Book IV: Avi Dragon

Baby Food

"Angel" couldn't believe her bleary eyes when she woke from what was apparently a long coma. At first, she hadn't seen enough to know what was going on around her. She felt a touch on her cheek, saw a vague bearded face shape in front of her, but the shriek of the alarm drowned out everything except the ringing in her ears. Then the bearded someone kissed her forehead. She thought it was her best friend. She tried to hug him when he broke down, but one arm had an IV drip, and the other was hindered by his body pressing against hers. Some sort of medication made everything fuzzy around the edges.
   Then the nurse came in. She pushed who she thought was Dan away, to ask for water. But when he pulled away, and she saw who'd been hugging, kissing, and crying all over her, she forgot about the weird pressure in her throat. She looked away, embarrassed and confused.   
   She reached toward her face, and he held her hand longer than she was comfortable with. She gently removed it to sign for water. Whatever was going on in her throat was unpleasant.
   He told her that she had tubes in, and it made sense, but she was still pleasantly numb to everything. Everything except Avi Kaplan, sitting on the hospital bed she'd barely registered yet. He cupped her face with those long, guitar man hands, and she didn't know what to do. She wanted to weep, but she was still pretty heavily drugged. This was too much to bear, too huge to process. Why was he here? What was that look in his eyes? Who did he think she was?
   Now, looking at the child he said was theirs, she still wasn't sure any of her questions had been answered. At least she's not a newborn. I don't have to worry about embrasure, she thought absently.
   Still looking out the window, he asked what embrasure was, where his sister wouldn't hear. There was a long pause.
   :Mouth positioning,: she said. Her mental voice sounded pained. :If either lip is tucked under, it... hurts. She knows the drill, so at least there's only emotional scarring.:
   He wanted to look, badly. Even with a magnificent red dragon hatchling in the window, it couldn't offer as beautiful a view as a mother feeding her child, but this mother didn't remember creating said child. She saw him as a virtual stranger. He didn't want to cause her any more discomfort than what was already facing her.
   :If it makes a difference, there are heart sensors everywhere. It's not a pretty sight. In fact, I think somebody is going to come in soon, 'cause she knocked one loose:
   The tendon in his neck tensed. :Heart sensors?:
   She sighed, and not internally. :Long-term coma patient, remember?: She didn't elaborate. She didn't want him thinking about death at the moment. :How long was it, anyway?:
   :I don't know, honestly. You said not to find you--the dragon you said not to come here. She's almost six months old, though, so I hope it was less than that; otherwise, we're going to have a problem.:
   She was right about a nurse coming to check on her. It was the female nurse, whose face pinched up when she saw what her patient was doing.
   "You shouldn't nurse so soon after," she scolded. "You've barely got enough in your system for yourself, let alone a baby."
   Esther told her that she'd tried to get the baby to take a bottle. "Once she knew her mom was awake, she wouldn't take it."
   The nurse's brow knitted an entire blanket. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but... how old is that baby? I think we'd have noticed if she'd given birth while she was here."
   "It was just before she went under," Esther ad-libbed. They didn't know when she'd gone into a coma, so it was a rather large gamble.
   One wide fist propped on an ample hip. "Then why haven't I seen you three here before?"
   "He was on tour, and I'm their manager," Esther dug in deeper. "We were told she wasn't getting any worse. They assured us she was getting the best care possible. She wouldn't have wanted us to disappoint the fans, right?"
   She looked to Angel for confirmation, praying she'd go along with her story.
   "Heaven forbid," she scoffed. Her gravelly voice lent the statement more doom than it merited. "Poor Kirstie doesn't even take time off when she's sick." She hadn't directly answered the question, but the nurse didn't notice.
   Esther released the breath she'd been holding, slowly.
   So did her brother, who the nurse couldn't see, because he'd gone to stare out the window, one hand absently resting on his son's back. Being so close, yet unable to watch his child and... What was Angel to him, now? Not a Guardian, surely. She'd told him point-blank that she couldn't protect him in her human body. She couldn't protect them! He worried himself halfway to an ulcer, until the word "bloodwork" filtered into his thoughts.
   "I'm sure everything will come back fine. I had plenty of fat stores to use up while I was out," Angel said dryly. :Plus whatever your Angel had in her system,: she added for his benefit.
   His head dropped to the cold window. :You are my Angel,: he rumbled. Dozens of emotions colored the short sentence.
   The sheets shifted behind him. The sound barely registered. Her words, however, burrowed into his heart. :Can ye not growl directly into my brain when I've got a baby latched on? That's not exactly a sensation I like to associate with nursing, y'know.:
   He turned his head, just enough to see between the nurse and Esther. There it was, the faintest tinge of violet around her irises. She closed her eyes until it passed, but he'd seen it, all the same.
   Avi stood slowly, palms braced on the windowsill, a grin fighting to break free. He dare not turn around, for fear one or all of the women in the room would misinterpret his expression. Kapa was also looking out the window, pointedly ignoring the whole family drama.
   Esther was trying to find out what Angel needed to do, or have done, before she was well enough to be discharged.
   "Is there going to be physical therapy, a special diet..?" She didn't want to say, just yet, that they were on a timetable. They would be back on tour in roughly two months, and she knew her brother wouldn't leave her behind; not when they were traveling overseas again.
   "Our first concern is her stomach. She has a lot of digestive issues, so we need to be sure that's on board. Then the doctor might start her on OT, until she can get up and walk on her own. We've been doing passive exercises while she was in the coma, so she may not have as far to go. I would say we'd work on her core, but if she just had a baby before she went under, they might forego that part. Really, how fast she gets better is up to her."
   She looked at the baby pointedly. "I don't know how much that's going to set her back, honestly. How do you feel? Any discomfort? Lightheadedness? Tingling anywhere?"
   Angel chuckled. "Nothing you wouldn't expect after being in a coma. Believe me, there's plenty of motivation to get better. Long's they put me on a multivitamin, I don't think she'll be a problem. Four months is when you start weaning, anyway, so she should be almost weaned by now. Six months they nurse what, once or twice a day? It's been a while..."
   The nurse seemed to soften, if only a little. "She was only four weeks old when you came in? Poor thing, no wonder she latched right on. You're lucky she didn't get nipple confusion."
   He heard a tight chuckle. "Yeah, my eldest had that. Got all bunged up and had to pump."
   Esther proudly declared that they'd listened to her, and gotten the right nipples for the bottle. This earned her points with both the nurse and Angel.
   "Well, I don't know what the doctor will say, but this once, I'll allow it. Mostly because I don't think the other patients would like the fuss she'd make if we took her off." She aimed her index finger at Avi, who still wasn't looking, admonished him to have baby food with them by her next feeding, or else.
   He nodded at the window.
   "I'll go," Esther offered.
   When the nurse left, she asked Avi for his wallet. "She didn't exactly wait for me to grab my purse when she pulled her little vanishing act."
   "And it's not like I can teleport across an ocean yet," Kapa said. "I think they only reason I got in your hotel room was she... helped." He hated to admit that his (currently) human sister had to help him with his first teleportation.
   Avi reached into his back pocket for his wallet, still oblivious to his wardrobe change. Angel looked away, very aware of how tight his pants were. It's a wonder he managed to reproduce at all, with those jeans, she thought at the blank television.
   He almost dropped his debit card. Esther didn't ask questions, other than the direction of the nearest grocery store.
   "Closest things you can walk to easily are the Whole Foods and a gas station. The options aren't great for baby food, I'm afraid," Angel apologized. "It would've been nice if she'd teleported while you were in the car, aside from, y'know, being in a hospital room. Ugh, sorry, I haven't had coffee in... months..."
   Avi didn't know how to tell her that she couldn't have coffee, until he remembered that his mother said that human digestion was different from dragon digestion. If his mom could eat sweets as a human, why couldn't Angel have coffee?
   Esther opted to try Whole Foods, despite Angel's objections about the price. It was more likely to have baby food than a gas station or gift shop.