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Her sweet dummy of a husband, as it turned out, was stretched out on the floor beside their bed where their grandson slept, a Star Wars stuffie of baby Yoda clutched to his chest.
Despite her absolute exhaustion after being on shift for nine hours and then spending the last two at the hospital, Athena couldn’t help but chuckle at the endearing sight. The stuffie was practically smashed against Bobby’s collar, like he had been using it as a pillow and then rolled onto his back in the midst of sleep. Athena could almost feel how sore his back was going to be when he woke up.
Zander hadn’t even moved from where he was starfished across the pillows. How could someone so tiny take up so much space on that king sized bed? Athena leaned over to brush his dark curls from his forehead, gently pressing her thumb across a crease that had formed on his forehead. “You're too young for wrinkles, little man. Sleep easy.”
A loud snort came from the floor. Athena crouched down beside her husband, the heels of her boots pressing into the backs of her thighs. Her dummy of a husband snorted again, a deep gurgle that turned into a cough. Athena poked his shoulder with her index finger. “Bobby?” The poke became a shake.
“Hrrgwah?”
Athena bit her lip in an attempt to hide her smile. “How long have you been on the floor?”
Her husband rubbed a fist into his eyes, still holding the stuffie with his other hand. “Uh…depends…what time is it?”
“Nearly seven.”
“Am or pm?”
A brow lifted. “Am.”
“Then the whole night.”
Now it was Athena's turn to snort. “You could have gotten into bed. Why are you on the floor?”
“Oh believe me, I had every intention of getting into bed. That menace of a child and I fought a great battle until nearly ten and at last, I triumphed!” Bobby raised his fist in the air. Athena chuckles in amusement. “And then my back gave out.”
“Oh dear.”
“Oh dear is right. So, I wasn't going anywhere and I quickly found out that the floor -” Bobby rapped his knuckles against the hard wood for emphasis. “Is quite comfortable.”
“I can’t imagine it staying comfortable for long.” She tugged gently on the arm of the stuffie. “Yoda?”
“ Grogu, thank you very much.”
“Baby Yoda.”
Bobby frowned. “If my back wasn’t so stiff, I would seriously fight you on this.” Athena did let out her chuckle this time, not bothering to keep it quiet since she knows her grandson can sleep through a hurricane. “He got up once and was still asleep. I believe he was heading for the bathroom, and he walked into me, fell over, and then got up and kept going. He fumbled getting back into bed and I felt sorry for him so I gave him a boost. He’s been there ever since and I have yet to move a very achy muscle.”
“We should get a set of doggy steps for the end of the bed,” Athena mused thoughtfully.
“So he doesn’t use his grandfather as a ladder anymore in the future?”
“Precisely. He could still use you as as landing pad, of course.”
“Of course.”
Bobby closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. For a brief moment, Athena thought he went right back to sleep while she was sitting beside him and raised her hand to give him another poke in the forehead. Just as her finger was hovering at the top of his nose, his eyes popped back open and went crossed as they examined the digit with a sense of interest. Athena tapped his forehead, trailing her index finger down the slope of his nose, which wrinkled underneath her touch. “I’m going to sneeze if you keep doing that.”
“Sneeze on me, Nash, and I will leave you on this floor.”
Bobby sighed dramatically. “Well, if it has to be…then it has to be. I will forever serve as a rug. That shall be my destiny from this day on out.”
A cramp was biting into the back of Athena’s leg. She settled down into a sitting position beside her husband, gently lifting his head up to rest in her lap. “In all seriousness, how was the night? Did he ask a lot of questions?”
Bobby shook his head. “The Episodes I-III marathon kept him busy for at least five hours. He only started noticing something was up when we had dinner and I was the only one there.”
Athena thought about the steady round of texts she had sent her husband over the last two hours while she had been sitting in the hospital beside their exhausted son in law. No amount of wheedling, pleading, and threatening could get him to go home for a night. Not even her threats to unleash May’s wrath upon him! Athena was losing her touch, she needed to get some new weapons. Maybe she should just taze him on a low voltage. At least that would get Tommy to take a nap.
“Any change?”
She shook her head. “Nothing since I left.” The ventilator had been loud. She was going to hear it in her dreams.
Bobby let a puff of hot morning breath fan her face. “The kid’s gotta stop doing this to us.”
“He can't control if he gets another pulmonary embolism or not.”
“Well aware. But his habit of trying to shred himself in half is going to drive me into an early grave. My heart can't take this too many more times.”
Athena frowned and flicked his forehead. Before she could say anything else, she suddenly found herself nose to nose with the upside down brown eyes of her grandson. “Good morning!” Goo moreing in toddler speak.
“Good morning,” Athena replied. “All the blood is going to rush to your head if you hang upside down like a little monkey.”
Zander beamed and her heart melted. “Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!” Bobby retorted.
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!”
Athena sighed.
-;
“Where Papas?”
Athena blinked at Bobby over the napkins. Her husband lifted a shoulder, swiveling his eyes over to meet Zander’s. The boy gazed back, his large eyes unblinking for such a long period of time it was getting rather creepy. Blink, child. Blink.
One blink. At last!
Two blinks. Perfect!
Athena kicked Bobby under the table. “T-E-L-L H-I-M.”
“I know what that is.” I doe wut dat is.
“You do?”
“That’s spelling!”
“Yes, you’re absolutely right, Zander, it’s spelling. More coffee, anyone?”
“Robert Wade Nash!”
Her dummy of a husband sighed, dropping back into the seat he was trying to escape from. “Okay, uh -” He held out his arms and Zander dropped from his seat to toddle into his grip. Bobby groaned as he lifted Zander into his lap, twisting his neck to the side in an effort to crack it. Athena still wondered how they had managed to get him off of the bedroom floor. That had most certainly been quite the team effort. Well, she was the one that had actually pulled her husband off of the floor. Zander had waved the baby Yoda stuffie like a pom-pom and cheered them on over Bobby’s loud grunts of pain.
“You see, Zander, honey -”
At that exact moment, both of their phones went off.
Athena blinked at the rectangular device like it was a snake about ready to strike. She did not want to turn that thing over and read what it said.
“I look!” I wook!
Bobby snatched his phone away before Zander could attempt to pick it up with his tiny fists. Their eyes met and Bobby took a deep breath as he hit the bottom on the side to activate the screen. And then the phone rang in his hand.
“It’s Tommy.”
Athena leapt to her feet and tugged Zander off of Bobby’s lap. “How about we go and get ready for the day, all right?”
Zander blinked at her, confused. “That Papa though!” Dat Papa do!
“Let Grandpa talk to Papa for a moment and then you can talk to him, okay?”
Zander nodded in acceptance, and let Athena cart him out of the room like he was a bag of potatoes.
-;
Tommy was sobbing on the other end of the line.
Bobby’s heart slammed against his ribcage. “ Tommy?”
“Evan’s awake. He’s awake, Bobby.”
The dam burst. Tears began to pour down Bobby’s face and he didn’t bother to wipe them away as he listened closely.
“He woke up about thirty minutes ago. Vitals are stable, he’s - he’s asking for Zander.”
The tears dripped off of Bobby’s chin and into the last dregs of his cooling coffee. The hole in his chest that he was just now aware of was beginning to stitch itself closed. “How are you, Tommy? Are you okay?”
“I will be. Now.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“How’s Zander?”
“He’s wonderful.” Which was the truth. The boy was hopefully going to grow up never knowing just how close he came to losing one of his fathers. Zander was absolutely excellent. “He’s everything…everywhere.”
“Don’t tell him. Not yet. Just - just tell him that I will be home soon.”
“Will do,” Bobby nodded like his son in law could see him. “Tell Buck we love him.”
“I will.”
“We love you. Please get some rest now, Tommy.”
Tommy chuckled wetly. “ Howie just got here, he’s threatening to handcuff me to the couch - by the way, how did he get a pair of Athena’s handcuffs?”
“I lent them to him. Don’t tell Athena.”
“I won’t."
As he hung up the phone, Bobby looked towards the ceiling, towards a god he was just now beginning to believe in once again. “Thank you.”
.
.