"Nighty night, Ainsley," James murmured, tucking the sheets closer around her chin.

"Ni' Daddy," she replied, her eyelids drooping shut in exhaustion.

"Sweet dreams."

"Dreams."

"I love you."

"Love you."

James smiled at his daughter and pressed a final kiss to her temple before slipping out of her room. He left the door cracked and walked down the hall, where Rose was sitting on the sofa with a book in her lap and a glass of wine in her hand.

She was fresh from the shower; her face was cleaned of all makeup, her damp hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she was wearing his favorite pajama set: a pair of his boxers and one of his t-shirts.

"What have you got there?" he asked, plopping down beside her. He guided her hand that was holding the wine glass to his lips so he could steal a sip.

"Ainsley's baby book," she replied, turning towards him so he could see. "Well, the first one."

They'd taken so many photos and Rose had drawn so many portraits of their daughter that they'd sectioned them by year. Rose was currently looking through the book containing her newborn through her first birthday photographs.

"She's gotten so big," Rose mused.

James hummed in agreement, wondering where the last two years had gone. It felt like yesterday that he was holding his daughter for the first time; but the party he and Rose had had for her that afternoon to celebrate her second birthday reminded him of just how much time had passed.

"Explain me this," James said, draping his arm across the back of the couch. "How is it that these last two years felt like I blinked and they were over, but the wait from your sixteenth birthday to your eighteenth seemed to take half a dozen eternities?"

Rose giggled, and shook her head. It certainly seemed as though time were flying far too quickly, and that she was struggling to not miss a single precious moment with their daughter.

They traded off sips of wine as they took a wander down memory lane. They watched their daughter grow and develop, and they smiled as they relived all of the precious moments they'd caught on film—the first time she rolled over, the first time she crawled to them, her first steps towards them.

Having reached the end of book one, Rose grabbed book two. She flipped it open and chuckled when she saw the page that was devoted to Ainsley learning to feed herself. There were many pictures of Ainsley covered in her food, beaming proudly at the camera.

James smiled fondly at the photographs. The love he felt for his daughter seemed to grow exponentially every day as she learned something new. He wasn't sure how his body was able to contain his love and pride, and still have room for the growing love he felt for his soulmate. And yet, he felt as though there was room for more…

He glanced at Rose out of the corner of his eye, wondering how to phrase his next thought, but he was distracted by the furrow in her brow. He glanced down to see what had caught her attention, and winced.

While they'd caught many joyous moments on film, there were several not so pleasant memories that had been frozen in time in the pictures, too.

There were a series of photos with Ainsley's skin dotted red as she contracted the chickenpox. It had always hurt to see their baby sick, but watching her battle with the chickenpox had been miserable. It was hard to console an eighteen-month-old child who didn't understand anything except that she was tired, cranky, and itchy all the time.

And then there were a few photographs that showed Ainsley with a bruised, stitched-up gash on her forehead, the result of her having tried to climb Rose's dresser before physics took over and the furniture fell on top of her.

That had been one of the scariest days of his life. He remembered vividly the terror that had consumed him when he and Rose had suddenly heard a loud thud followed by a deafening scream. He felt his pulse race slightly with anxiety that the memory stirred up, and how it had taken both him and Rose to lift the dresser away from their daughter. It could have been much worse—thankfully the dresser had fallen in the direction of the bed, and the mattress had taken the brunt of the furniture's weight, leaving Ainsley relatively unscathed. She'd escaped with nothing but a lump on the head and a knocked-out tooth, and James thanked God for that miracle.

He refilled their glass from the bottle on the table and took a large gulp as he forced himself to leave that awful day in his memories, and he hurriedly flipped to a new page, far enough ahead that the lump on Ainsley's head had faded.

"Oh, I found something the other day that might amuse you," James said as he saw a photo of Ainsley playing with a bar of soap in the bathtub. "Be right back."

He jogged down the hall to the home office for an old photograph, and handed it to Rose when he returned.

"Oh, my God," she whispered, glancing at the faded photograph.

James ran his eye again over the toddler in the photo, a small girl with dark hair and light eyes and fair skin playing in a bathtub. She was a spitting image of Ainsley, and if not for the old quality of the photo and the year he knew it was taken, he could've mistaken the child for his daughter.

"Take a look," he said, turning the picture over so Rose could see what was scrawled on the back.

Vera, April 1958.

"God, she looks just like her!" Rose said in awe, glancing back and forth between the photos of Vera and Ainsley.

"Wonder if she'll keep looking like Mum as she grows," James mused, slipping the photo of his mother behind the protective sheeting of the photo album so it could be on display next to the photo of Ainsley in the tub.

"Time will tell, I suppose," Rose said, closing the book as they got to the end.

James slipped his arm around her waist and urged her to rest her head against his neck. He rested his cheek in her hair and brought his hand under her shirt to mindlessly stroke her skin above the waistband of her pants.

"You know, we're not completely rubbish when it comes to this parenting thing," James said softly.

"I'd like to agree, yeah," Rose said, and he heard the suspicion in her voice.

"And I was just wondering… D'you think maybe we're ready to do it all over again? I mean… would you want to do it all over again?"

James held himself still as he waited for Rose's answer. He told himself he would be fine no matter what she said, but looking back at all of the loving memories they'd made with Ainsley, he felt a hard knot of want lodge itself in his chest. He really wanted another baby with his soulmate.

"I've been thinking about that, too," Rose admitted, moving away from him.

James's arm fell limply to his side as Rose turned to face him.

"Yeah? And what do you think?"

"I think it's going to be hard," she said, tracing her finger across the lip of the empty wine glass. "Taking care of one was hard. I've never been more exhausted in my life. But I've also never been happier in my life."

James finally looked up at her, squashing down the hope that was threatening to burst out of him. She hadn't said yes.

"We would have to balance our time with Ainsley," Rose continued. "Right now, all three of us are used to her being our only focus. That would change with a new baby. But… But I think we could do it. Learn as we go, yeah? S'what we've been doing so far and it's been working pretty well, I'd say."

"Yeah?" James asked, feeling his lips stretch into a wide smile.

"Yeah, definitely," Rose said, echoing his grin.

He let out that daft-sounding giggle that for some reason Rose loved, and he opened his arms for her again.

"Oh, I love you."

"I love you, too," she murmured, giving his waist a tight squeeze. "So, that being said… I suppose we can cross off condoms from the shopping list."

He peppered kisses across her cheek and neck before burying his nose in her hair to hold her close.

"Yeah," he whispered, his heart throbbing hot with love. "Yeah, I suppose we can."