ain't what it looks like!

Their anniversary was rolling around. Freyja probably would’ve beaned him with one of those little heart-shaped cheesecakes if he’d said it out loud – on second thoughts, it probably woulda been a fork, she wouldn’t waste the dessert. Almost a year since she’d turned up at the door, frazzled, toting the little delight who’d put her in that state. It hadn’t always been easy juggling his schedule, but he’d started looking forward to their lunches, to his Bo and Uncle Fwa time when mama finally managed to grab a nap or take a shower. Summer meant more time at home, more time for family.

Frank forked up the last of his steak, watching Bo pick through what he’d loaded the little guy’s plate up with. Pretty soon he’d be in a booster chair at the table, ousted from his spot in the high-chair by his brother or sister. It already felt like time had been moving way too fast. Trying to get Bo settled now seemed like a battle of wills, feeling like half the time they had no chance against him. Like his mama, he was bull-headed. Usually he’d have said he had his uncles’ appetite, but pregnancy had turned that trait into one of his mama’s too. Next week he’d have to lay on a little extra, maybe a few more pre-lunch nibbles to keep Freyja appeased until he was dishing everything else up. If they had a next week here.

He watched Freyja ease back in her seat, her hand running over the mountain of her bump. It woulda been rude to ask, but maybe she was bigger now than she had been with Bo – or he just had more of a ringside seat for this pregnancy. Instead of it just been the family dinners around this table, they’d had their routine. He’d had a close-up view of pregnancy (and hoped this was as close as it got), and had gotten to watch Bo grow at the same time. Frank leaned in and grabbed one of the cheesecakes, figuring he’d best leave the last couple for Freyja. ”There’s always room for dessert,” he said faux seriously before he bit the thing in half. Especially the kind he didn’t have to make. Baking definitely wasn’t his speciality, and leaving dessert to Freyja gave her something to bring to the party – apart from her company and the little guy.

Reaching out, he passed one of the green beans left on his plate to Bo. It was rapidly cast aside for another chew on the steak he’d sliced up thin for the little guy. He couldn’t blame him, the veggies were always left til last on his plate too. ”Let’s hope it’s not during a dinner again. Your time was incredible, bubba,” he crooned the last words to Bo, beaming back at him as he got a gummy smile. It softened around the edges as Freyja carried on, breaking the bad news gently. ”We can always fancy things up,” he promised. ”And you’ll have Theo there to stop things getting too crazy.” Theo would probably be just as frazzled, but he’d keep pushing through it. Watching Theo become such an amazing dad, an amazing husband made him proud as hell, especially when that chance had been so close to disappearing.

Coming home from Walter Reed, he’d felt hollow. Theo was there at his side, literally holding him up some of the time, but the house he ended up buying was too big for him alone, the rooms too empty. The team that’d become a second family to him over the years had vanished, the parts of it that were left, shattered. Frank’s gaze dragged from Bo to his mama. That’d changed in that handful of years and was still shifting now. He sniffed in a breath, laughing faintly as he shook his head at Freyja. ”Don’t blame me. It’s the hormones and your husband.” Theo woulda been in tears, sentimental down to the bone.

Of course it was the cheesecake that beat back the tears. Frank looked down at his own, setting what was left on his plate. He wiped his hands on his napkin before he dropped that on the table. ”You couldn’t keep me away,” he promised. ”If the mountain can’t come to uncle Frank, he’ll just have to come to the mountain. Well, I guess you’ll be downgraded to just a hill by then.” Frank grinned back at Freyja, that same wan edge to his smile. ”Right. Sounds like he was getting pretty desperate to get you back there. You’d go back if they were though? Like full time?” And didn’t that have his throat aching. All those months of having the two of them around mulitple times a week had spoiled him. Now it felt a little like there a finishing line fluttering somewhere in the distance. It woulda had to end eventually – when the 10th kid the two of them had went off to college – but this was way sooner than he’d thought.

”We’ll always have Sunday dinners,” Frank said hollowly. Not enough. Damnit. He’d gotten greedy for all of this, the time when he would’ve given anything to be back in uniform, back with his team gone. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it? A family around, roots to anchor him after years spent on deployment. ”How long’s Theo gonna be at home?” The desperation not to lose this didn’t hit his voice too hard at least. They weren’t gonna vanish if they didn’t have lunch a couple of times a week. They were both just getting dramatic now.

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Sick? Bullshit. This was Nixon, the guy who crowed about never having taken a single sick day in his life. If he hadn’t known that Freyja and the dogs were home he might have worried that Nixon was trying to pull off some James Bond like plan to get into the house and redesign the nursery before the baby arrived.

Theo tapped his fingers lightly against the keyboard, debating calling the email Nixon had sent to cancel their afternoon meeting some sort of a Trojan Horse. The two infinitely polite sentences reeked of crap, but this was a stink that was about to give him a free afternoon at home with his wife and kids (well, kid and one bordering on arrival). In a few weeks he’d be doing that full time, the arrival of their newest bundle of joy triggering a couple of months of being home with them all full time. All those tiny milestones of Bo’s life that he was missing out on by needing to be on campus practically all the time playing out in front of his eyes. Undoubtedly leaving him tearing up with pride at each one.

He sniffed in a deep breath before his sinuses started burning with building tears. Nope. Theo puffed the breath back out and tapped out a quick ’feel better soon. I’ll be working from home this afternoon’ reply. All afternoon he’d be expecting Nixon to appear at their door, but he’d get to make lunch and make the most of Bo’s nap time – something that would be impossible once they were trying to get a toddler and a newborn down.

Thumbing off his computer, Theo packed up what he needed from his desk and headed for his office door. Thankfully his meeting with Nixon was the only thing carved in stone on his schedule for this afternoon. The test grading he would’’ve done before Nixon would have stormed into their office at three could be done later, squeezed in at the kitchen table while dinner was cooking. Maybe he’d even bake some brownies in celebration of an unexpected afternoon off. If he got the pan back from Frank on the way.

When he’d first come back to Whitmore to teach he’d never imagined how life would change. It had been a bachelor pad apartment in town, dinner eaten on the sofa. Not much of a dating life, hell, barely a social life and then he’d seen her. Theo grinned fondly as he drove past their spot. Now it was domestic bliss ninety nine percent of the time, the shadows of that other part of his life drowned out by all that was bright. Love driving back the nightmares, wrapping around them all in a dozen layers that couldn’t ever be peeled away. With each kid they’d be added to, another brightly coloured, unique, beautiful blanket wrapped around the others.

Maybe he ought to have taught poetry instead, he was definitely a romantic at heart. Him and Frank had always been opposites that way. The warrior and the poet. The historian and the biologist. The devoted family man and the … well, maybe they weren’t so different that way since Frank had put roots down here. He’d hoped that maybe Frank would have found someone by now, settling down the same way. Although, he guessed in a way Frank was building a family of his own, one adopted stray at a time. If Frank wasn’t home one of them probably would be, not that an empty house would’ve stopped him from just letting himself in. He wasn’t about to let anything get between a pregnant woman and dessert.

Twenty minutes later he was pulling up outside Frank’s place. Theo pulled out his keys, heading for the door. He opened it and slipped in. A buzz of voices from the kitchen told him that someone was home. Frank’s low rumble, a higher voice, that catch of his own name and work. Dates at her house. His hearing aids could have failed him right then and he still wouldn’t known who it was before Bo squealed da!.

”Hey, Bo Bear!” Theo beamed at his son, stopping to smack kisses against a relatively clean patch of cheek. His hazel eyes narrowed as he looked up, his grin wolfish. ”Oh. Hmm, baby.” He glanced back and forth between his brother, whose face had suddenly taken on the wide eyed expression of a kid caught red handed with the cookie jar. ”I thought you were at home. Guess we’re both where we weren’t meant to be.”

Dragging up a seat on the other side of Freyja, still eyeing Frank, like he’d break first (trained to withstand interrogation or not), and reached for one of the cheesecakes. ”My afternoon meeting got cancelled. Figured I’d pick up the brownie pan we left here last Sunday and treat my wife tonight. Guess I got beat to the punch, huh? Looks like someone’s been seducing my wife while I’ve been at work.” Freyja definitely hadn’t cooked what was on the table, or what Bo was wearing.

Tagged: FREYJA DAMASCA * Word Count: 848