Drew found Casey in the nursery at midnight, surrounded by instruction manuals for baby equipment they hadn't figured out how to assemble.

"The crib shouldn't need an engineering degree," she muttered, squinting at diagrams in the dim light. "And what's a drop lock stabilizer anyway?"

"That would be this thing." Drew held up a curved piece of metal. "The thing you've been using as a bookmark for the last hour."

Casey blinked at him, then at the part, then back at him. The dark circles under her eyes matched his own—neither of them had been sleeping well since the eight-month mark hit last week, though for very different reasons.

"What are you doing here so late?" she asked.

"Could ask you the same thing."

"I asked first."

Drew settled onto the floor beside her, carefully moving aside a pile of swaddle blankets they hadn't learned to fold yet. "Couldn't sleep. Kept thinking about the meeting with the historical society tomorrow."

"The one about renovating the old mill district?"

"My first major project here." He picked up a random instruction manual, needing something to do with his hands. "My chance to prove staying was the right choice."

"It was." Casey's voice was soft but certain. "The right choice, I mean."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She leaned against him slightly, their shoulders touching. "Now your turn. Why are you really here?"

Drew watched her fingers worry the edge of a receiving blanket—the one his grandmother had made, edged in seafoam green to match the nursery. "I saw your light on. Thought you might want company."

"At midnight?"

"Seems like as good a time as any to panic about parenthood."

Casey's laugh was shaky. "That obvious, huh?"

"Case, I've known you since we were fifteen. I know your panic face."

"I do not have a panic face."

"You absolutely have a panic face. It's the same one you had before the SATs. And your college thesis defense. And—"

"Okay, okay." She bumped his shoulder. "So maybe I'm panicking a little."

"Want to talk about it?"

Casey was quiet for a long moment, her hands still working the blanket's edge. "What if we mess this up too?"

The question hung in the air between them, heavy with all their past failures.

"The parenting thing?" Drew asked carefully. "Or the us thing?"

"Both? Either?" She gestured at the chaos around them. "All of it?"

Drew thought about his own sleepless nights, about all the fears he hadn't voiced. About how terrifying and wonderful it was to be building something new with the person who knew exactly how to break your heart.

"Remember when we bought the house?" he said finally.

"Which part? The excitement or the disaster?"

"The middle part. When we had all these plans but no idea how to execute them. When every decision felt huge because we thought we had to get everything perfect the first time."

Casey nodded slowly. "And instead we just... froze. Stopped making decisions altogether."

"Because we were afraid of making the wrong ones."

"But there weren't really wrong decisions, were they?" She looked around the nursery—at the seafoam green accent wall they'd compromised on, at the window seat they'd finally finished together. "Just different choices. Different paths to the same goal."

"Exactly." Drew touched her hand where it worried the blanket. "Maybe this is like that. Maybe there's no perfect way to do it. Just our way."

"But what if our way isn't good enough? What if we can't..." She swallowed hard. "What if we can't protect her from everything?"

Ah. There it was. The real fear, the one that had been haunting them both since the positive test.

"We can't," Drew said gently. "No one can. Not from everything."

"Then what's the point? Why even try if we know we might fail?"

"Because trying is the point." He laced their fingers together. "Because every time we've failed—with the house, with our marriage, with everything—we've learned something. Grown somehow."

"Into what?"

"Into people who know better. Who do better." He squeezed her hand. "Into people who can teach our daughter that it's okay to mess up sometimes, as long as you learn from it."

Casey was quiet for a long moment, her free hand moving to her belly where their daughter kicked steadily.

"I'm terrified," she admitted finally.

"Me too."

"Of everything. Of labor. Of parenthood. Of..." She met his eyes. "Of letting myself love you again."

Drew's heart stuttered. They hadn't talked about the kiss at the baby shower, about all the almost-moments since then, about the way they kept gravitating back to each other despite their best intentions to keep things simple.

"I'm scared too," he said quietly. "Terrified, actually. Because this time... this time I know exactly what I have to lose."

"So why risk it?"

"Because I also know what I have to gain." He touched her cheek, turning her face toward his. "Because maybe being scared together is better than being safe apart."

Casey leaned into his touch, her eyes filling with tears. "I don't know how to do this."

"Do what?"

"Any of it. Being parents. Being... whatever we are. Building something new when we know exactly how it can all fall apart."

"Maybe that's our advantage." Drew wiped away a tear with his thumb. "We know the weak spots now. Know where to reinforce the foundation."

"More house metaphors?"

"Hey, I'm an architect. It's what I do." His smile faded into seriousness. "But I mean it, Case. Maybe knowing how things can break makes us better at building them right."

"And if we fail anyway?"

"Then we fail better. Fail forward. Fail together instead of apart."

Casey laughed wetly. "That's terrible."

"But true?"

"But true." She looked around the nursery again, at all the half-assembled pieces of their future. "So what do we do now?"

Drew picked up the crib instructions. "Well, first we figure out what the hell a drop lock stabilizer actually does. Then maybe we talk about why you're really here at midnight instead of sleeping."

"Only if you tell me what's really keeping you up about the mill district project."

"Deal." He pulled her closer, letting her head rest on his shoulder. "And Casey?"

"Mm?"

"I love you too. Still. Always. Even when it scares me."

She was quiet for so long he thought he'd said too much. Then, so softly he almost missed it: "Even when it's messy?"

"Especially then."

Their daughter kicked, strong and sure, as if adding her own opinion to the conversation. Casey laughed, guiding Drew's hand to feel the movement.

"She agrees," Casey said.

"Smart girl."

"Gets that from her father."

They sat together in the quiet nursery, surrounded by instruction manuals and baby clothes and all their complicated history. Outside, Pine Grove slept peacefully, unaware of the small miracles happening in this room—fear turning to faith, broken pieces finding new ways to fit together, love growing stronger in the cracks of what had been.

"Drew?"

"Hmm?"

"I think I know what a drop lock stabilizer does."

He laughed, pressing a kiss to her temple. "Enlighten me."

And so, in the middle of the night, they built a crib. Then a changing table. Then a future, piece by piece, instruction manual optional.

Together.

Scared but certain.

Building something new out of something broken.

Something stronger.