Author's note: apologies if the timeline has gone a bit astray but needed Daniel to be communicative at this point in the story! Also I use his inner world as a vehicle for exploration of his perspective of his parents. The situations described are drawn from personal experience of a 2 year old son! Read, review or tweet me (hannahadsmith).xxx lots of
Tornados. Natural phenomenons that sweep everything in their paths into their rushing embrace. The clash of both hot and cold building to a pressure, created out of a passionate friction that cannot be contained. They are Beautifully destructive, forces to be reckoned with. There is always collateral damage in the aftermath and all you can do is stand back, survey the wreckage and marvel at the power.
At 2 years and a half years old, Daniel Hunt had developed into a small boy with a fierce desire to explore, learn and experiment. He would constantly ask "why" questions and loved spending time in the place where he witnessed his parents come alive with skill and passion. He knew his parents did the same job, but worked on different parts of people's bodies. He also noticed that his mother and father were very different in the way they approached their work and their patients.
Watching his father bent over his paperwork in the large conference room above the OR's, Daniel always felt a sense of restlessness, like his father was a coiled slinky spring waiting to be let free to stretch out its stored velocity and bounce. Whenever Owen's pager would beep to life, Daniel immediately noticed a lightness over take his father's face. Although Daniel was not always allowed to see Owen working on some of the more brutal trauma cases he had seen him stride into the ER and take charge. He saw how others just followed when his father was in command, just like when Daniel played battles with his toy soldiers.
His mother now, well she was totally different. She walked the halls with an air of authority that belied both her petite stature and the light blue scrubs of relative inexperience. Her son sometimes noticed others shrink away from her clipped tone of voice or her throw away gestures of expectation. This confused the small boy, Daniel knew this tiny woman to be loving, warm and fun but at work she was fierce and slightly colder, more detached. He wondered why she was different from the mummy that came to see him in daycare and read with him as he stretched across her lap or the mummy that came home and sat on the floor of the bathroom when he was on the tub and asked him about his day or played splash games with him.
But when she was near his father she changed. She soften, she opened up and it felt like her son could actually see her own heart chambers change beat to fall into step with this man. Cristina had sat with her son curled in her lap, showing Daniel pictures of the human heart in books and explaining to him every aspect of it's fascinating structure and make up. He knew this organ was where you held your love for people and that he had a lot of people in his life who held him within their own chambers.
Daniel spent a lot of time within the walls of Seattle Grace Mercy West. If he was not in the daycare or with his father in his office he was being taken to explore the other parts of the hospital. He had been taken to the skills lab by his Aunt Meredith, where he and Zola had played with some of the instruments. He had sat with Richard Webber and been allowed to press the computer buttons to take the images of a CT scan on a 7 year old boy who had swallowed some marbles. Daniel found it strange that someone would want to eat marbles, why not just eat chocolate! His favourite activity so far had been with his Aunt Callie. He had been given a small hammer and helped her to smash up old plaster casts. He had loved how unregulated and freeing this activity had been. There were no rules, no particular style to it- just hit it as hard as you can and watch the fragments shatter and split off into a fine white powder that covered the room like a first snow.
On this particular morning, Daniel didn't feel like keeping to his usual routine. He felt like exploring familiar territory in an unfamiliar way. Climbing out of his wooden bed, Daniel ran lightly in to the living room, his eyes filling with mischief as his imagination kicked into gear and he could see the raw materials needed for his experiment in front of him.
In the master bedroom...
"mmmmmh," Owen stretched his arms above his head and rolled over onto his back. His wife's eyelids were fluttering, fighting their desire to open. "Good morning beautiful."
"Morning." Cristina murmured, curling herself into the warmth of her husband's side. She loved these easy mornings where time seemed to stop and all that existed was this little pocket of space she shared with the man who had literally melted her heart. Owen lazily slid his palm across Cristina's stomach. She was 4 days away from giving birth to their second child and this time there was not the weight of fear or doubt pressing on her chest. She knew she could raise a baby and be a surgeon. She was no longer an intern, struggling to master the maternal procedures. She had committed the techniques of feeding, soothing and bathing to her muscle memory, researched modes of learning through play and stimulation and stood back and enjoyed seeing her little boy begin to find his way in the world.
"What you thinking about?" Owen pressed a kiss on her cheek and wriggled down the bed to repeat the gesture on the swell of her stomach.
"Just thinking about the transplant I did yesterday." Cristina grazed her fingertips absentmindedly in circles across Owen's back. "wondering what the first thought the patient has when they wake up after such a life altering change."
"thinking about surgery! Of course!" Owen playfully rolled his eyes. He knew his wife would never lose her desire to cut!
"No, I wasn't! Well, I was but not the actual procedure. I was just thinking about how things are going to change for us all over again. It was the 2 of us, then Daniel and now soon baby Meredith" Cristina let the name casually hang in the air, anticipating her husband's response.
Turning his head over, resting it gently in her lap, so he was staring her square in the eye "if this baby is a girl, we are not calling her meredith! One meredith in my life is enough." The jest in his tone, was undercut with an air of seriousness that communicated to his wife all the moments of tension, albeit less frequent as time marched forwards, between Cristina's soul-mate, Meredith Grey, and her soul-love, Owen Hunt.
"Relax!" Cristina shifted in the bed, sitting up a little straighter, trying to get comfortable. She pulled her husband's head up to rest on her chest, as the baby had shifted position and was pressing on her bladder. "It's a boy anyway!"
"Care to wager on that, Mrs Hunt?" As he referred to her using the title that marked her as his, tied tight to his side as a true partner, Owen lightly grazed a kiss over the spot where her wedding rings sometimes rested. His contentment in his marriage was all the more poignant knowing the battles they had forged head on into and come through together, sometimes weary and wounded but victorious in the spoils of knowing each others hearts and understanding their individually shared rhythms.
"You know I only play to win, Chief. So show me your hand!" she twisted his own wedding band around on his finger and reflected on the fact that through all the ups and downs of their married life it had remained steadfast on his left hand. A clear message to her that he was a man of his word- he really would stay through it all, because he loved her. It had taken Cristina a while to get it, to really get that Owen was not like Burke. He wouldn't retreat no matter how far she pushed him into enemy territory. Owen would advance, his only goal to invade and conquer the life that for the first time they both could see clearly.
"ok! I will consult with my son and let him help me come up with a suitable fore fit for when his mother is proved wrong!" Owen grinned and Cristina could not help smiling at how much delight overtook her husband when he spoke of or thought about his child. There was still a tiny ache in her gut when the fleeting thought that because of her own fears she could have taken away the chance for Owen to be the amazing father he was. In those moments of doubt she had been frozen, rooted to the spot unable to reach the man who was desperately trying to temper his joyful strides into his vision of their future as he knew she was not in step. But now, they were further down the path, striding forwards in to the next phase awaiting directions from the new traveller who was a few steps behind, but they would soon be ready to join the journey.
"Owen, I love you." taking his face in her hands and drawing him up towards her own, Cristina crinkled her nose and rubbed it Eskimo style against his. Those 3 words, murmured so frequently but their meaning never diluted.
"I love you too." Owen left his reply against her lips and nuzzled into her neck.
"Hang on! Where is Daniel?". Cristina suddenly exclaimed, jolting owen from the comfort of his position. This was odd. The firehouse was eerily silent and Daniel was not in their bed. Whenever they had days off he would come into their room, jump on their bed and snuggle in between them, bringing a story book to read.
"In his room, still asleep I guess." Owen too was a little puzzled, as he pulled on some shorts as he moved towards the door. "I'll go check."
Seconds later...
"Cristina, can you come out here...NOW!" came her husbands voice, agitated and an octave higher than normal.
Heaving her very heavy, extremely pregnant body out of the bed and pulling on Owen's bathrobe, Cristina padded into the living room and gasped at the sight she was greeted with.
The sofa cushions and pillows were flung all over the floor, the medical journals that usually neatly adorned the bookshelves were haphazardly strewn all over every available surface, cereal was scattered in a trail reminiscent of hansel and Grettel from the kitchen to the edge of the open plan living space. It looked like their home had been ransacked.
"What have you done?" Cristina shrieked.
"I'm playing!" Daniel stated in a tone that made it clear he thought his mummy was a little slow. Could she not see it was a game?
"Daniel Michael Hunt!" Cristina chided her son, desperate to avert the next crisis. The peaceful start to the day off had quickly descended into chaos.
"I will grab the broom for the cereal." Owen ruffled his son's thick black hair as he headed towards the bathroom cupboard to find it.
Cristina, shaking her head, lamented the fact that her son was too like her. She had to admit, whilst her traits of stubbornness, tenacity, single mindedness, that were mirrored in this tiny boy, would bode well for the future they were testing his parents to the limits. Owen lamented the fact that his 2 year old son was as messy as his mother. There had been numerous occasions when he had tripped over toys that cluttered the floor or had to wade through piles of clothes thrown out of the drawers on a whim to find a remote control or mobile phone his son had squirrelled away.
As his mother turned towards the sofa to begin picking up some of the mess, Daniel spied his next weapon of mass destruction. Gleefully clasping it in his hand he exclaimed, "mummy, me draw now!" and poked the crayon into her back.
"ouch! Daniel!" Rubbing her already pretty sore lower back Cristina turned to face her son. "No drawing now, let's tidy this mess first?"
"want to draw...NOW!" Daniel stamped his foot on the wooden floor and a dark look fell across his delicate features.
"Give mummy the crayon" changing her approach, Cristina came down to Daniel's level, getting, gingerly, on to her knees on the hardwood floor, and smiled at him offering her open palm for him to place the fluorescent blue crayon he was brandishing like a scalpel in.
"No!" Bellowed Daniel, his huge brown eyes narrowing in defiance. He stuck his tongue out at his mother before spinning round towards the wall behind the sofa, making contact with the tip of the crayon and running round the room giggling as he left bright blue stripes in his wake against the cream paintwork.
"Stop it right now!" Cristina's tone was stern. Daniel momentarily stopped and tilted his head to consider the pitch of the demand. Mummy isn't shouting so I think I can carry on! Daniel reasoned in comparison to other occasions when his mother had really raised her voice. Jumping on the spot as if to garner some more energy, Daniel tightened his grip on the crayon, put it back to the wall and sped off in the opposite direction.
"Owen! Owen!" still trying to lever herself up off the floor, Cristina knew she needed reinforcements.
"Hang on!" Came the tired reply from the bathroom. Owen had entered the bathroom to find a second sight of the one child tornado that was sweeping through the firehouse. Shaving foam, mingled with water had flooded the bathroom floor, the sink was full of toothpaste and the shower curtain was half hanging off it's pole.
Just as he was attaching the last hook of the shower curtain back onto the pole, the light, fast footsteps of his son running across the hardwood floors danced in his ears
"Daddy! Daddy!" Daniel babbled hurriedly "Mummy's made mess!"
"Ok buddy! Hang on!" Owen chuckled as he jumped back to the floor from his position balancing on the side of the bath. He knew full well Cristina would not even know where to start in cleaning up the destruction, she was the one who had imparted the messy gene to their child. Owen struggled to walk as Daniel, attached like a limpet to his leg, frantically made his way back to the living room, dragging his father behind him.
Owen stepped through the kitchen and came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the living room. He shook his head and blinked a couple of times to ensure his eyes were not playing tricks on him.
"Look daddy! A mess!" Daniel, taking great delight in the fact his mother was going to be told off, pointed to Cristina, who was on all fours, leaning her elbows on two haphazardly assembled pile of medical journals. Her tiny shoulders were heaving up and down as she tried to pull some oxygen into her system.
"Cristina..." Before Owen could complete his sentence, his wife's dry tone cut across him stating, in a calm, conversational tone, the simple facts of the matter at hand.
"Baby number 2 is obviously a home bird! My waters just broke and I am going to have to push! Right now!"