Shepard sat on the couch with Emma bouncing on his lap, her chubby cheeks pushed up into the biggest of smiles, her one lone tooth breaking through and leading the way for the rest. She was currently being endlessly entertained by Shepard, who found out he had a knack for making funny faces. He had a few he just kept on rotation and was switching between those; his lips twisting and eyebrows scrunching and forehead wrinkling, all with his eyes crossing.

“Be careful,” Nick said, sitting down next to Shepard, setting two glasses of ice cold water down on stone coasters, “Your face could get stuck like that.”

“No joke,” Shepard said, “I was actually scared of that as a kid. That and swallowing a watermelon seed. Have you ever seen that Rugrats episode?!”

Nick laughed, the sound filling his living room. The window was open so the sound of birds mixed with the city drifted in, along with a cool breeze. “I think I know which one you’re talking about. Where Chuckie swallowed the watermelon seed and so the babies shrunk themselves to get it out.”

“Yeah, and then Angelica starts watering the seed, making it explode inside Chukie.”

“…That’s messed up. And that was a kid’s show?”

They both started cracking up. “I wonder if that’s what inspired me to go to medical school, now that I think about it,” Nick said, catching his breath.

“I grew out of the goofy-face paralysis, but I’m still a little suspicious around watermelons if I’m being honest.” Shepard twisted his face again and looked to Emma. “Don’t you agree? Yes, you do, don’t you?” He looked to Nick, “She said she does.”

“Oh, you speak baby now?”

“Quite fluently, yes. Have anything you want me to tell her?”

“That I love her very much.”

Shepard turned to Emma, whose big eyes were fixated on Shepard’s face. “Googagoo, googity-goo. Love, uh, goo, ga. Ok? Ok.” Shepard broke into a laugh, matching Nick’s. Emma was equally entertained, although who knew exactly why. She was adorable in a light blue onesie with a cartoon stethoscope stitched on the front. Shepard had bought her the onesie a couple of days ago. He had seen it online and knew he needed to buy it.

Emma mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “daddy”. She looked to Nick and burst into another fit of giggles. It filled Shepard with a joy he didn’t think possible. The sound was so innocent, so pure.

“Did you ever think about having kids?” Nick asked. The question didn’t catch Shepard off guard. He had been thinking about it, and knew it was something that should be discussed.

“Definitely,” Shepard answered without a moment’s hesitation. “I’ve always seen myself with kids down the line. I was never sure at what point they’d come, but I knew it was something I really wanted.”

Nick looked happy at that. He was about to respond when his cell started going off. The ringtone wasn’t like his regular ringtone. This one sounded like a damn tornado alarm. It made Shepard jump a little bit, startling Emma, who was looking around the room for the source of the abrasive sound.

“Shit, sorry.” Nick jumped up from the couch and grabbed his phone off the table. “It’s the hospital.” Nick answered the call and walked a few feet away. Shepard turned back to Emma, trying to calm her down. She still looked a little spooked but didn’t cry, which Shepard was thankful for.

Nick finished the call and hurried to his room, calling behind his shoulder, “There was a bus crash and they’re low on hands in the OR.” Less than a minute later, Nick was back in the living room, wearing his scrubs and holding his white coat. “Do you mind watching her for the next few hours?”

“Absolutely not,” Shepard said.

“Ok, great. You know where all her things are. I should hopefully be back before midnight.” Nick leaned down and kissed the top of Emma’s head. From there, he moved for a quick kiss from Shepard and turned to run out the door.

“Well,” Shepard said, looking down at a still-smiling Emma, “looks like it’s just you and me, girl.”

* * *

An hour was all it took for Shepard to experience some more of the joys and terrors of having a baby around. He was having the time of his life, but he was also quite nervous he would do something to inadvertently trigger a temper tantrum that he wouldn’t know how to control. Sure, he knew how to deliver a baby into the world, but that didn’t mean he knew how to babysit one. Thankfully, Emma was incredibly well behaved and was largely entertained by just lying in her crib and staring up at a goofy Shepard, who had made so many different faces at her, he was sure starting to wonder if it was possible to get his face stuck. She was seemingly living for every second of it. By the time she looked like she was growing bored of the faces (thankfully around the time Shepard’s face started cramping), he brought out the different toys. She couldn’t walk yet, but she could crawl, and she loved crawling for her big, soft teddy bear. He pretended to give it a voice and danced it around her crib, making her laugh to no end. It was the most innocent sound in the world and Shepard felt himself loving her more than he thought he could. It was a type of affection he wasn’t necessarily expecting to feel toward Emma. He was sure he wanted a family, but he wasn’t sure about the timeline, and kids had previously freaked him out a little. But things were changing faster than Emma could fill up a diaper (and, as Shepard found out earlier, that was very fast).

It was like a baptism by fire. All he had to do was spend a good amount of quality time with a baby to realize he knew exactly how to handle them. Beyond that, there was a magic to Emma. He couldn’t stop himself from leaning into the crib and giving her a kiss on the top of her head. She smelled like lilac and baby powder. She giggled the second she felt the kiss and then continued crawling to the opposite end of the crib where her teddy bear was sitting, arms open for her. She reached him and grabbed a leg. She fell forward, laughing the entire way as she stuffed her face in the bear’s belly. Shepard helped her get back up. She went back at it again and again.

A few hours later and Emma had fallen asleep and Shepard was hanging out in the living room. He was scrolling through Twitter while lying down on the couch when the doorbell rang. Shepard jumped up, not expecting the sudden noise. Emma was a heavy sleeper and seemed to have the ability to sleep through a nuclear attack, so the doorbell didn’t wake her. He pocketed his phone and walked toward the door. Maybe Nick had forgotten his house key when he left, or it could have been a package that needed a signature. He looked through the peephole and saw a man staring back, his balding head of thin brown hair lifting slightly in the breeze. He looked down at his watch and went to press the doorbell again. Shepard hurriedly opened the door, not wanting to press his luck with Emma’s superpower to sleep through noise.

“Oh, hi,” the man said, clearly expecting someone else to open the door. “Is Nick here?”

Shepard frowned and shook his head. “No, sorry, he had an emergency he had to get to at the hospital. Is there a message you wanted to give him? Something you needed to pick up?”

“Sort of,” the man said. He was a big guy, with a thinning head of light brown hair. “Is Emma in there?”

Shepard’s brows drew together. The man must have sensed his hesitation and realized he was a total stranger to Shepard. “My name is Chris. I’m Emma’s uncle.”

Shepard nodded then. Now things made a little more sense. “I’m Shepard,” he said, reaching a hand out to shake. Chris looked at his hand and back up at his face, smiling weakly in place of a handshake. Shepard took his hand back, figuring he was a germaphobe and maybe preferred to stay away from physical contact. “I’m taking care of Emma until Nick gets back.”

“How does he know you?”

“We’re, uhm, well, from the hospital. I’m a doctor there.” Shepard was stumbling. He wasn’t sure if Nick had come out to Chris and he definitely didn’t want to out Nick to anyone he hadn’t spoken to. Especially since things hadn’t gone well with his father, the last thing he wanted was to trigger another family fight.

But it was obvious. So damn obvious. Shepard, as always, had an aversion to lying. His body just couldn’t pull it off. He could feel his cheeks getting pink, which only made them turn a shade darker, as if the joke was to see how red he could get. Chris wasn’t dumb, either. He could see right through Shepard. Chris already seemed suspicious of him from the second he opened the door, but now it was like he had some sort of confirmation. He crossed his arms against his chest. His posture was straight and stern. His face looked like someone who had just walked past an overflowing trashcan, the scent too offensive to hide the disgust.

“End things with Nick.”

“Excuse me?”

“What you two are doing is wrong. You’re brazenly raising that poor child in pure sin. Consequences are obvious, don’t make them worse for that little girl. Leave. Let me take care of her until Nick gets back. If you stay, things will only get worse.”

Shepard was in awe of what he was hearing. A silver cross hung around Chris’s neck, catching the white porch light shining down from the corner. “I think you should go now,” Shepard said. “You can talk to Nick when he gets back, but I really don’t feel comfortable with you threatening me right now.” He had to call it out for what it was. Maybe he could get Chris to back off. He didn’t want anything escalating, especially not with Emma sleeping a few rooms away.

“Fine,” Chris said, chin up in the air. “I came here to make things easier. Anna would have come but she had another migraine.”

“Make things easier?” Shepard crossed his arms. “Why would Anna need to be here? Today’s Nick’s day to have Emma.”

Chris looked like he was about to speak but stopped himself at the last second. He brought a hand up to his chest and rubbed the cross. “Have a nice day,” Chris said. He turned and walked back to his car, leaving behind a bewildered Shepard.