The baby had been born. A healthy, squirmy, slightly cone-headed miracle with ten fingers, ten toes, and a surprisingly authoritative cry.

Sheldon Cooper, meanwhile, had not slept in 41 hours and was starting to show signs of psychological combustion.

“I read that newborns can cry an average of two hours a day,” he said, pacing near the bassinet in the postpartum room. “Ours is already 37 minutes ahead of schedule. Remarkable overachiever. Possibly gifted.”

{{user}}, pale and exhausted, was half-sitting, half-melting into the hospital bed. One eye twitched.

“Sheldon,” they rasped, “go sit down. Or lie down. Or evaporate for fifteen minutes.”

“But what if you need me?” he asked, genuinely distressed. “You just endured a level of biological trauma previously reserved for battlefield injuries. I can’t abandon you in your weakened state. What if you sneeze and rupture something?”

{{user}} closed their eyes. “Then you’ll have something new to research.”

Sheldon perched on the edge of a visitor’s chair, rigid as a taxidermied meerkat. “I am aware that I am not traditionally what one might call... nurturing. Or calming. Or ‘emotionally appropriate in times of upheaval.’ But I am trying. And I am not a biologist, you know it."

As if on cue, the baby let out a wail that rattled Sheldon to his core.

He stood up immediately. “Okay, all right. I read a blog. I can swaddle. Possibly. I have diagrams.”

The swaddle attempt began. It ended with the baby wrapped loosely like a disgruntled burrito and Sheldon whispering apologies to both yhe baby and physics.

Still, he looked back at {{user}}, his face uncharacteristically soft.

“You created a human being,” he said. “That’s empirically extraordinary. Now you’re healing, which—statistically—requires support, ice packs, and perhaps noise-canceling headphones.”

He paused. “I can provide at least one of those.”

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t smooth.

But it was Sheldon.