- to his confusion, there's a sword in his hands and Karen is crumpled against the wall, unconscious. His immediate instinct is to pick up the newborn child and then hurry to check if Karen's all right but he knows the rules - confusion is itself a sign something is wrong - 

Maitimo do you know why I have a weapon drawn to watch Karen give birth.

Yes, he says immediately, you were angry with Wishbone for not telling you this might happen.

- right. Deeply inappropriate but Karen has been in a lot of pain and lifethreatening danger all day - 

- he sheathes the sword. 

"I'm sorry," he says to Wishbone. "Childbirth isn't something you'd know more about than me." And now he can go pick up tiny baby Ender Kirk Teller and cradle her against his chest because Karen mentioned that direct skin contact was important for human babies. And pick up Karen and put her back in the bed and check for swelling -

Her head is swelling, and she's still unconscious. There's blood on her clothes, but that'll be from the having given birth.

No problem. Horrifically stressful day, with the birth and all. Is she OK?

"Nothing looks grievously wrong but - if she's bleeding internally or something I don't see how we'd know without her conscious to tell us -" He covers her up and gestures for someone to come in and sing a healing song. 

"That's your mommy, kiddo. Her name is Karen and she loves you very much and she'll be very pleased to meet you when she wakes."

He tells someone else to send Ryan in.

He's been pacing outside. He feels - really agitated, even more agitated than makes sense given that Karen is giving birth, but, well, it was unusually dangerous. 

"Why's she unconscious?" he asks, and then sees Ender and forgets the question. "Give her to me."

That's reasonable. He carefully hands her over. "She hit her head."

"Is she going to be okay?"

"We don't know. We think so."

He can't think of more questions. He just stares silently at his baby. "She's going to be okay -"

"Healthy as can be. Keep her here where they're singing, though."

"Of course." He sits down and holds her against his chest and cries, and then hopes Alex doesn't notice that, and then resolves to not think about Alex further, Karen could've had Alex's kid if she wanted that. 

I haven't entirely resolved my earlier confusion, he tells Maitimo, since that's procedure in this kind of situation.

Likewise, actually. Let's compare - It'd be difficult for someone to hit their head that hard while giving birth. It's strange that there was a dog in the room, given human vulnerability to infection when newborn or newly giving birth. It's strange that they aren't married and that I don't recall why I previously concluded it was fine they weren't married. 

Mine was the head injury and - why did I even have a weapon? Karen finds Wishbone soothing to have around and probably dogs with good hygiene aren't a concern. I didn't want to pressure Karen about getting married because she was under enough pressure as it was. The baby's not going to have a traditional upbringing anyway, under the circumstances.

How's she doing? 

Ender? Great. Healthy, cried a bit, sleeping now. Her dad's holding her.

Very unwise of them.

Humans. If they were wise they'd have died out as soon as they started, they were born into the war.

You've mentioned.

I'll let you know when she wakes up.

He holds his baby. "Has she nursed?"

"Yeah," he says, "before Karen hit her head," which is right but - weird, because didn't Karen hit her head giving birth? No, she must have collapsed afterwards, exhausted from the effort. When he thinks back on it he can remember that's how it happened. Not surprising that even Slayer stamina would fail under the circumstances. It could have easily been the kind of childbirth that'd have killed anyone else. 

"Took your time telling me," he says, but not all that heatedly, because there's a sleeping baby on his chest and she's perfect.