Epilogue #3
It’s a decent question. I’m not the only laboring patient in this facility, but I also know Tracy isn’t the only midwife here tonight either.
Rotating back to face me, Memnon says, “Do you want me to go get—”
“Don’t leave me,” I beg pathetically.
I only have a minute or two before another contraction rolls through my body.
Memnon gives a sharp nod, then moves from my side to the foot of the bed. He lifts the bottom edge of the sheets, and slides my gown up.
I suck in a breath. “What are you doing?”
Memnon spreads my legs apart. “Helping you deliver our child.”
I lick my dry lips, the Call light still blinking.
Memnon, meanwhile, inhales sharply. “Gods be merciful,” he breathes, “I can see our child’s head.” He sounds wondrous. He glances up at me and adds slyly, “It’s still a pretty pussy, by the way.”
I laugh, but then it ends in a groan as a new contraction has me bearing down.
I want to back out of my own body. This is cruel stuff women have to endure.
“My fierce queen,” Memnon says, stroking my leg. “I’ve got you, keep going.”
An impossible command when I don’t have any energy left. And yet, somehow, my body still manages it. I don’t even bother to dull my cries as my legs come up and I push.
I see Memnon’s own shoulder muscles tense, either because he hears my pain, or he feels an echo of it.
“That’s it,” he encourages. “Their head is almost out.” His eyes rise to mine. “You’re doing so well.”
I’m heartened by the words, and I cling to them as I hold Memnon’s gaze. This is about as far from a battlefield as one can get, and yet there is that same breathless energy in this room.
The contraction passes, but as the minutes tick by, another one comes all too quickly. And still our midwife is nowhere to be seen.
Another wave of pressure tightens my belly, one I’m not ready for. It demands I bear down, and Goddess, but it hurts. I cry out as I push as hard as I can.
“Yes, my brave witch, I know it’s excruciating, but it’s working. Their head is almost out—”
I gasp at that. Almost out!
The contraction hasn’t even fully let up when another one grips me.
Oh, hell.
I don’t even bother to muffle my cries.
“One more push, and their shoulders should be out,” he says.
I can’t do anything but push, but I try to make this one count.
“Yes, my love, you’re doing it—their shoulders are out!”
Even as Memnon says it, I feel the rest of my baby’s body slide out into Memnon’s hands.
“You did it,” Memnon says, and there’s a note to his voice that I’ve never heard before. “I have him.”
“Him?” I say weakly, lifting my eyes.
“Him,” Memnon confirms, his eyes misty as he holds up our wailing son, uncaring that he’s covered in blood and other fluids.
He comes to my side and places him oh-so-carefully on my chest as, in the distance, I hear footfalls running toward our room.
Undoubtedly the midwife.
My attention stays fixed on my son.
“Look at what you made,” Memnon whispers, tears in his eyes.
I like to think of myself as a strong, no-nonsense woman, but who am I freaking kidding? I cry like a baby—like my baby—as soon as I meet his gray eyes.
Once my tears finally abate, I stroke my son’s little cheek, enamored.
Sacred spells.
He’s mine.
Memnon has an equally gobsmacked look. I think that perhaps both of us assumed, even while I was pregnant, that I wouldn’t be able to have kids. We hadn’t been able to for so long, and then there’d been those instances in my last life when I lost a child.
But here our child is, healthy and whole.
The door opens then, and the midwife rushes in. She inhales sharply when she sees the tiny human being already on my chest.
“Oh crap, that happened quickly,” she opens.
She hurries in, apologizing profusely and tripping over herself trying to explain the complicated delivery that happened across the hall that she’d been pulled into.
Her words are followed by a flurry of activity that includes having Memnon cut the umbilical cord, and ends with me delivering the placenta.
Once Memnon and I have a moment alone—or well, alone with our child—my soul mate leans over me and presses a kiss to our son’s head.
“What should we name him?” Memnon murmurs.
A question the two of us put off for too long. I think both Memnon and I were afraid of hoping too hard for this child. We’d already lost two babies in my last life. Naming them before they were born felt like testing the gods.
I stare at my son now and run my fingers over his soft, dark hair. “What about ‘Rome’?” I whisper.
The place where Memnon’s mind first touched mine, where we eventually met and married. Where our story began so many moons ago.
Memnon sighs. “First Nero, now Rome. You insult my very fragile ego, est vexsava.”
My love.
“You’ll get over it,” I whisper, peering at him, a hint of a smile on my lips.
“I can deny you nothing, so I suppose, given enough time, I will.
He watches the two of us with a look in his eyes that has my throat catching. Eventually, he places his hand over mine.
He leans in again. “I am yours—both of yours—forever.”