Gift of Love

Five days after giving birth again and giving up his female reproductive tract, Ash was doing well enough to be released from the hospital. Much to their pain and anguish, he and Andy had to leave their new son, properly named Adrian Kendall-Abrocket Biersack, behind in the NICU. He wasn’t doing much better than he’d been doing the morning after his birth, but at least he was stable, and that was enough for them to be thankful for.

Marissa and Shelby were going to be keeping Rori and the twins for a week or two while he continued to recover so as not to stress Jake, CC, Jinxx, or Sammi out too much. The house would be nice and quiet, he wouldn’t have to stress over anything, which could slow down his recovery, and his lover would be free to help him out more. This homecoming was a bittersweet one for them both, what with having to leave their son behind for a while longer, but it was better than losing him altogether. Hell, Ash was just thankful to be coming home at all, considering that Dr. Hill said he’d been fighting for his life from the moment his blood pressure spiked.

Upon walking into his eerily quiet house, the exhausted bassist wanted nothing more than to relax for a while. He hadn’t gotten much sleep in the hospital since he was worried about his baby, something that he couldn’t help, and he doubted it would change much now. That, and the incision across his belly that was still healing was giving him Hell, as well. He was trying not to keep himself doped up too much to avoid an addiction, but the pain was like nothing he’d ever felt besides labor.

“You wanna curl up on the couch, or go upstairs to our room?” Andy asked softly, acting as a crutch of sorts for his sweetheart.

“The couch,” he answered, groaning from the pain he was in. “I don’t feel like trying to go upstairs.”

“Want me to pull out the sofa bed so you don’t have to?” he asked. “I can go get the memory foam pad off the guest bed to make it a little softer for ya.”

“Sounds like a great idea, mio profeta,” the bassist agreed. “I’ll be pretty close to everything I need if I have to get up.”

“All right. Just sit here in the recliner for a few minutes, mio deviante,” the younger man instructed.

As much as it hurt because of the way it pinched his incision, Ash did as told and kept his ass parked in the recliner next to the couch that his lover’d helped him into. He could deal with the pain for a few minutes while he set up his own little recovery room in their home, especially considering that the younger man was bound to move like a roadrunner so he wouldn’t be in pain for as long.

Over the course of the next few minutes, he sat there quietly and watched as his husband pulled out the sofa bed and got it set up for him, wishing he were able-bodied. He didn’t like having his independence stripped of him, something he’d made clear in the past, but honestly, he couldn’t have done all this nearly as quick at the moment if he’d wanted to. The moment he was done, Andy came over to him and helped him up, flinching slightly when he yelped softly in pain, then helped him over to the sofa bed. With as slow and gentle of movements as possible, he got him settled before heading to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Even though he wanted to fight off the pain on his own for as long as he could, Ash couldn’t take it anymore and gratefully accepted the Vicodin and water he was handed. He was taking the narcotic as seldomly as he could manage for more than one reason. One, he didn’t want to form an addiction to it, and two, he didn’t want it tainting his breast milk anymore than necessary. If that happened, he’d have to strictly formula-feed Adrian, and not one of his babies thus far were formula-fed. They’d all had copious amounts of breastmilk in their diets until they could start eating baby food, and he wanted to keep it that way. Besides, it was a scientifically proven fact that breastfed babies tended to be healthier, and Adrian needed all the breast milk he could get.

Now that he was settled and had taken the Vicodin, he laid back and decided to watch a bit of TV while his lover made them a light lunch. He didn’t want anything too heavy, considering that he’d been used to eating small, light meals because of his pregnancy and had to readjust; Andy never really ate very heavy meals unless he’d gone too long without food. That, and they weren’t sure how eating too much with the painkiller in his system would affect him.

“Here ya go, mio deviante,” he said, handing him a plate that had a sandwich and some chips on it.

“Molto gratzie, mio profeta,” Ash murmured, settling the plate on his lap.

“Molto prego,” his lover answered, sitting down beside him. He knew it wasn’t smart to get too close, but didn’t want him to feel lonely, either.

“So what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” the bassist asked curiously.

“I’m planning on making sure you rest, and maybe doing a bit of housework,” Andy answered after washing his food down with tea. “I know you did your best in your condition, but to me, this place is a train wreck.”

“At least I can say I tried.” He shrugged as he took another bite of his sandwich.

“I know, and I’m not saying you didn’t,” he chuckled, kissing his temple. “But since the kids aren’t here to trash it as soon as I get it cleaned up, or get under foot the entire time, I might as well take advantage of it.”

“That’s true enough,” he agreed. “I’d help you if I could.”

“I can always bring the laundry in here and let you fold it, if you’re really that bored,” he suggested. “I don’t see how that could be too strenuous.”

“Works for me. At least then I’ll have something to do that Dr. Hill can’t really bitch about,” Ash agreed. “That, and I’m better at folding than you are.”

Shaking his head and smiling, Andy finished off his lunch before taking their plates to the kitchen to be loaded into the dishwasher. The recovering bassist laid back and continued watching TV until his lover brought him the first round of laundry that needed folding, although the show that was on wasn’t really catching his attention at the moment.

Normally he’d be riveted to the TV for hours, so long as he didn’t have little ones needing him for something, when Rob Dyrdek’s Ridiculousness was on, simply because it was absolutely hilarious. An entire marathon of the show was right up there was awesome sex and Andy’s Better than Sex Cake, but right now, he just couldn’t seem to focus. His Vicodin had kicked in while he was eating, so he wasn’t in pain anymore, but he couldn’t get his mind off baby Adrian, feeling as if something bad was going to happen now that he was at home. He couldn’t shake that feeling, but tried to back-burner it, anyway.

It wasn’t long afterward that his lover brought the first basket of laundry to him for folding, and once he got it dumped out, he saw that it was Rori’s clothes. Remembering back to when she wasn’t much bigger than his five-pound, twelve-ounce newborn, it was hard to believe she’d grown so much in five years. Ash sighed softly as he reminisced back to the day of her birth, and that of the twins. They’d both been special days in his life, whether they’d been planned pregnancies or not, and he’d be forever grateful that they’d survived and were thriving. He could only hope that baby Adrian would be able to grow stronger and overcome the odds he faced by being born so much earlier than he should’ve.

Halfway through folding Rori’s clothes, he heard the house phone start ringing, but couldn’t get up to answer it. Luckily, Andy had just finished starting another load of laundry and was able to get to it, so he didn’t think much of it. The tone of his husband’s voice as he answered whoever was calling caught and held his attention, and he didn’t give a damn about resting. He managed to get up from the sofa bed and made his way to the kitchen, hanging on to anything within reach for balance.

“So what’s this gonna do to him?” Andy was asking, a stricken look on his face.

Ash shot him a curious look and he mouthed that he’d explain in a minute, his attention riveted on whatever the person on the other end of the line was saying.

“You have got to be kidding me,” the younger man groaned, dragging his hand from his forehead to his chin. “He’s already fighting the odds, as is; why must Nature do this to him?”

That one question made him realize that they were talking about baby Adrian, and terror seized him.

“Call me back if we need to come back over there,” his lover demanded. “I want my husband to rest as much as possible, not run around like a chicken with his head cut off.”

“What’s wrong with Adrian?” he forced out, his throat tight with worry.

“Apparently his liver function isn’t as good as it was earlier,” Andy answered grimly. “He was turning yellow when the nurses checked on him.”

“Is he gonna be okay?” Ash asked, barely staving off a panic attack.

“Let’s get you back on the sofa bed, and I’ll answer any questions as best I can,” he said, steering him toward the living room.

Nodding, the bassist allowed himself to be taken back to his makeshift recovery room and settled back onto the sofa bed.

“Now, to answer your question, yes, Adrian should be just fine,” he began after taking a deep breath. “It’s common for premature babies like him to develop what’s called jaundice, is what the nurse who called told me. It’s easily treatable by putting him under ultraviolet lights, and yes, they cover his eyes to protect his vision when they do that.”

“But what made his liver function decline in the first place?” he asked.

“They honestly don’t know. It could be any number of things, but most likely simply because his organs weren’t quite mature enough for birth,” Andy answered. “They told me that, honestly, they’ve seen preemies with far worse cases of jaundice, and that his is actually pretty mild.”

“Thank Godsmack,” Ash sighed, clapping a hand to his chest. “I don’t know what I’d do if I had to put a baby in the ground.”

“I don’t either. And I told the nurse to call me back if he starts getting even worse so we can go see him again,” he told him. “They honestly don’t think he’ll make a turn for the worse, but I knew it’d give us both, especially you, some peace of mind, knowing that they’d call if he did.”

“I feel like it’s my fault he’s in this mess, though,” he sighed, trying not to cry.

“Tesoro, you did everything right like you were supposed to.” The younger man wrapped his arms tightly around him. “You didn’t do anything Dr. Hill told you not to, and you even did a few things she told you to before she even mentioned them. You actually took as good of care of yourself as you did while you were pregnant with Rori, if not better. Things like this happen all the time, and usually to people that don’t deserve them. But if Adrian’s anything like either one or both of us, he’ll pull through. He’s a fighter.”

Taking a shaky breath, the bassist nodded his head against his lover’s chest, trying to see the truth behind his words. He knew that their son was in the best of hands right now, but that didn’t stop his maternal instinct, if you will, from driving him insane with worry. Even though he knew he’d done everything right, he was taking this as a sign that his body was done nurturing children before birth, which just reinforced his decision to have a hysterectomy done after the C-section. Getting through this obstacle was going to be hard enough; he didn’t know what he’d have done if he’d gotten pregnant again and lost that baby.

Andy sat there and rocked his sweetheart back and forth as he cried, knowing he needed a loving heart and tender words right now. He gently rubbed his back as he continued to rock, whispering Italian sweet nothings in his ear in an effort to calm him down. He hated seeing his Outlaw like this, so depressed and broken, and was glad he hadn’t had to in years.

It wasn’t long before Ash finally fell asleep in his arms, and he gently laid him down on his mound of pillows so he wouldn’t wake him. He hadn’t slept right since Adrian was born, really only sleeping when the painkillers knocked him out, so he needed his rest. Once he was settled and he was sure he wouldn’t wake up for a while, he tucked him in and gently kissed his temple, smoothing his hair back away from his face just as gently before leaving him in peace and hopefully to some good dreams.

With a sigh of his own, the young frontman took their older daughter’s now folded clothes up to her room to put them away before starting on anymore chores. He was tired beyond belief, having been up almost as much as his sweetheart had the past few days, yet there were things around the house that needed to be done. Andy was just glad that his sweetheart was getting some rest right now, even if it was painkiller-induced, so that he wouldn’t worry quite as much. It was bad enough that they were both worried almost to the point of making themselves sick about their little boy; he didn’t need his still-recovering husband to get sick or anything because he was so worried.

* * *

Six hours later, every last piece of laundry had been run through the washer and was either folded and put away, or still in the dryer, and the entire house was sparkling. Andy wiped his brow, which was exposed from putting his hair up in a ponytail for once, and sighed softly as he took a look around the kitchen. He’d never seen this house so clean, even before the twins’ births, and was glad he’d been able to get it cleaned up in a single day rather than taking several or a week to do it.

Now that he was done cleaning and his sweetheart was still asleep, he decided to call Marissa and Shelby to check on the rest of his kids. He hadn’t gotten another call from the hospital about baby Adrian, so he figured that he was either doing better, or was in the same condition as he’d been before. Besides, he didn’t want the older kids to feel neglected since they were staying with someone else for a while, so he felt it within their best interests to call and check on them. Even if they couldn’t see each other for a while, hearing his and Ash’s voices could help calm them down.

“Hello?” He recognized the voice answering as Marissa’s.

“Hey, Marissa. It’s Andy,” he said, taking a drag off his cigarette as he stood on the back deck.

“Hey, Andy. How’re you and Ashley?” the nurse asked. Almost three years after meeting, she still worked in the childrens’ ward at UCLA.

“We’re doing all right. He got released earlier, so he’s in the living room on the sofa bed sleeping,” the young frontman answered. “Me, well, I’m exhausted, but I’ll be all right.”

“You should go take yourself a nap. Or better yet, just sleep through the night since you have no kids there to bother you,” Marissa told him.

“I was planning on it,” he chuckled. “Speaking of kids, I called to check on them. I’m sure they’re wondering why neither of us have come to get them yet.”

“Yeah, they are. I haven’t really been able to tell them much besides Mama’s in the hospital to make sure he and the baby are okay,” she told him. “They’ve been worried that they weren’t going to get to meet their baby brother or sister.”

“Well, I can safely say that it’s a boy. Five pounds, twelve ounces, born at nine-thirty-four PM on the twenty-third,” Andy told her.

“Isn’t he, like, ten weeks early?” the nurse asked, somewhat shocked.

“Yeah, he is. But Ash developed pre-eclampsia and he had to be delivered early.” He took a moment to regain his composure. “Other than developing a bit of jaundice earlier today, he’s doing fine. They decided to keep him in the NICU till closer to his original due date as a precaution, though.”

“I remember developing pre-eclampsia at thirty-four weeks myself when I was pregnant with Shelby,” she said understandingly. “You wouldn’t know it today, but she fought for her life before it even truly began.”

“Well, that’s what Adrian’s going through right now,” he told her. “Ash is worried sick that we’re gonna lose him, and even though that thought worries me, I try not to let it get to me as much. Someone’s gotta be strong for Rori and the twins.”

“You wanna tell Rori the news, then?” Marissa asked.

“Sure. Put the phone on speaker so she can hear me,” he agreed.

“Daddy? When are we gonna come home?” he heard his older daughter ask moments later.

“It’s probably not gonna be for another week or two, sugar,” Andy answered sadly. “Mommy’s not doing very good and needs to rest.”

“What’s wrong with Mommy?” Rori asked, sounding scared.

“You remember how he had another baby growing in his belly when you went to spend the night with Grama, Uncle CC, and Auntie Sammi, right?” the frontman countered.

“Yeah. He said the baby liked kicking him in the ribs, so it was hard to breathe sometimes,” she answered.

“Well, the baby that was in his belly isn’t there anymore,” he began, trying to find the words to explain.

“Where is it, then?”

“The baby, a little boy named Adrian, is at the hospital. Mommy got sick and the baby had to be born a little early, but they’re both doing pretty good now. Mommy’s on the couch asleep, and the baby’s still in the hospital, where the doctors can take care of him until he’s ready to come home.”

“Can we go see him sometime?” she asked excitedly.

“You guys can’t, but Mommy and I can,” Andy told her sadly. “We’ll be sure to take pictures of him so you can see him before he comes home, okay?”

“So Mommy’s feeling better now?” Rori asked.

“Well, other than his belly hurting from where they had to cut it open to get Adrian out, yeah, he’s doing pretty good, sugar.”

“The doctors had to cut his belly open? Didn’t that hurt him?”

“Not when they first cut him open, but he’s got medicine to make him feel better now.”

“Tell him that Leila, Levi, and I love him and that we hope he feels much better soon,” she requested.

“I’ll be sure to. And he told me to tell you guys that he loves and misses you as much as you love and miss him,” Andy told her.

After taking the phone off speaker, Marissa spent a few more minutes talking to him before passing the phone off to her daughter. Shelby told him that, if not for having three little ones running around right now, she’d be more than glad to come over and give him a hand at the house. Chuckling, he told her that that wasn’t necessary, that she was already helping him out by watching the kids, even if she had to get help from her own mother since they were such a handful.

Before they ended the phone call, she told him that she needed to come over and get some clean clothes for the kids, that they hadn’t really been able to pack much right after he’d called her. Considering that most of everybody’s clothes had been dirty at the time and he’d called on such short-notice, that wasn’t very much of a surprise. Andy told her to come on over and he’d help her pack up any and everything she needed for an extended stay, and she quickly agreed. She said nothing about bringing the crockpot full of chili her mother’d made for them when she came, wanting it to be a surprise.

Once he’d ended the phone call and went back inside, he headed to the living room to check on his sweetheart. Seeing that he was no longer curled up on the sofa bed, he decided to check the guest bathroom down the hall on the way to the studio, figuring that he might’ve woken up needing to piss. He heaved a soft sigh of relief when he saw the bathroom light on, but still knocked on the door, anyway.

His sweetheart’s melodic voice called out a response and he stood there in the hall, waiting for him patiently. Moments later, the door opened at the same time the light turned off, and Andy gently wrapped an arm around his waist as he acted as a crutch again. Ash chuckled but still allowed him to help him back to the living room, where he decided he wanted to be propped up a bit more. He was more than happy to oblige his husband’s request and helped him readjust the pillows so that he was sitting up a bit more. This position wasn’t pinching his incision too bad, if at all, and he could see the TV bit better, so he was perfectly happy. And as long as his outlaw was happy, so was he.

KNOCK KNOCK!

“I didn’t know we were having anyone over,” Ash said, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“It’s just Shelby,” he told him, peeking out the window by the front door. “I called her to check on the kids, and she said they needed more clothes.”

“Hey, Andy,” the young woman said, squealing when he picked her up in a bear-hug and spun her around. “How’ve you guys been?”

“Could be a helluva lot better!” his sweetheart answered from the living room.

“Hey, Ashley. Could be better, ya say?” she chuckled, perching on the edge of the sofa bed next to him.

“Damn straight,” the bassist answered, pulling her into a hug in such a way that didn’t hurt him. “You try having your gut cut open and tell me how it feels.”

“I’d rather not, thank you very much,” Shelby chuckled. “Other than that, you all right?”

“Worried to death about baby Adrian, but other than that and being in a little pain, I’m fine,” he answered. “Delivering early cured the pre-eclampsia, and I have no lingering health issues from that.”

“I’m sorry that you had to deliver early,” she told him, hugging him again and wiping his tears. “How’s the baby doing?”

“He developed a little bit of jaundice this morning after I brought Ash home,” Andy answered as he came back into the room with bags packed for his older kids. “Other than that and some minor breathing trouble due to his prematurity, he’s doing pretty good.”

“They say when he’ll get to come home?” the teen asked curiously.

“Should be in a few weeks, depending on how he does,” he answered. “So long as he doesn’t develop any more complications, he’ll likely get to come home at around what would’ve been thirty-five weeks in the pregnancy, maybe thirty-six.”

“Well, that’s good. Mama tends to go between the childrens’ ward and the NICU because of her expertise; I can have her stop by and check on him when she’s at work if you want me to.”

“Nah, that’s all right, Shelby. I’ve already made it clear to whoever’s already working at the NICU that I want ’em to call us if anything changes.”

Shortly thereafter, she handed over the crockpot of chili Marissa’d made for them and took the kids’ bags to her car, saying she had to get home before they drove her mother insane. The couple chuckled as the frontman began to dish out portions for their dinner, knowing that their kids could be quite the handful sometimes. They loved and missed them with every fiber of their beings, but knew it wouldn’t be long before they were all reunited again, and that was including baby Adrian.

Notes