JIYONG

"...Ji, relax," Dara whispered from the examination chair. "They're just doing an ultrasound."

Jiyong was on edge, and everyone in the room knew it. The doctor spent half her time soothing him when her attention should have been solely focused on Dara, but he couldn't seem to stop drawing the focus away. He tried to relax, and wound up nearly coming off of his stool in the process.

"Here you go, sweetie." Another nurse entered and brought him a cup of water. Jiyong accepted, but tried to offer it to Dara first; she just shook her head, looking bemused. He downed it in one gulp and crumpled the cup in his fist.

"You took that water like you take your shots," Dara noticed.

"I just...I guess I wasn't expecting this," Jiyong said. How was he supposed to tell Dara, laid out and vulnerable, that this ultrasound was something out of the ordinary? Why didn't the doctor say as much? Wasn't that her job?

Dara raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said you read up on all this stuff?"

He didn't want to alarm her, but he now felt as if he had no choice. "I did. All my research indicated that normally the first appointment doesn't require an ultrasound."

"Doctor?" Dara turned her head. "Is that true?"

The doctor smiled at them both kindly. "Yes. Your partner really has done his research. But since you're further along in your pregnancy than most women normally are when they come in for their first appointment, I wanted to get an idea of what we're looking at. Development-wise, Miss Park, your baby is in perfect health. Would you like to listen?"

"Listen?" Dara repeated curiously. "To what?"

The doctor's smile broadened. Before Jiyong could parse all his recently acquired knowledge to know what she might mean, the doctor turned and adjusted something on her monitor. She kept the instrument she held pressed gently to Dara's stomach.

A hypnotic, rhythmic thrum filled the room. Jiyong glanced from Dara to the speakers near them and back, and could tell that she was equally confused. "Is that...my heartbeat?" she asked.

"I'm using an advanced version of the fetal Doppler," the doctor explained. "Not every clinic has a setup like this." She indicated the speakers occupying each corner of the room. "It's a little dramatic, but I think it's appropriate for this moment. I don't just want expecting parents to hear their child's heartbeat; I want them to be able to feel it."

The steady pulse resonated in the room. As Jiyong listened to it intently, holding his breath for any sort of irregularity, he found that the sound was starting to feel as if it came from within him. Was his own heart beating in time with the heartbeat of his child?

Was this how Dara felt at night, lying awake in bed alone, listening? He suddenly ached to be there with her in those moments.

"It's her." Dara looked at him, eyes shimmering. "It's our baby, Jiyong."

"It's still too early at this stage to tell the ," the doctor noted. Jiyong knew that, but he didn't voice any doubts about Dara's certainty. He believed her statement as much as she appeared to believe it herself. A daughter, he thought in wonder. My daughter.

He reached for her, but Dara's hand was already moving off the table to seek his hand. They met halfway, interlocking their fingers; Jiyong felt the warmth of their touch flow through him as their baby's heartbeat filled the room with its steady pulse. For the first time, he found himself trying to imagine all the lullabies he might sing to her. He hadn't conducted any research into the matter, and couldn't remember the words to the low refrains his own mother had once sung to him. Whatever he came up with, he knew that it would never inspire a similar feeling to what he felt in this moment. This was his own daughter's lullaby to him.

"And here you can see the baby on the screen," the doctor invited. Both their heads turned together to observe the sonogram. Jiyong thought he had known wha