The clock struck midnight and Laxus kissed his wife's forehead. "Happy New Year, Honey."

Lucy was drenched in sweat, tired, and was in the process of pushing their daughter's head out. She didn't not care that it was New Year's Day, or that anything else for that matter. After two days of labor, the only concern she had was pushing their daughter from her body.

"Please don't talk to me right now," she panted.

She didn't understand why the baby decided to come two weeks early and then wouldn't come out for two days. It seemed like a very Dreyar thing to do, in the same spirit as her older brother who refused to come out for two weeks and then popped out in half an hour.

Two days in labor was comparative to about six thousand hours of regular time, according to her estimates. She knew that somehow during contractions, some hormone was released that made the passage of time seem ten times slower.

Another contraction came and she groaned, crying out as she felt the familiar burn.

Porlyusica, who looked as tired but not nearly as much as the mother, glanced up. "We're almost there, Mama. Big push."

"STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrragh!" she screeched as she squeezed her husband's hand tightly and felt the amazing sense of relief as the baby was born.

She was so tired and she didn't care at all about anything as she reached out and demanded the newborn.

"Just a minute, Mama," Porlyusica patiently said.

Laxus almost missed this moment.

He'd come home bruised and beaten to pieces from a job a mere three hours earlier to find his wife was in labor. Lucy had been more than a little upset, and she'd all but vowed not to have the baby until he was there, which worked out because the baby seemed to be waiting for him too.

Porlyusica gave her a little pink bundle, and the husband and wife looked adoringly at their little baby girl. Her hair was smooth, and super light blonde like Lucy's. She'd avoided the Makarov eyebrows by way of genetic miracle and had Lucy's cupid-esque lips with Laxus's pretty gray-blue eyes and ridiculous eyelashes.

She was quite a bit smaller than her brother was at birth, although he'd been two weeks late and she was two weeks early.

"Hi there, Layla. I'm your mama, and this is your daddy, and we're really excited to meet you," Lucy softly said, "We love you so much, baby. Welcome to our family."

Lucy unbuttoned her nightgown and lifted their daughter gently to her breast, and felt her latch on although not with as much vigor or urgency as her perpetually greedy brother. Thunder Baby had been enthusiastic about eating from the moment he entered the world and had consistently maintained that enthusiasm throughout his seventeen months of life.

"That's it. Good girl."

Laxus cut the umbilical cord and watched quietly through a swollen eye as mother and daughter enjoyed these first sacred moments together. Their daughter was so beautiful, and she looked a lot like their son did, which made him happy for some reason.

Now that she'd safely delivered Layla, Lucy looked up at her husband's bruised face. "Are you okay, honey?"

"I'm so stupidly happy right now I can't feel a damn thing," he gently answered.

Laxus leaned down and kissed his newborn daughter, then his wife. "You're just the most wonderful woman in the whole world. An amazing wife and mother, and friend. We have a great family. I love you. Thanks for making my day, my year...my whole life."

"I love you too, you big, lovable dragon."

There was something so magical about the first few minutes of a baby's life, and they watched her every move. Layla's toes twitched a little when Laxus played with her feet a bit, and she squeezed Lucy's finger. They examined her perfectly-formed little body, verifying repeatedly that there were exactly ten fingers and ten toes.

Lucy sniffed and started crying, and he smiled at her softly. During this pregnancy, she'd been so emotional and so it wasn't surprising she'd finish it off on a weepy note. "I'm so glad you made it home." She looked down at the newborn and cried, "We have a daughter...and she's so beautiful."

He made a peculiar face when the placenta passed from her body in the middle of this tender moment, and then he took their daughter into his arms while Porlyusica began the task of cleaning up all that had happened.

Laxus cradled his little girl and stared adoringly at her little face. "Welcome to our family, Thunder Princess."

Lucy heard this and looked up. "What?!"

"Thunder Princess."

"...what's wrong with her name?"

His defiance was playful and he reminded her of how she'd given their son a nickname and then defended it fiercely. "She's my daughter. I can call her Thunder Princess if I want to."

The blonde took a deep breath. "Laxus, you've been waiting for this haven't you?"

"For almost eighteen months," he playfully answered.

Lucy was sure that if she had a ten jewel piece for every time he did something to get on her nerves, she'd be the richest woman alive. And she'd still be annoyed, because even with all the money in the world she wouldn't leave the messy-haired rascal snuggling their newborn baby girl. The sight of Laxus Dreyar with a newborn was so adorable she almost couldn't stand it.

"So if she's the Thunder Princess, what are you? The Thunder King?"

He looked up. "You said it, not me."

The blonde shook her head at him. "I'm just going to ignore this and hope you either get bored with it or grow out of it."

Lucy winced and looked down at Porlyusica. "Can you be a little more gentle? I just had a baby."

Porlyusica glared. "I am aware, although I don't know why. I'm not sure the world needs more like that one."

The old woman was actually the biggest fan of this family, although mainly for Thunder Baby and the relentless misery he brought them in infancy. Outside of that, she actually was a little happy to see that Makarov's socially inept grandson had somehow not only found the only woman who could deal with him, but somehow convinced her to marry him.

Porlyusica stayed for a while, until they'd settled in and everything was fine and peaceful. It was the middle of the night, and Fairy Tail was probably collectively drunk since it was New Year's Day. They elected not to involve any of the others until morning, which seemed like a sane choice. Nobody wanted a drunk Makarov stumbling through the house and on this delicate moment.

They were a somewhat private couple in a lot of ways, and some moments, they didn't want to share with everybody.

Once she left, Laxus laid in the bed with his wife for a while and they snuggled their newborn.

Laxus held her against his chest for a while, listening to her breathing and her little heart and the little sounds she made. "If you asked me now, I'd tell you I wanted to have at least fifteen more kids," he teased.

Lucy snuggled up against him and sweetly answered, "I hear what you're saying, but let me tell you about how my vagina feels about that.."

"Yikes. Probably not necessary."

"Food for thought, Daddy."

Laxus smirked at her and kissed her hair. "Let's go wake up our son."

Lucy smiled and nodded, gently taking Thunder Princess-she cringed at the name and prayed it didn't stick-as he slid from between the sheets and went down the hall to awaken their sleeping son.

This was probably one of the biggest highlights of having a second baby, as they'd been curious about how their son would feel since the moment they knew they were going to have another baby.

Yuri was a little cranky when Laxus got him out of the bed, gave him a cursory sniff to make sure he hadn't had a potty training incident, and carried him down the hall to the master bedroom. He growled in protest and gave his father a glare with one eye half open, the other eye closed.

"Hey son, you're not the baby of the family as of tonight, so you're not allowed to whine anymore. It's time to man up."

Chelia had run his little baby battery down to nothing at the park that day and he was in desperate need of sleep. He didn't understand why his father had disturbed his baby dragon slumber. Dragons did not like to be awoken until they were damn well ready, and the boy continued his assorted grumblings until they got to the bedroom.

When the door opened, Laxus felt his son perk up and stiffen, sniffing the air. There were about a dozen weird smells he hadn't come in contact with before, but when Laxus put him down on the bed, he saw his mother holding the baby.

"Hey son, this is your baby sister, Layla," she whispered.

Yuri plodded across the bed to Lucy, and looked at the baby curiously. His eyes went to her somewhat deflated-looking belly, and his face seemed tense for a minute. "Baby!"

Lucy explained, "This is the baby that was inside Mama."

The boy seemed very suspicious of this whole process and leaned over to sniff her curiously. Her scent put him at ease and excited him all at once, and he reached out to touch the newborn.

"Gentle, son," his father's stern voice called from the other side of the bed.

Yuri barely touched the top of Layla's hair with his fingertips. "Baby's little."

"That's right, she is little, so we have to be really careful not to hurt her, okay?" Lucy asked.

There was nothing a baby loved more than another baby, so Thunder Baby was fascinated by his sister. He snuggled up to his father and the two men watched the two women from their side of the bed.

"Do you remember when we first got married and this bed seemed enormous?" he asked.

"And then kids happened."

Lucy smiled and handed the baby to her husband. "I'm really tired. He can stay. I'm honestly so exhausted I could sleep through the apocalypse."

Laxus kissed her goodnight and then her son did also. "Goodnight, Babe, you're amazing."

"Good ni, Mama."

Thunder Baby had learned that when he was in his parents bed he had to behave if one of them was sleeping or they would put him in his crib, which he could no longer escape from due to Chelia putting cooking oil on the bars he used to climb out.

Laxus and Lucy were fairly certain the things Chelia did to foil their son were not written in any of her books, but were entirely necessary since he was stronger, smarter, and ridiculously strong willed compared to other toddlers. Thunder Baby loved his nanny and yet, he seemed to put serious calculated effort into making her job difficult. In some ways, they seemed to scheme against one another mutually.

Both parents secretly hoped their second baby wasn't quite so 'special.'

Except for a couple of breastfeeding sessions, Lucy slept throughout the night and awoke to find her bed was still full. Laxus was still awake and was watching over their son as he slept curled up next to his tightly-swaddled baby sister to make sure he didn't roll on her or accidentally hurt her.

"That's so cute I can't stand it." Lucy started to move and felt soreness in all kinds of places. "Ouch...help me get to the bathroom, will you? I need a shower if you still love me."

"You've given me two babies. I'll give you anything you want." He smiled at her and got Chelia from her room to look after the babies while he tended to his wife.

Laxus helped her take care of herself and get cleaned up. He washed the sweat out of her hair, and cleaned her gently. Having a baby was nothing short of incredible, and he didn't mind the awkward phase that came after. He could only relate the experience to fighting, because after his worst battles that left the worst marks on his body, he experienced the greatest gains.

By the time they got out, Chelia had taken no less than thirty pictures of the babies in their cute sleeping pose and had put grownup sunglasses on them for her second round of pictures.

The magenta-haired sixteen-year-old looked up at them and asked, "You know what I realized about you guys?"

"What," Laxus asked, apprehensive about the inner workings of the smart but mischievous nanny.

Chelia said, "You know when you go to a shop to buy a picture frame and there's always this sample picture of a gorgeous blond family where everyone is stupidly attractive? You guys are like...the fake family from picture frames. Handsome tall guy, pretty woman, two little blond-haired, blue eyed babies that look like they're sweet enough to eat. And everyone assumes they are not a real family, because they're too cute to be true and they don't want to feel bad about their own ugly family members."

Laxus brought a palm to his face and his wife answered, "If that was a compliment, thanks, I guess?"

Makarov came to visit the new baby around noon, and by that time, they had-as a family-accomplished nothing besides eating breakfast and laying around in the bed. This even applied to the normally-busy toddler, who was completely infatuated with the newest member of the family.

When Makarov entered the house, the baby was on a blanket on the floor in the living room and her older brother was holding an upside-down cardboard-paged book with colors on it as he announced the names of colors and pointed things out he knew how to name. His sister was half-asleep and seemed strangely unbothered by him.

The old man stopped and he and his grandson sat on the sofa and watched his stupidly adorable display of mimicry. Laxus loved his son so he read him books, and Yuri loved his little baby sister so he did the same. He normally tried to read to the tiger, so this was a slight improvement because when the tiger got tired of story time, she just ate the book.

Makarov bent down to pick her up, and Yuri said, "No!"

"Okay, okay, I'll let you read to her," the old man said, "I'll listen too. Is that okay?"

Yuri decided this was acceptable and plopped down on the floor to resume his story.

After a couple of minutes, Makarov furrowed his eyebrows.

Thunder Baby knew the names of all the colors, but he called all of them wrong. He pointed to a big red balloon, and said, "Brue!" and then an orange cake and said, "Yewwow."

This went on for a while, and Makarov looked up at Laxus, who was completely unfazed.

Yuri was a very smart little boy, as evidenced by the fact that he could name so many colors, but they were all wrong.

Makarov gently said, "That's green, boy."

"Is BRUE!"

"Are you out of your mind, little man? That's green. Grass is green."

"Is BRUEEEEE!"

Yuri had reached an age where he had an attention span, and ao he hated to be interrupted. He was annoyed by his great grandfather. First, he tried to take the baby, then he interrupted, and now he was arguing.

Laxus was meanwhile highly amused by this and let it go on for a while until Makarov decided to give up and let his brilliant but apparently confused great-grandson be wrong.

"What is wrong with your son?"

"Deuteranopia."

"What's that?"

"He's color blind," Laxus nonchalantly answered. "Grass is blue to him, for the record."

Makarov slapped Laxus upside the head. "You just let me argue about what color grass is with a color blind baby?!"

"I think it's kind of funny how much he loves books about colors."

His grandfather glared at him. "That's is actually kind of terrible."

Yuri allowed Makarov to pick up the baby once he'd finished his book, and the old man cradled her gently.

"She seems calm," he said.

Laxus nodded. "Thunder Princess has had a calm first day so far. When Yuri was born by the end of the first day we were kind of unnerved because he'd already started screaming. This baby seems to be completely opposite. She has yet to fuss about Yuri hovering around her and making noise."

Makarov touched her soft hair and kissed her little forehead. "She's precious. Princess, indeed. Got her Mama's cute little lips."

"What's wrong with my lips?" he sarcastically asked.

His grandfather answered, "Other than the fact you only have one? It would be a shame for a little girl not to have a top lip. Good thing Yuri's a boy."

Laxus looked down at his son's very thin upper lip and glared at his grandfather.

Makarov smiled at Layla and gently said, "I really hope I don't die before you have your first boyfriend."

He saw the baby's father glower at him.

"This baby is going to be so cute every little boy in the sandbox is going to hold her hand," he said to the baby although he was really teasing her father.

Laxus answered, "Yuri has a little plastic shovel and a bucket. A sandbox seems like a great place to dig a shallow grave."

Yuri climbed into his father's lap to continue his peculiar hovering near his new sister.

Laxus ruffled his hair. "You're gonna help me, right?"

"Yeah!" his son answered, not needing any further details besides the fact his father asked. "Me hep!"

"You remember what we learned? What does a good brother do?"

Yuri swung his fists in the air. "Pow pow!"

Makarov said, "God have mercy on your poor stupid soul the first time he does that in front of his mother."

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Special thanks to yumeyumi1986, Angela Magic, Silverghostkitsune, swallowmysoul, kurahieiritr JIO, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, Thunder Baby Fan, Misty Shayne, Numinous Alqua, Paname, KatieBoom, killer-kelly420, boyceashleee, adabs18, supercrazyperson, thornado, Arylilla, katelyn, mewhee89, xxshyxx, kateiekat2001, lucyxanyoneshipper, xxrainiwexx2001, arouraleona, sldjr100, and megumiyoung for reviewing!

AN: Thanks everyone so much for 400 reviews! It touches my heart that you are all enjoying my little story.