28. Epilogue #2
"Is it time?" he asks, like maybe I've just dropped a glass of wine on the carpet.
"Unless you know another reason I'd be pissing myself in the garden," I say, and I can hear the panic bleeding through my voice, but I don't care.
He is at my side in a blink, one arm at my back, the other under my knees, and before I can object he lifts me off the ground, bridal-style.
"Put me down," I say, but I don't mean it.
He ignores me.
"Fiachra! Car," Ruairí barks.
"Now. Clinic, not hospital. Secure the perimeter. And tell Lena she's with us."
Fiachra is already gone, moving with the kind of speed that only fear or faith can provide.
I let my head rest against Ruairí's shoulder.
The night air is cold and damp, the fog off the Bay curling in under the eaves and making the world smell like brine and ozone.
I shiver, but only a little.
He sets me down at the curb, just long enough for Lena to open the car door.
She is in all black, her hair up, pistol visible under the hem of her jacket.
"You okay?" she asks, not in a soft way, but in the way you ask if a person has been shot and if you should go back for revenge.
"I'm fine," I say, but my knees buckle as I try to get in the back seat.
Ruairí catches me, his grip tight .
"In," he says, and I obey.
Lena slides in the passenger seat.
Fiachra drives, the engine already running, headlights off until we clear the gate.
No one speaks for the first few minutes.
My heart is a metronome set too fast, and every jolt of the car is a new contraction, sharp and hot and then gone, like a warning flare.
I look over at Ruairí.
He has one hand on my thigh, the other holding mine in a death grip.
His eyes never leave the mirror.
The private clinic is at the far end of town, in a walled compound that used to be a nunnery.
The new management kept the saints on the walls and the iron gates but replaced the staff with ex-special-forces and the sisters with nurses who look like they could field-strip a Glock faster than they could check a pulse.
Fiachra pulls up to the gate, flashes a card, and the whole thing swings open without a sound.
We drive straight to the covered entrance.
Two men are waiting—one in scrubs, one in a suit.
The man in scrubs opens the car door and peers in.
He helps me out, arm steady, and leads us inside.
Ruairí follows, never more than a pace away.
Lena and Fiachra stay at the door, scanning the street, their silhouettes barely moving except for the motion of their eyes.
Inside, the world is white and clean and so fucking bright it hurts.
They wheel me into a room, high-tech and sterile but with enough personality to suggest someone tried, once, to make it human.
I am already in the bed before I realize I've left a trail of blood and amniotic fluid down the corridor.
I want to apologize to the nurse, but the pain comes again, harder now, and all I can do is gasp and clutch the rails.
The contractions are fast.
The nurse checks my stats, then calls for someone I can't see.
"She's at eight," she says, and I see Ruairí's face pale by a full shade.
"You can have pain relief," she says, and her voice is gentle but not weak.
I shake my head, and Ruairí says, "She wants to stay sharp."
The nurse nods, not judging.
"It will be soon. Maybe thirty minutes. Do you want to change into?—"
"No," I say.
"This is fine."
They hook me up to a monitor, and for a while the world is reduced to the beeping of the fetal heartbeats, the rise and fall of my chest, the pressure of Ruairí's hand on mine.
I want to talk, to say something witty or defiant, but the pain is relentless, and the only thing I can do is breathe through it, counting the seconds between each crest.
At some point, Lena comes in.
She stands at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, face unreadable.
"They're clear," she says.
"No one followed. Fiachra's outside. He's got a new toy. Wants to show you after."
I want to laugh, but the next contraction makes it a snarl.
I push through it, eyes closed, sweat slicking my forehead.
"You're doing good," Ruairí says, and for the first time ever, I believe he means it.
The doctor arrives.
She is young, hair in a braid, eyes sharp as scalpels.
She checks the monitor, then me.
"Ready?" she says.
"Do I have a choice?" I reply, and she grins.
"Push when I tell you," she says.
"Don't waste your effort."
The next hour is a blur of pain and rage and a kind of primitive joy.
I am outside myself, watching as my body does things I would never have allowed under normal circumstances.
I hear my own voice, sometimes screaming, sometimes whispering curses in Irish.
At one point I think I see my mother, standing in the corner of the room, but when I blink she is gone.
When it happens, it happens fast.
The first baby comes with a sound like tearing silk, and then the room is filled with a wail so loud and pure it drowns out the monitors, the nurse, even my own voice.
"A boy," the nurse says and hands him to Ruairí, who holds him like something made of glass and starlight.
I see the way his hands tremble, the way he looks at the child, and for a second I think he might drop him.
But he doesn't.
He just holds him, staring down with the kind of awe that makes religion look like a cheap con.
The second baby is harder.
She is stubborn, or maybe just waiting for the right moment.
When she arrives, she is silent for a breathless second, then opens her eyes and looks directly at me before she starts to cry.
The sound is different—sharper, more insistent.
The nurse hands her to me, and I pull her close, feeling the heat and the weight and the impossible reality of her.
They clean us up, wrap the babies, and leave us alone.
Ruairí sits on the edge of the bed, one arm around me, the other holding our son.
I have our daughter pressed to my chest, her head tucked under my chin.
We do not speak for a long time.
When we do, it is in whispers.
"Ciarán," I say, and Ruairí nods.
"Saoirse," he replies, his voice thick.
We sit like that, two generals in a bunker, holding the future in our arms.
The world outside could end, and we would not notice.
Lena comes in, softer than usual.
She looks at the babies, then at me.
"Godparents?" she says, and I see the glint in her eye .
"Niamh," I say.
"For her." I nod at the girl.
"And Fiachra," Ruairí says.
"For him."
Lena grins.
"They'll be honored. But you know Niamh will teach her every bad habit."
I smile, and for once, the pain is gone.
"They'll need it," I say.
We sit in the white, bright room, the four of us, and I know—without doubt—that there is nothing left to fear.
A few nights later, I sit in the bedroom.
The fire is nearly out.
Only a few coals glow at the base of the grate, but it's enough to keep the air in the room thick and soft, enough to blur the edges of the furniture until everything feels a little closer, a little less defined.
The new wing of the house is nothing like the old one.
Gone are the draughts and cold spots, the water stains on the ceiling and the uneven boards that creaked underfoot like old men in prayer.
Here, the carpets are so deep you could lose a finger in them, the paneling so fine you forget that most of it is bulletproof beneath the veneer.
I sit in a chair, a blanket over my knees, and I watch the twins sleep.
The bassinets are matched, white and blue, each with a tiny monogram on the foot—S for Saoirse, C for Ciarán.
They sleep close together but not touching—already, their personalities announce themselves.
The girl is compact, fists bunched under her chin, jaw set in a way that looks uncannily like my own.
The boy is sprawled, loose, mouth open, one hand drifting upward in search of something to hold.
I keep a hand on the edge of her bassinet, just enough to reassure myself that she is still there.
The world outside is quiet.
Not peaceful, but contained .
Even the city lights across the Bay seem muted, the sodium orange of the streets turned down to a dull hush.
Security walks the perimeter every hour, but I barely notice them now.
The new system hums along in the walls—motion sensors, heat mapping, the kind of tech you only see in government installations or paranoid fortresses.
I made a point of having them installed in every hallway, every access point.
Trust, but verify.
My body aches in places I did not know could ache, but I refuse to take the pills they left on the side table.
I want to be clear, even now, especially now.
There is no such thing as a night off.
Ruairí enters the room without a sound.
I know he's there because the air changes—something like electricity, or gravity, pulling me toward him even if I don't look up.
He stands at the doorway for a second, his silhouette framed by the glass and the cold blue of the night behind him.
He watches the twins, then me, and his face does that thing I never tire of—the small, private smile, barely a twitch at the corner of his mouth, as if he's proud of something but doesn't want to jinx it by speaking.
He crosses the room, slow and sure, his bare feet sinking into the rug.
He sits on the arm of my chair, wraps an arm around my shoulder, and lets his fingers drift up to the base of my neck.
We watch the twins together, saying nothing.
There are moments like this when I allow myself the luxury of imagining that we are just a family.
Not a dynasty, not a war council, not two feral creatures circling the same scarred territory.
Just a man, a woman, and two perfect children, dozing in the amber light of a room so secure it might as well be a bunker.
The thought makes me want to cry, or laugh, or both, but instead I just squeeze his hand and he squeezes back .
The fire snaps, sending a flake of ember up into the flue.
I let my mind wander—not too far, just to the next day, the next week, the next test of strength.
The Council is already calling for meetings, but they can wait.
The new ports are running.
The money flows.
The enemies are either dead or watching, biding their time.
I have learned not to believe in peace, but I can believe in control, at least for tonight.
Saoirse shifts in her bassinet, a little grunt of protest.
I lean forward, adjust the blanket, and she settles again.
Ciarán doesn't even flinch, his dreams untouched by the world outside.
Ruairí speaks, finally, his voice so low I almost miss it. "
We did it," he says.
He leans in, rests his chin on my head, and together we breathe in the quiet, the possibility, the heat of what we've built .