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April
It happens for the first time, of all places, in the grocery store.
Nothing about their family dynamic has changed yet. It's only been three weeks since they found out about the baby and nobody else knows, apart from Lauren, who may have put two and two together before either of them, but has done an admirable job of not saying a word about it since. Max isn't a naturally gifted keeper of secrets, but this one is somehow different; how it feels on his tongue, and how it sits in his chest. They're both full to the brim with wonder, having heard the heartbeat on the ultrasound for the first time this week, but the thing about pregnancy is there's always room for worry and doubt no matter how many other emotions are at play, and they both know enough to know the risks. As they keep telling each other, and themselves, it's early days.
Today, though; so far today has been a totally forgettable Saturday. Helen's in charge of the grocery list, Max is in charge of the basket, and it seems like Luna has appointed herself in charge of tearing up and down every aisle they turn down like some kind of pint-sized tyrant, trying to grab boxes of Animal Crackers and packets of candy off the shelves. They take it in turns to play bad cop, pointing out that they have plenty of snacks at home while both (well, Max hopes it's not just him) silently considering resorting to bribery if the need arises.
A meltdown looks to be on the cards over a packet of Oreos that Max is pretty sure Luna has never even tried before, and he's about to put his stern voice on when Helen crouches down, tapping Luna on the shoulder so she turns around to face her.
"Luna, Honey. I need you to put the Oreos back so you can help me choose which fruit we buy for dessert. Do you think you can do that?"
Helen's good cop really is a force to be reckoned with; she's got it down to an art form. Luna obediently returns the Oreos to the shelf without a fight, and when Helen asks her which fruit they should get first, she claps her hands and shouts, "Apples, Momma!"
Momma.
Deep down, in the corner of Max's mind which is insightful but ultimately easily ignored, he'd known this was coming. Helen probably had too; the expression on her face is perfectly balanced half way between reverence and trepidation. The trepidation, Max realizes, is entirely on his behalf. It's chess, the overthinking they both do. Their brains are playing three moves ahead, trying to avoid the upset and the potential awkwardness of it; trying to spare themselves and each other from answers they might not be ready to hear, to questions they haven't yet asked. For a fleeting moment, Max feels physically torn in two, between memories of the deep rooted grief that sunk him so far into loss that he learned there is no other side—you just claw your way back up from the bottom of it—and the unshakeable love that he feels for the woman who's raising Luna with him in the here and the now.
He surprises himself by making his decision almost instantaneously, and maybe it's because they're in public and he doesn't want to give Luna time to actually execute that meltdown, but equally, maybe it's not. This isn't disloyal, Max tells himself. It's just the honest truth of where they're at.
"Yeah, if we ask her nicely, mom might make baked apples for dessert," he says to Luna, letting the pure joy of her smile carry him out of his feelings and up, to somewhere simpler. "I don't know about you, but I want mine with ice-cream." He scoops her up into his arms as she laughs and wriggles, trying to get free.
Helen's completely still, like she's taking it all in, so Max asks her quietly, "Okay?" and takes the microscopic nod he gets in response as a sign that all is well and she probably just needs a minute.
"We'll meet you by the apples," he says, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
~
May
There are still bad days, of course; days where Max wakes up in the middle of the night to find Helen desperately pacing the living room in her pyjamas because she can't sleep, or where she's so sick that all he can do is stroke her hair and make cups of tea and tell her it'll pass, all of which feel completely ineffectual. Or days like today, where he finds her sitting at the kitchen table staring into space, completely unaware of the tap left running behind her into the sink, which is at best five seconds away from overflowing.
Max jogs across the room to turn the tap off quickly, opening the drain and venturing a quiet "Everything alright?" which still makes Helen jump in her seat.
"Oh, sorry." She mumbles, not turning around. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Helen," he says, drawing out the sound until it's more of a reminder than an address. "Don't make me use the B-word."
This earns him a low laugh, which turns into a low sigh. "Okay," she admits. "Honestly? I didn't realize it was possible to panic like this, continuously, with no end in sight for the better part of a year. And that's if things to to plan."
Max joins her at the table, considering the bench opposite her, but changing his mind at the last minute and scooting in next to her instead. "You know it probably isn't possible to sustain that kind of panic, right? My medical opinion is that you'd probably implode."
She closes her eyes. The corner of her mouth twitches with the hint of a smile. "It's not like I can control it. I'm used to being good at compartmentalizing, but it's getting harder and harder to do that with this."
"You're almost twelve weeks now, we could start telling people soon."
Helen shrugs, the smile fading just a little. "Just because there's less to worry about, it doesn't mean there's nothing to worry about."
"Sure, but the worry never actually goes to nothing, right?" He snakes an arm around her waist, and she leans into him. "We both still worry about Luna; whether she's gonna have a nightmare tonight, whether she's got an allergy to something we don't know about, or whether she'll grow out of biting by the time she gets to pre-K."
She chuckles. "You're doing a terrible job at making me worry less right now, just in case you're looking for feedback on this pep talk."
"Yeah, sorry," Max concedes, kissing the side of her head. "I guess we're both worriers."
He gets to his feet and moves to the counter, where he turns the kettle on and takes two mugs from the shelf. Grabbing every box of teabags they have in the cupboard, holds them out to her, hoping to lighten the mood. "Close your eyes, it's tea roulette." Helen makes a face, but nevertheless does as he asks. He guides her hand towards the options so she can blindly pick two, and once the tea is steeping, he turns back to her. "I think we should give it a few weeks, and then we should try telling people."
"What makes you so convinced that telling people will make a difference?"
Maybe it's not as obvious to her as it is to him, then. Max stirs the tea, to give himself something to do with his hands. "It's one of the only parts of this we can control."
Helen raises an eyebrow at first, but her expression slowly settles into something more begruding. "I hate that you're probably right, you know."
Max laughs. "Oh, I know."
~
June
They're getting changed for bed one evening when Helen stops him half-way through unbuttoning his shirt and beckons him over to her side of the bed. "Is it me?" She asks, positioning herself between Max and the full-length mirror which leans artistically against the wall. "Or can you see...?"
Max can see, without a doubt. Where yesterday there'd been nothing much of anything, today there's definitely the beginnings of a bump. They both stand, transfixed and beaming at Helen's reflection in the mirror for a good minute before Max drops to his knees in front of her, whispering "Hey there, baby," to the bump. Helen's hands stroke his neck and jawline, eventually coming to rest in his hair where she starts on the kind of gentle head-rub that can salvage even the worst of days. And this is far from the worst of days. Max relaxes into the soft touch of her fingers, and keeps whispering. He introduces their son or daughter to them both, and to their home. He talks about Luna, and about Mina, and how excited they all are.
In bed later, with Helen curled up against his side and a thunderstorm raging down against the window panes, for the first time since that first day of knowing, Max daydreams about the newborn with the soft dark curls and the big brown eyes.
"I won't be able to keep it a secret around anyone at all for much longer," Helen sighs sleepily, bringing him out of his own thoughts.
He strokes her back lightly with the pads of his fingers. "Everyone's gonna be so excited, you know. You're not as worried as you were, are you?"
"Not as much as I was, and not as much as I thought I'd be, no," she says. "It's funny. I thought telling the people closest to us would make it more real, but no, this is what actually makes it feel real."
She yawns, which sets Max off too and makes him chuckle softly in the dim light. "It'll feel even more real in six months when we're both this tired permanently."
He reaches out a hand under the sheets, finding his way back to the bump. Helen's hand joins it, interlacing their fingers.
~
July
The height of summer brings with it endless days of unrelenting heat, dehydrated patients, irritable EMTs, and the full gamut of injuries that the average ten year-old could possibly sustain during their first summer of largely unstructured freedom.
In Helen though, it brings calm instead of chaos. It sees out the end of a really tough first trimester, instead ushering in a sense of ease which hadn't been there before. She seems more at home in herself, breezing through the hospital hallways in long floaty skirts with her old sense of confidence firmly reinstated, which puts Max basically on cloud nine.
It's the first morning in a few weeks that they haven't had to be anywhere, and haven't got to do anything. That's the first thought that goes through Max's mind as he wakes, intriguingly, to the feel of soft lips against his own. It must be early, because Luna is usually their de facto weekend alarm clock, but right now the world is completely silent.
"Good morning," he whispers, kissing her back.
"It is, isn't it?" She says, and her tone is distinctly mischievous. It reminds him of the very early days of pure debauchery between them last year, before the realities of coparenting and the quiet comfort of cohabitation had taken over.
Max knows her well enough now to know that tone of voice can only mean one thing. He rolls onto his side to kiss her properly, noting that she's exactly as naked as she had been last night, when she'd led him to bed early and proceeded to remind him exactly why he needs to keep up jogging. Twice. "Again?" He asks with mock incredulity, doing what's admittedly a very poor job at concealing his enthusiasm at his sudden streak of good luck.
Helen, uncharacteristically for her, looks almost shy. "I think it's the hormones," she says, nearly in a whisper. "I just can't think of anything else, recently. I didn't think it would be so... distracting."
He kisses her again, pulling back only a few inches so he can murmur "I can't have my favorite person getting distracted," letting his lips ghost up her jawline to her earlobe, right to the spot that he's learned makes her weak at the knees. She moans into his touch, and it's a moan that takes him by surprise, because it sounds to him like she's pretty far gone already.
"Helen," he starts, a smirk forming on his lips, "Before I woke up, were you—"
Her soft laugh cuts him off and tells him all he needs to know, rendering the quiet 'maybe' that she whispers into the crook of his neck completely redundant. Sure enough, as Max rolls on top of her, settling between her legs, he has to fight to contain a moan of his own at the slick heat of her. He lifts her legs in one swift motion, sweeping them onto his shoulders and revelling in her gasp of surprise.
"You're insatiable," he grins, kissing her calf. Tangled in the sheets underneath him, biting her bottom lip to try and stay quiet—which is always fruitless; Helen is loud—Max realizes, with no accompanying pang of guilt at all, that he's never felt like this about anybody else in his life.
~
August
Helen's twenty weeks pregnant, and they're having a boy. One of these facts is brand new to Max, and he can't stop his mind flitting back to it in-between unrelated thoughts, like a loaded spring. They're out of bread. He's going to have a son. He needs to be in early tomorrow to meet the union reps before the department chair meeting. They're going to have a son. Luna has a check-up with her pediatrician next week. A few hours ago they got to tell Luna that she's getting a baby brother, and even though Max knows she won't have any real idea what that means yet, he knows that she'll grow into knowing as she learns what it means to be a big sister, and that's more important.
One of Helen's friends has given her a baby name book, and without either of them really planning or discussing it, the book has become their evening's entertainment. It had started with Max calling random numbers across the kitchen to Helen who'd translated them into pages and lines, reading back his choices while he'd been boiling noodles, and it progressed to Max letting Luna point her fingers at particular pages during bath time, until the book had almost ended up in the tub with her.
Now that Luna's in bed and the book is no longer at risk of drowning, it's just the two of them; Max sitting cross-legged on the couch and Helen lying back with her head in his lap. She's commandeered control of the book again, and seems to be paying more attention to the artfully italicised meanings underneath each name than the names themselves.
"So is that a definite no on Max Junior, or is there potential?" Max hums, trying his luck for the second time in as many minutes.
Helen waves a dismissive hand and keeps reading. "Not a chance."
"What does Max even mean?" He asks. "Although, I'm not sure my parents put that much thought into choosing it."
She skims to beginning of the M's. "I can't tell you," she chuckles. "It'll go to your head." A thought must cross her mind though, because she marks the page with her index finger and tilts her head back in his lap to give him an upside-down questioning look. "So you didn't do this with Georgia?"
Sighing at the memory of how fraught things had been at the time, Max explains. "It all felt like a mad rush when Georgia was pregnant. Things were hard between us and half the time we couldn't have a full conversation without fighting. Then, and as soon as we knew we were having a girl, she was just... Luna."
Helen gives him a small smile, and if he didn't know her better, he'd have thought it looked like pity.
"It means moon, right? I've never really thought about it." It had always been bigger than just a name to him; so much so that it had stopped being a name in its own right.
"Mmhmm." She carries on skimming.
"So, which names mean sun?"
This earns him another upside-down look, though this one is full of love, and maybe a little bit of tender exasperation. "You want our children to be named after the moon and the sun? I thought I'd already heard all of your worst clichés, but clearly you know no bounds."
"Hey!" Max feigns offence, poking her playfully in the shoulder. "Only if the sun names are, y'know, good. It might help narrow things down."
"No pressure then," she laughs, but she indulges him anyway, flicking to the back of the book and starting to thumb through the index. "I can see Elio, and Samson. That's all the book has, though there's always Google. Or..." Helen pauses; a long pause, during which she looks up from the book and stares out of the opposite window intently, her brow furrowing for a second. "In Farsi, it would be Cyrus."
It catches him by surprise, and Max loses his train of thought. He turns it over in his mouth, getting used to the feel of it. "Cyrus."
Helen says it back, quieter, like she's trying it out too, still gazing out of the window. Max can see the smile she's trying to hide creeping out across her cheeks.
"As much as the cliché kills me, Max, I think I like that one."
Max closes his eyes, letting the now familiar daydream take him again. "I think I do, too."
~
September
When it rains, it really does pour.
There's a scabies outbreak—scabies, for god's sake, in this decade—at Riker's, and the warden calls it in just before 8am, which effectively sets Max's hotlist for the day on fire and throws the smouldering ashes of it into the east river. He's barely even set foot in his office before he's rushing straight back out and into a van full of the small crew of doctors who are heading over to the prison to help. The day is brutal, and chaotic, and almost exactly the kind of day that reminds Max why he does what he does, but by the time they've done all they can do and they're headed back to the Dam, Max is just about ready to crawl into the first hospital bed he sees and sleep there.
On the journey back he checks his phone, which, as standard procedure dictates, has been in a locked box for the best part of nine hours. In the fraction of a second it takes his brain to process the fact that there are too many notifications and missed calls to fit on his lock screen, Max goes from worn out to wide awake. Seeing Helen's name on each and every one of them makes his blood curdle.
Max is stabbing the call button before he's even had time to read any of the texts. She answers on the second ring.
"What's wrong? Are you okay? Is it the baby?" He asks, in a single, panicked breath.
"It's not me or the baby, it's Luna. But Max, listen to me"—she senses he's about to lose it, and interrupts him before he can interrupt her—"She's alright. She took a tumble at preschool and they brought her in. She's probably broken her arm, but they can't X-ray it without your consent."
Keeping the phone jammed tight against his ear, Max lowers his head into his free hand and scrunches his eyes shut. "I'm so sorry. When did it happen? How long have you been trying to get hold of me?"
Helen doesn't answer immediately, which is an answer in and of itself.
"How long, Helen?"
She sighs. "A few hours."
Luna's been sat in hospital, in pain and waiting for a few hours, because of him. Max grits his teeth. "You've got my consent for anything she needs. Please tell her I'm on my way back right now and that I love her and I'm so sorry."
"I will," she says, managing to reassure him with just those two syllables. "And Max?"
"Mmm?"
"We should talk, when you're back. I know you're beating yourself up right now, but don't. It's not going to help you, or Luna."
Head still cradled in one hand, he smiles against his wrist, despite himself. "That's easier said than done."
~
Rush hour traffic in New York is rush hour traffic in New York, so Max hears by text that Luna's already been in and out of radiology by the time he makes it back to the hospital and up to pediatrics, having taken the stairs two at a time rather than queue for the elevators.
"Luna?" He asks breathlessly in the vague direction of the nurse's station as he jogs through.
Someone calls back "604!" and Max doesn't slow down until he rounds the corner and sees her. Even in the smaller children's beds up here, even sitting in Helen's lap, she looks tiny and out of place, sporting a purple fibreglass cast on her right arm. She looks up as he nears the doorway, stretching out her good arm like she does when she wants to be picked up. It feels a bit like someone punching him in the chest.
"Daddy, I was brave," is the first thing she says as he rushes in and joins the two of them on the bed, bowing his head to kiss Luna on the top of hers.
"I bet you were, baby girl. I'm so proud of you, and I'm sorry you had to wait. I'm gonna make sure that it never happens again." He looks up at Helen, their hands finding each other on the bed. "I know you said we need to talk," he murmurs. "But first, there's something I want to ask. You're already Luna's mom in every single way apart from somewhere on a stupid sheet of paper. I need to know that if anything ever happens to me, that she's got you and you've got her. Will you adopt her?"
Helen squeezes his hand, closing her eyes for a brief moment as a relieved smile creeps across her face. "That was what I wanted to talk to you about, I had exactly the same thought while I was trying to call you earlier. Of course I'll adopt her, Max, but if you think that means I'm entertaining the idea of anything happening to you, then you've got another thing coming. I'd drag you back from the brink myself."
The unspoken truth, of course, is that she already has.
~
In the taxi home, Max calls his lawyer for the second time in his daughter's short life. The lawyer sends over all of the paperwork, and they spend the evening signing forms and checking boxes with all the quiet urgency of two people who've just been reminded of the fragility of everyday life. And then it's done, and sent off for filing, and of course, absolutely nothing changes. But somehow, everything changes, too.
They let Luna eat ice cream for dinner, and when it becomes abundantly clear that neither of them are quite willing to let go of her this evening, they tuck her up in their bed between them and fall asleep like that; a pile of too many limbs and too many blankets and absolutely everything that Max needs.
~
October
The start of Helen's maternity leave feels like it's forever away, until very suddenly, it's not. On her last day at the hospital, Max goes through the full five stages of grief, decides he's being melodramatic, tries to distract himself by actually going to a board meeting, goes through the first four stages of grief for a second time and ultimately finds himself on the roof, emotions bubbling beneath the surface of his mind, and shivering. He's really misjudged how cold it can get up here at this time of year, but it's more than that. Helen isn't here yet, but—he checks text he just received from Bloom; a single thumbs-up emoji—she should be on her way.
"Max?"
He steps out from his spot, where he'd been half-concealed behind one of the pillars. Hands in his pockets, feeling a fair amount more nervous than he'd been expecting to, he says "Hey."
"No scrubs?" Helen observes. "Was today finally the day that Karen snapped?"
Max smiles, and it eases his nerves just a little. "Not quite, though I think that's coming any day now. Tell me about your last day; how'd it go?"
"Oh, you know. Lots of handovers, lots of goodbyes, lots of extremely nosy questions. And that was just the patients. But then, as I'm sure you well know, because I'm assuming you orchestrated it, I found my last meeting of the day had been cancelled."
"Ah," he says, ruefully.
"And then I got a bizarre text from Lauren asking me to meet her up here, which appears to be a ruse, because she's nowhere to be seen, and here you are instead."
"You got me." He beckons her towards the edge of the building so they can lean against the railings. It's golden hour; a slither of the approaching sunset lies on the horizon, but for now everything is bathed in a pale yellow glow. "I've, uh, been thinking." Max clears his throat. "About how weird it was that we always used to run into each other up here. I mean, of all the spots in the hospital, and all the doctors in need of a hiding place. We just kept meeting up here, over and over."
"Well, it'll be a while until the next time we do," she says, taking one hand off the railing to rest it on her belly.
"Exactly. And even though I'm more excited than I can put into words for this baby, I'm really gonna miss having you around up here for the next few months to to put the world to rights with me."
"You big softie," she teases. "We can do it at home."
"Helen," Max takes hold of her hands. "I realized I was being an idiot. This roof doesn't hold any kind of special power over us, it's just peace and quiet and a beautiful view. Our place is wherever we happen to be, and if there's one thing I know, it's that I want to wake up wherever you are, and go to sleep wherever you are. Every day."
He takes a deep breath, and gets down on one knee. "So what do you say?"
Helen's breath catches in her throat and her hand goes reflexively to her clavicle. "I don't know," she says, regaining her composure enough to smile, her eyes shining. "You haven't asked me a question yet."
This makes him laugh, quite unexpectedly, and it's only the stabilizing force of Helen's hands in his own that stop him from losing his balance. "God, I love you," Max breathes. He pulls the box from his pocket, the one he's been hiding for almost a year now, waiting for god knows what and god knows when, coming up with hundreds of elaborate plans and schemes when all he really needed was a little peace and quiet to get the words out. That, and maybe a beautiful view, too. Max steadies himself, and flips the box open. "Helen, will you marry me?"
"Try and stop me," she beams, stretching her hand out so he can slide the ring onto her fourth finger. "It's gorgeous, Max."
The kiss she gives him as he gets back to his feet—deep, possessive, and punctuated by a soft moan which might just be his favourite noise in the known universe—is enough to make Max want to cancel their dinner reservations on the spot, but he feels like it's only fair to run that suggestion by her first. Right after he's kissed her again.
As they make their way back inside and Helen thumbs the call button for the elevator, Max keeps going a few feet past her, nudging open the door to the stairwell with his foot. Scattered somewhere across the six floors beneath them are Dora, Iggy, Reynolds, Bloom, and whoever else they've collectively managed to let the news slip to since Max had decided that today was the day.
He leans over the handrail and shouts "She said yes!" into the void below.
A booming chorus of triumphant cheers echoes back up off the walls as Max feels a hand squeeze his waist and finds Helen there, pressed into his side, grinning from ear-to-ear.
~
November
And then there were four.
Cyrus Goodwin-Sharpe arrives in the world eleven days early; as impatient as his father, as beautiful as his mother, and with a shock of dark curly hair that's all at once so new and yet so familiar to Max that when he first lays eyes on him, he can't help but let out a soft gasp.
"What's wrong?" Helen picks up on the noise he hadn't quite managed to contain, straining in bed to try and get a better view. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine," Max reassures her quickly, moving back to her side to as they wait for the midwife and nurse to check the baby over. "I got a quick look, Helen, he's perfect."
"He hasn't cr—" She starts, but mercifully her worries are interrupted by the sudden cry of a brand new pair of lungs introducing themselves.
The relief is palpable in both of them; Max had been holding his own breath without realizing, and the sound brings both a lump to his throat and a smile to his face. Helen lets her head fall back against the pillow in exhaustion, whispering "Thank god."
"Here we go." The midwife turns to them, a tiny bundle of fresh muslin in her arms.
She lays the baby on Helen's chest, and Max scoots the stool he's been positively glued to for the last seven hours as close as he can get to the bed, dropping the side rail with practiced hands so he can lean against them both and close his eyes and just be. It's been a long and exhausting day, full of moments of terror and pain which Max had wished he could bear for her, even though he'd known Helen was strong enough to do it all by herself. Now though, sitting here with both of them, he doesn't even have to ask her if it was worth it. It's written all over her face.
They stay curled up in their own private world for the next few hours, only moving when one of the nursing team come to check on Helen or the baby. Eventually they're both given the all-clear and discharged, and the fact that he's about to bring a new baby home but alongside someone with whom he gets to share every experience hits Max very suddenly and unexpectedly, like a physical blow. He's zipping Cyrus into a snowsuit for the journey home as the memories of the first few weeks of Luna's life come flooding back. How much time he'd spent on a sort of clumsy autopilot rather than taking things in. How many feelings—happy feelings, as there had been no way to feel them without simultaneously succumbing to grief—he'd had to repress in order to get through each day. How many things he simply doesn't remember. Max only realizes he's crying when he feels Helen slip her hand into his, squeezing it tight, giving him something to hold onto.
"I'm right here," she whispers, and he knows that she understands. He loves her all the more for it.
Max pulls her close so he can hug her properly and lose himself in the rhythm of her breathing and the familiar scent of her hair.
"Let's go home," he says, simply.
So they do.
He drives the long way round, so they can stop to collect Luna from Iggy and David's on the way. They'd offered to have her for the night, and Iggy reiterates this when Max shows up on the doorstep, but Max doesn't want to spend a second longer than he has to apart from her right now, convenience be damned, and judging from the bone-crushing hug he gives Max as Luna puts her coat on, Iggy seems to understand.
Back at the apartment, they can't all make it up the stairs in one go, so Max leaves Luna sat on the bottom step while he helps Helen up, and then makes another trip for Cyrus in the baby carrier. By the time he makes it back to the front door for the third time, Luna has abandoned her station and is playing with the mailbox.
"Whatcha got there, kiddo?" He asks, flipping it open. Expecting the usual stack of junk mail and utilities, he's slightly taken aback to see a heavy brown envelope. He takes it out, sees it's addressed to himself and Helen, and curiosity gets the better of him so he opens it then and there. Inside, he finds Luna's new birth certificate and the adoption order. It's official.
"Today just got even better, Luna," he whispers, as the two of them tiptoe up the stairs into the living room. "Let's go and show mom."
Helen's in bed where he'd left her, cradling a sleeping Cyrus and singing something so softly that Max can't make out a word of it.
"Looks like we got the buy-one-get-one-free special on birth certificates today," he says, quietly elated as he sits down on the edge of the bed.
Helen looks inquisitorially from Max to the envelope. "You mean...?" When he nods, her expression turns to one of delight. She holds her free hand out to Luna, who's climbed hesitantly onto the furthest corner of the bed, like she's not sure what to make of it all. "Luna, honey. Come and meet your baby brother."
What follows is a jigsaw of gently co-ordinated shuffling. Max ends up with his back against the headboard, Helen in his arms with her back against his chest, Luna curled up across both sets of their legs, and Cyrus soundly asleep in Helen's arms, as before.
It turns out that Max's entire world is small enough to fit right here in this bed, in the kind of slow and quiet stasis that makes it feel sort of like one of his daydreams. It's definitely not, because the real world is creeping in at the periphery. Cyrus is starting to rouse, letting out the beginnings of a soft cry, and Luna's elbow is digging into his knee.
It's these things that ground him here, though, knowing that he gets to feel all of it this time.
Knowing that they get to do it together.