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Chris knew how to take care of children, he could handle two weeks alone with the baby girl he and Leon had been raising as their own. Sure, Chris had taken care of her alone before, but this was the first time that he truly had no one else to call if he needed something. Jill was out of the country on a mission, Claire was somewhere on the west coast attending a conference for Terrasave, Piers was training new BSAA cadets in Ontario, and Leon was sent off on important, confidential government business somewhere in Oregon. But none of that mattered, he knew how to care for his daughter, Leon had no reason to worry about them. It was almost comical to think of Leon as a hardened government asset who had a higher kill count solo than Chris could ever count when he was fussing like a mother hen, worried about things like diapers and baby food. Chris continued to assure Leon that nothing was going to happen and that he could go and get his job done without worrying about the two of them.
Chris had been right, for the most part, he could handle things by himself just fine. The first week had gone by without a hitch, and he even managed to keep Jane to a semi-normal sleep schedule. She was teething, which made things difficult, but Claire had been nice enough to gift them a pacifier she read about in a parenting magazine (despite having no children of her own, she did enjoy being an active aunt in Jane's life). Chris just had to fill the pacifier with water or formula or juice and freeze it and it worked wonders to sooth Jane's aching gums while she grew in her baby teeth. She was sleeping through the night, at least, which Chris considered a plus. It was easier to deal with her grouchiness when she'd had enough sleep. When sleepy, her whininess could just about rival Leon, as much as the man protested their similarity. Chris swore it was uncanny, and Claire only agreed when Leon couldn't hear her.
The first week had gone so smoothly that Chris swore this parenting thing was easy, that he had no idea what everyone else was talking about, this was nothing.
Then the coughing started.
It was day eight of Chris acting as a solo parent when Jane developed a small cough. He hadn't thought much of it, but he made sure to keep Jane hydrated and stocked up on kid's cough medicine from the pharmacy. The woman at the pharmacy eagerly advised him on the best brand to use and how to measure it appropriately, and Chris was sure she would have done just about anything for him when she saw the one and a half year old baby strapped to his broad chest in a navy blue carrier. Jane had done her absolute best to show off for her, all smiles and giggles, and it was almost enough to make Chris forget about the snotty nose and worrying cough.
After twenty four hours with the cough, Jane started to run a fever. It wasn't anything too high, nothing Chris was too worried about, but her cough started to sound worse. The dry cough started to sound wet, and the sound of her breathing was the most worrisome. With the fever and worsening cough, Jane had started crying. And crying. And crying. She hadn't stopped crying, the only reprieve coming when the tiny girl managed to cry herself to sleep, too exhausted to stay awake and cry more. Chris hadn't slept since the cough had started, and he'd lost track of how long that had been.
Still, Chris had things handled. Cold medicine and baby Tylenol helped combat the worst of the symptoms, but even with the Tylenol helping with the fever and the cold medicine helping with the cough, the crying had not stopped. Chris only let himself accept help and call their doctor when the crying had grown quiet, Jane screaming and sobbing without making a single sound. Chris spent the last twenty something years fighting BOWs and bioterrorists, and yet he had never been so afraid of anything until his daughter's fever reached a dangerous level.
Chris had tried everything to get the fever to go down, covering Jane's body in cold, damp washcloths and giving her meds until he felt like it would do more harm than good.
At two thirty in the morning of the third day of this illness, Jane stopped breathing.
Chris had never been so grateful that Claire had taken him to that Red Cross class, because he knew exactly what to do to get Jane to cough up the phlegm she'd managed to choke on, and after taking her temperature one more time he threw together a go bag and raced to the hospital in the middle of the night. The first ER turned him away because they didn't have a pediatric unit, the second one turned him away because they were over capacity and had no one to see him. He'd had to drive over an hour before he found a children's hospital that could take her, and when he arrived Jane had been whisked away almost immediately. Whatever the doctors had seen that he hadn't had worried them so much that he wasn't allowed to go with her, the doctors saying he'd just get in the way.
Chris was directed to a too colorful waiting room, lights painfully bright despite it being almost four in the morning. Chris felt numb as he sank into an uncomfortable chair next to a comically large fish tank that looked like something out of a children's movie, and well, he guessed it made sense for where he was. A clipboard full of paperwork sat on his lap, and he sat there for so long just holding the pen, unable to think of anything to write.
At six AM, Claire tore into the waiting room, and Chris couldn't even remember when he'd called her or when she'd returned to the state. Jill wasn't far behind her, and Chris knew he hadn't been the one to call her.
Jill managed to coax Chris into going to get something to eat from the hospital cafeteria, and he picked at a shitty sandwich while he drank a cup of shitty coffee. He was pretty sure he'd been tricked into drinking decaf, because it tasted awful and did little to ease the exhaustion seeping into his bones. How long had it been since he'd slept? He couldn't remember. It had been a few days now, he knew that for sure.
Claire helped him fill out the rest of the required paperwork, taking the clipboard from him and giving it to the receptionist at the check in desk. He'd struggled to fill it out, unable to remember if Jane's vaccines were up to date or if he and Leon had opted out of any, and when Chris looked at the section about his daughter's family medical history he panicked because he truly didn't know. He didn't know anything about his daughter's biological family, what if there was something he missed? What if there was something genetic he didn't know about and it was his fault that she was sick because they hadn't done any testing? Wasn't that what you do when you adopt a baby? Why hadn't they done the genetic testing like their PCP recommended?
Chris must have fallen asleep at some point, because he hadn't noticed when his husband had arrived. Jill seemed to have updated him on the situation because Leon looked strangely calm when he arrived. He looked tired, too, still wearing the leather jacket he usually wore when he went on jobs. He was probably running on as much sleep as Chris was, and just the thought of Leon rushing home in a sleep deprived state because their daughter was sick made Chris cringe. He didn't want to worry him, but he knew there was no avoiding it now.
Chris didn't even know how Leon had managed to hear about this at all. He was virtually unreachable on missions, unable to answer phone calls for the majority of the time he was deployed. On the rare occasions he was able to talk, it was usually in the little time he had to rest, which Chris always felt bad about wasting when Leon so rarely got to catch his breath.
When Leon kneeled down in front of him, Chris could vaguely register that his husband was saying something to him, but he couldn't make out a word of it. All he could feel was the utter relief of seeing Leon, and it was like a dam broke. He didn't realize he was crying until Leon pulled him into his chest and just held him, cupping the back of his head with one hand and rubbing his back with the other.
Claire left on a coffee run at some point, and Jill went with her, leaving Leon and Chris alone in the waiting room, sitting side by side in silence, hands linked together tightly like a vice.
"When'd you get back?" Chris asked eventually, when he trusted himself enough to speak without crying.
"Hunnigan gave me the all clear to come home just after three. She told me what happened. Claire called her," Leon explained, looking so much more tired than Chris had ever seen him before.
"I'm sorry," Chris whispered, not trusting himself to speak any louder. Leon gave him a confused look.
"What are you sorry for? Did something happen?"
Chris laughed pitifully but it sounded much closer to a sob. "Fuck, Leon, she-she wasn't breathing, I didn't know what to do. I-I... Fuck-"
Wordlessly, Leon pulled Chris against his chest once more, pressing a kiss to his hair and holding him close. How could Leon be so strong? Keep it together for so long? Chris would never understand how Leon seemed to be able to handle anything and everything, never letting anything get to him. But Chris also knew how good Leon was at hiding how much he was hurting. He knew that better than anyone, he'd seen how he'd been before New York, how he'd turned to the bottle to drown his sorrows in Colorado. Chris had promised to be strong enough for both of them, to let Leon lean on him when he needed it, he even written that promise into his marriage vows, and here he was, breaking down in a hospital waiting room because their little girl was sick.
Chris couldn't remember when he'd fallen back asleep, nor did he know just how long he'd been out when Leon gently nudged him awake.
"We can go see her if you'd like," Leon told him, and Chris just nodded, mutely. He didn't think he could bring himself to say anything until he could see their baby girl and see with his own eyes that she was okay.
The last time Chris had seen Jane looking so, so small in a hospital bed was the day that he and Leon had adopted her. She'd been five months old then, but she looked so small he hadn't quite believed it. She was over a year and a half old now, and all Chris could see when he saw her was the too small infant she'd been when he first laid eyes on her. He felt like he couldn't breathe, seeing her there, with too many tubes attached to her, making her look like a robot. He rubbed his finger against her soft cheek, and when those pretty blue eyes blinked up at him, he felt like all the weight that had been building up over the last few days finally rolled off of him.
"Hey, baby girl," Chris whispered, leaning down and pressing a kiss to her forehead. When she laughed and gripped his hand with her own, he finally believed that everything was going to be just fine. Who said this parenting thing was that hard, anyways?