Everything was moving so fast. The nurses flitted in and out of the curtained room, checking and rechecking the monitors that were stuck to Liz. Some were monitoring her vitals, but most were focused on the babies currently jostling for position in an attempt to force their way out of his wife.
"Breathe, dude."
His eyes snapped off the monitors and onto her face as he dutifully took a deep breath. "It doesn't hurt?"
"It's not too bad, just a little uncomfortable. Not like last time," she admitted. "They'll give me the good stuff before it gets worse. Why don't you go remind the nurse that you still need scrubs before Taylor and Al get here?"
He only nodded, amazed that she could stay so calm when she was about to be taken into an operating room where she would be fully lucid while they cut open her body to remove two actual humans, then they'd sew her up and send them on their way like it was a typical Wednesday afternoon. He suddenly had the urge to call and thank his mother for everything she had gone through with him and his sister.
"Room's ready!" a nurse cheerfully swept past the curtains and started unhooking Liz from her various attachments.
"Oh... the parents aren't here yet," Liz said, looking over at Dave with a bit of panic in her eyes.
The nurse only frowned and continued working. "Room's booked, honey. Plus, we only allow one extra in the room. Your parents have to wait in the waiting room."
Liz sighed and flopped back onto her pillow, too tired to explain to yet another person that she was just a vessel for someone else's kids. She gave Dave a look that made him stand to rest his hand on her shoulder and she played with the ring on his finger while he checked his phone.
"They're on their way," he told her, reading Taylor's text just as the doctor hurried into the room.
"They just couldn't wait, huh?" he quipped, giving Liz a tired smile and then frowned at Dave. "Where's your scrubs, Rock Star?"
"They didn't give him any," Liz shrugged and abandoned his ring to weave her fingers with his knowing he hated that nickname. "Taylor and Allison are almost here."
"I saw them in the hallway, they're dressed and ready to go," the doctor smiled and pointed at Dave, "I'll get you scrubs, don't go anywhere."
"Yeah, David," Liz teased through a forced laugh, "Don't leave."
*
Several minutes later, Dave paced the little hallway outside the OR next to an equally stressed Taylor and Allison. Liz had been taken in without them for her spinal and the thought of her being alone and scared while a massive needle punctured her spine made Dave feel like he might puke or faint or scream or-
"You can come in now," a nurse called to them from the large swinging door and his Vans squeaked on the linoleum in his rush to get to her.
The OR was cold, so cold that Allison immediately put her arms around herself. The operating table lay before them surrounded by doctors and surgical techs, giving Dave only a little glimpse of the guitar tattooed on his wife's foot.
"You're over there," the nurse muttered to Dave, pointing to a generic metal folding chair by the head of the table and turned to Taylor and Allison. "You two can watch from over here. Once the babies are out, you can step forward and cut the cords, but if you faint we have to take you straight to the ER," she showed Taylor and Allison a yellow box taped off on the floor next to the two warming tables waiting for their boys. They had heard the instructions, but the sight of the OR table and stark environment had frozen them all to their spots.
"Guys?" Liz called, snapping Dave out of his stupor. He found a path clear of cords and tubing and tried not to look where his wife's body was currently being wiped down with surgical soap. The sight of her laying there, her arms covered in tape and tubes and outstretched on braces made him a little woozy, but she smiled as if she were relaxing on a beach. "There you are," she sighed.
He pulled the metal chair as close as he could to her without interfering with all the monitors and tucked some loose hair under her hair net. "You okay?"
"I'm fine. You look cute," she giggled, reaching up to tug on his own stupid blue hair net. "How are they?" she tilted her head towards Taylor and Allison as they huddled together inside the yellow lines.
Dave stared down at her, stunned at how calm she seemed. "They're about to be parents of twins, how do you think they're doing?"
She went to laugh and then stopped suddenly, her eyes rolling towards the ceiling with her jaw tightly clenched as a disembodied voice drifted over the blue curtain that blocked their view, "We're open, Elizabeth!"
"Yep," she muttered, her hand grasping around until it found Dave's. "I know."
A zip of panic shot through him when he realized she was in pain. "You can feel that?" he gasped, then went to stand, needing to tell someone that she was hurting. She wasn't supposed to be hurting... "Hey, she can feel-"
Except when he stood, it put him in a direct view of what was happening on the other side of the curtain. There was a glare from the intensely bright lights and he blinked rapidly when he realized he was staring down at the inside of his wife. He told himself to look away, but he was transfixed with how methodical the movements were and how very red everything was. Some muttering and shuffling around told him he might be interfering with the process, but before he could snap out of it, a gentle, gloved hand pushed him back down into his chair where Liz's fingers drifted across his cheek to grasp his chin.
"Don't you dare pass out on me, Grohl. Don't you fucking dare," she whispered, her eyes wide and scared. "I need you here with me, okay?"
"Yeah...," he nodded, still trying to get his bearings, "I'm okay."
"You sure? Cause there's little to no blood in your face right now, man."
"Please don't say blood," he groaned, resting his head on her shoulder as the hot, prickling feeling of fear spread across his back and chest.
And then she laughed. She laughed that loud, melodic, genuine and unrestrained laugh that he hadn't heard in what felt like months and he looked up into her face, his fear instantly replaced with surprise.
"Something funny over there?" came the disembodied voice again.
"Yeah, sorry," Liz called back through her stifled giggle and returned her hand to Dave's cheek.
Another voice came over the curtain, this one female, "Do you guys not have music you want playing right now? I was kinda looking forward to hearing your playlist."
"Oh shit!" Taylor's gasp made Liz bite her lip to quell another laugh and moments later 'All of My Love' was playing through a speaker somewhere Dave couldn't see.
Not that he cared. He was focused on her, how the music seemed to relax her shoulders and the tension in her neck, and how she was staring up at the ceiling while silently mouthing the words. He leaned in close enough that he could softly sing to her and felt her hand shakily move to press into the back of his neck, holding him in place against her.
It felt like hours sitting like that, hunched over a metal table, sitting in the world's most uncomfortable chair while his wife was jostled and manhandled around on the other side of the curtain. Until finally there was a loud splash and an excited squeal from Allison.
"Ready?" someone asked as if that made any difference. Those babies were on their way whether the Hawkins' were ready or not.
And then a wail. A gurgling, forceful, angry scream that signaled an arrival. Something new and wonderful thrust into the world with a roar and a cheer and a sigh...
"Oh...," Liz breathed and then clapped her free hand over her mouth, tears instantly streaming down her temples and into her hair.
Dave tried to catch them as best he could but found he was also in tears and stole a glance back at Taylor and Allison, both of them leaned over the little squirming body on the warming table.
There was happy conversation from the collection of scrubs around them, Dave heard some quip about the baby having the lungs of a lead singer, and then Liz was moved so roughly that her shoulders nearly left the table.
"Which band member is usually the most stubborn?" the doctor asked to probably no one in particular, his strained voice bookended with grunts.
And in perfect harmony, both Allison and Liz spoke plainly at the same time, "Drummer."
"Then here comes your drummer!"
Dave could tell by the way a path was cleared that the second baby had arrived and prepared himself for another piercing cry...
But there was no wail from this one. No scream to announce his entrance in the world, just swift, silent movements by the light blue scrubs to surround him, separate him from Liz and move him to the warming table.
Her hand like a vise, she yanked Dave aside so she could see, lifting her head from the metal table to get any sort of view. Instructions were tossed at them from over the curtain, "Relax please, Elizabeth!" and she did as she was told, her hand searching for Dave's again as fresh tears cascaded into her hair.
"Breathe, little buddy," she whispered up at the ceiling, "Please."
Taylor was hunkered over the first baby, who Dave assumed would claim the name Alexander, his finger already in the tight grasp of his son's fist and his other arm tight around Allison's shoulders. Their attention flitted from the baby in front of them to the backs of the crowd working on their other son and Dave had to look away. The fear on their faces was too much to take in. He knew that terror, he had sent the same silent prayer up to anyone in the universe that would listen when Harper had arrived just a bit too blue with a tough, fibrous cord wrapped around her neck.
The Hollie's 'The Air That I Breathe' slowly ended and an intense silence hovered above them until the opening notes of Bowie's 'Rebel Rebel' blasted through. And just as the first cymbal crashed, right on cue and in perfect accompaniment came that howl. That scream of lungs being filled with air for the first time and announcing another entrance that, even though it was just minutes after his brother's, was unique in his own way.
Taylor's mixture of a laugh and a sob hit Dave like a sucker punch and their eyes met briefly before their wives pulled them away. Allison dragging her's into a kiss while Liz gently wiped the tears from Dave's cheeks.
"That little punk definitely earned the name David," she wept, smiling up at him through her own tears.
He was chuckling in agreement when Allison was suddenly between them, tears streaming down her face as she parked herself directly on Dave's lap and leaned in to kiss Liz square on the lips. "I love you so much," she sobbed, holding her forehead against Liz's and giving Dave the chance to look back at his best friend again.
Taylor stood between the machines, grinning like a fool at Dave as the babies on either side of him screamed in stereo. And Dave grinned back knowing those cries would wear him thin within a few days, but mostly because he was so happy for his friends and relieved it was all over.
"You too, Dave," Allison dragged him down to where she was still covering Liz's face in kisses. "I love you both so much."
"We love you, too," Liz giggled just as Taylor came forward to throw himself into the huddle. "But maybe don't ask us to babysit for a few months."