Mika’s Note: I’m not very sure about this chapter, I think it’s a bit lame. But oh well. I can fix it later, I suppose.
Stretching his long limbs, Dakotah yawned. It was not like him to awaken and still be tired. He called for Sierra as he went up the stairs, letting her know he was awake finally, hoping she still was as well. At the top of the stairs, he glanced at the clock. Eleven AM?
Not trusting his eyes, Dakotah rechecked the time in the kitchen. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered to himself. Chuckling, he finished the thought with, “You may indeed, if you get lucky.” Cursing Sierra and her love of westerns, he looked out the living room window to see low-hanging, dark clouds. “Monsoon, ten o’clock,” he mumbled, smiling at the early ‘night’. “Might just be able to surprise her today.”
Intending to make a cup of his special tea, Dakotah returned to the kitchen and stumbled across the hastily scrawled note half hidden under a coffee mug on the table. Concerned, he pulled it out and read it quickly.
D—
Sierra’s in labor, took her to the doctor. Come as fast as you are able!
--Chey
“Damnit,” he growled. Looking from the clock to the clouds, he debated whether he should chance it or not. Deciding he didn’t have a choice, he grabbed his trench coat, grimacing at the thought of wearing it in the Nevada summer heat. Better than frying, he thought angrily at himself. Just make it to Anders’ office and you’ll be fine. He’s not that far away.
Taking a deep breath, Dakotah flew out the front door, slamming it behind him and raced for his truck.
~*~
“Breath, Sierra, breathe,” Cheyenne chanted, over and over.
Sierra gripped her hand while she held her sister’s leg. The other was being held by a young nurse, looking rather pale. “I don’t know if I can, I’m so tired.”
“You’re doing great,” Dr. Anders assured her, although his face said something completely different. Machines kept beeping and he was sweating. Not a good sign. A pounding at the front door distracted him. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.”
Sierra looked up at her sister in a panic. “Where’s he going?”
Cheyenne shrugged. “I don’t know, but he damn well better not go far!”
Before she could reply, Sierra heard the doctor mumbling and a familiar voice answering. “Dakotah,” she whispered.
“But how?” Cheyenne asked, confused.
“I don’t know, but I’m not sure I care,” she gasped. “Gods, Cheyenne, this hurts!”
“You’ll be okay, Sierra, the second dose of medication hasn’t taken effect yet.”
“Sierra, baby,” Dakotah breathed, rushing to her side. “I’m so sorry.”
Sierra shook her head. “Don’t. Worry.”
He smiled a sad smile. “Don’t talk, just concentrate.” He took the nurse’s position, determined to help if he could, but afraid at what he saw.
Her blood pressure’s dropping rapidly, Dakotah, the doctor had told him. I’m not sure if her heart is going to hold out. The baby is going to be fine though. Of that at least, I am certain.
Dakotah was terrified that his beloved Sierra was suffering so. And the thought of losing her? Insane. He refused to even consider it an option. Dr. Anders was an excellent physician and he would not let him down. Not now when it was so important.
“There we go, Sierra,” the doctor shouted. “I can see his head, come on.”
Dakotah leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Be strong, baby, you can do this.”
“For you, I will,” she grunted through clenched teeth, pushing one last time, hard as she could.
“You did it,” the doctor congratulated her, handing the squirming child to his assistant for a bath. “And I’m proud of you. Both of you.”
Smiling down at his wife, Dakotah sighed. “Thank you, Dr. Anders, for everything. But mostly for being here when I couldn’t.”
“I guess this odd bit of weather worked to your advantage then.”
Dakotah nodded and squeezed Sierra’s hand. “Yes, it did, and I’m very thankful.” Sierra weakly squeezed back. “Are you feeling okay,” he asked concerned. Her grip was weakening by the second, as her face paled.
“Doctor,” Cheyenne screamed from the other side of Sierra, “do something, she’s… she’s not well!”
Anders paled even further; her heart was failing and he didn’t have the right equipment to save her. Calling an ambulance was out of the question; her body had already started to change in preparation of nursing a half-vampire infant. Sending her to a hospital would ensure she wound up in a laboratory somewhere. “I don’t know if I can.”
“What do you mean?” Dakotah spat. “You’re a doctor, save her!”
Anders shook his head. “She has a weak heart, she didn’t tell me that until her BP started to get erratic. She’s having a heart attack and I don’t think I can save her.”
“Then call 911!” Cheyenne shouted. “Or I will!”
She pulled out her phone and started to dial. “Wait!” She and Dakotah glared at the doctor, praying he had a good damn excuse. “I can’t. She… her body has been changing during the pregnancy. The baby… the baby is a dhampir – part vampire, part human. He’s going to need certain things to survive, things a human mother couldn’t provide. She goes to a hospital and…”
They all suddenly understood. She’d spend the rest of her life under a microscope. Not the kind of life they’d wish on anyone. “What do we do then?” Cheyenne’s voice was tiny in the silence.
Dr. Anders looked up and met Dakotah’s eye.
“NO!”
“Just …”
“No,” he repeated. “I won’t do this to her!”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m only asking you give her enough to save her, give her strength. Not enough to turn her.”
“I can’t.”
“You don’t and she’ll die.”
He took a deep breath, and looked into the face of his dying wife. “I don’t have any choice, do I?”
Dr. Anders shook his head. “No, but I can make this easier on you. I have an idea.”
Looking up, questions in his eyes, Dakotah asked, “And?”
“And, I’m not sure if it’ll work, but we can try.”
“Then let’s do it.” He looked to Cheyenne who nodded, once. “And you’re sure…”
“Yes,” the doctor cut him off. “Now, give me your arm.”
Dakotah obliged, handing over one thickly muscled arm. Dr. Anders withdrew a syringe from his stash and inserted it into the vampire’s vein. “I was going to have to do this anyway,” he explained, “so that the baby would have something to eat until we could explain the situation to Sierra. But now,” he laughed, “I’ll have to do it twice.” He removed the first syringe and replaced it with a second, drawing another tube of blood. “There,” he muttered, placing a cotton ball over the pinprick. “Kara, come take this,” he instructed her to empty the blood into a bottle and feed it to the infant while the others looked on.
The heart monitor attached to the new mother started to beep rapidly. “She’s not going to make it much longer, let me near her.”
The assembled family moved, warily and watched as the doctor inserted the needle into Sierra’s arm, injecting her with her lover’s blood.
“Shouldn’t you have used a clean needle,” Cheyenne asked worriedly.
Dakotah shook his head. “My kind can’t catch or spread disease. She will not suffer from the shared needle. “
Cheyenne wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t think he’d lie about something like this.
All three waited, tense, to see if the doctor’s experiment would work. Her heart rate sped while her blood pressure dropped. And then suddenly, her eyes opened. And she screamed.
