For Disclaimer, please see chapter one. Thanks!

A/N: Hi! Chapter Ten takes place on Christmas Day. Enjoy and please review!

For The Moment

Chapter 10: Christmas Mayhem

It was a tradition in the Camden family for everyone to come over to Annie and Eric's house on Christmas day for dinner, presents, and gifts. As Annie, Eric, Kevin, Lucy, Cecilia, Simon, Lina, Sam, Natalie and David and their children dined outside under the evening sky, the back yard hummed with quiet conversation. Most of the children had finished their meals long ago in anticipation for gift time while the adults ate more leisurely, enjoying this time together. After finishing, and taking some group photos, everyone moved inside to the family room where the massive Camden tree stood, overflowing with gifts. Annie had rearranged the furniture in the room for this occasion, moving all the chairs to form a semi circle around the outskirt of the room, also adding some chairs from the other tables, and some from outside to accommodate everyone.

After the kids helped Annie and Eric pass out all the gifts, they began to open them one by one, going from youngest to oldest, then back again until everyone's gifts were gone. Each person there got something they loved: Sarah got a new dress from Matt to wear when they went out. Kevin got a brand new bullet proof vest from his worried wife, and Ty and Collin got a large set of Lego's each, their favorite pastime. Annie gave Lina a new calendar to put in the front of her classroom for the new year, and David even surprised his wife (and everyone else) with a beautiful diamond necklace in the shape of a small, swirly heart.

As they all began to help clean up the huge amounts of wrapping paper covering the floor, they barely heard the phone ringing in the next room. Annie excused herself to go answer it while also going for more trash bags. When she ran back into the room a few minutes later, however, she carried no garbage bags. Her eyes were wide, and no one could tell if she was happy or fearful. Everyone stopped cleaning and looked at her, waiting to hear what could have happened. Anna breathed deeply, obviously trying to calm down before sharing the information she new. After a few minutes of it not working, she decided to abandon the cause and opened her mouth.

"Ruthie's in labor!" She shrieked. "She's not due until January 23! She's a month early! Oh my goodness, oh my…" She ranted. Eric walked over and took his wife's arm, leading her to sit down. Everyone sat down where they were silently waiting for more information.

"Is she ok? When did the labor start?" Sarah asked worriedly. "I know she was really freaking out about the baby coming, and this is so early I bet they didn't even have anything ready! Did they have any idea that this was going to happen?" Annie shook her head.

"She's terrified. Her water broke right in the middle of opening presents with Peter in their apartment an hour ago. She hasn't seen the doctor for a month, so they had no idea! She had a doctor appointment in two days, but I guess she won't be needing that!" Annie tried to make a joke. "Peter took her to the hospital and they just got checked in since it took them awhile to pack up their things." She sighed. "Well guys, my new grandson, and your new nephew or cousin for the kids is on the way!" Everyone clapped happily. 4-year-old Maddy turned to her mother with a frown.

"Mommy?" She asked, pulling on Lucy's sleeve to get her attention. "Why is Aunt Ruthie in labor?" Lucy laughed quietly and stroked her daughter's hair.

"Well, Aunt Ruthie's in labor because she's going to have her baby. Labor is what happens before the baby is born." She explained. Maddy nodded then looked back up at Lucy.

"Did you have labor for me before I was born?" She asked. Lucy nodded. "And Haylie?" She nodded again. "Anna? Ty? Collin? Libby?" Lucy continued to nod through the list of names. Maddy's eyes widened. "That's a lot." She said and Lucy laughed. "When will the baby be born?"

"It depends. Sometimes the baby is born after only a few hours of labor, and sometimes it takes a long, long time, up to a day even! Most of the time, it takes the longest when it is a lady's first baby, so it might be awhile before Jackson is here." She said. Maddy thought about it for a moment, then smiled.

"Ok." She said, satisfied with the answer. Kevin looked at Lucy and laughed, kissing her on the cheek.

"Do you remember when Haylie was born? She was three weeks early…we didn't even have the nursery ready yet!"

"Oh trust me, I remember." She told him with a laugh. "That was one of the scariest times of my entire life. I didn't even know I was in labor at first, remember? Man, I feel for poor Ruthie and Peter! Sarah told us how Ruthie was so scared about labor and things like that. She must be freaking out!" She smiled sadly, thinking of her labor and delivery with her first born.

"She'll be Ok. You were." He said. "I'm so happy for them. They're finally starting their own family! Sure they're scared right now, but I'm sure they're ecstatic." Lucy nodded. Suddenly from the silence, Matt spoke up.

"I hope that Jackson and Ruthie are ok." He said.

"Of course they'll be ok!" Lina said. "The baby's only a month early. It's not dangerous unless it's like two or three months premature, right?" Matt shook his head.

"No, actually not." He announced, and everyone was suddenly silent waiting to hear more. "Unless a baby is born at a time very near it's due date, there can be tons of complications. And Jackson is a full month early…that's huge. I've delivered babies at 3 or 4 weeks early and they're smaller, and some have trouble breathing, or had to be in intensive care because their skin was still too thin. Some have even…" He paused. "Well, died. Ruthie being in labor this early is really dangerous." The stunned silence that followed his statement was only broken when Annie sobbed.

"The baby has to be ok!" She cried. "It took them so long to get pregnant…if the baby didn't make it…" She trailed off and began to cry again, as did Sarah and Lucy, and many of the younger children who weren't used to such drama taking place. After receiving one more call from Peter saying that things were going slowly, so they wouldn't know much for awhile, everyone left the Camden house reluctantly after making Annie promise to call if she had any information.

That night, Natalie walked from the kitchen of she and her husband's one story home into the bedroom they shared. David was lying on their bed already as she climbed in next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. He sat down the book he was reading and put his arms around her, kissing the top of her head softly. She looked up and him and kissed him back.

"I can't believe that we've been married for an entire year." She told him, thinking back to their one year anniversary last month. "It's been a great year." He smiled at her.

"It has." He agreed. "I couldn't have spent it with a more amazing woman." He said, kissing her once again. "I love you."

"I love you too." She said. She was quiet for a moment before speaking again. "I wonder how Ruthie's doing."

"Yeah, me too." David replied. "It must be scary, having this all happen so early, and knowing that the baby might not even be Ok…" He grew quiet. "I guess all we can do at this point is say a little prayer for Ruthie, Peter and the baby." Natalie nodded.

"When are we having a baby?" She asked. "Are we still going to wait a few years? Do we want them at all? How many?" Seeing her husband's alarmed look, she continued. "I'm not saying I want one now, don't worry, I'm just wondering." She said with a laugh. David smiled.

"I know. I was thinking about that too. We both love our jobs and don't feel like we want to stop them for awhile to start a family, but I also know that we don't want to wait too long. It's important to have kids while we're still young. We want to see them grow up, and see their kids grow up. Maybe even see great grand kids!" He smiled as did she. "And how many? I don't know if that's something that we can really know right now. I mean, theoretically we've both said that we would like 3 or 4 some day, but I think it's going to depend. We might have one and find out that we're totally happy having one child. We also might have one and love parenting and all of that so much that we end up with 12 kids!" Natalie's eyes widened and she laughed along with him. "We'll just see as we go, I guess." He looked over at her seriously. "You're 26 now, and I'm 28. We shouldn't wait too much longer, but if you still want to wait a few years, we'd still be fine." He said. She looked up at him.

"David?" She asked. He looked at her intently. "I want a baby." She told him. He smiled at her.

"I do too." He said. "Thinking about all this has made me realize that this is the time. We both have great jobs, and are making enough money to support a family. I'm making enough myself to keep us going pretty nicely while you're on maternity leave and after the baby's born and you take time off. You could even take a few years off if you wanted to." He said with a smile, glad that his salary could enable them to do that. She smiled too.

"So we're trying?" She asked quietly. David nodded.

"We're trying." He confirmed and they kissed.

"Oh my gosh! We're trying!" She smiled widely and wrapped her arms around her husband excitedly, pecking him on the lips again and again. "This is so awesome!" He smiled too, unable to resist her contagious smile.

"It's too bad you're not very excited though" He joked. She stopped smiling and laid down.

"Yeah I know." She replied, then started laughing again. She looked at him with a genuine smile and kissed him. "This is the best Christmas present I could ever imagine." She told him, and he smiled back at her knowing that it was his as well.

A/N: A lot happened in this chapter! I won't keep you all hanging too long, don't worry. Review, review, review!