AN: Yes, it's a little different than before if you were quick enough to read the first posting of this. See what I mean by rough? Yikes. I posted an older version of this story before I went through some plot edits.

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"I know it's got to be here somewhere."

"What?" Henry asked, walking in the middle, craning his head to look at the rooms as they passed by.

"What are we looking for?" Shawn spoke up tiredly. He was already tired from three weeks of hell at work, and now this whole baby situation was starting to tickle at his anxiety. There was no way he could maintain his cover and still be involved in this. He wasn't sure how exactly he got roped into meeting Gus at the hospital. But Gus had sounded so excited, nervous, and giddy on the phone, and Shawn had found himself helpless to refuse. Now that he was here though, down this hall, a once familiar, painful walk…five more doors and he would make a left and two more after that a right, and find himself in the NICU, waiting, and hoping, and praying…

"The pre-delivery rooms. Bonnie's in room 309," Gus interjected, pulling Shawn from his thoughts.

"309 is over this way. On the other side of the NICU, off the Johnson wing." Shawn replied, trailing behind with his hands in his back pockets. Occasionally his forearm brushed against the handle of his Sig Sauer hidden against the small of his back, underneath his striped button down shirt, as he walked. He idly wondered how something he used to disdain now provided a sense of comfort and security. He grew up around guns. His father was a cop, for chrissakes. But as much as he was around them, he had never got use to them. When his father retired and hung up the badge, Shawn was glad to see the gun permanently holstered as well.

He grinned to himself sardonically. Now he couldn't stand to have his gun out of reach—and hated himself for it. Not enough to quit, though.

He jerked to a halt, his peripheral vision furiously hammering on his neurons as they suddenly registered his two companions had come to an abrupt halt as well and were now both shooting him curious looks.

"What?"

"How do you know that?"

"Well, I…read if off the sign, Gus. It's right there." He pointed down the hall to a directory sign, indicating, sure enough that rooms 305-325 were to the left. Unfortunately he would have to pass through the NICU to get to them. His wife had stayed in rooms 306, and 317…but the last baby had found her in critical care, recovering from a gun shot wound to the abdomen and an emergency C-section.

And Shawn had found himself wearing a path between the two departments, worrying over a wife and baby girl born so early it could barely survive.

But she did, he reminded himself. She was now every bit as healthy and beautiful as her mother, who had made a full recovery herself.

He pulled himself back to the present where both his father and …friend… had turned to look at the sign. Gus merely uttered an "Oh" of comprehension, while his dad swiveled his head to scrutinize the son he hadn't seen in 10 years. Something was off, and he knew his Dad well enough to know he sensed it. Without waiting for further debate, Shawn motioned to follow his anxious friend, and Henry, with another steely-eyed squint acquiesced.

Fatherhood.

Well, Gus was in for a wild ride that was for sure. At least he wasn't coming home from an assignment to find a two year old baby boy with his eyes and nose and his mother's hair and lips. Thrust into parenting a child he hadn't even known existed. And then two years later, a father to another little boy bearing the Spencer name, and two years after that…

"Where—"

"Take a right," Shawn shot out, hardly thinking as he navigated through the bright, shiny corridor with ease. He barely registered another look cast his way from his father.

He'd been happy, though, shocked as he was to find little James Henry Spencer smiling shyly up at him. Mesmerized. And choked with emotion. After all the screw ups—the biggest one leaving the mother of his child alone and pregnant—although neither had known she would wind up pregnant after that one night—he couldn't believe that something so beautiful, so perfect could have ever come from him. Jamie was his pride and joy, and he had been eager to replicate the feeling when he and his then/now wife had spent nearly a year trying before they had become pregnant with his second son, Michael.

Michael, not Jamie, proved to be the exception to childbearing. They had become immediately and unexpectedly pregnant with a third child not long after they resumed nocturnal activities. The timing couldn't had been worse—he was just getting ass-deep in his assignment, but Jules had been so happy despite the timing, and he felt himself pulled in by her enthusiasm, unable to argue the fact that the two children they had produced before represented the best of both parents, and why should this one be any different.

He swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat as he vividly recalled just how different everything about little Hannah Elizabeth Spencer's coming-to-be was compared to her brothers'.

She was worth it, though.

But, he had been hesitant to go through the process again. In fact, after three children he had been more than ready to call their family complete. Two boys, one girl, 8, 4, & 2. Perfect. As the months passed since Hannah's birth he settled more into that precept. And now his wife had told him they were pregnant again, due to have another Spencer come into the world in approximately five and a half months.

It was the first time, though, where he had had serious trouble conjuring a ready smile at the news. Even Jules seemed a bit hesitant at sharing their coming joy, whether from his reaction or from her own doubts and insecurities. Hannah's traumatic birth had left them both with scars. It didn't help that he was once again ass-deep in an assignment that would undoubtedly wind up with him in the hospital, either from his accursed leg, or some other new injury. But if something happened to Jules…the baby…or one of the kids…

This was getting too hard.

And what he did was too damn dangerous.

It was too risky with a family.

But it paid well, and he was able to comfortably support a wife and three, soon to be four, children.

And wasn't that all that mattered?

Sure some days he hated his job. Hated his life, except for Jules and the kids. He had almost been out. One more job and he could've found something else—something safer, maybe, and that kept him home more often, for longer periods of time. Maybe even something 8-5, Monday through Friday.

But there was no denying he was damn good at his job. One of the few who could do it well. And he took a little pride in that. He had had to sacrifice a lot, but at the time he hadn't had cared. His dad and best friend were gone—dead, he had thought, and had been lead to think for almost ten years before learning the truth. He wasn't involved with Jules yet—that didn't come until two years –and one hot night of agonizingly good sex (so good it came with a souvenir nine months down the road)—later.

They had put him through training, and school. A four year degree in criminology—and later, when Michael had been still developing in his mother's womb, a masters in criminal justice. Those were two things he'd never thought he'd be in possession of. He had earned the first degree in a little over two years. He wasn't dumb after all—all his teachers, friends, and parents had said if he only applied himself in high school he would have graduated in the top of his class—that and actually show up for class. After his dad and Gus had died…"died"… he corrected mentally, he had found his motivation in revenge. Not the most original source of motivation, but an effective one as well. He had found the job that would allow him to take a little back of what had been ripped from him, and for once he had been willing, without argument, to do whatever it took to meet that end. Even if it meant enrolling in an institution of higher learning. The master's had come when he had argued that pursuing it would help him to perform his job better. And it would help him stay around Jules and Michael, whom she was pregnant with at the time, while he earned it.

Had either degree helped him in any way? No, he could have still done the job without it—that's how he had landed it initially. Both were just a formality, really, as far as he was concerned. His employer had seemed to think they were necessary.

And the job had been fun. Well, maybe not fun…well, yes, fun, he amended, because he hadn't cared whether or not he lived or died from one assignment to the next. He constantly put his life in danger because beating the bad guys had always been fun, no matter what the cost, and he wasn't living for anyone anymore anyway. And by the time he had become an instant family man he was in too deep to just up and leave it.

Plus he had needed the job. He had to show Jules he had some sort of steady paying job, some sort of steady life, otherwise she might not have ever let him around his son. Well, maybe she would have, but convincing her they belonged together, and that they could make a life together would have been much harder if he hadn't had the means to support both her and their son. Like, the house he bought, and the new car. Not that she was the type to be impressed by big expensive gifts. But they had needed the house—her apartment was much too small for two of them, much less the three of them he was hoping to make, and Jules' car had seen it last good day sometime in August of 2003. Jules and Jamie had been making ends meet, but it was obvious to him that she had been struggling at times on her civil servant salary to support a baby.

But he was sincere about wanting to be a family. Be a father and a husband…although it took an inordinate amount of time to convince her to make it official. And why he was so hell bent on making it official after they had already had a child together, he didn't know, but he was adamant that they be married before they had a second one.

She had finally given in, though Shawn knew that her hesitation had less to do with her so called disseverment of the institution of marriage, and more with the doubts she obviously had about his commitment to a life together she couldn't possibly ever see him wanting to settle down into.

With exception to either of their jobs, their life together was horribly banal. They argued about money, they shared in the childrearing, taking turns picking up or dropping off their children at school or daycare. They went to Jamie's little league games, soccer games, and Michael's preschool pageant and grinned like the proud parents they were. Given the opportunity, Shawn was just as capable as his wife at boring some innocent bystander with whatever activity Hannah had just accomplished, what Michael had said at the breakfast table that had made him laugh with a memory of how he had thought the same thing when he was younger, or how Jamie had been so excited to hit his first homerun, even if it was in practice.

Yes, their life was practically a scene out of the Seaver's when he was home.

Unfortunately, he was rarely ever home. The year and a half he had spent earning a Master's degree had been the longest he had ever been with his family at one stretch—and he had taken his time on the coursework specifically so he could be there for the pregnancy and the birth, both of which he had missed with his first child. Prior to that, after the discovery of one little James Henry Spencer's existence, he had managed to spend about a month getting to know his son, before he started on an assignment that took him away for two weeks. He had been home again 

for another two weeks before he had had to leave his baby boy while work took him away again, this time across the hemisphere into South America. By the time he had returned three weeks later, he was sure his only son had forgotten he had ever had a father, and Jules, who was already skeptical about his commitment to his child and to her, had decided to cut him out of their lives completely.

But neither had, and so began a cautious, but intense, courtship between Shawn and Juliet. He had tried to work out his assignments so that he was home for longer stretches of time, sometimes two or even three months, but it was extremely difficult, and even if he managed to spend more time at home, often times that meant he spent more time away. He found it excruciating. He tried to keep his mind off of Jules and the baby while he was working, but the thought that she might just say forget it, that it would never work between them, with her demanding schedule and his crazy job that she knew almost nothing about, plagued him constantly and he half expected to find mother and child gone every time he came home.

Instead he generally found a relieved and smiling Jules, and a little boy overjoyed at sharing with his father all the things he had learned or done while he was away. So it was with each additional child as his family grew.

Personally he was rather fond of his little welcoming committee. And the welcome home sex he was especially fond of.

He missed them terribly. He hadn't seen Jules or the kids in five weeks. He was back in the area, but he rarely went home until a case was finished. He didn't want to risk blowing his cover and putting his family in danger, both very real outcomes if he didn't toe a very cautious line.

So he stayed in L.A., in a crappy one room apartment while he worked steadily to tie up a case so that he could go home and forget about everything he had done and just concentrate on being a father to his children and a husband to his wife.

He had talked to Juliet three days ago, when he had first got back to his office in L.A. He never told her where he was when he called, and she had long ago stopped asking, but they both knew anytime he initiated the phone call, he was close by, and the case was close to being wrapped up. She had sounded tired, and he had felt the first pang of worry as he reflected on her condition. He hadn't asked if everything was all right with the baby, and she hadn't said that anything was wrong. He hoped it was just simple fatigue, the usual tiredness that came when she was expecting. He idly recalled that she had been working a robbery case for the last two weeks, trying to carefully piece together the evidence. And hadn't she mentioned something about a stakeout? He rubbed a hand tiredly over his face—usually he paid better attention. Yes, there had definitely been a stakeout, he was sure of it. He hoped she wasn't overworking herself. He'd have to remind her to take it easy, for her sake and the baby's.

He nodded absentmindedly at a pedes nurse that passed by, registering the wild, colorful print of her tunic, giraffes, tigers, and panda bears all competing for dominance. They were almost to the NICU, and he felt his stomach tighten when a familiar face ducked out of one of the offices.

Sarah O'Connell. She had been one of Hannah's nurses, a familiar face forever residing it seemed in the NICU, watching over the tiny bodies that required the constant, extra special care. He had seen her face a lot over those six weeks—nearly every day. And they had gotten to know each other pretty well. And she would most certainly recognize him, even after two years, of that he was scarily certain.

She too, possessed a keen memory, and she had taken an extra special interest in his daughter's case. She would remember him, and worse yet, she would say something to him—and he hadn't told his dad, and best friend yet that he was even married, much less that he had three children, one of which had spent quite a bit of time in this very hospital ward.

This was going to be interesting.