Technically it's still Friday where I am so I did keep my promise! Martin POV, it's italicized because it's basically an entire flashback but more...retrospective? Idk, I'm keeping to italics for chapters like this when there is just background etc. so yes, enjoy and let me know what you think!
Henry Conrad was fairly popular in the state of Nashville, it seemed. He had won elections previously, but since his wife left him for another man four years ago, he had fallen deep into the bottle. Every other month, he would claw his way out, but then a song that reminded him of her would come on the radio, or he'd see somebody at the store who had eyes the same crystal blue as hers, and- almost as quickly as she'd broken his heart- he'd fall right back into it again.
Still, that did not mean that walking the streets with him equaled anything less than a social parade. People stopped to congratulate Henry for God-knows what political venture and when he introduced Martin as his son, Teddy, Martin flinched, feeling the sting of a slap in place of a welcome.
In those first few weeks, Martin was caught between anger at his father for leaving him there and disappointment Danny had not arrived to whisk him back home again. His father saw Nashville as a second chance, in Martin's eyes it was a cry for help...one which was being steadily ignored by those who had once claimed to love him.
He dreamt of the kidnapping, the ordeal, almost every night, but, unlike the dreams that had plagued him in his own bedroom, it was Danny who was being hurt- not him. Was is some weird sign? Did it mean Danny was really in danger back in New York? Was it Martin's mind telling him to call Danny?
But then, almost in a blur, the weeks turned to months- a haze of adjustment and isolation; before long it was Christmas, and Henry was encouraging him to attend a party his new office was throwing.
The job in business was nothing incredibly riveting or challenging, but it was a calm change of pace from finding missing people. In his new job, the worst that could come from him messing up was a contract needing re-printed. Nobody ever died if he made the wrong call; his team didn't suffer because he lost momentary focus; the closest he'd been to being held against his will was when the elevator had gotten stuck on the second floor for fifteen minutes.
Still, it was a job, and it was a distraction, and right now that was the best he could hope for.
He hadn't wanted to attend the party- he barely knew his co-workers, was steadily doing his best to stay out of everybody's way...but Henry was adamant.
"It'll be good for you," he promised. "Take your mind off things."
What things, he didn't say, but it was enough to diminish what little hope Martin had been building up as a result of this new life. Regardless of how hard he felt he was trying, he was still falling short of expectations; he was still struggling to fit into this life that did not belong to him.
The first half of the party was a misery and a grace all at once- his colleagues barely took notice of him, chatting and giggling amongst themselves, leaving him to sit alone and his desk and dwell. Before he could stop himself, he was wondering about Danny Taylor. How was he spending this Christmas Eve? In Elena's arms? Tucking Sofie into bed; leaving cookies for Santa? Was he thriving in the beautiful family Martin had once been stupid enough to believe he might be able to have with him?
He thought about his parents too. Were they attending mass together, their usual Christmas Eve tradition? Did they field questions from other parishioners who noticed Martin's absence? Or were they sitting in their living room with their snobby friends, toasting to a future without him to shame their family name?
"Teddy!" Henry's voice was curt, with gentle and concerned undertones. Martin spun around in his chair, still somewhat unaccustomed to being called by this name that was not- and would never be, in his mind- his.
Henry was engaged in conversation with a man of similar age who was laughing heartily. "Come over here!" Henry encouraged, and- not for the first time either- he wanted to crawl under his new desk and pretend he didn't exist at all.
But Martin did as instructed, held out his hand to shake that of a man introduced as Lamar Jaymes, a congressman or something who Martin pretended to have heard of but had not. "Your father tells me you have a bright future in business ahead of you," Lamar said, and Martin's irrational mind felt a flicker of hope at that statement before he realised the father the man was referring to was Henry, the one who was only pretending to care as a favor to the one who didn't anymore.
Didn't say anything, because there was no correct answer really. Instead, he just blushed as Lamar eyed him up and down, feeling like a calf being chosen for slaughter.
With a smile, the man asked, "Have you met my youngest daughter?"
Three hours later, Martin was dancing on the office rooftop with Rayna in his arms. Her eyes were sharp blue, rather than the soft chocolate of Danny's. When she spoke, her voice was sweet and passionate, instead of the rough intensity with which Danny had said his name. She looked at him as though she was disappointed he wasn't somebody else, somebody better; and somehow that was alright, because he looked at her exactly the same way.
The music from downstairs was playing, some repetitive country song Rayna hummed along to as though she herself had written it, but that he had never heard before. "I'm really glad I came tonight," she whispered in his ear, voice hitching with the strain of the lie they could both hear loud and clear, but he could not bring himself to return the artificial sentiments, and so he simply held her a little closer as they danced completely out of sync with the fading music.
When the night was over, she kissed him on the cheek, promising she'd call. "Teddy," she said as she entered his number into her cell phone. "Right?"
And that was it, his perfect opportunity to correct her. The moment his life could have turned out so differently, had he allowed it, had he been brave enough. The moment that separated him: from the wreck he once was to the man he became.
"Teddy," he confirmed, and when she called an hour later, asking if he wanted to go for a midnight coffee, a Christmas offering between two new friends, he accepted.
Coming to terms with his new identity came with losing a number of things: as the days went by, and he filled his mind with thoughts of work, of Rayna and their plans, he forfeited details from his old life. The moment came when he was no longer able to recall, from memory, the digits of Danny's cell phone number; yet he knew what Rayna's favorite dish was, and just how to prepare it. He traded knowledge the FBI had instilled in him- elaborate gun safety and rules and what-not-to-do-in-a-shootout- for the correct way his boss liked contracts alphabetized, for the procedures involved when an investor made a complaint.
In creating new memories, he lost his old ones.
In some ways, it felt like a relief. He didn't have to balance two minds at once; he was Teddy Conrad, and that was all anybody here expected of him.
And it wasn't all loss. He gained plenty too.
He woke up with a woman for the first time in years. A woman who was beautiful by any account, a woman who made him laugh, a woman who needed saving as much as he did and whose past pursuits set him apart, on a pedestal almost.
But Rayna was not the only relationship Teddy Conrad was building. Henry, the man who had taken him in, was treating him as though he really were his own son, just as he had from day one, even when he had been too angry to see it. Henry, who, unlike Victor Fitzgerald, would call to ask him how his day went just because he cared; who would offer him advice on dealing with colleagues, instead of threatening to have them fired, and when Teddy decided to leave the firm for a all-round better job at a more prestigious one, whose first concern was not of the way it would look to others, but if Teddy would be truly happy.
He had never heard the words, 'You can do whatever you want to do,' before coming to Nashville, and they were the magic he needed to take control of his life- the freedom needed to compel him to action.
He got his own apartment and worked his way up the corporate ladder, and when he married Rayna Jaymes in a simple service mid-July, Henry was his best man. It wasn't until Maddie was born that Teddy came to properly see Henry as a father.
He stood, in the hospital nursery, rocking the tiny bundle wrapped in pink in his arms while Rayna slept down the hall, when Henry entered and smiled. "I'm proud of you," he said, words foreign to the receiving ears, and when Teddy started to cry, he allowed Henry to believe it was simply because he was so overcome with love for Maddie.
Being a father had come naturally to him, something which shocked him to no end. He could remember seeing Danny spin Sofie around in his arms and thinking he would never be able to conjure that desire for a child, yet here he was, in Nashville, a beautiful wife and a beautiful baby girl he would die for; an infant his world revolved around, who made him love Rayna because she had given him this perfect family he did not deserve. On the day they discovered the paternity results, Teddy set aside any childish insecurities that had plagued him throughout the pregnancy: he vowed to his daughter that what they lacked in blood he would make up for with love.
It was Henry's influence, he figured, the support of a father he would never have had if he'd been in New York. A role model, an example of what a parent really did and said and gave.
Henry doted on his granddaughters and continued to support Teddy right up until he was diagnosed with liver disease, a result of the alcohol he had not touched since the day he had become a grandfather. It was Teddy's turn to be strong for him then, but by then he'd only just learned what that really meant and required. He did his absolute best by the man; the best doctors money could buy, surgery that was not covered by insurance, moved Henry into their home in an attempt to aid his recovery- so selfish when really, it was Teddy himself who was desperate for more time.
It was during these horrible months of watching his surrogate father die that Teddy began to screw up at work. The Cumberland deal was simply one disaster after another, a string of mistakes on his part as he juggled a family, blinding grief, and a job he had gotten simply due to a fake resume provided by the FBI.
On his deathbed, Henry had kissed Teddy's forehead and told him he loved him, that he was proud to call him his son. They had held hands as he had departed from this world, Teddy drowning in his own tears as the machine flat-lined, the kind nurse he had hired patting his shoulder and assuring him he would be alright.
In Danny's mind, he was helping Teddy by showing up unannounced to offer news of Victor's impending death, but he was simply dredging up memories of the father Victor had never been, the son it was much too late for the man they called Martin to become, the damage grief had done on his life last time it had had a place there.
Danny Taylor would never understand that- in Teddy's eyes at least-he'd already buried his father.
