Chapter Text

The fluorescent light in the private bathroom attached to his office reverberated off the cold white walls, creating an unnatural glare that hammered his already sensitive eyes. Gao Tu stood motionless in front of the porcelain sink, but he couldn't see his reflection in the mirror. His entire world had been reduced to a small plastic object he held between his trembling fingers. In an unconscious gesture of anxiety, he bit his index finger, the pressure of his teeth a familiar point of pain amid the whirlwind of his emotions. The tip of his shoe tapped against the linoleum floor in a rapid, nervous rhythm, a drumbeat that betrayed the internal storm.

The last few weeks had been a slow accumulation of subtle but persistent discomforts that his mind, trained in the logic of medicine, had resisted interpreting. The mild dizziness he attributed to overwork. The morning sickness, which had started as an occasional twinge and had now become a faithful and unpleasant presence that accompanied him from the moment he opened his eyes. But beyond the physical symptoms was the emotional need, exhausting and unprecedented. A desperate longing to be close to Shen Wenlang's iris scent. It wasn't just a craving; it was a necessity, like breathing. He longed for the solidity of the Alpha's arms around his body, not with passion, but with the urgency of a refuge, an anchor in the rising tide of his confusion.

It had been a little over a year and a half since “going out” had become "building a life together." A year and a half of dates, dinners, silly arguments and sweet reconciliations, of learning the corners of each other's souls. And now, this possible outcome of their love filled him with paralyzing terror. The fear was a cold claw in his stomach, exacerbating his nausea. He was almost thirty. Wasn't he too old for this? Too risky? His mind, always quick to search for facts, rummaged through medical articles he had read about pregnancies in older Omegas. The risks, the potential complications... He felt vulnerable, his body no longer his alone, and the possibility that it harbored a life both terrified and amazed him in equal measure.

It all went back to a specific episode a few weeks earlier. His heat had come with a wild intensity, and Shen Wenlang, in his corresponding RUT, had responded with primal devotion. Three days. Three whole days locked in Gao Tu's apartment, immersed in a cycle of intense and almost continuous coupling. The outside world had ceased to exist. And at the climax of that biological frenzy, Shen Wenlang had knotted inside him. It wasn't the first time, but this time had been different. Deeper, more possessive, more final. A seed of doubt had been planted then in the depths of his Omega instinct.

He had tried to convince himself that it was just suggestion, end-of-year nerves, stress. But the doubt was a persistent worm. Today, the uncertainty had become unbearable. He had left the hospital at lunchtime, and in a distant pharmacy where no one would recognize him, he had randomly bought, his cheeks burning with shame, a couple of different pregnancy tests, without even looking at the brands. Now, back in the supposed safety of her bathroom, the verdict was there. Not in one, but in both small plastic windows. Two pink lines, clear and unmistakable. Positive.

Positive.

The word echoed in his skull with the force of a gong. The air escaped from his lungs. He was pregnant! The confirmation was like a punch in the diaphragm, simultaneously terrifying and delirious.

And as if the universe wanted to rubber-stamp the news, a wave of nausea, stronger than all the previous ones, washed over him. He turned clumsily and lunged toward the toilet cubicle, kneeling just in time for the miserable cheese crackers and glass of milk he had managed to ingest in the morning to be violently expelled. Spasms shook his body, leaving him gasping and weak, with the bitter taste of bile in his throat and cold sweat beading on his forehead.

He leaned against the cold wall of the cubicle, closing his eyes. Now it all made sense. Not only his symptoms, but also Shen Wenlang's behavior in recent days. The Alpha, normally so calm and controlled, had been unusually nervous, more clingy than usual, his gaze resting on Gao Tu with a questioning affectation, as if he too was trying to decipher a subtle change in the air, in his scent. Had he suspected it? Had he sensed the faint transformation beginning in the essence of his Omega?

Staying there, kneeling on the cold bathroom floor, was not an option. With a tremor running through his entire body, Gao Tu stood up, rinsed his mouth in the sink, and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was pale, his eyes too bright. Inside him, a life was beginning. Fear and excitement fought a battle, but above all, one conviction emerged: he had to tell Shen Wenlang. The journey they had begun together was about to take a considerable turn, and he could not, nor did he want to, travel it alone.

Leaving the bathroom was like crossing a threshold between two realities. The clinical coldness of the office clashed with the sensory chaos roaring inside him. With a calmness that felt borrowed and fragile, Gao Tu approached the nurse on duty. 

"Please cancel or reschedule my afternoon appointments. Something... urgent has come up." His voice sounded strange to his own ears, too calm for the turmoil that was overwhelming him. The nurse, accustomed to Dr. Gao's impeccable professionalism, nodded with slight surprise but without question.

His feet carried him through the neat corridors of the private wing, not as the confident doctor he was, but as a castaway seeking dry land. His destination was not his office, nor the cafeteria. He headed for a specific area, a small, quiet waiting room reserved for family members, strategically located near the VIP operating rooms. Here, anxiety had a different influence, more contained, more luxurious, but no less profound.

He sank into one of the leather armchairs, feeling the cold material give way under his weight. His gaze fixed on the large double doors of the operating room at the end of the hallway. Behind them, Shen Wenlang was immersed in the precise choreography of surgery. Gao Tu could imagine him: his forehead furrowed in concentration under the lamp, his hands, those same hands that hours earlier had caressed him with devotion, now wielding the scalpel with lethal skill, his iris scent contained by the mask but permeating the sterile space with its innate authority.

Wait. That was all he could do. Wait and let the reality of the small object he still kept in his coat pocket sink in. He was pregnant. The word, now internalized, no longer caused blind panic, but a wave of practical thoughts and mixed emotions. He would need an obstetrician. And not just any obstetrician. His mind, searching for something familiar, clung to a name: Jiang Xiaoshuai.

Since that chance encounter in the cafeteria, his friendship with the other Omega had blossomed with an ease that Gao Tu didn't know he required. Jiang Xiaoshuai was like sunshine: warm, direct, and devoid of the layer of skepticism he often found in others. They shared not only the experience of being Omegas in a profession dominated by Alphas, but also a growing trust. Jiang Xiaoshuai would take good care of him. He would treat him not only as a patient, but as a friend, with the sensitivity and understanding that this situation, so fraught with meaning, deserved.

And then there was the example of Sheng Shaoyou. Seeing the powerful Alpha transform into a devoted father, visibly in love with his eight-month-old son, the fruit of his union with Hua Yong, had been a quiet but powerful revelation for Gao Tu. It was proof, a beacon showing that it was possible to balance a demanding career, a complex relationship, and fatherhood. That an S-class Alpha could be, behind closed doors, a tender partner and a present father. That image, more than any words, had been eroding his own fears about what a family with Shen Wenlang might mean.

So there he was, in the silent lobby, with the slight, persistent discomfort in his stomach, the nausea in his throat, and his heart beating at a new and terrifying pace. Waiting. Waiting for the operating room doors to open and the man he loved, the father of the life beginning to grow inside him, to come out to meet him. 

Time in the lobby had stretched out, each second weighing heavily. The low hum of the ventilation system was the only sound, a monotonous accompaniment to the whirlwind of thoughts spinning in Gao Tu's mind. Each beat of his heart echoed in his ears, synchronized with the faint discomfort that lingered in his stomach, a constant, physical reminder of the verdict he carried in his pocket.

Then, with a soft hiss of pressurized air, the large double doors of the operating room swung open.

Shen Wenlang emerged first. His tall figure, framed in the doorway, seemed to radiate the concentrated intensity of the last few hours. He was still wearing his surgical gown, stained in places with faint splashes of water, and his mask hung loosely around his neck, revealing a line of fatigue around his mouth. His brow was furrowed, the remnants of his calculated concentration still etched on his face as he nodded his head, listening intently to the words of a Beta colleague walking beside him, probably going over the postoperative details.

At that moment, Shen Wenlang was purely the surgeon, the department head, an unflappable and distant figure of authority. But then, as if an internal magnet had spun his compass, his gaze drifted away from the Beta. It swept across the lobby automatically, and then stopped. It latched onto the slightly hunched, seated figure of Gao Tu.

The change was instantaneous and profound. The hardness in his eyes melted like ice under the sun. The lines of tension on his forehead softened, replaced by a gentle wrinkle of concern. His entire body, which moments before had been upright with the rigidity of command, seemed to relax a degree, his attention focusing entirely on the Omega waiting for him. It was such a rapid and complete transformation that it was as if he had removed a mask, revealing the man who existed only for Gao Tu.

He dismissed his colleague Beta with a brief gesture, his gaze no longer belonging to him. His steps, which had been firm and decisive as he left the operating room, became slower, almost cautious, as he crossed the distance between them. His iris scent, previously contained by the sterile environment, seemed to intensify, enveloping Gao Tu in a familiar fragrance that promised him security, home. He stopped in front of him, his eyes scanning his face from a height that saw everything: the paleness, the slight dampness on his temples that betrayed his previous discomfort, the barely veiled weakness in his eyes.

"Gao Tu," his voice said, softer than it had been when speaking to his colleague, a note of question and deep concern intertwined in that simple pronunciation of his name. He didn't ask, "What's wrong?" or "Are you okay?" His name was the complete question, loaded with the understanding that Gao Tu's presence here, at this moment, waiting for him like this, could only mean one thing: something fundamental had changed.

For a fleeting, inappropriate moment, a sarcastic phrase, a habitual defense, crossed Gao Tu's mind: "We're done here." But he dismissed it immediately. Savoring the words in his mouth tasted like ashes, like an immaturity that no longer belonged to him. They were grown men, not brats. Doctors who had faced life and death, who had fought tooth and nail for their place. To stoop to a nervous teenage joke would have been a betrayal of everything they had overcome together.

Instead, with a fortitude that felt carved out of the depths of his being, he shoved his hands into the wide pockets of his white coat. The movement was slow, deliberate. Shen Wenlang, who was waiting for a verbal response, an explanation, became visibly anxious. His fingers twitched slightly, his gaze intensified, searching Gao Tu's face for a clue. But when he saw him pull something out, his expression changed from anxiety to utter confusion.

Gao Tu extended his arm. In his palm lay the two pregnancy tests, the small plastic windows displaying the two pink lines irrefutably.

Shen Wenlang froze. His body, normally so full of conscious grace, seemed to disconnect from his brain for a full second. He moved by inertia, his hand rising automatically to take the objects. His fingers, large and capable of millimeter-precise surgery, closed with an almost reverential gentleness around the tests. His stormy black eyes fixed on them. The outside world—the hum of the ventilation, the distant sound of a page turning over the loudspeakers—faded away completely. Only those two lines existed, an encrypted message that he was deciphering with the slowness of someone who cannot believe what he is seeing.

The silence stretched out, heavy with meaning. It was Gao Tu who broke it, with a question that came out of nowhere, an absurd, bittersweet thought that slipped out of his mouth.

"What do you think Liang would have thought if he were still here and realized I'm pregnant?"

It was a poisonous name, the embodiment of all the contempt and obstacles they had faced. A boor whose fall from grace, along with that of his grandfather and the revelation of his own father's corruption, had been the icing on the cake of their ruin. To mention him at this moment was like summoning a ghost in a sanctuary.

Shen Wenlang looked up from the tests, and for a moment, a quick frown of irritation crossed his face at the intrusion of that name. But the expression faded as quickly as it had come, swept away by a wave of much happier emotion. Instead of answering the rhetorical question, he took a step forward, closed the distance between them, and wrapped Gao Tu in an embrace.

It was an instinctive, pure gesture that transcended the professional etiquette of their stained robes. He held him tightly, as if afraid he would vanish, burying his nose in Gao Tu's neck, inhaling deeply his sage scent, now tinged with a new, subtle mystery. But rationality quickly returned; he pulled back slightly, conscious of his own surgical filth.

And then, Gao Tu saw it. The Alpha's eyes, those eyes that could be as cold as surgical steel, were glistening with a film of unshed tears. Shen Wenlang's breathing was a little ragged.

"I love you," came from his lips in a hoarse whisper, laden with a complex emotion that broke his voice. "And... thank you."

Gao Tu, his heart beating so hard he could feel it in his throat, let out a soft snort, a sound halfway between disbelief and overwhelming tenderness. He raised his hand and caressed Shen Wenlang's cheek, his thumb wiping away imaginary moisture from the corner of his eye.

"No one would believe me," Gao Tu murmured, his own voice trembling with a smile he couldn't contain, "that you, an S-Class Alpha, the feared Dr. Shen, would cry over news like this." His words were filled with deep, loving amazement.

Shen Wenlang grunted, a guttural, helpless sound, and buried his face in Gao Tu's lap, like a child seeking comfort. His arms closed around his waist with a tender but firm possessiveness. 

"The only ones I care about now," he said, his voice muffled by the fabric of Gao Tu's robe, "are you and our baby."

The hallway, miraculously, remained empty. There were no curious glances, no interruptions. In that quiet corner of the hospital, surrounded by the mingled scent of iris and sage, with the evidence of their shared future held in Shen Wenlang's hand, the powerful Alpha shed all his armor, kneeling symbolically not before the world, but before the miracle they had created together. And Gao Tu, stroking his hair, knew that any fears he harbored would dissipate, because in this man's vulnerability he found his own infinite strength.

.

.

.

The afternoon sun filtered through the large windows of Sheng Shaoyou's mansion, illuminating a scene of domestic bliss. Gao Tu, with a smile of affectionate exasperation, gave Sheng Shaoyou the middle finger as he writhed with laughter on the sofa, unable to contain the laughter brought on by the photo Gao Tu had just shown him on his phone.

"Your face!" Sheng Shaoyou gasped between laughs, wiping away a tear. "You looked like a scared hedgehog. Wenlang should frame it."

Gao Tu whispered, putting his phone away. The conversation had turned to pregnancy, a topic that was now deeply personal to him. Sheng Shaoyou, with a simplicity that still surprised him, had told him about his own experience: he was the one who had carried Hua Sheng in his womb.

At first, Gao Tu thought it was a bad joke. The idea of an S-class Alpha as prestigious as Sheng Shaoyou experiencing pregnancy seemed biologically absurd to him. But then Sheng Shaoyou showed him the photos. Images that captured his transformation: the firm flatness of his abdomen giving way to a soft, unmistakable roundness, the happy exhaustion in his eyes in the last few months, the medical reports confirming the impossible. The evidence was irrefutable.

And now, seeing Sheng Shaoyou with his son, any lingering doubts dissipated. The Alpha radiated a quiet, deep happiness that was contagious. In his arms, Hua Sheng, a chubby baby with skin so white and pure it looked like porcelain, cooed contentedly. Most surprising was that the little one seemed to have instantly taken a liking to Gao Tu. Although the Omega still showed no hint of a bump on his flat belly, his scent had begun to change, becoming sweeter and more complex, a fragrance that the baby seemed to find irresistible.

"An Enigma can do that to you," Gao Tu concluded in a tone of resigned amazement, leaning down to leave a soft kiss on Hua Sheng's cheek. The baby responded with a bubbly giggle, a sound so pure that it warmed the hearts of not only his father, but also his Omega "uncle."

Sheng Shaoyou watched the scene with a tender smile. 

"Do you think he's an Enigma too?" Gao Tu asked, looking at the little one curiously.

"I don't know," Sheng Shaoyou replied with a shrug. "Hua Yong says it's too early to tell. But if he is, he would be someone... very skilled. With unique potential."

He reached out his arms to claim his son, an instinctive protective gesture. Although Gao Tu seemed perfectly fine, Sheng Shaoyou didn't want to risk his carrying too much weight in his condition. Gao Tu handed over the baby with some reluctance; the little one's warmth and trust were addictive.

"When are you having your ultrasound?" Sheng Shaoyou asked, settling Hua Sheng on his lap.

"Next week," Gao Tu replied, unable to stop a nervous, excited smile from spreading across his lips as he said it. Those words made everything so real. The week he would see, for the first time, the tiny spark of life growing inside him. The week Shen Wenlang, with his surgeon's hands, would hold he's as they both gazed at the future on a black-and-white screen.

For a moment, he allowed himself to imagine: would it be a girl with his father's seriousness? A boy with his stubbornness? Or perhaps, as Hua Sheng suggested, something completely unique? The fear was still there, a whisper at the base of his skull, but now it was drowned out by a torrent of anticipation and a love that was growing as fast as the life inside him. Looking at Sheng Shaoyou and his son was not just seeing a happy family; it was glimpsing a possible future for himself, a future that, against all odds, felt incredibly bright.

The calmness on Sheng Shaoyou's face was soothing. As he smoothed Hua Sheng's tiny clothes with expert movements, his words fell on Gao Tu with the gentle weight of shared experience. "Everything will be fine, Gao Tu," he said, his voice calm but firm. "I remind you that we are both the same age. And besides, you are an Omega. Our bodies, though different, are designed for this. Each of us goes through unique experiences at the time of birth, but the strength to get through them is the same." It wasn't mere empty comfort; it was the affirmation of an equal who had walked a similar path and made it safely to the other side, with a happy child in his arms to prove it.

Gao Tu nodded, feeling a knot of anxiety loosen slightly in his chest. Sheng Shaoyou's logic was unassailable. They were colleagues, contemporaries, and although their secondary dynamics placed them on different biological paths, the essence of the challenge—creating and bringing a life into the world—was common ground.

That new reality soon translated into practical adjustments at the hospital. Their schedules were modified, prioritizing morning shifts and drastically limiting nighttime overtime. Gao Tu had feared that the pregnancy would take him away from his passion. He imagined himself, pale and nauseous, having to flee the operating room at the sight of blood or the rawness of an open fracture. But to his surprise and relief, his professionalism proved stronger than his physical aversions.

He could keep up. Him mind remained clear, his hands steady. The difference lay in caution. He now worked with a heightened awareness of his surroundings, minimizing his exposure to the cacophony of pheromones from patients and colleagues. Some scents, once imperceptible or merely annoying, now triggered instant waves of nausea. He had learned to schedule two-hour breaks in an empty office, a temporary sanctuary where he could breathe filtered air and regain his balance.

His most peculiar, yet incredibly effective, tool was a small plush blanket Shen Wenlang had given him. It was saturated to the core with the Alpha's distinctive iris scent. Gao Tu would fold it carefully and tuck it inside his surgical mask. It was an intimate and somewhat ridiculous act, but that familiar fragrance, reminiscent of home and safety, acted as a powerful antidote to the nausea induced by other scents, allowing him to focus on his work.

And then there was Jiang Xiaoshuai. The other Omega had become a constant and comforting presence, a medical guardian angel. Ever since Gao Tu confided in him, Jiang Xiaoshuai had been immensely attentive to him. His advice was not intrusive, but practical and full of genuine solidarity. He talked to him about first-trimester dizziness, the importance of hydration, and, with gentle but firm insistence, recommended that he take a break from surgery.

"The smells in the operating room are very intense, Gao Tu," he would say, his boyish face full of concern. "The combination of disinfectant, blood, and the pheromones of stressed staff... it's too much for your system right now. You could get dizzy."

At first, Gao Tu, with his professional pride, resisted. He saw himself as capable of overcoming it. But Jiang Xiaoshuai, astutely, took his concerns directly to Shen Wenlang. Gao Tu saw them once, at the end of the hallway of his clinic: Jiang Xiaoshuai, gesturing vehemently, while Shen Wenlang listened with an increasingly grave expression. The Alpha, whose protective instinct was at its peak, didn't need much persuasion.

After that, Gao Tu's surgical assignments were significantly reduced. And instead of feeling belittled or frustrated, Gao Tu found himself laughing and nodding at his friend's advice. Stubbornness gave way to logic and obvious care. He recognized that Jiang Xiaoshuai, from his experience as an obstetrician, saw risks that his own determination prevented him from admitting. So he accepted the changes with a resigned and grateful smile, knowing that this support network—from the overprotective Alpha to the obstetrician friend—was weaving a safe environment around him so that he, and the little being growing inside him, could flourish.