BITTERSWEET

CHAPTER 82 / OH, BABY

She was escorted through the halls to the delivery room, in the room waiting in pain for the doctor. 

"Zane, it hurts," she moaned, cowering from the slashing pains as she moved. 

On cue, an obstetrician entered and began what he had to do. "Miss Ashida, it looks like the baby is fully dilated and ready to birth, but showing the vague reports done in the ambulance, you've been in labour for over a day, maybe more."

"Oh, Nana," Zane said almost devastated that he hadn't noticed it. 

"Just follow my instructions, and then you'll have a healthy born," he said with an unsettling smile. 

Somehow Nana had been changed into a hospital gown and after a butt-load of breathing and pushing, she felt a relieving slide and Zane was brought over to cut the umbilical cord.

"Congratulations, it's a girl."

A second later, a loud wail was heard from the baby girl and was handed to the midwife, where she was briefly weighed, measured and cleaned up before being swaddled. 

Nana laid back with a sigh of relief, listening to the midwife call out the measurements. 

"Weight, 3023 grams, fifty-one centimetres long. Female," she said.

"You did an amazing job, Nana," Zane told her brushing the hair from her face and kissing her cheek. 

Their baby girl was laid on Nana's chest, swaddled but no longer crying. Nana laughed and held onto her daughter. She could see Zane's intricate features on her face, the nose, the eye shape, the underdeveloped meifwa ears on her head, even the silent expression was so much like Zane's. 

She was thin, but chunky and had a little big head. It was hard to see at first but through her thin black head of hair were light streaks of pink.

"She's beautiful," Zane said, kissing Nana's head and holding her hand again. "What should we call her?" He asked.

"Zhena. Zhena Ro'Meave." Nana turned to face her fiancé and smiled, "I love you, Zane."

"I love you both, I love you too, Nana, and I love you, Zhena." 

Nana smiled and turned to their baby. "She looks so much like you."

-

Six hours later, Nana woke up in a private hospital room to see Zane cradling their daughter, swaddled in a pink blanket. 

Nana grinned as she heard Zane speaking to the baby. "We don't want to wake up your mama, Zhena. She'll be awake soon, yeah, I know baby girl." 

"Hey, Zane," Nana said as he turned to her with a huge smile that even she couldn't top. 

"Hey. I don't know about you, but I've fallen in love with my daughter, so you might be up for a run of your money," Zane replied as Nana held out her hands. 

"May I hold her now?" She asked. 

"You're her Mama, you don't need to ask me twice." Zane gently passed her the baby and cradled her. Slowly, Zhena opened up her tiny eyes, revealing them to be a mix between Zane's blue eyes and Nana's caramel to a beautiful hazel colour.

"Introducing, Zhena Nana Kaitlyn Ro'Meave, born on the twenty-sixth of April at 14:39," Zane announced proudly. 

"She's perfect," Nana said, "hey, Zane, promise me that you'll stay by my side for the rest of my life, to always stay with us," she requested.

Zane cupped his hand on her right cheek, "I promise until my dying breath, forever, that I'll stay by your side. I love you, so, so much. I always will," he answered without a second thought. He'd recited that hundreds of times before but now seemed to be the right time to use it. 

His eyes continued to flicker from her lips, her eyes and their newborn daughter in her arms. Instantly, their lips collided into a deep kiss, their chests touching.

The door swung open and in came Katelyn, Travis, Aaron, Aphmau, Garroth, Vylad and a few more not too far behind. 

"Sorry, I forgot to mention that I called over some friends and family," Zane whispered once he broke off the kiss. 

"Where's the baby?" Katelyn almost demanded. She looked so different from the girl they once knew on Mystreet, now eight months pregnant with her husband's baby, although not looking so large as Nana had. 

"Over here, Kate," Nana answered as Zane ran his hand past Zhena's petite head. 

They'd all changed, every single one of them, one way or another. Even those that made it feel impossible, changed. 

But with every passing minute of every day, we change without even realising it. Later on, can we see how it's affected our lives for the better? For anyone, someone is waiting for them. There's hope for anyone can stumble down that path. 

And for a world, bittersweet and always changing so many people, they can find their happily ever after, no matter how they come to find it. 

THE END