"If it would mean you taking care of yourself, or letting me do it, then yes, I would," Anya informed him, daring him to push her that far. She was more likely to rat him out to Tess, if she was honest, but even that would be hilarious to watch. The second eldest De Luca had been a mom for a while now; she knew all the tricks.

"And what makes you think I'm not taking care of myself?" he countered. He looked just as handsome and well-groomed as always. If he was lacking in sleep, it didn't show. Coffee was definitely his friend, these days, but maybe she was right. Now that they were a family, they needed to figure out how to manage things so that neither of them got too worn out. "I want to help, Anya," he told her, his expression sobering, his voice sincere.

"Because I know you, lyubimaya," she reminded him tenderly. "If I do not put my foot down, you will be awake at all hours, you will try to do too much, and very soon, you will make yourself ill. I do not want to see you work yourself so far into the ground. We are a family. We look after each other."

"And what about you?" he countered again. "I don't want you exhausting yourself either. You just had surgery. You need to rest. I'm more than capable of taking care of you both," he insisted, though even he knew he'd have to sleep sometime. "Maybe we can take shifts. That way, we can both get some rest without having to ask for help." Not that asking for help was a bad thing, but Tony wanted them to do this themselves.

"First rule," Anya murmured through her smile. "We do not both get up with the baby during the night." She'd spent a couple of nights discussing this with the woman who had shared her room at the hospital, taking on board the advice of a woman who had just given birth to triplets and already had twins at home.

"How do we decide who does?" he asked, wondering if it would be a question of who did the last feeding or changing or if they'd toss a coin. "I'm not needed at the ballet for at least another month, and Irina will handle things if we need more time."

She shrugged lightly, teasing her fingers through his. "Perhaps we take one night each," she suggested softly. "I do not know how it will work, Tony. But it will work. And Irina is easy to win over. She will melt for Sofia, just you wait and see." For all her grumbling about Anya's pregnancy, the stern ballet mistress had certainly been all over the bump the last few times they'd met.

Swan Lake was the first ballet on the list for the season, and it was one he trusted Irina to handle in his absence. Though he was needed at the ballet, there were plenty of people who could handle things in his absence. "She's only going to be little once. I'm needed here. The ballet can wait," he said, coming to an abrupt decision. He had taken paternity leave, but he had no plans on returning to work until he knew his wife and daughter were settled in at home.

Anya smiled once again, drawing his lips to hers in a soft kiss. "For a while, at least," she agreed, nestling against him with a low sigh of contentment. "It feels so wonderful to be home, lyubimaya. I have missed you so." Perhaps it was a strange sentiment, to have missed him during the long nights at the hospital when she had been expected to care for her daughter with only a little guidance when the nurses deemed her in need. But she had missed him - so much so, in fact, that she had demanded he bring his own robe in on the second day, just so she could have something with his scent to cling to.

"I missed you, too, tesorina," he said, leaning close to brush his nose against her hair before touching his lips to her cheek. "It was lonely here without you. I'm glad to have you both home." He smiled as he looked over at their baby daughter again. "She's so beautiful. I can hardly believe she's ours."

"She is more beautiful asleep than awake," his wife mused in a droll tone, beginning to come to the conclusion that parents everywhere had struggled with the first time around - that she was allowed to complain about her daughter's sleeping habits for the next four or five years. Laughing quietly, Anya nestled into Tony's arms, determined to keep him still a little while longer. "You were so brave, lyubimaya," she said softly. By the time the C-section had been decided upon, she had already been dosed with so many pain-relieving drugs that it was a wonder she had remained awake for the procedure at all. It was Tony who had truly experienced the trauma of the situation.

Somehow he had managed to get through it all without passing out or even getting woozy. Even though it had been upsetting seeing what they'd been doing to her, he'd trusted the doctors to do what they must and focused his attention on the well-being of his wife and daughter and not on the emergency procedure she'd had to endure. "You were the brave one, cara," he reminded her, wrapping her happily in his embrace, savoring the quiet of the moment they both knew wouldn't last long.

She snorted softly with laughter, quite content to be wrapped up in his arms, pilfered bathrobe and all. "I do not remember much of it," she admitted, hoping to set his mind at rest on that score at the very least. "I remember the block into my spine, and holding your hand. And I remember seeing you holding Sofia. But that is all. And I am very grateful for the Healer who saw to me yesterday. There is something quite disconcerting about having to hold your stomach when you sneeze."

"It's probably better you don't," he said of the messy business of birthing a child under the knife. They'd wanted him to leave, but he'd insisted on staying, insisted on being there when his daughter took her first breath and when his wife needed him most. He might have talked of a second child, but he never wanted her to have to go through such a thing again. If they were only meant to have one child, he was glad it had been a daughter. "So much pain just to bring forth such a little thing into the world," he mused quietly.

"Women have been doing it for millenia," she pointed out with a small smile. "And without the benefit of modern medicine and magic." Her fingertips stroked against his cheek, understanding that he might be leery of increasing their family now that they knew her handicap in that regard - that, though she was built almost perfectly for ballet, her hips just weren't wide enough to safely birth a baby naturally. "I am well; better than I would have been, thanks to the Healer. Sofia is disgustingly healthy. And I love you."

"I can't argue with that, can I?" he asked with a smile, deeply touched by the gentle touch of her fingers against his cheek, that simple touch alone telling him how much she adored him. "Women, yes, but not you. If we never had another child, I think I would be content with just the two of you. My little ballerinas," he said, nudging her neck with his nose, inhaling the sweet, familiar scent of her. "I was worried about you, Anya. About you both."