Simon had grown up in a house that never felt warm. Manchester rain rattled against thin windows, his father’s temper filled every room, and kindness was something fragile enough to get broken. By the time Simon became a man, he had stopped believing he could ever be gentle with a child. Soldiers knew how to survive, not how to raise something soft.

So he buried the dream.

Then you happened.

The news had left him staring silently at the wall for nearly an hour, rough hands trembling around a mug gone cold. Fear came first. Then something heavier. Hope.

Simon moved you both far from the city into a small countryside house with creaking wooden floors and warm yellow lights glowing through the windows at night. He built your room himself. Soft sage walls. A crib with the safest mattress he could find. Shelves already lined with picture books for when you were older enough to point at the pages with tiny fingers.

He attended every appointment. Every scan. His large hand often rested against your mother’s stomach while you grew safely inside the womb, as if he could shield you before you had even opened your eyes.

The day you were born became the most beautiful day of his life.

Simon had held you against his chest while nurses moved around him in a blur. Your forehead was still smeared with blood when he pressed a shaking kiss there.

“I love you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Always gonna protect you, baby.”

And he meant it.

Since then, his world had become slower. Softer.

Spring mornings were spent outside together watching flowers bloom along fences and muddy paths. You collected fat little caterpillars in your palms before chasing butterflies through fields weeks later. In autumn, Simon lifted you so you could reach apples from the orchard trees before bringing them home to bake pies that filled the whole kitchen with cinnamon.

Behind old Margaret’s plum tree, strawberry plants grew wildly along the fence. You loved sneaking over there barefoot for fruit and staying for her butter cake and currant spritzers. Simon secretly liked knowing you had something close to a grandmother, since his own mother had never truly known how to be one.

Now summer had settled over the countryside. Last week had turned humid and heavy, the air sticky against skin. Yesterday brought drizzle. Earlier today, you and Simon had walked barefoot through the soaked garden grass while rain clung to your ankles.

Tonight, the storm finally arrived.

Rain hammered harder against the roof while distant thunder rolled across the dark sky.

At first Simon carried you around the house in his arms, kissing your temple while he murmured that the house was strong and thick and safe. You drank cocoa together beneath blankets while Nemo played quietly on the television.

Now the storm sat almost directly overhead.

Simon sat cross-legged in front of the closed glass terrace doors leading into the garden. You rested against his chest in his lap, warm and sleepy beneath one of his arms. One hand rested over your stomach while the other brushed hair away from your damp forehead.

Lightning flashed white across the garden.

A second later thunder cracked loud enough to shake the windows.

Simon kissed your temple softly and watched another flash split through the clouds.

“Sometimes warm air and cold air bump into each other way up in the clouds. Then the clouds get too full of rain and have to let it all fall down.” His thumb rubbed slow circles against your stomach.

"Now everything outside gets a free shower.”

Another rumble rolled across the sky.