Reid
He fell back, and stared at the ceiling.
The room still smelled like her.
He turned his head slightly, looking at the space where she had been. The sheets were disturbed, the imprint of her body already fading, but not gone.
Maya had been in this bed.
His wife had been in this bed, her hands on his back, her breath against his throat.
He put his hand on the empty side of the mattress.
Still warm.
Reid closed his eyes. Maya had been here. His wife had come back to him.
No—he corrected himself immediately, sharply. Not back. Not like that.
She had come for something and he had given it to her.
His throat worked as he swallowed. He’d never been inside her without a condom before. He felt… seen. He felt known.
He had let her in without a single guard in place, and it had felt—not reckless. No. It felt like the most correct thing he had ever done.
He dragged a hand down his face, then let it fall back against the mattress.
They had never done that before. Not once. Not in all the time they had been together, not in the easy intimacy of their marriage when everything had been good and steady and unquestioned.
He had always been careful.
Always thinking ahead.
He had let that go without hesitation.
Because she had asked.
Because she had looked at him and said, I want your baby, and something in him had answered before his mind had even caught up.
Yes.
Always yes.
They had talked about children. He had thought: eventually. He had thought: when she's ready. He had thought: he would not push.
He closed his eyes briefly.
He was going to give her everything she asked for.
His chest rose slowly with a breath.
A baby.
The thought was no longer abstract. Not a vague future he had kept tucked away in the back of his mind, something to think about when the timing was right, when things were stable, when they were ready.
Now.
This was now.
They might conceive a child.
His child.
Their child.
Reid turned his head again, looking at the empty space beside him.
When it happened—and he would do anything to make it happen, he would try over and over until he was able to give this to her—it would be a child conceived in love. His love.
His hand pressed flat against the mattress where she had been.
His chest tightened, something protective and immediate and overwhelming rising up beneath the thought.
He didn't know what it would cost. But he knew what he would pay.
Anything.
He would protect them. Maya and her baby.
It didn’t matter that nothing had happened yet. It didn’t matter that her body wasn’t ready today, that she had called it practice, that this might not be the moment that changed anything.
It didn’t matter.
He would protect her and her child to his dying day.
He had failed at that once. Spectacularly. Catastrophically.
He shut his eyes, jaw tightening.
Never again.
The legal system could have been objective, could have been right. Until he’d interpreted it through his own insecurities.
And those had led him to putting handcuffs on his wife.
Reid exhaled slowly. That wasn’t happening again. If there was ever a moment where he had to choose—
Maya.
Always Maya.
She was first.
She should have always been first.
Everything else came after.
He stared at the ceiling again, his heart beating steady now.
He didn’t know if she would ever come back to him in the way he wanted, in the way he had lost.
It didn’t matter.
He was going to be worthy of her anyway.