AN: This is a what I've come to call a Phoenix Family story- a term adapted from some friends on Livejournal, and most likely started by Starhawk/*Andrea. It involes primarily Lily/RJ/Fran/Dom, in a circle type of love. It breaks from canon right around the time Dom arrives. Feed the Author! :D

Prologue: The Not Too Distant Future

He wished Dom would stop pacing. The rhino was charging around the room at a frantic pace, looking for an escape route he wasn't really willing to take.

What had they been thinking, leaving the two of them in the waiting room?

RJ tried to remain calm as the seconds ticked by ever so slowly, though with Dom ricocheting off the walls it was hard to focus on anything. He had tried closing his eyes several moments ago, and all he had been able to see was a white ball moving under his eyelids. If he didn't calm Dom down soon, they're both be neurotic messes before midnight.

What was it about childbirth that made it occur at the most unusual and inconvenient times?

He wished Fran would give them an update. She'd been coming out to tell them how things were going every ten minutes when it had first started. She hadn't been out in half an hour.

"Do you think maybe she needs us back there?" Dom asked at last, pausing and glancing at the doors.

"I am certain that is the last thing she wants." RJ frowned, glancing over his shoulder at the swinging white doors.

"Yeah but, wants… needs. Different." Dom appeared to weigh his options for a moment before returning to his previous occupation. RJ might have been imagining it, but he thought he saw the carpet sinking where Dom had been wearing it down.

He understood the rhino's anxiety. But then, at the same time, he did not. After all, this wasn't Dom's child being born.

Or was it?

Lily was the one giving birth, and it was RJ's DNA. Still… perhaps it was safe to assume that Dom and Fran had just as much invested in this… and in them.

They were a family, after all. Unacknowledged, untraditional… but a family all the same. Better yet, they were a herd. Yes, RJ thought, that fit them much better. Herds looked after each other, and raised children together and lived together.

They were the strangest herd he had ever heard of, but who was he to judge?

Fran had still not returned, which made RJ think that perhaps Lily would not permit her to leave again. She had insisted upon everyone leaving, save for Fran.

"I don't want you in here! Get out!" She had shouted at them several hours ago. "This is not how this is going to happen! I am having this baby, and I want you in the waiting room! No sweaty hair stroaking, no teary eyed 'I love you's and definitely no pictures and you in the waiting room! Now!"

So. Here they were.

"Dominic." RJ finally ground out. "If you do not sit down this instant I will have no control over my urge to rip off your legs."

Dom paused long enough to consider this. "Maybe I'll go check out the cafeteria, then."

"Yes. I think that would be best." RJ agreed. Dom nodded, headed for the hallway, and then paused.

"If anything-"

"I will call you." RJ assured. Dom nodded, and with a sheepish shrug he left the room.

Now RJ was alone, but no less calm. He attempted to close his eyes once more, wondering if meditating would make the time pass more quickly or less so.

He generally prided himself on being very Zen in difficult situations. He was very good at keeping things in order, finding the glass half full, and looking for the opened window when the door had closed.

He was not feeling that way now. He felt as though his insides had turned to acid, his brain had shut off, and his spirit had deserted him. The wolf had been ever silent since the day in the kitchen so long ago, and he missed it. He was out of balance, and he could not right himself. This was uncharted territory, to say the least.

He was in love with two women, one of whom was having his baby with the other at her side. A baby he had not planned on, did not want, and had no intention of giving his name to. What name like his could ever be of use to a child? What good was he to a child? And why on earth after all of this were they all still together, still holding on, still clinging to a fantasy?

What had they ever been thinking?