Amour

🚫 XX 🚫

The next few hours passed by in a blur as my labor progressed. They gave me another steroid shot for the babies' lungs, I was covered in monitors and wires. One heart monitor for each baby, one for me. One monitor to keep track of my contractions. Happy pacing the length of the room and shooting back to my side everytime I had a contraction.

"Hap... I'm scared." I whispered, tears rolling down my face as yet another contraction passed.

"I am too Cal..." I rasped back softly.

We fell silent after that my labor continued to progress, Happy being there with me made everything easier and a little less scary. But when Tara came to check my dilation four hours later, I hadn't progressed past seven centimeters...

"We need to consider a c-section Callie. It will be best for the babies and safer for you." She told me.

I took a deep breath and felt my heart shatter but nodded as I cried. Happy grasped my hand and told her we would do it. He pulled me to his chest as I sobbed and he rocked us back and forth hushing me softly. When I was calm they gave me a spinal block and when it took effect I was wheeled to the OR. Happy was scrubbed in and allowed to sit beside my head as the procedure began.

My head was fuzzy but I soon heard one of my babies cry. "Baby A delivered. Male." My surgeon told us.

He held my son over the curtain for us to see and all I could think was how tiny and perfect he was. He screamed his lungs out as they whisked him away to clean him up and place him in an incubator. "Three pounds four point nine ounces." A nuse told us.

Shortly after another piercing scream was heard. "Baby B delivered. Female." Our daughter was held up for us to see and she was even smaller than her brother.

They whisked her away and got her cleaned up. "Two pounds fourteen point six ounces." She called out.

Happy leaned his forehead to mine. "You did it Cal. I'm so proud of you." He told me.

"They're so early Hap... Did I do this? Is it my fault they're so small?" I asked feeling horribly guilty.

"No baby. This isn't your fault Callie. They just wanted out to meet there amazing Mommy. They're gonna be okay Callie." He promised me.

"And their amazing Daddy." I whispered.

I could see his smile in his eyes before a nurse came to escort him to our children. When he was out of the room, the doctors began to stitch me up and before I knew it I was being whisked to a recovery room. I fell asleep shortly after I was left alone.

When I woke two hours later it was Happy and two nurses pulling two incubators into my room. Happy came straight to my side and kissed me deeply. "They're perfect Callie." He told me unable to wipe the wide smile from his face.

The nurses wheeled one incubator to each side of my bed as I cover my mouth and cried. "They're so little..." I whispered.

"Dr. Knowles has checked them over and was amazed at how healthy they are. They will need the incubators until they are a minimum of five pounds but you should be able to hold them for a short time before the end of the day." They smiled and left the room leaving us with our babies.

"We never did come up with names." Happy mused.

"Améile Charlotte Mae Lowman and James Owen Ryder Lowman." I said looking between my sleeping babies.

"Those are perfect Cal." Hap kissed my temple and I leaned into him for a moment before James began to whine.

I reached inside the incubator from the side and he wrapped his tiny, tiny hand around the tip of my index finger. I began to sing to him a soft french lullaby my mother would sing to me as a child and he began to calm almost immediately.

Ten Weeks Later

"You ready to bring our babies home?" I asked Hap as I wrapped my arms around him from behind.

He finished pouring our mugs of coffee, placing the coffee pot back before turning to face me. I rested my chin in the center of his chest as he laid a hand against my face. "I'm nervous." He told me.

"Why?" I asked him cocking my head to the side.

"They'll be home. Which means it'll all be on us to keep them alive, fed, happy, healthy... I guess I just don't know if I'm ready for that..." He admitted.

"Come here." I said stepping back and making him take a seat at the table.

I sat across from him and took his hands. "I'm not even ready for this Hap but honestly have you ever been ready for some of the best things that ever happened to you?" I asked him.

"I sure as hell wasn't ready for you." He answered.

"But yet here we are. We can do this Hap. I know we can. You're not alone doing this, this is a team effort and we're a team Happy." I told him.

He nodded and stood back up pulling me back to him. He wrapped his arms around my waist as I wrapped mine around his neck. He began to sway us slightly to the quiet hum of the radio he had playing in the kitchen. I smiled up at him and he smiled back before leaning down to capture my lips in a kiss. His kiss was intoxicating as his tongue slipped past my lips.

Our once innocent kiss had turned into a heated claiming kiss. He turned us and pinned me against the counter his hands roaming over my robed body. I'd been cleared for activity for two weeks now but Happy was stubborn so to have him wanting me like this was like heaven.

"I want to spend some." He paused and clutched me ass in his palms lifting me up to wrap around him. "Quality time with my wife." He grinned mischievously before carting me off to our bedroom, where he showed me just how much he still loved me and made sure I knew exactly how he saw me as a woman.