62. Baby

Juliet

D-day 24 December 2021

The mornings were the best on the farm. It was snowing so heavily in Canada that I had just stayed in my room the last few days, not even getting out of bed. I was so uncomfortable that I didn’t sleep at all.

I had contractions the whole night and didn’t want to tell Michael. Looking to his side of the bed, he was fast asleep. The duvet only covered the lower part of his naked body. His internal clock that’s connected to me was turned off. Here on the farm… he was just my bed buddy.

I was at a point in my pregnancy where I needed to push myself off the bed, or I wouldn’t be able to get up. A loud “snapping” sound came from my mid-section. It made me look down. Water was trickling onto the floor. I walked to the bathroom. Michael had put a hospital bed in there. All the supplies and alien tech we would need for the delivery.

It wouldn’t be long now… I would have to go back to France. The situation there made me yearn to just take Michael… Keep walking up into the wilderness. Build a cabin and live out our lives there forever. If I didn’t go back, nothing would be wrong. With a lot of effort, I got up onto the gurney in the bathroom. I had to put the fetal monitor around my stomach. Strapping it and doing another one for the contractions. It took a lot of groaning and struggling, but I got it done.

I pushed the button on the screen next to me. The heartbeat raced as I relaxed back into the bed. If the baby was fine… I would be fine.

Michael came walking over frowning, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He considered the water trail I had left from the bed to the bathroom.

“You have about an hour to change your mind.”

“How far?”

“Seven to eight… I think.”

He shook his head. “I won’t. Ever.” Michael walked over to the toilet, closing the door. He emerged a minute later, putting on the clothes he dropped when we got in the bath with me last night.

While scrubbing his hands and putting on gloves, he said, “You’re the one that should be sure… None of your husbands you want here?” He air quotes the word husbands. I lifted up my left hand and jiggled my left ring finger.

“You jealous.” He smiled that wickedly sexy smile of his. Only one side of his mouth turned up. “Never been more sure. I don’t want to see Marcus right now… I don’t want him here. I don’t want to see Chris or Louis either.”

“When are you going to sort that out?” He peeked up at me.

“What do you mean?” I groaned as another contraction came. He walked over to another machine to check the contraction strength. Feeling my stomach.

“Marcus… You are so clever and educated. That feisty personality… to do all you’ve done throughout your life. Why don’t you just sort it out? You never let up… Why with him?” I leaned back into the bed, shrugging.

“What about you? Did you ever get the number of that girl at the coffee shop? You know I might die so…” He pushed his hand onto my mouth, covering it but didn’t face me. I was silenced. He took out a blood pressure machine and checked my vitals… My temperature and my oxygen.

“You sure you want to see my private parts like that. You know what to expect, right? You’re not going to freak out when my butt turns into a cauliflower?” He grinned, stacking towels, bowls, and dishes. Placing all the surgical tools next to him on a tray.

“Nothing you can say will change how I feel...”

His eyes were the only thing I had as a distraction from the growing pains. “Don’t say it… Please… Not you.” He chuckled. His eyes met mine briefly.

***

An hour later, Michael told me to push out the last breath. The baby’s shoulders gushed out. I gasped, trying to catch my breath as I fell back onto the bed. I wasn’t even sweating. I was born for this. He put the baby in the crib, screaming. I watched the little boy like a hawk with the worst behind me. Breathing deep in and out.

I saw Michael clamp the cord in two places from the corner of my eye. Not cutting it yet. He took out a needle and vile and pulled out the blood from that part of the umbilical cord. When he was done, he finished the normal process of cutting it off at Caleb’s navel.

“So that’s why you wanted me here.” He grinned again.

We would have to watch him for months every minute to know if he… Then Caleb changed. “Michael!” His eyes shot up at the little guy. He couldn’t care. Michaels’s worried eyes come back to my face. “Juliet! I need to get the placenta out and stop this bleeding. Lie back, please.” He asked so nicely. That I listened to him.

“You got this. I trust you.” His face was severe while he was busy. He took away countless small blue plastic bed sheets and kept putting a new one under my butt every time. He’s had to change the sheets twice in the last hour. I didn’t want to know what he had seen or not. My privates down there were sore, swollen, and ripped. But that wouldn’t last long.

A second gush flowed out of me. Another feeling of release washed over me as I breathed out. Michael was busy for a few more minutes. He picked me up and put me in a chair in the shower. Waving his hand in front of the tap, a screen flashed 34. The water came out perfect, running over me. I leaned back in the chair, going in a circle as I cleaned. The blood wasn’t stopping.

“Where does all this blood come from?”

“Trust me, it’s all you have.”

He gave me a towel. Helped me to the bed. The sheets were clean. He helped me put on disposable underwear and got me back on the bed. Caleb was cute and still in his Riphath form. Bushy and sweet.

“Louis is going to be livid,” Michael stated.

“He could have come. But he didn’t.”

“You’re growing up fast… Getting tired of these guys already?”

I pump my hands out towards the baby. Michael wrapped him and helped me put him on my breast. The guy went at it like a trooper.

“Oh, thank heavens. I wouldn’t be able to take latching problems.”

Everything full of blood was taken to a bin. When he was finally done, he closed the lid. Disposed of everything else in other containers. He moped the floor, put away all the dishes, and took the rest out of the bathroom. Before he left the room, he even put up the heat.

After a few minutes, I put Caleb on my other breast. Michael came back standing at the door with his hands on his hips. “Okay. Everything is done… Let me just check my list.” When it seemed like he was done fretting. He pulled up his wheelie chair beside me.

He gazed at me. “You did really well, Juliet. I’m so proud of you.” Standing up, he kissed my forehead. He pulled back the blanket around Caleb’s face, and our eyes met in mutual understanding. Caleb was beautiful. Michael knew from there on out he was the most important thing in my life. Caleb’s face was now a regular human face.

Michael reached for the silver canister and handed it to me. “Qadir wants this for experiments and tests.” His eyes met mine. This time, a flicker of regret played on his features. “It’s your choice.”

“Why?”

“There are no interspecies babies. Werewolves and Vampires can’t cross bread just like a lion, and a dog can’t have a baby… Why you also don’t eat each other.”

I stare at him in disbelief. “What?”

He bobbed his head. “You are the first vampire to ever have a Riphath baby.”

“What?” I looked down at Caleb. “We didn’t even know if he would be alive.”

All the whirlpool of emotions I felt just hours before was gone. It could have gone the other way and made me more depressed. Glad that I wasn’t going to have to deal with crazy postpartum issues. I felt strangely better. I don’t want to cry about everything. Thinking about his words… They didn’t really sink in. Or scare me.

“I don’t care that you have to ask Michael… You will get into too much trouble for it. Just take it… What can he do with it anyway.”

“Oh, you know Qadir. He will find something.”

“Can aliens create clones yet?”

“If Qadir even looks at Caleb, he would die. That same day don’t worry. If none of your people will do it… I will.” Caleb finished and fell asleep. Michael picked him up and put him in the plastic basement, perched upon a stand.

“He needs to be burped.”

“I’ll do it now… Keep him upright for twenty minutes and all that. I know what you like… Can I just get you dressed and dried off?”

I do what I’m told. He did just that and helped me change. Hesitantly he pulled down my underwear and risked a peek.

“Yes! You stopped bleeding. Good girl.”

I chortled. “Like I had anything to do with it.”

He put on my regular undies and helped me put on sweats and a shirt. One of his shirts that I loved. He kissed my forehead quickly and picked me up. A ridiculous smile on his face.

“You freak me out being this happy all the time.”

“Thank You… For the time we had. You don’t know how badly I needed this.”

“I’m the one that should say thank you. Everything you did today… My whole life… But you’re not my watcher anymore.”

“Well… That’s what they said at the embassy… When Caleb is born… I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.”

“Are you sure they can’t come in here? Or see everything we went through.”

“No, it’s not allowed. Samuel is the official liaison for all three planets. He is covered. Seven ways to Sunday. This is the safest place you could ever be.”

“And you? When I fall asleep, will you disappear with my baby?”

He smiled.

“I heard what happened at the cages. You were there… Louis almost got hurt.”

“I know you have wicked discernment, Juliet. But not everything you see is always true. Or what that brain tells you is going on. In your life with all the factors from so many directions.” He sighed. “Juliet, promise me….” He was so serious. He covered me with the blanket and sat down next to me on the bed. Taking the hair out of my face, my eyes already closing.

“Promise you what?”

“You won’t doubt Marcus.”

I cast a skeptical eye at him. “In what way?”

“That he only thinks about you. His every thought is about you… Be patient with him. He has a lot of things on his plate. All he wants is for you to be free. Even if you have to suffer like at the fighting that night… Just trust in him.”

“And you… What do you want…? You happy you will be free of me. You’re rich, and you’re whole life ahead of you….”

He got up without answering me. Walking over to the bathroom. He put a burp cloth over his shoulder and let Caleb rest on his shoulder. He came over again.

“Get some sleep.” I nodded and drifted off as he left the room.

***

Michael

I sat downstairs with Caleb. If only I could tell her how much I loved her. The fireplace blazing, the wood crackling and burning red and grey. The orange of the flames pulled me in. I got lost in the last two months. I had to prepare myself to leave the place behind like last time. I was struggling. Scared that I would just fade away again. Into the background of her life.

Caleb was getting fussy. It had been three hours, and he wanted milk. Juliet stood behind me. I didn’t even hear her come down the stairs or into the room.

“Penny, for your thoughts.” She whispered next to my ear.

“You don’t want to know… He needs to feed.” She pumped her hands, arms stretched out towards him. Her lips found his soft baby cheeks, and she kissed him.

“He cleaned up nice. Thank You…” She said, walking around the couch. “You’re one lucky boy… I hope you don’t have one ounce of your mom’s bad luck.” She whispered to him.

She sat down next to me, feeding him. “He will be unmanageable if he’s not with his dad in a day or two. You won’t have any authority over him until...”

She cut me off, “at the age of five hundred.”

“No, that’s normal stupid men….” I smiled, loving the way this whole picture made me feel... Me, a woman, and a baby. I rubbed his little soft hair scooting closer to them. “He is going to be… No! He is very important.”

“I want you to take him back to Chris… Now, after this feed.” She stroked his little cheek. Worriedly I watched her face for any sign of what’s she was thinking.

“O…kay?”

I couldn’t tell her Chris wasn’t at home. I had not heard from them in so long. The only one talking to me was Louis.

“I’m going hunting. And then just take some time for myself. I just need a few days… Not being pregnant or….” She didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“You really are back… Strong… Independent… Fierce.”

“I want to ask you a question. You have to answer me immediately and honestly.” She said.

I don’t know why I hesitated. I would do anything for her.

“What should I focus on? Combat, education, or interspecies relationships?”

“Combat. Strategy. I will pass you notes whenever I can... If I can… We’ll see what happens after today.”

“That was a fast answer.” I feared for her future. Not being able to protect herself… It was my number one priority. I got lost in my thoughts again.

“Is this the last time I’ll see you?”

My eyes found hers wanting to read something in them. They gave me nothing. I nodded slowly. The reality was all too much for me. The thought of all those years with her and then nothing. I stared into the flames, remembering the best and worst things.

“I’m sorry for last time when you were here.”

“I’m not. Stop saying that.” She rebuked.

“I won’t… Sorry that I didn’t tell you who I was. That the first time you saw me was in that embassy.” I smiled. “The look on you’re face was worth it, though.” I chuckled. I watched her watch me. Her hand caressed my cheek. “You’re beautiful and not just your face and body… Juliet. You’re a beautiful person. Never forget that. Any guy is lucky to just have you in their lives.”

“But not you?” I got up quickly, ripping off the bandaid. Unable to have that discussion with her.

Before I exited out of the door, she spoke. “I had a moment of weakness… I thought we could disappear into the mountains. Build a little cabin and stay there… Just the two of us. Even if it is just for a while. You know me so well. I don’t have to try when I’m with you.”

F-. It was harder than I thought. I knew exactly how she felt. “Like you said… A moment of weakness… That dream can never be. Focus on fixing your house. Making it strong… But once you’re home like you’re now… Everything will make sense again… The baby did a number on you… And let yourself off the hook for that. And that stuff he pumped you full off. Didn’t help.” I turned to her. Caleb was draped over her shoulder. She had turned on the couch, watching my back to her.

“What?” I ask, stretching us out a few moments longer.

“You’re beautiful too. I want to remember you like that. Standing at the door… In earnest.” I gripped the door frame.

“Two minutes, then I take him home.” She nodded and smiled. Her sincerest, loveliest smile.

My heart was crushed into a million pieces… That I couldn’t make everything better for her. But I just couldn’t fall apart that day… Not yet. She needed me for just a little while longer.

***

Five minutes later, I stood in the snow outside Louis’s house. Pushing through the white blanket up to the door. There was a storm coming. I wanted to get Caleb out of the cold. I didn’t knock. The door was always open anyway. I walked through. It startled everyone around the Christmas table. I left the door open. I didn’t say anything. Surprised when I saw Chris there. The whole circus was enjoying the day without Juliet. They were just fine with it… It ticked me off. I didn’t feel guilty at all. I rounded the table. Pushed Caleb into Chris’s arms. I turned around and ran out the door as fast as I could. Before anyone could even register what was happening or say a word.

Before I teleport out of there, I glanced over to Charlene’s house that was done. Excited to have some good news for Juliet. The house came out great. Juliet’s little cabin in the woods sounded too good.

***

I had to meet with Raas. So that’s where I ended up. Entering the same room everyone was in months ago. The news was already all over the Milky Way. Celebrations had begun for little Caleb. Juliet wasn’t under the protection of the Riphaths anymore.

If they signed the papers. No more watchers. And then I couldn’t protect her anymore. She’ll be all alone. Qadir will come for her. Or he would wait until she turned, and he would just control her.

Who did I give the magic button to? Who did I trust? Who would be left?

No one could find Rodrigo because he was back on the compound. Qadir found him a while ago. Pulling his strings. Piggybacking on whatever they were going to do together. If Juliet wanted the cure, she would have to go back there.

The cruelty of her situation was too much for me. I walked over to the floor towards the table. Jack and Kubra already waiting. I sat down next to them across from a new face. Questioningly I peeked at Jack, who just shrugged.

“So, Juliet is not pregnant anymore.” This new person asked. I nodded once. I went from the most crucial watcher to the one that would be let go. I had to ensure the baby’s safety at all costs during her pregnancy. Significant because of Caleb, not Juliet.

“You did excellent work there, Michael… And, of course, you will be handsomely rewarded.”

Yippee! Another million in my account. What was the freakin point?

“Well, they have two days to decide whether they want to go back to the En-gannim or if they will stay in exile here on earth. If they don’t… No more watchers for all three of them… Not even you, Kubra.” He bowed his head in a quick motion. The guy had very little to say. “You two will go back for your treatment because your contract will be over.” Jack and I nodded.

I wondered what it felt like for jack. He hoped to live for a thousand years and have eighty to live his life. Pass away like everyone else. Sitting on the porch with the wife in some suburb, the grandkids running around on the grass.

All I could think about was Juliet out hunting on her own for the first time. What had happened the last time. I almost jumped up when Jabin dismissed us and told us to deliver the news.

But I didn’t go to France. Sure that when Jack and Kubra saw neither Juliet nor me there… They would go on with delivering the news.

***

Two more days… Two more days. Where are you? I ran through the house searching. I had her phone in my hand, regretting not giving it to her before I left. But it won’t work if she had vanished anyway. I had locked up her phone when we came. We couldn’t take the risk of her finding out about Sita and Chris. The guys agreed when I took her. No contact.

I don’t know if it was a good idea. She had become detached from them. Clung to whoever was with her. Juliet wanted to disappear. I ran out the front door towards the mountains looming in front of me. Beyond that, just flat watery planes. Would she really go on a hike to the end of Canada? I sighed, running around. Checking everywhere.

***

An hour later, I was deep into the woods following the trail we always took to find forest dwellers, hunters, or hikers. We never needed to come that far, though. I decided to turn around.

“Clothes!”

I saw bright red clothes as I crossed a log that was a bridge over a frozen stream. I jumped into a blanket of powdered snow. It was freezing as more snow fell on my face. My beard was already covered in icicles. Hesitantly I pulled on the garment. A body emerged. The guy was blue. But drained. She ate… Smiling, I pushed him back into the snow. “Good girl.”

I run back again, following the trail. At the parking area, the road split in two. Going west one way and east the other. West was home. East headed into town.

Did we miss each other, or did she want to be alone?

I needed to consider what to do next… “Okay.” The mountains were really my last option. If in two days, she didn’t surface… I’d take out a snowmobile and hope that I could track her. So I headed to town first.

It was getting late. The sun was setting, and I was exhausted. I put my gloved hand into my thick jacket, walking into town down the main street. It was Christmas eve. And she was all alone. Not that it meant anything to her. There were just about two places that would be open that day. I went to the first one. The doors were locked… The pub was the only other option…

Walking the two blocks, I heard the cheers and loud music from down the street already. As I rounded the corner, people’s voices became clearer. They were singing in French at the top of their lungs.