Title: Precious Gift O' Mine
Summary: There's a very distinct pattern that creates the beauty of Jenna Winters' Christmas gift this year; it is very soft, and so very perfect. And its name is Mason Jay Winters.
Based Off / Inspired By: The Convergence; fam / couple / brothers / household dynamics with Liza.
Characters: Jenna Winters / Ben Derek / Peter Pan / Mason Winters.
AU Verse: v. hospital au. Jenna Winters is pediatrician specializing in cardiology, who adopts a boy with a serious heart condition named Peter. Eleven years later and she's dating a former army medic and current EMT Ben, and soon has a son to add to the household: Mason. And a dog as well, Carlos. Mustn't forget Carlos.
Disclaimer: Jenna Winters is a Supernatural OC created by Liza. Mason Winters is an OC helped created by Liza. Ben Derek is a Star Wars OC created by me. Peter Pan is a canon character from Once Upon a Time.
There's a very distinct pattern that creates the beauty of Jenna Winters' Christmas gift this year. It's the lightest shade of rose pink, growing redder in some places, but altogether soft. So very soft, and so very perfect. The gift is warm, and fits perfectly in the crook of her arm, against her breast. Its wrapped up in soft white cloth – just like she is, at the moment – and though still so incredibly small, everything about this gift is one hundred percent infallible. At least, to the eyes of a woman made a biological, maternal mother for the very first time.
The name that she – and Ben, of course – finally deems this Christmas gift is Mason Jay Winters. She can't help but whisper the name over and over as she runs her fingers over the newborn's small hands and cheek. Can't help but let her son's initials, M.J.W., roll about in her mind, echoing and cementing themselves all over her brain. He's early, and it shows; the premature child is still so small that at times, she feels frightened for him, as her medical training takes over at random times and she'll search her son for long periods, attempting to find any harm upon him so that she might heal it away. So small that most often, Ben will entirely hesitate to take the boy into his arms, lest he break him in some way. It doesn't matter how many patients he's hauled out of the most dire situations, sewed back up, driven to aid as a former army medic and present EMT. This is his son – and that brings an entirely new type of terror to him whenever he touches him.
But so does it bring joy. It's the joy that is ever present at the moment; after all, it's been two weeks since Mason's birth, and he's thrived ever so well. Nestled in her arms now as Jenna herself reclines back against a small cot with those scratch white sheets, Mason sleeps and Jenna's gaze is – for several minutes – entirely enraptured with the small human being. For the moment, it's a blessing that both the cardiologist part of her, and the pediatrician part, have switched off. She's not looking for signs of illness in the little boy; at the moment, all she sees is perfection. She's drowning in the love that beats with every pulse travelling through her veins, Ben having gone to grab whatever food the hospital staff was serving on Christmas Day, so not present to share in the moment of quiet adoration at the moment.
In fact, her focus is only gradually brought back to the present when the cot next to her shifts ever-so-slightly, a rustle of sheets being followed soon enough by a human voice, "Is he supposed to sleep so long? I thought baby's didn't sleep well at all."
The smile that never quite left her face ever since she'd picked up her newborn nearly an hour before, clears up and smooths out over her lips quietly as the woman finally looks over. There's a thin, emerald-eyed sixteen-year-old boy lying in the cot next to her – unlike Jenna, he's not merely lounging there. He's propped up, underneath those scratchy sheets, with an IV in one arm, and other wires placed beneath his shirt. The heart monitor is quiet and steady, a sound that Jenna had learned over time was as good as a lullaby to sooth her anxiety – as long as it was quiet, and as long as it was steady. She doesn't like the tiny dark circles of weariness around his eyes; they remind her too much of two weeks ago, when her firstborn came into the world but her eldest had nearly left it. So she doesn't think of it. She focuses instead on the fact that the teenager is smiling as he looks at his brother.
"He's still very tired," is her response, calm and unafraid. With Mason so close to her, she can tell, even without medical training – he's alright at the moment. "So yes, he'll sleep a bit more than other babies for a while more."
Peter nods at that, leaning back from where he'd leaned forward just the slightest bit to catch a better glimpse of the bundle in her arms. Peter James Winters hadn't been a Christmas gift; but he was still a gift nonetheless. He'd come differently than his newborn brother, in the form of a four-year-old named Peter Young with a serious heart condition that the orphanage never paid enough to treat with the best care possible. It was when he was five that Peter stopped calling Jenna 'doctor', and instead called her 'mom'. The official adoption papers done one more year later.
"He's cute when he sleeps," Peter comments now, as if off the top of his head, and he's merely thinking aloud. The smile widens on Jenna's face as she nods, and glances back down at the babe's slumbering expression as she doesn't hesitate to agree. "Yes, he is."
"Are you going to bring him home soon? So that he can see his bedroom." It was important, the youth felt, that the child see the bedroom as soon as possible – after all, that was the place that was meant to be his safe haven, his refuge. Peter would feel it a very sour thing if Mason grew up believing the hospital was his home.
Besides. Jenna had put a lot of effort painting those hippos and bears on the nursery walls and it'd be a shame if all that work went to waste, if Mason decided he preferred sterile white to hippo-purple.
"We're going to go home together – all of us," responds Jenna in a firm, hopeful sort of way. After all, Peter's surgery had gone without complications – which perhaps, if she had known things would be alright earlier, she wouldn't have been scared into early labor – and Mason was doing well. She was determined for their homecoming to be complete; two boys and a mother and a father. The father who now stepped into the room after about twenty minutes of looking for food, in a faded Boston Red Sox hoodie and jeans. Ben Alexander Derek shot her a crooked smile as he slipped in and sat down by her side on her cot, looking over at Mason before directing his attention to her smiling face, framed by brunette curls.
Damn, she was beautiful.
"Gettin' Max to bring us up an ol' little Christmas feast," he announced, blue eyes locked onto her person. "Ham sandwiches, potato salad, cranberry sauce and chocolate pudding."
"Mmm. Sounds like a feast to be remembered – can't wait," is Jenna's light response, as Peter's faint, "I like chocolate pudding" resonates in the background.
"Coulda' tried to get take out I guess – but I doubt all that stuff would've been allowed in 'ere with Mason anyways." As he speaks, Ben's hand moves out, tucking a piece of Mason's blanket away from his face so he can look at him as he sleeps. Wondering if perhaps he took her words for sarcasm, Jenna's quick to reply with, "We don't need it. We have everything we need right here." Warmth is threaded through her tone, coursing through each syllable. She looks down at Mason, and fixes him in her arms gently. "Don't we, Mason."
"Mason needs to try the chocolate pudding."
"When he can actually digest it, Peter." Now there's a slight hint of laughter in her voice, and the sound is soothing in the quiet hospital room. Derek leans back, shoulder to shoulder with her on the narrow cot, one leg hanging off the side; but it's comfortable still, somehow. And he doesn't bother to move several minutes later when a small cart and a smiling, dark-eyed man named Maxwell Croft, Ben Derek's partner, rolls into the room; a battery-operated radio spewing Christmas tunes and a white sheet ripped off the cart revealing the hospital Christmas feast. Mason is transferred to his safe little crib, tucked between Peter and the two adults. And though the infant manages to sleep – perhaps because the small family knows to keep their voices low (and convinces Max to do so as well), or because the Christmas tunes on the old radio is a wonderful lullaby substitute – to Jenna he shines like the star atop her Christmas tree full of gifts.
Precious, wonderful gifts; of a career and a home and a family that consists of restless, smirking teen and a coordinated, loyal man and a small, brown-eyed babe. And a dog that Jenna suddenly wishes were here as well, if possible. She misses Carlos, and it's all the more reason for her to anticipate everyone's homecoming.
All these gifts, and they were all her own, to cherish.
When Mason wakes up eventually later that evening, Peter has fallen asleep. Derek has gone out with Max to deal with an injured woman who'd slipped on black ice earlier, and the radio has been lowered to barely audible, a raspy Mary Did You Know humming through the air. Jenna is holding Mason as he finally begins to whimper a bit, demanding attention; and attention he receives. A kiss to the forehead, a gentle brush of one finger against his cheek.
He's raised up intimately near her face, tucked beneath her chin, and the whimpers cease at a mother's gentle whisper.
"Precious gift of mine.
"How I love you."