"Just a few more minutes, little guy, just a few more and then we can go see your mom, yes we can," Holly said in a happy, playful voice. She gently rocked the baby carrier with one hand while she signed some paperwork with the other. One final sweep of the pen and she was done. If anyone saw her hand shake as she handed the forms over to the nurse, no one said anything.

It was official. Her son was no longer a patient of the Level 2 nursery at Toronto's Mount Sinai hospital.

Her son was going home.

And soon his mother, her wife, would join them.

It was funny how in just a few short days your entire world could turn upside down. It had happened twice to Holly in the past week.

The first time had been when she'd received the frantic call from Chloe that they were calling an ambulance for Gail, that something was wrong. By the time Holly had arrived at the hospital the doctors had already delivered the baby, and he'd already been whisked away to the NICU for evaluation. And Gail, the ER nurses told her, was in surgery. She was in surgery for hours, and more than once a surgical intern had been sent out to update the growing crowd in the waiting room, always very careful not to give them anything that could be misinterpreted as hope. Her wife's prognosis wasn't good, the interns had told her, she was losing a lot of blood, almost faster than they could replace it. And the surgeons were having a hard time getting the bleeding to stop. Holly should, they cautioned her, prepare herself for the possibility that Gail might not make it.

Holly doesn't remember what she said in return. She doesn't remember a lot about the next few hours.

But she remembers her mother taking her hand and leading her to the NICU. And she remembers standing over the isolette where a tiny boy lay all alone, surrounded by monitors, connected to tubes and sensors. Gail's tiny boy. Their tiny boy.

Holly stood and watched for a long time, her mother's warmth a steady presence at her back. And then, with the help of one of the nurses, she'd held him for the first time. She'd wept at the first sensation of his small body in her arms, wept at seeing his dark blonde hair and his blue, blue eyes. Gail's nose.

He was beautiful.

He was perfect.

He was everything that she was faced with losing.

And so she wept as she held him, as she'd rocked their brand new son to sleep and prayed for her wife to live.

And Gail did live. She made it through hours of surgery, through massive blood loss and organs shutting down.

She was in a coma.

But she was alive.

The second time her world turned upside down, or maybe it turned right-side up, was the day Gail woke up. That was the day when Holly knew everything would be okay, when Holly knew that they would all be okay.

That was the day Holly started breathing again, the day her heart took up its old, familiar rhythm.

Days of not sleeping, barely eating. Days of running back and forth between the NICU and the ICU, and then the special-care nursery and the ICU. Days of being afraid, of feeling her heart stop with every alarm that went off, every setback.

But one peek at those beautiful blue eyes, at Gail awake and aware, and all of the terrible, bad, terrifying moments from the past days just slipped away. Faded away under the weight of Holly's relief, her joy.

Oh, everything wasn't fixed, Holly knew that. The road ahead was going to be long and difficult. For all of them. But seeing Gail, feeling her wife squeeze at her hand, hearing her raspy voice? It was the beginning of the long journey back to normal. And Holly was so grateful.

And now, with the paperwork completed and her son officially discharged?

Now it was time to introduce him to his other mother.

Now it was time to introduce Gail to her son.

Holly picked up the baby carrier, waving off her parents and brother who were standing by. Their arms were full of things—blankets, cards that had decorated the baby's bassinette, the few stuffed animals that kept him company, and everything else that her son had accumulated in his week on the planet. Navigating carefully around the machines and cribs in the nursery, Holly stopped to give a hug to each of the nurses and caretakers who had watched over and cared for her boy. She smiled at them, and watched as they tickled her son's belly, telling him they didn't ever want to see him in their ward again. She promised to send pictures as he grew, knowing how important it was to them, and to the other parents, to see the happy and healthy children who had started out in their care.

Her parents and brother went on to take all the baby items home for her, to the nursery that Henry and Steve and some of the officers from the 15 had been working to get ready for them all.

And then she was on her way to Gail, a diaper bag bumping against her hip and their son tucked safely in his baby carrier.

She hadn't told her wife that their son was going to be discharged today. She didn't want to get Gail's hopes up in case there was a setback, in case the doctor decided to keep him in longer. But there had been no setback. His lungs were good, he was breathing on his own with no problems. He'd regained all of the weight he'd lost after birth, and then some. He was a solid six pounds now. And all his blood work had come back clear. He was healthy and ready to go home.

And so there they stood, the doctor and her son. At the threshold of Gail's room. Holly was surprised to realize that she was nervous. Would meeting the baby be too much for Gail? Would it make her upset and delay the progress of her recovery? Would it make her angry, would it make her frustrated with her situation and make it harder for the doctors and therapists to help her? Would he recognize his mother, the woman who had carried him for almost nine months? Or would he fuss and fail to connect with Gail, preferring instead any of the arms that had comforted him and held him and rocked him over the past week.

Holly began to worry if maybe this was a mistake, if surprising Gail was a good idea or not. Maybe she should take the baby home, get him settled and slowly introduce him to Gail another time. Tomorrow maybe.

She turned around and ran smack into a hard body.

Steve.

"Hey, Holly," Gail's brother said softly, as if he were afraid she'd spook if he spoke too loudly.

She sighed and shifted the carrier to her other arm for a moment.

"You look like you're talking yourself out of something," he inquired gently, reaching down to lift the diaper bag from her shoulder, "can I help with anything?"

Before she could answer he bent over and peeked into the baby carrier at his nephew. "Hey, there, dude," Steve said in a teasing whisper, "I hear you got sprung today. Good job, high-five!" He snuck his finger into the baby's grasp and laughed when his nephew held tight.

Steve looked up at her patiently, waiting for her to answer his question.

"I was going to bring him to see Gail," Holly explained, "but I'm not so sure it's the best idea. I don't want to give her anything more to be worried or stressed over. So I think I'm going to go home and get him settled and come back tomorrow."

Steve stood up and looked at her with a sad expression on his face. "Holly, I know you guys have been through a lot lately. And I know you're worried and you're second-guessing every move you make. But," he said as he reached to rub a brotherly knuckle across her chin, "but trust me when I say that not seeing her son is stressing Gail out worse. She tries to hide it when you come around, but she's been pestering Oliver and me to help her escape to the nursery."

Holly jerked her head up, she hadn't known that.

"It's true," a voice said, approaching her side, "she's been asking me too. And I have to say, Holly-Hobbie, it's been getting harder and harder to say no."

"Hey, Henry," Steve said, clapping his brother-in-law on the back.

The other man responded in kind, "Steve."

"Look, Hol," her brother said, "I can't even imagine how hard the past week has been for you. Or for Gail. But what you guys need is to mark the ending of all that and the beginning of a new chapter. You guys need to just sit and look at your son—who still needs a name, for Christ's sake—and be with each other. Nothing's going to feel right until then."

The two men stood and waited.

They were right, Holly knew. Nothing was going to feel right until it she saw her son in her wife's arms. Until she could slip behind Gail in the bed, and hold them both together in her own arms.

She nodded, and then looked over to the closed door.

"Can you get the door," she asked with a nervous smile.

Inside the room, Gail was asleep, and her parents were sitting by the side of her bed passing a half-finished crossword puzzle back and forth between themselves. They smiled at her, and Elaine immediately rose to get a look at her sleepy grandson in his carrier.

But soon enough Steve kindly ushered them out, planting a kiss on his sister's forehead, and then Holly's, before he left. And then it was just Henry and Holly, and the two sleeping blondes.

He looked at her with a curious expression. "You know," he said, "this isn't how I imagined things playing out back at the beginning."

"No," Holly answered, the word catching in her throat, "me either."

Her brother smirked at her. "Leave it to Gail, hey?"

She snorted, accidentally bumping the baby carrier that she'd put down on one of the chairs next to the bed. The baby stirred, and she put a calming hand on his stomach, watching as he drifted off again.

"Henry," she said quietly, looking over at the man she'd grown up with from the womb. He was taller than her by a few inches, and even though they shared a lot of the same features—their mother's mouth, their skin tone, their dark hair—he looked much more like their father. Until a few days ago, he was the man she loved most in the world. Him and their father, of course.

Now he'd been replaced. Now that title was held by a tiny six-pound boy with their long, thin fingers and toes, and their mouth. With his mother's surly brow.

And the funny thing?

She didn't love him any less. If anything, she loved him more. For giving them this gift, this beautiful boy. For being the strength she leaned against many a lonely night over the past week. For just being himself, her big brother.

"Hmmm," he asked.

"I love you. You know that, right?"

"Of course I do, Holly. I love you too."

She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him tight. "Thank you," she whispered, "thank you for everything. For him."

She felt the chuckle he tried to suppress.

"You know, Hol, you really need to give that boy a name."

Holly pulled back and looked up at her twin. "He has a name," she said. "But it just didn't seem right to make it official without Gail. Without making sure that we were both still agreed."

"Is it Henry," he asked, "you can tell me if it is. I won't tell anyone. Scout's honor."

She laughed, for what seemed like the first time in years. "You were never a scout, and it's not Henry. We want him to have his own name. But I'll tell you this much," she said conspiratorially, "It starts with 'H.' And Gail chose it. She said that even if we weren't naming him after anyone, that didn't mean there couldn't be a connection. So she picked a name that started with 'H' like ours."

Her brother looked at the woman in the bed, and then back at Holly. "She's pretty amazing, your wife," he said, shaking his head in awe or disbelief.

"Oh," Holly answered with a loving smile, "I know."

They stood for a few moments more, just watching as Gail's chest rose and fell in sleep.

"Okay," Henry said, pulling Holly into a quick hug, "I'm going to get going. I know you want this first meeting to be just the three of you."

Holly nodded her head; it was true. She did. She wanted this moment to be the one that was stolen away from them, the first moment as a family.

Henry went over to the sleeping baby and brushed his finger against his nephew's cheek. "See you later, little H," he said.

And then Holly was alone with her sleeping wife and her sleeping son.

She sat there for a while, just watching the two of them. Everything she needed, everything she loved, the whole of her life—it could all be reduced to these two people.

Eventually she drifted off into a light sleep. But not for very long. The sound of Gail rustling the sheets pulled her back into awareness.

She'd become familiar with the way Gail woke up in the years they'd shared a life. Gail in the hospital was only a little different. The blonde stretched, almost defiantly, and gave a small groan when her motion pulled at the still-healing incision on her abdomen.

"Hey, hey," Holly said, placing a hand on Gail's shoulder to help bring her wife to the surface, "careful. You don't want to injure yourself."

Gail blinked slowly, and Holly watched as those clear blue eyes focused on her face.

"Lunchbox," her wife said softly, "you're here."

"I am," Holly answered, and leaned in to place a chaste kiss at the corner of Gail's mouth. "How are you feeling today?"

Gail smirked at her, and Holly felt her stomach twist. Losing this woman would have destroyed her, would have ruined her.

"Better now that you've scared my parents away," she answered. "Really, nerd, what is your trick? I couldn't seem to shake them the whole morning. I had to pretend to fall asleep to get my mother to stop talking about what I should do when I get back to work. Even in a hospital bed, she won't stop trying to plan my future."

Holly raised an eyebrow. "Pretend," she asked.

"Well," Gail said with a shrug, "it started out as pretending."

Holly hmmm'd at her, content just to look for a moment before leaning in and giving her wife another kiss. This time a real kiss.

"Hey," she said as she pulled back, "there's someone I want you to meet."

Gail looked confused at first. But as Holly started to raise the head of the bed, and helped Gail into a sitting position, she saw the carrier sitting on the chair next to her wife.

"Holly," Gail started, fear and awe in her voice, "is that—?"

But she cut herself off.

"Holly, he shouldn't be here. He should be in the NICU."

Gail's voice rose higher and higher, the way it did when she was upset.

"Gail, honey," Holly said and squeezed at her wife's hand, "it's okay. He was discharged this morning. The doctors gave him a clean bill of health, okay? There's nothing here that can hurt him."

But Gail still looked scared. In all honesty, Holly wasn't surprised. She'd been terrified when the doctor had first told her that he'd be discharged soon. Their son's short life had been so full of trauma and uncertainty, so delicately balanced among the monitors and tubes. The thought of taking him out into the world, taking him out of the safe space of the nursery, had stopped her in her tracks. For a moment, she couldn't breathe.

But Bill had been there with her that morning. And he'd helped her into a chair and talked softly about how this was a good thing, about how it meant that this terrible week was finally coming to a close. And soon enough she could breathe again.

Holly knew Gail was having similar fears, knew that what they'd all gone through would haunt them for a long time. The hospital had already sent one of their counselors to talk to her about the signs of PTSD in herself and in Gail.

So Holly wiped at the tears gathering in the blonde's eyes, and then cupped her wife's chin in her hand. "He's okay, Gail," she said, her voice firm but loving. It was the voice she'd used many a time to pull Gail out of her nightmares and back into the safe cocoon of their bed. "He's healthy, and there's nothing here that can hurt him, okay?"

She found Gail's hands and took them into her own, waiting until her wife's breathing evened out before giving them a gentle squeeze and untangling their hands.

Holly reached over into the baby carrier at her side. She lifted the tiny bundle out and gently, carefully, stood. He squirmed a little in her arms as she brought him up for a soft kiss on his forehead.

"Hey, there, baby," she cooed as he opened his eyes, as he flexed his fingers, "are you ready to meet your mom?"

He gurgled at her, and Holly laughed.

"Okay," she said, "here we go."

She turned back toward the bed where her wife was sitting, propped up against some pillows. Holly smiled at the way Gail's arms came up instinctively as she began to lower their son into them. Once Gail had the baby secure, Holly slipped back into her chair at the side of the bed, tears flowing freely down her face as she watched her wife say hello to their son for the first time, kiss his forehead, count all of his fingers and ruffle her own through his crop of dark blonde hair.

Gail had seen pictures, everyone who visited her had wanted to show her pictures of how well her son was doing. And she had loved looking at them. Loved seeing her son's face, loved seeing him held by people who loved him.

But the pictures couldn't compare to this. Couldn't take the weight of her boy in her arms, couldn't translate the dewy softness of his skin. A picture couldn't tell her what he smelled like, or let her hear the little snuffle as he breathed.

Gail looked over at her wife, at Holly with her brilliant smile and her wet eyes. "Did it feel like this the first time you held him too," she asked in a reverent whisper.

"Like what, honey?"

"Like …," Gail struggled to find the words, "like everything. Like the whole world."

Holly thought back to the day he was born, peeling away the terror and the fear and the sense of impending loss that had hung over her as she waited to hear about her wife.

"It felt like," she paused to swallow against the memory, the nightmare of the days and nights that followed. She began again. "It felt like my heart was so full it might burst. Like I had been complete, and then there was you, and my heart grew. And then there was him, and my heart grew again."

Gail was quiet as she traced her fingers over her son's face. Up and down his nose, following the line of his cheek. Down his jaw, around his tiny little ears, over his soft full lips.

"He has your mouth, Hol," she said in awe. "I knew that, I saw it in the pictures, and then your mom said the same thing. But I didn't really understand until now. How am I ever going to say no to him when he's got your mouth?"

Holly laughed and leaned in closer to the pair in the bed. "You think that's bad," she joked, "he has your eyes, and when he's fighting sleep he makes the same cranky-face you make. If you think you're going to have it rough, Officer, you have no idea how bad he's already got me wrapped around his little finger.

"We're screwed, aren't we, Lunchbox," Gail laughed.

"Oh, absolutely."

Gail looked over at her wife and spoke softly. "Come here," she said, "come sit with us."

"Okay," Holly said after a moment spent figuring out the best way to join her family on the bed. "Just, let me," she said as she came around to the side without any IVs or tubes or monitors.

Holly used one hand to support Gail's weight and the other to remove some of the pillows she'd piled up behind her wife to get her into a sitting position. And then carefully, carefully slid in behind, letting the weight of her body help scoot Gail forward on the just a bit, to make room for her behind.

And then Gail's weight settled back against her chest, and she could wrap her arms gently around her wife, and help hold the little bundle that was their son.

She could feel her wife's every inhale of breath, every exhale. She could feel the warmth of her skin, could smell the scent that, even amid all the antiseptic and the hospital odors, was so distinctly Gail.

It was too much, and Holly felt the hot tears gather in her eyes, slip down her face.

"Hey," Gail said, craning her neck back to look at her wife, "Hol, what's wrong?"

Holly took a deep breath and let her chin rest against Gail's shoulder, "It's just, you're here. You're alive and you're here."

"Of course I am, Lunchbox," Gail said matter-of-factly as their son kicked his feet inside his blankets, "I couldn't miss this. Somebody's got to be the cool mom."

Holly was aware of what her wife was trying to do, that Gail was trying to distract away from her melancholic musings on what might have happened. But she couldn't help it. She'd almost lost this. She almost never got the chance to hold her wife and her son in her arms. Gail knew bits and pieces of what had happened, knew enough to know that her condition had been very serious. But Holly, Holly was there. Holly knew everything, every detail. She knew exactly how close her wife had hovered on the thin line between life and death. Knows that if Traci had taken a minute longer to realize that Gail and the baby were in trouble, if the ambulance had been delayed by a few minutes, if the ER doctors hadn't moved as quickly, if any of a million tiny little things hadn't happened, she wouldn't be here right now. Her wife wouldn't be here right now.

Instead, Holly would be alone with their son.

Maybe Gail knew that Holly needed a moment just to grieve over what had happened, and what might have happened. Maybe she knew that this was the first time, truly the first, that her wife was able to let everything go, let all the worry and the fear go. Maybe she knew that Holly needed to just sit for a moment, and feel.

So for a few minutes, they just sit. They just sit together and breathe.

Until their son decided to make his presence known with a husky cry.

"Hey, there, Mr. Guy," Gail said as she looked down into his eyes, "what's going on?"

She looked back at Holly, a little unsure. "I don't know what he wants," she whispered.

Holly looked down and saw that he'd managed to get his hand stuck in one of the folds of the blanket, and reached over to free it.

"He likes to have his hands free," she said.

Gail shifted, and Holly could feel the anxiety radiating through her body.

"Holly, I don't know that. I don't know anything about him," she said, "I don't know what his hungry cry sounds like, or what kind of face he makes when he's cranky. I don't know any of the things I'm supposed to know."

"Gail," Holly said, reaching a hand up to scratch at the base of the blonde's skull, "it's okay. I don't know a lot of that either. You know who told me about the hand thing? One of the nurses."

She placed a kiss at the crook of Gail's neck before continuing. "Honey, we've both missed out on a lot. None of this went the way it was supposed to. But you're here and I'm here and he's here. And that's all that matters. We'll figure out the rest as we go."

Some of the tension drained from Gail's body, and Holly could feel her wife sink back into her embrace.

"You know," she heard Gail say, "we have to officially decide on his name. My mother will not stop asking about it. I think she wants to get a head start on his academy paperwork."

Holly chuckled into her wife's body.

"I know," she replied. "I told her time and time again that you needed to meet him first, but she kept asking. Everyone did. Everyone but Traci."

Gail ran her finger along the baby's cheek.

"So, Lunchbox," she said, leaning back into Holly, "he's most definitely a Hugo. But he still needs a middle name."

Holly took a deep breath, she'd had a lot of time to think about this over the past week.

"Felix," she said, and waited for Gail to respond.

"That wasn't on any of your lists before," her wife said quietly.

"Nope," Holly answered. "It means 'lucky' or 'happy.' I just, I wanted him to know how lucky we are to have him. I want everyone to know."

Gail let the name roll over her tongue. "Hugo Felix," she said, "I like it. It's a good name for him."

She put the boy down gently to lay in the space between her legs, and then reached for one of her wife's hands, pulling it up to her lips and leaving a delicate kiss on Holly's palm.

"Hey," Gail said suddenly, "you know what?"

"Hmm," Holly answered sleepily.

"At least I didn't poop during labor."

Holly couldn't help it, she laughed. A full-bellied laugh. After a week of worry and fear, a week of barely eating and rarely sleeping, the final piece of her broken heart slid back into place, as if she hadn't almost lost it, as if she hadn't almost lost her Gail, her love.

Everything was going to be just fine.