The next few weeks passed in a warm, steady rhythm that felt, to Ivy, like the particular kind of peace she'd once been terrified to fully believe in, wedding chaos and Holt's threats and even the recent Ashworth complication all settling into the past, replaced by the quiet, precious ordinariness of early pregnancy and a career she'd genuinely built with her own two hands.

The first ultrasound came at ten weeks, Ivy and Sterling crowded into a small exam room, both of them holding their breath at the particular, surreal sight of a small, flickering heartbeat on the screen.

"That's really happening," Sterling said, voice thick with wonder, his hand...