Author's note: This is just a little interlude, as I thought we might like to see how the guys are getting on back home…

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Chapter 10 – Early Birds

Tom was woken at 5am by high pitched screams that reached him not only from the baby monitor, but all the way from the twins' room on the floor below. Cursing as he stumbled on the narrow staircase down from the attic bedroom, he ran into the nursery to find JJ staring through the bars of his cot, red faced and howling, and Amelia in the exact same state.

"What happened guys?" His tone was soothing as he picked up his children, one in each arm, and tried rocking them. "It's very early."

"Very early!" A muffled voice shouted from down the hall, and he heard Sam's bedroom door slam shut. He hadn't liked to mention it to Sasha, but Sam seemed to have hit his moody adolescent phase at the exact moment his stepmother's car had pulled out of the driveway.

"Shush, come on, shush," The volume had dropped a little, and Amelia was snivelling rather than screaming at this point, though her brother was still at it.

Tom tried not to notice the mess that the nursery was in; the laundry basket overflowing, toys everywhere, and even clean clothes rumpled and tossed haphazardly onto almost every surface. He could picture in his mind's eye the similar state of disarray into which the large one plan living space downstairs had fallen, especially the kitchen area, and winced. That was another thing he hadn't liked to mention to Sasha. As was the fact that the twins had been so fussy and unhappy.

"I miss mommy too," He told them now. "I miss her a lot."

A few miles down the road, Tex was woken by a text message, the harsh beeping of his phone pulling him out of sleep only a couple of hours after he'd finally managed to drop off. It wasn't Jack's fault – his son had been good as gold – but sleeping without Nina beside him was proving surprisingly difficult. He switched on the bedside light and reached for his phone to see the message from his wife.

I felt the baby move

His stomach lurched a little as he quickly replied. How's the little Nolan feeling?

It was very gentle. Maybe this one's a girl.

Wouldn't that be nice. He typed, Jack could have a little sister to look out for.

Maybe I shouldn't have brought her here.

He closed his eyes for a second before replying. You did the right thing, Callaghan. Just keep one hand on your belly and the other on your gun. I love you darlin.

In St Louis, Mike was already awake, watching three year old Jamie almost dancing in his sleep as the little boy lay on Rachel's side of the bed. He'd obediently put on pyjamas at bedtime, which was a relief after his earlier nude protest, but wouldn't go to sleep in his own room. Trouble was, the kid thrashed around in his dreams, even when they were happy ones, and to Mike, used to sleeping still as a statue curled around his wife, the constant motion acted like an hourly wake up call.

"This is why I'm hard wired to love you." He said softly, stroking the hair back from Jamie's forehead in an attempt to calm him, "So I don't make you sleep in a kennel."

He missed Rachel fiercely, detesting her being out of his sight for more than a few hours. As far as he was concerned, his job was to protect her, and right now he felt like he was failing. The news that John Wilkes Booth, or whatever his goddamn name was, had been released from prison without any notification to himself or Rachel made him so angry that he'd wanted nothing more than to head to the firing range and unload enough bullets into an effigy of the guy to kill him a hundred times over. But as he was on childcare duty, he'd had to settle for a punishing home workout that left his muscles screaming. He allowed himself a reluctant smile at the memory of Jamie's delighted squeals when he was invited to 'ride on Daddy' to add weight during his push ups.

Rolling onto his back, he sighed and tried to push the feeling of foreboding from his chest. Rachel knew what she was doing, he reminded himself. She'd proven that countless times. But however hard he tried, he couldn't get back to sleep.