“Easy,” I murmur, “easy.” I show her what a deep breath looks like, trying to steady her growing panic. Her body shakes, her blue eyes wide, sweat glistens across her forehead. I rub my thumb against her knuckles, her hand gripping mine like life depends on it.
“It hurts,” she whimpers, eyes closing with a hard wince. My other hand closes around her jaw and I softly blow hair into her face to cool her down.
She shakes her head in refusal, a cry bubbling up her throat, “oh. Oh.”
“Tension isn't helping our baby, please relax.” She gives me a look that makes me want to bury myself alive to recover from it. A hopeless scared gaze that makes me want to claw out my eyes on top of being five feet underground.
“Help me,” she whines, “get him out of me.”
I flash a look at the royal healers around me, their eyes mildly impatient. I give them a cold stern look that has them shifting into action to avoid my ire.
“I'm still convinced it's a little girl,” I smile, brushing her hair that's matted onto her forehead.
“There's nothing little about her then,” she groans and shifts away from me, her body locking up, “no, not again,” she cries and her fingernails dig into me. I have several of these wounds now but I can't even register it with the way I've been watching her so intently.
“Breathe,” I remind her quickly, “breath in and out. Relax your jaw.”
Her teeth are bared to the world, the entirety of her rigid, airless.
“Breathe,” I bark, my worry crawling up my mouth.
She does but the sound that leaves with it is enough to drive me over an edge. My hand leaves her face and falls onto the swell of her stomach, bare to the room, our child begging to escape it. A blanket covers her lower half and I'm tempted to tear it away to see if there is progress. A healer beats me to it, bending my wife’s knee up and opening her legs like a butterfly, blanket falling away.
“That's the sound we were waiting for, your majesty,” the midwife coos gently. “You’re ready to start pushing. It’ll all be over soon.”
Terror strikes me like a hard fist to the jaw and I sit there in stunned silence. My wife on the other hand starts a tantrum, limps a chaos as she tries to leave the bed. None of us expect this but with her so bloated, she barely makes it before I'm holding her still, pinning to the mattress. Her eyes are crazed and dazed with pain and anger.
“I am not pushing,” she hisses at me as if I was the one who suggested it.
“Are you saying that because you're afraid of the pain or because you don't think you can do it?” I challenge, raising an eyebrow. I dare to let my hand travel down between her legs, my fingers breaching the now expanded opening. I almost groan, “darling,” my head slumps towards her with near relief, “you are so close.” I feel the spot of thin hair, the curvature of a baby’s head. Our child.
“Get your fingers out of me,” she groans, whimpering.
“First I've heard that one,” I smirk. She flashes me a warning look that I eat up.
She again seems to be primed with a retort when both hands furiously find the bottom sheet. Giving my hand, wrist, and arm a break from her piercing touch. A terrified little yelp breaks from her mouth and one leg loses grip on the bedding and kicks out.
“Oh please,” she heartbreakingly pleads. So unlike my vicious wife. “Make it stop.”
I instinctively brush my knuckles to her cheek, my other hand resting low on her stomach. “You need to push, darling,” I press on her skin, “and hard. You're going to be just fine if you do that.”
She says something incoherent, a blubbering mess of raw emotion, exhaustion, and pain. Still she does what we all hoped, pushed. Her face tight with determination, chin to her chest, the sound of an animal in full heat coming out of her. She's never looked so beautiful.
“That's it,” I encourage softly and twist, getting a cold cloth for her forehead and neck. She relaxes instantly, tears streaming down her face.
“I can't do this,” she says, voice breaking.
“Of course you can,” I say softly.
She shakes her head in defiance of my words. Head tipping back against the pile of pillows behind her. My wife shrieks, her body shaking violently. “No, please, no,” she begs.
“It comes, your majesty, push,” the healer beckons.
My focus waivers between how vulnerable and how strong my wife is in this moment that I too am breathless for a spell before I am smiling, staring down at the peek of dark hair.
“I see her, darling, push oh please push.” Our ‘please’ is so contrasting that I laugh. She follows my suggestion and cries out again, this time her hand finding my forearm and holding tight. She looks at me, a face full of unabashed fear and loathing, “you did this to me.”
I still can't wipe the joy from my face so my, “I know,” comes out manic.
She whimpers, tears cascading down her face and mingling with sweat. She swears colorfully. That head of dark hair moves forward and now holds her folds open and taut. She's screaming loud enough to break the windows and I'm there, holding her head against mine, getting closer and closer. “Shh, it's almost over, you're doing so well.”
“Small pushes now, blow out, stretch wide,” the healer mimics the breathing she wants to achieve but my wife just lets out the most pathetic of whimpers.
“You're amazing. I'm so impressed,” my lips brush into her sweaty hair.
“Don't say that like you're surprised,” she huffs at me.
I chuckle, leaning back to take in her burning blue eyes. “I'm not surprised.”
“Just a few more pushes,” the healer coaxs.
I watch the head pop out with a bit of liquid and a shrill cry from my partner, who now pants wildly, eyes lidded with weariness. “Pull it out,” she demands, narrowing her gaze to menacing.
“You'll push in a minute here,” the healer amends for her.
“Just take it out,” she begs and then groans deeply, eyes closing quickly, “ohhh nooo” I watch in fascination as the baby starts to rotate slowly.
“Hold on, dearie,” the healer tugs the cord up and over our child’s head eliminating a threat against its life already. “Open these legs wider for me, there you go. Push, push, push.”
Thankfully my wife follows her orders. Her face bright red, and voice raising as more and more of the child emerges. Unceremoniously the screaming is replaced by the baby who now flails around in her mother's arms. Her. Our daughter. My wife and I lock eyes, her face split with adorable shock as if she hadn't just gone through all the work to make this happen. I slump towards them both, my adrenaline wearing off and I'm realizing my own hand has left crescent moons into my flesh from concern. I relax my body and take a deep breath.
“Thank gods,” I murmured to no one in particular. I look up timidly to my wife who wipes our baby with a towel and scrunches her entire chin towards her neck to get a better look at the purple screeching face. Our daughter finally has a lapse in annoyance and her eyes open, stormy gray eyes forming a perfect mirror to gaze into. My wife drops back, a lifeless laugh forcing out of her, “all that only for her to look like you.” She sounds both bitter and proud.
I grin, “she will no doubt be a stunner like me then.”
She huffs loudly but matches my smile, content with such a notion.
“The next one will look like you.”
Her jaw drops open. “The next one?!”