For a few quiet minutes, the room settled into that rare, fragile rhythm where nobody had to perform. Trevor drank his tea. Lucas ate like a man who had survived worse than pastries. Chris stayed curled into the velvet, shoulders finally loosening under the small, warm weight in his arms.
Dax watched.
He didn't do it in an obvious way. He didn't lean forward or stare like an idiot. His gaze rested where it always rested when Chris held something precious: on the line of Chris's jaw, the careful way his hands supported the baby's neck, and the instinctive tilt of his body to create a shield without thinking about it.
Sebastian was only a few months old, still soft in every way, still built for warmth and sleep and the occasional dramatic sneeze.
He had Lucas's green eyes.
But everything else…
Everything else could have been Chris.
