Chapter Text
He didn’t knock — hadn’t even thought of it.
The door was just there, slightly ajar, pale light spilling out, and that thick silence all around, as if the rest of the world had peeled away into some other place.
Tim stepped in slowly, shoulders hunched too high, hands adrift — hesitant, clumsy, with nowhere to land, nothing to grasp, nothing to cling to. Just stillness, a moment suspended, his gaze stranded in that slice of the room before him.
Lucy was there, slumped asymmetrically on the bed, half-swallowed by the pillows — clearly hadn’t moved in hours, judging by the exhaustion etched under her eyes, the sweat-matted hair, the stark traces of a body that had given too much.
She was already watching him. No expectation, no performative smile, just that spent calm, her entire presence anchored there, one hand resting on the small form asleep against her.
It’s minuscule — so tiny he feels everything else blur at the edges, everything else turn indistinct. He remains frozen. As if the room itself pins him in place, as if he fears disturbing the silence.
He barely breathes, pulls a chair toward him slowly. The wood groans; Lucy doesn’t even twitch. She waits. Assis nothing of him, simply exists there, being without demand.
He sits heavily, knees jutting up awkwardly. His shoulders finally slump, but his hands stay suspended, unmoored, finding no purchase. His eyes drop to their daughter, then immediately dart away, terrified to linger.
When he speaks, it’s unplanned, just a crack splitting open :
"I’m scared I won’t be enough. Now that she’s here."
The words escape just like that, nameless, unaimed, with no sense of where they’ll land, what they’ll mend or shatter further. He feels no relief. Just the weight, still lodged in his throat, his ribs, deep inside.
Lucy doesn’t answer at first. Adjusts the baby with a fluid motion, the practiced gesture of already-weary limbs, something instinctive. Then her hand reaches for him — no exaggerated tenderness, no false promises. Just to tether him there, close.
He hesitates only a second before seizing her fingers, their steady warmth.
She murmurs, plain as bone:
”You think I know? I don’t know any more than you do. I just don’t have the luxury to ask the question."
It steadies him, barely. Enough to shut his eyes and feel his heart thrash, displaced, unrecognizable. Enough to press his forehead to the mattress edge and exhale, long and ragged.
He’s afraid, yes, but it’s more than that — something vast and shapeless devouring all the space inside him.
Lucy barely moves, her fingers just tangled in his hair, not petting, not performing comfort. Just there. She holds still the way you do when the earth tilts beneath you.
He lifts his head slowly, his gaze dragged back to the sleeping child, lips parted just so. His hand inches forward, brushes the blanket, then the warm skin beneath, unbearably fragile. His chest seizes.
A whisper, so thin it barely exists:
“what if I do it all wrong?"
Lucy looks up at him, calm, neither dismissing nor coddling, no artifice. Just honesty, unvarnished:
“ Then we’ll do it wrong. But we’ll do it wrong together."
He doesn’t reply. Just tightens his grip on her fingers. Not a vow. Not a soliloquy. An anchor. Nothing more.
The silence wraps around them. Time stalls, just long enough for him to find his footing.
When the ache in his back grows too sharp, he finally shifts. Lucy understands without words. She glances at the baby, hesitates a breath, then lifts her carefully toward him.
His gut lurches — vertigo, instant and nauseating.
His arms fumble, inept. He doesn’t know how to do this, if it’s right, but she presses their daughter to him anyway — no ceremony.
She’s so light, and yet he feels the entire universe collapse into his arms. He sits rigid, breath trapped, clumsy terror in every fingertip.
But she’s there. Warm. Alive. Quiet against his chest. He bends his forehead to hers, shuts his eyes, just long enough to believe he won’t crumble.
Father. The word still feels like a shoe two sizes too big. Not quite real, not yet solid. But she’s here, in his hold. He’s holding her.
He inhales, slow, deep, the first full breath since he crossed the threshold.
And he knows, despite it all, he won’t fall.