Recent advances in harvesting mitochondrial DNA had decreased the processing time to around four hours. Alexa didn't have to worry about contamination, quantitation, or amplification protocols due to her perfect and plentiful specimen. Once she'd extracted the cells needed from the preserved after birth, the analysis hadn't taken long.

Teagan's screams and Ray's incessant complaints hadn't helped during the fifty-two minutes it took her to create the gene therapy.

Ross huffed and held up his index finger. "Give me ... a second." He looked as if he'd run a marathon, sprinting those last one hundred yards to the finish. Smelled like it too.

"Perimeter's clear. Any progress?" This was the second time he'd toured the neighborhood to ensure their safety.

"You betcha, secret agent man," Ray piped in over the speaker phone. He'd been on the line throughout the process feeding her data into their systems at OHSU. Scientists worldwide had connected to them. Each piece of data instantly transferred. None had questioned her expertise.

Alexa frowned. "Thank you, Ray."

"No doubt, boss ..." She pressed the 'end' button on her phone.

"Well?" Ross's right fingers tapped his slung left arm. Another miracle by Gavin the medic. He'd sutured the wound and made Ross wear a sling with a second bandage fixed around his shoulder and chest.

Alexa filled the syringe and flicked it, releasing the bubbles. Clear fluid dripped from the tip of the needle. There wasn't time to doddle. The idea of Teagan being the first human trial didn't sit well with her, but the task had to be completed by someone.

"Now it's done." She capped the needle and wiped her brow with a hanky from the desk drawer.

Ross let out a long sigh and smiled. "That's my girl."

"You're what?"

"Mom!" Teagan screamed—again.

Armed with a syringe (and a half-naked FBI guy) Alexa hurried to the front room. They'd pulled out the couch and covered it in her good 800 ply double-thread sheets.

"Back bedroom?" Ross asked.

"Most likely." She followed him down the hall and into the spare room.

Teagan lay in the spare bed with her legs spread wide. A towel covered her genitalia. Homemade stirrups made from bath towels, trash cans and shower rods held her ankles in the air.

"Mom." This time she pleaded.

Ross examined the makeshift birthing center Gavin had erected. "Wow! André McGuyver. Nice work."

The pun wasn't lost on her. Though she only knew about André the Giant from watching The Princess Bride with Teagan when she was six and had heard about the TV show McGuyver from friends in medical school.

Light guffaws from the gentle giant gave an air of comfort to the intensity filled room.

Ellie wobbled.

"Up you go." Ross offered his good arm.

"Thanks, hunkaboo." Ellie stabled herself and gave him a half-hearted smile. Mascara smeared about her face, mostly under her eyes. Alexa had no doubt Ellie grieved for Alissa's loss and her own double mauling. Given her situation, the girl had remained her usual sarcastic self.

Alexa did her own inspection of the room. "This was a good idea."

"Gavin told us to get her off the couch and into a bed. So, we carried her in here. Well ... he did all the lifting. I just gimped next to them. Little Liza's sleeping in the other room."

"You named the baby?" Ross lifted a furrowed brow.

"No. Gav's did." Teagan tried to sit up.

"Gav's?" Ross gave Gavin a questioning glance.

Gavin shrugged.

"You left it alone?" Alexa didn't wait for an answer. She raced back to the living room and found the infant sleeping between throw pillows. After the carnage the creatures had wrought, how could there be one passed out on her couch?

"Is it okay?" Ross asked as she reentered the bedroom.

Alexa shook her head. "After I give the cure to Teagan, I'm going to have to examine her. She's a mystery right now."

"I knew it." Ellie pointed at Ross. "I totally shipped you two from the beginning."

Alexa had no clue what Ellie meant. From Ross's perplexed brow raise, neither did he.

Teagan smacked Ellie on the leg. "I told you they already fu ..."

"Liza's my sister's name." Gavin busted into the conversation.

The girls stopped talking and listened. They seemed fascinated by anything Gavin had to say. Teagan hung on every word. She clearly had affection for the young man.

He took out his stethoscope, listened to Teagan's belly, and continued. "And my grandma and great Grammy; and I think a great, great aunt. How about we test that stuff in your hands, Dr. Mason? This kid's getting ready to come out of your pretty daughter any minute."

"Yeah, Mom. Stick me already. It's coming. Now!" Teagan had a contraction and screamed.

Ellie wiped Teagan's brow with a damp towel.

"You think I'm pretty?" Teagan raised her head a bit so she could see Gavin.

Alexa caught an extra sparkle in his bright brown eyes.

"I think you're beautiful."

"Okay. I'm shipping you two as well ... and adding a hotel key. Oh." Ellie put a finger on her cheek. "That's what got us into this mess in the first place. Hmm ..."

Ross muffled a laugh. Alexa still had no clue what being shipped meant but had her suspicions. 

A wriggle against the skin of Teagan's stomach caught Gavin's attention. He stepped back and glanced at Alexa. She nodded to let him know he needed to continue his care. His presence calmed Teagan.

It's what she'd been waiting for. She needed to know the precise location of the Trill to inject the gene therapy into its umbilical cord. A feat usually accomplished with ultrasound.

At that moment, she knew if she lost Teagan she'd no longer have a family. The pain and anguish of her husband's death blasted her a hundred times harder than it ever should have. She finally realized he was gone? Tears that hadn't come for a year toppled down her face.

Ross leaned down and put his hand on her shoulder. In her moment of weakness, she collapsed into his body and curled tight against his chest.

"You can do this." He kissed her forehead and helped her stand.

She went to Teagan's side and gave her a hug. "I can't lose you. I know this is going to work. I love you."

Teagan's eyes burned red with burst blood vessels from the intense contractions. "Love you too. Now, please get this fucking thing out of me."

A tiny nail poked through the skin, sending a line of blood down Teagan's bare belly.

"Mom!"

Gavin retrieved a bag of sterile gauze from his fanny pack and put it on the small wound. Distress shone in his eyes but he kept a calm demeanor.

Alexa followed the lump of the child until she felt what might be the baby's rear end. An educated guess as to the umbilical cords position is all she could do. She drove the long needle through the skin until it bumped into the hard-uterine muscle. Slowly and steadily she advanced through the wall of tissue applying more and more pressure and hoping to someone's God the needle wouldn't snap. After a second of the heavier pressure, the needle punctured through and hit something solid.

"Oh shit!" Alexa wasn't sure what she'd hit and pulled back on the syringe.

"What is it?" Ross asked.

Teagan had a pillow between her teeth and mumbled the same question.

Alexa whispered into Ross's ear, "I can't get the needle through the Trill's thick epidermis." How could she be so stupid? Of course, the cord would have the same density as the child's epidermis.

Two more lines of blood appeared in Teagan's upper left quadrant. With her teeth clenched down on the pillow, she screamed.

"Can you press harder?" Ross took hold of the syringe.

"No." Alexa slapped at his hand, unintendedly hitting him. "The needle could break and I don't have another one."

"I think ..." Ross left the room.

She hoped his lightbulb showed brighter than hers.

A minute later he returned with something between his fingers. "Will this help?"

Alexa sighed. He'd brought her the one thing that could penetrate the baby's skin. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it.

Ellie had hold of Teagan's hand. "A little help here." Her fingers blanched under the death grip.

Gavin reached over the entirety of Teagan's body and relieved Ellie of her suffering. "You can squeeze my hand as hard as you want sweetie."

Teagan gave him her sad smile. That's what Alexa had called it for years. Whenever worried about something she'd smile and tell her not to worry.

Ross pulled the dart apart and broke the vial. "This going to work?" He handed the broken vial to her.

"Pray to your God it does." Alexa took the anti-Trill serum from him.

"I am," Ross whispered.

Lines of blood continued to appear and run down Teagan's stomach. Gavin wiped away the blood and put pressure bandages on the wounds. The look he gave Alexa told her there wasn't much time left.

Alexa extracted a small amount of fluid from the dart into the end of her needle, not quite mingling with the gene therapy. With her eyes closed and an invisible chalkboard, she renumerated the formulas.

"Are you praying?" Ross asked.

"No. Calculating. I think we're good."

The room held a collective sigh and once more she poked the needle into Teagan. This time through one of the holes the baby's claw had made. The baby moved around inside. She hit the umbilical cord's tough outer layer and depressed the syringe a little.

"Is it working?" Ellie's eyes narrowed, concentrating on Teagan's stomach.

"Give it a minute." She worked the needle back and forth.

"C'mon baby, work with us." Ross had crossed his fingers.

When the iron exterior gave in, Alexa felt a pop. She depressed the serum and retracted the needle.

The baby writhed around and made one large gash in Teagan's stomach before it stopped moving altogether.

Thanks for reading, my friends. Please keep up the comments and votes.

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