Extraterrestrial Lives

29

We get back to the palace. The king is waiting impatiently for us. He's holding Rafe's daughter in his arms. I fully expect him to give the baby to Rafe, but instead he hands her to me. She'd been fussy until then, but she calms right down as she looks at me.

I stare at her not sure what I'm supposed to do now.

Rafe escorts me into the palace and to our room. Someone had been in to clean up, because everything was the way it should be, not the way I left it when I left several days ago.

As soon as we are private I hand Rafe his daughter. I think I surprised him. He looks at me in shock, "What? She's your daughter, not mine."

At my words, it's like the baby understood me, she starts screaming. She reminds me of when Rafe screams from the pain when I was hurt. My eyes open wide and I take her back. Immediately her screams stop but she still whimpers in pain.

"She's your daughter too, Maha, no matter how much you might want to deny it." Rafe keeps his voice even. No matter how hard I try I don't hear any tones of gloating at all.

"How is this possible? I thought it was a rare thing for your people to have this gene activated? I thought it was only activated by being in love with someone." I am at a total loss with this.

"It's activated when we care deeply about another person. More deeply than just being in love with someone, Maha. But I am as surprised by this as you are. I've never heard of it being activated by a parent child bond before.

"Now tell me that she doesn't need you?"

I can't say anything. I might not be able to believe Rafe, but this person hasn't lied to me. She's incapable of lying to me at least at this time.

She refuses to be separated from me for any length of time. Which means that she'll be sleeping next to me. That makes me nervous, I'm afraid that I'll hurt her while we sleep.

Seeing how our daughter has taken to Maha, makes me proud and a tad bit jealous. Maha still hardly looks at me. She holds our daughter almost like she's afraid of her.

I've ordered a cot brought in. Maha won't let me touch her and I can't sleep next to her without pulling her close to me.

After dinner Maha hands our daughter to me so that I can put her to sleep and Maha can take a bath. Our daughter seems to be okay with this and doesn't mind the separation one bit. She falls asleep in my arms and the only thing that will make it more perfect was if Maha was beside us.

Once our princess was asleep, we really do need to name her.( Maha said that she didn't care, that I could name her whatever I wanted. She's having a really hard time bonding with our princess.)I go to check on Maha and find her crying in her bath.

I have to fight myself to not jump in and hold her to me. She's made it very clear that unless we are in public and required to show affection she doesn't want me to touch her.

"Maha? What's wrong? What can I do?" I ask gently. Or at least as gently as my ruined voice would allow.

"Leave me alone Rafe." That's all she says to me. I feel like my heart is being ripped in half.

I need time to myself. I hurt so bad. Rafe, the baby, the evil muppets, all of it. I take the knife and look at it closely. It's beautiful, really, more than I ever expected a knife to be.

It would be so easy to take it and slice my arms.

I find myself doing just that. As I make the first nick on my arm the baby starts screaming. I imagine Rafe picking her up and trying to console her, but she doesn't stop screaming. Her voice is coming nearer and even as I make the slice deep he comes in.

"Maha!" Rafe screams. He gently sets the baby down and grabs my hand with the knife and takes the knife away and takes my other arm and squeezes it tight to stop the bleeding.

He uses the hand that took the knife away from me and pushes the knife out of my reach. Then he carefully gets his phone out and calls someone. Very likely the king from his conversation.

While Rafe is doing this the baby is strangely silent and I look at her. She's watching me and won't let me out of her sight. It might be my imagination but she looks at me and I feel like she's not just worried but that she's a bit disappointed as well.

Rafe's voice is starting to come from a long distance away.

"Maha, stay with me. Maha, look at me, look at me dammit!" It's too much trouble, I'm too much trouble. I close my eyes and let the sweet oblivion take me.

I wake up once more in the hospital. I'm truly beginning to hate this place. Why can't they just let me die?

Rafe hears me move and comes over to my side. He's holding the baby in his arms. Damn it really is a sexy sight. He won't have any trouble finding a wife. All he has to do is carry the baby and he'll have girls falling at his feet. Not that it's not much different than it is now.

The baby wakes up and looks at me. I swear that she's satisfied and smug. Just how does this happen?

I can't believe that she tried to kill herself again. She said that she would at least give us until the threat of the Other's is over.

She moves and I look over and she's awake. I calm myself so she doesn't see the tears that I've been fighting.

"Can I get you anything?" Maha just looks at me and our daughter.

"Maha, how do I fix this?"

"There's nothing to fix, prince. When this is over I will do what I should have done when you found me. I'll die, I've over lived my usefulness." My daughter didn't seem to like this statement. But even though she screams I have a hard time even wanting to hold her. But I can't let her hurt her voice like her father hurt his.

I reluctantly take her in my arms and hold her. I start crying myself.

Rafe pick us both up and holds us tight to him. "I can't lose you Maha. No matter if you believe me or not, I can't. This is my promise to you, if you try to kill yourself again I will do the same. 

"I won't live through the pain of losing you again. Not ever again." He says it over and over again. But I just don't believe him.

I close my eyes to him, shutting out his words. Doing my best to shutting out how his arms feel around me. His breath against my throat brings tears to my eyes. I can't hold back my tears any more.

"Why are you doing this Rafe?"

"You won't believe me anyway Maha." Rafe says in defeat. "I have messed up too many times for you to believe me no matter what I say."