There were only two times in his life that the Child of Courage found himself well and truly terrified.

There were countless battles against fearful opponents and darkest hours where all hope was lost. There were sleepless nights full of worry, plagued by nightmares that seemed to go on for eternities. There were cold sweats and broken bones and more bloody bandages than any child should've ever had on their body. There were near-death experiences and there had been way too many close calls.

The fear those moments held, by comparison, was fleeting and easy.

The first time Yagami Taichi found himself truly unnerved by fear was in the ocean. There was no beach, no summer sun, no warm white sand. There was no salted breeze to cool the heat rising in his body. There was only the endless depth of shimmering blue that washed over him and gripped him tightly as it forced the air from his lungs. Gasping, sputtering, clawing to the surface, all was in vain–these waters were endless, and there would be no escape.

It wasn't like he'd never seen her eyes before–he'd known Yukira for years, and there had been plenty of late nights full of laughter and an unfortunate few filled with broken tears. He'd seen those same eyes light up when she heard her favourite song or took that first sip of coffee in the morning. He'd seen them spark and smolder with a fiery tenacity that not nearly enough of their foes had been wise enough to fear. He'd seen them shatter in heartbreak and loss and fear, and he'd seen them pick up the broken pieces with a silent strength befitting of the Crest of Perseverance she held.

He'd seen her eyes for years, watching the sun glint off the cerulean surface in a shimmering dance that beckoned him closer with each passing moment. It wasn't until he'd tumbled into them, until he was pulled beneath the waters, until all his breath was stolen and his fate before him inevitable, that he was seized with the first real fear he'd ever felt in his life.

It was in that moment that he realised he had fallen deeply and completely in love with her.

The only thing he'd been able to do was run. He'd run far and fast and didn't look back, and he kept running for a long time. Even with the ocean out of sight, though, the water still filled his lungs and crushed his chest. The fear still held onto him, and it never mattered how far or how fast he ran, he couldn't break free of it. The only thing he could do was accept his fate, and hope she might accept him along with it.

It had taken years of wrestling with that terror in him, but he'd gotten used to it. Each time he thought he'd reached the bottom, he found himself pulled deeper into the vivid seascape within her eyes. He'd just accepted that he would never breathe again, and who needs oxygen anyways? There was so much life in drowning, and he'd learned to live with the crushing weight of her inside his chest.

And then, with a single word, she'd breathed air back into him. "Yes."

Putting that ring on her hand had been his way of accepting his fear, and it had been the only way to ease it. He could breathe again, because he would live in those waters for the rest of his life. The terror that had clutched onto him so tightly for so many years was gone. How could he ever be afraid of anything ever again, so long as he had her by his side?

And yet, she had just handed it right back to him. After two years of blissful marriage, she stared at him now with those eyes that had captivated him for so long, and he found that they had drawn the breath from him once more. He felt the crushing vice in his chest again, the paralysing terror wrapped tightly around his whole being.

His mouth felt dry and his voice was weak. "Are you serious?"

"Y-Yeah," he heard her say, but it was far away. How could his heart be pounding so hard when it was held so tightly in her grasp? How was he sweating so much all of a sudden if he was so far underneath the icy water?

"You–you're sure?"

Her hand on his arm did nothing to steady him like it usually did. She'd done it for as long as they'd known each other; anytime she sensed any trepidation in him, her hand was on his arm and holding him up, the pillar of strength he could lean on when his Courage failed him. It was her Perseverance that bolstered him for so long, and he needed that now more than ever. The further into her strength he leaned, though, the tighter the terror wound and coiled around him.

She laughed, and her eyes sparked alight like they always did when she laughed. Her hand fell away from him and he felt faint. She was a hazy blur as he watched her reach for her pocket, and she produced from it a small white envelope. She held it out to him with trembling fingers, the edges of the hurricane in her eyes crashing over him with an electric intensity.

He could barely move. His hands shook as he fumbled to open the envelope and remove the two photographs inside. Seeing the fuzzy blur of grey on the paper made it real and only wound his fear further around him, and he could feel it cutting into every bit of him. She laid her hand on his arm again, and she was shaking too. He turned his gaze back to her and she was smiling at him, warm and inviting and ready to drown him further.

He slid his arms around her, holding her close and hoping her steadiness was enough to hold him up. Full as his lungs were, he choked on the words he offered up. "H-How–how long–?"

She never needed much from him, though, to understand what he needed from her. She was so much a part of him now, so thoroughly melded with him as she immersed him further into the depths of her. She smiled up at him with her answer. "The doctor says about twelve weeks."

"I-I don't–I don't know what that means."

"It means," she said, her voice gentle and calm and steady, "that I'm due around the middle of June."

June. There was a timeline. There was a countdown. There was a set date that this terror would consume him in its watery grasp and hold him down for the rest of his days, and there was so much to do before then to prepare for that, because–

because there was a baby.

He leaned into her further and he kissed her, begging her to breathe air into him like she had the day she'd agreed to marry him. It was only a tiny bit, not even close to a full breath, just a sputtered gasp before he was pulled under again. Still, the blur in his mind cleared just the slightest bit, enough that he could see through the waters to where he needed to be. He still leaned into her, his forehead pressed against hers, locked in the intense electricity of the storm that rolled through the ocean living in her eyes.

For the second time in his life, he was absolutely terrified. Being a leader had meant taking care of them all, being responsible for them, and it had taught him so much about how to do that. He'd feared for them and their safety plenty of times. Being a father, though, was a whole new world of terrifying adventure that nothing in his life had ever prepared him for. He had no idea what to do, what to be, what to say—

"We're gonna need a bigger place."

The words felt foolish as they escaped him, but her laughter ringing through him erased that from his mind. She coiled her arms tightly around him and pressed herself into him, and in the tumultuous sea around him he felt a current, strong and pulsing and guiding him toward where he needed to go. He just had to follow that–to follow her–and everything would be fine. He'd figure it out, just like he always had, just like they always had together. As long as he still had familiar waters to swim in, he could drown a little more and be just fine.

"You okay?" she asked him, with that pulsing current behind her voice. He followed it through the water and let it sweep over him, and so long as he didn't fight it, he found he really didn't need air anyways.

His answer came steadier. "Yeah. Are you?"

"Are you kidding? I'm scared out of my mind."

It was his turn to laugh now, loud and bright and tumbling out of him with ease. He pulled her close against him, wrapping his arms around her to hold her as tightly as she held him. It seemed so strange to him that she was afraid–it had been her who had handed him this fear, her who had spoken two simple words that had dragged him down to drown here again. Yet as he looked through the bright blue fathoms of her eyes and watched the storm roiling over the surface of the water, he understood. She was just as terrified as he was, and she needed his strength just as much as he needed hers.

"I love you," he told her, and he smiled at her.

"I love you too."

That was enough for him. He'd learned over the years of loving her that her Perseverance would be enough to push them through anything, no matter what. He'd leaned on that for nearly twenty years, and he realised that she had been leaning on him just the same. She needed his Courage now, as she had so many times before, and he would give every last bit of it to her to save her from drowning.

She was smiling, and he found he couldn't help but do the same despite the shaking in his hands. The current around him was strong, and there was a lot more water to try and navigate now, but as he looked into the depths in her eyes, he found just a little bit of Courage for himself, too.

The ocean didn't seem quite so terrifying anymore.