"Come on. Walk to Daddy."

Sara tottered uncertainly; her tiny hands clung to the baby gate. She gave her father a bewildered look and held on tight. Grinning at her cautious hesitation, James got down on his knees so as to be closer to her level of sight. If she kept this up, at least he'd never have to worry about her getting into too much trouble.

"You can do it," he urged her, beckoning her to come toward him. "You were walking around Jonas' table like a pro the other day." Her look of bewilderment turned to one of frustration at his refusal to accept her unwillingness to let go of the safety of the baby gate. Her expression looked so very much like the one Catherine would give him when he interrupted her work that he didn't know whether to weep or to laugh.

"Sweetheart, Daddy has to go check on the lab with Jonas soon." He rose to his full height and took a step backward. The small girl made a frantic flailing motion, let go of the baby gate and took several unsteady steps toward him. He supposed her dislike of being separated from him was one way to motivate her…

"There you go!" he encouraged her, resorting to the voice he used to heap praise: a voice far shriller and upbeat than his normal. She quickly realized what had just happened, glanced anxiously from him to the baby gate and then back to him and became aware that she was stranded between the safety of the gate and her father. Her face screwed up in the typical pre-screaming expression.

"No, no, no, it's okay!" he said, quickly, holding out his hands to her. "You're halfway there." She made a frantic half leap and half walk toward him and fell dramatically into his open arms.

"Look at you!" he said, scooping her up and planting a kiss on her head. "My, my, already a year old and walking like a champ." She beamed at him. "Your mother would be so proud of you."

Cautiously, he entered the baby pen, still holding onto her. She seemed oblivious to the fact that she was about to be set down.

"I know you hate it when Daddy leaves you alone, but I've got a bit of work to do. It won't be very long at all, and I've put your favorite red ball in here." Gingerly he set her down by her collection of toys and backed away quickly, hoping she wouldn't scream. Instead, she glared at him with a look of deep betrayal.

"I'll be back soon," he promised, patting the top of her head. "And we'll read the SPECIAL book you like so much. I love you." She continued glaring at him as he switched on the baby mobile's music and crept out of the room ashamedly.

He hurried down the Vault hallways; anxious to get back to Sara and to avoid speaking to anyone he didn't need to. Naturally, his luck did not hold, and as he rushed past the Deloria's apartment (cringing as he heard Ellen scream at her son), Stephanie Almodovar called out for him from the other end of the hallway. Her daughter, Amata who was only 5 weeks younger than Sara and a constant playmate, was balanced on her hip.

"James!" He swore under his breath. "Isn't today Sara's birthday?" He composed his face into what he hoped was a sincere smile and waved to the Overseer's wife.

"Yes, it is. It's hard to believe she's already one."

"Where is she?"

"Well, I was just…" He was suddenly ashamed of his parenting. What part of him had thought it would be okay to leave his one year old child in a play pen by herself on her birthday?

"She's napping," he lied. "I was running to the lab to get some reports while she was still asleep."

"Will you bring her over later? I know Amata would love to play." At the sound of her name, Amata glanced up at her mother and smiled. "I made a cake too."

"Of course. I'm sure Sara would love that to. Thank you. Now if you'll excuse-"

"It's the birthday daddy!" James' composure fell as the slurred words of Ellen Deloria rang out into the hallway. Stephanie gave him an exasperated glance. Even Amata pouted.

Butch's mother came sauntering out into the hallway, a bottle of scotch in one hand. Her son made a sound of protest as he left and she called back to him.

"Shut up!"

"Maybe you shouldn't yell so-" James began, half-heartedly.

"Were you planning anything for Sara's-hic-birthday?" Ellen continued, oblivious to the doctor's slight protests about how she treated her child. "I'm sure Butch would love some play-hic-mates."

James thought Butch would actually probably prefer to bite Sara as he had done two weeks prior but decided not to bring this up.

"No, I wasn't planning on much. She's not really one for crowds. You know how shy she is."

"Just like her dad!" Ellen swung a playful punch at James' arm and completely missed in her drunkenness. "Say, isn't this the one year anniversary of Caitlin's death?"

James tried not to associate his wife's death with his daughter's birthday: Sara did not deserve her day of celebration to be a day of grief too.

"Yes," he conceded sadly. "Catherine has been gone a year now. I really don't want to talk about-"

"You should date again," Ellen suggested.

"Stop it!" Stephanie interjected. "You have no right to say things like that!"

"I was just-"

"Ladies," James cut in, irritably. "I'm pretty sure I just heard Sara cry. If you'll excuse me."

He practically broke into a run once he was more than a few feet away from the now bickering women, suddenly eager to be in the presence of Sara whose life was so simple and happy.

When he arrived back into their apartment, he found the baby gate open. For a moment, a welling of panic rose in him…until he saw her sitting on the floor with the You're SPECIAL book propped open in her tiny lap.

"How did you…?" He glanced over at the baby gate then back to his daughter who was smiling proudly up at him. "What a smart girl you are."

He caught sight of the stitched Bible verse that rested on her nightstand and Ellen's mention of Catherine came back to him. It was Sara's birthday and she certainly deserved a celebration, but that didn't mean they shouldn't remember her mother too…even if only for a moment.

"Come here, honey," he said, getting down onto his knees and extending a hand out to her. Sara gingerly pushed the book off her lap and half crawled, half slid over to her father. He took her under the arms and pulled her onto one of his knees.

"You see this?" he asked, pointing to the stitching. She looked over it and gurgled a string of syllables at him in response, mostly consisting of "Dada" and "Baba".

"That was your mother's favorite Bible verse," he continued, smiling at her incoherent baby noises. "Revelation 21:6. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely."

"Dadadadadada," Sara responded. He pulled her in close to him and buried his face into her red locks that were growing at an amazingly fast rate. She seemed to understand this was meant to be a quiet moment and stopped babbling. She then grabbed hold of his neck, stood up on his knee and pressed her mouth to his ear in what he supposed was meant to be an extraordinarily sloppy and wet kiss.

A mixture of terrible loneliness at Catherine's absence and pure joy for the little girl in his arms rose in his throat.

"It's always going to be you and me, honey. You and me. But that's okay. So long as we've got each other, that's all that matters."

"Dadadada," she said again.

"Okay," he replied as a chuckle escaped his lips. "Let's go see if your friend Amata wants to play. And I've heard her mommy may have a surprise for you." He placed her on the floor and stood up. She reached up and grabbed his hand, wobbling a little on her still unsteady feet.

"Come on, birthday girl. I've got you." They took a few uncertain steps together out into the hallway. "I've always got you."