An incessant and repetitive sound invaded Sharon's dreams and slowly drew her into wakefulness. It took her a moment to register the words, and recognize the voice of the person who was saying them. Her hand reached for Andy's, who was also waking up next to her.

"What time is it?" she heard him asking groggily and barely found enough strength to reach for her phone on the bedside table and check. She and Andy returned home merely an hour before dawn after closing a complicated and emotional case. For the past two weeks they were running on dark coffee and fast food with hardly any time to handle anything more than that. They crushed into bed in their underwear last night, too tired to look for their pajamas.

"Mom, dad, wake up!" They heard Rainie's voice from behind their bedroom door.

Sharon groaned, buried her head under her pillow and tried to block out the sound. She wasn't planning to get out of her bed even if the house was on fire.

"Babe, wake up. Rainie needs something." She heard Andy's husky voice.

"At six a.m. on a Sunday?" Sharon mumbled.

"Maybe it's something important," Andy said. He was always more accommodating of Rainie's caprices than Sharon.

"I'm tired."

"Let's get up, see what she wants and then go back to sleep." Andy pulled the blanket and pillow away from Sharon.

She got up, not without sounding a lengthy and miserable whine.

"What do you want?" she said to Rainie when she opened the door. She was struggling to focus her gaze on her daughter's face.

"I took a pregnancy test," Rainie replied.

"Are you pregnant?" Andy asked, his arm snaking around Sharon's waist.

"I wanted to us to find out together." She took Sharon's hand and pulled her towards the bathroom. Andy followed them.

The light in the bathroom was too bright for Sharon's state of alertness and she rubbed her eyes and looked at her makeup stained palm with surprise. She went to bed without removing her makeup and was pretty sure she woke up with raccoon eyes which she probably made worse by rubbing.

"You two look like crap. When did you get in?" Rainie only now noticed her parents' disheveled appearances.

"Two hours ago," Andy groaned.

"Nice outfit, mom." Rainie grinned.

Andy apparently had enough sense to put his robe on. Sharon did not.

"Where is it?" Sharon asked, ignoring Rainie's comment.

"On the counter behind you. It's been five minutes already, so there should be a result."

Sharon turned around and found the elongated white stick.

"So, um, I was hoping you could look and tell me what it says," Rainie said.

Sharon lifted the stick from the counter and looked at it. "How do I know what the result means?" she asked.

"One line means that I'm not pregnant and two lines mean that I am," Rainie replied.

Andy peered over Sharon's shoulder and tried to focus his gaze on the result. There were two very clear blue lines on the small screen.

Sharon smiled softly at her daughter. "Congratulations, sweetie."

"I'm pregnant?" Rainie asked.

Sharon nodded while Andy wrapped his arms around Rainie and kissed her cheek. In her half-asleep state, Sharon was still able to appreciate just how soon after her first IVF treatment Rainie got pregnant. She hugged her daughter and handed her the stick. "I'm so happy for you, sweetheart. I really am, but if I don't go back to sleep, I'm going to fall."

"Hang on a second," Rainie said. She grabbed a face towel and wet it in the sink. "Let me clean this." She gently wiped the makeup off of Sharon's face. "Now you can go."

"We'll celebrate later, okay?" Andy asked as he followed Sharon to their bedroom.

"Yeah, sure. Good night. Thank you for doing this for me," Rainie said. "I love you."

Sharon wasn't sure if she said it back to her daughter, because her mind clouded again as soon as her head touched the pillow. She felt Andy's arms pulling her to him and his voice whispering against her neck. It took her brain a moment to decipher what he said.

"We're gonna be grandparents again."

She hummed affirmatively and drifted to sleep.

It was well into the afternoon when Sharon and Andy woke up. They remained in bed, letting their limbs tangle together as they silently listened to each other's breaths. Sometimes Sharon found that they needed those moments when words became an unnecessary boundary, and just feeling each other was enough. In those moments, Sharon's mind always went blank and her muscles went slack. It was a form of a consuming relaxation that she's never experienced before Andy. To her, it was a testament to their compatibility.

Sharon wasn't sure how long they remained this way before Andy turned to her and captured her lips between his.

"Wanna fool around?" Andy asked seductively.

Sharon smiled at him and nodded. "That sounds like an offer I can't refuse."

They emerged from their bedroom an hour later, when their hunger began to bother them. They found Rainie setting the table for dinner. The smell of fresh pasta that came from the kitchen tickled Sharon and Andy's noses and their stomachs growled in unison.

"Oh, look who's finally awake," Rainie called out. "I made dinner. I thought we could celebrate."

"That sounds lovely," Sharon said. She was hungrier than she thought.

Andy pulled her chair for her and then took a seat next to her as Rainie placed a bowl of creamy pasta in the middle of the table.

"That smells great, Rainie," Andy said.

"It's your recipe," Rainie replied. She put a bowl of salad on the table and then pulled a chair and sat down.

The three of them loaded their plates with food and ate rather quietly, each of them satisfying their hunger.

"Thank you, sweetie, for making this lovely dinner. I'm so sorry that we weren't more alert when you found out this morning."

"I just wanted to share the moment with you, and you were there for me. I appreciate that. Don't beat yourself up," Rainie said.

"We're so happy to become grandparents again," Andy said. "And we're excited for you."

"I'm excited too. I didn't think it would happen so fast, after only one treatment. With Lauren it took a year."

"I'm glad you didn't experience any difficulty getting pregnant, honey. I know how important this is to you, and I'm relieved that it worked out the way you'd hoped."

"Well, as I unfortunately already know, it's just the start. I just hope I can carry to term."

"We hope so too," Andy said.

"Knowing that early is probably terrifying," Sharon said. "But I think it also gives you more time to enjoy it. I mean, your treatment was – what? – four weeks ago? Most women don't know they're pregnant until they're two months along."

"When did you know with Emily and Ricky?" Rainie asked.

"With Emily, I was almost twelve weeks along. I was tired all the time, and I was feeling a bit overemotional, but I thought it was because I was working hard. With Ricky, I found out about after a month and a half." Recalling the moments she found out she was pregnant with her children made Sharon smile.

"Twelve weeks? That's like, the end of the first trimester," Rainie said.

"Yeah, that pregnancy was a difficult one. The doctor kept telling me she was too small, and that he wasn't sure she was going to come out okay. I was so nervous and Jack just got a new job so he worked long hours. I spent the last month of my pregnancy on bedrest, so everything was just too emotional and terrifying, because we didn't know if we will end up having a healthy child."

"I can imagine your relief when she was born," Rainie said.

"The first thing I did when they gave her to me for the first time was count all her fingers and toes. She was beautiful, she still is."

Sharon only now noticed the way Andy's hand was resting on her knee under the table. She covered it with her palm and smiled at him.

"And with Ricky everything was okay?" Rainie asked.

"That was much easier. I barely felt pregnant until the contractions started." Of course, both pregnancies changed her body, made it rounder and softer, and added stretch marks to her skin, but Sharon bore those changes with pride. She always thought of them as engravings of life.

Sharon looked downwards at her tattooed wrist and smiled. That was also an engraving of life – one she cherished just as much as those that her biological children gave her.

-TBC-