A/N - only of minor relevance but in the Home universe, Frankie is a girl (yes, I guess wrong but I'm sticking with it, lol). xoxo - tmtcltb

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Chapter 28: January 2016 - Off the Coast of Australia

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"I should go," Caro said as the conversation began to wind down. The video feed had stopped working as the Nathan James drew close to Australia, but at least they still talk. After assuring Caroline that he would rarely be out of touch during this cruise, Teylor had been forced to eat those words too many times already. "I promised Kara that I would watch Frankie tonight so she could sleep."

"Remember what happened last time you tried that?" Teylor asked, amused. "Frankie screamed all night. You claimed that she hated you."

"She was teething," Caro countered. "Besides, this time I'm prepared. I have cookies. And lollipops."

Teylor was unsure of the wisdom of feeding a one-year-old lollipops but decided to keep that to himself. "No skin off my back. I have a nice quiet cabin filled with three snoring guys. Practically a lullaby in comparison."

Although he would have taken a screaming baby in a second if it meant seeing Caro in person. Being able to really talk to her, no worries about the signal cutting out or twenty-hundred and nineteen other people eavesdropping. After all, it took exactly three seconds for the entire Nathan James to know that Davis was going to be a dad. What Teylor wouldn't give right now to be able to see Caro, to touch her, to know for sure that she was doing okay. That she wasn't hiding things or shading them for his benefit.

But Caro was still speaking and Teylor didn't want to waste a second of their precious time together, even if it was just talking while nine thousand miles apart. "You can laugh all you want but I have no intention of being as nice as Kara and taking all the night shifts. You should plan on splitting middle of the night wake-ups 50/50. Actually, 60/40. You'll owe me for being an incubator."

"Is this your way of telling me something?" Teylor teased, knowing that Caro was far too direct to beat around the bush if she actually was pregnant.

Caro gave a long sigh, one he recognized as false annoyance. "Unlike my brother, I do know how birth control works. Although when the time comes, I might ask Captain Slattery to tell you the news, just for shits and giggles. I feel like he would bring an appropriate amount of shock and terror to the situation."

"I give, I give. Anyone but Slattery. Or Chandler," he added as an afterthought. Just the idea was enough to induce heart palpations and Teylor felt a moment of sympathy for Danny.

"Then Commander Garnett it is," Caro replied without hesitation.

Teylor was still laughing when he ended the call several minutes later, unable to banish the image of Caro holding a baby boy with jet black hair like his papa and green-blue eyes like his mama from his mind.

Tonight, for the first time since the Nathan James left the Arctic, Teylor didn't feel torn between the desire to be with here with his brothers and the desire to be home with Caro. Yesterday, Teylor finished his mission. Not the Nathan James' mission, but his own personal mission. Yesterday, Wolf was finally reunited with his mother, his brothers and sister. And, in that moment, Teylor knew the task that he set for himself back in Louisiana, when the team stood by him as he buried his parents and brother and sister-in-law and nieces, was done. After lying his family to rest, Teylor had sworn that he would not let any of his brothers go through that kind of agony without him, and he hadn't. He had been there for Green and Burk and Tex and Rick. And yesterday he was there for Wolf. They had all found their families, or at least discovered what had happened to them. And, as he watched Wolf hug his mother, Teylor felt a sense of peace.

His enlistment was up next month, and Teylor was not going to re-up. He would miss the Nathan James, the team, his friends. But, at the end of the day, he missed Caroline and the life that they were building together more. He missed Maria and Manny and Christopher. Hell, he even missed St. Louis.

He was ready to go home.