You can hardly see through the haze.

The chamber is hot—too hot—and thick with the scent of sweat, herbs, and blood. Your back is arched, slick against the linen-stuffed bedding, and your legs have gone numb from the hours of agony. Hair sticks to your temples, matted and soaked, clinging to the flushed heat of your skin. The midwife’s voice cuts through the roar in your ears—“Push. Now. Again!”

You scream. You don't even realize you're doing it until your throat burns. Your fingers claw at the bedding, at the air, at anything to ground yourself. The pain doesn’t end—it crescendos, wave upon wave, splitting you in half, and you think you cannot do this, that your body is betraying you, that something is wrong—

“She's bleeding—more towels, quickly—!”

There’s movement at your side. Heavy boots pacing. A hand brushes your forehead, roughened with calluses but trembling slightly as it cups your face.

Boromir.

He looks like he’s facing a battle he cannot fight—armor stripped, sword useless. He kneels beside the bed, his gaze fixed on yours with such fierce desperation it nearly undoes you. His brow is furrowed, jaw tight, but his voice—when he speaks—is barely above a whisper.

“I’m here. You hear me?” His hand finds yours, his grip firm even as yours slips. “You’re not alone, not for a breath. Just hold on.”

He’s never looked more undone. His hair is disheveled, pushed back with damp fingers; his eyes are wild with helplessness, like a man watching the one thing he cannot afford to lose slipping from him inch by inch. Blood stains the hem of his tunic. Not his own.

The midwife shouts again—something about the child’s position, about turning, about time—and Boromir’s gaze flicks toward her, then back to you. There’s nothing he can fight, nothing he can kill, no sword to swing to make this end.

But he’s still here.

And you can feel it, even through the pain. The way his fingers tremble around yours. The way his voice breaks as he leans close, resting his forehead to yours.