Deciding to go for the prenatal checkup alone was my last attempt to maintain a crumbling wall. Yet when I reached the doorway and saw her sitting on the sofa, clearly waiting, with eyes that held unmistakable tension and resolve, I knew this defense would not hold.
"I'll take you." Her voice was dry, but carried a sense of burning the boats behind her. "No need." My rejection was sharp, meant to push her away with coldness. "I… I'll just drive you there, wait outside, not go in." She hurried to add, her tone even tinged with… pleading? "I don't feel at ease with you going alone."
Those three words—"not at ease"—fell like a tiny spark onto my frozen heart-lake, hissing as they left a mark impossible to ignore. What right did she have to be uneasy? On what grounds? And yet, shamefully, in some corner of me corroded by hormones and loneliness, her clumsy concern stirred a faint, guilty wavering.
In the end, my silence became consent.
The drive to the hospital was suffocatingly quiet. She drove unusually steady and slow, her eyes flicking to me in the rearview mirror, worry so heavy it seemed tangible. My white-tea pheromones recoiled instinctively, resisting her weighty attention, while her cedar scent circled cautiously, carrying a note of comfort. This silent duel drained more than any argument.
Alone in the ultrasound room, cold gel spread across my skin, making me shiver. As the probe moved over my abdomen, the machine emitted rhythmic sounds. I held my breath.
Then I heard it. Not the mechanical noise, but a faster, stronger thump-thump—like a tiny war drum, echoing through the speaker.
The doctor smiled. "Very good, the fetal heartbeat is strong."
Fetal heartbeat… My child's heartbeat.
In that instant, all disguises, all hatred, all icy walls collapsed before the pure rhythm of life. A surge of unfamiliar heat rushed to my eyes and nose, blurring my vision. I bit down hard on my lip to keep the sob from escaping. This was… my child. No matter how he began, he was alive, strong, within me.
Clutching the report with its tiny gestational sac and pulsing dot, I stumbled out of the room. And there she was. Waiting, statue-like, face drained of color, eyes locked on the paper in my hand.
When she trembled and asked, "How is it?" I instinctively handed her the report—light as paper, heavy as destiny.
I watched her lower her head, her gaze fix on that flickering point, her pupils contract violently—then saw the sudden fall of hot, heavy tears, splashing onto the report, spreading into a blurred stain.
She cried. Not feigned, not calculated. It was pure, from the soul—shock and… awe.
In that moment, the defenses I had built so painstakingly were washed away by her tears. Hatred remained, but the shell cracked wide, letting warmth surge in.
She lifted tear-filled eyes to me. Those gray-blue eyes, usually defiant or irritable, now washed clear, filled with something I had never seen—almost reverent gratitude and… tenderness? For this child?
On the way back, silence lingered, but the air had changed. She no longer stole glances through the mirror; she turned openly, gaze fixed on me, eyes heavy with guilt, joy, confusion, and a determination that made my heart tremble.
And I… could no longer respond with a cold back.
I turned to the window, watching the city blur past, but my hand pressed tighter against the report in my pocket. It still seemed to carry the warmth of her tears.
Child, did you see? Your existence… is changing something.
The Alpha I thought forever selfish, forever irresponsible—shed tears at your heartbeat.
Are those tears real? Will this change last? I do not know.
I only know that when I looked again into the rearview mirror, at her reddened yet shining eyes, my barren icefield seemed to crack under the pounding of that heartbeat.
The ice has not melted, hatred has not vanished. But something is no longer the same.
The power of life itself—so strong, undeniable—has begun to redefine, irresistibly, the bond between us, born in darkness.
Beneath the icefield, spring tides stir.