Back to the Future (Sequel to Outlander Reversed)

Eight

February, 2015

The next few months passed by fairly peacefully, all the Changes and upheaval for those most closely involved considered. In fact, not even celebrating Pagan Sabbats with his wife and her family could dampen Jamie’s spirits in the slightest. After all, she’d made a more or less even trade with them–she and hers’d celebrate the Catholic holidays with them, as long as they celebrated those Sabbats with them.

        By the Time Valentine’s Day–which the Elves celebrated as the Roman Lupercalia after celebrating the Sabbat of Imbolc–rolled around, there was no denying that he wasta be a father. Summer’s belly’d finally started growing rounder as her pregnancy advanced, and it only added to the Lust he felt for her.

        However, hers wasn’t the only pregnancy to advance–after all, Jenny’d been closing in on her due date when they’d Traveled to the twenty-first Century. Less than a month after their arrival, she’d given Birth to a fat, healthy daughter the couple’d christened Margaret Ellen Murray. She’d been attended by her sister-in-law, as well as one of her new stepnieces since both were actually trained midwives. Both possessed Knowledge, tools, and Power that could save any new mother whose childbed nearly turned into her deathbed, and she couldn’t have been more grateful.

        Dallas’ pregnancy–which they’d quickly learned was his third–also advanced at what a midwife from any Century’d consider a normal pace. The ginger man’d been surprised to find out that he’d been five and a-half months gone when they’d met, ’cuz the curve of his belly’d suggested only four months, if that. But that was due to the Elf in question being just an inch shorter than he, himself was–it gave his unborn child more room to grow. When combined with his tendency to carry high, it was no Wonder they hadn’t realized just how close his due date was.

        “Are ye well, brother?” Ian queried when he was forced to pause their physical therapy session.

        “Just a damned contraction,” he answered, chuckling when he looked confused. “Ye’d have called them childbed pains in the eighteenth Century.”

        “Do ye need me to fetch Summer?” the shorter brunette asked once he’d translated that.

        “Oh, trust me–I’ve me ways of getting her attention, if I think I need it,” Dallas assured him. “It’s me third Time in the boxing ring, so to speak–I ken better than to sound the alarm too soon.”

        “If ye’re certain,” he agreed reluctantly.

        “It might no actually be Time,” the Elvin man explained. “Could be a bout of what we call false labor, which can happen sometimes before a baby’s actually born.”

        Ian merely nodded, having never really known much about such things.

        “But even if it is Time, it’ll no doubt be a while yet before the Birth,” he told him. “Prolly be faster than either of me others, but it’ll still take a while.”

        “Ye’re still able to help me with this physical therapy, though?” the shorter brunette queried.

        “For a lil while longer, at least,” Dallas answered. “If it gets any worse, we’ll have to call it quits for the Day, just to be sure neither of us get hurt–even if it’s just a false alarm.”

        “If what gets any worse?”

        Glancing up, the pair saw that Jamie’d just come back in from the Morn milking and Egg collection in the Chicken and Turkey coops.

        “Could be another addition to the family soon, brother,” Ian chuckled. “But he willna allow me to fetch Summer, just in case ’tisn’t yet his Time.”

        “Like I said, it’s me third Time in the figurative boxing ring,” the Elvin man said. “I ken to simply listen to my body, ’cuz it’ll tell me what I–and anyone else–need to ken.”

        “If ye’re certain,” he told him. “But Ian willna be the one to fetch me wife, if ye’re in need of her–let meself or yer own husband do that since he’s still getting used to his new leg.”