Growing Pains (Attn: Marla)

[Craig]

Elia

Elia tilted her head away from Dax, facing the opposite corner of the room. Her eyes didn't really take in the watercolour that hung there, although she knew what the painting depicted. A garden lake surrounded by works of topiary, likely taken from an estate in Ghealdan. At first glance it seemed like a beautiful, ingratiating scene. Only when one took more than a passing interest did they realise that something was wrong with the details.

None of this really processed itself within Elia's mind. It was just a spot on the wall on which to focus as she felt Dax move behind her. Porcelain rattled. The Shienaran drew in a deep breath, ready to unleash a torrent of abuse upon Dax if he so much as chipped one of her cups.

His words pulled her away from that potential outburst. When he spoke, he sounded fond. Well, she thought it sounded fond. "Because I want to." That had to be fond. So why then can nothing change? It was hard to hear him speak like this, flittering between affection and disregard for her. Sometimes he seemed methodical and drone-like in his care of her; others he was like this, massaging her back and pouring her tea. Her fingers numbly took hold of the cup when it was offered to her.

She ran a nail around part of the rim. Steam rose up from the dark liquid, coating her finger in a layer of condescension, heating it to the point of discomfort. It was a good analogue for her 'relationship' with Dax; the closer she got...

Releasing the held breath slowly through her nostrils, he turned to the right to face Dax once again. She couldn't read his face, partially because it was obscured by his own cup. With her free arm - her bad arm - she rested her withered hand on his knee. Elia waited until she had the Tairen's full attention before speaking. "And what if I order you to stay?" She couldn't suppress a slight crease of her brow. "Would that cause you more pain than asking you to leave?"

[Sunny]

Dax

Dax took a sip of tea, dearly wishing he dared spike it with brandy. Words came more smoothly and decisions more easily when alcohol took the edge off the world. He could simply exist, and… why blue? He took another drink- and promptly scalded his tongue when Elia turned back to put her hand on his knee.

She waited for him before she spoke. That could be a good sign or a bad one; Dax abruptly felt as if he had fallen in deep water with weights tied to his feet. He lowered the cup to the saucer balanced on his knee, then settled back once. She caught him by surprise regardless. What kind of question is that? He frowned at her in silence as he turned her words over in his head.

I warned you. Jem had, at that.

“A moment ago you said you don’t want to lose what we have,” he told her. “You mentioned...you wished our children could have parents that love one another.” His mind spun; he wished it would stop. “And now you talk of ordering me away or ordering me to stay, and want to know if it would hurt...of course it would hurt. Light, why?” She didn’t respond immediately, and Dax’s brows drew together as he peered at the Shienaran.

“Why would you want to hurt-” He cut off as realization dawned on him. “Burn me, you actually meant it, didn’t you, the bit about love, and I just...I hurt you, so you want to hurt me. Is that it?”

[Craig]

Elia

She flinched, her hand twitching on his knee as his words hit her like arrowheads. No I never wanted to hurt you and of course I actually meant it why can't you see–

His cool blue eyes drew her back to her senses. They were so intensely focused on her, watchful beyond the usual Gaidin wariness. The breath within her lungs seemed to freeze under his gaze, and it took long moments to melt away that frost in order to speak again.

"I meant it," she struggled to say. Her throat seemed to catch itself in hiccups as unaccustomed emotions bubbling up within her chest. "I don't want to hurt you. I want you to stay." Her hand, despite the pain it caused, clenched around his knee. "Stay. Please stay."

[Sunny]

Dax

The silence that fell after Elia’s proclamation was so absolute that Dax could actually hear the faint sound of birds chirping outside her window. Oathsworn Aes Sedai told the truth; they always told the truth. Getting them to speak it plainly could be a chore, but when they did, their word simply could not be questioned. The Shienaran had done just that, and her green eyes bore into his soul as she waited for a response. How could it possibly be?

This is a bad idea. Light help me, this is a terrible idea. I can’t- I won’t- I just said I couldn’t…! His mind and body had differing agendas, it seemed. Porcelain fell to the ground unheeded as Dax pushed himself closer to the Aes Sedai, battered hands wrapping gently around Elia’s upper arms, sliding upward to brush over her shoulders and up her throat. He stopped with his palms resting just below her ears and his thumbs lightly tracing her jaw.

"Elia...I drink, I gamble, I’m a murderer, I make stupid bloody mistakes every other flaming day,” he told her in a soft voice. “I will never be a good man, but- Light, never mind. You’ve seen me at my worst.” He wet his lips as he remembered how she had found him in Hama Valon. She had known of him before, as well. A moment later he laughed softly, pulling her closer. “You know all that and you don’t care.”

Dax had two go-to reactions to events that confused him. Since he had no desire to fight this particular source of confusion, the Gaidin tilted his head, leaned in, and pressed his lips against the Aes Sedai's. If the blue that flooded his mind quickly developed tinges of crimson, he was too preoccupied to notice.

[Craig]

Elia

Elia's right arm moved along Dax's leg, pain flaring with each inch until it settled with a thumb hooked into the top of his breeches. Her left hand found its way up to his head, slender fingers running through hair not long enough to grip.

His lips were soft, a stark contrast compared to the rest of the Tairen's exterior. His breath tasted of the night before – or perhaps of this morning – but Elia just found it authentic. Dax was not some perfectly sculpted noble from a fairy tale; he was real, flesh and blood with the scars to prove it. The taste of stale alcohol may have been bitter, but just like the pain in her arm, it was worth it.

She smiled against his lips after they finally parted. Her left hand had slipped down to encompass the nape of his neck, thumb slowly caressing his cheek. Her lower lip scraped against the hard edges of his stubble, but that only made her smile more. It proved that this was no dream. His breath was hot against her skin. She pressed her lips to his again, lightly, just to keep this moment going.

"I do care," she whispered after a long pause. At this distance, everything was a blur, but she looked into his beautiful blue eyes nonetheless. "You are a murderer and a gambler, and you drink. Yet despite that, you are a good man." Her hand felt a tension build in him, so she silenced him with another light kiss. "Please don't argue; let me finish."

Elia pulled back until Dax's face became clear again. "A bad man does not claim responsibility for children when he doesn't know if they are his. And a bad man does not tend to the mother of those children long before the birth." Only by speaking those words did she really come to appreciate what he had done for her. She pressed her good hand against his heart. "And somehow I know that in spite of what may transpire, you're not going to regret these months." Elia smiled as she closed the distance between their lips. "So thank you for being a good man, despite everything."

[Sunny]

Dax

Dax stared at Elia in mute astonishment, his fingers slowly combing through her hair as he thought about what she said. He could feel her breath on his lips and her eyes never strayed from his. So thank you for being a good man, despite everything. Was that what he had done? “I...hadn’t thought about it like that,” he admitted in a dazed tone. “It was more…”

She will toss you aside, just like- The Tairen cut the thought off. Whatever was to come would come, as it always had. Jem had surely gotten used to that perspective in the years since his death.

For now...Dax’s hand shifted downward to rest on Elia’s belly. His gaze followed shortly, and when he spoke again it was in a distant tone. “My father left us when I was just a baby myself. I just wanted to protect them from...feeling as I did.” Her belly rippled beneath his palm and Dax blinked, surprised despite himself. Of course babies moved, but he hadn’t expected it to feel like that!

“As for you,” he added in a stronger tone once the movement ceased, blue eyes meeting green once more. “I could get used to this.” He kissed her again, employing every trick and touch he had learned in twenty five years to turn her will to jelly. When he broke away, his eyes were dancing, but his tone was serious. “I don't always understand what's going on in my head," he admitted. "I just need time to sort it out, love, that’s all. Can you give that to me?”

Light help me, you are an idiot.

Better a happy idiot than a miserable wise man, Dax quipped.

Jem didn’t have much to say to that.

[Craig]

Elia

Elia tried to lose herself to Dax's lips, but her mind couldn't help but ruin the moment with thoughts of its own. Knowing that Dax's father abandoned him as a child answered a number of niggling doubts about why the Tairen had stuck around in the beginning. There was certainly a lot more to that story, else he wouldn't have waited for all of these months to reveal that to her now.

Regret sprang up as soon as the kiss ended. She wanted more, greedy like a child running amok in a pastry shop. She would have leaned in again and taken what she wanted if not for his words. A few moments of bliss did not fully scour away her initial worries about how fragile he was. It did, however, placed some restraint on her patience. "You have a month or so yet," she answered, overlaying her hand on his.

One of the twins took that moment to kick again. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the twins were kicking or if her body was just protesting from gas or hunger. This time Elia was certain it was the latter. She quickly shifted her hand for purchase onto the flat of the chaise longue as she endured a particularly strong cramp. She grimaced silently through it.

"Ough," Elia grunted when the pain finally subsided. She patted the top of his hand with hers. "Help me up? I should probably walk for a bit." Her ankles were still sore, but that didn't get her off from needing to move around. She was not, as one novice had indelicately commented within her earshot, 'a beached whale'. The novice soon found herself at the farm, helping to deliver the young of animals, so she could get a real appreciation for the wonders of childbirth.

With Dax's aid, Elia stood. Her appearance was still not good for public consumption, but at least her dress was on properly. She started to waddle around the chairs, moving into the open space between the seating area and the front door.

Despite the pain, Elia quipped: "Next time – if there is a next time Dax – lets find someone else to be pregnant for me."

[Sunny]

Dax

Dax stayed with Elia as she roamed her chambers, his mind somehow managing to be a million miles away and yet painfully present at the same time. She had asked him to love her. He hadn’t declined. It did not feel the same as it had with Katrie, but then again...perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing. The thought didn’t upset him, at least.

Elia, on the other hand, seemed to be in pain. She moved about the free space in the room in disconsolate unease, picking up this object or that only to put it back down and keep moving a breath later. She complained that her feet hurt...but she kept walking. For hours.

In the early afternoon she asked for a kiss, which he gave without hesitation, then told him he needed a bath or at least to change his clothes. Confused, oddly amused, and fully aware the Shienaran was right, Dax sent for a change of clothing and washed his face and hands in the wash stand. They walked some more until the servant returned. The Aes Sedai settled back on her chaise longe while he changed, but as soon as he had pulled a clean shirt over his head they were off again.

The third time she winced and caught herself on his arm in the space of an hour, the Tairen stopped short and stared at her, his preoccupation with her request escaping his mind immediately. Those moments of pain had been escalating steadily, hadn’t they? Something Katrie had told him long ago niggled at his mind, but he couldn’t remember the details.

In the eight minutes that followed, the Shienaran rifled through a dozen books only to sigh in frustration and put them back in haphazard order. She rubbed at her lower back as she turned away from the shelves, then doubled over with a groan.

Dax grabbed at her, supporting her weight lest she fall. “Let me feel your belly,” he said, sinking to his knees in front of her to suit actions to words. Elia gave him a death glare, but he had already splayed his hands out over her abdomen, fingers pressing against her body with gentle insistence. Rippling muscle greeted him, firmer than he remembered it, tensing and releasing regularly. He counted to thirty slowly; at twenty five the tension noticeably eased.

“I am no midwife, but I think you need to see a Yellow,” he said, looking up at her with troubled blue eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dakson.” She sounded peevish and looked exhausted. He had expected no less.

“If it’s nothing, they’ll help you sleep and you can laugh at me tomorrow. I insist that we go,” he said, a hint of steel in his voice. That earned him a different kind of look. He met her stare for stare, and waited.

[Craig]

Elia

There were certain constants in the world. Grass was green, the sky was blue, and Elia Darrow did not take orders. Especially not from men. She glared down into Dakson's brilliant blue eyes.

"I'm fa-ah-een!" She placed both hands on Dax's shoulders for support as her insides once again rebelled against her. As if you had to give your father credence, she thought bitterly. It seemed like everyone was conspiring against her, including her own children.

When the discomfort eventually passed, she found herself still being challenged by Dax's intense stare. Maybe for the first time in her years as an Aes Sedai, Elia was the first to wither away from the contest. "Very well." The Tairen rose to his feet. He took hold of her lower arm to provide her with some assistance with walking. His other hand reached up to massage his left shoulder. She said nothing as he guided her towards the doorway.

The hour was neither late nor early, meaning that Elia was not afforded any discretion as she was escorted through the Tower's hallways. She tried to piece together what she witnessed in her brothers and sisters' eyes as they glimpsed her and Dakson moving along, but her mind wasn't in it. Half the time she was trying to will her body to cease its attacks. The other half was simply used to prepare for the next engagement.

Elia was barely aware that she was in the Infirmary until the pungent smell of chemical cleanness was filling the air in her lungs. Dax and another man guided her to a private room, both trying to help settle her on the bed. She couldn't fend away the Asha'man's assistance, not with her weakened arm, yet she attempted to. A plethora of apologies in a strong Illianer accent came from her right-hand side as pain seared through her side. Then she was on the bed with seemingly endless pillows propping her up from behind.

Years of lessons and guidance from her childhood seemed to flood from the past straight into her awareness. Elia knew what was happening, no matter how vehemently or fervently she wished to deny it. "This is not happening!" she cried out to no-one in particular. She had been waiting impatiently for this moment for the last eight months, but now that it was here, Elia struggled against it.

The Shienaran didn't know when she took Dax's hand, but at some point, she noticed that she was gripping hold of it tightly. The Blademaster's fingers and palm seemed immune to her grip, but unfortunately for Dax, her nails dug into the soft flesh at the back of his hand as well.

"You're not leaving," she growled without even sensing any resistance. "This is your fault, so you can suffer to-oohh-ah!"

"Oh, it do be coming close to time," someone else in the room said.

"No, not yet," she spat through gritted teeth. "Not yet! It's too early! It's too earl-ah-lee!"

[Sunny]

Dax

The room in the infirmary looked nothing like the chamber his mother had died in.

It seemed beyond belief that anyone could require so many attendants. Accepted and even Dedicated hurried in and out, Yellows passed through to check on Elia’s condition and then drifted away with murmured comments that all seemed well. The room smelled of lavender and lemon, and as quickly as her sheets became sweat-soaked, someone came to switch them out. Someone even brought food for them both, although both trays went largely untouched.

After an initial burst of discomfort, Dax ignored the stares and whispers from the learning ranks the same way he had always ignored such behavior. If no one had suspected anything before, that was certainly no longer the case. Rumors would be all over the Tower before the sun rose. Nothing to be done about that. Especially not when the delicate hand that wrapped itself around his own required his full attention.

Especially not when he could scarcely breathe for fear of what was to come.

When Jaren came by to check on them some time after dusk he appeared to take pity on the Blademaster. “Breathe with her, Gaidin,” the Asha’man said as he adjusted Elia’s pillows. “Count to eight as you breathe out, hold it, then count to eight as you breathe back in. It will help with her pain...and perhaps you as well.” The Yellow squeezed his shoulder with a smile then turned and left without another word.

Pride salvaged and task assigned, the Tairen turned his gaze to the Aes Sedai. “Look at me,” he said. She turned her head up and he smiled. “You aren’t alone,” he told her. “I’m here.” Two breathes later and her pretty face tightened in pain. Dax kissed her knuckles, tugging at her hand to get her attention again. “Elia! Look at me. Breathe slowly.” And he began to count.

---

Two Aes Sedai he did not know brought their babies to them. The first placed one on Elia’s chest. “Twins, Sister. This one’s a boy.” The Aes Sedai’s good hand rose automatically to cradle the infant and Dax stared, fascinated by how tiny the thing was. I could hold him in one hand, he thought, how can anything be so small? The noise the child made was almost comical, mewling feebly as he squirmed against his mother’s skin. Light, I have a son!

He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a choked off curse when the Aes Sedai pressed the second child into his arms. “If she isn’t yours, she should be,” the woman said in a tone he knew to mean disapproval, but did not seem to belong in the moment. He was too tired to respond with his usual candor; instead he simply blinked at her in confusion. After a moment she walked away muttering.

The Tairen looked down at the infant in his arms, his entire body curving around it -her, the Aes Sedai had said- instinctively. He stared into dark blue eyes beneath a light reddish fuzz of hair, completely amazed by the human he had helped create. Her skin was blotched purple, her little brows pulled together in a quizzical expression that seemed almost comical. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, unable to keep the awe out of his voice. “How do you even exist?”

His daughter gave him the only appropriate response a baby could give.

She closed her tiny eyes and yawned.