Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Confessions Of A Believer: II ❯ Pain and Agony ( Chapter 3 )

I spent the remainder of my time in the chamber suffering from various pregnancy-related discomforts, which, in retrospect as I write this, seems much too tame of a word to describe the agony I went through, as well as my own growing fear that something would go wrong during the birth. I knew my fears were just that, fears, but I had never had a baby before, much less an alien baby and did Piccolo really know anything about how a human female gave birth? Would he be able to help me when the time came?

I was still afraid of him and stayed as far from him as I could, but I was much more scared of the fast-approaching future, so one day, at least I think it was day, there really isn't any way of telling night from day in the chamber, I walked over to the anime side and stood away from him, waiting for him to finish his training exercises. Pausing in a one-handed push-up, he raised his eye-ridge at me, waiting.

"Umm," I started, "I have to ask you...what's going to happen, I mean, when it's time..." I felt my face heat as I waited for a response. Piccolo went back to his push-ups, but said; "When the time comes, you will know what to do."

Oh. That really didn't alleviate my fears at all. I turned and walked back to my side of the room, waddling as I went. My half-saiyan baby doing a series of somersaults inside me, making the tightened skin about my stomach wiggle and do much more than just tickle, it rather hurt!

"Ugh!" I cried, rubbing my stomach as I eased down into a chair, "What are you doing in there, little one, preparing for the Olympics?!"

I was sick of being pregnant. There was no other way to say it. I felt like a balloon, my bladder was the size of a peanut, I was hot, itchy, irritable and I wanted nothing more than for this thing to be taken out of me. I had even taken to driving Piccolo crazy with my constant complaining and I knew it was taking all his effort not to strike me when I went into one of my pouting, whining, moaning and bitching modes. I could tell he wanted this the end just as much as I did, if not more.

"You humans take way too long to reproduce!" He snapped one afternoon after listening to another round of complaining.

"If I could just spit up an egg, I would!" I cried, curled up on my side on the twin bed on the side of the room I stayed in, sitting up, I asked; "Can I have some water, please?"

He went to the bathroom and I heard the tap running, while he was gone the life inside me began to move again, causing horrible cramping sensations near my lower stomach. I let out a half-moan and clutched my large gut, wishing I could take a knife and stab myself over and over just to make it all stop. A drop of cold water fell on my head and I looked up to see Piccolo holding a glass out to me. I took it with a shaking hand and drank.

He must have seen the strain in my face, my brows knitted, the beads of sweat forming on my temple, for he narrowed his own black eyes and asked; "Ami? Are you all right?"

"No!" I cried, as the pain doubled me over, coming in waves, "Do I look all right?!"

"It's going to be okay," My namekian guardian spoke above me, "Human females give birth all the time in their homes, without aide, trust your instincts."

The pain had momentarily paused, I lay panting, my fists curled into the sheets on the bed and glared up at him. If I could have, I would have sliced him in two with my gaze. But, moreover, I was not angry not at him, but at the one who'd put me into this predicament. Vegeta. I wanted to kill the bastard. As Piccolo summoned fresh towels and a sheet, I squeezed my eyes shut tight, fantasizing about the various ways of committing murder, each of them more bloody than the next.

Several long minutes passed in which half the time I was screaming in utter agony, thinking that if it was this bad and the hard part hadn't even begun, how could I even survive the actual birth?! Piccolo kept telling me be calm and use my instincts. At one point, after my water had broken, drenching me, the bed, and much of the floor with ambiotic fluid, I reached over and grabbed his blue sash-like belt, speaking through clenched teeth, the pain so great my eyes were hazed, crazy; "Please...kill me. Kill me now, Piccolo. I can't stand this! Please, please...just kill me...!"

He easily pried my fingers loose and shook his head, "You need to trust that you can do this, Ami," He said, as he used his powers to put clean sheets on the bed and dress me in a dry nightgown, "You can do this."

"Shut up!" I screamed, and went on screaming until my voice was horse, "Just shut up! If you won't kill me, then leave me to die alone!"

"You are not dying." Piccolo said, "Your just having a baby. A saiyan baby."

"I am going to kill him." I said, my voice shaking, as Piccolo positioned himself at the other end of the bed, watching to make sure the baby came out correctly, "I am going to rip his arms off and shove them down his fucking throat!"

"That's it," He said, encouraging me, "Focus on what you'd like to do Vegeta when you get through this."

I screamed as the waves of pain came closer and closer together, sweat pouring down my face, my eyes livid and I told Piccolo every single sick fantasy I had at the moment of making Vegeta pay for doing this to me. I think, though I can't be sure, I heard the namek chuckle at some of my more graphic descriptions. Hey, being a writer, I can come up with some pretty disgusting ways of killing someone.

Though I did not know it at the time, what Piccolo was doing was giving me something to focus on so that the birth came a bit easier. With all my attention on my anger and thoughts of retaliation my body was able to take over by itself, working instinctively, to push the life out, of it as Piccolo had said. Suddenly, I felt something slide out of me and after half a second, a loud scream, louder than my own, filled the room.

Piccolo did not wash the child off at first, but placed it on my chest and I, not thinking, just reacting, used my fingers to wipe the gunk from it's face, inside it's little nose and to clear it's mouth out so that it could breath easier. The baby had a cutest little furry brown tail that curled up around it's body. I held my new child tight as the pain of passing the afterbirth coursed through me. When it was done, I turned my child over and for the first time, saw that I had son.

A son. With black hair and black eyes that blinked blindly up at me. Piccolo carefully took the infant from me and washed him off in the tub in the next room, wrapping his shivering form in a sheet and brought him back to me. Moving the sheet from his head I smiled at the way his hair shot up all over his tiny head. Angry, the infant balled his little fists and screamed at me. "Ah, I know what you want," I said, as, one-handed, I adjusted my nightgown to expose one of my sore, milk-hardened breasts.

Piccolo frowned down at me and my baby but didn't say anything. I felt him leave me to give me some privacy as I struggled with teaching the little thing how to latch on to my nipple and take the nourishment he needed to grow stronger. Let me tell you all this right now, getting a baby to latch onto a nipple isn't always easy. They don't just do it automatically, they suckle but not latch on, and it took a while to get him to do it properly.

I winced as his little lips suckled hard, pulling at my all ready tender nipple, his little fist squeezed the fatty tissue of my breast in time to his sucking, his tail poking up over the sheet and wrapping about my wrist as I held him, being part saiyan, the newborn's grip was very strong and left red-marks where he'd gripped me. An hour went by, two hours. I pulled him away but the minute he was unhooked he screamed so loud I had to switch him to my other breast and start all over.

Piccolo came back to my side and said; "We have to leave." I had been so caught up in exploring my new baby's tiny, perfect body, counting toes and running my hands over miniature ears and nose that I'd failed to even hear him approach, "Ami, hand him to me and get dressed. It's time to leave."

"Just a minute, Piccolo," I said, half-listening, in a fog of new-mother bliss, "Just a minute..."

"NOW!" Piccolo shouted at me, breaking me from my reverie as easily as throwing cold water on a sleeping person would have snapped them back into reality. Pouting, I handed my child up to him and moved from the bed, still sore from the hard labor. Piccolo turned around, respecting my wish for discretion as I dressed, brushed and braided my hair and used the bathroom to relieve myself and brush my teeth. He handed me the baby when I came out and told me to follow him as we walked over to the anime side of the chamber. My son looked like a tiny version of Vegeta on this side, I noticed, looking down at his little scowling face.

I followed Piccolo out of the chamber and back onto the lookout. We were greeted by the Guardian of Earth himself, the younger namekian, Dende, grinning broadly at me as we stepped out of the chamber. He came over and I lowered the sheet Piccolo had wrapped the newborn in so he could see his face. "Do you feel that, Piccolo?" Dende asked the older namekian, while gazing in wonder at my baby.

Piccolo nodded when I looked at him, "Yes. The infant's ki was growing more and more even before he was born. The closest one I've ever felt with a ki that strong that young was Gohan...but even then, he wasn't a newborn."

"Wow!" Dende said, "Imagine how strong it will be when he is that age!"

"Why are you all standing in the hallway!" I turned when I heard his voice, irritated and anxious all at once; "Well?! Where's my son?!"

"How do you know it's boy?" I asked, as I walked over to him to show him the infant. He sneered as he took the child from me, "Because I could sense him."

I watched as Vegeta lowered the sheet which covered the infant's head and smile. He whispered almost too low for me to catch, into the child's ear; "You are going to be a great warrior, my son!"