"You know, I've been waiting a long time to meet you. You probably won't even understand what I'm saying for quite some time but it's not going to stop me from saying so," he chuckled softly, still constantly moving with a smile upon his face.

"I remember this one time, she wouldn't let me talk to you anymore. She said that if I didn't leave you alone, she'd call and get a restraining order and when I told her that it was impossible to do, she threw a pillow at me," he whispered, leaning down to swiftly place a kiss to her forehead.

"But it's alright. Even with her crazy mood swings, I didn't care because I knew that in the end, I'd get you."

His smile seemed permanent as he bounced Lily in his arms, having had to fight Rachel to not name her something to do one of her favorite shows. She had been dead set on their first born daughter being Fanny.

He knew it was biased and cheesy but standing there with her in his arms had to be one of the better, if not best, moments of his life. There were five moments that had defined his life up to that point; Meeting Rachel in the music store, apologizing to her when he got kicked out of UCLA, winning her back after Nationals, marrying her after having to 'wait until she was twenty-five', and now, holding his daughter in his arms for the first time.

"Are you ever going to put her down?" Rachel's tired voice filled the small hospital room, Jesse turning back around to smile at her.

"Maybe when she turns twenty," he said with a laugh, sitting on the edge of her bed as he looked down to her. "How're you feeling?"

He swore that if looks could kill, even Rachel's 'teasing glances' would be the death of him. She tried to lean up a bit, shifting to give him more room on the bed so he could lay with her. "I'm fine, considering. Just extremely sore and bruised," she muttered as he moved beside her, shifting Lily to rest in the crook of his arm so Rachel could be wrapped in the other.

"She's beautiful," she whispered, reaching out tentatively to touch her lightly. "I can't believe that we made her," she said with a laugh, tracing the lines of her tiny face delicately.

"She's just like her mom then," he replied, watching both of them with an awestruck look upon his face. He'd never been the 'sentimental' type but this moment, having his wife and his newborn in his arms, seemed to banish all other pretenses of 'Jesse St. James, Broadway star' to the wind.

They'd actually always been what made him Jesse, a husband and a father, rather than Jesse St. James, an egotistical bastard.

-flashback-

"If you don't leave, you're going to be late and then how are you going to explain this to the director? 'Oh, sorry, I wanted to talk to my unborn child who can't hear a word I'm saying or even understand me?'" Rachel was giving him a look over her bump forcing Jesse to stifle his own chuckle.

"Rach, it's four o'clock. The show starts at eight. I don't have to leave for at least another two hours and probably even longer than that. Calm down. And, you know, it is proven that babies can hear while in the womb. The studies show-"

But he never got to finish for Rachel grabbed one of the pillows beside her and smacked him in the face with it, rolling her eyes when he started to laugh.

"It's not funny, Jesse! I'm trying to be an assertive wife who makes her once hardened husband not completely sappy any longer. You know that you still have a reputation to uphold as a performer-" she tried to fight with him, Jesse knowing that the only true way to silence her was to kiss her. And so he did.

-present-

"I'm good for inspiration, you will find. Close the door and I'll go anywhere you take me to. From this bed onto so much more, care for you I will," Jesse began to softly sing to Lily in his arms as Rachel sat and counted all of her fingers and toes over and over again, obsessed with making sure that she wasn't imagining how perfect her daughter was to her.

"She has your nose," she said as she looked to Jesse, smiling even though she knew that he wanted the opposite.

"But your chin," he teased in return, looking down to his wife with what he was sure one of the brighter smiles he had in his life. "Thank you, Rachel. For her, for you...just for everything."

Her laughter was something he didn't expect, his brow furrowing slightly as he looked to her. "And here I thought I'd almost succeeded in making you less sappy. So much for that reputation," she said, giving him a face as she leaned up to lightly peck his lips.

"It's alright, it was a bad reputation anyway. I much rather have the one of whipped husband whose daughter has him wrapped around her finger," he said, tearing his gaze from hers to look right back to Lily.

"And I wouldn't have it any other way."

I just really want more St. Berry future!Fluff. I want Daddy!Jesse fics. So...yeah.