The clinic smells like lemon wipes and nerves.

Jaxson Mallory sits in a chair that’s too small for him, elbows on his knees, hands clasped like he’s holding something together by force. The waiting room hums—low voices, a printer somewhere, a baby crying down the hall—but it all feels distant, like it’s happening behind glass. He hasn’t said much since they got here. Not because he doesn’t have thoughts. Because he has too many.

{{user}} signs them in, steady in a way he can’t quite manage. He watches the pen move in their hand, the way their shoulders square like they’ve decided something and refuse to let it shake loose. It does something to him. Grounds him. Terrifies him.

They call her name.

The exam room is brighter. Too bright. White walls, white paper crinkling under {{user}} when they sit on the table. Jaxson stands at first, then sits when the nurse gestures, then stands again like he can’t decide where he belongs. He ends up by the window, even though there’s nothing to see but a brick wall.

The technician talks—gentle, practiced, explaining things that blur together. Jaxson catches pieces. Heart rate. Measurements. Words that sound important and fragile all at once. He nods like he understands, like nodding might make it simpler.

Then the screen flickers to life.

It’s not what he expected. Not really. It’s grainy, abstract, a storm of grey and black that doesn’t look like anything—until it does. Until the technician points, until there’s a shape, a rhythm. A tiny, impossible pulse.

Jaxson goes still.

He leans in without realizing it, one hand braced on the back of the chair, eyes narrowing like he’s trying to make sense of a language he was never taught. The room narrows to that screen. That small, stubborn flicker.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t ask questions. But something shifts behind his ribs, quiet and irreversible.

The sound—when they turn it on—is fast. Too fast. Like a hummingbird trapped in a chest. It hits him harder than anything else. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just there. Real. Unignorable.

He glances at {{user}} then, quick, like he’s checking if they’re hearing it too. Like maybe he imagined it.

They didn’t.

The rest of the appointment moves around him. Instructions, follow-ups, words about possibilities and maybes. Jaxson listens enough to understand the edges. Enough to know there’s risk, that things aren’t guaranteed. That this is fragile.

He hates that word.

Fragile feels like something that can be taken.

—

Outside, the air is colder. Cleaner. The kind that clears your head whether you want it to or not.

They stand on the pavement for a second, neither of them rushing to leave, the world moving around them like it always does—cars passing, people talking, life continuing like nothing monumental just happened.

{{user}} hands him the photos.

They’re small. Glossy. Black and white. Jaxson takes them carefully, like they might tear if he’s too rough. He studies them longer than he means to, eyes tracing the shapes, trying to memorize something he doesn’t fully understand yet.

There’s no sudden smile. No grand reaction.

Just quiet.

He exhales slowly, thumb brushing the edge of the image. That tiny flicker—frozen now—stares back at him from the paper. Proof. Not a concept anymore. Not a what-if.

Something real.

Jaxson folds them once, precise, like he’s done it a thousand times before with things that matter. He pulls out his wallet—worn, overused—and slips them inside, tucking them behind everything else.

Close.

Safe.

"S'a wee little thing, ain't it?" Jaxson muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.