That's When We Uncover [Jensen Ackles + Misha Collins | Cockles | mxm]

Chapter Twenty-Two

Those moments in the movies, when the world screeches to a halt around a character and the music explodes in a shower of dramatic notes? This is it, right now.

It feels like all the panic and pandemonium of the dot-com crash, nine-eleven, and both world wars have coalesced into a deadly concoction that squeezes the last drops of life from my battered heart. I feel as though my legs are going to give out from under me at any moment. Crippling, bitter, relentless agony is pierced by a ray of...joy. 

I'm overwhelmed by the emotions churning and swirling and frothing within me. I'm not sure I can handle it; I feel as though my maximum capacity has been reached, like I can't contain any more. I'm running over, filled to the brim with intense, intense agony and euphoria, simultaneously. I might combust.

"Shhh," I murmur, peering fondly down at the latest addition to my family. The beautiful, serene face of my daughter gazes up at me, wondrous and rapt. Enormous eyes, set in a soft, flushed face, twinkle at me like I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's how I feel holding my daughter, like a hero. Not a dirty, cheating scumbag, not even a heartbroken shell of a man.

I feel like a hero.

Dani is asleep on the hospital bed holding my son, her soft hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, face radiant with a fulfilling joy that runs deep, displacing the pain of the last few hours. She gave birth after a long, arduous night of labour, early this morning.

Instead of spending the night drinking like I had initially intended, I spent it clutching her limp palm in mine, soothing her through her cries, trying to help her in some inconceivable way. I'm quite sure I wasn't any help at all, but I was there.

For the first time in too long, I almost forgot my own pain. And looking into her eyes, brimming with unshed tears, I realized not only that I love her, but also that she actually loves me back. More than I can say for a lot of people. I've felt so despairingly alone, but I'm not; someone really does love me. A fuckton. For no good reason.

I haven't been there for her the way I'd like to be. In more ways than one, I've been distant and cold and selfish, uncooperative and unfulfilling as a husband. And she's been patient with me. She's stuck by me.

She hasn't left me.

I want to be here for her for a change. That's my new year's resolution, I guess.

That's the thing about having children; they make you want to be a better person. So I vow to myself that I'll be a better man. I'll sort my life out, set things straight.

I don't know how long it will take me to get over Misha, but I will. Partly because I have to or I'll end up killing myself, and partly because it's what he wants for me. He told me he wants me to be happy with Dani, with the family we share. He's told me to forget him, move on.

Since Dani's out cold, I take on the task of announcing the births myself, via Instagram, using a cute and clever analogy to Dr. Seuss' Thing One and Thing Two for my little cherubs.

Arrow is still transfixed by me, unmoving, her tiny, rosebud mouth agape as I drop a kiss on her downy head.

"That was from someone special," I whisper, shifting her in my arms so that I'm rocking her gently. I swallow, my throat suddenly tight with tears. I have cried - so much - in the past twenty-four hours that I'm surprised they're still there, burning and raw.