“Hey.”
Burke looked at me, but the eye contact only lasted for a few moments before he turned his attention elsewhere.
“Burke, look at me.”
He did. I saw…fear? Fear in his eyes?
“Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“I’m just waiting for the arrival of the kids, I—”
“Burke.”
He bit his lip.
“That’s not what…”
I paused. A hard contraction hit. But it passed.
“That’s not what I meant. There’s something going on with you right now. What is it?”
Burke opened his mouth as if to give another dismissive answer but thought better of it and cleared his throat.
“I have never allowed myself to feel any sort of connection to anyone since I joined DOM right out of high school,” he said. “And it’s like…if something happened with Scott or anyone else, I can move on, because I’ve known what it’s like to not feel connected to them. But with these kids?”
He scoffed, but I knew that was him trying not to feel certain emotions.
“Once they come out, I know I’ll want to be there for them. One hundred percent. And that means there’s no disconnecting from them. If the situation ever—”
“Have you had any missions in the last eight months? Since you killed Snake?”
I knew the answer. It was more about hushing him for a moment than it was learning something.
“I understand your fear; I really do,” I said. “I’m terrified about what would happen if these two ever had to grow up in a world without you or me. But that doesn’t mean we avoid the connection. It means we just relish it even more, knowing how precious it all is.”
It was never easy an easy tell if Burke got the message I was trying to convey. Even in our hard conversations, he was stoic, only revealing that the message had gotten through after the fact.
But right now, when I looked at those eyes of his…they were still tough and resolved. But there was a softness starting to creep in. A hint that it was OK for him to take a step back, to let fear and vulnerability enter, and to live with it.
“I guess I’ve just never been in this spot before and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
“Neither have I!” I said with a laugh. “You’d know by now if I’d had a kid before.”
“True.”
“We’ll learn as we go, Burke. That’s my promise to you. OK? And in return, I want you to promise me that you’ll never disconnect from these kids. There will be fights. There will be tempers and emotions. But don’t ever disconnect from them. Only let death distance you from them. Can you promise me that?”
Burke took my hand in his. He kissed it, and then leaned forward and kissed me on the lips.
“I promise.”
I smiled. It was all I needed to hear.
And as if it was all my body needed to hear, the strongest contraction yet kicked in. And this time, I knew we were close.
“Ah!”
“OK, breathe steady,” Burke said.
Not much later, the doctors and nurses had entered and were telling me to breathe and push. But even though I heard their orders and their words, the only person that my eyes stayed on was Burke. Somehow, in the course of maybe ten seconds or so, he’d become the stoic one. Maybe I’d given him strength, or maybe he’d just found it.
Either way, he was the one I leaned on now as intense pain radiated through me.
“You’re almost there, baby,” he said.
“Ahhh!”
I threw my head back as the pain seemed overwhelming. This went on for what felt like an eternity, far too long for damn sure. All the while, somehow, Burke held on to my hand, allowing me to squeeze so hard I felt sure that I would break it.
But then, eventually, I heard the most beautiful sound I possibly could imagine.
Crying.
I had a brief moment of respite.
“Baby A is out and… it’s a girl!” said the doctor.
But the reward was temporary, for there was one other one coming. If not for the fact that these were my children and I loved them already, I probably would have gone back in time and called myself crazy for trying to have two kids at once.
Mercifully, this time went by much, much faster.
“And we have a boy!”
And just like that, I started to bawl my eyes out.
I finally had my family. My kids. My…my everything.
“You did amazing mom,” the doctor said.
For a good several seconds, I just huddled with Burke with my two kids as the nurses poked and prodded. We’d already picked out names, but for right now, they were beyond names. They were souls I’d welcomed into this world. It was a beautiful thing that no language or words could encapsulate.
Finally, I looked up to the doctor, but it really felt like I was speaking to the world.
“Claire and Brett,” I said.
“Claire and Brett, beautiful names,” the doctor said.
I’m sure he said that to everyone who gave birth in his ward. I was also sure it didn’t matter, for there could be nothing more perfect than this moment. For the first time in my life, I had a family. My own family.
And here we were, all together as one.
Burke. Me. Claire. Brett.
Words could not even begin to describe how loved I felt and how much I loved them.
We stayed at the hospital an extra two nights as a precaution, but when it was all said and done, I was most certainly eager to get on the road and back to my apartment. I figured sooner or later, I’d need to get
