“I dropped her...” he repeats over and over again as guilt sits heavily on his chest. Grace has to be okay. She has to survive. He won’t be able to….

Pushing down any thoughts of a life without his daughter, Walt squeezes his wife’s hand as they wait for Grace to emerge from behind the wreckage that used to be their home.

It takes forever, but finally, the paramedics round the corner of the yard. Grace is wrapped in a thick, grey wool blanket. Her lips are blue and her skin pale, but she’s alive. She stretches out her tiny arms when she catches sight of her parents next to the ambulance.

“Mommy…Daddy…” Grace’s teeth chatter and her body shakes with chills, but she practically leaps out of the paramedic’s arms to go to her mom.

Wrapping her arms around Grace, Meredith buries her face in her daughter’s hair. Though it may be singed a little, she can still smell traces of the strawberry scented shampoo she’d used on her earlier in the night. “Shh…it’s okay, Grace. We’re all okay.”

Tears well in Walt’s eyes and stream down his cheeks. His girls are safe. He’s safe. Nothing else matters. Through the fog of everything going on, Walt hears some of what the paramedics say. Grace has mild hypothermia so they wrap her in heated blankets and let her lie next to Meredith, hoping that her body heat will help as well. All three of them suffer from smoke inhalation, but it seems as if they will all recover just fine.

“Puppy!” Grace cries out.

“It’s okay, baby. Puppy will come in another ambulance. Don’t you worry.” Meredith presses her lips against her daughter’s cold skin. Her little white lie will go a long way to keep Gracie calm.

Walt goes in one ambulance, but the paramedics promise that his wife and daughter won’t be far behind. Meredith and Walt exchange a brief, but relieved smile as they unlace their fingers. When a paramedic begins wheeling Meredith and Gracie to their ambulance, a giant ball of nerves forms in Meredith’s belly – the belly in which she hopes her baby is still alive and well. She hadn’t even had the chance to tell Walt yet, wanting to wait until Christmas next week to give him the present he would never forget.

Meredith grabs at the paramedic’s arm. “It’s okay, Mrs. McCann. We should be at the hospital in ten minutes.” Her calm voice does nothing to soothe Meredith’s concern.

Turning away from Gracie, so that she doesn’t hear anything, Meredith faces the paramedic, whose arm she still hasn’t let go of. “The baby…I’m…pregnant.” Meredith registers the look of surprise on the woman’s face. Quickly checking her reaction, the paramedic gently pats Meredith’s hand and readjusts her oxygen mask.

“We’ll get you all checked out when you get to the hospital,” she reassures.

“But the cut…the glass. There was so much blood.” Meredith’s words fall to a whisper as Grace squirms beside her.

“We looked at the wound, Mrs. McCann. It should only require a few stitches, but the injury is far from where the baby would be positioned at this point.” The paramedic’s kind eyes crinkle at the corners as she conveys this information to Meredith. Relief washes over her. Maybe things will be okay. “We’ll do an ultrasound and some blood work when we get to the hospital just to be safe, okay?” She brushes Meredith’s soot-covered hair out of her eyes and Meredith nods in response.

Meredith pulls Gracie to her side as a few other paramedics help load them into the ambulance. The bumping and shifting causes Grace to stir at Meredith’s side. Gracie pulls at the child-sized oxygen mask strapped to her face. Her lips are less blue and as she coughs up some of the smoke she inhaled, some of the color returns to her plump cheeks. “It’s okay, Gracie. We’re going to be okay.” For the first time since this horrible experience started, Meredith actually believes those words.

The McCann’s spend the night in the hospital for observation – just as a precaution the doctors tell them, but Walt knows the real reason. They’ve got no home to return to.

The next morning, after Meredith is wheeled out of the room for a few tests, Walt and Grace watch some cartoons and wait for her to return. He’s concerned that they still need to run tests on his wife. Maybe her smoke inhalation was far worse than his and Gracie’s. Or maybe it was the cut to her side that has the doctors worried.

A half an hour later, Meredith returns with tears streaming down her pink cheeks. “What’s wrong, Mer? What’s the matter?” Walt stands from his bed and practically runs over to his crying wife.

“The baby…” is all she can work out past the lump in her throat. Walt’s initial worries instantly morph into elation and then raw fear.

“What did you say?” he whispers, shocked by this news. Unable to speak past her sobbing, Meredith cries into the blankets. Walt looks up to the doctor who came in with Meredith, hoping that she can offer some small sliver of information – something to make his mind stop racing.

Extending her slender hand to him, Dr. Meyers introduces herself. “We performed a routine ultrasound this morning to check on the baby, to make sure everything is okay.”

“What baby, Mer?” He skims his knuckles across his wife’s cheek, brushing away the flow of tears. “Please talk to me,” he begs and she wraps her fingers around his hand. Bringing his hand to her lips, she plants a soft kiss there.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted it to be a surprise, but I’m…Walt, I’m pregnant.” Giving herself over to her emotions, she wraps her arms around his neck and hugs him as tightly as she can.

“So then the tests came back okay?” His words are muffled by her soft, brown hair. He sees the doctor nod as she steps away from the stretcher to give them a minute of privacy.

“Yes, everything is okay, for now. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.” Her chestnut-colored eyes beg for forgiveness, but there’s nothing to forgive. They’re going to have another baby.

“Shhh, sweetie. There’s no need to apologize.” He kisses her temple.

Before she leaves, the doctor goes over a few last minute instructions – no heavy lifting, drink plenty of water and see her regular doctor in a week or so for a follow-up ultrasound, at which they should be able to hear the heartbeat.

Grace is too entranced by the television to even notice that her mom has returned, so Walt and Meredith decide not to mention anything about the baby to her, just in case.

The rest of the morning is spent making arrangements to move in with Walt’s brother until they can find an apartment of their own. Meredith calls Penny Andrews, her neighbor and newest friend, who promises they’ll be up there shortly with some new clothes. Hating to rely on others for support, Walt almost tells them not to worry about it, but they’ve got to rebuild everything. Somehow, refusing a few new items of clothes when they don’t even have a roof of their own seems somewhat foolish.

An hour later, the Andrews come to visit and in addition to the clothes they’d promised to bring, David beams with pride as he hands Grace her ragged and charred Puppy.

Grace leaps out of the hospital bed. “You found Puppy!” She squeals with delight as she tears the precious stuffed animal from David’s hands.

“Sure did. It was right next to where I found you.” He’s grinning ear to ear, utterly pleased with himself for being such a huge help last night.

“You found me?” Grace asks, disbelief lacing through her words. When David simply nods and smiles, she says, “Wow. You’re like a hero!”

Wrapping her tiny arms around his waist, Grace squeezes David. The two sets of parents watch in silence as the happy exchange occurs before them.

Letting go of David, Grace tips her chin over at the TV that she was just watching. “Wanna watch Frosty the Snowman? The nurses just put it on for me.” Grace doesn’t even wait for David to respond before she pulls him over to the bed. She’s determined never to let her hero move from her side.