Bad Timing


"Hey, what are you doing?" AJ asked in a sleepy voice with tired eyes, walking into Matteo's nursery where she saw Punk sitting on the rocking chair with Matteo sleeping in his arms. She'd woken up again without her husband beside her, and this time she wanted to check on him. She found him in their son's nursery, with the projector light on, putting stars and moons on the ceiling.

"I can't sleep." Punk said, "I don't know who gets more comfort from the projector, me or him." He smiled a little as AJ looked over at him.

"You know I could order one for our room." She teased as he smiled over at her.

"You should go back to bed whilst he's sleeping." He nodded, "He demands a lot more from you right now than he does from me." He said. He saw how tired his wife was getting up every few hours to feed their son. Although he wasn't sleeping much either.

"I'm tired but I'm ok." AJ nodded, "It's you I'm worried about." She said.

"Well you don't have to worry about me." Punk shook his head.

"If I see my husband acting out of character, having… night terrors-"

"They're not night terrors." Punk scoffed, "You've had nightmares before." He shrugged.

"Not the kind that make me yell and sweat and jump awake." AJ shook her head.

"They'll go away." He mumbled, taking Matteo's hand in his as he rocked back and forth on the rocking chair.

"You know we shouldn't coddle him too much. He'll wanna be held all the time." AJ said.

"Is that… a strict mom?" He smiled over to her.

"No, just a mom who doesn't want their baby to cry whenever someone isn't holding him." She nodded.

"I'll put him down. I was just talking to him." Punk assured her.

"Oh, yeah? About what?" AJ asked him, "You can't talk to him and not me. That's not how this works."

"Actually I was talking to him about my mom and dad." He nodded, "Told him I was adopted but we don't use that word." He whispered as AJ smiled.

"What did he have to say about that?" AJ asked.

"Not much." Punk nodded to her as she smiled, "I can't sleep because the funerals are tomorrow." He told her as she leaned her arm against the door frame, "I keep thinking about what I'm going to say to Frank's wife. Or Drew's mom." He said, "What do you say? When you lose a patient and you have to tell their family?" He asked curiously.

"Well I tell them that we did everything we could, and that I'm terribly sorry for their loss." AJ nodded, "That could work."

"Yeah." Punk said, "We should have done more." He whispered as AJ looked at him.

"You can't do that to yourself." She shook her head.

"We should have." Punk said, "We shouldn't have just assumed it was safe. We should have… we should have waited a little longer. Talk to any survivors. Get a blueprint." He nodded.

"You thought it was safe and you were doing your job. It was a… a horrible, horrible accident. There was nothing you could do. You can't torture yourself with going back and reliving it." She shook her head as he sighed to himself, "Is that what the nightmares are?" She asked.

"Yeah." He nodded, "I've yet to have one where I save them." He looked across at her.

"This isn't on you, baby. It's not on any of you. I've lost so many patients who were under my care, but I can't let myself feel responsible, because I did what I could. And so did you." AJ nodded to him, "Maybe once you speak to their families you'll feel better."

"Or worse." Punk said.

"I just know you can't blame yourself for this. You're gonna make yourself sick." She nodded, "And I'm not saying that as a doctor I'm just… I'm saying it as your wife. You can't put blame on yourself for something that was completely out of your control. It could have been anyone." She shook her head.

"It'll pass. I don't need you worrying about me." He nodded.

"Well I am. So deal with it." She looked over at him firmly, "I don't do any of this macho bullshit. You talk to me. I don't care if it's 3am. I'm your wife but I'm also your friend." She nodded.

"I should probably put him down." He nodded, getting up from the rocking chair and putting Matteo into his crib, "Little man needs his rest." He smiled.

"And so do we." AJ nodded.

"I think I might just go sleep downstairs." Punk said, "Cause I don't wanna wake you if-"

"No, you're gonna come sleep in our bed." AJ said, extending her hand out for him to take it as he sighed to himself. He felt extremely lucky to have her in his corner.

He took her hand as she lead them out of Matteo's nursery and into their own bedroom, getting into bed as she wrapped her arms around him and curled into him.

"I just can't stop thinking about it." He whispered to her. That was the problem. He just couldn't get it out of his head. Everything that had happened. The way it had happened. It just felt like it was going to be a sore spot for a while.

"I know." AJ whispered, "But I'm here, and everything is going to be ok." She said softly, reaching her hand up and stroking his cheek, "It's gonna be ok." She promised.


"Hey." Dean said, crutching his way over to AJ at the cemetery as AJ turned to him.

"Hey, how's your leg?" AJ asked him.

"It's doing fine. It's the boredom that's killing me." Dean said, "Renee barely lets me go to the bathroom." He shook his head.

"She just wants to take care of you." AJ smiled, turning back to the car across the cemetery where Punk had taken Matteo to, "He couldn't get away fast enough." AJ said as Dean looked over at his brother putting Matteo in his carrier into the back of the car.

"How's he doing?" Dean asked her.

"Not great." AJ told him truthfully, "He's… not really speaking to me, actually." She said as Dean looked at her, "When I imagined Matteo's first week with us I didn't think it would look like this." She admitted truthfully.

"He sleeping?" Dean asked as AJ shook her head.

"No. I go to sleep and he's never there. He's either in Matteo's room or he goes and sleeps on the couch downstairs." She said, "I'm really not used to seeing him like this. I've said everything I could to him but it's not really making a difference." She shrugged.

"When you lose someone on the team, you kinda go through this weird grief process. Part of it is blaming yourself. Because we are a team, so when one of us or… two of us in this case, loses their life, there's a responsibility there for us to feel accountable. To feel like we should have done more." Dean nodded.

"But it was an accident. You can't possibly feel guilty." AJ shook her head, "He can't think this was his fault."

"He won't, eventually, but you just gotta let him ride it out." Dean said, "It's not the first time he's lost friends through this job. He's watched a lot of people die in front of him." Dean said.

"Like who?" AJ shook her head.

"He's never talked to you about Mark?" Dean asked as AJ looked at him.

"No." AJ shook her head, "No, who is that?" She asked him as Dean looked at her wearily, "Come on, Dean. He's not talking to me about anything right now." She said.

"Mark was his closest friend on the team. They came up through the fire academy together, trained together, broke in together." Dean said, "I was a couple years behind so… believe it or not we weren't always joined at the hip." He said.

"That's hard to believe." AJ said as Dean nodded.

"Anyway, they were best friends." Dean summed up, "Mark got killed on a call out one night. Phil was there. Saw it all go down." He nodded as AJ looked at him.

"Why would he never tell me?" AJ asked.

"I don't know. It's probably still a sore spot. This happening probably just brought it all back. It's a great job when you get to save people. It's damn awful when you don't." He nodded to her, "You can understand that."

"I do. But I… I never let myself feel guilty like he is. Is that a bad reflection on me?" She wondered.

"No, cause we shouldn't feel guilty. But he's got history with losing people. He was the only one there when our dad died. He saw the whole thing. Mom was at work and I was out with some friends." Dean said, "Just give him some time. Cause he will open up at some point." Dean assured her as AJ nodded.


"The service was really nice today." AJ said, sitting down on the couch beside her husband after they cleared up from dinner. Matteo was fed, changed and sleeping in his crib upstairs, a sound and picture monitor on their coffee table to let them hear better if he woke up.

"I wouldn't describe funerals as nice." Punk scoffed.

"You know what I mean." She nudged him as he nodded, looking over at the TV, "I saw you spoke with Frank's wife. That would have meant a lot to her."

"I just told her I was sorry. I don't think it would have meant that much to her." Punk shook his head.

"Yes it would. That's what you need when you lose people you love. You need to feel like there's people around you. Kind people." AJ said, "When my dad died, it was the first time in my teenage life where I actually didn't feel alone. Ironically. So many people he worked with were so good with me and my mom." She said.

"You hated your dad." Punk mumbled as AJ looked at him.

"I didn't… I didn't hate him." AJ shook her head, "We just didn't get along." She said.

"I'm just glad it's over." Punk nodded, "I hate funerals."

"I don't think many people like them." She said, placing her hand on his thigh, "When I was talking to Dean after the funeral he… he told me about your friend, Mark." AJ nodded. She wasn't sure how he'd react to her knowing. Clearly it was something he'd deliberately not spoken to her about, and that hurt her on some level.

"What about him?" Punk said defensively.

"Just that you guys were really close and… you lost him." AJ said, "You could have told me." She said quietly.

"It never came up." Punk said.

"Things don't need to come up to tell me." She reminded him, "This guilt you're feeling right now, it'll go away and you'll realise that none of this was your fault."

"I really don't want to talk about it." Punk shook his head.

"You don't want to talk about anything, Phil. You're not talking to me." She said with frustration. It was the first time in their relationship where she felt like she couldn't get through to him. Like he was so distant and far away.

"I am talking to you. You're just bugging me about all this shit." Punk shook his head, getting up from the couch.

"Bugging you? I'm making sure you're ok. You don't even sleep beside me." AJ shook her head.

"Because I don't wanna wake you if I have a nightmare. You're exhausted. You're up every three hours feeding Matteo." He said.

"I'm still capable of being there for you if you need me." She shook her head.

"Well I don't." Punk said harshly as she looked up at him, "So just drop it. Drop all of it. And don't talk to my brother about me either-"

"He asked how you were doing, actually." AJ stood up, "And I told him the truth. I told him you weren't sleeping and you weren't talking to me. Then he told me about Mark."

"This has nothing to do with Mark." Punk shook his head, "I watched my friends get blown up, alright? Just… just give me some space." He said as she looked across at him, not saying anything as she watched him leave the living room and head upstairs.

She sat back down on the couch, sighing to herself as she really had no idea what she was supposed to do. She'd never felt him so distant like this before. She wanted to give him space but the worry in her just wanted to hold him and let him know he could talk to her.

She was brought off the couch when she heard a knock at their door, making her way out from the living and opening up the door, sighing to herself with exhaustion as she saw her mother standing.

"Hey." Jeanette smiled pleasantly as AJ looked at her unpleasantly.