Huge thanks, as always, to my betas: Ghostcat, who adds poetry even to her comments, and my favorite roommate, who helped me even as she was becoming an adult.

Logan doesn't fall in love with the baby right away. It doesn't help that the kid shares an alarming number of characteristics with a broken umbrella, crumple-skinned and spiny and never moving in a convenient way. But with Emily and her parents commenting on his clear eyes, and each claiming to have seen his first smile, it all makes Logan feel like shit, and so he doesn't tell anyone.

Jim leaves after a week, his need to return to prepare for his classes reminding Logan of the imminence of his own. Logan drives him to the airport, and there is a moment when Jim shakes his hand warmly and assures him that panic is normal, that he has felt it four times and survived, when Logan feels almost calm. An external calm, at least, prevails for the next week and a half as Teresa stays on. It is under her supervision that Logan is forced to practice burping and diapering and bathing a living child. She is training him as her replacement and he must be perfect. She does not tolerate his hesitant hands, the delicate attempts to wrap the baby, the fearful gentleness with which he supports his head.

"He's more resilient than he seems," she tells him as the loose blanket once again slides out from around the baby's frame. "He wants to be snug. Swaddling won't hurt him."

"He senses your tension," she counsels when a short walk down the hallway seems only to increase the baby's cries.

"Is he good for earthquakes and tornadoes too? Because I'd like to know if I need to stock up on bottled water."

Teresa's voice and eyes harden, but she doesn't acknowledge his words, continuing to reel off advice. "Relax, and he'll relax too."

Despite the baby boot camp that makes him clench his jaw to keep from snapping, Logan begrudgingly appreciates her. She makes sure that Emily and the baby have clean clothes and sheets, that the freezer is filled with neatly labeled meals, that Emily needs to do nothing but rest in between feedings. She serves as the gatekeeper for Emily's underclassmen friends, beginning to arrive back for the new semester and eager to divert themselves for the last few days of summer with twenty minutes of holding the baby even though that will result in an hour of needing to calm him down. He's a decent sleeper when it is the three of them in a quiet house but becomes tense and sour when strangers assert themselves.

"Let me open my big book of flaws to see if you got that from me," Logan says idly mid-afternoon on the baby's second Wednesday in the world. He stands in the kitchen holding Matthew while Teresa, ignoring protests about the shortness of the visit, shepherds out the first pair she has allowed in, and Emily creaks her exhausted way back up the stairs. "I suspect you won't be a winner in the genetic lottery, kid." He makes his slow way up the stairs too. He's used to holding the baby now and the fear of dropping him as he moves up the steps is passive rather than a constant clenching. Still, having him around feels impermanent, almost pretend, like when they first moved to Neptune and he had needed to adjust his associations of the place from yachting and day camp and sleepovers with Duncan to school and avoiding his father- the stuff of real life.

He leaves Matthew with Emily, letting her nurse. She hasn't worn anything except sweatpants and large t-shirts since he got home from the hospital and he hasn't seen the return of that pure smile from when she held Matthew the first time, but for someone who only gets to sleep in three hour shifts if the baby does, she seems to be doing alright.

Logan really has to learn not to jinx shit like that.

The day after Emily's mother leaves, Logan's voicemail asks the caller to leave a message only after his wry, tired voice takes on a vague Scottish tint and informs them that "The best laid schemes of mice and men do oft go astray."

He doesn't have a chance to change it for another week because Robert Burns is damnably right.

Teresa gives Logan a final exam before she goes, making sure he knows the different ways to hold the baby (cradling, over the arm, in the baby carrier) and that he remembers what brand of wipes to buy (Lansinoh Clean and Condition). His prize is a lecture about postpartum depression, a list of symptoms, and her phone number.

"If she exhibits a significant number of symptoms for more than a few day, I expect a call," she tells him strictly. When his assurance comes a touch too slow, it seems as if she is going to change her flight again, although she has already stayed an extra three days and she has daughters and a husband and a job she needs to return to across the country.

"We'll be fine," Logan says. "Everything will be fine." He knows she doesn't believe him because when he leaves her awkwardly at the airport he can see her in the rearview, eyeing him from the terminal entrance, but doesn't realize it's a lie until later.

The first day does go fine, as does second and the third. Matthew sleeps and wakes on his normal schedule. Between those periods, Emily dozes while Logan plays video games with the sound down low, and warms portions from the pot of soup Teresa left in the fridge, and pages through fatherhood books that seem to focus too much on the supposed changes in his sex life and not enough on the background of unease that he now lives with daily. When he leaves for his own house at night, Emily is asleep with Matthew clean and dry in his bassinet beside her, and despite everything, Logan feels accomplished, like he had been hoping just to pass and had ended up with an A.

He takes his time on the fourth morning, two bowls of cereal and contemplations of surfing before school starts filling his days. He has this crazy urge to wave jauntily to the neighbors as he moves next door. He is still reveling in his fatherly victory as he opens Emily's door.

The baby sling is draped at the bottom of the stairs and he is crouching beside it before he realizes that it couldn't be so shapeless if Matthew were inside. He tosses it over his shoulder and takes the stairs to Emily's bedroom two at a time.

She is sitting up in her bed with her laptop, the door open. Matthew, seemingly safely asleep in the bassinet, is the only remnant of the quiet house Logan left last night. He picks his way to the bed, around the ripped chunks of a large cardboard box, and a variety of metal rods and plastic pieces that litter the floor.

"So many of these single mother blogs are written once the baby's a few months old," Emily says as he settles himself gingerly on the side of the bed. "I read these before, but I didn't even think that maybe it was because they just didn't have the time to type a few sentences when their babies were really small."

Logan doesn't even know how to respond to that. "He may be small, but I guess he's already going for the coked-out rock star lifestyle," he tries, looking around the room, but it comes off awkwardly.

Emily finally glances up from her computer, connecting his words to the state of the room before looking back down. "Oh, that was me."

"Good. I guess I can call off the warnings about the very localized tornado." And then when she just hums distractedly in response, seeming not to even register that he needs more information, "Em, what happened?"

"The baby happened." It isn't that her voice is flat or accusatory. It's that she seems not to realize that he might have questions about how things degenerated so quickly. "I fed him and then tried to put him back to sleep, but he just kept crying."

Logan runs a hand through his hair. "I thought he was a really good sleeper."

"Mostly he is. The couple of times he got really fussy, my mom took him." Matthew makes a small noise and she looks sharply at him for a moment but he settles back down.

"Why don't you call me? That was the plan." He wants the word to call her back to herself, the Emily that he knows, the Emily of schedules and lists.

She looks at him blankly. "I thought everyone could hear him."

"You thought that I heard the baby crying for hours and didn't come help?" He isn't even insulted. His words are tiptoeing, confused, just a repetition of hers.

"I mean, that was the deal, right? That was what I signed up for, letting him take over my life. So I started looking for ways to calm him down. I tried carrying him in the sling but I couldn't get it on by myself, and then all the single mom sites were telling me to put him in a swing. But I didn't know how to get it together, so I went back to try to figure it out and by then it was time to feed him again so I just stayed up."

"Right. Okay." Logan knows how to deal with people slipped out of their own control, although usually they were drunk- his apologetic mother or brash Lilly or sloppy, lumbering Duncan- rather than sleep deprived and hormonal. He slides the laptop away from her and closes the top part way. "He's sleeping now. Why don't you go shower, and I'll make you a cup of coffee and something to eat?"

"Coffee while I'm breastfeeding?" Her pursed lips are the first genuine expression he's seen on her face yet today and the tension slips a bit from his shoulders.

"Well, we want to ease him into the harder stuff," Logan says, and when she doesn't give much more than a cursory smile, he arranges his features more seriously. "You're allowed a small amount. It'll hurt him more to have a mother who can't keep her eyes open."

Emily takes a breath, and Logan wonders if she notices that Matthew sighed at the same time. He continues sleeping, but she starts to smile. "Okay. That sounds good." She starts to get up from the bed. Logan turns to go downstairs, but pauses in the doorway. "You're not, you know."

"Huh?"

"A single mother. I know you had all these ideas about you doing it on your own before you went back to work, but," he stumbles over the words. "I'm here."

She comes to stand in front of him. She moves slowly now, as if she is unfamiliar in her own body. She takes his hand. Her tone is the humorous one that covers seriousness. "Logan. Will you be my night shift buddy?"

"Like anyone else would take you," he says. He squeezes her hand, glances once more at Matthew, and goes down to the kitchen. He moves some clothes into the guest room later that day.

Matthew really is overall an easy baby. Emily likes looking at message boards of other new mothers, although they all seem to be in various stages of breakdown. Their children won't nurse, they somehow manage to survive without sleep, all their clothes cause rashes, they have croup or colic or allergies.

"Angel child," Emily hums to Matthew, dancing with him a little after she reads these postings. "I feel bad writing anything because our problems are so small," she tells Logan. That doesn't mean they don't exist. There are days when despite the dozens of outfits in Matthew's wardrobe, they seem all to be covered with stains whose origins Logan does not want to contemplate. There are nights when they walk the floor for hours although nothing seems to calm him down, when they sleep in shifts at Logan's to escape the noise.

It gets just a little harder once Logan goes back to school, hard enough that he feels the tipping point although he never quite goes over it. His schedule is light, arranged as best he could. He doesn't have all the AP credits Veronica had, but the year after Lilly died, Logan pretending to need help studying for his US History exam was only thing that could get Duncan to study for his. He's grateful now that he had decided to just take the test because it leaves him with a few classes worth of credits to fall back on. Months ago at class registration, not knowing exactly how schedule a baby into his life, he had signed up for three-hour seminars, deciding to get everything done in chunks. It's not a terrible plan, really. But even with just three hours three days a week, it means hours of commute and classwork. He is taking two upper level business courses for his major, and they require group projects. He is open with them about the things taking up his time and energy, and they exchange glances, somehow already a group without him even though they've all just met.

"Yeah, I get it," Deanna says, impatience striving for kindness in her tone. "I'm working twenty hours a week this semester-"

"And I'm directing a play," Chris interjects.

"But we'll all work it out," Deanna finishes, looking at them for confirmation that her decisive nod tells him she doesn't need.

Logan fakes a smile and adopts the tone of false, dangerous geniality that was his father's. "It's graciousness like this that lets society function."

He knows that they honestly are sympathetic. But he has a hard time feeling the same way toward them when they're laughingly comparing hangovers as he arrives for meetings lightheaded from driving the baby around all night because it keeps him asleep. He is past done with their casual complaints about pushy roommates when the only time he has had to himself is the forty-five minutes between dropping off the baby and turning right around and coming to school. Matthew's lullaby of choice is a supposedly soothing baby version of Bohemian Rhapsody, and the truth is that they won't care if he tells them that if he hears the fake chirping birds in the background once more, he is going rip the sound system out of his car, hire round the clock help, and go live at sea for the rest of his life. A devil put aside for him, indeed.

Thankfully, his other class is much better. It's a writing comp course on short stories which he's taking with Wallace. The two of them have shared one class every semester, at first by coincidence and later by design. Logan's never been more thankful to have him there, the sharp elbow to wake him and the hushed comments to make the hours less torturous.

"Where do you think Williams would go on the Neptune scale of nightmare teachers?" Wallace asks as they grab pizza together one day after class.

Logan consider for a moment, a connoisseur of depravity. "Somewhere in the 'beaten down by life' range, well above the 'offspring of Satan' level."

Wallace nods, taking a bite of his slice. "Speaking of offspring, when am I gonna get to meet yours? It's been a month already, Echolls. You afraid he'll take one look at me and realize who the cool one is?"

There's a genuine jocularity to his tone that keeps Logan comfortable when he would tense with anyone else. "He's young. I didn't want to confuse him with subpar male influences," although really he can think of few role models better than Wallace.

"So I can assume there's already a lifetime ban on Dick?"

Honestly, Dick has expressed no interest in the baby further than commenting on how his birth has curtailed their bro time. He literally flinched the last time he was at Logan's place and saw a pile of baby clothes. He had tried to hide it as enthusiasm over the Xbox, but he hasn't come back since. Logan thinks he might have to do some kind of infant exposure therapy if he is ever going to see his best friend again.

"I think Dick's already banned himself." Logan balls up his napkin and tosses it beside his plate. "You have class this afternoon?"

Wallace isn't slacking off his senior year, spending most of his time grappling with advanced mechanical engineering classes. Logan thinks he might be lying when he says that he's free, but he accepts it anyway.

He texts Emily to tell her that they're having a visitor, but she doesn't respond. Her place is quiet when he gets there, and once he gestures for Wallace to stay put and makes his way upstairs, he sees why. Emily is dozing, looking weary but fine, a book resting on her chest. Matthew is awake and calm beside her, wriggling his legs slightly and bumping a wavering, wet fist against his mouth.

Logan goes around the bed and picks up the baby. Emily stirs a little, slitting open her eyes to just barely focus on him.

"Wallace is here. We're just going to walk him," Logan whispers.

"'s not a dog," Emily mumbles, but she rolls onto her side and into a heavier sleep. Logan kneels, carefully balancing the baby, and sets her fallen book on the nightstand before rejoining Wallace downstairs.

"Warden's asleep, so we can take the kid out." Making sure that the baby is dressed in long enough sleeves and has a clean diaper, Logan looks around for the bouncer to set him down while he puts on the baby carrier. Without a word, Wallace takes Matthew out of Logan's arms, holding the baby easily. Logan tries to remember the age difference between Wallace and his brother, tries to think if Wallace has younger cousins, but is distracted by the process of untangling the carrier straps. He manages it, and a moment later the baby is nestled against Logan's chest. Grabbing one of the many tiny hats that have been on the bench beside Emily's door since she received them as gifts, Logan settles it on the baby's head and follows Wallace out the door.

Wallace seems to expand as soon as they get out into the still lingering summer heat, stretching a little toward the porch overhang. "I'm never taking my grab the wallet, grab the keys routine for granted again. You do that every time you leave the house?"

"You're actually witnessing baby's first day out. Doctor just gave the okay."

"The doctor gets to tell you when you can take your kid outside?"

The baby stirs a little. Logan lifts the hat brim, but he seems fine. Logan angles his neck anyway, seeking Matthew's drifting eyes, before straightening to look at Wallace. "You're not looking big picture. That's like a footnote in The Single Guy's Guide to Childcare."

"So am I the single guy in this scenario, or is that you?" He rounds his lips as he says the last syllable, eyebrows up.

"Is this your subtle way of asking if I'm seeing anyone? Because you know that what happened between you and me was just because of the moonlight."

"No, it's my subtle way of asking whether you're getting down with the old lady." The bluntness startles something out of Logan that is more air than laughter. This is not how they usually talk, but he can feel his gratefulness for Wallace in the backs of his shoulders. "I mean, you're practically living with the mother of your child, who was not exactly a member of the ugly duckling club even when she was pregnant. You know, a guy can't help but ask."

"A guy is as eager for gossip as a Fiddler on the Roof townsperson." Wallace, never the top recipient for his musically theatrical wit, looks a little puzzled but grins anyway before turning on that patient, quiet stare that means that Logan will confide in him sooner or later. Logan puts it off for a minute, but then gives in. "Nothing's going on between me and Emily. She's like my sister." He gives a split-second pause, and then adds, "Although she's not a druggie bitch, so I guess she's better than my sister."

Wallace sounds skeptical. "I know you don't exactly have a normal family, but I thought you'd picked up enough from TV to know that you don't have kids with your sister."

Logan lets a hand flutter up to his mouth, his brow creasing and eyes wincing as if genuinely shocked. "You're telling me there was nothing unwholesome behind the Waltons' closed doors?" It's mostly reflex that drives him one-liners rather than answers, and he recognizes that. He lets himself cross the street to avoid a woman who is smoking on her front steps before answering truthfully, struggling to describe a relationship that he hasn't entirely worked out himself. "I like Emily. She's one of the good ones in this hard, bitter world. But we're not...That's not what it's about."

"Plus you're still hung up someone else." Wallace finishes, factual, rubbing a hand up the back of his neck in rueful affection. Logan wonders frequently why Wallace has stuck around. There must be better friends he could have, friends without murder and abuse and tangles of romantic drama in their past.

"Have you heard from her? Veronica?" he says, surprised that the name comes out so easily. In the past when the two of them have been enemies or even uneasy friends, her name has transformed in his mouth, making her Ronnie the traitor or Veronica with sardonically dragged out syllables.

"Sure," says Wallace. "Got the Skype tour of her new place a couple of weeks ago. You two haven't talked?"

Logan shrugs one shoulder just a little, careful not to shift the sling too much. "We've texted, but neither of us has had a lot of time."

Wallace breaks their silence after a moment. "I won't violate the BFF code, but I think you and me are at least F. You can ask about her."

Logan gauges. He seems sincere. "She's really doing okay?" he asks, first thing, because it seems safe and because he honestly wants to know. It was hard to tell by hurried messages from five hundred miles away. He couldn't see her eyes, couldn't read her pauses or parse her tone for what she might be hiding.

"Yeah. Like you said, she's busy, and she misses her dad and everything, but it's working out so far."

"Have you asked her why she left?" Logan tries to sound minimally self-centered as he adds, "Do you think she left because of me? Because of the baby?"

Wallace squints, looking ahead and then looking over at Logan. "I think she left because Stanford was a great opportunity and sticking around Neptune like a hangover wasn't her style. But I won't say that the baby had nothing to do with it. You know that V and kids don't exactly go like chocolate chips and cookies."

"I know I screwed up. But I'm trying to be a father. I'm trying to figure it out."

"I know, man." Wallace looks like he's almost going to touch Logan's shoulder but decides better of it. "But it's weird to see you with a kid, and you and me don't even have the whole dramatic Notebook-style history."

Logan doesn't mind resting a hand on Wallace shoulder. It sits there lightly for a minute as he says, "I was lying about the moonlight. If you wanted me to build you a house, all you had to do was ask."

Wallace makes a face. They have circled the block, ending up back in front of Logan's place. "I'll leave the star-crossed stuff to you and V. But I'll tell you this: I think you're doing the right thing by your kid." He tilts his head to where Matthew is bundled against Logan's chest, to where one of Logan's hands has not left the baby's back the entire time. He raises his eyebrow, lets it set in for a moment, before going up the walk to say hello to a sleepy Emily, resting against the doorway.

When Logan was little, Aaron would have what Lynn called "just one of those bad days," where everything would hit at once. He would lose a part to some younger, hotter, better actor. One the maids would give a quote to the latest insubstantial, insignificant article about the rocky Echolls marriage, something about how Mrs. Echolls seemed to eat meals made mostly of pills. Trina would show up in a tabloid pic of some b-list starlet and her coked up entourage, and the two them would fight, him angry because of the spectacle and she pouting that she was just a blurry, red-eyed afterthought in the background. And then he would get home, find one of Logan's Hot Wheels cars beneath the couch, and backhand him to the floor.

It was a long time before Logan realized that no matter what his mother said, these were not just occasional, foreshadowed outbursts of his father's temper. It didn't matter what Logan did, Aaron would find an excuse. Even knowing that there was no logic to it, though, even as he stayed out late and drank obnoxiously so that at least there might pretend to be some reason when his dad made him pick a belt, he was always looking out for "just one of those bad days."

Logan's first bad day comes when Matthew is seven weeks old.

He wakes up feeling weird and a little fuzzy, even though he actually got almost a full night's sleep. The temptation to ignore his alarm is strong; he wants to hang on to the possibility of restfulness. Two years ago, he probably would have, but he's on a self-civilizing campaign, and he has it on good authority that Good Students like Veronica and Emily and Mac don't ditch class, so he gets up.

There's an accident on the way, so he's a little late, not late enough to justify skipping but enough that he has to make the awkward walk to a seat with the eyes of the entire room on him.

"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Echolls," the professor says snottily, probably fulfilling some quota in his contract. It's the same guy who rejected Logan's Grade My Ass project freshman year. Logan still stands by that (Mac actually keeps it live and running, and reports that it's making decent profits, even minus the consultant fee Dick insists on being paid) but he wishes that he had done something a little less memorable. The professor glared at his name during roll call the first day. He clearly hasn't gained a sense of humor. Logan gives a little bow in response to the remark anyway.

"You know I can't stand missing this special time together," he says, shyly batting his fingers toward the front of the room as he reaches his usual seat. The professor looks like he doesn't agree. Humphing, he restarts the lecture.

He might be on bad personal terms with the guy, but since the beginning of the semester, Logan had been determined to impress him academically. The first group presentation is coming up in a week and feels fairly confident about that. But then again, he had felt confident about last week's quiz and, as he discovers as he collects his at the end of class, his confidence was misplaced. It's a C, a passing grade, but just barely. He's scowling his way from the room, remembering the way he had tried to rock Matthew and hold the textbook at the same time, and trying to find leeway for regaining some points when he literally runs into Dick. The paper falls, but Dick catches it neatly, unabashedly looking at it before he hands back to Logan.

"Sucks, man," he says, bumping Logan's side a little as they fall into step, walking away from the classroom.

"You do bring that touch of the poet to any situation." The remark is joking, but Logan's tone is just barely the right side of bitter.

Dick speaks quickly, like he can tell that Logan's pissed but has decided either that he has nothing to do with it or that it should just be ignored. "We should go out. Just ditch and go for the old all-night party. There's a new place ten minutes from here that does margaritas with senoritas after eleven on Tuesdays." His rejection is clear in the way that Logan shifts. "Come on, man. This whole stand-up family guy act bit it with Brady's. Just get over yourself and let's go. It's gonna happen anyway. Your natural habitat awaits."

The worst part, the part that makes Logan angriest with himself and by extension with Dick, is that he wants it. He wants easy laughter and uncomplicated girls, a drink relaxing in his hand. He wants to give up this charade of progress. He opens his mouth to say...what? Yes? How goddamn hard it is to keep himself on the straight and narrow and that Dick is no fucking help? But instead he closes it and walks away.

He has, at this point, about nineteen minutes to get food and make it to the library study room for his project meeting. He actually succeeds in both, but only by gulping a chicken sandwich chokingly fast on the walk between caf and library. He arrives at the same time as Chris, who is wearing his usual black-on-black and chats idly in Logan's direction about the school's money mismanagement. Deanna already has her folder out on the table (she has files for each of her classes; this one is matador red) and glances approvingly at her watch as they walk in. If Logan can just make it through this meeting, he can go home.

For once, the uselessness of the meeting wasn't his fault. He had sat there quietly, like it was an out of body experience. Chris and Deanna spent the entire time arguing over things they had already decided at the last meeting. Alma, delicate, dark haired, and the best writer out of them all, seemed to think her part was over now that the majority of their write-up was done. She was mostly interested in reminding them of their promise to coordinate their outfits, and suggesting color schemes.

Eventually Logan had gotten fed up. He had ignored Deanna's squawking "Hey!" as he pulled her folder towards himself. A couple arrows to switch things around on their presentation layout, and he was slinging his bag over his shoulder.

"We're done," he had said when it looked like Chris was going to open his mouth, and walked away.

The man across the street is mowing his tiny scrap of a front lawn when Logan pulls into the driveway. The sound grates at his head as he gets out of the car. Emily is sitting on the porch, Matthew lying on her lap and staring up at her face. They are gliding very slightly backward and forward in the white, wooden porch rocking chair that Emily's parents had sent a couple of weeks ago. She loves it, enough to only laugh when Logan asks where the other Beverly Hillbillies are.

"Hi," she smiles at him as he comes up the stairs.

He can feel, as if from far away, his face molding itself, tight-lipped, into an arrangement that might be classified as a polite smile. "Hey."

Emily readjusts the baby against her, frowning a little at Logan's manner before the expression clears. "Light-headed from all that knowledge?" she tries, apparently deciding to overlook the mood.

"Yep. That must be it." Logan turns from her, grabbing the mail from his box and starting to look through it.

"Well, Mattie and I had a big day too," she says. "They had a baby story time at the library, which, hey, wasn't really an interactive experience, but I got to see some actual adults."

"Great. Wouldn't want you to miss time with the other desperate housewives. I know how you all like to compare your busy days full of unemployment." Logan's voice is tight, his eyes still trained on the mail. He's pretty sure he's flipped to this exterminator ad three times already.

Emily doesn't say anything for a moment. She sounds curling and tentative for the first time when she does. He doesn't think he has ever said something rude to her like that before. "That wasn't nice."

"Finally she gets it." He turns and lifts his hands, praise-be and victory, the handful of bills and flyers still in his fist. "I knew at least one of those times I told you that I'm not nice couldn't just go in one ear and out the other."

"Hey, no one forced you to be here." But even that is hurt rather than offended. The baby is against her chest. The rocker is totally still. Across the street, the lawn mower stops. Logan thinks he can see the man standing beside it squinting over at them.

He drops the letters back in the mailbox and clangs the top shut. He lunges off the porch, ignoring the stairs.

"Where are you going?" There's a note of concern and panic, but other than that Emily sounds like every shrewish sitcom wife there ever was.

"Wherever the road takes me that's not here."

Logan drives around for a while, although that's a generous way of putting it; it's the end of the day and it's mostly sitting in traffic. Eventually he gathers himself enough to remember that seeing Darcy might be a good idea, but by the time he gets there the therapist is done for the day. He knows he could call her but he just sits in the parking lot for a while. Once he punches the steering wheel and barks "Damn it!" but apart from that he is silent.

Evening is sliding along the horizon as he takes out his phone and dials Veronica. She must have picked up some kind of case up north already because she asks in a sultry voice, different from the one that she used for him, for the caller to leave a message for April. He hopes she is being safe.

"Hey, uh," he says, his head against the seat. He rolls his neck from side to side for a moment. "How was your day? Mine was shitty. The forced interaction with other people, the yelling at innocent girls, that was par for the course, but Hearst really needs to start working on fixing their AC. I can feel my pores opening up from the heat, ya know, and I just-" He stops. His throat pulses once as he swallows, and then again as he breathes. "I feel like I'm drowning most days, Veronica. I keep saying I'm trying, and I am, but...it's a lot and it still never seems like enough." The day is darkening gradually around him. He brings a hand up to his eyes, swiping away moisture with the base of his palm, and then presses one for more options and star to erase the message. He texts her (Wallace told me you already got one of your roommates to ditch her cheating boyfriend, and that without trying. Try to hold off on taking over the world until next week). He hopes that she'll accept the excuse without her perpetual suspicions being aroused as to why he called first instead of texting.

He drives home circuitously, the way he used to when he knew that he was going to get it from his dad and wanted to hold off the inevitable. He doesn't think he can face Emily, but his feet take him up the steps and to her door as if they are unafraid. He puts his palms on the door frame, bracing himself, but he recognizes the confinement of that, the menace in the motion, and pulls back.

Emily looks confused as she comes to answer his knock. He usually just walks in. He starts speaking immediately. "I shouldn't have said the things I said to you. I know how hard it is to take care of the baby, and I appreciate that."

She widens the door fractionally. "Come in, I guess," she says, unfriendly but still managing to sound like she wants him to take his usual chair.

"That's not a good idea."

"Well, I have food getting cold, so it seems like a good idea to me." She moves aside, opening the door farther. He lets his eyes flicker inside, to the glint of light on the floorboards, to the plastic shopping bag by the couch that he knows is full of new, still-empty photo frames. He doesn't move.

"My mom should have left the first time my dad hit her. She definitely should have left the first time he touched me. I don't want this all to be just a little bit of history repeating. If I'm a threat to you, one of us needs to leave." He wants to move back into the shadows, so he forces himself to look at her face.

"Logan." She gives his name the exasperated sigh of his nanny and his third grade teacher and, occasionally, his mother. "You had a bad day. You don't need to put on your black hat just yet."

"No!" and her eyes widen immediately. She glances up the staircase quickly and steps out onto the porch, shutting the door behind her. "You don't get it. I don't get to have bad days. They're just an excuse."

"An excuse for what? You didn't do anything." There's a stubborn set to her jaw that is both gratifying and worrying. "You didn't go near me. You didn't touch Matthew. Look, you said some mean things and I'm mad at you about that." She crosses her arms. Her voice cracks a little anyway, going shallow and strained. "But that's one of the bad parts of being in a family. You're mad about other stuff and you come home and say nasty things and everyone's angry for a while and then they forgive each other. Did you think you were going to go Mattie's entire life without yelling at him, or being angry ever again?" Logan keeps silent because no matter how many times Darcy reminded him that there were acceptable ways of being angry, he didn't quite believe it. His anger feels, sometimes, like both the most natural and most dangerous part of himself. Emily sighs. "That's not a life, Logan. It's a Hallmark card."

He learned early that his life was flawed; that's not the problem. It's that he has always hoped for the existence of perfection. He knows it's not true, that even the best people he knows and the best relationships he's seen have had problems, that they're still good even with those flaws. Part of him wants the Rockwell painting anyway. "There are ways that I can hurt him that have nothing to do with violence," he says, because that is the kind of truth he knows.

Emily looks up at him. "Yes. But I trust you not to. And I know you don't trust yourself, but I need you to trust me. I'll know if I need to get out, and there's nothing that you've done that says that I need to. You've been amazing so far, and the idea that you aren't allowed to have a bad day is bullshit." She backs up a step and puts her hand on the doorknob. She keeps her eye on him. "Now, the baby's asleep, so I'm going to watch a crappy movie and eat Chinese takeout, and I'm still mad at you so you're not invited."

Logan goes to sleep right when he gets home, neglecting dinner and class reading. He is awoken by a text in the middle of the night. You're still not forgiven but I want to get some sleep. And I got half a dozen cinnamon buns yesterday and I need someone help me eat them.

Emily puts the whimpering baby in his arms and goes to bed without a word or a warning. Logan arranges himself on the couch, Matthew on his chest, the TV on high enough to soothe the baby and low enough that Logan can try to drift off for a little while longer.

Matthew relaxes against him. He trusts Logan instinctively. Emily makes the educated choice to trust him. Behind all the shark smiles and relaxed stride, it has always been easier for Logan to put his faith in others than to trust himself. He promised to try, though, and this is part of that.

He is just beginning to accept that he is not broken, that he is past-present-future tense breaking, but that he can pick up the pieces again and again, that every time he fractures it gets easier to put himself back together.

Matthew gives a drooly little yawn, reaching blindly toward Logan's face, his absurdly sharp baby nails scratching at Logan's chin. Logan takes the hand and holds it gently in his, looking down at its delicacy.

Darcy's going to be pissed that she missed all the breakthrough shit.

Emily goes back to work a month later. They've been getting ready for it, having the nanny start a couple of days a week with at least one of the two of them around. Emily was relaxed, conversing easily with Alexandra and looking approvingly at the way she handled the baby and all of his accoutrements. Logan watched for something more ineffable than warming a bottle to the right temperature or knowing how to bathe the baby safely. He watched Alexandra's mouth, and her big, pretty eyes in the moments when Matthew spat up on her or when he shrieked in lengthy, nonsensical fury. He watched her hands to make sure that she supported the small body not only according to the textbook, but with care. He watched for the tiny signs that she would be the same person when there is no one watching.

Emily's first day back at work is a Monday, when Logan's class runs from three in the afternoon until six at night. He sees Emily off and then spends the morning at her place, trying to do a write-up for his Operations Management course. Alexandra works neatly around him, seeming unphased by his presence on what is supposed to be her first day alone with the baby.

When Matthew goes down for a nap, Alexandra takes a book out of her bag and tucks herself into the armchair in the living room. After a few minutes, Logan says casually, "We've got beers and stuff in the fridge if you want." It isn't true, but if she says yes she'll be out the door before she has a chance to find out.

"Um, I think that if you were a cop, that might count as entrapment," she replies. "But you were really bad at it." She sits up straighter, tucking her finger into her book, a big, colorful softcover called Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Curriculum and Development in Early Education. It has a picture of a smiling girl stacking blocks. It looks hellishly boring anyway.

"I thought you had said goodbye to pencils and books and teachers' dirty looks," Logan says abruptly.

"I'm actually trying to sign up for all that permanently. I'm getting my masters in education. It's all I ever wanted to do, working with kids, and when having a bachelors didn't seem to be enough anymore I went back to school." She looks at him, questioning. "I mentioned this in my interview, actually."

Logan is sure that is true, but he had left the hiring to Emily. He hadn't anticipated feeling this way, fairly convinced that a well-mannered gorilla would be better at taking care of the baby than he is, but also suspicious of anyone who tries. "Well, the missus and I don't really talk anymore. It's been so hard since the little guy came along." He twirls a finger upward toward Matthew's bedroom, voice suitably light.

Alexandra, who he is softening toward by the minute, smiles. "That's why you hired me, remember? You don't have to sit around watching him. Go live your life."

There's a pause when Logan tries to remember what his life was before Matthew. He smiles back, slowly, and closes up his own books. "Thanks for letting me out early, teach."

It's past time for the best morning waves, so he goes for a run. It feels like a movie montage, like some feel-good song should be playing in the background. He showers, and takes his books and goes to the library, works for a little bit until class. It's not like he had been watching the baby around the clock, but the idea that it is officially someone else's job to take care of him, that Emily won't exhaust herself throughout the day catering to the whims of a tiny, furious overlord, makes him slouch smiling in his seat as he takes notes that evening.

He goes over to Emily's later that night. Matthew is asleep and she is sitting on her couch with her laptop. "How was your first day?" he asks.

"Basically the same as when I was an intern, except now I get paid and no one stole my lunch from the fridge."

"Wow, was that perk written into the contract?" He goes to get a soda from her fridge, and then gets another when she complains that he didn't even ask if she wanted one. Once he has handed hers over and resettled himself in the armchair, he asks, "How was it being away from Mattie for the day?"

"A little weird. I kept looking up and thinking that it had been a long time since I heard him, and I called a couple of times to make sure that everything was okay." She shrugs a little. "It was hard, you know? I haven't been away from him that long since he was born." Just as Logan starts to feel guilty about the amount of relief he had felt today, she leans forward, face serious with a smile shivering just under the surface. "But also? It was great. Being around grownups who use words instead of crying? Actually finishing a task without being interrupted because somebody needs to be fed and the food is attached to my body?" She falls back, hair splashing dark even against the wine red of her couch, and stretches gleefully. "Sign me up for more."

He gets up and slides a fond hand across her hair. "You're in luck. There's gonna be another one just like it tomorrow."

"What a salesman." She smiles up at him, childlike, glowingly eager. "I can't wait for it."

And, really, Logan kind of can't either.

Logan thinks that it might help make babies seem not so incredibly tiny if you didn't refer to their age in weeks. How is he supposed to not worry when he is holding something that has been on earth for less time than that guest star arc Lynn did on Days of Our Lives?

But he goes along with it anyway. Matthew started making shy, wondrous smiles at seven weeks. He laughed at ten weeks, amused by a face Logan made in his direction. Logan had only been passing silent comment on the beets Emily was roasting for her dinner, but the responding fountain of a giggle was a surprise that made Logan try a few more experimental expressions just to hear it again. By a few weeks later, Mattie is making sounds that in his mind mean something, although Logan is still unsure exactly what.

Emily documents these occurrences through photographs, and once a week she prints them out and adds them to a scrapbook along with captions. Logan remembers similar volumes in his own house, upstairs in his mother's office rather than in the living room, probably because Aaron couldn't bear the loss of attention even in order to perpetuate the happy family disguise. They're gone now, burned along with the other mixed bag remnants of his childhood, so Logan is glad to see that all of Emily's pictures are backed up and neatly labeled somewhere in the virtual world. He isn't planning on inducing any bikers to burn down his house, but, plans never having been his specialty, it seems wise just in case.

Logan's class on Wednesdays is in the morning, so when Emily asks if he can take Mathew for his sixteen week checkup in the afternoon, Logan says yes. He is distracted, focused on textual trash talk to Wallace about their next pickup basketball game, but as he hits send, he realizes with a jolt what exactly she said. Sixteen weeks. Four months. There's a permanence to that amount of time. It's longer than he dated Parker. It's longer than his mother ever stayed sober.

"I know it's a balmy winter-in-SoCal fifty degrees, but make sure to put on his coat," Emily says, searching in the pantry for the last granola bar so that she misses the look of sharp contemplation that skitters across Logan's face. By the time she looks back up, Logan is back to searching for the book he left in her living room last night.

Arriving in the waiting room a few hours later, Logan is fairly proud to say that Matthew seems to get attention from the nurses and secretaries and passersby at the pediatrician's office than any of the other babies.

"I see my legendary good looks have been passed down," Logan says to Matthew in the examining room as he unstraps him from the car seat. The baby's hair has thickened and, Logan notices as he stares into the small face, his eyes are beginning to shift from their pure birth blue to a muddier, mistier color. "I'll be sure to teach you how to wield these genetic gifts properly."

The appointment goes as expected. Matthew is his quiet, cheerful self as the doctor checks his ears and eyes and skin and reflexes. Logan holds the baby still through four shots, turning his head just slightly as the needle enters Matthew's fragile arm. His head turns back, Exorcist quick, as an unwavering cry erupts from Matthew. Logan holds him a little closer, just barely holding off glaring at Dr. Kerr.

"Any questions?" The doctor strips off her gloves as Logan rocks the baby a little, soothing him afterward.

Logan asks one that Emily had about starting solid foods. His mind diverts during her answer, for a split second, to a memory of himself asking Dick "Where are the fucking nachos, man?" and the rise and fall of Dick's giggle. He shakes it off, returning to the present. He glances down to where Matthew is resecured in his carrier, and asks a question of his own.

"He doesn't cry as much anymore. Not even at night. That's normal, right?" It's something he's noticed over the past few weeks. He's been spending more and more full nights at his own place. Both he and Emily are relieved, but Logan had been surprised to find himself a little worried as well.

"That's exactly where we would hope Matthew is getting to now," the doctor said, smiling and shaking her head a little. "You're looking a gift horse in the mouth. New fathers do it all the time."

Logan shakes her hand and takes Matthew and buckles him back into the car. His head is somewhere else. It's the first time he has felt like he did something right. It's the first time he has felt like a father.

He looks to the back of Matthew's car seat in the rearview mirror. "I know this doesn't mean much to you because you can't follow a stuffed elephant that's waving in front of your face, but it looks like I'll be sticking around." The baby makes a soft sound to himself, something that seems pleased. Logan grins, puts the car in reverse, and begins the drive home with his son.

Welp, thanks for hanging on with me. There should only be one or two more chapters after this, but I'm not sure how long they'll take to write. If I'm not done before September, I will probably be angrier than you will, so I have that as incentive.

Thanks even more for your reviews, faves, recs etc. Each one makes my day in a serious way.