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A deep, guttural moan rolled down the hall, followed by startled, twittering babble.
Natalie bolted from Rafe's suddenly slack hold and raced down the hall, bouncing off the walls as she tried to regain her equilibrium. His touch still burned on her skin, on her lips, his words still echoed in her ears...but all was erased at the sight of Lynn.
She sprawled on the floor near the small sofa, legs in a butterfly fold—soles together, knees out. Despite the chill of the early April day, she'd worn a loose, flowing dress, joking earlier that she carried her own furnace with her. She curled protectively over her protruding belly, face contorted.
Natalie fell to her knees beside Penta, who held one of Lynn's hands. On her other side, Helen rubbed her back, a helpless expression on her usually cheerful face. “Has someone called Benjamin? Or an ambulance?”
“On it.” Aubrey waved a hand and moved toward the patio doors, her phone pressed to her ear.
“It's going to be okay.” She patted Lynn's knee and shot a desperate glance at Penta. “What happened? She was fine a minute ago.”
“Her water broke. The contractions started almost immediately.” A mother of four, she looked pale but determined.
“Sorry about your couch.” Lynn panted and leaned back as the contraction eased. “I'll replace it.”
Natalie became aware of a fecund, fertile smell and saw the large damp patch on what had been a pristine cushion. “Don't worry about it. You just hang on until the ambulance gets here.”
“I don't know what's happening. It wasn't like this with Oscar.” Her voice was high and panicky. Penta winced and discreetly changed hands, shaking out the one Lynn had been squeezing. “Here comes another one.” Her face flooded with fiery colour.
Natalie craned her neck, looked past the hovering Silverberries, and focused on Rafe. “What do we do? You're a doctor. Is there anything we can do?”
––––––––
SO MUCH HAD HAPPENED in the last few minutes that Rafe didn't feel connected to his feet. He watched the tableau before him as if it were happening on a muted screen...the party decor, the flustered friends, the labouring woman.
Until Natalie pinned him with a dark, frantic look and pleaded for advice.
He snapped back into his body with a ferociousness that made his head spin. Scent, colour, and sound came rushing back. Aubrey's voice reached him with diamond-sharp clarity. “911 wants to know if we can get her to hospital ourselves.”
Lynn growled in a savage, wordless protest.
“Right. I'll tell them that's a no.” Aubrey returned to her phone.
“Rafe. Please.” Natalie's hand rubbed Lynn's thigh in an automatic motion. “What should we do?”
He'd spent too long hiding in his laboratory. His medical instincts were rusty. He should have leaped into action, immediately responded to Lynn's need. Instead, he was gawking like a spectator.
His fingers trembled and his heart fibrillated at the thought of taking responsibility for another life. Two lives. But he had no choice. Doing nothing wasn't an option.
“I haven't attended a birth in twenty years. More.” He wound his way through the small group and crouched beside Helen. Lynn's hand lay at her side, limp in the lull between contractions. He lifted it, his fingers automatically searching for the pulse point in her wrist. Rapid but strong.
Lynn's legs shot out and her fingers gripped his with superhuman strength, crushing the bones of his knuckles. “Uuuuunnnngggggghhhhhh!”
Oh, god. Faint but terrifying memories of all the things that could go wrong in a rapid birth flashed through his brain. Precipitous labour. That was the proper term. Much good that knowledge did him now.
The contractions were coming almost on top of each other. Sweat dripped from Lynn's temples and darkened the neck and armpits of her dress.
“The ambulance is on its way.” Aubrey spoke somewhere over his head.
He'd done several rotations in obstetrics and searched frantically to recall the long-lost lessons. The memory of dim lighting, soothing music, and calm encouragement surfaced. While there wasn't much he could do about the first two, the last he should be able to handle.
Mind you, he'd never had a great bedside manner. It wasn't in his nature to candy-coat things. But he had to defuse the panicked atmosphere somehow.
“Did you hear that, Lynn? The ambulance is on its way. Now we're going to do what we can to make you comfortable, okay?” He spoke as soothingly as he knew how. “How about you lie on your back?”
“No!” Her shout rang off the walls. “Don't move me! I have to stay this way. I can feel...I can feel...” She broke off in a sob.
“All right, that's fine.” He withdrew the suggestion hastily. “Maybe we should find out just have much work you've done already. Do you mind if I examine you?”
“Do whatever you want. I don't care.” Her head thrashed from side to side. “The baby's coming. I know it is. I want to be in hospital! I want Benjamin!”
While Penta, Helen, and Natalie did their best to calm her and the other Silverberries huddled at the far side of the room trying to be invisible, Rafe washed his hands at the kitchen sink. Despite the need to hurry, he scrubbed thoroughly between his fingers, under his nails, up to his elbows. He used the time to review what he could remember of potential complications. To Lynn—hemorrhaging from the uterus, tearing of the vaginal tissues, lacerations of the perineum. To the baby—increased risk of infection due to a non-sterile environment, potential inhalation of amniotic fluid. What else?
He couldn't do this. Too much could go wrong. He didn't have the experience. He would make a fatal mistake. He couldn't bear it if he was responsible for another tragedy.
A shriek from the other room cut through his spiralling thoughts. “I need to push!”
He had to do it. He was a doctor for Christ's sake. He had a sacred duty.
Back at Lynn's side, he placed one hand on her quivering knee. “I'm going to examine you now, okay, Lynn? It won't hurt. I just want to see where we are.”
“What do you mean by goddamn we?” Lynn spoke through gritted teeth. “I don't see you pushing a baby out of a teeny tiny hole.”
Natalie choked and he met her eyes. Amusement briefly obscured her alarm, and it steadied him.
Someone had placed a towel under Lynn's hips...a blindingly white, pristine towel. It was speckled with a few tiny flecks of blood and discoloured with fluid, but nothing unexpected.
Lynn jackknifed her legs, hunching over her tight, swollen belly. “Don't push,” he ordered. “Not yet. Breathe through the contraction. Someone coach her!”
“Lynn, look at me, sweetie. You've got this.” Penta crooned the words, encouraging her to huff and pant as she struggled through the instinct to eject the baby from her body. Between her legs, a damp thatch of dark hair appeared. He touched it briefly, relieved to feel a strong pulse pounding under his fingers.
“Your baby is crowning.” He hoped Lynn couldn't hear the nerves in his voice. “On the next contraction, go for it with all you've got.”
––––––––
NATALIE HAD HEARD BIRTH described as a miracle, but hadn't really understood until this moment.
To see a brand new, fully functioning—and perfectly healthy, thank god—human being come into the world with such violent suddenness had been shocking and disturbing and absolutely, completely, totally amazing.
The paramedics and Benjamin arrived on each other’s heels. Lynn had been too far along to move, and Natalie’s apartment had become a makeshift delivery suite. Rafe and the first responders had melded into a team, Benjamin had taken over from Penta as coach, and in shockingly few minutes, a dark-haired boy made his appearance.
Natalie would have to sort through her jumbled impressions later, but she knew several would be forever preserved in her memory—
Rafe's calm but firm guidance, despite the fear lurking at the back of his eyes that she was certain only she could see.
Lynn's wonder and awe at the first sight of her baby as the slick, shrieking bundle was laid on her chest.
Benjamin, shaking and tearful, kissing the top of his wife's head, his arms wrapped around her and their new son as if he'd never let go.
The whole experience had taken less than forty-five minutes. Natalie couldn't get over it. How was it possible there had been no baby...and then moments later, there he was?
The paramedics checked Lynn and the infant and declared them in wonderful condition despite the dramatic entry. They insisted on bringing them to the hospital for observation, which Benjamin wholeheartedly endorsed. He remained glued to Lynn's side, his expression fluctuating from bemusement to joy, and by the time the gurney was trundled out the narrow hall, he hadn't yet recovered his usual healthy colour.
Exuberant and relieved, the Silverberries shared celebratory hugs, but decided continuing the party just seemed...anticlimactic. They said their goodbyes with promises to make it up to Natalie later and drifted down the hall, rehashing with astonishment the event they'd shared.
She was rather glad they'd left. She was as wilted as a week-old lily, her muscles slack, her brain foggy. Some quiet time was just what she needed.
Shutting the door, she sagged against it and closed her eyes. Through the wall at her left, where the bathroom was, the sound of water running stopped. A door clicked open and soft footsteps approached.
“How are you doing?”
Her smile bloomed even before her eyes opened. “I'm exhausted. I can't imagine what you feel like.”
Rafe's face lit with a grin the likes of which she had never seen before. A shadow, one she hadn't realized had always been present until the cloud lifted, was vanquished. “I'm fine. Lynn did all the work.”
“She was amazing. I think she could move mountains if she wanted to.” She pushed off the door and stumbled into his arms. They encircled her automatically and she sighed. “I am so freaking proud of you.”
“Why? I didn't do anything.” He sounded honestly astounded.
“You were there for her. For us. You stepped up, big time.” She'd seen the horror on his face when she'd first asked him what to do, known his reaction was coming from a place of low self-confidence, not cowardliness. For a man like Rafe, one who was so terrified of doing anything wrong, to get past that and accept responsibility in an emergency... Well, she had no words for what she was feeling right now.
Other than love. Pure, unadulterated, life-affirming love.