Chapter 10

"Why? Is your male pride offended because you're not the first man to get me pregnant?" Abby asked tightly, trying without success to disengage their clasped hands. "Believe it or not, you're not the only bastard I've known."

Fighting the urge to wince at the harsh words, Nick released Abby's hands to cup her face, refusing to let her look away from him. His thumbs brushed away her tears as he spoke to her in soft whispers. "You don't have to tell me more than you're comfortable with. You don't even have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I want to help you. Talk to me. I admit to being the world-class idiot who's finally bought a clue and pulled his head out of his ass, but I'm not Vincent, Abby. Maybe I'm two seconds too late, but I realize you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Abby's lips trembled and her chin quivered at the earnest expression in Nick's gray eyes. Nails digging into her palms painfully, she shook her head, tawny waves spilling over Nick's cradling hands. Speaking wasn't an option. Her heart was firmly lodged in her throat, and she was suffocating, unable to breathe as Nick's lips tried to kiss away her tears. Her arms wound around his neck and clung tightly as he pulled her against him, and only then did she realize she was shaking all over. She was physically and emotionally exhausted. "I'm too tired to hate you right now." She tucked her face into his shoulder when he stood up, hooking her ankles around his waist.

Pushing her bedroom door open with his shoulder, Nick carried her inside, sitting them both down on the bed's edge. Softly stroking her hair with one hand, he used his free hand to shove the assortment of clothes strewn across the bed to the side and peel the comforter back. Shadows hid Abby's face from his eyes as his hands fell to her waist, his fingers hooking in the belt loops of her jeans. His lips found her forehead in the darkness, and he told her, smiling ruefully as he did so, "Hate me in the morning. Rest now. You've had a long day. If you decide you DO want to talk to me, I'll be the self-proclaimed jerk camped out on the living room sofa with a feline attached to his head."

"Nick?" Abby's voice stopped him at the door. "The sofa?"

"The TV helps me sleep," Nick shrugged in answer to her implied question.

"Goodnight," Abby murmured. "Since I'm not hating you again 'til tomorrow," she explained awkwardly. "I hope," she sighed, completely at a loss for sensical words. "Just…goodnight, Nick."

"Thanks," Nick smiled appreciatively. "And Abby?" he paused for a long moment. "Sweet dreams."

Several aborted attempts at making love to his beautiful wife later, Luis leaned back the pillows stacked against their headboard with a quiet groan. He didn't dare risk waking his sleeping daughter, not when she'd only just seemed to run out of steam. And tears. He reached across the short distance between them and brushed a strand of blond hair from Sheridan's forehead, feeling slightly guilty when her tired blue eyes jerked open and her hands immediately checked over every inch of the boneless bundle that was their daughter curled against her chest.

"Luis," Sheridan leaned into the palm that curved around her cheek.

Reading the unspoken apology in her eyes, Luis chuckled softly. "I'd forgotten how much fun this was."

A smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth, Sheridan agreed him with, adding her own comment. "How you ever ended up with four siblings, Luis…"

"I love my mama and papa, Sheridan, but I'd rather not be having this conversation. The thought alone," Luis practically shuddered.

As beautiful as she found Martin and Pilar's love to be, Sheridan agreed some things were better left unspoken or simply left to the imagination. Martin and Pilar were practically her parents too. The more the thought lingered in her mind, the more disturbed she became. She was blushing when she met his laughing eyes again. "Luis, stop it."

"You're cute when you blush," Luis grinned, scooting closer to her. "Your face and your cheeks and your neck turn pink," he said softly, brushing his fingertips down the curve of her neck. His hand lingered on her shoulder before it continued its path past her collarbone and the little hollow of her throat. "You're even pink here," he murmured, placing his lips at the perfumed location and making her pulse thrum faster, her breath catch in her throat.

"Luis, you're not being fair," Sheridan protested as she felt his breath tickle her neck just seconds before he placed a kiss below her ear.

"I just want to kiss you," Luis countered simply as his hand again traveled to her face, cupping her jaw in his palm as he kissed the corner of her mouth. "I promise I won't wake up Sleeping Beauty," he said, bestowing a sweet kiss on the tip of Hope's tiny nose as he ran his pinkie over the back of her hand. Their lips had barely touched when a small, muffled voice beyond their closed bedroom door broke the silence.

"Mommy, I hear thunder," Cristian whined plaintively.

No sooner had the words left his son's mouth did Luis hear a distant, low rumble. Sighing, he gave his wife and daughter quick kisses on the forehead before throwing his legs over the side of the bed and standing up to cross the bedroom on bare feet. Unlocking and opening the door, Luis gently steered Cristian toward the bed, giving his dark hair an affectionate ruffle as he helped him climb into bed beside Sheridan. Raising his finger to his lips, he whispered, "Be careful not to wake your sister."

Nodding silently, Cristian regarded Hope reverently as he cuddled against his mother's side.

Luis hesitated before climbing back under the covers, glancing at their open bedroom door.

Solving his dilemma, Sheridan reminded him, "It's a big bed. We can make room."

Luis was gone before the words were completely out of her mouth, returning with Ali's blond head tucked beneath his chin a few minutes later, her hands rubbing sleepily at her blinking blue eyes and a confused "Daddy?" leaving her lips as he gently lay her in bed beside Cristian. Shushing her with a murmured "AliCat," he climbed into bed after her, tucking the covers beneath her chin as her blue eyes fluttered shut again the moment her blond head touched the pillow. With one touch of Luis's hand to the bedside lamp, the only light in the room came from the intermittent flashes of lightening and the glow of the nightlight spilling in from the hallway. "Everybody settled?"

From the silence, Cristian started the traditional recitation. "One Mississippi…Two Mississippi…Three Mississippi…Four Mississippi…Five Mississippi…"

Abby could see the flashes of lightening behind her closed eyelids, hear the droning of the heavy rain outside her bedroom window, and feel the careful weight of Nick's arm across her waist. She leaned her tawny head farther back into his chest, letting the slow solid beat of his heart calm her racing one.

"You were crying in your sleep," Nick murmured against her damp cheek. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"I was dreaming about her," Abby whispered into her pillow, making a desperate grab for Nick's hand when he started to remove his arm from her waist.

Nick relaxed his arm, his fingers fanning protectively across her abdomen as he waited patiently for her to reveal more to him.

"I can hear her crying, but I can't see her face. It's the same every time I dream about her," Abby said shakily. "The doctors took her away. They wouldn't let me see her, Nick. I was such a mess. Vincent had really done a number on me, and I hurt all over. I was so out of it, but I remember hearing her cry and wanting to see her," Abby cried, her voice thick with the memory. "I never got to see her. I never got to hold her. When I woke up a couple of days later, and they told me she hadn't made it…"

"Shh," Nick soothed with kisses to her tear-stained face, holding her to him in a tight hug as her tears began anew. "Abby, you don't have to.."

Clutching at the strong arms that held her, Abby used Nick as a lifeline as she admitted a painful truth. "Hearing her cry is the only memory I have of my daughter."

The storm, inside and out, was just beginning.

Hope you enjoyed the Lo-Fitz family cuteness.

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