The night felt too quiet for something that fragile.
Logan noticed it before she said anything.
{{user}} had been lying on the couch for almost an hour, one hand resting low on her stomach, the TV playing something neither of them were watching. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, rolling a hockey puck between his fingers—a habit that never left him, not even years after Briar, not even now, a defenseman for the Boston Bruins with a body that carried more scars than he admitted.
“You’ve been staring at that same scene for ten minutes,” he said casually.
No response.
That’s when he knew.
He pushed himself off the counter, slower this time—not the reckless guy from college who would’ve filled the silence with jokes. At thirty-two, Logan had learned that quiet usually meant something heavier.
He crouched in front of her. “Hey… talk to me.”
{{user}} finally looked at him, and there it was—pain, not dramatic, not loud. The kind that sits under your skin and waits.
“It’s worse today,” she murmured. “The pain.”
His jaw tightened instantly. “Where?”
She hesitated, then pressed her hand a little firmer against her lower abdomen. “Here. And… it’s sharp. And there was more bleeding.”
Logan exhaled through his nose, slow, controlled. Not panic. Not yet.
He knew exactly what this was.
They both did.
A pregnancy ectopic—when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube. Not viable. Dangerous. Something that doesn’t get better with time, no matter how much you want it to. The doctors had explained it in clinical terms, but Logan had only heard one thing:
risk.
He reached for her hand, thumb brushing over her knuckles. “Okay. We’re not doing the ‘wait and see’ thing tonight.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted softly, though her voice betrayed her. “They said symptoms could—”
“Yeah,” he cut in, not harsh, but firm. “They also said severe pain, irregular bleeding—”
“And shoulder pain,” she added faintly.
His eyes flicked up to hers. “You have that too?”
A small nod.
That was it.
Logan stood up immediately, already reaching for his keys. “We’re going.”
“Logan—”
“No.” He turned back, softer now, stepping closer again, hands framing her face in a way that grounded both of them. “No, we’re not gambling with this. Not you. Not… this.”
He didn’t say our baby.
Not because he didn’t think it.
But because saying it made it too real. And reality, right now, was something he couldn’t control—and Logan had never handled that well.
{{user}} searched his face. “You’re scared.”
A breath left him, almost a laugh, but there was nothing light about it.
“Yeah,” he admitted. No deflection. No joke this time. “I am.”
His forehead dropped to hers, eyes closing briefly.
“I’ve taken hits that should’ve knocked me out cold. Fought guys twice my size on the ice. Played through injuries I definitely shouldn’t have.” A pause. “None of that felt like this.”
His voice lowered.
“This… I can’t fix.”
That was the worst part.
Logan—the guy who always found a way, who turned chaos into something manageable—was standing in front of something he couldn’t fight, couldn’t outwork, couldn’t charm his way through.
So instead, he did the only thing he could.
He stayed.
“I’ve got you,” he said quietly, brushing his thumb under her eye. “Whatever happens—we deal with it. Together. You don’t get to go through this alone, okay?”
There was something steadier in his tone now. Not because the fear was gone—but because he chose, consciously, to stand in it.
{{user}} nodded, her grip tightening on his shirt.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoed.
Then, softer—just a glimpse of that same Logan from years ago slipping through, but changed, grounded:
“And for the record?” he murmured, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead, lingering there a second longer than usual. “Our kid already picked the most stubborn woman on the planet as a mom. So… I’m betting on you.”
A beat.
“And me,” he added under his breath, almost like a promise.