The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)

“I made these,” I tell the nurses, who are watching us, looking amused. “I didn’t mean to make two, but I did, and I did it.”

They share a knowing look that says, Idiot.

I look down at the little girl in my arms.

“I made you,” I tell her. “I made you.”

She hits my chin again.

MEGAN IS exhausted, but she’s smiling at us, Marty rubbing a cool cloth over her face. “Good?” she asks us, voice a little rough.

“So good,” Otter says, not having looked up from his daughter since we’ve switched. “I just—I don’t know how we could ever repay you. You’ve—”

She rolls her eyes. “I told you guys at the beginning. I love this. For this moment, right here. Right now. This is why I do it. You guys are going to be so good at this.”

“You think?” I ask hopefully.

“Yeah, man,” Marty says easily. “The best, probably. You guys have got this aura about you, you know? You glow.”

“You are so strange,” I tell him.

He shrugs. “Probably. But it’s true.”

“We’re keeping you.”

He grins. “Yeah? We’d make a pretty good aunt and uncle. I could teach them yoga poses, get their chi sorted when—”

“Don’t make me take that back.”

He winks at me.

“You want to hold them?” Otter asks Megan.

She shakes her head slowly. “They’re not mine. They’re yours. Later, sure. But now, before they need to take them to take footprints for the birth certificate and the like, they should be with you. I’ll see them after I get some sleep.”

I want to protest, seeing as how Megan did all the work, but Marty’s shaking his head at me, so we just let it go.

I don’t know that I’d have been able to give my son up anyway.

Well. Until Otter and I switch again, that is.

WE WALK hand in hand out to the waiting room. It’s early morning, and everyone is in the waiting room, looking refreshed and bright-eyed from being able to stay in a nearby hotel. I’m sure Otter and I look like shit, but we’re grinning so wide it hurts.

Ty sees us first. He’s up and running, and his arms are around me, holding me tight. He’s breathing heavily, and he says, “Yeah? Okay? Is it—”

“Okay,” I tell him quietly. “It’s all okay.”

He sags in my arms, sighing in relief. “They told us you were still back there and—”

“Oh my god,” Izzie says, startling me with how much she sounds like us. “Can you please just tell us what they are?”

“Babies,” Otter says seriously.

Everyone groans, because why.

I try to open my mouth and tell them, but I have to swallow around the lump in my throat. The Kid backs away, hands on my shoulders, looking a little worried.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, looking a little fearful.