Dream Five, Chapter Twenty-Nine

(Anything in asterisks is meant to be italicized.)

The next two weeks were hell. I couldn't really go anywhere, I had no customers to interact with, and very few people who could come visit me. Whenever we were in Faery, I had to keep from fidgeting as I sat on my throne. On top of it all, I still couldn't have sex with Barrons.

I'd grumpily asked him one night why he wasn't grumpier knowing we both wanted it but couldn't.

"Did you want me to be grumpier than usual?" he'd asked in a voice that was drier than the Sahara in summer during a drought.

"No," I had snapped. "I just want to know why."

"You forget how long it took you to admit you wanted to fuck me. Besides, you're grumpy enough for the both of us. Me being grumpier is only going to make things worse."

"I really hate you sometimes."

"No you don't."

"Do too."

"Don't."

"Do."

Barrons had sighed with a look that was torn between amusement and exasperation before he'd pulled me close and stroked my hair as he softly sung to me in a language I didn't recognize until I'd fallen asleep.

Then the two weeks were over and I still hadn't given birth.

"Kat, this is ridiculous," I told her as I paced. "My due date has come and gone and this kid still hasn't come out yet."

"Maybe it's still getting ready," Barrons said as he passed me and headed towards the door. "You certainly take long enough sometimes."

"Hang on, Kat," I said before pressing the phone to my shoulder. "Where are you going?"

He turned, his hand on the doorknob. "Chester's. Meeting."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I was going to pop any day now and terrified out of my mind about it.

"Dani's on her way and I'll have my phone on me the whole time," Barrons assured me as he held up his device.

"When will you be back?" I demanded.

"Tonight." He knew I was about to have a volatile emotional reaction (though I wasn't sure which emotion would win) so he came over and kissed me before shooting over his shoulder as he left, "It'll be fine, Mac." He was gone before I could protest any further.

"I know you're uncomfortable, Mac, but I'm sure it won't be much longer," Kat assured me as Dani blew in. Fifteen minutes later, Dani and I were seated in the back reading area of the bookstore.

"Is Barrons able to partially change into the beast?" she pried. "You know, in bed?"

"Mmhm," I smirked. "He laughed at my astonishment the first time he did it."

"Were you *Pri-ya* then?" I had never given her any details about that time. This was actually the first time she and I had been able to compare notes about our favorite pair of half-brothers.

"No, it was when the Book was on the loose and we disappeared for a while," I laughed. "I didn't know about the beast yet. Although we both came away from me being *Pri-ya* with hang-ups. He won't have sex with me unless I find a way to tell him that I'm fully aware of what I'm doing and who I'm doing it with and that I want him and I want to live and he likes his name thrown in there, too."

"Feck, that's a lot," she laughed. "How do you tell him all that?"

I shrugged and told her, "I say, 'Fuck me, Jericho Barrons,' and—"

"Mac?" she said when I stopped and didn't continue. "Are you okay?"

"Dani, I think my water just broke."

"Are you kidding me?" she asked as she leapt to her feet and started doing that thing where she bounces back and forth from foot to foot. "What do we do?"

"We call Kat," I said as I pulled out my phone.

I consulted with Kat and had Dani time my contractions when the first one hit a few minutes later. All of the books I'd read said to head to the hospital when they were five to seven minutes apart. Hospitals didn't really exist anymore, though the Garda had set up a temporary one at Dublin Castle. However, since we were trying to keep my pregnancy a secret, I was giving birth in the residence half of the bookstore. Kat said she was on her way, but warned me it would probably still be a while. Then I called the doctor we had found and told her to be on standby.

"Aren't you going to call Barrons?" Dani asked when I put my cellphone down.

"You heard Kat," I told her as I gestured for her to help me to my feet. The puddle of water I left behind vanished with a thought before I sifted us to my bedroom. "It's still going to be a while. I think he needs a break for a bit so I'll call him when the contractions are closer together."

"If you're sure," she said with a shrug. I know Dani pretty well. Even if she disagreed with me, she'd usually follow my play and I'd do the same for her.

"I am. Now help me out of these clothes."

She helped me undress, having seen me naked already when she was thirteen and had rescued me from my rapists, but I was still a little shy because I just felt so huge. I'd barely let Barrons see me naked lately.

Once that was done, I sifted us down to the birthing suite and pulled out a maternity hospital gown that Dani helped me put on. Some things I had found in abandoned hospitals and summoned to the store like a hospital bed and an IV stand and some hospital gowns. The one Dani was helping me with tied around the back like a normal hospital gown, but I'd managed to find some that were for new moms. The top half of the front could be unsnapped from the rest of the gown for breastfeeding. I had turned them a light pink, the sheets and blankets magenta, and hadn't stopped there.

The room Barrons had emptied out was like the parlor on the first floor: Old World with dark wood. As much as I loved the style of my bookstore, I was going to require comfort of a certain style. Most of the shows I'd grown up watching usually had any character who was in labor give birth in a hospital. That was originally what I had intended to do until we decided to keep it a secret, so I had given the room a makeover.

The walls were now a soft and soothing shade of pink in a textured wavy pattern with white floor and ceiling trim. The floor was the easily cleaned, speckled tile of a hospital floor. I'd even put bubblegum pink curtains on the windows that were light and flow-y, the kind that moved slowly and gracefully when the wind blew through them. However, I had forgone the usual fluorescent lights. Instead, I had painted the ceiling a nice comforting cream color and installed circular lights in it that were on a dimmer switch. They could be soft and low, or very bright. There was a stand on wheels with a table surface that folded up and down and had an adjustable height. I'd also put in a couple magenta- and champagne-colored plush armchairs that were on wheels so they could be easily positioned and moved. In one corner of the room, I had erected a bathroom. There was a pink padded rolling stool, pink scrubs, and pink personal protective gear for Kat. I'd even summoned some of the art one of the hospitals had had on the walls and hung it all (only taking the ones that had pink in them), and hung a TV with a DVD player in a corner.

The doctor had kindly assembled a list of everything Kat and I might need and I had doubled most of it just to be safe. Everything she would need had been sterilized and placed in cabinets by the bathroom, a metal tray on wheels standing nearby to hold any instruments required. I'd also taken inspiration from observing the abandoned hospital rooms and maternity wards and hospital nurseries and gathered or made whatever I thought we might need. It was all being stored in the next room that Barrons had also grumpily emptied out.

Even if we realized I had forgotten something, I had Dani there who would run out and get it. Only a sifter would be faster, but I doubt even Masdann would have been as dedicated or determined. We were as prepared as we could possibly be. Need-wise, anyway.

I was not prepared for the pain.

I'd been through a lot since coming to Dublin. Mallucé had thrown me into a stack of pallets that had broken several bones. He'd also nearly beaten me to death. I'd been through several battles. I have even dug bullets out of my body, although once I had eaten Unseelie I was no longer in pain. Barrons helped me build an immunity to the Druid spell Voice by having me cut myself repeatedly. He'd also repeatedly slammed me up against walls out of frustration, and his beast had once dragged me across the floor.

I was *so* not prepared for the pain.

Instead of sitting in the hospital bed the whole time, I caused the clouds to part and the sun to shine through the windows so I could sit in front of them in a chair and absorb it until it set. Kat arrived about two hours after I called and changed into scrubs before checking to see how far I was dilated.

"How's it looking, Kat?" I asked after temporarily climbing into the bed so she could check.

"You're somewhere between two and three centimeters, but your contractions are speeding up to eight minutes apart," she told me, looking nervous.

"You can do this, Kat," I told her. "You're the most capable person I know. Sean's on standby to go get the doctor if needed, but you can do this."

She smiled gratefully and said, "Thanks, Mac."

I sifted the *Bewitched* DVDs up from the lair after a while and we watched them and chatted in between contractions. Once I was down to contractions every four minutes, Dani got me my phone and I called Barrons, who still hadn't returned. I had gone into labor at about 9:30 that morning and it was approaching the eleven hour mark.

"I'm leaving in a few minutes," he growled when he picked up. We'd both been getting grumpy and snippy ever since my due date had come and gone because we were both ready for this phase to end.

"Hello to you, too," I said coolly. "I'd advise leaving sooner rather than later because I went into labor around fifteen to twenty minutes after you left this morning. My contractions are about four minutes apart and Kat says I'm dilated between seven and eight centimeters."

He was quiet for so long that I was beginning to think he'd hung up.

"Jericho?"

"Are you bloody fucking kidding me?" he said so softly I almost didn't hear it. "Why didn't you bloody fucking call me hours ago, Mac?"

"For you to do what?" I snapped. "Stand around and brood for several hours because you have absolutely no control over this situation? You clearly needed some alone time and this was the perfect opportunity for it. I decided I'd rather have you not here at the beginning and in a somewhat better mood than here the whole time and more grumpy and cantankerous than usual." He went quiet again and I waited without prompting.

"Christ, woman. Why does it always take you so long to tell me the important things?" I was pleasantly surprised to hear a smile in his voice.

"Just get here," I told him, smiling myself.

"We're on our way."

"Wait, we?" I said, but he'd already hung up. He and Ryodan walked in not thirty seconds later. "Oh, that's what you meant."

Barrons took off his suit coat and tossed it onto a chair, revealing a blood red silk shirt, before he immediately came to where I was in the bed, grabbed my face, and kissed me deep. I grinned up at him before tensing and groaning as I felt a contraction. He grabbed my hands and I squeezed, knowing I couldn't hurt him.

"How's she doing?" he asked Kat when my contraction ended.

"She should be ready to push in a few hours," she answered.

"And are you certain you're ready to do this," said Ryodan.

"Yes," she said firmly. Barrons nodded to her before turning back to me.

"I wish you had called me sooner, Mac," he said in a low voice.

"Jericho, I'm fine," I assured him as I gave his hands a quick squeeze.

*I could have been here holding your hands the whole time.*

I smiled at him and ran a hand through his thick hair, touched at how much he wanted to comfort and take care of me. He's not someone you'd usually think of to go to for comfort. *It's okay. Dani held them. We've been doing just fine.*

He looked away and I realized I'd somehow struck a nerve, but I didn't know why. I'd usually invade his mind to try and find the memory attached to the nerve, but I was afraid I wouldn't find it before the next contraction. Maybe he'd missed the birth of his son.

"Hey," I said softly as I turned his head back towards me and stroked his cheek with my thumb. *But I won't be when I have to start pushing. I'm really going to need you then.*

*I'll be right here*, he assured me.

"Good," I said with a little laugh before I sobered up. *I'm scared, Jericho.*

*It's going to be okay, Mac*, he sent me as he tucked some loose hair behind my ear. *It's not going to be easy, but you can do this.*

As long as Jericho Barrons believes in me, I can do anything.