It's quiet at the precinct, and you and Judit get coffee and settle yourselves at the communications desk, bracing for another tough night.

"So, how does it feel to be an honorary uncle?" Judit asks with a smile, and takes a sip of her coffee.

You almost spill your drink. So, she must have heard what Mikael called you on the playground. The sheer audacity of her to just come out with it straight away. You have to admire her for it, a little bit. "Don't get me wrong Jude, I still hate kids," you say.

"Don't let Mikael hear you say that."

You shuffle some papers around on the desk, hoping Judit isn't going to make this topic into a whole thing. "How in the hell do you manage with two?" you ask.

"I don't know. I just do. It's not easy. But for better or worse, it's the life I chose."

Do you regret it? you think, but you catch yourself before the words can slip out. That could very well be the thing that finally makes her lose her shit with you. People often regret getting into relationships, and having kids. But they tend to get very angry when you suggest that, even when it's blindingly obvious. From what you know, she brings up her kids alone. It only comes out vaguely when she needs to vent her frustrations, but for some reason her husband can't or won't help with anything.

You wonder if she feels like she's stuck with him. Like for so long you felt like you were stuck with Harry. Until one day he just mentally checked out of your partnership, and never checked in again. You wonder if he genuinely doesn't remember what you had, or if he's using this 'amnesia' as an excuse to pretend he doesn't. God, it'd probably help you to forget. Slough off all those mental and physical scars he left on you.

But you live in the real world and have to live with the repercussions of your decisions. Not all of us can completely disregard reality like the shitkid does. Like Judit chose her husband and her kids. And like you chose to be Nurse Jean. You imagine the fucking taunting will start again next week when you're back on the day shift. You suppose being Uncle Jean to Mikael comes as part of this.

Is this really what you want? Like everything else in your life, it just sort of happened. Would Judit have chosen her husband if she knew what her life was going to be like? Would you have chosen to help Trant if you knew it would be an ongoing thing, if you knew things would get weird between the two of you? But really, what's the alternative? Continuing to be Obsessed With Work Jean, End of His Fucking Tether Jean? There was never much more mileage left down that path. Maybe there isn't down any path. Maybe none of this fucking matters.

"How's Trant doing?" Judit asks after some time passes.

You shrug. "The same," you say. You think of him struggling to walk up the steps, and your chest tightens.

"It must be hard seeing him that way."

You wish you could kid yourself into thinking he was getting better. Fuck, if he dies, that'd be enough to push you over the edge. More than enough. Yeah. If he dies, you're done with this shit. No wussing out this time. Judit is looking at you, waiting for some response. "I don't want to talk about it," you say.

You head home, squinting in the unwelcome brightness of the morning sun. You recall that you sort of promised Trant and Mikael that you would spend time with them today. It crossed your mind to ask Judit about this last night, see if she thought it was okay. But the last thing you want is Mack and Torso finding out and shouting "Uncle Jean" at you as well. You've lost enough respect at the precinct as it is.

Before anything else, you need to sleep. Your mind is racing so you wash a sleeping tablet down with some gin you find in the back of a cupboard, then get in bed and hold a pillow over your head until consciousness leaves you.

Mid-afternoon you wake up with a bit of a headache and give up trying to sleep. You get up and take a shower, and put on a half-decent t-shirt and a pair of jeans. You decide to go round and see Trant, if only briefly. What else are you going to do? You'll just be sitting here thinking about him anyway.

You knock on Trant's apartment door a couple of times, and wait for a whole minute before the door opens. Mikael gives you a shy smile. He cups a hand around his mouth. "Come in, but you have to be quiet, dad's sleeping," he says.

"I… should come back later," you say in a low voice.

Mikael looks confused. "But you're here now. And you said you'd come play," he hisses.

You have to admit, the kid has a solid argument. With some trepidation, you step inside, and as you take your shoes off you notice how he locks the door and checks the handle twice, just like his dad does.

"How long has your dad been asleep?" you ask.

Mikael looks upwards, thinking about it. "Mm, a few hours. Nearly three," he says.

"Have you tried to wake him?"

"No. It's okay, dad's busy a lot, and I like playing on my own."

"Okay, I'm just gonna check on him."

You go down the corridor to Trant's bedroom, and creep inside. The curtains are pulled across the window, but sun shines in through the fabric. Trant is curled on his side, a book lying on the bed beside him. You go around the side of the bed, listening carefully for him breathing. You like to think you'd recognise a dead person straight away after so much exposure to them, but right now your heart is hammering in your ears and making it hard to hear anything else.

Finally you notice his body gently rising and falling with his breath. His face is red, his hair hangs limply and he has a day's worth of stubble.

Your eyes fall on the book beside him, it's a notebook with a dark blue cover. You shake your head. He's probably still trying to work even in this condition. You curl back the first page and see a date followed by a note about the weather. A diary. God, you're curious. But you withdraw your hand. Trant should have his privacy. It's probably just full of the usual Trant encyclopedic knowledge. And his thoughts on everything. Maybe his thoughts on you. You're seized with the sudden urge to read the whole thing cover to cover, scrutinising every line for some mention of how goddamned unbearable he finds you.

Snap out of it, Vicquemare!

You turn back to look at Trant, peacefully sleeping. He looks warm, and you wonder if he's running a fever. You reach out a hand to touch his forehead, and feel heat radiating off him before you even touch him.

Trant makes a noise, and tries to open his eyes. "Huh? Jean?" he murmurs, and blinks a few times, his eyelids sticking together.

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you," you say, pulling your hand away.

He looks at you blearily. "Your hand is cold."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"No. It's nice."

"Do you want me to get you a cold washcloth?"

"No. Thank you," he says, rolling onto his back and closing his eyes again. "I'll get up soon."

You place your hand on his forehead again, pushing back his hair gently. He lets out a shaky sigh, and his eyelids flutter. You feel a swell of emotion in your chest. Yeah, you think. You die, I die. If you were more of a sentimental person, you might bend to kiss him on the head. No, you absolutely can't go down that road again. You keep your hand on his forehead until it has warmed up to Trant's temperature. Carefully, you take it away. Trant is asleep again, or at least perfectly relaxed. You creep out of his room again, closing the door quietly.

In the living room, Mikael is sitting on the floor, paintbrush in hand, working on an impressive picture of a ship. As you step closer, you see the picture is divided into hundreds of small shapes, each with a number in it. He looks up. "Wanna help?" he asks.

"Sure," you say, and your knees creak as you kneel on the floor beside him.

He hands you a paintbrush. "All the number fives need to be this blue. There's looooads of them."

You nod, and then dip the brush in the paint and start to fill in one of the number five shapes. You recall having one of these paintings when you were a kid. Never finished it. Someone destroyed it in a temper, it might have been you. There were so many incidents like that in your childhood, it's impossible to recall. It's something to do, to keep you out of trouble. Pretending to be creative, while learning to follow the rules. A good lesson to prepare kids for the real world.

After a while, Mikael sighs. "Almost done," he says. "Oh! I'm supposed to offer you a drink. Do you want milk and cookies?"

"I'll have some water. But I won't say no to a cookie."

Mikael smiles, then gets up and heads to the kitchen. You follow him.

"Can you get the cookie jar? I can't reach it."

You take down the cookie jar from the shelf while Mikael fills a glass with milk and another with water. He gets out a plastic plate, and takes two cookies from the jar. He looks at you, and then grabs another. You put a cookie in your mouth, then replace the lid on the cookie jar and put it back in its place. It is only when you both sit down on the couch that it dawns on you that you might have been an accessory to cookie theft.

You take the plate and glasses to the kitchen to wash them to hide the evidence. Trant still hasn't got up. You feel increasingly uneasy as time goes by that you'll out yourself to Mikael as an adult who doesn't know what he's fucking doing. When you go back to the living room, he is already on the floor again, painting. You sit down to join him, and pick up a paintbrush.

"My dad will be better tomorrow, right?" Mikael says without looking up. "Because I want to go to the park."

You're not quite sure how to answer. "I'm not sure that he will," you say.

He glances up at you, a look in his eyes that makes him look old beyond his years. "Is dad gonna be okay?"

You feel a lump in your throat, and now wish that you'd just said yes. "I'm sure he'll be fine, kid," you say, ruffling his hair.

Mikael returns to his painting. You wonder what Trant has told his son about his illness, if anything. A lot of Revachol kids lose their parents young. It would fucking suck for him, but he'd survive. He's got his mother and her Saint-Batiste mansion. Even so, the thought of it weighs heavy in your chest.

"Last one! There!" Mikael says triumphantly, flourishing his paintbrush. The celebration is short-lived however, as he knocks over the paint water, bright blue flooding onto pale grey carpet. "Oops."

You gasp, but manage to stop yourself from swearing. Mikael looks at you, alarmed. You hurry to the kitchen and get a cloth. When you start mopping up the mess, it becomes apparent one cloth isn't enough. Mikael goes to get another one, and helps you clean up. The blue really is bright, and you're worried it will leave a stain. Shit.

You hear the door creak, and look up to see Trant. "Oh, what's happened here?" he asked.

You see Mikael open his mouth, and quickly cut him off. "My fault. The paint water. I knocked it over. I knocked over the paint water. It was me."

"Oh no, how did you manage that?"

"I just went like this," Mikael says, waving his arm in demonstration. "And knocked it over."

You look at him in horror, completely negating your efforts to cover for him.

Trant leans on the doorframe. "So, who knocked it over, you or Uncle Jean?"

"It was me. I'm sorry," he says.

"That's quite all right, Mikael. Looks like you're doing a very good job of cleaning it up."

And to your surprise, that's all Trant has to say on the matter.

"We've finished all the blue bits," Mikael says, as you gather up the wet cloths.

"Yes, so I see. Very good work. But don't forget to also draw and paint some things from your imagination, that's important too."

"I will!"

"Now, it's getting a little late, so what do you say we order some take out and watch a film?" Trant says.

"Yeah!" Mikael says, and rushes off to get an armful of take-out leaflets. The three of you sit and look through them, and eventually reach a consensus that burgers and fries will be the easiest to eat on the couch while watching a film.

Mikael picks the film, an action adventure comedy about a group of people looking for some fabled artefact in a jungle. After the food arrives, Trant sets up the projector and starts the film. Thankfully this one does not have subtitles. After days of getting worse than usual sleep because of the night shift, the last thing you want is words to read.

After the film ends, Trant sends Mikael to get ready for bed.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Trant asks when the two of you are alone.

"Me? Nothing. I finally have a day off."

"Well," Trant begins, looking strangely bashful, "would you like to come and hang out with us again?"

"Uh-"

"I was also going to ask you for another favour. I need to take Mikael back to his mother's place tomorrow evening, and I-"

"What did I tell you? You can count on me."

"Thank you, Jean. I appreciate it."

"So you'll come and hang out, too? I think Mikael would like it."

"Sure," you say. Would you like it too, Trant? you think. Me being around more? Wanna tell me why you want me around? Just for the record.

Trant looks like he wants to say something else, but then he gets up and leaves the room to go and say good night to Mikael, and you hear him telling his son not to stay up too late reading. You sit on the couch and think about how you probably should have left before Trant left the room, because now you're stuck waiting for him to come back. You scratch at the uneven skin under your beard as you wait.

"So," Trant says, closing the living room door behind him. "Want to tell me what was going on earlier?"

Your heart gives a jolt. "What do you mean?"

"Why did you lie about knocking over the paint?"

You feel your face go hot. "I- I didn't want Mikael to get in trouble."

"Do you really think that is a good lesson to teach him? That it is okay to lie and cover up things? You're part of the RCM, Jean, and Mikael respects you, so he will copy what you do. Please think about that."

You run a hand through your hair, and feel yourself getting defensive. "Okay, okay. I'm not trying to teach him it's okay to lie. But the thing is, sometimes it is okay to lie. Like when you're protecting someone from punishment."

Trant walks over and sits down on the far end of the couch. "So, is that it? You were trying to protect him from punishment, from me?"

You shrug. It sounds stupid, now you hear it from him. "You know how it is. Everyone lies to avoid getting hit or yelled at by their parents."

"Did you?"

"Yeah. Like I said, everyone does it."

"My own parents weren't perfect, but they certainly did their best to give me a good start in life. I don't believe hitting children. And I don't raise my voice, well, I try not to." Trant sounds reproachful, hurt that you would suggest such things about him.

"I should have realised you'd be better than that," you say, shaking your head. "I just did it without thinking."

"I understand. Trauma can cause people to do strange things by instinct."

"Trant, I'm not suffering from fucking trauma-and-stressor disorder. Gottlieb tested me, I'm sure it's still written in my records somewhere."

"Those tests are for on the job trauma, they don't cover childhood trauma."

You scoff. "Childhood trauma. Everyone has bad shit happen to them when they're a kid. You don't need some fancy name for it."

"But it's okay to talk about these things with people you trust. Being mistreated in childhood can damage a person's self confidence and self efficacy and cause problems for them well into adulthood. The worst thing you can do is to keep it to yourself. I have read extensively on the subject."

You cross your arms. "This isn't about me."

Trant looks away. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"Whatever. I shouldn't have doubted your perfect parenting skills," you say, and it comes out with more venom than you intend. You stand up.

Trant sighs.

You walk to the door, and you're aware of Trant following you out there as you grab your coat and put on your shoes.

"You know I still want you to come over tomorrow, yes? I'd invite you to stay, but it might be confusing for Mikael."

"Okay," you say, opening the door.

"Is that an okay you'll come, or just okay?"

"I'll be here tomorrow Trant, don't fret."

A look of sadness crosses Trant's face, and you realise you made it sound like you're only coming back out of obligation. You can't think of a casual, normal way to tell him you look forward to seeing him tomorrow. Men don't say that kinda shit. You stand there for a moment, trapped. And then you just walk away, because there really isn't anything you can say.