"James," Jinx whispered softly. James tore his eyes off the baby and looked at her with a clueless expression on his face. "Do you wanna hold her?" She asked.

His brown eyes widened. "Really?"

"Definitely," Jinx smiled.

James unsteadily got to his feet and went and sat down beside her. Jinx very slowly slid the bundle into his arms, moving the blankets up near the baby's head so she could peak out more.

"Hey there," she whispered to her baby girl. "This is James," she said. "He's nice. Rebellious, wicked smart, but don't piss him off. He also saved his husband's ass from bleeding out on my carpet about eight years ago."

James snuffed a breath out his nose in response. "She's exaggerating," he told the baby in his arms. He smiled. "But don't worry. You can come to me whenever your father screws up."

Harrison lifted a hand in question. "The hell did I do?"

"Nothing. Yet," Cal grinned.

"Give it time," I mused.

"You'll get there," Lucky added.

"Wow." Harrison glared playfully around at all of us. "Thank you for your confidence in my parenting skills guys, it means a lot."

Roscoe, Quinn's girlfriend, was peering over the back of the couch and James' shoulders at the baby. "What's the worst you could do?" She asked.

"Uh yeah no, let's not brainstorm on that idea," Jinx said quickly.

Suddenly the baby shifted in her warm yellow cocoon, opening her small mouth in a yawn, babbling a little as she did. Everyone awed.

"She's so perfect," James murmured.

"Well yeah," Harrison gestured to himself.

James laughed and let the baby suck on the end of his pinky.

Cal's wife Zia watched the redhead as he slowly succumbed to a loving trance. "He's awfully great with babies Owen..." She hinted in her Russian accent.

The white-blond man sitting next to me groaned. "Not you as well?"

Zia nodded. "Kids are not that bad, I don't know why you're being so reluctant about it."

"That's because Lucas is easy," Owen rolled his eyes.

"No, it's called good parenting," Cal defended.

None of us doubted that Cal would be a good dad. He and Zia's son Lucas' good manners only highlighted Cal's dedication. The five year-old was constantly tripping over his words since he had so much to talk about. Growing up with both an Irish and a Russian accent around him didn't help to distinguish his syllables. The fact that both of his parents were doctors too, also didn't make his thirst for knowledge and oral expression any easier to handle. But he was intuitive, observant and excited about everything the world had to offer. He looked more like his mother, but he was definitely his father at heart.

"It's 'cause he's scared," Lautaro grinned. He sat hand-in-hand with his wife Idania, a Honduran like him, on the couch across from James and Jinx. They had a kid too, technically. Idania had a four year-old son from a previous relationship, but Eldin thought it was pretty cool that his stepdad could make something out of literally anything, so they got along great. The three of them lived in Honduras together, but had flown out here to New York City like the rest of us to see Jinx and Harrison's baby.

"I'm not scared," Owen snipped defensively. He crossed his muscular arms and glanced over at where his husband was looking longingly at the baby in his arms. "I'm just... indifferent."

"Bullshit," Lucky called from the window nook.

"Language!" Jinx threw up her hands.

Lucky was here on his own, same as me. But unlike me, the Mongolian seemed happy to live a life without a romantic partner. He had lots of friends though, mostly climbing buddies back in Switzerland, which was where he'd been living for the past seven months. Before that it was Bangladesh, then Argentina, El Salvador, some island in the southern Philippines, and I think Sri Lanka at some point too. He was a modern day nomad, backpacking and camping and hiking whenever he wanted, never staying in one place for more than a couple weeks. He sent us selfies he'd taken while backflipping off cliffs and waterfalls all the time. And even though that was very different than the more domestic lifestyle that the rest of us had taken up, he was happy. And that's the best any of us can hope for.

"Okay okay," Owen's accent brought me back to the present. The German shrugged his shoulders up to his ears with a sigh. "I'm worried I'd... break it."

Everyone erupted into laughter.

"You can't break a baby Owen," I laughed.

"Bet," Quinn muttered.

"No," Harrison glared at the Iraqi.

"You're not gonna break it," Lautaro assured him.

"Look at it," Owen pointed to the small bundle, "if I drop that—"

"For god's sake Owen, if you can cradle a bomb without it blowing up, I'm pretty sure you can handle a baby," Jinx smiled at him. "Besides, if Quinn can do it, you can definitely do it."

"I still can't believe you trusted him enough to let him hold her," Roscoe said. "I don't even trust him with the groceries."

Quinn gave his girlfriend a playful squint and then he turned to Owen. "Seriously dude. It's not nuclear physics."

"That's because you can do nuclear physics," Owen grumbled. He picked up his beer bottle from the coffee table beside him and brought it to his lips to avoid talking about it anymore.

"Do you guys have a name yet?" I also picked up my bottle.

Harrison and Jinx exchanged a look. "We have some in mind," Harrison said, "but nothing solid. We were actually gonna consult you guys."

"Nothing hipster," Jinx said. "I'm not that gen z."

"Guess I'm out," Roscoe raised her hands. She walked out from behind the couch and sat down next to Quinn on the arm chair. Or really, on Quinn. She plucked the beer bottle her boyfriend had in his hand and started drinking it herself, lounging casually across his lap.

Roscoe was the culmination of feisty, smooth and confident. So basically everything Quinn was not. She was an up-and-coming singer in L.A where they lived together. She was gorgeous too, which isn't entirely weird for me to admit since everyone thought so and said so. Not that Quinn wasn't good-looking, but how the hell he was with Roscoe was just...beyond me. Even though he was 29 now it didn't mean he was any less clumsy or goofy or childish. He was teaching nuclear chemistry at UCLA, but somehow the two made their differences work and they'd been dating for two years.

And because I've shriveled into a little bitter bitch, their relationship made me feel just fantastic about my (lack of) one.

"We were thinking a short name," Jinx said. "But with enough syllables for a nickname."

Everyone threw around some names for a while but nothing really seemed to fit both Harrison and Jinx's liking. Harrison was absolutely convinced the baby would be a boy the entire time, while Jinx told him to shut up and said it would be a girl, so they didn't actually have a set name before the baby was born. And what do you know, a girl it was. Not that Harrison wasn't unhappy —he couldn't stop smiling actually. And not that he'd ever admit it, but when he called me to say that he had a daughter, he was crying.

But so was I.

My best friend; the biggest dumbass I knew, the guy I had fought beside since we were 12, the one I'd taken bullets for, the one who had taken bullets for me, the one person who knew me better than I did myself, was now a father. And that hurt me not because I was jealous, but because I was so beyond happy that at least one of us got to experience what we had always dreamed of.

Picture two trashed 17 year-olds dangling their feet over the edges of rooftops and planning what we'd say at each other's weddings. Harrison refused to believe that he'd ever be fully whipped for a girl but clearly he had been wrong, Jinx meant everything to him. I always said that there had to be that "ah-ha" moment, that one day I was gonna look at a girl and just know that I was gonna marry her.

At least one of us got to complete the mission.

Even though I left the agency four years ago, no girl had really clicked for me. Not that I had actually went out and tried to find someone. It's a different kind of hard when you know exactly what you've lost and don't know whether you want to find it again.

Owen waved his hand in front of my face and I blinked out of my thoughts.

"Lawrence you were spacing again," the German said. He eyed the empty bottle in my hand and then the other ones on the coffee table on my other side. "Scheisse, slow up the drinking too."

I chuckled and set the empty bottle among the others. "My tolerance is significantly higher than it was the last time you saw me."

Owen turned to me fully. His white blond hair was still just as bright as it was eight years ago, though longer now since we weren't agents anymore. "So that's all you've been doing since you left? Drinking?"

"No."

"Then what else?"

"Punching things."

"Legally?"

"In some countries."

"Anything else?"

I licked my lips.

Owen shook his head at me. He really should try the parent thing, he definitely looked like a disappointed Dad.

"What?" I defended myself. "It's not like the agency gave me any skills that could help me blend into the normal workforce."

"The military?" Owen suggested.

I snorted. "I'm not you." Owen was literally a drill sergeant at Fort Benning. Not that I expected him to do anything different. "And I don't need any more PTSD, thanks."

"You could go to college?"

I scrunched my nose up. "Hell fucking no."

"Why not?"

"Because I spent 12 years of my life getting yelled at and told what to do. By you a lot of that time, actually. You think I'm gonna go back to doing what other people tell me?"

Owen huffed and shook his head at me like I was an ignorant child.

"Besides, what would I study?" I continued. "I dropped out of kindergarten. Kindergarten, Hoffmann. Something tells me that my educational experience of parkouring my way from drug dealers isn't gonna give me a platform for acceptance into a collegiate institution."

"You could try," Owen suggested.

"Getting her doctorates almost killed Jinx. No thank you," I dismissed once more.

Owen sighed. "What about a girl then?"

I gave him a warning look.

"I didn't mean super romantically," Owen said dully. "I meant like...intimately?"

"I'm not a fucking nun Hoffmann, yeah, I've had sex recently."

"Okay good. So you're not a complete loser," he said.

"Hey--

"But you've got to find yourself a hobby or something."

"Look," I started, plucking one of the empty bottles from the table just so I had something to hold in my hands, "it's different for you."

"How?" Owen demanded. "We both had to adjust after getting out—"

"Yeah, but you had someone to adjust with," I said. Owen's expression softened. Had he seriously forgotten? "When we were fighting once, Harrison said that I was too caught up in being an agent to know what I wanted for myself. That I was so lost in trying to pick which alias to use that I didn't know who I really was. And he was right. I'm not used to thinking for myself, and definitely not used to thinking about my future. It was always survive until the next day, I didn't have the privilege of planning ahead." I weighed the beer bottle in my hands and took a careful breath.

"She was the opposite," I said. "The only time I ever thought about my future was when I was with her," I said. I laughed a little under my breath. "She was so excited. Cliché dates like going to the movies and taking walks in the park and all that gushy shit. Watching plays, going to concerts, having an excuse to dress up that didn't involve going undercover. Vacations to the beach, having a pet. And yeah, once or twice the topic of a family came up.

I don't actually know what I want is what I mean," I finished. "Well, I do. But she's not coming back." I resisted the urge to light a cigarette, but Lucas and Eldin were here and their fathers would have my ass if I did.

Owen's blue eyes ran up and down me like a scanner. Even though he'd left the agency a while ago he still assessed people and situations just like he had done when he was enslaved as Flagg's right hand man.

It wasn't a unique characteristic. Every time a bottle clinked together too loudly Lautaro would have to hold Lucky's arm down before the Mongolian could pull out his knife. Harrison's reflexes had quickened exponentially as of five days ago when there were now two girls in his life. I still had nightmares, leaving me soaked with sweat and with the beer bottles on my nightstand shattered on the floor by morning.

Eventually Owen just nodded at me once. "You're right," he said quietly. "I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know what I'd do without James to be honest." He ran a callused hand through his hair. "He leaves for just a few hours and I go nuts."

I grinned at that. "Damn Hoffmann. What the hell happened to the stone-faced Inspector the boys at the agency tell stories about?"

The German slid his glittering light blue eyes to fix an unamused look at me. "Love doesn't make me soft," he said firmly. It was funny to look back on our relationship and remember that he tried to kill me once, one eye crying blood as he tried to make a valley of my windpipe. Luckily we had moved on. "Axel," he started quietly. "I know you're still thinking about her."

I almost laughed. Oh if only he knew that I couldn't stop thinking about her.

"Don't let her stop you from living an actual life. You're free now."

"I've been free for four years."

"You know what I'm trying to say," Owen said. "Fuck, James is infinitely better at all this talking and feeling emotionen shit, so I know I'm doing a terrible job, but watching you become that creepy drunk uncle before Andrew's kid is even a week old is depressing."

"You know, I think that this is the first time you've ever called me by my first name," I noted.

Owen rolled his eyes again. "Just because you're alive, which is a miracle in itself, doesn't mean you're living, Lawrence."

"And we're back to formalities," I grinned at him. Ah yes. Ignorance. Avoidance. Repression. Those were my new hobbies. Who needs college?

"Can we talk about you now?" I asked.

"No."

"Awesome," I set down my bottle and turned fully to him. "Why don't you want kids?"

Owen crinkled his nose at me. "Cutting straight to the chase?"

"We don't have time for me to use spy techniques to get the info out of you." I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows. "Shoot."

Owen snatched another quick look over at where his husband was trying to engage in a conversation with Jinx, but in reality had complete tunnel vision for the baby in his arms. "I don't like people."

"Really? Oh. I hadn't noticed."

"I'm also just—"

"Scared?" I offered.

Owen's vision froze. "I will snap your neck."

I would have laughed, but it looked like he was actually going to. "Harrison was scared too. Try terrified."

"He had nine months to be terrified. And besides... I don't know how to be a father." He ran his callused fingers over one another for a little while before he spoke. "Flagg was the only father figure I ever had in my life."

My heart sunk. I really thought we were done saying that bastard's name.

"My real father was a terrible person," the German said. "That's why when Flagg first started taking notice of me and treating me differently than all the other boys, I was happy." I watched his blue eyes stare into space like an old war vet recounting the scars of battle. In a way that's what he was actually doing. "I was happy and I liked it... because I wanted a Dad."

I shifted in my seat and habitually took a beer bottle off the table beside me and took a drink.

Fathers are a touchy subject at the agency. No one ever talked about them because in most cases they were either never there, or abusers. Seriously, those were usually the two main classifications. It's sick. As for mothers, no one wanted to seem like a little bitch and cry about their moms, whether they had been good people or not. So talking about parents and being a parent, I could see why it was hard for Owen.

"He wanted me to become him," Owen said to his hands. "So he taught me how to be like him. And sometimes I look at myself," he swallowed, "and I see him."

"You are nothing—"

"Don't." His eyes turned to ice. "I can tell that you can see it too. Everyone can." He glanced about the room and sighed. "It's the little things. Sometimes I get these thoughts that I knew I would never have if it weren't for him. He's like a dämon in my head sometimes."

Suddenly my alcoholism seemed very low on the list of problems that we all had.

"Mutterseelenallein."

"Bless you," I said.

Owen laughed a little beneath his breath. "Mutterseelenallein is one of those untranslatable words. It literally means 'motherhood alone,' but sort of like loneliness in yourself? It's hard to explain. It's essentially this immense feeling of loneliness and despairing and detachment from all life."

"Well that's cheery."

"When I see Flagg in me, that's what I feel."

Owen turned away from me before I could stumble over my words in an attempt to respond.

"So Harrison...you know what this means right?" Cal's question interrupted my thoughts.

"I'm clean Cal, calm yourself," Harrison said.

"That's not what he meant, asshat," Jinx rolled her eyes.

"What then?" Her husband gave her a confused look from the arm of the couch.

Jinx grinned. "She's a girl."

"Yeah, I noticed that pretty quickly."

"So...there's a chance that she's gonna bring home a boyfriend one day."

Harrison's dark brown eyes managed to turn a color close to black. "No," he growled. "Not happening."

"You're right," Jinx shrugged her shoulders. "It could be a girlfriend. Or she may not want any partners at all. But whatever the case she'll still have normal girl stuff to go through, at least until she's old enough to make the decision that she might not want to be a girl."

Harrison ruffled his brown hair. "Stuff like what?"

"Periods?"

Harrison abruptly dropped his hand from his hair and everyone started laughing.

"Damn, karma sure got it right giving you a girl," I laughed at my best friend's sudden fearful expression.

"Shut up," he said through gritted teeth.

Jinx giggled like she was 18 again. Then she rested her head in his lap. After glancing over at the baby still in James's arms for the 12th time, Harrison tuned his head back down to his wife and started to lightly rub his thumb back and forth over her shoulder.

"How are you feeling Jinxy?" He murmured softly. He moved his other hand to play with the whispery strands of hair that sprung out from her bun along her hairline.

Jinx nodded sleepily. "Just tired. Did anyone get in contact with Zach?" She yawned.

Cal draped his arm around Zia. "Yeah, I talked to him. He says he's happy for you guys."

I looked forlorningly into the kitchen, wondering if anyone would notice if I got another drink.