Despite their desire to sleep for a week, both of them were woken up only a few hours after drifting off to sleep, two nurses coming in to check on them and, more importantly, check and see if their milk had come in. With the babies born early, neither of them were able to express anything, and they soon found themselves struggling to keep their eyes open, murmuring vague nonsense to each other as two incubators were wheeled in and they were each handed a small bundle and a bottle. With some awkwardness, they were coached through the correct way to hold the bottles, half asleep as the babies on the bottles with only slight difficulty, given the fact that they were premature. Cradling the warm bundle against her chest, Chaeyoung felt a warm flicker stir within her, and she couldn’t help but feel surprised at how quickly both babies had managed to wrap her around their little fingers. The strength of her love for them both was only rivaled by her love for Joohyun.

All too soon for her liking, the swaddled baby was removed from her arms and gently placed back inside the incubator, despite Chaeyoung’s anxious wish to have them both stay in her and Joohyun’s room. Instead, she listened to the wheels squeak on the linoleum as the baby was wheeled out, followed by the second incubator as Joohyun relinquished her hold on the other baby. The bottles were taken off them, the lights switched out, and Chaeyoung was halfway through forming a sentence when she drifted back to sleep, her few hours of sleep not having made a dent in her exhaustion. She was asleep before she could even be sure the door had shut behind the nurses.

It was light the next time her eyelids fluttered open, and her head lolled to the side to find Joohyun propped up on a pile of pillows, two dark-haired bundles sleeping in her arms as she studied their faces. At the sound of rustling blankets, Joohyun’s head whipped around to face her, and Chaeyoung winced as she gingerly pushed herself upright, the stitches across her stomach pulling beneath the bandages. The shared a smile as Chaeyoung rubbed at her tired eyes, feeling hot and bloated, and still tired, although the feeling in her limbs gave her the impression she’d been asleep for a while.

“Morning,” she mumbled, stretching and blinking back the last vestiges of sleep. “What time is it?”

“Good morning, darling,” Joohyun warmly replied, clearly in a good mood, “it’s ten o’clock. They brought the babies in an hour ago for feeding. You looked so peaceful that I didn’t want them to disturb you.”

“Mm. Are they okay? How’re you feeling?”

Joohyun let out a quiet laugh, looking back down at the babies cradled in the crook of each elbow. “They’ve been sleeping the whole time. Haven’t so much as cried, so the doctor said I could keep them for a while. I’m feeling … more myself. I imagine more so when I get to wash my hair and have a shower. I probably smell bloody awful.”

Laughing, Chaeyoung quietly groaned as she flopped back against her pillows. “God, I could kill for a nice bath. And a strong cup of coffee. Three coffees. Ugh, I want everything I haven’t been able to have for the past year. Camembert cheese! And sushi, and salami. And you can finally have that bottle of scotch I promised you.”

Letting out a withering sigh, Joohyun gave her a wry smile. “Thank you, darling, but I won’t be doing much drinking for a while. Can’t be getting pissed up and feeding. Assuming I actually do , if my bloody milk decides to come in. Although, I probably shouldn’t complain yet; it’s supposed to hurt like a . Then again, after pushing a whole ing baby out of me, everything else should be a breeze, right?”

“Excuse me, I’ll not have you being a bad influence on my daughter’s before they’re even a day old,” Chaeyoung laughed.

“Do you want to hold them?” Joohyun asked, a tender look softening her face as she looked at Chaeyoung. As much as she was enjoying the sight of Joohyun with their daughter’s in her arms, Chaeyoung was eager to hold them herself, having had so little time with them as of yet, and Joohyun carefully slipped out of bed, her hospital gown riding up as her feet touched the cold floor.

“I’ll just take one,” Chaeyoung said, a little nervous about managing an armful, and she paused for a moment. “Which one is our pea?”

Joohyun carefully handed off the slightly bigger bundle, placing a gentle kiss on Chaeyoung’s forehead, before she tenderly the baby’s face. “This one. We really ought to get onto naming them. We can’t keep calling them peach and pea.”

Rolling her eyes, Chaeyoung gave her an amused look, watching as Joohyun climbed back into bed, wincing slightly with the soreness of the movement as she tried not to jostle the baby. “I suppose it’s just a matter of picking which name suits which baby best.”

She looked down at the baby, jumping slightly in surprise as she found her eyes open, staring curiously up at Chaeyoung. In the dim sunlight worming its way through the blinds, Chaeyoung watched as her daughter slowly blinked, her small puckered lips stretching open in a yawn as she screwed her face up, and then stared up at her again.

“Oh, look… her eyes ,” Chaeyoung said with surprise, her eyes widening slightly as she stared down at the two eyes peering up at her. One was the same piercing blue as Chaeyoung’s, and her sister’s, except the left one was as green as Joohyun’s eyes. It was striking in the tiny face looking straight up at her, and Chaeyoung smiled as she traced the baby’s round cheek.

Craning her neck as she tried to look from her own bed, Joohyun frowned slightly. “What? What colour are they?”

“Blue and green.”

“Oh, like a mix of both of ours,” Joohyun beamed at her.

Shaking her head, Chaeyoung smiled as she carefully cupped the baby’s head in her palm, holding her up in front of her to study her face better. “No. One like mine and one like yours. One of each.”

“Heterochromia?” Joohyun asked, blinking in surprise.

Nodding, Chaeyoung turned to give her a smile. “This one,” she said with surety, “this is Sunyoung.”

Joohyun smiled as she the cheek of the baby she was cradling in her arms. “And this is Taeyoung”

There was a sense of satisfaction as they came to an agreement on which baby was which, after so long of referring to them as peach and pea, and they shared a smile as a feeling of rightness hit home. Reveling in the feeling of their perfect little family, they quietly talked while the babies drifted in and out of sleep, until the nurses returned and the babies were taken back to the NICU. They were staying in hospital for a few days, and Chaeyoung and Joohyun were being kept there with them, a matter of convenience for everyone involved.

Once the babies were taken away again, they both finally ventured out of bed. The tiny bathroom connected to their room offered a spacious shower stall, made to accomodate wheelchair access, and Chaeyoung gingerly held onto the rail along the tiled wall as she showered, the hot water a blessing as she washed off the antiseptic smell of the hospital with the expensive soap Yerim or Sooyoung had packed for her. Even more satisfying was washing her hair, the familiar vanilla smell of her shampoo helping her feel more herself, and by the time she climbed out from under the hot water, turning it off and using one of the thick towels that had been packed for her to quickly dry herself off. Her stomach was still protruding, and it was a strange feeling to not feel the heavy weight of her baby moving around inside after living with that sensation for so long, but Chaeyoung found herself feeling more like her old self again.

Changing into one of the cotton nightdresses in her overnight bag, she slipped a soft dressing gown on over the top and shoved her feet into her slippers. Brushing her teeth and drying off her damp hair brought back some of the normalness to Chaeyoung’s life, and she emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of expensive perfume and sweet moisturiser, a stark contrast to the shuffling, grimy feeling woman who had entered it half an hour before. She’d let Joohyun use the bathroom before her, and she shared a knowing smile with her wife, taking in her soft blow dried dark hair