A/N: Baby time!

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

I was still beyond exhausted when I regained consciousness. The room was quiet and dark, lit only by the vaguest hints of early dawn, so I really wanted to give in and let myself fall asleep, but the aching pain in my groin and the lingering soreness in my belly reminded me that there were two very important reasons why I should be awake. My daughters had been born and I hadn't even gotten to see the second one yet.

My hurried attempt to sit up earned me a light chuckle from my husband; he clearly got a kick out of the self-inflicted pain the motion had caused. Yuu was still in his chair at my bedside, and from the looks of the dark circles under his eyes, he hadn't slept in quite a while. But I didn't dwell on him for long, as the newborn baby in his arms captured my attention almost immediately.

She was beautiful and perfect, even if I couldn't immediately tell which one she was. I briefly wondered where her sister was, but that thought got an answer the moment I noticed the bassinet beside Kanda; his free hand was gently stroking the baby's cheek. My newborn daughters were so tiny and adorable that I felt like my heart was going to explode.

When Kanda was done laughing at me, he leaned over and kissed my forehead, moving the baby from his arms into mine. "We need to come up with new names for our babies."

That was definitely not what I expected the first words out of his mouth to be. "Huh? Why?"

He didn't answer my question, just laughed as he picked the other baby up out of her bassinet and settled back into his chair. When he looked back at me and caught me staring at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes at me. "Just look at the baby, Moyashi."

I had no clue what was going on, but I did what he wanted, turning my gaze on the baby in my arms. This was definitely the second of the twins; she was bald, whereas the first had a head full of dark hair. Like her sister, she was wrinkly and pink, and absolutely adorable. But I knew that her cuteness was not what I should be focusing on, so I set about finding her Innocence. It wasn't hard to find. Like her sister, her parasitic Innocence had taken root in her wrist. However, as I moved my hand to stroke the deformed red skin, I accidentally moved the blanket she was loosely wrapped in, and that's when I saw exactly what it was that Yuu had wanted me to see. Between my daughter's legs was a penis. The baby in my arms was male.

When I gaped up at him in complete shock, Kanda smiled genuinely at me; he was undeniably happy about the fact that the second of our twins had turned out to be a boy. "We have son, Moyashi."

At the confused look I shot him, wondering how that was possible when we'd known for months that we were having girls, Kanda merely shrugged. "They read the ultrasound wrong. It apparently happens all the time with twins."

My initial reaction to learning that I had a son was disappointment. I had been looking forward to having twin girls for months now, and it was almost heartbreaking to have one of them turn out to be a boy. All those things that I'd been planning to do with both of them, I could now only do with one of them. But on the other hand, I felt that I might actually know how to raise a son; aside from their cuteness, little girls were a completely foreign concept to me.

Once I managed to collect myself, I turned my focus back on my husband and the comment that had started all this. I understood that we needed a name for our son, but I didn't get why we would also need to change our daughter's name. "Why do we have to rename them both?"

Kanda didn't answer my question right away. Instead, he got up from his chair and sat facing me on the bed. He adjusted my hold on our son, and then he was placing our daughter in my other arm. Holding both of our babies at the same time was simultaneously perfect and terrifying; I was incredibly worried that I was going to drop one of them. Yuu smiled and kissed my forehead, and then he turned his attention on our daughter, gently caressing her cheek with his fingers. "It's not like we can know which one she is."

The comment was almost amusing. I knew which baby was which back when they were inside me, and even though actually seeing them had thrown me off at first, now that I was holding them both, I could still tell. The baby girl in my right arm was the one who had been the most active inside my womb. "She's Naomi."

Kanda briefly looked like he was going to argue with me, but he clearly thought better of it. "If you say so, Moyashi."

I scowled at the comment, but he kissed me before I could argue and assert that I really did know which one she was. The kiss was passionate but too short, as I was still incredibly exhausted from childbirth, and when it was over, Yuu sat beside me and leaned his head on my shoulder, gazing down at our children with a content smile on his face. "What are we going to name our son?"

.x.x.

While the Moyashi babbled on about the pros and cons of various names for our son, I found myself dozing off. Even though I was exhausted from having been awake for two days straight, it was unlike me to zone out like that. But then again, I was also uncharacteristically happy over finally having my babies, so maybe it wasn't that weird that I was so comfortable and relaxed.

While Allen was understandably disappointed that one of our babies turned out to be a boy, all I felt was relief. The incredibly difficult task of trying to raise two children at the same time was going to be made a whole lot easier by having one of them be male. My daughter was precious and beautiful, but she was still a girl and I was worried that I was going to irreparably scar her as she was growing up; I was almost too scared to hold her. I was much less stressed about trying to raise a son.

I loved both of my children so much that it hurt. The love I felt for Allen had grown so gradually that I had barely even noticed it was happening, yet with the twins, it was instantaneous. I loved them the moment I laid eyes on them. It was almost too much to handle.

But Allen was my focus right now.

My Moyashi had just done the most extraordinarily amazing thing, and scared me to death in the process. The way he had passed out immediately after delivering our son had been rather terrifying. There were a panicked few seconds there where we all thought that he had died. The possibility of Allen dying during childbirth was all too real and something I'd stressed about for months. Having it actually happen nearly gave me a heart attack. It was only when I noticed that I could feel his pulse through the hand I was still holding that the worry that I'd lost him subsided. I was still concerned over the fact that he had lost consciousness during childbirth, but at the same time, Allen had been in labor for forty hours before Naomi was born, so it was understandable that he was that exhausted. But it was only now that he was awake and clearly fine that I was able to completely relax. My Moyashi was still mine.

I was pulled from my thoughts by a sudden change of light in the room, my sense of danger telling me that there was a threat nearby. Allen continued to babble on about baby names, but given what he'd done six hours ago, it was actually good that he was clueless; there was no need to worry him until I knew what was going on.

Glancing around the room, it was easy to determine that the change in lighting was coming from the crack under the door. The once bright light streaming in from the hallway was now darkened by shadows. Someone was standing outside the door.

I tried to relax, to convince myself that it was just someone passing by, but that grew hard when the person outside just continued to stand there; whoever it was made no move to knock on the door or to continue walking down the hall. However, just as I was getting worried enough to consider alerting Allen to the danger, he suddenly called out. His voice was calm with a hint of a smirk in it, but it was the words he spoke that put me at ease. "It's okay to come in, Dad."

The door opened slowly, flooding the dark room with light from the hallway, and Cross stepped hesitantly inside. The usually cocky man actually looked unsure of himself for a change; it was obvious that he was uncertain of speaking to Allen so soon after he'd given birth. I wanted to make fun of Cross for that, but I was too tired to bother. Besides, there was no telling how the Moyashi would react to that, and the last thing I wanted to do right now was upset him.

Allen smiled gently at Cross and beckoned him to come closer, which was somewhat of a feat considering that he was holding both of our babies. The happiness flowing off of him from finally meeting our babies had only grown since his father had entered the room; for all of his problems with Cross, Allen was undeniably excited to see him now. "Come meet your grandchildren."

Cross reluctantly came over to the bed, stiffly following Allen's unspoken instructions and sitting down on the mattress, on the opposite side of Allen from me. He looked rather terrified, which wasn't a surprise given that it was no secret that he didn't like kids, but Allen either didn't notice or didn't care, as he immediately moved Naomi into her grandfather's arms, forcing Cross to actually take her if he didn't want to drop her.

As Cross attempted to awkwardly hold the baby - he was unexpectedly even worse than I was at it - Naomi suddenly jerked in his arms, flailing her body in such a way that she actually punched Cross on the chin. The Moyashi laughed as he leaned down and tenderly kissed the squirming baby's forehead before beaming up at Cross. "That's Naomi. Told you she was feisty."

The comment got Cross to finally relax, and he and the Moyashi spent the next several minutes fawning over Naomi, tickling her and babbling at her in baby talk. It wasn't until the other baby sneezed that either of them finally noticed him; though given the way Allen was cradling our son as close to his body as possible without hurting him, it was highly unlikely that he had truly forgotten that he was there.

Cross smiled as he reached out and stroked the baby's cheek; now that he had relaxed, his doting grandfather side - which was almost as bad as Teidoll's - was starting to surface. "And this must be Kaya. Isn't she just- ..."

The thought cut off mid-sentence, as like me, Cross had noticed the way Allen stiffened at his words, and although he didn't know that it was merely the female name and pronoun that had caused the Moyashi's distress, he was understandably concerned. "What's wrong, Allen?"

The Moyashi blushed at the question and started to stutter. I could sort of understand why he was having a hard time correcting his father, but it was still weird that he was so hesitant about it. "Oh, ah, um, nothing's wrong, it's just- ... um... she's not- ..."

After stumbling over his words for a moment, Allen frowned, looking to me for reassurance before he turned back to his father and declared confidently, "We had a boy."

.x.x.

"A boy? I have a grandson?" The excitement on Master Cross' face was all too brief before he returned to his usual collected self. I wished the expression would have stayed longer, but I was used to seeing him reserved, so the excitement was almost too weird.

I'd been scared to tell him that one of my daughters turned out to be a boy, as, like me, my father had been very excited by the idea of twin girls. I did not like disappointing Cross, even if I knew that this was something outside of my control, and I didn't want to have to deal with the crap he was going to put me through over this.

"What's his name?"

I almost missed the question, lost in my agonizing over how Cross would react to the baby's gender. My son didn't have a name yet, but being asked outright about it meant that I couldn't avoid the subject like I had been planning to do. "Ah, umm... about that. We're still- ... We haven't-"

"Andrew."

Both the name and the fact that Kanda had spoken caught me by surprise. He had been staying out of the conversation thus far, like he always did when he wanted to give me alone time with my father without actually leaving me alone with him, and it was weird that he chose now to speak up. But as strange as that was, it wasn't nearly as odd as the word he'd said. Even though he had asked for my thoughts, Yuu had not been paying any attention to me while I tried to come up with a possible name for our son. Yet, Andrew had been one of the names that I had suggested earlier. Kanda may not have been paying attention, but he had still heard what I was saying. And he had apparently liked one of the names enough to just go ahead and declare that it was our son's name.

I looked up at Yuu, trying to use his expression as a gauge for what he was thinking. The look on his face was calm and confident, and it told me in a heartbeat that he liked the name, but at the same time, he wasn't going to argue with me if I didn't like it; this was ultimately my decision. While I silently stared at him, Kanda smiled ever so slightly back at me and gently brushed a stray lock of hair behind my ear. He followed it up with a tender kiss before he scoffed and tousled my hair. Yuu truly was happy and I didn't need to worry about his feelings.

I let my gaze drift to the baby in my arms. I studied his sleeping face for a moment, drinking in the sight of the precious little infant as I decided how I felt about the name my husband had picked. Having reached a decision, I turned back to Cross with a smile. "This is Andrew."