I Saw Your Heart as It Overtook Me

Matt's POV
I looked down at the bundle of blankets I was holding and smiled down at the tiny figure nestled comfortably in its folds, fast asleep. This was Mr. Joseph Lyle Sanders, named after Lauren and Zacky father, the younger of my two baby boys.

"Would you like me to take him?" A nurse asked. "It's been a long day for him, I'm sure he's pretty worn out."

"Oh, yeah, sure." I said quietly.

I leaned over and kissed his soft forehead gently before I held him out for the nurse. He stirred a little, opening his bright green eyes to look up at me for a split second before he closed them and fell back to sleep. The nurse carefully took him from my arms and took him out of the room.

I sighed a little to myself and stood up, stretching my arms before I walked across the room to take a seat beside Lauren on her bed. She gave me a soft, tired smile before she looked back down at our oldest son wrapped up in a bundle of blankets she was holding.

Mathew Charles Sanders ... the second I suppose.

Lauren and I are horribly unoriginal when it came to names so we took the easy way out and decided to name them after somebody. It was Lauren's idea, not mine, to name him after me, trust me, I'm not that conceited.

"He's asleep." Lauren whispered softly. "Do you wanna hold him?"

"Yeah." I replied quietly.

I scooted a little closer to Lauren and put my feet up on the bed so that I was sort of laying/sitting next to her. She carefully placed my boy in my arms before she leaned back and rested her head against her pillow, closing her eyes.

"Why don't you get some sleep too, babe?" I asked, leaning over to kiss her cheek.

"I think I will." She yawned, opening her eyes a little to focus them on me. "I feel like I'm running on fumes here."

She laughed a little to herself and reached up to put her hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently.

"I'll go get the nurse to put this little guy to bed too." I said quietly. "Man, we need a nickname for him, babe. I feel weird calling someone else Matt." I added.

"A nickname?" Lauren grinned. "Like what?"

"I don't know. MJ?"

"MJ? Like off of Spiderman?" She laughed.

"Ugh, no." I smiled. "Or how about ... " I trailed off, shrugging my shoulders a little. "How about we think of it later?"

"I think we should." Lauren replied.

Just then the nurse decided to come back in, almost as if she heard me talking about her just a little while ago, and motioned towards Matt. I leaned over and kissed his forehead softly, just like I did to Joseph, and carefully handed him over to the nurse who took him to join his brother in a different room.

I readjusted myself a little on the bed and wrapped an arm around Lauren's shoulders, letting her rest her head on my chest.

"I love you Mattie." She whispered, turning her head a little to look up at me.

"I know baby, I love you too." I replied, placing my hand on her cheek. "I love you too."

I gave her a little smile before I leaned over and locked my lips with hers, kissing her deeply, passionately, lovingly. I felt her smile a little into the kiss before she pulled away and cuddled as me she could into my chest. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, thinking about how crazy my day had been. But of course, there's nothing in the world that I would trade it for.

I had everything I've ever wanted ... all that was left now was for us to get married. Lauren and I have our wedding date set for September 25th, but since the boys decided to show up a month earlier than we expected them to, we'd most likely be able to move our wedding date up a month. If you ask me, the sooner the better. I've known I've wanted to spend the rest of my life with Lauren since the second month of our relationship, which was almost a year and a half ago ... can you blame me for getting a little anxious for the wedding?

The sound of Lauren's soft, steady breathing reached my ears and I looked down to find her fast asleep. I reached over and brushed the stray strands of hair out of her face before I kissed her lips softly.

The knock on the door make me pull away and look up to see who it was. After a couple of seconds the door cracked open a few inches, revealing a pair of vibrant green eyes that were almost identical to Lauren's. Zacky stepped inside the room, followed closely by Amber.

"Hey." Zacky said quietly, pulling a chair up beside the bed. "How long as has she been asleep?"

"She just fell asleep a couple of minutes ago." I replied.

"Oh."

Zacky reached up and took hold of Amber's hand, pulling her down onto his lap and wrapping his protective arms around her waist. I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck, trying to rub out the kinks in it.

"Matt, you look rough man." Zacky said, laughing a little. "Maybe you should go home and take a shower or something, get cleaned up a bit."

"But, I don't want to leave Lauren." I said.

"Don't worry. We'll be here with her." Amber said.

"Well ... okay." I said slowly.

I carefully removed my arm from Lauren's shoulders and gently set her down she was now laying flush against the bed. I swing my legs over the edge and stood up, grabbing my sweatshirt from the empty chair close by.

"I shouldn't be too long." I said, heading across the room. "An hour and a half tops." I added as I pulled open the door.

"Go ahead and take your time, Matt." Zacky said. "We're not going anywhere."

I nodded my head and headed out into the hallway, where I put my sweatshirt on and quickly made my way for the exit. There wasn't too many people out in the front entrance, most likely because it was now about 11:30 at night, and the parking lot was almost empty. I quickly found the car and hopped in behind the wheel.

About ten minutes later I pulled into our driveway and turned the engine off, grabbing the keys and heading up to the front door. As soon as I walked inside I was greeted by a slightly 'perturbed' sounding Azriel and realized that no one fed him yet today.

"Alright, hold up real fast." I mumbled, taking off to the washroom where we kept his food, while he followed right behind me.

I got Azriel fed and made sure he had water before I went upstairs and jumped in the shower. The hot water felt good on my tired body. A few minutes later I turned the shower off and stepped out, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my waist. I grabbed another towel and started to dry my hair off when I heard the phone ringing downstairs.

"Fuck." I said out loud to myself as I took off and made a mad dash through my room, and to the stairs, clutching my towel around my waist so it wouldn't fall down and leave me exposed.

In the living room, I skidded to a stop in front of the phone and picked it up, turning it on and holding it up to my ear.

"Hello?" I asked, wiping away the water that was dripping from my hair and onto my forehead.

I frowned a little to myself when nobody answered.

"Hello?" I asked again.

"Matt?"

I felt a lump rise in my throat at the tone of Zacky's voice; something was wrong.

"Zacky? What is it? Did something happy to Lauren?" I asked in one breath.

"Matt ... you need to get back here fast." Zacky said weakly.

"What happened?" I asked, feeling the fear start to creep throughout my body.

"I-I, I don't know." Zacky cried. "She was fine one second and the next ... " He trailed off, crying uncontrollably on the other end.

"Oh fuck." I choked out. "I-I'll be right there."

******************************************

I spotted Zacky sitting all by himself, his face buried in his hands while his body would shake every once in a while, indicating that he was crying to himself. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to keep myself calm before I walked towards him, putting a shaky hand on his shoulder.

"Zacky?" I whispered.

Zacky sniffed a little and wiped his eyes before he looked up at me.

"Zacky ... where's Lauren?"

"S-she's in the room." He said weakly. "Amber's in there t-too. She's ... " He trailed off, burying his face in his hands once again.

I nodded my head and quickly made my way through the hallway to where I knew Lauren would be. I paused for a few seconds in front of the door, my hand resting on the door knob, trying to prepare myself for what may be going on inside. Finally gathering up my courage, I turned the handle and slowly pushed the door open, instantly spotting Lauren lying on the bed with Amber crying uncontrollably beside her.

I stepped inside and quietly shut the door behind me before I slowly made my way to Lauren's side. I reached over and let my fingers run over her wedding ring before I gently laced my fingers with hers. She tore her eyes from Amber and looked up at me, giving me a little smile before she raised a finger to her lips, indicating for me to keep quiet, and nodded to Amber who was crying onto one of the pillows.

"Shh, Amber." Lauren said softly, rubbing Amber's back with her free hand for comfort. "I'm sure Zacky didn't mean it when he said that. He loves you so much, you're his everything."

Amber just responded by crying even harder.

"Amber, please don't cry." Lauren said, sitting up and unlacing her fingers from mine to take Amber into her arms.

"I can't help it." Amber cried. "He just pisses me off so fucking much sometimes."

"Will it help if I slapped him up for you?" Lauren asked.

Amber shrugged her shoulders and then nodded her head a little bit.

"Kind of." She mumbled.

"Okay, I'll jump right on that then." Lauren joked, reaching up and brushing some of the hair out of Amber's face.

Amber sniffed a little and turned her head in my direction, her eyes widening in horror when she caught sight of me.

"How long have you been here?" She asked, trying to hide behind Lauren.

"Not that long." I blushed. "I-I wasn't meaning to interrupt your uh ... 'girl talk' stuff ... " I trailed off, scratching the back of my neck nervously. "I'll just uh ... leave now."

"Wait, have you seen my brother?" Lauren asked.

"Yeah, he's out in the living room crying like there's no tomorrow." I said, nodding towards the door.

"Well, send his bitch ass in here." Lauren said, turning back to Amber.

I mumbled an 'okay' in response and slowly made my way into the hallway, heading towards the living room where Zacky was still crying to himself.

"Um ... Lauren said to send you in there." I said quietly, taking a seat beside him on the couch.

Zacky looked over at me fearfully, probably already knowing how bad he was gonna get it when he walked in there, but nodded his head and stood up all the same. He wiped his eyes and took off, leaving me all by myself in the living room. A few seconds later I heard Lauren growling at Zacky and couldn't help but laugh a little to myself.

I made myself comfortable on the couch and looked down at my hands, my eyes lingering on my own wedding band. In two months it will be me and Lauren's fifth wedding anniversary. It's pretty unbelievable to think how fast those five years seemed to have passed. What's even more unbelievable it to think how many times it seemed like there wasn't even going to be a wedding.

Back in the hospital the day the boys were born I had come dangerously close to losing Lauren. C-sections already do a number on any woman's body, but the number it did on Lauren's body ... it nearly killed her. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I know that her heart had stopped for nearly two whole minutes before they were able to get it going once again.

What was the happiest day of my life can actually double as the scariest day of my life. So much drama, tears, and joy ... it was all pretty crazy.

But here we are, five years down the road, living the lives we've always wanted, with my career still going as great as ever, the twins growing like a couple of weeds getting into trouble left and right, and my beautiful wife right here beside me, keeping me in line whenever I need be.

Before I met Lauren my life was such a mess and the sad thing was I never even realized. It was once said 'you spend your whole life trying to stay on the right track, only to find out you're on the wrong train' ... that's kind of how my life was. I had been chasing false dreams, trying to get back with Val because I thought I loved her and because I thought that she was the one for me. And when I finally did get her back ... I realized that she wasn't the one that I loved.

So many times people spend most of their life running after fake ambitions while their real dreams are hidden in the back of their mind behind a cloud of fear. Some people may know what they really want, but out of fear of failing, they chose a different, easier path, resulting in a sense of unhappiness. No doubt about it, this world is scary as fuck, but you can't go on being afraid of what's lying around the corner from you.

You have gather up your courage and take chances because if you don't, it's highly probable you'll end up right back where you started. If you spend your life staying on one side of the tracks because you're afraid of change, then you'll never find that random piece of gold that lays hidden just on the other side.

In my case I was fortunate enough to have been given numerous chances to cross those stupid tracks, and it was just pure, dumb luck that Lauren was still on the other side waiting for me.

I felt the couch mattress shift a little beside me and I looked up, seeing Lauren taking a seat next to me. She brought her legs up and rested them over the top of my legs before she cuddled into my chest. I smiled to myself and wrapped my arms around her waist, holding her close.

"So ... Zacky lives to see another day?" I joked.

"Hmpf, barely." She mumbled, tracing the tattoos on my arm with her fingertips. "He's gonna have to do a lot of ass kissin' to get back on Amber's good side."

"Eh, he'll just take her out to dinner, buy her anything she wants, sweet talk her for an hour or so, and then they'll head back to their place to 'make up'." I grinned.

"Speaking of buying, I got something for you today when I was at the mall." Lauren said, turning a little and grabbing a hold of the Hot Topic bag sitting on the other side of her.

She handed it to me and I readjusted her a little on my lap so I could reach inside of the bag. I pulled it out and held it up, seeing that it was a babies t-shirt saying 'I love being awesome.'

"Uh, thank you hun, but I think it's a little too small for me." I joked.

"Well, it's not really for you, you know." She grinned, climbing up to her feet.

I gave her a funny look as she began to walk away from me and towards the kitchen.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, completely clueless.

"Use your damn head, Matt." She called over her shoulder. "Who else could it be for?"

"A baby obviously." I said.

"Bingo." She said, flashing me a little wink before she disappeared through the door.