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“It doesn’t even hurt! Isn’t that crazy, Hen?”
“That’s because you’re on morphine, my dear,” Hen says, rolling her eyes, “I’ve explained that to you multiple times in the last ten minutes. Maybe you really do have a concussion and we should test you again. Here, follow my finger.”
“How? I’m in bed and can’t get up.”
“With your eyes, Chimney. Jesus, do drugs make you lose all of your medical knowledge?”
“I didn’t do any drugs, Hen. M’a firefighter paramedic,” he says proudly, puffing his chest.
“So am I, dumbass. I’m your partner. Once again, I was referring to the pain medication in your system. Okay, follow my finger for real this time–”
“Is he okay?” Maddie asks, bursting into the room, “I-I was on shift at the call center and they should have just patched me through over radio but–”
“Was never life threatening,” Hen interrupts gently, not having the energy to talk Maddie down if she works herself up into a full on panic spiral, “Chimney took some damage when debris fell down. He fell on a weird angle on the stairs and now his ankle is broken. Also, maybe a concussion given how bad his memory sucks right now, but that could just be the morphine.”
“You poor thing,” Maddie pouts at him, reaching out her hand to grab his before thinking twice and pulling her hand back.
Hen sighs, trying not to roll her eyes for the second time in the past two minutes. She knows how difficult and complicated things have become since Maddie’s postpartum depression and leaving town, and Chimney’s resulting nervous breakdown. She understands why they needed to take a pause on their romantic relationship so they both could focus on healing and raising their daughter, but at this point, they’re only fooling themselves. They are both doing so much better, are clearly still very much in love, and Maddie should just hold his damn hand at this point.
“You two can touch each other… you know that, right?”
“Hen,” Maddie hisses under her breath.
“What? It’s the truth.”
“Chimney,” Maddie huffs, pointedly turning her attention back to him and her back on Hen, “How are you feeling?”
“Sleepy, but it doesn’t hurt.”
“They’ve got you on the good stuff,” Maddie smiles sadly, “For once, I would like you and Buck to not be getting hurt every other month. Is that too much to ask for?”
“Dunno,” Chimney says, furrowing his brow as if he’s deeply thinking about it, and a surge of affection runs through Maddie’s chest. She chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment, trying to push down the feeling.
“Don’t think too hard in your current state– your brain might break,” she jokes awkwardly, “And Jee-Yun needs a father with a brain. I don’t want her to end up thinking she’s allowed to entertain men who are brainless.”
“One time I had a hole in my brain!”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that story, too,” Maddie laughs, unable to hold back her fondness this time around, “I was thinking, since my apartment is on the first floor, maybe you could stay with me while you’re healing up– at least this first week or two when the pain is going to be really bad and you’ll have a hard time getting around. You’re lucky you don’t need surgery on that ankle, honestly.”
“Surgery? That’s the stuff with the scalpel, right?”
“Oh my god, please go to sleep,” Hen groans, “You might still have a brain but clearly it is turned off right now. Besides, you need the rest anyway after a bad injury like that, and Bobby’s back is going to need a minute to recover, too, after he dragged you out of that building.”
“Bless him,” Maddie nods appreciatively, “And Hen’s right, go to sleep. Jee-Yun is with her Uncle Buck so I can hang out here a little longer. I’ll be here when you wake up, okay?”
“Of course you will,” Hen snorts, earning herself another death glare from Maddie, “I’ll be here, too. Not gonna give up my tickets to this movie.”
“I’m glad he’s already asleep so he didn’t have to hear you say that,” Maddie growls, “I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to get us back together, but these things take time and we have Jee to think about. We can’t just rush back into things– do you not remember how he and I both ended up being separately hospitalized in the last ten months?”
“Oh I remember it clear as a sunny day,” Hen replies, “I could never forget it if I tried; it was a hard time for all of us, and I don’t mean to diminish what you two went through at all. But honestly, Maddie? This is starting to feel ridiculous. You’re basically back together without admitting it.”
“We’re co-parenting. That requires a lot of talking and working together.”
“You two are beyond just that and you know it,” Hen says, narrowing her eyes at Maddie, “What’s really going on here that’s keeping you two apart? Please tell me, because I’ve been begging him to open up.”
“It’s Jee-Yun,” Maddie sighs, “We’ve already told you. Can you imagine how traumatizing it would be if we got back together only to break up because we didn’t take enough time apart? I don’t want to give her divorce trauma– we’re not married, but you get the point.”
“I do, but at some point Jee-Yun’s feelings have become the smokescreen for yours. You’re worried about what’s going to happen to you if you two break up again, and what it might do to him. I get that, Maddie, I really do, but you two need to push past that. You didn’t break up because the love died or because you two don’t have any compatibility or decided that you wanted different things. You broke up because you both got really sick and couldn’t be anyone’s partner during that time. I get that you and Chimney are scared of breaking each other's hearts again, but at this point? You’re just keeping a family apart that should be together.”
“What if we have another baby and I lose it again?”
“You both know how to handle that situation better and more preemptively now,” Hen answers smoothly, “Plus, no one is holding a gun to your head saying you have to have another child anytime soon, if it all.”
“What if he starts to struggle again, worrying about everything that could go wrong?”
“Same answer as the last question. You two know how to keep things from getting to a crisis point now.”
“What if–”
“What if,” Hen interrupts, “You both call a spade a spade and move back in together, actively be a couple again, and live the life that you deserve after all that you’ve been through? What if we focus on the happy instead of assuming everything is going to go all wrong again?”
“But things always seem to go wrong, Hen.”
“I know,” Hen nods, “But that’s a fact of life for almost everyone. Karen and I have had a million things go wrong for us, but being together with her is what gives me the strength to face all of the bad stuff. She’s my partner, Maddie, and Chimney is yours.”
“I guess… maybe I could talk to him about the possibility of it, just the possibility.”
“Sounds good,” Hen says, suppressing another eye roll, “Just maybe wait until he’s not so doped up on morphine. If you brought it up to him now, he’d propose to you and try to go find a unicorn to ride off into the sunset with you.”
“A unicorn,” Maddie muses, cracking a smile, “That sounds about right for morphine Chimney. Either that or he’d propose with a seashell because I’m a mermaid. That’s what he thought the last time he was high at the hospital, that I was a mermaid because my hair was long and curly at the time.”
“Okay, Ariel, we’ll just have to keep him away from the beach for a little while.”
“I’m almost tempted to get a long, red wig. Maybe he’d think I was not just any mermaid, but the little mermaid if he woke up and saw that.”
“Can we get Jee one, too?”
“Sounds like a plan, Hen. Sounds like a plan.”