It was bright out and early morning when they brought her home from the hospital. Beautiful and bright, the sunlight shimmering off the surface of the water and making diamonds of the reflections. The wealth of nations, in the gold of sunlight against the windows and the diamonds in the water, emeralds of grass around his home and the sapphire blue of her eyes.

Patrick wasn't a man given to thinking in flowery terms for himself. Usually he saved the fanciful talk for his clients, to make them think what he wanted them to think. To create a kind of atmosphere.

This, though. Today was special. Today his baby girl was coming home.

He drove more aware of the car, the road, the other drivers than he had ever been in his life. Everything was turned up to a fine thrumming intensity, the cool leather on the steering wheel just a little bit rough beneath his hands. She was sitting in the back seat, mother and daughter dozing together. He drove like a tightrope walker, with stern confidence and the sure knowledge that one false move would see him destroyed. Not letting that precariousness throw him off balance.

First one curve, and then the other, and they pulled up on the white gravel driveway and he could breathe again. A stirring in the back seat told him the slower crunch beneath them and the ragged motion of the car, no matter what the advertisements about smooth rides and suspension said, had woken them. No. Just woken her. The baby was still asleep. Their little baby girl.

His daughter.

She was such the miracle.

"Is she still asleep?" he murmured, so quietly that she had to beckon him to tell her twice more as they were heading inside.

"She's asleep, and, Patrick?" She smiled up at him. Beautiful and strong, his lovely lady. "You don't have to whisper."

"Sorry," he whispered, bright blue eyes and roguish grin. She wrinkled her nose at him because she couldn't smack his shoulder or arm as she usually did.

They smiled at each other over the baby's pale curls as he opened the door for her, led her inside as though it was the first time. Well, for one of them, it was the first time, wasn't it?

His fingers reached out before his mind could stop him, stroked the deliriously soft curls. They were stopped just in the doorway and she was turning her upper body to close the door one-armed behind her, and the little one stirred. Made a noise somewhere between a squeak and the burp. It was the most adorable noise Patrick Jane had ever heard.

"Patrick?"

"Mm?"

"You're staring."

He blinked, looked up at her with a wide-eyed smile. It wasn't the staring that was the problem, she meant, it was that he was almost blocking them from getting further into the house, upstairs to the nursery, to put the little one to bed.

They walked the narrow stairs almost two by two, as much as they could manage anyway. She hadn't yet let him hold her, which was understandable given the trembling in his hands and in his voice. He was overexcited. He was awed by her, their child, this tiny life that they had made between the two of them, and he wasn't quite down to the realities of the situation yet. She knew this. She was well familiar with his tendencies to be sometimes overwhelmed by the simplest of things, and she loved him for it.

And, when necessary, she took care of him until he was ready to face the world again.

Today, that meant letting him pet and touch their little girl without letting him hold her, just yet. He was in charge of getting the crib set up in the nursery, which meant putting down the blankets and setting up the baby monitor. A moment of discussion moved the crib into the bedroom anyway. Neither of them was ready to let go.

They'd have years before they really had to let go, at least. He saw it all before them, for a moment. First steps, walking, then running, school, elementary school, middle school, his little girl becoming a young woman. High school, prom, dating, college. Marriage. Children of her own.

Frozen.

"Patrick."

Her hand on his arm. She looked up at him, patient as always, as one needed to be, with him. He had never thanked her enough for her patience. "I'm here," he told her, soft tones, muted voice.

"Why don't you tuck her in?"

His smile began small but spread into something brilliant and vivid. She passed their daughter over and she swirled in his arms, twisted, began to fuss. Opened her eyes to protest the unnecessary movement until she caught sight of her father staring down at her with even more amazement than she stared at him. They looked at each other as the breaths drew out, one, two.

Her fingers reached into a dangling blond curl, her arm waved.

"She hit me on the nose!"

She laughed. They both laughed. "She's telling you to stop staring and put her to bed," his beautiful lady reminded him. She was right, of course.

Patrick laid their little girl down in the crib, careful to keep her on her back as all the books suggested. Tucked a blanket over her little legs, lest she grow cold. "We'll be just over there, okay?" he murmured. "Just in case." In case, what? He didn't know. Something. Suddenly there were people in his life who mattered more to him than life itself, and he wanted them to know that. He was there. Just in case.

"Come to bed, love," she told him, curling her fingers around his hand as he stood over the crib and watched her tiny eyes close, longer and longer each time. "She'll sleep for a little while, at least."

He followed. After one last look, and a smile.

Oh what a beautiful morning.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.