"BETTER?" DAVE ASKED, plopping himself down besides Reagan's hospital bed after another round of mindless pacing. He handed her a plastic cup filled with ice chips, the only thing she was permitted to consume. She happily accepted them, twining her fingers around the cold cup.

"Yes," Reagan said. "It's weird though, not being able to feel my legs."

"But in comparison to the pain?"

"A lot better, then." She quietly wedged the small pieces of ice into her mouth, allowing them to cool on her tongue as she laid anxiously flat. Her epidural had been administered only forty-five minutes prior at the hands of a deft anesthesiologist, who had made the injection less agonizing than Reagan had imagined. Dave had stood by watching with a gaunt look on his face, his eyes trained on the needle that had been inserted swiftly into Reagan's lower back. 

"Is your mom on your way?" Reagan asked, glancing up from her ice chips.

"She was leaving for the airport the last time we spoke. She promised to get the soonest flight out." 

"Good," she nodded. "And Kate?"

"Should be here any minute. It sounded like she was going to call up your mom and dad."

"That's fine. They ought to know. I'm just not sure if I'm ready for it to come from me."

Dave chuckled under his breath. He reached out to smooth back Reagan's hairline, which had become dampened with sweat. Her tired eyes closed at his touch.

"Are you thinking that I'm a bad daughter for not telling them myself?"

"No," Dave answered simply.

"Then I'm at least a chicken shit for relying on Kate to do it."

"That makes two chicken shits present in this room, then."

Reagan felt the corners of her lips pull downward. "Are you upset?"

"Not upset," Dave said. He gave his shoulders a half-hearted shrug. "Just . . . scared."

She looked back down into her cup of ice chips that were slowly melting around the edges. If it weren't for the fact that it was already too late to turn back, she wondered if she would have ever put him in this situation in the first place. The reality of their youth was hitting her hard. She didn't know what she expected out of Dave -- perhaps nothing at all. It's not as if she could do anything herself.

"Hey," he said gently. He touched his fingers to her chin, tilting it slightly upwards. "It's going to be alright, okay? She's gonna' be fine."

"I'm sorry," Reagan apologized in a rough whisper. "I know this is a lot. It's a lot for us."

"It's not too much, if that's what you're getting at."

Reagan shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. "It's hard to believe that this is happening. I mean, we're having a baby. Tonight. I swear it feels like it was just the other day that we first met. And now we're here and you're going to be a dad . . ."

Dave stiffened in the chair he sat in, sitting up straighter. "Please don't tell me that you're having regrets about this right now."

"No!" Reagan cried, opening her eyes and widening them. "That's not it at all. I . . . I love you. I love her." She flickered her gaze towards her stomach and then back to Dave, feeling her heart beat faster. "I'm allowed to be shocked though, aren't I? This is pretty life changing."

"You're being a martyr," Dave accused.

"No I'm not," Reagan shot back. "How am I being a martyr?"

"Because I know where this is coming from," Dave said. "You've done it before. You're on that same kick, acting like this is an inconvenience to me when it isn't. I'm happy, Reagan. Nothing else matters."

There was so much that she wanted to say. She wanted to point out the obvious things that they had already rehashed hundreds of time, like his commitment to Nirvana and what that meant for his future. But Dave was still Dave and he could read her mind, even when both of their thoughts had been racing all night. 

"Are you happy?" he asked quietly. "With me? With everything?"

"Very," she assured him. "Sorry. I know I'm being a dick."

"I guess that getting ready to push a baby out can do that to you."

A nurse walked into the room and cut their conversation short, turning around Reagan's bedside and checking the monitor that she was hooked up to. Reagan offered Dave a small smile, a promise that she was not going off the deep end and having seconds thought while laid up in the delivery room. As long as he was happy, she did not see an outcome in which she wouldn't be happy too. All of her fears and doubts would subside if he was alright, as accepting as he'd ever been of their current state of affairs.

"How are we feeling?" the nurse asked. 

"Numb," Reagan replied. She tried to wriggle her toes, but the sensation did not come to her no matter how hard her brain tried to signal to her feet. "And kind of achey." 

"Let's see how far you've gotten," the nurse insisted. She pulled on her gloves and went to the end of Reagan's bed, gingerly lifting away the hem of her hospital gown.

Reagan gave Dave a sheepish look and he smiled back at her, petting at her hand as the nurse checked for Reagan's dilation. Reagan felt like some kind of injured animal being prodded and poked over while Dave watched, looking far too young to be a man preparing to help his wife give birth. It was like trying to imagine the childhood characters from the books and television shows of her youth as parents. The image just didn't click. At least it hadn't yet, in their case. 

"Looks like you're at ten centimeters," the nurse announced, rising from the chair she sat on. "I'll go grab your doctor. Ready to start pushing?'

Reagan's eyes grew as round as they humanely could and she leaned forward, clutching her cup of ice chips so firmly in her hand that the plastic crunched in protest. There was no way she had heard her nurse right. Start pushing? Now? 

"Wait, are you sure? My sister isn't even here yet," Reagan said uneasily. 

The nurse frowned. "I suppose you could wait, but the baby will be crowning soon enough. It will be easier on you if you try to push now."

"Okay. Okay," Reagan nodded breathlessly. She was vaguely away of Dave wrenching her hand into his and the nurse bustling out of the room to find her doctor. Her vision was swimming and the enormity of what she was about to do hit her with the impact of a tidal wave.

"This is happening. This is actually happening," Dave said, sounding as if he was more keen to reassure himself that it was all real rather than Reagan.

"Funny," she said, puffing out anxious gasps of air in gusts. "A minute ago we were almost fighting. Now we're having a baby."

"Not fighting," Dave corrected. "Just reminding each other why we're here."

"Because we don't know to use condoms?"

"I was going to say because we love each other, but that too."

A knot of nurses entered the room along with Reagan's doctor, wheeling in a heated trolley and carrying armfuls of towels and blankets. Reagan squeezed Dave's hand tighter, twisting his fingers in her grip. He cringed.

"I heard that we're ready to start pushing?" her doctor asked, lifting a face mask over his mouth after flashing Reagan an encouraging smile.

"I'm not entirely sure about that," she replied. She was still trying to reign in control of her breathing. The swarm of people around her did nothing to help her concentration as she focused on her lungs, teaching herself how to breathe all over again.

Two nurses lifted Reagan's legs into stirrups at her bed's end, murmuring and offering words of comfort as they took routine turns smiling at her. Their excitement did nothing for Reagan. She couldn't stop thinking about how she wasn't ready. Gracie wasn't ready. She was spitting her out into the world at the wrong time and Reagan knew that if anything went wrong, she would blame herself for the rest of her life. In response to this harrowing thought, Reagan whimpered.

"Don't be afraid honey," one of the nurses said kindly. She patted Reagan's hitched leg. "You're going to do great." 

"Alright," Reagan's doctor said, situating himself into a chair and positioning his hands between Reagan's legs. "I'm starting to see a head. Can you give me a push, Reagan?"

Reagan whipped her head to the right and stared at Dave with pleading eyes. His face was white as he blinked at her and she knew what he was thinking -- what? You want me to push for you? 

My sister, Reagan wanted to say. She's not here. Kate would surely kill her if she pushed out the baby without her having been there to witness it. It wasn't something that they had ever planned on or discussed in the past, but they were still sisters, and it seemed appropriate that Kate should be there to watch her niece being born. Reagan wondered where Kate was now, if she was still racing to the hospital against time or if she was inside of it, trying to catch the last elevator up to her floor.

"Reagan?" her doctor asked again. "Are you ready?" One of the nurses flipped on a bright yellow light that beamed down onto Reagan's lower half, lighting the way for Gracie to enter the world.

"I-," Reagan began, once more turning to Dave. Her eyes roved his face wildly, looking for the answer that she herself could not give. Were either of them ready? She didn't know. After all this time, she was finally being confronted with the birth of her daughter and she actually had the nerve to stall the process. The truth of whether or not Gracie would be okay, as small as she was, felt like a stabbing pain to the gut, just as worse as Reagan's contractions had been.

"It's okay, baby," Dave whispered. He bent his knees and lowered his face closer to Reagan's, wringing his hand more tightly in hers and using his free one to stroke her head. "You've got to push. Come on."

Something about the way Dave looked at her, with a fierce amount of certainty and love in his eyes, gave Reagan the will to do what was being asked of her. If Dave was ready, then she had to be ready too. It was on his mark that she would give it her all. If he could push past the fear of the unknown, then she would do it right alongside him. He was being fearless for her, whisking away his worries into hiding so that she could look at him and know that they had done it all right.

Nothing could change about where they had ended up. And if she were to be honest with herself, Reagan wouldn't want it to, even if it were impossible.

She turned to determinedly towards her doctor and gave him a fast, jerky nod. Inhaling deeply and puffing out her cheeks, Reagan leaned forward and pushed down with her upper half, expecting immediate pain but feeling nothing except a strange, anchoring ache. She gasped and flopped back against her pillow.

"Again," a nurse instructed. "I'll count to ten and you hold your breath until I'm finished."

"Come on Reags," Dave said, his voice still hushed. "You can do this."

Reagan pushed again and closed her eyes, wrenching them shut and closing her teeth over her lower lip. Now she finally understood why she had turned down the chance to watch RaeLynn and Kody being born. Birth was exhausting and scary and gross. She was glad that she could not see what was happening between her legs. Maybe it had turned out to be a good thing that Kate wasn't there. She didn't want the memory of all that ripping and tearing to stick with her sister forever. 

That push had done her in. She drew back from her hunched position and gasped again. Sweat was beading on her forehead and dripping into her eyes. She halfway felt Dave wiping his hand across her forehead, gently rotating the pad of his thumb against her temple.

"You're doing great," he whispered. "You've got this baby. Keep going."

NO, Reagan wanted to shout. I don't have this. What could she have possibly had except a vast amount of uncertainty? In minutes, their daughter would be physically joining them and they had no idea what kind of state she would be in. Everything had been so normal up until the moment that Reagan had arrived at the hospital. Everything had been happy. Pure. Now, her terror was clawing at her from the inside out. 

Please be okay, she thought. I need you to be okay. 

She pushed again, this time letting out a strangled cry of frustration as she tried to bear down on her baby bump. She stayed like that for what felt like an eternity before collapsing backwards again. She hadn't realized that the salty wetness staining her lips was tears, not sweat.

"One more, Reagan, you're almost there," her doctor called. She nearly groaned. He was asking for too much. The next time that she pushed again, she was almost sure that she would pop a blood vessel in her head.

Dave had craned his neck over Reagan's legs to take a peek. When he looked back at Reagan, he wore an expression of riveted awe. His mouth was quivering.

"She's almost here, Reags. One more push and she'll be here."

With Dave's reassurance still ringing clearly in her mind, Reagan hunched over again to perform the last push that she'd been promised. She dragged Dave forward with her, screaming through her teeth with determination. And then she felt it -- she felt the absence of her baby from her body and heard a pitchy, wailing cry fill the room.

"Congratulations," her doctor said, raising a squirming, bloodied infant into view. "Here's your little girl." 

It was unlike anything else that Reagan had seen. She could remember a time when the coolest things that she had considered witnessing were shows put on by local bands, or seeing a musician outperform themselves on stage. But nothing, nothing compared to what she felt as she gazed upon her crying daughter for the first time. 

"Oh my god," Reagan said. Her words closed around a sob. 

"You did it," Dave said, sounding close to tears himself. He peppered Reagan's face with enthusiastic kisses, smiling as big as she had ever seen him smile. "She's here, Reags."

"Gracie," Reagan called out. The name fit so right in her mouth. The invisible life that she had been growing inside of her for months was finally tangible, something she could touch and nurture and love. She cried again as she watched the nurses lay Gracie down, toweling her off and taking her vitals.

"Is she okay?" Reagan asked, her voice weak with exhaustion. "Is she alright?"

"She's going to be fine," Reagan's doctor said. "The nurses are going to give her some oxygen and make sure that she's warm." 

With the last ounce of strength that she could muster, Reagan searched for Gracie, trying to see past the arms of the nurses that worked over her. She caught glimpses of her, tinier than any baby that Reagan had ever seen. She was still crying, the sound as sweet as the music that Dave had once played for her inside of his shoebox room at Kurt's house.

 "She didn't want to come out" Reagan insisted through her tears. "She's so confused."

"Yeah," Dave laughed, rubbing the back of Reagan's hand. "She's like, wait a second, my lease in there isn't up yet." 

Reagan looked up at him, her face crumping as she continued to cry. She had never loved him as much as she did then. Every moment they had spent together had culminated into this. It didn't matter to Reagan anymore about how it had happened or what the outcome would have been if they had taken things slower. She was eternally grateful for him, for being able to call him hers, and knowing that he was the father of the little life that she'd just pushed out.

"I love you," she croaked. "I love you so much."

Dave leaned down and kissed Reagan's mouth, placing his hand on her neck and holding it there as he listened to Gracie's gentle whimpers, the very ones that proved just how real and perfect she was. 

"I love you more."

________

Reagan laid on her back, one arm outstretched and her hand dipped carefully into one of the holes of the incubator that Gracie laid in. What she wanted more than anything was to lay on her side, where she could marvel at her daughter face to face, but her body was sore and her stomach was still swollen with the aftermath of birth. She'd had to make do with being able to just barely touch Gracie with the tips of her fingers.

A helpful nurse had rolled the incubator to Reagan's bedside, positioning it so that she could have a clear view of Gracie laying inside of it. She was swathed in blankets and wearing the tiniest of caps, so big on her that it nearly covered her eyes. She was even tinier than Reagan had expected. She only weighed two and a half pounds, small enough that Reagan envisioned being able to hold her in just the palm of her hand. 

"She's a miniature," Dave said. He was sitting opposite of Gracie's incubator, staring fervently into it just as Reagan was. "I can't believe how small she is."

"Smaller than one of your drumsticks," Reagan smiled. "You should hold one up to her. Might make you laugh."

"I might have to try that out," Dave mused. "Not like I could use a laugh, though. I'm happy enough as it is."

He wasn't lying. He had not stopped smiling since Gracie had arrived, no matter how breathless and exhilarating the experience had been for him. It was only when the doctor had pulled Reagan's placenta out that he'd gagged. She had teased him response, suggesting that they keep the placenta and turn it into a smoothie. This had only made him gag more.

"I just want to hold her," Reagan whispered. 

"We will. As soon as she's out of that thing, I know we'll never put her down."

"Is Kate coming up soon?"

"Yeah, she is. She said she wanted to give us a moment. You know, alone with Gracie."

"You're going to love your aunt," Reagan whispered. She stretched her pointer finger out as far as it would go, brushing against the thin cotton that was wrapped around Gracie.

The door opened and a nurse sidled in slowly, holding a clipboard in her hands. "Hey there," she greeted. She seemed nervous as she tucked a piece of loose hair behind her ear. "I'm here to check in."

Reagan nodded and withdrew her hand, keeping her eyes trained on Gracie as the nurse began to work over her. She was dutiful in watching how they handled her, measuring from afar to see whether or not Gracie cried or had any adverse reaction to being touched and examined. 

"She's doing great," the nurse said once she completed her check-up, adjusting Gracie's blankets a little tighter around her tiny frame. "Heart rate, reflexes, breathing. Everything is looking good."

"Thank you," Reagan sighed in relief. So far, they had avoided any complications. For a preemie, Gracie was adjusting well to the outside world. 

The nurse turned to leave but hesitated, lingering in the door way. She re-tucked her hair back and held her clipboard to her chest, facing Reagan and Dave breathlessly. 

"Um," she began. Her face turned pink. "If now is not a good time, I understand. but . . . can I get an autograph?"

It took Dave a few delayed seconds to realize the nurse was talking to him. He raised his eyebrows. 

"If not, it's okay," the nurse said hurriedly. "I could get in huge trouble for asking. It's just . . . you're in Nirvana."

"I am," Dave said, adapting an easy smile onto his face. "Yeah. Sure. I'll sign something." 

Reagan watched as the nurse unclipped a blank sheet of paper and handed it over to Dave with a thrilled look on her face. Dave inked his signature out quickly and gave it back to her, still smiling. 

"Thank you," the nurse breathed. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome," Dave said, settling back down into his chair. The nurse left in a hurry, closing the door with a click and leaving Reagan and Dave alone again with Gracie.

Reagan flashed Dave a knowing look, rolling her eyes when she caught sight of his dopey grin. 

"Don't let that get to your head," she warned.

He laughed. "Trust me. Of all the things that could be going to my head right now, that's the last one."