She knew it would happen. The coach rattled along and she felt herself begin to shake, but tried to breathe through it. The air in the cab got thicker and harder to breathe and a harsh, high pitched ring filled her ears. She was expecting tears and hysterics like she experienced when she arrived at the ranch, but she didn't account for the difference four months of pregnancy would make to her body and how it responded to stress. It was physical this time, not just sobs and overwhelming emotions. Joey was gripping her tightly and crying into her side, but she tried to keep comforting him as the trembles became tremors. "Elvie?" He pulled away, his hand covering hers. "Carlos? She's shaking! Elvie what's wrong?"

She tried to smile for him, pulling him back into her side. "I'll be all ri..." her shaky reassurance was cut off by a sharp squeeze in her abdomen that made her gasp. It was like a thick belt or corset was suddenly tightened around her and took her breath away. As suddenly as it was there, it was gone. Another followed a few minutes later, and Carlos yelled up to the driver to hurry. The pains and squeezes came with no rhyme or reason throughout the whole drive. She tried not to cry, but it was too soon for the baby to come and with everything else that already happened that night, she fell apart.

David and Mush were behind the desk when Carlos carried her in with Joey trailing in behind. He bellowed at them to call a doctor and get a room key and from the commotion she heard, it seemed like they sprang to action and it wasn't long before she was tucked into a soft bed with Vivian Meyers on one side of her, holding her hand, and a doctor on the other. The pains had mostly subsided on their own but she allowed him to check her over anyway.

"Well, my dear," the older man said as he put his stethoscope back in the bag that pinned the blankets around her feet down, "best I can tell what you experienced were just practice pains, but in stressful situations those practice pains can create the real thing." Vivian squeezed her hand a little more tightly and she was never more glad to have a friend by her side. She was never more grateful to her friends at the ranch who taught her how to accept that kindness. The old man had to ruin it, asking questions that were none of his business. "Where is the baby's father?"

Vivian gasped. "What does that have to do with anything?"

But Elvie stopped her, pulling her back down to sit at her side. She didn't need anyone to fight her fights for her, she just needed someone in her corner. "He's..." She couldn't tell this man the truth, that Bays was gone because she was a stupid, broken soul who let circumstances rule her life so long that she ruined the only relationship she'd ever been in, so she simplified it, "He and I had a disagreement. I'm not sure where he is or if he's coming back," she answered quietly.

He didn't need words to express his disapproval, but he still used them. His whole demeanor was dark. She wrapped her arms over her stomach, taking Viv's hand along with hers, as if he could decide she was unfit and take the child from her then and there. "How do you plan to take care of this child in your condition?"

Elvie's stomach plunged and she gripped more tightly at Viv's hand. Vivian placed her other hand over the top and patted gently, trying to comfort her. Elvie smiled, turning her face to the doctor. "When her father comes back, because regardless of what he said or did in the heat of the most stressful moment of our lives, I know him and he would never abandon a child, especially his own child. Family is too important to him. Me? He can leave me and I would deserve it, but he would never leave this little life now that he knows about her." She took a deep breath, pulling away from Viv's touch in shame. "And if the worst should happen and he doesn't want her, I have a family picked out for her. Either way, this baby will be loved and cared for, Sir."

"Elvie? You're not going to keep the baby?" Vivian asked quietly.

She shook her head. "Not alone. I couldn't. Eli and Jo, they will give her the kind of life she deserves, not the kind of life my brothers and Adrienne and I struggled through. I won't do that to her. I love her too much to do to her what was done to me."

Viv's hand wrapped back around hers and the other, the one that forever held the scent and softness of cocoa butter from the chocolates she made, gently stroked down Elvie's face. She was so exhausted still, she wanted the doctor and everyone to leave and let her sleep, but she was also terrified to wake up alone in this strange room. "Even if that clown never comes to his senses, you wouldn't be alone. You've got us. You've got friends, Elvie. We would help you."

Elvie nodded. "I know you would, and you will either way. Whatever happens, I will need you. I know that now. I can't do everything on my own." Her eyes were going heavy and trying to close of their own accord. "You don't have to worry, Doctor. My baby will be well looked after, and not just by me."

"That's right," Vivian added bitterly. "We're a family. You can't keep a newsboy, or their wives, down."

Elvie chuckled sleepily and turned on her side, unable to stay awake any longer, "Or shut them up."

Vivian escorted the ruffled doctor out of the room and then pulled the covers up on Elvie's shoulders. "Don't you worry. One of us will be here with you when you wake up. What do you want me to do if Skittery turns up?" But Elvie was too far gone to answer.

She woke with a start and just like she worried would happen, she didn't know where she was. The cool musty smell of the basement wasn't there. This place smelled warm and clean. There was no clatter of the city right outside the thin windows. It wasn't cold enough or bright enough to be the ranch. The smell of grass and wind wasn't in her blankets, but the blankets were warm and soft. Something made a large thunk against her door, scaring a little shriek out of her. "Carlos has sat outside your door all night," Nina's voice purred from the side and finally she could breathe as the previous night came back to her. "He's kept Albert out and I sent him to get some sleep, but it seems he's back for more trouble."

The two men were keeping it quiet and respectable for the moment and all she could hear was the low rumble of their voices. "Bays came back?" She pushed herself up.

"Mmm," Nina hummed in affirmation. "I'm right behind you. Lean forward." Elvie couldn't help but smile at how hard she was trying to follow all of the old rules. She fluffed the pillows and guided Elvie back. Elvie grabbed her hand, cool and slender and soft, and held it to her cheek. Nina gasped, staring in shock for a moment before sinking down on the mattress at her friend's side. Elvie waited for her to pull away, but the ballerina only tucked in more tightly for a moment before her hands cupped around Elvie's face. "I thought I would be cross with you, but how can I when you look like this?"

Elvie smiled hopefully. She thought she likely looked frightful after a week on a train and the night she had, but Nina saw something else. The wonder in the Russian's voice was evident. "How do I look?"

Nina giggled. "Alive? Happy? All of your...How do you say it? Your...muchness; it shows for everyone to see now." The boys in the hall started to get loud and Nina sighed. "You stay here, bask in your muchness until you're ready to let him in. Carlos won't let him by until you say to. I will ask Gerard to make you some breakfast."

Nina didn't shut the door as she left, allowing Elvie to hear what Carlos was saying to Bays out in the hall. "Do you remember when you brought her to my place. After you told her the truth about me?" She shuddered. She remembered that day. How angry she was at him for not being truthful with her, how she was too afraid to go into the apartment at first. She remembered it like she remembered all of her earlier encounters with Carlos/Tomás, as a horrific nightmare. But now, with the veil of fear lifted, she could see how much courage it took for Bays to tell her the truth that morning and her heart broke for him for what seemed like the millionth time. He'd done so much and hardly faltered.

"Yeah?"

"Sophia was mad at me for wanting her to rest. I wanted her calm and resting because a happy mama makes a happy baby. If you go in there, the only complaint I'd better hear about you from her is that you won't let her lift a finger and are driving her loco making her sit on her ass like a spoiled cat all day long.

Bays was quiet for a moment and she could just imagine the two of them facing off. She hoped he would stand up to Carlos, but her pessimistic brain told her he wouldn't. "I've waited four months for her to come back, never wanting anything out of it but her in my arms again. You ain't gotta threaten me. I lost my shit last night, but I'm not living one more day without that frustrating, upity little firebrand in my life! She burned one of her thumbprints into my heart and now she's stuck with me, whether she likes it or not!"

Elvie couldn't hold in her joy or her relief anymore. "She likes it! Quit talking to that bossy Spaniard and get in here! Get out of the way, Carlos!"

They both stilled, too stunned to respond. "Look who's calling who bossy!" He quipped back, but then his voice turned dark and his voice came into the room, like maybe he had poked his head in the door. The smell of the social hall wafted in at her, turning her stomach as sour as his voice as he gritted, "I'm not going to let him talk to you like he did yesterday..."

She sighed resignedly. "He did exactly what I've always asked of him: he told me the truth. He was angry and hurt and he didn't try to hide it or cover it. He told me the truth like I should have done him. I should have told him how scared I was. I should have told him about the baby. I knew before I left and I kept it from him. I should have told him that marriage and love were the two scariest words I know of because they were so bad for my mother. I should have told him more about where I came from so he could have understood. But instead I was a hypocrite and just sat on all of that to deal with on my own because that's all I knew. I was the only person I could depend on. He wasn't the problem. I was, and he had every right to be angry with me." She smirked to herself. "But he was an ass and I'm glad you hit him."

Carlos was the first to openly guffaw. "Get your ass out here and get him if you want him so bad!" She remembered this now, the joking and the laughing. When he talked about it before, she never could remember, as if that whole day so long ago when they went for a soda water at the drugstore was nothing but how it ended.

She grinned. "I don't know where I am, let alone where you are! Go annoy your wife and leave us be!" She was practically squealing.

He chuckled his dark chuckle, always sounding just a bit sinister even if he was being pleasant. "Not likely, Chiquita. Between Beth, your Brother and I, you and your kids are the most guarded family in New York. The Rockefellers have less eyes on them you lot."

The door closed, but then all sound besides their breath stopped. She strained to hear him, pulling the blanket back and sitting up. Her nightgown swished around her ankles, throwing the cold dry air and alfalfa smell of the ranch up at her. A pang of something akin to homesickness hit her, but she smiled. They would forever be in her heart, guiding her. It was time to face her greatest fears and possibly Bays' rejection. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, get back in that bed, Ace," he finally said, sounding so much more himself than he had the night before. She had to fight to keep her stern look when he called her Ace. "Doctor's orders."

She held her hand out to him, hoping he's take it. He kept her waiting. "Bays...please? At least tell me if you want me to leave. Tell me you want the baby. Tell me something. I can't see you..." His boots came across the carpeted floor, his long, leisurely strides just the same. He smelled different. The lingering scent of Gerard's cooking was replaced with the sharp clean scent of sawdust, underneath though, it was still him. She could feel his warmth standing a few feet in front of her and wanted to run to him, feel his arms around her body.

"I'm here, Vie," he answered roughly. "I've been here. You was so worried about being stuck here, waiting for me, but you had it wrong. I'm staying here, and all I need to know is that you are too." The tiniest whisper of a breeze passed by her cheek, as if maybe he reached out to touch her but decided against it. She wished he hadn't. "What happened to ya glasses?" His voice was rough, with a thousand conflicting emotions, none of them anger. The anger he unleashed on her the previous night was a quick charge, already spent.

It was the same care and worry that she heard in Eli's voice when he told Jo she was perfect despite her overwhelming sadness filled his voice with a richness that choked her up. "I fell the first day in Colorado. They were in my pocket and they broke."

His breath shook as he drew it in. "You hadda go all the way to Colorado to get away from me?"

She sighed and pulled her hand back in, sinking on shaky legs back to the mattress. "To get away from myself, all the things wrong with the way I was and how I treated you. I had to learn a different way to be, so that I could enjoy you loving me instead of fearing it."

"You was afraid? Of me?"

"Afraid that I wasn't enough for you."

He crouched in front of her, caging her in with his long legs and took her hands in his. "I told you every day that you are everything I want and everything I need..."

"But I didn't believe you, and it just made it worse. I didn't know how to let you in."

His rough fingers twisted the ring on her finger that she never took off. She wore it faithfully the whole time she was gone, it's texture always reminding her why she was there and what she was working towards. "What about now?" Her brow furrowed. There were so many ways she could answer that question. "Did you come because of Joey and ya going back now?"

She laughed sadly. "Carlos told me about Joey when I got off the train. I was here for you."

His hands slid slowly up her arms, diverting at her elbows to rest on the swell of her middle. "I been here for you this whole time, watching the fire." Her eyes fluttered closed as his touch rekindled her longing for him and the gruff, quiet of his voice set her aflame. "Stay with me, don't leave me watching."

"I'm here, and I'm staying." With that his lips covered hers and she fell into his kiss. Her hands threaded up into his hair as the scruff and stubble on his face tickled her lip. She would stay forever in his arms, surrounded by the smell of pine and tobacco and raspberry jam and just him, and never think of leaving again. She learned to trust the one person who never gave a chance before, even though that was the only person she was willing to depend on. She learned to trust herself and it made all the difference in what she had to give to him and to their baby. Their baby never had to worry about being the Firewatcher's Daughter, because her parents tended their hearth together.

The End

A/N: This is it, peeps. The last of my stories. I might add a bit to Return to Brooklyn every now and again because I basically can't quit my loves at the Fletcher ranch, but there will not be anymore full length fic from me. I've loved my time here, but it's time to sink or swim as a writer out in the big bad world. Still an epilogue to come here, but this is the last full on plot chapter. WordyAF, signing off.