Night's Omen

Capricia was wearing herself out, and had stopped struggling under the promises that Mitchell was only seconds away. When Connor rushed into the room, she didn't even have the energy to muster any shouting at him - at least not yet. Andrew moved, letting Connor take his spot, and Capri squeezed his hand weakly. "I wanna go home," she whined, voice wavering and scratchy from screaming so much. Her brown eyes were still wide, full of fear, and her hair was matted against her head by sweat.

Andrew gave Connor a small pat on the back. "I'm going to go downstairs and talk to Darren, see if I can't help out. You... have fun being a dad," he offered with a smirk. "Mitchell has enough drugs to take down an elephant, hopefully those will prevent her from breaking your hand," he chuckled, sidestepping the doctor as he approached.

He gave a last glance to Ash, knowing that this wasn't going to be the last time he was that close to the man. Hopefully next time, however, he'd be slightly more prepared. He descended the stairs to find Darren and Dave sulking at eachother, and raised a brow. "This sure is the place to be, huh?" he asked cheerfully. He looked at the rag suspiciously, and then smiled. "I think if you time it right, after Connor sees his little girl for the first time, he'll do just about anything you ask," he said deviously. He plopped down into a chair and waited, looking at Val curiously. Vampires, Hollow, sure, okay. But this one looked particularly disturbed. Was a pregnant woman really so much to fear?

Well. Yes, he supposed so.

"Doc, I want drugs!" Capricia screamed as Mitchell began taking her blood pressure and preparing the necessary things for her birthing procedure. "I want as much as you can give me, and then I want more after that!" she demanded.

She rolled her head around and looked to Connor. "When this is done, put a beer in my IV, okay baby?" she asked, wincing as the doctor began prodding on her.

Val made a point of not pissing anyone off ever, but he kept the sarcasm to himself. For once, he was quite aware of the many factors that were coinciding to drive Connor crazy, and the knowledge made him more sympathetic to the Hunter's feelings.

"I most certainly would prefer," Val said dryly, though curiously he made no move to leave. All this screaming and running around was enough to make him want desperately to get out. Most of these people didn't know him, and the ones who did were either distracted with drama of their own (Connor) or not in a position to look kindly upon Val (Darren). Still... seeing Connor get kicked out had made Val think that his bloodbond could use some support. He wouldn't feel right leaving Connor all by himself in the midst of this chaos.

A second later, Connor went for a deathgrip on Val's arm, and it didn't matter whether Val felt like leaving or not. The vampire stared at him, surprised at the open display, though not nearly as surprised as he was at Connor's parting words. It threw him for one hell of a loop, mainly because he found himself giving a vague nod just as the Hunter left him for the stairs.

Mon dieu. Now he really had to hang around for the full ride.

Upstairs the screaming continued, more words now than the sheer volume of before, but noise none the less. Poor Connor was going to be right in the thick of that, and Val wasn't jealous in the slightest. Noticing the stranger from before giving him a scrutinizing look, Val moved away into someplace inconspicuous and continued keeping an ear (and a mental link, the bond was handy and Connor wasn't hiding much) on the goings on above his head, trying to remember if women had been this loud about giving birth in his century as they were in this one.

Despite Val's remark about preferring to leave, Connor noticed that he stayed, but definitely hadn't had time to address it.  He had big things to worry about, like Capri, and Val was the furthest thing from his mind as she squeezed his hand.  Well, maybe not the furthest, since Darren, Dave and a million other people could fit that spot right then, and none of them were 'listening in' on what was going on with him.  Still, his focus was all on Capri, and the situation at hand, from the moment Andrew gave him that pat on the back.

"Hopefully," he agreed distractedly, the wide look in his eyes impossible to miss, but he knew the situation was already much better than it could have been when Capricia wasn't yelling at him to get out.  Having the first thing she said to him since he'd told her about his bloodbond be that she wanted to go home made his heart want to break, though.  He'd have done anything to take her home, but even he knew there was no way they were moving her.  Just a short flick of his eyes towards Mitchell confirmed it. 

"I know, baby, and I'll get you home as soon as I can, and you can have as much to drink as you can handle," he promised her.  Really, he figured that there was no way she was going to have the energy to bother with alcohol immediately, but she was going to need a drink after this.  He'd liked drinks after hunting when he could actually get a buzz, and this was FAR more stressful than hunting.  Hell, he wasn't even the one giving birth to the kid, and he wanted to go get trashed just so he wouldn't feel so crazy.  He could hardly begin to imagine what Capri was feeling.

Darren was pretty happy fading into the background with Dave, cleaning up a little and chatting quietly, right up until Andrew returned.  Even Valerie had faded into the background in silence, which was fine with him.  Dave knew the deal with Valerie just as well as Darren did, which meant, he didn't know enough.  They both remembered the vampire from the car accident, but neither knew about the bond he had with Connor.  It was better that way, but it left them wondering what Val was doing there.

The place to be?  "Something like that.  There never seems to be a dull moment, but that just might be life in general lately," he returned, shaking his head.  He didn't know Andrew well, but he'd seen him at the Guildhouse when he and Connor left, so he could only assume that the guy was a hunter.  He didn't intend to spill his troubles out on the ground for them, but he'd definitely noticed an increase in bad experiences as of late. 

"You might be right, but I know better.  Even if he'll do almost anything, he'll get me back for it later.  Once you suffer one of his pranks, you don't go looking for it again," he pointed out.  Connor was willing to put far more thought into getting back at someone than any reasonable adult should have even considered, and Darren had learned that the hard way.  The one time he'd helped his cousin with something like that, he decided he wasn't going to incite that sort of a response if he could help it.  "You're a hunter, right?  With Crimson, or someone else?"

"No," she cried. "I want to go home NOW!" She squeezed down on his hand as the doctor injected her with something, and then proclaimed that she was too far in for an epidural, and that what he'd just given her was all she was going to get. Capricia could feel her body numbing from what he'd given her, but it wasn't enough. She felt like an alien was about to rip out of her stomach. She had pain in places she never thought pain could BE, for crying out loud.

"No, Connor, PLEASE TAKE ME HOME!" she screamed - and cried. Literally. Capricia crying wasn't a very easy sight. The hunter had made her mark on the world without shedding a tear, and now she was crying her eyes out, begging Connor to get her out of this mess and take her home. If that didn't just rip your heart out and jump up and down on it, I don't know what will (3rd wall!).

"C'mon Capri, you got a few more minutes, and then we're going to have to get this thing gone," the doctor said. He looked up at Ash. "Whatever you can do to keep her calm, Leone. Her blood pressure is through the roof. I can't even believe she's made it this far."

It was a disconcerting statement, but not to be worried. Capri had teched out every time they'd examined her, and aside from an unhealthy stress level, this was going to be a great less danger than the time she'd gotten splattered by King.

"I DON'T WANT TO HAVE A BABY!" she wailed.


Andrew raised an eyebrow. Crimson. Now there was a thought. "No, Frost. I know Connor through Christian. I heard that things had become a little rough in the area lately, barring the activities of my very mentally unstable relative, and I decided to come check them out for myself. Turns out a very good friend of mine is having a child." He sighed. "I think every time I blink, more and more occurs that goes right by."

With a shake of his head and a shrug, he smiled at Darren. He wanted to talk to him about Purezza, but not in front of everyone else. If the cat had any dignity, that would squelch it - or so Andrew concluded. Besides, it would have been rude to just splay open a weakness like that in a room full of people he wasn't so sure were his friends.

"I actually wanted to talk to you, but it'll have to wait until a date when we're both less occupied. If you drop by Frost later, there are some things I want to go over, and Batten and Shane both agree on your opinion." Clever. Direct on the subject without saying a word.

Ash closed his eyes for a moment, silently wondering how this was even supposed to work with Capricia, and he took a step forward.  This wasn't going to be an easy one, obviously, and Capricia wasn't going to accept anything but all he could offer.  That was why he stepped forward to take the hand that wasn't clutching Connor's, and to rest his other palm on her forehead.

"Capricia, I am going to do what I can to deaden the pain and calm you down.  In return, you have to get this baby out," he told her, and he wasn't waiting for an answer.  He had their palms lined up, and his other palm on her forehead.  That was two power centers for two, and the best he was going to get.  Time to get to work.

The very first thing he did, considering the way she was wailing about wanting drugs, was pull energy from her black aura, which would deaden the pain in her body.  He didn't take all of it, because she needed to know what was happening, but it would be manageable.  All pregnant women should be so lucky.  He followed that up by withdrawing more energy from her emotion aura to stop her panicking and bring her blood pressure down, and thrust a good portion of what he'd taken into the white aura to calm her down.  The rest, he kept.  She'd build her energy levels in those two up again fairly quickly, he was sure.

Calm down, Capricia, it'll all be over soon...

Connor didn't have the slightest idea what Leone was doing, but if it would calm her down and make things go a little smoother, he'd be appreciative.  Of course, if she didn't break his fingers or blow out his eardrums in the meantime, he'd be happy.  Even worse was that he WANTED to be able to take her home and make it all stop, but there was nothing he could do about any of it.  They had to finish this before she could go home, but he'd take her immediately after, if she wanted. 

Naturally, talk of disbelief and her blood pressure didn't help, either.  It may not have been something they needed to worry about, but Connor wasn't entirely well-informed, and he was going to worry, anyway.  He gave the doctor wide eyes right before Capri started howling again to take his attention back.  Any attempt at soothing her would be drowned out by her cries, but he tried. 

"Capri, I'll take you home as soon as we're done here, I'll take you wherever you want to go.  You can't stop now, baby, you can do this," he told her, squeezing her hand a little.  He was trying not to match her blood pressure.

Frost.  That was a thought for Darren, since he didn't know a whole lot about that guild, other than what Connor had said.  That was Capricia's guild, which would explain why Andrew was there, and made Darren wonder what the hell Andrew was talking about Danielle being unstable for.  With the things he'd seen and heard out of Capri, not to mention heard of, he personally liked Danielle better, even if she sometimes gave him the creeps.  Of course, he hadn't seen or heard about most of Danielle's....activities.  Ash didn't talk about it, and neither did Danielle herself.  If anyone else knew about it, they didn't tell, either.

Darren was always so well-informed.

He was actually a little startled by what Andrew had to say after the mention of Capri, and it took him a second to realize that Connor must have talked to a few people about his 'problem'.  Great.  Just what he wanted to hear.  He frowned, not exactly thrilled, but nodded.  He wasn't going into detail, either.

"Alright.  Where do I find you there?" 

Capricia gritted her teeth and concentrated on her own thoughts, trying to ignore everything else in the room. What was that song she'd heard in the truck before she'd gotten here? Current flows... I don't know where it goes... Yeah, those were the lyrics. Took this job 'cause I needed one... She felt the pain begin to lift off of her body - that was the only way she could describe it - and she felt her head feel less heavy, her skin less hot and itchy. Not completely, but she definitely didn't have anything to scream about anymore, which was good, because her throat had begun to hurt.

I hope someday I'll get away... But the current keeps bringing me back around.. If she could just zero in on those words, she'd be okay. She blinked slowly at Connor as he spoke to her, but she was feeling lightheaded, and she couldn't make out what was going on in the room, just that there was noise. Someone was telling her to push, and she didn't know why that didn't sound like a good idea to her, but she was doing it anyways.

She felt a strange weight lift off of her, and she was perhaps a little too 'zenned' out to realize she'd just had her child. Wow, that concentration crap really works, she thought to herself. It wasn't that Ash had zonked her out, it was just that the stress paired with the sudden aleviation of said stress took what felt like a massive elephant off her back. Capricia, relaxed, was a very strange sight to see.

It wasn't until the Doctor cut the cord and started talking to her rapidly that she realized what was going on, and she started to panic again. "What? No, put it back! I'm not ready for this!" she protested, trying to flail her arms again. Connor had one hand, and Ash had the other, so she didn't do much but wiggle around, which the Doctor began immediately telling her not to do in case of any hemmoraging.

Andrew patted his jacket down for a second, and then looked around on the counter. He pulled a pen out of his pocket and wrote down his number on the back of a matchbook. "Here. You can just give me a call when you're free. I'm not busy lately besides the usual random madness, so it shouldn't be hard to get a hold of me."

Capri may have been 'zenned out', but Connor was NOT.  His light blue eyes were opened about as wide as they could do and he looked about ready to freak out, but he held Capri's hand and said the encouraging words and did what he was supposed to do, even if his brain had stalled and wasn't entirely operating at the speed it usually did.  He was pretty much dumbstruck by this whole situation.  Fortunately, Ash and the doctor had their shit together, and that helped snap Connor out of it somewhat as Mitchell cut the cord and Capri started freaking out.  Ash had moved immediately in an attempt to still her, and Connor did the same, talking to her even as his eyes trailed to the baby Mitchell was holding as he told her not to wiggle.

"Capri, shhh, calm down, it's over, you're done," he told her, hoping she wouldn't do anything to hurt herself now.  For once, he just wanted everything to go smoothly, but since when had it ever worked out for him like that?

Never.  She was yelling about putting the baby back.  That was encouraging.  At least she hadn't attacked him for 'doing this to her' yet.  He expected that to show up soon.

Darren glanced down at the number on the matchbook, nodding.  "Okay," he agreed, not exactly pleased, but it couldn't be bad that they were going to do SOMETHING about this situation, right?

Of course, what the hell were any of them going to do with that vampire?  All she had to do was tell one of them to do something, and they did it.  End of story.  Yeah, this was going to work out wonderfully.

"I guess the sooner, the better, huh?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to put it off, or get it done and over with.  Putting it off might mean that he'd end up running into her again without being prepared, though he really wasn't so sure he could do anything about it even if he DID prepare.  Maybe he'd start carrying earplugs around. 

"I want to see...." she managed. She trailed off as Ash used his knack for commanding auras to calm her down again - and since she was no longer under an insane amount of physical duress, Mitchell had just tapped the IV he'd plugged into her arm with morphine. The combination of the two was enough for her to close her tired eyes and drift off.

How auspicious for Connor. It looked like it might actually go his way, after all - this time.

The child, who had yet to be named, made a series of loud noises, but eventually took to looking around as much as she could, alternating between partial crying fits and utter silence as she tried to figure out where in the fuck the warm place had gone. Mitchell had swaddled her in a nice, soft, sterile blanket, so eventually she stopped with the spastic behaviour and just sort of... stared at everyone.

Andrew nodded his head slightly. "Yeah," he replied. "I'd say so." The man who was generally at this point unexpressive glanced up, and then nodded a little. "It's a girl," he sang softly. "Connor sure has his work cut out for him between those two, especially if she takes after Capri." He gave Darren a reassuring pat on the shoulder as he readied himself to leave.

"Just give me a call. I'll free up some time. We'll get it under control." Unlike his cousin, this particular Vida had a good idea of 'control' and what it meant.

Once Capri was out, which actually hadn't been his intention, Ash found himself free to start considering mess.  For one thing, he was going to need a shower after the trip up the stairs with Capri, and then there was the fact that his bed was going to need a serious cleaning.  Babies being born was messy.

Ew.

He was going to have to wait until the doctor finished up and decided what to do with the mother before he could really do anything about it all, though.  If Capri was going to sleep for awhile, she was really going to need a clean bed, which made him think of the 'guest room' he had behind the bar.  Darren had stayed there while he was looking for an apartment of his own, but it was currently uninhabited.  That was probably the best option. 

"Doctor, I have a spare room if you'd like to clean her up and move her to a less...used bed," he offered, and if there was the slightest bit of distaste in his tone regarding his BED being 'used' for this purpose, nobody could really blame him.  All that mattered was that he hadn't even thought twice before giving her the most comfortable place he had to have her baby, and it had all worked out.  Mitchell had handed the baby girl to the father, who Ash thought might actually freak out soon enough, but he wasn't going to worry about monitoring Connor's auras.  The man was level-headed enough, and he deserved to experience this unhindered, since Ash trusted him to not cause harm to himself or anyone else in the process.

It was true that Connor wasn't going to cause any damage anywhere, but he was definitely having a little fit in his head as the doctor handed the baby to him, all wrapped up in a blanket.  At first, his biggest concern was that he had NO IDEA how to hold a baby, but Mitchell was smart enough to tug his arms into place even as he slowly put the little girl in them, having obviously understood that Connor hadn't ever had the opportunity to hold an infant.  The fact that it was HIS baby only made it that much more incredible, and nearly overwhelming.  He kept up a rather wide-eyed, pole-axed expression right up until he glanced up at the doctor and Mitchell unknowingly repeated what Andrew had said.

"It's a girl, Connor."

A girl.  A baby girl.  He grinned and said something, though he really wasn't paying attention to what, so it might have just been a repeat (again) of the fact that the baby was a girl.  He'd already known from the ultrasounds what the gender was, but somehow it seemed...different right then.  Much more real.  It didn't MATTER what he said, because he really didn't feel like saying much of anything, and nobody in the room (currently conscious, anyway) really mattered.  From the looks of things, the medicine Mitchell had given Capri had completely knocked her out, and Connor had a rather useless mental state for dealing with anything right then.  Ash and Mitchell were going to have to establish where Capri (and family, since Connor would just follow) were going to end up for the mama to sleep off the meds, while the father's brain kept going, 'jkflsjdklghsfjkdfjigndsnjghdskslj!!'

How eloquent.

It was weird that Andrew just seemed to tilt his head and KNOW that Connor and Capri had just had a girl, even though Connor had mentioned it to Darren already.  Maybe Capri had told Andrew?  That would have made sense, and been better for Darren's comfort to think so.  He really didn't want to think about how many individuals out there could do crazy powerful things, and he couldn't.  It just made him feel even weaker and less prepared.

He nodded once more, the matchbook having already vanished within his pocket, and he sincerely hoped that Andrew was right.  Getting it 'under control' seemed impossible, but if this guy could manage that, he was all for it.  "Thanks."