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Flat on my back. Eyes sealed shut.

The steady beep of machines cut through the hum of hospital equipment.

Pain radiated through every limb, every muscle aching like I’d been shattered—broken in a hundred different ways.

How did I get here?

Distant voices, faint but familiar, rise above the mechanical hum.

Molly’s: sharp and frantic, yelling, pleading.

Jace’s: low and steady, trying to calm someone down.

Their voices reached me, but everything else stayed dark. I tried to open my eyes, to focus, to make sense of what was happening—but it was like being trapped in a dream I couldn’t wake from.

Suddenly, light broke through the darkness behind my closed eyes—a ray of sunshine, almost tangible, streaming across my vision. It was soft and warm, like something calling to me from the sky .

Then something appeared—a baby? Drifting down from the light, peaceful and innocent, wrapped in a soft blanket.

What’s happening?

My heart raced.

Pain tore through me—like a thousand needles driving into every inch of my body. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. With every wave of agony, the light slipped farther away.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the light faded—dimming to nothing.

And I faded with it.

Colt

They shocked Ellie’s heart. Each time, her chest jolted violently, electricity surging through her body.

Once— Nothing.

Twice— Still nothing.

“Ellie! Ellie, please come back to me, baby!” I shouted from behind the glass doors in the ER waiting room, helpless as she lay motionless on the other side—arms limp, dangling off the sides of the hospital bed.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

Screw what the doctor said.

Screw waiting.

Screw every rule and every person telling me I couldn’t be with her.

If I didn’t have Ellie, nothing else mattered.

I shoved through the sliding doors and into her room. The monitors were eerily silent—a flatline .

I stopped at the foot of her bed, then dropped to my knees. My hands trembled as I reached for her foot, as if touching her could somehow tether her back to me.

“Ellie, please come back to me. I can’t lose you again,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

The machine beside her still continued its relentless high-pitched tone.

“One more shock,” the doctor said, voice sharp but steady as his eyes swept the room. “Clear!”

Shock.

I held my breath.

Waiting.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

“She’s back,” the doctor said.

Air whooshed from my lungs in one heavy breath, like a hundred pounds had been lifted from my chest.

“I want her moved to the ICU immediately,” the doctor ordered. “If she crashes again, we need to be ready.”

The nurses moved quickly, unhooking machines and IV lines. Within seconds, they were wheeling her down the hallway.

“Can I go with her?” I asked quietly, catching the doctor’s eye.

He hesitated for a second. Then nodded.

“Only one visitor,” he said. “That’s it.”

It didn’t take long for the nurses to settle Ellie into the ICU. Once the last one left and the room finally quieted, I pulled the stiff hospital chair closer to her bed and reached for her hand .

It was cold.

I wrapped mine around it gently, thankful she was still here with me.

I didn’t know if she could hear me, but I started talking anyway.

“Ellie, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to protect you. I need you to come back to me. I need you both to come back to me.”

The weight of it all settled heavy in my chest. Ellie was pregnant. With my baby.

I laid my hand gently on her stomach, rubbing small circles with my thumb. The steady beeping of the heart monitor was the only noise in the room.

After a few hours, the doctor returned to check on her.

“We’re going to start weaning her off the sedation soon. After that, it’s up to her. Based on the medication we used, she could wake up within an hour, or it could take several. Her body makes the call.”

I nodded. “Do you have any updates on the baby?”

“We can take a look now, if you’d like.”

“Uh…sure.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing our baby for the first time without Ellie. But not knowing—that was worse.

The doctor wheeled the ultrasound machine to the bedside, pulled up the small screen, and squeezed a line of gel onto the doppler wand. He lifted Ellie’s gown, careful to keep her covered, and pressed the wand against her lower belly .

A soft woosh came through the monitor. He adjusted the wand, angling it slightly, and then a different noise emerged from the speaker.

A whooshing sound.

My throat tightened.

“There it is,” he said gently. “Strong heartbeat. Good growth for this stage. Based on the measurements, I’d say Ellie is about four weeks along, maybe more. Everything looks good though. We won’t be able to tell the sex until closer to twenty weeks, but this little peanut is healthy.”

I stared at the screen. At my baby. Our baby.

I did the math in my head. Ellie must’ve gotten pregnant the first time we were together.

She’d said she was on birth control, but even I knew that wasn’t foolproof.

Not that it mattered. I would give Ellie the world—and that included every child she wanted too.

The doctor ripped a strip of pictures that had been printing from the machine, and handed it to me.

I stared at the tiny blob in the middle of the ultrasound images. All I could think about was the tiny life growing inside of Ellie—this life we’d created together.

I reached for her hand again and brought it to my lips.

“You hear that, El?” I whispered. “That’s our baby. Strong, just like you.”

I wanted her to come back to me so badly.

To open her eyes.

To see what we had created.

But just like all those times before, only Ellie could save Ellie.

I just needed her to do it one more time.