Perfection

I know the final chapter of the prequel has the same title but it fits this chapter, too!)

Mac could find no other word to describe his son other then "perfect." Brown eyes identical to his own stared up at him as he redid his son's sleeper after changing his diaper. Picking Jesse up, he kissed the baby's face.

"You know how much daddy loves you?" He murmured to the baby. Mac couldn't remember giving anyone so many kisses.

Jesse had yet to meet Lucy Messer because she had had a cold. She would come over tomorrow. Trey Flack hadn't been over yet either.

Hope's parents wanted to give them some alone bonding with the new baby and weren't coming in from Rhode Island for another two weeks. It was two in the morning and daddy was enjoying time alone with his boy. "Let's get you some milk, huh?" Mac carrying his son from the bedroom. "We'll let mommy sleep."

Although a pushy lactation consultant at the hospital had tried to bully Hope from her personal choice not to breastfed, the new mother had expected this and wasn't fazed by it. Even if his wife wasn't stressed by the rude professional, it was Mac who had ordered the woman to leave the hospital room after twenty minutes and not to visit their home.

Mac had his son fed, swaddled and back to sleep in a short time. When he sled back into next to his wife, she woke up.

"Is he okay?" She asked sleepily.

"He's fine," her husband replied, kissing her. "Fed, swaddled and back to dreamland."

He wouldn't admit it aloud but Mac Taylor knew his son looked very much like him, his eyes, his dimples even the way his hair stuck out.

His hair would be the same if he didn't keep it cut so short.


Exhaustion was beginning to set in for the new parents but they were in no hurry to have anyone take over taking care of Jesse. Alicia and Nathan had 'met' their grandson via the technology of skype the second day the family were home from the hospital. The grandparents thought the couple exhausted, but very happy. Nathan and Alicia had decided not to come to New York for a bit to allow the three to spend time together. two weeks or so, to be exact, after that time, Mac would be back at work and Hope probably wouldn't mind the extra help. Both grandparents were going to try very hard not to be "baby hogs" when they visited.

"He cute, unca Mac!" Lucy Messer said, looking at baby Jesse. The little girl was excited to hold her new cousin for first time. "He dis many days old, right?" She asked, putting up five fingers.

"That's right. You're such a smart girl, Lucy," Mac said.

"You two looked tired," Lindsay told Hope with a smile. Danny had to work but Lindsay and her daughter were visiting the family. Lindsay planned to keep the visit brief. "I would have waited but Lucy wouldn't stop asking when she was gonna get to meet him."

Every little sound Jesse made his mom and dad smile. Even at five days old, he already seemed to know—and prefer mom and dad over everyone else. Even if one could give a newborn too many kisses or hold him too much, Hope and Mac didn't care. Their son needed to know he was loved and secure, that the world was a safe place to be and holding and cuddling him was the way to accomplish that.

Getting to be the one who delivered his son was an experience Mac still could put into words. And as far him witnessing and participating in his child's birth, it wasn't sexual. What he saw from that position that day was his child being born, nothing else. The notion that this would "ruin" the couple's sex life was bullshit to him, even if so-called "experts" backed up such theories. The two didn't discuss it but his wife felt the same way. In many ways she felt safer and more calm with Mac delivering their baby. And she knew he didn't view her sexually in this moment, thus the baby possibly "ruining" their intimacy. Though she trusted her doctor, it was the bond she had with Mac that gave her a different sense of comfort.

"I can't believe how much hair he's got," Mac said watching his wife feed their son.

Jesse showed no signs of losing any of his hair like many newborns do.

"Yeah, we might have to give him an early home haircut," his wife said. Both smiled as Jesse made noises as he drank from his bottle. "He's got your appetite," she teased him.

Mac laughed.