Sammy and Ilna, love you both for everything.
Sammy, thanks for your invaluable input and the throughline on this one.

REAL McRollers and Readers THANK YOU for the beautiful comments!

The events referred in this story to can be found in Sammy's magnificent We'll Always Have Paris and my Reciprocity

Inside and Out

Angie wore a bright yellow t-shirt that read Grandma's Sidekick as she sat at her father's side. They were on the beach just past where the grassy lawn gave way to the sand, playing a 'game' of the little girl's invention. He was lying down as she chose sand toys to create different shapes using his back and shoulders as her canvas.

Facing her from his prone position he grinned when she chose a mold from the array of toys and placed a turtle-shaped mound of sand on his back.

"Tur'le!" She clapped at her handiwork before swiping the sand away with a giggle. Brushing her hands over his back, the curious two year old slowed her movements and ran a little finger over some slightly puckered skin.

Touching the adjacent area before returning to the uneven flesh, Angie tilted her head and looked at her father's face.

"Wat dat, Daddy?"

"That's all better, but it was a boo boo," Steve explained while thinking those weren't words he'd ever have imagined himself using to describe a shrapnel wound.

"Boo boo awl bettew?" She confirmed, touching it gently.

"All better, baby girl." He rolled into a sitting position and scooped her into his arms.

"Mommy kiss?" She asked, clearly thinking how her parents would kiss a boo boo after applying a bandaid.

After wiping her hands off to remove the sand, he settled back with her in his arms, kissed her head and nodded. "Actually Mommy did help make it better. How about if you take a nap and Daddy tells you a story about how your mommy makes everything better?"

She snuggled against him and nodded. It was close to her nap time and she was definitely sleepy. "'Tory, Daddy."

"Okay," he began. "So I was meeting your Mommy in Italy for leave and I didn't tell her my team met up with an IED. Uncle Wade, you'll meet him in person someday, had sewed me up but the boo boo was pretty sore."

He held the tiny hand that came to rest in his and thought how incredible it was that even their daughter's hands and fingers were miniature versions of Catherine's.

"But I could never fool her. Ten seconds after she saw me she knew. No matter how I tried to shrug it off, she always knew." The memory of Catherine wincing ever so slightly at his black and blue ribcage and seventeen field stitches flashed through his mind.

"So your mommy took care of me. It was really the first time I ever relaxed and let her. She gave me pain meds, and changed the dressing, and ran to the ice machine to make an ice pack." He dropped a kiss on the head full of tostled curls. "Know why I let her? No?" He smiled as a half-asleep Angie shook her head.

"Because not long before, on another leave in Paris Mommy was sick and I took care of her. When she started to get better, it was the best feeling in the world. That I helped her. That she let me. Because I love your mommy. And I'm so, so lucky she loves me."

Angie sighed and shifted as she dozed off, but he kept talking in a low, soothing tone. "When I realized how much helping someone, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because you love them more than anything, is the most incredible feeling, I finally let her help me. Not only with the wound, but by listening to how I got it."

He ran a hand over Angie's back. "That's something else your mommy is the best at. Listening. She listened. Even when Daddy wasn't very good at communicating with words, we communicated with each other perfectly. And she always, always knew exactly what I was trying to say. I love her even more for that."

The toddler's lashes fluttered against her cheek and he smiled. "Ya know, sometimes I just watch you, baby girl, and you're so much like her. Not only because you're beautiful, because you absolutely are. But you're sweet and kind and intuitive like Mommy."

"Mommy," Angie repeated, muttering softly without waking up.

"And like her, you're brilliant and brave and fearless…" a smile graced his lips when she grinned in her sleep as though she understood every word. "Okay the fearless is ... partly me, but I'm counting on your mother's genes to temper your leap first, look second part."

He inhaled her soft, little girl scent mixed with baby soap and sunblock and traced her cheek with a finger.

"You knew DJ was your brother even before we did, and made him feel like he belonged. You make everyone smile. Your grandfather is one seriously tough, intimidating naval officer, but you melt Captain Joseph Rollins' every time you say, 'Grandpa.'

You're getting to be more like her as you grow up and there isn't anything that would make me happier. I know you're gonna have that same magic. That ability to make everyone feel comfortable, understood and safe.

Steve looked up when he sensed Catherine seconds before he saw her and Cammie step onto the deck.

He held a finger to his lips and she nodded her understanding. When she reached them, she sat next to Steve and leaned in to kiss him hello. She'd dropped DJ off at Michael's for a playdate, then took Cammie for a run.

"She napping long?" She whispered and he shook his head, smiling when the dog checked her littlest human before settling for a nap of her own.

"She noticed the scar on my flank, so I was telling her how you took care of me in italy." He whispered.

Catherine touched his cheek with a soft smile. "First time you relaxed and let me."

"Because I remembered how it felt being able to help you in Paris." He returned her look, knowing she understood, as always. When her smile morphed from soft to mischievous he raised his brow. "What?"

"Paris." She shrugged. "Good training for parenthood. If I didn't always know you'd be an incredible dad, I'd have figured it out when you didn't flinch when I puked on you." She held up as many fingers. "Twice."

Both looked down simultaneously to see the laugh that rumbled through him didn't wake their sleeping daughter. "Twice, heh, if spit up counts I'm up past fifty by now." He jutted his chin towards Angie and they shared a smile.

"Case in point. Did she like the story?" Catherine gently squeezed his shoulder as she kicked off her shoes and settled against his side.

"About her incredible mother who makes everything better and how you've always helped me heal, inside and out?"

Angie stirred, opened her eyes and said, "Mommy," as she reached her hand to take her mother's before resuming her nap.

Steve's eyes caught Catherine's and held them. "She loved the story, and the subject, as much as I do."

# End. Thanks for reading!

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