"Is it strange to say I can't wait until he's my brother so I can pop him on the back of the head without getting into too much trouble?" He asked and then kneeled beside his son. "Hey buddy." He said and lifted one of the toys and poked it. it giggled and he dropped it, freaked out. Kid toys. How annoying. "Anyways, he's your brother so I'll put up with him until the end of time. He just... He needs to grow up. Just because he runs faster than all of us, doesn't mean he matures faster."

Andy watched Riley for a few moments, to see if he would try to start crawling, but she wrinkled her nose a bit when she realized he needed a fresh diaper. Picking him up gently, she stood up.

"Come on," she said to Nathaniel. "Your son needs changed, and it's high time it was your turn."

"Darn, it's Christmas! Can't you just magic doodoo remove!? You never have to touch it!" He said and grinned. He'd taken care of a couple children on his trip and had changed a total of 6 diapers over his lifetime. He could do this. He could do this... right? "WOAH that's not a good smell!" He said when Riley was laid down and Nathaniel opened the diaper. "Yipes!" He said and grabbed a new diaper and a wipe. "Alright... Ew." He muttered and then laughed. "And do NOT tell me to take it like a man. Women are superheroes for putting up with this." He said and cleaned him, raising his legs gently. When he'd cleaned him and had removed the stinky diaper, he placed the clean one under him and secured it and threw the old one away. "There. Done. It's your turn until he turns 3. I'm traumatized." Nathaniel said and went to the sink. "Ew. I love him but I don't love his poop."

"You're too squeamish," Andy teased as she checked to make sure he did it right. Once she was sure he had, she put Riley back into the onesie he was wearing. "I've been doing this for six months, remember?" Picking Riley up, she bounced him a little, making him giggle and grab her hair. She was used to it by now, so it didn't bother her. "This is the nursery, by the way, in case you hadn't noticed earlier." It wasn't a big room, but it had everything it needed for her to take care of Riley.

"It used to be a spare bedroom. I like this better. Baby blue. Good color." He said and dried his hand. He sat down in a big comfy chair that he could imagine reading bedtime stories to his child in. "Mmmmm this is wonderful. None of these in the desert." He said and relaxed. "You're right. 6 months and you've been doing this as a single mom. I'm here now, I'll take responsibility. Just, help me with the steps. Alright?"

"The desert?" Andy immediately jumped on the words. She hadn't been told anything about where he'd been for the last year, and it seemed like she'd finally been given some sort of hint. Riley yawned widely and snuggled against her. Now that he'd been changed and played with, he was more than ready for another nap. Andy adjusted her hold on him and laid him in his crib softly so he could sleep. It was warm in the nursery, and she'd made sure that he was wearing his footie-pajama onesie, so she knew he'd be warm enough while he was asleep.

"Yeah. I went loads of laces. I was in Egypt the longest though. Kiana, she's a princess there. Me and my... my team ended up saving her. There was Ryan and Mitch. Mitch lives pretty close to here actually. Ryan... I can't remember. Ryan was like you, he floated though. He could float, I remember the first day I met you... he was like that but he was amazing. He could go ten feet up in the air. He did until he was shot out of the air. I watched him die... We lost him, and he was good. He was kind of the adult out of the three of us..." He said and moved to kiss her gently. He wrapped his arms around her and yawned. "Jet lag. I feel dead. I think I'm going to take a nap too. Want to come and join me?

"I think I'd like that," Andy replied. She had definitely missed waking up next to him, though it was probably a good thing he wasn't there through the height of her pregnancy. She doubted he would have liked being woken up because Riley was keeping her awake and she couldn't get comfortable. Setting one of the baby monitors by the crib, she took the other one with her. "This way we'll know if he wakes up."

"Alright." He said and smiled, leading her back to their room. He slid out of his jeans and left himself in bxers and a tee and crawled onto his bed, getting under the covers. The bed smelled like her and he loved it. Every bit of it he loved. "Come here, I haven't held you in a year, I have a LOT to make up for." He said and then held out his arms. Mitch was probably with his family, laughing away and having the time of his life. Nathaniel just wanted a calm night with his girlfriend.

Andy slipped into the bed next to him, settling in. She wasn't getting as much sleep yet as she liked, because she had to take care of Riley, so any nap was a welcome one.

"Riley will wake up soon," she murmured. "I should be closest to the door so I can get up without bothering you." It had never been an issue before, since she'd been on her own, but now there were two of them again. They would have to figure out how to split the responsibilities.

"No, you lay down and rest and I'll get up when Riley wakes up. You did this for six months. I can take care of it. Unless he's hungry. I don't have boobs." He said and laughed, pulling her close and then kissed her shoulder and inhaling her scent. "Oh, I missed this." He whispered, and then turned to kiss her lightly, moving his hands over the skin of her stomach beneath her shirt. It was a year since either of them had sex, he hoped, and instead of begging for her he just wanted to be close. Some men would say he was pussy whipped waaaay too far.

Andy was thoroughly enjoying being in his arms again. She hadn't realized how exhausted she was until she was faced with the prospect of actually getting some rest without having to get up every few hours to feed and change Riley.

"I missed this too," she murmured as she made herself comfortable. "I stayed with my parents for a while, after you left... I had to come back at the end of January, though, for the start of semester. They had Jason stop by once a week or so to help me with grocery shopping and such, but other than that, it was just me here until Riley arrived."

"I love you all the more for giving birth to that child, you know that right?" He asked and kissed her nose then pulled her tighter, glad she was real warmth. He'd been holding pillows for a year. "Happy Christmas." He whispered once more and touched her hair gently and closed his eyes. He licked his lower lip and pressed a hand to her cheek, just to remind him this wasn't a dream. This was real. He was home. His eyes drifted closed and he passed out easily.

45 minutes later he heard whining and he groaned. He was tempted to yell 'shut up Mitch' when he realized he was holding a woman in his arms. He blinked and then remembered everything that had happened and smiled. He kissed her forehead and slid out of bed, heading into the nursery and smiling down at Riley. "Hey cutie." He whispered and lifted him from his cage. The whining immediately stopped and hefelt the diaper. "You just wanna be changed don't you?"

He changed the wet diaper then sat down on the fluffy fat chair and held his son to his chest, rocking him lightly. He gave the boy a binkie and kissed his forehead. "I'm your daddy, and I promise to be here everyday of your life from here on out, alright?"

Andy woke up when Riley's fussing came over the baby monitor, but she relaxed when Nathaniel got up to take care of him. She already knew that Riley wasn't hungry, because she'd figured out by now which sounds meant he was hungry and which meant he needed to be changed, so she lay there listening to Nathaniel talk softly to Riley through the baby monitor. She wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep until she was sure Riley was taken care of, and that would be when Nathaniel came back to bed.

Riley fell asleep in his father's arms while he talked to him about his adventures in China, he'd only made it through about three days of rescuing damsels in distress and how none of them compared to Riley's mother. He laid him down in his crib and padded back to his bedroom. "I'll continue about China tomorrow night. It's Egypt that makes me cry, and that may take months to get too." He whispered to her, knowing she'd listened the entire time. "Good night."

"Compared to that, my year was boring and uneventful," Andy replied as she snuggled closer to him. "All I did was have a baby." Now that Riley was definitely alright and asleep, she was quickly drifting back off. She would wake up again when Riley did, and it would start all over. She would be glad when he finally slept through the night, because then she'd finally get some proper rest.

((I don't know... What else did we want to have happen? According to his visions, she was about five or six months pregnant with Annabelle when she finished graduate school, but I have no idea if we wanted to put anything in between here and there.))

[[I'm not sure if I really want her to be pregnant so fast... Well she's just an undergrad now isn't she?]]

((Yeah, at this point she's a senior with one more semester before graduation. Then she has two years of graduate school.))

[[So wait two years for Annabelle and somewhere before or after, another child. I've confused myself!]]

((I've been trying to keep track, but sometimes it confuses me too. But the way I have it figured, and correct me if I'm wrong, but Annabelle is their next child, then the secon girl after that. We just need to get from here to there.))

[[Alright, how are we gonna do that?]]

((Hm...Did you have any other ideas in mind? Drama is always a good thing when things die down... Maybe Becky/Becca/whoever she was coming back?))

[[She scared me. And I created her!]]