A/N: Requested as "the first time Sam clams up and April and Andy talk about it."

April notices it and, surprisingly or maybe not, Andy does too. The next time they go to Leslie's for a weekend getaway with the kids, and April may love them but road trips are definitely on the bottom of her favorite activities, when April goes to make a joke about how stupid Ben is and expects everyone to chime in the small get-together for the governor seems to take its toll on Sam. Someone that April's never seen before is talking to her, probably in cute little baby babbles despite the fact that she's almost three, and while April's waiting for someone to chide her for being cruel she watches Sam, in Andy's arms, go silent and then instantly burst into tears.

It was loud and painful to listen to because April knew instinctively the differences in cries by now. You don't go five kids deep and just never learn that sort of thing, even if Andy was around them a little more often. April knew that wasn't a tired cry, and she was too old for that to be a hunger pain, so April dropped the bit about how Ben still sleeps with Superman PJ's, probably, and made her way over to her child.

When the party settled down, only then did Sam. She was up the whole night, and though the others slept soundly in the guest room, Sam found them on the couch - thankfully after April had just come back from cleaning up - and refused to sleep anywhere but with them. Not that they minded, or that it mattered, but April still felt something weird about it all.

Later, the next day, she had to pull Andy away from a severely worrying pile of waffles and, much to Leslie's chagrin, pancakes.

"Dude, if I don't go back Robbie's gonna eat all my waffles," Andy looks over his shoulder at the havoc going on in the dining room. "I-"

"This is important," she hissed at him. "Waffles can wait."

"Oh," Andy's back straightened up and his eyes took on that serious glint. "What's up, babe?"

"You noticed Sam acting weird yesterday, right?" she whispered. "Like, I'm not the only one? I'm not going crazy here?"

"What, sleeping with us? The kids always used to do that! The twins are probably-"

"No, I meant the whole not wanting to talk to anyone and crying thing," April gestures incoherently towards the dining room. "That."

"Oh... that," Andy nods. April shakes her head in disbelief. "Well, I just figured she was tired."

"That wasn't tired, Andy. She stayed up for, like, seven hours after that," she reminds him.

"Oh yeah, I had to read her a bedtime story from memory," he chuckles and she smiles because, while it wasn't exactly the same as the books and his rendition featured a surprise appearance of a ninja and also Dave Matthews, it was absurdly cute to read a story to their child while she was snuggled between them. "Then the kicking started."

"Yep," April sighs. Kids kick, and move, and when they're agitated apparently they do it more and they knew that well by now, especially after last night. "Andy, stop being weird and tell me that you noticed the same stuff."

"Like what, it's-"

"Andy, I did this same crap when I was little," she says harshly. "Except I would dump dirt on people's shoes and spit half-chewed food on them when they talked. Sam's just... quiet. I don't, I dunno, I don't know what to do about that."

"Hey," Andy steps forward and his hands are on her shoulders. He must have noticed, and she thanks something that Andy just sees her emotions even when she tries to hide them. "Babe, look, we are the coolest parents on the planet-"

"Speak for yourself," she mumbles.

"No, you're the one who they miss," he tells her, "and the one who thinks it's dumb but spends half her day planning parties for them and getting cats and letting them dig up the backyard."

April smirks. "D'you think-"

"I think that whatever she's doing, then we can figure it out together and go from there," Andy suggests with a curling smile. "They're our kids, babe. We've always figured it out."

"But what if we don't? I mean, I get what's going on I think but... the others were so easy," April moves closer to him and lets her cheek on his chest, thankful for the comfort in the embrace. "I just really don't wanna screw up my kids! You know that-"

"I do," Andy nods. It was, and still is April realizes, the one thing that April worries about as a mother. The crippling fear that their kids would just be useless, or awful, or in this case that something they did screwed them up as people forever. "This isn't a screw up it's just... y'know, who she is. Probably. I think?"

"Yeah," April says and she knows. "I mean, like I said... I was that kid. So, yeah, it makes sense she gets it from me."

"Hey, whoa," Andy notices her voice fall and he must see something dim in her eyes. "Babe, look. If we figure out that it was something with yesterday's party and she's just as loud as Robbie in a week then we're good! If she doesn't want to talk to Leslie anymore because she's scared or whatever it is, then we can talk about it."

"Andy-"

"I just think, maybe, this is who she is. You know she didn't cry a lot," Andy tells her.

"You're right. She slept so much, too."

"Yeah! This makes sense, babe. It's who she is, and we gotta make sure she's comfortable," Andy smiles and looks down at her.

"Safe, and comfortable, and loved, and that we are always here unlike my dumb parents," April looks up at him with desperately hopeful eyes.

"We are the best parents," he says with a chuckle.

"Promise me that," she refuses to budge until he's done that. "We-"

"Are going to make sure they know they have the best parents," Andy finishes, "and that we love them so much and that you are the best mom on the planet."

"You're the best dad ever," she smirks and leans up to kiss him.

Meanwhile, when they've finally broken away from each other, the sounds of boisterous laughing comes from the kitchen and when they get back to it, Ben is wiping whipped cream and a chunk of pancake from his face.