Author's Note: Review request. First day home with a new baby. I'm getting a bit slower due to school and family drama but I am still working regularly on these shorts. Thanks again for all your comments guys. I really love to know that I'm keeping things realistic and in character and that I'm making people smile a little with these shorts.

A Welcome Home

Mia had laughed at her when she'd said the hard part was over. She hadn't really understood.

She'd given birth, gone through the pain of labor, and pushed a whole person out of her. What else could possibly be more difficult than that?

Letty had just been grateful to be home, sick of being in a hospital bed with nurses coming in to check on her and crappy hospital food on little plastic trays. She was still sore and tired, so she went straight up to her room while Dom carried in the baby sleeping in her car seat.

"I'm going to nap," she told him and he gave her a nod, carrying the baby into the living room.

"Guess it's just me and you little girl," he murmured, and wisely let her sleep on in the seat, setting it gently on the floor beside the couch. He looked at her and then, convinced she was sleeping peacefully, ducked into the kitchen for a cold beer before quickly returning to the couch.

She was still asleep.

Dom settled down onto the couch, debated watching television, but deciding against anything that made too much noise he reached for a magazine that was sitting on the coffee table. It had probably been sitting there since the day Letty had gone to the hospital in labor. He flipped it open, lifting his feet to rest them on the coffee table. For a while time passed quietly, him drinking his beer and reading his magazine, the baby sleeping peacefully in her car seat.

He didn't know why he'd expected it to stay that way.

He was just leaning over for another magazine when the tiny infant stirred in her car seat, squirmed, then opened her mouth and wailed.

He was going to blame Letty for those lungs.

Dom nearly tripped over his own feet getting off the couch. He was trying to shush the baby before he thought about it, not wanting her cries to wake up Letty. He knew she hadn't slept well in the hospital and though neither of them would be getting a whole lot of sleep for the foreseeable future, he wanted to let her sleep a little just now.

Carefully he lifted the baby out of her seat, her tiny head fitting in the palm of his hand as he straightened up and carried her into the kitchen. She was still crying, in the way of a baby who hadn't yet gotten what it needed and would cry until such need was met. Dom pulled a bottle out of the fridge and popped it into the warmer as he soothed the infant, rocking her gently and rubbing her little belly. Her cries became quieter and she stared up at him with teary dark eyes, hands curled into impossibly little fists. That lasted for only mere seconds until she was crying again, her face scrunched up as she made him loudly aware of how unhappy she was. Dom shifted her in his arms carefully, willing the bottle to heat up faster as he paced across the kitchen, rocking the newborn.

By the time he offered the bottle to the baby Letty had appeared in the kitchen door, looking sleepy, wearing only one of his t-shirts. She leaned against the door jamb, yawning.

"That little girl's got some lungs," she said, her voice scratchy with sleep.

He laughed, looking down at the baby who was now contentedly drinking her bottle. "Yeah. I was hoping she wouldn't wake you up."

She smiled, reaching up to rub the baby's little stomach. "It was a nice thought, but I think we both have to realize that we're probably not getting a full-night's sleep for the next several months."

"I guess that's true," he agreed, smiling down at their daughter. She looked so sweet when she wasn't howling her lungs out. That would probably continue to be a theme.

Letty mumbled an agreement, moving past him to dig the orange juice out of the fridge and then pulled a glass from the cabinet to pour some. She sat at the table with her juice, watching Dom feed the baby, a little half-smile slipping across her lips.

"What?" he asked, catching the little grin.

"You look good, Papa."

"What? With a baby in my arms?" He grinned at her.

She only nodded, a little smile on her face, eyes dark. To anyone else she'd be unreadable. But he knew her well enough to know she was feeling emotional. It was something that had been all too rare between them most of their relationship. He'd always been the one to say I love you and she'd always just smiled and curled close to him, assured he knew how she felt.

Somewhere between jacking trucks in LA and fleeing to Mexico that had changed. When they'd been together in the Dominican Republic they'd been closer, and that had been when he started to realize how much he couldn't stand to lose her. He'd made the wrong decisions to try and keep her safe and she'd thrown herself back into danger just to get him back again. Her 'death' had been a wake-up call for Dom. That punch to the gut that told him love was something that didn't come around every day. And he'd lost his. He never thought he'd get her back. That death hadn't really been permanent. Finding her again had been a miracle and a heartache. She hadn't been the same. She'd been someone else.

She'd still been his Letty.

And now here she was with him. Again. His Letty. His wife. The mother of his child.

Sometimes he wondered if it was all real. He knew sometimes she wondered the same thing. The way he'd catch her looking at him as if in some mild state of disbelief.

Dom was pulled from his thoughts by the sounds of the baby sucking at an empty bottle and quickly pulled it away. The tiny girl squirmed in his arms as he dropped the bottle into the sink with a clatter before shifting her to one shoulder.

"You're going to need to burp her," Letty said, draining the last of the OJ in her cup.

"I know," he said, already patting the baby's back lightly.

"You might want to get one of the -" but before the sentence was even out of her mouth the infant spit up on his shirt and Letty stifled a laugh as Dom cursed under his breath.

"I tried to warn you," she said as he passed her the baby, tugging his shirt up over his head and tossing it into the laundry basket. Her gaze slid over him slowly and she couldn't help but mentally bemoan the number of days until they could have sex again. Some things about having a baby really sucked.

But, she thought as she smiled down at the child already drifting to sleep in her arms, Mia had been right. It was totally worth it.