10th August, 2018

Leaving Elle when she was in labor was not the easiest thing to do. But Dom had promised not to make a big deal out it, and he had also promised to deliver Daisy personally to spend the next few hours with Zahan and Lila, under Ed's supervision, and to drop Donovan off with Gabi and George for the same reason. So in the end, he had to leave his wife whether he wanted to or not, making a supreme effort not to speed along the lanes of the Grove while he had his children on board.

But seeing as how Dom was always a nervous wreck whenever the word "childbirth" was mentioned, it seemed a good idea to Elle to give him some busy work. Once he was gone, she got on the phone to her posse, which consisted of Vicki and Piper, and asked one of them to get over to Wisteria Cottage asap, before she dropped the baby on the floor.

It was just as well he didn't know quite how close it was to the big moment, or Dom definitely would not have left, even for the half hour or so it would take to drop Daisy and Donnie off at their respective places of sanctuary. He didn't know that Vicki and Piper were both skidding to a halt outside his own house as he drew the car up in front of Beecham House, letting Daisy tell George everything that he needed to know in order to be in charge of Donovan for the night.

Elle didn't really want Dom to miss the baby's birth, and yet, maybe it was better this way. As she waddled out of the house to meet her friends at the door, she froze a moment in pain to wait for a contraction to pass. They were definitely getting stronger and closer together, and though she hadn't told Dom, her water had already broken an hour ago.

After a brief discussion, Piper took charge, ushering Elle back into the house and ordering Vicki to call Rebecca, the healer they kept on-call for the Grove. It didn't look like anyone was going to the hospital. By the time Piper had Elle back on the bed, Rebecca was already sprinting across the lawns from the big house ....thankfully unseen by Dom as he chuckled his way back into his own car with Daisy and was talked into taking the long way around the Grove to Ed's house.

By the time Elle got onto the bed, she was ready to push. She'd been through this twice before, after all, and knew what to expect - so long as nothing went wrong. How long she'd have to push was uncertain, but there was no doubt in her mind that the birth was imminent.

"Someone ....needs ....to call ....DOM!" she said, gritting her teeth between words and practically screaming her husband's name as the baby's head appeared with a shock of dark hair.

"All right, all right, keep your knickers on," was Vicki's response, wrenching herself away from the bed to pick up her phone and dial the number, pretty content in the knowledge that Elle was, at least, in good hands with Rebecca and Piper. She left the room to make the phone call, not wanting to assail Dom's eardrums with Elle's sturdy grasp of curses.

Across the Grove, Dom was smiling as he chatted with Ed briefly when his phone went off in his pocket. Pulling it to his ear without checking the ID, Ed then got to see his cousin turn white, then red, and then watch as panic spread over his face. Dom pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at it, aghast.

"I can't keep my knickers on when I'm about to ..." Elle broke off, shrieking in pain just in time for Dom to hear it on the other end of the phone. "Get this bloody baby out of me now!" she shouted at the midwife, not really caring at the moment what she said or who heard her.

That was audible even through the phone line. Dom's eyes flickered from the phone, to Ed, to Daisy, and back to the phone. A few years ago, before Donovan's birth, he would have been running home. Now, however ....

"Should I bring Daisy back with me?" he asked the device in his hand, not really connecting it with the fact that Vicki was on the other end.

Not only did Ed have a baby of his own, but he'd witnessed enough births and even helped with them to have a pretty good idea what was going on. "Why don't you leave Daisy here" Call when things are settled, and we'll bring her by," he suggested.

"Right. Yes. No, right, yes. Good idea." Dom cut the call without another word, ramming the phone back into his pocket. He patted Daisy absently on the top of her head. "I'll see you in a bit, sweetling."

"Is Mummy having the baby?" Daisy asked looking up at her new Daddy with wide eyes, though that much seemed obvious. It never occurred to Daisy that anything might go wrong or that anything might happen to her mother or her new little brother or sister. She was too excited and too innocent to think of anything but the prospect of meeting the newest addition to their family.

Dom nodded for a long moment. "She is," he told his eldest, crouching down to give her a hug. "But Vicki and Piper and Rebecca are with her, they'll make sure she's absolutely fine." He kissed his little girl's forehead affectionately. "I'll call as soon as we're quiet and settled, and you can come home then if you'd like to."

"Okay, Daddy!" she replied, trusting him implicitly. Somehow, she knew she wasn't supposed to be there when Mummy was giving birth, but she trusted they'd share the good news with her as soon as they could. "Can I tell Lila and Zay that the baby is coming?" she asked both or either of the men.

"Of course you can, sweetling," Dom promised her. "And I'm pretty sure Zay will let you cuddle Mila, too, if you ask nicely." Zahan's new baby sister was the dolly of choice for a lot of little girls on the Grove right now.

"Okay, Daddy! Love you!" she said, hugging Dom close before hurrying off to share the news with her cousins.

"You better get going," Ed urged, once Daisy was gone. "It sounds like all hell's broken loose there."

Dom gave him a wild-eyed shrug. "I think I might be due a slap," he agreed, patting his cousin's shoulder. "Thanks, Teddy. I'll call. Soon." This was called over his shoulder as he headed back to the car.

"Good luck!" Ed called back, with a worried smile. He had witnessed firsthand the good and bad things that could happen during childbirth, but there was no reason to think anything would go wrong.

All he got was a last wave before Dom was pulling away, heedless of driving safely as he sped back home. There was a little difficulty in parking - Vicki and Piper's parking had been haphazard, to say the least - but within another ten minutes, Dom was bursting in through his own front door and scrambling up the steps to the bedroom. "Elle" Baby, I'm here!"

Considering what he'd heard on the other end of the phone just a few short minutes before, the cottage was eerily quiet upon Dom's arrival. There was no panicked screaming of any kind, nor was there any sound of a baby crying. Only the sound of muted voices coming from the bedroom.

The quiet, if anything, only exacerbated Dom's panic.

"Elle?"

He staggered across the landing and pushed open the bedroom door, half-dreading what he was going to see. The door hit Vicki in the back, sending her pitching forward face-first into the baby basket she had just finished setting up.

Just as Edward had predicted, shortly following their phone call, muffled shrieks of excitement carried on the wind for anyone whose hearing was sharp enough to catch it. Apparently, the girls had been told the news.

Dom laughed aloud at the sound of squealing. He didn't envy his cousin at all being that close to the eruption of excitement. A quick call to Gabi passed on the news and got himself told he was an idiot if he thought she was giving Donovan back before tomorrow, as well as congratulations, and soon after, he was headed back into the bedroom with his plate of sandwiches. "Did you hear that?"

"I'm pretty sure everyone at the Grove heard that," Elle replied with a grin. "I assume Daisy knows," she teased. While he'd been gone, she had made herself a little more comfortable on the bed, the newborn settled snugly beside her.

"Yeah, the screaming was Ed telling her," Dom assured her fondly, dragging the bed tray out from under his bedside table and setting it up for her. "How's the littlest princess?"

"Resting peacefully. Being born is hard work, you know," she remarked, though she was pretty sure she'd been the one who'd done most of the work. "Oh, what do you have there" That looks lovely," she said, as she looked over the sandwiches.

"BLTs," he told her rather proudly. "I figured you'd want something a bit lighter than my usual offerings." It wasn't that Dom couldn't cook - quite the reverse, in fact, but when it was his turn to cook, they tended to be presented with foods he had tried and liked from various different cultures on not only this planet, but several others he had visited as well.

"BLTs?" she echoed with a teasing grin. "How ordinary of you. I'm shocked." She adjusted her lean against the pillows before reaching over to pluck up half a sandwich and take a bite, groaning with pleasure at the taste of it.

"Well, your innards have been beaten up enough today," he chuckled, answering her tease with his own. "Ed's going to bring Daisy over in about half an hour. Still game for letting her choose the name?"

She nodded a reply, lifting a finger to indicate she had something to say, as she chewed and swallowed another bite of her sandwich. "Only if we have the final say," she said. She didn't think Daisy was likely to choose a bad name for her new baby sister, but she had no idea what her daughter might have in mind. "Otherwise, we might end up with a Rapunzel or Thumbelina."

He chuckled around his own mouthful. "I gave her a list a couple of days ago," he told her. "All approved names off the list we made, I promise. Nothing outlandish in there like Dilys or Dorothy."

Elle winced at the mention of those names. "Nothing that sounds like it should belong to a grandma," she said, though they had been over these rules already. "You know, I was expecting another boy," she said, with a wistful and affectionate glance at their slumbering daughter.

"Regrets?" he asked gently, wrapping his arm around her shoulders once again. He had none himself. Just having Elle and Daisy in his life was a blessing he had never looked for - to have added a son and another daughter to that was a wonder he would never stop being grateful for.

"Maybe about giving back your wallet," she said, with a teasing gleam in her eyes and a smile that was only for him. She leaned close to touch a tender kiss to his lips. "No regrets, Dom. I love our little family, and I love you."

He huffed with laughter, hugging her close into his side. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for the main event," he apologized again. "But I'm glad your posse answered the call for help so fast."

"She came a lot faster than I expected," she explained. "And you would have been a nervous wreck," she said, gently stroking her fingers against his face and smiling softly. "How can I be upset when you've given me so much?"

His smile softened as he leaned into her touch. "I still say I got the best of the bargain," he insisted. "I got a family, when I thought I was going to be alone for the rest of my life. And thanks to you and your apparently innocent forgetfulness when it comes to birth control, that family just keeps getting bigger."

"You'll never be alone again. I promise you that," she assured him softly, amused at his teasing, but making no comment on it for now. It hardly mattered if she'd honestly forgotten her birth control or not; he could hardly argue about that now that he had both a son and a daughter of his own.

His fingers traced tenderly against her cheek for a long moment. "You're my greatest blessing," he told her, sincere and soft in the stillness around them. "I will never stop protecting you. I love you, Belle."

It wasn't her name, but it was his name for her, and she had never corrected him for saying it. She only smiled, a little tired from labor, but happy and content. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me," she told him, just as sincerely. They had both loved and lost before, but together, they'd healed the grief of the past and found love again with each other.

His smile answered hers, leaning close to touch that smile to her lips for a long moment. After losing Gwen, he had never thought he would ever be blessed with love or a family of his own, yet here he was - a husband, a father, more in love with this incredible woman every day than he had been the day before. His kiss brushed the tip of her nose as he drew back, glancing at the window as the sound of a car pulling up made itself known. "Should I go and catch her before she barrels up here shrieking?"

There were no words to tell him how much she adored him or how thankful she was to have him in her life. She knew how lucky she was and not a day went by when she didn't thank her lucky stars to have met him. Elle wrinkled her nose at him as he kissed it, smiling in amusement at that gesture of affection and at his question.

"That would probably be best, unless you want her to wake the baby," she said, reaching out to playfully tweak his nose in return.

"I will return anon then, fair lady, with the minuscule mistress of the house," he informed her cheerfully, catching her hand. He pressed a kiss to her palm, and rose to his feet, snagging the empty plate as he left to jog down the steps and open the front door.

She couldn't help but giggle at his antics, sighing softly as he took his leave. "I shall endeavor to patiently await your return, my prince," she said, wiggling her fingers at him before he left. He was only going to fetch Daisy, after all. Once he was gone, she settled her head on the pillow, one arm wrapped protectively around her precious bundle, smiling contentedly, as her eyes drifted closed, almost by their own accord.

Leaving the plate on the kitchen table, Dom returned to the door in time to field Daisy before she could rush up the stairs and disturb her mother and the baby with her excitement.

"Shoes off, hands washed," he declared with a grin. "Or I'll give you a huge kiss wearing your mom's lipstick and it'll never come off!"

Old enough to know when she was being teased, Daisy rolled her eyes at her father. "Don't be silly, Daddy! Lipstick washes off." She pouted a little as she glanced past him, eager to meet her new baby sister, but knowing there was no arguing with him. "Is everything okay?" she asked worriedly, as she pulled her shoes off and dropped them in a pile near the door.

What they saw when they stepped inside was both mother and daughter resting together peacefully on the bed, snuggled closely together. "Shh," Daisy whispered, laying a finger against her lips as they stepped closer. "They're sleeping!"

"Well, they've had a busy day," Dom whispered back, closing the door behind them so it wouldn't fall back with a bang. "You can go closer, sweetling, Mommy won't mind."

Elle cracked open an eyelid to peek at her husband and daughter, a soft smile on her face. "It's okay, sweetheart. I'm awake," she said, though she had been dozing. "Come meet your baby sister," she told her quietly.

Daisy reached for Dom's hand as she stepped closer to peer down at her new sister. "She's so small," she whispered in awe.

"Until this morning, she was in Mommy's tummy," Dom reminded her gently, letting the little girl take his hand as they moved to the bed. He crouched down beside her, one arm leaning on the bed as he watched his daughters looking at each other. "What do you think, sweetling" Should we keep her?"

Daisy smiled, reaching out a finger to touch her little sister's cheek. "Of course we should, Daddy! We can't get rid of her. She's ours."

Elle smiled as she watched the two of them get acquainted and reached out to draw Dom closer, too. "You remember what it was like when Donnie was born?" she asked her daughter.

Daisy nodded. "He was really small and he cried a lot and slept a lot and you had to take care of him a lot, until he was bigger."

"We know better what we're doing this time around," Dom assured both of them. "It'll be easier." That was probably optimism talking, given that Donnie was still just a toddler, but he was right about one thing - they did know what to expect this time around.

Daisy seemed to think this over a moment before looking up at Dom and then at her mother. "Can I help?" she asked, looking hopeful.

"Of course you can," Dom was quick to answer. "There are lots of things you can do, not just with the baby, but with Donnie, too. And maybe, if you want to, you can start cooking with me, too."

"Really' Can I?" she asked, wide-eyed with wonder again. Though she had helped before in small ways, this was the first time he was suggesting she help him cook.

"Absolutely!" Now he knew how long breastfeeding actually took, Dom was quite prepared to whisk both children into the kitchen and cook with them so Elle would be able to feed the baby in peace at least once a day.

"Can we make s'ketti?" she asked, as it was one of her favorite meals. What kid didn't love slurping up pasta covered in tomato sauce"

"If you two are going to talk meal-planning, I'm going to take a nap," Elle warned, cheerfully.

"At least once a month, yes," Dom agreed with a grin. "But we can't just keep calling her 'the baby', can we?" He caught Elle's eye, chuckling at her warning.

"Sorry, Mummy," Daisy said, turning her attention back to her mother and new baby sister. "Daddy said I can name her," she said, tentatively looking to Elle, as if for permission. "Is that okay?"

Elle reached out to take her daughter's hand, a soft smile on her face. "What name did you have in mind?" she asked, as Daisy looked back at the baby, her expression thoughtful.

"What about Emma" She looks like an Emma."

Dom's grin widened behind Daisy, his eyes catching Elle's in warm approval as much as amusement. Daisy had gone straight for the name he had inserted into the initital list of D-names, with the argument that the E's in the family shouldn't be overwhelmed too much. "What does Mommy think?"

"Emma?" Elle echoed, looking from one to the other and then to the tiny bundle resting peacefully beside her. "Are you sure?" she asked. After all, Emma didn't start with a D.

Daisy nodded her head enthusiastically. "Daddy and I decided we have enough D names and that the baby should have an E name, like you." She paused a moment to frown worriedly. "Don't you like it?"

"Oh, yes, darling. I love it, but what does Daddy think?" Elle asked, looking to Dom.

"Oh, I think every family should have a Jane Austen heroine in it," Dom answered with a smile, touching his cheek to Daisy's shoulder. "I think it's lovely. And it suits her, too."

"Hmm, should we name our next one Darcy then?" Elle teased, though she was not really thinking about another child so soon after having birthed this one. In fact, at that moment, she was quite content with their family just the way it was.

"Planning on more, are we, Mommy?" Dom asked with a grin, chuckling gently. "If we do get there and it's a boy, I'm going to bat for Fitzwilliam."

Elle winced. "Over my dead body," she murmured at the idea of calling their son such a ridiculously old-fashioned name, though he probably felt the same about Darcy.

Daisy giggled at her father's suggestion. "That's a silly name."

"That's his name!" Dom protested laughingly. "Mr. Darcy's first name is Fitzwilliam! Look it up, I swear I'm not talking out of my backside on this one."

"Which is exactly why everyone calls him Darcy instead," Elle pointed out.

"Mummy, can I hold the baby?" Daisy asked, interrupting her parents' debate about Mr. Darcy's name.

"Um ..." Elle murmured, looking to Dom.

"Sure, if you're very careful," Dom answered, promising Elle with just his eyes that he would not let any harm come to little Emma. "Remember how we did it with Donnie when he was still tiny' You always on a bed or on the couch so you didn't get tired holding him?"

Daisy nodded her headed, as she scooted up onto the bed beside her mother. "I 'member." She cradled her arms the way she had when she'd held her baby brother and the way she'd seen her mother and others hold babies, especially small ones. "Like this, right?"