Diamond Legacies: Part 10

Part 10

Micah

2 Years Later

Life was… complicated.

I had two beautiful twin girls that I adored more than anything in the world. I never knew it was possible to love someone so little this much. I had a new-found respect for my parents and anyone out there that has ever been a parent. The day I held my daughters for the first time was the best day of my life.

After finding out Ivana might be pregnant I left her to go to Washington. When I returned she was like a whole different person. I still loved her with everything in me but the lives growing inside her changed us both, it stripped away the freedom and curiosity of our relationship and catapulted us full swing into parenthood. Ivana and I agreed that our focus would be on them and keeping her alive through the pregnancy. We argued a lot. She wanted to work at the hospital for the first month where as I was mortified if she moved out of bed too quick. Neither of us had ever seen a vampire pregnancy but we were both fully aware of what it might do to her. I worried for her pain threshold where as she was constantly yelling at me to trust her. I tried. I really did. For five-months we would see-saw between yelling and arguing to sex and cuddling. By the time she gave birth I hadn’t kissed her in two months. The last part of it was hard, for both of us. I hated seeing her in pain, she hated me for putting her in pain in the first place. I couldn’t blame her though. I hated me too.

The birth was the worst part though. After all that change in our relationship we were finally getting to a place where we could talk without arguing. When Ivana went into labour it was the hardest day of my life. It started off okay. Chloe and Eddie were over from England for it because Ivana wanted Chloe to be her doctor. We had a plan and everything was set in motion. It was late one night when Ivy started to feel strong pelvic pain, she had been feeling it for a few weeks up to this point but not this strong. I stayed with her every night, even when we were feuding because I liked to listen to the heartbeats of our daughters and to watch and make sure Ivy stayed okay in the night. This night I knew something was up. I knew it wasn’t long until they would be here. She was adamant it was just the normal pain she’d been experiencing but there was something about her essence and aura that made me think otherwise. I watched her cautiously throughout the night, she flinched and moved restlessly in her sleep. I called Chloe in the early hours to come over and we waited together. I sat with my sister in the living room listening in on Ivana the whole time. When she woke I sent Chloe up to check on her. Ivy was mad at me but I didn’t care. I wanted to make sure she was okay and I had been right to worry. Chloe came down to tell me Ivana was already dilating and would be having the babies today. In the matter of hours.

We didn’t even have names yet. We had argued about that too.

In the end we just agreed we’d name one each. I had named our first born, Eden Luna. Which luckily Ivana had liked, especially that we would be honouring the moon pool and Eden was such a strong connection to creation and life, both of which we were advocates for our entire lives.

Ivy had yet to tell me our other daughters name.

I made my way to Ivy and sat with her the entire way through her labour. Honestly, she amazed me, I didn’t know whether it was because her entire pregnancy had varied in pain or she was really that badass but she barely moaned or complained about the pain of labour. She breathed slowly and deeply and held my hand with reasonable strength the entire time. Chloe continued to encourage her as her labour progressed to the point she was ready to birth our first daughter.

Everyone that needed to be on standby was. My parents had arrived downstairs along with Ivana’s parents and sisters. They waited with Eddie whilst I was in our spare room, made specifically into a medical room, with Chloe and Ivana.

Eden was born screaming and crying like she was meant to. Chloe cleaned her quickly and handed her to Ivy to hold as she began to prepare Ivy for the next baby.

There is nothing in the world like seeing the life you created for the first time. I couldn’t take my eyes off Eden the second she entered the room. Ivy had tears rolling down her cheeks as she held our daughter on her chest for the first time. She was beautiful. Both of them. Chloe instructed me to take Eden because she saw the head of our second daughter. I reached out and Ivana handed me our child for the first time. I should have realised something was wrong at that point but I was so transfixed by the baby in my arms that I didn’t register the lack of crying from my second born.

Ivana was frantic, asking Chloe what was wrong. Chloe had her back to us, she was working on the baby in the incubator. Ivy tried to move and screamed out in pain, Chloe’s head whipped around and suddenly the room filled with the smell of blood. More blood than there should be that was for sure.

Suddenly the room was full of people and I could barely register what was happening. I stood there as I watched Anelie rush over to the tiny baby in the incubator. Chloe was back over at Ivana’s feet, my father at her side. Esther went to her daughters’ side, sitting behind her to support her as Ivana screamed the most gut wrenching scream I had ever heard in my life. I was ushered out by my mother and I just walked completely void of coherency. What had just happened?

I remembered my mother asking to take the child in my arms to clean her up and I just nodded. Not sure what was going on. Eddie came to me and explained that my second daughter died during the trauma of the birth and currently wasn’t viable for life, after Anelie brought her back she kept dying again so she has to stay touching her like a lifeline. My father rushed to the hospital with my child and the twins. The blood was Ivana’s placenta erupting and pulling apart her womb and her scream was Chloe having to manually extract the placenta. I had been a ghost the entire time. Not prepared for tragedy at all.

Ivana recovered enough to ask for our daughter and her mother was the one to tell her she was struggling for life at the hospital. I could hear Ivana’s sobs from the room upstairs but I was paralysed.

I should have been there for her but I couldn’t move.

I brought up the supply of blood we had stocked ready for Ivana after the birth and Ivana couldn’t even look at me.

Ivana was moved from the medical room to her bedroom. Esther stayed with her the entire time and the pair of them had Eden with them. I decided my only option was to go find out what was happening with our other daughter and headed to the hospital.

Our daughter had multiple organ failure. Her heart was damaged and couldn’t withstand the birth. Her left lung had collapsed and wasn’t working, she was jaundice from her liver failing and apparently, she was missing her entire stomach. That baby wasn’t supposed to live.

She was immediately put into surgery with just my father and sister. Carlisle and Chloe worked on her for hours to try and save parts of her, enough for Lidiya to be able to heal her and Anelie to bring her back to life. During this time Ivana slept, or at least tried to. Enough to get some energy back to save our daughter. After her long surgery repairing some what of her insides they brought her back to life for her to die yet again. Anelie held her as she was brought to Ivana, our only option at this point was Ivana’s ability. She had spent decades doing this kind of thing but never to this extent and never to a child that meant this much to her. I worried it would be too much.

Anelie took the baby to Ivana, since Ivy could barely move. She was still recovering herself.

Ivana spent the next hour healing and changing the structure of our daughters’ insides. It tired her so much that she slipped into a coma, Esther had to boost her energy enough to finish and this caused her to collapse the second she finished saving our child. Our baby was alive and breathing on her own at last but Ivana was past exhausted and I worried she pushed herself too far.

Esther stayed with her daughter for two days as we pumped her full of blood through tubes in her body.

Eden was perfect and thrived in the company of her grandmother. Esme was transfixed with her granddaughter. Our second daughter stayed in the hospital after Ivana’s treatments just to be ensure she was okay and for monitoring. My father never left her side. Chloe checked on Ivy regularly and I just waited. I waited for her to wake up, I waited for her to be okay. I knew it was impossible for her to die but I still felt alone. I still felt like all those little girls had was me and I knew I couldn’t do this alone. I needed my best friend. I needed Ivana.

Our girls were three days old when Ivana finally gained enough strength to wake up.

I felt relief wash over me like wave. I rushed to her side and picked up her hand to kiss her skin as her eyes opened to see myself and her mother at her side.

She immediately asked about our daughters and was assured several times over that both were alive and thriving.

Ivana named our second daughter Nova Hope. She said that our baby was alive because her patient, Nova, wasn’t. The memory of Nova had been with her the entire time, all she saw as she was healing our baby was the little girl she failed to save and she used it as motivation. She used her grief and loss to fuel her determination, she knew in that moment that our daughter would live for Nova. She would be our hope.

Eden and Nova were nearly two years old now, which meant physically they were four. They have been enchanting every day they’ve been in this world and the true joys of my life.

I knew one day I might have children but it wasn’t in the foreseeable future until they were there in my arms. Ivana and I worked together like a well-oiled machine. All the stress and disagreements ended the day they were born. It was like a switch was flicked inside both of us and suddenly we were exactly who we needed to be and back to who we should be. We worked together to raise our daughters, discussed and agreed on every decision as equals and brought our daughters up exactly how we wanted to. Ivana and I truly became other halves the day those girls were born, true partners in everything we did and we worked. Like we had been preparing for this our entire life.

Our girls were amazing and beautiful and I couldn’t get enough of them. Both of us more than halved our work load. Ivana dropped the hospital for good and just went to the Volturi when she was needed. I went down to two days a week in the hospital since I still needed to show my face if I ever wanted to take over as my father’s heir and I was only ever at the Volturi court if I was requested. Even then, if Ivana or I were ever needed there we’d bring the twins anyway and they’d be endlessly fussed over by many uncles and aunts they had there whilst we worked.

Ivana and I were the complicated bit in my life. We worked perfectly as partners and parents but we never truly repaired our romance. There was such a huge chain of events that led us to this point that we never truly had time to talk about it or what happened between us. Our sole purpose had been our children since the day I came back from Washington and she told me she was pregnant with twins. We had the occasional romantic encounter throughout her pregnancy and the occasional slip when either of us had built up needs but we had never really acknowledged a real relationship between us. We acted like a married couple, we even had sex occasionally, (once my father had created a working contraceptive for us) and I would kiss her cheek when I left for work but it was completely unspoken. We knew each other better than anyone in the world and yet I had no idea how to tell her I loved her anymore. She knew, there was no doubt about that but it was like our girls were our only focus and what we were to each other wasn’t important past the lives of our daughters anymore. We'd occasionally find a release together and the next morning would just go back to normal. It was like we were married without the piece of paper.

I hoped one day we’d find our way back to each other properly because I had no idea how to live without her.

Perhaps this was the way we were meant to be, our whole lives had been leading up to this point and I wouldn’t complain for a second. I still had her in my life, we were closer than we had ever been, worked together better than ever before and we had the most amazing children I could ask for.

Eden and Nova were like nothing in the world. They had their mother’s beauty and fiery personality and my selflessness and attitude to study. As they aged there were no signs of abilities but everyone was on alert anytime the girls did something new in case something appeared. My father told me one day that he was hundred percent sure they had abilities within then, there was no way in this world they were born ungifted and that worried me. They were the product of my true sight and empathy but also of power and manipulation. There was no way of knowing what they could do until it began to manifest itself. They would be the legacy of their parents and grandparents and both Ivana and I worried for them daily. Ivana and I agreed for them to have the Cullen surname for its protection but we also worried for the target on their back, they were the only true born children of both Carlisle and Esther’s bloodlines and that was terrifying to us. Our daughters had inherited enemies that would do everything to see both family lines collapse.

It only took a year into their lives for the threat to manifest itself. Luckily the girls hadn’t been home the day our home was attacked but it still had its effect on us all. After those events Ivana and I commissioned Esther to work on a spell similar to one put on her sister at birth in order for them to be untraceable to any that wished to target either Esther or Carlisle. With the help of Naarah and Ophelia, a spell was cast on them, keeping the indefinitely hidden from magic or vampires. Even their scents faded as they left the room. We didn’t know if this would affect their abilities or change them as they aged like it did Naarah but it had been done to protect them and Ivy and I agreed it was an acceptable price to pay to keep them safe.

Ophelia and Naarah had slotted into Ivana's family like they were there for the past thousand years. It was almost impossible to remember what they were like without them. Ophelia was thriving, she was having lessons from Axton and Alena for her magic and got to meet Mia Cullen whose abilities worked very much like hers. It was fascinating seeing Mia, the tribrid Cullen who was hidden from the world for so long. She was an interesting soul to read. Ophelia adored her because she was like her, she also adored Eden and Nova. She had incredible patience and understanding when they were babies and as they grew into young girls she was the big sister figure they idolised.

Eden and Nova had an incredibly strong support system here in Chicago, when they get their abilities we had the best people in the world to teach them and that gave me some peace to know they would be okay, what ever they could do.

I didn’t know what the future held, I enjoyed every moment of my daughter’s childhood because in a blink of an eye it would be gone and they’d be fully grown women on their own journeys.

I just hoped that what ever their abilities may be that they would be able to accept and embrace it and be the able to handle the legacy they were born into.

The End