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His eyes shoot awake. For a few moments, he pulls in a low inhale, glancing around the room. Pitch black darkness still surrounds him. The sheets are cool against his skin, and on his right side, you lay, facing away from him, small breaths emanating from your mouth.
At the familiar sight, his heart rate slows, and he feels the clutches of sleep begin to seep into his bones once more. However, just when his head starts to relax into the pillow, he hears it once again.
A tiny, wailing cry from down the hall.
He can’t help the small smile that creeps up over his face.
It would seem that as long as his daughter couldn’t sleep, then her father wouldn’t either.
Carefully, he comes to his feet, sparing a cautious look down at your face. It’s blissed out and peaceful. He brushes a few calloused fingers through your hair, watching the way you shift against your mountain of pillows before falling back into rest once more.
The gentle cries from down the hall don’t cease. They only get louder the further he walks into the darkened house. Yet, he doesn’t find himself annoyed by it. If anything, he’s more at peace than he can ever remember being.
When you told him you were pregnant, he’d been consumed by a panic. For months, he’d worried endlessly. About you, about himself, about the very relationship that had bore such an incredible love in and of itself. At the time, it had seemed impossible for him.
Impossible to warm a bottle to just the right temperature.
Impossible to hold a baby with the care they surely deserved.
Impossible to look his child—a person born of his own life, of his own flesh and blood—in their beautiful, brand new eyes, and tell them that their father would always be there.
Sleepless nights had transformed into restless days, and he’d nearly bitten his nails down to his cuticles when the time had finally come. For hours, you labored, and he stood fast at your side, hands shaking in your ruthless grip.
But then…
A cry.
The sweetest, softest thing he’d ever heard. And as the doctors had beckoned him closer, cradling the tiny bundles in their sterile arms, he’d laid eyes upon his daughter for the very first time.
“A little girl,” they’d told him, but their voices were lost in the sea of his mind as they helped him cut the umbilical cord, “Congratulations, dad.”
Dad.
No one had ever called him that before. It sounded weird, hearing it in reference to someone like him. But the moment he’d taken his little girl into his arms, felt her velvet skin, brushed over her wet hair…
It all fell into place.
His hands no longer shook. His mind no longer screamed. His heart no longer raced. No. At that moment, everything fell to silence except for the tiny sounds of her very first breaths wafting against his fingertips. The world dwindled to nothing but the three of you here.
A mother, a father, and their child.
And before he even knew it—before he had even conceived of it—the fear had vanished forever. When he moved to sit at your bedside, hands cradling the baby’s head, just as the nurses had shown him, he finally felt complete. For the first time in his life, without the guns or glory, he was something beyond himself. In her very DNA, he’d live forever…and it was then that he knew he must be there to see every second of it.
A day later, when she’d opened her eyes for the very first time, his face was the first thing she’d seen
“Hush, darlin’,” he whispers, bending over the edge of the crib, “You’re alright. Daddy’s got you now. He’ll stay up wi’ you a while.”
Carefully, he lifts her tiny, squirming body into his warm embrace. A few days ago, you told him that she was so small she looked as though she’d be swallowed up in his hefty arms. Slowly, he bounces her up and down, rubbing the tears off of her face with the flat of his thumb. She’s so small, so precious…the length of his thumb alone seems gargantuan against her delicate face.
Chubby fists wrap around his other fingers, holding onto him tight—almost like she did with her teddy bear. Somehow, she cries even harder.
“You tired, darling? Can’t sleep without your teddy? That it?” He mutters, shuffling over to grab the old bear from the changing table.
Without a doubt it was her favorite toy, and in the day time, Simon would often hold both her and the sacred teddy in his arms until she settled down enough for her nap. But alas, the two of you couldn’t well leave the bear in her crib when she laid down for night. It had been a constant struggle to get her to fall asleep without it in arms’ reach.
“See? Teddy’s here, too,” he whispers, “S’not so scary in the dark like this, now is it?”
God, if only his squad mates could see him now…
The infamous Simon Riley, baby talking his newborn daughter and flopping a stuffed bear around like a right puppeteer…
Somehow, he thinks they’d be proud of him.
“No, no—c’mon, darlin’, no more cryin’ now,” he wiggles the fist still wrapped around his finger, “Daddy’s got you. Let’s go see your mum, huh? See if she can’t get us to sleep a bit faster…”
Gingerly, he pads from the nursery and into your shared bedroom. You’re but a lump underneath the blankets, warm and tired after such an exhausting few weeks. If it were up to him, he’d keep it that way. However, there were some things that you were better suited to help with than he was.
“Shh, shh,” he mumbles to the baby, leaning one of his knees against the mattress while he reaches down to gently rouse you.
“Love,” he calls, “You up?”
At the sound of his voice—his true, deeper voice, not the gentle one he used to talk to her—his little girl looks up at him with wide, surprised eyes. He almost wants to laugh at it, but he hears you groan against the pillow.
“Simon? What time is it?”
“Early. I didn’t wanna wake you, but she’s not sleeping,” he huffs, sitting back down on the bed, “I think she might be hungry.”
“Again?” You question, sitting up as well, “You think she would’ve gotten on a schedule by now…I swear she eats almost as much as her father.”
“Hey,” he leans over to pass the baby to you, “You callin’ me fat?”
“You’re not,” you giggle tiredly, lifting your shirt to expose your breast, “But this one is. Chubby lil’ thing, aren’t you?”
At the warmth of her mother’s skin—and at the promise of another meal—her tears dry almost instantly. Simon snorts at the sight of it. You do too. She’s grinning from ear to ear, babbling nonsensically, right up until the moment you gently maneuver her closer. She latches on without a moment to waste.
“You’re right about that,” Simon says, brushing his fingers through her sparse hair, “Keep going like this, and she’ll lift more in the gym than I ever will…”
“Well,” you laugh, “That’s what happens when you drink nothing but milk for three meals a day.”
“Hm. Guess you’re right.”
The conversation trails off into nothing. There’s no more crying. No more creaking of the fence gate outside. No. There is only the gentle sound of her suckling, the feeling of your back expanding against his chest, and the sound of crickets chirping in the garden beyond the window.
He looks down at the two of you—at his two girls. Your skin is hot underneath the blankets, and your body is only now beginning to heal from one too many sleepless nights. Your breasts have become swollen and heavy, laden with warm milk for his baby girl. Looking down at your bare torso, at your reddened nipples and tacky skin….looking at how you take care of his daughter, how you nurture her and love her in a way he’d never have been able to imagine a mere two months ago…
You’re perfect.
The perfect mother. The perfect wife. The perfect partner to have at his side from now unto eternity, or at least until the promise made within your wedding vows finally holds true.
He wraps his arms around your stomach, resting his chin against your shoulder. Your cheek presses into his. You don’t complain when his stubble pokes you.
“I love you,” he whispers.
“I love you, too,” you reply simply.
Quiet befalls all three of you. And before long, the baby’s eyes flutter closed once more.