JACKSON

"Fuck you!"

Of all the things that my wife could have yelled at the police officer who had just pulled us over for speeding, that was pretty much the last thing that I expected to hear from her. She rarely cursed when other people could hear it, and even rarer did she do it anywhere other than behind the wheel. Sure, April was in the car with me, but she was sitting in the shotgun seat with it reclined as far back as it could go, holding onto her belly like it might have split away from her at any given moment. Hell, a week ago she'd gotten mad at me for cursing while studying in front of her, just because she knew that the baby could hear everything that we were doing and saying now.

"I'm so sorry, officer." Now wasn't the time to remind her that it's not the best thing to antagonize a cop after pulling over a black man. "My wife is in labor and we're trying to get to the hospital." She backed up my statement almost immediately with a caterwauling.

"Oh, shit. Been there. Go on!" He replied with wide eyes.

Not wanting to give him the time to change his mind, I thanked him with a nod of my head and quickly rolled up the window, shifting from park to drive. We didn't live far from the hospital, only a couple of miles, and there was no need to get on the highway to get there quickly. But I had certainly been driving like I was on the highway, shockingly, at April's insistence. She was in enough pain that she didn't care about my speeding or weaving through lanes.

Cutting it a little close with a yellow light at the intersection before the hospital, I park the car as quickly as I can and get out. Slinging her packed bag over my shoulder, I opened up the door to the passenger and helped her get out of the seat carefully.

I tried to reassure her as I wrapped my arm around her waist and helped her waddle to the entrance of the hospital. It would take virtually no time for us to get checked in with the face recognition and the fact that I had texted Izzie ahead of time. She was working today which meant she had a string or two to pull before we got there.

"We're here, everything's going to be fine."

"Says the one who doesn't have to push a bowling ball through a tiny hole," April grumbled.

"We'll get checked into your room and get your birthing playlist going. Are you sure that you don't want to do an epidural? It's okay to change your mind. You're already doing an amazing thing, having some drugs to help doesn't change that." I encouraged her.

She groaned, sitting down in a chair as I approached the nurse's station. My suspicions were correct and Izzie had already made sure that they knew we were coming so that they could get a room ready. Even if the healthcare for the hospital employees isn't perfect, money wasn't something that I was worried about, and it was enough to guarantee that she would have a room to herself.

Fortunately, it doesn't take long to get checked in and into the room.

"It's going to be okay." I rubbed circles in her lower back as she stood up, her hands on the bed and leaning forward with a groan. "We're having a baby, strawberry. A little girl. How many times have you said that it's going to be perfect?"

"If you're going to be this annoyingly optimistic, I don't want you in here." She grumbled. "I'm in agonizing pain and I need to cry and oh my god, this sucks." Her forehead rested against the bed.

"I'm sorry." There's not much I can do to change the pain. "I wish I could make it easier."

Her playlist was a mixture of some of our favorite songs and a few soothing tunes thrown in to try and balance it out. I couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of pain she was in. The only male equivalent that I had ever heard of was a kidney stone but I had been fortunate enough to avoid getting any of those in my lifetime. I'd never seen her in pain like this before, swearing and her face bunched up, unable to stay still but unable to focus on doing something for long. I tried to get her on an exercise ball and it only lasts for about two contractions before she's up and moving around again.

"Oh god, Jackson, what if we can't do this?" April asked.

There it was – the moment that I had been waiting and preparing for. I knew that it would come at some point. The panic was settling in. She had been so calm and so positive throughout the pregnancy, always a smile and the right words to say. But this was agonizing pain. The kind of pain that was enough to finally make her crack.

"We can do it, baby. We can." This time I stop trying to soothe her with my hands, grabbing her shoulders and getting her to look me in the eye. "We have been preparing for this for months and I'm pretty sure we have read every single resource that is out there. There is nothing that we don't know. And remember what you told me? We're doctors. We are two smart, good doctors and if there is anyone who is capable of handling this, it's us. It's you and me. It's always been me and you. There's nothing that the two of us can't do. This is going to be a painful few hours, okay? I won't lie. Unless you change your mind about the epidural, it's going to be painful. But April, you are opening the door to the most beautiful part of our life together by giving birth to this baby girl. There is nothing that you can't do. Every single thing that you have set your mind to in your entire life, you have done it. This is just one more thing. I promise we can do it. You can do it."

"We're having a baby." The way that she said the words, it was as if it was the first time this had really dawned upon her. "Oh, god. We're doing this. We're actually doing this, Jackson." She was half-smiling yet there was still a hint of terror on her expressions. I couldn't blame her for that. I was terrified. Our lives were about to change permanently. I was so terrified but I had to keep it together while she was in labor.

"Yeah, we are." I gave her a convincing smile and nod of her head. "We are having an awesome baby girl. And you know why? Because you're strong and you've carried us through this far. We've just got a little more to go. A few hours, and she'll be here, and she'll be perfect."

"She's going to be so beautiful." There was exhaustion in her smile as she spoke.

"Yeah, she is." I agreed with a nod of her head, pushing hair away from her forehead that was sticking from the sweat. "She's going to have her mother's smile. She's going to look just like you, I know it.

"I want her to have your eyes." April had told me that before but I smiled and nodded.

"She's going to be everything that we want her to be." Down syndrome, for a moment, didn't matter. She would be everything that we wanted her to be because she was our daughter. For right now, it could be as simple as that. The complications would come but she was still our baby girl and that was the part that mattered more than anything else in the world. She was our little everything.

When she finally pushed me out of the room so that she could have a few minutes to herself, I don't want to go anywhere. But I have to respect what she wanted. I guess if I had a kid tearing its way through the lower half of my body, I would want a break from people too.

Pacing the hallway, there was nothing to keep me busy in this ward. I could hear the sound of other mothers in labor, screaming in pain. April was already in so much and knowing that it was only going to get worse with certain parts of labor was hard for me to deal with. Leaving the maternity ward, I make my way up to the burn unit. I need something familiar to clear my head with before I could go back there and be the man that April needed me to do be right now.

"Avery!" Sloan's booming voice carried down the hallway. "What are you doing up here?"

"April needed a little space," I explained, shrugging. "I didn't particularly enjoy the sound of screaming women down in the maternity ward so I thought I'd stretch my legs."

"You're really about to be a father." He clapped my shoulder. "Are you ready?"

"Is anyone ever ready?" I wanted to think I was, that I had done all of the reading that was necessary, but truthfully… I didn't have a damn clue. Every parent I knew said that it wasn't the kind of thing that you could prepare for but that had not stopped either one of us from doing our best to try.

"Probably not." He chuckled. "But I'm excited for you. You guys are going to be good parents." He was genuine with his words. "Just make sure that you don't slack off for your boards. Either one of you. We'll need you here next year."

"That's the plan." I hoped it was one that we could stick to.

"Well, if anyone can do it, it's the two of you." His words of reassurance were filling – ones that April and I had both said back and forth to each other so many times, it was nice to actually hear someone else confirm it. We had dedicated ourselves to this and would settle for nothing less than success.

I don't spend long in the burn unit stretching my legs. When I made my way back to the maternity ward, I get a fresh cup of ice ships for April, hoping to appease her with any minor thing that I could manage. She was laying on the bed again, on her side and holding onto the railing.

"Hey, strawberry." I greeted her gently, not wanting to startle her. "Contraction?"

She groaned out in response, unable to speak.

"It's okay." Setting down the cup of water, I moved behind her. "Do you want to try some of the positions in that book you read? See if it makes any of it easier?"

Another pained moan left her lips and I rubbed her lower back until the contraction had ended. She was breathing heavily and I could see the sweat dripping down the back of her neck. She was getting tired from his and I couldn't blame her. It explained why she was finally laying down again instead of all of the standing, squatting, and rotating with the exercise ball that she had been doing earlier.

"One of the residents came by to check me when I kicked you out," April breathed out as she moved to get on all fours, putting two pillows beneath her chest so she could rest forward on. "Six centimeters. Almost in the transition phase."

"You should have told me to come back sooner." I kissed the back of her shoulder, rubbing her lower back. "I would have come. I wasn't sure how long you wanted me gone."

"I needed a few minutes to scream and cry without being calmed down." She admitted. "I called my mom, too. She sounded happy."

Shit, I'd completely forgotten about my own mother. "I'll call mine once it's over."

"Good idea," April nodded. "I don't know if I can handle her during this."

"The transition stage is the fastest stage," I reminded her. "We're that much closer to having our baby girl here with us. She's so close, baby. We're so close."

Even though it was the fastest stage of labor, it doesn't feel that way for either one of us. At some point, she made the progression from active to the transition stage, and there was next to no break as contraction after contraction hit. She got a minute, if she was lucky, from crying between pain. Nausea hits her hard and she ends up spending a few of the breaks between contractions hunched uncomfortably over the toilet. There wasn't much I could do for her beside hold her hair out of the way and help wipe her mouth. It was difficult to watch but I knew it had to be a hundred times harder for her to actually handle.

It seems like it had taken hours before the resident came back to check on her and announced that she had finally reached ten centimeters and her uterus was effaced. Dr. Ryan showed up minutes later with a bright smile and energy that neither one of us had after being here for hours.

"Your baby is ready to come out, April." Dr. Ryan announced as she looked up from between my wife's legs. "Are you ready to push?"

"Oh, god," April cried out, her head shaking from side to side. "I'm so tired."

"Jackson and one of the nurses are going to hold up your legs, so you don't have to worry about any of that." With her words, I moved over to lift up her left leg, taking the hint. "But your little girl is ready to come out. I know you're tired. But you can do this."

One of my arms held up her leg in the same position as the nurse across from me, and the other held onto her hand so she had something to squeeze. When April began to push, her face scrunched up completely and she screamed as she had never screamed before. It was different than the noises that she had made throughout her contractions, deeper and a little wilder. It was just like what I had heard from the other mothers when I had walked through the ward, loud and pained, hard to listen to. Time passed slowly.

But then, it came. The screaming got worse as April presumably passed through the ring of fire and Dr. Ryan leans forward quickly to make a catch. I held onto her leg a little too tightly as I peered forward, seeing the messy head of our newborn daughter as she made the final push to give birth to our daughter.

"Here she is," Dr. Ryan exclaimed. "Jackson, do you want to cut the cord?"

Gently setting down April's leg, I nodded as I took the scissors from her. I already knew exactly where to cut and yet there was still a powerful feeling at making the simple snip that disconnected my wife and newborn daughter, officially welcoming her presence into the world and our lives.

"Gimme." April requested in a tired, muttered syllable.

Our daughter was handed over and placed down gently in her arms, one of the nurses wiping clean her face with a towel. She was smaller than I expected given how big April's belly had been in the past month – wide-set eyes that were swollen, small ears. Her nose looked like mine. She was pink and looked healthy. There were a few thin strands of hair on top of her head, lighter than mine and darker than April's.

"I love you," April sobbed as she held our daughter. "I love you so much, baby girl."

"She's perfect," I whispered in agreement, one hand beneath April's as she held onto our daughter. There was no doubt about her diagnosis looking at her now, but that didn't change two simple facts: she was beautiful and she was ours.

"She's perfect." My wife echoed in agreement, kissing the top of her forehead. "She's so perfect. Oh my god, I love her so much."

The nurses allow us to have a few minutes of just fawning over our daughter and admiring her, memorizing every tiny little facial feature. Whatever doubts had been there in the past and when we had gotten the diagnosis, they were completely gone. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the exact little girl that we were meant to take home and to love, to raise and to hold, to do everything for the rest of our lives together with. She was the one.

"Have you decided on a name for her?" Angela, one of the nurses, asked.

I looked at her, waiting for her to nod. "We have," I answered. "Quinn. Quinn Kepner Avery. Kepner as the middle name, not hyphenated."

"Quinn." April echoed with a knackered but euphoric smile.

When she was finally taken away for the typical newborn tests and to get completely cleaned up, April delivered the placenta to take the last step before collapsing completely with her exhaustion. I laid down next to April on the bed. It only took a few minutes for her to finally fall asleep. I hold her a few minutes before getting up to make a needed phone call to my mom, knowing that she would be made if we waited too long to tell her that her granddaughter had been born.

After a few rings, she picked up the phone. "Hi, sweetheart."

"Hi, Mom." There was no point in trying to hold a normal conversation. "April just had the baby."

"Really?" Her joy was abundant. "Oh, I can't believe that you didn't call me sooner! I'm going to get the first flight to Seattle and be there tonight, Jackson. I can't wait to see both of you."

"She seems really healthy, and April is doing well." I couldn't contain my own smile, running my hand over my face as I leaned against the hospital wall. "They're both doing well."

"I'm happy to hear that," Catherine expressed. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

Getting up to call my mom hadn't disturbed April's sleep. She had begun snoring slightly and I slowly lowered myself onto the bed again, stretching out my legs next to her and staying on top of the covers. I couldn't even begin to imagine how tired she must have been. I was tired and she was the one who had done all the work. She had given us a beautiful daughter.

"I love you," I murmured to her sleeping form. "I love you so much and you did so, so well."

To my surprise, I fall asleep too. It's not a deep sleep, in and out, mostly wanting to make sure that she remained comfortable and asleep with my face buried in her hair. She doesn't smell sweet like she usually does from all of the sweat, but there wasn't much done to avoid that. She would get a chance to shower and clean up eventually. For now, April still had a lot of healing to do.

Wanting to let her sleep for a little bit longer, I slip out of the bed again and shut the door to her room behind me. In doing so, I nearly walked face first into Izzie – changed into plain clothes after coming off what must have been a long shift, and likely coming to congratulate April.

"She's sleeping," I warned her before she could say anything else.

"That's okay," Izzie smiled brightly. "How's the little angel doing?"

"Really good." My smile mirrored hers. "And her name is Quinn. She's… she's perfect, Izzie. God, I didn't realize that I could love another human being so much. I mean, I love April with everything in me, and I thought that was it. But I love her so much."

"I can't wait to meet her." She expressed. "Is April doing well too?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "It took it out of her, I can tell, but she seems to be doing pretty well. I think she just needs to sleep it off a little more."

"Might as well while she's still here," Izzie agreed. "Because you guys are definitely not going to be getting any normal amount of sleep any time soon. I love kids and I want my own one day, but I am not envious of what the two of you are doing right now. I can't imagine having to cram in studying for my boards with raising a little one."

The words had come from pretty much everyone in some form or fashion. "It won't be easy." That was a fate that we had accepted. "But I know we can do it. You know how April is. She can do anything that she sets her mind to."

"She can." The blonde nodded. "And you know, I'm happy to babysit a night or two."

"You've mentioned it," I chuckled. "And we appreciate it. I don't know if April's going to be able to take you up on it – the way that she looks at that baby, I'll be surprised if even I get a chance to hold her for more than a minute or two. But she might want a visitor or two, maybe a study buddy, while she's on maternity leave. That way she doesn't get too lonely, or too sick of me, you know?" I wanted to make sure that she had everything she needed. She didn't want me to take off the same amount of time as her, and it was going to be hard not to – two weeks just didn't seem like enough.

"I can definitely do that," she agreed easily. "I'll make plans with her, but not right away. I'm sure that she's tired and she doesn't want to be overwhelmed right now. I've heard what she said about your mother."

My eyes rolled. "Yeah, Mom is hard to escape from."

"I'll come by and see the two of you in the morning before my shift," she promised, grabbing my hand and giving it a tight squeeze. "Congratulations, Jackson. And give some of my love to April."

"Will do," I smiled. "See you tomorrow, Izzie."

A hug was exchanged and I watch her go before making my way up to the nursery. It already felt like it had been too long since I had seen Quinn and I wanted to hold her for myself, plus make sure that all of the tests came back normal. There were a lot of possible issues, even right after birth. We had gotten lucky with avoiding a congenital heart defect so far, but that didn't mean that we were out of the deep end entirely. There were still too many bad possibilities. Over the years, it was likely that we would have to face some of them. But for now, I wanted a break for both of us.

Standing on the other side of the window, our little girl was easy to spot even though she was bundled up with the same blanket as the other newborns, a little pink cap on her head. Her eyes set her apart. She's not the smallest baby in the nursery, but she was close to it.

Not wanting to bother any of the nurses that were working at the moment, I just stood outside of the nursery and watched our little girl. She was asleep, just like her mother. Her mouth hung up in the same way that April's did whenever she was in a deep sleep.

"Hey, Jackson." I heard Dr. Ryan's voice as she approached. "Is April sleeping?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "She's worn out and I wanted her to have a little peace."

"Your timing is good because I just got back baby Quinn's test results." She smiled. "She does have poor muscle tone which is pretty consistent for babies with Down syndrome. We'll have to look out for constipation with her and keep a careful eye on her feeding. Her blood work also showed hypothyroidism, which as you know, is very, very treatable.

Taking a deep breath, I let the information settle. None of it was terrible, all of it was manageable. "I assume we'll need to do liquid levothyroxine for the hypothyroidism?" I questioned.

"Yeah. That or a tablet which you can crush up and put in some formula, but April did say that she wanted to breastfeed if the baby was able to, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then we'll stick with the liquid for now. We'll keep her here for another night or two and make sure that there aren't any problems that haven't shown up yet." Dr. Ryan explained. "There's one more thing. She did have one episode of sleep apnea already. That's another common issue with Down syndrome babies and another reason that I want to keep her here for a few more nights to make sure that it doesn't get worse."

Shit. "Shouldn't she be on a CPAP machine?"

"CPAP machines aren't always beneficial in cases of central sleep apnea, which is what the neonatologist suspects Quinn has. There's no sign of an obstruction. Usually, this will go away on its own in a little bit of time. Since Quinn was at term, it shouldn't take terribly long." Even though the details should have been reassuring, they aren't.

"How long?" I questioned. "I mean, what's the average timetable for this kind of thing?"

"No longer than a month, but it's hard to get into the specifics right now. We'll have to wait and see." She answered.

"Shit," I swore, scratching the back of my head and turning to look at Quinn through the glass again. "This is going to break April's heart. I mean, if she doesn't get to take her home soon…" I'd have to water it down for her. She had already been through enough today and I didn't want something to push her over the edge.

"There's a chance that she could. Don't lose hope." Dr. Ryan smiled at me. "Would you like to take her down to see her mother now?"

"Yeah."

Quinn wakes up as she was moved but doesn't cry out or make a fuss. Instead, she looked up at me with large eyes, the same ones that I had seen in the mirror every day of my life. April had gotten her wish in that aspect. They were beautiful on our daughter, looking up at me with confusion and awe, trying to figure out her new life outside of April's womb.

Love me. Love me, Daddy. I know I'm not what you expected but please love me.

It was as if I could hear her begging the words, and I wanted to scream back at her. I do. I do. My entire chest felt as if it could burst at any moment looking down at her, wanting nothing more than to scoop her up in my arms and hold her, to never put her down again. In the elevator, I leaned down and kissed her sweetly on the forehead. A little hand that had untangled itself from her swaddle reached up and touched me on the cheek, pulling away when she felt the rough stubble across my cheek. Shaving had been a low priority once April had gone into labor, and I had already been in need.

"Yeah, your Mommy doesn't like it either." I chuckled, giving her another kiss and beginning to push her down the hallway toward April's room. "You're her mini-me, aren't you?"

A little gurgle of spit up was the only response that Quinn gave me.

"Yeah, you are." I smiled, finally reaching her room.

When I opened up the door and held it open with my back to pull Quinn in her little bed into the room, it took April a moment to wake up. She hadn't noticed me coming and going a few times, but it seemed like she had a sixth sense when it came to the presence of our little girl. I smiled at her, slowly bending down and picking up our daughter to hold her in my arms. I inhaled deeply. I'd always heard women talk about that newborn smell, but I had never understood it until now. That smell was our little one.

"Hi, Mommy." A brief glance was given up at my wife before my daughter absorbed my gaze again. "Our little five pounds and ten-ounce angel was missing you."

"Hi, sweetheart." Her voice was dry and she reached for the cup that had been ice chips, now just water, taking a long drip from it. "Should I try feeding her?" She asked. I glanced down at our daughter, her tongue sticking out of her mouth adorably.

"Yeah, I guess so." Might as well see how it went. "They said to keep an eye on her feed."

"Why's that?" April asked.

Holding back my sigh, I stepped toward her bed and lowered our daughter into her arms. "Because of the Down syndrome," I began. "She's got some low muscle tone and hypothyroidism, according to the blood test. They want to keep her a few nights to monitor the possibility of her having sleep apnea." I delivered the news as gently as I could.

"Oh." The syllable escaped her quietly and she looked down at Quinn with wide eyes, her thumb rubbing across her chubby cheek. "Okay. We can do that. Can't we, little girl?" Her voice shifted with the coo escaping.

"I'll get your blanket out of the bag." I offered as she began unbuttoning her shirt.

"No, it's okay this time." She shook her head. "I read that it can be harder. I might need your help."

Nodding, I grabbed one of the extra chairs in the room and pulled it over toward the edge of her bed. As her breast came out, Quinn didn't seem particularly interested in it. It feels a little weird to watch her do this like I'm intruding in a mother-daughter moment. I had read about the bond that breastfeeding created between mother and child. It wasn't something that I could understand, for obvious reasons.

"She's not latching," April muttered, one hand holding the baby and the other holding her breast, trying to urge Quinn to take her nipple.

"Maybe try holding her the other way? So her feet are toward me?" I suggested.

She nodded her head and switched around the direction that Quinn was in before finding herself in the same position, holding onto herself and a newborn that didn't seem interested in latching on. She pinched her nipple so a little colostrum came out, trying to get her attention.

"Oh, come on, sweetheart." April sang to her. "I know that you must be hungry."

"Do you want me to call for a lactation consultant?" I asked helplessly.

"No." A stubborn shake of her head followed. "I can figure it out. We've got this. It's just going to take a few tries for us to find what she likes, that all. Let me take her out of the blanket. Skin-to-skin contact is supposed to help. It'll get her instincts coming out." As she spoke, she unwrapped Quinn from the blanket, leaving her just in her diaper. "We got this, don't we, Quinn?"

"Maybe you could lay back a little further and have her laying vertically on your stomach. I've seen a couple of pictures of moms doing that with their newborns." Even if this wasn't really my area of expertise, I couldn't stop with suggestions.

April nodded her head as she moved around with our daughter again, the two of them stomach to stomach. Quinn let out a big, wide-mouthed yawn that must have come from me and she took advantage of the moment, basically shoving her nipple into Quinn's mouth. There's a deep furrow between her brows as she stared down at our daughter a few seconds passed before it finally began to relax, leaning back into the pillows propping her up.

"There she goes." A smile softened my wife's lips as she held our daughter. "Atta girl."

"A quick learner. Just like her Mommy."

After an uncomplicated vaginal delivery, most women stayed in the hospital with their babies for twenty-four to forty-eight hours, assuming that the baby was healthy. Even though giving birth like that could take a huge toll on the body, there wasn't much that a hospital could do to help heal.

Two nights spent at the hospital trying to get enough sleep to compensate for the weeks and months ahead of us, and then April got discharged from the hospital. Mom tried to insist that she go home and rest, but I knew that the woman I had married was stubborn. Quinn had to spend a full week in the nursery, a couple nights on the CPAP machine to make sure that she didn't spontaneously stop breathing during the night and then a few more, just to make sure that she was truly healthy and ready to go home. Neither one of us spent the days between at home, just the nights. April stayed in her office, sleeping and studying, going up every few hours to breastfeed so that Quinn didn't lose any of the progress that had been made.

"She's really coming home today." April's hand was pressed onto the glance, looking at our little girl.

"She is." I smiled at the redhead, wrapping an arm around her waist. "We're never sleeping again."

"Yeah," she laughed with a nod of her head. "But it's going to be worth it. Besides, with all of the time that I'm not going to spend sleeping, I'm pretty sure I'm going to out-study every single one of you and ace my boards." A silly expectation, one that we both knew wasn't realistic.

"You'll ace them no matter what." I kissed the top of her head. "I'm going to pull around the car. We can stop by the drive-thru at CVS on the way home so that we can get the levothyroxine for her. Sound like a plan?"

It takes a screaming fit to get Quinn into her car seat. It was a good thing that I had installed it a few weeks ago because the thing had been a damn demon to get into the back seat of our car. But now, we were finally taking our week year old daughter home to our new apartment, everything clean and waiting for her. The nursery was finished, well-lit and with a comfortable nursing chair, pillows, and blankets for April. I knew she'd spent a lot of time in there over the next few weeks and wanted her to be as comfortable as possible. There was even a little stand by the table. She'd said she wanted to be able to nurse and study at the same time since it could take so long sometimes. I wasn't sure if she really would, but at least she had the option.

As much as Quinn hated getting into the car seat, she didn't seem any more fond of getting out of it. The jarring of having to remove her from it startles her and she cries again, even as April held onto her securely and soothed her, rubbing her bag and humming a little tune.

"It's okay, angel," April soothed, bouncing up and down gently. "We're almost there." It was taking me a minute longer to get the door open with my hands full of our stuff. Finally, I do.

"Welcome home, Quinn."