AN: Last chapter, except for an epilogue, which will follow within the next couple days, okay?

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"You two ready?" Dr. Bernstein asked. The transducer hovered over Goldie's abdomen, which protruded slightly with her pregnancy. "You really want to know?"

Goldie looked at Jeff, and grasped his hand tightly. "Yes, we're sure," she answered, nodding.

But as the doctor lowered the transducer, Goldie sat up a little, looking at Jeff, concerned. "Tell me again?"

"Tell you what, darling?" he asked, confused.

"That you don't care if it's a girl or boy, that it really doesn't matter to you," Goldie answered. "You really, really don't mind if it's another girl?"

"I couldn't give a fuck," Jeff assured her. "Sorry about the language, Doctor."

Dr. Bernstein waved his apology away. "Please. I've heard it all in the delivery room." She began rubbing the transducer through the warm jelly, saying reassuring things about bilateral lungs and kidneys and tibia length and all that.

"Okay, here comes the big reveal," she said. "I can't take it back, so speak now, or forever hold your peace and all that."

Goldie squeezed Jeff's hand. "We're ready."

"You're having a boy."

A boy.

Goldie watched Jeff's face carefully for signs of disappointment, but all she saw was a huge grin.

He leaned in and kissed Goldie soundly on the mouth. "A boy! You hear that, Goldie, we're having a boy! I was hoping we were having a boy. The only thing that would've made me as happy would be if we were having a girl!"

"What? Really?"

Jeff nodded. "So chuffed right now," he said. He looked back at Dr. Bernstein. "And he's healthy? Nothing wrong?"

Dr. Bernstein nodded. "As far as I can tell, all is perfect," she assured the worried couple.

They left the doctor's office hand in hand. "You ready for the baptism?" Goldie asked Jeff as they walked home.

"Yeah? What do you mean? What is there to prepare for, eating cake?"

Goldie gave him a shake. "You fought it for so long, that's all."

Jeff shrugged. "I decided I couldn't keep doing what I thought Maggie would've wanted, you know? And I don't even know if she'd still feel that way. She's gone, there's no way I'll ever know, so I have to do what I think is best now. Just like I'm letting the Velasquezes into their lives. This is all on me now." He grasped Goldie's hand. "On us, I mean."

Goldie smiled. "Yeah. On us."

"And at least Dean and Bobby are their godparents," Jeff continued. "I never thought Hector and Sophia would agree to that, but they did, and without a murmur, too. They're trying so hard, and they're so grateful, you know?"

"How much would you compromise to be part of the girls' lives?" Goldie asked rhetorically.

"Good point," Jeff murmured, stopping to take Goldie in his arms. He smiled when he felt the baby between them, pummeling the inside of his mother's tummy. "I am the happiest person in North America right now," he declared.

"Well, that's great, but don't you think we should get home to our brood?" Goldie asked. She kissed him softly and raised an eyebrow.

"You know, we have to come up with a name for this little guy," she added as they turned and continued their walk home. All around them were signs that spring had arrived in the city at last, from the flowers in the planters around the trees to the trees themselves, blooming and leafing out in that beautiful, new spring green.

"We still have time," Jeff reassured her. "I mean, we just found out he's a boy an hour ago.

"It should be something English-y, like the girls, and something that can be shortened to an adorable nickname, like theirs, too."

"English-y?" Jeff repeated. "Is that even a word?"

They got home and relieved the Velasquezes of baby sitting duty, promising they'd be early to the church tomorrow for the babies' baptisms.

"Goldie! Daddy!" the girls called out when they saw their parents. "Goldie an' Daddy home!" And they came to surround them, two dark heads and one light one, wispy fine still and beautiful.

"Jemma fall," Jemma announced, rubbing her knee.

"Jemma ouchie," Genie agreed.

"Jemma ouchie weg," Pippa commiserated, pointing at Jemma's leg.

"Oh yeah? Let me see." Goldie took Jemma on her lap and rolled up her legging to see her knee. It was slightly pink.

"Looks like you're going to be okay," Goldie told her.

"Goldie kiss weg?" Jemma requested, lifting her knee.

"All better," Genie said after Goldie kissed the body part in question.

Jemma squirmed to get down and ran off with her sisters to look at a book.

"You ready to do it all again?" Goldie asked Jeff as they watched. "The sleepless nights, the not being able to take your eye off them for a second? Not to mention the real possibility of having four of them in diapers at the same time?"

Jeff smiled at her. "Wouldn't have it any other way," he assured her. "Besides, I'll have you this time." He sat and put an arm around his wife. "And you don't mind putting off law school for a year?"

Goldie shook her head. "It's not how I would've planned my life, but I honestly am fine with it."

"Okay. Let's get these guys fed, bathed and into bed. We have a big day tomorrow."

The girls had already seen their beautiful outfits, and had been babbling happily about going to a "Bappy-bism" for days. They pointed at the dresses, which were hanging in their rooms, while Goldie and Jeff got them into their pajamas.

"Dwess, pwetty dwess," Genie said again, pointing at the white lace.

"Yes, you're going to sleep, then put it on, right, baby girl?" Goldie asked rhetorically. "All three of you, tomorrow."

"Tomowwow," Genie echoed as she climbed on her father's lap for story time.

"I'm not exactly thrilled that they look so much like wedding dresses," Jeff said as he made room for the other two and opened the book. "All that 'bride of Christ' stuff, you know?"

"But this isn't that, is it? I thought that was Confirmation." Goldie, whose family was not religious, was foggy about the details of Catholicism.

"I'm just saying that their dresses look vaguely matrimonial, that's all," Jeff said glumly. "I can't even imagine what it's going to be like when they get married and leave me."

"Hopefully the first time they leave you will be for college or grad school, not for matrimony," Goldie retorted, ruffling his head fondly as she scooted in on the other side of Pippa. "Don't go borrowing trouble, Daddy, hm?"

"Daddy wead," Jemma demanded, pointing to the book. "Daddy wead book."

"Yeah, Daddy, wead already," Goldie teased.

So Jeff obliged, and they got the girls settled into their cribs soon after.

*

The next morning was beautiful and almost mild with the coming of spring as they got the girls loaded into the car in their dresses. Luckily, the Velasquezes had not been disappointed about the baptisms being a huge, social affair. They were just happy that it was happening at all, and assured Jeff that just having Dean and Bobby there to be the godparents would be enough.

It was a small, quaint, Catholic church in Greenwich Village, complete with crumbling walls and daffodils blooming all over the yard.

"Oh, wonderful, you made it," Hector declared, as if there had been some doubt. "Dean and Bobby are here already, so we can start any time you're ready."

And as the lovely words of the baptismal service echoed in the haloed halls of the church, Jeff reflected that maybe this wasn't a bad thing.

"We do." Dean and Bobby answered that they were willing to be godparents to the girls, and raise them as good Christians.

And now they leaned the girls back over the water so the priest could bless them and make the sign of the cross over them.

"Wet!" Genie announced, making everyone laugh.

And then it was over, and they all sat in the yard and ate the beautiful cake, watching the girls run around in their dresses.

Jemma tripped and sat down rather hard on the grass.

"Uh-oh," she said, coming to Goldie to point out the dirt she'd gotten on her dress.

"It's okay, Jemma, we can clean it when we get home," Goldie assured her.

"Bobby, flower, look!" Pippa patted his legs, pointing to the various narcissi that grew and bloomed all around them.

"I see, beautiful Pippa," Bobby assured her. "Pretty, just like you."

"Dean, look, flower!" Pippa said to Dean, as if she'd just this moment seen it.

"Yes, I see," Dean responded as though it was news to him that the churchyard was filled with flowers.

"Daddy, tree, see?" Genie said, pointing above her head.

"A-bway-ah, gwass," Jemma told Sofia, patting the sparse grass.

"Do they do this all day?" Bobby asked, grinning.

"All the live long day," Jeff answered. "It can make you crazy, pretending to be interested when they've told you the same thing ten times."

"But you have to respond, every time," Goldie interjected. "Otherwise they'll never move on to the next thing." She smiled fondly at the babies, who were now sitting on the low wall that surrounded the flower bed. "Plus, how can you not respond to their beautiful voices?"

Eventually they said good bye to Hector, Sofia, Dean and Bobby, and took the girls home, where they just managed to change them out of their dresses before they fell asleep.

"God, look how big they are," Jeff said, watching them sleep. He slipped an arm around Goldie, who'd come to stand next to him.

"They'll be 18 months old soon," she said softly, wonderingly. "We should start toilet training them soon, otherwise we really will have four in diapers. I think they're ready, they see me sit down to go all the time, and Jems asked me where my diaper was last week."

"She did?"

Goldie nodded. She pointed to my undies and said, "Goldie diaper?"

"How about that," Jeff mused. "I guess we'll start, then, sitting them on the commode at bath time, does that sound right to you?"

"I'm sure whatever works will be right, so yeah, let's try bath time at first, it sounds convenient," Goldie answered with another nod.

"Come on, want to have a quick snog before they wake up?" Jeff asked, giving her a squeeze.

"Thought you'd never ask," Goldie said with a laugh, squeezing him back.

"We're going to be so happy, aren't we?" Jeff asked as he led her to the bedroom.

"We are," Goldie answered firmly. "So very happy."

The End