Chapter 3 The pregnancy

Weeks passed.

Helen hadn't meant for that night with Sebastian to linger. It was supposed to be a moment-fleeting, reckless, a balm on an open wound. But the memory clung to her skin like the scent of his cologne on her pillow the next morning. Subtle. Lingering. Impossible to forget.

Then the sickness began.

At first, she blamed stress. She started Skipping meals. She also started having Sleepless nights. But the nausea persisted-morning after morning, like clockwork. The realization came slowly, then all at once, curling around her like panic wrapped in quiet dread.

A pregnancy test confirmed what her body already knew.

She was pregnant.

She stared at the faint pink lines, heart pounding, lips parting in disbelief. A hollow laugh escaped her throat-part wonder, part terror.

Sebastian. A stranger, really. A name. A night. A memory. But now-connected to her in the most permanent way imaginable.

She sat in silence for hours, cradling the test in her hands like a relic. Shame nipped at the edges of her mind-this wasn't planned. It wasn't right. And yet, somewhere beneath the confusion, beneath the fear, there was a tiny flicker of something else.

Hope.

She thought of Steven then-not with longing, but with clarity. She remembered Valerie's perfume lingering in their bedroom. The way Steven had become a ghost in his own home long before he physically left it. He hadn't broken her heart in one sharp moment. He'd eroded it, piece by piece.

But Sebastian-he had looked at her like she was still whole.

She didn't tell him right away. She wasn't sure how. But his number sat in her phone with unanswered messages staring back at her with quiet patience.

Sebastian: I keep thinking about you. Hope you're okay.

Sebastian: If you want space, I'll give it. Just... don't disappear. Please.

Those words stayed with her.

Eventually, she met him again. In the same bar. Different night. Different version of herself.

She didn't tell him everything-not yet. But she saw the same storm in his eyes, the same gentleness beneath the steel. And something new: a lightness. Like he'd been holding his breath and exhaled when he saw her walk through the door.

Over coffee the next morning, she finally said it.

"I'm pregnant."

The words trembled as they left her mouth. She braced for shock, for denial, for panic.

But Sebastian didn't flinch.

He reached across the table, his hand resting over hers.

"i will be with you and stay by you no matter what ," he said simply.

She felt something growing inside her, it was no longer a mistake. It was a beginning.

---

The contractions came like waves crashing into the shore-relentless, raw, and unmerciful. Helen gripped Sebastian's hand as the car sped toward St. Agnes Memorial Hospital, her other hand pressed to her swollen belly. Her long chestnut hair clung to her damp forehead, her green eyes filled with both fear and wonder. She was ready-at least as ready as one could be to bring life into the world.

Sebastian's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. His broad frame was tense, but his voice was calm, composed-more for her than for himself. His sandy-brown hair was tousled, his deep-set blue eyes fixed ahead, but every so often he'd glance at Helen, concern etched into every feature.

Inside the hospital, the scent of antiseptic hung heavy in the air. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, and the rhythm of beeping monitors and the soft murmur of voices filled the sterile corridors of the maternity wing.

Helen was quickly admitted, her condition critical but stable. As nurses ushered her into the delivery room, Sebastian was left behind, pacing the hallway like a trapped animal. He clenched and unclenched his fists, jaw tight, heart pounding with helplessness.

Across the city, a storm of a different kind was unfolding.

Valerie grunted in pain as Kenneth half-dragged her through the hospital entrance, her face pale and contorted. Her lipstick was smeared, and her once-carefully done hair now clung to her temples in wild strands. Her sharp, angular features twisted in frustration as the contractions tore through her.

"Where the hell is Steven?" Kenneth snapped at the receptionist, voice sharp with irritation. "She's in labor."

Valerie didn't answer. She already knew Steven wasn't coming. He hadn't answered her calls. Not today. Not now.

Kenneth had never liked Steven-but seeing his sister humiliated, abandoned on the day she was to give birth to his child, ignited something darker. Something that would soon grow into betrayal.

---

Back in the delivery room, Helen screamed through the final push. Her body trembled, soaked in sweat, but her spirit held firm. The nurse-a soft-spoken woman with tired eyes-offered her steady encouragement.

"You're doing amazing. Just one more."

Helen gritted her teeth and bore down.

A cry.

A piercing, miraculous cry split the air.

"It's a girl!" the nurse said, her voice full of emotion. "A healthy, beautiful baby girl."

Helen collapsed onto the pillows, her face glowing with exhausted joy. Her fingers trembled as she reached for the baby.

Sebastian entered just as the nurse placed the child in Helen's arms. Tears slipped from his eyes as he knelt beside the bed, brushing sweat-matted hair from Helen's brow. "She's perfect," he whispered, kissing Helen's forehead. "You're both perfect."

"I want to name her Sharon," Helen said softly, her voice full of wonder. "Sharon Grace."

---

Across the hospital, silence reigned.

Valerie lay pale and trembling, her mascara streaked down her cheeks. There was no joy. No cries. Just the deafening sound of absence.

The doctor, his silver hair damp with sweat, held a still, quiet form in his arms.

"She didn't make it," he said softly.

Valerie's eyes widened in disbelief. She shook her head. "No. No, no, that's not-she had to live. She had to-" Her voice cracked as she covered her face.Valerie was so full of sadness and Shane because her plans of using her baby to inherit Steven's wealth and to get into Steven's life of wealth seems to be destroyed.Valerie knew that Steven only slept with her without protection because he was frustrated and this gave her the opportunity to be pregnant for Steven.She knew that Steven will hardly sleep with her without protection.So she took Kenneth to the corner of the hospital to explain what she feels and why swapping a baby is important.

Kenneth, standing stiffly,looked at the doctor with cold determination. "You know what to do."

The doctor named Williams hesitated. "This is... not something we should be discussing-"

Kenneth pulled a folded check from his coat pocket and held it out. "Eighty thousand dollars. You get paid, and this never happened. The father of Helen's baby isn't even here. Neither is Steven."

The doctor stared at the check... and then at the baby in his arms.

He nodded.

That night, in the cover of shadows and silence, a baby was taken from one mother's arms and placed in another's.

A baby who still breathed was passed into death's cradle.

A lie was born, more lasting than either child's first breath.

---

It wasn't the silence that first struck Helen-it was the stillness.

The kind that hangs in the air like breath held too long, like the pause between lightning and thunder.

She lay propped against white hospital pillows, her dark auburn hair matted to her temples with sweat, face pale and luminous with the sheen of exertion and something deeper-exhaustion laced with fragile joy. Her hazel eyes, rimmed red from tears of pain and wonder, widened as the nurse entered.

In her arms was the bundle.

Wrapped in soft pink fleece, the baby was nestled like a secret. The nurse-young, with bright green scrubs and tired kindness in her features-walked quietly to the bed, gently setting the infant in Helen's waiting arms.

"She's just sleepy," she said with a practiced, automatic smile, the kind nurses wear when they don't want to alarm a mother.

Helen looked down, her arms trembling.

The baby's skin was porcelain-pale, her cheeks still flushed from birth, but her lips had the faint bluish tint of something not quite right. Her dark lashes rested against her cheeks. Her fingers-delicate as the wings of a moth-were curled but too still.

Too still.

And her chest-

It wasn't rising.

"She's not..." Helen's voice broke, fragile as glass. Her gaze locked on the tiny, unmoving ribcage. "She's not breathing."

Sebastian turned from the window, where pale morning light streaked across his shoulder. His build was lean but strong, wrapped in a worn navy hoodie and jeans. He had a day's stubble on his square jaw, and eyes the color of stormy skies. They narrowed in confusion. Then panic.

"What? That's not-she cried. I heard her cry."

The nurse's smile faltered. Her composure cracked. She scooped the infant from Helen's arms with sudden urgency, her lips pressed tight, and rushed from the room. A sharp voice echoed down the hallway. "Code blue-nursery three-code blue!"

The door slammed shut.

And time fractured.

Helen felt as though the earth had tilted. Her arms, now empty, ached with phantom weight. Her chest heaved. Her face crumpled as the shock detonated. "Sebastian-what's happening? I held her. I named her Sharon..."

Sebastian was at her side in an instant. He took her hand, clutched it like a lifeline. His face was ghost-white, his breath ragged. "I don't know. I don't know."

Minutes passed-or maybe hours. Time stretched out, viscous and surreal. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and roses. The monitors beeped. Flowers in vases leaned like mourners.

Then the door opened.

The doctor entered-mid-50s, silver hair at his temples, his face carved with solemn professionalism. His eyes didn't meet hers at first.

"There were... complications," he said softly. "I'm so sorry. She didn't make it."

Helen screamed.

It wasn't human. It wasn't from her throat-it came from someplace deeper, some primal part of her soul that cracked open in that moment. Her cry shook the walls, startled the nurses outside.

She clutched at the sheets. At Sebastian. At the space where her daughter had just been.

"My baby-no. No. She was alive. She was real-I felt her kick. I named her. Sharon-her name is Isabella-"

Sebastian held her as she collapsed into him, her face buried in his chest, her sobs ripping through the quiet. His arms wrapped around her with trembling strength. He kissed her hair, even as his own tears fell silently, dotting her gown.

"I carried her for nine months," Helen choked. "She was mine. Mine."

"I know," Sebastian whispered. His voice was hoarse, breaking. "She is yours. She always will be."

---

The days that followed bled together.

Outside, spring bloomed-cherry blossoms scattered across the pavement, wind sighing through greening trees-but inside her hospital room, it was winter. Cold. Hollow.

Cards lined the window sill-"With deepest sympathy," "So sorry for your loss," "Our thoughts are with you"-but none touched the black hole in her chest.

Helen sat in her hospital bed, staring blankly. Her auburn hair was now pulled into a careless braid, her eyes dull and shadowed. She looked like a ghost in a pale blue robe, her skin almost translucent. Her hands, once full of life and purpose, lay limp in her lap.

Then they came.

Anita-tall, statuesque, with warm cocoa-toned skin and coiled black curls piled high on her head. She wore a burgundy scarf and smelled faintly of vanilla. Her voice was low, gentle.

Elizabeth-fiery red hair cut short, sharp cheekbones, fierce green eyes. She entered like a storm, but knelt by Helen's bedside like a sister, her presence fierce and grounding.

And Lilian-plump, soft, the scent of chamomile and lavender clinging to her clothes. Her touch was always feather-light. She didn't speak unless she had to, but when she did, her voice wrapped around Helen like a blanket.

They didn't try to fill the silence.

They sat with her in it.

They didn't rush her grief. Didn't feed her platitudes. They made tea. They held her hands. They listened.

"You have to move on," Anita murmured one dusky evening, brushing Helen's hair from her eyes. "Just... move. One breath. One step."

"She mattered," Elizabeth said, her voice fierce with conviction. "Sharon mattered. Even if the world doesn't know it, we do."

"You'll never be the same," Lilian added, her eyes shining with shared sorrow. "But you'll survive. That's what we do."

---

Sebastian never left.

His grief was quieter, but no less deep. It lived in the lines of his face, the way his jaw tightened when her name was spoken. In the way he folded the hospital bracelet and kept it in his wallet. In the way he whispered Isabella's name at night like a litany.

He handled the funeral-small, private, beneath the cherry trees. Helen wore black. She couldn't speak. Sebastian did. His voice cracked. The sky wept with them.

They were broken-but breathing.

They went back to the places that remembered them. The park where she used to walk, hand on her belly. The little corner bar where they'd first met-him nervous, her laughing into her drink.

Grief walked beside them. But so did something else-faint, flickering, stubborn.

Hope.

The truth-the real truth-remained buried.

Only one man knew the baby Helen held wasn't hers,his named is Doctor williams.But Kenneth and Valerie only knew that their still born baby was swapped but they did not know that the swapped baby that he are carrying now is from helen.

they didn't know that the baby taken for their twisted plan-the one they thought disposable-was Helen's daughter.

Alive.

But stolen.

Somewhere out there, her child breathed. Her heart beat. Her eyes opened to a world she'd been ripped into.

That truth would rise.

But not today.

Today, Helen wept.

And she survived.