Hey all! We're in the final stretch! Thanks so much for sticking with me. By the end, it should be pretty clear what one chapter remains :). I'm pretty excited about this chapter, and hope you all enjoy.
Maybe I'm amazed at the way you're with me all the time
Maybe I'm afraid of the way I leave you
Maybe I'm amazed at the way you help me sing my song
Right me when I'm wrong
Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you
-"Maybe I'm Amazed," Paul McCartney
February
Sloan has absolutely zero desire to give birth on air, so she starts her maternity leave a full week before her due date, on the last Wednesday in January. They — her staff, Will's staff, Elliot's staff — throw her a surprise goodbye party/shower that day (she'd barred them from throwing anything at the office earlier), which is very sweet, and there's some catcalling, courtesy of Neal, as she and Don walk out after Elliot's show, weighed down by a dozen gift bags.
"I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow," she remarks as they get into the cab, gesturing to the piles of bags that need to be organized. She pulls the card out of Martin's gift to read it. "When the baby makes you wail, know that Martin and Gary will never fail. Redeem this card for ten free hours of babysitting by two awesome dudes. Oh dear Lord. I hope to god we never get desperate enough to use this one."
"Yeah, but let's not throw it out for a few weeks though," he says, filching it. "We might," at her expression, he says, "Not saying that we will!"
"You will," the gravelly-voiced cabbie calls. "My wife an' I have five. This your first?"
"Yup," Don smiles tightly.
"When're you due?"
"Next week. Can't come soon enough," she says.
"Careful. First ones always come late, that's what my wife says. She was a nurse, for 20 years."
"Well, his dad's pretty impatient — let's hope that's genetic," Sloan says as they get out. "Thank you!"
"Good luck!" he calls, driving off.
They drop all the bags in the nursery without bothering to put anything away — like she said, she's got plenty of time tomorrow — and she pulls a onesie out. They're so incredibly inexplicably tiny. She studies it, then casts a look over at Don: One day, the little boy who will barely fill this onesie in her hand will grow up and be around the size of his dad, his tall, strong, sturdy, handsome dad. She hopes the kid is a lot like Don.
"What are you thinking?" he asks, stopping in the doorway when he realizes she's not following him anymore.
She snaps the onesie into a square fold, and goes, "Trying to see whether I could picture a Henry wearing this."
He wrinkles his nose, because he's still not persuaded by her front-runner name. And it's not even that she likes the name, she just dislikes it less than everything they've come up with. "What about a Jack?" he pitches. She blinks in concentration. It's not that she doesn't like the name Jack — in theory, it's fine — she just doesn't … love it. It seems bland. She doesn't want a bland child.
"Not really, but maybe a Samuel?" she tries, joining him, wrapping her arm around his waist and leaning on his shoulder. He runs a hand down her upper arm.
"Or an Andrew?" He's suggested it a couple times; she knows he likes it.
"I kinda like those," she says, her voice muffled by sleep and the crook of his neck. "Andrew Thomas Keefer. Samuel Thomas Keefer," she tests out against his collarbone.
"Mmm," he murmurs affirmatively. "Let's wait till we see him, though." They'd agreed to do that and while it's a good idea, she just wants to know this kid.
They fall asleep almost immediately, but she wakes up way too early the next morning — the baby's moving around, so she is too. She tries to not wake Don but especially this late in the game, he's got a sixth sense. They fool around lazily, eventually having sleepy side-sex, and then snuggle in bed all morning. "You have to go to work," she chides with a yawn.
"Mmm, twenty more minutes," he says, pushing the hair out of her face. "We've got one more week, if we're lucky, of just us. I'm going to stay here for a while." He gives her that smiles that makes her feel like the luckiest person on the planet, and she is reassured, once again, how overwhelmingly right this choice — this him, this them, this life — is.
But she can't help but tease him. "You're a sap, Keefer, you know that?" she laughs but with a genuine full-stop smile, tugging her fingers through his curls. She hopes the baby gets those too.
He laughs too. "Fine," he says. "I've got one more week of semi-decent sleep — or at least as decent as one can get with a forty-weeks-pregnant woman taking up two-thirds of the bed and kicking and hogging all the sheets — and I'm going to savor it."
She punches him lightly. "Thanks, pal."
"You wanted not-sappy," he retorts, sliding a hand behind her head to kiss her. "Are you sure you're okay at home?"
"Yeah," she says. "Are you sure you're okay at work?"
"I'm actually not sure. I don't like you being here alone all day, alone," he admits.
"This is an incredibly perverse macho thing you have going here, you know," she says. "Most couples don't work in the same building. The men go hours without knowing what their womenfolk are up to."
"Ok, first off, womenfolk? And you accuse me of being sexist. Secondly, I'm spoiled and I like working with you. Sue me."
She laughs. "No thanks. I need your money. And you need to get up." She shoves him out of bed as he groans.
The next few days pass by agonizingly slowly as she does what can only be described as 'nesting.' She cleans (kind of. She's always been bad at it, and they've hired someone, so it's not exactly efficient.). She folds and re-folds baby clothes, and reads the books her doctor recommended pre-labor. Mostly she skims them and then reads economics journals. She obsessively plays online Scrabble and, when that gets boring, tries poker — first no buy-in and then for small change. She takes Clem out for very long walks, wearing the world's biggest coat and a huge hat just in case someone recognizes her. She reworks her syllabi for next semester, figuring it's now or never. On Sunday, Mac and Will come over to make them brunch, since she absolutely does not feel like going outside. "You know, this time next week, we could bring you food and the baby could be here!" Mac says excitedly. "How do you feel?"
"Like there is a fully-grown child rolling around in my uterus," she says matter-of-factly. "And he's kicking my rib cage."
Her delivery date — Wednesday the fifth — comes and goes with nary a contraction. Don texts her every five minutes, and she just texts back, "Big fat nope." It's disappointing.
"Why exactly did you think this baby would arrive on time?" her mother asks in an arch, bored voice when Sloan calls the next day to complain. It was the same voice she used to use when Sloan was younger and would whine about unfair teachers or perpetually flaky friends or boys who were vague with their messages.
"Because it's got to be getting boring in there?" she asks. "I don't know."
"Sloan, this is your first lesson in parenthood — no matter what you want, he's going to do things in his own way."
"Is this your way of bringing back up how you wish I had gone to law school?"
"I still think you would have made an excellent lawyer," her mom acknowledges. "But you were always going to follow your dad into economics."
"You got Sawyer, that's enough."
"I wanted to go four for four," Nami says. "But, my children being children, they did their own things. And as a parent, I just supported them and nurtured whatever path they wanted to take."
She groans. "Got it, Mom. Babies have minds of their own."
"He'll be here before you know it, and in four weeks you'll be wishing you had a little more time to yourself," her mom coaches. "Enjoy it. And we'll see you all next weekend, okay?"
"What if he's not here by then?"
"Then we'll see you and Don and have a lovely time."
She's watching Youtube videos on how to knit when Don gets home. "Nothing?" he asks.
"Nothing," she sighs.
The week melts away. On Friday she goes out and buys knitting needles and struggles through making half a blanket. On Saturday she and Don pack and re-pack hospital bags, and she thinks she might be having a contraction, but the feeling passes quickly and doesn't return. She turns to spicy food and sex and while both are enjoyable, the baby stays put.
They go in for a checkup on Monday morning, five days post due-date, before Don goes to work. It doesn't seem like Something Thomas Keefer is moving at all. "No, you're effacing, so it should be soon. This is normal, for first babies," Michelle promises. "It should be soon, though. Do you want to induce?" Their answer, as it has always been, is no. Don is visibly anxious when he leaves to go to work, and she's beyond bored the entire day.
Tuesday passes in a similarly tedious fashion. She eats a dozen peppers for lunch, and again thinks she feels a few contractions, but it passes quickly. After watching Brianna do a barely-passable job at her show, and hearing the News Night music cue up, she makes an impulsive decision. Fuck waiting around for this baby to drop like a Beyonce album. She's going in, and going to catch up with her friends, and watch her husband do his job, which is always sexy. So what if she can only wear leggings and walks at the speed of an excited sloth? She's over this. She crates Clem, pulls on the Toms that Maggie and Jim bought her — surprisingly useful shoes, since her feet are so swollen, plus they're painted with the ACN logo which is all kinds of adorable — and heads out.
"Sloan?" Neal's the first to spot her as she walks in. It doesn't look that much different. "What, uh, how's it going?"
"I'm a week past my due date, I can't see my feet, and I'm alone for fourteen hours a day. I am wearing a maternity hoodie, since that is a thing. A maternity hoodie! I've read all my old economics journals, re-folded onesies about eighteen times, made two grand playing online poker, and cleaned. I cleaned, Neal. I learned how to knit. I was bad at it, and I hate being bad at things. How's it going for you?"
Neal nods, his whole body bobbing with fear. "Uh, pretty good. You know, comparatively."
"Sloan!" Don yells from upstairs. "Sloan Keefer!"
She whirls around. He's somewhere between pissed and surprised: he's never referred to her as that in public. Hell, she's not even sure he's used it in private, ever. Whatever; she likes it. Sloan Keefer. Even though it sounds like a tax firm.
"Thank god," she says as he jogs up, fumbling with his phone. She's jealous of how quickly he can move. He bumps into her with a kiss.
"What's wrong? Are you in labor? I didn't miss a call, did I? You could've gone directly to the hospital, and just —" he looks at her. "You're not in labor."
She purses her mouth into a line. "Nope. Your kid is still staying put so far. I got bored."
"Bored? What the hell, Sloan, you've been bored for ten days."
"I know. I think that's a problem. So today I decided to do something about it."
"You need to go home! You could," he looks around before lowering his voice, "go into labor. Literally, go into labor, at any moment. You're almost forty-two weeks pregnant!"
"So being at home would help that, how? I need this kid out, Keefer, and if he's not coming out, I need to not be at home."
"You're not working."
"I didn't say I wanted to work. I wanted to see people. I'm going into the control room to talk to Kenzie."
"You know she's producing a show, right? And you're going to sit down when you're in there," he says, asserting his nominal husbandly authority.
"Because moving around has clearly compelled him to come out so far," she sighs, and waddles toward the control room.
"Keefer!" Charlie yells.
"I already got the lecture from my husband, what now?" she complains as Charlie jogs up.
"I'm just glad to see you. It's the 21st century. Women don't need to be cloistered until childbirth. I came up with a few reasons why I think you should consider 'Charles' as a name. Would you like to hear them?"
"Only if you're heading to the control room. Don says I have to sit."
"He's a decently smart guy," Charlie says. "You should probably listen to him."
"Probably," she sighs, feeling a twinge in her back. This damn kid just keeps getting heavier and heavier the longer he stays in there. She's pretty sure she's going to give birth to a 15-pound baby. ACN will send a camera crew to interview them. "So you were going to sell me on the merits of Charles?"
"Yes. Let's first begin with the number of kings that are named Charlies …"
"Sloan! You're still pregnant?" Mac smirks as she enters the control room.
"Appears to be," she retorts.
"Why are you here?" Jake asks.
"Have you ever tried being alone for fourteen hours a day? I was knitting and playing online poker."
"How'd those work out?"
"Good at one, not so good at the other. I'll leave you to guess which is which."
"You should sit down," Kenzie says.
"I know. That's what Don said." She pulls a chair up. Jake hands her some water, and she watches the last twenty minutes of the show. It's good to be back.
Afterwards, she and Will and Mac and Charlie sit in Will's office. "Don't you find it seriously amazing, that he's in you safe and snug today and in a day or two or three he'll be out and you can hold him? I mean it really is just miraculous," Mac says in wonderment.
She crosses her arms across her stomach protectively. "Terrifying, actually."
"Sophie was three weeks early and was five pounds, three ounces, when she was born. I remember thinking she felt like paper. A few years later when I wasn't completely terrified of breaking her, I went back and started weighing things around the house to see what else weighed five pounds, three ounces. You know what I found? A cantaloupe. My daughter was the size of a cantaloupe," Charlie shakes his head.
"Have you settled on a name yet?" Will asks.
She shakes her head. "I keep thinking when we see him, we'll figure it out, but he might go the Picabo Street route." She looks at the clock; Don's show is about to start. "I want to go watch Don," she says, leveraging herself up with her arms.
"Are you sure you're OK to stay? We can drive you home," Mac asks.
"Yes. This baby isn't coming out until March," she says, running her hand along her back as she feels another twinge. Shit. That might actually be a contraction.
"You sure you don't want to go home?" Don asks as she sits down in his control room. "Get in bed? Take a bubble bath? Relax?"
"No, I definitely would like to be here instead," she says insistently, taking in a deep breath. Don gives her a strange look, but mutters pregnancy, and gets to work.
And it's calming, being there. But by the end of the show, the contractions are five and a half minutes apart, though she's kept it to herself, passing off her pacing as restlessness. Don wraps up quickly and grabs her coat, wanting her to be not at the office, and by 11:03, they're walking out the door.
At 11:04, though, another contraction hits as they're stepping out of the elevator. Four minutes and forty-five seconds after the previous one. She stops, and Don looks at her. "So this cab home?" she says calmly. "Should actually probably go to Cornell-Pres."
His eyes widen. "Are you — shit."
"Four minutes and forty-five seconds apart."
"How long have these been going on?" he exclaims.
"All day, I guess, but I didn't really notice until Elliot's show started."
"You're in labor?"
"Yes."
"With our child?"
"Your child, now can we please go to the hospital?" she yells. Don numbly hails a cab.
"You were in labor in front of me for an hour and I didn't notice?"
"I was trying not to distract you while you were working! You're not going in the rest of the week!" she shouts. "I'm calling Michelle. To let her know we're coming in."
The cabbie is somewhat reluctant to take them, until she promises to buy him a new car if her water breaks en route. He speeds, and she doesn't.
"We need our stuff," Don says abruptly as they walk into the hospital. "That bag we packed … Maybe I should call Mac."
"It's 11:30 at night, let's call her in the morning," she says. "We'll probably be up all night. We won't need pajamas or anything. Unless you're planning on sleeping?"
"Oh. Right. No. That's right." At his overly nervous, haggard face, she reaches over, abruptly, and pinches his upper arm. Hard. "Ow!" He yelps.
"Hey, mister," she says, now that she's got his attention. "I'm going to need you to focus, alright? I need you to …" she trails off, as he runs a hand along her cheek, cups her neck, kisses her slowly.
"Hey. I'm here. We got this, alright?"
Her contractions are now four minutes apart — this child, once he gets started, apparently does not mess around — and she's admitted quickly, outfitted in a gown, plopped in a bed, and hooked up to machines. Michelle swoops in, cup of coffee in hand, and smiles wryly as she looks over the charts. "When did you first start experiencing contractions?"
"I guess all day, but I didn't notice until Don's show started, which was at 10."
"Well, looks like this little guy is definitely coming tonight," Michelle says. "You're already at five centimeters. I'm going to administer the epidural now. It's a walking dose, which means you'll be able to move around a bit, and it's a good idea to walk around between contractions, if you can."
"Yeah," Sloan says, remembering the books, but absolutely at a loss as to how she's going to be able to walk through this process. It's almost laughable. The epidural, the next few rounds of contractions are a blur — a nurse brings ice chips for her and coffee for Don, who hasn't sat down once.
"We still haven't totally decided on a name," she pants after a contraction.
He squeezes her hand. "Normal-first-name Thomas Keefer sounds pretty good," he promises teasingly, then shrugs. "I really do want to meet him first," he admits thickly. "Before we pick something he's stuck with for the next ninety years." Their son could live into the twenty-second century, she realizes. If that's not a sign of permanence, she's not sure what is.
"No Emmanuel," she insists. It's important to tell him this now. "Or Maynard. Don't let me name our kid Maynard, Don."
"Oh hell no," he agrees.
The clock rolls past one, then two and three, as she transitions into the final stage of labor. Don does everything right — paces, snarks at a rude nurse, tilts ice chips into her mouth, holds her hand, tells her she's beautiful. The last is hilarious, because she's shivering from the effort of the contractions, and she actually just wants to throw up and knows that there's no circumstance they've been in where she has looked worse. She wants to correct him, but his voice is honestly a haze, and since all of her effort is directed toward dealing with the contractions, she doesn't have enough energy left to do so. Every so often she feels his lips brush her temple, but she can't respond.
Eventually Michelle's voice cuts through, sharp and direct as she tells Sloan to push. She obeys, her fingers clenching Don's like a sieve. She's not sure how long this part lasts, but it's definitely quite a while. She hears Michelle report He's crowning — take a break, let him come by himself. There's some more pushing, then a cry — not as sharp as Sloan had been expecting, but distinct (and profound) all the same.
"Sloan — shit, Sloan," Don says, mesmerized, as the baby's extracted. He's immediately placed on Sloan's abdomen, patted dry with a clean towel.
"Dad, we have to cut the umbilical cord. Do you want to do the honors?"
"Do it, Don," she says, leaning back finally as a much lighter contraction flows through her. She sucks in a few deep breaths, and she feels tired but new. Like her son.
The baby is tiny in Don's palms, and Don looks terrified of dropping him. He moves the baby slowly around the bed, to Sloan, and she instinctively reaches out for the baby. Don hands him over readily and she curls him into her chest and shoulder. Skin-to-skin contact is good, is recommended. He is almost frighteningly weightless — she is supposed to know what to do with him? Unsurprisingly his hair (there's a lot of it) is dark, and she can't really make out any of his features yet — his face is scrunched and his skin is dark and mottled and gross and slick. He does a little sigh-cry, clearly unhappy to be out in the big wide world, and then his liquid-bright, beady, unfocused eyes settle lazily on her.
He's perfect.
She is in love.
Don settles up next to her, with a sigh, puts his hand over hers on his tiny, perfect, back. She stares at their hands, then looks up at him. He is stunned silent, practically brimming over with emotion. She leans forward, very gently, and kisses him. He responds, pressing into her just a little bit harder before breaking the kiss and resting his forehead against hers. He mouths thank you, and she smiles, unable to say the words back. She is too full for words.
There is still much to do — she isn't even done with labor — so the moment doesn't last forever. He is taken away to be weighed (eight pounds, one ounce; much larger than Sophie Skinner but still half the size of the cat Sloan had growing up), measured (20.5 inches long), Apgar-tested (at a 9, he's already killing the curves), and placed in oversized (on him) blue mittens and a tiny blue-and-white cap. He's sponge-bathed, but a little of the white filmy gunk (the origins of which she doesn't really want to consider) remains on his forehead and chest. A blanket is draped over his back, but he otherwise remains in skin-to-skin contact with her. "He's so big," the sassy nurse, who now looks nineteen, coos, but Sloan disagrees. He is tiny.
Don calls his mom, whispers a message — "Hey, it's me. I'm just — you probably know why I'm calling, actually. Call me back when you get this. Preferably as you're en route to the city, since I think you'll wanna come up to New York." — and checks if she wants to call her parents. She demurs: her mom is a light sleeper and will wake up, ruining her entire night of sleep. Besides, she just wants a little more time of this. Nobody in the world, nobody besides their doctors, knows that she and Don are not a couple any longer. They are a family.
He is alert and inquisitive, their son, and he looks around as they look him over. They count fingers and toes, memorize his tiny features (even though they'll change), double-check he's a son and not a daughter, watch his tiny tongue flick over an infinitely small mouth. He moves, stretches for a few minutes, then settles, confused, against her. He's uncomfortable in this big wide world, and pinched and scrunched from his months of pretzeling up inside her womb. She runs her hands all over him, smoothing his wrinkles, memorizing him. One of his ears is folded over, and it's absolutely adorable.
He's awake, so they're awake too. He feeds eventually, and Don doesn't move from her side. He's taken away for shots and eyedrops and swaddling, and falls asleep soon after. They place him in a port-a-crib on the side of their bed, and continue to watch him there.
It's an entirely sleepless night, which Sloan absolutely doesn't mind — if she closes her eyes and goes to sleep, he might disappear, after all. After that first nap the baby doesn't really doze, too startled to be in the world. At seven, as Don's cradling him, he says, "I gotta call Elliot and tell him I'm not gonna be in. Probably not coming in ever again, actually," he jokes as he hands the baby off to her.
"Tell him hi," she says, eyes not off him.
"You know, he's going to ask for a name. Do we have one yet?"
She stares at him. He's spunky, that's for sure. And he's curious — his eyes are always open. Him being intelligent is a given, but he also seems like he's going to be a fun kid. An overall good one, but someone that keeps them both on their toes. He's got a lusty cry and a good appetite; she can see her son loving life. He'll laugh a lot. He'll make them laugh a lot. He needs a name that says all these things about him.
"What do you think about Max?" she asks suddenly. It hasn't been on either of their lists; she'd considered it once but thought it sounded a little too smart-alecky. But she absolutely sees it fitting this little guy.
"Max," he looks down at him. "Max," he says again. "Max Thomas Keefer."
"Maybe Maxwell, for diplomas and things? Max for everything else," she suggests.
"Maxwell Thomas Keefer," he tests out. He smiles. "That's it."
"We should call Mac and Charlie and Will, when you're done. And my parents; they'll be awake soon."
With that, with the name picked, the spell of anonymity breaks, and they're hurtling through the first few hours as a public family. Alison finally gets her message and calls back, ecstatic, before promising to be in New York that afternoon. They wake up her parents, who switch their Friday ticket out for Thursday, and Facetime her sisters, who all demand photos, immediately. Don and Elliot have a short, very manly discussion about fatherhood, and then she calls Mac, who greets her with a yawn and, "So did you have the baby yet?" which brings Sloan back to the time that Mac accidentally guessed they were getting married.
She smiles with her whole body before replying. "Yes, actually. At 3:52 this morning. Maxwell Thomas Keefer — Max. 8 pounds and 4 ounces and basically perfect."
Mac has always been a reliable substitute for Paul Revere, and by 10, Will, Mac, and Charlie are there with gifts (flowers and economics journals for her, Scotch and cigars for Don, a four-foot-tall stuffed giraffe and picture books for Max), her hospital bag, and the good news that they walked Clem. Neal, Elliot, Jim, and Maggie are all right behind them, piling gifts on top of the first round on the plastic nightstand next to her bed. They help her take the first shot of the three of them with Don's iPhone, which he then posts from his Twitter account (which has a very respectable 26,000 followers). She fiddles with his message — Couldn't be prouder of my rockstar wife, SloanSabbith. We welcomed Max at 3:12 this morning — to make it her own before retweeting it to her 908,000 followers. She knows it has to happen, and at this point would just prefer to control the message. Within seconds, she starts getting congratulations. After the first few roll in, she puts the phone aside. She's got more important things to do.
The room is overstuffed and underfurnished — Don curls on the bed with her and Maggie sits on her boyfriend's lap in the one of the two chairs and Charlie gets the other. Elliot leans his long frame against the wall, and Neal hops onto the windowsill, his feet swinging three inches from the floor. Will stands at the foot of the bed, leaning on the plastic frame, and Mac perches at Sloan's feet on the bed. And in the center of their weird, larger-than-she-ever-anticipated, extended news-family is Max, blinking, mewling, entrancing. She's reluctant to give him up, but he slowly makes the rounds.
"Sloan, Don, he's perfect," Maggie breathes as Jim nervously holds Max with both palms along the length his forearm. Maggie traces the shell of his unfolded ear with her index finger. "It's like — obviously, I have seen babies, but everything is so miniature," she says, entranced by his smallness and wholeness.
"Any time any of you want to give him a friend, that'd be great," Don says. "Not that I think he'll be hurting for friends, but back-ups at the lunch table."
Will laughs. "Doubtful. And we wouldn't repay the favor by naming any kid after you two, so don't get any ideas."
"What would that name even be? Slon?" Mac wonders out loud. "Doan?"
"What are you talking about?" Sloan asks.
"Max? You named him after Will and I? The Macs. Ergo, Max," Kenzie explains.
Don pales. "Oh shit. No, we did not do that. We named him after …" he spaces, realizing they didn't have a reason for the choice.
"We just liked the name," she insists. "He seemed … Max-like."
Charlie's lips curl into a smile. "I'm mad that you didn't go with Charles, but luckily he's cute enough that I'll forgive you."
"We didn't name him after them!" Sloan says.
"It was subliminal," Mac laughs. "We're flattered, really."
"How much do I have to pay you to not state on NewsNight that I named him after you?" Sloan begs. "I have stock. I can pay."
"Too late," Neal smirks. "I already tweeted it from Will's account." Sloan grabs her phone, finds Will's page, and sure enough — So proud to be the co-namesake of this little guy: SloanSabbith and DonKeeferACN's son Max.
"If we agree that he's named after you, can he get into Will's will?" Don asks.
"I mean, all Will's money has to go somewhere, so sure," Mac shrugs.
"He's named after you guys," Don says immediately, in a deadpan tone. "That'll be a half-million dollars to his college fund, please."
"Somehow I think you guys will do OK, anyways," Will says. He's holding Max, who looks like a squirmy loaf of bread, in his large, capable hands. Sloan smiles.
Soon enough, Mac and and Neal and Jim and Maggie have to head in, Jim assuring her that her show will be just fine with Brianna and she assuring him that she will be watching, as will Max. Elliot leaves to make an appointment in Midtown. Charlie and Will — honorary grandpa and uncle — linger, passing Max back and forth and cracking jokes about who he looks like that are so mean she demands that she get her son back, thank you very much.
"Two years ago, you ever think they'd have this one?" Will asks Charlie, one of Don's gift cigars clamped (unlit) between his teeth.
Charlie snorts. "Friday is Valentine's Day, right? So the anniversary of me walking in on them getting busy —"
"A, not in front of my son, thank you, and B, everyone was wearing clothes, Charlie," she retorts. She tucks the blanket back around him. She's still not sure how secure 'swaddled' is.
"So, no," Charlie says. "Not in the slightest. But," he grins, "in retrospect, I'm not surprised at all." He stands. "I need to head in, as does Will," he announces. "You two make beautiful babies." He kisses Sloan's cheek.
"Before we go, Don needs to have one of these cigars," Will announces. "It's tradition."
"Whose tradition? We're the first people to actually have a kid," Don points out.
"It is tradition because I say it is, Donny," Will says imperiously. "Of course, because of Obamacare, we can't smoke inside, so we're going outside. Get your coat on."
Don looks at Sloan and she sighs and smiles. "It's fine. Go be manly and bond."
"I'll brush my teeth," he promises, kissing her cheek.
"So whipped," Will sighs. He leans over and kisses Sloan's temple. Then he leans against her pillow and whispers, so that the others can't hear, "I'm proud of you, sis. You done good."
She looks up. "Thanks, bro," she replies, and he chucks her under her chin.
"Bring my godson into the newsroom later this week," he says as he exits.
Don looks at her, alarmed. "Should I tell them Mitch is the godfather?"
She laughs. "Let's just wait till the baptism and see if he figures it out."
"I love you," he says.
"I love you too," she replies, and he's out the door.
She looks down at Max, and realizes it's the first time, ever, that she has been alone with him. She is so sore and so tired, but still somehow alert. Since she's never done well with silence, she begins to talk. "Hey," she says. "I'm your mom. You don't know what that means yet — and right now, I think I'm just here to feed you — but it means I love you very, very much," she traces his features. She thinks he looks more like Don. "I'm not really sure how to do this whole mom thing, so I apologize in advance. I've never changed a diaper, for instance. So if we ever decide to give you a sibling — that's a big if, since this was not the most pleasant experience of my life — he or she will have significant more practiced parents than you had." He looks unimpressed. She has a smart kid. "Your dad is named Don," she says, "and if you're smart, you'll try and grow up to be a lot like him. He's a pretty smart guy — not as smart as I am, but pretty smart — and he cares more than anyone else I know. And as a bonus, he loves you a lot, a lot, a lot, too." He gets fussy so she shifts him. "I want to be upfront about a few other things. We work a lot, and so we might miss a soccer game or two throughout your childhood. But we'll feel guilty about that, and we'll try and be at as many as possible. I only ask that you not guilt-trip us into buying you things when we're absent, since we'll totally fall for that. Also, some of our friends are weird. Aunt Mac will probably try and kidnap you more than once. Just don't be scared; even when she's yelling, she's pretty harmless. We're going to try and be pretty strict, just FYI. We'll probably yell at you when you try and break curfew. We also both kind of swear a lot, though I promise we're working on toning that down so you don't go to preschool saying jackass — shit," she rolls her eyes at her lapse. "We have work to do on that front. And your dad really does think he can sing, but he can't, so his lullabies might hurt your ear. We're probably going to screw you up in many, many ways that I can't even imagine right now. But," she sighs, "we love you. So much. And we will always love you. And always be there for you. Whatever you do — at the end of the day, all you need to do is come home. We will be there. I promise. Even if you've stolen a car. We'll yell a lot, but we'll still love you."
He starts crying then, and a nurse hears, comes in, and helps her breastfeed. "You can send him to the nursery, get some sleep," she suggests when it's over.
"I — I would like him here, if that's alright," Sloan says, burping him. He gurgles on her shoulder.
"Absolutely. Just make sure you rest. He's pretty dependent on you right now." The nurse helps get him into the bassinet before leaving.
She's watching him sleep when Don comes back in. "Hey," he says. "He sleeping?"
"Yeah," she says. "I — I nursed him and then …" She gestures at the kid. He has his thumb in his mouth, and Sloan actually can feel her hormones start to act up at the cuteness.
"Isn't the rule you sleep when he sleeps?"
"Yeah, but I'm still a little too wired and sore," she says. Plus she won't be able to watch him if she's sleeping. Irrational, she knows.
"You should still sleep, you've been up for twenty-six straight hours." He hops onto the bed next to her, aligns his body to hers and looks over her shoulder at Max. "I get it though. He's pretty cute."
She turns, and runs a hand down his scruff. He looks exhausted, and a five o'clock shadow always makes him look like a Mafia capo. He needs to shave. "We made a cute kid," she agrees, then kisses him — close-mouthed, since he stinks of cigars and probably had some sort of whiskey as well, knowing Charlie Skinner. "Thank you," she murmurs, shifting into his shoulder. God, sleep does sound like a good idea.
"What the hell are you thanking me for? You just delivered a baby," he says. "I was just a … fucking bystander."
"I told him we would try and cut back on swearing," she says seriously. "And … for, you know. Stuff."
"Stuff?"
"There's a lot, so yes, stuff is going to have to cover it for now," she yawns. She wants to say something gushy, tell him how much he means to her, but she can't articulate it.
"Thank you for stuff too," he grins stupidly. "Seriously. Today, yesterday, tomorrow … Thank you."
"You freaking out yet?"
"Only 50 percent. Running on endorphins right now," he yawns. "You think he's going to be producer or on-air talent?"
"He will be an economist, thank you very much. There are three generations of economists on my side you've gotta work against," she says indignantly, before passing out.
They bring Max home the next afternoon, slipping out through the parking garage (Don carries Max, Alison carries all her things, and she sits in a wheelchair against her will). Her parents arrive that afternoon, and Max, still unused to and unimpressed by the world, cries as he is passed from grandparent to grandparent. They set up the bassinet in their room, and everyone passes out around 8 p.m.
Of course, Max wakes them up, wailing, by 10 p.m. "I'll get it," Don volunteers blearily.
"Yeah, when you grow breasts," she snorts, scooping him up. He quiets a little once she picks him up, and she's proud of her burgeoning maternal abilities. "Here, hold him —" she shifts him to Don so she can peel down her tank top. Once ready, she takes Max back. "You should sleep," she says. "One of us should."
"Eh. Come here," he says, leaning against the headboard. She scoots back against his chest, and he links his hands gingerly around her still-distended (and tender) stomach. Kisses her neck sleepily. Max attaches himself (this is getting easier, but is still odd and painful) and starts nursing. "You know, I did some math yesterday. Guess how long it's been since we started dating?"
She thinks for a second. "Twenty-eight months."
"You were supposed to guess!"
"That's addition and I took calculus in eighth grade," she protests. Then she pauses. "You know, if we go with twenty-eight, that means I'm officially right. We started dating in November."
"I'll give you a pass on that argument, even though our first date was clearly to 'inoteca in December, since you just delivered a baby."
"And because I'm right. It was the fight outside Hang Chew's."
"I'm sorry for making you cry then, by the way. I don't think I ever said that."
"You're forgiven," she laughs quietly. "Anyways. Did you?"
He laughs too. "Not in my wildest dreams," he says. "But, damn, am I glad we did."
She smiles, in awe and at peace and so tired her eyelids are sticking to her eyeballs. "Yeah," she stares at her son. Their son — half him, half her. Entirely wondrous. "Me too."