Chapter 18: She Collapsed in His Arms

ANDRIY

Her body starts to tip sideways just as I reach her, and everything in me narrows down to a single, desperate thought.

Not her. Not them. Not like this.

I catch her before she hits the floor, one arm sliding beneath her shoulders, the other bracing her legs, gathering her against my chest as gently as my racing pulse allows. Her head lolls slightly against my shoulder, eyes fluttering, unfocused, her skin far too cold beneath my hands for a body that should be warm.

"Brabra." Her name breaks out of me rougher than I intend. "Brabra, stay with me."

Her eyes open partway, glassy, struggling to focus on my face. "Andriy?" Her voice comes out barely above a whisper, thin and frightened. "I don't feel—"

"I know. I've got you." I press my lips briefly to her forehead, an instinct rather than a decision, needing the contact more than I can explain. "I've got you. You're not alone."

Her coworker hovers beside us, phone already pressed to her ear. "I'm calling an ambulance."

"No time," I say, already lifting Brabra fully into my arms, her weight slight and fragile against me in a way that terrifies me more than anything has in years. "I'll drive. It's faster. Get the door."

The coworker doesn't argue. She races ahead of us, clearing a path through startled colleagues who part silently as I carry Brabra through the office, down the hallway, out into the grey afternoon where my car still sits abandoned at the curb, door hanging open the way I left it.

"Stay awake," I murmur against her hair as I settle her carefully into the passenger seat, reclining it as far back as it will go. "Brabra. Look at me. Stay awake for me."

"Tired," she mumbles, her eyes drifting shut despite the effort I can see her making to hold them open. "Everything hurts."

"I know." My hands shake as I fasten her seatbelt, careful of her stomach, careful of everything. "Just a little longer. I'm getting you help right now."

I round the car and slide into the driver's seat, pulling into traffic with a speed that would have terrified me under any other circumstance. My hand finds hers across the console, gripping tightly, needing the contact as much to steady myself as her.

"Talk to me," I say, glancing between the road and her pale, half-conscious face. "Tell me anything. Just keep talking."

"The babies," she whispers, her voice cracking. "Are they okay? Andriy, are they okay?"

"They're going to be fine." I say it with more certainty than I feel, gripping her hand tighter. "You're going to be fine. All three of you. I promise you that."

She doesn't answer. Her eyes slip shut again, her hand going slack in mine, and panic claws up through my chest so fast I nearly run the next red light entirely.

"Brabra!" Her name tears out of me, sharp and desperate. "Stay with me. Open your eyes. Please."

Her eyelids flutter, and for one agonizing second I don't think she will. Then, slowly, they open again, unfocused but present, her fingers curling weakly around mine.

"I'm here," she whispers. "I'm trying."

"That's all I need." My voice breaks despite every effort to keep it steady. "Just keep trying. We're almost there."

BRABRA

Everything comes to me in pieces.

The cold vinyl of the seat beneath me. The blur of grey buildings sliding past the window, too fast, too fast. Andriy's hand around mine, warm and desperate, gripping like he could hold me together through touch alone.

I hear my own voice ask about the babies from somewhere very far away, like it belongs to someone else entirely. I hear him answer, certain, steady, though some distant part of me registers the fear threaded underneath his certainty, the way his voice shakes even as he tries to sound sure.

The static in my head thickens. I fight it, the way I've fought everything these past months, gripping his hand tighter, forcing my eyes to stay open even as the effort costs more than I have left to give.

I'm here. I'm trying.

I don't remember much after that. Flashes only. Bright lights. The rush of cold air as a door opens somewhere. Voices, urgent and clipped, none of the words quite reaching me whole. Andriy's face above mine, pale, frightened, saying something I can't hold onto before the darkness finally, mercifully, pulls me all the way under.

ANDRIY

The hospital emerges ahead, its emergency entrance lit bright against the grey afternoon, and I pull up too fast, tires screeching slightly against the wet pavement, already shouting for help before I've fully thrown the car into park.

Nurses appear almost instantly, a gurney wheeled out through sliding doors, and I lift Brabra from the seat myself, refusing to let go until careful, capable hands guide her gently onto the gurney instead.

"Sir, we need you to step back," a nurse says, already checking Brabra's pulse, already calling numbers to someone I can't see.

"I'm the father," I say, the words coming out rougher than intended, some old instinct refusing to release my grip on her hand even as they begin wheeling her away. "Please. Whatever you need. I'm not leaving her."

"You can follow," the nurse says, already moving, already focused entirely on Brabra. "But you need to let go now, sir. We need to move fast."

I release her hand only because I have no other choice, watching the gurney disappear through swinging double doors, Brabra's pale, unconscious face the last thing I see before the doors swing shut between us.

I stand there in the harsh fluorescent light of the emergency entrance, my hands still shaking, my shirt still damp with rain from a night that feels like it happened a lifetime ago instead of just yesterday.

"Please," I whisper, to no one, to whatever might be listening. "Please let them be okay. All three of them."

A nurse at the front desk calls me over gently, clipboard in hand, questions about insurance and emergency contacts and medical history that I answer as best I can, my voice steadier than I feel, my mind still entirely back in that car, gripping her hand, listening to her whisper are they okay through lips gone pale with fear.

"Relation to the patient?" the nurse asks, pen hovering over the form.

"Father of her children," I say, the words feeling strange and enormous in my mouth, spoken aloud to a stranger for the first time. "Partner, I suppose. Whatever you need to call it so they'll let me stay close to her."

The nurse nods without judgment, jotting something down, and gestures toward the waiting room chairs lined against the far wall. "Someone will come find you as soon as there's news. It shouldn't be long."

It feels long anyway. Every minute stretches thin, elastic with dread, and I find myself standing every few minutes only to sit back down again, unable to settle into stillness while she's somewhere beyond those doors without me.

I don't know how long I sit in the waiting room afterward. Long enough that the rain outside starts and stops twice. Long enough that I call my assistant with instructions to clear my entire week without offering any explanation beyond the truth — that nothing else matters right now except the woman somewhere beyond those double doors, and the two small lives I've only just started learning how to love.

I call her coworker next, my voice steadier than it has any right to be. "She's being seen. I don't know anything yet. I'll call the moment I do."

"Thank you for telling me." A pause, static and worry threaded through the line. "Take care of her, Andriy. Please."

"I intend to," I say, and mean it more than I've meant almost anything in my life.

I sit back down, elbows braced on my knees, staring at the double doors like they might open through sheer force of wanting them to. A vending machine hums somewhere behind me. A child cries two chairs down, comforted by a tired-looking mother. Ordinary hospital sounds, indifferent to the way my entire world has narrowed down to a single set of doors and whatever news is waiting behind them.

I think about the rain last night, the jacket, the words I almost said under that awning and didn't. I think about every moment I've spent these past weeks learning how to show up for her in small, careful ways, and how none of it feels like enough now, sitting here with nothing to offer except waiting.

When a doctor finally emerges, my whole body goes rigid, bracing for whatever comes next.

"Family of Brabra?" the doctor asks, scanning the small waiting room.

I'm on my feet before he finishes the sentence. "That's me."

Every careful, controlled instinct I've spent my whole life building deserts me completely as I cross the room toward him, leaving nothing behind but a man who has never in his life wanted an answer more than he wants this one.