Ty didn’t necessarily find it easy to settle back into life at home. Everything was different now, and while Emily was very much a wanted child, he couldn’t help but feel that everything was somehow screwed up. In the hospital, there had been nurses around that he could call on if something went wrong. If he needed a new bottle for Emily, he could just press the button and call someone. If she got the hiccups and they lasted for twenty minutes, or thirty minutes, or an hour, he could call the nurse and she would just tell him not to worry.

At home, he didn’t have that luxury. At home, it was just Ty, Carter, and three cats. Keegan offered to come by and help out, but Keegan wasn’t someone Carter would generally allow around children or anyone else with a sensitive constitution. Carter’s parents wanted to come up to New York and help out, but Ty hadn’t even met them yet. He didn’t want their first encounter to involve Ty flailing around like a chicken with its head cut off and being incredibly incompetent with their grandchild.

It did occur to Ty, once late at night when Emily wouldn’t stop crying, that he could call Beau. Then he pushed that thought firmly out of his mind. Beau hadn’t even helped when Ty had been as small as Emily. He’d made the nanny deal with it.

Together, he and Carter hunkered down and muddled through. Slowly, they figured things out. It wasn’t as if they were stupid. They could do research on the Internet. They could call informational hotlines. Carter could call his coach, who had a bunch of children of his own. Ty could call Ruiz’ wife Yolanda, who not only had kids but was still in New York.

Yolanda came over to the house. She brought her kids. She also brought a bunch of food. Apparently she’d been prepared for this, because she’d made the food ahead of time so they didn’t have to rely on takeout. “I know you’re probably used to takeout,” she told him, “but your body will thank you. Trust me.”

Yolanda helped them find a nanny, too. None of Ty’s contacts otherwise would have thought to look in the Dominican community for a nanny, but Yolanda helped to find a nanny that made both Carter and Ty feel perfectly at home and comfortable right away. Isabella was older, in her fifties, and she came with impeccable references. She spoke English just fine, but Ty didn’t mind if she spoke to Emily in Spanish. It was best for babies’ neurological development to hear multiple languages.

Emily had been born between Christmas and New Year. By the time February rolled around, Ty was feeling more like a human again. His incisions were healed, and he’d passed his first checkup with flying colors. Isabella was already on duty, even with both fathers home, and everyone agreed that was best. They needed her maternal touch.

Carter would be going back to Spring Training soon. Ty knew he was being selfish when he said he didn’t want Carter to go, but it was the truth. He wanted Carter at home with him, to cuddle and to play with Emily. There would be time enough for that to happen. Carter didn’t technically need the money anymore, since their agreement ensured he’d be well taken care of even if Ty ran off with their entirely fictitious pool boy. His ego had taken a blow when the extent of the financial scam had become known, though, and he needed to recoup his money.

Besides, Carter loved baseball. Ty might want his husband by his side, but he would never try to keep him away from something he loved. When Valentine’s Day rolled around, Ty left Emily alone with Isabella for the first time. He went out to dinner with Carter, and they came home and made love for the first time since Emily had been born.

The next day, Carter left for Florida. Ty pouted for a little while. Then he called Keegan and asked him to take care of the cats again.

He, Isabella, and Emily headed down to Florida at the end of February. It wasn’t a pleasant flight. Emily didn’t care for the pressure changes, but out of all of the children on the flight she was the best behaved. Ty considered kissing the ground when he landed, but decided it would be undignified. He got into the car he’d pre-arranged for, helped get Emily and Isabella settled, and the three of them headed off toward the hotel.

Going to the hotel was a risk. Ty trusted Carter. Rather, he accepted there was a given likelihood that Carter might cheat, and he accepted that as a done deal. He knew he didn’t have much to offer, especially not with the baby weight that still lingered and the big bags that hung around under his eyes from lack of sleep. Carter said he was faithful, and Ty believed him, he just accepted that it wasn’t necessarily likely. He wouldn’t blame Carter if he did stray, especially at Spring Training when he was in an exclusively spouse-free environment.

The hotel Ty had picked was probably a little too indulgent. It was top of the line, a luxury facility that Ty knew Carter would scoff at under normal circumstances. But he wanted to surround himself with familiar things, just in case. It wasn’t like they couldn’t afford it.

He met Yolanda in the WAGs section the next afternoon at the Spring Training game. It was a split squad game versus Boston, but it was at home with most of their real players. The game was televised too, although due to scheduling weirdness it was being shown at five o’clock eastern even though it was being played at one. Ty didn’t care. All he cared about was the man at second base.

Yolanda elbowed him. “You should bring Tracy in on this. He’ll send your man up, once he’s done playing for the day.”

Ty blushed and ducked his head. “Not me. Tracy doesn’t like me at all.”

Isabella scowled at that. She demanded Ty’s phone, and Ty handed it over without thinking about it. She sent a few texts, and a few moments later Isabella was handing the phone back. “Tracy will be sending your husband back to you,” she promised. “Sixth inning, look for him.”

Emily giggled. She’d become so much livelier over the past few weeks. Sometime around week six she’d learned to smile, and that had made a huge difference in everyone’s life. All she did was smile and giggle now, and all anyone else did was try to pull a smile and giggle out of her. Sometimes Ty hoped no one had a video camera. The rest of the time he hoped they did.

Tracy pulled Carter in the fifth. When the sixth inning started, Carter showed up in the stands. He wore street clothes, khakis and a team polo shirt, and he beamed over at Ty. “I can’t believe you flew all the way down here.”

“I had the time off. That’s not going to happen again.” Ty ducked his head and blushed. “I didn’t want to miss any more opportunities, not with you. You’re the love of my life and I’m proud of you. I want to support you.”

Carter grinned. “Okay, but Florida? Babies on a plane? Florida?”

Ty wasn’t given to public displays of affection, but now he pulled Carter in for a deep kiss. “Babies on a plane, Florida, a public baseball stadium, I don’t care. I honestly just want to show the world how proud I am that you’re my husband.”

Carter kissed him then. Ty would never have realized there was a camera on them until the whole stadium started chanting for them to kiss.

“Maybe we could go to the hotel?” Carter chuckled.

“That might be a good idea.”

Oddly enough, Tracy didn’t raise hell about them going back to the hotel. Ty knew that Carter was supposed to go to the dorm, and he asked about it. He didn’t want to jam Carter up. Carter just shook his head and laughed. “Tracy thinks you’re hiding under his bed waiting to sue him for breathing wrong. He’s not going to make a fuss about where I sleep.”

Ty wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He shuddered and let Isabella take Emily for the night, and he let his husband pound him into the mattress. It felt incredible. Carter had been solicitous. He’d been a little too solicitous, if Ty was being honest. He’d seemed like he thought Ty’s pregnancy somehow turned his bones to the finest porcelain, when that hadn’t been the case at all.

Ty would never have that issue again. The thought gave him a pang. He tried not to think about that as Carter drove into him, again and again. It was okay to love and to be loved. He didn’t exist entirely to have babies. He had one, who was perfect, and now he could look at the rest of his life as a bonus.

He spent the weekend in Florida, and then he went back to New York. He would have spent the rest of his paternity leave there, but he missed the cats. Besides, he didn’t want to pull Cater away from his team. Spring Training was about more than just mechanically preparing for the season. It was about team building, and Carter couldn’t do that right if he was frolicking in a nice hotel with Ty the whole time.

Back in New York, he figured out pretty quickly that his enemies had been busy while he’d been away. Seb had shown up a day after he left for Florida. Keegan had dealt with him, in his usual flamboyant and messy fashion. That didn’t change the fact that Seb had been able to get out of prison to try to pester him while he knew Carter was away. Keegan didn’t say if their parents were involved, and after a moments’ resentment Ty decided that it didn’t matter.

Their parents had enabled Sebastian. The fact that he was there at all tied back to their parents. It was enough.

He sighed and reached out to the police, who started a manhunt. Sebastian had previously made bail, again thanks to Ty’s parents, but now no one knew how to find him. Ty needed to address this once and for all. He filed a suit against the state department, to finally remove this nuisance man from his life. Sebastian should have been extradited a long time ago, and it was well past time for him to leave.

Ty’s suit didn’t get the job done. But it did get Seb taken into custody, and the judge finally refused him bail. It was a sad ending for a guy who had once shown so much promise, but then again he’d had plenty of opportunities to not end up where he did. For one thing, he could have not killed his husband.

Once Seb was safely locked up without the possibility of getting out, Ty knew he was safe. He could relax. Seb couldn’t get to him. The season started, and Ty could cheer from the stands with Emily, knowing everything would finally be all right.

* * *

Carter had learned a lot in the past year. He’d learned a lot about himself. He’d learned a lot about families. He’d learned a lot about pregnancy, and about childbirth. He’d learned a lot about love, about falling in love, and about how happy he could be when his expectations were low.

This year, he learned a lot about the legal system. The first thing he learned was that the legal system was slow. He’d been spoiled when Ty got the sports website to retract their story about him so quickly. Apparently if people didn’t cave to the mere threat of being sued, cases could drag on forever.

That meant Ty’s parents were free to enjoy their palace on the Upper West Side as much as they chose, even though they’d burst in on Carter in the hospital and tried to take Emily from him. They told their side of the story to anyone who would listen, and since Carter was a celebrity in the sports world plenty of people were willing to hear them out. And Carter couldn’t respond, since there was pending litigation and a pending criminal case against them.

It frustrated and infuriated him. He tried to take it out on the baseballs that came his way. Last year he’d been MVP. This year the talk of sports media was his home run count. A few outlets whispered about performance enhancing drugs, and that gave him an outlet. “That’s cute,” he said when the subject came up. “The only performance enhancer I’ve got is my anger. My husband and I have gone through a lot in the past year or so. His parents are saying a lot of things about us, and about me, and we can’t respond. I’m trying to channel my anger into something productive and positive. I do get tested on the regular, because PEDs are a concern and baseball has had such a problem with them in the past. Seriously, though, it’s just me trying to take something bad and make something good out of it.”

Carter was still angry about Tracy’s abandonment during his meeting with ownership, but they put their relationship back together one step at a time. They’d been through a lot together, and Carter couldn’t make himself forget that. Besides, Tracy did have a job to do. He worked for ownership, not for Carter, and he’d told the truth when asked.

The first case to come to court was the criminal case against Sebastian, Ed, and Beau. It popped up on the docket in June, and Carter had to take time away from the team to testify. The media made something of a circus around the courthouse because of it, which only made Carter’s mood worse. Still, he plastered a big smile onto his face and forced himself to be civil for the media. You never knew who was watching.

He had no idea how the defense would cross examine him. What was there really to say? Much to his surprise, they lied outright. Their attorney, a guy named Johnston, approached the stand. “Isn’t it true that you invited them to the hospital room?”

“No, it is not.” Carter did a double take. Had he just stepped into the twilight zone? “Ty didn’t want any visitors after the birth, and certainly not those particular people.”

“But you hadn’t wanted children in the first place, had you?”

Now Carter understood. “I hadn’t wanted children before my marriage. I was willing to have children because Ty wanted them, and then after Ty got pregnant I got more excited about our child.” He smirked, because he knew what the lawyer was trying to imply, but he didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t want the jury to get ideas from such an absurd accusation.

“So you didn’t invite them into the room to give them the child in the hopes of ridding yourself of an encumbrance you didn’t want?”

Carter rolled his eyes. “No, no I did not. Given that my agent had already announced the birth, that would have been a self-defeating move, don’t you think?”

Johnston scowled. “But you called them to the room.”

“I did not.”

“They say you did.”

“Phone records say I did not.”

“Why would they lie, Mr. Bowman?”

“I don’t pretend I can see into the minds of people like your clients, Mr. Johnston. I love my family and I do my job. Maybe you should call a psychiatrist to the stand?”

The jury snickered. Johnston flounced back to his table and declared there to be no further questions.

Carter was allowed to rejoin his team on the road now that his testimony was complete, but Ty kept him updated as the trial wore on. “I kind of feel sorry for Johnston. He’s an ass, but he was also handed a case he couldn’t win.”

“He should have told them to plead guilty then.” Carter shrugged. He couldn’t feel bad for a jerk like that.

In the end, all three defendants were found guilty. “Super guilty, your honor,” were the foreman’s exact words. The Cunninghams, who had never been in trouble before, were sentenced to house arrest. Since this meant they had to stay in their home with each other, Carter figured this was a pretty serious sentence.

Sebastian’s sentence was for two to five years, but it was not to be served yet. “Mr. Britton, you’re facing some serious charges in the United Kingdom. The court rules that you will begin serving your sentence for the attempted kidnapping after you’ve finished your trial there, and after you’ve served any sentence should you be found guilty.”

That was not something Sebastian wanted to hear, and Ty told Carter he made a pretty big spectacle of himself when he tried to charge the bench. “Is it wrong to admit I kind of liked watching him get tased by the bailiffs?” he asked.

The next case to come before the court was the civil suit, and here was where it got interesting. The judge did find that all three defendants had engaged in a series of actions designed to harass Carter and Ty, as well as to attempt to besmirch Carter’s reputation with a view toward interfering not only with his marriage but with his career and livelihood. That wasn’t exactly rocket science.

He awarded Ty and Carter a hefty sum, more than they’d asked for on the grounds that their behavior clearly constituted malice and the damages needed to be sufficiently punitive that the defendants wouldn’t blow them off. However, Sebastian Britton proved to be unable to pay.

He’d been living not in his own place, but with Ed and Beau. His own assets had been tied up in the investigation into his husband’s murder. The bank hadn’t promoted him and returned him to the States, they’d fired him when suspicion fell on him for the murder. Sebastian was broke.

The night after the award was handed down, an older couple showed up at Ty and Carter’s place. Carter didn’t recognize them, but Ty introduced them as Sebastian’s parents. The Brittons were pale and drawn, and they greeted Carter with a grace and kindness the Cunninghams never showed.

Sebastian’s mother cleared her throat. “I have to apologize, to both of you. I had no idea that Sebastian was capable of any of this. I knew we’d spoiled him, but I think this goes beyond spoiling.”

Ty bowed his head and took her hand. “I think he’d have turned out this way no matter what. I can’t say for sure if he did kill Niall, I haven’t seen the evidence. But I think he does have his issues, and they’re not issues that can be helped.”

Mr. Britton nodded somberly. “We knew he was back in the States. He asked us to buy him an apartment. We said no, obviously. He had been violent, and we weren’t comfortable encouraging him. I think he was desperate.”

“Your parents always did have a soft spot for him.” Mrs. Britton grimaced.

Ty huffed out a little laugh. “He was always their ideal alpha son. Everything Keegan wasn’t, I guess.”

“What I want to know is how he got Ed and Beau to go along with all of the crazy things he was doing.” Mr. Britton massaged his own temples. “I’m sorry. I know he’s not your responsibility and it’s not on you to figure it all out. He’s put you both through enough.”

Carter smiled gently. “It’s natural to want to know. He’s your son, even after everything.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know the Cunninghams well. But they definitely have certain, ah, ideas about society.”

“They’re dreadful snobs,” Mrs. Britton agreed.

“Right?” Carter laughed. “And we’ve seen that Sebastian can be extremely charismatic when he wants to be.”

“That’s the truth.” Ty looked away. “I fell for it for years.” He picked his head back up when Carter wrapped his arm around him. “Ed and Beau already adored him. It would have been pretty easy for him to manipulate them, especially if they were living with him full time.”

“So you think they were brainwashed.” Carter pulled Ty in a little closer.

“I can’t think of another explanation, can you?” Ty rested his head on Carter’s shoulder and looked over at the Brittons. “I’m sorry. I know this has to be hard to hear.”

Mr. Britton took a deep breath. “Not as hard as it must have been for you both to live through. So he was going after Tyler for his money.”

“Absolutely.” Ty smirked then. “He’d have been desperate. And Ed and Beau would have known, and they let it happen anyway.”

“That’s dreadful.” Mrs. Britton covered her mouth with her hand.

“It is. But again, they were brainwashed, and we weren’t all that close to begin with. I’m very lucky now. I’ve got a husband who loves me, and a gorgeous daughter.” Ty smiled.

Carter took pity on the Brittons then. “Do you want to stay for dinner? It’s nothing fancy, but Ty only knows how to cook for a crowd and it seems like we could all use a little company right now.”

The Brittons did stay for dinner. And they had Ty and Carter over the next time Carter had an off day. Carter felt good about pursuing the connection. The Brittons were good people, and they were grieving. They could all support each other during this process.

Carter’s parents finally came to New York after the team’s postseason run ended. It had taken a while for them to finally come and meet Ty, but farming was hard work and demanded a lot of time. Ty didn’t seem to mind. He was a bundle of nerves before they arrived, but Carter’s mom put that to rest almost as soon as she set foot in the apartment. She hugged Ty, picked up Emily, and declared that she was just “pleased as punch” to finally see this part of her family with her own two eyes. She and Ty were chatting like old friends before dinner.

Sebastian ran out of appeals to his extradition by Christmas. His trial back in London turned out to be quick. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to thirty years’ imprisonment. Carter wanted to throw a party, because they were finally safe, but instead he just bought a nice bottle of champagne and a cute stuffed koala for Emily.

Sebastian had tried to destroy their family, for money. The best way to celebrate his defeat would be to enjoy some family time. He opened up the bottle of bubbly with Ty and Keegan and they watched Emily playing with her new toy.

Maybe there had been some drama, but the contract Carter had signed with Ty had been the best contract he’d signed in his life.