It had been quite some time since she'd seen him here for more than a coffee to go.

Debbie had let Brian mourn in his own way, in his own time. She knew instinctively he wouldn't appreciate her brand of sympathy. Fact was, she'd been undergoing her own period of mourning and had a hard time consoling anyone else. They'd never had to deal with this, with something as devastating to their lives as this. They were all learning how to grieve more deeply than anyone of them thought possible for the loss of the brightest fucking light any of them had ever encountered.

She'd loved her Sunshine. So much. When she'd finally become aware again after his death, she'd gathered every sketch she could find that Justin had left in his old room and had them framed - placed them in ascendent order on the wall by the stairs. Every day she'd touch them carefully, caress them as she let her fingers remember the boy who'd slipped so easily into her household and her heart. And she always left that light on, the one that lit the stairs. Her sweet boy should never be in the goddamned dark.

Yes, she'd left Brian alone for the most part. Uncharacteristically. But she watched him - saw the trim figure become gaunt and the shadows descend over his face. She started to reach out to him over those weeks but drew back each time when she saw that brush of fear in Brian's eyes. Saw that slim thread he was being held together by fray a little with each attempt. So she left him alone. He needed time.

As the weeks passed, she saw the slow, quiet changes in the man - his lips began to turn up into a smile a little more often and that acerbic wit snuck back into his conversation, the fearful look in his eyes began to fade into one of longing for what she knew was remembered joy. He appeared, on the few occasions she saw him for more than a moment or two, to be dealing with his loss. And she knew, more than anyone else, that his loss had been the most immense.

So when he turned up that morning in early January, casually dressed on what should have been a work day, his lips fighting the urge to break out in a grin, his eyes sparkling with happiness instead of longing or remembrance, and sat down at the counter, Debbie Novotny was only a little bit surprised.

"Missed seeing your ass actually sitting down on one of the seats, honey." She had missed him. For a while she'd felt like she'd lost both boys. "What'll you have?"

"The usual... add a side of bacon," he answered, then added, "Crisp."

"You ordering bacon? Must be some special occasion." She remembered he often stole a piece from Sunshine's plate, but never ordered it for himself. Her heart pulled a little at that memory.

"You have no idea, Deb," he said enigmatically. "No fucking idea." And the threatening smile couldn't resist. It broke out across his face.

Deb tilted her head, brows drawn down in a bit of worry. But she simply reached out and patted his cheek lightly before she went to place his order. When she returned he was scrolling through his cellphone, looking at pictures, the smile wider than she'd ever seen on Brian Kinney's face and she wondered if she'd ever seen anything more unusual, more beautiful.

"Jesus, ratchet that thing down a few kilowatts, will ya? You're blinding me here."

"No can do, Deb. I just became a father," he said and watched the slightly stunned look come over Debbie's face. "I heard the big grin sometimes comes with the job."

She stood wondering just what the fuck this man was talking about. He'd been a father for nearly two years, now. Well, the girls kept a pretty tight rein on his actual participation in the role, but he was involved with Gus' life. Saw him at least two or three times a month from what Lindsay said, not that that was all that much, mind you. Maybe they'd eased up a bit? Let Brian be the dad she knew he could actually be? Lord knows they should've done it a long time ago. Or maybe she'd been wrong all along; maybe he wasn't dealing with his pain so well. Maybe his mind had slipped into a less painful place.

"Wanna give me a clue, here, kiddo? You get more time with Gus or something?" Her voice was unusually subdued with her new worry.

Brian snorted. "Not likely with Mel in the equation." He handed over his phone, pictures proudly displayed. "Name's Taylor Kinney." His grin grew into a proud smirk. "Born last Thursday, all 7 pounds 2 ounces of her. Lungs a diva would fucking kill for."

Deb stared, mesmerized, at the photos scrolling across the phone display. What the fuck? "What the fuck are you trying to pull, Kinney? You knock up somebody else?" Oh, no... he had to be pulling some kind of joke here. But Brian Kinney was never much of one for practical jokes. Oh, dear god, he had completely cracked. What the fuck? "Brian Kinney, you tell me what the fuck is going on here."

Brian took a deep breath. He and Daphne had discussed when and how to let everyone else know about Justin's child. They both knew the hurt would likely be great, that they would be seen as deliberately shutting people out. But it would be obvious soon enough that Brian had another child - he didn't intend to hide her away like some dirty secret - and questions were bound to be asked. Might as well head it off at the pass, they'd decided.

"Daphne came to me a month or so after Justin's... murder." He couldn't categorize the death any other way. It had been murder. "She was pregnant..." Brian shrugged and watched the penny drop. Recognized by the look of surprise in Debbie's eyes as she scrutinized the photos exactly when it hit bottom. Watched her cross herself and hug the phone to her chest as the inevitable tears formed.

"Oh, dear Jesus..." she sobbed. "Oh, fucking Jesus."

Brian walked around and hugged this woman, this mother of lost boys, to him. "I'm her legal father, Deb," he whispered. "But, yeah, she's all Sunshine."

The first phone call he received that night was from Michael. The next from Lindsay. It wasn't a very pleasant couple of hours as he tried to lay out for them what happened and the reasons behind his actions. Brian had purposely not gone to Daphne's that night, not wanting to upset either her or Taylor with the volume of his conversations, knowing they wouldn't exactly be quiet ones.

"You fucking shit! You couldn't tell me? I'm your best friend, for fuck's sake."

"Brian, how could you do this? How could you? We all loved Justin, but how could you do this?"

In the end, they weren't swayed by Brian's arguments, not that Brian was surprised by that. He wasn't upset about it. What had him pissed off was their seeming dismissal of Justin's child as something Brian Kinney shouldn't be concerned with. That he was doing this all out of some misplaced sense of guilt. That he wasn't cut out to be that kind of father. That he was going to ruin not only his life but Daphne's and Taylor's in the bargain. Fuck 'em.

Fuck. Them.

He slammed the phone down on the kitchen counter and grabbed his keys. He needed to see his daughter.

 ::

"They'll come around, Brian. They usually do, don't they?" Daphne handed him a beer and pulled out the breast pump.

"Christ, Daphne. Do you have to do that now?" He really didn't want an up close and personal image of Daphne's tits permanently seared into his psyche.

"If you ever want to feed your daughter, yeah, I need to do this now," she said glibly. "You can stay or go. Your choice."

He'd learned early on that Daphne wasn't quite as pliable as Justin had been, wasn't nearly as vulnerable to Brian's sometimes erratic moods. Where Justin had worked his magic quietly, Daphne was a ball buster.

"Fine," he conceded. "Do what you have to do. Just... cover that thing up."

She laughed and placed a spit towel over her exposed skin. "You know, if they say something to me, I'm gonna go off on them, don't you?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way." Brian reached over and gently rocked the cradle that held their sleeping firefly.

 ::

Taylor Chanders Kinney made her grand public debut on the first Sunday in February at the home of Debbie Novotny and Vic Grassi. Both hosts were thrilled with the appearance and insisted they have first rights to holding their new granddaughter and great-niece. The entire family came, including Jennifer Taylor.

By now, word of Brian Kinney's fatherhood was common knowledge on Liberty Avenue. It had caused much less of a disturbance than most thought it would. Brian had pretty much been out of the scene for the better part of a year now and a fickle herd had moved on to other idols. There was a painful twinge of sadness somewhere in the middle of Brian's chest when he realized that his legend was no longer a driving force behind the desires of all those men, but the need to change a diaper and the contented look on his little girl's face when that was done put into perspective any lingering sadness at the loss. He'd just have to deal with that emotional shit later.

He was fucking growing up.

 ::

"If I were you, I'd shut up about ten words back."

The room quieted eerily at the softly spoken words from the girl in the middle of the table, carefully spooning lasagna onto her plate. "This looks great, Debbie. Thanks again for inviting me." Debbie just smiled and nodded at Daphne, whose own smile was obviously a bit of facial sarcasm. But the apparent non sequitur seemed to break the strained silence.

"Excuse me?" Lindsay remarked. "We know virtually nothing about you and you are telling me to shut up? Who, exactly, do you think you are?" Lindsay's dislike of this whole situation had been more than verbally apparent during the entire meal. They barely knew this girl Brian had, in her estimation at least, let manipulate his grief, and she'd refused to even acknowledge Taylor's presence. That infuriated another mother, who'd been quiet throughout the meal.

"I think she is the mother of Brian Kinney's legal child," Jennifer interjected without a moment's hesitation, surprising Brian and Daphne with her support. "And I think you are completely out of your mind if you think you have any say in the matter."

The 'matter' was Brian's parenting of Daphne and Justin's child. The thought stunned Lindsay. Gus was Brian's child - his only child in her view - and taking on the responsibilities of this baby was, to her, an abandonment of Gus on Brian's part. Lindsay looked toward Brian, who just shrugged and sipped his beer. He was still trying to figure Jennifer out while trying to keep his anger at Lindsay's words and behavior under control. He loved his son. No question in his mind, or his heart, about that. But Gus was no longer his son, was he, except in the biological sense? He'd given in to Lindsay and Melanie and had forfeited his right to any say in Gus' life. He was, for all intents and purposes, simply a checkbook. He knew he would continue to be; he would never let Gus do without. But the day to day? The heartfelt hard work of parenting? No, he'd ceded that to them. And they held that over his head at every opportunity.

"Legal child? That's bullshit. There's been no time for any adoption to go through. That takes months, at the least. And I'm pretty fucking sure Brian didn't marry this girl. So he can't be Taylor's legal father." Melanie spoke with authority, knowing the law and, from personal experience, exactly how long an adoption can take.

"This is a mistake, Brian," Michael said. "We all miss Justin, and we know you cared about him. But you can't let guilt and grief make you..."

That was exactly the wrong thing to say. Brian's anger just wouldn't be kept quiet any longer. He looked over to make sure Taylor was okay, stood up and moved into his friends' space. "Daphne was right. You should all have shut the fuck up about ten words back. You know fuck all about this. You all know fuck all about it."

"You never gave us a chance to know fuck all about it, Brian. You didn't bother to let anyone know what was going on!"

"And this... this right here, right now, is exactly why we didn't let you know, Michael. This has absolutely nothing to do with you - with any of you - yet you feel the need to criticize and bastardize my actions and my child. Fuck you. All of you." He twisted around to face Mel and Lindsay. "And you know fuck all, too, Melanie. No, I didn't have to adopt Taylor. No, I didn't have to marry Daphne to become Taylor's legal father. All attesting documents are filed and my name is on the birth certificate. That's more than you fucking need to know."

Michael backed off. He looked at his friend, this man he'd known and, god help him, loved for most of his life. And realized Brian was serious. Michael had never been Justin's biggest supporter, hadn't even liked him all that much for the most part. But he loved Brian. He let his eyes travel from Brian to Daphne, from Taylor to Jennifer and realized that they were allreally serious. When he looked back at his best friend, he saw him watching Taylor's sleeping little form, a quirky smile on his face even in the middle of all that anger, and knew that Brian was doing exactly what he wanted to do. That he, Michael, needed to grow the fuck up in a hurry if he wanted to catch up with Brian.

"I'll contest it, Brian, as Gus' mother. We all know you both lied on that form."

"Not a single one of you has any, I repeat, any, legal standing to contest this issue. I'm not naïve enough to have let that potential go unexplored." He paused, looked again at his child sleeping so thankfully unaware. "And I assure you, Lindsay, you have no more status than anyone else in this room. If you should ever raise an issue regarding any of this, that will be the day my checkbook closes permanently. You wanted me out of Gus' life? Don't push me on this, Linds, or you may just find that you get your wish."

Jennifer cleared her throat as she approached Lindsay. "I... lost my son to anger and hatred less than a year ago," she said quietly. "I loved him and thought I knew what was best for him. But I refused to see just how much this man meant to him. And I certainly couldn't begin to see how much my son meant to Brian." She met Brian's bewildered eyes. "And I'm so ashamed of myself for that."

"Jennifer, we're all so sorry about Justin, but that has nothing to do..."

"It has everything to do with it! Everything." She ran her fingers through the hair of the little boy resting on his mother's lap. "I'll never have my son back." Her words were broken in the silent room. "Brian will never have the opportunity to see where that relationship might have gone. But I have seen it... seen a Brian Kinney I never would have dreamed existed... seen him fall in love with a child he'd yet to meet." Brian looked away, uncomfortable with this kind of attention. "He was born to be a father, even though he can't see it, and you apparently won't see it. Don't think for a minute that I'll stand by and let you accuse him of not having enough caring in him, enough love in him for both of these children. He has that - and more."

Brian felt a warm hand on his back as Vic added, "I think more of us know that about him than you realize, Jennifer."

The room was silent again for a long time.

 ::

Brian sat with his back to the cold stone. It was the first time since the funeral that he'd been here. Couldn't face it. Took the cowardly way out and avoided even the thought of it. But tonight, after the emotional dinner with the family, he needed - wanted - whatever bit of proximity to Justin that he could get. The cemetery was wooded, beautiful and pastoral. Justin would have loved it, Brian knew, and bile rose in his throat at his reason for being here. In this place, his back against a cold reminder of the warmest smile he'd ever known, Brian Kinney cried.

"God, I fucking miss you, Justin." He drew in a shuddered breath, letting it out in a steamy vapor on the cold evening. "You'd have given anything for me to have said that while you were alive, I know... and I hate, more than you could imagine, that I let you down there. I was a coward. But you knew that, didn't you? Knew it was all an act... Fuck, I hope you really knew that... You have to have known how much you meant to me. Right?" Brian fought back the few remaining tears and look out over the dusky trees and landscaped greenery surrounding this part of the cemetery. It was twilight - that moment just before it gets completely dark and the setting sun glinted off the smattering of February snow that rested on the gently sloping ground. It was peaceful.

"So, you're a dad now," he said quietly as his hand scraped through the skiff that covered browned grass. "Yep. She was born on your birthday. You found a way to make me celebrate it, after all, you twat." His laugh was a bit broken. "I need to know, Sunshine... need you to let me know I did the right fucking thing here. With Taylor. Becoming her legal father. She's all I have left of... She's beautiful, Justin, and Daphne's gonna be a fucking great mother, but I think I'm gonna need a little help on this fatherhood thing. Okay?"

Brian stood and brushed the debris from his coat, turned and ran his fingers over the name carved into the rose granite. "I do love you, kid," he whispered shyly. "I think I always will." As he turned and started his walk on the graveled path to the car, a small light flickering to his left made him turn. His jaw dropped a bit, then a smile overtook his face. A firefly. In fucking February. Shining and twinkling in the almost dark, and he looked back at the stone, at the beautiful name carved there, and blinked.

Just how the fuck did Justin do that?