A/N: For DrakgoPrompts #10 on tumblr. It's baby time!

Curiosity and Confidence

Abigail Joy Lipsky studied the unfamiliar objects at eye-level in the store her father had called a gift shop. Most were animals, but there were also trucks, cradles, toy blocks, cartoon characters, and houses. All were made of some kind of painted glass and contained flowers.

"Which one should we buy, Abby Joy?" her father asked as she eyed the objects. When she looked up at him, she saw there were more on shelves higher.

"Um...the kitten," she said, looking at one object styled like a brown, woven basket with a pink ball of yarn on the front and with a white kitten laying on top.

Her father chuckled. "But the new baby is a boy. Maybe he'd like something blue?"

Abby looked at the objects that were blue until one caught her eye. "How about the train?" The stubby finger of the three and a half year old pointed at a blue and white train with green trim. "Aren't those Mama's favorite flowers?"

When she peered up at her father again his ever-bright smile seemed even brighter.

"Yes they are. Can you hand it to me, so I can buy it?"

Abby carefully picked up the heavy painted glass train with hydrangeas planted inside and turned toward her father. He took it from her and her eyes drifted back to the glass kitten on the pink yarn while he made the purchase.

Minutes later they were walking barren halls, the linoleum floor and bumpy walls the same dingy, dirty white color. Her father had entrusted her with the train again, and her eyes moved between it and his long strides as they walked through the unfamiliar place.

"When can I see Mama?" she asked after a minute, a yawn suddenly escaping her throat.

"When we get upstairs," her father answered softly.

The next minutes were a blur even more new and confusing than the gift shop as they stepped into a small room like a closet but with railings on the walls. The doors that had slid open similar to those in the lairs had closed behind them, and her father pushed one of many numbered buttons on a metal panel.

'Elevator' was the word she was turning over in her mind but couldn't quite grasp amid her father trying to explain it while the floor seemed to move. Her father's cell phone suddenly ringing didn't help matters either.

"Hello, Mother? Right now? Okay, we're in the elevator."

The cell phone was flipped closed, pocketed, and then suddenly the train in Abby's hands was taken away and before she could process it she was being held under her father's arm.

"You'll have to wait with Grandma for a little while, sweetie. Mama is having the baby now."

"But you said when we got upstairs..." Abby protested quietly, unable to remember the last time she had seen her mother.

"I know, but the hospital won't let you in while the baby is being born."

The elevator doors slid open and revealed a new hallway with lots of sounds and people moving through it. Abby watched all of it in her distraction, taking in the new environment until the familiar red hair of her grandmother caught her eye.

"Oh, Drew! She's at ten, and the doctor is in such a hurry, you might miss it!"

"Take Abby," the toddler felt her father's voice above her as her grandmother took her in her arms. She watched the train being placed in the chair next to her grandmother, and then with the sound of a door opening and closing, her father was gone.

"What did you buy for your new baby brother Abigail?"

The familiar voice of her grandmother calmed the small girl's nerves, and she picked up the heavy object with hydrangeas planted in it to show off.

"A train. These are Mama's favorite flowers."

Her grandmother smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling behind her green-tinted glasses.

"That's wonderful! You're so smart, my Abigail!"

Her black curls were ruffled, and she peered past her grandmother at the door she guessed her father had vanished through.

"When do I get to see the baby?"

"He isn't born yet. And we might still have to wait awhile after that." Abby found herself tucked against the softness of her grandmother and encouraged to lay her head against her chest. "You should try to take a nap, sweetie."

A nap was the last thing that Abby wanted, but she let her questions still as there were too many and she didn't quite have the words for them. She didn't understand why she hadn't seen her mother in so long, and why she couldn't now when it had been promised.

A sudden scream in a familiar voice startled Abby in her grandmother's lap. She found herself being placed on her feet, her grandmother taking her hand and standing up, and beginning to pull her away from the door and the chair where her baby brother's train still sat.

"Let's go for a walk," her grandmother said. Abby watched anxiously as the door and the train grew further away in her sight.

"You did this to me! I hate you!"

Drakken only smiled as his wife's sharp fingernails dug into the back of his hand. It was a familiar picture, except the first time there had been no angry declarations. Only anxious tears, when even to the last minute they hadn't been certain everything would be okay. But they had been, and this time Shego had been more willing to undergo tests to make sure nothing went wrong along the way. They expected a healthy baby boy to make his entrance into the world...very soon, given the doctor's apparent hurry.

His free hand brushed Shego's hair off of her sweaty brow as she continued to scream. He would probably have bleeding nail marks in his other like the last time, but it was a small price to pay. With the demands of the doctor that she push, and his own softer encouragements earning only enraged glares and demands he shut up, he knew it wouldn't be long before he met his son.

Finally, with a long ear-piercing scream that gave way to gasps, the familiar cries of an infant rang through the room as Shego collapsed back into the hospital bed. Drakken placed a lingering kiss on Shego's temple, not moving until the wrapped baby was placed on her chest. She finally released her death grip on his hand to cradle the small bundle and he looked between her almost delirious face and the small, crying one of their son.

Her happy gasps brought tears of joy, and when their eyes met he couldn't stop his own from flowing as well. She gave him a knowing look, and their smiling lips met in a kiss as his hand covered hers at the back of the baby's head.

Abby woke up to her father gently shaking her shoulder and calling her name.

"Abby Joy? Come meet your baby brother," he said softly, a huge happy smile on his face.

She stretched in grandmother's arms and found herself in her father's a moment later, and she relaxed tiredly into his embrace.

"Do I get to see Mama?"

"Yes, she's here too."

They walked the halls back to where the door and the train were, and Abby was glad to see her grandmother pick up the object with flowers planted inside. And then the mysterious door was opened.

Abby ignored the other people wearing blue, the large machines, and the sounds that came from them for the familiar sight of her mother smiling.

"Mama!" she called, lifting her head from her father's shoulder.

"Hi AJ," her mother said. Her voice sounded tired. "I missed you."

Abby looked briefly at the unfamiliar shirt her mother wore, but her eyes were drawn to the bundle that she held.

"Is that the baby?" she asked as her father walked her around the bed.

"Yes. This is your brother, Drew Jr.," her mother said.

Abby peered down from her father's arms and saw a reddish-pink wrinkled face. At least she thought it was a face. It definitely had a nose, and the eyes were closed and didn't seem to have lashes. But there were dark eyebrows and some small, dark hairs on the head under the blanket.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of her baby brother.

"Can I play with him?"

"Not yet," her father said above her.

"He's beautiful, Shego!" Abby's grandmother said.

"Thanks, Mom."

"Mama," Abby said, suddenly remembering, "we bought a present for the baby."

Her small arms reached for the train, but her grandmother moved closer to present the object.

"It's a blue train, because he's a boy, and it has your favorite flowers!"

"I love it AJ," her mother said with a yawn.

"Mother." Abby turned her gaze up to her father's chin at hearing his familiar tone. "I think you and Abby should get some sleep."

"I wanna stay with Mama!" Abby cried.

"I know sweetie," her father addressed her, "but Mama is very tired and has to stay in the hospital tonight. You and Grandma get some sleep, and when you wake up, Mama and me and your baby brother will be there."

"Drew Jr.," her mother corrected. Abby watched her father blush.

She whimpered in protest as she was handed off to her grandmother, the train left on the large windowsill of the hospital room. But a yawn left her mouth seconds after she saw another one leave her mother's. Her head sank to her grandmother's shoulder, and she watched the smiles of her parents until the door closed.

"He's perfect!" Drakken said in a gleeful hush, his index finger lightly rubbing the tiny ones of the baby in Shego's arms. Suddenly, Shego's hand grabbed his and she stared at the small row of cuts on the back.

"Oh...I'm so sorry!" she said, looking up at him anxiously.

The cuts stung, but nothing could wipe the smile from his face. "It's all right."

He pulled one of the visitor chairs up next to the bed and sat, leaning on his elbow on the mattress and moving nearer the small, sleeping form on Shego's chest. His eyes moved up to his wife's face as she yawned again.

"It's almost midnight. Go ahead and sleep."

"I want to look at him..." Shego protested softly.

Drakken's smile grew. "Me too."

He folded his arm and lay his head down atop it on the mattress, one hand lain across the baby while Shego held his other with the cuts. He watched her eyes begin to slip closed, and then she suddenly startled and looked down at him.

"Oh... I don't hate you," she said, her cheeks coloring.

He grinned. "I know."

"I actually...wouldn't mind you 'doing this to me' again," she said shyly, a question in her eyes as a small smirk reached her lips.

Drakken's eyes sparkled as he gazed back at her and his grin broadened further. A yawn of his own escaped his lips after the long day at the hospital, and he set his eyes back on the sleeping newborn on Shego's chest. He listened as Shego's breathing evened, signaling her slipping away into sleep. And as he stared at their infant child and thought of their daughter headed home with his mother, he couldn't imagine life being any more perfect.