3. Felix

3

FELIX

I hold Toby's hand on the way to the doctor's office and in the waiting room. Some people stare at us, but I guess people have always stared at me. Toby doesn't seem to mind. He chats happily with Louisa about the nursery she's decorating for our little ones while we wait.

Finally, a nurse calls both of our names. We requested to be seen together.

Louisa comes with us as we follow the nurse back to a room with only one examining table and monitor. Toby and I change into cotton gowns that loosely tie in the back while Louisa waits in the hallway. The gown is much tighter on Toby than it is on me. Again, I worry about the little one growing inside me. Are they all right? Is my body not capable of growing a chick properly?

Toby threads his fingers through mine and squeezes my hand. "What is it? You seem stressed."

Before I can answer, there's a knock on the door.

"Come in!" Toby calls out.

A man wearing scrubs enters with Louisa behind him. He looks down at the clipboard in his hand. "Good morning! Let's get you both weighed and measured before the doctor comes in."

I've never been on a scale before, so I have no frame of reference for the numbers that pop up when I step on it. All I know is that my numbers are much lower than Toby's. The same is true when the nurse measures our bellies. Anxiety churns in my stomach as we wait for the doctor on the examining table. Toby rests his head on my shoulder. He can probably sense my stress, but he doesn't ask me about it because Louisa is in the room with us.

Finally, there's a second knock at the door.

Dr. Letham enters. She's a female alpha in black scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck. Like most of the people who have helped us in the last few months, she escaped the Gentoo community years ago.

"It's good to see the two of you again. Are you ready to see your chicks? Who wants to go first?"

Toby looks at me. "You can, if you want."

I guess it would be best to get this over with.

The doctor has me lie down on the examining table and pull up my gown. Toby holds my hand while she applies jelly to my lower belly with a wand. She doesn't say anything about the size of my bump. Maybe that's a good sign. Or maybe she wants to wait until she knows there's a problem before she mentions it.

The screen next to us is black with a few blurry white blobs. The doctor moves the wand around, searching for something. Is my chick so small, she can't see them? A few angular shapes come into view. I recognize the "V" of a wing bone and the shape of their little head. That's our chick. Warmth spreads through my chest.

"Oh, Felix. Look!" Toby squeals.

The doctor is clicking around on the keyboard next to the monitor. Numbers appear on the screen. What do those numbers mean?

"Everything is looking normal," she says.

"Really? They aren't too small?" I ask, hardly daring to hope.

"Not at all. Sometimes, an omega's baby bump can be small the first time around if they have strong abdominal muscles before getting pregnant. It's nothing to worry about. You could probably gain a little extra weight, but I'm not concerned. Everyone's body handles pregnancy a little differently, and as far as I can tell, you and your little one are very healthy."

Tears burn in the corner of my eyes. I can't hold them back. They stream down my cheeks. My body shakes with sobs, even though I'm not sad. All the stress and fear I've been holding on to for weeks melts away.

Toby bends over to give me a hug. "See? Everything is okay. Our chicks are okay."

I wipe my tears away and look at the monitor. The outline of the egg around our little chick is visible. It's amazing that we can see so much while our chick is still inside me. The doctor switches the screen, and suddenly everything has a yellow tinge. Instead of an outline of the chick's bones, their body comes into view. They have a round head and little beak. Their little wings wiggle at their sides.

Toby gasps. "They're so cute!"

They're perfect. I wish I could stare at them all day.

From that point, the ultrasound is disappointingly short. The doctor does more measurements, then asks if we want to know the sex of the baby. We say no. There are some penguin shifter traditions Toby and I plan to follow, and that's one of them. Then the screen goes black, and it's over. I can't help but feel a little disappointed.

"Your turn, Toby," the doctor says.

The excitement builds all over again when Toby and I switch places. It doesn't take the doctor as long to find the outline of Toby's egg, and the little chick resting inside. She starts taking measurements and typing into her computer, but I'm not worried this time around. I just stare at our little one's face and wings.

"Again, everything is normal. We're measuring closer to average this time around, but still a little small."

The screen shifts, and then we see the second little chick in Toby's belly.

"Twins?" Louisa asks from behind us. I forgot she was here.

The doctor smiles at us. "I wasn't sure at your last appointment. I couldn't isolate the heartbeats as clearly as I wanted to. But yes. You're carrying twins, Toby."

I squeeze his hand. We're both crying at this point and smiling from ear to ear. The Gentoo believe twins are a sign of favor from the Eternal Ice. I don't buy into the whole religion thing anymore, but Toby does.

We watch with rapt attention as the screen shows the head and wings of our third chick. They all look a little different, even in the womb. This morning, I wasn't sure if I would ever be as happy as I was hiding out in Eli's basement with Toby, but I was wrong. This is even better. Being out in the world with Toby and our chicks is the best thing of all.

"I would expect that the two of you will deliver in about two weeks' time. Your pregnancies are synced up enough that I need you to find a hired fist just in case you're too lost in your nesting fog to open each other up. It's just a precaution. Chances are, you'll be fine. I'm sure Eli wouldn't mind being on call, but I can give you the number of someone else if that would complicate your friendship with him."

The idea of someone besides Toby opening me up to lay my egg is repulsive to me. This is about the safety of our chicks, though. It's best to be prepared.

"I don't mind asking Eli," I say.

"Me neither."

"I'll need to see you every three days until you lay. Bring someone else with you who I can talk to about your nesting," the doctor tells us.

"They are good on the nesting front. Don't worry about that," Louisa assures her.

Toby and I look into each other's eyes as Louisa talks with the doctor. He's beaming again, which is a common occurrence these days. Leaving our old life behind has been good for him. I never would have expected that. I thought he belonged among the Gentoo.

I guess appearances can be deceiving sometimes. You never know what's really going on inside someone until you take the time to look. If I had wanted to see it, I might have noticed how uninterested Toby was in alphas and Pebble Gifting Season. But I never wanted to. It was easier to believe that he'd be okay once I left. It's kind of like the twins he's carrying, in retrospect. We should have guessed that too. He's much bigger than I am for a reason.

"We're going to be dads!" Toby whispers.

"Yeah."

I can't wait to cuddle with our eggs and see our little ones hatch.

My life just keeps on getting better and better.