Chapter 68 – “The Father She Chose First”

The nursery was bathed in warm amber light, the kind that only came near dusk—soft and forgiving, like the hush of a prayer. The world outside their new home blurred into irrelevance. Inside, everything was quiet but for the rhythmic creak of the rocking chair and the occasional sigh of a sleeping infant.

Will sat with his newborn daughter nestled against his chest, her tiny breath warming the collar of his shirt, her soft sounds curling around his heart. Lyra Darcy Bennett. She had arrived with a storm and settled like peace itself.

She hadn't cried once since he picked her up.

Eliza leaned against the doorway, her arms folded—not coldly, just full. Full of everything she didn't have the words for yet. Her body still ached from labor, her mind not fully hers yet. But what weighed most heavily wasn't pain. It was that look on Lyra's face—so calm, so trusting—in Will's arms.

"She likes you more than me," Eliza said softly, not accusing, just... acknowledging. Her voice held a faint pout beneath the fatigue.

Will looked up and smiled, wide and helpless, like he'd been waiting for this moment his entire life and hadn't realized it until now. "She doesn't like me more," he murmured. "She just knows she has you. I'm still trying to earn it."

"She screamed when I tried to change her," Eliza muttered. "Then she stopped the second you walked in the room."

"She screamed because she wanted her mom back," he countered gently. "I'm just the backup band. You're the whole concert."

That earned a ghost of a laugh. But her eyes were glassy.

Will stood, carefully cradling Lyra, and walked toward her. "Here," he said. "She's sleeping. Take her."

Eliza hesitated. "What if I wake her?"

"She already knows your heartbeat. You won't."

She took their daughter into her arms, and Lyra shifted only slightly before settling. Eliza looked down at her child, then up at her husband, and the expression on her face—soft awe, aching fear, fierce love—was the most beautiful thing Will had ever seen.

"I didn't know it could feel like this," she whispered. "Like I'm holding a piece of my own soul."

"She is," Will said. "She's yours. Ours."

Eliza shook her head, blinking fast. "No, I mean… she's closer to you. I see it. I'm not mad. It's just... weird. I carried her, fed her, ached for her—and yet, she turns toward your voice first."

Will reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Eliza's ear. "She knows you don't need to be chosen. You are the center. She's giving me a head start because she knows I've got catching up to do."

A tear rolled down Eliza's cheek, and she let it. There was no shame here.

"She chose you first," she said again, quieter this time.

Will bent and kissed her temple. "And I'll spend the rest of my life deserving that."

They stood like that, pressed together by more than skin—by blood, by shared breath, by the gravity of something far deeper than either had imagined. A family, shaped not only by love, but by choice. Mutual, quiet, unshakable.

"I hate how good you are at this," Eliza said suddenly, her voice rough with tears and teasing.

Will grinned. "You'll catch up."

"Cocky."

"Always."

She leaned her head against his chest, Lyra sleeping between them, and whispered, "She has your eyes."

"She has your fire," he replied.

And in the silence that followed, they simply held each other—newborn and not—wrapped in the quiet, ordinary miracle of beginning again.