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"Well," Peg says finally, as she starts to disentangle herself from BJ, "I was going to tell you that I want another baby as soon as humanly possible, but it seems you've already got the message."
BJ chuckles into the pillow, rolling onto his side to face her. He traces a finger down her forehead, over her nose, her lips. She kisses it and giggles. She still half expects him to disappear as soon as she wakes up. He's home. He made it. Somehow, through horror, through grief, even through something like transformation - they made it here.
She pulls him to her again, just to feel how warm and solid he is against her. He kisses her temple, nips at her ear as she digs her fingernails into his back just slightly. These small exchanges, this easy give-and-take of body to body fills something she didn't know was empty. She presses a finger to his lips and he pretends to chomp on it, which makes her laugh, which makes him laugh, which loops itself until neither of them is laughing at anything but the wonder of being together, and home.
And then Erin starts to cry from downstairs - a plaintive announcement that she's awake and ready for some attention. BJ leaps out of bed and is halfway into his shorts and out the door like a shot. Peg follows, grabbing her robe and racing after him. She hears him walk gently into Erin's room, hears the delight in his voice as he exclaims in the softest voice, "Why baby, are you up? Look at you, you're up! Let's get you out of there. C'mere. Come see me a little bit. Oopsa, there we go, come here." For a moment, there's quiet, and Peg holds the smile in her chest, expecting to turn and find the scene she's been imagining for months, but as she turns into the bedroom doorway, Erin lets loose with an earsplitting scream.
Peg hurries in, and as soon as Erin sees her, her wailing hits a fever pitch, her face turns red and lunges for her mother, half falling out of BJ's arms. Peg lifts the her and settles her on her shoulder. "I know, baby, I know. It's okay. You're all right. You're all right." She looks up at BJ. He's struggling not to cry and his hands are shaking.
"She doesn't know me," he says softly. "She doesn't know me and I scared her and I - she doesn't know me."
"Of course she doesn't," Peg says as smoothly as she can. "It's not your fault, BJ. This isn't anything you did." She grabs a diaper and lays Erin on the floor, rolling up her sleeves. "I thought something like this would happen - I was going to try and tell you to take it slow," she continues. "Wipes are in that drawer, can you grab me one?"
"Wipes!" he calls, like a nurse would, clapping the box into her waiting hand. She looks down and continues. "Half the time, she gets shy at the mailman, and he comes around every day. And after that incident at the airport with Radar -" she can feel him wincing across the room - "she got gun-shy. Powder?"
"Powder," he answers, fumbling for the talc and passing it. She finishes up and hands it back, snapping Erin back into her dress and rolling her over. "BJ, this isn't your fault," she says again, because it looks like he needs to hear it.
The muscles in his cheek twitch with something that looks like anger, but not a kind of anger she's ever seen on him. She stays deliberate, calm. "Take a minute. I'll get her settled with some lunch and then you come in and join us, all right?" She picks up the bundled diaper and holds out her pinky finger for Erin to grasp. As they leave the room, she hears him let out the smallest, softest cry.
The sound finds its way into her heart and cracks it.
**
By the time he joins them, Erin is liberally covered in jam, and the sound of his laugh as he comes in is a balm. Erin looks up, more curious than scared this time, at this tall creature who's moved in to her mother's house. BJ drops to a squat, hiding behind one of the kitchen chairs, then slowly peeking out from behind it. When Erin sees him, he widens his eyes, gasps, and darts back behind the chair. Erin squeals. He does it again, this time unable to keep back a chuckle. Erin shrieks with laughter, and he does it again, and again and again, letting her enjoy the joke.
After a few rounds of that, he creeps up to Peg's chair, puts his hands on her lap and lifts his head up like he's peering over a wall, and the game starts again. "Goodness!" Peg exclaims to Erin. "Someone's coming to visit us! But he looks very shy."
BJ grins up at her from his perch on the floor. "Oh, Erin?" he says in a high, goofy voice. "Is there a little girl named Erin anywhere around here?"
"Me!" Erin replies, leaning over Peg's lap to look down at him. "Me, I'm Erin."
BJ takes one look at her and gives a squeak like he's terrified of her before scurrying across the kitchen on his backside. Erin looks up at Peg like she's waiting for permission. "Go get him!" Peg laughs. "Go get Daddy, baby."
Erin clambers down from her chair and chases BJ across the kitchen while he hides behind the refrigerator, sticks his head in a cupboard and crawls halfway under the table, where Erin finally catches up to him and climbs up his back.
"I've been captured!" BJ groans into the floor. "Help, Mommy, she's got me and she won't let go!" Erin squawks gleefully as she wraps her arms around his neck. BJ rolls over and pulls her into a hug, right there under the table. "And now I've got you!" he cackles. "I've got you, little girl and I'm never, never letting you go!" He plants a kiss on her head and lets her loose. Erin bolts out from under the table, and then stops, looking over her shoulder to make sure he's coming after her.
BJ scoots out from under the table. He's got jam on his shirt, and peanut butter on his eyebrow, and a smile Peg hasn't seen in two years. She pulls her feet up onto the chair and rests her chin on her knees, blinking tears back as she watches BJ set off on his hands and knees, letting Erin lead the way.