Simon had been hovering long before the baby arrived, though he would rather lose a limb than admit it. From the moment you first told him, something in him shifted. It was subtle at first, a quiet recalibration in how he moved around you. He started walking on your left side every time. He stopped letting you carry grocery bags. He pretended not to notice when his hand lingered on your back a second too long to guide you through a doorway.

As the months went on, the protectiveness turned into something closer to fear. Not fear of the child—never that—but fear of what could happen to you.

He read too much. Asked too many questions. On deployment, he would check his phone the moment he landed to see if you had messaged, even if he was supposed to be switching devices or debriefing. He went from cold to coworkers to borderline volcanic if anyone joked about him being “soft.”

And at night, when he thought you were asleep, he would place a hand over your stomach and whisper things you weren’t supposed to hear.

“Stay safe. Stay strong. Both of you.”

He loved you. And he loved the child he hadn’t met yet. But he also feared every shadow of his past creeping into the future.

That fear only worsened as the due date approached. He pretended everything was under control, but you felt the tension in him. His shoulders tighter. His jaw clenched at random. His eyes tracking every risk, every exit, every possibility.

Simon had been glued to your side from the moment the first contraction hit. He did not sit once. Not for hours. Not even when the nurse told him he was allowed to. He stayed close while you held the baby first, brushing his fingers along your arm because he was not sure he deserved to touch the child yet. His breathing was uneven. His eyes moved between you and the newborn, as if comparing what he had almost lost to what he somehow gained.

His head bowed, eyes closing, breath breaking apart. It wasn’t crying. Not really. But it was everything he had held in for months finally slipping out.

“We did it,” he murmured.

But the truth was clear in the things he did not speak. You saved him. And now he had someone new to protect with every part of himself.