Choices, p.24
Choices, page 24
“Is he all right?” Lori asked.
“Seems fine.” Zander listened with the stethoscope, fiddled about, then wrapped and lifted the bundled infant, as if to hold it out. “Uncle Brian?”
Brian froze, unable to move forward, unable to breathe, his arms heavy as lead.
Zander hesitated, then said, “Charlie, can you hold him while I check on Lori?”
“Sure.” Charlie straightened with a muffled groan and reached for the baby.
Zander helped him cradle the wrapped bundle mainly supported in his good arm, then turned to Lori. “You scared us. How are you feeling?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What scared you? I feel like shit.”
“You screamed,” Brian said. “Like— like a cat. And waved your arms and didn’t curse. At all.” You didn’t seem like you were there.
“Fuck that.”
Zander inflated the blood pressure cuff again. “You sound better, but you were in distress and unresponsive.” He listened with his scope. “BP’s still fine. Do you have any dizziness? Headache? Chest pains or nausea?”
“Feels like I passed a bowling ball. My back aches. Nothing else.”
“Let me listen.”
As he slid the scope under her shirt, she grunted and tensed, her back arching. “Ouch. Shit. Why is that still happening? I’m done.”
“Afterbirth.” He went back to her feet. “Hang in there. Almost finished.”
Brian didn’t watch as messy-sounding things happened down there. He didn’t want to look at the baby, or Lori, so he fixed his eyes on Nick’s feet, familiar jeans, familiar sneakers. Maybe we can get out of here soon.
Water sloshed. Brian tracked Nick’s feet as he crossed the room to get something. Oh. A clean sheet. Bedclothes rustled. Zander’s feet passed Nick’s, maybe doing another exam on Lori. The smell of blood faded, but Brian’s head still felt thick and stuffed up.
“I don’t know what happened after your water broke, but you seem fine now.” Zander sounded calm. “You don’t have any seizure history, right?”
“Nope.” Lori shifted in the bed, hissed under her breath. “When do I get to see my kid? Man, that sucked, but as long as he’s healthy…”
Brian glanced up at her. “And you too, Lor.” He wouldn’t trade that baby for his sister.
She grinned, looking younger than ever with her hair all tousled and sticking to her damp forehead. Her skin was freckled across her cheekbones, and abruptly Brian remembered Lori like that, years back, a sister who took him to the playground and kept an eye out for the big kids while he swung. She said, “He’s here and he’s okay!”
Zander eased the baby out of Charlie’s hold. “Healthy baby boy. He’s pale, but that’s probably his natural skin tone. Nice dark-blue eyes, so no worries about albinism. Looks like his mother.”
Brian allowed his gaze to dip briefly to the bundle in Zander’s arms. He could make out the bald curve of the infant’s head, and a tiny arm and hand, the little fingers curled tight. “He’s so small! You’re sure he’s okay?” Maybe he’s not mine.
“He’s a fine big boy. Eight pounds. Newborns always seem small when you’re not used to them.” Zander walked over to Lori, cradling the baby, who began fussing as he loosened its blanket. “Here, Mama, we’re going to put him on your chest for some skin-to-skin bonding time.”
Lori said “Brian, don’t look,” and lifted the loose T-shirt she was wearing enough to bare part of her front. She reached up eagerly as Zander bent to lay the naked infant on her. “Aaaahiiii!” Lori’s back arched, almost dumping the baby. She wailed again, thinly and without words. Her eyes scrunched shut and her arms tucked in, hands curling.
“Whoa!” Zander grabbed the infant up in his arms, whirled, and shocked Brian by taking a long step and pressing the child into his arms. “Here! Hold him!”
Before Brian could protest, he had an armful of baby and Zander had whirled back to bend over Lori. Brian looked down and met a pair of wide, deep-blue eyes…
Worry and weirdness swirled in Brian’s brain, as he tried to hold the fragile scrap of an infant properly. The baby had near-transparent eyelashes and no hair Brian could see, beyond a fine, pale fuzz that extended down over his forehead, ears and even his shoulders. Under the fuzz, his skin was milky pale, though his lips, cheeks, and tiny fingers had a hint of pink. Brian cradled him closer, and the baby blinked up at him, blue eyes slightly crossed.
Without meaning to, Brian opened his Finder eye. White. Silver. White. The trace wasn’t a ribbon, not a thread like he was used to, and even though he was touching the infant, it didn’t shut down and fade like normal. There was a flood of light all around them, a cone maybe, as if all the brightness of his Finding world was pulled down, the colors blending to white, toward this little child—
“Brian! Brian!” Nick’s voice came from far away. “Brian!”
Before he could react, the baby was lifted out of his arms. “Hey!” He blinked and reached out. Then realized that Damon, of all people, stood two feet away, holding the child.
What the hell?
Nick grabbed him in a hard hug. “Are you okay? You were completely out of it!”
“I was—” He turned to Nick. “I don’t get it. How did Damon get here?”
“Walked in the door,” Damon said, lifting the baby to his shoulder with stunning assurance. The baby whimpered, and he patted its tiny back.
“Why? What happened?” He suddenly remembered Lori having another fit— He turned in Nick’s arms to stare at her. “Lori! Are you okay?”
She was sitting up in her bed, looking more pissed than sick. “I’m fine. Now.”
“What about you?” Zander asked.
“Did I do something weird?” Nick’s grip around him was tighter than it should’ve been. Scared-tight. Brian pushed back enough to meet Nick’s eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Good question.” Nick gradually let go. “Lori screamed, you took the baby, and Zander bent over her. She was fine again, like, right away. It took me a minute to realize you were staring straight at the baby. Staring. Not hearing anything we said, not responding. Just looking into its eyes.”
“His,” Lori put in. “His eyes. That baby’s a boy, not an it.”
“Whatever. It had Brian fucking hypnotized.”
“I’m fine,” Brian said. “Not even a headache.”
“Now you’re fine. A moment ago, you didn’t even see your brother come barging in like a SWAT team.”
Damon said calmly, “Hardly a SWAT team. No weapon in sight.”
“But I bet you’re carrying.” Nick heaved a sigh. “So what the fuck happened?”
“Good question.” Zander bent over Lori. “From a medical standpoint, it looked most like a seizure, Lori. But definitely atypical. Let me check…” He inflated the blood pressure cuff, listened with his scope as it went down, then repeated the process. “Your pressure’s still fine. That’s the biggest concern off the table. We’ll get some blood and run a stat check on your calcium. I have a glucometer for blood sugar here—”
“It was the baby,” Lori said, pulling her arm away. “I think. It was weird, like I touched him and the world went bright and loud and cold and… and… and weird. Like I couldn’t see, not properly. Strange things were pulling on me.”
“Seizures feel different to different people,” Zander pointed out. “Or low blood sugar.”
“Yeah, no.” Lori twisted to look at Damon. “Can you bring him here? Maybe slowly.”
“Sure.” Damon moved toward the bed, rocking the infant side to side with a sway of his shoulders.
“Why are you here anyway?” Nick asked.
Damon shot him a grin over one shoulder. “You weren’t expecting me?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“Lori suddenly freaked the hell out. I could tell. Could’ve been any damned thing, so I came in to find out what new disaster we had.” He took another step toward Lori.
Zander straightened and blocked Damon’s way to the bed. “Don’t hand an infant to someone who just had a seizure.”
“I’ll keep a good hold on him, Doc.” Brian couldn’t see Damon’s face, but heard the sly shift in his tone. “Don’t you trust me?”
“You really want to know?” For a moment, the two men stared at each other, then Zander added, “What’s your plan?”
“The little guy did something with Brian, right? So maybe he did something with Lori too.”
“She wasn’t hypnotized. You’re going to experiment with her health? Ignore all my years of actual training?”
Damon called without turning, “Hey, Bry, you feeling okay now?”
Am I? He inventoried himself. No new aches, not even a bit of throb from his head, vision clear again, and he seemed to be thinking clearly. Although how would I know? He realized everyone was waiting for his answer. “I’m fine, I think.”
“Yeah. You feel fine to me too,” Damon said. “So does Lori, now. So does little guy, except he’s fussy and cranky and needy. Next thing to try is if Lor can nurse him. See what happens.”
Zander didn’t budge. “Let me check Lori out better first.”
“After,” Lori said firmly. “Damon, bring my baby here.”
“Babies don’t cause seizures,” Zander said. “Well, if they made a loud, sharp noise, maybe—”
“Babies don’t hypnotize people either,” Damon noted calmly.
“Yeah, but we know Brian’s not—” Zander cut off short, flicked a glance at Brian, and finished with “—completely neurotypical.”
Nice save, Doc. But it was true enough. His neurons were obviously not typical.
Damon laughed. “The little guy’s a Kerr too. Who knows what he can do?”
For a moment Zander held his position between Damon and Lori. Then he nodded. “But if she has any more neuro signs, you let me do a full workup.”
“If we can’t explain it? Sure.”
Nick’s fingers bit into Brian’s arm as Zander stepped out of the way and Damon eased smoothly to one knee. Damon leaned forward to put the infant cradled on his shoulder into Lori’s reach. “You touch him, this time. Slow, slow. One finger. Don’t look in his eyes yet.”
Brian heard Nick whisper, “Abso-fucking-weird.”
Lori’s hand was steady as she reached out, but she paused with her finger hovering beside the baby’s cheek. “He’s pretty, isn’t he? And strong.”
“Sure is,” Zander said.
“He made it through a lot before he was even born. He’ll be a tough kid.” She curved her gesture up over his head, keeping an inch of space between them.
“Right,” Damon said briskly. “But that’ll be a hell of a lot easier if you can feed him. Come on, girl. Try it.”
She lowered her finger toward the baby’s head. Brian held his breath, and didn’t resist as Nick tugged him closer. The moment Lori’s hand touched the child, she drew a loud breath. Then let it out in a wail that was echoed by the baby’s higher cry. She blinked fast, her other hand waving aimlessly in the air.
“Shit.” Damon leaned away, breaking her contact with the infant.
Immediately, Lori’s eyes opened wide, then she frowned and stopped waving. She took one fast, harsh gasp. “Shit!”
“That’s what I said.” Damon sat back on his heels, rocking the child again. “What happened? Describe it.”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s like, when I touch him, I lose where I am. Everything is fuzzy and bright and uncomfortable.”
“And scary?”
“I guess.” She pushed higher on the pillows and winced. “Fuck it, my gut hurts and I want to hold my damned baby.”
Zander barked a short, unamused laugh. “This is nuts! This is all nuts, right? Babies don’t do whatever you think he’s doing.”
Nick said to Brian, “When you held him, you looked happy. Not freaked out like Lori. You were staring at him and smiling.”
“Yeaaah.” Lori looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “What did you see, little brother? You weren’t having seizures.”
Brian struggled to put it into words. “I was just, you know, checking his trace. So I could Find him, if I ever needed to. And the light was all white and shiny and silver and… I don’t know. It was pretty and bright. I got distracted. I probably overdid it.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Nick muttered.
“But it didn’t hurt?” Damon asked.
“No. Not at all.”
“Not cold and confused and fuzzy, like she said?”
“No. Let me check—” He closed his eyes and looked inside his head to where those traces floated in the darkness. Cracked his Finder eye open— White! Silver! Shiny, shiny, flowing river…
A hard jolt to his back startled him. He blinked his eyes open, cutting off that silver shine. Everyone was staring at him. Nick thumped him between the shoulder blades again, rough enough to bruise.
He grabbed Nick’s wrist. “I’m good. I’m back. He’s really bright. Was it long?”
“A few seconds, but I don’t fucking want to see you stand there like no one’s home in your head. Don’t do that.”
“Hmm.” Damon rose smoothly, the baby against his shoulder. “So to you he’s a blindingly bright trace. To me, he’s just another little Kerr to take care of. To Lori—”
“He’s my goddamned son,” she said. “And I’m going to hold him. Maybe if you wrap him in a blanket?”
Zander scooped a fresh baby blanket off the dresser, turned to Damon and said, “Let me this time.”
Damon backed up a step, then said, “Why the hell not.” Between them, they wrapped the baby up like an infant burrito, then Zander took him back to Lori. She touched the blanket, then the baby through the blanket.
“Huh. Nothing.”
“That’s good, right?” Zander held the child close, though. “Maybe it was a one-time thing.”
“Maybe you should try rubber gloves.” Damon moved to the other side of the bed and passed her a pair from Zander’s bag.
“I feel stupid,” Lori grumbled, but she pulled them on. “Okay. Try now.”
They determined that she could touch the baby with gloved hands and not react. Carefully, Zander transferred the wrapped bundle to her arms.
Damon sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ll hang out here.”
Lori said sourly, “Don’t you trust me?”
“To not kiss him and give yourself another seizure? Sure. I trust you.” Damon didn’t move away.
Brian watched as Lori explored the child with her latex touch. She seemed to have no trouble looking in the kid’s eyes. Just like he’d been able to touch the kid, when she couldn’t. The kid. The real live kid who might be mine after all, but there he is, and he’s just a little baby. He felt a rush of sympathy. Poor kid, having his mom’s touch feel like a dead balloon. He asked, “Did you pick a name, Lor?”
“Joshua Felix.”
“Felix? Like a cat?”
“With nine lives, hell, yeah. Josh for short.” She bent to look at the baby. “Hi, Joshie.”
The infant yawned, then whimpered.
“Any chance you can nurse him?” Damon rubbed the baby’s little head and put a finger against his pale-pink lips. Josh made a fumbly attempt to suck on it.
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Lori wrinkled her nose. “Touching his face makes me freak out, so let’s stick my naked tit in his mouth.” She glanced up. “Anyhow, I don’t need an audience while I try.”
“Your naked tits mean nothing to me,” Nick said.
Brian tugged at his arm, glad of a chance to back away. “We’ll be, um, out there.” He waved toward the living room. “Close. If you need us.”
Charlie said, “You want me to stay or go, Lori?”
“Go on.” Her voice was softer, talking to Charlie. “Damon and Doc can help me figure this out.”
“Okay.” Charlie pulled Nick and Brian with him out the door.
The air in the hallway was cleaner. Or less thin, anyway. As soon as they’d left the room, Brian took a few good, long breaths.
“That was weird.” Nick led the way to the couch. “I kind of expected weird, but not like that.”
Brian sat down hard, wincing as he heard Lori cry out behind him. Damon and Zander will take care of her, and the baby. He sat on the edge of the couch, waiting, every muscle tense, but the next sounds from Lori’s room were softer and less painful. Gradually he relaxed.
Nick put an arm around him. “Josh looks like Lori, don’t you think?”
Or like me? He tried to pull himself together. “Yeah. He does.”
“You don’t have that trance thing going when you’re around Lori or Damon. Do you think it’s because he’s new to you? Will it go away?”
“How would I know?” It was a relief to snap at Nick. “I’ve never done that before, so how can I tell if it’ll ever stop?” The idea dropped into him like a heavy stone. “What if it doesn’t change? What if I can’t be around him without turning into a stupid statue?” Does the way I react mean he’s definitely mine? What if I can’t be around my own kid? His muscles tightened to quivering jitters. What’s real? Am I trying to have an excuse not to be around him?
Nick squeezed him and let go. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Brian grabbed his abandoned Coke and gulped some, then coughed, surprised by the fizz. He’d expected it to have gone flat in all the hours had passed, but of course it’d been only minutes. Not hours. For everything to change. He might be mine. Josh. My son. The idea couldn’t seem to get traction on the surface of his mind. “Son” was something he’d never expected. He didn’t sleep with women, and who’d ever give him a kid to raise? He was never going to be a dad. But now?
“God damn Marston!” he spat out. “Motherfucking bastard man.” The words sat foul in his mouth, and he washed them away with the metallic tang of the Coke. Girl-fucking. Lori had been so young when they got married. Should he have tried to force his way up out of Bry back then, to speak up and stop her? But she’d never have listened anyway, and Damon was on her side.
