A/N- Sorry guys, my life has been falling apart a bit and I haven't been updating like I should be. I've still got more story written and more story to write so don't worry! Thanks to Iolanthe Ivashkov for the great review and reminding me to not let you guys down 3

Sydney

When the two of us walked into the living room, Jill sprang up as if to hug me, but stopped short. I looked at Adrian, and he seemed to be focusing on something. He was using the bond to tell Jill to be careful with me. I gently put a hand on his arm and smiled at him.

"Sydney?" she said warily. Eddie looked up and his face lit. This was the first time I'd seen him without his typical guardian vigilance. The only thing I read in his face was relief.

"Hey Jill," I smiled at Jill. I walked over to hug Jill. I was shaking slightly, but most of my emotional responses were fine. Before Adrian could stop me in a sweet but unnecessary attempt to protect me, I hugged Jill. "I missed you," I told her. Jill's smile was like the sun coming up, and Adrian looked floored. I was proud of myself. Before I could think about it, I hugged Eddie fiercely. "Eddie, I'm so, so sorry," I told him. He was shaking more than I was.

"I couldn't protect you," he said quietly.

"You would have died," I told him, "They would have shot you the minute they had an opening. Jill needed you. I'm so sorry I lied to you though.." I trailed off. He let me go and looked directly into my eyes.

"No," he said, smiling slightly, "You have just as much of a protective instinct as I do, I would have done the same." I smiled back.

I settled on a couch in the living room tucked up under Adrian's arm and simply listened for a while. Jill was catching me up on everything I'd talked about all of the things she'd been doing in school, and some funny things that the others had done. Neil had eventually been sent back to court, and Angeline was dating Trey openly now. Trey was Adrian's roommate once his dad had cut him off for dating one of them as both Alchemysts and Warriors would put it.

After that, Adrian cut in and started complaining about how Trey always wanted to clean things. It all just felt so normal that my heart ached with happiness. I needed normal more than anything right now after the misery of the past year.

After a while, Jill spoke

"Um.. Sydney?" Jill started, I grinned at her, knowing what she wanted.

"If Adrian will come with me and make sure I'm changing her diaper correctly, I'll bring her out." Jill looked thrilled. I motioned to Adrian, who followed with a smile.

When we got back into the room, Nixie was just starting to become fussy. I pulled her out of the pack-and-play and checked her diaper. It definitely needed a change.

"Adrian," I started, as he supervised my cleaning Nixie up, "Do you think we could give her a bath?"
"Let me see if there's any baby shampoo in this bag," he suggested.

"Good idea," I said, relieved, "And with two of us, one of us could hold her up while the other does the bath."

"Exactly," he said, "And we seem to have struck gold." He held up the familiar looking bottle that I vaguely remembered from when Zoe and I were children. The liquid inside looked rather like a light maple syrup. Adrian went in the bathroom and started the water.

"It's about time you got a bath," I told Nixie. She looked at me with her solemn green eyes, seeming to agree with me. After a short discussion, Adrian's argument that he was stronger and thus could hold a baby still for the time required for a bath won. So I snagged a small cup and gently poured warm water over Nixie. Surprisingly, she didn't cry. Nixie seemed to enjoy the bath instead, which I thought boded well for all of us. I scrubbed her few wisps of blond hair carefully to avoid getting soap in her eyes. At one point, I simply stopped and placed a hand on her tiny head.

"Oh Adrian," I said, "She's beautiful."

"You're both remarkable," he said, "I only wish I hadn't missed so much." I put my head on his shoulder, too overwhelmed with emotions to speak.
"When I was.. In that place," I began, "while I was waiting for Nixie to arrive, I'd distract myself from everything that was happening by talking to her. I thought she was a boy at first, you see, and I called her Aleks all the time. But I was constantly talking to her and telling her about you and I. And when I wasn't talking to her, I kept myself sane by thinking about how great of a dad you were going to be." He turned his head and I felt his lips in my hair.

"Thank you, Sydney," he said in a choked voice. It was the use of my first name that told me how much that meant to him. I've known for a long time how his father's behavior haunted him. He was secretly terrified of becoming Nathan Ivashkov. What he couldn't accept was that he was in no way like his father. He was Adrian.

Soon, Adrian helped me dry Nixie and put a new diaper on her. We put her in another of the odd outfits that Adrian helpfully informed me was called a 'onesie.' Soon after, he helped arrange her in a slightly different carrying arrangement that was easier on my weak arms.

"How did you figure this stuff out?" I asked him incredulously.

"I google searched," he said, "I knew I needed to know all of the little details that I could as quickly as possible so that I could take care of Nixie while you rested and healed. I was fairly sure that this wasn't anything that you already knew about as well, so you'd need to know it too. I'm a pretty quick study too when I've got motivation," he finished, winking at me. I blushed so much that I was almost as purple as my tee shirt. It had mostly faded by the time we got back into the front, but JIll had a mischievous look in her eyes before she saw Nixie.

Jill's eyes lit up when she saw the tiny dhampir in my arms. I gently placed Nixie in her arms, and she was beaming.

"Sydney, she's beautiful," Jill murmured. I smiled at her and then dropped another bomb on her.

"You're her godmother," I informed her, "As soon as I can figure out a way to get to the official paperwork on her to get her birthday and stats, I'll use it to make your godmother status official." Jill looked at me with an amazed expression on her young face.

"Me? Really? But I don't know how or what to do or anything-"

"Neither do we, Jailbait," Adrian said to her, cutting off her rambling. Adrian's eyes were slightly misty, and he wrapped one arm around me and squeezed hard.

"Thank you," he whispered in my ear. I simply hugged him in response. The two of us cuddled on the couch as Nixie was carefully passed around. Even Clarence held the baby, doing so with an expert hand that reminded us that he had raised Lee mostly alone. Eddie simply looked flabbergasted when he held Nixie, Jill giving him pointers like she was an expert.

However, eventually, she started to cry. Jill brought her over to where Adrian and I were, and I rocked her gently until she calmed. Adrian and I alternated between chatting with the others and cooing at baby Nixie. Suddenly, something happened to shatter the sudden calm that had descended over our group. A voice from the door suddenly spoke.

"Holy, shit."

Rosemarie Hathaway had arrived.