“Ethan, what the hell—” I started to push myself up, my body protesting every movement with sharp reminders of what it had just been through. “You can’t just burst in here like—”
But he wasn’t listening. He had already crossed the room in three long strides, his attention fixed entirely on the clear plastic bassinet beside my bed. He stared down at my sleeping daughter—our sleeping daughter—with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. Something between shock and recognition and grief all mixed together.
His hands were shaking. Actually trembling at his sides.
“She looks exactly like me,” he whispered, his voice breaking on the last word.
The room went completely silent except for the steady beeping of monitors and the distant sounds of hospital life continuing outside our door. My mother stood frozen by her chair. I stared at Ethan, my exhausted brain struggling to process what was happening, why he was here, what had changed in the thirty minutes since he’d hung up on me.
“What are you doing here?” I finally managed to ask, my voice sharper than I’d intended despite my exhaustion.
He turned to face me, and that’s when I saw something I had never witnessed in all our years together: pure, unfiltered panic in Ethan Walker’s eyes. This was a man who had always been composed, always in control, always three steps ahead in every situation. But right now, he looked completely lost.
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