"Oh, hey!" JC got up quickly, grabbing the magazine before I could even blink. "You guys are something else," he managed to say quickly as his face met mine, "it's just paper with words that aren't even true on every article. You should know that I hate this kind of stuff in my house." His eyes told me to follow him as I got up slowly with the aid of Karen's free arm, still sore from the day before, quickly following him through the kitchen and down the stairs to his studio. There, he tossed the magazine to the table as we both eyed it, like it would jump out at us or something.

"All right, so ..."

I finally tore my gaze from the magazine, he shoving his hands in his pockets and eyeing me expectantly. "So ..."

"What do we do about this?"

I shrugged. How the hell was I supposed to know? Less than a year ago, I was still his assistant, trying to deal with media speculation that he was gay. Now, I had to deal with things dealing with our marriage. One wasn't true, the other ... well, it was ridiculous the moment it came for air to surface on media pages. "Right now, I'd rather be dealing with the gay rumors," I mumbled, he laughing as he stepped up to me, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me gently to him. "At least I knew how to defend you. I knew it wasn't really true."

"They incorporated my being 'gay' into the article," he chuckled, picking up the magazine once more and eyeing it. "Apparently, the marriage was a hoax to stop people from talking about me being gay. That you were already pregnant and we just went along with it so people would have something else to talk about and keep the attention off of my sexuality."

"Which isn't true ..."

"God, if only they were flies on the wall when this idea started ..."

"Then we'd have a very black wall," he chuckled, "a very annoying, buzzing wall."

"Definitely."

"All right so ... do we just ignore it?"

"What did we do when stories broke about everything else?"

"Ignored it?"

"Then, we obviously laugh it off and ignore it," I stated, reaching towards him and taking the magazine, ripping out the article and shredding it to pieces. "We good then?" I moved to throw the magazine and the remnants away, he tugging me towards him as I giggled. Giggled. My gosh, the man brought the little girl out of me yet again.

"We've always been better than good," he murmured, nose nudging against mine as he tilted his head to kiss me deeply. "I don't know what I'm going to do without you when I fly to New York City."

"I'm coming with you, remember?" I lowered myself back to flat foot from standing on my toes to kiss him, looking puzzled. "It's not for a few days ..."

"Baby, Kira is only going to be like, five days old. She can't be on a plane until she is at least two months old. I don't want her taking in all those germs and it bothering her ears -"

"Look at you being all Mr. Mom," I chuckled, wrapping my arms around his middle and leaning against his chest, ear above his heart. I listened to it beat steadily, we standing there in the quiet for a moment. "So I guess I'll be here when you're in New York."

"Yep," he responded, pulling away from me and taking my hand, leading me back up the stairs. "I hope everyone is behaving up here!"

I laughed when the echoes from both our families met both of our ears, his grip on my hand tightening. "I love you."

"And I love you, mommy," he said from behind me as we walked back into the living room, Kira now lying in her off-white cradle swing, she sound asleep, while our families conversed as if they were long-lost friends. "I hope we're not talking about us as kids ..." his voice trailed off as Karen turned to us, her smile wide. "Oh, God, we are ..."

"We were just talking about how you were obsessed with cowboys."

"Mom, no ..."

I grinned, looking from mother to son. "Oh, yes. Please, please continue this story ..."

"Well, it isn't much of a story, just an obsession with walking around with cowboy boots and a holster ..."

I looked at JC, arching an eyebrow. "Now, why was that story bad?"

He looked at me, then his mother. "Continue, mother."

"He ran around naked with just those on."

I let out a loud laugh, Kira jumping in her sleep from the noise but never waking. Oh, she'd fit in quite well. Especially with the Chasez side. "Really?"

"Yes," he grumbled, head dropping down towards the side of my face and hiding his already reddening cheeks behind my hair, "and if you stop laughing, I'll ressurect naked cowboy once we can do it again."

I shut my mouth, biting my lip to surpress the laughs as his promises played in my head. Cowboy boots and a holster ... well, he could lose both of those and just roam around the house naked - with the baby sleeping in her nursery, of course.

"Lily was quite an exhibitionist when she was little, too."

"Oh, no ... let's not start on that." I looked over at Charlotte, her face reddening since the story involved the two of us. "Mom, c'mon ..."

"Hey, you got to hear my story," JC mumbled, face still in my hair, "bring it on, Mrs. Hennessy."

"Jace, you are married to my daughter," my mom said, giving him a look that I recognized from my own face, "It's Richelle. Or mom."

"Sorry Richelle, slash, mom," JC grinned, lifting his head and meeting my mother's gaze. Wow, they were bonding.

"Anyway," my mom laughed, looking at us, "Lily and Charlotte used to dance ballet in the buff with just tutu's. We even have a few photos of the two of them."

"Mom, we were like, five and two! If that!"

"It was still cute!"

"Can you just imagine what Kira is going to be like?" JC's dad piped in, they all laughing. "She's going to be obsessed with being naked and singing. Our granddaughter is going to be a Go-Go dancer!"

"That will never happen," JC said, voice stern as we both looked over at Kira, she still sleeping. Bless her. "If she's going to be naked, it's going to be underneath clothes. And if she is going to be singing, it's going to be in choir in high school."

"You can't really knock your child for doing something you do, sweetheart."

"Not if she witnesses what it does to some people," he said, Lucy and Delaney agreeing. "See? They know what it's like to be a model. If Kira wanted to model, they'd tell her no."

"If she's built like you with her mom's boobs, they're gonna be begging for her," Lucy laughed, "we may be saying things that falls upon deaf ears."

"She's going to do whatever she wants and we just have to be ready for it," I stated, Charlotte agreeing as she leaned into Jeremy's leg. "No one wanted me to do what I went to do and now look at me."

"I still don't want you doing what you do, Lily Anne," my mom corrected as I looked at her, baffled. "Going to all these foreign places and having to witness these women throwing them all over your husband really isn't my idea of fun -"

"Well, knowing that I'm not the only one who finds my husband attractive is kind of fun, actually." I chuckled when I felt his fingers dig into my sides, my mom shaking her head in disbelief. "Hey, I met and married someone, gave you a grandchild. Don't complain."

My mom laughed, "I'm not complaining about that. It's just that you're always gone, going overseas or in some other state. None of us ever get to see you."

I shrugged, not really having something to say about it. "I'm ... sorry?"

"Well, with the baby here now, I'm going to make sure we're around more often," JC said, stepping away from me and sitting down on the couch, patting the spot beside him for me to sit down, his arm going around my shoulders, thumb finding the back of my neck and gently caressing. "I want this baby to be worldly, but not homesick, either."

I yawned, putting my head on his shoulder. I closed my eyes, listening as they all talked back and forth, the conversation going back to Kira and how cute she looked sleeping every two seconds. JC's grip on my shoulders tightened as I got lulled into sleep by the noise, realization that it was not just a Chasez thing with sleeping in the midst of chaos hitting me. There would probably be a lot of things hitting me as the days went on.

I felt the surface beneath me shift as I opened my eyes, JC's own looking down at me in a gentle gaze. "Go back to sleep," he said softly as his hands slid from beneath me. "It's late and your mom fed Kira the formula so she'll be out for a few hours. Everyone retired to their rooms anyway."

"Their rooms?"

He laughed, noticing how groggy I was. "Lucy, Delaney and Isabelle are sharing a room, Charlotte and Jeremy are sleeping downstairs and our parents are all down the hall in the two guest rooms."

"Since when did this house have so many guest rooms?"

He helped me pull off my shirt and leave the tank top, he undressing himself as he stood in front of me. "The pull-out couch is in the living room where your sister and her husband are. Three sisters are sharing the king-sized bed in one room, our parents are in the other two. There are five bedrooms in this house, Lil."

I sat up, he walking towards me as I leaned against his bare midsection, kissing the skin just above his bellybutton. "Thank you for keeping me sane with all these crazy family members here."

His hand rested on top of my head, smoothing my hair down. "Any time, baby. It's been fun."

"Sometimes."

He chuckled, pulling out of my embrace and getting into bed. I laid down, he pulling me against him and clasping our hands together. "It's been one crazy rollercoaster ride since the beginning anyway, Lily. With this wedding and the baby and all those reports, what's one more endless hill? There's no one else I'd rather ride with than you." He squeezed my hand tightly, my eyes staring at the bassinet beside me where our baby lay. "And when that baby is old enough to understand what went on between us, she'll know that with each problem, each obstacle that we overcome, I loved her mother more and more."

"You really are a sap."

He grinned. "I forgot to show you this." He released my hands, leaning backward and onto his nightstand, handing me a polaroid picture. "What is it?"

"It's our daughter, silly," he grinned, leaning forward and kissing my bare shoulder, "Charlotte took it when you were sleeping while I was holding her. Probably when she was about two hours old? She's still kind of fresh-looking."

I laughed slightly, turning the picture over and staring at it, JC's somewhat sloppy handwriting written on top and bottom of the photo. "She has your chin, you know."

"How can you tell? Her face is still so very round," he asked, getting up slightly to look at the picture with me. "Oh, wait. That is a Chasez chin."

"See?" I said, grinning. "She's got my nose."

"Thank God on that one," he chuckled. "I don't need any of my children having my nose."

"There's nothing wrong with your nose."

"It's too big for even me. A girl, especially."

"It's not big," I stated, looking over my shoulder at him, "it fits your face."

"Well, I refuse to let my children have my nose," he stated, still smiling. "Your nose. Doesn't matter about eyes -"

"Your voice."

"Your choice in clothing."

"Or their father's lack of?"

"Ha ha." He lay back down, yawning deeply. "I just want them to be happy. And normal."

"Then they better take after neither of us on the normal part."

"Hey, I'm normal. And I wouldn't have married you if you weren't."

"True."

"Josh," I said softly, his tired voice humming out a response as I touched the picture, finger tracing my daugher's roundness, "thank you."

"For what?"

"For making me feel as if I were important. For letting me know that even if I'm not the most beautiful, I'm beautiful to you and that's all that matters. For loving me." I felt him push himself closer to me, lips dancing over my skin. "For everything."

"First off, Lily," he said softly between kisses, lips gently brushing against my skin, "you are important. You're important to the man behind you, to your family, to my family, to the world and to that beautiful little baby merely inches away from you. Secondly," he got up so that he could look down at me, dropping his mouth near my ear, "you are beautiful. You have this smile, this way about you that makes everyone just stop and stare. I don't know if you noticed, but it wasn't me getting all the attention at my album party."

"Probably because I was a day away from giving birth and everyone but me knew it? That I had a stomach the size of a beachball attached to me?"

He chuckled, burying his face in the crook of my neck and shoulder, his two-day unshaven face tickling my skin, "no. It's how amazing you looked and how carefree you were. People kept saying how amazing you looked, how beautiful you were. You were the life of the party, Lily. And yeah, being beautiful to me is all that should matters, but I know you look past that sometimes and that's all right. Because I know, and you should know that you are who you are and everyone loves that. And you're right, I do love you. I love you a whole hell of a lot."

I chuckled as he placed a kiss to my neck, turning my head and pursing my lips, waiting for a kiss to them. When he did, I felt the familiar flutter to my stomach as he used his hand to turn me onto my back, hand cupping my cheek and gently massaging my bottom lip before I opened my mouth slightly, he massaging my tongue with his own passionately. When he pulled away, we both were breathless. "I've loved you forever."

"Maybe not forever ..."

"I was quoting your song and you did not catch it," he rolled his eyes as he dramatically fell onto his back, eyes closing with a smile on his face. "That was horrible."

"Give me a break, I just popped out a baby not too long ago."

He turned his head, opening his eyes and grinning. "I love you."

"Sap."

"Yeah, yeah." He yawned loudly, turning on his side to face me. "G'night, baby."

"Good night," I said softly, turning back onto my side feeling his hand against my hip as I looked down at our baby, tears burning my eyes. I had a baby.