AUTHOR'S NOTE: here's the final chapter a couple of days early because I felt bad about how short the last one was. Enjoy!

He had originally thought that once he decided to help, he would know what to do. So far, he had been proven wrong. Dead wrong.

At fourteen, he wasn’t exactly ignorant in the ways of men and women. He did, after all, live under Arthur’s roof. But this was different. Not only had he never seen a woman in the nude in his life, childbirth was always something just beyond his apprehension. He knew the mechanics, sure, but it was nothing like facing reality to make him realize exactly how little he knew.

Without a proper bed or even a blanket, he could only create a make-shift padding with hay and lay his clean shirt over it. He used his pack as a pillow and helped her cover herself with her jacket. That all went smoothly enough and he felt proud of himself for a brief moment. But unfortunately, the night went on.

As pain ripped through her small body she twisted and turned, moaning hoarsely, shaking and straining. Sweat soon drenched her brow and he could actually see her swollen belly change its shape with the intensity of the contractions. The shirt underneath her was torn to shreds within an hour as she gripped at it with a damp hand. Then it got worse, and guttural screams began to escape from her throat, as if someone was pounding steel spikes into her body.

He wanted to hold her hand, but when she gripped a metal bar jutting out of the side wall and it bent with a torturous groan, he decided it wasn’t such a good idea.

And the blood. There was so much blood that even Walter, a veteran to the battlefield, felt light-headed at the sight of it. It was as if her body was slowly tearing itself apart. The task seemed too large for her tiny body. She was trembling.

He was, in every sense and definition, freaking out. He wanted nothing more than to pull his shirt over his head and think about the sunrise.

Sometimes her body bucked and thrashed, and he had to hold her down, fearing she would hurt herself. This resulted in many stinging bruises on his chest and arms. That was alright. He couldn’t imagine what kind of pain she was in, but he knew his was nothing compared to it.

After seven hours, she looked at him with lifeless eyes and begged with the most pitifully weak voice for him to leave.

“Please,” she said, “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

He only shook his head and stayed by her side.

After ten hours he began to worry. He had no idea how to deliver a baby and no clue how to check its progress. But he knew it wasn’t going well. It didn’t take a medical expert to see that.

She seemed to know a bit more than he did. Every now and then, in between contractions, she would push back the jacket covering her body, exposing her bare stomach. He watched her feel its surface, touching and pressing certain points with grim concentration before laying back again.

He wanted to ask what she was doing, but then she was moaning again, gasping and struggling to get through the next bout of pain. He could only sit by her side, contemplating on how right she was: there was nothing he could do.

oOo

She was delirious.

She was exhausted, worn out, completely and utterly spent in every way. But there was no end in sight. Her body was not her own. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop the atrocities being committed to it. The only thing she could do was deal with it. Bear the pain, and hope that it will end. Eventually.

The baby was positioned awkwardly. She could feel it. As time bled by and she became less and less aware of the world around her, she only knew one thing: she was losing. It was a battle and she was losing. The defeat was painful and humiliating in so many ways, and he was watching. The one human she’d cared about in half a century was sitting by her side, watching her in her most vulnerable moment.

She begged him to leave, but knew he wouldn’t. When he shook his head silently and wiped her brow with his sleeve, she felt a muddled mix of adoration and hatred for him. He was there, the most faithful companion she had ever had, but she hated that he couldn’t just do what was better for himself. He was tired, too. Worry and exhaustion lined his face.

It wasn’t just the physical pain. Her mind was filled with screeches of agony. Not her own. She had already driver her throat hoarse with those. The thing in her stomach was screaming as it was forced out of its poisonous sanctuary. It hated being inside her, but being outside meant death and somehow it knew. It was in as much pain as she was, perhaps more. In the struggle, they were killing each other.

The contractions tore through her. She lost all sense of time. At some point the sun came up and Walter moved to shield her from the beam of light that stuck its head through the high window.

She had long given in to the torture and was waiting for its end. Or death.

Whichever one came first was fine.

oOo

The child came into the world just an hour before dusk in a gush of blood, after the longest twenty-four hours of either of their lives.

She didn’t move to pick it up or touch it. He was the one who came forward and took it in his arms. It took a single breath then breathed no more. She laid there in silence, her eyes gazing vacantly at the ceiling.

“It’s a boy,” he told her, knowing she didn’t care. “What should I do with him?”

She chuckled, a cold, morbid sound. “I don’t give a damn,” she said, “wrap it in a newspaper and throw it in the lake.”

With the baby cradled against his chest, Walter stood and walked out of the barn. When he looked back, he saw that she didn’t turn to look at him. She was still gazing at the ceiling, unmoving, expressionless. He stepped outside.

The last hint of sunlight was just beginning to disappear. The eastern sky was a soft veil of orange. He went down to the lake and carefully washed the baby off in the water. It felt like the right thing to do.

It was beautiful.

He had expected it to be a hideous mutant, perhaps with one eye, a shrunken head, and bloated limbs. But it was beautiful. Its hair was black as the night and its finger and toes delicate and adorable. Its eyes were open slightly and he saw that one of them was brown, and the other red. Its skin was fair and pale, and there was a tiny birthmark on its chest.

Walter sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said to the child, “there’s no room in the world for someone like you.”

He built a file in a small clearing and burned the body. Then he said a short prayer for it, though he was unsure if heaven had room for a soul like this one. He smoked a cigarette as the small corpse disappeared little by little in the embrace of the fire, then headed back to the barn.

She wasn’t there. He sighed. She sure knew how to keep him running around. He briefly wondered if she had died and her body disintegrated, like she had predicted, but her hat and jacket, the two pieces of clothing that he knew were not generated by her magic, were also gone. So he took his pack from the ground, left his shredded shirt in its place, and returned to the field.

He found her at a different part of the lake. Her clothes were laid in a neat pile on the grass.

The water came up to her waist. In this weather, it had to be near freezing, but she seemed perfectly at ease. He sat down on the shore and waited as she washed herself. Her hair, her face, her body. Her movements were sad and slow. When she finished, she came out of the water, dressed herself, and sat by his side. A soft gust of wind caressed her dark locks.

He took a drag of his cigarette, then handed it to her. She took it, but did not put it between her lips.

“Are you O.K.?”

She nodded as they gazed out into the lake. “I’ll live.”

“The copter will be here in an hour.”

“I know.”

He stood. She did the same. Slinging the pack over his shoulder, he headed to the rendezvous point. No more than ten steps later, he felt a pair of small hands on his forearm. He slowed his step as she walked alongside him, holding his arm with a gentle but firm grip.

“Thank you,” he heard her say softly.

He took her hand and they walked in silence. Later, as the copter took off back to the mansion, they fell asleep in the back seat, their heads pillowed against each others, fingers loosely linked.

END