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It's a little bit like sleepwalking.
His body is one step ahead of his brain. Which is good - because his brain is currently a little bit out of commission.
It's a jumble of words he can't quite make out - like white noise - and the only thing coming through clearly is her name.
Mindy.
Find her. Make things right. Start the rest of your life. Be a father.
Jesus. A father. He's on the packed subway car - his brain forgot to remind him that he drove to staten - and he wonders how many of these strangers are parents. How many of them stuck around to raise their kids.
That's the kind of father he's going to be. The type that sticks around. He didn't know how much he wanted this until he was running out the door of his mothers house - filled with a white hot love he didn't know he was capable of.
A love for a baby he hadn't met yet. Love for the woman who was carrying that baby. Love for the woman who made him his best self.
He had to find Mindy. If she wanted to move to San Francisco, if she wanted to stay in New York, hell - if she wanted to live on the moon - he was going to be there.
He would do whatever was needed for his family.
He'd spent his life trying to put the fractured pieces of his family back together. Trying to make sure that everyone was safe and healthy and happy. Trying to fix what was broken no matter what he seemed to do.
But this was different - this was something he had created. It was all his.
A house. A girl. A baby on the way.
It was everything he'd given up on the moment he'd walked into the apartment and found Christina. But it was Mindy - his crazy, loving, kind and amazing girlfriend. Who had always been so much more than that - his worst enemy, his best friend, the love of his life, his partner in life.
Danny Castellano had screwed up many things in his life - but this was not going to be one of them.
***********
It was a good thing that he was in such good shape - because by the time he found her on the doctors lounge couch, the adrenaline had begun to wear off.
It was all he could do to sink to the floor next to her - shaking her awake.
"Why didn't you tell me?" As usual - foot in mouth syndrome was affecting him. There had been so many things he wanted to tell her - but the only thing that came out was about his own hurt feelings.
She was rambling - when wasn't she - something about him being angry, about raising the kid on her own, about a canary (he made a mental note that he should probably sign her up for a parenting class) but he could barely hear her.
She was in front of him - so beautiful and fragile and confident - and all his. And because the right words often evaded him - he simply pulled her into a hug. Hoping that somehow it would convey everything he wanted to say.
"I love you. I love you so much. Thank you for this," he whispered against the soft skin of her ear. He said it so quietly he wasn't sure if she heard.
Her face was still pinched with worry and he knew he had to say something.
"We're a family,"
The smile lighting up her face told him that perhaps he'd finally said the right thing.
He laid his hand against her stomach - a gesture he'd done to a thousand pregnant woman - and suddenly it felt real.
They were a family. They were going to be a great family. There were a lot of things they didn't have figured out - but they knew how to find their way back to each other, they knew how to work together, they knew how to love each - and in this moment that was more than enough.