Chapter Twenty-Six
Jethro
Five months later
I woke to my commanding officer shaking my shoulder.
“Lieutenant, there’s a transport leaving in ten minutes. You need to be on it.” Huh?
I sat up, trying to make sense of his words. I wasn’t due home for another two weeks when my five month deployment ended.
“Your mate, Miles, is at the base hospital.”
I grabbed my CO’s arm. “Is he okay?”
“They didn’t have much information, I was just told to get you on the next transport home. We’ll try to find out more for you during transit.”
I stumbled to my feet and grabbed my pack from under my bunk, following my CO across the base to the airfield. He clapped me on the shoulder and hustled me on board.
“Good luck,” he called as the doors were closed behind me.
There were a dozen soldiers already on board.
“Grab a seat,” someone yelled. “Take off’s in three.”
The plane began to taxi as I moved to the closest free seat and strapped myself in. It was a small plane, meant for carrying troops and not built for comfort.
“What time is it?” I asked the officer next to me.
“Midnight at home, sir. Two a.m. here.”
I’d only been asleep maybe an hour. It felt longer. It felt like I hadn’t really woken. What had happened? Was Miles okay? It was too soon for the baby’s arrival.
I tried to think of reasons they’d call me home with immediate effect and there were only three I could come up with. Either Miles’ life was in danger, or the baby’s, or both. I hoped I was wrong but what else could it be?
Despite my CO’s assurances, there was no information passed back to me from the cockpit. And it wasn’t the kind of flight where you wandered around. The officer nearest the cockpit tried to get an update for me after an hour passed. I couldn’t hear what was said over the engine noise.
“They said there’s no information just yet, sir,” the officer beside me passed on quietly.
“Thanks.” I went back to my dark thoughts, hoping against hope I was wrong.
We landed on a bumpy runway just before six a.m. It was still dark out, the lights of the landing strip the only thing visible. As soon as the door opened, I was out into the cold mid-winter air.
“Jethro!” a voice called, and I glanced to my left to see Blaise.
I ran to him, grabbing hold of him. “Miles, is he okay? What’s going on?”
“He’s at the hospital. He started getting pains, and we brought him there and they rushed him away. They wouldn’t tell me any more. Come on, you need to get over there.”
The hospital was on the other side of the base. An eight-minute walk but we ran it in three.
“My Omega, Miles…” I said to the man at the desk.
“Second floor, turn right.”
I ran up the stairs, Blaize at my heels. Turning right, I almost crashed into a familiar figure.
“Jethro,” Doctor Hayes started to say.
“Where’s Miles? Is he okay? Is the baby okay?”
She held up a hand to stop me. “He’s fine. They’re both fine. Just had a bit of a bumpy start, that’s all. Miles went into early labor. We did our best to halt it but there was some fetal distress and labor progressed. Come on, I’ll take you to see them.”
Following her, we walked through a door into a ward. In the distance, I could hear the familiar thump of Miles’ heartbeat and, close to it, a faster heartbeat and the soft cry of a baby.
I reached Miles’ room just as the sun peeked over the horizon, the salmon pink glow through the window framing Miles and the tiny baby he cradled.
“She’s a little early and a bit small but she’s no worse for wear. A few weeks in an incubator, some tender care, and she’ll catch up.”
I barely heard the doctor as I crossed the room toward Miles.
“Jethro, meet your daughter, Dawn,” he said, showing me the tiny figure that seemed barely bigger than his hands.
I clung to him, pressing a kiss to his forehead, feeling tears of relief escape me.
“You gave me such as scare.”
“I gave myself a scare and the whole clan house. But it’s okay. She’s okay. They flew in a neonatologist from Rathlin city. He says she’ll need to stay in an incubator for a while and she’ll be a little fragile to start off with. Here, you should hold her. They’ll have to put her back inside in a minute.” He nodded his head to the clear plastic incubator next to us. Our daughter’s home for the foreseeable.
And then he was settling the tiniest baby I’d ever seen into my arms. They’d dressed her in a yellow onesie and as I cradled her to my chest, she waved a tiny fist in the air, her mouth open, rooting for food.
“I think she’s hungry,” I said.
“That must be a good sign,” Miles replied, stroking a finger across her cheek.
I bent my head to kiss her, my lips just grazing her forehead.
“Hello, Dawn, little one. Welcome to our family. Welcome to our clan.”
Miles laid his head on my shoulder as we stared down at her.
“I think this right here might be a better love story than Stars and Crosses,” Miles said.
“You know what, I think you might be right.”
Dawn blinked her eyes open, her bright blue gaze on us.
“We have some stories to tell you,” I murmured to her. “About a stolen Omega and the love that sprung up out of nothing but two matching marks.”
“And a clan that waited with bated breath for your arrival,” Miles added. She yawned, her eyes sinking closed.
“They’ll keep,” I whispered. “There’ll be many more stories to come.”
Miles
Being a parent was a roller-coaster in more ways than one. One minute there were weeks until our baby was due, the next I was doubled over in pain and Blaise was rushing me to the base’s hospital.
There was fear and pain, and more than anything I wished Jethro was there. They wouldn’t let Blaise stay with me but Doctor Hayes was at my side and I knew was in good hands. As soon as the baby was born, they whisked her away to the other side of the room.
I watched anxiously as they worked on her. I wanted Jethro. And, oddly, I wished my Mom was with me.
The tiny cry that filled the room was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
“Is she okay?”
Doctor Hayes turned. “We’re just getting her stabilized. She needs a bit of help to breathe right now.”
I swung my legs around to the side of the bed and struggled to my feet. My daughter was in danger and I needed to be there for her.
When I crossed the room, the nurse took one look at me and pulled out a chair.
“Sit down.”
I sat but at least now I was close enough to see her. She was tiny and pink, her face covered by an oxygen mask.
The staff spoke words that might as well have been another language. “Sats are picking up. Resps are forty.”
Was that good? Bad?
“She’s holding her own,” Doctor Hayes said with a sigh of relief. “Let’s get her temp up, keep her on the oxygen, and gets some bloods drawn.”
She turned to me. “We’ve got a specialist on route, and we need to do a few tests, but right now it’s the basics of care, keep her warm and make sure she’s getting enough oxygen.”
The nurse helped me up and I moved to stand right next to my baby girl. She was under a heat lamp, her skin pink, but she was perfect, so perfect.
After the specialist came to see her, things calmed down. They had put her in an incubator and she looked impossibly small.
“She’ll need a little help and support for the next few weeks. We’ll keep monitoring her closely.”
“Can I hold her?”
The specialist checked the monitors. “She’s keeping her oxygen levels up so a few minutes of kangaroo care can’t hurt.”
I blinked at that. Doctor Hayes came to my rescue. “It means skin-to-skin contact. It’s very important for premature babies.”
The nurse helped me open my gown as Doctor Hayes took my baby girl from the incubator and put her into my arms.
“You need to support her head. Just like that.” She smiled at me. “Jethro is on his way. His plane landed a few minutes ago.”
I smiled back at her, then down at the precious bundle in my arms.
“Did you hear that, little one? Your daddy is on his way to meet you.”
She was tiny, and I almost couldn’t believe she was really there except that she felt so real in my arms. Her little chest rose and fell, her hands opened and closed. I marveled at it all. Her tiny fingers, her perfect eyelashes, every small movement she made.
Holding her in my arms, I walked toward the window. We were facing due east, like I had been once before, the day I’d learned the meaning of true love, the day I’d understood that I could be more than the sum of my parts. And here I was again, a new type of love surging within me, strong and unbreakable.
The sun appeared above the horizon, lighting up the sky, and I turned as familiar footsteps rushed into the room.
“Jethro, meet your daughter, Dawn.”
Jethro
On compassionate grounds, they gave me leave with immediate effect, even going so far as to extended the time at home I was due to have after Dawn’s birth from six months to a year. It would give us the time we needed to see Dawn safely home.
For the first few weeks, our lives were a bewildering mess of hospital visits, expressed milk, and a ton of terms I’d never heard before, each scarier than the last. But test after test came back with nothing but good results and, before our very eyes, Dawn grew.
Six weeks after her abrupt arrival, she was feeding and doing everything the average newborn was supposed to do, so they allowed us to take her home. Blaise drove us back to the clan house, Dawn cradled in Miles’ arms. The weeks had taken their toll on both of us, like it did any parent with a sick child. But as we pulled into the driveway, Dawn’s arm escaped the cradle of her blankets, waving in the air as if she were a queen greeting her subjects.
“Maybe she just likes to make an entrance?” Miles suggested out of the blue.
“She certainly did that,” Blaise agreed. He swore up and down that there was a gray streak in his hair from the day she was born and the frantic rush to the hospital. His quick actions had saved both their lives. I wasn’t sure there was any way to repay him until his Omega came online but I was determined that when the time came, we’d do whatever we could to help.
There was a small crowd gathered outside, and a banner strung across the door. There was no trepidation in Miles’ expression on seeing all the people, only relief and happiness.
“We’re home, Dawn. At long last.”
Her eyes were open, watching us. Already she knew our voices, would turn her head when we spoke. The doctors said it was a little early for her to do that but I had a feeling she’d always strive to be one step ahead. We’d have our work cut out for us just keeping up.
“Here, why don’t you take her?” Miles said, settling her into my arms. Blaise opened the car door and I stepped out, careful not to jostle her. It was as much of a thrill to hold her in my arms now as it had been that first time. She still looked small but was no longer tiny in my hands.
“Welcome home,” someone called. Miles grinned at me. “And so it begins, right?”
“And so it begins.”