Disclaimer: Desperate Housewives is in no way mine. I'm just having fun.

Story Summary: A lost shirt causes some controversy. A Tom and Lynette story that takes place about two or three years before season one.

The Shirt

A story by Ryeloza

"Hey, hon? Have you seen my shirt?"

"What shirt?" Lynette called from the bathroom. Tom could tell by her tone that she was rolling her eyes and he tried to keep the sigh out of his own voice.

"My striped button-down. The casual one. Have you seen it?"

Lynette walked into the room. "It's not in the closet?"

"No." He half-heartedly fingered through the clothes again, just in case, and said, "It's not here."

"Oh, you know. I think it's in the wash, actually."

"The wash?"

"Uh-huh."

Tom picked out another shirt and pulled it over his head. "Why would it be in the wash? I haven't been home in ten days."

Lynette shrugged and finished folding the towel she'd brought out of the bathroom with her. "I don't know what to tell you." She went back to the bathroom to put the towel away, still speaking as she walked away from him. "Is it that important? I'm doing laundry today. I'll throw it in first if you want."

"No, that's okay." He scratched his head, puzzled, but let it go. The situation was nothing to get worked up over, after all.

~*~

The next day began a new week of work and Tom was in the office until Thursday when he flew out to Detroit, so he didn't even think of his conspicuously absent shirt after Lynette mentioned it was in the hamper. He returned Saturday morning to find Lynette on her way to the park with the boys, and he decided to tag along, hurrying upstairs to change. It was only as he scanned the closet for a shirt that he realized his button-down was still missing—a hole in a sea of dress shirts and polos. He felt strangely disappointed by its disappearance; the shirt was his favorite, worn and comfortable, and he couldn't understand where it had gone.

Tom skipped down the stairs a few moments later in jeans and a t-shirt and met Lynette at the door. "Ready?" she asked, passing Parker from her arms to his and swinging her bag over her shoulder. She opened the door before he responded and took the twins' hands in each of her own.

"Sure." He followed Lynette out the door and shut it behind him, trying to keep up as the twins yanked her along. "You know what's weird?" he said as she stepped off the porch.

"What? Preston, don't you dare jump in that puddle!"

"I still can't find my shirt."

"What shirt?" Lynette stopped abruptly and picked up Preston, cradling him on her hip and then taking hold of Porter's hand again. Preston immediately began to whine and squirm. "I told you not to jump in that puddle!" she scolded.

"The one you said was in the laundry last weekend. You know, my button-down."

"I did the laundry."

"It's not in the closet."

"Look, Tom, I'll look for it when we get home, okay? Jeez, it's just a shirt. I didn't realize it was so important."

"Why are you getting so defensive? I just asked you a question."

"You're attacking me."

Tom laughed, somewhat incredulously. "Sweetie, come on. Don't you think you're overreacting a little?"

"I think you're overreacting. I'll find your stupid shirt, okay?"

"Okay!" Tom rolled his eyes, shifted Parker into a more comfortable position and dropped the subject.

~*~

The shirt finally reappeared on Sunday morning, wedged in between two other shirts in the back of the closet and almost undetectable. At the sight of it, Tom wasn't sure if Lynette had found it and put it away or if it had been there all the while and he'd just missed it. He was fairly sure it was the latter, and he purposely didn't wear it in the hope that if he waited awhile Lynette would forget he'd ever questioned her. It was a fool's dream, but he carried it out anyway.

On Tuesday morning, he headed to the airport for yet another business trip. His recent promotion to head of sales had been a nice bump in pay, but the price was the amount of travel. In the past three months he'd been gone as much as he'd been at home, and the fatigue was wearing on both him and Lynette. The only thing getting him through was the week of vacation he earned after every quarter of the year, a sojourn that was coming up in three weeks.

Tom arrived at the airport just in time, only to find that his flight had been cancelled due to a blizzard in his destination city. Surprisingly relieved, Tom headed to the office to assess the situation with his boss and get some in-house work done. He ended up only staying until three before he went home, eager to see Lynette's face when he walked in unannounced.

When he pulled into the driveway, he found Lynette outside with the boys, who greeted him like the arrival of Father Christmas himself, clinging to his hands and legs like monkeys at the zoo. Tom paid them as much attention as they demanded before they ran off to play again, and walked to the porch where Lynette sat on the swing.

"What are you doing here?" she asked cheerfully. He bent and pecked her lips two or three times before collapsing next to her on the swing.

"Flight got cancelled. There's a blizzard hitting Wisconsin pretty hard. Looks like I'll be around for the rest of the week."

Lynette grinned and leaned over to kiss him again while he loosened the knot of his tie. "That's wonderful news."

Parker interrupted them then, storming up to the porch with tears streaming down his face and a bloody knee, and Lynette picked him up, cuddling and kissing him while Tom ran inside to grab the first aid kit. By the time he got back, Parker was less upset and more interested in the blood, and Tom patched him up quickly while he sat patiently on Lynette's lap. "There you go, buddy," he said, patting his leg. Fully recovered from the mishap, Parker squirmed down and ran back to join his brothers and it was then that Tom suddenly noticed Lynette's shirt. Or more precisely, his shirt: the one that had been the source of such controversy lately. Tom openly gawked at her for a moment, taking in the sight of her so casually wrapped up in his beloved garment which she'd buttoned only a third of the way and rolled the sleeves to the elbows. Lynette, who had been watching Parker, suddenly noticed him staring. "What?"

"That's my shirt!"

Lynette looked down as though she needed visual confirmation that a shirt about five times too large for her wasn't hers. "Oh. Yeah. It is."

"You've been wearing my shirt! You've been wearing it this whole time just to make me think that I'm crazy!"

"Well that's a little extreme, don't you think?" She laughed nervously. "I just borrowed it."

Tom barely heard her, on a roll with his conspiracy theory. "That's why it was in the laundry two weeks ago. And that's probably where it was the other day too. What? Do you just wait until I leave and steal it?"

"Well, kind of." She shrugged sheepishly. "What's the big deal? It's just a shirt."

"It's my shirt! My favorite shirt!"

"Yeah, okay."

"And you've been lying about wearing it. Why would you lie about that?"

"I didn't lie. I just wasn't entirely…forthcoming."

Tom leaned back against the railing of the porch and crossed his arms. "Why?"

"I don't know. I guess I thought maybe you'd mind. And I didn't want you to tell me not to wear it, so I just kept it a secret."

"I'm really trying to follow your logic here," said Tom. "Really. But I don't get it. Why is it so important that you get to wear my shirt?"

"It's comfortable."

"Yeah. And?"

"And I like it."

"Oh. Okay. Fine."

Lynette gave him a shy smile. "So I can keep it?"

"No way."

"Tom!"

"It's my favorite shirt."

"Well it's my favorite shirt too." Lynette stood up and shrugged as if that ended the matter, but Tom, as immature and stupid as it was, couldn't let it go. Why she would suddenly claim a shirt that had been in his wardrobe the entire time he'd known her was beyond him. He reached out and began to fumble with the buttons, barely conscious of his actions. "What are you doing? Tom?" She tried to back away from him, but Tom kept going.

"It was mine first," he argued childishly. "You can't just decide you want it."

"I don't want it. I need it. So I win."

"You need it? What the hell do you need it for?"

"Because!"

"Because why?"

Lynette shifted her weight, cocking out one hip and tilting her head. It was a typical stance for her when she was fighting her emotions and Tom suddenly felt the fight go out of him. Whatever was going on was about a lot more than a shirt, and apparently he'd finally pushed her to her breaking point. "Lynette?"

"Because when you're not here it's still like having a part of you with me. I know it's stupid, but if I can't have your arms around me then this is the next best thing." Lynette huffed out a shaky breath and blinked several times, obviously warding off tears.

"Oh, baby—"

"Don't. It's not a big deal."

Tom wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close; for a moment she was stiff in his arms, but then she relaxed and nuzzled her cheek against his chest. "Do you know how much I miss you when I'm not here?" he asked.

"Not as much as I miss you."

"I don't think that's possible." Tom kissed the top of her head. "I know that all the travel sucks."

"It's your job. There's nothing we can do about it."

Tom wanted to deny this—his inclination was often to push away unpleasant realities to comfort his wife—but there was nothing in her statement he could refute. So instead he did the next best thing he could think of. "You can have the shirt. No sneaking around. No hiding. It can just be yours."

Lynette sighed. "Thank you."

"It looks better on you anyway."

She pulled back and smiled up at him, the joke playing in the upturned corner of her lips. But her eyes told a different story—one of gratitude and loneliness—and it hurt to know that there wasn't a real solution to the problem.

There was just a shirt.