Waters of Oblivion

Chapter 36: The Delivery

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.