"Toby, don't snatch." Zoe spoke to her 7 year old son. "Be nice to your sisters." She yawned as she lay back on the sofa, watching as her four children sat playing on the rug in front of her. She'd always wanted a big family when she was younger but that had been ruined as she grew up. By 40 the idea had seemed impossible and something that would never happen with the lifestyle she led as a consultant in Holby ED. That had all changed when she met Max, at first she'd began by using him for her own gain but somewhere along the line she fell for him and now here they were 8 years down the line with four kids. They'd never married in the time they'd spent together and instead co-habits, they'd always meant to get married but life had always conspired against that. Toby was 7 and was the only one of the Walker clan that was planned, after a year of failed attempts of trying to conceive Toby came along. That was when they decided they wanted another baby, after all Zoe didn't want Toby to be lonely and Max was more than happy to go with what she wanted, they'd never really officially started trying for a baby but the inevitable happened and she fell pregnant 11 months after having Toby. That's how she'd ended up with two kids under the age of 2, Sophie was the spitting image of Zoe, there didn't appear to be a single bit of Max with in her, which was a big contrast to Toby. Toby seemed to only share his mothers eye colour and skin colour but otherwise he looked a lot like Max.

The twins hadn't even been thought of when Zoe found out she was once again pregnant, with Max's dad being a twin, the likelihood of twins had always been something they'd kept in mind and at 44 it had happened. Kiera and Freya made an appearance 8 months later, and this time Zoe and Max had a child who looked like the perfect mix of the two of them, in fact they had two. At three they were developing their own personalities, the only thing that was individual between the identical twins. Freya seemed to become more like her mother everyday, she was bossy and stubborn whereas Kiera seemed to have developed her fathers personality, she was a little cheeky monkey who spent most of her time giggling away to herself.

"Mummy I'm hungry." Freya moaned as she climbed up onto her mummy's lap.
"I know honey, daddy's making dinner though." Zoe replied softly, her daughters interruption being the only thing that stopped her from falling asleep.
"Toby, have you done your homework mister?" Zoe asked finally realising that it was Sunday.
"There's no point in homework." Toby told her, not even looking up from the toy he was playing with.
"Yes there is. Upstairs and get it done mister." Zoe demanded, and saw her son and eldest daughter both scuttle up the stairs, she laughed slightly as she realised that Sophie hadn't done whatever homework she'd got, which at 5 could not be much.
"Max?" Zoe asked as she walked into the kitchen and gave Max a kiss.
"Yes baby?"
"Can you watch the twins? I need to go and help out with homework." Zoe asked, not able to stop herself from yawning as she stopped speaking.
"Yeah, the foods in the oven so I have 20 minutes, will that be enough?" Max asked as he too yawned. It had been a late night, all the kids had gone off to bed and were asleep by their individual bedtimes so they'd had some time to themselves, it wasn't until the middle of the night when Kiera had a nightmare that they were both back up again and now sharing their bed with an upset 3 year old.
"I hope so. I want to get this done, get them all bathed and in bed so I can have an early night."
"I know what you mean, are you on the early shift tomorrow?"
"I start at 9, so I can do the school run if that's what you meant."
"Okay, I start at 8 so that's good."
"Yeah, now I'll be back as soon as I can." Zoe spoke before she ran up the stairs to help with homework.


"Daddy, Freya took my teddy." Kiera cried.
"Well that wasn't very nice Frey, give it back to your sister." Max sighed.
"No. I want to play with it." Freya shouted.
"Can't you share princess?" Max asked Kiera.
"No, it's mine. She has her own." Kiera shouted back.
"Play nicely or I'll take it away and neither of you can play." Max finally gave in and saw the twins look up at him in shock. "How about I put the TV on?"

A/N Hi, it's me again. Right, this is a weird one. Basically this is the sequel to a yet unfinished fic that is also on my profile, I can't tell you what it is yet but in a way it's kind of unrelated. It's probably easy to guess which it is but please stick with it. Those who follow me on twitter ( BethSHeartbeat) will know that I've been planning this and I wanted to get it started before I forgot my idea (I'm incredibly good at doing that) updates will probably not be regular although I loved writing this chapter but I should probably get the prequel to this finished first. Thanks for bearing with me.

Beth xx