A/N Thank you again Angel, not just for your beta reading but for the ideas (you know which ones I'm talking about!) that made it into the story as well. As usual, this chapter would have been a lot less interesting if it hadn't been for you. Thanks to Cathy for the emotional support. And thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed this story. You've fed the muse and the end result is finally here!

For anyone who's never heard the song I urge you to search on YouTube for the wonderful Billy Joel song "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)"

Matt kissed Lucy tenderly as the song "So Close" by Jon McLaughlin came to an end. The wedding guests smiled and clapped for the bride and groom, a few of them wiping at misty eyes.

The applause interrupted the kiss, and the newly married couple laughed sheepishly, faces flushed with embarrassment and the emotion of the moment. After all, it was one thing to kiss each other in a private moment, and another thing entirely to have an audience of approximately 300 friends and family members.

Their dance complete, Matt led Lucy over to where their parents were sitting. Matt gave his radiant bride another kiss before he turned to face her father, who was rising to his feet for the father/daughter dance. John somehow managed to keep his face grim as he feigned reaching into his tuxedo jacket to pull out his gun…only there was no gun. He heaved an overly exaggerated sigh of resignation, eliciting laughter from the wedding guests, and earning himself an elbow in the thigh from Holly.

"Dad," Lucy rolled her eyes with exasperation and punched him in the arm with a white-gloved fist before leaning down to hug her mother.

He flashed a quick smile at her, "Sorry, baby. Force of habit." John extended his hand to Matt to shake, "Just remember what I said. Make her happy or…"

The young man grinned and interrupted, "Yeah, yeah, you'd hate to have to kill me, blah blah blah…" waving his hand breezily. Relinquishing his bride to her father, Matt took a seat beside his parents. His mother Joyce gave him a kiss on the cheek, beaming with happiness. His father Frank was smiling with pride as well, though he tugged uncomfortably at the collar of his tuxedo.

John held out his arm for Lucy to take, and slowly lead her to the dance floor as the piano music for Billy Joel's "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)" began to play.

They began the father/daughter dance. He led his daughter expertly around the center of the dance floor, each step smooth and gliding though the music's slow tempo did not lend itself to any outbursts of fancy footwork.

Lucy surveyed the large room before meeting his green eyes with a contented sigh.

Quirking his eyebrows inquisitively, he asked, "What?"

She laughed lightly, lifting one hand from his shoulder to gesture around them, "You know, for a while there I was wondering if you'd ever let this day come before I was, say, forty."

"Yeah, well, I was just making sure you didn't get too attached to the wrong guy before the right one had a chance to come along," he retorted unrepentantly.

"Puh-lease, Dad," she said as she poked him in the chest. "You and I both know the only reason you let him take me out at all is because he saved my life."

He pursed his lips and then his slight smile spread into a broader grin that was as good as a written confession. "Shut up," he ordered her good-naturedly as they continued the dance.

"It's ok," Lucy grinned up at him, then glanced over to where Matt was sitting with his family. She sighed happily. "I do love him, you know. I wouldn't have married him otherwise."

Peering in the same direction, his own gaze went from Matt to Holly, who was watching them dance over the rim of her champagne glass. Her cobalt blue dress made her look even more stunning than usual. John smiled as he recalled his own wedding, how happy he'd been and how he'd been naïve enough to think that their love for each other would be strong enough to last them through a lifetime.

Then years had passed. He'd been promoted at his job and so had she. Inevitably, they grew older but they also grew apart. Not just physically as a result of her decision to take the position in California, but in other more complex ways that had to do with expectations and perceptions of what they were both giving and taking from their marriage.

They'd managed to put the pieces back together enough times to last through their 15th anniversary, just barely. Then John started drinking more and working more, and this time the resulting blowup between himself and Holly had resulted in his move back to New York. That ended up being the point of no return. By the time he'd gotten over his anger and was sober enough to realize how stupid and arrogant he'd been, the divorce papers had already been served.

Everyone told John he'd meet another woman sooner or later, but John knew no woman would ever replace the spot Holly held in his heart. Their love for each other had never faded throughout the years of marriage and ensuing divorce but then love had never been the problem.

"Want some fatherly advice?" he asked his daughter abruptly, his tone somber.

His quicksilver change of temper caught her off guard, but she recovered quickly. "What, you're actually asking me for once? Usually you give it to me whether I want it or not," she pointed out with a slight smile on her face.

John's expression was serious as he looked her in the eye and quietly said, "It can be easy to say 'I love you.' It's a hell of a lot harder to say, 'I was wrong' or 'I'm sorry' and mean it. And those words are just as important in a marriage as 'I love you.' You're my daughter, and in many ways, you're just like me. Same temper, that's for damn sure," he chuckled ruefully. "Just…don't be like your old man when it comes to this, ok?"

Lucy's eyes brimmed with tears at she nodded. The song was coming to a close, and she swallowed back more tears, throwing her arms around his neck in a tight hug. "I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, baby," he replied gruffly and brushed a kiss to her cheek. He took her hand in his and led Lucy back to her new husband.

Nine years later, Lucy had just finished a bedtime story and was tucking her sons in for the night.

Seven-year old Nathan peeked up at his mother from over the edge of the covers, his hazel eyes dark and serious. "Is Daddy still mad at you?" he whispered loudly so that he didn't wake up his little brother. Alexander was three and had a tendency to fall asleep long before the evening's bedtime story was finished.

His mother sighed and didn't answer immediately. Matt and Lucy had argued in the past of course, all married couples had their shares of disagreements, but this was by far the worst state their marriage had ever been in.

A few nights ago, Lucy's supervisor had asked her to stay a few hours late. When she had finally returned home, tired but jubilant about over the progress the forensics lab had made on the McMillan murder investigation, the kids were already in bed and Matt was up waiting for her, impatient and infuriated. He had been on call with the security admin for the computer software firm he worked for, and they'd had a major system failure.

She had known he was on call but just didn't feel that the server crash was important enough for her to rush home, especially not when the crime lab was on the verge of a major breakthrough in processing the evidence. It wasn't like people's lives were at stake just because the servers went down, right? Matt had hardly spoken to her since that night.

Well, actually that wasn't quite true. Initially, they'd had a shouting match in the middle of the kitchen. "Do you think that because you care about your job so much, that I don't care about mine?" he'd demanded.

"Right," she'd responded sarcastically. "Because writing a few lines of code is so much more important than wading through the sheer volume of forensics required to solve a double homicide."

Things had gone strictly downhill from there. The only reason the fight didn't continue on longer was that a pajama-clad Alex had come into the kitchen, sobbing and telling them both to 'stop being mean.' Their youngest son was extremely sensitive to the moods of people around him and grew very distressed when people argued or cried in his presence. Lucy had no idea whose side of the family that personality quirk had come from because it certainly wasn't the McClane side.

That was three days ago and, though there had been no more arguments, the atmosphere in the house was anything but comforting and familial. The kids had been unusually quiet and restless. Matt was doing all of his home computer work in his study and falling asleep on the couch in there instead of coming up to bed.

"Mommy?" Nathan's voice brought her out of her reverie and he expectantly awaited her response to his question, though he already knew the answer.

She brushed the dark brown hair back from his forehead and nodded, "Yeah, Daddy's still mad at me."

His little face was solemn. "Are you mad at him?"

"No, I'm not mad at him," Lucy smiled. "I just, well I want him to see my side of the story, is all." And that was all. She kept trying to explain to him the reasoning behind her choice to stay late. Trying to explain anything was pointless though, because every time she spoke to him Matt merely shrugged, his face carefully blank and expressionless. "Whatever."

Nathan considered her answer and nodded understanding. "Do you see his side of the story?" he inquired, cocking his head curiously.

She opened her mouth to respond, and then realized she didn't have a response. Lucy thought about it for a moment. She hadn't tried to see his side of the story at all. She had been too busy trying to justify her own actions. Biting her lip for a moment, she finally leaned over and kissed her son on the forehead. "You know what? You're a very smart little boy."

"I know," he grinned up at her and tugged his covers up a bit more. "Love you," he said around a yawn and turned over to his side to go to sleep.

Lucy reached over to shut off the lamp. Turning back to Nathan, she straightened his blanket, and then moved to do the same with Alex, leaning over to give his small cherubic face a kiss. Then she stood up and slowly made her way downstairs to the study.

The large room was a strange mixture of playroom and computer lab. Shelves lined the walls of the room. The lowest shelves held a myriad of toys, from the latest Transformer toys to Hot Wheels to bedraggled comic books, all within easy reach of Nathan and Alex. The highest shelves held what appeared to be toys as well, but in reality these were some of the many collectibles that Matt had accumulated over the years. Original Star Wars action figures still in the box held places of honor next to the Lego Millennium Falcon and a Predator locked in mortal combat with an Alien.

The middle of the room had three desks, all of which were lined with computer towers, parts, and monitors. Manuals and papers littered the few open areas, and the trash can under the desk overflowed with empty Red Bull cans. Matt was sitting at the centermost desk, typing as he stared at the screen immediately in front of him.

She took a deep breath before stepping into the room and leaned up against the door frame. "Hey," she greeted him tentatively.

He stopped typing and swiveled in his chair to look at her, but didn't respond.

Lucy fidgeted nervously. She knew what she should say but didn't know exactly how to say it. To stop herself from wringing her hands, she instead walked over to one of the shelves and picked up one of the Spawn action figures. "Um… I…" she exhaled with frustration, swapping Spawn from one hand to the other. Dammit, her father had been right again. It was harder to apologize sincerely than it was to say 'I love you.'

Matt still remained silent, though he began to impatiently drum his fingers on the arm of his chair. He didn't seem to be in the mood to hear more of her explanations.

She inhaled and took the plunge. "I'm sorry. You're right. Your job is just as important to you as mine is to me, and I should have respected that instead of ignoring it. So, I just wanted to say that, just so you know. That I'm sorry. Not just for what I said, but that it took me so long to realize how selfish I was being." There was a sudden snapping sound, and she glanced down at her hands, realizing that she'd been gripping the toy so tightly she'd snapped one of the arms off.

"Shit," she cursed and looked up at Matt, but he was no longer in his chair. Instead he was walking toward her. When he reached her, he took the broken toy from her shaking hands, tossed them negligently back on the shelf, and then enveloped her in a hug that was almost painfully tight. She didn't care though, it'd been too long since they'd touched. She cried silently into his shoulder as he kissed her hair.

After a few minutes, she had her emotions under control enough to apologize again. "I'm sorry I broke your Spawn toy, too."

Matt's shoulder shook with laughter under her cheek, and she raised her head to look into his face in confusion. She knew how obsessive he was about his more valuable action figures.

He grinned down at her, using a thumb to brush away a tear from her face. "Don't worry about it… I keep the good one over there on the shelf behind my desk. I put these action figures by the door so that when your dad comes over, if he breaks something it's nothing valuable. I've superglued that thing at least 20 times since we got the house."

Then he kissed her, and the world was right again.