He holds her in his arms and realizes that he has never been so scared in his entire life. He's scared shitless because he has no idea what to do, or if what he does do is going to be the right thing, or if his actions are just going to screw up someone's life completely.
She's so tiny. Just like her mother.
Her eyes are almost too large for her face, but he knows that they are the only obvious thing she inherited from him. Her large, dark brown eyes. He vaguely recalls the rarity in which babies are born with an eye color other than blue, but here she is, his infant daughter, with chocolate colored eyes. He suspects that something more than genetics came into play; that the absurd, obsessive cravings his wife had for chocolate have somehow spilled over into his daughter's eye color. He knows that's ridiculous, but the idiotic rambling distracts him from his fear.
She's so fragile; she just might break and disappear, just like her namesakes.
He realizes that her namesakes were far from the true damsels in distress, but he still remembers how they wound up breaking when no one was there to watch. He won't let that happen to his little girl, his Lilly Lynn. She will not suffer the same fate as them, of that he can be certain.
She's her mother's daughter; he knows that with his entire heart and soul.
He chose to get up in the middle of the night to check on her when she was crying and the instant she noticed him she stopped. She's her daddy's little girl, just like her mother is. She cries with a different sort of intensity than other babies. It's not a cry for the sheer point of crying. It's a cry that holds purpose and she'll cry until she gets what she wants and tonight she wants her daddy.
He's terrified; that he might turn out to be just like his father. That is the last thing he wants. His whole life he has tried not to be his father and if one of the few things to bring him such joy will cause him to become his fear, then perhaps he is better off miserable.
Are the sins of the father reflected in the children they parent?
God, he hopes not, but he can never be sure. Regardless of how many people have told him that he is not his father, he is still insecure about it. He wants to protect his daughter from the world and he suspects that if anything was going to force the Aaron in him to rear its ugly head that would be it. That would be the most cruelly poetic ending to his life; the thing that gives him the greatest joy he has ever known would also destroy him. It makes perfect sense as he has always known that he was doomed to be alone and miserable. He thought that that part of his life was over when he married the love of his adult (and possibly entire) life.
But he's been wrong before. He doesn't want to be wrong; he's dying not be wrong.
His precious daughter is asleep in his arms. He lays her down in her crib and just watches her for a few minutes, trying to comfort himself in the reality of her. He finally lets himself leave her side, knowing that someday he'll be called on to protect her, regardless of whether or not she decides to follow her mother's independent footsteps.
He goes back to his bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. Before climbing in, he stands beside the bed and silently watches the mother of his child, who is sleeping just as peacefully as their infant daughter. She stirs slightly in her sleep, a content smile on her face. He climbs in beside her, continuing to watch her dream. She snuggles up against his warm body, wrapping an arm around his waist. In her sleepy state, she murmurs the words that renew his faith in himself. He knows that in this moment of weakness, the truth is the closest to the surface. He finally believes the words.
"You're better than him."
A/N: Just to disclaim, I own nothing, everything belongs to UPN & Rob Thomas. And also, please review, I love them so much. Oh and sorry if the the fact that I now have 3 VM fics with titles starting with 'F' annoys someone. It's an accident, I swear!