Just a bit of pre-series (and pre-Zoey) JedAbbey because I'm trying to work through a writer's rut.

Title is from "Sons and Daughters" by Allman Brown.

—

She had never expected it to be easy; her job. Her career. Leaving her family every day in order to hold other families together. And while she had grown used to the sacrifice, used to the exhaustion, and determined to defy every negative statistic aimed to claim the marriages of those in the medical field, she never could quite grow used to the quivering of Ellie's bottom lip as she walked out the door, or the idea of missing moments in her daughters' lives— especially after nights like tonight. There weren't words that she could form or explanations that she could attach to the distraught way her chest tightened, left aching to protect her own until the very moment that the remaining seconds between shift rotation dwindled to zero.

The mess in the apartment and her usual frustration over the way that it seemed to shrink as their girls grew went unnoticed by Abbey tonight as she threw her coat over Jed's and Elizabeth's on the back of the couch, bypassing the rack hung next to the door entirely. Normally, that would have irked her. Normally, she would have put her own away and grumbled about the jackets and shoes haphazardly left around the room, but now…

Right now, any tendency to nitpick didn't seem to matter.

She walked through the living room and past the kitchen, making her way straight to the back bedroom as her heart raced, thumping hard against her chest while panic rose like bile in the back of her throat. Just a few more steps. One. Two. Three.

Ellie's bedroom door opened easily, barely making a single sound and from the doorway, Abbey could see the still form of her youngest daughter in the crib against the far wall. But that wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to see her baby there, sleeping soundly, and it wasn't enough to convince her that she could see the subtle up and down of her chest or the twitch of her puckered lips around the pacifier in her mouth.

Abbey moved closer.

Each inch toward the crib revealed more of the eighteen month old; her light brown hair, the ballerina pajamas that belonged to Elizabeth in what simultaneously felt like a lifetime ago and yesterday, her nose, and the chubby cheek that wasn't pressed against the mattress. Reaching to place her fingertips on the toddler's back, Abbey felt the rise and fall of Ellie's breath – her little lungs working exactly as they should – and the light press of her palm found each thump of Ellie's heartbeat.

Sighing with relief, warm tears threatened to spill from her eyes just as Ellie began to stir under her mother's touch.

"Hi, baby," she whispered, choosing to break her own rule about allowing sleeping babies to lie as she lifted her daughter from the crib. That rule had always been meant to deter Jed anyway, because "but she's so cute" stopped being a cute excuse to wake their babies within three days of bringing either home from the hospital.

She was cute though, he was right, but it wasn't about how adorable Ellie or Lizzie were tonight. It was about a mother needing her baby.

Ellie clung to her, burrowing her sleepy face into her mother's shoulder as her eyes fluttered closed once again. Abbey kissed her head and rubbed Ellie's back as her feet carried both of them to the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

The feel of her girl in her arms, the way it felt to know that her littlest was safe and secure against the chest that pooled with anxiety just minutes earlier was almost enough in that moment. It was almost enough to know that her seven year old tucked into bed down the hall had grown past eighteen months and two and four and five, and it was almost enough to know that Jed, for all that he had been through in his own childhood, was here too. Alive and safe, the man who loved her and the man who loved their children. It was almost enough to force the bright overhead hospital lights that invaded her vision to fade, while Ellie's scent worked to dilute the smell of alcohol and antiseptic that clung to her senses after a full day in the emergency department.

"Hey."

She hadn't heard him come down the hall, but Jed's presence as he leaned against the doorframe filled the room with a sense of serenity that only he could provide. There had always been this way about him, even stood in the dark wearing nothing but an old Notre Dame t-shirt and boxers — this way that made him feel like safety in a crisis and warm when she needed him. Even at three in the morning. His sympathetic smile was protective and understanding, somehow devoid of the fact that he had just been woken up.

"Hey," Abbey whispered. "I woke you, didn't I?"

He shook his head, pushing away from the door as he quietly approached. "Nah, not really. I think that after all this time, a part of me just knows when you're home…" He paused, "And that something must be wrong if you aren't in bed next to me."

She smiled, the gesture refusing to reach her eyes. "Nothing's wrong."

"Abbey."

Abbey rocked back and forth for a moment, one hand rubbing soothing circles around Ellie's back. "Tomorrow, okay? I don't want to wake her."

Jed nodded, unconvinced by the excuse that it would wake the daughter that inherited his rock-life slumber, but still, he wouldn't push. He knew Abbey well enough to know that the only reason she snuck into either Liz or Ellie's rooms for more than a mere moment in the middle of the night was if something had gone really, really wrong.

So he wouldn't push and he wouldn't pry, and he wouldn't force her to tell him the details. But he watched the way that Abbey clung to their baby and the way that she kissed her head, fingers toying with the hair that had yet to reach Ellie's shoulders and his own bit of intuition took over.

Sometimes being a doctor really took a toll on his wife.

"How old was she?" He asked in a tone so soft that it barely qualified as a whisper, taking a seat on the stool in front of the rocking chair. His index finger trailed up to Abbey's, meeting her hand on Ellie's small back.

She looked at him for a moment, her brown eyes tracing him in the dark, finding each and every feature before boring into the blue that he stared back through. "A few weeks older than Ellie."

"She didn't make it." It wasn't a question.

"No," Abbey replied with a barely noticeable shake of her head, her hold on what was alive and safe and theirs growing slightly stronger. She had seen worse, even worse than this, but some things never got easier. Some things never hurt less, and some things scarred her each and every time they happened.

Losing a child, especially one that resembled her own, on the job was one of those things. The silence that followed a baby's last heartbeat, the sound of their mother sobbing— screaming in agony the way that she knew she would if it were one of her children, the image of a stoic man breaking as his partner crumbled in his arms… It all took a toll. And it took a toll knowing that this could have been her. It could have been her own baby on that table, her own pained screams. It could have been Jed's strength slipping as he held her together, even as the image of their own lifeless little girl tore him to shreds.

It could have been her. It wasn't tonight, but it could be tomorrow.

"She was in bad shape when the paramedics brought her in," Abbey recounted. "There was an accident not far from the hospital. Two adults, one child—"

"Car wrapped around a tree?" Jed asked and Abbey nodded. "It was on the news."

"Yes," she continued, gently rocking Ellie. "The parents got out mostly unscathed." Unscathed, aside from the loss of their child. "But the baby… We were able to stabilize her for a moment, just a moment. But before anyone could make the call as to whether or not she was strong enough for tests or exploratory surgery, her pressure bottomed out. God, Jed, it happened so fast."

"You did everything you could," he assured her.

Abbey agreed quietly. "But all I could think about when I looked at her was this one." She placed another gentle kiss on the top of Ellie's head. "All I could think about was how hard Ellie cried this morning when I left for work. I feel so… So guilty. For leaving, and for leaving you to calm her down because I know that she needed me."

"She was fine after a few minutes, honey."

"I know that, Jed. But I am her mother. I couldn't hold my own baby when she needed me." She swallowed hard, blinking back tears. "Even worse, I left her."

"Ellie is okay, Abbey. Look at me," Jed whispered as he lifted her chin. "She is here and she is with you. She's safe."

As if on cue, Ellie squirmed in Abbey's arms. She moved slightly, pushing herself up to look around the room and take note of her father before collapsing back against her mother's chest. One little hand came up to clutch Abbey, anchoring mother and daughter as the toddler's breaths evened out against the crook of Abbey's neck.

Continuing the motions on Ellie's back, Abbey took a deep breath in attempt to prevent her voice from breaking. "I just needed this. I needed to feel her breathe."

Jed understood that and frankly, it wasn't the first time something like this had occurred with Abbey. With either of them, really. During her intern year, she had watched Elizabeth like a hawk — almost obsessively so — and once Ellie came along, Abbey's knowledge of SIDS and the world's lack thereof had stressed her to the brink of pure exhaustion for the first month of their second child's life. More nights like this would happen with their girls, and these instances would double or triple with every life they created. Jed couldn't fault her for that. Abbey loved her babies fiercely, and she saw the worst that the world had to offer each time she left for work.

"Do you remember when one of the professor's at the university lost his son to leukemia?" He asked suddenly. "He told me that a fever was one of the first signs that something was wrong."

Abbey gave him a tentative smile. She knew what he was doing, where this comparison was going whether her husband knew it or not. "Lizzie was around the same age as his son."

He nodded.

"And you kissed her forehead every morning before you left for work just to make sure that she didn't have a temperature."

"You knew that?" That shouldn't have surprised him after all of this time, and truth be told, it didn't.

"I taught you that, babe," Abbey chuckled lightly. "When Lizzie had her first cold, I taught you that."

Jed grinned, eyes shining in the dark room. "You did. You taught me that because while yes, sweet knees, you are a great doctor and there is no doubt in my mind that I will be known as the husband of a world-class scientist someday, Abbey, you are an incredible mother."

Despite the slight flicker of objection that flashed across her face, she seemed to accept his words, he thought. And she did for now, for tonight, because there were no bright, deafening trauma room lights or any monitors gone quiet. She wasn't sobbing, begging to reach for a baby that wouldn't come back to her, and her husband's heart wasn't breaking as he watched helplessly, unable to save them both.

Instead, they sat together in their daughter's dark nursery with Jed's fingers laced through her own and their daughter cuddled safely next to her heart. And in the quiet, Abbey was able to breathe for the first time in hours, to allow the calm to stabilize everything that she had seen and everything that she feared could be taken away. Ellie was alive. Lizzie was alive. Jed was alive. She was alive.

"Thank you," She whispered.

Jed smiled in response. "You want me to take her?"

"No," Abbey admitted, her gaze moving from her husband to Ellie. "I just need a few more minutes of this."

"Okay. Take all the time you need. I'll stay up with you."

"You don't have to do that."

"I know."

He would stay up with her. He would stay up with her and hold her or hold her hand until that sun came up if that's what she needed. It didn't matter how exhausted either of them were, that he had to be up for work in just a few hours, or the precedent this moment might create for Ellie come bedtime the next night. All that mattered to Jed now was knowing that Abbey was okay, too.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

—

Comments and criticism are always welcome! I hope you enjoy.