Page 114 of Resilience

“Gotcha.”

“How’s Athena? Everything go okay?” Mason asked—which surprised the hell out of Sam. When they’d left for Kansas, his brother had not known the purpose of their trip, but it sounded like he knew it now.

It sounded like he knew, but it wasn’t definitive. Eventually everything got known in this family, but Sam was not going to be the one spreading this bit of intel, so he said, “Yeah. She’s good.”

Mason started to say something more, but his attention caught at something behind Sam. Sam turned and saw that Duncan and Hannah, Kelsey’s siblings, had stood. Their parents were probably in the delivery room.

When Duncan and Hannah started to walk toward the waiting room entrance, everybody fell in with them. Sam grabbed the handles of Gun’s wheelchair and pushed him forward.

“Should I go vroom vroom?” he asked, leaning down to tease his uncle.

“Again I say fuck off, you little fucker, Gun answered, still grinning.

Sam was expecting to see Dex holding his new child—they didn’t know the sex yet—but it was Maverick. Alone, and not looking like a beaming grandfather.

“Oh shit,” Sam’s mom said.

“Get up there, Deb,” Gun said. “What’s wrong?”

Sam’s mom didn’t need to push to the front; everybody was making way for Mav to come to the middle.

“PAPA! PAPA! PAPA!” shrieked Tildy, running full-tilt to her grandfather.

“Everybody’s okay,” Maverick began, as he swung his granddaughter up and onto his hip. “That’s first. Everybody’s okay. But there was some trouble. The cord was wrapped around one of his legs, and the compression lowered his heartrate, so they did an emergency C-section. That was as scared as I’ve ever been in my life, I can tell you. But they’re both okay. Dex is a fuckin’ mess, and Jenny’s not all that much better, but Kelse is a trouper.” Finally, Mav found a smile. “She’s tired and dopey, but she’s good. And my grandson is fuckin’ beautiful.”

“Excellent, love. And it’s a boy!” Grammo said, sliding her arm around Mav’s waist. “Do we have a name for him yet?”

Mav hooked his arm around Grammo’s shoulders as his grin broke wide. “Ethan. Ethan Richard Denson. Seven pounds, eleven ounces. Head’s as bald as Eight’s.”

Eight chuckled. “I’m mindin’ my business over here and still catchin’ shrapnel.”

“You can take it, baby,” Marcella told him as she patted his hairless dome.

Sam felt a small, familiar hand slip into his, and he smiled down at Athena. “Hi there. You okay?”

She nodded, but she looked distracted and introspective again. He thought he knew why. “Did somebody sign for you?”

“Mom did.”

“The baby’s okay. Kelsey’s okay. No worries.”

“Some worries.” She shuddered, and then she raised her eyes to his again. “I don’t want to do that, Sam. Ever. If you want kids ...”

He caught her hands before she finished. “I’ve always known how you feel about that, and it doesn’t change anything for me. I want you. If we decide we want to be parents, we’ll adopt, if we can. Maybe we can adopt a Deaf child. Or we’ll have a hundred animals and call them our furbabies and spoil them rotten. I just need you, Frosie. Just you. Everything else is negotiable.”

She smiled and wound her small body around his. Sam folded her up snugly. He saw both her parents watching them intently, and only then realized that anyone in the room who’d been looking would have understood their conversation, because they all knew ASL. Especially her parents.

So they knew that Sam and Athena had pretty much planned their forever together right here and now.

Jacinda smiled at him.

Apollo gave him a single nod.

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