Ch. 12
Steph had to wonder if they would ever get home. As fast as Joe had driven to the hospital, that was as slow as he was driving on the return trip home. If he didn't get used to having Carrissa in the car soon, they'd be living an hour away from everyone they knew despite their close physical proximity to them. Just as Steph was reaching the point where she was prepared to lean over and press her own foot to the gas pedal, they finally reached the house. Carrissa had been sleeping since they left the hospital, and had had no problems staying that way during the catatonic-inducing car ride. With her asleep, Joe assisted Steph out of the car first, then unbuckled Carrissa from her car seat and handed her to Steph. Their plan for getting into the house was for Joe to go in first and intercept Bob, then for Steph to bring Carrissa in and introduce Bob to her while Steph held her. Joe braced himself as he always did when he opened the door, but when it swung open Bob was a no-show. Seconds after that shock registered came the realization that the house was filled with flowers, balloons, streamers and a banner that read "Welcome Home Carrissa." A smile erupted on Joe's face.
"Come on in, the coast is clear," Joe said, turning to help Steph up the steps. "It seems our family is picking up your old habit of B & E, and got in here to take care of Bob for us. And it seems they did a little interior decorating while they were at it." Joe stepped aside so Steph could bring Carrissa into the house and share in the surprise. Steph stepped cautiously around Joe and laughed as she looked around at the extravagant display. A moment later, Joe found a note propped up on the table by the door. 'Bob's in the bedroom. Fed and walked him this morning, so he should be OK. Didn't want him eating the decorations. Hope you like them. Love, Cathy, Mary and Val.'
After reading Steph the note, he put it back on the table. "I can't believe we forgot about making provisions for Bob when we raced out of here yesterday. I'm glad our family was more on the ball."
Steph patted Joe's chest. "It's OK, Joe. We were a little preoccupied."
"Yeah," Joe said with a goofy grin. "We were that." Everything in his face went soft as he looked at his little pre-occupation nestled snugly in her blanket, still fast asleep.
Bob could be heard noisily scratching the bedroom door, and Joe and Steph figured there was no time like the present to bring him out and show him the new addition to the family. Joe, of course, had read all about the best way to introduce a new baby to the family dog in the now infamous pregnancy book of his. It had suggested giving the dog something to smell that carried the baby's scent, getting the dog familiarized with it and minimizing feelings of jealousy. Joe wasn't really worried about any unexpected aggression from Bob that might be triggered by possible jealousy; Bob was too friendly and goofy for that. No, Joe's main concern was teaching Bob that Carrissa wasn't to be eaten. Deftly, Joe unwound the blanket wrapped around Carrissa, the same blanket she'd used during her stay at the hospital. Joe carried the blanket to the bedroom and disappeared inside. Bob immediately started dancing around Joe, leaping up to get a hold of the blanket. Joe held it out for him and after several minutes of Bob burying his nose inside of it, Joe felt he was ready to go out to the living room. He swung his arm around the dog's neck and, standing thigh-to-side with him, escorted him out. Bob strutted over to Carrissa and sniffed her hesitantly, placing an exuberant Bob kiss on her face a mere second later. Being that her face was still so tiny, he was able to cover a lot of ground with just one stroke. Upon ending the kiss he gave a resounding bark which sounded a lot like a hip-hooray to Joe and Steph's ears, and promptly woke Carrissa. There was just no way to sleep through a Bob slobber-and-cheer attack. To her credit, despite the rude way in which she'd been awakened, Carrissa simply opened her eyes and stared Bob down, but shed no tears. Joe and Steph were sure they had the best baby in the entire world.
"As long as Carrissa is awake now, I think we should show her around her new digs," Steph said, her voice laden with excitement.
Joe's eyebrows creased. "Don't you think you should sit and rest now?"
Steph had wondered how long it would take Joe to go there again. It had been a whole 20 minutes, after all, since he'd fussed over her. "I'm fine, Joe."
"You're not sore?"
Steph's mouth twisted. "Alright, I guess I'm a little sore, but I still really want to show Carrissa around." Steph batted her eyelashes, hoping to sway Joe. Transparent, but if it worked...
"Pathetic," Joe said, as he shook his head. "Come on. We'll take our tour but then you're going to sit down. And I mean it," Joe added, in a feigned stern voice.
Steph flashed him a bright smile. She was utterly charmed by Joe's ongoing conflict between his protectiveness and desire to give her what she wished. Joe took Steph's arm and together they walked Carrissa around the house they had turned into a home together. Now, Carrissa's presence brought an extra special addition of love. And nowhere more so than in her own bedroom, which Joe and Steph had saved for last. It had taken some strenuous arguing between them that Steph would be OK to climb the stairs, but it was so important to Steph for Carrissa to see her father's labor of love even if she wouldn't be staying in there for a while yet, and even if she couldn't really focus on or understand what she was seeing.
"Carrissa, welcome to your special princess hideaway," Steph whispered softly, with much the same sort of awe Mary Lou had used when she had first seen Joe's bedroom.
Steph caught Joe's self-possessed stance out of the corner of her eye and smiled to herself. He was so proud of the room he alone had created for his daughter, borne of his desire for her to have only the best. They spent a lengthy amount of time in that room, but when both Carrissa and Steph started showing signs of fatigue, they went back downstairs where Joe placed Carrissa in her portable bassinet before settling Steph on the couch. The rest of that day was spent idyllically. Every moment Carrissa was awake, Joe and Steph spent with her, admiring her, talking to her, and getting to know her. And every moment when Carrissa was asleep, they snuggled together on the couch talking about her and making plans as they envisioned their future. Steph, in fact, rarely left the couch at all except to use the bathroom. Joe brought all her meals to her, fielded the phone calls and the door when visitors stopped by, brought Carrissa to her when it was time for her feedings and changed her every diaper with amazing finesse. Fatherhood was, undoubtedly, very sexy on him. As expected, Angie and Bella stopped by with casseroles and cake, as did Helen. Steph and Joe had enough to eat for weeks, not to mention the most perfect baby two parents could ask for.
When night fell, however, their perfect child morphed into something else entirely. Shortly after her dinner meal, Carrissa started crying and she didn't stop for even a second for the rest of the night. Joe and Steph tried everything they could think of to get her to stop. They walked, they bounced, they sang, they burped, they rocked. Nothing worked. Carrissa had been a perfect angel the night she spent in the hospital, so Steph and Joe were beside themselves trying to figure out why the change. It just stood to reason that once they got her home she'd throw them a curve ball. "Welcome to parenthood," Joe and Steph agreed wryly on one of their numerous passes around the house in an attempt to quiet Carrissa. In the early morning hours, she finally burned herself out and fell asleep. Steph and Joe wasted no time collapsing into bed themselves, catching a couple hours of sleep before Carrissa was back awake and demanding her breakfast. She went back to sleep as soon as she had finished eating, and Steph and Joe spent the rest of that day much as the previous one had been, with the exception being that Steph took a nap during one of Carrissa's naptimes, just in case Carrissa went for round two of crying-all-night come nighttime. They approached that evening with fingers crossed, and were deeply grateful when night fell and Carrissa did not repeat her prior night's hysteria. Perhaps it had just been a delayed response to the change in her surroundings and the introduction to so much new stimuli that had her overwhelmed and unable to relax, but whatever it had been, tonight Carrissa was perfectly content without a tear in sight. When Carrissa fell asleep around ten that evening, Joe insisted Steph go to bed as well and get some rest. Joe, used to functioning on little sleep, was managing fine. He was going on pure adrenaline brought on by the emotions of the last few days. Steph, on the other hand, was visibly wearing down and Joe worried about her. She needed her rest to help her recover from the strain of giving birth.
Joe took himself to bed around midnight, after straightening up the house and checking in at the station. He didn't have any open cases at the moment, but he still liked keeping his finger on the pulse of what was happening. Despite the fatigue now pulling at his body, Joe couldn't rest his mind long enough to fall asleep. He was still wrestling with so many emotions brought on by the last few days. He'd never thought he'd be this happy, or experience as much love as he had in his life now. And he knew the responsibility of caring for Carrissa and raising her right. He was looking so forward to it. Awake with his myriad of thoughts, Joe heard Carrissa rustling around in her bassinet before she actually voiced the fact that she was awake. Joe still wasn't sure what had happened the night before to cause Carrissa's crying jag, but she was certainly being such a good baby now. Joe looked over at Steph, who wasn't having the same problems sleeping as he was, and decided to let her sleep. She needed it, and hell, she deserved it. He quickly hopped out of bed and picked Carrissa up before she started to cry. He carried her down the hall into her own room, where all the diaper changing supplies were kept, and laid her on the changing table. When Carrissa was clean, dry, and tucked back into her tiny sleeper, Joe lifted her back into his arms and took her downstairs to the kitchen.
Since coming home from the hospital, whenever Carrissa was done with a feeding, Steph had been pumping the excess milk to be used in the event of an emergency. With Carrissa cradled in the crook of one arm, Joe used his free arm to retrieve some of that breast milk from the freezer and prepare a bottle. It was amazing how quickly he had adapted to doing things one-handed. He'd had to, really, since he never wanted to put Carrissa down for anything. If he had a choice, he'd carry her around until she was a teenager. Carrissa became more fidgety as the bottle warmed, so as soon as it was ready Joe wasted no time settling them on the couch together. He was a little apprehensive about giving her a bottle for the first time, but with the way Carrissa had kept them up all night the night before, Joe figured this was one of those times where he could do just as well as Steph so she could catch up on her sleep. Little did he know that Carrissa would not agree with his assessment. She was patently refusing to have anything to do with the plastic and rubber replacement of her Mommy.
"Come on, little angel," Joe pleaded. "Take the bottle for me. I know I'm not your warm, sweet Mommy but maybe I can be almost as good so Mommy can get some sleep. Yeah?"
Carrissa continued to turn her nose at the offending object. Joe grimaced and pressed on with a new tactic. "Do you know how grateful I am to your Mommy for bringing you to me? Do you?" Carrissa stared back with wide open eyes, but otherwise had no response. "Well, it's a lot, I can tell you that," Joe responded to his own question emphatically. "So I will do anything I can for her in return and you can help."
Carrissa moved her head to the side, which Joe took as a denial, when more than likely it was simply Carrissa's way of avoiding the piece of rubber he'd been attempting to lodge in her unwilling mouth. "Yes, you can," Joe responded, not a little desperately. "You can take this bottle for me. Come on! Your Mommy was good to you while you lived in her tummy and forgive me for saying this…but you did give her a mite amount of trouble with the puking and the kicking." Carrissa stopped trying to dodge the bottle nipple and was now staring at Joe with rapt attention. Ah, the old guilt routine is working, Joe thought, that's more like it. Heck, while he had her attention, there was another matter to discuss. "Which reminds me, Angel. I guess now would be a good time to thank you face to face for that beer you spilled in my lap. That was cold. So you see, you kinda owe me one. So, if you'd just…"
Joe had been doggedly pursuing Carrissa's tiny mouth with the bottle and at the moment she finally surrendered and clamped down on the nipple, Joe shouted, "Yes, that's right. Good girl," before quieting down to savor his triumph and simply enjoy watching Carrissa eat. However, at the loss of his voice, Carrissa immediately stopped eating. Joe smirked when he noticed. He had always loved teasing Steph about how much Carrissa enjoyed and responded to the sound of his voice. And some things never change, apparently. "So, you want me to talk to you, huh? OK, let's talk." So they talked about the Rangers, and how Carrissa was going to be a big fan. They talked about the things Joe enjoyed about his work, like making their world a safer place for Carrissa to be in. And then Joe talked about their crazy families that he couldn't wait for Carrissa to get to know, especially her great Grandma's Bella and Mazur.
He'd discovered since Carrissa's birth that one of his favorite things to do was to rub her downy head. It was so smooth and silky. She didn't have a lot of hair yet, just a fine layer of hair his color yet it still staggered him to look at her and see parts of himself. Every time he noticed something new, it shrouded him in pride. And as he rubbed her head now while she ate, her eyes gazing unwaveringly at him, his mood and his conversation turned more reflective.
"Look at you looking at me with so much trust. You're relying on me to be there for you and I won't let you down. You're my little angel. My reward for turning my life around. You know, there was a time when I wouldn't have deserved you—hard to believe, right?" Joe remarked self-derisively. But I'm so glad that I decided at a certain point in my life to start flying right. That way, now that the right time in my life to be a Dad has come along, I do deserve you. Watching you grow up is going to be the best part of my life, Sweetheart." Joe didn't know what else to say after that. Luckily, the bottle was empty and Carrissa's hunger had been satisfied.
Steph woke up with a vague feeling of uneasiness, the sense that something wasn't right. She felt…rested. That was it. She realized with a jolt that she couldn't recall hearing Carrissa's cry to be fed. In fact, she felt so disoriented she had no idea at all when it was the last time she had fed her. Steph leapt out of bed, running over to the bassinet in search of her daughter. Panic truly set in when she found the bassinet empty. If Steph hadn't been so foggy with sleep, she might have noticed that Joe wasn't in their bed either and been able to deduce the two were together. She might even have thought to try waking him, whereby noticing his absence then. But she was irrational with worry and clearly not thinking straight, so instead she went running downstairs without even knowing what she was looking for. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she was brought up short by the sight before her. Her first wave of emotion was relief, followed shortly thereafter by a strong squeezing in her chest she could only assume was caused by the strongest love she had ever felt. Then came the pang of resentment that seemed out of place, but was there nonetheless, eclipsing all the other emotions. Joe was lying on the couch, his strong arms wrapped around Carrissa. He was clutching her tightly to his bare chest and they were both sound asleep. An empty bottle lay cold and discarded on the table next to them and Steph quickly surmised that that object was the reason for her resentment. A little over two days into motherhood and she had already failed her daughter, easily replaced by a plastic bottle and a rubber nipple. Irrational anger filled her and she had no defense against it. She stormed over to where Joe was sleeping.
"What's going on here?" Steph loudly demanded.
Joe jerked awake. His mind still fuzzy, he didn't immediately register Steph's angry tone. His first instinct was to look down and make sure Carrissa was alright, still safely tucked in his arms and breathing. Once reassured of that, Joe turned sleepy, confused eyes to Steph. "What's wrong Steph? Why aren't you sleeping?"
"I can't even feed my own child." Steph cried, completely ignoring Joe's second question. How could she sleep when her daughter had needed her and she hadn't been there?
Joe's face softened with understanding. Even in the dim light, Steph could see his sympathetic expression. "Steph, my feeding Carrissa tonight has nothing to do with that. You're doing a wonderful job feeding our daughter. The milk in the bottle I used came from you, right? And you did that in the event that you weren't available for a feeding."
Steph scowled. "Yeah, but I was available. I was asleep upstairs, dammit. The extra milk was in the event I had to leave the house."
"Well, I determined this was a good time to use it. You were exhausted after last night and you needed the rest. You can't let yourself get run down and I was more than happy to get up and spend some time with my daughter. She wasn't thrilled with taking the bottle at first--and as a huge fan of your breasts myself, I don't blame her one bit," Joe said teasingly with a lopsided grin, hoping to get Steph to do the same, "but we worked at it together and she eventually got the drift. She and I did alright, Steph. Carrissa's OK, and you will be too." Joe studied her intently for a long minute. "I'm thinking maybe this upset you're feeling could be due to some mild post-partum depression."
Steph's eyes narrowed. What did Joe know anyhow? He'd been there when Carrissa had needed him. "You are not going to quote that damn book at me again, are you? Because I am not depressed," Steph insisted, even as she stood there crying her eyes out.
"OK, Steph. I'm sorry. I don't know what to say here. I just don't want you feeling bad that you let Carrissa down somehow. You don't have to be perfect with Carrissa every moment. You've already perfected the most important thing and that's the love that shines from your eyes every time you look at her. I figure we'll both make some mistakes with our princess here, but I honestly don't think this is one of those times." Joe fell silent then, waiting to see if what he said would make a difference.
Joe's calm demeanor and rational words drifted over Steph and then wrapped around her like a blanket, dousing the flames of her anger and leaving a new understanding in the ashes. Steph suddenly recognized her anger for what it really was. Her insecurities. Although she was already deeply in love with her daughter, and knew she would do anything for her, she supposed a small part of her still feared messing up with Carrissa. Joe, as always, saw right through to the very heart of her and took care of her. First, by letting her sleep, then by addressing and calming her fears even before she, herself, recognized them for what they were, rather than simply reacting to her misplaced anger. Steph had to trust Joe when he said it was going to be alright. That trust had never led her astray before. A slow, serene smile creased Steph's sleepy face and Joe knew he had convinced her she had nothing to be upset about. He returned Steph's smile. Steph glided over to Joe and kissed him sweetly on the lips, then gently kissed Carrissa, who had slept through their whole exchange. Steph returned to her bedroom, leaving Joe and Carrissa to their slumber time together. As she drifted back to sleep, a goofy grin was firmly planted on her face, compliments of her wonderful husband and the sight of him sleeping with his daughter held to his chest.
The next morning, Carrissa once again awoke content, so rather than immediately hand her to Steph, Joe laid Carrissa on the bed next to Steph and climbed back in himself, sandwiching the baby between them. Steph and Joe both propped themselves on their elbows and looked down at the creature that had so totally captivated their hearts and lives in the two short days she'd been here. They took turns kissing her on her satiny cheeks, and being the recipient of her rapt attention as her untrained gaze focused on each one of them in turn. After they had spent a heartwarmingly long while like that, Carrissa finally started making tiny sounds of distress for her breakfast. Steph promptly sat up and put Carrissa to her breast. No longer a novice at this, and happy to have her Mommy back, Carrissa immediately latched on and started slurping noisily. Steph and Joe both laughed and Steph knew she had it all. A perfect husband, a perfect daughter, and a perfect night's sleep.