Jojo flinched. “Yeah. Deep. Like…fullness, not stabbing.”
I watched every movement, memorizing the pattern of her fingers on his skin, mapping out anything that might signal real danger.
The next ten minutes blurred past in a wash of questions, blood draws, and the dull click of machines. Jojo submitted withthe resignation of someone used to being manhandled, flinching at every prod but never complaining.
I paced the length of the room, back and forth, unable to stop even though every SEAL instructor I ever had would have called it undisciplined. I couldn’t help it: the more helpless I was, the more my body tried to chew through the problem by sheer motion.
Finally, the doctor stepped back. “Well, you’re not in an acute crisis,” she announced. “No rebound tenderness, vitals are stable, labs are pending.” She eyed me, lips pursed. “Unless you want to see the ultrasound, Mr. Steele?”
I blinked. “Ultrasound? What the hell for?”
She gave a small, secret smile. “Just a precaution, with this kind of abdominal discomfort. It’s standard for omegas, especially since some things don’t show up in routine labs.”
Jojo’s ears turned pink, but he didn’t argue. I wanted to reach out, to grab his hand or at least anchor him with my presence, but I didn’t want to crowd the tech.
The screen came to life, blue-gray shapes swimming into focus. The tech moved the wand over Jojo’s lower stomach, narrating as she went: “Bladder’s here…no fluid in the cavity…liver’s normal…” She paused. “Well. That’s interesting.”
I went rigid, every muscle locked. “What?” I barked, not even trying for bedside manner.
She turned the screen so both of us could see, and pointed at a fuzzy, peanut-sized blob. “That,” she said, “is an embryo.”
The words detonated in my skull. For a second, all the air left the room. My vision tunneled in on the screen, where a tiny, pulsing dot flickered with impossible life.
Jojo stared too, unblinking, then turned to me with the wet, bewildered eyes of someone who’d just been handed a bomb with the pin already pulled. “That can’t be—” he whispered. “We were careful—weren’t we?”
I honestly couldn’t remember. I’d been so damn careful with the guns and the fences and the perimeter, I hadn’t spared a single brain cell for contraception. We’d been too wrapped up in each other, lost in sweat and heat, and now there was—this.
The doctor cleared her throat. “You’re about a week along,” she said, voice gentler now. “It’s common for omegas to have abdominal pain in early pregnancy. You’ll need prenatal care, and to stay hydrated. But you’re healthy otherwise.” She turned to me. “He can go home tonight, but you’ll want to keep an eye on him. Any severe pain or fever, bring him back.”
The rest of her words dissolved into static. All I could do was stare at Jojo, at the way his arms wrapped around his belly like he was cradling something precious or fragile.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “We’re…you’re…”
“Pregnant,” Jojo said, voice so soft I almost missed it. He looked at me, terror and awe mixed on his face. “Are you…mad?”
“Mad?” I repeated, because that was easier than admitting my entire nervous system had just been rebooted. My heart pounded so loud it hurt. “No. Not mad. Just… Christ, Jojo. How did I get so damn lucky?”
He laughed, a watery, broken thing, and I hugged him before I could think better of it, burying my face in his neck and breathing in the sharp tang of antiseptic, sweat, and the ineffable, perfect scent of him.
My hand drifted down, landing over his stomach. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know whether I wanted to kill something or start crying.
“I’ll take care of you,” I said. “Both of you.”
And I meant it.
The drive home tasted different—like copper on my tongue and gun oil in my lungs. I kept one hand on the wheel, the other stretched across the cab to touch Jojo’s leg, needing theconfirmation that he was here, solid, not some fevered dream conjured by my own battered heart.
Jojo watched the blur of night outside his window, eyes swollen but dry now. Every few miles, he’d cast me a sidelong glance, then look away fast, as if afraid he might startle me or himself.
He finally spoke when we turned off the highway onto the long dirt road leading home. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should’ve told you sooner. Or…not let it happen at all.”
I slammed the brakes, not enough to fishtail, but enough to make the seatbelts bite. “Hey,” I said, voice just above a growl. “There were two of us in that bed, remember? I’m not mad. Not at you, not at this. Just…Jesus, Jojo. It’s a lot. But I’m not running.”
He looked at me then, proper, and his mouth twitched in a small, fragile smile. I reached for his hand, laced our fingers together. “You want this?” he asked, and for a second he looked so fucking young it hurt.
“Yeah,” I said, because anything else would be a lie. “I want every piece of you. Even the ones I didn’t see coming.”
That shut him up, but I could feel the tremor in his hand ease a little, the tension in his shoulders uncurl. We drove the last few miles like that, silent but tethered, the headlights stretching our shadows all the way to the tree line.
