A knock came at the bedroom door, rousing Ellie immediately. Ellie was a mother, she never slept too deeply. And there was a pregnant young woman living in their house. So as soon as the knock came, she was awake. And she knew.

The door opened and Hailey whispered, "Ellie?"

Ellie sat up. She glanced at the dim glow of the alarm clock that read 3:08. The house was silent and still and pitch dark except for the sliver of shadow that came from the open bedroom door, obstructed by Hailey's form. Ellie got out of bed, hurrying over. "What is it, sweetie?" she whispered back. She wore sweatpants and a camisole, but she didn't bother putting on her robe, despite the cold. Ellie already knew what was going on, and she wasn't going to waste time.

"I think—ah!" Hailey tried to answer but gasped in pain, clutching her enormous belly.

That was enough of an answer for Ellie. The baby was on the way. "Did your water break?" she asked, still keeping her voice down.

"Yeah," Hailey answered. "I'm sorry, it's all over the bed."

Ruined sheets were the least of Ellie's concern. "No, it's fine," she assured Hailey. "Go get your stuff. I'm gonna put on some clothes, and we'll wake up Ethan and drive to the hospital."

"Okay," Hailey answered. She let out a little whimper of pain.

Ellie frowned. The contractions were probably already too close together. She wanted to ask Hailey how long since the pain had started. Hopefully she hadn't been in labor for too long. But if she was wincing in pain twice in a single conversation, it was already pretty progressed. "Okay, go downstairs. We gotta get you to Good Sam."

Hailey turned, but Ellie caught her arm, stopping her for just a moment.

"It's gonna be okay," she told Hailey. In the darkness, Ellie could see that Hailey gave a small, frightened smile. Ellie couldn't blame her. She was a little frightened, too.

Ellie let Hailey leave the room and then turned on the light as soon as Hailey was halfway downstairs.. Alan, who had been snoring and oblivious to anything else happening. But the light woke him. He grunted in confusion. "Wha…?"

"Alan, Hailey's in labor," Ellie said sharply.

He scrubbed his face in his hands and hauled himself upright. "Oh god."

Despite the fact that this was the most serious thing they'd dealt with in their family—absent dinosaurs—Ellie started to giggle as she went to the dresser to grab a pair of jeans and a bra. "I've gotta wake up Ethan," she said, more to herself than to Alan. "But I need you to get up and pack some stuff and pick up some food or something. I'm gonna drive Hailey and Ethan to the hospital, and I'll text you, and you meet us there, okay?"

"Uh…yeah."

Usually, Alan was a morning person. But considering it was just after three, Ellie couldn't blame him for being out of sorts. Though Ellie didn't have time to worry about Alan right now. She was about to become a grandmother.

Once they got to the hospital, she could text Alan to strip the sheets off Hailey's bed. Assuming she had any memory for anything once they got to the hospital.

Ellie left Alan and threw on a sweater over her bra and jeans ensemble as she hurried down the hall to Ethan's room. Ever since he and Hailey broke up a few weeks ago, he'd moved into the spare room at the end of the hall—formerly a storage space—right beside the nursery.

When they'd purchased this house, Ellie had visions of a miniature lab of sorts in one of those spare rooms. They had the office that she and Alan shared that sort of doubled as a library for all the books they'd both accumulated over their lifelong academic careers. But as Ellie got more and more involved with environmental research, she wanted a space in their home where she could work on things without bothering Alan. And without Alan bothering her. That room would belong to their granddaughter for the foreseeable future. And they'd had to rent a storage unit for all their stuff that used to reside in what was now Ethan's room. The guest room downstairs that Hailey was staying in would remain available for guests. And the whole family, all four of them, would be upstairs. It was all for the best, of course, and Ellie wouldn't have had it any other way. Except she did wish she had that lab. Oh well.

She knocked sharply on the door and opened it, turning on the light. "Ethan, the baby's coming. Get dressed and meet me downstairs with Hailey in two minutes," she barked.

Normally, Ellie would have taken a gentler approach. But it was approaching three-thirty, and Hailey's labor was going fast. Ellie would feel better once they'd gotten to the hospital. Ellie knew how dangerous childbirth could be. And there was only a small window for Hailey to get the epidural, so they had to hurry. First babies usually took a long time to come out, but Ellie wasn't prepared to bank on that.

Five minutes later, the three of them were in the car. Ellie drove, and Hailey and Ethan were both in the backseat. He had been watching all those childbirth support videos on YouTube, so he knew just what to do to help keep Hailey calm and breathing and focused. They might not be romantically involved anymore, but he still loved her. She was the mother of his child. And he would do anything to help her. Ellie was so proud of the man her baby boy had grown into. But she couldn't think about that now. Hailey was starting to cry as another contraction hit.

"We're almost there," Ellie called to them in the back. She was half a mile away from their exit off Highway 17.

"We're almost there, Hailey," Ethan repeated. "I texted Dr. Adey like she told us to. I don't think she'll respond, but the emergency room like pages her or whatever, right?" Ethan asked no one in particular.

"Yeah, she'll get here at some point," Ellie replied. She had been lucky enough to go into labor during business hours both times, so she wasn't exactly sure how it worked when a patient went into labor in the middle of the night. But these kinds of things happened all the time. The hospital would know what to do.

The harsh lights of the hospital sign finally came into view. They'd made it. Everything would be okay now. That was all that Ellie needed to do, get Hailey to the hospital in time and let the doctors and nurses do their work and take care of Hailey.

There would probably be a long time to wait, so Ellie could text Alan and remind him all the things he was too asleep to understand when she'd woken him up.

And she could contact Hailey's parents to make the arrangements for Hailey to get back home to Texas as soon as the hospital discharged her.

Damn, Alan would have to bring the paperwork they got from that attorney for Hailey to relinquish her parental rights. She really needed to make a list of these things.

Ellie parked as close to the front entrance as she could, thankful that it was the middle of the night and there weren't too many people at the ER right now. Everything would be fine.

And then Hailey let out a bone-chilling scream.