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And somewhere in this room…

I’m still trying to piece myself back together.

Fletch wheels me into the NICU slowly, as if he’s afraid I’ll break again, shatter into glass right here under the fluorescent lights. But I’m already broken. Cracked clean down the middle. The glue holding me together right now is hope—hope and the sound of two tiny heartbeats I’ve never heard but somehow already know.

My chest aches as we stop at the first incubator. It’s smaller than I thought it would be. Fragile, like a snow globe, only instead of glitter, it holds the most perfect, terrifying little miracle I’ve ever seen.

He’s so small. His skin almost translucent, his face furrowed in something that looks like determined sleep. A fighter. A warrior. A dream born from something real and something imagined.

My hand trembles where it rests on the edge of the glass. “Is he…?”

“Breathing on his own,” Fletch says, voice gruff. “They both are. Little lungs are working overtime.”

He gestures to the next incubator, and my heart expands, then clenches again. The second baby is curled tighter, cheeks pinker. His hand flutters against the thin cotton covering his chest, like he’s reaching for something even in sleep.

“I didn’t name them,” Fletch says quietly, almost apologetic. “I didn’t want to—couldn’t—without you. Felt wrong.”

I don’t know where the name comes from. Maybe the dream. Maybe the ache still curling behind my ribs. But the word drops out of me before I can stop it.

“Kingston,” I whisper, staring at the first boy. “His name is Kingston.”

Fletch’s breath catches. And then he nods, jaw tight, emotion rolling off him in waves. “Yeah,” he rasps. “That’s good. That’s… perfect.”

We both stare for a long moment. Like if we stop looking, stop breathing them in, they’ll disappear.

Fletch kneels beside me, hand warm over mine, grounding me to the moment. “What about the second one?” he asks.

I turn to him, not trusting my voice. There’s something so raw in his face. So unguarded. Like he’s been waiting for this moment just as long as I have.

“You name him,” I say, eyes locked to his. “He’s yours too.”

Fletch glances at the second incubator. Swallows hard. Then smiles—a soft, unsteady thing that tugs at everything inside me.

“Kody,” he says, his voice thick. “Kingston and Kody.”

And just like that, they’re no longer two tiny strangers in plastic cradles. They’re ours. Named. Real. Loved.

Tears sting my eyes again, but this time they don’t fall from grief. They fall because for the first time in what feels like forever… I’m not dreaming.

I’m awake. And they’re mine.

The nurse moves with the kind of calm that only comes from years of doing the impossible. Her voice is soft, like a lullaby wrapped in reassurance. “They’re stable enough to be held today. One at a time. Skin-to-skin, if you’d like.”

If I’d like?

I’m already nodding, my throat too tight to speak.

Fletch helps me out of the wheelchair, hands steady as they guide me to the recliner nestled beside Kingston’s incubator. My legs are trembling. My heart’s thundering. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of something sacred, like the second I touch him, I’ll cross over into a place I’ll never want to leave.

The nurse carefully lifts Kingston from the warmth of the incubator and places him against my chest, tucking a warm blanket over us both.

He’s so small.

So light I swear I’m imagining him.

But he’s real.

He smells like sterile cotton and something sweet—something new. His cheek rests against my skin, and when I feel the tiniest flutter of breath against my collarbone, my entire soul caves in on itself.