“I think she’s soothed by our voices.” Maxon smiled, gently massaging the baby’s back with his hand.

“That’s not what I remember. I distinctly remember a squirming, hyper baby whenever she heard your voice.”

Maxon grinned down, memorizing the features of that brand new face, so like his own and like America’s at the same time. “She needs to rest up a little, then she’ll start dancing again whenever she hears me talking.”

“Are you tired, little one?” America asked, speaking directly to her daughter for the first time. “Was being born hard work?”

As if responding to the question, the baby lazily yawned and scrunched up her little face. A moment later, she strained her eyelids open for the very first time.

Maxon and America both gasped, and Maxon moved his face closer, so that he was nose to nose with the baby. “Hello, my love. Hello. You’ve just opened your eyes, can you tell? Can you see me? I’m the colorful blob right in front of you, it’s me. It’s Daddy.”

Exhausted from the effort, the baby’s eyes drifted closed again.

America felt hot tears on her cheeks again. Maxon lifted his face to grin up at her.

“I just… I love that you were the first thing she ever saw.” America said, simply.

Maxon beamed back at her, “Happy?”

“So happy.” America nodded.

“Tired?”

America laughed, “So tired. But I don’t want to sleep yet. I want to stay awake as long as I can, and be with her.”

“Alright.” Maxon agreed, settling back down. He brushed a finger across the baby’s forehead, “You should cry some more, little love. You need to help keep Mommy awake.”

America peered up at him, studying Maxon’s face closely. When he met her gaze, she nodded her head a little to get him to lean in closer. Maxon eagerly obeyed, and when he was close enough, America gave him a long, subdued, lingering kiss.

“Seven pounds, four ounces.” Dr. Ashlar announced, intentionally loud enough so that America could hear him over the crying. “Eighteen inches long. She’s little, but she’s responsive. I’ll be running lots of tests on her over the next few days, but for now, I have no reason not to declare her medically healthy.”

Maxon let out a laugh that sounded almost like a holler of joy, setting aside his camera to cuddle his daughter again. “Healthy.” He said the word like he’d never heard of anything so wonderful before.

Dr. Ashlar gently placed a hand on Maxon’s shoulder, which caught America’s attention. He’d known not to clap down, not to pat Maxon on the back. She wondered if he’d treated Maxon’s wounds at some point in his childhood, before Maxon got his own box of medical supplies. Or maybe Dr. Ashlar had never treated Maxon’s back, but had come across the scars during some other type of examination. Either way, he knew how to avoid triggering those memories at a moment like this, as Maxon held his minutes-old daughter. America was so grateful.

“Come. Let’s put a diaper on that baby and get her to her mother.” Dr. Ashlar grinned, and Maxon smiled over at him.

“You’ll tell me how, won’t you? I’ve never done this before.” Maxon nervously wheezed a laugh as Dr. Ashlar led him back to the changing table and released his shoulder.

“It’s not hard. Here. Can you tell which side is the front?” Dr. Ashlar held up one of the unspeakably tiny diapers and rotated it.

“Um… I think it’s this one.” Maxon nodded, since both of his hands were supporting his newborn.

“That’s right.” Dr. Ashlar nodded. “See? No problem. Just stretch it out, lay it down, and put your baby on it.” He coached Maxon through the diapering with the air of a proud father. When they were done, Dr. Ashlar lifted the baby girl up and turned to America. “Now that he knows what he’s doing, he can change all the diapers from here on out.”

Maxon laughed and America smiled weakly and swallowed to clear the lump in her throat at the sight of her baby wearing its first little diaper. “The clean ones are the easy part, it’s the dirty ones that are tricky.” she said, drawing from her experience assisting her mother when Gerad had been in diapers.

“Well, we’ll get him trained up soon enough, won’t we?” Dr. Ashlar grinned between them.