Page 140 of Priest

She gripped my hand hard enough to grind bones together during contractions and let Lila talk her through the breathing when panic tried to outrun reason. Evan kept offering absurd commentary at precisely the right moments, enough to draw a laugh out of her once, which seemed to offend the nurse and delight him in equal measure.

At one point, after a brutal contraction, Blue glared at me with enough accusation to level buildings.

“This,” she panted, “is your fault.”

I kissed the back of her hand because that felt safer than agreement. “Fair.”

Lila snorted. Evan cackled. Even Blue smiled a little before the next wave hit and wiped everything else away.

Through all of it, she stayed strong. Not because she wasn’t afraid. Not because it didn’t hurt. Because she was Blue, and she had never once in the time I’d known her chosen fragility when strength would serve better. She bent. She shook. She cursed me, then squeezed my hand again.

She brought our son into the world with tears in her eyes and more courage than anyone I had ever known.

When the baby finally cried, the room changed.

Every sound in it seemed to stop and gather around that one thin, outraged wail. I hadn’t realized how hard I’d been bracing until it hit me straight through the chest.

“He’s perfect,” Blue whispered.

That nearly undid me more than the sound of him had.

They cleaned him up and gave us clipped reassurances, most of which I only half heard because my world had narrowed to the tiny, furious person who had just arrived and the woman lying back against the pillows looking exhausted and alive.

When the nurse laid him against Blue’s chest, the whole room went still. Blue looked down at him like she couldn’t quite believe she’d made him, one hand trembling as she touched his cheek. Something in her face softened and broke open all at once, wonder and relief and love hitting too hard for her to hide.

I stood beside the bed with one hand braced above her head, leaning down towards them, staring at him like if I looked away too long he might disappear.

After a few quiet minutes, Blue lifted her eyes to mine. “You want to hold your son?”

My throat tightened hard enough that answering felt stupidly difficult. I nodded instead.

The nurse helped me get him settled into my arms, and the second his weight rested there, small and warm and impossibly real, something in me went still. Quiet in a way I hadn’t felt in years. He was heavier than I expected, stronger too, his tiny fist flexing once against my shirt like he was already making demands on the world.

Blue smiled at whatever she saw on my face. “You look terrified.”

“I am.”

That made her laugh softly, tired but real.

Only after we’d both had our fill of staring at him like fools did Lila step closer, asking quietly if she could take him for a minute while Blue got settled more comfortably. She held him with that same steady competence she brought to everything, but her face softened in a way I’d only seen a few times before. Evan took his turn next and immediately started talking to the baby like they were old friends meeting under weird circumstances.

He got peed on for his trouble and declared it a sacred honor, which made Blue laugh hard enough to wince.

Eventually, they gave us the room.

It went quiet in that particular way hospitals do after something monumental has passed through them. Blue sat propped against the pillows with the baby in her arms, studying him as if she still couldn’t quite believe he was real.

I sat beside her and touched one finger to his tiny fist.

He gripped it automatically.

“Mean grip,” I murmured.

“He gets that from you.”

“He gets his face from you.”

Blue smiled without looking up. “That’s lucky for him.”