XXX

She panted heavily, collapsing back against the propped-up bed. Her face was covered in sweat, her makeup, done so meticulously earlier, most likely now reduced to smudges and dark trails along her cheeks. She hadn't been prepared for this today.

Zoey was slowly catching her breath as Chase stroked her hand and cried with a smile on his face.

A baby was screaming from somewhere by Zoey's legs, and suddenly it hit her: that was her baby screaming. She and Chase's. She had just given life to that little red person wailing at the top of their tiny lungs.

The doctor told them happily that it was a girl, and Zoey let out a noise half-laugh, half-sob, her emotions a wreck by this point. She was exhausted from the long labor, from the waiting around after her water had broken but before her contractions had started, from the last eight-and-a-half months of being pregnant.

Chase was grinning like a fool, dark circles under his eyes and bushy hair everywhere, but when Zoey turned her head to the side on the sweat-soaked pillow and caught him staring at her like that, she found him to be beautiful. She nearly forgot that just minutes before she'd been cursing like a sailor at him for 'putting her in this position'.

They'd been married over three years, but even at twenty-seven they hadn't planned on children for another year or two. Zoey had just completed her internship at a hospital in Boston and was entering residency when she'd found out she was pregnant. Chase was writing for the Boston Globe, slowly working his way up the newsroom food chain, only just beginning to get articles looked at by the editor, with a few even going so far as to be printed in the much-read newspaper. Neither had been ready for family life.

At first Zoey had been scared, nervous, even a little angry (at who, she wasn't sure), but when she'd come home from the hospital after confirming the pregnancy and broke the news to her husband, her mood had changed. Chase had been petrified, at first, but in a blink of an eye he'd been ecstatic, grabbing Zoey and making her dance with him around their condo's living room. She'd become excited at the idea of their child growing inside of her, happy to tell her family and Chase's family and all of their friends, a few going so far back as PCA even ten years later. They were lucky; after the baby was born Zoey would have to return to the random hours of hospital life, but Chase would be able to work from home often enough, his time in the newsroom flexible.

Her pregnancy hadn't been too difficult; morning sickness, of course, which had been the major downside for her, and swollen ankles towards the end, which she'd expected. The hospital hadn't been too hard on her, cutting her slack when they could and giving her as much maternity leave as possible. Zoey was eager to get back to work, however, loving the hospital and her young patients in pediatrics.

Zoey's water had broken just as she and Chase were about to leave to have dinner with some old PCA friends to, ironically, celebrate the baby's upcoming birth. Lola and her husband, Quinn and Mark, Logan and his girl of the month, and Michael and his girlfriend Pam were all waiting at the restaurant for the expecting parents when Chase had called in a rush to let them know they were at the hospital. All eight of them had left dinner behind and had instead joined a nervous Chase and even more nervous Zoey to wait for the newest and smallest addition of the group to arrive.

The baby was still crying, but she was almost cleaned up. They asked if Zoey would like to hold her, but she responded that her eyes were so teary she was nervous she'd drop her daughter. Everyone in the room chuckled at the new mother's concerns, and in a moment a nurse was placing the baby girl in Zoey's arms.

The newborn stopped whimpering, her skin lightening to a beautiful pinky color, and Zoey didn't think she'd ever seen anything so spectacular. Chase was leaning over the bed, his head right next to his wife's, and he was cooing at their little girl.

The nurse asked if the parents had a name, and Zoey told her, after a second, that the baby's name was Rose, after Chase's late grandmother. That sent Chase into another bout of crying, which then prompted him to make a joke about the crazy fluctuating hormones being passed on to him.

Zoey was in awe of her daughter. The baby blinked a little and Zoey just barely caught a hint of blue-green, and she knew in that moment Rose was going to have her father's eyes. Her nose and lips, however, were very much like Zoey's, and Chase pointed that out happily as he held on to Rose's impossibly tiny fist. She was premature, two weeks before the due date, but she was healthy and seemed already to have an easy-going countenance, similar to Chase.

The nurse excused herself for a moment to bring a chart to the nurse's station outside the room, which gave the new family a few minutes to bond. Chase kissed his little girl on the forehead, on the arm, on the foot, alternating between showering his daughter with affection and showering his wife with affection. She's gorgeous, he told Zoey. She only responded, I know. Then she asked: Do you want to hold her?

Really, Zoey did not want to give up her baby just yet, but then she supposed Chase did have a right to hold his own newborn child; Zoey couldn't be selfish. So she brought Rose up close to her face and took a second just to inhale her sweet baby scent, then kissed her on the head.

It was a light kiss, but full of promises that she hoped her daughter had somehow understood. Promises of love, of loyalty, of caring, of understanding, of educating and disciplining and spoiling and supporting, of discussing boys and finding dresses for dances and buying makeup. The kiss was unlike anything Zoey had ever experienced before; this was a person who was a part of her, who had come from her. This was her daughter. Her baby.

For just a brief flash as Zoey's lips brushed Rose's fine hair, she remembered her past first kisses. She didn't know why, but she recalled Eric, and Nick, and Shawn, and that Cute Theater Friend, and Kyle, and her first kiss with Chase at the beach when they were sixteen, and also when they got married eight years after that.

But as soon as the images appeared they were gone, and Zoey could only focus on right now, and her new family.

She only slightly-unwillingly then passed Rose to Chase, who practically melted when the newborn was placed in his arms for the first time. Zoey could tell their daughter was going to be a daddy's girl just by the way Chase was looking at her.

Zoey watched, tiredly and half-dazed, as her husband gently rocked their daughter, speaking in soft tones with a face to match. It was an incredible scene, and Zoey felt tears forming for the millionth time that day.

That was the first time Zoey had ever kissed a newborn baby, her newborn baby, and the last time she had ever given real thought to the first kisses in her life.

XXX

End.