"I remember," Ellie said softly, regarding the infant with a slight, quizzical tilt of her head. She'd had the same problem, or thought she had--nobody had actually explained to her what was going on during her own labor. But something had certainly been holding things up. She couldn't see this little one's wings, but it was easy to imagine they were just like the rest of him--small, soft and vulnerable. She wondered for the first time, with a pang of remorse and very belated anxiety, if it had been painful for her baby, too. Had her little wings been hurt, with no one there to assist in getting them out?

"He's so tiny..." She'd seen babies before, of course, but not often up close or so young. "What...what do you call him?"