Chapter Fourteen
Phoenix
“Come on, Sixtine, push ,” the doctor urges.
Six sits forward and screams, making the kind of noise I’m never going to forget. The pain and agony that echo freely in her screams tear at my insides.
She slumps back down against the bed, spent. Her beautiful red hair is plastered to her face. Sweat covers her forehead and trails down her pale cheeks.
“I’m trying, Nix, I’m trying…” she moans, her face fracturing.
“You’re doing a great job, baby,” I reassure her, stroking her face, her hair, her shoulders, anything to give her a bit of relief. “You’re doing so good. We’re almost there. It’ll be over soon.”
Seeing her struggling, in such obvious pain after almost eighteen hours of labor is excruciating.
If I could turn back the time and not get her pregnant, I would.
Nothing is worth putting her through this.
What should be the happiest day of our lives has quickly devolved into a nightmare. The baby is refusing to be born and Six’s small body can’t seem to push. It’s tearing her from the inside out and all I can do is stand by and watch uselessly, as purposeless as an elephant in a minefield.
“Is her blood pressure okay?” I ask the doctor. “Is it stable? What about her heart rate?”
Eight weeks before her due date, Six was diagnosed with a complication of pregnancy called preeclampsia. It’s a condition in which her blood pressure spirals randomly out of control.
It needs to be monitored carefully. I know it can lead to very severe consequences if not treated properly and I’m not about to let any of those happen to my wife.
“Phoenix,” she answers kindly but firmly. “Sixtine is in good hands. I need to focus on getting your baby out right now. Relax and let me do my job.”
I turn back towards my wife. She looks so small in her hospital bed, her eyes so open and innocent.
We’re never doing this again.
I’m not putting her through another round of this torture.
One baby is enough.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” I say, kissing her forehead. “I’m sorry you’re in pain. But can you push for me now? Please?”
“I c-can’t,” she says, her face screwing up and tears coming down her cheeks.
Internally, I vow that I’ll never do anything to make her cry ever again.
I palm her hand in mine and grab her elbow, sitting her up once more. “Yes, you can, baby. You’ve got this. You’re the strongest woman I know.” Her eyes find mine and lock in. “Come on, push.”
She screams, ripping me to shreds once more. Why I ever thought this was a good idea is beyond me.
Her entire body contracts as she gives it her all and pushes once more.
From behind me, I hear the doctor whisper something to the nurses. One of them runs out. And then the doctor lifts her head and looks at Six.
“Okay, Sixtine. The baby is breech. Unfortunately, that means we’re done here. We’re going to take you in for a c-section, okay?”
“Wait, what?” I ask, my voice rising an octave.
“Phoenix,” the doctor warns, grabbing my elbow and pulling me to the side. It’s only because she’s a doctor and we need her that I don’t turn violent at her having taken me from my wife’s bedside. “I understand this isn’t an easy time for you. It’s confusing and it’s scary because you don’t understand what’s happening, but imagine what it must be like for her . I know you want to lose your cool, but you need to be strong for her. You need to put on a brave face so she knows it’s going to be okay. Can you do that?”
My head’s a mess and my heart rate isn’t any better, but I work to pull myself together.
For her. Always for her.
“Of course,” I say, throwing a glance back at Six who’s resting against her pillows, her eyes closed. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”
The doctor squeezes my upper arm. “Good man. We’re going to get everything ready and we’ll roll her up in a few minutes.”
I stop her before she can walk away.
“I’m going with her. I’m not leaving her alone in there.” My voice brooks no disagreements, no arguments.
She smiles. “Of course you are.”
The doctor leaves and I turn back towards Six. She’s crying silently, so tired the tears just slip from her eyes without a change in her expression.
“I couldn’t do it,” she whispers quietly, her voice breaking. “Why couldn’t I do it?”
I get in the bed beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against me.
“No, baby,” I comfort her. “That’s not what happened. You created such a great home in your belly that the baby just doesn’t want to come out, that’s all. I get it; I wouldn’t want to leave either. We just have to show the baby the world out here is going to be even more amazing than the one you built in there.”
Six lifts her head and looks up at me. Tears pearl on her lashes. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
The nurse walks back in and smiles at us. “We’re ready for you now.”
I hold Six’s hand as she’s rolled into the operating theater and stay steadfastly by her head as they anesthetize her and set up the caesarean.
“Alright, Six, we’re getting started now,” the doctor calls. “Are you ready to be a mum?”
“Yes,” she answers breathlessly, turning her head to look at me.
I hum at her soothingly, continuing to hold her hand and stroke her forehead as they get to work. The repetitive beeping of the machinery around me lulls me into a false sense of security. I’m comforted by the fact that Six’s vital signs are stable.
“You’re doing so well,” I repeat for what feels like the thousandth time.
“So are you.”
I chuckle softly. “Me? What am I doing?”
Six squeezes my hand. “Calming me down. Making me feel safe.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, wild girl.” I lean over and kiss her forehead.
Her skin is clammy and pale, a far cry from the usual healthy flush that lives in her cheeks.
Taking the doctor’s words to heart, I don’t let my anxiety spin me into a downward spiral.
What do I know about childbirth? This must be part of the process.
“You’re going to be such a great dad,” she whispers. “Do you still think it’s a girl?”
We’ve purposefully held back from finding out the sex of the baby, preferring to discover it when he or she was born. From the jump though, I’ve thought it was a girl.
Nodding, I ask, “And you still think it’s a boy?”
“Yes,” she smiles.
“I look forward to being right.”
She rolls her eyes, the first sign I’ve had in hours of my feisty Six. Something like relief bursts to life and nestles its way comfortably into my chest.
“And we both know how much you love being right.”
I laugh, cupping her cheek. “It’s one of the few simple pleasures I get in life.”
“Almost there,” the doctor calls over to us. “Then we can settle this for you,” she adds with a smile in her voice.
Six and I grin at each other. Doctor Miller obviously already knows the gender of the baby, but she’s been great at keeping the secret to herself.
The smile slides gradually off Six’s face, wiping mine off in the process. It’s a progressive transformation, but her face slowly shutters and she turns gray. Then her lips go blue.
At that very same moment, the sound of wailing pierces the air.
“Congratulations!” Dr. Miller calls. “You’re officially parents to a…”
I don’t hear the rest of her sentence because Six’s eyes roll back into her head, then close.
The hand that holds mine goes limp.
And then several machines — the very same that had comforted me only moments earlier — start howling an atrocious alarm that freezes the blood cold in my veins.
“Sixtine?” I call, remembering not to panic. I nudge her face with my hand but it turns to the side with no resistance. A cavernous, bottomless black pit opens up in my stomach. “Six?”
Don’t panic. I’ve been told not to panic.
“ Six !”
Behind me, I hear the doctor curse quietly, followed by, “She’s hemorrhaging. Get another bag hooked up, asap!”
“What’s going on?” I ask, eyes wild. I start to stand but a nurse forces me back down by my shoulder.
“Sit down,” he orders. “Believe me, you don’t want to see your wife opened up like this.”
I shove his hands off. “What’s going on?” I repeat. “Why is she unconscious?”
The machines blare around us, a cacophony of terrifying sounds announcing the end of the world.
It’s a symphony I’m never, ever going to forget.
I don’t look at Six, opened up as she is on the table. No, I look at Doctor Miller and my heart hits the ground and shatters.
Because the usually cool, unperturbable doctor I’ve come to know over the past seven months is standing, her face ashen and twisted, her hands working furiously as panic inscribes itself on her features.
“She’s bleeding out,” she answers simply.
Like they’re words she’s used to saying.
Like they’re not words that rip the world out from under my feet and kill me with the ease of a bullet.
“I’m going to try and save her life,” she adds grimly.
“Save her… Save her life ?” I say dumbly. I’m confused, uncomprehending in the face of a worst-case scenario I never even considered possible. “What do you mean?” I shout, turning back towards my wife. “What do you mean ‘save her life’?”
She’s out cold and it’s not like when she’s sleeping. I would know, I watch her sometimes.
Often.
Most nights.
No, she looks… I can’t even think the words.
I grab her face and try to shake her into consciousness.
“Wake up, Six. Wake up .” She jerks in my arms, but it’s from the way I’m shaking her, not her own movements. “Please wake up. Please, please, please wake up, baby.”
My voice is crazed.
Demented.
Unrecognizable to my own ears as I scream over and over and over again.
“Please, wild girl, you have to wake up. This isn’t funny anymore. Wake up for me. PLEASE. ”
“Get him out of here!” Doctor Miller shouts.
Hands come to my shoulders. I don’t know who they belong to, but I shake them off.
“Get off me!” I snarl, my voice twisted ugly by raw fear.
I reach for Six again but the hands come back on me, more insistent this time.
They’re trying to keep Six from me.
To take her away from me.
“ Get the fuck off me ,” I roar. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
I turn around and punch blindly at whoever is trying to get between me and my wife. My sanity is gone, all rational thought absent. All that’s left is the animal, primal part of my brain that seeks to protect my wife.
“Baby…” I call, my voice thick with unshed tears. “Please, baby.” I cup her face and find the skin cold and slick. “Please wake up. I need you…” A sob breaks free from my lips. “I need you.”
I’m tackled to the floor by someone.
The only thing I can think of is that I feel the exact moment my hands leave Sixtine’s face and I wonder if that’s the last time I’m ever going to touch her.
It can’t be.
It can’t be .
“Let me go!” I scream, wrestling on the floor with my attacker.
I’m writhing against him when I see the blood. It stops me cold. Ice slithers into my veins, hardening my body to stone.
Blood is dripping off the other end of the table. It falls in thick, continuous drops and splatters to the floor. It’s everywhere.
There’s already a massive puddle.
And seeing it is like being eviscerated myself.
I fight against the hold with that much more vigor, determined to get back to Six. She needs me. She’s bleeding.
She’s dy–
No.
No, she’s not.
She can’t.
More hands come to restrain me on the floor until it’s me against four people and even I can’t win that fight.
It’s the most important one in my life, and I lose.
I’m hauled out of the theater against my will, my body dragged across the floor by nameless, faceless hands. I fight and grapple and swing every inch of the way, screaming my fury and my fear to no avail.
No one listens to my demands.
No one understands that I won’t live if she doesn’t.
Somewhere deep inside, I know that they’re trying to save her life, but I can’t reconcile my brain to that knowledge. Not when I’ve been forcibly separated from her.
I’m thrown out into the hallway without a second glance. Scrambling to my feet, I reach blindly for and successfully grab a hold of someone’s arm.
Who, I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter.
“Please,” I beg. “Please save my wife. Please save her.”
The kindly nurse takes pity on me, his face softening a fraction when he sees the frantic desperation in mine.
“That’s what we’re working on.”
“You have to save her.”
I claw at his arm, my nails digging into his skin and coming up with blood as I clutch desperately at him. “Let me see her,” I plead. “I need to be with her. I need to be with my wife.”
He grabs my wrist and gently removes one hand, then the other. I let him, the fight suddenly draining out of me.
“You need to wait here and let the doctor try and save your wife’s life. You’ll do more harm than good if you go back in there.”
He turns on his heels and walks back into the theater, shutting the door behind him and leaving me hanging on one word.
Try.
“ Let the doctors try and save your wife’s life .”
Like it’s not a certainty that they will.
Like they’re even considering an outcome in which they don’t.
I stumble backwards blindly, numbly, weakly, my back hitting a wall and my legs giving out until I slide all the way down to the floor.
I bring my knees up to my chest and bury my head in my forearms, dooming myself to despondency and the bleakness of my thoughts.
The world tilts on its axis and I find myself dizzy beyond belief, experiencing severe motion sickness just sitting on the floor.
My stomach roils. Nausea grabs me by the throat, threatening to introduce my breakfast to the hospital floor.
My mind is already lost but I feel it slip further and further away until it feels completely beyond reach.
I can’t do this.
I can’t imagine a world without Six, let alone consider living in it for even a second.
I’m assaulted by every horrible thought and I—
A hand wraps around my forearm.
It’s strong and squeezes my flesh reassuringly, in a completely different way than how I was grabbed before. It’s a much-needed anchor back to Earth, back to reality and the present moment from where I’ve been spinning out of control.
I lift my head and my eyes collide with Tristan’s.
He’s crouched in front of me, his left hand still gripping me. His face is as serious as I’ve ever seen it, his expression steady as he stares back at me.
“I—”
My voice comes out as nothing more than a croak. I find that words are impossible, that I can’t seem to remember how to even form them.
He doesn’t press me, doesn’t urge me to do anything until I can get my tongue working again. He simply lends his quiet support when I need it most.
“I can’t live without her, mate,” I finally manage to get out, my voice cracking loudly mid-sentence.
He shakes his head slowly, the first time he’s moved since I laid eyes on him. His hand squeezes my arm again and it pulls me slowly from the brink.
“You won’t have to. The best doctors in the world work here and they’re taking care of her right now. She’s going to make it.”
Rogue and Rhys are a few steps from us, just off to the side so that I don’t see them right away. They stare silently at me, at the devastation that’s so clearly pouring off of me, at the way I’ve been driven to the ground by my grief.
They’ve never seen me like this.
Not even when Astor died.
Behind them, I see the girls, all with tears in their eyes. Bellamy has her four-month-old son, Rhodes, strapped in a baby Bjorn to her chest. Thayer just recently left this hospital herself, having given birth to baby Ivy only five weeks ago. Her hand covers her mouth in shock as she watches me. And Nera is outright crying, tears streaming down her face as she holds her heavily pregnant belly and stares at me silently.
We did manage to get all of our wives pregnant at the same time and now I might lose mine forever.
Rogue takes one look at the mess that I am and grabs the nearest doctor he can get his hands on. He fists his shirt and shoves him up against the wall.
“Do you make the decisions around here?” he asks.
“N-no.”
He shoves him away. The doctor stumbles a few steps, dropping down to a knee before turning back to look at my friend.
“Bring me whoever does,” Rogue tells him with dispassionate cool.
Minutes later, an erudite looking Black man walks into the hallway and goes up to Rogue, the first doctor hot on his heels.
“You wanted to see me?”
Rogue tips his chin in my direction. “Save her life,” he orders. He turns his face back towards the man in charge. “Save her life and I’ll buy this hospital a whole new wing. An emergency room. A research center. All of the above. Whatever you want, I don’t give a fuck. If she lives, you’ll have it.”
Rhys steps up next to him, until both their backs are turned away from me. Still, I hear him say, “I’ll throw in unlimited visits until the end of time from myself and two other Arsenal stars. Think of it as your personal Make A Wish program on standby.”
The doctor splutters. “That’s not how it wor—”
Rogue takes a step forward, shutting him up. “Let me make this crystal fucking clear for you since I can see you’re in the mood to argue and we frankly don’t have time for a pissing contest, one that I would inevitably win anyway. If your best surgeon isn’t already in the operating theater saving my friend’s life, I need him or her to be in the next two minutes. Same with the best anesthesiologist. Same with the nurses. That’s what we’re asking for.”
The doctor swallows, then nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He’s on his phone before he’s even left the hall, and then he’s gone.
Rogue and Rhys turn around. When they find me staring at them, they give me an almost imperceptible nod. Together they walk over to where I’m seated and take their places on the floor to either side of me, their backs similarly pressed up against the wall.
Rhys’s arm comes over my shoulders and he presses me into him once, firmly, before releasing me.
No further words are exchanged between us.
Time drags on and we wait.
It’s agonizing.
The worst pain I’ve ever known as I try not to let my mind roam to potentially walking out of here without my wife.
As I try not to let my mind roam to the last time I was in a hospital, when I almost lost Six after an allergic reaction to peanuts.
As I try not to let my mind roam to the time before that, when I walked into a similar hospital wing with a twin brother and walked out without one.
***