Trigger warning: Sensitive labor-related content is included in this chapter. Please proceed with caution.

She heard Maksim repeat calming words as he talked on the phone and held her with his free arm.

"The babies are coming. I need you to prepare everything, now!"

She gritted her teeth when a new wave of pain replaced the old one. The pain gave her no breaks like contractions should. It slammed into her quickly, ruthlessly. Something was terribly wrong. This wasn't life. It was death.

Throughout her pregnancy, she felt harmless Braxton Hicks that were uncomfortable, but not painful. As she showered minutes ago, she felt some rising discomfort and figured it was more practice contractions.

"Maksim," she wheezed as the pain spread.

He picked her up. The towel in her hair fell, and the strands flailed wildly as Maksim stormed through the rooms.

She was in a car and racing down streets in no time. Her freshly washed skin became sweaty as she squirmed and panted in Maksim's arms. Tears spilled from her cheeks, but they weren't enough to cool the inferno. Maksim's clothes felt scratchy against her skin, while the pain scratched her intestines.

She was miserable, inside and out.

More hands grabbed her as she was transferred onto a stretcher, and she whimpered with protest. Blindly, she reached out and grabbed a fistful of someone's white lab coat.

"The babies," she panted. "Please."

All the pain in the world huddled in her stomach. She screamed, wanting it all to end.

She felt a sharp prick in her arm, and only moments later, the red haze whooshed. Her vision blurred, greyed, and then blackened.

– • –

Her sleep was dreamless. Whatever drugs pumped through her body sat her on the solid line between life and death. Like a zombie, she zoned in and out.

"Will you guys stop kicking me?" she blurted, although the words came out disorganized and sounded more like "kicking you guys stop?"

She felt heavy. It was like time was a thing of the past, and gravity took flight and left this world.

She opened her eyes and looked around. She was in a bed, and a man with dark hair was kneeling beside her. His head was lying on the sheets, and his clothes rumpled.

It was Maksim.

She reached for his hair and finally noticed the IV line that was sticking out of her.

With her free hand, she reached for her belly, where the twins were kicking endlessly. Her hand sunk a little lower than expected, so she looked at her abdomen and found that the bump was gone.

Her belly wasn't quite flat. The baby weight was still there, but her size had shrunk significantly. The kicks she felt were phantom, because the babies were no longer a part of her.

With a smile, she reached for Maksim's hair. Her movements were sluggish since she was still high on the meds, but eventually, she touched him.

He sat up, and her hand slipped down to his chest.

Maksim looked different. He wore an expression she had never seen before, and she felt surprise even in her drug-induced state.

With his red eyes, pale skin, oily hair, he painted the picture of devastation.

"It's okay," she smiled. "I'm fine now. Can I see them? Where are they?"

He was so still that she wondered if the drugs were making her hallucinate. Then, a tear tricked out of his left eye and proved that he wasn't a frozen figment of her colorful mind.

"Raelynn," he croaked, voice scratched as if he had been screaming for too long.

"Yes?"

"It's my fault. I'm so, so sorry. It's my fault." Another tear fell, making perfect parallel lines on his cheeks until the sobs that wrecked from his chest turned them into zig-zags.

"What? What's your fault? And where are... babies?" she asked him with a gentle stroke to his cheek. Realizing that she slurred her words again, she repeated, "where's the babies?"

"They were... stillborns," Maksim trembled.

Raelynn blinked once, twice, and continued to stroke his cheek.

"Okay. Where can I see them? They must be hungry and need to be fed. Can you bring my phone too? They might want to hear music."

Maksim paused, and she wondered once again if she was hallucinating.

"Go to sleep. I'll get them and they'll be back by the time you wake up."

She smiled brightly at him. "Thank you."

She slumped on her pillow and closed her eyes. The drugs were more than glad to pull her under.

– MAKSIM: Hours earlier –

He was starting to understand Raelynn's phobia of blood.

There they were, two perfect little bundles with swollen bellies from all the ice cream Raelynn spoiled them with.

Their skin was so red from their mother's blood that they smeared his skin and shirt.

Their little eyes were shut close, and their puckered lips produced no screams. It was like they were sleeping.

Ten fingers, ten toes, for a total of twenty. His baby boys were perfect.

The doctor watched him have his moment with his head hung. He had served Maksim's family for many years and wasn't known for failure. Maksim didn't blame him for delivering two stillborn babies, though. The poison that had coursed through Raelynn had been too strong. The emergency c-section hadn't been enough to save the babies.

The door closed as the doctor left, and it was then that Maksim realized he was kneeling on the floor and crying while clutching two dead babies to his chest.

The pain he felt when he discovered Raelynn's letter paled in comparison to what he felt now. No amount of alcohol would dull it, no amount of tears would drown it.

His boys were dead. Everything he worked for was worthless. He was worthless.

"May I..."

A gentle feminine hand touched his shoulder, and his sadness caught fire.

Turning around, he roared, "Get the fuck away from them!" He held his twins on one arm and pointed a gun with the other.

The nurse dropped the blanket she was holding and ran away. Once she was out of sight, the gun clattered to the floor.

Maksim clutched his heirs and began to rock them.

"Я тебя люблю. в жизни и смерти. Я тебя люблю."

(I love you. In life and death, I love you.)