Disclaimer: I don't own anyone, other than Kelly and Jezlyn.
Rated: M
Warning(s): AU, Slash, Threesome, Friends With Benefits, Mpreg, Uncertainty About Parenthood, etc.

Viktor had been twenty-nine years old when he'd had his first, and only, child. He and Konnor had never really discussed parenthood, hadn't even picked out a name for the child until she was placed on Viktor's chest, blinking at him owlishly and silent as death. He'd asked the nurse if that was normal and she'd smiled reassuringly, but it was tight and shaky and didn't reach her eyes. Newborn babies cried. Even someone who had never contemplated parenthood before knew that.

By all accounts, Jezlyn was healthy. She had Viktor's dark brown waves and Konnor's bright blue eyes, but the irises were cloudy. They hadn't thought much of it - a lot of babies were born with blue eyes that got darker a few weeks after birth. Maybe her eyes would be hazel, or even gray. It wasn't anything to worry about.

She slept well, even in her first couple weeks. With the odd schedules Viktor and Konnor kept because of work commitments, neither realized that she had difficultly keeping awake during the day and sleeping through the night. When they slept, she slept, and that was alright.

It wasn't until Konnor left for a six month tour with his band that Viktor noticed something was off. She had just started to crawl, but was running into things. Big things, that she should've been able to clearly see. Like the coffee table. And while the edges had been child-proofed, there was nothing that could be done to lessen the blow to the head from one of the legs. She'd hit the table hard enough to knock over Viktor's glass of water, and oh how she'd screamed.

"What's the matter, ma colombe?" Viktor scooped up the tiny body into his arms, feeling her head for any bumps. And that's when he realized - she wasn't looking at him. She was looking off to the side, at where she assumed he was based off of where his voice was coming from. "Ma colombe..."

His daughter was blind. There was no other possible explanation.

She was formally declared legally blind at the age of five. Her line of vision amounted to the size of a keyhole, and what she could see was so blurry it could hardly be considered 'seeing' at all. She needed round-the-clock care, so Viktor quit his job to take care of her. But much as he loved his daughter, he couldn't handle the cabin fever that resulted, and began to resent her for a condition completely out of her control.

"What the hell do you mean you're not going to be back for another week? You promised -," Viktor bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. They'd had this conversation a thousand times over, arguing it again wasn't going to produce a different result.

Jezlyn sat on the couch, her therapy cat Koopa on her lap. She was playing with one of her many Barbie dolls - this one from Germany, a gift from her suspiciously absent father and cause of her mother's current distress. It had taken her a few tries, but she'd finally managed to get the doll's shirt on correctly. She was trying to drown out the fighting in the background, but it was easier said than done.

"You know what? Go fuck yourself, asshole!" Viktor slammed the phone down onto the receiver, causing Jezlyn to flinch. She tried to make herself as small as possible, hoping to avoid Viktor's wrath. Viktor saw this and sighed, "Jezlyn, come over here."

"Yes, Momma." She slid off the couch, Koopa jumping down and weaving in-between her legs. She used the back of the couch for guidance, following the sound of Viktor's voice to arrive at the kitchen. "M-Momma?"

He scooped her up into his arms, before setting her down on the counter. "You know that I love you very much, right, ma colombe?"

Viktor gently ran his fingers through her chocolate curls, attempting to soothe her. Koopa jumped up on the counter beside her, purring away. "I know that, Momma."

"I just... I'm having a hard time, dealing with your Daddy. He's been away for so long and..." he sighed, trying to find a way to phrase what it was he wanted to say without hurting the little girl's feelings. "He's been promising to come home for weeks now, and keeps blowing it off and I... I'm going to head back to work. I got a new job."

"A job?" She couldn't help the tinge of fear that crept into her tone. Was her mother going to leave her?

Jezlyn knew that they weren't in want of money. They were the only family in town that was able to afford an entire staff of servants, in addition to a garage filled with fancy foreign cars (her Daddy's special toys, as her Mommy so affectionately called them), and the largest house in town... There was no reason for Viktor to need to go back to work. Was he just tired of her?

Viktor saw the emotions playing out on her face - he could read his little colomobe like a book. He wished that there was some way he could convince her that this wasn't her fault, but a huge part of why he knew he had to get out of the house was because he was beginning to blame her for his feeling of stir craziness. He loved his daughter more than words could express, but he couldn't handle being cooped up in the house like this anymore.

"Why were you fighting with Daddy?" She asked softly, not wanting to make her Momma angry.

Viktor sighed, "Daddy got delayed coming home... again." This wasn't the first time and he doubted it would be the last. Konnor seemed to be allergic to coming home. "And it wasn't a fight - just a little disagreement. Mommy and Daddy don't fight."

Jezlyn frowned, "If you're not fighting, why won't Daddy come home?"

For a moment, his facade faltered and a tear slipped down his cheek. Then, he frowned, biting down on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. "I don't know, ma colombe. I don't know."

He knew full-well why Konnor wouldn't come home. Konnor had been battling a nasty drug addiction the entirety of their marriage, but it always flared up when he was on tour. He was embarrassed by it, knew that it broke Viktor a little bit every time he came home completely wasted, and so he had started trying to hide it. The only problem was that Viktor knew what went on during his tours, and it hurt more to know that Konnor would rather be wasting his life away than be with his family.

But he wasn't bitter. Not at all. He'd taken off his ring three weeks ago and wished that Konnor was around to see it - or at least would stay on the line long enough so he could tell him off. Hell, if he were to be honest with himself, at this point, he was lucky that Konnor still called at all.

He was out on the back porch, playing with Jezlyn. Well, it was more like watching Jezlyn play. She had learned the layout of the background well, so he wasn't worried about her stumbling across anything that might hurt her. It was relaxing, watching her and that damned therapy cat. The cat had been Konnor's idea, in one of his more lucid moments. It had been one of his better ideas, too. The cat was just as taken with Jezlyn as she was with it.

And Viktor was totally allergic to it.

He scratched where his wedding ring used to rest, before returning his attention to the novel he was reading. He'd made it about halfway through and still hadn't the slightest as to what it was about. Probably because he kept looking up every second or so to make sure that Jezlyn hadn't wandered too far off. As long as she was happy and keeping that damned cat away from him, then he was content to miss half the novel. He could always read it again later.

"Momma! Momma, look!" Viktor watched as she tossed the ball into the air. It wasn't very high, only a few inches above her head, but it probably didn't seem that way to her. "Am I throwing the ball really high, Momma?"

"Really, really high, ma colombe." By this point, he'd returned to not-reading his book. The characters were doing things that, quite frankly, shouldn't be read in front of a five-year-old, but... Well, if he wasn't getting any action, he might as well read about it.

Jezlyn laughed happily. "I bet I can throw it so high, it'll touch the sky, Momma!" The higher she threw it, the more she began to lose control of the ball.

Viktor didn't even look up from the novel, finally able to sink in to the good part. "That's good, ma colombe. Just be careful, alright?"

She threw the ball even higher, but failed to catch it when it came back down. She couldn't hear where it landed, but a quick trip around the backyard was proof enough that it wasn't there anymore. There were a few trees around, but she doubted the ball was big enough to get trapped between the branches. Which left only one alternative. The cat mewled ominously from beside the gate, which led out onto the street.

Though she knew how to unlatch the gate by herself, she wasn't supposed to head outside the boundaries of the backyard unsupervised. She didn't know the street nearly as well as she did the boundaries of her own backyard, and then there was the matter of the cars speeding past at upwards of fifty miles per hour...

But her Daddy had bought her that ball, and she couldn't just let it go.

Jezlyn quickly unlatched the gate, ignoring Koopa's growls, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. It never occurred to her that she'd probably never be able to find the ball on her own - it could be anywhere on the street, after all. She stepped further out, recognizing the drop from the curb onto the street. Not seconds later, the blaring of a car horn broke through the otherwise serene Saturday morning.

Viktor felt a sharp nip on the ankle, looking up to see the gate swinging open and his daughter nowhere to be found. "Jezlyn?" There was the car horn, followed shortly thereafter by a heart-wrenching scream. "Jezlyn!"

ma colombe - my dove