Flatline

**Sofia's POV:**

Seven seconds. That's how long the flatline lasted. Seven seconds of a single, unbroken tone that carved itself into my DNA. Seven seconds of watching nurses swarm Jaxon's incubator through glass that might as well have been a thousand miles thick. Seven seconds of knowing my son was dead.

*Beeeeeeeeeeeep.*

The sound didn't stop. It went on and on and—

*Beep.*

Weak. Stuttering. But there.

*Beep... beep... beep.*

"Rhythm's back!" A nurse's voice cut through the chaos. "Pulse is thready but present. Keep bagging him—"

My legs dissolved. Just—gone. Ace caught me before I hit the linoleum, his arms banding around my ribs so tight I couldn't breathe. Or maybe I'd already stopped breathing. Maybe I'd stopped when Jaxon's heart did and I just hadn't noticed yet.

"Sofia—" His voice cracked down the middle. "Sofia, he's—"

"I know." The words scraped out of my throat. "I know."

But I didn't know. Didn't know anything except the feel of Ace shaking against me—or maybe I was the one shaking—and the sound of individual beeps replacing that awful flatline and the taste of copper in my mouth from biting my tongue.

Through the window, I watched them work. Dr. Raines's hands flying over Jaxon's tiny body. A nurse adjusting the ventilator. Another checking the chest tube they'd just inserted, blood-tinged fluid draining into a collection chamber.

Someone was crying. It took me a moment to realize it was me.

---

**Ace's POV:**

I'd killed men without flinching. Tortured information out of people who'd betrayed me. Watched lives end and felt nothing except cold satisfaction that justice had been served.

But watching my son die for seven seconds—

That broke something in me I didn't know could break.

Sofia was still crying. Silent, shaking sobs that I felt through every point of contact between us. I held her tighter, burying my face in her hair because I couldn't look at that window anymore. Couldn't watch them work on Jaxon's body that was too small, too fragile, too impossibly breakable.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez?" Dr. Raines's voice.

We both jerked our heads up. She'd emerged from the NICU, surgical mask pulled down around her neck. Sweat dampened her hairline. Her hands—the ones that had just restarted my son's heart—trembled slightly as she pulled off her gloves.

"He's stable," she said. Fast. Direct. The way you deliver good news when you know people are drowning. "His heart restarted on its own once we decompressed the pneumothorax. The chest tube is in place and draining properly."

"On its own?" I heard myself ask. My voice sounded wrong. Distant. "What does that mean?"

"It means his body wanted to fight. We gave it the opportunity, and—" She gestured toward the NICU. "He took it. But I need you to understand, the next twelve to twenty-four hours are critical. We're monitoring for organ damage from the arrest, watching his brain activity closely. He's heavily sedated right now to minimize stress on his system."

Sofia's hand found mine. Squeezed so hard her nails bit into my palm. "Can we see him?" she whispered.

"Yes. In fact, I encourage it. Touch him. Talk to him. Your presence matters more than you know."

---

**Sofia's POV:**

The NICU smelled like antiseptic and recycled air and something underneath that might have been fear. Or maybe that was just me. Maybe I'd brought the fear in with me, seeping from my pores like sweat.

Jaxon's incubator sat in the corner, surrounded by machines that beeped and hissed and hummed. So many machines. Each one doing something his tiny body couldn't do on its own. Breathe. Regulate temperature. Monitor oxygen. Drain fluid from a lung that had collapsed under the weight of air it wasn't ready to process.

"Hi, baby." My voice cracked on the second word. I slid my hand through the porthole, my finger finding his palm. "It's Mommy. I'm here."

His fingers curled around mine. Just a reflex. I knew that. Knew it was just his nervous system responding to stimulus, not conscious recognition of his mother's touch. But God, it felt like everything.

"You scared us," I whispered. "You scared us so much. But you're okay. You're going to be okay. You have to be okay because—"

Because I'd already imagined his whole life. His first word. His first steps. Teaching him to read. Watching him graduate. Walking him down the aisle someday or handing him car keys or—

All of it. I'd imagined all of it in the months I'd carried him. And for seven seconds, I'd watched every imagined moment die.

"We're not going anywhere," Ace said from beside me. His hand joined mine inside the incubator, his pinky finger resting against Jaxon's forehead. "You hear that, kid? We're right here. We're not leaving you."

A nurse—Patricia, her name tag read—brought two chairs. "Here. You'll be more comfortable."

Comfortable. As if comfort was possible when your son was breathing through a tube and his heart had stopped beating and the only thing between him and death was a chest drain and machines and sheer stubborn will.

But I sat. Because standing meant I might fall, and falling meant someone would make me leave, and leaving was impossible.

So I sat. And touched my son. And counted each beep of the monitor like a prayer.

---

**Six hours later.**

Sofia had talked herself hoarse. She'd told Jaxon about the nursery—the walls painted soft blue, the crib with the mobile of planets and stars, the rocking chair where she'd planned to nurse him at 3 AM while the world slept.

She'd described the backyard, the swing set I'd had installed two months ago in optimistic anticipation of a future that had seemed so certain then. She'd promised him a dog. A golden retriever named something ridiculous like Pancake or Waffle because that's what tired parents did at 2 AM when their son needed distraction from the fact that he was fighting for his life.

Now she'd gone quiet. Her hand still touched Jaxon through the porthole, but her eyes had glazed over with exhaustion that went deeper than lack of sleep.

"You should rest," I said quietly.

"I'm fine."

"Sofia—"

"If I close my eyes, I'll see it again." Her voice was flat. Empty. "The flatline. The way his chest went still. The—" She broke off, swallowing hard. "I can't. Not yet."

I understood. Because every time I blinked, I saw it too. Seven seconds of death.

Dr. Raines returned around midnight, a tablet tucked under her arm. She studied Jaxon's monitors in silence for a long moment before turning to us.

"His vitals have been stable for the last six hours," she said. "Oxygen saturation at ninety-two percent. Heart rate consistent. The chest tube is draining less, which means the pneumothorax is resolving."

"What about his brain?" Sofia asked. The question we'd both been afraid to voice.

"We've been running a continuous EEG. So far—" Dr. Raines pulled up an image on her tablet. "We're seeing normal brain wave patterns for a thirty-two-week infant. No seizure activity. Good response to stimuli."

The breath I'd been holding for six hours released in a rush.

"But," Dr. Raines continued, because there was always a but, "we won't know the full extent of potential damage for days. Possibly weeks. Some effects don't show up immediately. We're watching for developmental delays, motor function issues, cognitive—"

"He's going to be fine." Sofia's voice cut through the medical litany like a blade. "He fought his way back. That means he's strong enough to be fine."

Dr. Raines didn't argue. Just nodded slowly. "He's definitely a fighter. But I want you both prepared for a long road ahead. Even in the best-case scenario, he'll be in the NICU for at least another month. Maybe longer."

After she left, Sofia turned to me. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face pale, her hair tangled from running her hands through it a thousand times. She'd never looked more beautiful.

"A month," she said. "We can do a month."

"We can do however long it takes," I corrected.

She leaned into me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, both of us watching our son breathe. Watching the numbers on his monitor hold steady. Watching him live.

---

**Sofia's POV:**

Dawn came slowly, gray light creeping through the NICU windows. The night shift nurses completed their final rounds with quiet efficiency born of routine. But this wasn't routine for us. Nothing about this was routine.

"Mrs. Hernandez?" Patricia approached with a gentle smile. "Dr. Raines approved reducing the ventilator settings. We're going to see if Jaxon can start doing some of the breathing work himself."

My stomach clenched. "What if he can't?"

"Then we increase the support again. But we need to start weaning him eventually. This is progress." She adjusted something on the ventilator. "Small steps. That's how we get through this."

I watched the monitor like a hawk as she made the adjustment. Jaxon's oxygen saturation dipped—89%, 87%—and my heart rate spiked. Then it climbed. 88%. 90%. 91%.

"Good," Patricia murmured. "His lungs are compensating. He's trying."

"He's trying," I echoed. As if trying was enough. As if trying could overcome biology and prematurity and the fact that his body wasn't ready for any of this.

But maybe it was enough. Maybe trying was all any of us had.

---

**Ace's POV:**

Ice showed up at 7 AM looking like he hadn't slept. He probably hadn't. None of us had. The whole organization had been on high alert since Jaxon's birth, and last night's crisis had sent everyone into overdrive.

"Boss." He stopped at the incubator, staring at Jaxon with an expression I'd never seen on him. Raw. Vulnerable. Almost gentle. "Shit. He's so small."

"He's strong though." I didn't know if I was trying to convince Ice or myself.

"Yeah. I can see that." Ice reached into his jacket, pulled out a small teddy bear. "Brought this for him. I know he can't have it in there yet, but—" He looked almost embarrassed. "Thought maybe you could put it where he can see it. So he knows his Uncle Ice has his back."

Sofia's eyes filled with tears. Again. She'd cried more in the last twenty-four hours than I'd seen in the entire time I'd known her.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Ice set the bear on the shelf beside the incubator. A ridiculous little brown bear with a red bow tie that looked absurd next to all the medical equipment. But somehow, it made the space feel less clinical. More human.

"He's going to be okay," Ice said. Not a question. A statement of fact. "Hernandez men don't quit. And this kid?" He gestured to Jaxon. "He's already proved he's a Hernandez."

After Ice left, I stared at that stupid teddy bear and felt something crack in my chest. My son. My family. My responsibility to keep them safe.

And I'd almost lost him.

---

**Twenty-four hours post-arrest.**

The chest tube came out. Dr. Raines performed the procedure while Sofia gripped my hand hard enough to leave bruises. Jaxon didn't even react—too sedated to feel it—but watching that tube slide from his side made my stomach turn.

"X-ray shows the pneumothorax has fully resolved," Dr. Raines said, disposing of the tube. "One less machine. That's progress."

"When can we hold him?" Sofia asked. She'd asked the same question a dozen times.

"Soon. Maybe in three to four days if he continues improving. We can try kangaroo care—skin-to-skin contact. It helps with bonding and regulation."

Three to four days. An eternity compressed into a promise.

That evening, Dr. Raines called us into a consultation room. The moment she said those words, my blood ran cold. Nothing good came from private meetings with doctors.

"Jaxon's twenty-four-hour EEG came back," she said, pulling up images on her tablet.

Sofia's fingernails bit into my palm.

"I'm pleased to say we're not seeing signs of significant brain damage from the cardiac arrest."

The world tilted. Righted itself. Tilted again.

"His brain is okay?" Sofia's voice was barely audible.

"All indicators are positive right now. Normal brain waves. No seizures. Appropriate reflexes." Dr. Raines met our eyes. "I can't promise there won't be long-term effects—some things don't show up for months or years. But right now? He's beaten the worst odds."

After she left, Sofia turned to me. For the first time in thirty-six hours, I saw something other than terror in her eyes.

Hope. Fragile, cautious, hard-won hope.

"He's going to be okay," she said. Not a wish. A certainty.

"He's going to be okay," I echoed.

We returned to Jaxon's bedside. He looked peaceful, his color better, his breathing more synchronized with the ventilator. I touched my finger to his palm, felt him curl around it with slightly more strength than before.

"Welcome back, kid," I whispered. "You gave us hell. But you came through."

Sofia leaned against me, her hand joining mine. "He's ours," she said softly. "He's really ours. And he's going to grow up and be amazing."

"He already is," I replied. Because any kid who could fight death at two days old? That kid was already a fucking miracle.

---

**Seventy-two hours later.**

Patricia woke us gently from where we'd dozed in our chairs, still holding Jaxon.

"Look," she said, pointing to the ventilator settings.

Jaxon was doing sixty percent of his breathing work himself. Sixty percent.

"Dr. Raines thinks we can extubate him tomorrow," Patricia explained. "Get that tube out. Let him try breathing completely on his own."

Tomorrow. One day away from seeing his face without tape and tubes obscuring half of it.

"That's amazing," Sofia breathed. "Three days ago his heart stopped. Now he's—"

"Now he's fighting," I finished. "Like we knew he would."

Patricia smiled. "He's a miracle. I've been doing this for thirty years, and I can always tell which babies are going to make it. Your son?" She touched the incubator gently. "He's going to make it."

After she left, Sofia looked at me with tears streaming down her face. But she was smiling. Actually, genuinely smiling.

"He's going to come home," she whispered.

"He's going to come home," I agreed.

And for the first time since this nightmare began, I let myself believe it. Our son was going to live. He was going to breathe on his own. He was going to grow up.

And we were going to give him everything—safety, love, a life worth fighting for.

Because that's what family did. They fought. And they won. Together.