Hatchetfield.

actually...

I'm gonna give you Paulkins for the very last chapter here!!

Paul Matthews awoke to a tiny finger weakly poking his shoulder. He was curled around Emma, who was tucked into his neck and snoring softly. He groaned, not believing it was time to take his kindergartner to school yet, and lifted his head to see the alarm clock read 2:13 AM. Worried, he gently moved himself away from Emma and turned to see his daughter.

"Ellie? What's wrong?"

But the five-year old was not concerned with words, rather her father's comfort. She cried, "Daddyyyy!"

"What sweetie? What do you need?" He brushed a hand over the girl's head of curls, trying to calm her down, and found her forehead was burning up. "Are you sick?"

As Paul sat up, Elizabeth leaned forward, pressing her head against her father's shoulder.

"Mmhmm. I threw up."

"Lead with that next time, okay?" Paul's eyes finally began to adjust and he noticed how pale and especially small his daughter looked. "Did you make it to the bathroom?"

"No. 'S on my bed."

Paul gently sighed, partly at his having to clean up vomit, partly due to the pain he knew his little girl felt. But he immediately took it back when he heard a small voice from his chest say, "Sorry, daddy."

"It's okay, baby. Does your tummy feel bad still?"

And in the true Perkins fashion, not wanting to admit to needing any help to feel better, instead settled with saying, "Tastes bad."

"Well, do you wanna go brush your teeth then?"

At this point Elizabeth had managed to crawl almost fully into Paul's lap, and wrapped her arms around his neck, which he took as a signal to carry her to the bathroom and set her on the sink so he could get her toothbrush ready and help her get rid of the vile taste.

Meanwhile, Emma woke up at the loss of body heat and sat up, waiting for Paul to inevitably return. When Paul returned carrying a very sleepy Elizabeth, Emma sat up and silently awwed at the domesticity pictured before her. "Ellie Jane? What's goin on, sweetie?"

Paul shot his girlfriend a little frown and quietly said, "She threw up," hoping his daughter would fall back asleep.

But, alas, a little voice spoke up again, "Can we all go to my room?"

Paul sat back down on the bed, scooching closer to Emma to pass off their daughter. "Aww, no baby, there's puke in there, remember?" Then, just to Emma, "I'm gonna go clean that up before her room smells too bad."

Emma gratefully took Elizabeth, letting her curl up on her chest, and smiled at her germaphobe of a boyfriend who was willing to clean up a bed full of puke so she didn't have to.

"Mommyyyy?"

"Yes baby?"

"I don't feel good."

Elizabeth loved both of her parents equally, which was evident to anyone who met the family, but their shared stubbornness made her mother easier for her to confide in.

"Do you want some medicine?"

"No. 'S icky."

"Ya got me there, kiddo. But you'll feel better, yeah?"

Elizabeth slowly nodded her head, and Emma reached over to her nighstand where she pulled out a bottle of medicine and poured some in the cap to give to her daughter. When Hidgens found out Emma was pregnant, he bought her a ten year supply of medicine and made her keep it in her nightstand. Emma had obviously replaced most of it, but she kept the sentiment.

While she put it away, Paul came back in. While Elizabeth tended to confide in her mother, she knew she had her father wrapped around her little finger and fully used it to her advantage. "Daddyyyy."

"Yes, Ellie?" He got back under the covers with Emma and a little ball of curls immediately shoved itself onto his chest. He began to gently rub his daughter's back, cooing over her as he did at all hours of the day.

"I'm tired," she whined. "Can I go to my bed now?"

Despite how much she loved her parents, she was fiercely independent, and also the strongest child or even person they had ever met.

"Your bed doesn't have any sheets, princess. You could go sleep on the couch?"

"Noo!" She turned to Emma and frowned, hoping that would convey the message of what she wanted but all of them knew she wouldn't ask for.

So, Emma caved. "Do you wanna sleep here with us?"

Her daughter's face brightened as much as it could in her sickly state and Emma couldn't help but let out a little smile of her own, brushing her fingers through her daughter's hair.

No confirmation was needed, and Elizabeth settled herself with her head in her mother's lap and her back in her fathers, with her feet just barely dangling off the side of the bed so her mother could keep playing with her hair and her father could keep rubbing her back.

Elizabeth yawned, and simultaneously murmured, "I'll see you for school."

Emma quickly responded, "Aw, no Ellie, you don't have to go to school. You're sick."

"Really? Then I'm sick everyday."

They stayed like that for a few moments, both parents assuming Elizabeth must have been asleep until she faintly whispered, "I can't fall asleep."

This was not something they had ever had to deal with. As a baby, all it took was a bit of rocking and she was fast asleep. As a toddler, she was so active during the day she crashed during both naptime and bedtime. As a result, Paul and Emma weren't sure what to do.

Emma mentally went through everything Jane had ever told her on a phone call about Tim and how she parented him, and, against her better judgement, she offered, "I could... sing you a lullaby?"

But the Perkins-Matthews family was all very similar and Elizabeth gently murmured, "No."

Paul quietly chuckled and relief swept over Emma before she came up with another, better idea. "I could tell you a story?"

Emma loved telling Elizabeth stories. She would come up with them on the spot, her improv skills kicking in, and Elizabeth would stare at her wide-eyes for hours as she listened intently to the words coming out of her mother's mouth.

Elizabeth snuggled even closer to her parents and Paul looked on in awe as his girlfriend began her story on the spot. "Once upon a time there was a fuzzy green doll named Wiggly."

And within minutes, Elizabeth was asleep. Emma looked over at Paul and whispered, "Yeah, she's your kid."

They turned her so they could tuck her in properly and took turns kissing her scalding forehead.

Emma leant into Paul as much as she could over their daughter and whispered, "I'll stay home with her."

"No, it's okay, babe, I can do it."

"Paul, I work in a coffee shop. I think they'll be okay without me."

"Well, I work with Ted."

And realizing their argument was futile, they both went back to sleep with the knowledge they would both be calling work that morning, and none of them would move for the rest of the day.