"Tiny Things" (473 words, enthralled)

Category: JC/AL
Author's notes: In response to the mood challenge, 473 words small, won't take long to read - or review, promise. I also highly advise you all to go read - and enjoy - all the other fics that have been posted so far because they all rock:

Enthralled: To hold spellbound, captivate; to enslave.

***

She lies between them now.

This tiny tiny thing. Her pink hands barely fitting around an index finger. He's constantly surprised by how surprised he is at how tiny she is. How tiny she is and how much space she takes up on their bed. She sleeps and they take separate corners.

That first night they had brought her home Abby had practically built a fortress around her with pillows, for fear of the cat accidentally - or purposefully, in a fit of cat like jealousy - getting too close to her, then sitting on top of this tiny thing, suffocating it. In spite of his teasing her about this he hadn't protested because he was also convinced that he'd wake up the next morning to find her gone too.

That or he'd roll over in his sleep and flatten her.

She was just a tiny tiny, trusting, vulnerable thing. Loving without caution, small fists reaching out for them, never once being afraid of being burnt at the touch as they had been of each other.

He looks across at her, head half resting on a pillow, eyes half closed, watching him watch her. It must be at least two in the morning.

She smiled drowsily. "Is daddy sleepy yet?"

He can only grin at her, which she reflects. They both return to their watch of her, as though she's about to break out into song or declare world peace at any second, when all she does is continue to breathe softly on her side. He thinks this is more amazing than anything else she could do.

He wonders if his own parents had brought him home like this. If they'd spent as many nights up together with him, amazed at themselves and this tiny tiny thing. If he'd meant as much to them as this does to him - watching them both sleep across from him like this. If they'd been as in love with each other as they were. If they'd ever been in love at all.

He's become one of those people who takes out his wallet at train stations and whilst in line at the grocery store, dozens of pictures of her - of them, flying out in tandem, showing them to anyone who dares ask. Expecting them all to be as half amazed by it as he is.

Abby's eyes have closed fully after an hour or so of 'long blinks,' her mouth set into a soft smile, one hand around the small waist, the corner of a diaper and her soft milky baby skin.

He smiles as he reaches out his own hand, placing it over hers. Realizing that he's not just holding onto her, or this tiny tiny thing that needs endless photos and a width of bed space to prove she exists, but that he's now holding onto his family.