Chapter 11 Sage
SAGE
The pain doesn’t care that it’s him.
In fact, that might make it worse.
It doesn’t ease or pause or give me a second to process the fact that Ronan Callahan is standing at the side of my bed, calmly taking control of the worst moment of my life.
If anything, the pain sharpens, tightening through my body with brutal precision as the next contraction hits, stealing the breath right out of my lungs.
I grip the bed rail hard enough that my fingers go numb the way I wish my body would.
My entire body locks as the pressure builds, deep and relentless.
It feels like my spine is being crushed inward, my hips forced apart too fast, too wide, too much.
A broken sound tears out of me before I can stop it.
“Don’t fight it,” Ronan says, his voice cutting clean through the noise in the room. “Work with it.”
Work with it.
I want to laugh at that. Or scream. Maybe both. Instead, I choke on the pain, my breath coming in short, uneven bursts as I try to do what he’s telling me. It feels impossible, like my body is doing something it shouldn’t be able to do, to survive.
“I can’t—” The words fall apart as the contraction peaks. “I can’t do this—”
“You are doing it,” he says immediately. Not louder, not harsher, but unyielding in a way that doesn’t give me room to argue. “Stay with me, Sage.”
My name in his mouth shouldn’t matter right now.
It does anyway.
I shake my head, tears slipping out of the corners of my eyes as the pain crests, holds, stretches me to the edge of something I don’t know how to come back from. My body is shaking, every muscle pulled tight, every instinct screaming at me to get away from this, to stop it somehow.
“Cervix?” he asks the nurse.
“Completely dilated.”
“Listen to me.” Ronan’s already looking at me, locked in, like everything else in the room has faded out. “On the next contraction, you’re going to push. Not before. You wait for it, then ride that wave.”
I nod, barely, because it’s all I can manage. Ride that wave. But contractions are not waves. They aren’t gentle things, lapping at some inner beach.
Contractions are body-altering tsunamis. There’s nothing to do but hope you survive.
The pressure is already building again. Too fast. Too soon. “Oh God—” The words break as my body tightens, the next tsunami rising hard and unforgiving.
“Now,” he says.
I push.
Pain explodes through me, white-hot and overwhelming, tearing a scream out of my throat as everything in me strains, stretches, gives. It feels like I’m splitting in half, like there’s no way through this, no way out the other side.
I only hope my kids survive.
“Again,” Ronan says, steady as ever. “That’s it. Don’t stop.”
I don’t know how not to stop. I don’t know how to keep going. But his voice is there, constant, unwavering, and I latch onto it because I don’t have anything else.
Leigh was going to be here for this. But I’m weeks early, so we hadn’t expected this. When her cousin called to say she’d been in a car accident and needed her, I told her to go.
I thought I had time. I was wrong.
Push again, sob. Shake as the pressure builds to something unbearable, something that makes me feel like I might actually break under it. It’s a short to-do list, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Good job, Sage,” he says, and there’s something in the words that lands deeper than it should. “You’re right there.”
Right there. Like this is something with a finish line.
“Head’s crowning.”
The words barely register before the pain spikes higher than anything before it. I cry out, my grip slipping as my body arches, pushing without waiting for permission this time because I can’t do anything else.
And then something shifts. A release.
Too many seconds later, a cry cuts through the room, thin and sharp and impossibly real.
My heart lurches.
“Baby one,” someone says.
Alive. My baby is alive.
I collapse back against the bed, gasping, my entire body trembling as relief crashes over me so hard it almost feels like another kind of pain. But then there’s that pressure again. Building.
“We’re not done,” Ronan says, already pulling me back in, his voice just as steady as before. “Stay with me.”
Right. Two more.
And Ronan’s still here, still in control, still the one guiding me through it like nothing else exists.
Like I matter.
I squeeze my eyes shut as the next contraction starts to build. This is his job. That’s all this is.
“Second baby is descending,” someone says, and the words hit me like a warning shot.
“Good,” Ronan replies, calm and certain like this is exactly what he expected.
There’s no reset. No recovery. Just more.
“I can’t catch my breath,” I whisper, my voice thin and unsteady. “Can you slow it down—”
“I’m afraid not, and you wouldn’t want that anyway, I promise you,” Ronan says, already there again, already pulling me back into it. “Short breaths. Stay with me.”
Stay with me. Those words anchor me.
I open my eyes, and he’s exactly where I expect him to be—focused, composed, completely locked in. Not rushed. Not panicked. Just… certain.
Like he’s not going to let anything happen to me. To them.
Another contraction hits before I can finish the thought, ripping through me with a force that makes my back arch off the bed again. It’s sharper this time, more focused, like my body has figured out exactly what it’s doing and is no longer asking permission.
“Oh God—”
“I know,” he says, steady and close. “Let it build. Don’t push yet.”
Don’t push.
I shake my head, tears slipping into my hair as the pressure climbs higher, tighter, unbearable. “I can’t wait—”
“You can do this, Sage,” he says, not harsh, not even raised, but absolute. “Wait for it.”
I don’t know why I listen. I don’t know why, even now, even with everything in me screaming to just get it over with, I hold back.
But I do. Because he said to. Something in me still trusts him. I don’t get it.
Doesn’t matter now. The pressure peaks.
“Now.”
I push. It’s so much fucking worse this time.
There’s no easing into it, no adjustment. A scream rips out of me, louder, sharper, my hands scrambling for something to hold on to.
“Good,” Ronan says immediately. “That’s exactly it. Again.”
I shake my head, sobbing, my body trembling under the strain. “I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” he says, and this time there’s something under the words. Something firmer. “You’re doing it right now. You’ve got this.”
The next contraction crashes into me before I can argue, stacking on top of everything else until there’s no space left to think, no space left to feel anything but this.
“Push!”
I do what I can, but I’m exhausted. I don’t have more in me.
“Almost,” he says, and the word hits me like a lifeline. “You’re almost there.”
Almost. I cling to it, desperate. I push again, crying out as the pressure spikes, sharper and more concentrated this time. Exhaustion smothers me like a blanket, but I dig deep and give it another shot.
And then—
Release.
Another cry fills the room, stronger than the first, fuller, louder.
“Baby two.”
My head falls back against the bed, my entire body going limp for a second as relief crashes through me again.
Two of them. Safe. Loud.
I laugh weakly, the sound breaking apart into something closer to a sob. “I did it,” I whisper, barely audible.
But Ronan is already shaking his head slightly, already pulling me forward again. “One more.”
“Fucking hell, just let me have—oh.” The pain. The fucking pain. It takes over once more, stealing my breath. I close my eyes, tears slipping freely now as the next contraction starts to build again, my body already bracing for what’s coming.
One more. And Ronan’s still here, holding everything together while I come apart.
There is no real break this time. My body doesn’t reset, doesn’t even pretend to give me a second to recover before the next contraction rolls in, low and heavy, building fast like it’s already decided this is the end whether I’m ready or not. I’m not.
I’m so far from ready, it almost feels like a joke. My hands twist in the sheets, fingers clumsy and weak now, my entire body trembling as the pressure climbs again, sharper than before, more focused, like everything has narrowed down to one unbearable point.
“I can’t do another one,” I say, but it comes out thin, barely there, like even my voice is giving up on me.
“You can,” Ronan says immediately, and he doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t soften it into something comforting. “You’re almost done.”
I believed his “almost” before. But my body doesn’t feel close to anything except breaking, stretched too far, too raw, too exhausted to keep up with what’s being asked of it. “I’m too tired. I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” he cuts in, firmer now, not unkind but leaving no room for argument. “You don’t get to stop here.”
Something in me wants to push back on that, to tell him he doesn’t understand what this feels like.
But the contraction surges before I can get the words out, slamming into me with a force that makes my entire body jerk.
The sound that comes out of me is raw and broken, dragged out of my chest whether I want it there or not.
“Breathe,” he says, closer now, steady in a way nothing else is. “Stay with me.”
I try. God, I try. My lungs drag in air that doesn’t feel like enough, my vision blurring at the edges as the pressure builds and builds until I can’t tell where it starts or ends.
Everything hurts. Everything is too much.
My body tightens, instinct taking over as the contraction peaks, and tears spill freely now, slipping into my hair as I shake my head.
“I can’t—”
“Sage.” My name stops me again. Not because he raises his voice—he doesn’t—but because of the way he says it. “Look at me.”
I don’t want to. I want to disappear into the pain, to close my eyes and let it happen without having to feel every second of it. But I look anyway, because he told me to, because some part of me still listens to him without question.