The pregnancy had been their secret sanctuary. In the small, noisy apartment, as Adams's radio station found its footing and Mina's belly swelled with their hidden hope, they had built a world apart. The outside pressures—the ghost of his family, the memory of past failures—faded against the imminent, terrifying promise of new life.
But sanctuaries are fragile. Labor, Mina knew, did not negotiate. It announced itself with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
It started in the pre-dawn hours, a deep, tightening cramp that was different from the practice Braxton Hicks she'd been having. She lay still on the thin mattress, her breath held, waiting. Another came, five minutes later, a wave of pressure that made her grip the sheet.
Adams was asleep beside her, his face relaxed in a way it never was while awake. The faint light from the window caught the new lines around his eyes—lines earned from early mornings and long days, not from despair. She hated to wake him.
Another contraction, stronger this time, stealing her breath. She couldn't stay silent.
"Adams," she whispered, her voice tight.
He was awake instantly, a skill honed from months of responding to Trisha's night cries. His eyes found hers in the gloom, wide with alertness. "What is it? Trisha?"
"No," she breathed, as the pain began to ebb. "It's time."
The two words landed in the quiet room with the force of a detonation. For a second, he was utterly still, the man who commanded airwaves rendered speechless by the most fundamental human process. Then, the training from the prenatal classes they'd secretly attended kicked in.
"Okay. Okay. Right." He swung his legs out of bed, a man on a mission. "The bag. It's by the door. I packed the car seat last week. Just… just breathe. Like they said. Heh-heh-hoo."
His attempt at the breathing technique was so endearingly clumsy that a laugh mixed with Mina's next groan. "I'll breathe," she managed. "You just get the car."
He fumbled for his phone, his hands shaking as he called the taxi driver who had become their unofficial chauffeur. "Emmanuel! Now! It's the baby! Yes, now!"
The next hour was a blur of controlled chaos. Contractions coming faster. Adams helping her to the curb, his arm a steady, sure support under her arms. The nervous energy radiating off him was palpable, but his movements were careful, deliberate. He was present. He was there.
The taxi ride was a surreal journey through a city still shaking off sleep. Mina focused on the horizon, on Adams's hand gripping hers, on the mantra of heh-heh-hoo he was now murmuring with her, more for his own benefit than hers.
They arrived at the modest private hospital they'd scrimped and saved for. The clinical brightness was a shock after their dark, intimate apartment.
A midwife with a kind, no-nonsense face greeted them. "Alright, Mama, let's see how far along you are. Papa, you can wait right—"
"I'm staying," Adams said, his voice leaving no room for argument. He looked at Mina, not the midwife. "If that's… if you want me to."
The question in his eyes was about more than the birth room. It was about every delivery room he'd missed, every failure he was trying to overwrite.
Mina, in the grip of another powerful contraction, could only nod, squeezing his hand until her knuckles were white.
Time lost all meaning in the delivery room. It was measured in peaks of pain and troughs of exhaustion. Adams was a revelation. He wasn't the polished CEO or the broken man from the mansion. He was just a man, mopping her brow with a cool cloth, whispering encouragement that was sometimes coherent, sometimes not.
"You're doing so well, Mina. You're so strong. I'm here. I'm right here."
In a moment of relative calm, she looked at him, really looked. His forehead was beaded with sweat, his shirt damp. He was terrified. But he wasn't hiding. He wasn't running.
"You're sweating more than I am," she rasped, a weak smile touching her lips.
He let out a choked laugh. "It's harder work than a board meeting."
The moment of lightness was shattered by a seizing pain, more intense than any before. The midwife's calm voice cut through the fog. "Okay, Mama. Baby's ready. It's time to push."
The world narrowed to the midwife's voice, to the overwhelming, primal urge to push. Adams's face was the anchor in her storm, his hand the tether keeping her from flying apart.
"You can do this," he whispered, his voice fierce with a faith that felt absolute. "We can do this."
With a final, monumental effort that tore a cry from her very soul, the pressure vanished. For a heart-stopping second, there was silence.
And then—a thin, indignant, beautiful wail.
The sound sliced through the room, through the pain, through the years of hurt. It was the sound of a clean slate.
Tears streamed down Adams's face, unchecked. He was openly weeping, his gaze fixed on the tiny, squirming, perfect being the midwife was placing on Mina's chest.
"It's a boy," the midwife announced, smiling.
Mina looked down, her own tears mixing with the sweat on her skin. She touched a tiny, wrinkled hand, and a love so fierce and instantaneous it was dizzying washed over her.
Adams leaned down, his forehead resting against hers, his tears falling onto the sheets beside her. He looked from his son's face to hers, his eyes holding a universe of emotion—awe, gratitude, a love so profound it was almost painful.
"Chosen," Mina whispered, the name they had agreed upon months ago finally finding its owner.
Adams's breath hitched. He placed a trembling hand on their son's back, feeling the frantic, miraculous beat of his heart. "Chosen," he repeated, the word a vow.
In that moment, surrounded by the sterile smell of hospital antiseptic, they were no longer the couple who had lost everything. They were just parents, marveling at their second chance, made flesh and blood and swaddled in a white blanket.
The cliffhanger of his birth was over. But a new one began as Adams looked at his family—at Mina, at his son, and the long road ahead. The road of proving himself worthy of the name they had just given their child. The road of ensuring this new beginning would not be like the last. The weight of that promise settled on his shoulders, not as a burden, but as the greatest privilege of his life.