Three Months Later

I'm sitting in the pups' respective nurseries, watching the guys struggle to put the finishing touches on the cribs. They've already packed everyone's hospital and diaper bags and built everything we bought. Chloe and Mikaela were helping me re-sort the babies clothes for about the sixteenth time.

"This closet is too damn big," I sigh out after having searched for baby boy number 2's sock drawer for almost 5 minutes.

"Technically, it's 5 different closets, all connected by a hallway," Ryder says, coming up behind me and kissing my cheek lovingly.

"What are you looking for, love?" Ryner says, kissing my other cheek gently.

I simply hold up the nearly empty laundry basket, filled only with the tiny footwear. They sigh and hug me, knowing how the pregnancy scrambles my brain occasionally.

"You're holding Baby Boy number 2's clothes, but you're in Baby Boy number 4's closet," Ry says, leading me with his brother to the right one.

"When are you going to tell us the names you picked out? This is starting to get out of hand," Noah says, walking hand-in-hand with Jordan.

"I already told you. I'm not telling you," I say, receiving groans all around.

"We can't just keep calling them assigned numbers," Ryner pouts.

"I'm sure you'll be able to live with yourselves," I tap his nose lovingly and waddle away.

I waddle down the stairs and into the kitchen at an exceptionally slow pace. Mikaela, Chloe, and Ashley were all there, eating different lunches. We greet each other happily as I move around the kitchen to make my mates and myself food. I pull out the things for eggs and bacon for Noah, grilled cheese sandwiches for Jordan, butter noodles for Ryder, steak nachos for Ryner, and a case of cinnamon rolls, leftover chicken alfredo, a boiled egg, and a couple pickles for me. Then, I hear them all bound into the kitchen.

"You're not supposed to be on your feet, love," Jordan reminds me for about the millionth time today.

"Would you like to make your own lunches, Cass?" I ask him while scrambling the eggs.

"Um, no, thank you," he says, knowing he'd probably burn the whole packhouse down.

"Are you sure you want to eat all of that? We have to go in for your C-section in an hour," Noah says, observing my plate when I finish cooking.

"Dr. Brina said that it's better if I did eat a big lunch for the pups," he nods and Mikaela, Chloe, and Ashley drop their plates off in one of the sinks and leave the kitchen.

I make everyone's plates for them because they're all helpless and they form a concession line of sorts. Ryder is in front, followed by Jordan, then Noah, and lastly Ryner. D takes his plate and kisses my right cheek. Cass takes his plate and kisses my lips softly. Er takes his plate and kisses my forehead gingerly. Ry takes his plate and kisses my left cheek.

We take our plates to the breakfast bar and sit down. We eat our food, occasionally stealing bites of each other's meals. No one tried to eat anything off of my plate, though. They know better than to do that.

*~*

"Hello, alphas, lunas. Today's the big day! Nervous?" Dr. Brina says as she walks into the alpha suite in the pack hospital.

Everyone but Dr. Brina looks to Noah, who basically had a different pre-parental panic (iykyk) daily. He looks a bit incredulous and holds up his hands in surrender. Dr. Brina chuckles a bit, having been a witness--along with the rest of the pack--to his plethora of crises.

"I'm ready. It's Ry you need to worry about. It's always the quiet ones, you know," he says matter-of-factly, making Ry scoff and D almost choke on his laughter.

"You watch way too much Criminal Minds, Er," I say, shaking my head at my mates.

"Okay, alphas and luna. I'm going to need you four to go and get sterilized while we prepare Kyle and talk him through the procedure one again," Dr. Brina says through her--poorly hid--soft chuckles.

They all nod and leave the room, going to the designated guest scrub room. Dr. Brina walks me through the procedure one last time: I'll be awake, but numb from the chest down. She'll hand me each of the babies in turn, then let me decide which baby to give to each of my mates. They'll have me sign everyone's birth certificates after they close me up and let me rest up. Then, 2 women with masks prepare me for surgery after Dr. Brina left. They took off their masks and I saw that it was Mik and Chloe.

"Good luck in there, Kyle," Mikaela says, wiping nonexistent tears from her eyes.

"I wish we could be in there, too, mama," Chloe says, using the nickname she gave me days after finding out I was pregnant.

"With my 3 alpha mates and 1 luna mate, the doctors and nurses are lucky to be in there," I managed out from my chuckles.

The way we were acting after that, someone would think that I was going to die in surgery. There were tears flowing, hands being held so tightly they were going white, and an uncountable number of group hugs--and that was only in 10 minutes. But to the 3 of us, this was normal. We're the friend group that spends pretty much every day together and when we separate, it's like we'll never see each other again.

"I love you two," I whisper, an invisible force blocking my throat as tears stream uncontrollably down my face.

"I love you, too, mama," Chloe says, squeezing the hand she held of mine slightly.

"I love you, too," Mikaela struggles to say the words, gripping my hand and studying my face as if it's the last time she'll get a chance.

We sit in silence for as long as possible, just enjoying each other's presence. There were no words, no movement, but even an outsider could tell we were happy. Then, our quiet moment was interrupted.

"We're ready for you, luna Kyle. The local anesthesia should have kicked in by now," sure enough, I couldn't feel anything below my chest.

Then, I was wheeled off to the operation room.