Work Text:
Will was facing a long week of double-shifts where he had to stay at the hospital for days, practically, and he knew it would be draining on Theo for him to be away for that long, so he'd reached out to Jay.
"I know you and Mouse probably have plans for your vacation, but I can't leave Theo with Dad all week, because he'll lose his mind with her," he said, and Jay could hear how tired he sounded already over the phone. "I'll owe you so much if you'll take her with you, make her forget that I'm gone for the week."
"We're just headed out for a roadtrip, so if you don’t mind her spending the week in the backseat of the truck, that’s fine.”
“You really don’t mind taking her with you? She might be a menace in the car. She’s never been on a long trip like that.”
“I know, but we love her. You know that. You know we’d do anything for her, and for you.”
“Yeah, I know. I know. I don’t want to ruin your vacation, but if you really don’t mind, I know she’d have such a good time with you two.”
“Of course, man! I’ll talk to Mouse, we’ll fix the drive so it’s got more kid-friendly stops, and we’ll be good.”
“Thanks, Jay. I really appreciate this.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I know, but, uhm, please do the speed limit. I know she’ll ask you to go fast, but please, please , Jay. Please do the speed limit.”
“As her favorite uncle, I will do as I please and you can’t stop me, but I promise she’ll come back all in one place.”
“Jay.”
“See you when you drop her off, Will! Bye!”
Will hugged Theo close to his chest in the hallway to Jay’s apartment, and kissed her on the forehead.
“Okay, future chemist, you’re going to spend some time with Uncle Jay and Mouse. If you need me, you can absolutely have them call me anytime. I’ll just be a phone call away.”
“Okay,” she said. “Six sleeps.”
“That’s right, baby. Just six sleeps, but while you’re awake, you’re going to see so many cool things, and you can get ice cream every day, and you get to sleep in Jay and Mouse’s bed. You just have to be a good girl and listen to what your uncles tell you to do. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah!” she said excitedly, and he set her down. “Love you.”
“I love you too, sweetie. You be good, and I’ll miss you so much while you’re on your adventure,” Will assured her.
“I miss you,” she repeated.
He stood up and nudged her towards Jay, but settled him with a look.
“Uncle Jay and Uncle Mouse are going to do the speed limit , maybe five over, ten if it’s a straight road and ideal driving conditions,” Will said, staring hard at Jay with his hands set on his hips. “Agreed?”
“Yeah,” Jay said, rolling his eyes at his brother's overprotective hen act. "Agreed, whatever. I've kept her alive this long, you know. I won't change that in a week."
"Jay," Will sighed. “Just, be safe.”
“We will. I promise.”
“Don’t let Mouse drive. At least not in cities. Or on the highway. Or –”
“Mouse won’t drive, I promise. Will, I’ve watched Theo before and I managed to keep her alive every other time, even when she was in the car with us. What makes you think I’d suddenly get her hurt?”
“I know she’s safe, but it’s hard to let go, you know that. She’ll be so far away, and I won’t be able to just check on her whenever I want to. It’s just, it’s harder than I thought it was going to be when I asked you to babysit. That’s all. I do trust you, and trust Mouse, with her. I always will. After me, you and Mouse are the only ones I would want to look after her.”
“I know. It’ll be okay. Call whenever you need to hear that she’s okay.”
“I will. Yeah, I will. Thank you, again, for all of this, Jay, for letting me crash your vacation with a toddler, especially one where you were going to get alone time.”
“We’d gladly take her anywhere. We can always have alone time after, but she’s only this young for now.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Give her a kiss, we’re headed out as soon as Mouse gets back with breakfast and whatever last minute things he thought up even though the truck is nearly full already.”
“That’s what Mouse does, though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, absolutely.” He nodded, but it was entirely too fond. He loved Mouse, no matter what others said about it, no matter what weird idiosyncrasies he had, because of what weird idiosyncrasies he had. He didn’t need to say anything else, Will was already kneeling down and wrapping Theo in a hug. He loved them both so much. After everything, he was so glad that Will had come home with Theo in tow, that they had this perfect little girl in their lives to love and care for, no matter what had happened between them.
When Will was finally able to tear himself away to leave, Jay scooped Theo up in her arms and set her on his hip. Then, just to hear her high-pitched baby squeal, he dipped her back and blew a raspberry into her neck. He would never get over this little girl, and the way her delight and joy burst out of her. There was once a time when he didn’t try to tamp down his own happiness just like that, but life had pushed it away in favor of other things like obedience and learning. He hoped, holding her in his arms, that that never happened to her, and swore to himself that he would never be the one to do it if it did. On this road trip, he was going to give her whatever she wanted, including speeding if that’s what made her happy. Will just didn’t necessarily need to know that.
Theo had never minded being in the car, and driving with them, ever since she was an infant, settling down immediately in the car when they rode around the city with her. Then, she watched the movie Cars and she’d fallen in love with it. In response, Mouse had gotten her a small, toy steering wheel with a quiet, sing-songy horn and lights along the center, just so that she could feel included. It made her so happy to steer from the backseat, making her happy baby noises to mimic the sounds of the engine around them.
When they’d loaded up the truck, Theo tucked safely in her carseat behind the passenger seat, they’d headed out to the sounds of Theo’s giggles and her feet bouncing against her car seat.
“Peed!” she said, a request that she’d learned from Cars.
The first time he’d heard her say it, she had barely begun to form words, and she was sitting in front of the television in Will’s apartment, Cars on the screen. He’d sat down with her and set her in his lap to watch along, setting a small tray of snacks nearby in case she was hungry for any yogurt puffs or crackers. She’d leaned back into Jay and tipped her head back.
“ Peed ,” she’d whispered.
“What was that, teddy bear?” he’d asked, unsure what he’d heard.
“ Peed ,” then she’d set her expression into something serious to repeat, “ I peed .”
“You,” Jay had asked, and then repeated, “you peed?”
She had pointed to the television just as the scene had changed to a mostly black screen and Lightning McQueen had said, “speed. I am speed.”
“I peed,” she had repeated.
“Speed,” he had said and she nodded emphatically.
“ Peed ,” she had emphasized.
“Yeah, baby, you are speed,” he had agreed.
Now, when she sat in the back of his truck, her steering wheel in her lap, she requested that he drive faster by repeating the mantra, “I am speed.” However, as she was still only two and a half years old and speech impediments ran in their family, it came out as “I am peed.”
“I know, baby,” Jay assured her, “but there’s traffic and we have to be safe. Right?”
“Okay,” she said softly, a little sadly. “No peed.”
“Not yet, soon,” he assured her.
Mouse twisted around in his seat to be able to look at her with his big, winning smile.
“We are going on an adventure, are you excited ?”
“Yeah!” she said, all sadness gone in an instant.
“We’re going to see some mountains, and forests, and the plains ! Plus, there will be cows, and ducks, and geese, all your favorite animals. We’re gonna get milkshakes, and burgers, and candy! Plus, you can sleep as long as you want, whenever you want. How cool is that?”
“I can?”
“Yeah! You also have the tablet here if you wanna watch a movie or one of your shows, or if you’d like a book to be read to you, anything,” he said, tapping the tablet screen hanging from the back of his seat and facing her so that the screen lit up with all of her options they’d preloaded in. “If you need to go potty, or you’re hungry, or feel sick, you let us know. We have drinks and snacks, but you know my rule.”
“Water first,” she said, accustomed to their pre-stay check-list.
Jay loved them so much that he felt for a moment like his chest would burst from it. Mouse was the best with Theo, throwing all of himself into caring for her, even if it made him uncomfortable or made him look foolish to anyone else. Every part of him was focused entirely on her when they had her, and there was nothing better to watch than the man he loved take care of his niece so fully. Every time they babysat her, Mouse started with the same little speech about what she could expect and how she could get what she needed from them. Jay thought of them as pre-flight check-lists, but Mouse didn’t find him as funny as he did himself.
“That’s what I would want,” Mouse had told Will the first time he’d witnessed it, sticking around to help Jay out with something in their apartment while Mouse kept Theo entertained. “And it just sets a routine for her when she doesn’t necessarily have one with your schedule or ours.”
It worked, too, because it did exactly that, set expectations for Theo so she knew exactly what they were doing, and she had learned how to ask for what she needed, or sometimes wanted, with the constant reminder of how to do so. Even Will had taken it up, although it was less of a pre-flight check-list and more of a conversation they had in the morning before their days started. Jay had been there for one of those, and Will had had Theo in her high chair at the dining table, both of them with a glass of milk, and he’d talked to her like an adult, explaining that he would be going to work for just a little bit so Uncle Jay was going to stay with her, and then Daddy would be home so they could play blocks and go to the park together.
So, when Mouse said, “you know my rule,” Theo knew exactly what rule that was.
“Atta girl,” Mouse praised as Theo lifted up her sippy cup from her cupholder and took a long drink. “Awesome! Look at you go!”
“Loo’it me’go,” she said, smacking her lips dramatically now that her thirst had been quenched. He loved the way her words ran together, pauses in the wrong places for anyone but a toddler learning to speak. “Yummy.”
They started on Adams Street in Chicago at the start of Route 66 and followed it across the country to its end in Santa Monica. Somewhere in Oklahoma, the speed limit changed to eighty miles an hour. Jay looked over at Mouse who bit his lower lip.
“That’s basically permission to go over ninety, right?”
“I’m pretty sure you promised Will that you wouldn’t speed.”
“We both knew that that was a lie,” Jay replied, “and what we don’t tell him won’t hurt him. Right?”
“That’s really not how it works,” Mouse argued.
“I’m aware, but consider that I don’t care, and it makes Theo happy.”
Mouse sighed and gestured forward.
“Hey Teddy Bear, do you wanna go fast?” Jay asked, and he glanced in the rearview to see Theo perk up from where she’d been dozing watching Paw Patrol on the tablet. She sat up straight and nodded excitedly.
“Yeah! I wan’go fast!” she agreed. “Peed!”
“Let’s be speed, baby,” he said, and he checked around him before pressing the petal down. The engine growled in response and they flew down the highway. Behind Mouse’s chair, Theo pressed her hand into the toy steering wheel’s horn, which played a delightful little tune every time, and she growled slightly like the engine.
“I would die for her,” Mouse said softly.
“Yeah, I know. Me too.”
“Go so fast, baby,” Mouse told him. “Go, I don’t know, go one hundred for all I care, as long as she keeps making those noises.”
When they finally walked through the front door of Will’s apartment a week later, Theo was thrumming with excitement to see her dad. He was waiting in the living room, clearly lost as what to do without his daughter around, and Jay smiled as Will swept her out of Mouse’s arms.
“Oh, hi baby! I missed you!” he cooed, pressing kisses into her face repeatedly. “Did you enjoy your roadtrip with your uncles, future astrophysicist?”
“Yeah! We went fast!” she crowed, gripping his shirt in her little hands.
Will looked at Jay before he asked her, “oh? How fast did you go?”
And the little traitor replied, “like, like, hundred fast!”
Jay winced as WIll’s eyes turned towards him.
“One hundred fast?”
“No, it wasn’t,” he said, and then he added, “it was only like ninety-two fast.”
“Well, that was ninety too fast, Jay.”
“I brought her home in one piece, and she was happy with it. How am I supposed to tell her no? She’s a speed demon. She’s going to be a racecar driver or some kind of astronaut who gets to go a million miles an hour up into space.”
“Don’t remind me,” Will grumbled, and he brushed his hand through her soft reddish brown curls. “I can’t believe she’s already this big. I swear she grew over the last week since I saw her.”
“Her belly definitely did,” Mouse said as he passed with Theo’s bag. “Jay let her have dessert with every meal.”
“Not every meal,” Jay protested.
“She behaved?”
“You asked that every night at check-in.”
“I know, but you know me,” Will said, and when Theo squirmed to follow Mouse into the apartment, Will set her down. He watched her go and smiled sadly. “I can’t wait to see what she does in the future, but just for now, I want her to stay just like this where she’s still excited to see me and she loves to go fast and she’s small enough to just hold against my chest.”
“Yeah, every time I look in the rearview and see her a bit older than before, I’m so glad but also terrified.”
Will nodded and looked after Theo again.
“Thank you for caring so much about her, and taking care of her this week. I know I don’t have to thank you, but thank you anyway. I’ll never stop being grateful how much you welcomed us back despite everything. You and Mouse, together, you’re exactly what we needed as kids, I think, a safe place where we could just be, separate from our parents.”
“She won’t need that,” Jay assured him. “You’re so good with her, man. You’re the best dad she could ever hope for, so she’s not going to need a safe place.”
“Still, I’m glad you’re there, that she’s so well-loved, that she won’t want for anything. That’s, I’m endlessly thankful for that, no matter what. Because even if you went a hundred fast, I trust that you only did it safely, and you did it out of love for her. That’s all I care about at the end of the day, that she was safe and sound and loved and had the best time she possibly could.”
That they agreed on, that Theodora Gray Halstead deserved nothing but the absolute best in the world, and they were both going to do anything they could to give that to her.