Where the Heart Is

Chapter 8

A short (or long, according to JJ) three hours later, Emily had gone to get Henry and they were both back at the hospital, ready to meet the twins for the first time. Emily had pulled Henry out of his Kindergarten class, and he was bouncing up and down with excitement during the entire span of the half-hour drive.

"How big are they, Auntie Emmy?" he asked for the third time.

"They're very little, Henry," she said patiently, happily watching the younger boy as she helped him out of his car seat and they began to walk towards the hospital, hand in hand. "They won't be big enough to play with you for awhile."

"Is it brothers or sisters?" he asked surprisingly for the first time, turning his big blue eyes up towards Emily.

"Two baby boys," Emily responded happily as they walked down the long maternity ward hallway.

"What are their names? Where is Mommy? Where is Davey? Where are my... my brothers?"

Emily laughed and hoisted Henry up onto her hip, wondering how much longer she'd be able to lift him up before her stomach got in the way. She planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Why don't you just ask your Mommy yourself? Are you ready to go in and meet your baby brothers?"

Henry nodded enthusiastically, and Emily swung the door opened, carefully catching it before it could bang against the wall so that it didn't wake the babies, or JJ, if they were sleeping.

"Mommy?" Henry called as Emily put him down, gently shutting the door behind her. The six year old ran to the edge of JJ's bed and peered up at the bundle in her arms.

"Hey, buddy," JJ greeted her oldest son happily as Emily lifted him onto the bed. "This is your brother, Alexander."

"Hi," Henry said shyly to Alexander, trying to see him better. JJ shifted the baby so that Henry could see him better.

The smile that lit up Henry's face was enough to make JJ's heart melt.

"He's so little, Mommy!" Henry said happily. "And cute!"

"Where's Lucas?" Emily asked. Lucas was the younger twin. Alexander David and Lucas Aaron Rossi were the two boys' names that JJ and Rossi had managed to agree upon several weeks before.

"The nurse took him to change his diaper," JJ responded as she carefully propped Henry's arms up with a pillow so that he could hold his brother.

A moment later Alexander began to cry, quickly followed by Henry, who thought he had done something to hurt the baby. JJ quickly pulled the newborn away from her kindergartner, assuring him that it wasn't his fault and that babies cried all the time. JJ was feeding Alexander when the nurse came in with Lucas.

JJ asked Henry if he would like to hold the other twin, and he flatly refused, so the younger child was handed to Emily.

"Hi, baby boy," Emily cooed to the child, who had Rossi's Italian skin tone and his mother's bright blue eyes. She gently rocked the baby back and forth, and he curled his fist around her thumb. What would this baby look like, with her big brown eyes, and a patch of blonde curls from Ian on top of his head -

Stop it, Emily scolded herself.

"It amazes me how you can claim to be not maternal," JJ stated after observing her friend with her youngest son for a few minutes.

"Oh," Emily said, looking up. "I, um... I don't know."

"You'll be a good mom," JJ assured her friend. "You're really great with Henry and Jack and Kendall and Al and Luke."