The sun was just barely beginning to rise when Faith woke up one morning about three weeks into November. She hadn't gotten very much rest the night before because she had had a busy evening at the hospital. In fact, she had only come home to get a few hours of rest in between shifts. Now she was headed right back there.

She didn't mind. Today she would be working on Cristina's specialty. The days that she got to operate on hearts were her favourites. Plus, she had tomorrow off and Thanksgiving was coming early this year. Not everyone had been able to get the actual holiday off, but they would make due with celebrating it the weekend before. On some other days like this one, Faith would have had a tougher time getting up, but she didn't mind right now because of what would be in store for her over the next two days.

"I was hoping you'd be home a little earlier last night," Sebastian told her when he woke up and walked into the bathroom to find her straightening her hair shortly afterwards.

"I was supposed to be," she said. "Sorry. One of my interns questioned Jackson's treatment plan, and it turned into this whole big deal. The patient thought that Jackson wasn't giving her the best care possible, but really, he knows better than the intern. Or me. It took me a good two hours to convince the patient that Avery's treatment plan isn't a bad one. Obviously she wants to talk to him today, but I managed to avoid having to wake him up last night. That was the last thing that I wanted. And then I had to pull out my inner Bailey and make sure that all of my interns knew to never do that in front of a patient again."

"You don't have an 'inner Bailey'," he laughed.

"You just haven't seen it."

"In over ten years?" he asked. "I think I would have seen it by now if it was in you."

Maybe he was right. She was not nearly as good at giving those kinds of speeches as Miranda Bailey was. However, very few – if any – doctors at the hospital were. That was okay. The point was that her interns now understood that they were to handle themselves differently. Occasionally they may have legitimate concerns about a superior doctor, but they had to be certain of their reasoning for such concerns and they definitely needed to remember to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner. The overwhelming majority of the time, Attending surgeons were not to be questioned in that way, considering that they had more training and experience. She had taught them this at the expense of some of her sleep.

"Still," she said. "I'm keeping them in line."

"Good," he replied, giving her a morning kiss. "And good morning."

"Good morning," she smiled.

"While I have a chance to bring this up before we go to work, my mom called last night. She wants to make Thanksgiving plans.

"You have Thanksgiving plans," she responded. "I'm working, but you're going over and having dinner with your parents. I won't be there, but they'll still get to spend the day with you. It's better than nothing."

"Apparently they want to see you, too," he said.

"Invite them to my moms' house for dinner tomorrow," she proposed. "They've come before and no one cares. Everyone likes your parents. Especially Declan because they're two extra people to play with."

"You're sure?"

"I'll ask them today," she said. "But I'm sure. Our families are close. It'll be fun."

"Okay."

"Is it February yet?" Arizona asked Sofia a few hours later while at work.

As usual, she was trying to make vacation plans. She and her wife had decided on St. Lucia as their destination of choice, but they had yet to agree on where they wanted to stay or what they wanted to do while there. Despite this, Arizona couldn't stop reading travel brochures and trying to plan the perfect getaway.

"Not exactly," Sofia replied.

"Well, it should be," she said.

Even though Faith was on Cardio today, she made a point of heading to the Peds. ward just to let her mom know that Wren and Darren would be joining them for dinner the next day. She wasn't really asking since she knew that they would be welcome, but Sebastian had wanted her to check. Plus, they needed to know how many places to set at the table,

"More vacation planning?" she wondered. "Aren't you supposed to do that with Madre?"

"She just wants to stay in the whole time," she explained. "I actually want to do things. If I plan with her, we get nowhere. If I plan and then show her my plans, she might not dismiss them so quickly."

"True," Faith said. "Anyways, Wren and Darren wanted to do something with both Seb and I for Thanksgiving, so I told him to invite them tomorrow."

"Good," Arizona smiled as her pager went off.

She was being paged to the room of one of her post-op patients who had been experiencing a few complications, so she was quick to head off and answer that particular page.

"I thought you were on Cardio today," Sofia told her sister.

"I am," she replied. "I have to get back there."

"Is there a reason why your intern is especially weird today?" she wondered. "Marissa's in the worst mood I've ever seen her in, and she jumps into action when I ask her to do the most routine things."

"Good," she smiled, proud of herself for giving an effective speech. "We had an issue last night and I set them straight."

"You set them straight?" she asked. "Okay."

"I can set them straight," she replied. "I have a tough side to me, too. It worked, didn't it?"

"I guess," Sofia considered as her pager went off as well.

Faith could guess who was paging her sister just based on her reaction when she pulled her pager off of her waistband and checked it. The smile that spread across her face could only mean one thing.

"Off to see lover boy?" she teased.

"Definitely," she answered as she stood up off of the gurney that she had been sitting on.

"Oh, so you admit it," she noticed.

"Admit what? Cody's not exactly my boyfriend. We started out by having coffee a few times, and now we head straight to the on-call room. I know I didn't think he wanted that kind of thing, but I guess he's made an exception."

"I give it a month."

"Until what?"

"You finally decide that you're basically dating."

"We're not," she said. "And I'm wasting precious time by standing here talking to you."

Faith laughed as her sister headed off to meet Cody from Radiology in an on-call room of his choosing.

"Everything smells so good," Callie said as she and her wife were preparing their Thanksgiving meal the next day.

It was still early, so no one else had arrived yet. It was just the two of them in the kitchen working on making sure that all of the food that they were making was ready in time. They were going all out this year. They almost always cooked a full Thanksgiving meal for everyone, but this year was especially great. Sofia was back home this time. Therefore, they wanted everything to be even better than it had been for the last few years.

"It's going to be delicious," Arizona smiled. "Do you think we have too much, though?"

"There's no such thing as too much food on Thanksgiving," she told her. "Plus, Wren and Darren are coming now, so..."

"I know."

"And we can send everybody home with leftovers."

"For sure," she said. "I love cooking, but it always surprises me that Max and Chelsea don't jump at the chance to do all of this. They cook for a living. Wouldn't Thanksgiving be –?"

"I think they need a break from cooking on holidays," Callie decided. "Plus, they have a toddler."

"I'm not saying that they should have to," Arizona clarified. "I just always think they might like to."

"Chelsea offered," Callie said. "But I didn't see the point. They have a fairly small house, so hosting everyone there just makes less sense. And we love cooking. I told her not to worry about it. Bringing dessert's good enough."

"Yes," she agreed.

"What time is everyone coming?" Callie asked.

"Sofia's working until two," Arizona said. "She'll come after that. I told everyone else to come around that time, too."

"Okay."

"Why couldn't you talk Bailey into letting us have time off at Christmas again?"

Their vacation time was never far from her mind, and the fact that it wasn't technically even Thanksgiving yet was discouraging. She was only reminded that they would have a few more family get-togethers like this one before it would be time to head off on their vacation. Time seemed to be crawling.

"You know we're too busy around the holidays. February is the closest opportunity for us to both get more than a few days off at a time."

"But it's so far away."

"Time will fly."

"It hasn't so far."

"It will. With Faith's birthday, Christmas –"

"I hope you're right."

"You're too cute," Wren told Declan as they ate dinner.

The little boy was still finishing up his meal long after all of the adults were done. This wasn't because he couldn't have finished his meal quicker than he was, but more so because he was having way too much fun seeking the undivided attention of every other person at the table.

"Not Declan!" Sebastian laughed. "Declan's not cute. Are you?"

"Yeah," he said in a serious tone.

"Oh, you are?" he asked.

"Are you done?" Chelsea questioned. "You only have a few pieces of turkey left."

He seemed to be just picking at the food in front of him, so she assumed that he was finished. Luckily he hadn't thrown any of it on the floor yet. She wanted to make sure that it didn't get to that point.

"No," he said as he reached for two pieces of the turkey and put one of them into his mouth.

He finished up his meal right around the time that all of the other guests began enjoying their dessert. Even though he had had desserts before, his parents weren't sure that he would eat very much of the pumpkin pie. Therefore, they figured that they could just sneak him bites of theirs.

Their son considered himself a big boy. He wanted his own piece. In the interest of letting him enjoy the day – and of avoiding a tantrum if they were being completely honest – they finally gave in.

"Is that delicious?" Arizona asked him. "You like Thanksgiving, huh?"

"Who doesn't love Thanksgiving?" Sofia wondered.

"Look at your face," Maxwell laughed as Declan only got messier and messier as he all but dove into the pie.

"Clearly you think it's good," Faith said. "Oh, Declan. I can't wait until I have a kid just as silly as you are."

The rest of the day was fun, but Sebastian had to admit that he had been looking forward to the quiet time at home that Faith's full day off today would give them. It didn't matter to him that she didn't have the actual holiday off as long as they had today.

They went home and decided to watch a movie. Yet, neither one of them actually did very much watching. Something that his wife had said at dinner had been on Sebastian's mind, and he couldn't help but bring it up.

"You can't wait to have a baby?"

She didn't really know what to say. She couldn't deny that she really did want to start a family, but maybe the phrase "can't wait" had been misunderstood.

"Umm..."

When they had gotten engaged, the two of them had started thinking ahead and planning as much as they could for their future. They knew that nothing was guaranteed – since their health issues had taught them that at very young ages – but they still had goals for their lives. At that time, they had decided to get married after Faith's intern year was finished for a reason. That way they could start thinking about having children sooner rather than later. Given their histories, beginning a family might not be the simplest thing for them. They had many things to consider before that could happen. Knowing this, they had decided to start talking about it somewhere between six and eight months after their wedding. This way, if it took the time that they figured it could, that would be okay.

"I know it's only been three and a half months," she said. "I didn't literally mean 'can't wait.' I know that we want a little more time just the two of us. Part of me wants to start thinking about all of that right now, but most of me knows that waiting until I'm further into this year of my residency is good. That way, by the time we have a baby, I'll be at least part of the way into my third year. And that's if everything works out perfectly, which it probably won't given all of the things we have to consider before we do anything. You don't have to worry."

"Good," he smiled.

She expected him to be relieved, but she wasn't prepared for just how relieved he was. She knew that he didn't already feel what she did, but he seemed to be less excited about the idea than he ever had been when they had discussed it in the past.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"I said we'll wait to have kids and the grin on your face is huge now," she told him. "A difference of a few months is that big to you? I know it matters, but I didn't think you'd be thrilled by it."

"It's just..."

He knew that he had to choose his words carefully, so he took a minute before he said anything else.

"I know we've always wanted kids, but now that we're getting closer and closer to the point when we said we'd start really talking about it, I'm getting nervous. I still want kids, but is it too much to ask after all that we've been through?"

"You're having second thoughts?"

"Not necessarily," he said. "It's just that the reality of what having kids could mean for us is definitely on my mind more and more."

"You mean having a baby with a heart condition?" she asked.

"That or having something happen while you're pregnant," he told her. "Yes, pregnancy after transplant is possible under the right care, but doesn't it worry you? I know people have gone on to have healthy children after transplants, but it's not without risk."

"I know," she agreed. "But we have options. Pregnancy isn't the only way we can do this."

"Well, no."

"It seems like the most obvious choice because we won't have to work with a surrogate or an adoption agency, and that's probably financially best, but it's not necessarily what we have to do. When I say 'have' a baby, I don't always mean physically. When you're ready, we can talk about all of the ways to do this."

"Until then?"

"Until then, I do my best to be a very patient wife," she smiled. "I'm a resident. I'll be able to keep myself busy."

"I didn't expect to feel so torn between wanting a family and feeling like we should just be happy as a couple after all we've been through," he said.

"But you want kids, right?"

"I do," he nodded. "But I'm still hesitant. That part doesn't just go away because I want something. I know that you didn't expect me to feel like this. I didn't think I would either, but everything's so much more complicated for us. Even now."

"Yeah."

"I'm not going to bed early tonight," Faith stated, walking into the kitchen one day when she was just four years old.

"You're not?" Callie asked.

When they had recently given Sofia a later bedtime, the moms had expected Faith to decide that she should get one as well. They understood that it wasn't really fair from her point of view. However, Sofia was older and it was also unfair to expect her to have to abide by the early bedtime just because her sister was still too young. Plus, Faith just wasn't ready for a change like that. Whenever they cheated and let her break the bedtime rule, they paid for it the next day. When she was ready, a later bedtime would happen for her, but it wasn't going to be right now.

"No," she said. "I say I should get a new bedtime."

"Who makes the rules?" Arizona questioned.

"You."

"And what is the rule?" she asked.

"That I have a little girl bedtime."

Callie kissed her on the top of the head. Faith was feeling more and more frustrated by being the "little" one. They wanted her to feel like she was growing up, but a part of her always felt like she was still small because she was younger than Sofia was.

"One day," she promised. "One day you'll get a later bedtime. Promise."

"When?"

"Well, when Madre and I decide that you're ready for one," Arizona explained. "If you don't get a lot of sleep, you're still crabby in the morning."

"No, I'm not."

She laughed.

"I can't wait to get big and do whatever I want."

"Whatever you want?" Callie smiled. "Like what?"

"Like go to bed when I say, and eat snacks for dinner, and have spelling tests and math like Sofia does."

"Spelling tests and math mean you're grown up?" Arizona asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Well, a little grown up. Not as much as you."

"I see."

"I have to wait a lot," she said.

"Patience, Faith," Arizona smiled. "Patience."

"Patience is hard sometimes."