CHAPTER 305

CHAPTER 305
ALINA

The IV tugged lightly at the back of my hand whenever I moved, while wires disappeared beneath the blanket and connected me to machines I was beginning to resent.

"Can you ask Rogers to take some of this off? The machines. The wires. The IV. ."

"Not yet, wife."

I sighed. "I'm fine now..I'm awake. I can move." I lifted my free hand slightly, as if that proved my argument. "See? Fully operational."

He didn't even blink. I lowered my hand.

"Mostly operational."

"Wife."

"What? All of this just feels a little excessive."

He didn't smile. Instead, his thumb brushed slowly over my knuckles.

"There's something you need to know."

The change in his voice made the small smile disappear from my face.

"What?"

He didn't answer right away. His gaze dropped to our joined hands, then flicked back up to mine, then away again — like he was rehearsing the words one more time before he could actually say them out loud.

"Alexander."

"I'm just—" He stopped, searching for the words. "I need you to hear me out before you panic."

"That's not exactly reassuring."

"I know."

"You're scaring me."

His eyes lifted to mine immediately. "It's not—" He stopped, exhaled through his nose, and tried again.

"It's not necessarily bad. Rogers actually thinks—"

He hesitated, brow furrowing. "Fuck. I don't know how to say this."

"Just say it." My heart had already picked up speed.

"Rogers said the pregnancy is still viable."

I frowned. "Viable. What the does that mean?"

"It means the baby's not out of danger yet. But it's still holding on."

My breath caught. "Not out of danger—?"

"Last night, you were losing a significant amount of blood. Your pressure was dropping fast." He said it slowly, like each word cost him something. "They had you on fluids—.."

I stared at him, the words taking a second too long to land.

"He told me the pregnancy is still viable. That means the baby's still there. Still fighting to survive. Still holding on, even after everything." His fingers tightened around mine.

"Your body went through hell last night. The cold. Dehydration. Lack of food. The stress. Whatever physical trauma Santos put you through. All of it put enormous strain on your body at a time when it was already trying to sustain a pregnancy...It took a toll on the baby too — Rogers said that's exactly why the baby—"

My throat tightened, and for a second I couldn't get anything out at all.

“So what does Rogers want me to do?”

His eyes held mine. “Nothing.”

I blinked. “Nothing?”

“Complete bed rest.”

I stared at him..“For how long?”

“At least a week.”

“A week?”

He nodded. “No unnecessary walking. No exertion. No lifting anything. Nothing that puts additional strain on your body. And as little stress as possible.
Rogers said the first few days are critical. If your bleeding starts again, if your blood pressure drops, if anything changes…” He paused, his voice roughening.

“We could lose the baby.”

“And bed-rest gives the baby the best chance?”

“It gives your body the best chance to recover,” he corrected quietly. “And that's the best chance the baby has.”

He watched my face carefully, bracing, I could tell, for the argument he clearly expected.

"I know how much you're going to hate that," he added quietly.

I opened my mouth, already feeling that familiar reflexive protest rising — the same stubborn instinct that had gotten me into half the trouble of my adult life, the reflex to push back against anyone telling me what to do.

Then I stopped myself. Because this wasn't about me.

Somewhere beneath my other palm, something impossibly small was fighting to exist — a heartbeat I hadn't even known was there, and already it felt like the single most important thing in my entire world, second only to the man currently holding my hand like it was the only thing keeping either of us upright.

This baby was ours. Mine and Alexander's. A tiny, impossible piece of both of us, created somewhere in the middle of the chaos and arguments and blood and laughter and stolen quiet moments I hadn't even realized I'd been taking for granted until they'd almost been taken from me completely.

And the thought of losing it now?
No. Absolutely fucking not.

I would burn down anything standing between me and protecting this child. Anyone. Anything. Myself, if that's what it took.

So a week of bed rest? Fine. A week of lying still, going quietly out of my mind staring at these same four walls until I started arguing with the furniture out of sheer boredom?

I'd survive it. It wasn't even a sacrifice, not really — my baby's life depended on me.

Tears welled up before I could stop them.
"Okay," I said.

Alexander blinked, clearly braced for a fight that wasn't coming. "Okay?"

"I'll do whatever it takes." My hand pressed a little firmer against my stomach

"Bed rest, no stress, whatever Rogers says. I don't care how boring it is or how much I hate being still. I'll do it." I looked up at him, throat tightening around the rest.

"I would give up my life for this baby." My voice cracked wide open on the words, more honest than I'd planned to be.

"Do you understand that?" My voice came out rougher than I meant it to.

"I sat in that freezing cell with a psycho, not knowing if I'd make it out, and somehow this—" I pressed my hand harder against my stomach,

"—this made it through anyway. If staying in this bed for a week, or two, or a month, means it gets a real chance, then that's the easiest thing in the world to give. Bed rest won't hurt me. Not compared to what we could lose."

He leaned down and pressed his lips to my forehead, lingering there like he needed the contact as much as I did.

"I fucking love you," he murmured against my skin. "Both of you."

Another kiss, softer still. "Let your body recover. Let our baby keep fighting."

I nodded against him, tears slipping free without permission. We stayed like that a long while — foreheads touching, hands overlapping over the place where everything that mattered now quietly lived.

"Can you hold me?"

His expression softened instantly.

“Always.”

He shifted carefully closer, mindful of every wire and tube between us, then opened his arms. “Come here, wife.”

I moved into him, and his arms wrapped around me with a tenderness that felt almost at odds with the man everyone else feared.

“I've got you,” he murmured, pressing his lips to my hair. “As long as you need me, I'm right here.”

His hold tightened slightly. “And I'm not letting go. And even when you don't want me to — I still won't let you go."

He pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of my nose, and I turned into him and burrowed against his chest, seeking the solid warmth of him like it was the last safe place left in the world.

I sighed into his chest, my arms tightening around his waist as much as my sore, exhausted body would allow. We stayed quiet a long while.

His heartbeat thudded strong and reassuring under my ear.

"You're not only my husband," I whispered against his shirt. "You're my savior. Mine and our baby's."

His arms tightened around me instantly. I felt the faint tremor that moved through him, the way his breath caught sharp in his throat.

When I tilted my head up to look at him, his eyes were glassy, bright with things he wasn't bothering to hide anymore.

He brought a hand up, finger under my chin, tilting my face fully toward his. Tears still clung to my lashes. His own eyes were wet, unashamed.

"You don't ever have to thank me for that," he said, voice rough, wrecked.

"Coming for you. Protecting both of you. That's not something extra I did. That's the only thing that has ever actually mattered."

I let out a small, watery laugh, something lighter trying to surface through all the weight still sitting on my chest.

"You know it's funny," I whispered, tracing an idle pattern against his shirt.

"You came into my life like the villain of it, at first. Practically kidnapped me by force, remember?"

“Technically—”

“Don't ruin my speech.” He closed his mouth.

“You dragged me into your world, whether I wanted to be there or not. You were arrogant, controlling, terrifying, and completely convinced that whatever you wanted was automatically what everyone else wanted too.”

“I was charming.”

“You were a nightmare.”

“Charming nightmare.”

I laughed softly. "And somehow, against every ounce of common sense I apparently have, you became the hero instead. My hero. My saviour." A small, tired smile tugged at my mouth. "Who could've predicted that plot twist."

"I have a talent for character development, apparently," he murmured against my hair, though I could hear how carefully he was listening now, how still he'd gone underneath me.

"Before you," I continued, quieter now, the humor fading into something more fragile,

"my life was just survival. My father. His creepy friends, the way they used to look at me before I was even old enough to understand why that was wrong." My throat tightened around the memory, old and familiar and still sharp at the edges.

"The orphanage was the only place that ever felt like mine. The only place I actually got to just — be a person. Be happy, even, in small pieces. Everything else was just getting through each day intact."

His hand found mine where it rested against his chest, threading our fingers together, silent and steady.

“And then you came along.” I tilted my head up to look at him properly, letting him see everything I wasn't bothering to hide anymore.

“Loud, arrogant, ridiculously self-important, and so convinced you were God's personal gift to the female population that I'm still amazed your ego managed to fit through a doorway.”

His eyebrow rose..“I feel like we're returning to the villain portion of this story..“I wasn't that bad.”

I gave him a look. He sighed.
“Fine. Continue."

A small laugh escaped me despite the tears gathering again.

"And somehow, in the middle of all of that — you gave me something nobody else ever had. You made me feel safe. Not just protected. Safe. Like the ground wasn't going to shift under me the second I let my guard down."

His breath left him unsteady, and when I looked up, his jaw had tightened, throat working like he was fighting to keep himself together.

"You didn't just save me last night," I whispered.

"You've been saving me since the day you walked into my life and refused to walk back out of it. Villain to hero. Kidnapper to husband." I pressed a soft kiss against his jaw, feeling him shudder faintly under it. "Best character arc I've ever personally witnessed."

A broken laugh escaped him, half sob, and he buried his face against my hair, holding me like he might actually come apart if he loosened his grip even slightly.

"I love you," he said, muffled, wrecked. "God, Alina, I love you so much it terrifies me."

"I know." I pressed closer. "It terrifies me too. In the best possible way."

We lay like that as the morning light shifted slow across the room. Every so often his hand would drift back down to rest protectively over my stomach, like he needed the contact to believe the baby was still safe, still holding on. I covered his hand with mine each time, holding on right alongside him.

The machines stayed. The wires stayed. The fear didn't fully leave either of us, not completely — I doubted it ever would, not after a night like that one.

But in the circle of his arms, with the quiet promise of bed rest and the fierce, fragile determination between us to protect what we'd almost lost, it felt possible to breathe again. Really breathe.