Baby Borden

So early gone;
To earth a child is lost,
To heaven a cherub born.

The stone read, with the year etched just below. Amy stood beside Ty before their lost child's gravestone. It marked no true resting place, but merely acknowledged a life that once existed for too brief a time. It was their closure, saying goodbye to a precious part of them with all of the love they had for a child they would never meet. But it was their child and neither of them were able to carry on without memorializing it. The most difficult part was not knowing if it had been a boy or a girl and not being able to give a name to claim the headstone. "Baby Borden" was all they had, but it had been enough to mark the child's place in their family.

The small stone inlaid in the grass sat just a few feet away from Amy's mother's stone - it's grandmother. Even though Baby Borden had very little identity in their world, they knew that it existed in another and that Marion would be there for it in that world. She would help it to understand how much it was loved by its parents despite never meeting them. Even now their hearts still ached at the memory of this child and they still spent times wondering just what could have been and who they would be today.

"You'd be almost two today," Amy said softly to the stone, her hand resting delicately within Ty's as he lowered himself down to place the small bouquet of wildflowers in front of the stone. They didn't know when their child would have been born exactly, but took the time to figure out about when Amy would have been due and made that the child's anniversary. They acknowledged it as they would any other day of remembrance by making the trip to the cemetery to pay their respects. Even in the bitter cold temperatures of winter.

Ty stood again, his hand giving Amy's a gentle squeeze when she leaned against him to drop her head on his shoulder. They remained in silence for a few long minutes, each lost in their own memories of the events that led them here. Eventually, Ty broke the silence. "We should get you out of this cold," he spoke softly, turning to rest his lips against her hair for a moment until she turned her head to look up at him with a light smile. The hand not in Ty's rose to rest on her belly where their second child - their son - was resting comfortably in his warm little world.

It had taken almost a year before Amy had been truly ready to try for another baby. Then they struggled for so long to actually conceive that Amy had started to think that maybe it wasn't going to happen. Until the day of Ty's birthday back in the fall when she woke up so sick she could barely stand and spent the better part of the day in the bathroom. She'd felt so awful for ruining his birthday when they canceled their plans and stayed home to care for her, but when that stick turned blue Ty praised the day as the best birthday he ever had.

Those early months had been difficult to get through as they tried not to let their fears of history repeating itself prevent them from enjoying their new life, but the caution was there any time they stepped out of their house that rested at the end of a tree-lined driveway on a modest hundred and fifty acres of property. Amy could see how carefully Ty would drive anymore. How he'd take extra time to turn or pull out of somewhere and how he'd walk on the outside of her down the sidewalk so he was always between her and any vehicle. Each time they went into the city for a check up, he paid to park on the street or an open lot rather than the parking garage that had taken their first child's life. Maybe they were unnecessary precautions, but they made it over halfway through the pregnancy without any complications so far.

"Yeah. Lou and Grandpa are expecting us." Amy replied in that same quiet voice, though hesitated a moment to walk away from the stone. She always hated to do it, hated walking away, but they did what they needed to to help them move on and while it was still hard this time of year, they finally felt at peace with it and settled happily and contentedly into their new home and the next part of their lives. Ty finally partnered with Scott's practice and they were opening a second clinic in the old shop left on their acreage come spring. Amy's side of their business was on hold for the time being - until their son was born, but there was already a waiting list of horses in search of her help. It was all coming together, just as they always imagined it.

A/N: This is it, guys. The last chapter of the TNS saga. It's brief, but memorable. (I think so, anyway.) I want to thank all of you devoted readers for sticking with me and this story throughout the last year and a half or so that it came together. For the feedback and positive comments that kept me updating (and wanting to update) and actually following through with a large writing project like this for the first time ever. I hope you've enjoyed the story and come back to it once in a while to reflect. I also hope you tag along with me on my next fanfic adventure that's going to be quite AU and different, and hopefully as engaging as TNS has come to be.