Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, except for season two. But anybody can buy that…

April 20

Alexis' Point of View

Mondays. Ugh.

This is not my day. It's not.

Okay, so Ashley and I have moved out of our parents' houses recently and moved into a spacious apartment in Gramercy Park with Tobias, and we're all happily settling in—so that counts for something.

But… things can always happen that will seriously throw a wrench in the day's overall mood.

For instance, Ashley had to go on an assignment in New Jersey, so Tobias and I brought him to the train station to see him off and say goodbye, but that was an hour ago, and now Tobias is just downright cranky about his father's absence. He hasn't lightened up once and I know that he's taking all of his anger on me by becoming the surliest toddler I've ever set eyes on. But… it could also have something to do with the fact that my boy has come down with a case of the sniffles and was already cranky to begin with.

After dropping Ashley off, Tobias and I caught taxi over to the office building of The Ledger so I could turn in an article for the entertainment column I contribute to on a monthly basis, but I barely made it into the editor's office because Tobias was making things extra complicated by insisting that he walk for as long as he could even though he was clearly under the weather. (That's my own stubborn streak coming back to get me, I suppose) He insisted on walking as opposed to me carrying him and he started an absolute ruckus when I tried to pick him up.

And… I haven't been feeling well for awhile now. I'm pretty sure that it's morning sickness, meaning the possibility of a pregnancy. I only just arrived at that conclusion the day before yesterday but I haven't had a chance to tell Ashley yet because he was preparing to leave and all of my spare time and energy was devoted to taking care of Tobias, whose overall mood is a cross between surly and crummy, leaving no real time for me to take care of myself.

But it's just as well that I haven't told Ashley about my suspicions of a pregnancy because although we've been trying since his birthday in February to make a baby, I would not be in the mood to put up with any of the over protectiveness of his that kicked into full gear when I was pregnant with Tobias because I know that Ashley loves his family, but the last thing I need is for him to be fussing over me like an anxious mother hen. For all I know, I could have just caught Tobias' cold. All I want is for someone else to take care of me for awhile so I can get some sleep.

I hate today. Truly.

I need my parents.

Mom is probably at work—she's recently been promoted to captain of the Twelfth Precinct—but I know that dad would be at the loft…

When I called him, he answered on the third ring.

"Hey, Pumpkin! What's up?"

"Can Toby and I come hang out at the loft today?"

"Of course, but Jamie, Jed and Joey have been either knocked out of commission or are slowly on their ways there because they all have pretty awful colds. Mom, LJ and I haven't gotten sick. Yet."

"Daddy, that doesn't matter." I was practically on the edge of tears because I was feeling so awful. "Toby and I are feeling like garbage right now. I just dropped Ashley off at the train station because he has an assignment in New Jersey that's going to keep him for a week or so."

"You let him go because you don't want him to worry about you right now?"

"Yes, and this kind of thing is really big for his career." I felt my stomach suddenly flip-flop and quickly prayed that I wouldn't puke. "I really don't know how I'm even standing up right now."

"Okay, Alexis, where are you and Toby right now?" dad's tone was completely serious now. "I'll send—"

I cut him off. "I'm at my editor's office building in Midtown. Don't bother sending a town car because it'll be faster and easier if we just catch a taxi."

"Your brothers and sister are napping right now, so I'll go make sure that everything is ready for you two."

"Thank you, daddy." I felt like a little kid again, calling him that.

"You're welcome. I'll see you soon."

I hung up and turned to Tobias to see that he'd gone from surly and crummy to cute, cuddly and sleepy, even though it wasn't even noon yet. He and I were sitting on a bench in the front lobby of my editor's building and he was lying down with his head in my lap.

"Toby, we're going to go hang out with Grandpa, Jamie, Jed and Joey right now."

He gave a monster yawn. "Mama Katie? Tee-Tillie?"

"Mama Katie is at work and Lily is at school." I ran my fingers through his curly hair, playing with it. "You ready to go?"

He nodded sleepily. "Beddy-bye firs'?"

"Sure." I gathered my things up, got to my feet and picked him up. "Sleep now, and I'll wake you when we get there, okay?"

He nodded yet again and snuggled even closer to me, more than halfway to Dreamland by now. I gave my son a kiss on the top of his head and headed out to the sidewalk with him to the nearest taxi stand, and I was able to hail a taxi pretty quickly. The ride started off pretty smoothly and I even started dozing off, even though our destination wasn't all that far away.

I was brought back to reality when the cab driver was yelling something about not being able to avoid a car that was barreling down the road, straight for us. I barely had time to grab Tobias and hold him as close to my body as possible for protection when…

CRASH!

The oncoming car collided with ours on the driver side, making it spin completely out of control. I screamed, and so did Tobias, but that was completely warranted. Honestly, I'm not sure how long our car spun out for, but when we finally came to a standstill, I was thankful that I was restrained by a seatbelt because I came out of it with a massive headache, a few bumps and bruises complete with a throbbing wrist.

When I looked down, Tobias was not in my arms. He was on the floor by my feet, moaning and whimpering in pain.

"Toby!" I said his name frantically as I undid my seatbelt which was thankfully working. "Toby, baby boy—mama's here! I'm here, I'm right here!"

"Hurt bad! Owie!"

The cab was pretty badly smashed, but I maneuvered myself so that I was crouched at his feet, tight fit that it was.

"I'm so sorry, Toby." I tried my hardest to sound comforting and it was made slightly easier because I heard sirens in the distance. "Can you tell me where it hurts?"

He lifted his right leg a fraction of an inch before howling in pain. Tears immediately welled up in my eyes and spilled over before I could stop them, but I did the best I could to comfort Tobias because he was obviously scared and unwell, something I know firsthand is very stressful as a little kid. With trembling fingers and ignoring the pain I felt in my wrist, I pulled back his pant leg to inspect the damage and bit back a gasp at what I saw—his leg was bright red and quite swollen. Tobias' leg was broken.

I burst into tears, completely overwhelmed.

The next thing I knew, the firefighters had arrived and were working on getting us out once the doors had been pried off with their special tools. They pulled me out first, and needless to say, I was kind of a hysterical mama by that point.

"What about Toby? My boy is in there and he's hurt! Get him out!"

"We're doing everything we can, miss," the firefighter reassured me as he tried to guide me to the ambulance. "Now if you'll just come this way—"

I yanked myself out of his grasp, feeling slightly wobbly. "NO! GO BACK AND TRY HARDER! TOBY IS ONLY ONE!"

The firefighter beckoned to someone behind me, telling them to come closer. "Detectives, can you please take her to the ambulance to get her checked out?"

"Sure thing. We got her."

I felt a reassuring hand on the small of my back and another on my shoulder. Turning, I saw that Kevin and Javier were standing on either side of me, supporting me.

"Where in the world did you two come from?"

"We heard the call over the radio." Kevin explained gently. "Are you going to be okay to walk over to the ambulance with us? Your legs aren't hurt, are they?"

"My legs are just sore," I told them as I tested my legs out, checking for anything unusual. "But what about Toby? He's over in that taxi—trapped, hurt and scared out of his mind! He needs me!"

"The firefighters are doing everything they can to get him out of there as quickly as possible." Javier's tone was just as gentle as Kevin's had been. "I promise you that you can be with him the minute he gets out, but I think that it would give Toby a little peace of mind if he saw that you were okay. Grace and Gabriella are the same way when they see and Lanie if she sees one of us upset."

Javier had a point there because Grace and Bella have both been known to get extremely protective of him and Lanie when they're upset, and my son behaves the exact same way with Ashley and me, especially if one of us is feeling sick. He puts other people's well-being before his own.

I took a few steps towards the ambulance, but had to stop suddenly when my stomach did a ridiculously huge flip and I puked in the street gutter, narrowly missing all of our shoes. Not sure which of my friends was holding back my hair and rubbing soothing circles on my back, I accepted the help as they gave it but when I finally stopped throwing up my breakfast in public, I knew that guys were thinking the same thing I was. Kevin approached the topic first.

"Alexis, do you think that there's a chance that you could be pregnant right now?"

I nodded but then stopped because it hurt as bad as a hangover. "Definitely, but I haven't had a chance to even confirm it yet… damn, I feel awful…"

Much to my dismay, my stomach rolled again and I threw up even more before. After that, I started feeling dizzy, like I was going to faint, and that's exactly what happened about ten seconds later.

When I came to, I was very surprised to see that more time had passed than my body had gauged because when I assessed my surroundings, I saw that I was in the hospital and that someone had swapped out my regular clothes for a hospital-issued paper gown.

"What's going on?" my voice was groggy as I sat up. "How did I get here?"

"You were in an accident, Alexis. You and Toby both."

I sat up even further and saw that I was talking to Emily Ryan. My heart skipped a beat for a few reasons, beginning with remembering the accident.

"Oh, my God! Where is Toby? The last I knew, he was trapped in a taxi with a badly injured leg!"

"Shh." My friend soothed in a motherly tone as she smoothed my hair back so it was out of my eyes. "Toby is in surgery at the moment, and Thomas is currently repairing your boy's broken leg."

"What?" I reached out for her hand to hold, and she gave it to me, not even flinching when I squeezed it a little harder than I had intended. "Toby got hurt so badly that he needs to have surgery? He's just a toddler!"

"You know that my husband is the best at what he does."

"He's one of the top five pediatric surgeons in the country," I recalled.

"That's right. Now—you've been out for a half hour, and Toby was taken to surgery the second the ambulance arrived here. He's in great hands, and he'll be out and resting in your arms before you know it."

I was comforted by this, but only for a moment because a new thought crossed my mind. "What about Ashley? I haven't called him yet and we just dropped him off at the train station because he has to go to New Jersey!"

"Molly and Seamus have been notified about the accident, and they've gone to the station to collect him because he's catching the first train back here, so you don't have to worry about it."

"What about my parents and LJ, Jamie, Jed and Joey? What about Gram?"

"They're all going to get here soon, as will everyone else because Amaya and Juliana are in the break room as we speak, making calls."

"Okay." I glanced out of the window and spotted Yoshi and Calvin out in the corridor. "What are the guys doing here?"

"From what I understand, they were having a 'bro day,' or something." (Emily's heavy Australian accent made the phrase 'bro day' sound ten times funnier than it actually was, and I couldn't help giggling) "Making fun of my accent, are you?"

"Absolutely not." I struggled to keep a straight face. "I am doing no such thing."

She just arched her eyebrow at me and changed the subject. "Calvin and Yoshi are practically chomping at the bit to get in here because they're both jockeying for positions to the big protective guy until your own guy gets here, so we'll just get to the next part quickly."

"What next part?" my eyes fell on my wrist, which had been set in the kind of brace used for sprains. "It looks like someone already took care of that."

"Yes, you have a sprained wrist, Alexis, and we'll talk about that later, but I was talking more about your baby."

My stomach bottomed out in surprise and I let go of her hand to rest my own on my midriff.

"M-my baby? I'm pregnant, Emily?"

"Yes, you are." She nodded. "I performed an emergency ultrasound on you when you were brought in and saw that the fetus is eight weeks old. Did you know or at least suspect?"

"I started suspecting the day before yesterday but I didn't have a chance to confirm anything yet."

"What's kept you?"

"Toby's cold, for one thing. He's had it for awhile and it's been driving him up the wall. Ashley and I have been pampering him nonstop. We've also been unpacking boxes from the move and I was finishing up an article for a column I write for. I haven't had much time for myself…"

"Then would you like some good news?"

"I would like that very much."

"Your baby is a fighter, just like you are—it survived the accident and is very healthy and strong."

Tears began to flood my eyes yet again, and this time I cried because I was feeling a whole range of emotions that had been brought on because of the morning's events.

"Would you like me to go get the guys now?"

I could only nod in response.

Emily left the room and about two seconds later, Yoshi and Calvin were both in my room, trying to comfort me. Calvin got as far as offering me some tissues from a tissue box on my bedside table, but in a surprising move, it was Yoshi who sat on my bed with me so I could have a shoulder to cry on. He made soothing noises like he does with his younger siblings or Bella and Grace when they're crying about something, but deep down inside it made me happy because just him doing that showed me that he's come a long way since we first met him in the fall. Back then, he wouldn't have considered doing that because of his dislike for making physical human contact. Yoshi comforting me goes to show that times can change and people can grow from those experiences.

Those of my friends and family who could manage it came to stop by for a visit to check on me, and they all breathed sighs of relief with me when Tobias was brought straight to my room and put into my arms right after his operation. Yes, he was on some pretty strong knock-out drugs and sleeping them off, but I was mostly thankful that that he'd made it through the surgery without any complications whatsoever.

Tobias didn't wake up until after everyone had gone, once Emily had cleared them out, saying that I needed some rest.

"Mama?" he gave a huge yawn as he stretched out, similar to how he probably did when he was growing in my womb. "Hadded bad dreams."

"Well, you don't have to worry anymore because you're safe, and so am I."

He studied our surroundings. "Not home."

"We were in an accident."

"Gots owies?"

"Yes." I showed him my bandaged wrist. "My owie is right there."

He pressed a tiny feather light kiss to the skin above my brace and gave me a million megawatt smile.

"All better!"

I returned his kiss and laughed when he turned bright red. "Thank you, Squishy. I really needed that."

There was a beat of silence on his part and then: "Me owies?"

"I'm afraid so. You broke your leg, and Tío Thomas had to use his fancy tools to fix it."

"Fixin' good t'ing…"

"It is." I agreed, looking into his multi-colored eyes. "Fixing is a very good thing, but it also means that we're going to have to stay in the hospital until the doctors tell us we can go back to our house."

Tobias gave a disappointed sigh and snuggled closer to me, unintentionally moving closer to the baby, too.

"Where daddy? Miss him."

Right at that moment, my phone—this had been recovered from the damaged taxi, among a few other things—chimed at me, indicating a new text. I picked it up and read the waiting message. My heart melted when I saw that it was from my fiancé.

'Hey, beautiful! I'm so sorry that I haven't been to talk sooner. I caught the first train back, and it was late. -_- I met up with my parents when I got back, but then I thought I lost my phone! (Lady Luck has not been kind to either one of us this morning) I only just found it at the bottom of my bag. Anyway… my parents just dropped me off at the hospital, but they both have to go back to work :( As for me, I'll be up in a few. Boarding the elevator now.'

I put the phone back and looked to Tobias to tell him what was going on, but saw that he was lost in his own world, dozing off again, so I let him go and wondered about how to tell Ashley when he came in that we'd been successful in making a sibling for our son.

It was a minute before I realize that Ashley had arrived because when I saw him, he was frozen in the doorway, looking like he was a million miles away. Then it hit me—he was remembering back to when his little brother Tobias had been in the hospital and passed away.

Realizing this, I gently shook Tobias awake, feeling a little bad about it.

"Hey, Squishy—it's time to wake up again."

"No!" came the grumpy reply. "Sleepy!"

"But daddy's here now."

Tobias' grumpy demeanor evaporated in a heartbeat and I helped him to sit up so he could see Ashley.

"Daddy, daddy!" Tobias held his hands out, beckoning. "Come, come!"

My fiancé snapped out of his reverie and smiled at our son as he approached. "Hey, Toby. Have you been taken care of mama while I was gone?"

Tobias nodded seriously and then pointed out his injuries as well my own. "Lotsa lotsa owies, daddy. No like."

Ashley sat next to him. "Yeah, owies aren't cool, are they?"

"No way."

"May I hold you while I talk to mama?"

"Ca'efu' owies."
"I'll be super careful, don't worry."

Visibly relieved, Tobias let Ashley hold him and when he felt settled, he went right back to sleeping. Thomas had warned me earlier that the painkillers Tobias was on would make him extra sleepy, meaning that we would just have to roll with it for awhile. Ashley seemed to understand this because he didn't say anything about it, instead turning his full attention to me and kissing me full on the lips. We both needed the reassurance.

It wasn't even two in the afternoon yet, and I thought I'd cried all that I could, but yet more tears when I told him everything I knew about mine and Tobias' injuries thus far, practically wearing myself out.

"And of course, with Toby having had surgery and me having fainted, that means that we're going to have stay overnight, all in all meaning that we're going to have ridiculously huge bills! It's not like we can't afford any of the bills because we definitely can, but we also have the apartment to pay for! What are we going to do?"

"I'll think of something, Lex. Don't worry about it."

"Okay, but don't go begging people. We can't be teaching Toby things like that because I'm a Castle and you're a Kerrigan. He shouldn't have to know about begging for things when his mama and daddy can pay for them."

"I'll give you that one."

"Everything has to be put on a backburner for a minute because there's one more thing that we have to talk about right now."

He immediately became concerned and held my hand as he kept an arm around Tobias to keep him from falling off the bed.

"What is it? What's going on?"

I put his hand on top of my belly. "There's a baby in there."

Ashley's face lit up in joy and gave me the kind of kiss that had us both gasping for air in a matter of minutes. When we pulled apart, he rested his forehead against mine and kept his hand on my belly, giving it a gentle rub.

"We're going to be parents again?"

"Uh-huh. Are you happy about this?"

"Of course I am. We're adding onto our family, just like we planned, and Toby is going to lose his mind with joy when he finds out."

"That's true, and he'll probably talk himself hoarse, but let's keep it to ourselves until I'm out of the first trimester."

"Good idea."

"I can't believe that I was able to keep it from just about everyone who came in for a visit."

"Wait—what do you mean, 'just about everyone,' and how far along are you?"

"I'm eight weeks, which means that we made this kid on the night we moved into the apartment."

"Damn, we're awesome."

I tweaked his nose playfully. "Focus, and stay on topic!"

"Right." He kissed my hand again. "You're eight weeks pregnant, so that means you're two months now."

"Bingo, and as for the people who actually know, that amounts to Emily, Juliana and Amaya. Kevin and Javier guessed, but they don't actually know."

"When are we going to tell our parents?"

"I don't even know about that right now."
"Need I point out that both of our mothers are bound to notice your condition pretty quickly, especially since Kate just had twins?"

I shuddered at that. "My body can't handle more than one baby at once, but maybe I wouldn't be so worried about that in the future when we add onto our family again."

"I want more kids, too—don't get me wrong, but we just found out that you're pregnant. This has been on your mind for awhile?"

"It has, but we shouldn't have any more until after Toby and his little sib, Tiny," I tapped my belly for emphasis, noticing that it had a slight swell, the start of a baby bump. "Are a lot bigger, like the middle of elementary school, just to be safe. They're not going to be that far apart, so they're pretty much going to be doing everything at the same time."

"Or Tiny will just be catching up to Toby… We're going to have our hands full…"

We both stopped talking for a few minutes, lost in our own thoughts, but Ashley still voiced his thoughts first.

"Alexis, we should get married."

I was taken aback by this and waved my left fingers at him, the boring but bright lights from overhead bouncing off the jewels on my ring. "Babe, I believe that this piece of jewelry already says that we are."

"I know that, but I meant that we should get married tonight."

…His idea had merit…

"You're not just saying this because I'm pregnant, are you?"

"Absolutely not." He promised. "I'm saying it because I love you, I want to be your husband and spend the rest of my life with you. I'm also looking out for the kids because I want them to have the best and most secure childhoods, beginning with both of them knowing their parents are married to each other. It would also be pretty good if they never had a reason to question what their last names are."

"Touché, but what about our parents?" my eyes widened as another thought hit me. "What about Jessica Rose and Melissa? They are going to kill us when they find out that we had our wedding without them."

He shrugged. "They snooze, they lose."

"Agreed, but again—what about our parents?"

"We can tell them tomorrow, but for now, let's get married."

My fiancé's words registered with me, but instead of answering him, I leaned towards Tobias to wake him up again, but Ashley put a hand on my arm, stopping me.

"What are you doing?"

"Waking our boy up to tell him that his parents are getting married. Even if he's doped up on pain medication and he's a year-and-a-half years old, he's not going to forgive us if he finds out when he's older that he slept through the whole thing."

"That's true." Ashley agreed and let me go. "Wake him up."

I bent back down towards my son. "Hey, Toby—wakey, wakey!"

He swatted an arm at me, still sleeping. "Not now!"

(…My son is totally going to be the kid begging me for five more minutes when he's a teenager…)

"What if I said to you that me and daddy are getting married today?"

Tobias heard and understood these words because he woke up and stretched out the best he could in Ashley's arms.

"Weddin' time?"

"That's right." I tapped the tip of his nose with a finger. "Daddy and I are getting married right here in the hospital!"

(I mean, really—it went without saying that even though we hadn't discussed it thoroughly, our wedding was going to take place in the hospital chapel)

"Wow! Happy, happy, happy!"

Tobias clapped his hands together happily and I was just about to respond to him when there was a knock on the door. Ashley called out for the person to enter, but imagine our surprise when we saw Emily, Thomas, Juliana and even Raja and baby Dash. But then I saw that the Ryans were all dressed to go home and that Juliana and Raja (the latter of whose presence I didn't question) were both looking like the were settling in for the night.

Of course, Tobias began talking before the newcomers could explain themselves.

"Weddin' time!"

Raja was the first to respond as he ran to my bed. "Lexie, you're getting married to Ashley today?"

"That's the plan, buddy."

He gave a huge sigh of relief that was kind of comical. "Finally!"

Ashley laughed at this. "Why do you say it like that?"

"The first time that I met your almost-wife, she told me that I could be part of her wedding." (Emily and Thomas were watching our exchange with lots of interest, the look on Juliana's face told me that she was remembering the conversation that Raja was talking about) "I can't wait forever for you two to have a wedding, Ashley! I don't want me and Toby to be old when it happens!"

Emily seized control of the situation before Raja could take us all any further down a rabbit trail.

"Thomas and I stopped by to tell you that our shifts are done and that we're handing the case to Juliana until tomorrow, but what's this about a wedding now?"

I chose my words very carefully, so as not to give away my pregnancy. "We've decided that for the sake of our family, we're getting married in the hospital chapel. Today."

"Speaking of which," Ashley put in, looking towards the other adults in the room. "Do any of you know if the minister is here?"

Emily checked the time on her watch before answering. "Father Alexander should be finishing up his Bible study he does with the more terminally ill patients right now. He always likes to stick around for at least a half hour afterwards, to pray with people. We can catch him, easy."

Thomas became confused at this point. "I thought we were leaving…"

His wife set her bags down. "We're not. We're going to help our friends get married."

"But—"

"No 'buts' on this one, and don't you dare argue with me, lest I remind you of the circumstances of our wedding."

Whatever it is that Emily was talking about, Thomas decided to cooperate with her because he took Dash from her and then stayed out of her way when she sat down in the rocking chair and began sorting through her bags, talking to herself.

Touched by her willingness to help us out, Ashley and I didn't question her. Juliana was nearby, sprucing up the wagon that had been used to transport Tobias from the operating room over to my room.

"Are you on board with us?" I asked her. "It's okay if you're not. We'll understand."

"I'm totally onboard with it." She moved from the wagon to pulling out a folding wheelchair from the closet and assembling it properly. "I have my reasons, but they're not for sharing right now. Another time, perhaps."

I let her help me out of bed and into the wheelchair. "Fair enough, but at least tell me how long you and Jalil have been married."

"The sixteenth of August makes twenty extraordinary years."

Just as I was about to congratulate her, Emily jumped up from her chair and walked up to me, laying two things in my lap—her favorite dark blue hoodie with a picture of Central Park on the back, and a piece of paper that Ashley and I had recently given her during one of her more harder days recently and it said 'We hope to be just as brilliant as you are one day! From Alexis and Ashley.'

"What are these, Emily?"

"The hoodie is your 'something old,' 'something borrowed,' and 'something blue,' because it was a gift from my mum and dad about six years ago. The note serves as the 'something new' because you and Ashley gave it to me a week ago."

I put the note in the hoodie pocket. "And you're doing this because I'm getting married…"

"Exactly." She beamed as she helped me put on the hoodie, all the while being mindful of my sprained wrist. "You don't have to skip out on all the traditions."

"And this," Thomas presented Ashley with a boutonnière made from a few flowers among my many bouquets. "Is for you, sir, because you shouldn't have to skip out on any traditions, either."

Ashley accepted it and tucked it into a buttonhole on his jacket.

"Everybody ready to go?" Emily asked as she helped Tobias get comfortable in his wagon.

There was a general murmur of agreement, but Raja quickly interjected. "Wait! What am I supposed to do?"

"Raja," I spoke sweetly to him. "You get a pretty big job today. Do you think you can handle it?"

"Of course!"

"You get to keep an eye on Toby while everything is going on. We also need you to keep him awake because he's going to be bummed out if he sleeps through all of it."

"I can keep an eye on him! That'll be my wedding present to you and Ashley!"

I smiled at him and tried to keep from laughing when his knees buckled. "Thank you so much, sweetie."

Raja responded, but turned his attention to Tobias, making him laugh by starting a rousing game of peek-a-boo with him, something that Tobias just loves to play. Once Emily saw that we were all ready to go, we left the room and headed to the elevator to take to the chapel floor. Father Alexander was a very pleasant older Hispanic man who was more than happy to perform the wedding ceremony for us once Ashley and I had a word with him in private about it.

The ceremony itself was a blur to me because I was pretty tired by the end of it, even if I was in the wheelchair, but all I knew was that Ashley and I were married, officially making me Alexis Katherine Kerrigan.

The first thing he did as my husband was lift me from the chair and tuck me back into bed, telling me to not worry about Tobias for awhile. When I was comfortable, he climbed in behind me, pulling flush against his body so that we were spooning.

"I love you, Mrs Kerrigan." He murmured, kissing only my cheek because he knew that I was too tired from all of the morning's events to turn around, even though it was the middle of the afternoon.

"And I love you, Mr Kerrigan." I all but whispered back. "Always and forever."

"Sleep love." His hand found its way to the baby bump and he rested a hand on it, the same way he did during my first pregnancy. "Sleep for as long as you want, and I'll be here when you wake up. I promise."

"Okay…"

Huh. All in half a day, I went from feeling sick and surviving an accident that could have had the potential to kill me, to recovering from said accident while jumping for joy (figuratively because I was too exhausted to really do it) about a much wanted pregnancy and to then getting married to the man of my dreams.

And even though my wedding wasn't at all like how I'd imagined it as a little girl fantasizing about all of the fun things I would get to do as a grown-up, it didn't really matter to me because it was all official, and nothing could dispute that because we even had the paperwork to prove it, and Ashley is going to file it at City Hall tomorrow.

(Our parents are going to find out about the ceremony eventually, but we'll just deal with that when it comes up. No use in fretting right now…)

Maybe this means that Mondays aren't so bad after all.

What do you think? Good first chapter?