18. Dane Gallagher #2
The panic hits instantly, hard enough to make my pulse spike, but I force it down before it reaches my face.
“There’s fluid… and blood.”
Her eyes close briefly. Not shocked. Not even confused. Like some part of her already knew before I said it out loud.
“I need you to talk to me,” she whispers. “Just… keep talking.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“It doesn’t matter. Your voice helps. Just don’t stop.”
So I do.
I tell her about the pearls. Where I found them. The northern reef at low tide. The deeper water past the shelf when the surface was calm enough to see straight to the bottom.
I tell her about the necklace I’ve been planning for her. The clasp. The way the pearls will be set once we get back to Australia and find someone who knows how to make it properly.
I tell her about the tree too. The marks carved into the bark. The count I’ve kept all these years. How many days we’ve survived here.
She listens with her eyes closed, breathing carefully between waves of pain, and every time another one hits she grips my hand hard enough to hurt.
I keep talking through all of it, voice steady and continuous because it helps her focus—and because it’s the only thing I know how to do for her right now.
Time starts slipping strangely after a while.
The darkness outside starts to lift, pale morning light finding its way through the gaps in the storm clouds. The yacht still moves beneath us, but gentler now. Less violent.
The storm may be passing outside, but inside this room, it isn’t.
“It’s getting worse,” she says, her voice thinner than before.
“I’m so sorry, love.”
“Dane.” She turns her head slightly toward me, and there’s no control left in her voice now. No effort to soften any of it. “I’m scared.”
“I know.” I tighten my grip on her hand. “So am I.”
Her eyes open and lock onto mine. “Tell me we’re going to get through this.”
“We’re going to get through this, Charlotte.”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“We are going to get through this.” Firmer this time. Certain in a way I force myself to become as I say it.
Because there is no version of this where we don’t.
She searches my face for another second, looking for certainty I’m forcing into place by sheer will alone. Then she nods once. “We will.”
The next contraction hits hard enough to steal her breath. Her grip tightens around my hand, almost painful, and I let her hold on as hard as she needs to.
I keep talking through it anyway.
Anything to give her something else to focus on.
Her voice changes again. Lower now. Stripped down to instinct and exhaustion.
“There’s pressure, Dane.” She swallows hard. “I need to push.”
I stare at her for half a second, my mind trying to catch up.
“I know you don’t know what to do,” she says quickly.
My heart’s pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
“Tell me where to be.”
She shakes her head, another wave building hard enough that it catches her breath halfway through speaking. “You need to—” She forces herself through it, jaw tightening against the pain. “You need to deliver the baby.”
The words land heavily between us.
“Just stay with me,” she says. “Help me. Don’t let him fall when he comes out.”
After that, instinct takes over before thought can.
I move where she needs me to be, positioning myself between her knees. One hand steadies her leg. The other braces, ready, without really knowing what "ready" is supposed to mean here.
Everything else disappears.
There’s only Charlotte.
Only this.
Only this moment.
She looks at me one more time, terrified, but trusting me anyway. Then she bears down.
The sound that tears out of her fills the room—raw and overwhelming, stripped down to despair and pain. It pushes everything else away until there’s nothing left but her body forcing this child into the world.
“I think something is happening.”
She pushes again, harder this time.
And then I see it.
At first it’s only a shadow in the low light. Then my eyes adjust enough for recognition to hit.
The head.
Too small.
Too still.
“It’s coming, Charlotte.”
Another push and the rest of the baby follows. He slips into my hands all at once, impossibly light and frighteningly fragile.
I catch him carefully as the rest of his body slips free. He’s fully formed, impossibly small and weightless against my palms, fragile in a way that hits something deep and instinctive inside me immediately.
I check for any sign of life. Tilt him carefully. Clear what I can from his mouth and nose. Watch for breath.
I hold my finger beneath his nose, waiting to feel something. A breath. A flutter of air. Anything at all.
“Is he—” Charlotte’s voice breaks weakly behind me.
“Wait.”
I check again. Adjust my grip. Try to force my brain into remembering anything useful—anything I’ve ever heard about newborns, about premature babies, about what you’re supposed to do.
I try everything I can think of.
It isn’t enough.
The room stays unbearably quiet.
No cry. No movement.
“Dane.” Softer this time.
“Give me a minute.”
“Dane.”
I look up at her then.
She’s watching my face, and something inside her settles before I even say the words out loud. Like she already knows and is only waiting for me to stop fighting it.
“I know,” she says quietly.
I look back down at him again anyway. Search his tiny face like there’s still something I missed. Something fixable. Something I can force into changing if I just keep trying long enough.
“I don’t know how to help him.” The words feel wrong coming out of my mouth. Foreign somehow. “Charlotte… I don’t know what to do.”
A parent is supposed to know how to help their child. Supposed to be able to fix it. Protect them from everything.
And I can’t do any of it.
“It’s beyond your control.” Her voice stays impossibly gentle, steady in a way mine isn’t. “It’s all right.”
“He’s not—”
“I understand.” She reaches toward me with trembling hands. “Let me hold him.”