'Goodnight, Daddy.' Heather hugged her father tightly. He was sitting on the edge of her bed and she was on his lap. 'I love you.'

Nathan held his precious daughter in his arms, allowing her simple words to wash over him and silence his worries for the moment. 'I love you too, sweetheart.'

Heather let go and crawled into bed, pulling the soft, purple sheets up to her chin. Her strawberry blonde hair fanned out beneath her head when she rested it on the pillow. Nathan leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead, 'Goodnight,' he murmured. 'Sleep well.'

Heather gazed up at him, her blue eyes bright sapphires against her light skin. 'I will. You too.

'I will,' Nathan replied with a small smile, though he was sure it was a lie.

Heather smiled back, her eyes slowly closing as she let the world fall away. Nathan stood up carefully, trying not to disturb her. He turned the light out and closed the door quietly behind him as he left Heather's room.

Light was leaking under a door down the hall. Nathan pushed it open to find his wife, Christin, sitting at her desk, though her computer was off. He walked over to her and stroked her long, blonde hair affectionately. She looked up at him, her bright blue eyes strikingly similar to her daughter's, and smiled. Glancing past her, Nathan was surprised to see a piece of paper on the desk before her, a pen in her hand. The paper looked like it had been torn out of Heather's school notebook and the pen must have come from Heather's pencil case.

'What are you doing?" he asked her.

'Hoping the words will write themselves,' Christin sighed, turning back to her blank page. 'We need to tell Hez what's going on. She needs to know that we're her real parents, that she's not adopted.'

'Does she?" Nathan retorted. 'Maybe she's happy thinking she's normal. All her friends are adopted. We were adopted when we were kids. What if she doesn't want to know that she's different?"