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“I know that.”

“Do you?”

His eyes meet mine. “I nearly lost you yesterday. Give me a fucking minute to be scared of hurting you.”

That shuts me up.

I soften beneath him and run my fingers through his hair. “You won’t.”

“You don’t know that,” he murmurs.

“Neither do you.”

Dean releases a heavy breath before carefully lying beside me again. He keeps enough space between us that none of his weight touches my bruises, but his hand finds mine beneath the blanket.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he tells me. “But you’re injured, so we’re sleeping. That’s it.”

“I wasn’t asking for anything else.”

His eyebrow rises.

“Okay, maybe I was thinking about it.”

“Menace,” he mutters, but the corner of his mouth lifts.

I smile and move closer until I can rest my head against his shoulder without hurting myself. Dean presses a kiss to my forehead, then settles his free hand over my stomach.

Still flat.

Still exactly the same as it was yesterday.

And yet somehow, everything feels different.

“Our baby,” he whispers.

My throat tightens. “You keep saying that like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“I am.”

I laugh quietly. “How’s it going?”

“Terribly.”

“You’re going to be a dad again.”

His eyes shine as he looks down at me. “Yeah.”

“And Aspen’s going to be a big sister.”

That breaks him a little. Dean closes his eyes and exhales through his nose.

“Fuck.”

“Good fuck or bad fuck?”

“Very fucking good.”

I smile, tracing my thumb along his knuckles.