CHAPTER TEN
"Daddy! Daddy stop it!"
The whole house froze.
Dave stopped tickling Adam, pulling away from him as if he'd been burned. JJ didn't look much better as he looked over at her, surprise etched in her features. He forced himself to take a deep breath. They'd all been doing so well. They'd all been recovering, dealing as best they could considering the circumstances. JJ could lift Adam now, a testament to her physical recovery, but the emotional scars were the one thing they hadn't addressed. He'd been careful to avoid the emotional part because he wasn't sure how JJ wanted to go about it. Hell, he had no way of knowing how to mourn the loss of not only your significant other, but the other half of the parenting duo to your kids.
But Adam had just called him 'Daddy' and even Dave knew that was something that had to be addressed and carefully. He wasn't there to take Will's place. He wasn't there to be a new Daddy to these boys, at least, not yet, and not without their permission. More than that, Adam was little. He was still a virtual baby, a person who had no idea the emotional can of worms he'd just absolutely blown open. He had to go about this carefully to assuage JJ and Adam at the same time.
Boy first.
"I don't think so, Buddy," he told Adam with a smile he hoped was soft. "Daddy's with the angels, remember?"
Dave had experienced some of Adam's Daddy tantrums since bringing JJ and her boys to his cabin. Sometimes there were things that only Daddy could do and Adam refused to let go, no matter how many times they told him that he couldn't see Daddy, that Daddy wasn't going to be around anymore.
He almost blew out a breath of relief when he realized Adam was okay. He smiled at the little boy. "Why don't you go upstairs with your trucks, huh?" Adam's eyes lit up and he scampered away. His attention shifted to the next most important person. "Jen?"
Her eyes were filled with pain when they met his and he didn't move, unsure of how he'd react. He wanted to pull her into his arms, to hold her while she let loose the tears that were swelling in her eyes. But he wasn't sure that was what she wanted. It could damage their relationship more than help it.
"Oh my God," she finally managed to whisper.
He moved to the coffee table in front of her. She'd been reading a book with Henry when Dave had returned from giving Adam a bath, tickling him to no end. She'd looked up with affection and humour in her eyes watching the shenanigans with a smile playing at her mouth.
Since he couldn't go into comfort mode, he went into explanation mode. "It's not a big deal, okay? He's little."
"But he knows Daddy's gone," she breathed, part in confusion, part in awe.
"Exactly. He knows that I'm not his Daddy and I don't intend to be his Daddy. That's not my place in his life." He had no idea if that was all of the problem or just the surface. After all, they hadn't discussed her late husband since being back at her house. A house she was going to have to conceivably move back into soon. "Jen, he just misses Daddy. It's normal, and he's young. He doesn't understand what's going on." It was only then that he moved, sitting beside her, close enough that his leg brushed hers, and waited.
He wasn't disappointed.
She curled up against him, one hand coming to fist in his t-shirt and turning her face into his shoulder. His hand came up to rub her shoulder as he felt hot tears soak his shirt. He tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling wondering if there really was a God and why he'd brought so much pain on such a good woman. JJ was one in a million, he knew that, but it tore at his heart to hear her shaking breaths and feel the silent sobs wrack her thin body. Even after two kids, JJ was still thin.
"Your child isn't supposed to outlive you," she said finally, quietly. "Not like this."
"Cara, you know these things happen. Sometimes people are taken before their time," he replied, pressing a kiss to her head. "We don't have to like it, but it happens."
"Like this?"
He sighed, shifting her so her legs rested across his thighs, his arm wrapped around her back. "We see it every day," he answered finally. "Our cases are all about people taken before their time and families that are forced to move on after the death of a loved one. And they do it. You will too."
"What if I don't want to?" she asked. "What if I want Will?"
He really didn't have an answer for that. He was saved from having to find one by Adam's small voice. "Mama! Bedtime!"
The both actually chuckled. Adam was often very on the ball about going to bed. Dave thought it was because he was always spoiled at bedtime with story after story after story. JJ sniffled, rubbing at her eyes as she stood. She paused at the bottom of the stairs.
"Aren't you coming?"
Dave had been part of bed and story time for a while, but he felt that maybe tonight, it wasn't the right place for him to be. He shook his head with a soft smile. "Not tonight." He didn't want to confuse Adam any more than he apparently was. Maybe it was time to step back from how much he'd been helping her, give her a chance to get her legs again. So as she climbed the stairs, he moved towards the liquor cabinet, pulling out a bottle of scotch. After pouring some for himself, he went out to the back porch and looked out across the wilderness that surrounded him. He sighed, then took a healthy swallow.
It seemed like it was time to make some changes.
JJ winced as she put the kettle on the stove a little more forcefully than she would have liked. But she was irritated at herself. Not for breaking down on Dave, but more than that. Her youngest boy was forgetting who his father was. How could she let Adam do that? How could she not have seen that having Dave around constantly would confuse him? It was hard enough to help him understand that his father wasn't going to be around anymore, but... she'd never once thought that he'd look for a new father.
She didn't resent Dave. It wasn't his fault, not really. He'd been trying to make her recovery easier on her and he'd done an excellent job of it. She was almost completely covered from a physical standpoint and she'd been doing pretty well on the emotional front too. After the accident, she'd had nightmares about it, waking up sobbing and crying out. She'd been worried at first, that Dave had heard and woken up, but he hadn't come to comfort her or do anything else and she'd breathed out a sigh of relief every time.
The last time she'd had a nightmare had been weeks ago. Then tonight and really, that was the crux of the matter. She hated that she was having nightmares again, that everything that had happened with Adam was bringing up enough pain and reminding her how much she missed Will such that she was having nightmares again. To top it off, Henry had been acting oddly when she'd gone to tuck him into bed and she didn't like it one bit. Henry wasn't his happy self as often lately and JJ had been considering maybe it was time to see if she could find a grief counsellor for him. Because it was obvious she wasn't in the right place to help him.
"Jen?"
She jumped and spun at the same time, a hand coming up to her heart. "You scared me."
Dave leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, sleep rumpled. "Nightmares again?"
Her eyes widened. "Again?"
He sighed. "I knew," he admitted, "about the first ones."
"You did?"
He nodded. "I figured you'd come to me if you needed. Then they went away."
She echoed his nod, agreeing to the last part of his statement. They had gone away and she'd never once thought of simply going to him. She didn't want to load more on him. He'd already taken all three of them in, given them all a place to stay, to live while she recovered. And she loved the cabin and knew the boys did too. They had the room to run, to play...
"But they're back."
His voice pulled her out of her thoughts. She looked away, to the kettle she'd put on in hopes of making tea to lull herself back to sleep. She knew she didn't have to answer. She heard him come across the tile floor of the kitchen until he stood beside her. Gently, he took her hand.
"Talk to me," he urged.
"I miss him," she said finally. "And I've been spoiled here, with you. I don't have to remember he's gone and he's not coming back. I don't have to remember that I had to bury my husband and that I'm going to be raising two kids on my own. I don't have to remember that I have a job that I have to get back to that's going to require me to go away from them for long periods of time and I don't have to remember that my life isn't turning out like it's supposed to. I can pretend that everything's okay."
She could tell by the look in his eyes that her candidness was surprising him and making him feel guilty at the same time and she managed a small smile. "You can't blame yourself, okay? I just... I felt so alone and it was easy to let you slip into that space. I was easy for me to forget you weren't someone else, that you weren't always going to be in our lives like this and I think I let it get a little bit out of hand."
He took a very deep breath. "So what do you want to do?"
"I don't know," she admitted in a gust of air. "Don't get me wrong, Dave, I've appreciated every single thing you've done for us. I'm not sure what I would have done about recovering if it wasn't for everything you've done. You opened your house to us, and I don't think there's anything I can ever do to repay you for doing this for us."
"But..."
She had to look away from him. "But maybe it's time we made a few changes. I have to go back to work in a couple of weeks which means I have to get Adam and Henry back on some sort of routine at home, and I have to think about who I'm going to leave them with when we go away on cases..." She didn't want to say it, but she knew it was coming. "Maybe it's time for us to go home."
Okay, everybody, collective sigh, ready? FINALLY!
I know, I know, this took forever. I've had this scene and the next two chapters in my head since I started writing this, but I couldn't, for the life of me, seem to find the right way to work it into the story! Originally, I'd wanted to work up to it, show that Dave was becoming central to their lives, but it wasn't working and I didn't want it to feel forced. So I bit the bullet and just wrote it. And I've set myself up rather nicely for JJ and the boys moving out of the cabin too and back to their home. I think that's an important and central part to, eventually, putting JJ and Dave together, which is the point by the end of this.
I also just realized I set myself up for a great girl conversation about Dave. But that won't be for a while yet. Maybe JJ's actual first case back...
Review if you're still with me? Please? Just so I know you're reading?