seiya234:

HENRY!”

Henry, who had been working on his truck outside, sat up, banged his head on the underside of the truck, scooted out from under the car and ran into the house.

Mabel was in the kitchen, one hand clutching the counter in a white knuckled death grip, the other clutching a coffee cup, her hand shaking so hard that half of the coffee had spilled all over the floor.

“Mabel! Mabes, honey, are you okay?”

Mabel looked up at Henry and she looked more serious than he had ever seen her before.

“I…I think the babies are coming and-“

Dipper popped into the kitchen just in time for both men to see Mabel’s water break.

Mabel looked up at Henry.

“Hospital, now.”

Henry felt the blood drain from his face. Oh god it was happening, it was finally happening.

He managed with shaking hands to grab Stan’s car keys, and ran outside to get Stan’s beater started, while Stan rushed to get Mabel’s go-bag ready.

All around him the plants in the garden were bursting into furious bloom, growing larger and faster than biologically possible in the November chill. In the distance, from the direction of the town lake, Henry thought he heard a “fwoomp” and then the sound of a large amount of water being displaced.

Speaking of Dipper there he was, carrying Mabel in his arms. Henry knew she must be in pain because she wasn’t even complaining like usual, but instead was gripping tightly to Dipper’s suit jacket, whimpering a bit as he tucked Mabel into the front seat.

Henry and Stan got in the car as Dipper buckled Mabel up, and once Mabel let go of Dipper’s hand he blipped himself to the back seat next to Stan.

Stan cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Kid, it would have taken you all of two seconds to do that the normal way.”

Dipper said nothing, face pale as snow, ears pinned back, and black showing completely around his pupils.

Stan wisely decided not to say anything else.

———-

The drive to the hospital just outside of Bend where Mabel’s ob-gyn was usually took 25 minutes.

It was taking a little longer today though because Henry was consistently having to dodge glass in the road.

Glass from the stop lights (pop pop!)

Glass from the street lights (pop pop!)

Glass from other driver’s windows (less pop pop and more a shatter with lots of cursing)

Meanwhile, Mabel was taking deep breaths and focusing on not crying next to Henry.

Another light popped, Henry swerved to avoid the glass, and the movement made Mabel cry out with pain.

Henry had never, in the five years that he had known Dipper, ever lost his temper with his brother in law.

The next stop sign they encountered, Henry turned around to look at Dipper and yelled “DIPPER CALM THE FUCK DOWN,” at the top of his lungs.

Then Henry kept driving, even as all the other occupants of the car looked at him in awe.

The ride went smoother and more quickly after that, and Mabel squeezed Henry’s leg in silent thanks.

——

They left Dipper and Stan in the waiting room and Henry went with Mabel to the OR.

Henry washed up like Dr. Freeman showed him, and put on the scrubs that they offered.

While Dr. Freeman and her assistants were getting ready, Mabel grabbed Henry’s hand as another contraction passed through her.

“Henry,” she said in the most tiniest voice he had ever heard from his wife. “I’m…I’m scared.”

He knelt down next to her bed side, the better to see eye to eye with her.

“Me too,” he admitted, rubbing a thumb over Mabel’s knuckles.

“What if….what if something happens to one…one of the babies?”

Henry’s mind flashed back to beer and a deal and the feeling of a small portion of his life leaving him and-

He smiled.

“I think they’ll be fine.”

Mabel sniffed, and wiped a tear away with her other hand.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Mabel nodded.

Then she turned to one of the nurses.

“BRING ON THE DRUGS”

————

He was firmly behind the little curtain with Mabel and decidedly NOT looking at what was going on on the other side.

(Henry had told himself when they found out Mabel was going to need a c-section that he was not going to be that dude who passed out in the OR.)

Mabel at this point was completely and totally off her gourd stoned.

“Henry,” she whispered as Dr. Freeman moved in out of the corner of his eye. “The sandwirms are imminent. Their rise will be swift and deadly.”

Henry nodded, smiled, and really wished he had a video camera on him.

But then there was movement, and a rustle and then….

Then there was a cry.

There was a cry, and a cut, and a wriggling tiny human red all over being placed in his arms.

“First one is a girl Mr. Pines!”

She was screaming fit to bring down the house, and she was squirming and angry and Mabel had done that, brought her into being.

“Look Mabes,” he said, kneeling a bit so Mabel could see their daughter, “look at who we made.”

Mabel had started crying as well, and reached out a shaky hand to stroke the hair of their oldest girl.

“Look Henry, look at our Acacia,” she cried.

The nurse next to him was motioning for him to hand his daughter over, which he did with extreme reluctance.

But then there was another scream, another cut, and another infant being placed into his arms.

“Here’s your son Mr. Pines,” Dr. Freeman said with a smile, before turning back to work.

Forrest (though he looked more like a Hank to Henry, to be honest), wasn’t crying, but looking at the world around him, albeit myopically and unfocused.

Henry dutifully brought their son to Mabel, who couldn’t even say anything, just weep and cover her son’s face in kisses as best as she could.

Another nurse with open arms, and again Henry reluctantly relinquished his son into the man’s arms.

Their last child took a few more minutes to enter the world, but when she did, it was with a piercing squall that made Henry’s ears feel like bleeding.

It was beautiful.

“And last but not least, your other daughter,” the doctor proclaimed, as Willow was put into Henry’s arms. Unlike her siblings she was smaller, almost worryingly so.

But she was just as red, and screaming just as loud as Acacia.

It worked.

Mabel never needed to know how close it was, but the deal worked, thank god and-

“Henry, let me see her.”

Henry rushed to bring Willow over to Mabel who looked at their youngest daughter in awe.

“She’s so beautiful,” Mabel managed to gasp out.

“Yeah,” Henry replied. There were tears streaking down his cheeks, and he didn’t know how long he had been crying but he didn’t care. Every other good moment in his life paled in comparison to this, to seeing his wife bring their children into this world, to holding the three small lives that he had helped make for the first time.

“Okay Mr. Pines, we need you to leave for a few minutes, we need to sew Mrs. Pines up, but we have the babies in the nursery and…”

——-

There is a picture on the fridge in the Shack that is never taken down.

It’s of a disheveled Henry, bags under his eyes, face wan, still in slightly bloody scrubs.

Henry, holding three infants, two in green caps and one in a purple cap.

Henry, tears down his cheeks, hair disheveled, looking like the luckiest man on earth.                

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