Title: Son of Men
Chapter: 14
Rating: T
Summary: When a message comes through the typewriter, it's going to turn everyone's life upside down.
Author's Note: Mea culpa everyone for not updating in a while. I've been meaning to for the last couple weeks but when upgraded some functions, the login feature disappeared for me. Took me a while to figure out that it wasn't showing on any of my comps due to a firefox plugin. Aaaanyways, another new chapter from me today. There's a couple more chapters after this, then the story is finished. And now that I found the login again, I can regularly post again XD I hope you all enjoy what you read. Let me know if you do. And if you don't, let me know what you think I could do better.

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The apartment lay silent when Peter shuffled through the living room, rocking his fussy baby son in his arms while he tried to pack the small blue duffel bag that sat on the coffee table. Occasionally, his eyes would wander towards the bedroom as he kept check on a now sleeping Olivia. She had finally retreated to bed shortly after sunrise. Silently. Without any other kind of acknowledgment towards Peter, she had curled up under the sheets on her side of the bed – which was telling him that those last words she had said to him before she had bailed for the bathroom hadn't come merely from confusion and exhaustion alone.

He should have known that Olivia's constant "I'm fine, I can handle it" was just the hard, outer wall she always tried to put up. He'd seen her like this once before. She had tried so hard to convince him that she could deal, that she was strong enough to cope, but in the end, she had broken down right in front of him just like she had done last night. It had hurt him to see her so vulnerable, so lost and so much in pain, especially since he knew he was the reason for all that sorrow. The weeks and months that had followed had been agony, and he had vowed to himself that he would never put her through anything like that again. So he had made a decision – a decision which he hoped would be the best for all of them.

Low sounds of disapproval were coming from Henry who didn't seem to like to be carried in his father's arms at all. It had taken Peter over an hour to calm him down during the night, but he wasn't quite sure if the boy had just reached exhaustion by crying himself to sleep or if his constant singing and rocking had had any effect on the baby at all. Judging now, it probably had not been the latter.

Henry was chewing on his knuckles, drooling all over, while whining and fussing. When Peter noticed his bottom lip quivering and his eyes filling up, he knew that it would be only a matter of moments until the boy broke out in tears again and his cries would fill the whole apartment. So he quickly grabbed the baby carrier and darted towards the kitchen.

Placing the carrier down on the kitchen table, he started to hum for Henry, trying to calm his son as he sat him down in his seat. The last thing he wanted right now was for him to wake up Olivia. Almost instantly, the fussing began and a few whimpers escaped Henry's lips as he voiced his disapproval of his father's choice to confine him in his seat. His tiny hands flailed in the air and his feet waggled up and down as he squirmed and tried to wiggle his way out of the carrier's straps.

"I gave you your bottle, I've burped you, I've changed your diaper," Peter sighed as he placed his palm against the baby's stomach, gently rubbing it in circles to calm, "I've held you, I've rocked you, I even sang to you. I'm trying my best here, buddy, so can't you give your old man a little break here? I'm really, really trying."

Henry's whimpers had turned into sobs now which meant that his full fledged crying would soon echo through the still quiet apartment. If he wanted to get going without waking up Olivia, Peter had to hurry. Quickly, he pulled out the notepad and the pen that she kept in one of the kitchen drawers and scribbled down a short note, all while his son's whimpering gradually grew louder and louder.

He left the notepad sitting on the middle of the table for Olivia to see, then picked up Henry in his carrier which caused the baby to whine even louder. He first shushed him as he swung his duffel bag over his shoulder, then started to sing 'Yellow Submarine' for him while gathering his last few belongings from the desk.

All this didn't stop Henry though from letting out a short high pitched scream as he strained his tiny body against the straps that were keeping him tight in the carrier. In frustration, he slapped his little hands against the sides of his seat, while loudly voicing his disapproval. Peter prayed that all the commotion hadn't woken Olivia as he tiptoed towards the front door. He felt like a thief, sneaking out of the apartment while she slept, but he knew he needed to give her space. And the sooner he was getting his now loudly crying son out of there, the better.

He had just pulled the door open for a bit when he heard Olivia's voice behind him, "Where are you going?"

"Giving you a break," he answered, stopping halfway in and halfway out of the door when he turned back over his shoulder to look at her. What he saw almost broke his heart. Her face sweaty and ashen, her hair completely disheveled. She looked so fragile, so vulnerable, and so completely lost. He had pondered for a long time what to do, and the decision he had made hadn't been an easy one, but he hoped it would be the right one. For all of them. Olivia needed time to breathe. He needed time to think. Just by judging the look on her face, he knew that he needed to get away with Henry for awhile.

But within a second, her whole expression changed. She raised her eyebrows at him, then looked down at Henry who sat wailing his carrier. His eyes were squeezed shut, his hands balled into fists, his whole body stiff against the straps as he let the whole building know that he did not want to sit in that carrier any longer.

Olivia sighed as she crossed the short distance toward father and son and quickly pushed the door shut behind Peter. Then she bent down, undid the straps of Henry's baby seat and gathered him into her arms with low, calming sounds. The boy quieted almost instantly, the wails toning down into occasional sobs and he settled in against Olivia's body, finding comfort as she cradled him.

"Olivia," Peter started but she immediately cut him off, "I've heard you rustling around the apartment."

"I was trying not to wake you but Henry didn't make it easy for me."

She moved the baby from one side to the other, rocking him gently back and forth to keep him calm, "So you really thought you could just sneak out of here like that?"

He shrugged his shoulders at her, "I was just trying to give you some time and space to think. This whole situation," he waved his hand between them, "isn't easy for either for us. We were glimmering last night, I saw the look in your eyes. And I don't think I need to tell you what that means."

Olivia remained silent and turned away from Peter, giving her whole attention to Henry who had taken to sobbing into the crook of her neck while his head rested against her shoulder. She gently caressed the back of his head, offering the boy the comfort from a mother that he was seeking. For a moment, she closed her eyes and tenderly brushed her lips against the baby's forehead. Peter wasn't completely right with what he had said. Yes, they had glimmered last night. But unlike all the other times when she had seen him glimmer, it hadn't vanished this time. When she had returned to bed earlier, she had seen the faint glimmer in the dim light even before she had reached the bedroom. And even now, father and son were still engulfed in that bright white light.

Olivia hoped that if she concentrated enough, if she held Henry in her arms to reassure herself that there was nothing to fear from this child, the glimmering would eventually cease. She didn't know how long she just stood there, feeling the baby's soft skin against her own, his shallow breathing against her neck. Rocking him back and forth with gentle, soothing sounds wasn't only to calm the crying boy, but also to calm herself. Except when she opened her eyes again, and found Henry looking at her with a pair of blue, teary eyes, the glimmer around him was just as blinding as before.

With a sigh, she moved him from his position against her shoulder and held him against her chest, his face right opposite hers. There was a faint smile on her face while she studied him, fingers tenderly traveling over the boy's nose until her palm came to rest on his puffy cheek. The more she looked at him, the more she began to see Peter in him and not just herself. Maybe with time, it would stop hurting to find little bits of herself in a boy that essentially wasn't hers.

Henry looked at her wide-eyed, his blue eyes glimmering like his father's as he let out a low sob. His lips twitched, and he donned her a short smile before his hand reached up and made it right into his mouth, silencing his sobbing and whimpering as he gently chewed on his knuckles again.

"You might want to stop at the drugstore on your way," she finally said and and knelt down to place Henry back in the carrier that Peter was still holding. "Get him a pacifier and some baby Orajel," she went on, this time actually looking up at the person she was talking to who was responding to her with a shrug.

"He's cutting a tooth, Peter," she replied before she turned back to Henry and fastened the straps of the carrier around him. Then she straightened, awkwardly tugging at her shirt that had baby drool all over its sleeve.

"Put the Orajel on the pacifier and let him suck. That helped Ella a lot more than putting it right on her gum. She always licked that off before it could work on the pain," she paused for a moment, studying Peter intently as if concentrating on his face only would block out the white shimmer around him, before she added, "You don't have to go."

"You know I do. You need rest and you're not gonna get any with a crying baby around. There's also a few things I need to figure out. On my own," Peter uttered as he once again reached for the doorknob to open the door, "I'll call you tonight, okay?"

She nodded at him first, then watched in silence as father and son left the apartment and the door closed behind them.