Neha tossed back and forth in the chair by the burned down coals of a fire which once brought heat to the whole house. Her half-asleep body was not allowed to drift back into the world of dreams, yet it refused to allow her to get up.

Her mind being only half awake, the child nearly ignored the noise yet as soon as she could recognize what it was, she opened her eyes wide.

Looking about the room she lay in--the memory of the night beforehand flooding her mind once again, the child climbed out of the chair and listened more intently to the noise then turned to face its source.

Pain. The noise was the sound of someone's pain--no, not just someone, a friend's pain. Spinning her head about the room, she quickly rolled up her sleeves and fed the fire a log or two so that she could use the light to better see what was happening.

"Asaliah, what's going on?" Neha whispered through the dark--her voice just over the woman's moans.

"Neha..." the woman whined, her breath hot as she gasped for air, holding onto the bedpost with white knuckles. "She's coming... now!" Asaliah gasped.

Neha's face grew pale as her body stiffened uncomfortably. "Uh, um, what can I do?" Neha asked, frantically looking about the room for something that would tell her how to deliver a baby. "Do you want me to get Leo? I can be back in like ten minutes."

"No..." she said, her chest rising and falling in pain. "Stay, please, Neha, please stay!" she gasped.

"Alright," Neha spoke, coming to be closer to Asaliah, "But tell me how I can help."

The woman nodded and Neha helped her to lay back on a pillow so that she was half sitting up, half laying down in a comfortable position.

She took Asaliah's hand in hers and whispered to the woman softly in her ear, "You can do this, Asaliah. I am going to be right here the whole time."

The woman nodded, sweat dripping down her forehead. Neha still had no clue what she was doing, yet she did know some things which she had learned from Charmeine—if there was going to be blood, she needed some sheets too.

Finding some spare towels in a closet Neha began helping the woman.

***

The night was long, and both their eyelids drooped in the dark. The clock that ticked on the wall moved so slowly that Neha believed at times that it was not working at all.

The fire burned all night long, its warmth comforting the both of them. Despite the fact that Neha knew not what she was doing or how to do it, everything miraculously turned out well.

By the first ray of golden sunshine on the distant horizon, the walls of Asaliah's little house witnessed a tiny voice of a creature they had never seen before.

Its shrill voice broke the dark of the night, bringing on a bright new day and a new life for Asaliah and Leo.

The child was indeed a baby girl, a beautiful one. Its eyes were a blue with streaks of yellow in them. She was a tiny thing as well, no heavier than six pounds Neha estimated.

Asaliah cradled the thing in her arms, not raising her gaze from the tiny creature for a second. Her smile radiated off her face, causing Neha not to help but smile a little herself.

After a few more hours of cleaning up and tending to Asaliah, Neha set off to bring the good news to Leo that his new baby daughter had just entered the world.

As her feet crunched leaves beneath her, she could not help but wonder if she would know the name of the baby girl before she collected all her litterae. But then again, even if she did know it would she say it to get sent home?

She still had work that needed to be done here and maybe that was enough to keep her here.

The morning dew drops dampened the leaves around her. The sun hit a particular dew drop that resided on the leaf of a tree that dangerously dangled as if it would fall at any second.

The red and orange leaf glistened as the morning sun illuminated the tiny drop of water. Perplexed by this element of natural beauty, Neha drew closer, nearly forgetting what she was doing in the middle of the woods in the first place.

She did not dare touch the leaf for fear it may fall from its place, yet, instead, she watched the dew drop glisten like a diamond in the morning sun.

Then, as if she were in a dream, the light on the leaf seemed to grow larger. It was first a tiny dot, easily overlooked yet soon it was the side of a beachball.

It sparkled and glistened in the morning light, larger and larger, growing like an inflated balloon.

It took her a minute of standing in the woods, watching the sparkle of sunshine grow before she recognized it.

As the familiar light appeared in front of her, it shot off sparks of white fire that shimmered and glistened like stardust as it fell to the forest floor and dissipated into thin air.

It gleamed and glowed in its usual mesmerizing way. The sparkles filled Neha with the feeling of flying as she simply stood there, watching the light burn and glow.

Then, the familiar snake-like hiss of a voice began to speak directly in her mind. "For dedication, your second litterae is A."

The whisper was so soft and quiet, yet clear and crisp so that its melodic tone burned in her mind, not allowing her to forget the words spoken.

As soon as the voice finished speaking, all was gone, leaving Neha to wonder whether it had happened at all.

The dew drop was still hanging onto the leaf, yet it had no sign of ever being any larger or prettier.

Shaking the whole situation off, yet remembering the letter, she turned to continue walking.

Crunching the colorful blanket of leaves beneath her feet, she reached Leo's house sooner than she had expected.

Just as she found the wooden siding through the trees, she began to run toward the building, kicking up dirt and leaves behind her feet.

Finding Leo outside the house, hanging something on the clothesline, she ran up to him.

The boy faced away from her as he hung his shirt up on the line. He was currently shirtless which made Neha slightly uncomfortable, yet that was not the factor that made her pause where she stood.

Standing twenty feet behind him in the trees, she paused, looking at his back in terror. Across his skin there was something that brought back strange memories.

They were cuts. Whip marks from a belt buckle to be specific. Neha knew not how she knew this detail, yet when she noticed his bright pink flesh and new scabs, she could not help but almost feel the remembrance of another pain on her own back.

The child swallowed something in her throat as she watched him. The cuts were deep and some still burned with red blood while others were scabbed over. Nevertheless, there were many, at least thirty cuts diagonally on his back.

She could see how much pain they inflicted upon him just by the way he stiffly lifted his arms to hand the wet clothes on the line.

Pushing her own thoughts away, she called his name so as to not scare him by approaching from behind. Based on the cuts that ran down his back, she could see that he had not just done something wrong, someone was abusing him and a traumatized child is not the kind you need to sneak up on from behind. This was something she simply knew.

"Leo," she called, her voice sweet yet shaking slightly from the amount of blood her eyes had seen in these past twelve hours. "I have some good news for you," she smiled, trying to be a shining light in his life of darkness.

After all, did she not tell Incendah that the only ways to save were by example and love?

The boy turned around--his green eyes wild. However, they softened slightly as they found the girl.

"Neha, it's... nice to see you," he said, hesitating a little as he spoke. His face was pale for he knew she had seen yet Neha did not act shocked. Deep down, she knew how he felt and knew that if the two of them were in opposite shoes, she would want him to pretend not to have seen.

"It's nice to see you as well, Leo. I have come from Asaliah to bring you the news," Neha smiled, just now realizing that it was her who was going to break the news.

She knew what she was doing beforehand, yet it was just now that the idea of it sunk in. It was her who would tell her father his new title.

"Oh? Is everything all right?" he spoke, his eyes glistening a little as she could sense him guess what had happened.

"Yes, actually. Everything is very much all right," she hesitated as she could feel Leo hold his breath. "It's a girl," she smiled, watching his green eyes pop.

His hand came to his mouth as his eyes sparkled with such a pure and natural joy.

Laughing with relief, he was so happy that tears came to his eyes as he crouched down to his knees muttering over and over again to himself. 'She's safe. It is over. She is alive. The baby's alive. It is a girl.' as if he did not believe the reality of the situation.

Neha could not help but allow a tear to fall from her own eyes, yet not a tear of sadness like all the ones she had remembered in the past. This tear was vastly different from those. Before she had cried for her own fate, now she cried out of happiness to see someone else so happy and this was more wonderful than ever.

There is something enchanting about seeing a grown man cry that made Neha sparkle in happiness. Leo was so innocently and genuinely joyful that it made her heart fill. For after all...

Leo Was A Father Now.