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Trinity will later know that movies lie about water breaking.
There is no dramatic gasp, no instant panic.
Instead, halfway through a terribly sappy romance scene, Trinity shifts in her seat because the baby has spent the last twenty minutes enthusiastically kicking her ribs.
Something feels...very warm. She frowns.
"...Trin?" Yolanda's voice is quiet beside her.
Trinity looks down. "Oh."
The front of her jeans is unmistakably wet. For a few long seconds, she simply stares.
"I think..." She blinks once. "I think my water just broke."
The sentence barely leaves her mouth before another sensation steals every ounce of attention: Deep and heavy pressure.
Followed by pain that wraps around her abdomen with astonishing force.
Her breath catches. "Oh god."
Yolanda is already standing. "Trin?"
"I..." She grips the armrests hard enough for her fingers to ache. "I don't think..." Another wave hits, squeezing everything inside her until breathing becomes painful. "...I don't think she's waiting another two weeks."
Yolanda's face changes.
Trinity can see hersurgeon brain clicks into place so quickly it almost calms her. "Can you stand?"
Trinity nods automatically. She quickly discovers she absolutely cannot.
Yolanda catches her before she can stumble, one steady arm wrapping around her waist. "We're leaving."
"I'm sorry," Trinity whispers to absolutely nobody as they squeeze past confused moviegoers.
Outside, the warm June evening air hits her flushed face. They dont make it far before another contraction folds her in half.
She grabs Yolanda's hoodie with both hands. "Oh God."
"I know."
"No." Trinity shakes her head violently. "No, you don't." Another too short breath, comes with another impossible tightening.
Yolanda's hands stay exactly where Trinity needs them. "I've got you."
The drive to PTMC is only fifteen minutes, but it feels like two hours.
Time starts behaving strangely almost immediately.
Yolanda keeps one hand on the steering wheel and the other intertwined with Trinity's whenever the road allows.
"Breathe with me."
"I am."
"You stopped."
"I know."
Another contraction rolls over her.
Trinity makes a sound she has never heard herself make before, low and broken. The intensity frightens the shit out of her, and her nerves start buzzing overwhelmingly, all at once.
"I'm sorry."
Yolanda glances over so quickly Trinity almost tells her to keep watching the road.
"For what?"
"For..." She squeezes her eyes shut. "Being dramatic."
Yolanda actually laughs. "Cariño." Another breath. "I think you're allowed."
They barely make it through the Emergency Department before another contraction forces Trinity to stop walking.
Somebody appears with a wheelchair. It sounds like Dana, but everything except for Yolandas hands feels unreal, too far away to grasp.
Someone else is asking questions. "When did your water break?"
"About..." Trinity looks helplessly at Yolanda.
"Twenty-three minutes ago."
"First pregnancy?"
"Yes."
"Contractions?"
"They're..." Trinity doubles over again. The nurse smiles sympathetically.
"I'll take that as regular."
Hands move around her, but everything stays blurry.
Cassie waves from Central before somebody disappears with Trinity toward Labor and Delivery. "Good luck, Santos."
Trinity manages half a pained smile. "Thanks."
The room is brighter than she expected. The bed is uncomfortable, and monitors beep constantly.
Everyone keeps telling her she's doing well. Trinity suspects they're all lying.
The contractions are close enough now that she barely has time to recover before the next one arrives.
A nurse named Elise helps adjust her position while another checks her cervix.
"You're progressing incredibly quickly."
"Is that..." Trinity gasps through another contraction. "...good?"
"It means your daughter seems very motivated."
"I knew..." Trinity pants. "...she gets that from Garcia."
Yolanda laughs quietly beside her. "I'm choosing to take that as a compliment."
The next contraction steals Trinity's reply. She buries her face against Yolanda's shoulder.
Everything hurt so much. Too much.
"I can't."
"You can."
"I literally can't."
"You literally are." Yolanda adjusts her position gently, briefly easing some of the pain.
"I hate..." Trinity inhales sharply. "...how nice you're being."
Yolanda simply kisses her sweaty temple.
The epidural helps a little, but not nearly enough.
The pain changes more than it disappears, becoming pressure so immense Trinity briefly wonders if her bones are separating.
Maybe they are. Splitting one by one inside her to make way. At this point she would be okay with it, if it means Lily comes faster.
Elise tells her she's fully dilated. The room seems fuller now, more voices of more doctors surrounding her.
Trinity hangs onto Yolanda between pushes like she is the only real thing left in the world. Because right now, she is.
"I don't think..." Her voice cracks. "I don't think I can do another one."
Yolanda cups her face and lets their foreheads touch. Its so lovingly gentle it startles Trinity out of her haze for a moment.
"You don't have to do all of them."
"What?"
"You only have to do one." Trinity blinks. "Then another one."
Despite everything, she laughs. It immediately dissolves into tears.
"I hate you."
"I know." Another contraction builds.
"There you go," Yolanda whispers gently, not minding how hard her hand is getting squeezed. "Big breath, Trinity."
She pushes.
Everything burns. Everything hurts.
The room disappears until all there is left is deep, soul-crushing pain. And Yolanda's voice.
And the tiny heartbeat galloping steadily on the monitor.
At some point, Trinity knows she's crying, but only registers it, when someone wipes her forehead.
Yolanda never lets go of her hand. "I'm tired."
"Just a little longer, cariño."
Somewhere far away somebody says, "I can see her."
The room becomes louder, more hectic. Trinity doesnt trust the hope that this is going to be over soon. She needs to, but she can't.
"One more." Trinity has nothing left.
Nothing except one picture that has carried her through months of nausea, sleepless nights, aching hips, and every terrified thought in between:
A little girl.
Running through sprinklers. Or curled against Yolanda's chest.
Laughing.
Calling them Mom and Mama.
Please.
Please just let her be okay.
She gathers whatever remains inside herself, and pushes.
Relief come so suddenly that, for a heartbeat, Trinity doesn't understand what she's feeling.
The crushing pressure that has consumed her for what feels like an entire lifetime finally releases, leaving her trembling as every ounce of strength drains out of her at once.
It feels like her whole body folds inward around the emptiness.
Around her, the room changes.
People begin moving urgently, voices overlapping as instruments clink softly against metal trays and someone calmly calls out the time of birth.
Trinity hears the words without understanding them. They float somewhere above her, disconnected from everything that suddenly matters.
Her eyes search instinctively for the small bundle being carried toward the warmer across the room.
But... nobody is looking at her, or smiling.
Its quiet.
Nobody says a single reassuring word. The silence stretches far longer than it should.
A cold wave crashes through her chest so violently that, for one impossible moment, she forgets how to breathe.
"No..." The word leaves her lips before she even realizes she's spoken.
"What..." Yolanda's hand tightens around hers so firmly that Trinity almost loses feeling in her fingers.
When she turns toward her wife, she finds an expression she has never seen before: pure fear.
Yolanda has always been the steady one, but now every trace of that certainty has disappeared.
Her face has gone pale beneath the harsh hospital lights, her jaw clenched, while her gaze remains fixed on the cluster of people surrounding their daughter.
The sight tears something open inside Trinity. Her entire body begins shaking and she can't stop it, shuddering sobs rolling through her as tears spill down the sides of her face.
"No... please..." She isn't even sure who she's begging anymore.
God, or the doctors. Anyone.
Please.
Somewhere beyond the roaring in her ears, she hears a quiet voice say, almost lovingly, "Come on, sweetheart."
"Yoli..." The hope Trinity has been holding onto for nine months, suddenly feels terrifyingly fragile. She cant breathe around the panic squeezing her chest.
Then, cutting cleanly through the silence, comes the best sound Trinity has ever heard:
A sharp, indignant cry, startling in its strength. For one suspended heartbeat nobody moves.
Then the cry comes again, louder this time, full of furious outrage at having been brought into a world that is far colder and brighter than the one she'd just left.
The entire room exhales together.
Sombody laughs softly with relief. "There she is." Another nurse smiles. "Beautiful lungs."
Beside her, Yolanda folds forward over the side of the bed like someone has cut the strings holding her upright, openly crying now without attempting to hide it.
"Oh, thank God."
The words leave her in a broken whisper that sounds almost like a prayer.
Trinity realizes she's still crying too, but the tears feel different now. The terror dissolves into a relief so enormous that it almost hurts, filling every aching corner of her body until she can do nothing except let it wash over her.
A nurse approaches with the smallest person Trinity has ever seen.
The tiny girl is wrapped only loosely in a warm blanket, her skin still slightly damp, her cheeks flushed pink from the effort of announcing herself to the world.
The nurse smiles gently. "Would Mom like to meet her daughter?"
Carefully, with practiced hands, the nurse lowers the little bundle onto Trinity's bare chest.
The weight against her skin is almost nothing, and yet it feels like the whole world has been placed carefully into her arms.
Their daughter settles quickly, her little hands tucked beneath her chin as she instinctively nestles closer to the steady rhythm of Trinity's heartbeat.
A broken laugh escapes Trinity through fresh tears. "Oh..."
One trembling fingertip brushes across an impossibly soft cheek, and she marvels at how someone can be so impossibly small after having occupied every corner of her thoughts for months.
"So tiny..." The baby wrinkles her little nose in sleepy protest.
Without thinking, Trinity leans down and presses the gentlest kiss she has ever given against it.
"Hi, sweetheart." Her voice is barely more than breath. "We've been waiting for you."
The girl answers with another grumbly little cry before relaxing completely against Trinity's chest, her breathing gradually matching the slow rise and fall beneath her.
Around them, the room begins moving again, but all of it fades into an indistinct blur that barely reaches Trinity anymore.
The only things left in the world are the tiny heartbeat fluttering against her own and the familiar pressure of Yolanda's hand finding hers again, their fingers intertwining.
Still smiling through tears she no longer tries to hide, Trinity lets her eyes drift closed for what she promises herself will only be a moment.
The darkness that welcomes her feels warm instead of frightening, filled with the certainty that, somehow, they have all found each other at last.
Trinity reaches for Lily before she's even properly awake again.
Yolanda smiles as the familiar little scrunch appears between her wife's brows, her hand fumbling determinedly across the sheets until all she manages to grab is Yolanda's forearm.
"Hey, baby," Yolanda murmurs.
"Yes... baby," Trinity mumbles sleepily, still reaching.
A laugh bubbles up before Yolanda can stop it. "Alright, she's okay. I've got you, Trin."
She bends to kiss her forehead before turning toward the clear hospital bassinet beside the bed.
The baby is bundled in a striped hospital blanket, wearing the tiny knit cap someone from postpartum had pulled over her hair.
Yolanda slides one hand beneath the impossibly small body and the other beneath the delicate weight of her head, automatically supporting her neck the way the nurses had shown her earlier.
Yolanda still can't believe this little person is theirs.
Lily's cheeks are rounder than they seemed in the delivery room, her skin carrying that soft pink newborn flush now that she's warmed up.
Very fine wisps of dark hair curl around her ears beneath the cap, and her nose wrinkles in her sleep before she stretches one miniature fist into the air with determination.
"You've got opinions already, huh?" Yolanda whispers.
The small fingers curl back toward her own chest. Yolanda's heart feels way too large for her ribs.
"There we go."
She takes the careful two steps back to the bed, where Trinity has been helped upright by one of the new postpartum nurses that just came in after shift change.
The pillows behind her aching back are properly adjusted and the nurse checks her IV before quietly stepping aside.
The monitor above the bed beeps steadily now instead of urgently. The lights have been dimmed.
Trinity still looks exhausted, pale beneath the freckles scattered over her cheeks, her hair escaping every attempt at a ponytail.
Yolanda smiles again. It's something she can't seem to stop doing.
Her wives' body has done something extraordinary. It also looks like it knows exactly how much it has given.
"So, Lily," Yolanda says softly as she lowers the baby onto Trinity's bare chest, where the hospital gown has been opened for skin-to-skin contact. "This is your Mom. She had to rest a little, but you already briefly met earlier."
Trinity reaches for her with reverent care, her movements slow from exhaustion and sore muscles, hands still trembling slightly.
"Hey, baby girl."
"Although technically you've known each other for about nine months-," the correction dies on Yolanda's tongue.
Lily immediately turns her head, rooting instinctively before settling against Trinity's sternum with the tiniest satisfied sigh, her cheek pressed against warm skin.
A little drool starts dribbling out.
Both women simply stare, as the newborn's breathing evens out within seconds. Trinity's entire expression softens into pure, overwhelming wonder.
She looks from the baby to Yolanda, tears already gathering again.
Yolanda suddenly needs to preserve this moment. She fumbles for her phone, hands still unsteady from adrenaline, relief, and several hours of barely breathing.
She has to remember this.
Not only the sight infront of her, but also the warmth flooding her chest arrives in waves now, each one stronger than the last whenever she looks at either of her girls.
"Would you like me to?" the nurse asks gently. She walks around the bed and reaches for the phone with practiced confidence.
"I'm Rachel, by the way" she says with an easy smile. "You should both be in this picture." Yolanda doesn't even think before handing it over
"Come over here, Mama." She obeys automatically.
Leaning over the bed, Yolanda wraps one arm carefully around Trinity's shoulders, terrified of bumping anything that still hurts. Her eyes drift from one pair of green eyes to the other before filling so completely that the room blurs.
Yolanda kisses the soft hair beneath Lily's little cap.
Then she kisses Trinity, longer and and as gentle as she can. She only pulls back far enough to see her wife's face.
"What are you looking at, Doctor?" Even exhausted, slurring slightly from pain medication, Trinity somehow manages an awkward, flirty wink.
Yolanda's chest aches. She's never been this in love, ever.
"You're beautiful," she whispers through the lump in her throat. "I'm so proud of you."
Her fingers drift into Trinity's hair, smoothing back loose strands that refuse to stay put. They fan across the white hospital pillow in every direction. To Yolanda, they look almost like a halo.
Trinity's teasing smile wobbles into something much more vulnerable. "Please don't make me cry again." Yolanda lets out a watery laugh.
"I'm so high right now," Trinity admits, blinking slowly. "Between the hormones and whatever they gave me, I actually want to remember this."
"You will," Yolanda promises, tucking another strand behind her ear.
"I made sure of that." Rachel steps back toward them, holding out the phone. "I think I got a few really good ones."
"Oh." Yolanda accepts it with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I forgot you were..."
Rachel pats her shoulder warmly. "That happens a lot in here, sweetheart. I think they turned out beautifully, even if I still don't understand half the buttons on these new phones."
She gathers the chart from the end of the bed.
"I checked little Lily's temperature and oxygen a few minutes ago, and everything still looks perfect. We'll come back later to help with her first feed if you need us, and I'll check your bleeding and vitals again in about half an hour."
Both moms nod gratefully.
"If either of you needs anything before then, just press the call button." She reaches the door before pausing with one hand on the handle.
"Oh, one more thing." Both women look up. "What exactly am I supposed to tell your fan club?"
Yolanda and Trinity blink in unison. "What?"
Rachel laughs. "There are at least eight people camped out in the hallway already, and I have a feeling they're only multiplying. I can absolutely keep them out for a while longer if you'd like."
Yolanda exhales a long breath, rolling her shoulders. "Could you tell them maybe... another half hour?"
Rachel nods immediately. "Absolutely."
"Oh!" Trinity says, suddenly sitting a little straighter before immediately regretting it. "If there's a blonde man who looks sort of mousy and a grumpy short surgeon, they can come first."
Rachel raises an amused eyebrow. "I'll do my best."
Yolanda can't help laughing. "Cariño, I don't think the nurses are supposed to work security." She glances apologetically at Rachel. "I'll organize everyone when we're ready."
Rachel grins. "Honey, after twenty-three years on this floor, crowd control is practically in the job description."
With one last smile, she quietly closes the door behind her, leaving the three of them wrapped in the peaceful silence of their first real minutes together as a family.
Five years later, Trinity turns another page of the photo album while Lily sits tucked against her side beneath a soft blanket. The quiet sounds of Yolanda settling Maxine for bed drift down the hallway.
"And this..." Trinity says, smiling as she points to the next photograph, "is when Uncle Dennis came to meet you for the first time."
Lily wrinkles her nose at the picture of her newborn self. "I was not happy."
"You definitely weren't," Trinity agrees with a laugh, gently scratching through her daughter's thick hair. It isn't quite as long as Yolanda's yet, but every few weeks she catches herself realizing how much it's grown. "You cried so hard that poor Dennis looked like he thought we'd send him back home."
Lily giggles.
"But," Trinity continues, tapping the corner of the photograph until Lily leans closer, "you stopped almost instantly when he gave you Ellie."
Her daughter's eyes grow round. "That was Huckleberry?" Trinity nods.
"Since you decided to arrive a little earlier than expected, we hadn't brought our hospital bag. We didn't have snacks, extra clothes, chargers, or even a stuffed animal for you, and Dennis quickly got you one."
"And the socks," Lily adds proudly, already knowing the answer.
"That's right." Trinity smiles as she turns another page.
The next spread shows Lily's first day at home, curled up in the little bassinet beside their bed, followed by photographs of friends stopping by over the next weeks with casseroles, folded laundry, coffee, and more offers to help than Trinity could ever remember accepting.
Every picture holds another familiar face, another pair of careful hands reaching toward a very small baby.
After a while, Trinity notices that Lily isn't really looking anymore.
Instead, her daughter is staring somewhere across the room, her thoughts clearly somewhere else entirely.
Quietly, Trinity closes the album and nudges her shoulder. "What are you thinking about, love?"
Lily turns toward her, thinking for another long moment before a small frown settles across her face. Without saying anything, she reaches out and wraps both of her little hands around one of Trinity's.
"I'm sorry I hurt you so much."
Trinity feels her heart squeeze. "What?" she says softly. "No, Lily, you didn't."
Her daughter's lower lip trembles. "I.. you just told me the story... and you're crying in all the pictures."
Trinity draws a slow breath before sitting up a little straighter, gently pulling Lily a littl closer.
"Lily, sweetheart, you didn't do anything wrong. Birth always hurts. Sometimes it hurts more, sometimes less, but that's simply how nature makes us have babies." Lily tilts her head, still unconvinced.
"The important part," Trinity continues, searching carefully for words, "is that Mama and I already knew that before you were even born. Nobody tricked us. We wanted you so, so much that none of the hurt ever mattered."
She opens her arms a little wider, and exactly as she'd expected, Lily climbs into her lap and rests her cheek against Trinity's chest. Her breathing is still a little uneven. Trinity lets her flat palm draw calming circles on her back.
The living room is quiet for a long moment.
"I forgot almost all of the pain the second I heard you scream for the first time." For just a moment, the memory washes back over her.
"Now you don't like it when I scream," Lily mumbles into her shoulder, her teasing voice returning a little.
Trinity laughs quietly and kisses the top of her head. "That isn't true, pumpkin, and you know it. If something hurts or you're scared, you can always scream."
"Yeah," Lily says thoughtfully.
"But back then," Trinity continues with a grin, "your screaming meant you were perfectly healthy and already telling all the doctors to stop bothering you."
That earns the proud little smile she'd been hoping for. "That's right."
As though she'd been waiting for her cue, a sleepy cry drifts out from the nursery.
Lily's head pops up immediately. "Maxi," she says with complete certainty. "I need to give her a kiss before she goes to sleep."
She is already climbing off Trinity's lap when she catches hold of her hoodie sleeve and tugs insistently.
"Come on, Mom. She can't sleep without her kisses."
Laughing to herself, Trinity lets herself be pulled to her feet.
She lingers for just a second after Lily disappears into the hallway, lifting one hand to the where a familiar patch of drool has formed on her hoodie.
Some things, she thinks with a smile, never really change.