A/N: for the prompt 'hamster' from my march prompt list!

Jason started asking for a hamster when he was five years old.

The McCords had been living on the horse farm for just under a year, and Jason's parents were very much of the belief that their big animals were quite enough. They had acquired five horses and a perfect dog, as well as a stray cat that mostly kept to the barn but would also come around to receive attention when the children were outside playing. As far as they were concerned, their idyllic lives as horse owners, parents, and academics was perfect as it was.

"It's a rodent," Elizabeth said to Henry on the third night in a row that Jason had mentioned his new and ardent adoration for hamsters. The children were in bed, and Henry and Elizabeth were doing the nightly dishes, side by side at the sink. Henry shrugged his shoulders as he took a newly clean plate from his wife and began drying it with a black and white checkered towel.

"I know that," he said. "But I don't think Jason does."

"Where did he even get the idea of a hamster?" she asked with a shake of her head. "Did I mention it's an actual rodent?"

Henry chuckled.

"Yes," he said indulgently. "Several times."

"What are we going to tell him if he keeps this up?" Elizabeth sighed, and Henry shrugged again.

"We could just keep telling him no," he suggested. Elizabeth shook her head slightly.

"We have to give him a reason," she said. "It's not fair to parent like that all of a sudden, we've always made a point to be open with them."

Henry nodded.

"Yeah," he agreed reluctantly. He thought about it for a moment as he ran the towel over the surface of a serving bowl, the glass still warm from the dishwater.

"He is still young," Henry said. "We could just put him off saying he's too young to care for a hamster by himself and we can talk about it when he's older. He'll probably forget about it by then anyway if we don't mention it."

Elizabeth nodded.

"Deal," she said, and the following day they delivered the news to a very disappointed Jason, explaining that the care of a pet was a big responsibility that he could potentially take on when he was older.

This, they hoped, would be the end of the hamster talk, but much to their dismay, that was not the case.

Weeks and months slipped by, sometimes with no mention of the dreaded hamster. But every so often, an offhand comment from their son would remind Henry and Elizabeth that his future pet was still very much on his mind.

"Is he ever going to forget about this hamster thing?" Henry asked Elizabeth one morning when Jason was eight and had just been dropped off at school, following a commentary about the new name he had thought of to add to his apparently ongoing list of hamster names.

"Probably not," Elizabeth sighed. She looked over at him. "Did you know he's keeping this list?" she asked.

"No, of course not," Henry laughed. "Don't you think it would have disappeared by now if I did?"

Elizabeth laughed genuinely, in spite of herself.

"Maybe we could just go and find it," she suggested. "Spend our day off ransacking his room for it."

Henry laughed, but his eyes grew more serious as he leaned in across the console of their car and drew her into a kiss.

"I have better plans for our day off," he told her. "The hamster can wait."

He kissed her again and she smiled.

"What hamster?" she asked innocently, and Henry laughed, and the hamster situation was soon the furthest thing from either of their minds.

Still, despite their ongoing hopes that Jason's hamster phase would end, he continued to persevere. As his tenth birthday approached and he began to hint at his big hopes for a birthday gift that lived in a small cage, Henry and Elizabeth began to recognize that they were backed into a corner.

"Did you know that Jason mucked three stalls this afternoon?" Elizabeth asked Henry on one evening in July as he shook his wrist free of his watch and set it on the dresser in their bedroom. He looked over his shoulder at her, surprise in his face.

"Really?" he asked. "Why?"

Elizabeth leaned over their bedspread and looked at him, her face intense.

"He's been doing extra chores every week," she said, something faintly weary creeping into her voice. "Usually stuff with the horses. Which, normally, I would be thrilled about. But-"

"Oh, no," Henry said as her point began to dawn on him. "He's trying to prove he's responsible so he can ask for the hamster again."

In the last year or so, the talk of Jason's favorite little rodent had tapered off a little bit. But now that Elizabeth nodded her head, Henry found himself replaying all the little mentions of it that had been creeping up recently.

"I don't even see how we can say no now," Elizabeth said. "I mean, he is responsible enough."

Henry sighed as he dropped onto the bed next to her.

"I don't think we can say no," he answered reluctantly as he reached over to put his hand on her hip and looked up at her. "I think we're about to be hamster owners."

Elizabeth groaned wordlessly and flopped onto her back next to Henry, which he thought summed it up pretty well.

Jason's tenth birthday was a Saturday in August. Neither Henry nor Elizabeth had ever seen him quite as excited as he was on that morning when he opened the gift on the table and found that it was an empty hamster ball.

"A hamster? Where is it?" he asked, eyes alight as he looked up at his parents. Henry smiled through his teeth as he put a hand on Jason's shoulder.

"We're going this afternoon so you can pick one out," he said. Jason shot out of his chair and cheered as he promptly raced out of the kitchen to run a whole lap around the house.

"Woo," Elizabeth deadpanned to Henry as they heard him cheering from the upstairs hallway.

Later, they stood side by side in the pet store, Elizabeth keeping an eye on their daughters as they peered into the nearby bunny cages while Henry kept his gaze on Jason, who was standing in front of the hamster selection with a pet store employee, debating his options.

"Did you know," Elizabeth said from his side, "these things only live like, two to three years?"

"What?" Henry asked, taking his eyes off of their son to look back at her. She glanced away from the girls and met his eye, nodding her head.

"Yep," she said. "I Googled it last night."

Henry sighed.

"You know, if we'd gotten him one in the first place, it would already be over by now."

Elizabeth laughed lightly.

"If we'd gotten him one in the first place," she countered, "I would have murdered it in cold blood. Never would have made it two years."

Henry laughed, too. He supposed she had a point; at least now Jason was actually old enough to take care of the hamster on his own. And, perhaps it would be entertaining to watch it run around in a plastic ball despite its rodent status.

A few minutes later, Jason and the pet store employee made their way back to his parents; he was smiling broadly and holding a temporary cardboard enclosure containing one live rodent.

"Mom and Dad," he said, holding it up, "say hello to Professor Whiskers!"

Thankfully, he was off to show his sisters before they were forced to formulate a response. Left alone again, Henry and Elizabeth looked at each other.

"He workshopped names for five years, and settled on that?" Elizabeth asked incredulously, and Henry could not help but laugh out loud.

"What's so funny?" Stevie asked as she and her siblings approached them together.

"Nothing," Henry said. "Let's go."

"Gotta get Professor Whiskers to his new home," Elizabeth added, her eyes finding Henry's as he tried desperately not to laugh all over again.

Professor Whiskers seemed to like the McCord home, and could often be found rolling around on Jason's bedroom floor in his hamster ball. And, for Jason's part, he really did seem to enjoy taking care of his pet. Overall, the hamster was not as much of a difficulty as Henry or Elizabeth had imagined he would be and, on occasion, either of them could be found petting his little head with one finger when Jason had him out of his cage.

In the end, he lived a long three-year life. And on the day the McCords would leave the farm, they also left Professor Whiskers, buried under the fence at the edge of the property.

"Well," Henry said as he wrapped an arm around Elizabeth. "The end of the hamster era."

She laughed lightly, watching from a distance as their three children- a little comically- stood around the tiny hamster grave.

"Yeah," she sighed. "You know, after all that, I actually am a little sad."

"Me, too," Henry admitted with a laugh. He looked around at the trees, catching sight of their faintly yellowing foliage.

"Good place to end an era," he said. At his side, Elizabeth nodded silently, and perhaps at that moment they both knew that they were not entirely talking about the hamster anymore.