[Cassian’s POV]

The first week home with Maggie is beautiful chaos.

She sleeps in bursts of two to three hours, waking with a cry that instantly pulls all three of us from whatever we’re doing. We’ve developed a rotation—Sophie handles the nursing, Adrian takes the 2 a.m. shifts so Sophie can recover from the feeding, and I manage the 5 a.m. wake-ups because apparently my body has decided that sleep is optional.

The apartment has transformed around her presence. The pristine nursery we spent months preparing is already cluttered with receiving blankets and half-empty bottles of formula supplement and the particular detritus of infant care. The organization I once maintained has surrendered to function over form, to whatever keeps Maggie fed and Sophie rested and Adrian sane.

I don’t mind. In fact, I find I love it—the chaos, the exhaustion, the constant small crises that require immediate attention. There’s something grounding about having a purpose this clear, this uncomplicated. Maggie needs us. We show up. Everything else is secondary.

But underneath the blur of diapers and feedings and soothing cries, the question Lisette planted continues to grow.

I catch Adrian watching Maggie sometimes with an expression I can’t quite read—wonder mixed with something more searching, as if he’s looking for evidence in her features. She’s only a week old; her face changes almost hourly, features shifting as she develops. It’s impossible to say who she looks like yet.

“You’re thinking about it,” I say quietly one evening, finding him in the nursery with Maggie asleep on his chest.

He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I know it shouldn’t matter. I know we decided it doesn’t matter. But…”

“But you want to know.”

“Yes.” The admission costs him something; I can see it in the tightness around his eyes. “Does that make me a terrible person? A terrible father?”

“It makes you human.” I settle into the rocking chair across from him, keeping my voice low to avoid waking Maggie. “I’ve been thinking about it too.”

“You have?”

“Not in the same way. I don’t need to know for myself—biology genuinely doesn’t change how I feel about her. But I’ve been thinking about whether not knowing will become a problem. Whether the uncertainty will fester.”

Adrian is quiet for a moment, his hand moving in slow circles on Maggie’s back. “What did you conclude?”

“That maybe Sophie was right. We should discuss it properly. All three of us, when we’re not running on four hours of sleep, when we can actually think clearly about what we want.”

“And if we decide to test?”

“Then we test. We find out. And we deal with whatever the answer is, together.” I lean forward, trying to catch his eye in the dim light of the nursery. “Adrian, the test won’t change anything about our family. Whoever’s DNA she carries, she has two fathers who love her. That’s not going to change based on a lab result.”

“I know. I know that intellectually. But there’s a part of me—” He breaks off, struggling with words that don’t want to come. “There’s a part of me that’s terrified. That if she’s not mine biologically, I’ll feel like less of her father. Like I’m just playing a role.”

“Do you feel that way now?”

He looks down at Maggie, at her tiny fingers curled against his shirt, at the way she’s nestled into him with complete trust.

“No,” he admits. “When I hold her, I just feel… love. Overwhelming, terrifying love.”

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