Love You Too: PART NINETY NINE

"Nate" Tiffany muttered as she knocked on the door to their room "We need to talk"
She'd just ascended the impossibly long staircase up to her fate, after leaving the baby downstairs with Mollie.
"You're still in last night's clothes" he noted as soon as she passed from the shadows into the light.
"Sorry, I'm still feeling a bit rough"
"That's okay. I think you look beautiful" he said, dipping his head when he realised how alien that sounded to him.
"Nate, I love you. I haven't plucked up the courage to tell you in such a long time, but I do. I want to make you happy, and if carrying on like this is making you happy, then I will. I don't want to lose you" she said, running over to him before a tear could hit the ground. When she reached him, she plunged her head into his chest, feeling it's unfamiliar muscular layers cushioning her head as she sobbed uncontrollably into his polo shirt.
"Baby, I want to talk too. I don't want this"
"Then tell me what you want. There's nothing I won't do for you" she said, bringing her head up to speak before nuzzling back into his chest to cry a little more.
"I want you to look at me the way you used to. It sounds petty, and I know I've done worse to you, but I miss how you used to look at me and talk to me"
"Fine, I'll do literally anything to be with you again, Nate. Don't do this to me ever again" she said, wrapping her arms around his neck in a tight cling, resting her head on his shoulder and wrapping her legs around his hips, like a monkey clinging to a familiar and stable tree.
"I love you" he whispered, as her heart melted into her stomach somewhere, sending little jets of fizz into every one of her nerves.
"I love you too" she said, smiling and laughing through the few remaining sobs.
"Promise me something?"
"Anything"
"The next time you cry like this, make sure it's happy tears. You know I can't bear it when you cry like this"
"Promise" she said, as her voice was muffled by his lips pressed softly against hers, lips pressed together in perfect harmony, velvety smooth against the other's, warm and inviting. As Nate pulled the kiss apart, it's magnetic attraction was evident as he immediately was dragged back in for more, parting his lips and letting Tiffany in, laying out everything that he felt for her and allowing her to judge him. He'd never felt so vulnerable, but what happened next showed that his stripped vulnerability had paid off.

At this point, it's probably important to briefly cover what happened 6 months prior to this rebinding event.
From December through to June 24th, Tiffany kept getting bigger and bigger, more stressed and more stressed, more pained and more pained, until she was confined to bed. There was no denying that it was a difficult pregnancy for her, but all that was made worthwhile when, 6 days early, her tiny baby girl was born. The birth was surprisingly fast, at only 2 hours in labour, which was surprisingly good according to Sandy.
Nate had an exam on that day, which occurred from 2-4pm. And Tiffany went into labour at 3.30pm. As soon as his exam was over, a congregation of teachers, family friends and peers all delivered him the news, to which he responded with a curse, then a look of almost disbelief.
"I thought I'd know that I was a father. I thought I'd just be able to tell?" he quizzed, before realising that this wasn't a case of the boy who cried wolf, and that his wife really was giving birth to their child.
Nate arrived at 5, narrowly making it to the actual birth. When he'd arrived, Tiffany was in the most hideous pain he'd ever seen, and as he sat by her bedside, he thought of all the amazing things he should say to the mother of his child as soon as she was born, but just as he was about to speak up, she crushed his fingers in her own, breaking one.
Nate didn't care, until he realised his swimming career had to be put on hold, but as soon as he saw his baby girl for the first time, he forgot about the searing pain in his finger, and focused on the baby girl that he'd created with Tiffany. As Tiffany looked up at her baby for the first time, the wonder and delight at having actually making it through the labour was relieving, but seeing her little girl's tiny fingers and her small round head made everything worthwhile.
She tried to ask Nate to let her hold her, but as soon as she did, she drifted into an oblivion, halfway between sleep and unconsciousness.
When she woke up, she looked across the room to see where she was, and in the corner she saw her gorgeous husband and her tiny little baby curled up together, asleep on an armchair. That was when she first knew that her baby was going to be a dream; well behaved and generally easy going. Her husband, on the other hand, was going to be less so, but as she gazed at the beginnings of her own little family, she felt this strange pang in her heart. Just then, she realised that this must be what it was like to truly love members of your family. She'd never experienced it fully, but as she looked at her beautiful little girl snuggled up to her daddy's chest, she couldn't help but feel that in-communicable emotion.
He woke up shortly afterwards, and handed Tiffany the baby before going to call Mollie, Charlie and Tiffany's mother.
That was the time when Tiffany was able to talk to her baby for the first time. She discussed everything from their future together, as the most impermeable mother-daughter combination ever to hit the streets of New York, to the love she already felt for this darling little baby.
"No boy will ever clap eyes on you" Nate said, kissing his baby's head and looking up at his wife, as if it was a warning to her too.
"What--" she began, before her mother walked into the room and greeted her granddaughter for the first time.
That was where it all went downhill, where the time Nate spent with the baby increased, and his time with Tiffany decreased to almost zero.
And that's where we are now, in a hole, which the two of them are frantically trying to clamber out of. Luckily now, though, they had each other.