The next morning, dawn poured sun through their window, flooding the room. The first thing Will remembered when he woke up wasn’t the storm from the night before, and it certainly wasn’t that Logan had left to go to the bar and gotten into a fist fight. Instead, the first thing that entered his mind was the beach, and their plans to play there. When the sun came back, Logan had said.

“The sun is here,” Will said to Logan, nudging at him playfully. “We get to have a picnic!”

Logan groaned. It was pretty early, even for the captain.

“C’mon, wake up. The sun is here!”

Logan nodded. “I know, I know. We’ll go,” he assured Will, but then he wrapped his strong arms around Will and cuddled him stubbornly, holding him against his chest.

“Logan!” Will protested, squirming.

“Shhh,” Logan whispered. “Just ten minutes. It’s quiet.”

It really was quiet. That was strange. Usually, the baby would have already woken them up.

“Lisa,” he said softly, but Logan shook his head.

“She’s fine. Shhhh,” he whispered.

Will sighed softly and shut his eyes, cuddling up to Logan and enjoying the warmth of him, his strong, steady heartbeat. He listened to his breathing, trying to slow his into sync, and once he did, he felt very relaxed, content and happy.

“What should we have on our picnic?” Will whispered.

Logan smirked. “Depends. You vegetarian again?”

Will laughed. “Yes. I have been ever since I had her. You haven’t noticed?”

“Oh, I noticed,” Logan teased, “I just wondered if it would stick.”

Will shoved at his chest lightly, but he was laughing. He could remember shoving that enormous cheeseburger into his mouth, how hungry he’d been for it.

“We’ll see what happens next time.”

“Mmm,” Logan said, obviously in agreement with the idea of another baby. “Next time.”

Will smiled to himself. Some people would probably think he was crazy for wanting another child so soon, but he was so in love with his tiny family, he couldn’t help but want to grow it. Being pregnant again, this time on land instead of at sea, he thought that could be pretty fun. He wasn’t in heat, but they would see what happened.

“Okay, so… fruit. Maybe we should go down to the market, see what we can find?”

“That sounds good,” Logan said, “I wonder if Tracy will want to join us.”

Will nodded. “We can ask.”

There was safety in numbers, it seemed. He hoped no one would be dark-hearted enough to hurt their newborn, but if someone wanted to pick a fight with Logan, it was better that he have back up.

Logan kissed his head gently.

“Is there anything else we’ll need?” he asked.

Will thought about that, and then shrugged. “Maybe a bucket of sand toys. It could be fun to build a castle.”

Logan smirked. “I didn’t know you built sandcastles.”

Laughing, Will nodded. “I’m sure there’s a lot you still don’t know about me,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

“Mmm, maybe so,” Logan purred, and kissed Will’s lips. Will kissed him slowly for a long time, and then he finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“It’s been ten minutes! C’mon, let’s go find Tracy.”

He pulled himself out of bed and stretched his body. After a quick, frisky shower with his fiancé, he got dressed.

When he left his room, he became truly concerned. Lisa still hadn’t started to cry. Panic filling his heart, he went to look in the nursery, peering over the edge of his daughter’s crib. She wasn’t there. He fought to stay calm.

“Tracy?!” he called. His friend had probably just gotten the little girl up when she’d started to fuss.

He ran down the hall to Tracy’s room, thumping on the door.

“Tracy!”

No answer. He knocked again, as loud as he could, and still got no response.

As he opened her door, Logan came out of their room and peered down the hall.

“Will?” he asked.

Will didn’t answer, he was looking in Tracy’s room. She wasn’t there, either. The covers were thrown back. She had slept there, but the bed was empty.

He checked the upstairs bathroom, and then ran downstairs, and felt Logan following behind him.

“Tracy?” he called again, a lump in his throat. Why hadn’t she called up to them yet? Where was his daughter?

He wandered through the foyer, into the living room and through to the kitchen. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“I’ll call her,” Logan said.

Will nodded numbly. His eyes slid over a note pinned to their shiny new chrome refrigerator, a piece of white paper with blue writing on it, caught by a magnet against the metal surface. He stepped closer, lifting the purple ‘C’ magnet and tugging the note free.

Went for a walk with Lisa, back by lunch!

- Tracy

He sighed in relief, gripping the note tightly. He’d been so terrified.

“I can’t get an answer,” said Logan, stepping into the kitchen.

“It’s fine,” Will said. “She left a note. They’ll be back by lunch.”

Logan smiled with relief, as well.

“Oh, of course. All right. Then we have the morning to ourselves. How should we spend it?”

Will grinned at him playfully.

“I have a few ideas…”

* * *

At half past noon, Tracy still wasn’t back, nor had she called. Logan was worried. Sure, she’d left a note, and they’d probably just gone for a walk and were taking a while to get back home, but that was his daughter. He had a right to be concerned, he thought.

“Will, they’re not back,” he said to his lover. They were curled up on the couch flipping through a wedding magazine. Every now and then, Will would point out something he liked, but mostly they were just amusing themselves.

Will glanced up at the clock and sighed. “I know. Should we try to call again?”

Logan nodded. “I think I will,” he decided. “If they’re not back in the next ten minutes or so.”

Will shifted in his lap. “I do wish she would have asked before just taking our baby like that. Lisa is so young.”

“She was probably trying to help,” Logan pointed out. “I’m sure she can tell how overwhelmed we are.”

Will nodded, but silently, Logan found himself agreeing with his fiancé. He would have liked to have had a say in whether or not their baby went out with Tracy, and he might have to talk to her about it when they got back. All of this worry was driving him just a little bit crazy.

With another sigh, Will tossed the magazine onto the coffee table and rested his head back on Logan’s chest. Logan played with his soft, dark curly hair, looking down at his lovely face.

“You are unfairly beautiful, my love. You could be a model, if it wouldn’t be such a waste of your brain.”

Will had almost elfish features, a small, cute nose, sweet, kind lips, soft cheeks and large, heavily-lashed brown eyes. Logan could see the resemblance between Lisa and Will very clearly when he stared at him, upside down like that.

Will stuck out his tongue.

“You’re just in love with me. That’s all.”

Logan shook his head.

“No, no. Objectively, really, I mean it. You’re stunning.”

Will smirked.

“Well, objectively, you’re sexy as hell, but we already went once this morning, so stop flirting.”

Logan wasn’t sure that was possible, not when his beautiful mate was curled up in his lap. He couldn’t keep his hands or his words to himself.

He glanced back at the clock.

“It’s been ten minutes,” he sighed.

It was now 12:42. Still, no sign of Tracy and Lisa. He gently nudged Will out of his lap and reached for his phone, calling her again. It rang several times, and then went through to voicemail, no answer.

“Fuck,” he said, and tossed his phone down on top of the wedding magazine.

“Still no answer?” Will asked, and Logan hated having to give him the bad news.

“No. Am I crazy for being so worried about this?”

Will shook his head.

“I don’t know. I’m worried too. But if we leave to go looking for them, we could miss them when they come back here.”

Will had a point, but how long should they wait?

“We’ll leave our own note, asking her to call us as soon as she gets home.”

Will agreed, so Logan wrote a note, explaining that they were looking for them and to please call if she got home before they did.

“We’ll take the car, it’ll be faster,” he said, and Will was already pulling on his shoes, following him outside to their vehicle.

Shortly before the baby’s birth, Logan had traded in his truck for a practical six-seater, and Lisa’s car-seat was still strapped into the back. He took a deep breath. They were probably just still walking. Maybe they’d find Tracy on her way back toward the house, and this wouldn’t take very long at all.

He drove down their street first, but to no avail. Then they began to guess at where Tracy might want to walk. She’d taken Lisa in the stroller, so they would be able to spot the pair easily, he thought. The town wasn’t that huge.

They spent over an hour scouring the area, and Logan could feel Will getting increasingly panicked next to him. They didn’t get a single phone call from Tracy, nor could they find her.

“Maybe she’s in the park,” Will suggested. “We only drove around it. If they were deeper inside, we wouldn’t see them.”

Logan shook his head.“Why would she be in the park? It’s past two, lunchtime is well before two, Will.”

Logan tried to keep his voice patient. This wasn’t poor Will’s fault, even if Tracy was Will’s friend. They were both missing their daughter.

Will looked at him seriously.“I think we should look in the park,” he said. “I smell her.”

“You do?” Logan asked, surprised. The only scent he could pick up was Will’s, right next to him, but that at least was a real clue to their whereabouts.

Logan parked by the playground and got out, following Will, who had caught some sort of scent. Past the playground was a field for frisbee and ball, and behind there, a paved walking trail among trees and shrubs. Will took them down the path, toward the trees.

As they hit the trees, Logan caught the scent, too. Lisa most strongly, but perhaps Tracy, too.

“Tracy?!” Will called loudly. Only the birds chirping among the trees and a quiet breeze answered, so they kept walking.

There were a few ways that the trail bent off, but Logan refused to split away from Will, so they investigated each one together. Logan was about to suggest they give up, that she wasn’t there, but had probably only been through the park, when he saw something that made his heart drop through his ribcage, deep down into his stomach.

Lisa’s stroller, made of soft blue fabric and navy blue plastic, flipped into a newborn bassinet position, sat in the middle of the most western side path.

Will ran over to it, and Logan followed, hating that he knew already what they would find. The buggy was empty.

“She’s gone,” Will said, grabbing Logan and holding him tightly.

Logan squeezed Will, anger and fear filling him. He had his guesses about who could have done this. They just had to pray that Lisa was okay, wherever she was.

“We never should have waited,” said Will. “We should have come out to look for them as soon as we found the note, I knew something was wrong.”

Logan shook his head. “You didn’t know. We didn’t know. We’ll find her,” he promised.

He couldn’t really make that promise, they both knew that. Their sweet, precious little two-month-old baby could be lost forever, but that was a reality he couldn’t face yet. He just had to find her.

He pulled out his phone and called Tracy again. This time, he heard the ringing on both sides, through the phone, but also out loud, behind him. Will went searching through the bushes and found the phone, dropped there. He looked at it for a moment, and then held it out for Logan to see.

The screen was cracked, but it was unlocked. Open was a text to Will, with the letters ‘HE’ typed out already, but nothing else.

“Do you think she was trying to type ‘help’?” Logan asked softly. It didn’t seem like Tracy had much time to fight off whoever had taken them.

“Maybe, or maybe it was a man. You said that man attacked you at the bar. Is it possible he’d recognize Tracy and Lisa somehow?”

Logan shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so, but maybe… maybe it was a scent thing. Lisa smells like both of us.”

Will sighed, rubbing at his face.

“Fuck. We have to find them, Logan.”

Logan took a deep breath, trying to think through the panic that threatened to take over his mind. His daughter. His daughter was in danger, it was exactly what he’d always feared. His eyes scanned the area for some sort of clue as he struggled with himself.

“What do you think he’s going to do with her?” Will asked him.

Logan shook his head. “I don’t want to think about it. We have to figure out where they would go.”

“We could start by figuring out if that man lives in town, maybe ask around at the bar?”

Logan was still trying to think. It wasn’t that simple. This man had kidnapped Tracy and his daughter for a reason. Did he want Tracy, or was it the baby he was after? One of them was dead weight.

“Tracy left her phone. What else would she have had on her? Her wallet?”

Will nodded. “Keys, maybe,” he said. “I gave her a set to the house when she arrived, so she could come and go as she—”

“Shit,” Logan sighed. “The house.”

Will’s eyes grew wide, and Logan knew the other man understood what he was thinking. He did a quick search of the stroller, and found Tracy’s wallet, but not her keys, not anywhere. He and Will both searched the path, and the shrubbery on either side of it. Logan scraped his knee on the concrete as he bent low to look beneath a dense tawa bush. He gasped at the sting, but it healed quickly, leaving only a stain on his jeans.

It was no use. In his heart, he knew what must have happened.

“They’re not here. He took Tracy, and the baby, and the keys.”

He and Will looked at each other, and then they ran, all the way back to the car. They jumped in, then sped through town back toward their empty, vulnerable home.

* * *

When Will had thought he would die, in that icy water in the Bering Sea so many months ago, that had been the most terrifying moment of his life so far. Rushing through traffic, their baby scared and alone with some strange, angry man, that was much, much worse.

He would have happily been doggy paddling through fire instead of sitting in that stupid SUV, waiting for a red light to turn green.

“I should call the police,” he said suddenly, and Logan nodded next to him and reached out, gripping his hand. Will squeezed it tightly for comfort, and pulled out his phone to call the cops, but it buzzed to life in his hand, and then rang a happy, demented little tune.

The call was from their house phone. He immediately answered.

“Tracy?” he asked, his heart pounding. Had she really managed to get to a phone? Maybe she’d seen their note.

“Nope,” a male voice said, and then the man chuckled in Will’s ear, and he felt sick, his heart aching. “I found your note. Figured I’d give you a call. Your daughter is safe, for now.”

“Don’t you fucking touch her, I swear I’ll kill you,” Will growled into the phone, and then turned to Logan. “Drive faster. He’s there.”

“I was thinking about lighting a little fire,” the man said. “For old time’s sake.”

“Don’t,” Will said, but the man laughed at him. “Let me hear her, I want to hear that she’s alive,” Will pleaded. Next to him, Logan was distressed, driving as fast as he could through the town. They were almost there.

The man on the phone hung up without another word, and Will cried out.

“No!” he cried, and he almost threw his phone, but Logan reached a hand out and placed it on his arm, stopping him.

“We could need that. We’re here,” he said, speeding down their quiet beach road and screeching to a stop in front of it. They both went to run inside, and then Logan stopped Will.

“Call the cops before you come in,” he said quietly, and then rushed in the door.

The first thing he saw was Tracy, tied to a dining room chair and gagged, tears in her eyes. She was already halfway to getting an arm free, well on the way to saving herself.

He ran over to her, pulling the gag out of her mouth. He grabbed a knife and cut her loose.

“Where is he?”

“Upstairs,” she said, and she grabbed the heavy marble rolling pin off the counter, holding it defensively.

“You won’t need that,” Logan said, but he let her keep it as he walked up the stairs. “If you’ve hurt my baby, you’re dead,” he warned.

He heard his daughter’s cries from the nursery and walked in on the man holding his baby, cradling her and rocking her, with a gun to his daughter’s mouth as if it were a bottle.

“Take another step and she will die,” he promised.

Logan didn’t move. He just stared at Lisa, his heart aching.

“You’re fucking sick!” Tracy said, and it was true. A gun in a baby’s mouth? It was the most disturbing thing he’d ever seen. He had to get Lisa away from this man.

“Just…can you put her down in the crib, so we can talk?”

“We can talk like this. I’ll talk. Here are my conditions. You pay me two hundred grand, take your baby and your gay little wife, and leave. Forever. You don’t come back and you don’t ask questions.”

That obviously wasn’t going to work for Logan, but the man had a gun in his daughter’s mouth.

“I don’t have that kind of money here, I’d have to get it from the bank,” he said, treating the demand as if it came from a reasonable person, instead of a complete psycho.

“You and me and the baby will go to the bank,” he said.

Logan shrugged. “We could do that, but the cops would probably meet us there, don’t you think?”

The man’s eyes widened. “You called the cops? You’re fucking dead.”

He lifted the gun and pointed it at Logan’s head.

With a cry of rage, Tracy rushed in at the man and slammed that heavy stone rolling pin right over his head.

The man’s eyes bulged and he fell hard onto his face. Logan only had a few seconds to dive in and catch Lisa before the newborn hit the floor. Sighing in relief, he lay there with her in his arms, and tears filled his eyes. He held his sweet girl close, relief flooding through him. He’d been so close to losing her forever.

Tracy had grabbed the gun, tucked it in her waistband, and was dragging the unconscious man across the floor, doing her best to, anyway.

“We should get him tied up,” she said, and Logan had to admire her.

“You saved my life, I think” he admitted. She just gave him a smile.

“It’s about time I returned the favor, Captain.”

Just then, the door downstairs opened and in came Will, with the back up of several police officers. They rushed up the stairs to find the situation basically dealt with. Tracy handed them the gun.

“He’s all yours,” she said, and they put him in handcuffs, which was good because the lycan was already starting to wake up, even with that head injury.

Will ran over to hug Lisa, and Logan reluctantly let her go into Will’s arms.

“She’s okay. She’s okay, baby,” Logan assured his fiancé, pretty glad that Will hadn’t actually seen how much danger their infant daughter had been in.

Will sighed in relief, resting his head on Logan’s shoulder as he held her.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Logan smirked. “Actually, Tracy saved us. He pointed the gun at me and she just ran in and hit him with that thing.”

He pointed to the rolling pin, and Will stared at it, and then laughed.

“Damn, Tracy.”

“Right?” Logan said, laughing softly with him. Now that the shock was wearing off, that did seem sort of hilarious.

“I guess we’ll all need to go to the police station,” said Will.

The cops agreed, so Logan grabbed a diaper bag. They would need to give their statements. He hugged Tracy, and so did Will.

“I guess we’re even now,” Tracy said, and Will smirked.

“Yeah. You could say that.”