After one beat of shocked silence, it seemed that everyone sprang to their feet at once.

"Dad, call 911! Dad! Dad, wake up!"

The only one of the group relaxed enough to sleep, Max was jolted awake when Brennan grabbed his shoulder and shook it hard.

"Angela is in labor. Call 911!"

Supremely unbothered, he got to his feet and stretched into a wide yawn. "Okay, okay, nobody panic. We have a doctor on standby, just in case something like this happened. I'll give him a call and get an ambulance here."

With Hodgins holding her hands to pull her up, Brennan and Cam helped Angela to her feet, then braced her from either side as another contraction struck. "Where are we?" Cam demanded. "How long will it take an ambulance to get here?"

Max glanced down at his watch. "Fifteen, twenty minutes at the most. Don't worry. Everything will be fine. First babies always take a long time."

Hodgins crowded Brennan out of the way when he wrapped an arm around his wife's waist and kissed her forehead. "You hear that, Ange? Fifteen minutes. You can do this, baby, you can do this. Just hang on for fifteen minutes."

"We should get her out of those damp clothes before the ambulance arrives," Brennan suggested. As the four of them shuffled toward the bedroom that Jack and Angela had been assigned, a halting stammer stopped them.

"Excuse me. I hate to interrupt but . . ." Diffident, shoulders hunched out of habit, Vincent offered them a hesitant smile and pointed at his own watch. "So sorry to intrude but I fear you may not have quite that much time. Old habit, I'm afraid, timing the contractions, but I did notice that they are coming less than two minutes apart. That's usually a sign that the cervix is fully dilated. I suggest you prepare for a home birth. A clean bed for delivery, warm blankets for the infant, a sterile knife for the cord, etcetera, etcetera. Oh!" He held up one finger and managed another tremulous smile in the face of the slack-jawed stares of his audience. "Did you know that the "boil water" instruction commonly used to get the father out of the way is actually an effective method of - -"

"VINCENT!" Hodgins' roar snapped Vincent's mouth closed. "Are you telling me that you know how to deliver a baby? All the useless crap you're always blabbering about and you keep THAT to yourself?"

Hands clasped nervously in front of him, the shaggy head dipped. "My mother is a midwife. Have I not told you? I actually considered joining the 'family business' myself," he said, "but before I took my final certifications, I discovered my love of anthropology and now here I am," he grinned happily. "With all of you."

Much as Booth had done with him just hours earlier, Hodgins grabbed a handful of the plain grey t-shirt Vincent had changed into and pulled him along back to the bedroom.

"I don't know whether to punch you or kiss you. Come on."

Another contraction hit while Brennan and Cam were helping Angela out of her stained and bloody undergarments. The two women left Hodgins and Vincent settling her into bed and hurried to the kitchen for supplies. Max was just ending his phone call.

"Dr. Kent is on his way."

"He may be too late to do more than sign the birth certificate," Cam said grimly. "We need to be prepared. Is there a first aid kit around here?"

"Sure." Max disappeared into what seemed to be the laundry room but was back within seconds. "Here you go. Take what you need."

The first aid kit he offered bore little resemblance to one that could be purchased at the corner drug store. The size of a small suitcase, it held bandages of every size, ointments and creams, bottles of alcohol and saline, empty IV pouches and tubing, supplies of latex gloves and sutures in different lengths, as well as a variety of small surgical instruments, individually sealed and sterile. There were also bottles of antibiotics and medicines, each one labeled with "REPLACE BY" and a handwritten date.

Cam and Brennan looked at the contents of the kit, then at each other, and then at Max. He merely shrugged at the suspicion obvious in their expressions. "It's best to be prepared, right?"

"For the zombie apocalypse?" Cam asked pointedly. "A nuclear holocaust? An outbreak of the plague?"

Max just laughed. "Better safe than sorry." An agonized scream from the bedroom forced everyone's attention back to the situation at hand. Cam and Brennan grabbed the supplies they thought would be most useful, and raced down the hall.

Inside the bedroom, Hodgins sat beside Angela, his arms braced around her for support, murmuring words of comfort and encouragement. Vincent was just coming out of the bathroom, freshly washed hands held high, when the women burst in. He took up a place at the foot of the bed and nodded in approval when Angela pushed fiercely through another contraction.

"That was excellent. I must say, you're doing really well!"

"How would you know?" Hodgins yelled. "Look! Check!"

Vincent started with almost theatrical surprise. He pointed at the blanket covering Angela's raised knees. "Oh. You mean, you . . . you want me to look . . . under . . ."

Angela and Hodgins shouted in unison, "YES!"

Cam stuffed the items she held into Brennan's arms and hurried over to raise the blanket so Vincent could keep his hands clean. Brennan, meanwhile, carefully laid down a large square of gauze they'd taken from the first aid kit, then arranged everything else on the clean surface. When she was done, she went to the head of the bed to hold Angela's other hand.

Another contraction hit, and as they counted to ten to guide Angela's pushing, Vincent stepped back from the bed and pointed, overcome with childlike excitement.

"Oh my goodness. There's . . . there's a head. I see a head. The top of the head. Right there. There's a head."

Even the mother-to-be managed a weak laugh before nature intervened and there was no more time for laughter.

A scant ten minutes later, the cry of a baby filtered out of the bedroom. The interns waiting anxiously in the living room burst into simultaneous applause. Despite the long night and the dark shadows that still filled the windows, a child had been born, delivered safely despite the uncertainty of his parents' present circumstances.

When Hodgins appeared with his arm around a blushing Vincent Nigel-Murray, the cheers and applause continued.

"It's a boy," Hodgins announced, and as the volume of crying behind him got louder, he grinned. "With a strong set of lungs, obviously. They're getting him cleaned up right now but hopefully you can all meet him in a few minutes." He hooked an elbow around Vincent's neck and gave him an affectionate squeeze. "Say hello to the godfather of Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins."

The flush of red on Vincent's cheeks deepened as another round of applause spread and his friends stepped forward to pat him on the back.

"Deeply honoured," he mumbled, abashed and embarrassed but obviously pleased. "The highest of compliments. Totally unnecessary, I assure you. "

There was still a question in the air, although only Wendell was brave enough to ask. "What about the baby's sight? Can you tell if anything . . ."

Hodgins smile didn't dim. "There's a doctor on the way now so we'll find out when they get here but it doesn't matter. He's strong and he's healthy and Angie and I can deal with whatever happens, no matter what."

"Speaking of . . ." Max spoke up from near the window as light from a pair of headlights momentarily brightened the darkness. He was waiting at the door when a pair of EMTs rolled in a stretcher. A third young man bringing up the rear stopped to shake his hand, and crooked an ear toward the sound of the baby's cries.

"Mr. Keenan, we got here as quick as we could."

Max waved away the deferential apology and gestured toward Hodgins. "Dr. Kent, this is Jack Hodgins, the father of that little trooper you hear screaming right now. Mom and baby are fine but maybe you could have a look anyway."

Hodgins gratefully led the medical team back to the bedroom. A few minutes later, Brennan and Cam rejoined the group in the living room. Both women bore the signs of recent tears.

Cam grabbed Vincent and wrapped him in a fierce hug. "You sweet little weirdo. You did excellent work in there. I'm so proud of you."

"As am I," Brennan agreed, drawing him in for a second hug when Cam stepped away. They moved out of the way when the EMTs appeared again, this time with Angela lying on the stretcher with the baby in her arms. Hodgins and Dr. Kent walked behind them.

As everyone gathered close for a peek at the newborn, Hodgins nodded at the curious glances sent his way. "The baby's fine. Doc here took a look and said everything is fine."

"We're going to take them in just to get Mom and baby officially checked out," Dr. Kent said to Max. "We'll keep them until you clear it."

The casual words were a dash of cold water on the celebratory atmosphere, reminding them all of the reason they were hidden away, and of Max's role as guardian. Angela instinctively hugged her new son close and pressed her lips against the silky strands of dark hair.

Max smiled at them all, unperturbed by their noticeable reaction. "That sounds good. I have a feeling that it won't be for much longer."