This is for the amazing broadwaybaggins, my precious adopted little sister who wanted some Mills/Hood family fluff. This is also a direct companion piece to chapters 3 and 7 for those of you who were wanting more of this storyline. I do hope you enjoy!

She's staring at her phone when he walks into the kitchen, gazing at the object as if it possesses magic. But it's her eyes that capture his attention, glistening with moisture, swollen with the threat of impending tears she continually attempts to blink into submission.

"Regina?"

His voice spans the distance between them before he can take a step closer, and she turns in his direction, holding up the phone in her hand.

"What is it?" he asks, at her side before the last word leaves his lips, his hands on her waist, his eyes fastened to hers as he tries to see what's stirring beneath those dark depths as fathomless the night sky. He feels her swallow, senses her inner trembling, watches burgundy lips sway and twitch as emotions undergo a slow transformation into speech.

"A baby," she finally breathes, her expression a study in awed disbelief. "We-we have a baby."

It's his turn to swallow, and he steps back to look at her, to rub his hand across her middle in concern. They'd taken measures to prevent another pregnancy—Hope's birth had been so hard on her, had put such a strain on her body that he'd actually feared he might lose her during the ordeal of bringing their child into the world.

"A baby?" His words are mere puffs of air, a restating of something that will change their lives from this moment forward. They have three children, three perfect, incredible children. He doesn't want to put her at risk for a fourth.

He opens his mouth, an indistinct sound tumbling out nonsensically, but she sets the phone on the counter and clasps his hand with her own, silencing him before he can think out loud anymore.

"I'm not pregnant," she whispers, unable to stifle a grin as his expression broadens in understanding. "She's in Portland."

"Portland," he echoes, the corners of his lips twitching upwards. "She?"

Images and questions tumble from his mind to his stomach, his insides doing an odd sort of somersault as the news tries to take root.

"A baby girl," she affirms, and she's beaming, her skin alight with the same radiance she'd worn when she officially adopted Roland and told him she was pregnant with Hope. Motherhood gives her an elegance far beyond the grasp of regal finery and display, an ageless beauty that goes bone deep and paints her soul in streaks of silver. .

"A baby girl," he murmurs, his mouth stretching until his smile matches hers. His arms tingle, the remembered weight of cradling Hope when she was first born triggering muscles that have been dormant too long. "That will certainly even things out here." He pauses then, shaking his head as memories jumble and collide. "This is quicker than we anticipated, isn't it? Especially for a baby?"

"It is," she affirms. Her fingers slide artfully into his, their steady pressure alerting him to the fact that there is more to the story than he yet knows. They'd applied to adopt a waiting child, had specified they'd be willing to be foster parents first if that step was necessitated in the process. Their family was already complete in his opinion, but he'd willingly agreed to look into adoption at his wife's request, loving her even more than he believed possible as she explained to him why she wanted another child with a voice both clear and quivering, certain he'd lasso the moon, sun and stars for her if she even but asked. Regina's only stipulation had been that the boy or girl be younger than Hope so as not to upset the birth order that already existed in their household. The social worker had then told them that the wait for a younger child could be longer, that babies and toddlers were in demand, unless, that is, they were open to the possibility of adopting a child born with special needs.

His train of thought catches up with him, and he looks at her directly.

"Is there….anything wrong with her?"

He hates the sound of his question the moment it hits the air, and he tries to draw it back, feeling Regina's touch on his chest, sure and steady, grounded and real.

"She was born with cleft lip," his wife answers, pausing until comprehension takes root. "It's incomplete but will require surgery sometime before she's six months old, and she might need more than one." She's gushing now, and he knows with certainty that she is already attached to this baby they've never even met. Her transparent heart for children was the first thing that had made him fall in love with her. "Not everyone is willing to take on a baby who will bring a stiff medical bill and special feeding instructions along with her."

She stands unmoving even as he takes a small step into her.

"But you are," he states, loving her even more at the look of childish eagerness in her face. He's thrilled that he can still make her blush, that his assurances still tickle her senses until they warm her soundly from the inside out.

"I am," she returns, tossing a knowing smirk in his direction from out of nowhere. "And so are you."

"So am I," he utters, hoping he is up for the task. His arms now tingle to hold this child who will be theirs, to meet her and name her and let her know she's not alone in this big, foreign world so fraught with uncertainty. "When do we leave for Portland?"

She bites her lower lip before he does his and presses their foreheads together, dotting the tip of his nose with her lips.

"Tomorrow," she answers before falling into arms she knows will wrap her up and never let her go.

The day is wet and gray, the drive full of bouts of conversation followed by silences made of deep thoughts and private imaginings.

"I'm going to want to try to heal her, you know," she whispers, staring straight ahead as the windshield wipers continue their steady thrum against the glass.

"I wish you could," he returns, reaching out to squeeze her hand as they wade through unexpected traffic. "But we did agree to do this the customary way."

She laughs, he grins, and he feels a new connection between them, just when he was sure it was impossible for such a thing to happen.

"There would be a few questions from the social worker and the state if her cleft lip magically disappeared," she finished for him, her free hand clenching into a fist atop her skirt. She's looks down and clears her throat, turning towards him with a look he knows all too well-one of raw insecurity. "And healing magic...it's still not my exactly my forte. I can take care of scrapes and bruises easily enough, but this…"

He brings her hand to his lips, careful to watch where they're going before depositing it back in her lap.

"We want to do this the right way," he states, her weighted sigh rubbing his arms through his jacket.

"We do," she agrees. "This is her life. We're-"

The stop at the traffic light just beside the hospital, gazing up at it through the drizzle, wondering just where the baby who will be their daughter is located in such a large building.

"We're her best chance, Robin," she finishes, her eyes fixing on a particular window as the enormity of her words sink in. Can she sense where she is in that structure, he wonders? It wouldn't be the first time his wife has left him speechless.

"As you are mine," he returns, eliciting a nervous smile from her before they exit their car for the unknown.

Hall merges into hall, grays and whites blurring until they're standing in front of a nursery window, the social worker smiling back at their eagerness as she shakes their hands and beckons them towards the pediatrician on call. They're guided back into a private area in the nursery, a small, sterile room in which the child awaits.

She's so small.

It's the first thing that strikes him when he sees the diapered bundle, her shock of black hair sticking straight up and proud. He sees the hole in her lip next, and he wants to scoop her up and hold him to his chest, to whisper to her that it doesn't matter, that they'll make it all better because she's not alone anymore.

They're going to be her family. He knows it as surely as he knows his own name.

"She's Asian," he hears, drawing himself back into the conversation as a nurse picks up the baby and gingerly deposits her in Regina's arms. Tiny hands flail and protest-she has spirit, this little one-then his wife's eyes lock with his and he can't breathe, much less think.

"She's ours," he hears himself say, completely enamored by the sight before him. The social worker smiles and nods.

The physician continues to brief them, phrase after phrase piercing him from every side. Left in a cardboard box by the ER entrance...malnourished….mother more than likely Cambodian, possibly a teenager... no one has come to claim her or has made any inquiries in over a week…

"She's been here without anyone to love her for over a week?"

The question could not have been stopped, it shoved its way out his mouth, and he stands immobile, wondering if she sensed this, even in her newborn state, that she'd been discarded and left behind with no one to even ask how she was faring.

Then Regina is front of him, laying the tiny form in his arms, the scent of lotion and new skin overtaking him in a rush. He knows then he'd move mountains and lay waste to armies for this little girl, just as he would for any of his children.

"She'll have a scar," the doctor adds, his face now as soft as the scene playing out before him. "On her lip after the surgery."

Robin watches his wife caress soft strands of ebony just as a tiny hand reaches up and grazes her own scar, a now faded but an integral part of her beauty. She gazes up at him then, and they smile in understanding before she turns to face the doctor with a stance he knows means business.

"Then she'll fit right in," Regina states with a flourish, turning back to her family with an expression he presses into memory along with the feel of his new baby girl.