Ty woke up to a hideous, tearing pain between his legs. He hadn’t been able to move very quickly in weeks, but pain jolted him into speed and action. He rushed into the master bathroom and dropped his pajama bottoms, just in time to see water tinged with blood gushing out.

Panic rose in him. That wasn’t normal. He wasn’t supposed to be bleeding down there, for crying out loud. Then he forced himself to breathe normally. The blood was perfectly normal under the circumstances, and so was the pain. His body had just torn itself a brand-new, temporary orifice. Skin bled when it was torn, for crying out loud.

His baby was on its way.

“Carter!”

Carter didn’t respond, at least not verbally. His only response was a muffled grunt and snore.

“Carter!” Ty barked out the name, as loud and as sharply as he could.

This time Carter did respond. “What is it, babe?”

“Get me to the hospital, please.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth he had to wonder what he was thinking. He wasn’t wearing any pants. How could he go to the hospital without pants? “And, ah, a clean pair of pants?”

“Mrrph?” something hit the ground as Carter got out of bed. A few seconds later, Carter shuffled into the half-lit bathroom. “Why is the floor wet? Do we have a leak?”

Ty understood now why so many sitcoms had so many jokes about incompetent men faced with childbirth. “Yes, Carter,” he said, in as patient a voice as he could. A contraction racked his body. “The leak is coming from me, and it consists of amniotic fluid. From inside of me. Because it needs to come out before the baby can.”

“Baby.” Carter blinked, and then his eyes widened comically. “Baby!”

Oh thank God. Hopefully the hospital would have some coffee, because Carter was woefully useless without it. “Can you bring me some pants and get me to the hospital, please?”

Carter flailed for a moment and ran back into the bedroom. Ty wrapped a towel around his lower parts and hoped that would take care of everything. By the time he was done, Carter had a pair of pants, and Ty’s go bag over his shoulder. He was dressed, too, and ready to go.

Getting to the hospital didn’t take long, especially at this hour. Getting through check-in, on the other hand, felt like it was taking forever. He felt like he was sitting in a warm, uncomfortable pool and no one seemed to notice. He tried to stay focused and keep his outward appearance normal as each contraction tore through him, but it got harder and harder every time he had to move. First he had to sit with one check-in person, and then he moved to another. Each time, he had to answer the same questions over and over. Carter looked irritated, but he didn’t say anything. It must be normal, then. It wasn’t like Ty went to the hospital all that often, what did he know?

Finally, Ty’s midwife showed up. Neal was a certified nurse practitioner, and all he did was deliver babies for omegas all day long. He stuck his head around the corner and saw Ty hunched over at yet another desk, and he walked right out. “Excuse me,” he said, putting a hand on Ty’s back. “This man called me at four o’clock this morning to tell me his water broke. He’s been in labor this whole time, and I’m sure he’s been uncomfortable. Look, there’s a mess all around his chair. Can we maybe deal with paperwork later, or do you want the baby born in his chair?”

The poor clerk blushed bright red. “Oh my God, no one said anything. I’m so sorry. We didn’t realize. Here, let me get you a chair.”

“Never mind, Cynthia. I’m sure it just got lost in translation.” Neal gestured to someone Ty couldn’t see with his eyes on the ground as they were. A moment later, someone popped out with a gurney, and Cynthia was wrapping bracelets around his and Carter’s arms. “We’ll finish the paperwork later.”

Neal stayed by Ty’s right side and Carter by his left. “We’re going to bring you up to Labor and Delivery, and we’re going to check you out to see how far along you are. Okay?”

Ty nodded. He just wanted to stare up at the ceiling. Everyone could see what a mess he’d made. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to be so gross.”

“Hey. It’s not gross. It’s part of the process, and that’s why we’re here. And it’s their fault for leaving you to deal with it.” Neal patted his hand.

Ty had been excited to be pregnant. He was still excited to have his baby - their baby, his and Carter’s. Even with all of this crap swirling around them thanks to Ty’s dads and Seb, this new little life coming into the world would be a source of unalloyed joy. The process of getting from point A to point B, though, was ten times more humiliating than he’d expected.

It only got worse when he got up to labor and delivery. He had to get undressed, which he could only do with Carter’s help. His hands shook too badly. Carter didn’t laugh at him or joke about it, though. He just held Ty gently and helped him with his clothes. Then he got back onto a bed, and covered himself with a sheet. That was the only cover he was allowed, because Neal had to be able to see and access everything.

Carter had to hold his phone, which started buzzing at seven thirty. “Oh crap.” Ty tried to sit up as yet another contraction made him bite down on his lip. “I’ve got to make arrangements.”

“You’ve got to sit back and have a baby, Ty.” Neal gave him an amused look. “You realize you’re almost completely dilated here?”

“Is that good?”

“It’s unusual to open up this quickly. Just sit back and let your body do its thing. I’ll tell you when it’s time to push. This isn’t time to think about the office.”

Ty shook his head. “You don’t understand, no one’s going to know I won’t be in today. Someone has to show up in court.” He took the phone out of Carter’s hands.

Carter just snickered. “He’s got like six lawsuits pending right now, Doc. He’s not kidding about needing to make arrangements.”

Neal hadn’t known what Ty did for a living. He paled. He didn’t bother correcting Carter on his title, but just said, “Lawsuits?”

“It’s ten,” Ty gasped. He didn’t want to scream and humiliate himself further. “Also, the next person who says this doesn’t hurt but just feels like pressure is getting sued. And punched.”

Neal frowned and took a look at Ty’s nether regions. “I’d send your messages quickly if I were you. You’re bleeding an awful lot, and I’m concerned. Hopefully we can get your little one out quickly.”

Doctors didn’t say things like “concerned” unless things were bad. Ty grabbed his phone and messaged three different people at the firm. Then he handed his phone back to Carter. If the worst was to happen, at least he’d know he’d tried.

And he’d know he’d been loved. That made all the difference. When he’d signed the contract with Carter, he’d wanted a baby for himself. He wanted someone to exist who cared for him, who had some kind of connection with him and who would notice when he died. Now that same baby would be a living testament to the fact that Ty had lived, and someone had loved him. Even if Ty didn’t make it out of this alive, his child would go on and prove to the world that Ty was worthy of love.

“It’s coming out now. One good push should do it,” Neal told him, with an encouraging little smile.

Carter took his hand. Ty had been preparing for this for months - years, really. He’d read all of the instructions. He’d come in with a birth plan, printed out in triplicate. The room was already spinning, and he’d cheerfully stab someone for a drink of water. He couldn’t remember a single word of the advice or instructions he’d studied as carefully as any criminal law or tort text. He bore down out of instinct, not knowledge, and hoped for the best.

“Got her!” Neal said, in the satisfied tone of a man who’d done the job he’d come there to do.

“Her?” Carter’s sweaty face shone as he stared at whatever it was Neal held in his hands. “The baby’s a girl?”

Ty groaned in pain as he felt someone doing something he couldn’t see down in the underside of his body. “We’ve got to get the bleeding under control,” Neal said, as a nurse added something to his IV. “It’s not uncommon to have some hemorrhaging when a birth goes as quickly as yours did. It’s something we have experience with and it’s something we can get the better of, don’t you worry.” He handed the baby off to someone else, and they took his daughter off into a corner to be cleaned and weighed and tested.

“Is she okay?” he asked, trying to lift his head up.

“She’s perfect,” Carter told him, kissing his forehead. “She’s perfect in every possible way.”

The pain abated suddenly as whatever drug they’d given him kicked in. Now he just felt drowsy. Maybe that was just the blood loss, though, or the dehydration. He reached out toward his daughter. He needed to touch her, to feel her, to see for himself that she was okay and as perfect as she could be.

They brought her over after five minutes. “Apgar is perfect,” reported a doctor, who Ty had to assume was the pediatrician. She passed the baby over to him. “She’s seven and a half pounds, twenty-three inches, and all of her fingers and toes are exactly where they should be.” Their daughter had been wrapped in a hospital receiving blanket and crowned with a little pink cotton cap. “Do you gentlemen have a name for her yet, or are you still working on that part?”

Ty looked up at Carter. Carter smiled down at him. They’d talked about names a few times, and they’d settled on one. That had been before they met their daughter, but Ty still felt they’d made the right choice. He looked down into his baby girl’s unfocused blue eyes while Carter replied to the doctor.

“Emily.” Carter reached out and stroked Emily’s little cheek with his hand. “Emily Sophia.”

“Fantastic. We’ll take care of filing the birth certificate for you. All you need to worry about is enjoying your daughter and recovering.” She smiled brightly at them both.

This hospital gave private rooms to all of their newly parturient patients. That had been part of the reason Ty chose it. He found himself transferred to a clean gurney and wheeled to the omega ward only a few moments later, with Carter by his side as always.

They had a clear plastic bassinet for Emily, and a fold-out chair for Carter. Apparently they weren’t supposed to share a bed. While Ty wasn’t feeling great about being separated from his husband right now, he could see why Carter might prefer to be in the chair. Ty was a mess, he had a catheter, he smelled, and he was bleeding heavily. Ty wouldn’t sleep next to himself if he could avoid it.

Emily didn’t seem to mind any of that, though. She stared up at Ty like he was her whole world. She didn’t know any different. She’d learn soon enough. “Hi, beautiful.” Ty blinked back tears. He didn’t know if the tears were because he was upset over his current state or because he was overjoyed by Emily’s arrival. He didn’t think it mattered which - he chalked it up to hormones and a combination of the two. “I’m your dad. Over here is also your dad. We’ve been waiting for you for a long time. I think you were in a bit of a rush yourself, since you basically clawed your way out.”

Carter laughed at that. He bent down to drop a kiss onto Emily’s little forehead. “She’s a fighter, just like her dads.” He met Emily’s eyes. “I can’t wait to get to know you better. Your dad Ty, he’s had you under his heart for nine months. He already knows you pretty well. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. And I cannot wait to get started.”

Ty choked on a laugh that was at least part sob. “My God. These hormones don’t give you half a second to breathe, do they? She’s your kid too, and I want you to play with her and enjoy her. I want us all to be a family and enjoy that. But when you said that about catching up and all, I just got hit with the worst wave of jealousy.”

Carter stroked Ty’s hair. “Thanks for telling me that. A lot of guys wouldn’t, you know? They’d fake it, and let it build up. That’s part of what happened with Tracy and his second spouse, his husband. He couldn’t admit what was going on and they split up.” He kissed Ty’s head too. “You know what else? You’ve got the presence of mind to admit it’s a hormonal thing. You know yourself well enough to understand that. It feels real, but you know what you actually want.” He grinned. “I’m proud of you.”

Ty blinked back tears. “How did I get this lucky?”

“We’ll send Keegan a fruit basket.” Carter chuckled. “I have to say, I’ve done a lot of growing up over the past few months. You inspired it. You’ve made me the happiest guy in the world. Whatever happens going forward, with all the BS from those outside forces, I want you to know that you’ve made me happier than anyone has a right to be. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Ty said, and kissed him.

Emily had no interest in the kiss. She rubbed her little face against Ty’s chest and fell asleep.

Carter pulled out his phone. “Is it all right if I tell Keegan? With everything happening so fast I never got the chance.”

Ty grimaced. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. If you pass me my phone, I’ll tell Mr. Clarke. Keegan’s not allowed to buy her clothes, though.”

“No,” Carter agreed. “I’ll text from your phone. You don’t need to try to text and cuddle at the same time. You’re on paternity leave.”

Ty smiled. He might be filthy, and stinky, and bloody and gross, but he might also be glowing. He’d waited for so long to hear those words. “I am on paternity leave, aren’t I? I might just forget every piece of tort law I ever knew for the next three months. And it’s going to be amazing.”

* * *

Emily was the most perfect baby in the history of time. Everyone said so, or at least everyone who Carter and Ty decided to share the good news with. Considering that the team made a formal announcement the day after Carter told them, that number turned out to be fairly high. Carter let his agent filter his social media accounts for him, so he only saw the positive responses to this one. Most of the time he didn’t mind getting negative feedback from fans - sometimes he had crappy outings, and he needed to know it. And some people in the world just needed to get some stuff off their chest. His skin was thick enough to deal with it.

This was different. This was Carter’s family. This was a newborn baby. He wasn’t about to put up with any negativity toward his little girl.

Ty had a hard time letting go of Emily, even when the nurses wanted to give her a bath or give her a checkup. It was kind of funny, really. Ty was the most independent guy Carter had ever met, but he held onto their daughter like she provided him with oxygen or something. The nurses told him that was perfectly normal and natural, especially in guys who’d been trying for a while. He’d get over it eventually.

In the meantime, he still had to get over his hemorrhage issue. When they’d planned for Emily’s birth, they’d expected to spend a night in the hospital. When Ty’s bleeding wouldn’t stop, or even slow down, doctors had to take steps. Carter got to stay with Emily while Ty had to go in for some intense exams, which was where doctors found their worst-case scenario. Emily’s rapid birth had caused a lot of tearing, not just to Ty’s birth canal but to his uterus. The damage was too severe to be repaired. He would need a hysterectomy.

It was an unusual birth injury, although by no means one for the record books. According to their surgeon, Dr. Wayne, it happened more often in omegas than in women. “We aren’t sure why, and part of the reason we aren’t sure why is that we lost out on a lot of time. For centuries we weren’t able to study omegas as well, and omegas still aren’t exactly common in the general population. But it does happen. It’s one of the risks, and we need to fix it.”

Ty cried a little. It was a bitter pill for him to swallow, but he was the kind of guy who could take these things in stride. He kissed Emily before handing her off to Carter. “At least I’ve gotten to have this one,” he said, as they got ready to bring him in for his surgery.

“Hey.” Carter grabbed his hand. “We can always adopt, when it comes right down to it. Okay? This doesn’t stop anything but the bleeding.”

“God, I love you.” Ty squeezed his hand and they wheeled him away.

Carter was left to sit in their room, alone with Emily. He texted Keegan to ask him to take care of the cats for a few days, as Ty would have to stay longer than expected. Further details would be up to Ty to share. He cuddled Emily, who had already decided she had no use for her hats and figured out a way to wiggle out of them.

He read the good wishes of his fans out loud to Emily, who didn’t care. She seemed to be content to hear his voice, or at least it didn’t make her scream, but she didn’t have a lot to say.

They’d been hanging out in the room for about an hour and a half when some of the footsteps that constantly passed by the little room paused. Carter couldn’t hear any accompanying wheels, so he knew Ty hadn’t come back yet. For a second, just a second, he got scared. All surgery came with risks, and Ty had already been bleeding pretty heavily…

But the people striding into the room like they owned the place weren’t doctors, or nurses, or chaplains or social workers. Carter sighed when he saw Beau, Ed, and Sebastian. He stood up and pressed the nurses’ call button. “You bastards don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, do you?”

“Not from upstarts like you,” Beau sniffed. “Give me the baby.”

“Like hell.” Carter cradled Emily a little closer to his chest. “Now get out.”

“Do you really want to fight about this?” Sebastian walked closer, lip curled. “There’s two of us alphas here, and we don’t have one hand tied behind our back.”

“So you guys saw the words ‘restraining order’ and you thought what, it just didn’t apply to you?” Carter huffed out a laugh. Where were the nurses? Better yet, where was security? He tapped out an “SOS” in Morse code with the call button. “Look. Ty’s been through a lot and the last thing he needs to see when he gets back here is your faces. Go away.”

“We are his parents!” Beau hissed. “We have more of a right to be here than you do!”

“Actually you don’t. It’s that whole law thing. I may not be a lawyer, but I did marry one and he’s pretty sure the restraining order means you have no right to be here, at all.”

“The baby doesn’t have a restraining order.” Ed smirked at him. “Hand her over, you sack of hired muscle.”

“No.”

“I will make my son see reason.” Beau stomped his foot on the linoleum floor. “He does not get to just cut us out and go rogue like this! He can have other babies, babies who have proper backgrounds.”

Carter laughed. He couldn’t help it. It was Ty’s injury, and his story to tell, but Carter was so done with these awful people and their awful attitude he just wanted to get rid of them. “I notice you haven’t shown a whole lot of interest in Ty’s welfare. I shouldn’t be surprised, all things considered. You never showed much interested in his well-being before, so why would you start now?”

Sebastian scoffed. “It’s not for you to police how they interact with their son.”

“Actually it is. I’m his alpha. It’s my job to protect him. Ty’s in surgery right now. I’m not going into why. The birth was very hard on him, and even if he was to give in and leave me for everyone’s favorite homicidal maniac here —”

Sebastian snarled and took a swing at Carter. He wasn’t much of a brawler. He telegraphed his moves bad enough for Carter to see what he had in mind from a mile away. Carter ducked under the punch and head-butted Sebastian in the nose. It was the only weapon he had, or at least the only one he could use if he wanted to keep Emily stable. “You’re not doing a whole lot to prove your stability here,” he pointed out, as Sebastian exhaled blood.

“You broke my nose!” Sebastian wailed. “You broke my nose!”

Three security guards rushed into the room. There wasn’t a lot of space left. Hopefully no one else would feel compelled to get violent. “What seems to be the problem here?” the security guard near the front of the pack demanded with a scowl.

Beau pointed at Carter. “This man won’t give my grand baby back to me. And he broke my son-in-law’s nose.”

Carter sputtered in outrage. How in hell could Beau say such a thing? But the security guard didn’t seem inclined to believe him. “He has the bracelet that matches the baby’s. None of you do, to include your son-in-law.”

Some of the tension ebbed from Carter. He could speak again at least. “My husband and I have restraining orders against all three of these people. They’re not allowed to be here. They need to be arrested.” He met Sebastian’s eyes. “The one with all the blood is violating his bail by breaking his restraining order, so this should be fun.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and scoffed. “We both know they’re not sending me to prison. Rich people don’t go to jail.”

One of the other security guards was already on the phone. “They’ll meet us downstairs at the security office,” he said. “Do you want to come downstairs the nice way, or do you want us to get creative?”

“If you even think about putting a hand on us, we’ll sue.” Ed sniffed contemptuously. “My son is a lawyer.”

“Ty is on paternity leave and he’d no more help you out than he would poke a sharp stick in his own eye.” Carter couldn’t help but snarl at his father-in-law.

“Creative it is.” The head security guard grabbed Beau and hauled him out into the hallway. He wasn’t gentle about it.

The other guards cuffed Ed and Sebastian and dragged them away too. Someone from Housekeeping showed up to mop up the blood from Sebastian’s broken nose, and Carter sat back down to wait for Ty. He was probably in the recovery room, trying to purge himself of the anesthesia. Would he get back before Carter gave his statement? Carter hoped not. He didn’t want Ty to know about this visit. He just wanted him to be happy and content.

Fortunately, two uniformed officers showed up ten minutes later to take Carter’s statement. They’d found a record of the restraining orders pretty easily, so there wasn’t much for Carter to say. He described the threats, and he spoke about the circumstances leading up to Sebastian’s broken nose, which only made the cops laugh. He signed autographs for both officers and got selfies with them too. It was probably unprofessional of them, but he was beyond caring at this point. As long as he, Emily, and Ty were safe, he’d sign as many autographs as they wanted.

Then they went away again. Ty was brought in a couple of hours later, and Carter wasn’t sure he shouldn’t have stayed longer. He was groggy, and he slept a lot. Every once in a while he seemed to wake up, but when he spoke he spoke nonsense. Then he’d pass back out again.

He didn’t truly wake up until the next day. Even now he was still exhausted, but he was more with-it and could hold a conversation. “You’ve been through a lot in the past couple of days. You really need to just rest and relax. Do you think you can do that for me?”

Ty made a face. “I’m bad at resting and relaxing. Can you pass Emily over here, please?”

Carter did. As a look of utter bliss came over Ty’s face, Carter smiled. “Me and Miss Emily have been having a grand old time while you were off in surgery. We read fan mail out loud, and we had a discussion about hats and why they should stay on her head.”

“Did she listen?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Ty chuckled. “I didn’t think she would.” He nuzzled her cheek. “I missed you, little one.”

Of course, Carter couldn’t keep Ty in the dark forever. He would have loved to be able to keep him from ever finding out about the attack, but Ty wasn’t exactly the sort of guy to run around with his head in the clouds. He got a text from Mr. Clarke the next day, after a notice about the arrests appeared in the paper.

Ty wasn’t thrilled that Carter had tried to hide it from him. “Seriously, Carter? Why did you think this was something I didn’t need to know?”

Carter bowed his head. He’d screwed up, and he knew it. “I just… you’d already had to deal with so much. Your body had been through the wringer, you were going to be all messed up from surgery and everything, and I just didn’t want to ramp up any anxiety or anything by dumping their little wretched visit on you. I’m sorry. Maybe I should have said something, but honestly I just wanted you to go home with as many good memories as you could.”

Ty made a face at him. “Here I was getting my dander up all good and fierce, and you come up with the best possible reasoning. Honestly, I’m not even sure how to reply to that.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Why can’t they just leave us alone?”

“I don’t know.” Carter didn’t point out that Ty knew them all better than he did. He didn’t think that would be at all helpful. “Does it make you feel better to know that I broke Sebastian’s nose?”

Ty gasped and laughed. His laugh was weak thanks to the surgery, but it was genuine. “That’s awesome. I think his life - and mine - would have turned out a lot differently if someone had punched him in the face a little more often as a kid.”

Carter blushed. “Well, I didn’t so much punch him as head butt him. I didn’t want to drop the baby,” he protested when Ty gaped. “I mean you wouldn’t want me to drop her either, would you?”

Ty just laughed. “I guess not, no I wouldn’t. I guess all those bench-clearing brawls were good for something, huh?”

Carter pretended to be affronted. “Hey, that only happened against Boston!”

“And Detroit.”

“One time!”

“Three.”

“Fine. Three. But to be fair, their guys charged the mound every time.”

“I didn’t say they didn’t.” Ty was grinning now. Carter passed him a bottle, which Emily took with gusto. “You’re amazing.”

Ty’s condition improved over the next few days. It would be a long recovery period, but not as long as it would have been if they’d done it through the abdomen. He was clearly frustrated by the delay, but he passed the time walking around the ward to build his muscle tone back up. He checked in with the office a few times, because someone like Ty couldn’t separate himself from the office entirely, and he spent time with Emily.

Carter loved hanging out with Emily. He supposed all parents thought their kid was exceptional, but Emily clearly had something unique to her. She could lift her head after only a day or so. She could grip his finger with a strong, enthusiastic hand, and she made little sounds that could be imagined by a person with the right mindset to be enthusiasm.

The team reached out to him, gingerly after the whole thing with the fake photos and the article and all that. They wanted to set up a charity drive in Emily’s name to celebrate her birth. It was a thing, they said. A lot of celebrities were doing that now, to cut down on extraneous and occasionally creepy gifts sent in by fans. No one needed seven million baby blankets, even the beautiful hand-knit ones, and everyone felt weird about giving them away. Did they have a particular charity they wanted to recommend?

Carter checked with Ty. Ty raised his eyebrows at the request from the team, but didn’t say anything against them. He did ask what specific perks went along with the drive, like photos and the like, because he was smart like that. In the end, they selected a domestic violence charity and a charity to support families who couldn’t afford emergency obstetric care like what Ty had endured.

They left the hospital a week after they went in. It would be a whole new world, but they were prepared to face it - as a family.