"Come on, baby girl. Drink this for me, please? I don't want you to go back to the hospital, honey. If we don't get you hydrated, you're going to need an IV."

I walked around the corner to see my heavily pregnant omega sitting on Allie's bed, holding her up in one arm and trying to get her to drink some Pedialyte with the other. The poor child was skin and bones, her cheeks so hollow and pale that the smattering of freckles stood out in stark relief.

Her long, ginger hair had all fallen out now, and we'd all shaved our heads in solidarity. Every single member of our adoptive family circle was bald. If only we could take some of her pain away, it would be even better.

Allie croaked between her dry lips, "I can't, Papa. It makes me sick."

Just like that, Tom set down the Pedialyte and lifted an apple juice box to her lips, the straw bent and ready to go. "Try the apple juice, honey. It didn't make you sick this morning. Remember?"

Allie whimpered, and a single tear fell from her red-rimmed, bloodshot eye. "I'm sorr—" She went limp and Tom dropped the apple juice on the bed as he tried to rouse her. I strode in and quickly took over.

"How long has she been like this, baby?" I spoke carefully, not wanting to sound at all judgemental. Tom took everything personally these days, my poor guy. I just needed to know what the timeline was, because she was looking pretty dehydrated.

"She was able to hold down some broth and juice at lunch time, then I let her take a nap. She slept all afternoon. I tried to wake her just now, and get some fluids into her, but she's too weak. I should've called you, right? I was right here, sleeping with her. I had no idea," he fretted, looking up at me miserably.

"Tom. We have a very sick child. There are no right or wrong answers, everything is trial and error. What works today, may not work tomorrow. And you did the right thing. You tended to her, then you rested with her. The first rule of caregiving is to keep yourself strong. You can't give anything to Allie, if you're depleted. You're also eight months pregnant. Those babies take a lot out of you. Cut yourself some slack."

"Do we need to take her in?" He looked so vulnerable, it was breaking my heart.

"I'm afraid so, baby. She needs to be hydrated, and she needs more concentrated care than we can give her here. We've held off as long as possible, but I think it's time."

"Should I get her dressed?"

"No, baby. I'm sorry. I'm calling the ambulance. I don't even want to transport her like this. I don't like the way her breathing has changed just since I've been in here."

I whipped out my phone and placed the call, while Tom rocked Allie's unconscious body to his chest and cried. After I had the ambulance en route, I gently pried Allie from her papa's arms.

Cupping his chin, I got his attention. "Tom, I need you to call Milo or Liam. You need someone to take you to the hospital. I'm going to go in the ambulance with Allie. I want to keep a close eye on her vitals, and if she wakes up, it won't be as scary if I'm there. Can you do that for me?"

Tom nodded and reached for his phone. "I wish Tofer were here. He'd be able to help me stay calm. He's magic that way."

Tofer had left a few weeks ago, saying that he was needed at home, but would be back before the babies came. He'd assured us that Miss Allie would be okay, but we'd be going through some rough patches. Tom had joked later that Tofer had left conveniently before we all shaved our heads.

Kent and Liam arrived before the ambulance, no surprise given that they lived a street over from us. Liam immediately set about packing a bag for Allie of nightclothes, activities, and her favorite doll. Kent let the EMTs in when they arrived. I helped Tom up and held him tightly while they got our little girl loaded onto a stretcher.

I passed Tom into Kent's care, after placing a kiss on his forehead. "I'll see you at the hospital, baby. Let Liam and Kent help you, please? I have a bed waiting in the PICU for her, meet us there."

At Kent's nod that he had him, I rushed out to jump in the back of the ambulance. I took charge and had the crew following my directives before we were even out of the driveway. They all knew me from my years in the emergency department, so it wasn't at all weird for any of us. Except for the fact that this child was the light of my life and I needed to save her more than I'd ever needed to save anyone, this could almost be another day in my old life of an ER physician.

Once we got to the hospital, though, my role ended and I was just another helpless parent. Tom got there with Kent and Liam, while she was still being examined and looked over by Hank.

We sat in the waiting area, on the hard little plastic chairs, until Hank finally came bustling in. "She not in a coma, let me lead with that. Her body is just severely weakened. Her last course of chemo was scheduled for two weeks from today, as you know. I spoke with her other doctors, and we all agree that it would be best if we forego that last treatment and schedule the C-section instead. She would be best served at this point by the stem cell transplant than she would by any more toxic chemicals being introduced.”

"How soon would you want to induce?" I asked, sniffing the air as a sweet, salty smell suddenly filled the lounge. We all turned as one to see Tom bent over, grabbing his belly with his face contorted by pain. A puddle of water pooled at his feet, where his water had broken.

Hank looked at me with an ironic smirk. "I guess Tom just answered that question for you, buddy."

Hanks stepped out into the hall and called for a nurse. Before I could process what the hell was happening, Tom was being ferried away in a wheelchair. Another nurse tugged at my arm. "Go with your omega, sir. We'll call you if there are any changes with your daughter."

Kent slapped me on the back and all but propelled me down the hall toward the paternity ward, while Liam tapped on his phone.

"Get it together, doc. You see this shit every day here in the hospital. I know that it's different when it's your kids, and your omega, but seriously! Come on, man. You're making me lose respect for you here."

I came to my senses from Kent's easy teasing. By the time I got down there, I merely had to follow the sounds of Tom's loud curses to find him. I grinned when I walked in the room where Dr. Greene was trying to examine my little ginger boy. His red hair might be shaved, but there was no taming that mouth.

"Sorry, baby." I rushed over to his side. "You got a head start on me.”

Tom turned to me with rage in his eyes. "Why are you here? Who's with Allie? I'm the only one who can push these babies out! Go be with the one who needs you."

Biting my tongue, I shook my head and stood my ground. "She's asleep, Tom. There's nothing I can do for her that isn't being done by nurses who already know and love her. I need to be here to keep you from killing someone."

Dr. Greene looked up then. "We're actually a lot closer than I would have expected. This is going to go fairly quick. I'm going to get the team ready, and make sure we have someone ready to take care of harvesting the cord blood. Meanwhile, we're going to hook up the epidural. I think our papa here has been through enough stress for one day from what I've heard, without adding natural childbirth into the mix.”

"Tom agrees! Give Tom all of the drugs! Then Tom can be nicer to Dr. Greene and Tom's poor, mistreated hot daddy." I grinned to see the old Tom make an appearance. Strangely enough, I'd missed him talking like that.

The anesthesiologist came bustling in then, an older alpha named Stanley that I'd known for years. I helped Tom roll over while Stanley administered the epidural we'd asked for in our original birth plan if his water broke before the C-section date.

True to his word, Tom calmed down a lot as the drug kicked in. "Feeling better, ginger boy?" I asked with a knowing smirk.

"So much better." He winked at me and said, "Tom is sorry for being a dick to the hot alpha daddy. Tom loves the hot daddy."

With a big, cheesy grin, I said, "Hot daddy loves Tom too."

Things went very fast after that, when Tom starting screaming through another contraction and Dr. Greene came rushing back in. I held Tom's hand the entire time, while feeding him ice chips between contractions and trying not to laugh at some of the more creative curses that came out of his mouth.

My personal favorite was a toss-up between mother dicker and son of a fuckmonkey. I'm not sure if Dr. Greene was as amused as I was, but then, she wasn't completely besotted with the brat.

After what seemed like no time at all, and yet simultaneously the longest four hours of my life, our twins were born. Willow was born first. She came out screaming with a shock of ginger hair to match her papa and sister. Landon entered the world a few minutes later, with the same shock of ginger hair.

We watched as they clamped, then cut the cords on each child. After drawing the blood out with a needle, it was stored in vials and labeled appropriately. The blood that we weren't using for Allie was being collected by a courier from the cord blood bank we'd chosen to store it in case we ever needed it for one of our children.

Hank stepped into the room to inform us that Allie was being prepped for the transplant now, and we'd be notified when she was back in PICU. The transplant would be done under completely sterile conditions, and she would be under anesthesia, which frightened me given her weakened condition. But it was necessary, as Hank explained quickly. She needed a CVC, basically a chest catheter port that would be used for drawing blood and giving medicine into the large vein that ran through the chest.

Tom quickly signed all the consent forms, and Hank took off at a run to take care of Allie. Tom and I looked at each other, and wealth of unspoken fear passed between us before the nurses came bustling over with our little ones.

"Hot daddy, pass the nurse your phone please. I want a picture of us right now all ugly, sweaty, grumpy, freaked out, and bald. It will be perfect for the scrapbook." He smiled down at Landon lovingly. "This poor little guy. He's got two big sisters to pick on him. I feel like I should start coaching him in the fine art of snark right now."

The nurse laughed and took my phone. I sat next to the bed with my arm around Tom, who held both little ginger babies in his arms and a proud smile on his face. I thanked the nurse as she passed back my phone.

I showed Tom the picture, and noticed that I had tears running down my face. Funny, I hadn't even realized it. I looked at my little ginger love and pointed it out.

"You know what, ginger boy? I've been working my brain for the past six months on how to pop the question properly. I've gone over every romantic proposal possible from writing your name in the sky, to fireworks, or even having Kent help spell something out in ballz. But looking at this picture? I get it now. That fake shit isn't romance. This is romance. You and me with bald ass heads in support of our oldest daughter. Sitting here holding the little miracles that came to us courtesy of a bad batch of birth control and a lost condom up your ass. It's odd, it's funny, it's life, it's family, it's just... us. To me, this is as romantic as it gets. I love you, Tom. And I will get down on my knees every day and beg until you accept my proposal, even if it takes a lifetime of begging."

I dropped to one knee there beside his bed, with tears streaming down my face as I said: "Tom Collins, will you marry me and do me the honor of being my husband and omega for the rest of whatever time that we are blessed with in this life?"

Tom's lip trembled as he nodded frantically. "I will. I love you too, hot daddy. Now kiss me before I blubber all over these babies."

I had just slipped the ring onto his finger that I'd been carrying around in my pocket for months, when Tofer came bouncing in. The rest of our little ragtag family was right behind him with balloons, flowers, and stuffed animals.

Tofer walked right over and nuzzled his nose against our daughter. "Hello, Willow. I've been waiting to meet you, precious girl." He moved around to the other side of the bed and repeated the process with Landon.

Tom and I stared at each other with big eyes as he called the babies by name. There was no way for him to know their names. We'd only decided on them two days earlier, and he'd been away for weeks!

We both slowly turned to look at him, really look at him. Tofer flashed me a wink and I saw it! His ear were twice as long as human ears, with long pointed tips! I saw that Tom noticed too, because his hand went up as though to touch it before he remembered his manners.

Tofer just giggled and hopped up on the foot of Tom's bed. He sat there cross legged and watched the babies as if spellbound. Milo and Liam broke our trance as they both rushed over to hold the twins. Rafe and Christian came over to see the babies too, and I took a few steps closer to the door to let them squeeze in.

Kent sidled up next to me. He tapped his ear and said softly, "Did you see what I just saw? With... " His eyes floated over to Tofer as he trailed off. I nodded quickly. "Wow. That's just... wow."

Everyone was listening to Tom tell the story of my proposal, which naturally sounded way more romantic in his retelling, when Hank poked into the room. Tom looked up expectantly as he nodded at us both.

"The transplant was textbook, everything went perfectly. With any luck, we'll see some results. In the meantime, she’s resting comfortably. You should be able to visit her in another hour, I'd say."

After taking a moment to admire the babies, Hank let himself out. Tofer looked over at me and said, "Don't stress, alpha. Everything is as it was meant to be now. Miss Allie's body is already on the way to recovery. She won't be needing any more medicine or cancer doctors. You'll see, my friend. You certainly will. Yep, yep, yep!"

I nodded, and smiled warmly at the little imp. For the first time in my life, I really did see. Yep, yep, yep, indeed.