Chapter 38 #2
Dr. Osei nods slowly, like she’s not surprised.
"That's very common in a first heat, particularly one as prolonged and intense as your omega’s appears to have been.
Their system can become so overwhelmed during their first cycle that they lose consciousness and remain that way through the majority of it.
" She looks at Adam. "Your body was managing an enormous amount.
A fifteen-year hormonal suppression lifting all at once, a full transition, a mating, two knots.
" She pauses. "The bond is there, Mr. Durrant.
It's simply still settling. Give it time. "
Adam nods. Then he stares at his knees again, and I can only guess what must be going through his head. I squeeze his hand, letting him know he isn’t alone.
Dr. Osei makes a few notes on her tablet, gives us a referral for a follow-up in two weeks, and tells Adam she'll have a nurse bring in some literature on male omega care before she leaves.
She shakes everyone's hands with the brisk efficiency of someone with a full waiting room, and then the door clicks shut behind her.
The room breathes.
Adam sits on the exam table in his paper gown and stares at the referral sheet in his hand for a long moment.
"I can have babies," he says.
Nobody says anything.
"Children," he says. "That will shoot out of my ass." He looks up. "Babies. From my ass."
I mash my lips together, but end up failing completely.
A laugh escapes me before I can catch it, loud and completely undignified, and Adam points at me like I've betrayed him, which only makes it worse.
"It's not funny," he says, but the corner of his mouth is doing something he's clearly trying to stop.
"It's a little funny," I manage.
"It is absolutely not—"
"Adam." Perrin cuts him off, his voice carrying the long-suffering patience of a man who has put up with Adam’s shit his whole life. "Stop being a big baby about it."
Adam stares at him. "I just found out I can give birth, Perrin."
"You also," Perrin says, crossing his arms, "now have a biological, medically documented excuse to lie around and be pampered for the rest of your life." He raises his eyebrows. "Think about that for a second."
Adam opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Then his eyes go slightly distant, like he's running calculations.
"The pack has to take care of me," he says slowly. "Like. It's required."
"It's basically mandatory," Perrin confirms.
Something shifts in Adam's expression. The panic and the shock and the flat, stunned disbelief cycling through something that looks dangerously close to interest.
"Cliff has to bring me things."
"Essentially yes."
"Raff has to stop leaving his tools on the kitchen counter."
"That's probably a separate conversation but—"
"I can ask for things and nobody can say no because I'm a delicate omega." Adam's expression has completed its full journey from horror to something that looks dangerously, suspiciously like satisfaction. "I have a condition."
"You have several," I say.
He points at me again, but this time he's smiling.
Cliff pushes off the wall and crosses to the exam table in two strides. He takes Adam's face in both hands, tilting it up, and looks at him for a long moment with those steady, dark eyes.
"How are you doing?" he asks quietly. Just the two of them, even with all of us in the room.
Adam's humor fades by a degree. Not all the way, not back to the panic and the paper gown dread of a few seconds ago. "I don't know yet," he says honestly.
Cliff nods, his thumbs moving slowly across Adam's cheekbones. "That's okay."
"It doesn't feel okay," Adam says. "It feels like the floor moved, and I haven't figured out where to put my feet yet."
I know exactly how that feels.
"I know, baby." Cliff leans down and presses his lips to Adam's forehead, holding them there. "But the floor is still there. And so are we." He pulls back, looking at him. "All of us."
Adam's throat moves as he swallows. His eyes cut briefly to Raff, who has crossed the room without anyone noticing and stands right beside Cliff, his hand finding the back of Adam's neck with a quiet, certain grip that makes Adam's shoulders drop by about two inches.
Then Adam looks at me.
Not at his mates or his brother. Just at me, with those warm honey-brown eyes that have been through so much in the last week and are still somehow managing to be kind.
"How did you survive this?" he finally asks quietly. "All on your own." Deep sympathy moves through his eyes. “It must have been hell.”
I shrug, keeping my smile easy and light. "I don’t know," I say simply. "I didn’t really have a choice."
Adam looks at me for a long moment.
And I watch realization move across his face.
The full weight of it landing, what it actually means to go through what we went through, alone, with no pack, no warm bed, no Cliff's hands and Raff's purr and Perrin's steady presence on the other side of a wall.
Just a cot mattress on the floor and a false bottom drawer and three years of chemical suppression and silence.
His expression does something that makes my chest tighten.
"Elle," he says softly.
"I'm okay," I say, and I mean it. "I'm here now." I squeeze his hand. “I have a lovely pack to love and care for me.”
Adam holds my gaze for one more moment, and in it is everything neither of us needs to say out loud. The understanding between two people who went through something nobody else in this room could fully comprehend, no matter how much they loved us.
Then Perrin drops Adam's neatly folded clothes into his lap, breaking the moment cleanly.
"Get dressed," Perrin says. "The car is waiting."
Adam looks down at his clothes, then he lets out an exaggerated sigh. "I probably shouldn't walk," he says a little too dramatically. "Given my condition." He gestures vaguely at himself. "I'm very delicate."
Perrin stares at him for a flat, unhurried second.
"I will carry you," he says, "directly to the back alley and leave you there."
Adam lets out a quick laugh, then he reaches for his jeans.