Take Me to Your Paradise

Chapter 1: Little Angel

A/N: Alright, here we go - this story is a sequel to "I Wanna Sing You a Sunrise", so if you haven't read that, this one might not make much sense. I hope this isn't too difficult or confusing to read as it does take place a couple of years into the future with some flashbacks. I probably won't be able to update as often as I was with the predecessor (damn life responsibilities:) and I'm keeping the chapters a bit shorter as well. But hopefully you will enjoy it regardless! Story title again from "Music to My Eyes" on the ASIB soundtrack.

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For the first thirty years of her life, Stefani Germanotta had never been a big fan of January.

The year's most gloomy month, set after all the parties and the happy family moments of Christmas while still so far from summer, had usually always found her moody. As a child she had hated returning to school after the holidays, and as an adult January was even harder to deal with: everyone was depressed, everyone was dieting, everyone was recovering from the excesses of the joyful Yuletide season and even the normally very easygoing, happy gang of the Haus snapped at each other far more than any other month, required dubious amounts of coffee and kept scrolling through holiday booking websites during breaks. It was quite funny, really, to witness Sarah and Freddie drift into a shouting match over the exact location of a pin in her hair or to watch Bobby mutter to himself angrily when he tried to take a sip of his fifth coffee of the morning only to find his mug empty. But funny or not, for most of her life Stefani had always been eager for January to pass, to turn into February, which was already a better month several times over.

But not anymore. Now, January brought the birthday of the man she adored from the bottom of her heart; with him in her life every month was magic, and on this year especially, she wanted time to slow down, preferably stop altogether. This year she was going to savour every single second of every single month, because now life was entirely different, had been thrown completely upside down three weeks ago, on the sweetest way imaginable.

Yawning and carefully switching her position on the comfortable chair, she pressed her face against the silky soft head of the soundly sleeping baby girl securely cradled on the crook of her arm, breathed in deeply, absolutely intoxicated. Francesca whimpered slightly but remained asleep and Stefani rubbed her daughter's back tenderly, feeling her eyes get a little damp; Jesus, she was so in love with this perfect tiny creature.

Her mother arrived from the kitchen, touched the little girl's light-coloured strands of hair softly and gave her daughter a smile. "Hey, sweetheart. Did you have a good nap?"

"Yeah." Stefani yawned, smiled at her mother sleepily. "How long was I out?"

"About an hour; you nodded off right in the middle of the movie." Cynthia kissed her forehead and she remembered they had been watching some romantic comedy right before sleep had taken over. "Bradley just called, he's on his way back, and your father will bring dinner from the restaurant; apparently Art has been spending a lot of time today preparing all your favourites."

"Oh." She shook her head, tearing up a little. "Wow."

She stood up very carefully, arms securely around the sleeping little girl, rocking her softly; Cynthia watched, smiling, blinking some tears from her own eyes.

"My God, Stef, you two have truly managed to create the most beautiful baby in the world."

Stefani arched a teasing eyebrow, gently placing Francesca on her grandmother's arms and stretching her limbs, stiff from having fallen asleep in the chair. "I agree, but we might be just a little bit biased, mum."

The first three weeks with their little miracle had passed in a flash; the baby was still establishing her rhythm, some days having good, long sleeps between feedings, on others demanding milk every fifteen minutes but her nights were, at least so far, a lot calmer than Stefani had ever dared to hope for. She was still getting used to having this completely dependent tiny person in her life now; she was very hormonal and emotional, her moods varying from absolute joy and happiness to anger and frustration and at times she was so unbelievably tired and sore all over but it was all worth it because she was a mother now, a mother to this little girl that indeed was the most beautiful baby in the world. And yes, she was biased and perfectly happy with it.