Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, and I am making no money off this.

Author's Notes: This is for andeincascade, who asked for something sequelly in the "He Hadn't Stopped Christmas from Coming"-verse. mrs_laugh_track looked it over and told me it worked.

SequelTo: He Hadn't Stopped Christmas from Coming

1. Maggie.

When Maggie comes to visit Ray, Ray, and I after we adopt our daughter, I recognize the expression on her face instantly. Envy. We certainly share a bloodline. In the evening while Ray is washing the dishes and Ray is putting Caroline to bed (I can hear him singing "Sweet Carolina" tunelessly and his feet shuffling in perfect rhythm as he dances her to sleep), Maggie stares out the window and tugs on the leather cord that holds her and her late husband's wedding rings.

You'll get a second chance, I want to tell her, but it might not be true. Not everyone is as lucky as I am.

"Ray's sister Francesca is having her third child in the fall," I say finally, awkwardly. "She's raising them on her own."

"That's what my mother did," Maggie says. She sounds far away. "I was lonely, growing up."

"So was I. We aren't our parents."

Maggie smiles up at me. "No."

She'd be a good mother, I think. She changes Caroline's diapers efficiently and without distaste, and tells her a story about Ellen Mackenzie chasing poachers over a frozen lake.

2. Stella

There's a series of piercing shrieks, like someone's being tortured with a rusty knife. Vecchio's concentration obviously collapses, and he throws a gutter ball. There's a groan from every cop on the team, including me.

Two seconds later Vecchio's leaning over the ball racks and eying Lina like she could need to be driven to the hospital at any second, even though she shut up as soon as Fraser stuck the bottle in her mouth.

"She's fine, Ray. Just hungry."

"How do you always know?" Vecchio demands. Stella raises her eyebrows and leans back in her chair like this is gonna be good. She's heard Fraser pull some pretty bizarre explanations out of his ass.

"The pitch and pattern of her cries are entirely different," Fraser says for the ten millionth time. Vecchio still seems to think it's magic. Which, okay, it kinda seems like, but this is Fraser and his superhearing, right? "It's not uncommon for mothers to be able to distinguish between hunger, pain, fatigue, and so on."

"Yeah, well, you ain't her mother." Way to state the obvious, Vecchio.

"I know," Fraser says, and he gives Vecchio and his dumb pin-up bowling shirt that smile, the one he can't seem to stop recently, the little glowy one that says all his dreams are coming true right this second.

Stella doesn't care about Fraser's smile. Or Lina, I can see that. Which is fine, you don't gotta care about other people's kids, but it's like for the first time I can see she doesn't like kids. She thinks they're boring before they can talk. "Ray," she says impatiently, "your arm needs to stay straight on your follow-through. And--"

"It's still your turn, Vecchio!" I yell, and he shoots me a grateful look and flees. When he found out Stella's visit was the week of bowling league championships, he almost had a coronary.

That night I take Stella salsa dancing. We stay up all night talking in that diner by my mom and dad's house. She tells me she's going to send Lina all the Nancy Drew books.

"She's not gonna be ready for those for about another six years," I point out.

"That's not a long time," she says, and grins at me. I can see our whole lives in that grin and yeah, it's not a long time. "Lina needs to know there are girl detectives too."

3. Frannie

"I'm just concerned," the desk sergeant tells me, one hand over the mouthpiece of the phone permanently attached to her ear. "I read a study somewhere. Girls need female role models."

"Uh huh. That's real interesting. Look, could you just tell me what interview room Ms. Corelli is in?"

"I mean, three fathers, that's just out of balance, don't you think?"

Frannie snorts behind me. "Yeah, 'cause having my dad around worked out so well for Ray. Stupid Jersey." Jersey?

The desk sergeant eyes Frannie's extremely pregnant stomach with distaste. "Do you even know who the father of that child is? Jen over in accounting, her sister--"

I lean in. Fraser gets information out of this woman sometimes so I let her run her mouth about us and Kowalski, but Frannie is another story. But before I can open my mouth, Frannie holds up her hand in that imperious gesture she learned from God knows where, TV probably, and says, "Can the mafia crap, Ray. So my kids have one mother and Ray's kids have three fathers. So what? All that matters when you're a kid is that people love and respect you. Too bad you don't know that." And she marches off with her stack of files.

The desk sergeant's eyes are practically bugging out of her head. I give her a nice Bookman glare for good measure. "You still think my daughter doesn't have a female role model? Now get off the goddamn phone and do your job."