A/N: So, I know I made that little joke about pestering me to write working, but I should clarify that I was being sarcastic. In truth, it takes this long for me to update because a) I have a busy and high-stress life and b) I don't write unless I'm in the mood and the narrative voice feels right. So while I appreciate the investment that readers have in this story, I would appreciate your patience.

Thanks to Essy for betaing and to those of you who reviewed. To those of you who didn't, I really have very little to look forward to during the work week, so, you know, maybe you review this time. As a disclaimer, all references relating to Luka's past are based on my knowledge of regional history and vain attempts to walk the line(s) separating continuity with the show, historical accuracy, and not turning this into an essay on geopolitical conflict.

"Cry"

I'm half asleep, curled up against Luka and thoroughly enjoying the combination of the heat emanating from him and the rhythm of his heartbeat, when he asks. No lead-in, no hesitation, nothing, and for a split second I'm overwhelmed by it, that we've finally made it here, to this point, where he can ask me point-blank.

"Would you go to Mass with me on Sunday?"

I've been sort of waiting for the past couple of weeks for it to come up, because it's not as though it's a secret that the anniversary is coming up. As long as I've known him, he's marked it, either formally or just a few minutes in the hospital chapel when it coincided with a shift. It was just after we'd broken up that he told me, mostly because I'd managed to track him down there, and I don't think he even said the words, but I knew, figured it out. And so I'd sat down next to him and I still don't know what compelled me to do it, besides whatever emotional connection was still there and not too damaged after everything, but it was the first time I'd prayed in about ten years.

After that, every year – even when I was with someone else or he was with someone else – I've remembered the date and tried to let him know in some subtle way that I knew and if he needed to talk about it, that was okay. He didn't take me up on it until we got back together, and I was kind of caught up in finally having Joe home and didn't really think about the fact that it would be different, because suddenly, he was a father again. And so him opening up to me, finally, and telling me that a part of him felt guilty for moving on and being happy – it sort of hit me like a ton of bricks, that he trusted me enough and I guess loved me enough to let me in, even if it was just bits and pieces.

I lean up and look at him and brush my fingers through his hair. "Of course."

He's still sleeping on Sunday morning when Joe wakes up at six-thirty. I'm surprised, because I sort of expected this to be one of those nights when he doesn't sleep, just tosses and turns until he gives up and I find him in the morning, almost always in Joe's room, doing something completely ordinary like balancing his checkbook or reading the newspaper.

This morning, though, he's just lying there next to me, one arm draped across my waist, looking completely undisturbed. There's something about him when he sleeps – or at least, when he isn't having one of his nightmares – that fascinates me. He just looks so peaceful, as if none of the horrific things he's been through ever happened, and sometimes it kills me that he can't hold onto that once he wakes up.

I go get Joe from where he's standing, looking forlorn, behind his baby gate, one arm around his frog while he reaches up for me with the other. Luka keeps insisting he gets that from me – being completely pathetic in the morning – and it's not like I can argue given that I have enough self-awareness to know I pretty much define "useless" first thing when I wake up.

Sure enough, he's half-asleep on my shoulder before I even walk into the bedroom, and I lay him down on the bed and watch him squirm around until he's wedged right up against Luka. I slide in beside them both and I feel Luka's arm creep around my hips. "What time is it?" he whispers.

"Early. Go back to sleep." Joe grunts softly in his sleep, which I decide to count as agreement. Luka just nods, and leaves his hand on my hip and his eyes on me.

I drift off with a pair of cold, little feet pressed into my stomach, and when I wake up again, it's the same feet thrashing around under the covers and kicking me right in the ribs. His morning demeanor might be from me, but his sleep habits are all Luka.

I leave Luka to fend for himself while I go down to start the coffee. I'm screwing the lid on Joe's Sippy cup when Luka comes downstairs, holding Joe upside-down over his shoulder. Joe shrieks in laughter as Luka flips him right-side-up into his booster sear. "Again!"

"He's like one of those plastic robots," Luka mutters, and takes a mug from me. "How do you call them?"

"How should I know?" I hand Joe his cup.

Luka shrugs. "I don't know. They used to be popular. The little blue and red things that fight?"

"Oh. Those." I glance over at Joe, who is struggling to remove his sock while still clutching his juice. "I don't know what they're called, but I don't think they snore."

"He doesn't snore," Luka says defensively.

"Uh, you both snore. And you both kick."

He takes a carton of eggs out of the fridge. "I'll have you know I've been told I'm very cute in my sleep."

"People say a lot of things when they're naked."

"Mmm." He leans over me and I tilt my head back to kiss him. "They scream a lot of things, too."

"Oh, shut up."

He raises his eyebrows at me. "I don't think I will."

Joe, ever the master of timing, chooses that moment to announce that he has socks on his hands. Luka and I exchange glances. Apparently he doesn't know the appropriate reaction to that, either. I look back at Joe, who's grinning and holding up his sock-covered hands like he's just accomplished something monumental. I clear my throat. "I see that. How are you going to eat your breakfast if you have socks on your hands, though?"

He frowns for a split second and then lifts up one foot. "Wif toes!"

I sit down at the table and tickle the bottom of his foot. "With your toes? Or with Tata's toes?"

Joe giggles, and I can hear Luka chuckle, as well. "My toes."

I catch Luka's eye as we're sitting down and there's a sort of nostalgic sadness to his smile. I can almost see it, the image I know is on replay in his mind, the last time it was like this with Marko and Jasna and Danijela. The last time they ate breakfast together. I wonder, out of nowhere, what they ate that morning. I don't know why, really, except that completely irrational feeling that somehow, knowing those little details will somehow help. That the closer I get to knowing who they were, the less he has to compartmentalize them, build a wall between his first family and the one we have now.

Like he's reading my thoughts, Luka brushes my arm, and then gestures to Joe, who's trying to spear his toast with a fork. "It's pretty great, huh?"

"What is?" I know what he's talking about, I think, but I don't want to be presumptuous.

"Him. Us." He reaches over and covers my hand with his. "All of it."

I stand up and move close enough to him that I can wrap my arms around his neck. He pulls me down, into his lap, and from the corner of my eye, I can see Joe giving us a suspicious look. I press my lips against his forehead. "Yeah," I murmur. "It is."

"You almost ready?" It feels strange, being dressed up at this hour on a Sunday. I don't know if I should be wearing black. It doesn't feel quite right, dressing like I'm going to a funeral, and I can't really gauge my outfit based on Luka's since he's wearing a suit and tie, and black is sort of the standard for that. In the end, I go with black slacks and a white blouse and figure I've split the difference.

Luka plays around with his tie, trying to straighten an imperfection that I'm guessing only he sees. I put a hand on his arm and turn him gently towards me. "Let me." I smooth down his tie, and I can tell just from the way he's standing, so rigid, all his muscles tensed, that wherever contentment and ease we had this morning is gone.

I offer to drive, but he says he knows the way, so it makes sense if he does. I glance out the mirror as we pull away, Joe happily tossing piles of leaves around the front yard as the sitter tries to coax him toward his soccer ball. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if they'd lived – Jasna and Marko – and Luka had come here with two kids. It's not like I'd have been any less attracted to him, but it would have scared the shit out of me to get involved with something like that, an actual family. But maybe things would have been different for him too, and maybe, somehow, it could have worked. Not perfectly, or the way it worked out now, but I have to imagine that eventually I'd have gotten over that paralyzing fear of intimacy that I'm sure would have been in our way, and maybe Joe would be playing around in the yard with his older brother and sister. Mostly because imagining anything else would mean weighing what we have now against what he lost, and keeping myself from doing that is the only way I've been able to reconcile that guilt I have for the fact that if they'd lived, I'd never have had Luka and Joe.

I rest my hand on his the whole ride, and only move it once he's parked to reach down for my purse. I've got one foot out of the car, buried up to my ankle in leaves, when I realize he hasn't budged. I close the door. "Luka?"

He's staring straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles are white. I reach over and let my hand drift across his shoulder and around to the back of his neck. I can feel the tension in him, emotionally and physically.

"If you need a minute – "

"Don't."

I'm not sure exactly what he's telling me not to do – try to comfort him, touch him, speak – but I decide it's probably best not to ask. Instead, I sit there next to him, just watching out the window, waiting for him to say something. Anything, really.

"I can't," he murmurs, after a while.

"Okay."

"I just…" He lets his hands drift to his lap, and his gaze follows. "I can't go in there, and…" He trails off.

I give him a minute, but he doesn't finish. "And what?"

"It's just – it's pointless, you know?" He pauses. "Empty. It won't change what happened, won't make it any easier. I can't…go in there and grovel before God so he'll forgive me for my sins. I don't want His absolution."

It hangs in the air, the other half of the sentence, and he doesn't have to say it for me to know. I want theirs. I must have heard him ask for it a thousand times in his sleep, apologizing over and over.

He runs his fingers through his hair. "I don't know what this was supposed to do. They hated going to Mass, anyway."

"Jasna and Marko?"

He nods. "We'd have to drag them. I'd always end up having to bring them outside partway through because they couldn't keep quiet."

Cautiously, I reach over to take his hand. I exhale a breath I didn't realize I was holding when he turns his hand palm-up and lets me hold it.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize, Luka. To me or to them. You didn't do anything wrong." I'm aware that telling him that is like shouting into the wind, but it seems worth it to say all the same.

His thumb traces the back of my hand, and he just sits there, staring at it like it's somehow fascinating. His voice comes out a little dull. "She wanted us to leave when the war started."

"Luka…"

"I told her it would all be over in a few days. That we should stick it out. I don't even know if I believed that, I just didn't want to disrupt my residency."

"For all you know, it would have been just as dangerous to leave."

He shakes his head. "It wouldn't have been. She wanted us to go stay with her aunt in Zagreb. If we'd left when she wanted…they wouldn't have even known there was a war."

"You couldn't have known that, though. You can't…if it were like that, if you knew ahead of time, things would be different. Everything would be." I glance out the window again. "If we could see the future, Joe would have been born full-term and I wouldn't have had a hysterectomy. Probably. Or…I don't know. Maybe if I'd have known, tried to get out of the way, things would have been worse. You can't know, Luka. It's not all black and white."

He looks at me, finally, and looking back at him, there's this crushing sadness, not just for him or for his family, but everything – the prospect of losing Joe, the prospect of never having had an abruption, the prospect that Luka might not be here. "I knew I couldn't save her." His voice is low, almost inaudible. "I knew…I knew if I brought Danijela to the hospital, she'd probably have lived. I just…I couldn't."

"Luka," I murmur. He looks away from me again and closes his eyes. I see a tear roll down the bridge of his nose. Without really knowing why, I reach over and brush my fingers over his face to catch it, like somehow it's going to do some damage if I don't. "It was an impossible choice."

"It wasn't, though. I knew." I hear his breath catch a little. "She was already…there was nothing I could have done. I just…I couldn't do it. Leave her there."

"Look at me." He does, and I instantly regret asking because it's exponentially more difficult not to cry when I'm looking right at him. "If it had been me…if that had been me and Joe, and the choice was to leave him or try…even if there was no chance…I'd have wanted you to try. I would want you to, if that was ever…if you ever had to make that choice."

"Abby…"

"You did what she'd have wanted you to do, Luka. I know I didn't know her, but that's…it's what any parent would want, I think. It's – when I called you, that night that Ames broke in…I knew that was what you'd want me to do, to protect Joe. I hated myself for doing that to you, but I knew if I didn't…there wasn't a choice, Luka. You protect your child because you have to."

He looks at me for a long time, not saying anything, and as much as I like to think I know him, I can't even begin to guess at what he's thinking. His hand is still holding mine, though, and I can feel the beat of his pulse in the veins along the back of his hand. I keep looking back at him until I can't stop a few tears from rolling down my face and realize I need a tissue.

He stops me, though, and reaches over to cup my face in his hand and then he's kissing me, hard, probably harder than it's really appropriate to do in a parked car where people can see through the windows, but I'm not about to stop him. He pulls back, eventually, and brushes the tears off my cheeks. "Thank you."

"I don't – "

"It doesn't…it still hurts, but I guess…I needed to hear it."

"I'm sorry I didn't say it sooner, then. I didn't…I don't want to bring it up. I guess…maybe I should have."

He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair again. "I thought I'd gotten past it."

"Past…what happened?"

"Yeah. Past…the stages of grief, or whatever. Accepted it. Except…I think sometimes I'm stuck. I'm still…I'm still so fucking angry."

"I know."

"You know?" He glances over at me with this bewildered expression.

"I've known you a long time, Luka. Things have…you've gotten better, stopped letting it define you, but I've always known the anger was there."

"When?" He rubs his temple. "I mean, when did you – "

"Our first date. The look in your eyes, it…I could tell. And sometimes it's still there. After you wake up from a nightmare…I remember that look. Not just anger, but the fear, too."

We sit there in silence again for a while, and he reaches over with one hand, stroking my hair, the other one still gripping mine almost like he's afraid to let go.

"I wish you'd told me." He's almost smiling. "I could probably have used the head's up."

"I figured it was one of those things you had to figure out yourself."

"Maybe."

I let my head fall to one side so I'm facing him, his hand cradling the back of my head. "It's why I keep trying to get you to talk to me about it. I don't – I hate it as much as anybody. It freaks me out to actually work through stuff, but I don't – I'm afraid if we don't, we won't…make it. I'd rather try to talk about it than take the risk."

He nods. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I want…whatever we have to do to make this last. You're right."

"I know." I think he knows I'm not terribly smug about that. I'd rather be wrong and not have to talk about the hard stuff and still be fine.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to…do this. Where to start. Any of it."

I shrug a little. "Neither do I."

"That seems like…it might be a problem."

"You think?" I raise my eyebrows a little. He looks at me a minute and then starts laughing, and then so do I.

I reach over and lace my fingers through his, tugging his arm toward me a little bit, stroking his forearm with my free hand. "I just – I don't know if I'm the right person for you to talk to, Luka. I have…god, absolutely no idea how this goes, or what I'm supposed to say. I just…whatever you want – need – me to do, tell me. If you'd rather talk to somebody else – "

He cuts me off. "I don't want to talk to someone else." He smoothes down his tie. "Maybe it's not fair to you. If you can't…if it's too much, tell me, but I don't want to talk to anyone besides you. I will if I need to, or if you want me to, but…if I'm going to talk about it, it wouldn't feel right with anyone else."

"Yeah. I – I know what you mean."

"Okay." He leans across and presses his mouth against my temple. "Thank you."

"You don't have to – "

"I know I don't have to."

I smile a little and lean into him. "Do you still want to go to Mass?"

"No," he murmurs. "It's not – I thought it would help, I guess, but it doesn't…feel right. I'd rather just be with you. And Joe."

I nod. "If you decide you want to – next weekend or something – just tell me."

"I will."

I skip my AA meeting. Jill texts me about two minutes after twelve to make sure I haven't managed to fall off the wagon in the three days since she last saw me, and I assure her I haven't and plan to go to a meeting tomorrow night. Luka tries to argue with me when I tell him, insisting he doesn't need a babysitter, to which I respond that unless he plans on paying me twelve bucks an hour for the time we spend together, that's not what I'm doing. He shuts up after that.

Joe's still tearing around the yard, enjoying his new favorite hobby of throwing handfuls of leaves in the air, when we get home. I pay the sitter, who informs me that he has apparently expanded his hobby to include throwing leaves at people, including a couple of our neighbors. I turn around and look at Joe, who, sure enough, launches an armload of leaves at Luka. Or at Luka's knees, really. "I guess we'll work on that," I tell her.

I wait until she's gone and then gather a bunch of leaves myself and toss them all at Luka. I mean, really, I can't be expected to be responsible all the time.

It's nice enough that evening that Luka can use his grill, which is made all the better by the little toy grill I found and could not possibly resist buying for Joe. He watches Luka like a hawk and mimics every single thing Luka does with the real grill and food with his plastic set, right down to making me fill a plastic bucket with water so he can "marinate" some plastic fruit.

Luka just watches, shaking his head and smiling, and ostensibly judging me for being such a sucker. I'm inside getting plates and silverware when I hear the clatter of a pair of non-pretend tongs hitting the deck. "Sh – " I hear Luka start, and then see him glance down at Joe. He catches himself. "Shh."

Joe looks up at him, tosses his spatula on the ground, and holds his finger up to his lips.

"Shh, Tata."

I let Luka put Joe to bed by himself. Well, not let, really – I'm not one of those mothers, thank god – but I just kiss Joe goodnight and give them their space. I'm getting out of the shower when I hear the bedroom door close, and when I come out, Luka's sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped, head bent, and for a second, I think he's praying. He reaches out a hand, though, and I take it, and sit beside him.

"You remember how you asked me if I was afraid that telling you about my past would scare you away?"

I nod.

"I think, maybe, it does. More than I realized. There's things…I'm ashamed of, that I hate myself for. I just…" He turns his head to look at me, this pained expression on his face that makes my insides ache. "I don't want you to know those things about me. It scares me that if you did…you'd hate me, too."

"Luka," I whisper. I slide one arm across his back and with the other, hold his head in my hand and pull him toward me until he's close enough to kiss. He kisses me back, and we both sort of get lost in the moment, I guess, because a minute later I'm lying back on the bed, the towel that was around me undone, and I realize as I'm pulling his shirt over his head that this is exactly how we managed to avoid talking before. It's extraordinarily easy to get caught up with him like this, and I realize that it's partly because of how much we love each other, but it's not how this is supposed to go. Or needs to go, rather. "Wait," I manage.

He pulls back a fraction of an inch and I can see it in his eyes, that look like the first night we were together, needing that comfort and release of being together, but after a second he nods, like he gets it, too.

I lean up and pull his shirt over me like a nightgown. One of the many conveniences of a tall husband. I look at him, and he shifts into a sitting position. "You can't make me hate you, Luka."

"It scares me," he repeats.

"I know. Trust me, Luka, I know what that's like. I was so terrified of telling you about…everything…last year. I still am. I knew it was hurting you not to know, but I was too afraid that…I wanted to be able to go after you if I had to."

"God, Abby." He covers his face with his hands. "I made vows. I said…we'd help each other when we needed to, and then…I didn't. I wasn't there, and even when you asked for my help – "

"Stop it, Luka." He looks at me. "That's not what I'm talking about. And besides, you told me to stop apologizing for it; you have to, too. I'm talking about figuring out that it wasn't about the things either of us did, it's…I don't know, the sum of the parts, I guess. I don't know how to explain it. But that you don't just stop loving somebody over one thing, or over ten things, or however many. I love you because I know who you are, and that's…what I want. You can fuck up and still be the same person."

He's staring at me, almost like he's stunned, and quite frankly, I am too, because I have no idea when the fuck I figured all of that out, or even that I did. It's about ten times more self-awareness than I've demonstrated over the course of my entire life up until now.

"You're…"

"Extraordinary?"

He smiles. "I was going to say 'right.'"

"Oh."

"But that, too." He pulls me against him, arms wrapped around me so tight it almost hurts, but not quite. I think it'd hurt more if he let go, which he doesn't, thankfully. "I love you."

"I love you, too. That's sort of my point, Luka." I rest my chin on his chest. "You also said when we got married that you offered yourself with all your flaws, and if you recall, I agreed to that. Part of the package."

He lies down against the pillows, still holding me, and I move so I can still sort of see him while he spoons me. "I guess you did."

We lay there for a while, not saying anything else, and then he does talk. I mean really talk. He's told me about his past, about the war, before, but always in stories, little snippets, and I guess I always figured it was because that was what he could handle at any one time. Now I think maybe that was as much as he thought I could handle. But he talks about it all, this time, or at least the whole picture, from before the war until he left Vukovar, at which point he stops, mostly because it's two in the morning. I don't cry, or say anything, because I can't. I just take it in and I know it'll take me awhile to process everything, but that's another part of the package, I guess.

When he stops talking, I hold him awhile, and then, eventually, I start kissing him and can't really stop until he takes his shirt off of me and there's green cotton in the way of his mouth. He's slow and sweet and I know I'll be exhausted midway through my shift tomorrow because I was up until three talking and making love with my husband but I damn well know I won't be sorry.