Aftershocks | Calum Hood

35

38 weeks

"Cal?" Mackenzie called out for him from the couch, where she'd been attempting to wait patiently for nearly twenty minutes now, as he busied himself upstairs packing a bag for the hospital.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" He yelled back quickly, his words harried and his voice displaying his obvious distress. He appeared on the stairs a moment later, bag in his hand. "Sorry, I can't believe I fucking unpacked it after the last time we went to get you checked out." He told her, obviously angry at himself for not being better prepared.

"It's fine, let's just go." She told him, still trying to gather herself after the passing of the last contraction.

"Okay babe, let me take this stuff out to the car and I'll come back for you. Two seconds, love." He said pressing a kiss to her forehead and running the things out to the car. When he returned he knit his brow observing her as she dealt with the pain and he contemplated what there was that he could do to help her.

"Can you walk, or would you rather I carry you?" He asked.

"I'll walk, just help me up." She said, reaching for his hand. With great effort from each of them she was able to get herself to a standing position and he escorted her out to the car. Once she was safely secured in the front seat and her seat belt on he raced around to the driver's side, throwing open the door and hopping behind the wheel.

He slid the key in the ignition and turned it, but nothing happened aside from the sound of a dull click as the engine refused to turn over.

His eyes widened as he glanced over to find Mack looking back at him. For the first time he saw the true panic in her eyes.

"Hey, hey. Big breaths. Everything is gonna be fine. I must've just left the lights on and the battery died. We have two options, we can switch over to your car," He said gesturing to her new Suburban. "Or I can use your car to jump mine off. Which do you wanna do?"

"I don't want to move." She said her face scrunching as she tightened her grip on the handlebar above her head.

"Fuck, okay." He said, removing himself from the car quickly and grabbing the jumper cables from her car quickly. He hooked them up and tried his best to hurry as he got his own car started, trying not to let her cries of pain distract him from the task at hand.

By the time he'd managed to start the car and pull on to the freeway, Mack was nearly in tears. He reached across the console, offering her his hand. She gripped it tightly, her face reddening and moans of pain escaping her every few minutes.

"Cal, please hurry." She cried out as they exited the highway, only a few minutes from the hospital.

"I'm trying, baby. This fucking traffic is awful." He groaned, frustrated that nothing was going right.

Tears fell from Mack's eyes as she held tightly to his hand.

"Fuck, Cal. This hurts so bad." She sobbed and he wished there was any way for him to take on her pain.

"Five minutes babe, we'll tell them to get you the meds as soon as we get there."

He swung into the parking lot, throwing the SUV into park and rushing inside to find an admitting nurse. When he'd found her, he followed her back outside and stood by feeling useless as Mackenzie was helped into a wheelchair before being whisked away to the Labor and Delivery ward. Everything seemed so surreal, the girl he loved was about to become a mother and he was still confused on where exactly he fit in to the picture as the man who loved her, but wasn't technically the father to her child.