Chapter 145: Chapter 145: She.

Rafael’s labor was much shorter than he expected, unless it wasn’t, and he had simply lost his relationship with time somewhere between breath and pain, with Marin telling him, for the fifth time, that he couldn’t argue with biology.

Rafael remembered fragments more than a clean line.

The modern quiet of the room. Ether humming through the walls like a second heartbeat. Gregoris’s hand locked around his with the kind of grip that said, ’I will not let you fall apart,’ even if Rafael had, at several points, been fully prepared to fall apart just to spite him.

Marin’s voice, steady and unimpressed, announcing numbers like they were boring.

“You’re doing fine,” someone had said, and it was probably a lie, because Rafael had been doing murder in his head.

“Breathe,” Gregoris had murmured against his hair.

Rafael had, at one point, managed to croak, “If you say that again I’ll…”

“You’ll what,” Marin had asked mildly, “deliver the child slower out of spite?”

Rafael had hated him so deeply it had almost been spiritual.

The ether eased the sharp edges, but it didn’t make it gentle. It just made it possible. It gave him space to think between contractions instead of drowning in them. It allowed him to remain Rafael – sarcastic, furious, and stubborn – even as his body performed something ancient and unstoppable.

There had been a moment where Marin’s tone shifted.

“Alright,” Marin had said. “Now. This one.”

And the room had come into focus.

The voices became more intense. Hands came closer. The bed adjusted slightly under Rafael, like the furniture itself had decided to cooperate.

Gregoris had gone still at his shoulder, all that deadly composure pulled into one point, like he was bracing for impact.

Rafael had pushed.

Once.

Twice.

More than that, probably. He refused to count on principle.

He remembered the pressure changing, becoming less painful and more forceful, as if his body was insisting on a specific outcome.

He remembered a sound he hadn’t meant to make, torn out of him and then swallowed back down because Rafael did not like giving anyone proof of weakness.

He remembered Marin’s voice, calm as ever.

“One more.”

Rafael had glared at the ceiling and thought, wildly, ’I’m going to burn down the concept of ’one more.’’

Then he did it regardless.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, there was a shift in the atmosphere.

A sharp, clean silence followed by a small, offended sound.

Not the screaming vote Gregoris had promised while talking about the two rooms. Not a war cry Rafael expected from a child coming from a commander line. Just a brief, outraged announcement that she had arrived and the world was unacceptable.

Rafael’s entire body loosened at once, as if the tension had held him together and now he didn’t know where to go.

He blinked, dazed, sweat cooling on his skin, breathing heavily while clenching Gregoris’s hand with all of his strength.

Marin said something that Rafael didn’t catch. Someone laughed softly, relieved. Someone else handled blankets with skilled hands.

And then a bundle appeared in Rafael’s arms like a miracle delivered with clinical professionalism.

Soft, expensive blankets around a small weight.

Rafael felt the warmth of the bundle and then noticed the sleeping infant.

For a second Rafael didn’t move.

He stared down at her face, at the tiny mouth gone slack with sleep, at lashes too long to be fair, and at the delicate curve of her cheek like it had been designed by someone who wanted to make grown men lose their minds.

She looked impossibly calm for someone who had just detonated Rafael’s entire life.

Rafael swallowed hard.

His hands tightened around the blankets, careful and instinctive, like he’d been born knowing how to hold her.

Rafael’s throat made a noise that was both a laugh and a breath, too raw to be dignified.

“Oh,” he whispered, because he didn’t have anything else.

Gregoris’s hand settled over Rafael’s forearm, supporting Rafael the way he always did.

Rafael didn’t look up at him yet.

He couldn’t. He was still staring at her.

Marin, somewhere near the foot of the bed, said dryly, “Congratulations. You survived.”

Rafael’s lips twitched. “Barely.”

Marin made a satisfied sound. “Good. That means you’re still annoying.”

Rafael let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh, and then—finally—his eyes lifted.

Gregoris was watching him.

His silver eyes were bright in a way Rafael had never seen before, like all his terrifying control had cracked and spilled something dangerously human into the air.

Gregoris’s throat moved once.

He didn’t speak.

Rafael looked down again at the bundle in his arms.

At the tiny, sleeping face. At their daughter.

“She is ours,” Rafael said softly, as if naming reality made it real.

Gregoris’s voice came out low, rougher than usual. “She is.”

Rafael’s chest tightened so sharply he almost hated it.

He carefully shifted the blankets, and the infant’s tiny hand flexed once, brushing against his thumb as a reflex, as if in recognition.

Rafael’s breath caught.

“Gregoris,” he murmured, voice barely there.

Gregoris leaned closer, his mouth near Rafael’s temple. “I’m here.”

Rafael stared down at the child again, and the absurd thought rose through the exhaustion like a cruel joke:

Two nurseries. Two doors.

An infant who had arrived screamed once at the injustice of being born and then fell asleep like she’d conquered the world.

Rafael’s mouth twitched.

“She… looks like you,” he whispered, almost laughing, like saying it out loud would make it less unreal.

Gregoris didn’t answer immediately.

He didn’t need to look away from Rafael to be looking at her. His attention was divided, half on Rafael’s breathing and half on the bundle in Rafael’s arms, as if he could protect them both with his mind.

Rafael adjusted the blankets, careful, and saw it clearly.

Dark blonde hair, soft and fine against her head. A tiny brow drawn into the faintest frown, as if sleep itself were an insult she tolerated.

And her eyes, when they fluttered or shifted just enough to reveal a sliver of them, were not Rafael’s.

They were silver. Steel-silver.

The kind of gaze that belonged to a very specific Frasner,

Rafael stared at those lashes, at that brief flash of color, and felt something tight and stupid in his chest.

“She has your eyes,” he murmured, and the words came out softer than he expected, edged with wonder he didn’t bother hiding. “And she looks angry.”

Gregoris’s hand tightened on Rafael’s forearm.

“She’s perfect,” Gregoris said quietly.

Rafael let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “You would say that even if she looked like a wrinkled potato.”

Gregoris’s voice didn’t change. “Yes.”

Rafael’s lips parted, then closed again because he was too tired to fight devotion that absolute.

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