Life settled down into a pattern. Not a particularly pleasant pattern, but a pattern none the less.

Allie was so quiet we were afraid to leave her alone, or even set her down for very long. One of us was usually holding her at any given time.

During the day I did what I could around the house while still holding her in my arms. When Giles got home he alternated between cooking dinner and taking our daughter so I could start dinner myself.

He started bringing paperwork home instead of doing it in his office, and many an evening found him going through papers and filling out reports one handed.

He was still somehow succeeding in getting her to sleep where I could not.

Allie still was not eating much, and was still very small. There was still nothing the doctor could do.

Jackie seemed to sense that something was wrong. Where he had at first been jealous of the attention Amy had gotten when she had been born he worried about Allie, and tried to help me as much as possible around the house and with his older sister.

Not that he could do much, but bless him, he tried. It was sweet, if a trifle exasperating, having to explain to him that he was not big enough to do things like help cook dinner.

After dinner whoever had cooked would hold Allie while the other would put Jackie and Amy to bed, and as Allie grew weaker it eventually got to where we were alternating sleeping on nights.

I will never understand how Giles managed it; he made a point of being home, but being home was almost as much work as his job was, though it was different work.

He uttered not a word of complaint, and tried to stay cheerful about the whole affair. He still played with the older two and laughed and joked with Jackie, though throughout it all there was a lingering darkness that threatened to emerge, as if he were keeping despair at bay only through sheer willpower.

He would not have been the only one.


Disclaimer: Sherlock and the boys do not belong to me.