A/N: Written for the prompt "Mark meets his grandchild." The title is from Everything'll Be Alright (Will's Lullaby) by Joshua Radin.
Many thanks to Labil for beta'ing.
You have him cradled in the crook of your arm, and he's small enough that he can rest along your forearm, just your other hand supporting his head. It's the second time you've held a baby without the indifference provided by scrubs and a formal title; it's the first time you've held a baby that belongs to you.
He makes a tiny movement, adjusting in your arms and you go with it. It feels natural with him, like something innate in you woke up: no awkwardness, no fumbling, absolute confidence that you've got him and he's safe. His face wrinkles; and even though it's laced with the tears that have been welling in your eyes from the first moment you saw him, you can't help but smile.
(This is not the first time you cried for a baby.)
You were twenty-two when you stopped your car between one small town you didn't know the name of and another, laid your head against the steering wheel and came close to wishing you could just disappear. It was easy giving Samantha the money, easy to talk about abortions, easy (too fucking easy) to get the hell out. But alone, driving along a dusty, boring road at dusk, it was hard not to hate yourself a little for inheriting your parents' lack of interest. They didn't care about their kid; you didn't even want yours to get a chance at life.
Later, you sank a few beers, found a woman and had mechanical sex, carefully protected by a condom you made damn sure to put on right. When she'd gone, you lay in the dark, rationalizing that everyone was better off without another Sloan; the kid was better off not being born into what passed for your family, and, if Samantha Riley was dumb enough to keep it, better off without exposure to a guy like you.
You fell asleep, fitfully. When you woke, your eyelashes were waterlogged and your pillow was wet. You told yourself it was the cigarette smoke from the bar downstairs, and then you told yourself you believed it.
He blinks his eyes open once or twice and you round your shoulder and dip your head closer to him. "Hey," you say softly, breathing in a trace of his incredible baby smell. He's so real and alive and new; you honestly can't imagine anyone being that new, that promising, that full of untainted potential, and you think you would do anything, really anything, to make sure he stays that way.
Your shrink back in New York said you didn't want a baby, you wanted a second chance at being loved unconditionally, and that wasn't a good reason for bringing a child into the world.
You didn't cry when Addison told you about the abortion, not in front of her anyway. Okay, your eyes were never quite dry for the next few days, but you kept it together, tried to be there for her, did surgeries and brought Chinese food home until, finally, inevitably, you broke again and pulled a nurse into an on-call room.
You didn't really cry until your shrink brought up love. Because goddamn right you wanted a second chance: to have someone look at you like you meant something, to feel like you were worth something more than the crumbs of other people's lives. And, yeah, that wasn't a good reason for bringing a child into the world. It was the worst fucking reason, and you would, truly, have made a terrible father.
But it would've been nice if the woman you loved hadn't so wholeheartedly shared that sentiment. And it would've been nice to hold the baby you and Addison made in your arms.
"So . . . he's kinda cool, right?" Sloan says shyly from the bed. Motherhood (or the rush of postpartum endorphins) seems to have quieted her down a little, softened the edges.
This would be easier without words. The last time you cried for a baby was when she left you without even explaining or saying goodbye. But, really, why should this be easy for you when you left her all those years back without even saying hello? You can do this. For her. For him. You're growing up, even if it's taking everything you've got, courage you never knew you had.
The shrink would be proud. This is not about you and you get that. Right now, in this moment, you are not a terrible father.
"He's kinda cool," you say, your voice cracking a little, tears beginning to run down your cheeks that you can't wipe away because you're holding him but, honestly, you don't care. You swallow. "Hey," you say again, soft, just you and him, straightening the shawl he's wrapped in, allowing yourself one indulgence, "I'm your grandpa."
It's the first time you held a baby that belongs to you; it's not the first time you cried for one; but it's the first time you cried purely from the love you can't stop pouring out of you.