A/N: Sometimes a chapter goes where you totally didn't mean for it to.

"There, that's much better isn't it?" Lindsay said, lifting Colton off the bed and kissing his cheek. "You really needed that bath didn't you?"

He hiccupped and flexed his hand sleepily while he stared at her. She brushed his hair off his forehead, smiling at his relaxed expression. He looked more like Adam every day, and the similarities made her love them both even more.

"Wanna go rock for a little bit? Take a nap?"

He yawned and she took him into the other room, finding both cats curled up on the rocking chair.

"You guys are killin' me," she sighed, sitting down on the couch just before the phone rang. "Lovely."

She managed to reach up and grab the phone without disturbing Colton too much.

"Hello?"

"Hey hon. What are you doing?"

"We're just crashed out on the couch. Are you on your way home?"

"Yeah…"

"I hear a big but coming."

"Are you up for company?"

"Sure."

"Because I don't think I can keep Austin and Stella away much longer."

"No, that's fine. Adult conversation will be nice."

"Hey, I talk to you."

"I know that, but I said adult conversation."

"You're mean," he chuckled.

"I feel asleep last night listening to you telling me the pros and cons of every gaming system you've ever had."

"You asked!"

"Okay, I guess I did. How long until you get here?"

"Couple minutes. The girls are right behind me."

"Alright. We'll see you in a bit."

She hung up the phone and looked down at Colton who was sleeping peacefully. He'd grown so much in the last week that they had been home, but was just now fitting into newborn sized clothes. She was used to his crying at night now, and all his little noises during the day, and the worry that he was going to get sick was a lot further from her mind than it had been. Time was going by too fast and she wanted to hold on to every second that she could.

The door opened and Adam came in, Stella and Austin behind him.

"Hey little man," Adam greeted, kissing Colton's head.

"He just had a bath but managed to make a diaper for you."

"I can feel the love," he dead-panned, taking the baby from her and heading into the other room.

"Hi kiddo," Stella said, joining her on the couch and hugging her. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm exhausted. It's a good exhausted, but I'm pretty sure that the bags underneath my eyes are big enough for a family of twelve to take on vacation."

"Don't you sleep when he sleeps?" Austin asked, lowering herself onto the other end of the couch and propping her feet up on the coffee table. She was only four months along herself, but the baby had had a growth spurt recently, and she was still having trouble balancing sometimes.

"If I didn't still have insomnia, I would sleep when he sleeps. I'm getting about four hours at night, which is more than I have gotten at various points in my life. I'll survive."

"I couldn't do it," Stella said, shaking her head. "I can go on very little sleep, but what sleep I do get had better not be interrupted."

"That's what I said," Lindsay shrugged.

"But a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do," Austin offered, as Adam came back into the room, cradling a freshly diapered baby.

"Alright, who wants Captain Hiccup first?"

"I think Stella should. Coming over uninvited was her idea after all," Austin reasoned with a grin. She had actually been allowed into the NICU for a few minutes one afternoon, but figured that no one else needed to know that she had been the first to see the baby.

"Linds, you're in trouble. He looks just like Adam," Stella noted.

"I'm hoping that looks aren't an indicator of behavior."

"I love you too, dear," Adam said with a roll of his eyes before he went back into the other room.

"Is it wrong and very unmommy-like of me to ask what's going on at work?"

"You really want to know that?" Stella asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well… yeah. I mean, I would rather be home with him than at work, but I do kind of feel left out."

"Flack has a black eye," Austin said, her voice far more cheerful than it should have been.

"How did that happen?"

"He underestimated a girl," she answered with a sneer.

"You?"

"No. A woman after my own heart. A crack dealer, but still, he had it coming."

"Please expand."

"Well, Danny and Flack went to arrest this suspect that Flack had been trying to build a case against for a couple months. And you know how jazzed he gets when he's about to make an arrest so he was a little overzealous in his takedown, and wasn't counting on the fact that girlfriend's a scrappy fighter and used to fending off all sorts of people. So instead of an easy collar, Flack walked away with a black eye and his unused cuffs, while Danny had to catch the woman, who by the way weighs about a hundred pounds dripping wet. And there Flack stands with a bloody nose, a black eye and a seriously deflated ego."

"I would have paid so much money to see that," Lindsay chuckled.

"I was in a squad car half a block away and I still saw enough to fill the mental image bank for the next forty years."

"Please tell me that the much lauded Jessica Angell was also there and found great hilarity in the situation which only added to the awkward hurdles Flack will have to overcome in his pursuit of her."

"Happy freakin' birthday Linds because that is exactly what happened."

"You guys get way too much joy out of other people's pain," Stella said with a smirk.

"Not everyones. Just Flacks."

"Thanks for the clarification."

"If he wasn't so cocky all the time, it wouldn't be so funny."

"If Austin hadn'ta dated him, it wouldn't be so funny."

"Lindsay Ross, shut your dirty rotten mouth."

Lindsay just giggled and shook her head. It didn't take much to get a rise out of Austin, but she had yet to make her truly mad.

"Are you guys staying for dinner?" Adam asked, poking his head out of the kitchen.

"Depends. What are you burning?"

"Austin, you're a pain."

"I'm memorable."

"If you must know, it's my night to cook, which means pizza. If you're staying I need to order more."

"And breadsticks!"

"And Buffalo Wings!"

"I never should have asked," he muttered with a smile before going back into the kitchen.

"You can actually get him to cook?" Austin asked, the shock in her voice very obvious.

"Yeah. He likes to cook, but when his night to cook falls on a night that he's worked, he usually just orders out. Which is great for me because that means leftovers the next night."

"I never would have guessed that you two had that much structure in your routine."

"Oh please. Compared to you and Danny we're completely schoolteacher's girdle."

"Whoa. I think I know what that means, but I am totally stuck on the mental image here."

"I'm memorable too."

Night fell quietly over the apartment, darkening it because they hadn't bothered to turn on very many lights. Colton was bundled up and settled in his cradle, at least for the next few hours. Adam sat up in bed, reading the latest issue of a gaming magazine and squeezing a stress ball in one hand. It wasn't that he was stressed as much as he had found the ball in his sock drawer earlier that morning. Lindsay was finishing the dishes in the kitchen and when he heard the light flick off, he knew she was coming to bed. She walked in the door and he grinned.

"What's that?"

She smirked and handed him a glass of milk, letting the bag of cookies drop onto the bed from where she held it between her teeth.

"I felt like breaking the rules," she answered, slipping into bed next to him.

"Why do we have forks?"

"Because," she started, picking up an Oreo and stabbing the tines of the fork through the double stuffed filling. "Now no mushed cookie in the bottom of your milk."

"You're awesome," he chuckled, grabbing his own cookie and trying out her invention.

"So, what do you think?"

"I think you're very smart."

"Well, I kinda stole the idea, but you can keep thinking I'm smart if you want to."

"Okay."

She smiled and rested her head against his shoulder.

"Know what?"

"No, what?"

"You're nice."

"Oh am I?" he asked, amused.

"Yeah. You disappeared and let a girls night commence. I needed it."

"I thought you might," he said around the cookie in his mouth.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," he said, leaning down to kiss her.

"Hmm, cookie kiss."

"Good or bad?"

"Not bad. But it is a cookie after all."

"And here I was thinking it was me."

"Foolish man."

He smiled.

"It's snowing outside," she commented.

"Really? That wasn't in the forecast."

"It never is."

"You wanna go play in it, don't you?"

"The urge is there, but it's too cold."

He nodded and set his empty glass on the side table, then wrapped his arm around her.

"Honey?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," she answered, gracing him with a bright smile. He tucked her hair behind her ear, his face turning serious.

"Are you sure?"

She sighed, closing her eyes for a second before answering.

"I'm supposed to be," she whispered, her voice breaking a little. "Everything is just right. And I'm happy. But for some reason… I don't know. Maybe it's hormones or maybe it's I don't know, the baby blues? Maybe I just get overwhelmed or scared or something."

She took a deep breath, fighting tears of guilt and squeezing her eyes shut.

"Sometimes I guess I… wish that we had waited a little longer. It's not that I don't want Colton here and it's not that I don't love him, but… am I horrible?"

"No."

She took a deep breath and tried to wipe away the tears that were falling, but they were coming a little too fast.

"It was easier before," she confessed. "When it was just you and me, I never wondered if you were happy. I know what you need and you know what I need and it works. That doesn't mean that it's effortless, but now he's here and I'm constantly worried that I'm going to do something wrong. Worried that he's going to hate me. Worried that I worry too much. Worried that all the feelings are going to keep building up and I'm going to end up with post-partum depression and that terrifies me more than I can even say. And I wanted to tell you all this and I tried so many times, and I just couldn't get it out and admitting it is making it real. And then I started having flashbacks to the times when I've had to deal with depression before and I didn't want you to see that. And I knew it was wrong to keep it from you, but I didn't want to scare you and I didn't want you to stop trusting me with him and I just didn't know what to do."

She fell into his arms and let the tears fall uninhibited while he kept his arms around her and let his heart break just as hers did.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't do it."

"Yes you can. You are doing it. Honey, look at me."

She lifted her head and he framed her face with his hands, wiping her tears away.

"I can't tell you that I know how you feel, because I don't. I do know how scared you are though, because I'm scared too. And with everything else, I don't know how you're doing this. It's not just a little thing. It's not something that we can fix ourselves."

"I know. But the thought of going to a therapist and getting on medication again… it kills me. It doesn't make me any better. It just makes me feel less. Happy or sad, I just don't feel it. I don't want to be that empty person again."

Another sob rose in her throat and she rubbed at her eyes, trying to calm herself.

"I'm so sorry, Adam. This isn't fair to you."

"What isn't?"

"You fell in love with a broken person."

He was shocked into silence and could only sit there as the tears took her over once again. He wanted to reassure her, but the words seemed to form apart from each other, just snippets of phrases that he couldn't grab. He knew he had to say something or she might think he was agreeing, or accepting an apology for something that wasn't her fault.

"Lindsay."

"Y-yeah?"

"You are not broken."

"I am."

"No. You might have some scratches and dents and dings, but you are not broken. Do you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Then believe me."

"I'm a bad mother."

"Don't you ever say that again. Ever."

The intensity in his voice would have scared her if not for the compassion she found in his eyes.

"A bad mother is one who feels these things and ignores them. A bad mother doesn't worry about being a bad mother. You are not a bad mother and you never will be. I know that failure seems so close, and I know you're scared of it, but it's not going to happen to you. It's just not."

"I'm glad you believe in me because I don't."

"You will."

"Are you mad at me?"

"No. Baby, I'm worried about you, but I'm not mad. I'm glad that you told me. Will you do me a favor?"

"Anything."

"Keep telling me."

She sniffled and nodded.

"It feels better. It's not fixed, but it feels a lot better."

They held each other for a long time, breathing together as if that would calm the mind as much as it calmed the body.

"Honey, I don't want you to hesitate to tell me anything anymore, okay?"

"Okay."

"That said, is there anything else?"

"Just one thing."

"What's that?"

"I love you."

"I love you too."

They had a short staring contest which ended when a grin cracked across her face. He smiled too and brushed her hair back from her face before kissing her forehead.

"Thank you, Adam."

"You're welcome. Do you want me to get up with him tonight?"

"No, I will. I need to."

He nodded his understanding, then reached over her to turn the lamp off. They had a long road ahead of them, and there were going to be bumps in it, but he was sure that if he just kept holding on, they would make it.