Tia

The night sky is as empty as my heart feels in this moment. The stars that usually cover the Alaskan sky, are gone. Tonight, the sky is only covered in thick, heavy clouds. Of course, it is. How could the stars shine when a man’s life is in the balance?

As I sit against an outside wall of the bunker, sobbing into my hands, Emerson finds me.

“Tia, you shouldn't be out here, alone.” He sits beside me, wrapping an arm around me and I breathe him in, his earthy, manly scent grounding me on the moment. Armed guards are all around, patrolling the perimeter of the bunker, and I know I’m safe in my husband's arms. But I’m not the one I’m worried about.

“I can’t watch anymore,” I say, burying my face in his chest. “If Hux dies… if he… Em, I can’t…”

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” He smooths my hair, kissing my head as my shoulders shake against him.

“I love him so much. I can’t lose him, Em.”

“We won’t. He’s in surgery right now with Banks and an expert team of doctors. He is in the best hands.”

I look up at him, wiping my eyes, trying to catch my breath. “But the bullet… I’ve seen a wound like that before when I killed a man. And that man died.”

“Huxley is a strong ass dude, Tia. He’s not going anywhere.”

“If he dies, it's all my fault. My father’s men pulled the trigger. My father was there because of me. If I had only…” I begin to sob again, covering my face with my hands.

“Tia,” Emerson says, pulling my hands down, his voice firm and direct. It’s not the way Em ever talks to me, or how he speaks to anyone. It forces me to pay attention. “No more looking back. You've got to look forward, Tia. Huxley doesn’t need your regrets right now. He needs your prayers.”

I look up into the sky, grey and dark. “There is nothing up there, Em. No one looking out for us. How could there be when such atrocities are everywhere? When the world is so broken? So lost?”

Emerson though, cups my face with his hands, his eyes staring into mine. A man of faith, a man who always holds a candle of hope in his heart, lighting the way for me. “Enough, Tia. You don’t have to believe in a higher power, but you must believe in love. Love heals all wounds.”

My salty tears stream down my cheeks and I want to believe him. I want that kind of faith.

“I want to see what you see when you look into the world, but I see pain and heartbreak. I see fathers willing to murder their daughters and I see mothers selling out their own sons. Where is the love in that, Em?”

He is crying now too, and my words ring out loud and clear and yet, he isn’t nodding in agreement. Instead, he is taking my hands and pressing them to my belly.

“This is where love is,” he says, our hands held together over my womb. “Here. In the future, not the past. Love will find a way if you let it.”

Just then, I feel something inside of me move.

A flutter. Butterfly wings. Six tiny heartbeats taking flight.

I gasp, emotion welling up in my eyes, and Emerson chokes on his tears.

“See,” Em whispers. “Love will find a way.”

“And Hux?” I ask, trembling through the wonder of feeling my babies first movements.

“He is a badass motherfucker, Tia. You don’t have to worry about him.”

I nod, trusting that he is right. Huxley is a survivor, and he won’t go without a fight. I look down to my belly, Emerson's strong calloused hands wrapped with mine and our babies kick again.

Our eyes meet, so amazed at the timing. My sobs fade as a smile breaks through my pain. The magic is not lost on me.

I don’t need a sky of stars when my hands are already pressed tight against such beauty, such mystery.

Love will find a way.