2 years later.
"Okay sweetheart, hang on." Ruth pulled off the T shirt she slept in with no thought to her dignity or privacy, and then cradled the babies head against her breast. He latched on hungrily and the crying abruptly stopped. Ruth sighed with relief as her eardrums appreciated the sudden silence.
"He okay?" a croaked voice came to her right.
"Just hungry," Ruth said. "For someone who gets up out of bed for every phone call, you're mysteriously deaf when it comes to our son, crying in the middle of the night."
"I'm not deaf to it," Harry said, shifting in the bed slightly. "But you do hear it a second or two before I do. And anyway, there's no point in me getting up for him. I can't feed him."
Ruth turned her head and smiled at him. "I know," she said. "When he doesn't need my breasts every few hours, you're the one who's going to get up in the middle of the night for him.
"Okay," he agreed easily. They'd had this discussion before. Ruth turned the baby around in her arms so he could suckle on the other breast.
"Whose brilliant idea was it to have a baby?" she asked, stifling a yawn.
"Oh come on," Harry said easily. "You love him more than you will ever love me."
Ruth leaned back on the bed and faced him. "It's different and you know it," she said. "Plus I see you in him every day."
"What, balding and grumpy?"
"Oh essentially yes," Ruth said, making Harry laugh. Her eyes caught his for a moment, sparkling and happy.
"Are you… happy?" he asked hesitantly.
The baby had finished feeding now. "Let me put him down, I'll come back."
He listened over the baby monitor as Ruth cooed over their son and he smiled. Soon she was back, and she got into bed, cuddling up to Harry. "Yes, I am happy. Tired. My nipples feel red raw, but yes, I am happy. I take such joy in our son and our life. Are you?" she added after a pause.
"Happier than I feel I have any right to be," he said. He kissed Ruth's neck and then collapsed on the pillows, pulling the duvet over them both. "He's beautiful. Like his mother."
"I don't know about that," Ruth said.
"Well I do," he said firmly. "He's gorgeous." Ruth snuggled against him and sighed with happiness.
"I love you Harry," she said.
"I know," he said. "And I love you. Now sleep. He'll need you in a few hours."
"Oh great," she said sarcastically. "Then another day of changing nappies, crying and exhaustion begins."
"Do you regret it?"
"Regret what?" she asked.
"Any of it."
"Well, I regret never making things up with my mother before she died. I regret that she never got to meet her grandson. But with you? No," she said. "I don't regret a single second of us. Goodnight Harry." He held her close and closed his eyes, before drifting off to sleep.
The end.
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