"Mummy, no," Charlie grumbled, half-heartedly trying to worm his way out of her grip.

"Yes," Jen answered, doing her best to keep her voice low while also determined not to give into her own exhaustion and Charlie's stubbornness. It would have been so to let him win their little disagreement, but she knew that in the end she would be glad she'd remained firm in her position. Yes, they were only eating breakfast at home, the way they did every day, but this was a very special day, and she was determined to put her best foot forward.

And to that end she had found herself here, sitting on Charlie's bed and trying to wrestle a sleepy, distracted toddler into a fresh change of clothes. Of late Charlie had developed a penchant for stripping off and wandering around the house half-naked, and for the most part Jen let him for she felt, as most mothers do, that she would have to pick her battles, and her energy would be better saved for other endeavors. This morning was different, though. This morning she couldn't let Charlie sit at the breakfast table in just his dinosaur-patterned undies; this would be the day when Nick met their son for the first time, really truly met him, and Jen desperately wanted to get it right. When Nick arrived she wanted Charlie to be clean and happy, wanted Nick to see that his son was safe and well taken care of; oh, likely he'd never doubted it, but still Jen keenly felt the importance of this moment.

"All done," she said, and Charlie was out of her arms like a shot, racing for the kitchen and calling out a demand for pancakes. At least, Jen was fairly sure he'd said pancakes; sometimes still the words were too big for him, didn't come out quite right, and she was left trying to puzzle it out. It seemed to Jen that his vocabulary was growing by the day, though, and she remained immensely proud of him. She followed the sound of his voice, gazing around the house as she went, wondering if she had enough time for a quick round of cleaning, wondering if it would be worth the effort. Nick had seen her house the night before, seen the dishes in the sink and the pile of shoes by the door, and besides, he knew already how inconsistent she could be when it came to housekeeping. No, she decided, there was no point.

There was not point to cleaning up, but she had taken her time getting dressed that morning. She'd carefully brushed her hair and pulled it back into a neat ponytail, and then spent several minutes deliberating in front of her closet. It wasn't as if this was a date; Nick was coming round for breakfast, coming to see his son, and they had known each other far too long for Jen to be worried about her appearance. He'd seen her in evening wear and pajamas, fresh from the shower and grimy from three days with no sleep and no chance to wash her hair, and still he seemed to care for her. Given the casual nature of their plans she had opted for a soft pair of black, stretchy trousers and a loose white shirt, open at the throat. Nothing fancy, nothing too enticing, but not slovenly, either. It was the best she could do, and she wasn't entirely sure it mattered, anyway.

A surprise was waiting for her in the kitchen; Charlie sat in his accustomed chair, an old, heavy copy of the Oxford English Dictionary serving as a booster seat to lift him high enough to reach the table while his legs swung merrily beneath him. That in itself was not surprising; Charlie would happily sit still and patient if pancakes were to be his reward. What was surprising was that Amy was sitting next to him, both of her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, still wearing the clothes she'd left in the night before, with makeup smeared beneath her eyes.

"You're up early," Jen said, making a beeline for the still-warm kettle. It had been after 2:00 when Jen finally fell asleep the night before, and it was nearly 8:00 now. She had expected Amy to sleep for most of the day, and found herself fighting a sudden bout of nerves at the realization that Amy would be present for Nick's visit. That hadn't been her intention; whatever happened next, she desperately did not want an audience.

"Woke up an hour ago," Amy said miserably. "Hungry."

Jen laughed, just a little, as she fixed her tea and Amy moped behind her. In many ways Amy was still so young, and Jen had always felt protective of her little sister. They were very different people; Jen had never been much for clubs and late-night concerts and drinking until the sun came up, but Amy still enjoyed a night out on the town every now and again. It seemed that the years were catching up with Amy, though, as she didn't seem to recover quite as quickly as she had done in the past. No doubt Amy was hungover and suffering mightily for it, and on any other day Jen might have teased her about it. But it was a very special day, and Jen did not want to provoke her sister at the breakfast table.

"Pancakes?" she asked.

"Yes, please," Amy answered forlornly.

"Yes, yes, yes, please," Charlie echoed, and Amy winced visibly at the volume of his response.

Maybe she could have sent Amy away, told her to go to bed, tried to pry the coffee out of her hands and shoo her out of the room, but much as Jen did not want Amy to join them she could not quite bring herself to cast her sister out. They had shared so much, over the years, had become partners in raising Charlie, and Jen had told her from the very first that the house belonged to Amy as much as it did to Jen herself. She would not make her sister feel unwelcome in her own home, but she would have to warn her about Nick's impending arrival, and quickly; 8:00 was fast approaching, and Nick had always been punctual to a fault.

"Hey, Ames," she said as she shuffled through the cabinets in search of the ingredients for their breakfast.

A low groan sounded behind her, evidence that Amy was listening despite her distress.

"Someone is coming over for breakfast."

"Someone coming over?" Charlie repeated.

"Someone's coming over?" Amy asked incredulously.

It's like living in echo chamber, Jen thought, exasperated by the chorus behind her.

"Yeah. Nick, from work. You met him last night."

"Did I?" There was a moment of silence while Jen measured out the flour and Amy tried to dredge through her memories. "Tall fella? Quiet? Cute?"

Cute was not the word Jen would use to describe Nick, but tall and quiet, yes he was both of those things, with a smile that made her heart race still, after all this time, after everything.

"Yeah," she said.

"And he's coming over for breakfast?" There was a sly, insinuating tone to Amy's voice, and Jen knew then that she would have to tell her sister everything, now, before the situation got entirely out of her control. If she didn't speak the truth now Amy would be teasing and insufferable all through breakfast, with a thousand prying questions after, and Jen wanted to avoid such unpleasantness if at all possible.

"Can you come here for a second?"

Nick would arrive any minute and Jen had wanted to be further along with the breakfast preparations when he did. She couldn't afford to take the time to stop what she was doing, but she likewise didn't want to call out the reason for his visit where Charlie could hear her; these were words meant to be spoken in a whisper.

"Come on, Jenny, it hurts to blink, please don't make me stand up," Amy whined.

"Fine," Jen said. Fine, she'd just have to find some way to be discreet about her revelation. "Yes, Nick is coming over. And there's something you need to know." She turned around, bag of sugar still in her hand. This was it; once she told Amy, there would be no going back. She would have released her secret in earnest, and though anxiety wound through her at the very thought, she knew that she must. Nick knew, now, and he deserved to spend as much time with his child as he could, and Jen could not leave her sister in the dark, not after everything Amy had done to help her.

"He's," she glanced quickly at Charlie, relieved to find he was not watching them, and Amy followed her line of sight curiously. "D-A-D," she spelled it out, nodding meaningfully towards her son.

Amy's eyes grew wide and round and her mouth dropped open; it was almost funny, really, the shock written all over her face, to see her actually, literally speechless for once.

"D-A-D," Charlie repeated slowly, getting a feel for sounds, parroting them back with his usual determination.

Oh, no. She needed to distract him, and quickly, before he asked what it meant, before he added it to his ever-growing vocabulary; Jen could see it now, Charlie racing around the park or the market, repeating his new favorite phrase while she looked on, helpless to explain why it caused her such distress.

"D-A-D?" Amy asked. "That's...but...Jenny...you said-"

"D-A-D," Charlie had begun to chant. "D-A-D, D-A-D, D-A-D, D-"

And in the midst of the confusion, Amy's stunned disbelief and Charlie's delighted chorus and Jen's own swirling doubts, the doorbell rang.

Here we go, she thought.


Nick lingered on the doorstep, wondering for the tenth time that morning if he should have stopped and bought flowers for Jen. In his experience women liked that sort of thing, and Jen especially; he had surprised her with them a time or two while they were undercover, and when she'd walked back into his life he had made himself a promise that he would do so again. He would find out when her birthday was, that's what he told himself, and she would come in that morning and find flowers on her desk, and she would know at once where they'd come from, what they meant. She always knew.

If this had been a date, if he'd been popping round for a quiet dinner, he would have brought flowers without question. This, though, this was something else. He didn't know quite what this was; in all honesty, he couldn't shake the feeling that it was an interview of sorts. A test, a chance for Jen to determine for herself whether she wanted him hanging around her son. Perhaps that was unkind; Jen had trusted him with her life, and now had finally told him the truth, had looked him in the eye and told him you were the best man I've ever known. You still are. He wasn't entirely sure that was true, but Jen believed it, and that would have to be enough.

The door swung open, and he could not help but smile at the sight of her. The clothes she wore were simple, but they suited her lithe figure well; the way she'd pulled back her hair made him long to lean in and trace the line of her jaw with his lips, and there was a smear of flour across one of her cheeks his fingers itched to reach out and brush away. Her expression was somewhat harried, however, and from behind her he could faintly hear the sound of Charlie's voice. That sound resolved itself, after a moment, and he stared at her in confusion as he realized what Charlie was saying.

"D-A-D," his little voice called. "D-A-D, D-A-D, D-"

"Morning," Jen sighed, leaning heavily against the door.

"Morning, Jen," Nick answered at once, offering her a smile he hoped was reassuring. "Everything all right?"

"My sister is here. Amy. You saw her last night?"

Nick nodded to show he understood. At the time he hadn't known the girl was Jen's sister, and in truth he would not have guessed it for they didn't favor one another much, but Jen had just answered one of his many questions. Now he knew who Amy was, why she had been trusted to look after Charlie, and now he knew, too, that Jen had not been completely alone, and he was grateful for that knowledge, glad to know that she'd had the support of her sister, at least, to carry her through.

"I had to tell her why you were coming over. I don't want to lie about this, any more. Not to her."

That he could understand; a secret like this was too heavy to carry alone, and while they had been living as Trish and Wesley it was the lies that had begun to chafe at Jen, the lies that made her so determined to leave that place and never return. He could not fault her, for telling her sister the truth, and he actually felt a bit of relief at knowing he would not have to lie to the girl himself. And he supposed that also explained what he'd heard from the kitchen; Charlie must have overheard Jen and Amy talking, and latched onto the words as small children often do. Somehow Nick didn't think Jen had told the boy outright; Charlie was so young, and their situation was tenuous. All in good time, he told himself.

"It's all right, Jen."

"Is it?" she asked. There was such doubt written on her face, and he knew that the same questions that tormented Nick must have settled upon her, as well.

"It is, he said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. "We'll find our way through."

He believed that, truly, believed that they could accomplish anything together, believed that their future was a hopeful one, believed that nothing in the world could be better than this, holding Jen's hand while their child sat happy and safe in the house behind them.

Jen sighed. "Come on, then," she said. And then, still holding his hand, she turned and led him into the house, towards the kitchen where their son waited for them.