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"I owe you one," Robert said to Ray. "I'm a cop. I should have been able to keep my cool and drive to the hospital to meet my labouring wife."
Ray smirked. "You're my brother. You don't owe me shit. Besides, it's one thing to handle these sort of situations when it's part of yur job, I wouldn't know what that's like, but it's entirely another when it's the woman that you love having your own baby. Take it from me. You know I'm familiar with that."
"I know. I never thought that I would be."
"Yeah? Well, now you are." Ray's smile turned genuine. "Becoming a dad, watching Ally being born, getting to hold her for the first time, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Now I get to watch all that stuff happen with you."
"Does it make you want to have another?"
"I'd love another, wouldn't even stop at one more," he admitted. "It's not up to me, though, it's up to Debra." Debra was the one who was currently holding his first daughter. "She's my wife, and it's her body, so she gets to choose how many children we have. And, hey, now we have a niece." He clapped him on the back. "That's just as awesome."
"You really think so?" Robert couldn't hide his surprise. "I didn't think that you'd be that excited. It's only me, after all." Their mother had spent the entire pregnancy complaining about how it should have been Ray and Debra giving her more grandchildren, and not Robert and Amy. It was a refrain they'd both grown rapidly tired of. "As Ma's said--"
"I don't pay her much attention. She tried sabotaging Debra's birth control when she found out that Amy was pregnant. It really pissed me off. I want more kids, yeah, but not because my wife is coerced into doing so."
"That might be illegal," he mused. "I can look it up?"
"Don't bother. It's not illegal, because our mother is our mom, and not Debra's marital partner. I wouldn't dream of doing that." He sighed. "Anyways, Ma's wrong. You should be happy to be a father. You deserve this. I wouldn't lie to you about that."