeah.”
Sam grabbed Dean’s hand and let him crush his fingers, coaching him through the pain. Dean’s legs were jerking and kicking under the blanket and he kept moaning louder and louder, a fresh film of sweat covering his face.
“Sam?” Rania remote voice called from the cellphone.
“Wait,” he told her, then focused back on Dean.
The contraction was bad and lasted longer than the last. When it was finally over, Dean kept on moaning, letting go of Sam’s hand to clutch at the sheets instead.
“Okay,” he nodded weakly.
Sam didn’t bother with the stirrups despite what Rania had told him. He pulled the blanket down and helped Dean to pull his legs up.
“Can you keep this position?”
“Yeah, but do it quick.”
“Rania? What am I supposed to look for?”
“The birth canal opening.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you see?”
“There's a little blood and amniotic fluid dripping.”
“It’s not enlarging? You don’t see anything trying to push through?”
“No.”
Sam kept a clinical perception. Dean was still panting, his thighs were trembling, but he was holding his own, not even commenting on the fact that Sam was up close and personal with this part of his anatomy he had preferred to hide.
“That’s good. She’s not crowning yet. You guys hold on. It’s moving faster now.”
“She’s coming, I know it,” Dean replied in a more forceful voice.
“I know, Dean. Don’t worry. You’ll be okay,” Rania said. “Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep me on the phone, alright?”
“Okay.”
Sam slid a dry towel under Dean’s hips and used another one to clean his thighs a little. He stopped as soon as the first sign of the next contraction came in the form of Dean suddenly closing his eyes, his face blushing a deep shade of red.
Dean’s legs dropped to the side and he sat abruptly. “Damn.” He muttered.
“Come on, you can do it.”
“JESUS,” Dean yelled, locking his body forward.
“Breathe, Dean.”
Sam moved from the foot of the bed to try to sooth Dean’s pain by rubbing the small of his back.
“Hurts, fuck, hurts so damn much,” Dean panted. “Don’t… don’t touch me.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, it’s… almost… No, another one, that can’t be good, it's too fast, Sam!”
“I know. She’s in a hurry. I’m here. Not leaving you.”
Dean was bent over his belly, both of his hands pressing flat on the mattress. He wasn’t breathing through the pain anymore, not at this point, and Sam didn’t even try to tell him to do so. He knew too well that, at this point, it wouldn’t help. Dean vocalized his pain through groans and moans that escaped his clenched jaw.
Sam turned to the medical cart and looked at the instruments lying there: surgical scissors and clamps, gloves, towels, forceps, and a pumping bulb. Had he forgotten anything? Even with Rania talking him through it, he figured all he could do was help the baby get out once Dean started pushing.
Dean barely had time to take a deep breath and curse a couple of time before his head snapped up and he grabbed Sam’s shirt. “It’s starting again. It never stops, Sam, it’s…”
“What’s going on?” Rania practically screamed over the phone. She'd probably said it before but hadn't been able to get their attention.
“There's no time between the contractions. They just fade and start again.”
“She’s down there, I can feel it,” Dean cried. “Where the hell are you, Rania!”
There was the noise of a horn too loud to be coming from anywhere other than Rania’s car. She cursed so harshly it made Sam blush, then started mumbling about everybody keeping calm.
“What’s going on?”
“Can’t talk right now, driving on the shoulder of the road.”
“Hey, don’t do anything dangerous!” Sam said, and Dean had it in him to smile in a way that told how awesomely badass he thought Rania was.
The smile only lasted for a second, though, because one contraction had just faded and another was starting already, taking its hold on Dean so fast his eyes rolled up in their sockets and he gave the impression he was going to faint. Sam bent over him to hold him through it, but Dean pushed him away weakly, shivering violently under Sam’s hands.
“Don’t. Hurts too much when you touch me,” he rasped, then he screamed. A loud, harsh scream that contorted his face. He was still sitting, but he had arched his neck, exposing his throat, yelling at the ceiling and trembling from the pain. When he had to stop to take a breath, it was like he was trying to swallow air. Sam ran to wet a towel in the bathroom sink with very cold water. He was gone for no more than three seconds, but when he came back, Dean’s head was lolling on the side, his face drained of all its blood.
Sam pressed the cloth against his neck then rubbed it over his face.
“Dean, you with me?”
Dean groaned slowly opened his eyes. “Uh-huh,” he murmured. “Sam, fuck, you gotta look down there. I need to push.”
“Already?”
“Oh. Damn it, there it goes again and I need to push.”
“Hold on.”
“I can’t!” Dean protested, then he was gone, lost in the pain of the contraction, bending his legs and parting them.
“Dean, I’m not even ten minutes away,” Rania called. “Do you think you can wait?”
“You think I have… ungh… any control over it?” Dean moaned, his face getting redder by the second and his body bracing itself, ready to push the baby out. “Sam, I can’t stop this!” He cried, then started pushing.
Sam uncovered Dean's legs and took a quick look between them, knowing immediately, by the way the skin around the birth canal was stretched taut, that Dean wouldn’t be able to hold anything back. The opening was already widening and, suddenly…
“Dean, she’s coming,” he declared in shock.
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Oh, god. Let me… let me fix the stirrups.”
“Fuck the stirrups,” Dean cut him off, panting harshly. “It's better in this position anyway. Now get to work and help your daughter be born, damn it!”
Rania said something that Sam couldn’t hear, the poor reception of her cellphone cutting off the words. Sam didn’t think anything of it. Ten minutes, she’d said. She’d be here before Angelia was born.
“Sam, gotta push,” Dean announced, pressing his palms on the mattress and bending forward.
Sam took a pair of latex gloves off the cart but didn’t even try to slide his fingers in the first one when he felt how small the opening was. Of course. His hands were gigantic compare to Rania’s. He quickly washed his hands with some Purell, grabbed a pile of clean towels and increased the intensity of the light over the bed to its maximum.
“Saaaam,” Dean groaned, still pushing.
Sam sated himself on the bed between Dean’s legs. His brother pushing in this sitting position was far from ideal, but if his brother felt better that way, Sam would find a way to work with it.
The next push was so intense Dean’s hips lifted off the bed. His belly looked harder and smaller now that most off the amniotic fluid had been drained. Sam put one hand on Dean’s knee and tried to examine the birth opening as clinically as he could.
“Come on, Dean, I think I see something.”
“Fuuuuuuck,” Dean ended the push on this final, agonized rasp, and his body slumped backward, leaning heavily against the mattress.
“It’s okay, you’re doing good,” Sam coached, cleaning the area softly with a towel.
“Again,” Dean panted.
He started pushing silently, his whole body shaking with the force of it. Sam helped him brace his legs straight up, never turning his eyes away from the canal opening. The skin around it seemed so thin and stretched it was a miracle it hadn’t torn yet. Then, suddenly, something covered in blood and mucus appeared.
“She’s coming, Dean, I can see the head.”
Dean breathed out and Angelia’s head was pulled back a little, but not enough to disappear completely.
“Have to…” Dean rasped, and started pushing again, the baby’s head pressing against the edge of the birth canal, and then…
Then Sam realized something was wrong. He took a towel and wiped the blood from the small portion of head pushing out.
Oh.
That wasn’t Angelia’s head.
Couldn’t be.
It was her butt.
“Oh god,” Sam said feeling a fresh wave of panic rising in him.
“Wha’?” Dean had stopped pushing. He looked wild, his hair plastered to his head, his eyes huge, pupils blown. “What’s going on? Sam!”
“That’s um… She turned back, Dean. It’s a breech.”
“Damn it, I knew it,” Dean cried, hitting the pillow a couple of times with his head.
“What do you mean?”
“When she moved this… ah… morning it was very intense and I… Can’t hold it, Sam, it burns, fuck, help me please!”
“Then push. Rania said breech babies could be born naturally. Come on, Dean, push.” Sam told him with confidence.
What else could he do? He tried to remember what the doctor had told them, that a frank breech, natural birth could be achieved without difficulty, that it was only a precaution that doctors choose to do a c-section almost automatically in these cases.
“SAAAM!” Dean screamed, pulling him back to the present as Angelia’s bottom was pushed out of the birth canal, stretching it obscenely.
“She’s stuck, god, she’s stuck, do something!” Dean yelled, his voice hoarse from the screaming.
“Push, Dean.”
“Can’t, she’s stuck!”
“Only way to release her is to push. Come on.”
“Fuck you!” Dean cried, looking mad and terrified as tears of pain rolled involuntarily from his eyes.
“You can do this, Dean.”
Dean clenched his jaw and pushed, yelling and groaning through it. Sam saw the small thighs of the stretched legs peeking out of the birth canal and took a hold of the baby’s bottom, slippery and so tiny, gently pulling on the right leg and cutting out every distraction, the agony Dean was going through, the stress of doing this right, not letting anything bad happen to his unborn daughter.
When the first leg popped out of Dean’s body, his brother cried so loud he lost his voice for a second. Sam saw that the left leg was almost out and freed it as well, careful not to bend it the wrong way or pull too hard.
There it was. He was holding Angie’s lower body between his hands. They were halfway through and Rania couldn’t be very far away now.
“Is she out?” Dean asked between pants, sounding half hopeful, half terrified to hear the answer.
“We’re halfway through it. Come on, give me your hand.”
Dean didn’t question it, just held his hand out to Sam who put it between his legs so he could feel Angelia’s body.
“Oh. God,” Dean murmured. “Sam…”
“You’re doing great. We can do this, Dean. You and me. Okay?”
Dean nodded, leaning against the mattress. That’s when Sam heard Rania’s voice again. Maybe she had continued to talk while Dean was pushing, Sam couldn’t be sure. He was so focused on helping Dean it seemed unreal to have a third party interrupting.
“Make sure the umbilical cord isn’t completely compressed,
Sam. You hear me?”
“Uh… Yeah. Okay, wait.”
Sam saw immediately what Rania was talking about. The cord was halfway out as well, but it was a little loose, not much, enough to see it pulsing, though. It wasn’t flattened completely. Sam remembered reading about the necessity to keep a good blood flow to the baby during a breech birth. Still, he would feel better when Angelia was all the way out.
“Ready to go again, Dean? He asked when he saw his brother’s belly hardening once more.
“Yeah.”
“Is the umbilical cord-“
“It’s alright,” Sam cut Rania off. “Are you close?”
“Not even five minutes away.”
Dean was pushing with all the strength he could muster, his hips lifting up the mattress. Sam kept his hold on Angelia’s body with one hand while he circled the birth opening with the fingers of the other to be sure the umbilical cord wasn’t crushed. When Dean started screaming again, one of Angie’s elbows appeared.
“Good. Go on, don’t stop,” he said, pulling on the small arm which popped free, followed by the other, then both of the shoulders in a matter of seconds.
“SAM!” Dean growled.
“Yeah, go again.”
They didn’t need words to communicate, not in these situations. Dean took a long, shuddering breath and gave a strong push, both of his legs falling to the side. Sam kept circling the birth opening with his fingers. Angelia’s body had turned to the side on its own and the head was coming out, finally revealing the chin and the pouted mouth, then one ear, the nose, scrunched up and dripping with fluid. Dean’s whole body shook as he took a sharp breath and pushed one last time, releasing Angelia’s head, her eyes shut tight and an amazing amount of dark, thick hair sticking to her scalp in large, wet spikes.
“God, Dean, she’s here, it’s done,” Sam babbled, turning the small, still immobile body in his hands.
He held his daughter in the palm of one hand, trying to use the pumping bulb with the other, but he didn’t even have the time to do it. Angie’s arms opened wide and she let out a small cough, spitting amniotic fluid and secretions. Her nostrils quivered as she swallowed her first gulp of air before starting to cry in earnest, the same fragile wail that had turned Sam’s world upside down a little more than a year before.
“She okay? Lemme see!” Dean croaked.
“She’s okay, she’s gorgeous,” Sam laughed nervously, raising his still crying daughter over Dean’s belly, both of his hands supporting her tiny body.
Dean smiled widely, collapsing back on the bed. At that precise moment, they heard running footsteps and the door of the room burst open, revealing a breathless and panicked Rania, her hair floating around her face like a halo. She froze on the doorstep when she saw Sam holding Angelia, letting out a tiny, surprised “oh”, and for a second the three of them stayed silent as Angelia’s cries filled the room.
“Dude, you re-enacting the Lion King or what?” Dean asked smugly.
“Shut up,” Sam smiled.
“Thank god,” Rania breathed and the moment was gone.
For the next couple of minutes, everything was kind of chaotic. Rania babbled apologies and stepped in, taking Angelia from Sam and cleaning her vigorously, then using the aspirator in her nose and mouth. Sam gave her space and started to shake now that the stress was starting to fade. He pushed his hair away from his face, finding it completely wet with sweat. “She’s so gorgeous,” he repeated. “Dean, she’s so different from Sue.”
Dean was still panting and sweating, but all in all, he looked good for a man who’d just given birth, a breech birth no less, without any pain medication. “She is?”
He couldn’t see much because Rania had put Angelia back on the bed to take care of her. Sam took the opportunity to get close to Dean and wipe his face once again with a towel. Then he kissed him on the mouth, a long kiss, to which Dean responded in earnest.
“You did it,” Dean said when Sam pulled back. “You were great.”
“Come on. I barely helped,” Sam murmured, brushing Dean’s damp bangs away from his forehead.
“What time s’it?”
Sam looked at his watch. “Five thirty-two.”
“Well, that was quick. We were still home at three o’clock.” Dean laughed.
“I’ll cut the cord myself because it’s very short,” Rania told them.
“Right.”
Sam didn’t mind. He had been the one to help his daughter be born. He could hear her wailing softly. Dean was there with him and smiling. He didn’t need anything more.
“You want to hold her, Dean?” Rania asked shortly thereafter.
“Hell yeah.”
Rania raised Dean’s shirt and settled the baby on his chest, covering her with a thick towel. Angelia’s eyes were wide open and she gave the impression she was looking straight at her father. Her cries stopped as soon as she was in contact with Dean’s skin. Her hair was drying and sticking up on her head. It was a dark shade of brown.
“Hey, baby,” Dean murmured, rubbing her back softly.
Angelia blinked.
“Would you look at her, Sam. She seems so serious and calm.”
“Yeah, she does,” Sam whispered, then gently kissed the tuft of hair.
“Her face is all round. Sumiko was tinier, wasn’t she?”
“I don’t know, but yeah, her face is a different shape. We’ll see if she really is bigger when Rania weights her.”
“You are amazing,” Dean told Angie, wrapping both of his arms around her.
Sam bent down to murmur in his ear. “Feel anything um… special?”
Dean shook his head quickly.
“Dean, I’m going to get you on a IV line with some medication to prevent the curse’s after effects, Rania announced. “I don’t wanna wait. I’ll examine Angelia right after, but so far, so good.”
“She turned back into breach position, this morning Dean thinks.”
Rania smiled quickly at them, pulling some equipment from the drawers of the cart. “It’s almost a good thing she did. The umbilical cord was short, as I was saying, and from where the placenta was located, it could have wrapped around her neck if her head had been first.”
“Holy shit,” Dean mumbled, an expression of awe lighting his eyes. “You did it, baby,” he added in an almost inaudible voice.
They were both so absorbed in admiring their newborn neither of them paid much attention to Rania’s actions, but somehow, less than five minutes later, Dean had an intravenous line installed in the crook of his left arm with two different bags attached to it. Rania had given him a dose of morphine as well and Dean barely felt it when the contractions started again, a sign that the placenta was ready to be expulsed. Sam left him in Rania's and took Angelia in his arms, wrapping her in another layer of cloth. She was snuffling and pouting, but kept calm, her eyes still open, two dark marbles just as Sumiko’s had been.
Would she become the little girl of his vision, or had that child been only a projection of Sam’s thoughts and memories.
Her skin was a tad darker than Sumiko’s, but since their eldest had Dean’s completion, that wasn’t surprising. Her eyebrows were not as dark as her hair, but a light brown, and her ears were tiny and perfectly flat against her skull. As for the rest, they’d have to wait for the swelling to subside to try and see some resemblance.
When the placenta was out, Rania made Dean comfortable, cleaning the area of the birth canal and putting clean towels under him. He was already looking drowsy and goofy, riding the endorphin high of the end of the delivery and the morphine. When the doctor had finished, she took Angelia out of Sam’s arms and put her on the exam table.
“Sam?” Dean asked.
“Yeah.”
“Can you get me another blanket, m’freezing?”
Sam was more than happy to cover Dean with another layer and make sure he was comfortable. For a moment, they both watched Rania doing the Apgar test on Angelia who had begun to cry again, but softly, as if her heart wasn’t really into it.
“You think she’ll set Rania’s hair on fire when she’s had enough?” Dean asked. Sam let out a nervous laugh because even if it was only a joke, there was a serious question hiding in it.
Now that she was born, how would Angelia’s powers manifest, if they manifested at all?
There was nothing to do except wait for the answer.
Angelia was seven pounds one ounce, and she had two centimeters over Sumiko when she’d been born. Her Apgar was perfect and her hips, as well as her shoulders, hadn’t suffered from the breech birth, which sometimes happened.
Her legs had a tendency to stretch upward, but that was normal since she had remained so long in the breech position. They would settle naturally.
Besides this, Angelia showed all the signs of a perfectly healthy baby. Sam had to go get the bag from the car so they could put her in diapers and pj’s. The pajamas were new of a light blue, but the hat had been the one Sumiko wore right after she’d been born. Sam swaddled Angelia, easily remembering how they had done it with her older sister, and this thought filled him with a combination of nostalgia and wonder. It seemed like only yesterday, when he had dressed Sue for the first time. She would look giant compared to Angelia, but she was still barely a toddler.
“You cryin’?” Dean slurred while Rania took his blood pressure once more.
Sam sniffed and tried to compose himself.
“Bring her here.”
“Right.”
Rania was done with Dean. She placed a pillow behind him so that he could hold Angie more comfortably. As soon as Sam put her in his shaking arms, she sighed and closed her eyes.
“Would you look at that,” Rania murmured. “You guys did a great job, but you gotta promise me something.”
“What?” Sam asked, concerned by how serious Rania sounded.
“Please, please make sure you get rid of the curse. We’ve been incredibly lucky so far. Let’s not push it.”
“I promise I’ll take care of it,” Sam answered just as seriously.
They now had two daughters, and yeah, they had been lucky, if luck could be translated into not dying a couple of times for Dean’s part, and not having their baby taken by a couple of psychotic sisters.
“Sam?” Dean asked, looking at him with half-closed, glassy eyes. “Can you check the passenger seat of the car? I think I might have gotten it wet with the amniotic fluid.”
This was so Dean-like Sam could only think of one answer.
“I love you,” he said simply.
A little more each day, if that was possible.
Chapter 17