EPILOGUE

Malachite handed the red-faced, screaming baby to the child's exhausted mother. She took the child gingerly, still awed by this tiny person that they'd made together. "He's beautiful," she whispered, smiling at the baby. "What should we call him?"

Malachite smiled tenderly at his pale wife. "Matthew," he answered. "Let's call him Matthew." The love in his heart for his small family was so great that it made his chest hurt. The baby must have sensed his father's eyes, because he stopped crying and watched them both with suspicious eyes. Malachite grinned, rubbing a gentle finger along the baby's downy cheek.

The door to the hospital room suddenly burst open, and several dozen people stormed inside. They crowded around the bed, happily smiling down on the pale woman and her child. "He's exquisite," murmured Lita as she cooed at the baby.

Mina smiled back at her friends as they each exclaimed over her baby. "He's ours," she murmured as she watched her husband showing off his child.

Malachite smiled at her once again. "All ours," he agreed happily.

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A.N.: I'm thinking of writing a sequel to this story, but I won't unless I get plenty of constructive comments. I might also base the sequel on Mina's daughter, rather than directly on Mina herself.