Outright

by Fallen Ark Angel

Somewhere between mock custody battles and questions of if his mother really likes her better or not, Paul and Steph decide that he can handle watching the baby all by himself. Just not Bluto. - One-shot.

"My bicep is, like, bigger than her head."

"I think your bicep is bigger than everyone's head."

Paul grinned, to himself, as he laid there in the hotel room bed. He had the phone pressed to his ear, speaking to his wife who sounded far too tired to still be up so late, but there was no way that she wouldn't wait up for him, what with it being the first time in two weeks he was traveling for the show.

The previous two he'd had off for, oh, only the most important reason ever.

"She's so tiny though, is my point," he said with a slight smirk. "I could squish her in my arms."

"You could squish anyone in your-"

"Steph."

"What? It's true." There was a pause then and he heard a door open and close softly in the background as well as the bark of their dog. Steph must have been taking Bluto, their Mastiff, to the bathroom. "And that's a pretty weird thing to say about your daughter, by the way, babe."

"Is it?"

"It is."

"I'd never do it."

"I know." Steph yawned then as it sounded like she was heading up the stairs of their house. "You're so gentle with her."

And oh, he tried so hard to be. Since the first time she was handed over to him to hold, in the hospital, two weeks or so ago, he'd been the most tender he could be. It had actually been a fear of his, throughout Steph's pregnancy because, sure, he'd held his nephews and niece, when they were babies, but it would be different, with his own baby.

And what if he dropped her? Or cradled her to him too roughly? Or if when he was picking her up, he didn't realize how strong his grip was and left a bruise? He imagined that babies formed those pretty easily.

Fuck, that wasn't even including all of his fears for when she grew. He could just see him trying to help her learn to walk and holding her hands too hard as he led her. Or what if he wasn't paying attention and she was crawling around on the floor and he stepped on her? Or tripped over something and fell on her?

He was just too big to have a child.

That was the only way to think about it.

Even though he was still rather nervous about such things, in those past two weeks, Paul had managed to not psych himself out so much over the whole thing. It wasn't even a horribly conscious thing either, when he lifted her up, how incredibly soft he was with his baby. It was just innate. Maybe it came along with being a father.

"Yeah, well," he grumbled back to her because getting back into the ring that night, he wasn't feeling too soft, not at all. "You watch me, at least?"

"Of course, Paul." Another yawn. He heard a door squeak open then and new it had to be the one to the baby's nursery (he needed to oil it, but just hadn't gotten around to it). Steph paused for a moment, as if just checking on the baby, before he heard the door squeak shut once more. Then, softly, she said, "Where are you right now?"

"Hotel. Of course. What? You think I'd call you from somewhere else?"

"Well, I didn't know."

"Mmmm," he hummed. "I'm dead tired, babe."

"Your match lasted, what? Five minutes?"

"Six, thank you."

"Doubt it."

"Getting my ass handed to me by Umaga, your dad, your brother, and Shawn was a real great way to get back into the wrestling spirit."

"I'd bet."

"You in bed yet, baby?"

"About to be." Another door shut then. "Just getting ready. And Bluto won't stop following me around because he knows his daddy's on the phone."

Paul made a face in the darkness. "Yeah, I really don't think that's it."

"Of course it is."

"You haven't told me how today was yet."

"I haven't?"

'You just asked about my day."

"That's because it was probably a lot more eventful than mine."

"What makes you say that?"

"You at least got out of the house."

"Memphis. I'm in Memphis, babe."

"There's things to do in Memphis."

"Nothing I'm interested in."

"Oh?"

"I just want sleep." He shifted in bed, still holding the phone to his ear. "Without getting woken up every twenty minutes."

"Lucky you."

"I'll be home soon, baby." He grinned again. "You can handle it on your own until then, huh?"

"Hardly alone," she replied. "My mom was over here most of the day."

"That's cute."

"You think so?"

"Mmmhmm."

"I missed you today."

He laughed a bit. "Really?"

With a hum, she said, "No, actually, not really. But it sounded like something I should say."

"I think it's only mandatory when I've been gone for over a week."

"Yeah, but I figured things were changed, now that we have a baby."

"I think I'm just supposed to miss her, that's all. Me and you are supposed to be clawing at one another's throats."

"Actually, yeah, that sounds about right."

"Hey, Steph?"

"Hmmm?"

I wanna talk to you forever or whatever, but-"

"You can go to bed, Paul." She yawned again, eliciting one from him. "I need to now, before Aurora gets back up."

"You could call me," he offered softly.

"Hmmm?"

"When she wakes you up. Put me on speaker. We can deal with it together."

"How would that be beneficial?"

"I dunno. I was just tryin' to be thoughtful."

"You're not really good at it."

"I don't do it much, no."

Giggling then, Stephanie whispered, "I'll call you in the morning, okay? If you want me to."

"Always." Paul let out a soft sigh as he said, "No critiques then?"

"Of what?"

"The show."

"I was trying to feed Aurora and keep Bluto from barking during your match, but I did write down a few things for Vince to look over that I thought, as an at home viewer were-"

"Goodnight, Stephanie," he cut her off. "I love you."

More giggles and then a repeat of his affirmation before, finally, they both hung up.

It was different, having a kid, Paul would admit that, than it was when he and Steph were just apart. Aurora had only been in the world for a few days and in that time he'd found this sort of...weird connection with her.

She didn't need him.

She needed someone, definitely, but typically that someone could be Steph and he hardly mattered at all. He served his wife more, as a way of giving her a break, than he did Aurora herself.

Still though, he felt as if there was something different that he brought to her. Not necessarily in her knowing, at the time being, but he felt better for her, when he was around.

And man, did it feel good to get back to her, when he finally did. It was past noon and Rora was sleeping, but just getting to leer over her crib at her put him in a pretty good mood.

"For two hours," he'd mumbled against Steph's forehead when he got in, "I'll take care of everything, huh? Got a good nap in on the fight or whatever."

"You sure?" Tilting her head back to stare up at him, she said, "You just got home and-"

"And you've been stuck here while I was gone, dealing with it. Now I'm here and I'll get to deal with it." Then he gave her a big grin. "Plus you're just in our room. I'll get you if I need you. Or she needs you. Or he," he added, pointing at Bluto, "needs you."

"I think he's coming with me."

"What?" Paul even made a face. "You said he missed me."

"Not so much to miss a good nap."

His wife went off, eventually, and that was how Paul found himself then, standing over his daughter's crib, just looking. She looked rather peaceful, compared to when he took off for RAW on Monday morning. She was fussy then and red in the face and just a complete mess. That was more the Aurora he was becoming used to. She cried more than she slept, it felt like, but he knew that couldn't be true.

She was sleeping pretty well that day though, that he just got home, and Paul was pretty happy to see it. After standing over her for awhile, he figured that it would be best if he left her alone and just let her sleep. No need to accidentally wake her up.

Which is totally what he did as he tripped over the corner of the dresser and stumbled a bit, feet making too loud a bang as he caught himself and disturbing his daughter.

Not even twenty minutes into her 'nap' and Steph felt needed.

"Paul-"

"I'm alright! And I have her," he called to his wife, to be sure that she didn't try and get up to investigate. Hobbling around for a second on his stubbed toe, Paul was just as quickly going back over to the baby's crib to pick her up.

There was the Rora he knew.

"What are you doin'?" he asked in a really soft voice, hoping to sooth her with that alone. Didn't work, but was worth a shot. "You miss me?"

"Paul, are you dealing with it?"

Someone hadn't missed him.

"Yes, Steph," he grumbled back, glaring over at the bedroom door, even though he knew she was behind their own at the moment. "Just give me a second!"

Aurora was wiggling around in his hold, kicking her feet and stuff, but Paul only held her to him, trying hard not to be annoyed by the annoyance he'd heard in Steph's voice. Because only one of them could be annoyed at the other at a time.

It was a rule.

She didn't cry for long. She'd just been startled, was all, and needed some confirmation that no, the whole world wouldn't stay rumbling for the rest of forever just because he made the floor shake when he stumbled.

For some reason, this was given to her by rocking her back and forth, but whatever worked.

"There we go." Then, softly, because yelling would only bother her again (and because there was no way he'd smart off to Steph when she was all pissy), he muttered under his breath, "Fixed it, Steph. Ain't that incompetent."

The baby wasn't quiet then though. Just not wailing. Her noises were soft and she wasn't looking at him, just up, but he leaned his face down so that they could look at one another. She didn't rightly look him in the eyes just yet, he was pretty sure that wouldn't come for awhile later, but Steph said that she enjoyed at least seeing his face and, well, he certainly enjoyed looking at hers.

"Look at you." Paul was walking then, heading out of the room, toe still throbbing quite a bit, planning on getting as far away from Steph as possible. He knew if Aurora started up again, his chance would be blown and she'd take over once more. "Pretty baby."

It wasn't even so much that he wanted to care for Aurora for however long it would be until Steph got back up. 'cause he didn't. Not really. He liked his baby, she was definitely his, belonged to him and no one else, but so far having a couple week old baby was turning out quite like he'd always been told it would.

Grueling.

She slept in kind of funky intervals. She was supposed to eat every two hours or so. Three, maybe, was closer to how it was, Paul thought. Which was further complicated by the fact that she constantly needed a new diaper, it felt like. Or at least between the intervals of her needing to be fed.

Still, Paul wanted Steph to take a nap because he was pretty sure she just needed it. More than he did. And it was the middle of the day, so he'd be up, actually, anyways, doing stuff, so he could fit the baby into the things he was doing.

"Here we are." Staring down at his baby once they made it to the bottom of the stairs, Paul asked, "You not gonna go back to sleep? Huh?"

Nope. At least not for the next few minutes as she only blinked up at him, in her cute little striped onsie, just watching. Observing. Paul was mostly a hands on person, but he had read up on babies and their first few months and knew that there was a lot of sensory things going on for them.

Apparently they had pretty good senses of smell. He hoped that helped him in connecting with her, because Steph always thought he smelled nice.

Then again, Steph thought everything he did was nice. Hell, she thought the scar from his quad injury back in '01 was nice, so maybe he shouldn't take her word as law.

"Alrighty then." Bending down, Paul moved to set her gently on her tummy in front of the couch, grinning widely at the sight. "You wanna sit down here with me for a bit?"

That got some more noises as he moved to lay down on the ground with her, on his stomach too, though he rested his chin on his folded arms as he stared across the bit of carpet between them at her.

"You had to have missed me at least a little bit," he remarked to his baby as she wiggled around, sounding a bit annoyed by her new position the floor. "I missed you. Aurora. Rora. Hmmm. I wonder how long until you learn your name. Should have looked that up. You know, most of those books told me the obvious stuff. Of course you like looking at things. I need to know the real answers. Like when you'll actually care that I'm saying Aurora and I won't seem like I'm talking for no reason."

But it wasn't without reason and, when he stopped speaking and she started up with her noises again, he began speaking once more.

"I had a pretty good time," he told her in a way he might have spoken to Steph, were she the one around, instead of his not even a full month old yet. "I guess. Getting to be around everyone again more than made up for everything. Not being away from you though." Reaching a hand out, he gently ran a finger across one of her cheeks. "Although, I will say, other people offer up some more, uh, stimulating conversation than you do. Not holding it against you here, Aurora, I know you've only gotten a few weeks to gather up some talking points, but you're kind of uninteresting for the most part. Other than the parts that make you mine, of course."

Of course.

She didn't like the floor for long. It grew old fast. And, as Steph had told him she'd fed her only ten minutes before he arrived, he knew that wasn't the issue. And diaper seemed fine.

"You just wanna be held? You seem to like that a lot." That's how they ended up shifting to the couch, him stretched out on it with her resting on his chest. For some reason being on her tummy up there was better than the floor.

He figured it was because his hand was resting on her back.

Tapping a finger gently against her, he whispered, "Don't you go and spit up on me this time, Aurora. I didn't appreciate it much last time and definitely won't this."

She'd get back to him on that.

"I'm sorta running out of things to say here, just so you know," he told her after a few moments of silence in which she moved her arms, just a bit, a let out a lazy breath. "I know you like listening to me talk- Well, I hope you do. You seem to. That's what I mean. But my point is that I'm kind of just rambling now. You offer up no topics. No great discussion points. I'm a great literary mind, Aurora. You hear me? Huh? Can you tell that it's me, on the TV? Probably not yet. I really don't even know if you recognized me for real this time. After getting back after a few days. Two weeks isn't much to go by, you know."

He heard movement upstairs and paused, for a moment, fearful that Stephanie was gonna come down, but nothing came of it. Probably just Bluto.

"Steph says you can recognize her voice. And just her in general." His hand came to gently ran down the back of her head then, feeling the soft, light strands that he didn't know yet would grow darker. "I guess I believe her. I mean you, like, came out of her. So that makes sense. But I was around a lot too, you know. When you were...in there. So I think you should recognize me too. It'd only be fair."

It would only be.

He scrunched up his face, as he stared down at her then when she drooled on his chest a bit. "You okay down there? You comfortable? Because you getting me all spitty ain't making me too comfortable. You McMahon women are so selfish. Steph drools too, a lot, when she's real sick. And she always wants to cuddle when she's sick. Gets me all covered in it. Now is that right? Or fair? No." Grunting a bit, his hand fell once more onto her back. "That's life though. With Steph. Now I got life with you going on and you do the same thing. A trait, I guess."

She stilled, eventually, breathing softly as she drifted off. That was all good and well until his cellphone, which was in his pocket, rang and his ringtone of loud rock music was not appreciated by his baby.

"Paul-"

"Damn, Steph, just go to sleep! I can handle the baby!" he complained loudly as that was yelled down to him from upstairs.

The woman was annoying the hell out of him and they hadn't even really had a chance to be around one another yet.

Was this the at each others throats thing she was talking about before?

Sitting up as carefully as he could, he shifted Aurora to one arm so he could fish the dang phone about, griping even more under his breath when he saw it was his mother.

Impeccable timing.

He was getting to his feet too, as he cradled Aurora to him with one arm and held his cell up to his ear with the other. In the calmest voice he could muster as he was walking further away from the staircase, and therefore further away from Steph, he answered the phone.

"Hey, Mom," he greeted, trying hard not to sound annoyed though he knew she could no doubt hear Aurora whining in the background. "What's going on?"

Not that she wanted to answer that. She wanted to know, of course, about her new grandchild (horrible) and how he was (pretty much the same) and, also, how her daughter-in-law was (pretty much the reason they were all horrible, Paul figured).

Bluto would be dismayed to find out that he did not come up in her concerns.

She could hear Aurora whining though and did that annoying parent thing where she tried to give him advice on how to calm her down, but hey, Paul had been doing this for over two weeks; he was an expert at this point.

Just walking around with her, anyways, seemed to calm the baby down eventually.

"Steph said Aurora was fine while I was gone," he was telling his mother as he walked out onto the back deck, figuring that was literally the furthest he could get away from his wife. "Completely."

Which wasn't the right thing to say because his mother scolded him, of course, on how what else could she possibly say? And he shouldn't believe her and that he should be more observant of his wife and, ugh, he loved his mother, but he wasn't in the mood for a lecture.

At all.

Making faces down at Aurora frequently, he mentally made a pact with her to never do that to her when she got older.

Not that that was saying much, because he was pretty certain that was more of a mother thing than a father thing anyways.

She eventually filled him in though, on all sorts of things, about what was going on back at home and how his sister, niece, and nephew were as well as his father and some other family. He wasn't very invested in the conversation, so he heard her (and him) from inside the house as they came into the kitchen. Bluto's nails were making that clicking noise against the tile floor and Steph stopped to get a drink, but just as quickly, they were out there with him.

"C'mere, baby," she cooed as he glared, watching the woman come to gently pluck the rather sleepy then Aurora from his arms. "Are you too hot being out here?"

"No," he grumbled, turning the cell into his shoulder, so his mother couldn't hear them. "Go away, Steph. You're supposed to be napping."

"I'm going." And she was, turning right back into the house then, with their daughter. "Thanks for the suggestion though."

Bluto stayed outside though, beginning his rounds around the yard to check for intruders (there never were any; Paul had a damn good security system installed; Bluto was more for Steph's comfort than actual security). Even after his daddy went inside, still on the phone, the Mastiff stayed out there for to continue his patrol.

He was very serious about making sure that no one got on his property.

Paul finished up with his mother not soon after that and, after hanging up, went upstairs to find where his wife had gotten off to.

"I was gonna put her back to bed eventually too."

"Shhh," she shushed him as he found them in nursery. "Don't wake her up."

Stephanie was just laying her down then, in the crib, and hardly glanced up as he entered the room. Paul came forwards regardless, to peek into the crib at his daughter, but she did seem to honestly be sleeping.

"Your mom?" Steph whispered as they both just stood there, him having stopped behind her, so that her back was to his chest once she righted herself once more.

"Mmmmhmm." Tossing his arms around her center, he pulled her closer to him as he rested his head on her shoulder, watching along with her Aurora, who was wrapped quite snuggly in one of her blankets.

Steph was better at that than him. Swaddling. He could never get the blanket tight enough.

Plus, in the back of his mind, he was pretty freaked a lot about getting it too tight and, like, suffocating her or something.

Which he'd looked into, couldn't find anything, but still wasn't too certain about.

"Everything okay?"

"She just knew I'd be home today." He didn't grin, when Steph ran her hands over his arms, trailing them own to his own hands, but it took a lot to stop him from doing so. "Asked about you."

"What about me?"

"Mmmm," he hummed, thinking. "If you were treating me right."

"Oh, whatever."

"She knows how you can be."

"How I can be."

"Bossy and aggravating and-"

"Paul-"

"She just wanted to know if you were doing okay." He turned his head a bit as she shrugged her shoulders, as if bashful, as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. Then, against it, he whispered, "Then she lectured the heck outta me about how I shouldn't have just taken your word, that you were fine, while I was gone."

"I was fine."

"That's what I said." He went back to staring down into the crib, watching his daughter sleep. "I think my mother likes you more than me."

"Awe."

"I know. And I'm a pretty great guy, I thought."

"You are."

"Call twice a week, am a dang good uncle, frequently drug you on holidays to avoid the McMahons and drag you off to our family events-"

"You know, sometimes I think you forget that you didn't really drug me, kayfabe. I was pretending for...some reason and scheming, behind Vince's back."

"Oh, no, I don't forget." She got another kiss for that, because she was just so dang cute. "I just like the way I tell it better."

"You do realize that would make you a rapist? Drugging me and then..."

"Yeah, in today's time. It was more of a gray area, back in '99."

"No, it really wasn't. People just pretend like-"

"You somehow turned the conversation off how my mother hates me-"

"She does not."

"-and onto this."

"Because your topic was dumb."

"Why?" Paul let out a soft breath. "My mother does like you better."

"Does not."

"Does too."

"I mean, she definitely should," Steph gave in. "Everyone should. I am better than you."

"Is that what you are?"

"That's what I am."

"Hmmm." Nuzzling his head deeper into her neck, he whispered, "I never thought I'd meet a woman that was as conceited as people think I am, but here you are, babe, all wrapped up in my arms."

"Here I am."

"I think she was just worried about you being all alone, with me being gone. That's all."

"I was fine. And I'm serious, I was hardly alone."

"We could just get a nanny, you know," he said as he had, more than once. "Now. Instead of-"

"I told you I want Aurora to, like, get accustomed to me before I let her spend a lot of time around another woman. Us." Steph was real worried, for some reason, about the baby bonding with people outside of them. For whatever reason. He thought it was kind of stupid, but had learned early on in her pregnancy that that was not a word he should ever use to describe anything about her. "When she starts to travel with us, on the bus, we'll get a nanny. We have one. Lined up. Remember?"

Yeah, he remembered. That was annoying too. Interviewing people. His parents used to just leave him and his sister, when they were kids, with whatever neighborhood teenagers were roaming around.

But...then again, he could never see himself actually doing that.

Sign of the times.

"I have to call Dad today," Steph was saying then, as if to change the subject. It was his own fault, as he'd fallen far too silence. "And tomorrow I think I'm going into the office, just for a bit, to deal with some stuff. Can you-"

"Yeah, I can watch-"

"-let Marissa in? She'll be over with Declan probably a little after I leave and-"

"Stephanie."

"What?"

"I can watch the baby."

She paused. "But you need to do your things. You-"

"I can watch the baby."

"Well, I already asked her to come over and-"

"Then call her and tell her she's not needed." His arms loosened a bit, but he didn't release her. "Aurora and I will be fine together. You saw us for that whole hour you were napping."

"She cried twice."

"She only cried twice. I know." Taking a step back then, he led her with him. "If anything, you should be proud of me."

"Yeah, alright, sure."

"And I'm not, like, incompetent, Steph. I've watched babies before. A lot of them."

"A lot?"

"...I've watched three of them. Plus Rora, so basically four."

"Basically."

They separated then, as he'd backed them even further from the crib, but only long enough for Steph to grasp one of his hands and tug him along. With one glance over his shoulder at his daughter, Paul allowed himself to be led to their bedroom.

"I guess if I'm only one for a few hours-"

"Why are you going up there anyways?" When she let go of his hand, he went to fall into bed. He actually had quite a lot of energy and kind of wanted to go throw a Frisbee around with Bluto, but Steph seemed tired and he figured she'd quickly join him. "You should take, at least, another week off. You just had a baby."

"Weeks ago."

"Then add more weeks."

"I thought you wanted to be alone with Aurora?"

"I want the option bestowed upon me, yes."

"Bestowed?"

Nodding as she crawled into bed with him, he said, "Bestowed."

"It's your daughter too. I don't think I have any right to give you rights to her."

"That's what women always say, in my experience."

"What experience?"

Ignoring that, he said, "Right before they rip them away from you in a bitter custody battle."

"Maybe they leave you because you use words like bestowed."

Frowning, he said, "You're clearly feeling inferior to my intellect."

"I don't think that bestowed is very intellectual, babe. Just uncommon. And stupid."

Right. Because he couldn't call her stupid, hadn't been able to in months, but she most certainly could still call him that.

Resting on her side, Steph stared up at him as he sat with his back against the headboard, grinning right back at her. Softly, she said, "You'd have to make her formula, you know, probably, at some point. And I know that you hate that."

"I did it once and it sucked, sure, but that was just the dry run."

"We had dry runs before she was born. You still suck at it."

"What's there to suck at?"

"I honestly don't know, but you do."

"I think you're just trying to bolster your custody case."

She held up a hand then and, reaching his own out, Paul's far larger fingers fell between hers. "I wanna get some more babies out of you before I do that."

"Already planning for that?" He whistled as her fingers squeezed his before they both dropped their hands, still locked, down to the mattress. "You must be pretty impressed in my product."

Scrunching up her nose, Steph said, "You really can ruin moments, can't you?"

"Considering we were discussing our fictionalized child custody battle," he remarked, "I really don't know how I could have made anything worse."

"By referring to our daughter as a product."

"Oh. That."

"Yeah, that."

"If it helps," he offered up with a smirk, "I rather liked what you brought to the table too."

"Did you?"

"Mmmhmm. Carried the kid to full term. That's great. Real sport about it too." His teeth showed through as he added, "Plus, you made sure not to pop her out on the holiest night of the year, the date of my birth-"

"Which I was totally shooting for, but anyways."

"'cause the kid's great and everything," he went on. "Best baby in the world. But to be born on my birthday, you'd have to be mega stellar."

"Mmmm. Pretty sure there's loads of people born then, babe."

"What? No."

"Definitely."

"Liar."

"Never."

"Always."

"Paul?"

"Yes, my liege?"

Her grin was crooked then, but still true, as she asked, "Why do I put up with you?"

"Because I'm only, like, the best husband in the entire world."

"Then I guess I better keep you."

"Uh-huh."

"And that you're gonna go get my baby from outside where I know you left him, so don't even try to lie."

It was his turn to scrunch his face. Still, wiggling his hand free of hers once more, he leaned over to give her a kiss, mumbling against her lips, "Tell me again why we can't get him a doggy door."

"Property value."

"Bull." Another kiss. Then he was slipping out of bed. "I think you just like kicking me out of the bed to bring him in and out."

"Entertainment value then."

"It shouldn't be that much entertainment," he said as he slunk off to do her bidding. "I always do what you ask."

"It's just never gets old is all, babe."

"Shouldda eventually, but whatever."

"I guess," she said as he was leaving, "that maybe you can stay with the baby tomorrow. I mean, Marissa'll be around anyways because she's stopping over at Mom's place, but-"

"You think that Shane's wife is better at caring for a baby than me? Two babies? At once? You're full of it."

"The first time I left you home alone with Bluto for a day, there was crap everywhere, he destroyed most of my couch pillows, and you were nowhere to be found when I showed up."

"That was different. Went out to get food, he got out of his cage-"

"That you didn't lock."

"-and the rest is history." He was stopped, in the doorway to the bedroom then, just to speak with her. "But my baby? She can't get out of her crib, so I can go for food runs at any point."

"Paul-"

"I can watch the baby, Steph. Alone." His tone was a bit more serious then. "If you really got shit to take care of, I can do that. I mean, don't get mad when she's bonded more with me than you-"

"If you can squeeze in that much bonding in two hours, I might surrender the kids to you in the custody battle. Outright."

"That's my girl." He gave a wave over his shoulder. "I'mma go play Frisbee with the dog, huh? You got the baby for now?"

"Mmmhmm," she hummed and he could hear the clicks then, of her cellphone, as she no doubt started texting someone. Hopefully her sister-in-law, because Paul did not need someone watching over him as he watched his daughter.

Even if he was still a bit nervous about the squashing her or dropping her or even bundling her up too tightly in her baby blanket things.

Besides, Paul decided as he found a Frisbee in Bluto's box of toys (yes, he had a whole dang box) downstairs in the den, he better get good at it; who knew when that surrendering outright stuff would be going down…