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Niki let out another wail of pain, gritted her teeth, and began panting once again, looking at him wildly with glazed eyes as her body struggled.
“You can do this,” he said openly. “You are doing incredible, Niki! Just push with everything you can…”
They went on like this for almost forty minutes – before something in her pinched, painful expression suddenly changed. She looked exceedingly alarmed, her entire being trembling, as she met his eyes.
“Push!” he said, realizing that everything was coming to a head… and heard her breath escape her as she trembled, both of them turning towards the doctor, only to see their child slip from her body.
Alive.
Angry.
A genuine miracle.
“Omigosh, Luke…” Niki was stammering on, tearfully, as they laid their screaming baby against her chest. Little arms and legs were flailing with supreme hostility and covered with remnants of fluid, while the little puffy face was scrunched up with outrage, screaming wildly. “Omigosh… she’s so beautiful…”
He stared in sheer wonder, feeling something give within him… and cried. His hand trembled unabashedly as he reached out to touch the baby and saw Niki’s own, smoothing the child’s back, glancing at him in almost as much unfettered love as he.
“Niki…” he croaked – and had no words.
Nothing could describe this moment or the ones following. A nurse guided him to come to the doctor’s side, to cut the baby’s umbilical cord and thought he would be ill with the fear that he was hurting his daughter.
They had a daughter!he thought distractedly…
He looked up, saw his wife’s body, her joy, such love on her face, and knew he would never see such a thing again. There was such a painful rawness, so alive and visceral, that it would be burned into his memory for all time…
“Alright Mrs. Fuller, we are going to clean up your little angel a bit while the doctor stitches you up.”
Oh yes, he could never unsee some things.
“Mr. Fuller, can you come with us for a few to the nursery with Baby Fuller? We are going to get you a new scrub top with some little ink footprints, and you are going to want to tell your family that your daughter is here…”
He nodded numbly, glancing at Niki, who was completely engrossed elsewhere as they stitched up a part of her that had torn during the delivery.
Following, acutely aware he was in shock, Luke found himself in the nursery for a few minutes… before donning a hospital shirt that had two tiny black footprints on there – and led away to another set of doors.
They were talking to him, instructing him what to do, and he was completely out of it.
Taking a few steps forward, he looked up to see his father standing there… and Valkyrie.
… And started weeping again.
His father pulled him into his arms, hugging him, and he realized while he might be a grown man with a child of his own? He would always be a young boy who’d just had his life altered, needing his papa.
“She’s beautiful…” Luke whispered hoarsely, hearing his father laugh softly as he hugged him. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Life is a miracle,” his father said softly, smiling at him and grasping his cheeks, like he’d just skinned his knees after falling from his bicycle. “You’ve got to pull yourself together now because your wife and daughter are going to need you to be strong for them from here on out. You are a daddy now.”
“I’mherdaddy…” Luke whispered, feeling himself crumbling again, and looking at Valkyrie, who was smiling at him tearfully in the distance.
His father nodded and released him. Luke moved towards the other man, hugging him wildly as he let out another shaky breath, holding back tears.
“How’s my girl?” Valkyrie said gruffly.
“She’s incredible,” Luke breathed tearfully. “Hated my guts for a while there…” Both men laughed openly at this, before pulling him back into their arms, the trio hugging each other and then releasing him.
“Niki was a champ through it all… and the baby is so beautiful,” he whispered, feeling himself teetering on tears again. “And so incredibly angry.”
Valkyrie laughed, wiping his eyes.
