Everything happened very quickly after that. It seemed to Moody like he went to sleep after having that talk with Isaac, and woke up several months later with sharp pains unlike anything he had ever known rocking through his entire body.

Gasping into the dark, he sat up and grabbed at his stomach with both hands. The taut, rounded surface rippled under his touch, followed by a distinctive sense of pressure from within that he had come to know quite intimately as his daughter kicking, punching, testing her limits. She could be quite rowdy sometimes, especially in the morning when he first got up, but this was something different. This was a sustained pressure, as if she was trying to force his stomach open. The front of him would pop open like a door on hinges and she would climb out, ready to meet the world.

Then, the pressure eased. The pain didn’t. It went on and on and on, filling his vision with black speckles of panic. His breath came faster. His heart was pounding, fit to jump out of his chest. The baby stirred restlessly again, and the combination made him gasp again.

As if coordinated, everything stopped at once.

Leaning forward even more over his round stomach, Moody panted. Other sensations flowed in, other bits of sensory input that he had been blind and deaf to while in the grip of agony.

It wasn’t completely dark. Faint gray rays of twilight filtered in through the bedroom window, illuminating most of the bedroom while leaving the corners obscured with swathes of deep shadow. The air still smelled faintly of the sex he and Isaac had last night, musky and also refreshing when compared to the sour sharpness of his fear. Since Moody couldn’t move like he used to anymore, they had swapped positions. Isaac lay underneath, while Moody rode his cock from the top.

“You’re turning into the alpha in this relationship,” Isaac had joked.

It was funny, and it was also terribly endearing, that he was so calm and accepting with the thought, even though it was only a joke. They were changing, both of them. Isaac was losing his edge, and Moody supposed that he was, too. A long, hard road stretched out in front of them, and it would take a very long time to get the chips off their shoulders. Moody looked forward to it, with a sense like wonder. They were going to go so far together. What would they be like in five years? In 10, or 20? Would they even still be the same people?

And who would their daughter be?

As if his pondering summoned it, the spasms returned. Clenching his teeth against the pain, Moody closed his eyes and rode it out. Everything else in the world ceased to exist again, the agony consuming it all from the inside out. It was pain larger than life, larger than everything, a physical thing now.

When the spasms passed again, the gray light filtering in the room had strengthened and taken on a pinkish cast. And he was no longer alone, he realized.

Isaac gazed at him in the dark, his eyes slightly squinted from sleep. His hair was all mussed up, sticking in the air at crazy angles. “Moody?” he asked. His voice came out rough and constricted. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Moody? What’s going on? Are you okay? Is it the baby?”

Moody panted for a moment, trying to catch his breath enough to be able to speak. Isaac’s arm wrapped around his shoulders felt incredibly good, so he focused on that. “I’m fine,” he growled. His fingers were like claws against his stomach, the tension inside his muscles unbearable and also somehow exciting.

This is it. We’re going to meet her.

“Baby is definitely on her way, though.”

Isaac trembled upon hearing the news. Moody felt his heartbeat escalate, heard the pounding grow much louder. “Holy shit,” Isaac said, and his voice was a confused blur of excitement and fear. He squeezed his arm gently around Moody’s shoulders, then swung his legs around off the bed and stood. “Stay there. I’ll get everything ready. Just hold on.”

They had packed a bag with essentials for this very occasion, stowing it in the bathroom closet. Isaac strode down the hall, and apparently tossed the door open as hard as he could because Moody heard it slam against the wall.

Then, Isaac’s heavy, rapid footsteps headed deeper down the length of the trailer, towards the living room.

And then Moody couldn’t hear much of anything as another wave of pain sliced through his body. The world blacked out, and all he was aware of was the pain.

Isaac was putting shoes on his feet when he returned to the world, tying the laces for him. Isaac himself already had his shoes on, and he wore his jacket. Florida was not a state exactly known for its cold season, but early mornings could be rather chilly this time of year.

After finishing with the shoelaces, Isaac grabbed up something off the floor and placed it around Moody’s shoulders. Another jacket.

Warmer now than he had been, Moody stopped shivering at the same time as he realized he’d been shivering in the first place.

“Everything ready?” he croaked.

Isaac leaned down now and pressed a kiss to his lips, then wrapped his arms around him and picked him up easily, despite the fact that he’d put on nearly 20 lbs during the duration of his pregnancy. “We’re golden,” he whispered. “Let’s go meet her.”

Moody wrapped his arms around his mate’s neck and relaxed against him as they headed out through the front door, pausing only for a moment to pick up the bag that Isaac had set there.

They went outside, and headed to the car parked out in front of the trailer, right next to their two bikes.

The car was a company vehicle, bestowed upon Isaac a short time ago when he was hired on at a real estate firm right there in Pensacola. He had not applied for the job, but had instead been asked by the CEO to come in for an interview because they had heard of his qualifications from someone else. He aced the interview and now he was head of the Communications Department. His background in advertising, and his general business knowledge, was what really made him perfect for the job.

The pay was not exactly phenomenal, though it was a damn sight better than not being paid at all. He had also been given a sign-on bonus, and was given a company car.

Really, it was the car that had been their saving grace lately. Pregnant people usually didn’t fare well on motorcycles.

After getting Moody in his seat and making sure he was buckled in, Isaac went around to the other side of the car. He made an unscheduled detour, stopping by the mailbox and yanking out the contents.

Moody accepted the handful of mail thrust his way as Isaac got in the car, not quite knowing what to make of this. True, they had forgotten to check the mail yesterday, but this was hardly the time to care about what deals the local Walmart was offering this week.

“AT&T really wants us to sign up for their credit card, huh?” he said, smiling weakly.

Isaac looked sheepish, twisting around in his seat to back the car up. “Force of habit,” he admitted. “I kind of blanked out for a moment and just went for it.”

Moody laughed, and then the pain stole him away again.

The drive to the hospital was brief, yet unhurried. They had attended their fair share of childbirth classes, while ignoring the odd looks thrown their way by the other couples who had clearly never seen a pregnant man before, and they knew the baby didn’t just fall out. There was a process, which sometimes took hours. Days. The only reason to rush would be if there were prior complications in the pregnancy, and this had been a relatively smooth ride for Moody so far.

Some nausea, major amounts of discomfort, mood swings. Other problems came and went, such as swelling at his joints, but none stayed for long. He was as healthy as a horse, and so was their little girl.

All the same, he was glad they now had health insurance, courtesy of Isaac’s new job. What their insurance didn’t cover, they were paying back in increments as part of a payment assistance program.

They were in a much better place than they had been, though their location was still the same.

Before Moody even knew what was happening, he was in a wheelchair being carted swiftly and smoothly through the walls of a hospital. His senses were even sharper since he’d become pregnant, the odors of disinfectant and sickness making it difficult for him to breathe. He breathed anyway, because deep breaths helped with the pain, and because Isaac kept reminding him to; it was his mantra, his fallback when he was uncertain.

Breathe.

As if Moody would forget.

The nurse pushing him along was a chatty little thing in pink-striped scrubs. He couldn’t really focus on anything she was saying and didn’t even bother to respond, since he could tell Isaac was doing that for him.

They turned into a room near the end of a hallway, Moody was thoroughly lost by this point, and the nurse announced, “Here we are! Nice and cozy, right? Oh, you don’t have any allergies do you? Our flowers are real. But we can take them out and replace them if necessary! They’re tulips and…”

Isaac interrupted, sounding amused and baffled all at once. “No allergies. We’re as strong as wolves.”

Moody snorted with laughter.

Looking bemused but accepting, the nurse helped Moody climb up in the hospital bed. As soon as he lay back, her entire demeanor changed. She went from chatty to businesslike, speaking only to comment on his blood pressure and heart rate.

“The doctor will be in to see you shortly,” she said. Then, she smiled, and transformed back into her normal self. “If you need anything, you can just push the call button and someone will come running!”

“Thanks,” Moody managed.

And she disappeared.

Isaac sat down heavily on the chair beside the hospital bed, reaching out to grasp Moody’s hand in his. “I have no idea what just happened.”

“The important thing is that you checked the mail.”

Isaac scowled playfully. “I hope our daughter grows up nicer than you are.”

“And I hope she’s not a musclehead like you.”

They kissed softly, sweetly, and waited for the doctor.

The room they were in was unlike any hospital room Moody had ever seen. Rather than pristine and white and featureless, the walls were pastel green with an inoffensive dusty pink floral pattern. There were vases along the windowsill, perched on a nearby table that seemed to have aesthetic purpose only. Tulips and other flowers Moody couldn’t name -and he only knew the tulips because of what the nurse said- provided brighter pops of color.

And yet, despite all the differences, he couldn’t help but feel as if the decorations here were a little too careful. They were really as bland and featureless as anything else that was part of a hospital.

The perfume of the flowers could not conceal the odors of cleaner and medicine.

After a brief period of time that could not have been longer than 10 minutes, the doctor arrived. He performed the same checks as the nurse, pronounced Moody to be in excellent shape, and that was all. There was nothing else that could be done now but to wait.

Doctors and nurses came and went, poking and prodding at Moody, annoying him, asking if he needed anything, before leaving again. They were like clockwork, like cogs in a machine. Between bouts of contractions, he imagined them as being perfectly synchronized, a wheel of nurses all up and down the hall who left rooms, shifted to the next, and entered all at the same time. All with the same expressions, the same lines, the same purpose. It didn’t matter that they were all very different, especially when comparing the chatty nurse in pink scrubs to the smoky-voiced matron who talked sports with Isaac the entire time. They simply must have all been variations on the same person.

The paranoid, feverish dreams of a pregnant man, Moody knew, but he could not convince himself otherwise.

Hours passed.

The pain grew worse, the nurse visits more frequent. What could provide a distraction before, like 20 Questions with Isaac or watching the TV, was now only a source of extreme annoyance. Contractions ruled the world. Moody knew nothing else.

Even when they came in and gave him that injection to make the birth painless, it didn’t help. There was still pressure, still spasms, still contractions.

Time seemed to pass in blinks. He couldn’t seem to focus on anything in particular. He did what the voices told him to do, breathing, pushing, holding on.

He saw faces, which entered briefly into sight before leaving again. The doctor, the nurses. Isaac, looking terrified and also happy.

Through the fog in his mind, Moody knew he was happy, too.

Then, the doctor’s voice said, “One more big push for me, Desmond!”

And Moody pushed as hard as he could, and the entire world disappeared in a supernova of white light.

How long the light shone, he didn’t know. It could have only been a few seconds, or it could have been an eternity as the universe rebuilt itself up around him. Voices filtered back in. Images in front of his open eyes, which at first made no sense whatsoever to him.

“Look.”

He hardly recognized the voice. He knew who it belonged to, of course. The speaker was Isaac, and yet not Isaac. There was a tone to it that Moody had never heard before, a timbre he hadn’t even known could exist. It was the sound of a god who has created, then sat back to view his work.

Curious, Moody looked as the voice instructed him to.

And he saw. And he understood.

The doctor was holding a perfect little bundle, which he now placed in Moody’s arms.

Moody could only stare at the little life in his arms. His daughter stared back, not crying, not even fussing, just curious and wondering. Her eyes were very dark brown and she had a little tuft of golden hair on top of her perfect head. Her lips were like a coral seashell, and her nose was a button version of Isaac’s.

She looked so much like him.

Warmth surrounded him as Isaac wrapped the both of them in his arms. Moody tilted his head a little to look at his mate. There were no words to describe what he was feeling. All he could say was, “Look,” because what else was there to do when faced with something so special?

“She’s beautiful,” Isaac whispered.

For a brief minute, they were lost in their own little world of happiness. Their thoughts mingled, and their daughter observed with accepting innocence, not knowing what all of this meant. But she was happy, and if an infant could smile, she would have.

But the moment had to be broken, as there were things needing to be done. The baby needed to be examined. Moody needed to be checked over for any potential complications. Their little family would be separated, though they would come together again soon enough.

After the doctor proclaimed Moody to be at very low risk for bleeding or other problems, a nurse helped transfer him to another room. This one was a carbon copy of the first, except for the fact that the walls were completely pink and there was less medical equipment.

Isaac entered the room after a few minutes, dragging a chair over to the side of the bed. “I saw her,” he whispered. “They took her to the nursery. She’s the cutest damn baby in there.”

“I bet every new father in the world says that,” Moody murmured. His voice felt very raw. Had he screamed during that final push? Probably.

Isaac made a soft sound, somewhere between a purr and a growl. “Sure, but they’re all wrong.”

They leaned their heads together, cuddling as well as they could when one of them was in a bed and the other was sitting in a chair.

Moody frowned a little as they rubbed their cheeks together. He was so intensely happy that the frown felt like a betrayal, but he couldn’t help it. He wasn’t unhappy, just curious. There was something Isaac wasn’t telling him, a blockage between their minds that meant he was hiding something.

Isaac chuckled softly. “You found me out, huh? I was kind of hoping to give you more time before I told you, so you wouldn’t be overwhelmed.”

Tilting his head, Moody gazed into his mate’s eyes. They sparkled brightly. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember when I checked the mail?”

Moody rolled his eyes. “Yes?”

“Here.”

Moody accepted the envelope handed to him. He saw the name of a publishing company on the back and instantly knew what this was about. After much research, he learned that most companies preferred electronic submissions. Only one place had insisted upon snail mail.

This was undoubtedly a rejection from them.

“You opened it already,” Moody said, sliding his finger underneath the torn flap of envelope.

“I wanted to know whether it was good news or bad.”

Moody frowned again. It had to be a rejection. There was nothing else it could be.

But if that was the case, why did Isaac seem so excited?

This can’t be anything good. Maybe Isaac misread the letter. He’s excited. Saw what he wanted to see.

Pulling out the folded letter, Moody held it in his hand for a moment. Then, he smoothed out the creases and read about how the company wanted to strike a deal with him, to publish a book of his poetry.