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Peace.
True, complete, and overwhelming peace is taking over any other emotions she is feeling at this moment.
Despite the exhaustion. Despite the aches and pains all through her body. What she feels now is joy and love and calm.
She doesn’t ever remember feeling something even close to this before.
Her mind is utterly silent for once. No warning, or quips, or anything of the like. Only her and her own thoughts. Allowing her to focus on what’s most important. What’s right in front of her.
Even the bright fluorescent lights and the sterile smells of antiseptic and disinfectants seem to fade away. Leaving only the two of them in this small cloud of happiness.
An impossibly tiny hand flexes against her chest, skin bright pink, still covered in vernix and a bit of blood. Small hot breaths ghost across her clavicle as the infant wails like there’s no tomorrow. Limbs flailing and face scrunched up as if being brought into the world was the worst offense to her entire being.
As Renee marvels at this new life, she feels a gentle hand petting her hair and a soft kiss pressed to her sweaty forehead. She slowly lifts her gaze from her daughter to look up at Elliott’s smiling face, happy tears falling down his face.
He doesn’t break the calm bubble she’s created in her mind; he simply slips into it like he was always meant to be there. Only when he wipes a thumb across her cheek does she realize she’s also crying.
She can see the love in his eyes as he gazes at her and then their newborn. She knows she looks at him and their child the same way. It’s taken her a long time to recognize this emotion in herself or others, but now that she does, it feels freeing. It feels right to call it love, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like enough.
How do you describe something so overwhelming and all-encompassing in just a single word?
She thinks that she finally understands when people say they’ve found their reason for living. Their reason to keep going.
This was hers.
This little thing that completely depended on her to survive. A piece of her and the person who taught her what love is. Made into a whole new person. Someone who would grow up and have her own likes and dislikes, her own thoughts and ideas and dreams.
But for now, she was here. Right in her arms like she’s supposed to be.
She was a tiny thing. She was a precious thing. And she was wholly hers.
Elliott pulls her into a gentle side hug, one hand coming up to rest on their daughter’s back. It makes her look even smaller than she did just lying on Renee’s chest.
So small, but so perfect.
She feels three words spoken against the crown of her head, and she says them back even as a small sob threatens to escape her throat. Still, the smile never leaves her face.
The baby’s cries start to calm as they talk to her in soft whispers and cuddle her close. When she tries to turn her face up to them, her neck yet strong enough to hold her head, and coos, Renee lets out a half laugh, half sob.
It’s still so surreal to her that she made this little thing.
They made her.
Renee places a gentle kiss to the infant’s head and, with the biggest smile and eyes brimming with tears, whispers. “Hello, Evelyn.”
°~♡~°
Somewhere else in the city, an older woman lies on her bed.
Grey hair fanned around her head. Eyes closed as if in sleep. But chest no longer rising or falling.
Soon, someone will walk in and discover her.
Soon, someone will call her son. Her little inchworm. The last person who truly cared for her.
But for now, as the gentle rays of the setting sun bathe the room in a fiery orange, she is at peace.