Chương 23
the air tasted like metal. Babe's sobs were small at first, choked and shaking, then gathered themselves into waves that broke helplessly against his ribs. He curled on the bed as far as the swell of his belly allowed, shoulders trembling, one hand fisting the sheet, the other cradling the curve that held his son.
Charlie sat near his hip, unmoved by the storm an arm's length away. His attention stayed pinned to the rise and fall beneath cotton—measured, relentless. He didn't look at Babe's face. His thumb traced an absent circle on the taut skin, as if memorising a map that stopped at a border he refused to cross. Gold pulsed and receded in his eyes like heat behind smoked glass.
In the corner, the Theerapanyakul family had become a council of silhouettes—Kinn's profile cut from granite, Porsche low-voiced with the doctor, Tankhun a flaring ribbon of silk hushed for once.
Somewhere along the wall, new shadows had arrived—Khun Vegas and Khun Pete—folding themselves into the conversation as if they had always been standing there. Jeff hovered a few steps off, hands loosely clasped, gaze restless. No one moved toward the man crying on the bed.
Alan felt the fury rise like a tide that wanted to lift him off his feet. The glittering room blurred. Rage gave him a taste of iron, and the thought came, ugly and bright: Fuck this family. He swallowed it because he didn't have claws made of light or a name that bent rooms around it. Helplessness was a hard pill, chalky in his throat, but silence was harder. He leaned forward, weight shifting for a step—
But,
Fingers brushed his sleeve. Movement at his side made him look down. Sonic's eyes were already glassy, his lower lip shaking. North's grip was firm around the omega's wrist, not cruel, just inevitable.
"Phi Babe... don't cry, please," Sonic called, voice thin as a thread, trying to cast it across the space like a bridge.
Sonic tugged to go, to throw his heart at the bed like a blanket; North held him without effort.
"No, Sonic. Not now," North murmured, every syllable a careful weight.
"Babe is with his Enigma."
North flicked a glance at Charlie's unmoving profile, at the controlled quiet that rang louder than a shout.
"If he snaps—your body won't bear it. Mine might not. We wait."
Alan nodded once. North had been the one devouring papers and lore at 3 a.m., collecting facts like talismans, reading research and articles about Enigmas.
Enigmas didn't need to lift a hand to break a room. Territory lived in their bones; protection did, too. Their wrath wasn't theatrical—it was physics.
Sonic stilled under North's hand, but the tears didn't.
"They don't care about Phi Babe," Sonic whispered, grief turning the words soft.
"No one's looking at him. He is crying. Look, even Charlie doesn't care"
That steady hand. Those eyes alight with a metal dawn that didn't warm. The caress that belonged to their son and not to him.
Something cold slid between Babe's ribs and settled there like a blade cooling on stone. He thought of last night—Charlie's breath even against the hush, Babe's cheek cushioned on safety he had pretended would stay. He thought of the baby's push under the probe minutes ago, the way a small knee had found Charlie's palm as if the world made sense at that address. The ache turned sharp.
Vultures, Babe's mind supplied without permission. They want my baby. They want to write a future where Babe is erased in his own child's life.
No.
The word didn't have to be big to be true. It sank through him and locked into the place where bones meet will. He pressed both palms to his belly, as if his hands could be a door. The sobs slowed, reshaped by resolve.
"I..." The sentence tumbled and broke. Babe steadied it on breath.
"No." He stepped back as far as the pillows allowed, shoulders squared, voice scraped raw but carrying.
"This child is mine. Not yours. Not anyone else's."
The room's soundscape thinned—machines, fabric whispers, a printer cooling. Silence fell the way people drop a blanket over a fire when they don't know how hot the flames are.
Charlie's hand paused and lifted, then lowered to his thigh. The gold in his gaze didn't dim; it just turned colder, like sunlight on a blade.
"He will be with me," Charlie said, even, inexorable. "I am his father."
Babe's head shook once, a shiver that became refusal.
"I am his mother," Babe said, the words small and enormous at the same time.
"I won't. I won't give my child away. He is mine..only mine" The last word snapped and bled.
Babe pushed to sit. The belly changed everything—balance, leverage, breath. He grunted with the effort, frustration flaring when Charlie's hand moved to press him back, placating. Babe slapped it away without looking, as if the touch burned.
Babe tried again; the bed grabbed his hips, the mattress took his weight like quicksand. Charlie's sigh hardened at the edges; a warning growl rumbled low.
"Babe... calm down," Jeff said, stepping in with a sigh.
Babe's hand went up—stopping him the way a barrier stops rain.
"You knew," he said, voice breaking around the shape of it.
"That press conference—you said I decided to give my baby to your family. A lie." His hurt cracked open into anger and sprayed.
"You ignored me for months, and now suddenly you're being nice to me..I should have known..All these nice gestures today because you all wanted to separate my child from me..My Baby! "
Jeff's mouth thinned. He took the words like stones and didn't throw any back.
"You deserve clarity," he said, quietly. "And I didn't feel rude to you..try to understand, Babe"
Alan moved then, North and Sonic a tide at his heels. He approached the bed slowly, eyes on Charlie first. Gold watched him come. Alan's spine wanted to bow; he made himself tall instead, hands open, voice low.
"I'm helping him sit, that's all." The room seemed to consider, then allowed it.
"Phi... Phi Alan,"
Babe gasped, reaching, fingers clutching as if grabby hands could anchor fate. On any other day, Alan would have teased the cuteness blooming under the glow and softness pregnancy had gifted.
Today, he set his shoulder under Babe's, braced his forearm, and helped him rise inch by inch until Babe's breath came easier from a new angle.
"Breathe," Alan murmured. "Let me stand with you."
Babe's gaze climbed to Charlie and stuck there.
"I wanted us," Babe said, each word a thread pulled out of his chest.
"You. Me. Our Baby. A family." Babe barked a laugh that hurt.
"I thought waking up meant you came back to me. But you came back just to take my child from me."
Charlie's answer was a pane of winter.
"We are over," he said, calm as a pronouncement. "Both of us cannot be together. We are done"
The line cut. Babe swayed; Alan's hand tightened. For a heartbeat, Babe saw every sharp thing he'd ever thrown flash and return, boomerangs with his own name on their edges. He had been a bad lover—he knew it, hated it, had rehearsed apologies in the lonely dark until the words smoothed round in his mouth.
Babe had promised himself better. A second chance. A thousand small repairs.
"Charlie... please," Babe said, already crying again. He closed the small distance and, careful of the child between them, framed Charlie's face with shaking hands. The gold stared back, bright and far.
"I was wrong. I was cruel. I am sorry. Give me one chance. I will be a good lover. I will be a good mother. Just one chance, Charlie, that's all I ask."
Babe's arms went around Charlie's waist—not to trap, but to keep from falling through the floor. His cheek found the firm plane of Charlie's chest and soaked it salt-wet. His belly pressed between them, their son a warm, round witness.
For a suspended second, nothing moved. The council in the corner was silent. The machines counted. North didn't breathe; Sonic bit his fist. Alan's jaw flexed once, hard, then released. Charlie's hands hovered at Babe's forearms, not pushing away, not pulling close—caught between rules he had already spoken and a gravity he hadn't yet named.
"Let me keep him," Babe whispered into fabric, the words seeping into cotton, into skin, into the stubborn gold.
"Let me keep us."
-
Charlie's hands came down, not rough but resolute, and pried Babe's arms from his waist one gently. The room's hush tightened, a wire drawn taut. Babe's breath hitched on a small, breaking sound as Charlie stepped back just enough that the warmth between them thinned to air.
"Babe," Charlie said, voice even, unyielding, "this is not going to work."
His eyes stayed molten on the curve of Babe's belly, gold threading the dark like a threat held in a sheath.
"I don't want to be with you again, Babe.All I want is my child. Name your price, any amount, for carrying him. For the discomfort. For the months. I will pay whatever you ask."
The words hit like cold water and then like fire. Babe's spine locked; his fingers closed helplessly on air where Charlie had been. For a heartbeat, he could only hear the drum of his son's heartbeat remembered from the machine, braiding with his own as if to argue the math Charlie had tried to make of them.
"Price?" Babe repeated, hoarse, disbelieving.
His cheeks were wet; new tears gathered and did not fall, held back by a heat that rose fast and bright.
"You think I will sell my child?" The last word trembled, then sharpened.
"You think I ..I ..how could you think like that ?"
Sonic flinched. Jeff exhaled a curse he didn't let out loud. Alan took one step closer and became a wall at Babe's shoulder; Sonic pressed knuckles to his mouth, eyes blown wide; North angled subtly to put his body between Sonic and every other gravity in the room.
Babe's anger climbed his throat like a living thing, fueled by love so fierce it hurt.
"I carried him all these months ..inside me like a treasure" Babe whispered, then found more breath.
"I changed everything for him. I talk to him when the lights are off, and the house is too quiet, and he answers with kicks I count like prayer. There isn't an amount in your world or mine that buys that."
Charlie did not flinch, but the gold shifted, a slow, dangerous tide.
"You don't want this life," he said, as if reciting a verdict he had already stamped.
"Babe .. Give him to me, and be free."
"Free?" Babe laughed once, cracked and bright.
"From my son? I would rather die" Babe wiped his face with the back of his hand, leaving a shimmering track.
"You can keep your money. Keep your palaces. My child..My Baby..he is not for sale." Babe yelled at Charlie.
Kinn's gaze cut to Porsche; Porsche's jaw set, something protective and old sparking there. The doctor looked down at her tablet, as if the numbers might tell her how to stay invisible. Vegas and Pete exchanged a look that tasted like strategy and worry.
Charlie took in a breath that didn't quite reach his chest.
"Babe..I'll provide everything for you" he said, and for a strangled second, Babe almost laughed again because it was so perfectly wrong.
"Don't make this complicated, babe..Just give me my baby ..and move on. The life you want is out there in the racing world..I don't want to force you," Charlie said calmly, making Babe cry more.
"I don't want that life anymore.I want to be with my child.," Babe said, touching his belly.
" I am not giving my child to you." The words steadied as he spoke them, landing one after another like the feet of a runner who finally finds the track again.
"I won't be erased from his life."
Babe stepped closer to Charlie and buried his face against Charlie's chest, breath hitching, shoulders shaking with each plea. The scent of antiseptic and ultrasound gel clung to his skin; beneath it, the familiar, clean note of Charlie that used to steady him now made the room tilt.
"Don't send me away, don't separate us" he whispered into the fabric. "Don't cut me out of his life."
Charlie did not return the embrace. His hands hovered at Babe's elbows—guiding, not holding.
"Babe," he said, quiet, even.
"Let go. You need rest we will decide later"
"I need you," Babe said, the words raw as a skinned knuckle.
"I need my family. I need my son with me." He felt Charlie's chest rise and fall, an ocean he could not read.
"I can be better. I will be better. Just give me one chance, Charlie"
Babe took one, two trembling breaths. He loosened his grip on Charlie just enough to tip his face up.
"You told me to give you our son," he said, voice shaking but clear.
"You said I could go back to my world. But my world is here. It's him"—his palm spread over the curve—"and it's you, if you'll have me. You and our son are my world, Charlie." Babe hiccuped once, fragile and stubborn in the same breath.
"I don't want any racing world.I want you and our baby..My world.."
A flicker—heat or warning—moved through Charlie's eyes.
"Are you sure we are your world?" His voice deepened; gold narrowed.
"Are you sure you need me in your life, Babe?"
"Of course," Babe said, but the smirk that lifted Charlie's mouth turned to a small, cold laugh.
"Really, Babe? Are you sure?"
The tone slid from calm to cutting. Alan, Sonic, and North traded startled looks; even the air seemed to harden. Charlie's hands found Babe's shoulders and pushed him back to arm's length.
Alan took an instinctive step to intervene—then stalled, muscles locking as if the room itself had set like cooling glass. North's jaw flexed; Sonic whimpered. The Theerapanyakuls and the doctors looked unbothered, as if gravity had chosen sides.
"Charlie... you're hurting me," Babe winced, fingers flying protectively to his belly.
"I've been so gentle," Charlie said, voice low and edged.
"I asked you to give me my baby nicely, didn't I? But you keep talking about us. Us?"
Hurt scored the calm; the gold flared.
"The moment you kissed another man in front of me and walked into a room with him, everything ended. There is no more us."
Ice water sluiced Babe's spine. The night of the accident rose whole spite, alcohol, a kiss meant as poison—and shame bit down hard.
Charlie's mouth warped into a laugh without warmth.
"What? Surprised?"
"Charlie, I... I—" Words refused to form. Fear, guilt, regret, remorse—each lunged and tangled in his throat.
Tears gleamed in Charlie's eyes now, too, silent and cutting. Porsche made to move; Kinn's hand closed around his wrist and held.
Across the room, Vegas's palm found Pete's forearm and anchored it. The family looked like a restraint.
Alan wanted to clap a palm to his own face, to drag the day back a few minutes and make different mouths say different words, but he could not make a single step.
Whatever Enigma had curled into the room's foundations held him pinned. He didn't think Charlie would harm Babe—whether for love or for the child, he couldn't tell—but helplessness scraped him raw.
Babe could only shake his head.
"No... no..."
"You know how stupid I was?" Charlie asked softly, bitter as ash.
"After you rejected me and humiliated me in front of everyone, I still chased you. I thought the kiss was a show to hurt me. I went to tell you Jeff is my brother and to beg you to take me back." His breath hitch almost broke the sentence.
"But when I saw you go into that room, saw you kiss him again at the door... Something died. I was a fool, Babe."
Babe reached up, instinct desperate, to wipe the tears from Charlie's face. Charlie caught his wrist midair. With the other hand, he scrubbed his own cheeks as if erasing an equation gone wrong.
"I'm not a fool now," Charlie said, flat and final.
"Your talk of us means nothing to me. I don't want you. All I want is my son. I tried to be kind. You didn't listen. So hear me: my decision is final. I'm taking my child." The words landed like a seal pressed into hot wax.
Babe trembled. He wanted to scream the truth—that the second kiss had been a weapon turned on himself, that the door had shut on nothing more than his own shame. He wanted to swear he hadn't spent the night with that man, that he couldn't, not when the gravity of Charlie had already made the rest of the world tilt.
But his mouth wouldn't hold the shape of any of it; fear and dizziness blurred the room into streaks of silver and sun.
"No, Charlie. You can't. I didn't— I'm sorry..."
"I can, and I will" Charlie said, voice like a locked gate. He turned to the doctors in the corner.
"Arrange the surgery. The sooner, the better."
"Yes, Khun Charlie. We can schedule for tomorrow," the lead doctor replied, bowing to the heir.
Fear thundered through Babe so hard it made his vision grain and spark. The room pitched. No one was listening. Charlie didn't want him. His life had come unstitched in a handful of sentences.
Babe wanted to shout the whole truth, to rip out the bad page and write again, to swear he had been reckless but not faithless, that he had not put his body anywhere it did not belong. The words scattered. Darkness crept in from the edges, slow and velvet as a closing curtain.
"Babe," Alan said, voice scraping up from far away.
"Stay with me. Hey—eyes here." North's baritone joined, steady as a metronome: "Breathe, in—out." Sonic's small, wrecked, "Phi—"
The sounds thinned to a thread. The grey palm of afternoon pressed down. Babe swayed once, twice; his hands flew to his stomach as if to hold the world still. Then everything tipped.
The last thing he felt was the heat of his son under his palms and the ache of Charlie's name in his throat as the dark finally reached him and took him under. Ẩn bớt
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