It's Real

The soft cries broke through the quiet of the bedroom, both Tyler and Kate shifting in their sleep as they woke. Ty put his hand on her shoulder as she moved up onto an elbow, one hand on the covers. “I got her,” He whispered, kissing his wife’s back and she leant further into the pillows. He knew he’d need a full night’s rest for the game later today against Colorado, but she was still recovering from her C-section and needed sleep more than he did. He threw back the covers and rubbed the sleep away from his eye, padding over to the baby crib opposite their bed. Marshall and Cash looked up from their protective spots to its right, eyeing Dad with a careful eye. When they were on watch, nobody messed with Baby Segs. Not even her parents.
 
“C’mere baby girl,” Tyler cooed, lifting his daughter out from her bed, her cries settling almost instantly. There was enough moonlight coming through the window to shine on the clock and he saw that it was almost two, and like clockwork his little girl wanted food. “Gotta be quiet for Mama.”
 
The dogs were up as soon as Ty moved to the door, holding it open for them to follow him downstairs and into the kitchen. Kaylee’s eyes were squinting, tight against his chest where he held her close, flicking on the down lights and moving to the fridge, taking a bottle that Kate had expressed before she went to sleep. He yawned behind his hand, the bottle warming in the microwave, Kaylee grumbling once more, her tiny mouth open as she cried. “I know, baby girl, I know,” He muttered, pressing his lips softly against her full head of hair, breathing in that baby smell he never thought he’d love. She was an equal mix of the lotion he bathed her in, Kate’s milk and just general Kaylee-ness. For now, he was happy that she didn’t smell like poop.
 
The microwave beeped and after a gentle shake he moved the dinner party back upstairs, stopping in at the nursery that they weren’t using yet. Tyler and Kate had both agreed that they wanted her near them for the first few months, at least until she settled herself mostly through the night, or could get through from late evening to the early morning without a feed. Every day there was something new and as yet they hadn’t established the best routine, but like all new parents, they were trying.
 
The heat had turned off sometime while they were asleep and he thought he should’ve grabbed a t-shirt before leaving the bedroom. It wasn’t as cold in Texas in mid-March as it was in Boston, and this week’s weather had been weird and they were in the middle of what the news was calling a ‘cold snap’.  But when he sat down on the recliner he and Jamie had hauled upstairs (“Dude, I can’t believe you’re not just buying a new one,” Jamie protested, put out by his favourite chair being stolen from him, even if it was by his “niece”), he decided the he had the best heater in the house, and he cuddle Kaylee closer. She was only touching his chest and his arm as he held her, but she warmed him like nothing else ever had. He made her, a tiny piece of perfection that changed his life the second he found out that she was on her way. She had her eyes open, staring but not seeing him and he smiled to her as he held the bottle to her lips as she drank straight away.
 
There was a brief few hours at the hospital where he didn’t think he’d even get this far. He had scored the winning goal in overtime (suck on that, Los Angeles) and looked up at the WAG box he unknowingly thought Kate was in cheering for him. He was elated, back at the top of the NHL leading goal scorers and they had just hit their highest winning streak in the history of the franchise. He was stopped before he went into the rooms and handed off his stick to their equipment manager, Lauren in PR pulling him aside. “Kate’s been taken to the hospital,” She had told him, all good feelings gone instantly. “I’ll handle the media; do you want me to get someone to drive you?”
 
“Is she okay?”
 
“I think you’re gonna be a Dad a little earlier than expected, Seggy.”
 
The rest of it was a blur. She had gone into labour early, seven weeks early, and none of the birthing classes they took or books Kate had made him read could prepare him for how he felt as he slammed his foot on the brake once he’d left the AAC, just avoiding the Tahoe that pulled out in front of him. Seven weeks wasn’t good, it wasn’t the worst but it wasn’t good and he had been rushed through to her room as he ran into the delivery ward. Someone had been waiting for him.
 
Like always, she assured him that it was all going to be alright, but he could see something was wrong by how the doctors were hovering. You shouldn’t be hooked up to that many cables if you’re just giving birth, he told her. The downward cast of her eyes told him she thought the same thing. What felt like seconds, but in reality was just over an hour later, she was taken into surgery and he was put into scrubs, appearing next to her and holding onto her hand tightly as the nurses put up the curtain to block his view. “It’ll be okay,” She had whispered and all he could do was kiss her hand, brushing away a stray tear as it fell from her eye.
 
He had always imagined that when his kids were born that it would be like an episode of One Born Every Minute; a lot of pain for her, some freaking out and a crushed hand for him, brand new baby placed on his wife’s chest and then a bundle of joy wrapped up in a blanket as they cuddled together as a family on the bed. Instead what he got was a bunch of medical mumbo jumbo, a heart rate monitor beeping obnoxiously with two different heart beats and oxygen pumping through a tube attached to Kate’s nose, a “Congratulations Mama & Daddy, she’s a little tiny but she’s gorgeous”, and then he was torn between staying with Kate and going to his newborn. His newborn baby girl.

He was a father.
 
“Stay with her, babe,” Kate had said, eyes closing as the drugs worked through her. He didn’t look to see what the doctors were doing to her stomach and he crossed the room, throat closing tightly at the sight of just how small his baby was. She was too small. How the hell was she going to pull through the first few days? He’d ordered burritos from his favourite Mexican joint bigger than her. He knew he loved her before she was born but didn’t know just how much you could love someone you’d just met. It killed him to just stand by and watch the midwives handle her. It seemed too rough to him, couldn’t they just brush all that new born muck off her a little more gently? That was his baby girl, and she was crying the quietest cry in the world as they weighed and measured her, putting in a feeding tube before she was covered in blankets. They didn’t get a chance to actually hold her for a painstaking 5 days. The closest he got before then was feeling her tiny, tiny hand close around his pinky finger through the incubator. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d let a few tears fall as Kate sniffled against his chest. That had sucked. He wanted to hold her straight away. He wanted to love her and let her know that Daddy was there, he was never going to let anything bad happen to her ever again.
 
He broke from his thoughts as Kaylee coughed against the bottle, half of her food down. This bit he knew; he had remembered watching his Mom do it with Cassidy when he was really little, and he made sure to hold her under her chin as he sat her up, rubbing her back gently until she let out a tiny burp. It was the cutest sound in the world, even if she did spit up on the back of his hand a little. He didn’t care. He always fed her in the nursery when he took the night feeds (it was kind of their thing) and the cloth he had used earlier was still on the arm rest, close enough for him to brush the back of his hand against as he lay her back down in his arms, bottle back to her mouth.
 
She was still tiny, even though she had been home from the hospital for two weeks already. And she was still smaller than most newborns, but she was perfect. Her tiny hands, all ten fingers clenched in fists up against her shoulders. Her little legs, which Tyler hoped carried her on the ice one day the way his legs carried him, were bent, her feet resting against the arm he held the bottle with. He ran his eyes over her face, a full head of dark brown hair, deep blue eyes that he kind of hoped faded to a colour closer to her Mama’s, his nose. They hadn’t figured out whose mouth she had yet, but she definitely didn’t have Dad’s ears. He had heard his sisters complain enough about their own, he was kind of okay with her taking that trait from her Mom; actually, he would’ve been okay with Kaylee totally looking like he didn’t have a hand in helping make her at all.
 
Well, on second thought, maybe not. Not if one day he’d be father to a 15 year old girl that looked like a spitting image of his wife. He’d lock her up until he was dust in the wind if that were the case.
 
She had closed her eyes by the time she was nearly at the end of the bottle and he always hated having to wake her but he knew she’d be up in half an hour if he didn’t burp her now and she always tended to be grumpy when that happened. He caught himself when he realised, a little bit proud that he knew at least one of her sleeping issues already. It was a small fact, but he basically nominated himself for Dad of the Year. “Just one more little burp for me, that’s all I need,” He whispered to her. Marshall moved his head to cover Tyler’s bare feet as he shuffled himself around, and Cash had been sat next to the chair dutifully, letting out a small huff as he rested his head on Tyler’s knee. He let out a small lick, catching Kaylee’s foot and she moved it back. “Don’t tickle her, buddy,” he said softly and Cash just looked up at Tyler briefly before going back to staring at the baby. ‘Don’t tell me what to do, Dad’ was all he could see. He was even getting sassed by his dogs. His life was ridiculous sometimes.
 
He moved over to the change table when she was done, using the baby wipes to clear her face and his hand of mess. He quickly checked her diaper too but to his win she was good, so he wrapped her up in one of the million blankets Kate had went and got in her nesting stage the exact way the nurses at the hospital had showed him how. Legs tucked up, hands on her chest, shoulders secure. He smiled at his handiwork, quietening her down with a gentle ‘shh, shh’ against her ear and he rocked her gently, holding her up against his chest. “I love you Kaylee Renee Seguin. I love you to the moon and back.”
 
It was something he told her every day. The first time the guys had heard him say it – when they had come around to finally meet her (they weren’t allowed at the hospital, family only- not matter how much Kate & Ty explained that the team was their family); he’d copped more flack than when he’d stacked it walking up the stairs at their annual casino charity night as they announced his name. He was so glad that made the highlight reel, honestly. Made his day. Week even. It made Kate’s year. “Shut up, you’re just jealous you don’t have your own!” Their laughs continued as they sat around the living room, Kate watching it from the door way.
 
“Is there something wrong with just how much my husband loves our daughter?” Kate’s pointed eyebrow and crossed arms shut them all up pretty quickly. She was fierce when she wanted to be. That’s why Tyler asked her to marry him in the first place – yeah she terrified him, but at least he knew the rest of his life was going to fun. They made good partners in crime, or at least that’s what Jamie had told everyone in his best man speech.
 
He sat down again in the chair, another yawn escaping him pulled on the lever, the feet kicking out from the base of the chair. The dogs had settled down again (he hadn’t seen either of them leave her side for a minute- they even waited at the door of the bathroom when he and Kate bathed her) and Tyler put his feet up, moving Kaylee’s head gently to one side, her cheek pressed up against the fresh ‘KRS’ tattoo he had gotten over his heart the week after she was born. He had called his tattoo artist the minute the doctors had given Kaylee the all clear to go home with them. He knew it was probably just because she was tired, but she always seemed to sleep better when she was resting on that side of his chest.
 
-
 
That’s how Kate found them the next morning. It was just before five AM, and the scars on her stomach were still giving her trouble, especially when she spent the whole night lying on her front. The stitches had only come out two days before and the pain killers wore off pretty quickly considering they weren’t the strongest dose. She would’ve loved to knock herself out, but she had a baby to feed. No way was she pumping her breast milk full of chemicals.
 
She had forgotten for a second that Tyler had taken care of Kaylee and she brushed her hand against his cold side of the bed before she sat up, she saw that the dogs were gone too. It was only the next room over, and she stopped when she opened the door and saw the two of them lying on the chair, Tyler with his head resting gently against his baby girls’, his big hands cradling her gently on his torso. She had snuck back to their room to grab her phone and bent down silently to rub Cash behind his ears as he looked up at the new person in their makeshift bedroom.
 
She snapped a couple of pictures, sending one to her sister and Tyler’s before she opened up instagram. She knew about the fourth wall, and she was fully on board with the hashtag #moreSeguinphotos that someone pointed out to her at game. Kate had no problem putting up as many photos of him that he’d allow – rolling his eyes at her when she said that everyone deserved to see that bare torso, not just her.
 
“Every now and again, sure, but we’re married now. This is supposed to be just for you,” He argued, holding his arms out, tattooed sleeves spreading wide in front of the fridge.
 
She had sidled up next to him, running a hand down his chest slowly, scratching her nails into his skin, before she cupped her favourite part of his anatomy in their kitchen. “Babe, this is just for me. Everyone else should get to admire that six pack just as much as I do.”
 
He didn’t argue much after that.
 
She put the filter to black and white, with the caption of ‘I’ve been replaced. #idontmind #daddySeggy’ before she posted it, looking back at her little family. “Baby,” she whispered, shaking his leg gently. He woke up with a start, jostling the sleeping baby and Kate cringed, holding her hand up with a finger against her lips to make him stay quiet. Kaylee frowned between her tiny eyebrows and for a second Kate had thought she had ruined what was looking like the beginning of a perfect morning. But, much to their surprise, she still slept soundly, her little mouth open in a deep sleep.
 
“Your neck is going to kill you later,” She explained, standing up to full height, a hand on her stomach where the bandages still were. He held a hand up and pressed the back of his knuckles against hers, letting her know how much he appreciated what she had done for the both of them bringing a new life into the world. “Come back to bed.”
 
“Yeah,” he answered gruffly, and between the two of them they passed Kaylee to her mom, who buried her close against her chest, breathing in that same baby smell. Neither of them could get enough of their little miracle. Tyler stood and wrapped his arms around the two of them, leaning forward and pressing a kiss against Kate’s forehead, closing his eyes to speak into her skin. “You are perfection.”
 
She laughed softly, pressing into his body a little before they made their way back to the master bedroom. He left the door open for the dogs and stood behind to watch Kaylee lying in her crib, eyes moving behind her eyelids as she dreamt of… well, he hoped happy things. Not that he knew what 10 week old babies dreamt of.
 
“We did good, didn’t we?” Kate asked, leaning back against his chest. He bent to kiss her neck.
 
“Yeah babe. We did.”