Surviving the apocalypse with a wife and a system! [GL]

By the time the final trimester arrived, their home had transformed. A cradle room had been prepared with soft automated lighting and a sleep system that hummed like a heartbeat. Tiny clothes hung in a drawer that Bai Li had reorganized three times because she kept imagining everything by size and season and emotional practicality. Yan Cijin painted a mural above the cradle wall, a wide field of silver grass under a warm sky, so Lili would have something gentle to look at when she first opened her eyes. Bai Li installed the room’s safety systems herself and tested every panel twice. Yan Cijin called her overprotective. Bai Li called herself prepared. The truth was that both of them were nervous in the exact same way, and neither wanted to admit it too early.

Then came the night the city lights flickered.

It happened in the middle of a routine weather correction. A fault in the upper dome relay caused a brief power strain through three residential blocks, including theirs. It was not supposed to be dangerous, but the system responded badly to a stress chain in the older tower lines. Bai Li received the alert while she and Yan Cijin were eating a late dinner. One glance at the text, and she was on her feet.

Yan Cijin saw her face and immediately knew something was wrong. ”What happened?”

”Support grid fault,” Bai Li said, already reaching for her coat. ”I have to go up.”

Yan Cijin rose slowly, one hand resting against her belly. ”Now?”

”Now.”

Bai Li tried to sound calm, but Yan Cijin heard the tension underneath it. She crossed the room and put a hand on Bai Li’s chest. ”Look at me.”

Bai Li did.

Yan Cijin held her gaze and said, ”Fix it. Come home. Do not try to carry the whole city on your back.”

Bai Li smiled despite herself, then kissed her forehead. ”I will come back.”

”You better.”

The issue lasted longer than expected. A relay chain had overloaded, and the maintenance crew needed a manual override from the upper access platform. Bai Li worked through wind and static, her palms raw from gloves worn too long, while the city below glowed with a slow emergency haze. By the time she returned, her hair was damp, her coat streaked with dust, and her legs tired from climbing several repair ladders in a row.

She found Yan Cijin waiting at the door, awake despite the late hour, sitting in the soft lamp light with a blanket over her shoulders.

”You are late,” Yan Cijin said.

Bai Li dropped her tool case, crossed the room, and pulled Yan Cijin into a careful embrace. ”The grid fought back.”

Yan Cijin snorted softly, then rested her cheek against Bai Li’s shoulder. ”You smell like metal and rain.”

”You smell like tea and baby lotion.”

Yan Cijin laughed into her collar. ”I am not sure that is a compliment.”

”It is to me.”

Bai Li kissed her hair, then her cheek, then the corner of her mouth. Yan Cijin melted into her immediately, all the annoyance leaving her body like water. When Bai Li bent to kiss her stomach through the blanket, Yan Cijin made a tiny helpless sound.

”Stop that,” she whispered, but she was smiling.

Bai Li looked up at her with that shameless, handsome expression that always made Yan Cijin lose her balance a little. ”Make me.”

Yan Cijin should have been annoyed. Instead she tangled her fingers in Bai Li’s coat and drew her in for a kiss that tasted like relief. Bai Li’s hand settled warm against the side of her belly. Under her palm, Lili kicked once, hard enough that Bai Li laughed against Yan Cijin’s mouth.

”She knows I am here,” Bai Li said.

”She knows you are ridiculous,” Yan Cijin corrected, though she sounded fond.

The birth came three weeks later, on a night when the city sky was clear enough to show the bright programmed stars.

Helior’s birth systems were gentle, quiet, and deeply private. Yan Cijin had chosen a shared sensory chamber rather than a public clinical suite, and Bai Li stayed beside her through every phase, never once letting go of her hand. She was not the one carrying the main physical strain, but she still looked like she might fight the entire medical staff if anyone so much as frowned in the wrong direction. Dr. Shen had seen many couples like them and therefore remained completely unbothered.

The labor cycle was long and demanding. Yan Cijin was brave in a way that made Bai Li love her even harder. She cried once, not from fear but from the pressure of it all, and Bai Li kissed her face and told her how strong she was until Yan Cijin laughed weakly through tears and told her to be less handsome because it was distracting. Bai Li promised nothing.

When Lili finally arrived, the room went silent in that holy way only new life can create.

She was tiny, warm, and furious in the exact way healthy babies were supposed to be. Her first cry was loud enough to make Bai Li’s knees go weak. Dr. Shen lifted the child carefully, checked the readings, and then placed her into Yan Cijin’s arms.

Yan Cijin looked at her daughter and started crying all over again.

Bai Li had expected to feel joy. She had not expected the sudden crash of it, the way her chest seemed to break open and fill with light at the same time. She stood beside the bed, one hand braced on the rail, and stared at Lili like she could not understand how something so small could change the shape of an entire life.

Yan Cijin looked up at her through tears. ”Come here.”

Bai Li obeyed immediately.

Yan Cijin shifted the baby just enough so Bai Li could see her face. Lili blinked up at them, red and wrinkled and already undeniably theirs. Bai Li smiled so softly it nearly hurt.

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To be continued.