Danny groaned as he heard his newborn son cry from the nursery across the hall from the room he shared with his wife. He felt her stir and attempt to move to get out of bed but he wrapped his arms tighter around her and held her in place.
"I got it." Danny mumbled as he nuzzled her neck.
"You got him last time." Lindsay said as she shivered from his touch.
"I know, go back to sleep." Danny said and kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear then got out of bed with a groan.
Danny padded his way into the Winne the Pooh themed room and turned on a soft light before he made his way over to the oak crib and smiled down at the infant as he kicked his legs and arms as he continued to cry. His cries soon turned into small whimpers at the sight of his father.
"Hey hey, what's all the fuss about?" Danny cooed at the baby as he scooped him up and cradled him in his arms. Danny grimaced as he got a waif of his son. "I think you need to be changed, what do you think?"
Danny smiled and kissed the infant's forehead and brought him over to the changing table, not far from the crib. Gently setting him down on the table, Danny undid the bottom of his son's outfit and quickly changed his diaper, almost expertly.
"See that wasn't too bad." Danny laughed and scooped his son back into his arms and moved across the room to sit in the rocking chair.
Danny's heart melted as he watched his son's little mouth open up into a yawn. He smiled and kissed the baby's button nose and placed his finger in his son's palm and smiled at how his fingers instinctively wrapped around it.
"Tired?" Danny asked softly as he continued to rock the baby gently. "Have you been good for Mommy while I've been at work?" the baby just continued to gaze up at Danny curiously, trying to reach for Danny's chains on his bare chest. "Mommy's got a thing for them too." Danny said as he handed the chains to his son, who soon lost interest and instead placed his little hand over the fresh tattoo on Danny's chest.
Danny smiled and although he was too stubborn too admit it, that tattoo had hurt like a bitch, but it was worth it.
"You like it?" Danny asked as he bent his head and traced the outline of his son's foot inked into his chest. Danny was quite happy with his, the artist managed to get most of the details from the baby's foot. "You know what it says underneath?" he asked the baby as he ran his finger over his son's name written underneath the foot, in a clean cursive. "Nathaniel."
Nathaniel flicked his eyes up to Danny, not recognizing his name just bored at looking at his chest. He dropped his hand from his father's chest and sucked his thumb.
"Do you know what Nathaniel means?" Danny asked softly as he continued to watch his son, thankfully his problem was he couldn't see far away, so with out his contacts he could still see the details of his son's face, like the cute birthmark located under his son's left ear. "It means gift of god, and you know what?" Danny continued as he shifted the small being in his arms. "That's exactly what you are."
The baby removed his eyes from his father and looked around the room as best he could, not finding anything interesting he moved his newborn blues back to his father's loving cobalt blues.
"Cause you know, Mommy and me, we love each other, but we were scared of each other. Then she told me, that she was gonna have a baby, my baby." Danny smiled, not that he ever doubted the paternity of Lindsay's child. "And it scared me, scared her too, but she was scared of different things, you know?"
Lindsay sat up in her bed and leaned her back against the headboard. She loved listening to Danny when he talked to Nathaniel, he was also so sweet and the tone of his voice always turned softer, making his accent thicker. She smiled as she heard him explain what happened when she told him she was pregnant. They never really talked about it, just focused on moving forward.
"I messed up, I hurt your Mommy real bad, ruined her trust in me." Danny sighed and looked up from his son, not focusing on anything particular then looked down at the baby who was fighting to stay awake. "She didn't know if I would stay or run. It makes sense, you can't blame her. Then, she gave me the sonogram." Danny smiled at the memory. "Technically it was your first picture, but that's not what's important. What am I trying to say?" Danny questioned with a yawn, not exactly sure where he was going with this.
"Right, Gift of God. You see, Mommy and I got back together, but it wasn't like before, because I knew she loved me, she said it twice." Lindsay laughed, the way Danny said it made it seem like it was the most important thing. "But we weren't the same, cause what I did was bad, worst thing you can do, in my opinion." Lindsay sighed, she knew Danny was still holding onto his mistake, that it held him back from doing things, like going out to a bar with just the guys, sometimes. "And I knew it was gonna be rough, but, I don't know, anyway."
"You, or well, me getting your Mom pregnant, forced us to be scared together and not just keeping it to ourselves and try it hide it. Things got better than before, pretty quick." Danny said to the now sleeping baby in his arms. He smiled and stroked his son's cheek.
"The sex was even better too, not like the first time we did it though." Lindsay snorted, Danny would say that. He didn't really need to be telling their son about the ups and downs of their sex life. "See I know you're mom, and she's jealous I got a tattoo for you, but she just hasn't seen hers yet, cause she can't have sex for another month." Lindsay's eyebrows raised, she was defiantly finding hers tonight, sex or not.
"Any way, you brought us closer, maybe even saved us, and that's an amazing gift, see, gift of god, so it was between Matteo or Nathaniel." Danny smiled and continued to rock the baby back forth. He smiled as his son's legs kicked while he dreamt. "She wanted Nathaniel, cause it sounds like Daniel."
"I hope you don't hate me, when you grow up." Lindsay's head quickly turned and looked at the baby receiver on her nightstand, not sure if she heard him right. "I despised my dad growing up, I knew he was bad to my Ma, didn't hit her or nothin', but I knew he slept around on her." Lindsay swallowed hard, Danny had never told her any of this. "I don't understand how she tolerates it." Lindsay sighed.
"I swear, I'll never hurt your mother like that again, ever." Danny whispered to the sleeping baby as he stood and brought him over to the crib. "I love you." Danny whispered and kissed his son's forehead, nose, lips, and cheek before rubbing his nose gently against Nathaniel's, who stirred and looked up at his father. Danny swore he smiled, and watched as the baby fell back asleep.
Danny gently set the baby down in his crib and headed out of the nursery, shut the light off and crawled back into bed, where Lindsay appeared to be still sleeping.
"I know you're awake." Danny whispered in her ear with a laugh. "I know you Montana."
"I know you too, Messer." Lindsay smiled as she turned and flicked the light on her nightstand on.
"Oh yeah?" Danny laughed as she turned and faced him. His body was taken over with goose bumps as she gently ran a finger down his jaw line.
"I know you won't cheat again, Dan." She said as she scooted closer to him, their chest touching, and he tangled their legs together. "Because it wasn't like that, just, I know, Dan, I'm not worried about."
"I am." Danny whispered. "Not because I know I would, I won't, but you should worry about me hurting you, I'm not always the smart, sensitive, thoughtful guy."
"But you are. Obviously you're smart to hold the job you have, and you nearly got a perfect score on you SATs. You're sensitive whether you like it or not. You kept Nathaniel's sonogram in your wallet the whole time I was pregnant, you just switched it when you got printed out his picture when we brought him home and he fell asleep on your chest. You cried when he was born, you will cry when he calls you Daddy, I know it, you know it." Lindsay laughed and so did Danny.
"You make me sound like a wuss." Danny laughed.
"You're thoughtful too. When we got back together and you remembered you forgot my birthday and made me tell you every gift I ever got, well all the ones I could remember." Lindsay laughed and Danny blushed.
"I'm not always that guy." He said. "Just for you."
"I know." She smiled and placed her hand on his cheek and kissed him gently.
They lay in silence for awhile, just gazing and caressing each other, a few sweet kisses.
"I'm sorry for not expecting any thing from you." She whispered as she took his hand in hers.
"What do you mean?" Danny asked confused.
"When I told I was pregnant." She started. "I said I knew you, and I wasn't expecting anything."
"You had every right." Danny said and moved to rest his forehead against hers. "It doesn't matter anymore, you know I'm not going anywhere, I love you, my wife, I love our son."
"I know, Daniel." She laughed. "I love you too."
"Good." Danny laughed and tried to reach over her to shut the light off.
"No." she said and grabbed his arm. "I want to see my tattoo."
"It's a surprise." Danny said with a smirk.
"If you ever want to have sex again, I want to see my tat." Lindsay said and pushed him on his back. "So where is it?"
"Where do you think?" Danny asked.
"Well, I don't think you'd tattoo your ass, you like it too much." Lindsay laughed as she ran her hands over his chest and abs, stopping at the tattoo of Nathaniel's footprint. "What if we have another baby?"
"What do mean?" Danny asked, curious at her sudden change in interests.
"Do you want another baby?" Lindsay asked with a small smile.
"Yeah, I don't want more than 3 though." Danny said honestly. "Do you?"
"Yeah." Lindsay said and traced their son's name on his chest. "But I don't want to plan it."
"What?" Danny asked with a nervous laugh.
"I think it would be fun, I mean, hm, Nathaniel wasn't exactly an ideal time because we weren't married. But, I mean when Nathaniel's two, I'll stop taking the pill, and that'll be it, see if we get a baby." Lindsay said and narrowed her eyes confused. "That kinda is planning."
"Yeah." Danny laughed. "But kinda not, don't keep tract of your, you know girly stuff, or ovulation what not. We'll just have sex like we always do."
"Yeah." Lindsay smiled. "But that's not my point. If we have another one, or two. We'll you get a tattoo for them?"
"I don't know." Danny said. "Nathaniel will always be special to me, he's our firstborn, and I don't know, he's what changed our relationship into something that we knew would be forever."
"I love you." Lindsay laughed. "You're so cute." Danny grimaced at the word cute. "He is though."
"I know he is, that doesn't mean if we have any more kids, I will love him more. He's just has a special place." Danny said softly.
"I know, he holds a special place in my heart too." Lindsay said as she rested her head on Danny chest. "I can already tell he's gonna look like you."
"He's two months." Danny laughed and wrapped his arms around her.
"I know, but the sandy blonde hair, the ears, the eyes I know they're going to be your blue." Lindsay said as she played with the chest hairs, that weren't shaved.
"If you say so." Danny laughed. "We should really be sleeping, baby."
"I know." Lindsay yawned. "My tattoo!"
"Damn, I thought you'd forget." Danny laughed as she sat up off his chest.
"Where is it?" she asked with a smirk as she pulled the covers off his body.
"Where do you think?" Danny asked as she watched her smirk and pull his sweats down a little.
It was a decent size outline of the state of Montana with MOO written inside. It sat relatively low on the V of his body, so even if he was out in public with his shirt off, it would only be seen if he or she wanted it to.
"Moo?" Lindsay laughed and dropped a kiss to the ink.
"You don't remember?"
"I remember, alright." Lindsay said with a smile.
"My. Only. One." Danny repeated. "You like it?"
"I love it." Lindsay said as she kissed him hungrily, slipping her tongue inside his mouth, causing him to groan. "I love you, Danny."
"I love you too, Montana."