They were back to communicating through e-mail and it felt like such a regression.

Before that, there had been two, tense, almost irrevocably heinous days of silence.

When the movers had shown up the day after the fight, and Suho and the others in tow, it must have shown on his face how terrible the thought his life with Luhan had just gone.

“Tell me,” Suho had requested lowly, sending the others to oversee the last of the packing, the moving truck already parked out front.

“It’s nothing,” Sehun had said, then made a tactical retreat to the only place he thought Suho dared not follow him. The only place left completely untouched from the move.

It was quiet in the nursery, and dark with the curtains pulled. Sehun leaned back against the door and slid down it to the ground, tucking his legs against his body. He wasn’t sure what to tell Suho. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do.

But more than likely Luhan had just walked out of his life, and taken the baby with him.

“Sehun,” Suho’s muffled voice said from the other side of the room. “You …”

Sehun dragged in a ragged breath. With his hands on his knees he silently prayed that Suho would just go away. Sehun didn’t think he’d attempt to enter the nursery, but he might stand outside all day, badgering Sehun.

Even though the room was dark, the day was close to the noon hour, and that meant beams of sunlight were creeping in through the creases of the curtains.

The room’s contents were clear to see, maybe now more than they had ever been, and Sehun knew what Luhan must have thought about him. What he had to still be thinking. For all intents and purposes, the room made Sehun look like a violent monster, and maybe that’s what he was.

“You take the time you need in there,” Suho said finally. “Make sure … make sure there’s nothing you want to take with you. You have to turn the keys in at the end of the day to the realtor. I’ll make sure everyone stays on track downstairs.”

“Fine,” he managed to grunt out.

He stretched out a leg and a shoe nudged one of the dresser drawers he’d pulled out so long ago. The paint was chipped, the sides frayed, and it looked properly abused.

Sehun was a little ashamed. No, he was a lot. For the first time, his childish and anger driven behavior was something shameful to him. Because he’d given every indication to Luhan that he was unstable. He’d shown that there was a chance he couldn’t be trusted with their baby.

God help him if he ever lost his temper with her over anything unwarranted, or hurt her without realizing it.

Luhan was being responsible and a good father by taking their baby far, far away.

Sehun had known from the start he never deserved them.

He watched the time pass by the sun that snuck into the room. As it moved, different pieces of his anger were illuminated, from the dirtied carpet, to the ruined books and toys, and eventually to the scattering of ribbons littered around.

Sehun reached for one.

He felt the soft, smooth satin material between his fingers, found the lilac coloring of it soothing, and trying to imagine for one second had his baby would have looked like wearing the ribbon.

She’d have been born with tiny tuffs of dark hair. That much was certain. Sehun’s own hair was manageable, but Jae’s had been something with a mind of its own. He’d often tried to smooth it down, hold it in place with hair spray, and even once colored it. And their daughter, Seoyoung, would have had the same hair.

What would his daughter’s hair with Luhan, look like? Would it be black like the night sky, or a more warm, brown color? Would there be a lot of it when she was born, or would Sehun jokingly ask Luhan if they’d gotten it wrong, and if their bald baby was a boy instead?

There was no point in imagining that now. He wasn’t going to be there for the birth. He wasn’t going to be there for the months afterwards, or maybe even the years. How could Luhan risk putting him near their baby? He couldn’t when Sehun was still like this.

“Sehun?”

A knock sounded heavily against the door, but the handle didn’t turn, and only then did Sehun realize he was kneeling over the cluster of ribbons, reds and yellows and blue and greens in his hands.

“The movers have taken the furniture over to the new house,” Suho related. “Baekhyun and Chanyeol went with them to make sure it gets delivered properly. Do you want to come down stairs for some lunch? Chanyeol prepared it before he left so you know it’s good.”

“I’m,” Sehun choked out, “I’m busy.”

Quieter this time, Suho asked, “You had a fight with Luhan, didn’t you? That’s why he’s not here.”

Was it all so transparent?

Sehun stood slowly, the ribbons dropping from his fingers.

And then, as if he couldn’t control his own body, he reached for the door.

Suho was in the habit of nearly always looking worried over something. His job was stressful, his family hadn’t been the same since Jae died, and it was utterly unfair that he had to keep worrying over Sehun. Suho deserved a beak, and Sehun only felt this more when he opened the door and saw how Suho was looking back at him.

“Sehun?”

Sehun gestured to the room around him. “Luhan saw the nursery. He had questions. Lots of questions.”

“You didn’t know that was coming?” Suho asked softly.

“He wants to know about Jae. He wants to know why I’m so angry and why I can’t let go of the pain. He thinks I might hurt him, or even the baby accidentally if either one of them says the wrong thing.”

“Oh,” Suho said, then he was stepping into the room and wrapping Sehun up into a tight hug. “You couldn’t give him what he wanted, could you?”

Suho’s arms felt so secure and warm around him Sehun had almost forgotten what it was like to be comforted by someone he trusted.

He admitted, “I don’t know if I can. But I’m going to lose him and the baby if I don’t.”

Pulling him to arm’s length, Suho asked, “You think he doesn’t deserve to know? You don’t think your burden will be a little lighter if you tell him what happened that day?”

“You want me to tell him I …” Sehun shook his head quickly. “I guess this was inevitable. Come on, Suho, we both knew I never really deserved this second chance.”

“Hey.” Suho smacked him over the back of the head and it wasn’t gentle. “You don’t get to make that judgment call.” He gave Sehun one last, precious hug, then asked, “Luhan said he’s done with you if you don’t tell him everything?”

“He didn’t say it like that,” Sehun said. He could so clearly remember the fight. He’d been so mad and felt so betrayed, but Luhan’s words had wrung true in his ears. “He just said he didn’t know if we could have a future without the truth. Suho, it’s not that I think he’ll try to raise the baby without me if I don’t tell him. I’m just terrified that he’ll look at me and see a monster, if he knows the truth.”

“Sehun,” Suho said, his fingers gentle and loving as they scratched up into Sehun’s hair. “He won’t be afraid of you.”

Sehun insisted, “He’ll be afraid if I tell him the truth. He just doesn’t know it.”

“Am I mad at you?” Suho demanded. “Have I ever leveled any accusations at you, or let anyone point a finger at you? Tell me one moment over the past seven months that I have let someone say that anything was your fault.”

“Never,” Sehun had to say. He’d never been able to lie to Suho. Suho always felt too much like his own older brother, and not Jae’s.

“Luhan loves you,” Suho said with a smile. “I could tell that before he even told you, mostly by the way he smiled at you and tried so hard with you. He wants to have a future with you Sehun, and I know you want one with him. You were always going to have to tell him what happened if you expected that envisioned future to be a reality. Luhan is so amazing, Sehun. Do you know that?”

Oh, he knew it.

Suho continued on, “Anyone else would want you to put Jae to the back of your mind and never bring him up again. Someone less honorable would expect you to ignore what you had before, and maybe even pretend it never existed. But Luhan is a better person than I think all of us give him credit for sometimes. He understands that Jae is so much a part of who you are, and he doesn’t want you to lose that. This isn’t just about him getting answers, it’s about you getting closure. He wants you to be his family, but he also wants to acknowledge that you had a life before him, no matter how it turned out. You can’t begrudge him that, no matter how much it hurts you.”

“It hurts a lot,” Sehun said, his forehead coming to rest on Suho’s shoulder.

“The hurt has to come first,” Suho said, his hand on Sehn’s back, “before the healing can then follow. That’s how it always works in these situations, Sehun. That’s how you know you’re recovering.”

His anger was driving Luhan away. His pain and his secrets were sabotaging his future.

He had to do something.

“Here.” Suho knelt and selected a pale pink ribbon. He pressed it into the palm of Sehun’s hand and closed his fingers around it. “Tell Luhan what he wants to know. Give him his answers, tell him about Jae and how he died. Then let go of your guilt and have the future you want. If you don’t, it’ll be the thing you regret most in your life from this point on.”

That night Suho’s words filled up his heart, overtook his thoughts, and then sitting alone in his new house, he thought of how little he wanted a lonely future.  He didn’t want a sad one, either, or an angry one. He wanted Luhan’s smiling face every morning, their haphazard attempt to make food together, and he wanted them to fight one day over who was going to take their daughter to school on what day. He wanted to braid his daughter’s hair in a way that she thought was absolutely perfect, and he wanted Luhan to hold his hand the first time she was ready to walk to school without them. He wanted to watch his baby grow up and become a beautiful young woman.

He wanted to grow old with Luhan.

His mind was made up from that moment on.

But no matter how he tried, Luhan was avoiding him. He wasn’t taking Sehun’s calls, either wasn’t home or wouldn’t open the door for him when he drove over, and refused to even open the messages he sent him. At least initially.

Only after two days came the e-mail emails, and then a doctor’s appointment reminder.

Sehun had forgotten. Their 3D ultrasound.

“Can I pick you up at nine?” he typed out to Luhan, waiting almost with baited breath for the reply.

The return message had said simply, “Xiumin will drop me off and pick me up. If you don’t want to come, he’ll be there for me instead.”

Pinching down the anger, Sehun had forced himself to type back, “Please let me pick you up. We need to talk afterwards.”

The reply hadn’t come for almost an hour afterwards. Sehun had started to suspect that it wasn’t going to come at all until his inbox was tweeting at him.

“Okay.”

Sehun collapsed onto a nearby chair and felt so relieved he could cry.

The next morning he was parked in front of Luhan’s apartment at eight-thirty, palms sweaty as he waited for Luhan to make his appearance. His coffee was growing cold in the cup holder but it was unimportant.

He couldn’t stop thinking about where he was going to take Luhan after the ultrasound.

He was going to reveal the simple street corner that had robbed Sehun of everything.

“You’re early,” Luhan said, sliding into the car five minutes later.

Part of Sehun had never thought Luhan would talk to him again, so hearing his voice was music to the ears. “You didn’t have to come down so quickly.”

“I didn’t want to make you wait,” Luhan said quietly. “And I’ve been up since three. The baby’s getting even more restless. She doesn’t like how cramped things are getting.”

Sehun started the car and merged carefully into traffic. “Thanks for letting me take you.”

After some time, Luhan said, “I guess it’s more practical.”

The words cut into Sehun painfully.

“I had some time to think about what you said,” Sehun told him by the time they were coming up on the hospital. In reality, he’d had too much time. “Suho helped.”

A smile nudged the corners of Luhan’s lips. “Suho is very helpful.”

“I think he knows me better than I know me,” Sehun admitted. “He knows a lot of people better than they know themselves. I’ve always told him he missed his calling. He could have had his own psychiatric practice by now.”

As the car rolled into a parking spot near the front of the doctor’s office, Luhan said, “I can’t help feeling the way I do. I can’t help fearing what our future is if I don’t know your past. But I was wrong to demand so much of you all at once. I don’t want you to think you should give me everything I want. I won’t ever take your baby from you, Sehun. I’ll say that a million times. I won’t ever deny you your rights because of what I’m feeling. If you think you have to do this so I’ll let you see her when she’s born, you’re wrong.”

“Do what?” Sehun questioned. “Say the words I’ve been too afraid to say to myself?”

“No,” Luhan said with a shake to his head. “I mean you don’t have to let me bully you into this. It’s not right. I know that.”

Sehun threw aside his seatbelt and got out of the car. He rounded to Luhan’s side and then offered him a hand up. “You’re not bullying me,” Sehun said, and he didn’t think his personality was one that would have allowed for that sort of thing from the start. “I’m making the choice that I never had to make before--one that I didn’t allow myself to make. Now come on. We’re going to be late for your appointment.”

Luhan slid his fingers into Sehun’s and let himself be pulled to his feet. “Okay.”

“Nice to see the two of you,” Luhan’s doctor greeted. She had a smirk on her face and Sehun wished she’d stop looking so smug about how he’d reacted to finding out who she was.

“Yes, get it all out,” Sehun said a bit gruffly, sitting next to Luhan near the examination table. “And could you tell me how long you plan to milk this for?”

Eunji slid her rolling chair to Luhan’s side and fired up a version of the ultrasound machine Sehun had never seen before. She responded, “Until the wedding next year for sure.”

Sehun pinched his brow. “Wonderful.”

Luhan snapped Sehun to attention by asking, “This is safe now, right? I’ve been reading some things on the internet. There’s been a lot of contention about how healthy these ultrasounds are for the baby before its born.”

Fear was his primary emotion all of the sudden as Sehun demanded, “Is this not safe? Luhan, what did you read?”

“Calm down,” Eunji urged, and she didn’t look for a second to be making any more moves to continue with the machine until she explained. “The truth is, up until a couple of years ago I would have advised against a 3D ultrasound. There’s been some risk associated with these types of ultrasounds in the past. Until last year the FDA in America, the organization we take our cues from in this department, hadn’t cleared both 3D and 4D ultrasounds for elective purposes like you’re getting today. But there have been some recent advancements in the technology.”

“It’s not going to hurt the baby?” Luhan asked. “You’re sure?”

Sehun felt relieved when the doctor replied, “I wouldn’t be letting you get this done if I thought it was a danger. Additionally, there are some advantages to this.  I’ve got quite a bit of experience giving these and I’m certain I’ll be able to check if there are any fetal anomalies that a regular ultrasound won’t be able to pick up, particularly in the heart and lung region.”

Sehun couldn’t help reaching out for her. “Does our baby have a risk of that?”

“Not in the least bit,” she replied to him, the comforting smile back on her face like normal. “But it never hurts to check, and if I can catch anything now, we can be ready for it when the baby is delivered.”

“Sehun.” Luhan held out his hand for him. “Let her get started. Stop worrying. We trust her as our doctor, right?”

“Right,” Sehun said shakily, squeezing his hand. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Seeing his baby in a two-dimensional feature and getting her profile had been something amazing. But the 3D picture? Being able to see his baby from the front, to be able to determine what she was going to look like with startling clarity … to actually see her features, as if he were holding her arms, with earth shaking.

“She’s so beautiful,” Luhan choked out, tears dripping down onto his cheeks.

“She looks just like you,” Sehun said, bending over him and brushing away the tears with his thumbs. “She’s gorgeous and god, I can’t believe we’re seeing this.”

“I’m getting it all,” Eunji promised. “You’ll get to take this recording home and watch it as often as you want.”

Sehun couldn’t help stealing a kiss from Luhan, ignoring their earlier fight or the tension between them. He kissed Luhan deeply and almost endless until his own tears were sprinkling down onto Luhan’s skin. He murmured, “I love you so much.” He meant it more than he’d ever meant it before.

The time flew by far too quickly for Sehun. It felt like mere seconds that he got to watch his daughter fidget around, revealing the spacing of her eyes, the curve of her forehead, and all ten of her perfect fingers.

“She’s her thumb!” Luhan remarked at one point, his eyes wet again with tears. “Do you see that Sehun?”

Sehun palmed at his face when a new batch of tears began falling. “I see. I’ll be damned if she doesn’t know we’re watching. She’s giving it her all.”

However, just after that Eunji shut off the machine and said, “That’s it, gentlemen.”

“Wait,” Luhan protested.

Sehun was right there with him, asking, “Can’t we get just a few more minutes?”

The doctor shook her head a bit regretfully. “The FDA regulates that twenty minutes is the limitation before there’s the chance of risking the fetus.”

“Oh,” Sehun said. “But we can come back for another one?”

Luhan sat up with some effort with Sehun’s help. “Next visit.”

“We can try,” the doctor said patiently. “You’re pretty far into your pregnancy, which means it’s harder to get a clear picture, ironically enough, but we can try.”

They left that visit with extra precautions for Luhan as his eight month was just around the corner, a refilled prescription for Luhan’s blood sugar medication, and two recordings of their baby.

Sehun couldn’t wait to take his copy home and put it up on the big tv. He was already planning on calling all his friends over and making an event of it. Was that a bit ridiculous? Sehun didn’t care.

It wasn’t until they were back at the car that Sehun realized what came next. The hard part.

Apparently, Luhan did too, because he repeated, “We don’t have to do this today. The fact that you wanted to open up to me is enough for today.”

Without responding Sehun gripped the steering wheel tightly and said, “I’m going to show you something and tell you something. Are you willing to listen?”

Luhan buckled is seat belt. “I am.”

It was the first time he was going back to the street where it had happened. At least not since the day of the funeral when he’d wandered over there by accident, almost as if going there would bring him closer to the husband of his who was dead and cold.

“This is it,” Sehun said when they were there. He parked across the street and pointed.

“What about it?” Luhan asked, leaning across the center consul to see better. “What am I looking at it.”

“I’m doing this out of order,” Sehun realized with a frustrating huff.

“Then start at the beginning?”

It just wasn’t that simple, even if Sehun wished it was.

“Jae and I …” he tried to say, getting choked up already. “We found out we were having a girl pretty early. We wanted to know as soon as possible and we were able to find out when he was barely out of his first trimester. It’s usually much later.”

That was one memory seared into his mind. He’d held Jae’s hand like he had Luhan’s earlier, and he’d cried then to. He’d reached out and touched the screen and thought that he was the luckiest man in the world.

“But we fought about what to name her forever.”

Sehun hear Luhan breathe in sharply as he realized which of his questions were going to be answered first.

“Jae and I just couldn’t settle. We couldn’t even compromise on a nickname. Jae and I weren’t the type to fight on anything, either. We got along in a scary kind of way, or maybe I just liked giving in and seeing him smile. The point is, it was the only thing we really fought over during his pregnancy.”

With some hesitation Luhan asked, “How did you settle on Seoyoung?”

Sehun shook his head. “Honestly, Baekhyun. That smarmy bastard. I wanted Seo in her name after my grandmother, and Jae was pulling for something with Young because it’s sort of a tradition with the girls in his family. Baekhyun just started calling her Seoyoung because he was tired of hearing us argue about it. It was irritating at first, then it grew on us. Baekhyun didn’t let us forget for that full week. He’d remind us at every possible moment.”

Luhan frowned. “Just for a week? That seems pretty conservative for Baekhyun.”

Feeling like he might throw up, Sehun folded over himself and leaned his forehead on the steering wheel. “It was only a week because Jae and Seoyoung died a week after she got her name.”

With a gentle hand on Sehun’s sleeve, Luhan asked, “Is that why you don’t want to name our baby?”

“It sounds stupid to say it out loud,” Sehun said, and he was crying for the umpteenth time in an hour, though these weren’t tears of joy. “It sounds so stupid to say it out loud, but Jae and the baby were perfectly fine for eight months. Nothing happened until the baby had a name and I refuse to let that happen to you. I won’t let that happen to you or our baby.”

“Having a name didn’t cause the accident,” Luhan offered. “Part of you has to know that.”

“The rational side,” Sehun snapped.  “But I’m not exactly rational right now, am I?”

How could it not mean something that his baby had been perfectly fine until she’d had a name and an identity?

“Why are we here, Sehun? What’s the significance of this street?”

Blinking through his tears, Sehun looked back to the street. “That’s where they died.”

The hand that had been resting on his sleeve was then clinging to him.

“Jae’s family is kind of spread out everywhere,” Sehun said, but each word was getting more difficult than the next. “He’s got them everywhere in Seoul, all of North America, and even some in Europe. And they’re pretty traditional. We knew we had to send out birth announcements, and if anyone was neglected we’d be hearing about it for months. So we had these pretty yellow cards made. They were perfect. Then Seoyoung got her name and they were worthless. Jae knew his relatives would complain about the announcement cards if they didn’t have her name on them, and it wasn’t like we could stop the name from getting out.” Sehun pointed just off to the side. “Jae worked down at that elementary school. And here, this is the shop we had the cards done at.”

“Walking distance,” Luhan said, his voice pitchy.

“I told him we had to get them done by that Friday. We had to get them sent out. I was always complaining about Jae’s relatives, and I was irritated that we had to get a whole new set of announcement cards made. Jae was just trying to help out and be thoughtful. He knew he was going to visit his friends who were teachers at the elementary school on the day he died. He told me he’d just walk to the shop if I couldn’t get away from work.”

The weight of Luhan’s head on his shoulder was unexpected by not unwanted like he’d thought any closeness might feel.

Shutting his eyes from the sight of the shop, Sehun said, “I could have left work. I could have gotten away. I was just irritated. I was annoyed. I didn’t want to deal with the ordeal anymore. I lied and told Jae that I couldn’t leave work so he walked. Someone hit him when he was crossing the street.”

“I’m so sorry,” Luhan said, breath warm against Sehun’s sleeve.

His steady tears turned into a downpour of a storm and Sehun all but latched onto Luhan, sobbing against him with grief that still felt so fresh.

He still didn’t understand why Suho and the others didn’t blame him. It was his fault. It was all his fault. All he’d had to do was it up and deal with the announcements for one more day and everything would have been fine. If he hadn’t lied to Jae, if he’d driven him, if Jae hadn’t walked, he wouldn’t have been in the crosswalk. He wouldn’t have been hit by the car. He wouldn’t have had to lay there on the asphalt, feeling their baby slip away from them, knowing that he wouldn’t ever get to hold her or tell her how much she was loved.

“I’ve got you,” Luhan whispered into his ear, his back, letting him cry and cry until he couldn’t physically manage it anymore.

“It wasn’t even …” Sehun had to stop and catch his breath. He couldn’t breathe. “It wasn’t even the driver’s fault, either. He was driving west. The glare of the sun was impossible. It dulled the coloring of the lights, made it impossible for him to see Jae who had the right of way, and cause him to think he was okay to go when he should have stopped. It wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t deliberate. It was an accident.”

Luhan’s hand didn’t stop for a second. He held Sehun like Suho had days ago, only better, because Luhan’s hold was less strong and more loving. It made Sehun feel like he could stay within the protective circle of those arms for as long as he wanted and he would be welcomed for every second of his stay.

“What happened to the driver?”  Luhan prompted.

“He died,” Sehun said, tucking his face into the crook of Luhan’s shoulder. “He hit Jae and then he hit a streetlight. Three people died that day. Sook Chansoo. That was his name. He had a wife and three kids and they lost him just as much as I lost Jae and Seoyoung.”

Tightening his grip on Sehun, Luhan said, “That was not your fault.”

With a hoarse laugh, Sehun denied, “Of course it was. I should have just let Jae name the baby whatever he wanted. We were going to have more. I could have picked the next name. I shouldn’t have made such a big fuss about Jae’s family, not after they supported us for so long, helped us buy that house, and accepted me without hesitation. But more than that, Luhan, and don’t you dare tell me otherwise, I should have driven him.”

With his fingers idly scratching Sehun’s scalp, Luhan wondered, “Is this why you and the others don’t like me walking anywhere?”

Sehun sniffed, needing to blow his nose badly. “I have nightmares all the time. I have them every time I close my eyes. They’re usually Jae crossing the street, the impact of his body against the car and how he must have suffered before he died. But sometimes, and more frequently, they’re you. Sometimes it’s you crossing the street and it’s you who dies. Every time you walk somewhere, it can be you. Suho says he's had the nightmare before, too."

Luhan suddenly crushed him so tightly into a hug that Sehun almost ached. “What happened to Jae was an accident. It was not your fault. It was just the series of horrible and sad, but ultimately coincidental events that resulted in his death and Seoyoung’s.  You can’t control fate, Sehun, and you can’t control when, how or why bad things happen to good people. Do you know that? Do you understand that we live in a world where ty, unfair things happen, and there’s nothing we can do about it?”

“Suho keeps telling me to let go of the guilt. He keeps saying he doesn’t blame me. But it doesn’t matter. I blame me. I know it’s my fault. I know I killed my family. That’s why I destroyed the nursery. That’s why I don’t want to talk about them. That’s why I hate myself.”

“Hey, jerk,” Luhan chided, hitting the back of Sehun’s head gently. “You don’t talk about the man I love like that. You don’t talk about the father of my child like that.”

For the first time since he’d started sobbing, Sehun managed to pull back from Luhan’s enfolding hug. His vision was blurring Luhan’s beautiful face, but he could make out the anguish on it.

“I’m responsible for the deaths of my family, Luhan,” Sehun stuttered out. “You should hate me. You should be afraid of me. You should--”

“I love you,” Luhan said, his fingers calmly at the pulse of Sehun’s throat. “I love you very much and I am not scared of you. I can’t make you not blame yourself, but I certainly don’t.  I was stupid to say that I thought you might hurt our baby. You’d never hurt her. You love her so much.”

“I do,” Sehun insisted, his face felling puffy and probably looking horrible. “I love her and I’m so afraid to hurt her.”

With much more strength than Sehun was used to from Luhan, the man took Sehun’s hand forcefully put his on his stomach. “This is your daughter, right?” he demanded. Then he continued. “You love her? You’d die to protect her?  She is your life from this moment on?”

Sehun nodded so hard he nearly hurt himself.

Luhan leaned over and kissed him gently, and it felt like silk on his lips. “Then do right by Seoyoung and Jae by taking care of her. Honor them, remember them, keep their memory alive, and pass along how much you loved them to our daughter. That’s how you make amends. Do you understand? Honor them by loving her.”

Sehun kissed him back fiercely, almost desperately, needing to feel Luhan and know he was there, alive.

“I love you,” Sehun vowed back to him. “I love you so much.”

“We’re going to be okay,” Luhan promised him, placing his hand over Sehun’s. “Me, you, and this baby. We’re stronger than you seem to think. You had to endure hardships that would have destroyed a weaker man, but that’s not going to happen again. You paid your due, Sehun. You get to have a happy, fulfilling future now. No more sadness. No more guilt, okay?”

There were no more tears left to fall, but if there had been, Sehun had no doubt he’d have shed them.

“I have never thought I deserved a second chance,” Sehun confessed. “I’ve never thought I deserved you or this baby.”

Once more Luhan tapped him on the head. “What did I tell you about talking about the man I love?”

“I get it,” Sehun said weakly. “Only optimism from this point on.”

Settling back into place in his seat, Luhan asked, “Does Jae have a memorial? A burial spot?”

Sehun cleared his throat, trying to regain some of his confidence. “He’s buried about an hour outside of Seoul where his family owns a plot of land. It’s where Jae used to go to spend his summers as a kid. It was his favorite place in the world when he was young. It’s where he would have wanted to be buried, even if it’s not the most accessible spot.” He gave Luhan a questioning look. “Why?”

Luhan smiled faintly. “I want to pay my respects to him one day. Not today. Not even tomorrow. But one day I want to go out there with you and pay my respects. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Sehun said, surprised at how much he actually liked the idea. “We could take the baby up there too. When she’s old enough.”

Sehun reached to start the car but paused when Luhan said suddenly, “You’re braver than you know you are.”

“Brave?” Sehun asked skeptically. His vision had cleared somewhat, at least enough to drive.

“Brave,” Luhan repeated. “And you continue to amaze me with it.”

If Luhan wanted to think he was brave, Sehun supposed there were worse things to think. He guessed it was something he’d just have to learn to accept.

“Want to go to your new house and watch our baby on a huge television?” Luhan asked, holding up the thin slip case of the DVD.

Sehun felt his heart lift. “Want to do that and make all our friends come over and watch it with us?”

Before Sehun could pull out into traffic, Luhan dashed in for a quick kiss to his cheek. “How about it’s just me, you, and baby for a while?”

“Yeah,” Sehun said, in a lungful of air. “That sound even better.”