Epilogue: Part 3
"Write this down," Jack ordered, "Sierra, foxtrot, 47-98, helo, sierra, 3-1-8-5-"
"Woah...wait, lemme...grab a pen," Vaughn grumbled interrupting the stream of identification numbers that his father-in-law was throwing across the airwaves. The first pen didn't work, and when Jack started repeating the sequence, the younger audibly grumbled as he looked around the desk for a replacement.
"Vaughn," Sydney's voice called from the other room, the high pitch of excitement catching his attention.
"Hang on Syd, I'm on a call with your dad. Jack, stop saying numbers, I'm not your daughter so I won't memorize them the moment you speak. I need to find a-" another one coming up dead, "damn working pen."
Jack chuckled, "is she available?"
Michael looked up as she hit the doorway, a flush to her cheeks as her hand pressed against the growing lump of her stomach behind the stretched cotton of the camisole. While their growing bundle only jutted out two or three inches, it had become fairly noticeable due to her slim physique. His hands froze mid opening of a drawer.
"Everything okay?" A nervous flutter migrated from his heart to his stomach as her fingers pressed into her lower stomach.
"I felt her move," the words flew out in a rush.
He immediately forgot what he was doing as his eyebrows shot up while his eyes jumped to the miniature swell that was their child. She'd obviously been painting in the nursery, the cotton of the shirt speckled with green and yellow paint, and the area of her lower abdomen spotted with fingerprints from where she'd been feeling around.
"Really?"
Jack could hear their muffled conversation, annoyance bubbling up from his stomach. "Vaughn, we have a finite amount of time to-"
"Yeah, hang on, Jack." Abandoning the phone on the desk, he stepped around and made his way over to his excited wife. "Still? Like...right now?"
"She was. Here," she said, reaching for his hand. He gave it willingly as the pair wore goofy grins.
Pressing his fingers lightly against the bump, Sydney set hers over his and pressed them a little deeper, and they stood waiting with bated breath. His eyes were fixed on their hands as he poured all of his concentration on the effort, and moments passed until her other hand excitedly tapped his arm.
"There. Did you feel it? It's kind of like...if my stomach grumbled." She wasn't prepared for him to shake his head. "Really?"
"Come on, Little Bean," he murmured, holding his breath and closing his eyes.
Another movement according to her, and again, he felt nothing against his fingertips. "Maybe...maybe it's too soon?"
His suggestion caused a sheen of tears to curtain her eyes catching him off guard. "I'm sorry! I was so excited," she groaned, Michael responding with a soft laughing scoff and wrapping his arms around her back.
"Sweetie, it's okay. You get to have this first, and that's okay." He knew it was primarily the hormones that were making her emotions flare from hot to cold, though lately, it had been mostly hot, and she leaned into him with a heavy sigh against the side of his neck as his hands ran soothing figure-eight patterns over her back, fingers digging in ever so slightly to loosen her tense muscles.
She began to relax, and though she was still thrilled at the fact that she'd felt the baby move for the first time, she longed to share it with him as they'd shared everything else thus far. With another sigh, she pulled back and set her palm flat over his heart, one of his hands splaying across her lower back as the other came up to brush his thumb over a splash of lime green paint on her cheek.
"I really wanted to share this with you," she said honestly.
Vaughn grinned and dropped his hand down to brush his knuckles lovingly across the bump. "You did."
…
The night is warm and quiet, Sydney resting with her head on my lap as she reads a crazy thick book while I watch last night's hockey game. Honestly, for a little while, I haven't been paying much attention to the game. I've been wandering from memory to memory...some good, some bad, some dumb.
There's no particular chronology to my thoughts, and if I were saying them out loud, I'm sure I'd sound like a rambling madman. The fingers on my free hand play with the ends of her hair lying over my lap, and every single time she brings up a hand to lick her finger and turn the page, I grin. It must be a good book, she's torn through fifteen or so pages in like, five minutes.
This night, like all others this week, has been delightfully relaxing. Actually, it's been like this since we moved in. Relaxing is great. I...I love to relax. But lately, how do you take a break and relax when all you do is relax?
Do I miss the excitement? The excitement is about all I miss, really. Unlike my adrenaline junkie wife, I was happiest during a mission when things went as planned.
I guess I miss jetting off and dressing up to go somewhere insanely ostentatious. This makes me smile and look down as she flips another page, her studious and enthralled brown eyes bright and moving a mile a minute. She'd be proud of all the big words I'm using while lost in my thoughts.
Maybe I miss speaking languages and conning my way past checkpoints or guards or pretty ladies that fawn over my suit and green eyes. I can't help but roll them, annoyed at myself for the thought.
Looking at her hair as it ran between my fingers, a couple of white flecked scars caught my eye as I remember the last time I sent the back of my knuckles into someone's nose. A fond memory despite everything else in my world being a bit upside down at the time. It's probably bad to take enjoyment in someone gurgling blood behind missing teeth and a horribly flattened nose, but c'est la vie. On récolte ce que l'on sème. You reap what you sow, one of my mother's favorite things to hit me with when I got into trouble and tried to convince her to not punish me.
Bringing the bottle to my lips I take another drink of the tasty ale.
I definitely don't miss the close calls. For either of us. That's...not something I think anyone could miss, and it probably goes without saying. Or...thinking, in this case.
I sure won't miss the pain written on her face after a long-ass mission. The wince at almost every step but taking them anyway as she waited for the painkillers to kick in. Plenty of times at the airport picking her up all I wanted to do was wrap her up and squeeze her, but knew I couldn't because of a bruised shoulder, or broken ribs, or whiplash. She always compartmentalized it until she was alone with me, and then it was all I could see. There were times I wished she still would have left the partitions up, but I knew that it was a sign of trust that she dropped them at all; it would be weird to ask for them to go back up.
Pain was always a component. From day one. October first she sat in my office with bruises and that...honestly amazing dye-job, her hands rubbing her jaw because of the pulled teeth, and I don't know how she did it. I mean...I still don't know how she did it. A fifteen-hour flight, walk-in processing, debrief, writing a damn novel during said debrief.
I let out a little chuckle into the neck of the beer taking another drink. The look on Weiss's face as we each took turns reading page after page of what she wrote. I'm sure it matched my own; it was an amazing read. I'll bet we devoured it like she was shredding her new book.
Behind all of the pain, though, I saw who she was when she didn't want me to even on that first day. Yeah she was trying to hide it, but maybe after everything along with being shown a little bit of trust, she'd opened up. The bruises had been earned through a crazy display of courage; the sore jaw had been earned through a nearly impossible show of strength; the determination in her eyes had been earned through heartache. The woman had and still has more willpower than a...uh…
Well...than a wizard class in D&D. Oof...showing my inner nerd. Weiss would have a field day with that one.
It's hard to figure out when I fell in love with Sydney Bristow, honestly. It just...it was just a status I suddenly had one day. Like, I popped out of bed, and boom - in love. So I sat for months just...being in love. Watching her struggle and knowing I couldn't do everything I could to make any of it easier.
Parfois l'amour fait mal. Another thing my mom used to say: sometimes love is painful. She'd bring it up when talking about my dad as I grew up, and when I was something like...ten years old, I asked her why she spent so much time thinking about dad when it made her sad all the time. She'd give me that mom-look and say the line, sometimes in English, just to drive it home.
Sometimes love is painful.
The watch and finding it stopped. The red hair with the pulled teeth. The ache from the needle filled with adrenaline. The makeup covering the bruises but complaining about them anyway. The way her mascara ran from the rain when betrayed by her father. The stitches in her leg in the cabin. The bruises on her face from Luxembourg. The blood dripping from her chin in the room.
Parfois l'amour fait mal, mais ce n'est pas la fin. Sometimes love is painful, but it's not the end.
Winding the watch and hearing the miracle of a tick. The brown hair, relief, and resolve on her face day one in the bloodmobile. That adrenaline shot being overshadowed by the same relief and bright, dimpled smile. The mascara smudge on the shoulder of a suit I never washed again after she leaned on me to cry. The two days in the cabin. The bruises covered in makeup earned when finding the killing blow. Luxembourg leading to moments in the corner of the warehouse. The evening in the London hotel where we shared a moment of normal. The moment she said hi over the phone after being silent for 49 days.
Mom was right when she said it wasn't the end. I can feel her head on my lap and we're sitting in a warm living room inside an insane house I never thought I would own, her soft hair between my fingers, the book against her chest closed and marked under her hands, her brown eyes on mine as I peek down.
"You're a loud thinker," she commented in a whisper.
"I'm just watchin' hockey," he grinned, bringing the drink up again and noticing with a frown that the game was over, and likely had been for a while.
"You're also a bad liar," her smile didn't disappear, nor did she move from the comfortable spot using his leg as a pillow. "Were they bad thoughts?"
Michael shook his head, and then wobbled it a bit, before deciding the negative once more. "A couple. I was reminiscing, I guess."
"Tell me," she gently pushed, and she heard him sigh, though it wasn't one borne of anger or frustration. It seemed like he was more choosing his words.
Her hand set against his chest pulling his attention back down. "Look where we are," she ordered, pointing toward the windows across the room
His eyes followed and he smiled at the calm scene of the wave-washed beach under the silver crescent of the moon that kept the sky dark and full of stars.
"Yeah. Everything else is literally miles away. Just tell me the good thoughts." Reaching out she cast her book to the coffee table and turned curious eyes back up. Sharing equal rights to his facial features was worry, contentment, and wonder.
He smiled with a nod and looked down, his hand moving from her hair to brush his knuckles against her cheek.
"I was just thinking about loving you."
Lifting her up a moment so he could slouch down farther into the couch, he got comfortable and let his head fall back. Her fingers reached up and looped through his over her chest in an entangled lump.
"What was your first thought in my office?" he asked.
Sydney frowned in confusion. "What?"
"You know," he gestured in a circle with his other hand, "when you walked in. What did you think?"
"About you?"
"Well sure, but…even just in general. What thoughts were going through your head? I never asked but I've always wondered."
"Why? That was forever ago, Vaughn," she asked with an airy laugh.
"I remember you sitting there with your hand on your jaw staring, and I was worried that I had to go and talk to a crazy person."
That made her laugh. "You weren't as far from the truth as you may think. I was pretty...single-minded back then."
"So what were you thinking about? I know you remember."
Sydney sighed deciding to go for complete honesty. "That photo of you and Alice on your desk."
It didn't look like he'd been prepared for that answer, and though he didn't lift his head to focus his shocked eyes downward, she saw the surprise. "Seriously?"
"Not...I didn't know either of you. So, not like that. It just...looked nice. It reminded me of Danny and what I'd lost, so I just...fixated on it, I guess. I sat in that mini conference room alone for like, two hours, and then another twenty minutes in your office. I'd pretty much run out of meaningful thoughts by the time you walked in."
"Huh," he huffed.
"What were you thinking?" She turned the conversation to him.
"When?"
Sydney rolled her eyes and spotted the dimple on his cheek accompanying his snarky grin.
"When you were writing out your statement I wasn't sure what to think. An Alliance walk-in...I assumed it was an old guy like Jack. Finding someone my age in an all-black outfit with bright red hair was not what I'd been expecting."
"Stupid bozo hair, I believe is what you said."
"You know," he mused, "having a wife with perfect memory is gonna get me in trouble."
They shared a quiet laugh before both minds got lost in thought.
"I was impressed by your strength," he paused, "and though it was obvious that you were strong, I saw this incredible frailty." He felt her head twist sharply, the rounded back digging into the skin of his thigh. "Stop, not like that," he assured. "I just...I saw through your armor."
She seemed to settle a bit. "Were you just thinking about October first?"
"Parfois l'amour fait mal."
She frowned, "sometimes love is painful. Meaning..."
Michael nodded. "It was something my mom used to say. I didn't really understand what that meant until I met you."
The moment the words left his mouth he knew it hadn't come out the way he'd intended. In his mind, it had been some beautiful revelation about each moment of hardship being shadowed, fore and aft, by true love.
"Wait...that's," he tried, Sydney interrupting to move, a dark frown on her face as she folded her legs under her body now perched facing him at the opposite end of the cushion. "Hang on...let me finish."
"Loving me is painful?"
Vaughn genuinely didn't want to have the night go this way, but it was officially too late. It had been quiet and blissful and he longed for a time machine. On the other hand, he desperately wanted to be truthful and knew that anything less would be to his detriment.
"Yes. There have been times when," he paused, picking his words as he too sat up straight, "when loving you was very painful, but the point isn't the painful parts, and that's what I was getting to."
"That doesn't make any sense." She was angry, understandably so, but she knew she owed him the benefit of the doubt. She'd give it...eventually.
Vaughn sighed. "I honestly don't know when my admiration turned into more, and I can't tell you when I started needing to hear your voice to get through my week. Before the cabin; before Nice; just...before. So yeah. Loving you then was painful."
Her reaction was to tuck her loose hair behind her ear and drop her eyes to the space she'd put between them.
"When I was a kid, my dad gave me his watch and told me to count the seconds until he came home. I wasn't kidding when I told you I could set my heart by the damn thing, that's what he'd said. The day he was supposed to come I found it stopped and I panicked."
He paused and looked to where she sat listening. Still angry, but listening at least.
"Before that I was happy; after that I was happy, but had sadness. I always remember my dad fondly but...truth be told, he was a hardass. Not Jack Bristow hard, but he really rode me even though I was just a kid. The point is that I got to choose the love and the pain. The happy thoughts were still painful, but less so than remembering all the times he'd punished me for not finishing my homework or breaking something in the house or leaving my bike in the yard."
"I get it," she said, and he could hear the sadness behind her words.
"Sometimes love is painful, and we both felt that when you found me in France. For days I couldn't lift my arms from the muscle soreness due to that massive adrenaline injection," he met her when her eyes flicked up to his.
Sydney wasn't sure what she expected to see there, but not one thing was out of place. His green eyes shone with love, per usual.
"Seeing your face," he couldn't contain the grin that came with that memory. "That smile was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. You didn't even look like you, but that smile. I think that's the minute I was relieved to know that you loved me. Maybe that's hindsight. The pain in my chest was worth it because now I knew knowing that there wasn't anything either of us could do about it."
She was beginning to understand. She'd overreacted, as was usual for her, and as was the norm with him, he didn't point it out.
Sydney spoke, catching him by surprise. "Walking away from the cabin was painful." 'But I wouldn't have changed those two days for anything.'
Michael agreed with a nod. "So was the hotel," he added. "Leaving you at the hotel was bad enough, but then...you didn't come home."
Sydney bit at the inside corner of her lip as her eyes trailed away looking at nothing in particular while she thought. Vaughn's, however, were fixed on her. The worry lines around her mouth and the kink in her forehead between her eyes had been missing for weeks, and he was genuinely sorry to see them return. Amidst her thoughts she must have found something comforting, her hand coming to rest over the growing bump of her stomach, and he smiled softly.
"It was painful every time the light on the camera turned off," she said quietly.
"Love is watching someone die," he whispered and saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. "Parfois l'amour fait mal, mais ce n'est pas la fin."
Reaching out his hand, his fingers brushed the back of hers over her stomach, pulling her back from wherever she'd ventured.
"It isn't the end," he promised.
...
"If her first word is 'analysis' we'll know this was a bad idea," Sydney laughed from behind her book, one hand holding it up while the other wove patterns through his hair with her fingers. His head rested cheek-down over their growing child as he read aloud a stapled report he'd been working on, and he paused with a laugh.
"If she's anything like you, she'll hate doing analysis," he grinned and set the papers aside. Rolling to his stomach and propping his head on his palm, the other hand reached out to rub a circle over the bump.
Sydney made a gruff sound from the back of her throat, "Ugh, I hope she takes a different path. I hope she's a doctor or teacher, or just...something that doesn't involve wearing a wig."
He laughed. "I don't know, I think she'll probably look pretty cute in a tiny red wig."
Flopping the book down against the bedspread she laughed looking down at him, sparkling brown eyes meeting green. Her hand reached out and she traced the dimple on his chin with her pointer finger.
"You're happy, right?" Her question caught him off guard and it showed on his face.
"Insanely," he promised.
"Even if I go to teach and you just...work from home?"
Vaughn nodded. "Besides, we'll have the little bean here soon to command every waking moment of our lives," he smiled and pressed a kiss against the side of her stomach, a rumble against his lips making him jump.
"That...was...did she-"
"Did you feel that?"
He nodded dumbly as his hand spread across the swell, another little flutter against his palm pulling the air from his lungs. It was his turn to flop from normal to flooded with an irrational amount of emotion, and he felt his heart grow tight in his chest while pushing up a brick of feels into the back of his throat. His chin quivered and his vision blurred behind a veil of tears, the warm trails left behind as the drops landed and soaked into her shirt stretched over their bundle.
"That's what I wanted to give you a few weeks ago," she whispered as her own eyes filled while watching him reverently caress her stomach.
Biting at the inside of his cheek, Michael let out a watery laugh as he shook his head. "All I can think of is what she's going to be like."
Wiping at her cheeks, "where are we gonna even find a tiny red wig?"
Vaughn laughed from his stomach, pushing up and over her to catch her lips with his as he splayed his hand back over her belly and feeling the tiny movement. "I don't think we'll ever get tired of that feeling, do you?"
…
"She's dancing on my liver," Sydney groaned as she reclined beside him on the couch, her hand pushing against the large growth of her stomach as he laughed and reached to set his just above hers in time to feel a solid kick from their daughter who was due in just under a week.
"Settle down in there, bean," he ordered, another thump against his palm making him wince. "Definitely a kickboxer."
"Ugh," she grunted and tried to adjust against the cushions to find a comfortable spot. "I'm not gonna make it another few days, let's just...pop it," she begged.
Michael laughed and hopped up, "I'll grab the heating pad for your back, maybe it'll help settle her down."
She reached out to him, "I have to pee again anyway."
He helped her up as they headed two different directions. Barely down the hallway, her voice called out.
"Hey, Vaughn?"
"Yeah?"
There was a pause and she didn't answer, so he stopped just inside the nursery, his eyes catching the heating pad on the rocking chair. Sticking his head back out into the hallway he looked toward the other end of the house where she had called out.
"Syd?"
"Don't panic, okay?"
He panicked. "If you don't want me to panic, don't start with 'don't panic'."
"My water may have broken."
He panicked some more. "May have? Did...did it?!"
"Seriously, it's fine."
Adrenaline kicked him into high gear and he tore the rest of the way into the room grabbing the prepared diaper bag, secondary baby bag, and brand new car seat, piling everything into his arms before jumping to the hallway and heading next door into the master bedroom.
Sydney rolled her eyes with a grin as she followed to change out of her wet clothes and prep for the drive to the clinic. "Vaughn, don't panic."
"I'm not panicking," he announced in a rush, his voice a higher pitch, and she watched him from across the room pick up her oversized bag with the free pinky on one hand, the pinky on the other hand extending the handle of the roll-on suitcase so he could drag it behind him.
"Yes you are. At least let me carry something." He opened his mouth but she cut him off, "and don't say that I'm already carrying something," she ordered, gesturing to her round belly.
His mouth closed and his eyes looked side to side before meeting hers, "I wasn't going to," he mumbled and, like a sherpa, ferried everything from the room toward the car in the garage.
...
Michael watched his family sleep, the baby in the portable bed sated from her first meal and Sydney passed out against the pillow after nearly thirteen hours of labor and another two of visitors and nurses and training with their new daughter. She'd been plonked into his arms for a few minutes until the waiting room full of people came in, his mother commandeering the newborn as the new father moved to sit next to Sydney, and since that moment he'd been waiting for a chance to hold her again.
"Do you all need anything?" The kind nurse poked her head in again seeing the young man standing with his arms crossed over his chest looking down at the new baby.
"I...think we're okay."
She'd seen that look a hundred times. Offering a comforting smile she stepped into the room. "Tell me you're not afraid of a little seven-pound baby. Weren't you a spy?"
At her entrance and the fact that she was staying, he relaxed with a laugh. "Spying I knew how to do. I...I have no clue how to do," he gestured at the infant, "this."
"You can pick her up, you know."
He fidgeted, his arms unrolling as his hands folded, unfolded, folded again. "I don't know how to pick her up and it freaks me out. I feel like I'm going to break her."
His honesty was refreshing, and she said so with a warm laugh. "The best way to figure things out is to ask, young man. Have you held her at all yet?"
"Once, but they kinda...handed her to me. Then my mom stole and kept her all evening."
The nurse chuckled with a knowing nod and came to the side of the makeshift bassinet. Holding out her hands with palms up, she waited for him to match her pose.
"Flat hands, slide, and then lift. She's bundled up good and tight so she isn't floppy, but that's an issue with the new little ones. Always support the head, that's very important."
He expected her to show him and then hand him the baby, but when he saw her expectant eyes, his heart rate jumped and his palms broke out with sweat.
'Flat hands...slide...lift,' his new mantra went through his head as he mimicked her position. Slowly inching forward, he succeeded at merely poking the infant, making her grunt and a little wrinkle twist her pink face. He pulled back as the experienced woman laughed.
Trying again, he finally felt the weight of the little one against his palms as warmth passed from his hands into the wrapped blankets. 'Now what?' Both of his hands were in place, one under the head and the other under the round padded bottom, but he had no idea how to get the infant from a plank position into the crook of his elbow; and which elbow should she rest against? He'd placed his right hand beneath her head, but he was left-handed, so now everything felt awkward.
"That...doesn't really count," she whispered seeing that the new father had frozen with the child only a breath away from the blanket below.
"I'm left-handed," he said quietly, "I think I'm doing it wrong."
The nurse ticked through her teeth, "goodness, you're adorable. It's fine, honey. Lift up and then slide her head into your elbow."
"Which elbow?"
"You're overthinking this."
Vaughn set the baby back against the blanket and pulled his hands away to wipe them against his thighs. "Lemme try again," he grumbled, determined to get it right.
The beaming care-worker gestured for him to give it another shot as she tried to hold back her giggles. Michael switched hands, though that didn't work as they were now crossed in front of him. So he then switched sides before ending up in the same position with the infant an inch or so above the pad and blanket as the plastic edge of the bassinet bit the bottoms of his forearms. Stepping in before his fourth attempt, she moved his right arm around and under to set length-wise to the baby's back, moved behind him to grab his elbows, and then lifted his arms.
"Woah...wait," he panicked, but the motion was happening. Instinct took over and his lizard brain screamed 'don'tdropwhateveryoudodeargodyoumakesureyoudodon'tdrop' all in a rushed, split-second thought. Panting through flared nostrils, his green eyes looked down into the scrunched face of his daughter as she tucked perfectly into the crook of his elbow still soundly sleeping through his crisis.
"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" The nurse patted his arm before leaving the room, the door latching in her wake.
Minutes ticked by marked by the clock on the far wall of the room, and a creeping muscle ache in his lower back was seeking to remind him that he hadn't moved for at least ten. Shuffling his steps and trying to keep his upper body as stiff and unmoving as possible, he made his way over to the plush-looking chair across from the bed at a snail's pace before bending at the knees to sit as gingerly as he could.
The dark patch of hair atop her head was hidden behind the tiny pink beanie, and he was very excited that she would be a little Sydney clone running around the house. Her eyes, though closed right now, were a newborn blue, and the parents along with everyone else that night had wondered aloud if they were going to end up being brown, green, or a mix of the two.
"Don't rush, little bean," he mused in a whisper. "You're going to grow up fast enough as it is, so...take your time."
He brushed a light finger over her pink cheek to the tip of her tiny button nose, and he chuckled behind a huff of air. "Thankfully, you have your mother's nose."
She seemed to agree with him, the tiny arms and legs swaddled behind soft cotton moving a bit as her face scrunched. Her puckered lips moved and sucked at the air a few times before she settled down with a little grunt and a squeak, and Vaughn couldn't help the broad smile and excited gasp as the newborn snuggled back down into the cocoon.
"You are going to have so many people wrapped around your finger," he mused. "I don't know how not to spoil you. I...want to give you everything so you can be whatever you want to be. Maybe...president?"
She squirmed again, her face turning a shade of red as she grunted with another squeak, Michael chuckling at her response. "Okay, okay. Not president." His voice calmed her down a little, though she still seemed restless.
"What do you think about being a pilot, then?" His bright pink daughter wrinkled again, her mouth starting to open in anticipation of a weak cry. "That's not the one either?" It took a few more tries. Not a broadcaster, not a writer, not even a mathematician. He didn't actually think she was hearing anything more than the tone of his voice, but every parent thought their child was brilliant, so maybe she was ahead just enough to understand him?
'Nah,' he thought.
"How do you feel about being a teacher?" He winced, expecting the face. Instead, she relaxed and yawned with a tiny coo.
"Of course," he grinned, his eyes shifting over to Sydney where she was out cold, not even a mumbled word passing her lips while she slept. "Well, you're already making her proud at just three-hours-old."
One tiny hand curled around the edge of the blanket, Michael slipping the point of his finger underneath the tiny digits. With a grip as strong as a newborn could muster, she clutched at his fingertip.
"You're strong just like her, you know. Isabelle, I have absolutely no idea how to do any of this. I had to ask how to pick you up." The infant seemed blissfully unaware of his worries as she clung to him and slept. "Cut me some slack, okay? There's only so much books and baby classes prepared me for, and I have a hunch it's way more complicated than all that."
The reclining chair was comfortable and he felt the day beginning to pull at him. Propping his legs up on the ottoman and leaning back, his hands shifted her from the crook of his elbow to a tiny curled spot underneath his chin and over his heart. As a heavy breath left his chest, his daughter burrowed deeper against his warmth and into his heart with an itty-bitty sigh of comfort that matched.
...
