Chapter 25 Angus #2
When she was finished, she turned to us.
“His eyes react normally to light. That, the REM activity, regular heartbeat, normal reflexes, and reaction to pain tell me he is not in a coma. I’m inclined to think he’s gone into some kind of deep dreaming state as a reaction to anxiety while pregnant.
I’m not really worried at this point, but if he can’t be roused after a night’s sleep, or if he has any kind of episode during the night, wake me up.
I’m going to sleep in one of your guest rooms.”
“Shouldn’t we take him to the hospital?” I asked.
“They can’t help him, Angus. They know nothing about omegas. I’m sorry to say that I am the closest thing to an omega specialist you’re going to find.”
“We know you’ll take good care of him,” Colt said. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. Listen, there’s something else. I am a little surprised at how much Ben is showing just a few months into his pregnancy. I want to take a listen with my stethoscope to see if I hear more than one heartbeat.”
Colt and I looked at each other, eyes wide, then watched Laura warm the chest piece of her stethoscope with her hand before pressing it to Ben’s distended belly. She moved it around a few times, listening.
“Well?” I asked when she removed the earpieces from her ears.
“I only hear one heartbeat, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he isn’t carrying twins. One could be behind the other one.” Standing, she took her bag in hand. “Goodnight. Come get me if you need me.”
I managed a smile and nod to her before she walked out of the room. I really was thankful to her, but not having any real answers was damned frustrating, and now she was talking about twins.
“We have enough to worry about. Let’s not think about the possibility of twins,” Colt said.
I began pacing the room. “We’re his alphas, for fuck’s sake! We should be able to help him.”
A soft knock at the door preceded David poking his head around the door. His eyes were red. I felt bad for interrogating him earlier. Holding up his cellphone, he turned it toward us, showing us Jackson’s worried face on the screen.
“I told him what happened, and he wants to see Ben for himself,” David said.
Colt motioned for David to come in. “Hi Jackson. Laura said Ben’s not in coma, and she thinks the sleeping is some kind of pregnant omega protective instinct or something.”
David turned the phone to show Ben lying on the bed, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his lids and his lips parted. Every so often, he made a sound as though he were dreaming, but he didn’t seem agitated.
“I hate being so far away,” Jackson said. “I miss you guys.”
“We’re taking care of him,” David said. “I’ll call you in the morning, okay?” He turned and left the room, still talking to Jackson.
Agreeing there wasn’t much we could do except be with Ben, Colt and I got ready for bed, then stripped Ben down to his underwear before climbing in on each side of him under the covers.
I barely slept. I kept jerking awake and checking on Ben to make sure he was still breathing or maybe awake. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I woke up to find him on his side, his left arm and leg draped over my chest and hips. Colt was breathing evenly on the other side of the bed.
Stroking Ben’s arm, I whispered, “Ben, please wake up.” And, just as though this were any night, Ben’s eyes drifted open.
“Hm?” he murmured.
“Ben? Are you alright?” I said, louder this time.
On the other side of Ben, Colt sat up, hair in disarray and face scrunched up from sleep.
“Ben’s awake,” I said, a grin spreading over my face.
“He is? Ben?”
Rolling onto his back, Ben looked from Colt to me. “What is it?” he asked groggily.
“Oh, nothing, except you scared the fuck out of us,” I said, pushing myself up to lean on the headboard.
Ben frowned. “What? How?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Colt asked, taking Ben’s hand and kissing his knuckles.
“Uh, I remember being at the bunkhouse and drinking ginger ale. I was really sleepy. Then, I guess I fell asleep. Did you bring me back here to bed?”
“We couldn’t wake you up,” I said. “You literally would not wake up.”
“Huh?” Obviously confused, Ben kept frowning and looking from one of us to the other.
“We brought you back here and Laura examined you. She’s in the guest room sleeping in case we needed her. You were sleeping and dreaming, but we couldn’t rouse you.”
“I do remember dreaming,” Ben said. “I had really weird dreams, one of them over and over again. The first was about a baby in a dumpster.”
He sat up so fast, he nearly knocked me over. “That was me!”
I pointed at him warningly. “If you call yourself trash, I’m going to—”
“No, Angus,” Ben interrupted. “I saw it all happen. I saw my parents. They had to be my parents. One was crying, and the other was insisting it had to be done. Then he took me out in the snow, wrapped up in something, and put me in a dumpster, saying Fate could decide.”
“Okay, Ben, okay. I get what you’re saying.” I patted his hand, then caught the time on the clock by the bed. 4:17.
“We may as well get up and feed the livestock.”
“I’ll put the coffee on,” Colt said.
We dressed and went out to do our chores. When we got back in, we took our coffee into the living room and sat down with Ben.
“Why do you think that happened to me?” Ben asked.
“No idea,” I said. “Laura thought you were in some kind of protective sleep due to anxiety. Were you freaking out about being away from us? I shouldn’t have let you go over there.”
“I wasn’t, though. I mean, I missed you and felt uncomfortable about it, but I was managing. And when I was with the other omegas, I felt less jittery. But I was tired and fell asleep.”
“You scared us,” I mumbled.
Wrapping his arms around me, Ben said, “I’m sorry, Angus,” and kissed my cheek.
How could I resist that?
Hugging him, I said, “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
Laura walked in from the hall wearing a green robe over her nightgown.
“Ben, I thought I heard your voice!”
“Oh, I’m sorry I woke you,” he said.
“What are you talking about? I’m thrilled you’re awake! You had us worried. How do you feel?”
He seemed to consider, then said, “I feel good. Rested. But I had dreams that were so real, and one of them was about my parents throwing me away.”
“What?” Laura sat down.
“I knew I was found in a dumpster but nothing else. In my dream, my birth father was crying and arguing with my other father, saying if someone was going to do it, it would have to be him. My father said it had to be done because ‘he’ would be so much worse off otherwise.” Ben frowned.
“That would mean the baby would be so much worse off alive. Because then he took a bundle out into the cold and walked for a long time. He said that freezing wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, but he wound up putting the bundle in a dumpster to let Fate decide if the baby would freeze or be rescued. Then he ran off.”
“It was just a nightmare, Ben,” Colt said, rubbing Ben’s back.
“No. It was so real. I know those were my parents. I can’t tell you how, I just do. And there’s more. I saw a crowd breaking down a door to a house. They had been yelling for John Waters to hand over someone and the baby.”
“John Waters…” Laura said. “Have you ever heard that name before?”
Ben shook his head. “It was a long time ago, I think.”
“And are you saying you can somehow see the past?” I asked, worried. Was Ben talking out of his head?
Ben shrugged. “I’ve never been able to before. But those were my dreams, and they were unlike any dreams I’ve ever had. Very vivid and clear, like they were real. Like I was standing right there with those people when all that stuff happened.”
“That’s really interesting,” Laura said. “I’ll have to make a note of it. But right now, I’ll get my bag and examine you one more time before I leave, just to make sure you’re okay.”
Colt and I went to finish our morning chores, and when Laura came out of the house fifteen minutes later, she made the “okay” sign with her hand to let us know Ben was all right before getting in the car and leaving.
“I don’t know what we’d do without her,” I told Colt, then shook my head. “I can’t help but worry about our boy.”
“I know what you mean, but he’s okay, Angus. Stressing out won’t help.” Leaning in, he kissed me.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, either,” I told him. It was the God’s honest truth. In a short amount of time, Colt and Ben had become everything to me. And we were having a baby. It didn’t seem real.