Colin cannot help himself but count. Count the seconds it takes for the Almighty above to decide about life and death.

Twelve.

He counts all the way to a fucking twelve!

Twelve endless seconds that stretch to eternity.

And then… finally… a merciless scream fills the air in the delivery room.

The seconds after his son comes into the world with his skin pale, almost blue, from having the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice stretch and feel like an eternity as everybody in the delivery room waits for him to draw his first breath outside the womb.

But now he's here, breathing, crying and lying on his mother's chest all curled up and agitated, probably unable to grasp the situation. Yeah, welcome to our world, little Mister!

Damn, even Colin himself is unable to grasp it despite the fact that he just witnessed the birth fully alert. He even managed to get through it without collapsing on the impeccably clean linoleum covered floor like he had the first time around.

Unlike then, this time he was prepared for what was to happen during the delivery. And he stood his ground like a real man, holding the hands of his wife, supporting her legs, massaging her lower back in all the right moments, which meant no such angry yelling coming from Penelope's mouth as the first time they had done this together – which was now four years ago already.

And now, after two intense pushes, he's finally here.

Elliot No-Middle-Name-Yet Bridgerton – his son. His and Penelope's second miracle.

Ten fingers, ten toes, plus all the other features that, taken together, make up a healthy baby boy. He looks like a tiny version of his dad, including the dark strands of wet hair that are sticking to his scalp from stress and exhaustion.

If it wasn't for his big blue eyes, taking in the small world within a one-foot radius around him, Colin would have thought he's looking at his own newborn self – as seen on baby pictures that his mother, Violet Bridgerton, keeps showing to him whenever she feels overwhelmed by the prospect of another grandchild about to join their large brood – which was often, as often as every Sunday when Colin goes to her house for afternoon tea.

It amazes him how the same two sets of chromosomes combined twice can result in getting two totally different looking children, as he continues comparing Elliot to his big sister Charlotte who's proudly sporting a ginger mop of hair, being the spitting image of his wife, Penelope.

He became a father for the first time at a rather young age, twenty-four. Back then, it was the logical step in his happy marriage to Penelope, who was just a little over twenty-one back then. Before they got married, they had been dating for three years after meeting in school. Then, a year after their wedding, both started to express their desire to expand their family and have a baby. Since they never had any money issues thanks to Colin's status as a son of a very wealthy London family who owned several estates and companies, they just gave it a go without much thinking and lucked out on their first attempt after Penelope had gone off the pill.

On a bright and sunny June afternoon, Charlotte Eloise was born. And it quickly turned out that her personality was just as bright and bubbly as a buzzing day in late-spring, a happy child from the get-go.

After Charlotte's birth, he and Penelope packed up their bags and their baby to start traveling the world together, free from the pressure of having to make money for a living – which they were aware was a true blessing that they would never take for granted. It had come at a high cost for Colin, who lost his father due to a fatal heart attack from all the stress his work had caused when Colin was only fourteen years old. His mother was inconsolable for months after that.

So, he and Penelope decided to always make their family a priority, to spend as much quality time together as they could. And some of their best memories were made in the most beautiful places all over the planet.

Charlotte started to crawl in the surf of a remote beach in South Africa, took her first steps in an Airbnb in the outback of Australia, started speaking her first words in Ireland, some gibberish words sounding like Irish anyways. When she turned two years old and their little family settled down in London again, Penelope and Colin subsequently agreed to start trying for another baby.

But never did they expect that it would be another four years until Charlotte got granted her wish for a baby brother.

There was that one time fifteen months earlier, when they already thought that their dream would come true.

But back then, it wasn't meant to be…

Colin realizes he's drifting off to negative thoughts, trying hard to refocus on the image before him… on the sound of the breathing of that fragile yet vivid being that is looking so much like him. He read so many books, he watched plenty of documentaries about childbirth, but nothing really prepared him for this moment: this feeling of completion, overwhelmed by the strength of Penelope and the abundant love that ultimately filled his heart the second Elliot drew his first breath.

Finally, having found peace in the arms of his mom, Elliot latches on to his mother's breast, enjoying his first meal right as the doctors and nurses are still taking care of Penelope's third-degree tear that occurred during the birth. But Colin knows that the local anesthesia she got to endure being stitched up is far from her mind, reasoning by the way she smiles her most radiant smile as she looks at her newborn.

With her eyes glued to the sight of their son suckling on her nipple, there is not a single sign of exhaustion showing on her face. Was that woman even from earth? Colin marvels at his wife who never ceases to amaze him in all the year's they've been together.

He can't contain his pride of being married to a real Wonder Woman in person. Taking his eyes off of Elliot, he closes them for a short prayer, grateful that everything went off smoothly and that they are now a picture-perfect family of four.

A four-leaved clover, meant to be. Meant to stay together for the luckiest of lifetimes.

He presses a soft kiss against Penelope's temple, feeling the thin layer of sweat on her skin. For a short moment, Penelope turns around in response to his touch, smiling at him the way that only a woman completely at ease with the world around can. Colin can't help but feel his heart overflow with love as he watches her take on her maternal tasks with skill and by instinct, remembering a time in his life when he thought he didn't have enough love to last even for two. And now there are three people close to his heart that he would never stand to be without even for one day.

His small finger caresses Elliot's soft skin that is now starting to look a little more rosy-tinted. Upon reaching that tiny hand, Elliot immediately grabs Colin's finger and holds on to it. "Hey, Elliot! This is your dad," Colin softly says. "Welcome to the world, little buddy. You gave us quite a scare, huh?"

Elliot immediately stops nursing, instead stares in his direction. Colin moves closer and places his head down on Penelope's collarbone so that his son would be able to see where that new voice is coming from.

When the baby closes his eyes quickly, both Penelope and Colin start to laugh. "Oh, come on! I don't always look this ragged and shaggy. Give me a break, it's two in the morning," Colin says in mock defense. He brings his hand to the back of the small boy's head, letting it rest there for warm comfort.

For a while, he just gazes at the small wonder he and Penelope have created in a heated moment after last year's Christmas dinner at his mother's house, the memory of which making him smile even wider. Month after month, they had tried to get pregnant, only to be disappointed time and again by Penelope starting her period. And just when her doctor had told her to take it easy and just stop thinking about it, it had finally led to a successful pregnancy.

Colin is swept by an infinite wave of love for this tiny human being that is now back to being asleep on his mommy's chest. The intensity of which almost takes him by surprise – and ends an internal discussion he's had with himself over and over again in the past few weeks whenever he had a chance to be alone and get contemplative about his future.

Over the course of the nine months he's had to prepare for the impending arrival of his second child, he nearly daily thought about how he would ever be able to split the love in his heart into equal pieces for all his loved ones, wondering how all the parents with more than one kid ever had enough love for all of them equally. The same endless love for every single one of them… and even more on top of that for their spouses?

How did his own parents do it who raised eight children in total? Not once did he ever feel neglected in his family.

The answer he finds to be true now is… it is simply there, love just doubles in size, triples in meaning right there that very moment when they open their, by way of comparison, giant, still gummy eyes and look at you for the first time.

Colin felt it just mere minutes before. Elliot was looking at him with those big blue eyes, staring past his father's exhausted post-midnight appearance and right into his soul, reaching out to find his own personal spot in the depths of his heart and finding it effortlessly in a new chamber there that had miraculously formed.

Wow, his son is just so perfect! Colin feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He isn't embarrassed at all to shed them. He has never been one to hide his emotions. He cried the moment Charlotte was born a little more than four years ago, and it certainly doesn't feel any different now the second time around.

Charlotte. Colin gives a little laugh at the thought of his little girl who is now hopefully sleeping soundly at her grandmother's house. He figures she may have had a hard time falling asleep the night before because she couldn't wait to get up in the morning to find out whether her baby brother has been born at last. His daughter is a natural caretaker, dotes lovingly on every single one of her dolls while impatiently waiting all these months to be able to take care of a real baby. It is his fault that she's so excited when he's built up a fantasy world for her in which the new baby would look up to her, need her, play with her… no wonder Charlotte had taken up station at the large front window of their home every day to wait for a delivery…

He still owes her a daddy-daughter tea party after having been forced to cancel their plans the previous afternoon when Penelope called from her doctor's office after her regular pregnancy check-up, telling him to come and meet her at the hospital because she had received critical news about their unborn son's condition. He'd dropped everything, sweating blood and tears at the prospect of his child having to endure any kind of harm as he rushed Charlotte over to his mother-in-law, promising his daughter to make up for the missed tea party as soon as possible.

Another tear silently makes its way down his cheek, but he doesn't dare to wipe it away for fear of waking Elliot who's still holding on to his index finger.

His precocious daughter had her own ideas of just what exactly it would take for him to redeem himself for that untimely departure. He didn't have to guess for long as she told him during the car ride hat was on her mind. She wanted to be the one to choose her baby brother's name ever since he and Penelope told her about his impending arrival. And now she had a winning argument at her hand. Daddy-daughter tea time, complete with the sixteen-piece porcelain tea set that she got for her birth from Penelope's sister. The cups alone were way too big for her small hands to hold, more so with real tea in them. But Charlotte always insisted, on the real porcelain, on real tea. And who's Colin to deny this blue-eyed ginger powerhouse her wishes? He's like putty in her hands. Malleable, melting with pride that she is half him, half Penelope.

She even told him her current favorite in the name department, resulting in a faux smile at the little girl's reflection in the rear mirror and a desperate bead of sweat forming on his forehead.

Elmo Raspy – in honor of her favorite fruit and favorite tv show character, and inspired by her best friend in pre-school who has to live with a moniker such as Peppa Honeyblossom.

Well…

Elliot does look a little red in the face, like Elmo from Sesame Street, Colin acknowledges as he starts to think about what he would say to Charlotte about why he's not an Elmo, but Elliot.

Also, it still could have been worse, he thinks. She could have chosen Prince Kumquat or Pluto Dandelion if she were up to par with their former creative Soho neighbors.

But now they're living in Mayfair again, and Colin opts to bribe his daughter with another Barbie doll and an exclusive daddy-daughter date at the London Zoo instead.

A new thought occurs to him. Maybe…

… if Penelope agrees to this…

…maybe Charlotte should get to choose his middle name. Colin is convinced that either way, she will still love her little brother to pieces. Or hate him from time to time in case she gets jealous of all the attention he will inevitably draw in the next weeks and months.

Colin is ripped from his thoughts when a nurse approaches them and covers the baby's body with a towel before carefully lifting him to take him over to another corner of the delivery room. Colin looks after them, scrutinizing her every move as she starts cleaning the baby with warm water and a soft washcloth.

"You did amazing, Pen! He's perfect." Colin whispers into Penelope's ear, placing a tender kiss on her cheek, adding, "I love you."

With the baby away and being taken care of for the moment, she turns around to Colin, a smile playing at her lips. "I love you. And you did great, too!"

They share a tender kiss. "Don't you think he looks just like you, Colin? He has your hair and the same cute ears," she gushes. Her voice sounds fragile, and for the first time after Elliot's been born, he can see exhaustion and tiredness in her nevertheless pretty face.

"Yeah, he does," he says, smiling back at her and wiping his tears away with the sleeves of his shirt.

"Can you check in on him for me?" she pleads.

He wants to hold and caress his wife and whisper sweet words to her to make her feel loved, but he also wants to make sure that no one hurts his newborn son. So, he gets up on his tired feet instead and crosses the room, waving with his phone in order to let Penelope know he's going to take pictures for them. He feels her eyes in his back, the curious look of a mother, eager to know if her baby's healthy, not wanting to miss a single second of the first minutes of his life.

The nurse wipes away remnants of vernix and proceeds by putting him on the scales. Elliot stirs from his sleep and starts crying at the sudden loss of warmth. The room fills with wails as he jarringly protests his current whereabouts outside of the womb, which apparently, turns out to be not just a momentary thing as he seems to realize at this point.

2860 grams.

Colin lets out a relieved sigh when he sees the nurse write down the birth weight. Wow! Elliot is almost the same weight as Charlotte was at her birth despite the fact that he was born three weeks prematurely.

Colin steps to the side in order for Penelope to see the digits on the display, too. She looks a tad appeased, knowing that even though he had to be brought into the world a few weeks earlier, he won't have to stay in the NICU because of a low birth weight. And they would only have to wait a few more minutes to find out if everything else was okay with him, too.

The nurse puts Elliot back on a changing table and adjusts the heater above him. With quick, expert movements, she takes his measurements and takes notes on her clipboard. In the meantime, the little boy has stopped whining now that he's back in a warm environment. His swollen eyes curiously take in their blurry surroundings, and Colin seizes the opportunity to take some photos before he has to make room by the table in order to allow the pediatrician to examine the baby.

A few minutes later, the pediatrician asserts the anxiously waiting parents that their son is a perfectly healthy baby.

Colin can't wait to take his family home, to show Charlotte her little brother. His four-leaved clover is now complete, one petal for Penelope, one for Charlotte, one for Elliot, and of course, one for his unborn son Tommy who will never cease to be loved and missed.

~ to be continued ~