Amy was huge.

It took him nearly eight months to realize that, very soon, he was going to be a father.

"Ian," she had called out one day, "have you bought the crib yet?" It'd taken him a moment to say that no, he had not. "Ian! You can't just ignore this and it'll go away!"

He wanted it to, though, he so very badly wanted this to go away.

One day he'd walked in the house and saw not one crib, but two.

Amy smiled up at him when he opened the door. "I went in for another ultrasound today - don't look at me like that; you were at a meeting and Elizabeth was with me! Anyway, Diana said it was twins!" She'd grabbed Ian's shoulders. "Twins, Ian! I've got the genders, too, if you want to start going over names."

He'd told her no, not yet. So they refrained from that aspect a little while longer.

Twins.

He'd started going over names in his head after that, even though he really just wanted this to disappear. They'd agreed that they wanted children, but Ian was starting to have doubts on whether he was ready. Amy was, that he could tell. She was constantly buying clothes and food and writing names on sticky notes. They were boy/girl names, so Ian was guessing they were having both. She was researching all kinds of parenting techniques and Baby Einstein programs, sometimes sneaking them into his possession.

"Just read them," She begged him, "I am - Dan has! Just read them, Ian."

So he did, but he didn't recollect much of the information. He didn't absorb any of the words, just read them.

Amy sat him down one day, just weeks away from the due date, deciding that they needed to name these kids (who were, as Ian suspected, a boy and a girl).

"I was thinking it could be something Indian," He didn't bother to correct her, "what's Natalie's middle name? Priya?"

"Yes"

"And yours is Raja right?"

"Yes." He winced at how conceited his parents must've been when they named him that; though he knew many people held that name and didn't feel the same as he did.

"We can name them those, then."

"No," he said quickly, "not names my parents picked out."

She frowned. "But they sound so nice."

"Please, Amy. Why don't we name them after your parents? Arthur would like that."

She bobbed her head back and forth in contemplation. "Yeah, he would. But... I got it!" She stood up suddenly, holding her belly gingerly as she walked into the kitchen. "We'll name them after both of ours! Isabel Hope and Vikram Arthur!"

Ian would've done a spit take if he had some water. "What?" He screeched, "Amy, no! We can't name them that!"

She turned and gave him a stare. "I'm birthing them Ian, I'm naming them. If the situation were the other way around, you could name them."

"B-But-!" He sputtered.

"Ian. We're done."

He didn't know what else to do, so he brought in the recruits. Diana was there immediately, still dressed in her scrubs from work; Elizabeth took a little longer, five year old William with a half finished ice cream cone clinging was to her hand.

"She's doing what?" Diana screeched when their briefing was over.

"Naming the twins after his parents, it seems," Elizabeth set William down on a chair and handed him a napkin. "which is kind of freaking me out. That's the right reaction, right?"

Diana nodded to Elizabeth. "Ian, what are you going to do?"

He took a long sigh. "I don't know, that's why I called you two! I was hoping you could talk to her, Diana, since you two are so close."

Diana nodded. "I'll try something." Ian informed her that Amy was in the kitchen, and soon he was left alone with Elizabeth and William.

"What are you going to do if she really goes out with this?" She was paying more attention to her son than Ian, but he was thankful for that. He didn't need to clean up the boy's mess.

"I haven't a clue." He picked at one of the old scars on his arm.

Elizabeth shot him a worried glance from the corner of her eye. "You haven't... continued with that have you," She asked in a soft tone. Tough, strong Elizabeth worried about an old habit.

Ian chuckled. "No, I've long stopped."

She nodded her head. "Don't start up again, okay? I really worry about you." She blew a piece of her hair out of her face. "Jonah's convinced I'm just settling for him since I can't have you."

"Bullshit."

"Exactly what I try to tell him!" She turned around to make sure William hadn't heard that last bit of conversation. He was smearing ice cream on his face. "Oh, god, Will!"

A scowling Diana and smiling Amy came into the room then. Diana shook her head. "I tried everything I could think of," she told Ian, "she's really determined to do this."

Amy, holding her stomach as she always did these days, smiled up at Ian as if nothing was wrong with naming their children after the people who murdered her parents.

Ian fumed. "Let's just go ahead and name our next son Adolf Stalin then, huh? Put it on the birth certificate already so we don't have to deal with it later!"

Elizabeth followed him out of the room. "Ian, stop!"

They talked for a long while in the garden. Elizabeth was used to talking to Ian when he was like this, though she didn't understand the whole Isabel and Vikram situation. It took a few minutes to calm him down, it usually did, but she eventually coaxed him back into the living room to have a polite conversation with the others.

Even in the delivery room, just a few days later, Amy still hadn't changed her mind.

"Please, Love!"

"No!"

"I am begging, literally begging!, you not to do this!" Diana had to usher him out then, he was being too loud.

Arthur and Dan were waiting for him in the other room. Both of them watched as he paced around.

Arthur sighed. "I remember when you were born."

Ian stopped pacing immediately and gave Arthur a quizzical glace.

"Oh, yes," He chuckled, "I was there."

"Gross." Dan mumbled.

"Oh, yeah. I always joked that I didn't want to be around when Amy was born because of how hectic that day was. And then, when I saw Diana being born-"

Dan clasped his hands over his ears and shouted, "I don't want to know about this!"

Arthur howled in laughter, but Ian stayed deadpanned. Did they not know what Amy was planning to do? Dan would surely be having a hissy fit if he did, and Arthur wouldn't be as calm as he was. At least, Ian didn't think he would be. He really didn't know Arthur all that well, no matter how much Arthur tried to get close to him. It was just a little too weird for Ian.

Diana came through the doors then, pulling off her mask. "She wants to talk to you Ian." She gave him a wink and a smirk before following him back in.

She was only a couple hours into labor, so Ian knew it couldn't possibly be the delivery.

She looked up at him, she seemed half drugged. "We're gonna talk about this like civil people." She murmured.

He took the chair provided and scooted closer to her. "Alright."

"I really want to name them these names."

"I really don't want you to."

"Why?"

"Why don't you? After all they've done to you!"

"I never even met Vikram."

"Be glad you didn't!" He snapped, though he quickly apologized. "I just... don't understand why you're doing this."

"Because it's fun." She giggled.

"To torture your poor husband?"

Amy's grip on Ian's hand suddenly tightened as she faced a contraction. "Yeah, pretty much."

The way she smiled up at him, how her eye twinkled, how Diana was over in the corner giggling, how Arthur and Dan were so calm about the names. It all placed together.

"What are we really naming them?"

Amy burst into a quick giggle fit. "I was thinking Grace Hope for the girl, and I decided to let you pick for the boy."

He chose Nathaniel Arthur to match Grace Hope. He thought it was funny; Amy agreed to it because Ian Cahill just didn't find many things funny.

He really didn't give it much thought, so long as their names weren't Vikram and Isabel he didn't care.