A/N: Aww, thanks, guys! I appreciate all the reviews, favorites, and alerts. You really made my week, lol. I really happen to love the idea of Derek having a little girl. And, Chlerek, I don't like Timmy either. Shout outs to So, here goes for you guys that requested a follow-up!

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Visiting Hours

Daddy did not happen to like the way he was feeling right now.

His bed was empty, and, for Daddy, that was a very troublesome feeling. You see, Daddy has a wife and a baby girl, so he typically never wakes up alone in the mornings. If Mommy was out, baby girl was in. If Mommy was in, then baby girl was out. And, for some unknown reason, Daddy was beyond highly protective of the people that lived in his house.

You might even say he was like the alpha in the pride.

Needless to say, this put him on high alert. He climbed out of bed (while wondering, not for the first time, how his two-foot tall daughter managed it) and padded softly down the stairs and looked around in a way that was dangerously close to sniffing the air, when he stopped mid-stride.

A very nice smell had just assaulted his nose.

Trying not to run, he made his way towards the kitchen. He could already hear voices from therein.

"Mommy, look!"

"It's very pretty Lauri, now throw that away."

"But, why, Mommy?"

"Lauri, your hands have been all over it."

He stopped for a moment just to listen as the most important people in his life conversed freely.

Silence.

"Lauri?"

"Yes, Mommy?"

"Don't even try to eat that."

"But I wasn't, Mommy!"

"Laurel."

"Are you sure it tastes bad, Mommy?"

"Yes."

"But its about to be a pancake!"

"Oh, Lauri."

And that's when Daddy decided that was his cue. He was struck by an assailant before he got in the kitchen good.

"Daddy!" Laurel yells as she runs to the rather intimidating figure as if she hadn't seen him the last time she put her head on a pillow. He scoops her up in a hand, almost appearing to be using his fingers. But that would be crazy, right? It scares Daddy, sometimes, how fragile Laurel is in his arms. For the longest he was scared to hold her, he might grab on too tight and break her. But that hasn't happened yet.

"Good morning, Laurel." he said solemnly to Laurel after bringing them up face-to -ace.

"Good morning, Daddy." she replied solemnly after being brought face-to-face with Daddy.

And then she threw her arms around his neck and pushed her face into that crook in his neck. Daddy had had her for five years now and was yet to become used to that.

Laurel and Daddy had a strange but not uncomfortable kind of relationship. It was almost like they shared a mind, sometimes.

"So, now you're taking my kitchen helper from me," He turned around and came face-to-face with his pixie of a wife. Daddy looked apologetic and Mommy shoo-ed them both away.

Daddy walked them to the couch and sat Laurel on his lap, as Daddy flipped through the channels and ended up finding How It's Made, keeping them both glued to the t.v. screen until Mommy called for breakfast. Contrary to what his personality traits might suggest, Daddy had a very bad habit of babying Laurel. Was she spoiled? A little, but what's wrong with that? This, however, was not the case as they both raced to the glass table and Laurel won. Just as they were sitting down, the doorbell rang.

There, however, is a rule in the Souza household. Daddy does not answer the door when he's eating. Mommy isn't home, and Daddy's eating lunch with Laurel, you're probably just going to have to wait until they finish. He takes that very seriously. So you can imagine whomever it was's good luck that Mommy hadn't started eating yet and she was in a really good mood.

Laurel watched the door from the table. Daddy didn't because Daddy was eating.

"Wow, Simon, you sure know how to arrive with the food."

"Aww, it's nice to see you too, Chloe!"

There was a pause in conversation as she let him in and they hugged and exchanged pleasentries.

"Now, where's bugaboo?" Daddy inwardly groaned. He loved his brother, but he was disturbing one of his many meal times. Laurel jumped off her black chair and took off towards the foyer.

"YAY, IT'S UNCLE SIMMY!" And as soon as she reached the foyer he heard those same little steps retreating.

"AHH, IT'S UNCLE SIMMY!" And Daddy listened, highly annoyed, as Uncle Simmy chased her all around the house and finally tuned his strategy well enough to capture her in the guest bedroom and threw her over his shoulder as she was carried into the living room.

"NOOO, UNCLE SIMMY, PUT ME DOWN!" she exclaimed, beating his back with what felt like little puffs of air. But, of course, they were her hands.

"As you wish," and he fell down on the couch with her, and tickled her so hard that she could barely breathe. As the poor things was assaulted, she was bothered by the hair of his gruff golden blonde beard brushing her face.

"UNCLE SIMMY, NOOO!" she was crying, she was laughing so hard.

"Aww, but the tickle monster loves you!"

"IT ISN'T THE TICKLE MONSTER, ITS YOUR HAND!"

"Oh no, it looks like I've been found out."

And enter Daddy, looking downright murderous.

"Simon, all of your horsing around has caused me to drop pancakes. Chloe's pancakes. You're about to die." Uncle Simmy and Laurel thought the same thing.

Run.

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And so, Daddy had just been thwarted in his idea to throw Simon out of his for more than one reason. His daughter was seated on the man's shoulders, clearly having a wild time, and his wife wouldn't let him.

So now Daddy, who was by then ravenous, had figuratively (probably) unhinged his jaw to ingest even more food than usual. Laurel, who's appetite fluctuated depending upon her mood, wasn't hungry at all anymore and was sitting on the couch with Uncle Simmy watching a football game. It was the Broncos vs. the Chargers, and the Chargers were losing something awful. Uncle Simmy, who was an ex-resident of Denver, Colorado, was howling fiercely at every touchdown, and so was darling Laurel. Well, Laurel wasn't really howling with every touchdown, she was just howling whenever Uncle Simmy did.

And all this was grating on Daddy's nerves terribly.

And then Tim Tebow ran the ball all the way to the end zone and scored his second touchdown within the last thirty seconds of the game, and all hell broke loose.

"!THAT'SINSANE!BRONCOSALLDAYBABY,WHOOOOOO!" he ran around the house yelling, Laurel screaming:

"BRONCOOOOOSSSS!"

Now, does Laurel know what a Bronco is? Nope, but we've already established that, haven't we? Mommy was laughing at the hilarity of it all, Daddy was one minute away from stuffing his face with painkillers, and Laurel was completely caught up in the thrilled energy Uncle Simmy was exuding while the flat screen was blaring in the living room.

And Mrs. Hurtsville, a widow from across the street, was standing at her phone and likely to call the police at the same time as Daddy O.D.d. At this point the situation had only gotten worse, as Uncle Simmy had by now been contacted by friends of his and now they were all screaming at each other over Tebow's epic win.

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After about another hour of screaming and about two more hours of talking trash on Facebook and Twitter, everybody was sitting around calmly flipping through channels, Laurel bobbing up and down at a steady pace on Uncle Simmy's knee as they flipped through channels. Daddy was grading papers (he teaches a course on Psychology at Berkeley), Mommy was napping, and Uncle Simmy and Laurel were just kind of chilling. It was a lazy afternoon, to say the least.

"Uncle Simmy?"

"Hm?"

"Where's Auntie?"

"Auntie's at work."

"But where?"

"In a magnificent place called Atlanta."

"Really?"

"Yup."

"What's Atalanata like?"

"Well, Atlanta is very warm."

"Is it very far?"

"Not really."

"Could we go there?"

"Maybe."

"Could we walk?"

"Sure."

"How long would it take?"

"Oh, we'd get there by about 2014."

"What's a 2014?"

"A year."

"What's a-"

"Laurelli, what do they teach you in pre-k?"

"I don't understand you, Uncle Simmy."

"Where'd you hear 'understand'?"

"Sid the Science Kid!"

"The show with the freaky, deep-voiced, play-doh kids?"

And here she gave him a look. One thing you didn't do in the Souza household, diss Laurel's favorite shows. Just as Uncle Simmy was about to receive a lecture on why Sid the Science Kid is an awesome show, all the while making him suffer until the very end, at which point her words would slur into meaningless babble, the doorbell rang.

In a flash, Daddy, who had been at the dining table to the direct right of the front entrance, was opening the door.

"Tori."

"Derek."

"Auntie Tori!"

"Hey, Laurel."

Daddy decided that Laurel must simply be a very affectionate child, as Auntie Tori hadnever been very strong as far as reciprocating feelings went.

And then there was silence, because, for some godforsaken reason, Auntie Tori and Uncle Simmy were in a fight. Well, "fight" sounds immature, so perhaps "vicious, prolonged argument" would be a better description.

Even Laurel could feel it this time. Because she was uncomfortable, she just kind of ran off. Probably to go find Pinkie, but who knows? But, with the removal of her presence, she took all pretense with her, leaving behind the awkward shell of hostility behind.

Which automatically broke with the comedic arrival of Mommy, looking sleepy in a spaghetti-strap tank, pajama bottoms, and just-woke-up hazy eyes. Mommy, like a normal person, had wrongly assumed that, because there was no noise, nobody but maybe Daddy was down stairs. Little did she know that practically everybody was down stairs.

Awkward was not a strong enough word to describe how she probably felt at the moment.

Shrugging, she pushed back a stawberry-blonde curl and made her way to the kitchen, where she heated up a Campbell's soup, grabbed the remote of the pristine marble counter, and changed to Dance Moms on Lifetime. Her fuzzy blue-striped socks moved noiselessly across the changing landscapes of her home's floors.

She walked over to her square, glass table with a ceramic bowl, grasping it by it's handle. Laughing softly at Abby Lee's antics, she completely ignored her husband's plees for help as the tension broke and things got really heated in front of the door.

And you would not believe what the argument was about.

It all started months ago, when Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer and Auntie Tori drove to their house in tears, decked out in black. That entire afternoon, Laurel, Mommy, and Auntie Tori all sat at her Princess Tiana table (which was draped in a dark brown curtain- they didn't own any black ones) and mourned him. Even now Auntie Tori was still grieving, and, a few weeks back, when Uncle Simmy asked her politely to 'get over it' she told him politely to 'go to hell', and that's what sparked the 4-week-long disagreement.

Daddy rubbed his sensitive ears and asked them very nicely to take it outside, as he had a sensitive 5-year-old just upstairs. Of course, Laurel, who found the whole thing fascinating, continued to watch them from her window. She shook her head at them, looking at Pinkie on the windowsill. Clearly, someone had some serious growing up to do, and, even though she couldn't voice it, she felt Pinkie agreed with her. But then, now that she thought about it, he agreed with her opinion a lot.

She just shrugged and went back to drawing rainbows using yellow, purple, blue, and about a hundred shades of pink.

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After booting Uncle Simmy and Auntie Tori from his house, Daddy was sitting on the couch, watching an episode of How It's Made on the Science Channel, and taking a breather after finishing half of his class' essays. As the announcer on the television broke down the anatomy of a golf ball, Mommy crept down the stairs. She had just bathed and put Laurel to bed, who was now dreaming of Steve Jobs riding a rainbow with Pinkie.

She curled into Daddy's side and watched alongside him in mute fascination. He slid an arm around her shoulders and she placed her head into his shoulder and traced Laurel's initials into his waist.

"Guess what, love?"

"What?"

"Your daughter told me I was Byuitull."

"Really?"

"Mhmm. You know, it still kind of takes me off guard."

"What does?"

"When she says 'Mommy'. There's this pretty little girl, and she's calling me 'Mommy' and she's expecting an answer. It's scary and it's the biggest thrill ever."

"I used to not even respond when she addressed me. She would just stand there, upset, probably wondering why we told her to call me 'Daddy' when I don't acknowledge her when she does."

Silence.

"Derek?"

"Hm?"

"Do you ever wonder what goes on in her head?"

"Yeah, sometimes I wonder what she thinks about us."

He remembered an unremarkable moment not so long ago that just happened to catch at the fringes of his mind.

He had been taking Laurel to meet Xavier at the park on a warm day in June. She was two, her birthday was that February, the day before Valentine's. She just still learning how to express herself, as she didn't exactly have an expansive vocabulary. They were walking through the foyer when he paused to kick away a toy and shake his head when Laurel, who's head was facing the space behind him, tugged at his collar. He turned around and she pointed to the small, round, creme-colored table beside the steps that held a gold-colored lamp, a stack of magazines, and a cherub snow globe he bought Mommy while he was in Rome for a discovery trip the university sent him on. She crawled out of his arms, slid down his body, and ran to it.

Walking over to the area and kneeling down, he saw what she was trying to show him. A shaft of light from the windows above the front door had shined off the lamp and caused the globe to give off a shadow tinted with a goldish color. She picked it up, shook it with both hands, put it back and watched with Daddy as the flakes gave an otherworldly affect to the shadow.

Suddenly, she frowned, deep in thought.

"What's wrong, Laurel?"

Silence. She chewed her lip, angry. Then she broke out in a heart-shattering grin.

"Pretty. Pretty!" She said more enthusiastically after deciding that was the right word.

It was the first time she had used a descriptive word.

With Mommy's voice, the world fell back into place.

"I do, too. But she said we're byutifull, so I'm guessing she doesn't think too badly of us." She fiddled with the laces of her white snowflake pajama bottoms.

"Well, I think you're byutifull." Daddy was surprised at himself. He was becoming very affectionate of late.

"Well, I think you are byutifull." Mommy grinned brightly and leaned back, placing her feet on the couch. She looked up past the sky lights to see the stars, glittering brightly. Daddy watched, amused, through lidded eyes as she reached up and closed her hands into a fist as if she could snatch the balls of light right out of the sky. And her shiny eyes said so.

Byutifulll, was the last thing he thought before he drifted into a world almost as enticing as his reality.

A/N: So, I'm sorry about this being so late, guys. Really, I am. I shouldn't have promised you guys a chapter when I hadn't finished it yet. From now on for a while, I'm going to do strict one-shots, as in NO multi-chaptered fics, because I clearly take years to write one. I have this big thing I'm doing with the album '21' by Adele, and it's going to include Darkest Powers, so keep and eye open for me again. Thanks be to: Xx-LoveEraser-xX, Chlerek, SweatDreamzz3116, ChloeXDerekDP, holymfwickee, ouran4eva, Crixtine, and dittzybuttercup for reveiwing before I finished the second chapter. I really, appreciate it, guys. Also, if you want to review still, even though this story is over, feel free!

Until Stars Shine On Us Again,

A.T.H