The faint, repetitive sound would not stop.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

An annoying beacon pulling her towards reality, it slowly drew Reine out of unconsciousness. She fluttered her eyelids, adjusting her vision to the glare of an overhead light.

"Welcome back, Ms. Baldwin. Your friends have been mighty worried about you." The middle-aged woman in a light-blue uniform stepped to her bedside, scribbled something on a notepad, and switched off a nearby machine. The room fell into a blissful silence, and Reine licked her dry lips in an attempt to talk.

"Now, you take your time," the nurse scolded, picking up a glass of water from the nightstand. Raising it to her patient's lips, she helped Reine wet her parched mouth. "You've had a rough few days. No need to rush."

Swallowing the cool liquid, Reine winced as the tiny movement sent a wave of pain through her entire body. "How long? What happened?" She struggled to clear her mind of the haze. Her last memory was of a bleeding Max in St. Stephen's Crypt, without any indication of how she'd gotten to this room full of medical equipment.

"You came in two days ago in advanced, premature labor, my dear." The woman whose name-tag read 'Nancy' put the glass away and began removing wires and sensors from Reine's body. "Just in time, too because we nearly lost you and those beautiful babies in surgery."

Reine's eyes widened in shock, but Nancy patted her arm in reassurance. "Don't you worry about them. They're in great hands upstairs in the neonatal unit."

"What are they? Boys? Girls? One of each?" She hadn't wanted to know beforehand, but she'd expected to at least be conscious for the delivery.

"Two precious little boys," Nancy said with a smile. "Got any names yet?"

Reine shook her head. "I need to see them," she said as she attempted to push herself up, but the nurse intervened.

"Hold on, love. You need to let the sedatives fully leave your system before you can make any sudden movements like that. And you can't go anywhere until Dr. K signs off on your transfer out of intensive-care. Now, lie back down, and let me get you prepped for visitors." She reached for a remote control and began adjusting the bed to a sitting position. "There are a couple of very good looking gentlemen out there who've been pestering me non-stop about your condition." Without lifting her head, the nurse nodded toward the other side of the room.

Reine automatically smiled before turning to the wall parallel to her bed. The entire surface - even the embedded door - was made out of glass. A plain, blue curtain ran the whole length, but it was only drawn halfway closed. On the other side, two familiar men stood looking in. Gabe raised his hand in a small wave, while Max - his left arm in a sling - just smiled.

Panic overtook her. Her heart began racing, making her thankful that the monitor was no longer on. No doubt, it would be making an alarm.

"Can you tell me anything about the babies, Nancy? How big were they or what color is their hair or their eyes?" She looked to the nurse for the details that could validate her suspicions about paternity.

The woman walked to a receptacle fastened to the wall and removed a thick folder. Flipping through the documents, she found what she was looking for.

"Let's see here. Baby A was the smaller of the two at 1,900 grams and thirty-eight centimeters. Baby B weighed 2,200 grams and forty-three centimeters at birth. We don't make notes about eye color because it's so hard to tell, plus it can change drastically before age one, but I do seem to recall that one had a nice head of dark hair, while the other just had some very fine, blonde fuzz." The nurse snapped the charts closed and placed the folder back in its container.

Reine sighed. This certainly wasn't the definitive proof she wanted. She felt obligated to tell Max and Gabe the truth, but was this enough to warrant those conversations? And even if she delayed on that front, she had to talk to them about her own feelings.

Although the first task was daunting, it was the second she feared the most. She hadn't quite made a decision herself.

"Is my friend Noor here, too?" she asked Nancy, who had fetched a pair of rubber gloves and was pulling the curtain closed.

"Is she that cute little Middle Eastern girl?" The woman returned to her bedside, lifted the covers, and exposed Reine's lower half. "Let me just take out your Foley, and I'll find her for you."

Before Reine could negatively react to her last-second warning, Nancy had already finished the task. Snapping her gloves off and throwing everything in the bio-hazard bin, she pulled the curtain open just enough to reveal the door. "Are you sure it's the girl you want to see first?"

Reine nodded.

"Very well. Just give me a minute." The nurse disappeared from the room.

Reine strained her ears to try to hear what was going on just on the other side of the glass wall, but the only sound was that of her own breathing. She balled her fingers in frustration, but a sharp pain ran through her left hand in response. Looking down at the appendage resting at her side, she saw a thin, clear tube inserted into a vein on top. Affixed to her pale skin with tape, the catheter was previously connected to the intra-venous drip Nancy had already removed.

"I'm the worst friend in the whole world, screwing up your life at every turn," Noor said after she burst through the door and made a beeline to Reine's bedside. "And you still want to see me." She hugged her friend before abruptly pulling away. "You do want to see me, right? I mean, you didn't call me in here just to yell at you for getting you kidnapped."

Reine scoffed at the absurd statement. "What are you talking about?"

"I made you go to Switzerland. You wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me." Noor began to sob. "Wescott couldn't have taken you so easily. You wouldn't have gone into early labor-"

"Sweetie, stop. You can't blame yourself for any of that, and what's done is done." She held out her arms for another embrace. "I'm so glad you're here."

"Me too," the girl whispered between sniffles. Straightening up, she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "Not here here because you know how much I hate hospitals, but with you. How are you feeling, Rennie?"

"Extremely mortal." She groaned, attempting to sit up again. "Every piece of me aches. Can you help me up?"

Noor gently grabbed her arm and assisted Reine with swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

"Oww," she let out a small whimper when the stitches on her abdomen began to stretch.

"What is it? Are you okay? Do you want to lie back down?" Noor's already large brown eyes widened at her friend's reaction.

Reine shook her head. "No. I need to get into the bathroom over there." She nodded toward the far side of the room where a door stood slightly ajar. Lowering her feet to the floor, she leaned on Noor for support. "If I look even as half bad as I feel, I'm going to need all of your help."

"No one cares about what you look like right now, Rennie. Not after all you've gone through." Noor slowly guided her across the linoleum floor, until Reine lost her balance. "Whoa, easy does it."

"I'm a bit dizzy." Reine took a deep breath. "Why am I having trouble walking?"

"I've only gotten the info second-hand, seeing as I'm neither your husband nor father of your children." The girl winked with a mischievous smile as they continued their way to the bathroom. "But apparently you went into cardiac arrest twice during delivery so the doctor put you into a medically induced coma for a bit."

"Are you kidding me?" Reine grimaced at her friend in disbelief.

"Of course not. But I do want to thank you."

"For what?"

"For reminding me why I never want to have children," Noor said with a laugh before opening the door to the adjacent room.

"Ha, ha. Very funny. Oh, good. A toothbrush. Just what I need." Letting go of her friend, Reine walked to the sink. After giving her teeth a good scrub and then brushing the knots out of her hair, she finished by splashing cold water on her face.

"I suppose that'll have to do." She frowned at her pale reflection in the mirror.

Over her shoulder, leaning against the doorframe with arms crossed, Noor smiled. "What now?"

"Now you smuggle me and the babies out of here, and we sip margaritas on a beach somewhere while I make a decision that will affect the rest of my life." She turned around and lovingly smoothed out Noor's headscarf.

The younger girl sighed. "I wish I could, sweetie. But you're going to have to face them sooner or later. Do you want me to send Max in?"

"Max? No. They still think both of the boys are Gabe's. It would be strange for me not to want to talk to him first." She bit her lip, unsure of whether her logic was sound, but keeping herself from refuting it.

"Gabe it is." Noor nodded before helping Reine back to the bed and leaving the room.

She'd just gotten situated when the door opened again and the tall, young man entered.

"Are you wearing the same thing you had on at Westminster?" Reine looked him up and down, recognizing the black, V-neck sweater and gray slacks from days earlier.

He ran his fingers through his hair and smirked. "Yeah. I haven't really had a chance to change. I wanted to be around when you woke up, and we weren't sure how long that would take."

"You've been here the whole time?" she asked as he strode across the room and stopped at her bedside.

"Uh-huh." He nodded. "Max, too. He had to go down to the emergency room to get stitched up first, but otherwise he's been around, too."

"Are you surprised by that?" she asked cautiously.

He reached up to her face and wiped a lock of hair from her cheek. "By what? That he's sticking around?"

Reine shivered from his touch, and she paused before saying the revealing words. "No, that he needed stitches."

"Because he's mortal now?" Gabe pulled his hand away and stuck it in his pocket. "I figured as much. I mean, it was strange he didn't even put up a fight that day at your house, but I thought maybe he was trying to prove some stupid point to you. When he fell off the map for weeks afterwards, I started to put two and two together."

Reine nervously played with the edge of the blanket between her fingers. "You didn't tell Wescott, did you?"

"Of course not. I've told you before; Max is my friend. I owe him more than to turn on him like that."

The admission gave Reine confidence to say what she dreaded, so she reached out and took his hand. "About Max . . . we need to talk."

Gabe's eyes widened. "Now? Don't you want to go see your sons first?"

"This involves them, and it's better if I told you privately," she said.

He squeezed her hand and drew his lips into a thin line before answering. "All right. I'm listening."

Reine took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. Now that the moment had come to tell him that most likely only one of the babies was biologically his, she felt her resolve waning. Her stomach tightened into a knot and her heart pounded in her throat. Swallowing, she burst out the first words that came to mind. "I love you."

Gabe smiled. "But?" he drew out the syllable.

Reine shook her head. This was when she should have been telling him about her earlier pregnancy from before she became immortal, but Gabe had sabotaged the conversation. "But what? There's no but."

He pursed his lips. "Of course there's a but." He nodded toward the hallway where Max was still pacing outside the glass door. "Our entire relationship has been overshadowed by that ominous 'but.' I didn't want to do this quite right now, but if we're having this discussion, we might as well."

Pulling his hand out of hers, he stepped away from the bed and turned his back.

Reine's eyes widened. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"Is it really a break-up if we officially haven't been together for months?" he asked over his shoulder.

"But you said you were happy about becoming a father . . . that you'd be there for me." Her vision became cloudy from the tears flooding her eyes.

"And I meant all of that. But I can't give you everything you need." He turned around again. "Oh, no. Please don't cry."

After sitting on the edge of the bed, he wiped the tears rolling down her cheek with his thumb. "Listen, Reine. This isn't easy for me either, but I love you so much that I can't let you waste your last chance at life with me."

A wave of anger washed over her, and she clenched her jaw. "You can't make that decision for me."

"Technically, no. But I can make it for myself." He pursed his lips before continuing. "And because I know I'm not good enough for you, I'm taking myself out of the picture romantically. Whether you then choose to be with Max, alone, or with someone else, that's up to you." After the last word, he looked away and stared at the blue curtain.

Reine's lungs tightened and it felt as though her heart was literally breaking at Gabe's declaration. Even though just minutes earlier she wasn't sure if she wanted to be with him, his preemptive rejection took her by surprise, and the words stung.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked as her voice quivered from anxiety.

He turned his head and looked her straight in her eyes. "Because I know you wouldn't."

Reine scoffed. "How could you know my intentions when I don't have a clue about them yet myself?"

"You chose to be with me last March when there were no logical reasons for you to do so--"

"Of course there was! I loved you", she said.

"I said logical. And love - no matter how strong or real - doesn't qualify."

Reine pouted and crossed her arms. "Go on."

"You'd had five hundred years of experience behind you and perhaps five hundred more to go, yet you were willing to live an ordinary life just to be with me."

"And you're not willing to do that for me." Realizing his meaning, she phrased it as a statement, not a question.

"It's not willingness, Reine. It's ability. Things are so different for me right now. You've gone through this; you can't argue with that. I'm twenty-five, and I'm going to take advantage of every new power I've been given with immortality. And that means I'm going to screw up," he said.

His baby blue eyes began to sparkle in the fluorescent lights as they filled up with tears, and Reine had to bite her lip to keep from also crying again.

"For God's sake, you died twice during delivery! Do you know what hearing that felt like?"

She smirked before whispering, "I do actually. I thought you were dead for three months, not three minutes."

"True." He sighed. "So then you'll understand that I can afford to screw up for myself, but I can't afford to do it for you, as well. Not when . . . not when this is your last lifetime." He leaned against her chest and began to sob.

No matter how much Reine hurt, she couldn't fault him for his decision. It was selfish, yes, but it was also the most mature argument he'd made since she'd known him. Before she could formulate a proper reply, nurse Nancy burst through the door pushing a wheelchair with one hand and waving a piece of paper in the air with the other.

"I've got your release from ICU, so if you're ready to see those babies, you can go on up to neonatal now." She smiled until seeing the somber scene. "Are you all right, love?"

Gabe sat up, and Reine nodded. "Can you grab that robe?" She pointed to the garment on a nearby hook. Getting out of bed and slipping it on, she took a seat in the wheelchair.

"Let's do this," she instructed as Gabe pushed her out of the room just to come face-to-face with Max waiting in the hallway.