Chapter 252: I Tried, Kain

For three agonizing months, my hands had passed straight through her like smoke whenever I tried to touch her cheek or tuck her into her crib. But now, pressed tightly against Reid as he held us both, her little body felt solid, real, and impossibly soft.

Is it because Reid is holding her? Was his connection to me bridging the gap, letting his warmth carry her into my arms?

"My baby..." I whispered through a rush of breathless tears, my hand trembling as I reached down, my fingertips resting flat over the back of her small, velvet head. I could feel the soft fuzz of her fine blonde hair, the steady beat of her little heart, the gentle heat of her skin. "My Sarah..."

"I couldn’t do it without you, Cap," Reid choked out against my neck, his lips pressing wet, frantic kisses along my skin, terrified that if he stopped touching me I would fade back into the shadows. "I tried... God, I tried so hard, but it hurts so much..."

"You did do it," I sobbed back, resting my forehead against his, my thumb gently tracing our daughter’s warm, soft back. "Look at her, Reid. Look at what you did for her. You brought her here. I’ve been watching you every single day... you’re an amazing father."

"No, I’m not amazing," he said, fresh tears rolling down his cheeks as he pressed his head against mine. "Kain, I want to be with you. Please, take me with you."

My eyes widened in sheer horror, a sharp surge of adrenaline spiking through my ghostly chest. I shoved his shoulders back, forcing a space between us.

"Reid, don’t you dare say that!" I shouted, my voice cracking with desperation. "Do you even know what you’re saying? You... you want to die and leave our Sarah?!"

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His jaw trembled as he simply stood there, sobbing uncontrollably at the cruel, unyielding reality of me being a ghost.

"It’s my fault," he choked out, his chest heaving as he buried his wet face into the palms of his hands, his shoulders shaking violently. "I failed you, Kain. I couldn’t protect you, and you died. I..."

"Stop it! Stop saying that!" I cried, grabbing his wrists and yanking his hands away from his face, forcing him to look at me. "Listen to me, Reid McCoy! You did not fail me. Dying on that table wasn’t your fault, and I will not let you ruin your life—or hers—over guilt that doesn’t belong to you!"

I reached down, my trembling hands coming up to cradle the sides of our daughter’s warm, tiny body where she lay cradled against his chest. Sarah blinked her big grey eyes up at us, completely serene, oblivious to the storm raging between her parents.

"Look at our baby, Reid," I whispered, my own tears spilling over my lashes as I looked into his shattered grey eyes. "Look at our daughter. She needs you. She needs her father to stay here, to raise her, to love her, to tell her stories about me. If you give up now, then everything I fought for—everything we fought for—means nothing."

Reid swallowed hard, a ragged, wet gasp tearing from his throat as his eyes flicked down to Sarah, then back up to my face.

"I know she needs me, but..." he whispered, his voice completely broken. "I need you," his words broke my heart even further. "How am I supposed to live in a world where I can only touch you like a shadow?"

I fell silent.

The silence between us hung thick and agonizing in the cool night air, broken only by the distant hum of the city and the quiet, steady breathing of the baby asleep between us.

Reid’s broad chest heaved as fresh tears spilled over his lashes. He looked so small in that moment, stripped of all the fierce Alpha strength he usually wore like armor, standing before me as nothing more than a heartbroken man pleading with the universe for something it had already stolen.

"How am I supposed to keep waking up every morning..." Reid choked out, his voice dropping into a raw, hollow whisper that sliced straight through my soul, "...and pretend that half of me isn’t six feet under the dirt?"

My throat locked up. I reached out, my fingers trembling violently as I pressed my palm flat over his heart, feeling the frantic, agonizing thud against his ribs.

"Reid..." I breathed, the word barely carrying on the breeze.

"I tried, Kain. God, I swear to you I tried," he sobbed, his hand coming up to cover mine, pressing my palm harder against his chest as if trying to force my ghost back into his body. "Every time I hold her, every time she smiles, my heart breaks all over again because you’re not there to see it with me. I’m drowning, Cap. I’ve been drowning since the second they told me to accept that you were gone."

I looked down at Sarah, whose little hand had reached out in her sleep, her tiny fingers loosely curled around the lapel of Reid’s jacket. She was so innocent, so blissfully unaware of the crushing weight resting on her father’s shoulders.

I looked back up into Reid’s dark grey eyes—red-rimmed, shattered, and filled with a desperate, terrifying plea.

He didn’t want to abandon our daughter. He loved her with everything he had left. But the sheer, unrelenting agony of living without me was slowly carving him out from the inside, leaving him an empty shell.

"Reid, I’m sorry I’m making you suffer," I said, tears rolling down my cheeks before I even realized it. "Truth be told... I miss you so much. I want to hold you. I want to hold our daughter every single day... When you cry at night, I want to wipe your tears. I want to tell you it’s alright, but I..."

My words choked, a harsh sob catching in my chest.

"I know it’s because I’m selfish that my soul hasn’t crossed over. But that’s just the kind of person I’ve been from the start... I always want things to go my way. But how much longer... I can’t have things continue going my way. I can’t come back to life even if I wanted to."

I wiped frantically at my face, but the tears just kept coming, hot and relentless.

"I hate this more than anything. I hate that you’re hurting because of me. But Reid... it hurts me more knowing that you would leave our daughter this very moment if I stretched my hand out and asked you to join me... It’s diabolical."