I leaned in, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off the tiny body, and looked at my son for the first time. I counted his fingers—all ten of them—because I couldn’t help it.
One hand had worked its way free of the blanket, and I watched as it opened and closed in what seemed like random exploration. He was so small. I’d been told eight pounds, I’d watched the ultrasound, but knowing and seeing were two different things.
He was so small, and he was ours.
“Mateo,” Jackson said, his voice rough and low.
Not a question.
I looked up at him, surprise cutting through the fog in my brain. I’d floated the name weeks ago across the kitchen table, one of a dozen, and Jackson had said it wasn’t terrible, which from Jackson was practically a standing ovation. I hadn’t known until this moment that he’d kept it.
Jackson looked back at me, his expression open in a way that made something in my chest tighten. “Mateo,” he said again, firmer this time.
“Mateo Cruz,” I said, the words coming out steady despite the chaos in my head.
Jackson nodded once, slow, the way he filed things that matter. He shifted the baby again, more deliberately this time, and I realized he was trying to pass him to me.
“I’ll drop him,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop them.
“You won’t,” Jackson said. “I’ve got you both.”
I pulled the chair close to the bed and sat with my elbows on my knees, close enough to touch them both. Jackson held the baby out, waiting for me to take him, and I felt my hands—hands that had held weapons and carried wounded men off battlefields—start to shake.
“He’s smaller than he looks,” I said.
“He’s exactly what he’s supposed to be,” Jackson said. “Take him, Cruz.”
I did. The weight of him settled into my arms, lighter than I’d expected, solid in a way I hadn’t. He stopped crying the moment Jackson passed him to me, his eyes still squeezed shut, one hand working free of the blanket again.
I watched it wave in the air, tiny fingers splayed, and felt something in my chest expand until I wasn’t sure there was room for my lungs anymore.
“He knows your voice,” Jackson said. “You’ve been talking to him for months. He knows who you are.”
The baby—Mateo—made a small, soft sound that wasn’t quite a cry. I shifted him carefully, one hand supporting his head the way I’d seen Sterling do, and felt his weight settle against my chest. He smelled like salt and something sweet I couldn’t name, his skin impossibly soft under my palm.
“Jesus,” I said, because it was the only word I could find.
Jackson’s hand came to rest on Mateo’s back, the three of us connected in a way that made the rest of the room fade into background noise.
Behind us, Sterling and Jasper moved through the room, quiet and efficient, their voices low as they worked. They were talking about blood pressure and fluids and something about Jackson’s stitches, but it all sounded distant, like it was happening in another room.
Mateo’s fist, impossibly small, had found the edge of my thumb and curled around it. His grip was surprisingly strong, his tiny fingers locking around mine with a determination that made something in my chest crack open again.
I looked at Jackson, at the dark circles under his eyes and the exhaustion written into the lines around his mouth, and couldn’t find words for any of it.
“He’s perfect,” I said finally. “You’re perfect. This is—“ I stopped, the words deserting me again.
Jackson nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
The valley was bright outside the infirmary window, morning light catching the new leaves on the cottonwoods along the creek. The mountains stood solid against the sky, the same view I’d woken up to every morning for the past six months.
Nothing had changed, and everything had.
The life I’d spent six months building toward was exactly as real as the weight of my son in my arms and the press of Jackson’s shoulder against mine as he leaned in to look at Mateo’s face.
“He’s got your nose,” Jackson said.
“Poor kid,” I replied, the words coming automatically. “At least he’s got your eyes.”
