Chapter 18
For an entire week, Myriam-as Aurora-stayed in the guest quarters because Klaus didn’t want her anywhere near him looking like the lunatic. Aurora-as Myriam was kept compelled at all times. Rebekah took great pleasure in playing with her, because she’d always wanted to be able to compel Myriam but out of respect never did. Now that it wasn’t actually Myriam but Aurora, Rebekah went to town – much to Klaus and Myriam’s disapproving looks.
Klaus and Myriam were still searching for the witch responsible for this swap and Bella felt guilty as hell, not leaving her and Kol’s apartment for a few days. When Kol told her that their unborn children were responsible for Myriam’s current predicament, Bella couldn’t believe him. Sure, the boys were alive, kicking Bella back and blue from the inside, but to be capable of doing magic? No, that was out of the question.
It took a meeting with the Regent to inform her about all the happenings at the Mikaelson compound to convince Bella otherwise. The Regent explained that, from her knowledge and that of the Ancestors, the Mikaelsons were once humans with great magical potential and that only Kol had tapped into that, aside from their mother. Bella knew this story, of course. Kol missed being a witch, but he’d rather be something more sturdy so that he wouldn’t be easily killed by his siblings.
To be pregnant with twins and first borns, inside a demi-Goddess shell, made sense for the babies to already practise magic, tapping into Bella’s power and convert it to magic. Bella begged the Regent to undo their magic as she couldn’t do it herself and would likely only be able to do that herself once she had given birth.
Magic didn’t work that way, unfortunately. No, Bella knew that. Kol had already told her that. But it still had been worth the try. Madame La Rue agreed with Kol in believing that it was a time related spell and that eventually Myriam would go back to her own body. Seeing how upset Bella was by the whole thing, she also cast a minor spell on Bella to block the magic from the would-be terror twins in her womb. What if they’d do it again?
By the end of the week, Myriam and Aurora did indeed swap back and seeing as Aurora was still trying to get her bearings, Myriam could kill her easily. A dinner was thrown to celebrate Myriam’s return and the end of the trio, and while the whole situation had been embarrassing, it had been a great prank, and Kol was walking around like a proud daddy which annoyed Myriam and forced them to come clean about it all.
“If they do something like this again, I will be the evil aunt!” Myriam threatened before gently tapping on Bella’s ever growing belly. “You hear me, Chip and Dale? Do that again and you will be sorry for the rest of your lives!” She then looked at Bella. “And you. Just don’t even attempt of using your gifts because I think that’s what set those two in there off.”
“Ah, she may have to use it one more time,” Elijah pointed out. “She turned our sister Freya into a tortoise.”
“And she’ll stay that way,” Myriam growled. “Weren’t you moving out, Elijah?”
December came and went; Christmas was incredibly elaborate with the gift exchange being mostly toys, clothes and items for the babies. Not even born and already spoilt rotten. On top of that, Hades and Helios both showered her and Kol with gifts too; in some cases quite literally and Bella had oh so much tried to keep calm and accept it all, but eventually she burst out in anger and decided not to leave the apartment again until it was time for her to give birth or perhaps go to the hospital.
She sometimes joked that it felt as if there were more babies kicking inside of her, no doubt she was black and blue on the inside by now, and Kol always paled and told her that it wasn’t fun to joke about it. It was impossible. Multiple times they had witch healers check up on her and they confirmed two babies all the time. Even Helios, whose visits came more frequently now because Bella did need her dad-NotDad, told her that she had nothing to worry about, that they were merely going to be two strong human beings.
Helios and Hades had both loved the prank the boys had pulled on Myriam, though, and were disappointed that the unborn babies were rendered useless in Bella’s womb by the Regent per Bella’s request. Bella found it tiring to explain time and again that they hadn’t bound their powers, merely made sure that they didn’t share it with the rest of the world because they were still in the womb and didn’t know better – granted, Bella knew that they were likely going to be a handful anyway once she had pooped them out and she was more than likely going to convince Kol about binding their powers until they were old enough.
From all the books she had read by now – and of course hearing stories from her readers, twins were a handful. Add to that magic and them being a Mikaelson… she was in for a nightmare. Luckily Kol wanted to be included in everything, and she suspected he wasn’t going to leave most of the caring up to her. And if he was, he was going to be sorry.
Bella sent out a blog every two weeks with a baby update; pictures of new things she and Kol had either bought or received or general updates about how she was feeling and what the two creatures in her stomach were up to. She had accumulated a large pool of baby names – mostly girls names because her readers wished for her to have girls, and none of the names fancied her and Kol.
Perhaps it was a little late in the game now to still think of names, but it wasn’t easy. While Kol didn’t have a direct connection with the Old World – Scandinavia, he did want to honor his heritage by having at least one name from there and it just didn’t fit with other names. Yet. Bella had veto’ed Erik, or Eric, because she didn’t want to risk their son to become an evil warlock or something.
“What about Colby?” Bella randomly asked as she pointed at a website with Old Norse names. “Sure, it’s something about Darkness and all but I really like the name,” she then smirked. “It’s something like Kol jr, but then better!”
“Will we write it with a K then too, darling?” he replied as he set down a glass of fresh orange juice. “Kolby.”
“If you’d like…”
“Very well, put that on our list then.”
There was one name she had wanted to offer for ages now, but felt a bit silly about it. About the reason behind it all, but now that they were talking about this again anyway… “And I like the name Charlie.”
Kol sat down next to her and looked at her for a moment before a big smile erupted on his face. “Charlie and Kolby. I like it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he softly kissed her. “Wow, this took us months of work and then… all of a sudden we have it! Charlie and Kolby Mikaelson. Sounds great! The right fit and everything,” he kissed her again, harder this time. “You are absolutely brilliant, but why didn’t you come up with Charlie before? I thought that name was on the ‘no’ list?”
She sighed and ruffled his hair. “Because I don’t want to be cheesy. I like the name though, and he’s… well he was a father to me even though I found out he wasn’t.”
“Gotcha,” he replied with a nod. “Are you comfortable here? Or would you like me to move you to the bed so you can rest some more?”
“I’m fine, I have juice,” she responded and gently caressed his cheek. Kol was heading out, most likely to have some fun chasing some people around or to do something for Klaus. She didn’t mind, he was anxious for the inevitable birth of the babies and she tried to be as calm as possible as not to fuel his anxiety even further. When he took a break from her, she could take a break from controlling herself. “Bring me back a few beignets?”
“As many as you wish, darling. I won’t be long.”
“Take as long as you need.”
He placed her laptop in front of her and kissed her before heading off. Bella let out a breath and gently caressed her bulging stomach. She had a feeling that the boys wouldn’t wait for much longer to come out, despite them not having turned and settled as yet. There were feet kicking against her ribs, alright, but there were still feet downstairs too, and in the wrong position.
Oh, she knew she had nothing to worry about. Her midwives were two very excited vampires and aunties, there was enough vampire blood around to help heal the babies should it be needed. Bella was an immortal demi-Goddess and she couldn’t die. No, worst case scenario would be that she’d be in labor for days without any form of pain relief being able to help her. And that was what scared her. The babies hadn’t turned, but she also felt, almost like an instinct, that they weren’t going to keep the world waiting for them any longer.
Bella decided to, once again, put her fears into a short story. She didn’t really have time to write lately, but she felt guilty for her readers; still stemming from the 2 year long absence which hadn’t been her fault, so she kept banging out short stories instead of the long, complicated ones that required at least some planning.
She liked sharing things with them, without going in too much detail, without ever showing her face. The only place she’d been recognized by her pen name was at that convention in Las Vegas because people were loving her stories and praising her and Myriam had pointed out proudly that CeilingCat was her bestie, her wifey and RIGHT THERE. Even when sharing belly updates, Bella made sure nobody was in the picture, her face wasn’t in the picture and no identifiable objects were there.
And she didn’t do it this way because of the status of her family; vampires, immortals, tortoises or Gods and Titans, but because she really liked her privacy. She didn’t even share her location, but since a lot of her stories were featured in New Orleans and with the right amount of details that some writers didn’t get, the observant readers would know. She didn’t care.
Once she was mobile again to walk around, she was going to take the babies for a stroll and learn more about the city. Its history. Find the places that Klaus, Myriam, Elijah and Rebekah helped build. She had already seen a lot of the city, courtesy of her boyfriend, but they’ve spent more time travelling away from it than to actually stay. He didn’t like the city very much and she wanted the kids to grow up with grass. Maybe they could explore the edges of the city where there was more nature but still a good connection to the center.
But for that, there wasn’t a rush. First, the babies needed to be born and they had to become parents. Parents. Capital P. She was going to be a Mom to twins and currently writing a short where Twilight’s Bella Swan had had sex with Jacob the werewolf and Edward the vampire, how the dna of the two intertwined and Bella gave birth to a monster that ripped open her stomach, killing Bella instantly without any hope of resuscitation, the monster running loose and killing everyone in Forks before Sam and Dean Winchester finally arrived to hunt the monster down and kill it.
And it was satisfying.
She finished drinking her juice after hitting ‘publish’ on the story and then slowly managed to get to her feet to go to the bathroom. She felt as if she was the size of a semi-truck, growing wider and wider by the day, taking kidney shots and a head on her bladder. She really wasn’t sure what direction the boys were in anymore. Bella thought she had it all figured out but she was dead wrong.
And it sucked, just a little, that she hadn’t stayed in contact with her ‘mother’, especially after everything that happened in her life, but Renee never really… she thought that magic and all other things were dangerous. How was Bella going to explain to her that she wasn’t really her biological mother but that a Titan had fucked with her head to raise his granddaughter and that it was likely that Renee was a low level witch with the only instinct was that she had to run from anything remotely supernatural. Renee would run from her now too, wouldn’t she? Without really understanding why? And it wasn’t as if Bella could tell her all of this, unless she’d be compelled. Kol once told her that Renee was likely easy to compel despite her being a witch. She was untrained. Low on the totem pole and more human than witch.
And while Renee hadn’t given birth to Bella, only remembered doing so, Bella felt that she needed to tell her mom at least that she was pregnant with twins. And, that if she wanted, she could come to New Orleans to visit once they were born. Or something.
And that could also be a very bad idea, but Bella found herself crying on her toilet, missing her mother all of a sudden. Surely she could tell her mother everything without telling her everything?
She fumbled her phone out of her pocket and wondered why her mother hadn’t called her over the last years, either. Granted, Bella was ‘out of contact’ for 2 years, but there had been no missed calls. She let out a soft grunt when one of the boys kicked against her kidney again and sighed. Bella was going to be the better person between her and her mother and call her. Now. On the toilet. Because she couldn’t be bothered to move right now and it was likely that her bladder wasn’t completely empty anyway.
“Hello.” It felt good to hear her mother’s voice again and Bella nearly burst out in tears again.
“Hi, Mom,” she said softly.
“Bella! Oh my God, it’s you! How are you, sweetheart? We haven’t spoken in so long!”
“Well, you could have called, too,” she pointed out.
“You’re absolutely right, I suppose you’ve got your independence from me, and not your father,” Renee chuckled. “Phil and I live in Los Angeles now, and it’s amazing. He’s doing well with his baseball career and I hope you’re ready to become a big sister!”
Bella gasped in shock. “You’re pregnant? Aren’t you like… old?”
“Surrogate. Phil’s sperm, donor eggs and a surrogate. And we got lucky with our surrogate too. And the eggs. And… we’re just very lucky, aren’t you happy for me?”
“Of course, mom,” Bella replied. “I am very happy for you and I can’t wait to become a big sister,” she managed to pull up her underwear and started to waddle out of the bathroom. “I’m living in New Orleans now.”
“Bella… that was the one place I never wanted you to go to.”
“I know, but I found what I needed in Mystic Falls, and while I still have my little house there, my destiny brought me to New Orleans, and we’re traveling the world, have fun, see things, do things…”
“That is great honey, who is the lucky man?”
“His name is Kol,” she looked at the guy in question as he walked in, all bloody and looking incredibly high and handsome. “And he’s a very messy eater,” she giggled as she put her phone on speaker. “But he really takes care of me, protects me and Charlie loves him.”
“Who are you talking to, darling?” Kol’s eyes sparkled as he inched closer to her, wrapping his arms around her frame and started to nip at her neck.
“My mother,” Bella replied and laughed when Kol immediately let go of her. “She’s pregnant. Well, she isn’t, but someone else is pregnant for her,” she explained. “Imagine that, I called her to get an update and I’m turning into a big sister!”
He nearly let out some negativity about mothers and how absent hers had been before she realized she’d been crying and needed some human comfort, something not even Charlie could give to her. “Want me to invite Cami over? I’m sure she can tear herself away from my brother and her bar long enough—”
“It’s fine,” she replied and gently nudged him towards the bedroom to get changed.
Kol scowled and hated his own thoughts right now. “Invite her over. I want to meet her.”
“That is very kind of you, but I don’t go to New Orleans. Bad vibes all around, doesn’t feel safe even though I have a baseball player for a husband!”
“Mom lives in Los Angeles.”
“Then we’ll head to Los Angeles sometime next year when the twins are born and ready to travel long distances,” Kol softly kissed her as Bella winced. “Oh, you didn’t tell her?”
“Mom’s expecting, of course I didn’t…”
“Twins? Bella? Are you going to make me a grandmother? But I’m too young for that! You’re too young! You can’t! Oh my God, you’re pregnant. Baby, come to LA so I can be with you and help you.”
Bella looked at Kol’s retreating back with a look on her face that said it all. Really? “I’m huge, mom,” she forced out a laugh. “I’m not going to travel.”
“But you can’t have the babies in New Orleans!”
“New Orleans is safe, mom. Safer than ever. It’s safer with me in it. We’re fine, we’re safe and we’re going to have a beautiful family. You’re more than welcome to visit and if not, like Kol said, you’ll just have to wait until we feel confident enough we can travel with the twins,” she said curtly, now wondering why on Earth she called her mother, despite Charlie’s – Helios’ – asking her to multiple times and wanting to have her little human moment.
It was this exact phone call that made Bella realise that her human days were over. That while she and Kol enjoyed living as human as possible, that it just wasn’t in the cards anymore. The babies were going to be witches. Their dad was a vampire and their mother a demi-Goddess. Their aunts and uncles vampires, the more extended family Greek Gods and Titans. The regent was likely going to be their fairy Godmother or something. There wasn’t any room for humans like her mother. Not anymore. Now the realisation had to stick around permanently and not that she’d forget due to being pregnant or something. That’d be stupid.
And it sucked. But it had to end. “I love you, mom, and I hope that my baby sister comes into this world safely. I’ll call you when I do,” she said as she disconnected the call and followed Kol into the bedroom where he was undressing himself to change into something clean. “Hold me?”
She’d had false labor pains for a couple of days now, Bella had freaked out at first, but Rebekah had assured her that it was merely her body trying to get herself ready for labor. And that scared her, because, to Bella’s knowledge, the babies hadn’t turned properly and it made her feel anxious. They felt comfortable where they were, kicking against her sides or taking kidney shots. The rib shots were short and less painful but whatever it was, her body was far from ready to give birth to these two assholes.
They weren’t ready, either.
But, when the contractions didn’t go away after distracting herself at the end of January, she started to get worried. Granted, they had worked so hard to make sure that she had the right coping skills to deal with the pain – with her status as a demi-goddess modern medicine and magic didn’t work – but nobody had listened to her when she said that the babies weren’t in the right position yet.
Kol had made a joke out of it, said that if needed, they’d go in and turn the babies around to pull them out. With their hands. She’d be in a lot more pain, but at least the babies would be healthy. Bella felt that now that she was so close to having to push them out, that everyone had abandoned her. She was going to be fine, after all, she couldn’t die. Rebekah had even muttered the dreaded words; Stop being so human, because you’re not.
And it sucked that because of her size, Bella couldn’t go anywhere other than walking around in circles in the courtyard; climbing the stairs wasn’t going to be a smart idea, and she hated this. She couldn’t sit. She couldn’t lay down, she couldn’t take a shower because that would mean she’d have to undress and then dress herself again – there was no way in hell she was going to walk around naked for all to see.
Bella was so tired after not getting enough sleep in the last few weeks and now that it was all seemingly starting, she’d wished that someone would have knocked her out with a hammer so she could have rested. Her anxiety wasn’t helping with this. And she should definitely stop feeling sorry for herself and complain. It was a miraculous thing after all; her body had been baking two babies for the last few months, babies conceived due to a Greek God being bored.
Where was Hades anyway?
Kol and Myriam were leaning over the first floor balcony to watch Bella move about. They had both offered to help her but she was a furious little thing who looked to be very close to tears and had opted to watch her from a distance instead. “How long does labor usually take?”
Myriam looked at him, stupefied. “Didn’t you read the books?”
“Well, yes, but it’s all contradictory. Some women had very short labors, others very long and had to go to hospital to get help. We can’t take Bella to a hospital,” he replied as he ran a hand through his hair. “And it bloody sucks that we can’t even hear their heartbeats to make sure that they’re fine. We may be trying to tell her that everything’s going to be alright and all to keep her calm and relatively sane, but I’m freaking out here, Myr.”
“Klaus is already sharpening his best knives. He offered to get the swords out but decided that he didn’t want to scare Bella even further,” she deadpanned. “Cami is working on something too. I have no idea what, but she says she found a way to help Bella.”
“How? She’s a fragile little human. Don’t get me wrong, Myriam, I absolutely adore Cami for all that she’s done for Nik and the rest of the family but in this case, she should stay away and let us handle this.”
“Yes, and you’ve proven to have such a great success without some humanity around you,” she rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t worry, Rebekah, Cami and I have got this. All we need to make sure of is that Bella won’t explode and get baby splatter all over the furniture and stuff.”
“That’s just wrong,” Kol said before jumping over the balcony railing and landed next to Bella, who was still pacing around at a very slow pace. Waddling. Penguin. “Let’s hijack Nik’s jacuzzi.”
“Too much effort.”
“But you’ll feel much better and I’ll help you,” he said gently as he put an arm around her. “I can lift you and carry you. Please, Bella, stop being so stubborn and allow me to help you. You’re obviously in pain and uncomfortable.”
Bella scowled as she angrily looked at him. “I’m angry with our unborn children for wanting to come out when they’re nowhere near where they’re supposed to be! You know, heads should be down to the pelvic area, not somewhere to the side or feet first. I want meds, but they won’t work.”
“I know, but you’ve been pushing me away. You’ve been pushing everyone away and that wasn’t part of the deal,” he gently lifted her up. “Come on, let’s get you into that wonderful jacuzzi and maybe we can trick the boys into turning a little too.”
“I want it to stop.”
“I know,” he said again before taking the stairs with her. She looked tired and miserable and he wished he could help her. “Do you want some of my blood to see if that works?”
Bella seemed to think for a moment. “Healing properties, don’t think that’s wise, but I appreciate the thought.” Oh, she felt extremely uncomfortable with Kol carrying her up the stairs, but perhaps he was right, a warm jacuzzi could do wonders for her. In any case, he wanted to help her and she needed to allow him to; he was the only one who could properly stop herself from going insane from all the thinking and worrying.
Kol gently lowered her back to the ground and after making sure she wouldn’t fall over, he started to run the bath before turning back to her with a big smirk on his face as he watched her deal with another contraction. “It’s a good thing you’re not wearing any pants. I do love these wrap around dresses…”
“You are so lucky that I can’t do anything right now or else I would have made you feel what I feel,” she said through gritted teeth as she held on to the towel rack for some stability as the contraction passed again. “I actually might make you feel this when I’m back to usual…”
“Happy thoughts,” he grinned as he peeled off her dress. “Look at you being all gorgeous and gloriously naked,” Kol gently put his hand on her stomach and looked surprised when he ended up holding onto a small foot. It had happened before, but it felt strange. Out of place. “Uhh…”
“Uhuh,” Bella replied as she pointed at the foot. “Not where it’s supposed to be. I’ve been telling you, the babies aren’t ready.”
He let go of her and tried the water before helping her into the bath. “But your body says they’re done cooking, so we have to roll with it. Darling, you can be affected by alcohol so if we have to, we’ll make you so drunk that you won’t feel a thing when I turn them around and help them out.”
“Still, the whole idea of having hands inside of me…” Bella shivered before trying to relax in the water, it did feel nice and the bubbles weren’t too hard on her now. “Oh…”
“See? Better already,” he smiled at her before squatting down next to the bath and leaning onto the edge with his arms. “You’re not in this alone, Bella. My job is to make things easier for you, remember? And I know you’re worried and you’re in pain and you’re tired and frustrated, but you’re not alone,” he poured some water over her head and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Do you still feel the babies?”
“Yeah… I think they’re trying to move but are stuck or something…” She then looked up in fear. “What if this kills them?”
“Shh,” Kol soothed her. “Just relax. They’re all looking for solutions, even Cami, but you know what I realized? We’re all so bloody dense sometimes!” He then started to laugh. “Oh Bella, we’re idiots!”
“I know that, why are we idiots this time?” She found the delirious look on his face confusing, it was a welcome change and distraction, but why? “Because we haven’t been thinking this through entirely? Not anticipated the babies being uncooperative?”
He smirked and poked her with his index finger. “Darling, we’ve been trying to live as human as possible because you’re comfortable with it and I’m quite enjoying myself but you’re not human.”
“No, but—” she stopped herself from continuing the sentence; ‘but apart from the immortality, the babies took away my powers’. “Fucker,” Bella muttered as she hit herself with the palm of her hand and wanted to get up to get out of the tub, but decided that she quite liked this short reprieve of pain. “Five more minutes.”
“You could call him now?”
“And have him see me naked? No fucking way!” Bella huffed as she shifted a little so that she was more comfortable as another contraction washed over her. “Fucker,” she groaned. “You really think he can help?”
“If not, he likely knows someone who can,” Kol said reassuringly. “Don’t worry, if he comes up with nothing I’ll gladly punch him again.”
“Oh, believe me, once I’m back to what I can do, I will give him a true piece of my mind!” She then glared at Kol. “This isn’t happening again, you’re hearing me? If this happens again, I will tear off your dick and make you eat it!”
“You’re so turning me on right now,” Kol smirked as he pushed another strand of hair out of her face. “Want me to help you out of the tub so we can get this over with? I have to admit, I’m quite anxious to meet our Kolby and Charlie.”
“But I’m comfortable right now…”
“And you’ll be more comfortable once they are out of you.”
“Yeah…” she sighed with a nod. “You’re right,” she slowly got to her feet and allowed Kol to lift her out of the tub before he helped her dry herself off. “I hate this.”
“I know,” he softly kissed her. “But I really like it – apart from the whole you being in pain thing. Helping you, that’s what I like. I get to inappropriately touch you as often as you allow me to.”
“You can touch me inappropriately whenever you want to,” she giggled and got back into her dress. “This body is yours, but you’re never going to enter it again without a raincoat on unless we’re very certain Hades can be trusted,” she gently pat his cheek. “Unless you want me to tear off your dick or turn it into an animal.”
“I see one additional problem with that, darling,” Kol said as he gently lifted her up and brought her back to their apartment. “You love my dick too much.”
“I can return it to you when I want to have fun with it. Or, make a mold of it and have some sex shop turn it into a dildo. There are ways,” she growled lowly as another contraction passed. “This is not going to happen again.”
Kol laughed and paused for a moment at their door to turn around and address his sibling and their friend. “Beks and Myr, we need your help shortly!” He called out before getting inside and sat Bella down in her favourite chair. “Comfy?”
“I will be shortly,” she replied as she gripped the chair when a foot or two hit her in the ribs. “See, this isn’t fair. My body wants them out but they’re far from ready.”
“Call him.”
“Hades, you fucker, you’d better come here right now and get your jokes out of me!”
“No need to shout,” Hades’ voice sounded as he materialized in front of her. “I’ve been here all along, keeping an eye out.”
“And you didn’t think to come out of hiding to help me before? Instead you watched me suffer?”
“Yep, all part of the human experience,” Hades said smug and ducked when Bella threw the nearest heavy object – a book – at him. “Relax, if they were in any danger, I would have.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I am not your plaything. We are not your playthings. Next time you’re bored, go bother some mortal but you’re not going to mess with me again or there will be consequences.”
Hades barked out a laugh. “I’d like to see you implement those consequences, you’re a Demi-goddess, capital D, lower case g. You are capable of so much and you had me take most of it away, or at least tuck it away, because you’re a scared little human. Embrace who you are and I might consider your request,” he said as he saw Kol coming for him and slammed him against the wall. “Nice try,” he held him against the wall as if he was considering something before releasing him. “Interesting,” he eventually commented as he looked at Bella. “That magical barrier you’ve put up around the babies has been a good idea, they are powerful witches.”
“Get. Them. Out.”
“Will do, just waiting for your midwives,” Hades smirked as he looked at the door and as if right on cue, Rebekah and Myriam entered the home. “Greetings little vampires, I’m Hades. Care to play catch? Musical babies, perhaps?”
“Hades!” Bella growled at him. “Now!” Between the pain and Hades’ arrogance, Bella wasn’t sure what was worse, but she wanted him gone as soon as possible. She was done with this. All of it. She’d be happy once she’d be able to hold her children and free of contractions or those little aches she’d been getting everywhere.
Just like magic – but it obviously wasn’t magic – the contractions disappeared, her skin retracted as if she hadn’t been pregnant and all the pain was gone. She looked at Myriam and Rebekah who were both holding a very clean baby, and then Kol, who was looking stumped and holding another one. “It’s… it’s uhh… a third one,” he stammered as he looked at it, before smiling widely at Bella and bringing the baby over. “It’s a girl!”
“What?”
“Now, first off,” Hades said as he looked at the stunned vampires and Bella. “Congratulations. They’re all very healthy. Secondly, I told you, they’re very powerful witches. The girl has the natural ability to hide from any kinds of magic or even detection by a God, this makes her really safe. This is why we didn’t detect her when we confirmed your pregnancy. Her brothers have it too, in some shape, but their magic is the strongest and don’t need a defense mechanism as much as their sister does. But make no mistake, she’ll be a great witch in her own right. All three very powerful Mikaelson witches and they’re your responsibility. Don’t fuck it up. Good luck and I’ll be back in a couple of months or something to see how you’re doing!” Hades grinned as he waved and poofed out.
“Three.” Bella said slowly as she looked at the baby girl in her arms, she looked absolutely beautiful and observant already, her gaze intensely focused on her. “Three babies.”
“Yeah, I know, right?” Kol smiled at her as he took one of the boys from Rebekah. “They’re perfect!”
Oh, the little girl had Bella wrapped around her little finger already. “Yeah, but how are we going to take care of three babies when we only bought stuff for two? And boys at that? We don’t have clothes for her! Or a cot! We need more diapers, more bottles, more of everything!” She felt slightly panicked as she looked at Kol. “And we didn’t even think of girl names!”
“Hey, relax, that’s what we’re here for,” Rebekah assured her as she took the other boy from Myriam and helped Bella to hold two babies. “Myr and I love to shop, especially for a little girl! This is great news! And don’t worry, Bella, we were already going to help you and Kol with the boys, we can handle one extra baby. You can handle one extra baby. You’re going to be great.”
“Yes!” Myriam agreed. “Before we leave, though, I’m going to share this news with Klaus and make sure that nobody comes here. Just me and Rebekah to bring you your things. You and Kol need some time alone with the babies. Go bond. Go talk. Enjoy these bundles of joy and appreciate the fact that you’re looking as if you haven’t carried these yourself.” She planted a big kiss on Bella’s cheek before pulling Rebekah out of the apartment, leaving Bella and Kol with their three babies.
Bella was quiet for a moment as she looked at the two babies in her arms, and then at Kol who was looking smitten with the boy in his arms. “Holy shit, we’re parents.”
