Chapter 30: The Doctor's Examination
The silence after Selene’s pronouncement was thick, punctuated only by the crisp snap of her gloves as she peeled them off. Izzy slowly sat up, the paper sheet on the examination table crinkling beneath her. She smoothed her dress back down over her knees, the gesture automatic, a return to modesty that felt oddly performative after such clinical exposure. Her skin still hummed with the ghost of the doctor’s touch, overlaid on the much deeper, more resonant memory of Dom’s from that morning.
Selene wiped her hands meticulously on a white towel, her movements precise. She didn’t look at Dom, who hadn’t moved from the doorway. His crossed arms and solid stance turned the frame into a border between this sterile moment and the rest of their sun-drenched, complicated world.
“Any day now,” Selene repeated, her voice carefully neutral. She finally looked at Izzy, then let her gaze flicker to Dom. “The cervix is soft, beginning to efface. It’s a favorable sign. But as I said, you might want to… manage timing before the next visit. For clarity’s sake.”
Dom’s chin dipped a fraction. “Noted.”
Izzy swung her legs off the table, the tile cool on her bare feet. “So, we just wait?”
“You wait, you hydrate, you walk.” Selene packed her instruments into a leather bag. “You listen to your body. It will tell you. The first ones can be slow, or they can come like a freight train. There’s no blueprint.” She closed the bag with a definitive click. “Call me at the first regular contraction. Or if your water breaks. Obviously.”
The word ‘obviously’ hung there. Nothing was obvious here. Not the relationship, not the family structure, not the fluid on the doctor’s glove. Selene shouldered her bag and offered a thin, professional smile. “You’re in excellent physical shape, Izzy. Your body knows what to do.”
She nodded at Dom and walked past him into the hall. He didn’t move, forcing her to slide slightly sideways to pass his bulk. It wasn’t aggressive, just a silent assertion of his presence, a territorial marking made with sheer physical space.
They heard her footsteps recede on the tile, the distant front door open and shut. The villa seemed to exhale.
Izzy let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Well. That was… unambiguous.”
Dom pushed off the doorframe and walked into the room. He stopped in front of her, his eyes scanning her face. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just feel… scrutinized. More than usual.” She reached for his hand, lacing her fingers through his. “You?”
“I don’t care about her clarity.” He brought their joined hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “I care about yours. You heard her. Any day now.”
The reality of it, stated aloud by a medical professional, landed with a new, concrete weight. The abstract future crystallized into a window of hours, maybe days. The foundational morning sex felt like both a farewell and a preparation.
A heavy thump from downstairs echoed through the villa, followed by a gruff, accented voice calling out. “Signor Toretto? Il frigorifero?”
“The fridge guy,” Dom said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Logistics.”
He helped her off the table. She kept hold of his hand as they walked out of the room that had once been just their sanctuary, now a makeshift medical room, soon to be obsolete in its current function. Everything was in transition.
Downstairs, two men in blue coveralls were maneuvering a massive stainless steel refrigerator through the front door, its plastic wrapping squeaking against the marble floor. Dom released her hand and shifted seamlessly into overseer mode, directing them in curt, functional Italian toward the kitchen.
Izzy wandered into the sunlit living room, sinking into the plush sofa that faced the wall of windows. The turquoise sea was relentless in its beauty, a timeless contrast to the frantic, ticking clock inside her body. She rested her hands on her stomach. Any day now. She tried to feel for a sign, a hint, but there was only the usual pressure, the occasional squirming shift.
She heard Dom’s low voice, the clunk of the appliance settling into place, the rip of plastic, the murmur of invoices being signed. The mundane soundtrack of life insistently moving forward.
He appeared in the doorway, blocking the light for a second. “Done. It’s got dual cooling zones and an ice maker that makes those little crescent cubes you like.”
She smiled. “Priorities.”
“Always.” He came over and sat beside her, the couch dipping under his weight. He didn’t touch her, just sat in companionable silence, watching the sea. His proximity was its own kind of touch, a steady radiative heat.
“What are you thinking?” she asked after a while.
“About the drive to the clinic. The best route. Where to park.”
She laughed softly. “Of course you are.”
“It’s a fifteen-minute window under ideal conditions. Traffic on the coastal road after ten is unreliable. We leave at the first consistent sign.”
“Yes, boss.”
He turned his head to look at her. The sunlight caught the silver in his goatee, the faint webbing of lines at the corners of his eyes. The protective fierceness in his gaze was utterly calm, like the still eye of a hurricane. “This is the part we control. Getting you there. The rest is up to you and them. But this part, we own.”
She believed him. He owned roads, owned machines, owned the space around his family. It was his language. Her job was the internal, messy, miraculous work. His was the architecture of safe passage.
A sudden, sharp tightness banded across the lower part of her belly. It wasn’t pain, not exactly. It was an intense, compelling squeeze that stole her breath for a second, making her straighten up.
Dom was instantly alert. “What?”
“Just… a squeeze. Really strong.” She breathed through it, as Selene had instructed. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The pressure built, crested, and then ebbed away, leaving a vague, tingling aftermath.
He had his phone in his hand, stopwatch app open. “How long?”
“I don’t know. Twenty seconds?”
“Tell me when the next one starts.” His voice was low, focused. The mission was live.
They sat there for twenty minutes. The sea sparkled. The new refrigerator hummed to life in the kitchen. Another squeeze came, milder this time, a faint echo of the first.
“That’s not it,” she finally said, feeling a weird mix of disappointment and relief. “It’s gone. Just practice.”
Dom didn’t relax. He simply closed the app and slid the phone back into his pocket. The watchfulness stayed on him, a new layer of tension in his shoulders. “So we wait.”
He stood and held out his hand. “Come on. You’re supposed to walk. We’ll walk down to the cove and back. Slow.”
She took his hand. As he pulled her up, another sensation, wholly different, gave her pause. A subtle, internal shift, a settling, as if something heavy had dropped an inch lower inside her pelvis. She didn’t mention it. It wasn’t a contraction. It was just another silent