A/N: I own nothing you recognize. Full House is property of Warner Bros. I'm just playing with the characters for a while.

A/N: This story is AU. In my version, CJ doesn't exist and Steve has 2 daughters with his ex-wife.

1987

When they got home, Suzie went to bed for hours. The sun was setting when she finally woke up. She found Joey on the sofa grading papers. She sat down beside him.

"Cliff's notes claims another victim," he said, tossing a paper on to the coffee table as she joined him.

"You're marking off for your students using cliff's notes when you and Danny used to take turns reading the books then writing two papers?"

"I'm the teacher now," he replied. "And at least one of us read the actual book." He sat the rest of the papers on the table. "Want me to fix dinner?"

She shook her head. "Are you planning on going back to work tomorrow?"

"Thought I would. If I'm gone more than three days, Mrs. Freemont starts re-appropriating my chairs and desks to her room," he said. "When are you working again?"

"My next shift is Friday night and I'm not volunteering for any before then," she said. "Could you take off just one more day? Or will the vultures pick you clean?"

"I don't know, it'd have to be a good reason, by the fourth day they start swooping in. He has chalk, look a stapler," he said the last part in a hiss, imitating a vulture.

Suzie laughed. "Well, I'll buy you a new stapler if they attack. I need you tomorrow."

"What's up?"

She smiled. "I'm pregnant. I thought you might go with me to the doctor tomorrow to see if everything is good.

"Really? That's fantastic! Absolutely, I'll go," he hugged her. "They can have the stapler. They can even have the desks. This is great, Suzie Q. How long have you known?"

"Since Saturday," she said. "Pam made me take a test because, well, you know how she couldn't stand to not know something."

He kissed her again.

2016

Suzie was sitting at her conference, absent-mindedly checking her phone when she heard a deep voice over her shoulder.

"Is this seat taken?"

She looked up and smiled brightly. "Steve! It's yours now. I didn't know they invited podiatrists to this conference. I'll have to talk to someone about that," she teased. She stood up to hug him.

"This coming from a nurse," he grinned.

"Nurse Practitioner," she replied. "How have you been?"

"Good, good," he said, taking the seat beside her. "How is the Gladstone crew? I saw Savvy the other day at the hospital when I was rounding. I can't believe she is old enough to be working on a doctorate and she's doing two at once."

"Yeah," Suzie nodded. "She wants to do occupational and physical therapy because she spent so much time in therapy herself, she wants to give back."

"She'll be great. Remember when I hurt my knee playing football?" Steve asked.

Suzie nodded. Of course she remembered. That was the injury that had ended any hope of Steve playing professional sports and put him on the road to being a doctor himself.

"I was at therapy once and her speech therapist was letting her play at one end of the gym I was in. I remember I was working on weight bearing up and down steps and I was not having a good day. I was frustrated, tired, in pain, and I snapped at my therapist. Then I shoved the set of steps away from me and I was done. I hobbled over to a chair and just fell down in it. Then Savvy came running over to me before her therapist could catch her. She signs my name then said, 'Like this.' And she climbed the steps. She came back down and she held her hand out for me to climb them with her. It just hit me like a ton of bricks, you know. Here was this baby who had to struggle to talk and walk, and all the things I took for granted and she was still smiling. Here I was, mad because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to wrestle in a few months. So, I got up and climbed the steps with her. We get back down and she says, 'Good job. Now we get cookies.' That was a turning point for me in therapy and I was able to wrestle that year and get my scholarship."

Suzie smiled. "How are your girls?" Steve had custody of his two daughters from his first marriage.

He sighed. "Well, my sixteen year old is sixteen, and my six year old wants to be sixteen."

"Two tough years," she laughed. "Try four and twenty-four."

"DJ told me you were adopting. That's fantastic," he said. "When do we get to meet them?"

"Hopefully everything will be final and legal by Thanksgiving," she said. "They're a handful though, so I don't know if we'll be able to come even if we get the adoption finalized. I think they scarred DJ's boys for life when Danny brought them out to Vegas this past summer."

"Aw. I hope you do come," Steve replied. "DJ invited my girls and I for dinner. I love to meet the new Gladstones."

"How's that going is the real question," Suzie said.

"What?"

"You and DJ," she laughed. "Don't play dumb with me."

"She doesn't want anything serious and I'm pretty sure she has a crush on Matt, and I'm trying really hard to be patient about those things," he said, honestly.

"Well, I know it's not what you want to hear, but just keep giving her time and space and it'll eventually work out," she said.

"You think so?" He asked.

"I hope so," she shrugged. "But then I am kind of partial to high school loves. After all, I've been married to mine for almost forty years now."

1987

Six weeks had passed since Suzie had told Joey about the baby. In that time, she'd had two doctor's appointments where the doctor had told them that both Suzie and the baby were healthy. Things had gotten better for them. Suzie was spending less time at work and they were spending more time together, even if most of was over at Danny's helping out with the girls. It was as if a weight had been lifted off of Suzie and she was becoming her old self again.

Joey was in his classroom giving a lecture about the Great Gatsby when the intercom crackled to life.

"Mr. Gladstone, you have a phone call in the office," a tinny voice said.

"Take a message, please. I'll call them back during my planning hour," he responded, thinking it was just a student's parent calling.

"It's about your wife," the receptionist replied. "She fainted at work."

Joey was out of the room so fast, he forgot to even put anyone in charge. When he got to the hospital, Suzie was laying on a gurney, looking small and pale. One look at her face and he knew what had happened.

"Oh, Suzie Q, is there anything that can be done?" he asked, sitting sown beside her and kissing her forehead.

She shook her head.

"I'm so sorry, Sweetheart."

"Yeah. Me too." She looked away.

There was something in her voice. A tone, imperceptible to those who didn't know Suzie as well as he did, that worried him. It was the same tone she used to adopt when talking about her dad or the not so happy parts of her childhood. He took a deep breath and spoke up.

"Sue, please, please don't shut down again. I love you. Please don't shut me out. I want to help you," he said.

Suzie didn't respond. She just turned her head away from him and pretended to sleep.

Please R and R.