The Things You Give

Part 35

Steven sat right outside the room, hunched over in his seat while he fiddled with his wedding ring. He was trying his hardest to keep tears from surfacing and spilling over, but knowing that his wife was possibly dying, he couldn't handle it. He hid his red rimmed eyes behind his aviators as he focused solely on his hands.

"Hey," Red's gentle voice pulled him out of his thoughts as he approached him.

"Hey," Steven responded, voice gravelly and sniffed.

"Have you heard anything?"

He shook his head. "No, they're still in there with her."

"Have you seen the twins?"

"No, not yet. I haven't gotten a chance to even hold them yet," Steven responded, his voice growing weaker. "It all just happened so fast."

"They're in the nursery," Red explained and gently sat next to Hyde. "They're beautiful, Steven. Congratulations."

"Don't congratulate me if I'm about to become a widower."

"C'mon," Red said under his breath. "Nothing's going to happen to her. She's going to be okay."

"You didn't see her the way I did," Steven whispered. "She became unconscious...so fast...I couldn't even register what was happening." He put his face in his hands and took a deep breath. "I can't lose her, Red."

Red placed a comforting hand on Steven's shoulder and squeezed gently. "You're not going to. She's going to be just fine, son."

"Yeah," Steven said shortly and sniffed before reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. When he opened it up, he pulled out the polaroid picture from the day at the carnival all those months ago.

He stared down at picture, down at her beautiful face remembering that day. How he didn't want that picture taken of them because he was afraid it would get published in the paper and everyone would find out. How stupid he was. If he knew then what he knows now, he wouldn't have been so aloof about taking a stupid picture.

"You know I didn't want to have this picture taken," Steven told Red. "I was so afraid that we would get caught I didn't want any 'evidence' of our relationship. Can you believe that?" he sniffed again. "I didn't want any proof that we were together in fear of everyone finding out." He shook his head and looked back down at the picture. "God, I was such an ass."

Red looked down at the photo fondly and then back to his son-in-law. "Come take a walk with me."

Hyde shook his head. "I need to be here when they come out."

"This won't take long."

Hyde sniffed before nodding and stood. "Okay."

Red led him down the hall and made a left. When Hyde looked up, he was staring through a window to a room full of babies. Some crying, some sleeping, and some lying there while staring up at the ceiling.

"Look, do you see them?" Red asked quietly, as if he was afraid that he was going to wake up the sleeping babies.

It took Hyde a minute, but after a bit of searching the room, he finally saw his babies laying in their own individual bassinets that were labeled "Baby Boy Hyde" and "Baby Girl Hyde."

"Are those my—?"

"Those are your children," Red answered with a certain adorning look in his eye.

"They're amazing," Steven whispered, feeling a lump form in his throat.

"They really are."

"They look just like Y/n. We haven't even named them yet. We didn't get a chance to..."