Word Count: 1558
Summary: Alex and Phil's little ritual.
Disclaimer: I don't own Modern Family or the characters.
Alex wasn't like his other kids. Haley never hid her feelings, always hugging them and saying I love you. Luke was more about spending time with him on their adventures. Being his shadow since the moment he could walk.
But not Alex. She rarely spent time with him, not because he never wanted, but because it seemed they had nothing in common. What he wanted to do wasn't what she seemed to like.
But then one day, as Phil instructs her to hold his hand to cross the street, she squeezes it three times. He looks at her, thinking she's trying to get his attention, but she's just staring ahead, waiting for the light to turn green. And he stands there, trying to get Haley and Luke to behave and hold hands, and it takes him a moment, and despite not understanding what just happened, he squeezes her hand three times. And in the split second he has of time, he looks at her, and she's smiling.
He wonders what he meant but doesn't ask.
It becomes a routine.
They're walking down the street or crossing the road, holding hands because it seemed like the only sort of physical touch she didn't mind, and she squeezes it three times. And again, he wonders, but doesn't ask, and squeezes it back.
It's only one night, after he reads her a bed-time story, Haley softly sleeping in the background, that she squeezes his hand three times and finally solves the mystery.
"I love you, daddy" she says, closing her eyes.
And again, just like that first time, it takes him a moment. It's not the first time she says it. And this time, he doesn't have two other kids to take care of. But the fact that the mystery is possibly solved and the fact that the daughter that didn't say I love you as much said it, he takes a moment to answer.
Three squeezes. "I love you too, sweetie." He kisses her forehead, and that night like in so many others, he lingers at the door, looking at his daughters, wondering how he got so lucky.
Eventually, she doesn't hold his hand walking down the street or crossing the road anymore. She seems even more lost in the books than ever, and she doesn't laugh or at least smile at his jokes. She rolls her eyes or ignores him.
One day though, Phil doesn't know why, but he goes to the kitchen.
And there, he finds his middle child holding one of her textbooks, the lantern she had begged for stuck in the book. Haley had probably once again kicked her out. Looking at the watch, he sees three AM.
"Alex." He calls out, quietly, not to wake up anyone else. She doesn't even flinch. "Alex." he says again, and she looks up at him.
"Huh?" is the only thing she says. And he sees the red eyes from lack of sleep, and how she probably doesn't even know it's him talking. There she is, the girl that strives to perfection, always working double or triple. And it breaks his heart to see her like this, like it broke his heart when she was teething and wouldn't go to sleep because she was in pain. Or when she would fall down and he would have to give her a kiss 'because it makes everything better', Haley would always say, and it seemed 'like magic' Alex would always answer. He wonders where those two little girls are at now.
He would tell Alex at that age that he was so proud of her, while she would still believe he wasn't saying it for the sake of saying it. Tell her she deserves breaks. That he's sorry if she feels he could do better. 'I'm trying my best,' he thinks.
"Let's get you to bed," he says, and it takes her a second or two, but she nods, and closes her book. Phil grabs it, and he doesn't really know why, but he holds out his hand. And for the first time in years, his daughter grabs it back. They walk hand in hand through the house, up the stairs.
They're in the middle of the stairs, Phil thinking they need to be careful where they put their feet in a few steps, when he feels her squeeze his hand.
It's just once, but it takes him back to four-year-old Alex on that road all those years ago.
He looks at her, trying to see where her feet are going.
Two squeezes.
He looks to the ground and notices Alex does the same, and they are finally passing the step he needs to fix when she squeezes it a third time.
"I love you, daddy" he hears, his mind taking him to the night the mystery had been solved.
Except that this time, he doesn't take a moment to think. He squeezes it three times back. When he looks back at her, he swears he sees four-year-old Alex smiling back.
After they enter the room his girls share, he sets her book down on the table and tucks his youngest daughter. He gives her a kiss on the forehead like he always did - call it muscle memory, perhaps - and he lingers at the bedroom door, this time wondering if she understands how much it meant for him this moment.
They don't do it often after that. She says I love you more, not that much, but more.
When she graduates from high school, and later college, he hopes his smile is enough to say all he wants her to know. 'I'm proud of you, so proud. And I love you. I hope you know that' he wants to say, but doesn't know how, not to her anyway, so he smiles and hugs her.
He's still trying to find things to do with her and failing miserably. Quizzes night with hats seemed to work though. And when she tells him she truly believes Walt Disney painted that Mickey, that she enjoyed having a dreamer in the family because it made her believe she could do anything she wanted, he swears he feels three squeezes in his hand.
When he gives her away at her wedding, crying like a baby - she had told him not to cry it out beforehand like before Luke's graduation because she knows everyone is going to cry and she needs him to cry too - he squeezes her hand three times.
It's the first time he initiated their ritual, and she's looking straight ahead to the altar, and when he starts to think that maybe she forgot or outgrew it or something, she squeezes it back. And once again, when she looks at him, he sees her again.
The little baby that he brought from the hospital. The baby he walked around the house with so she would know the place she was going to live at. The baby that wouldn't fall asleep unless he was rocking her and talking to her. The two-year-old that needed him to kiss it to make it better. The four-year-old that started their ritual before crossing the road. The six-year-old that seemed so happy for her first day of school. The eight-year-old that ran towards him when he came home from school to show him her A in math.
The teenager that overworked herself to the ground that he got to tuck in once again that one night all those years ago.
And he sees her smile through the happy tears, and he gives her a kiss, and gives her away, tears clouding his vision as he sits next to his wife, and they see another one of their little girls getting married.
And its years later, many years later, the first time she squeezes his hand, but he doesn't do it back. And she keeps doing it, waiting for his response, that was always there. Didn't matter if he was busy with a phone call from work, or his two other siblings were being the usual handful. He would always squeeze back. Always.
She only stops from trying to get any answer back when her brother pushes her away.
It's a warm spring afternoon, a soft breeze in the air. It reminds her of the afternoons as a kid with one of her parents reading a book to her outside. Or those afternoons chasing and being chased by her family in the backyard. Simpler times, she thinks.
She looks to the headstone, so unusually cold to the touch, despite the warmth in the air.
"Hey dad" she says, close to breaking down just by those two words. "I- I know I don't come here very often." it's true. Work keeps her busy. She needs to work hard because no one can be better than her. She doesn't remember a time it wasn't like this. "I'm sorry for that. And everything else, really. I know I wasn't a daughter you could really be proud of. I tried to, I really did, but no matter how hard I try-" She stops herself right there, because otherwise she'll start to cry.
She takes some leaves off the headstone before giving it three squeezes.
"I love you, dad," she says. "I'm sorry I didn't say it that much."
The End
Some of my favorite episodes are the ones where Alex and Phil bond (the best being the one when he wrote her name on the moon). But I still feel like they have a hard time connecting, and this is my way of showing they had their thing too.
In the end though, Alex stills wonders if Phil was ever really proud of her like he seemed to be of Haley and Luke. I guess it's an interesting though.
Hope everyone likes it!
