If It Hurts This Much (Chaelisa)

SEASON 2 : Chapter 10

The last few weeks of Chaeyoung's pregnancy fly by.

One moment Lisa's coming home from work, lying her head in Chaeyoung's lap, kissing the swell of her stomach and saying how it's only four weeks until they meet, and then the next she's coming home and Chaeyoung's whispering how it's only two.

Chaeyoung's hormones become worse, but it's nothing to complain about and whether it's the middle of the night or early in the morning when Chaeyoung's hand slips beneath her top and short nails graze over her abs, Lisa awakens with a smile, tells Chaeyoung to roll onto her slide, pushes down her boxers and slides into her slowly, fingers slipping between Chaeyoung's as their hands rest on the swell of her stomach.

But then one night she's woken to the sound of her name being called frantically from Chaeyoung's lips and she knows something's different. It's already a week past the due date and she's sat upright in a split second, turning to face her wife as Chaeyoung presses her hand hard into her stomach and looks up through glossy brown eyes.

"My water broke," Chaeyoung says, panic evident in her voice.

And Lisa freezes.

It feels too soon to be now. It feels way too soon and even though there's a duffel bag sitting by the front door already, even though they've both read up on what they need to do and have been to countless Lamaze classes to get ready for this moment, it still doesn't feel like enough.

Lisa still forces herself into action, whipping her head around with fatigue still tugging at her mind and jumps off the bed. She moves around their bedroom, grabs some clothes and slips into them as Chaeyoung strokes her stomach, already sitting with her legs dangling off the side of the bed.

"We're fine. We're good. We're ready," Lisa says.

It's mostly to herself though, as some kind of calming technique and after she pushes a top into Chaeyoung's hand, she blanks. But fingers latch onto her wrist and she's brought back to earth, and to Chaeyoung’s eyes.

"Calm down, Lisa," Chaeyoung whispers. "We really are fine. Just grab my stuff and lets get to the car."

Despite the fact that Lisa's sure she should be the one saying that, she takes a few deep breaths and calms down. Her mind manages to sort itself out and then she's getting back into action again, wetting her lips, grabbing Chaeyoung's hand, wrapping her arm around Chaeyoung's waist and walking them both to the front door, only pausing to sling the duffel bag over her shoulder before they leave.

"We're having a baby, Lisa," Chaeyoung murmurs in wonderment as Lisa straps her in.

Lisa doesn't even hesitate before lifting up to press a lingering kiss to her wife's mouth.

***

The Lamaze classes really do help it seems, and Lisa times her wife's contractions as she cuts through the streets of Seoul.

Chaeyoung's contractions are three to five minutes apart, lasting between forty and sixty seconds and Lisa knows, even through the sleepiness, that this means Chaeyoung should probably be in a hospital room about now.

She's in the 'active phase' and Lisa coaches her wife through all the relaxation techniques and breathing exercises they've practiced in the past few months, trying to remember to breath herself because she can't panic. She's not allowed to panic because if she does, Chaeyoung will start panicking and if Chaeyoung starts panicking, both of them will be panicking and that won't do anyone any good.

So she just steadies her breaths at the red lights and sends a prayer to the heavens that there's no roadworks on their route.

***