InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I LOVE HEDpe"

Thirty-three weeks pregnant with twins was painful. Lucy's stomach felt stretched beyond capacity, and her ankles were swelling if she dared to walk for more than five minutes at a time. Her usual broken insomniatic sleep had become a distant memory as sleep became damn near impossible. But she refused to let it slow her down. Things were coming along beautifully at Lakefield Manor, and she needed to do another walkthrough now so that she could determine the timeline for the rest of the work. Perhaps opening by June had been a ridiculously lofty goal, but she was still hopeful that they could be ready to start hosting events before the end of summer.

Wearing a simple pair of stretchy, comfortable shorts and tank top, her feet clad in sandals that cushioned her feet better than most of her other shoes, Lucy walked through the manor, a clipboard in hand as she made notes. The workers had taken a break for lunch, which made it the perfect time for her to walk through and gauge their progress.

She was on the second floor, staring at a wall in confusion, when her entire world as she knew it ended.

One moment, Lucy was flipping through her notes, glancing between the pages and the wall in question, wondering why it was still there when it had been marked for removal two weeks ago, and the next moment, the wall in question blasted toward her. When she would consider that moment later, all she would be able to remember was the laughter. The blast had been so silent, the manor so quiet and still, that the laughter that rang out before the dust settled would haunt her.

The explosion flung Lucy back, pain ripping through her abdomen as though it had been blasted apart along with the wall. Whimpering, her hand went to her belly, her fingers coming away with sticky blood just as the laughter morphed into shouts of concern. Dazed, Lucy could focus on nothing but the blood on her fingers, not quite able to process that it hadn't come from the wall.

Someone tried to talk to her, but Lucy's breaths were too shallow, her brain too locked in shock to process the words. There was a flurry of activity around her, the workers clearing the debris and refusing to let her move. She wouldn't have been able to say if it took the healers five minutes or five hours to arrive; all she knew was that by the time they were ready to transport her, reality had roared in.

Despite having been reticent about becoming a mother, Lucy could feel the life inside her slipping away, and she screamed at the healer closest to her to save her babies. They had to be okay. She hadn't gone through all of this just to lose them now. They were her daughters, a part of her and Jaimeson that she'd grown to love. To want. Being pregnant was miserable, but she was their mother, and she would do her damnedest to protect them.

Even though the healers had stabilized her for transport, the magical travel paired with the trauma and blood loss had her stomach churning, and she barely managed to turn her head enough to keep the vomit from choking her. One of the healers magicked it away, and they continued rushing her to a room. Anxiety and fear trembled through her, but her voice was strong as she kept up a steady stream of instructions for the healers. They would save her children, damn it!

"You need to push," a stern woman who looked to be her mum's age told her. "We've given you the medication to dilate, but if you don't push, we'll have to open you up to get your children out."

Lucy appreciated the directness of the woman, but she still shook her head no. "I can't! It's too soon. I'm only thirty-three weeks! And Jaimeson isn't here!" she insisted. Even if it was time for their daughters to be born, there was no way she could do this without him. They were in it together, for better or worse.

"Jaimeson is your husband?" the woman asked, nodding toward the ridiculous, gaudy ring set on her left hand. Manic laughter bubbled up in Lucy's throat as hot tears burned her eyes. Was he her husband? How absurd it was that in that moment, all she wanted was to be able to honestly answer that question in the affirmative.

"Yes," she lied, not caring that it wasn't legally the case. "Jaimeson Fitzgerald. Fuck, where's my phone? He has to be here!"

"Mrs. Fitzgerald. Lucy. Breathe. It's very important that you focus on your breathing. He may not be here in time, but you see that young man there?" The woman motioned toward a man in intern robes, and she nodded. "He's going to do everything he can to track your husband down and get him here as quickly as possible. In the meantime, your twins are in distress, and they have to come out. Have you taken any birthing classes yet?"

Having something to focus on was helping, and Lucy's eyes fixated on the stern woman's surprisingly kind eyes. She shook her head in the negative and said, "Not yet, we had our first class scheduled this weekend."

Before she'd finished answering, the young man in the intern robes disappeared from the room, and the woman's eyes sharpened. "That's okay. This is Selene, she's going to coach you through your breathing. I'll be monitoring your labor first hand, and we'll do everything we can for your twins."

Selene took the place of the woman, who moved down to Lucy's feet. At some point during the process, someone had removed her clothes, a couple of sheets draped over her chest and lower half for privacy, leaving her protruding belly exposed while another group of healers worked on the gaping wound on her left side. It seemed to have stopped bleeding, and she found it strange that she'd forgotten about it in the moment. And then she felt a kick on her right sigh and gasped. It was as if Twin A was reminding her that she was supposed to be birthing them, not fixating on her state of undress.

Selene seemed to be closer to her own age, her features soft and warm, and she held Lucy's hand as she coached her through breathing through the contraction that tore through her. It couldn't have been the first contraction she'd experienced today, but it was the first she was aware of, and rather than breath through it properly, she held her breath, the blood rushing to her head, before the breath finally whooshed from her on a soft screech.

"Well, that won't do at all, Lucy!" The woman said sternly from between her legs. "Your twins are counting on you to do this right. Look at Selene and breathe through the contractions." She examined Lucy briefly before looking back up at her. "You're at eight centimeters. It won't be long now. Practice breathing through the contractions so you can breathe while pushing. And while you do that, why don't you tell me about them?"

Lucy wanted to scream at the healer for such a ridiculous request. Talk about the twins? When everything was so stressful and she might lose them? "They're girls. We haven't told anyone, but we had to know. Jaimeson was so excited when I got pregnant. It took me longer to come around to it, but they're ours." Despite thinking the request absurd, she found herself rambling about them and Jaimeson anyway, the love she had for her little family shining through the pain and fear.

"Okay, Lucy. It's time to push," the healer told her. She nodded to Selene and the healer on Lucy's other side, the pair of them helping her to get into a more natural birthing position.

Lucy screamed through the first two contractions after she started pushing, but by the third, she'd found her breathing rhythm, determination sweeping through her. She squeezed the hands of the healers on either side of her as she bore down, breathing as she pushed, and she felt dizzy with relief when the first of the twins was born. It was Twin B; she knew it was even without knowing how she knew. The healer passed the baby off to another healer, and Lucy looked frantically between them.

"Why isn't she crying? She's supposed to cry! Babies are supposed to cry when they're born!" she yelled, desperate to scramble down and over to her daughter to see for herself that she was okay.

No one was reassuring her that the baby was okay, though.

"Look at me, Lucy," the main healer barked sternly, drawing her attention back to the task at hand. "You still have one more child to birth. You focus on bringing her into the world, and we will do our part. Come on now, that's a contraction starting, so breathe through it. You've got this, Lucy."

Her baby was not okay. Even without anyone saying it, Lucy knew in the depths of her soul that Twin B was not okay. Hot tears streaked down her cheeks, and she blubbered through the next contraction. Gathering up every morsel of strength she could find within herself, she breathed. She pushed. She squeezed hands. She screamed. And Twin A was born, her cries filling the room within seconds of taking her first breath.

Collapsing onto the bed, relief mingling with grief, Lucy became overwhelmed. Her part was done, but Twin B still hadn't cried, and even though Twin A's cries soothed her soul, it was still shattered by the absence of Twin B.

"Bring her to me," she croaked out, but no one seemed to hear her. "Bring her to me!" she yelled a moment later. The healers paused, their glances pitying, infuriating her. "She is my daughter! Bring her to me now!"

Selene walked away from her bedside and picked up Twin B gingerly. Cuddling the bundle against her chest, she crossed back to Lucy and gently transferred the bundle to her arms. There was no life in the infant, and a cry strangled in her throat, new tears welling in her eyes. She curled herself around the bundle, not hearing anything as the grief overwhelmed her.