Fourteen hours of pain that comes in waves, building and cresting and crashing over me until I can’t think about anything except getting through the next contraction. Helena stays beside me the entire time, holding my hand, wiping sweat from my face, telling me I’m strong even though I don’t believe her.
The doctors monitor everything by checking the babies’ heartbeats constantly, adjusting my position, and giving me water when I can drink and ice chips when I can’t.
At some point, I start crying, not from the pain, but from the loneliness of it.
Cassian should be here.
The thought comes out of nowhere and hits me harder than my contractions. He should be here, holding my hand, seeing his children born. But he doesn’t even know they exist.
“I wish he were here,” I whisper during a break between contractions.
Helena squeezes my hand. “I know.”
“He’s never going to meet them.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Victor won’t let him.”
“Have faith.”
I want to believe her, but I can’t. Not when Victor is already planning to move us to Ireland, to hide us away where Cassian will never find us.
“Push,” Dr. Williams says, and I’m pulled back into the moment.
The first baby is born at dawn. He comes out screaming, tiny and red. Dr. Williams holds him up, and I see dark hair and flailing fists and a face scrunched up in fury at being forced into the world.
“It’s a boy,” Dr. Williams says, and there’s warmth in his voice.
They clean him quickly and place him on my chest, and the moment his skin touches mine, something shifts inside me. An overwhelming rush of love so intense it feels like drowning.
This tiny, perfect human is mine, and I would kill anyone who tried to take him from me.
“One more,” Dr. Patel says. “You’re doing great, Aurelia. One more push.”
The second baby comes twenty minutes later. He’s quieter than his brother, making soft mewling sounds instead of screams. They place him on my chest next to the first, and I look down at both of them, overwhelmed by the weight of what I’ve just done.
“They’re beautiful,” Helena says, and her voice is thick with emotion.
I can’t speak. I can only stare at them, memorizing every detail. The curve of their ears. The way their tiny hands curl into fists. The dark hair that’s already thick on both their heads.
They look like him.
Even this small, even hours old, I can see Cassian in their faces. The shape of their eyes. The set of their jaws. They’re going to grow up looking like their father, and he’s never going to know.
“What are their names?” Dr. Williams asks.
I haven’t thought about it. But now they’re here, and they need names.
“Finn,” I say, looking at the first baby, the loud one who came into the world screaming. And then I look down at the second, quieter than his brother. “And Liam.”
Helena smiles. “Irish names.”
“Their father is Irish.”
She doesn’t say anything to that.
The doctors finish cleaning up, check my vitals one more time, and leave instructions with Helena about what to watch for. Then they’re gone, and it’s just me and Helena and my sons in the quiet morning light.
