Chapter Text
Evan is exhausted.
Truth be told, he’s been exhausted for a minute now, but that’s not anyone else’s problem. He’s used what feels like an acceptable amount of time grieving publicly about the breakup at this point that even if he isn’t sleeping very well, and just generally not feeling very well, it isn’t his loved ones’ problem to deal with. They gave him several weeks to wallow, and now that they’ve started to move on, he should too.
That doesn’t change the fact that he’s not sleeping well, or is exhausted.
It’s probably just a bug going around, since his stomach hasn’t really been feeling great either, but he’s looking at a 96 off currently, and that’s good enough for him, considering. If worse comes to worse, he knows Bobby will give him the extra time to rest, but hopefully that won’t be needed.
He stares forlornly down at he Kitchenaid on his counter. Part of him really feels the itch to call Tommy, which makes him want to bake, but his body is too drained at the moment to actually do so.
He stares for a few minutes longer before turning toward his bed and crawling into it gratefully, letting out a long groan as his body sinks against the gel foam mattress pad. For two minutes, he just rests, starfished across his bed, before he finally rolls over and moves his pillows around until he’s satisfied with them. He grabs the tea he made for himself before moving to the loft and sips on it while scrolling through reddit, looking for something to grab his attention. Sometimes he scrolls the r/todayilearned, but on nights like this where he needs to force himself to sleep, that’s a bad idea. Other times, when he needs a pick-me-up, he’ll scroll through the r/badroommates or r/choosingbeggars subs, but neither of those draw him in either.
He ends up just scrolling his home feed while he drinks his tea instead, ultimately setting his phone down on the wireless charger before he finishes the tea. Once it’s gone, he turns off the lamp next to his bed and wiggles down, shifting one of the pillows he keeps at the food of the bed for his leg to cradle it. It’s been acting up the past few days, and although the pillow won’t solve his aches and pains, it still helps.
The last thing he thinks as he settles down against the pillows beneath his head is the fact that the one he’s curled up with doesn’t smell as much like Tommy as it used to.
. . .
It’s ungodly hot when he surfaces. At first, he doesn’t even open his eyes, choosing to pull the hoodie he’d fallen asleep in over his head instead. However, it’s as he’s halfway out of that hoodie that he starts to cough. Great, he thinks, just what I needed to add to this. A respiratory illness.
Once he finishes coughing, he rests against the pillow beneath his head, still halfway out of the hoodie and also exhausted, but still so fucking hot. He kicks at the blankets on top of him, but even removing those doesn’t help. He knows he needs to get the hoodie off of his head and probably check his own temperature, but he’s just so tired…
Distantly, he hears a familiar crackling, and his eyes snap open.
He bolts upright in his bed, tugging the hoodie back down. When his eyes open to the darkness of his bedroom, it confirms the worry settled into the pit of his stomach.
The building is on fire.
His loft is still dark, so wherever the fire is at, it hasn’t entered the home yet, however smoke is billowing generously up from the first floor, and it’s already fairly thick up in the loft.
He forces his brain to think, go down the list of emergency processes of what to do in a house fire. Against his own urges, he ignores wanting to grab anything—other than his phone—and rolls from his bed. Normally, he’d have a water bottle nearby that he could douse a piece of fabric in to cover his face with, but because of the generally ill feeling he’d had lately, he hadn’t brought any up. He glances towards the en suite bathroom briefly, but there’s no knowing if the fire has reached the water line yet, so that could be a dangerous choice.
Instead, he yanks a pillowcase off of one of his pillows and covers his face with it. It’s not a perfect solution and won’t block the smoke as effectively, but he’s short on time to get out as it is.
He shifts off the bed, grateful he was too tired to take his clothes off, and heads for the stairs, mostly blind. His leg is half-numb and tingling, which isn’t great, but he needs to move. He tells himself that he’s lived in the loft long enough that he can navigate fairly well without needing to see, even if he has to mostly hop.
At least, that’s what he thought.
On the third step, his leg gives out and slips, sending him sliding down the next nine steps until he’s nearly at the bottom, a wave of pain running up his thighs and to the middle of his back. He knows better than to touch his railing this far down. It’s even warmer on the first floor, and under the door, he can see telltale flickering that makes his stomach plummet.
He needs to get out, but he doesn’t have a ladder long enough to get down from his balcony. Even if he did, he’s not sure he could maintain his own weight long enough to climb over it and start the trip down.
In the back of his head, he can hear all the comments his friends have made about being a firefighter in a third story apartment without a second exit route.
“Get up, Buck,” he mutters to himself, pressing his hands into the stair he’s seated on. His leg hurts even more now, and he’s not sure if he’s done actual damage to it, or if it’s just from slipping down the stairs. He sets his foot down on the floor and tries to push up off the step with his hands, well aware of how hot the wood is beneath his skin, but that’s a problem for a different time.
He gets his body several inches up before his arms give out, unable to take all the weight on his other leg and not having the leverage of the railing due to the metal. He drops back down, wincing as he slides down another step and it digs into the base of his spine as he slides. He’s closer to the ground now, but also not in a better situation by any stretch of the imagination.
He looks around the loft as best he can in the smoke, trying to figure out what to do. With any hope, fire and rescue is already there, but that does nothing for him on the third floor. It could be hours before they make it that far up into his building, depending on how bad the fire is.
Still, he can hear the crackling more now. Distantly, he can hear the mix of voices, but the sounds of fire doing damage to a building—beams cracking, walls melting, wood snapping—is mixed in with it all so much that he’s not entirely clear on if he’s hearing firefighters in the midst of it all.
And then, as he sits there, trying to figure out what to do, he feels it, and suddenly so much makes sense.
It’s a sudden gush, running between his legs, and happening too quickly for him to do anything to stop it. The knots he’s felt in his stomach up to that point since waking suddenly fall through the floor, and a sob escapes his throat.
He can’t do this. Not here, and not now.
Hs hand is out of the pouch of his hoodie quickly then, unlocking his phone and scrolling through his contacts, tapping on the number and lifting the phone to his ear as panic floods his insides.
It rings. And rings. And rings.
Voicemail.
“The person you are trying to reach is not available…”
Evan sobs again, shaking his head.
This isn’t how he’s supposed to go. This isn’t how shit is supposed to end.
“…please leave a message at the tone.” The beep trills in his ear, and another sob comes out of his throat before he’s coughing against the smoke, shaking his head. He’s wasting his time at this point—he knows he is—but someone should know. Someone should… he doesn’t even know.
He just can’t go out like this without someone knowing.
“Tommy.”
He forces shallow breaths in and out in an attempt to fight off inhaling more smoke.
“I’m sorry,” he cries, feeling the wetness of his tears run down his cheeks, the same way he feels the wetness between his legs. “I’m so sorry.”
He wants to say more. Wants to tell the other man everything that’s happening, about how he didn’t know, and if he had, he would’ve told him. Wants to tell him that he made a mistake racing through asking him to move in without telling him how he felt, and how they could slow down if it was too much because he so desperately wanted Tommy to be his last.
Well.
Apparently, he’s still going to get that.
He ends the call, knowing he needs to try and get to the balcony doors. It’s getting hotter, and he’s getting weaker by the second. His best chance is at least getting to fresh air before he passes out.
With his phone back in the pouch of his hoodie, he manages to scoot down the last of the stairs, trying to ignore the blood he can still feel. Once he’s on the floor, he starts crawling towards the balcony, but it’s a struggle. His body hurts, his leg isn’t really cooperating, and he can tell the fire is much closer now. He probably only has minutes before he enters the loft, if he’s lucky.
Still, he puts one hand in front of the other, forces his knees to move across the floor, tries to keep his eyes open.
Are they open?
He looks up, sees the balcony doors less than ten feet in front of him. How did he get on the ground?
His chest hurts.
“Evan? Evan!?”
He groans, wincing at the pain in his chest from the smoke. He tries to cough, but that doesn’t seem to help much.
“Come on, Evan, open your eyes.”
It feels impossible, and he winces against the struggle, but he manages to get them open to half-slits, sees the vague outline of a helmet and oxygen mask in front of him. He tries to talk, but it mostly come out as a gurgled moan as his fingers sluggishly brush over the plastic of the mask on the firefighter above him.
“God damn it, I need assistance up in 320! One occupant, barely responsive and injured. Going to need immediate transport.”
The voice gets suddenly clearer halfway through the statement, and Evan tries to force his eyes open, recognizing that tone immediately. But then, the mask is being pressed down over his nose and mouth, and even though he’s weak, the sudden gush of clear, fresh air is a godsend to his lungs.
“T…T…”
“I’m here, baby,” Tommy tells him. “Just breathe. I’m gonna get you out of here.”
Evan groans again, tries to lift his head. He’s still so tired from the smoke inhalation, and even though the clean air is nice, his chest still hurts.
Tommy shifts his arm, moving his hand down over the mask to hold it in place, and Evan tries to stay awake.
He needs to tell Tommy. There’s so much he needs him to know. There’s so much to say.
. . .
Life happens in flashes.
He’s even warmer than he was in the loft, and then suddenly freezing due to the drastic drop in temperature. The mask is taken off of his face, only for another to be placed over his mouth, and then he’s being settled on a gurney as voices blur together over him. He can’t get his eyes to open, but he can still hear Tommy.
“…smoke inhalation, some first and second degree burns, and I think he might’ve done something to his bad leg because he responded to pain.”
“And the bleeding?”
“What bleeding?”
There’s a beat of silence as fingers trail down his forearm into his wrist, but as they try to pull away, Evan suddenly squeezes them tightly, even though he can’t find the energy to open his eyes. He manages a soft groan, followed by a weak whimper.
“Ngh…b..ba…”
“Baby?” The unfamiliar voice asks. “As in pregnant?”
There’s more silence.
“Do you know how far along, Kinard?”
The fingers Evan’s clinging to suddenly squeeze back, and Tommy mutter a low ‘fuck’.
“No,” he says, not much louder. “No, I don’t.”
“Then we need to get to the hospital.” Evan realizes the other voice is Lucy. He wants to open his eyes and talk to her, ask her how she’s been. Ask her if Tommy’s been as miserable as he has. His eyes are still too heavy. “You coming?” Silence. “Get in.”
. . .
He wakes up in a room wearing a hospital gown with an oxygen mask on over his face. His chest still hurts, although not to the degree that it did before. There’s a lot of beeping happening around him, and it makes his head hurt more.
Still, once he gets his eyes open, his eyes fall on the way his leg is mounted up. He groans softly at the sight of it, wincing at the pain in his throat when he does.
“Evan.”
He turns his head, weary eyes falling on Tommy’s as the other man stands from his spot next to Evan, eyes full of worry and exhaustion. He’s pale and his eyes are puffy, as though he’s been crying.
“My leg,” Evan murmurs, his voice slurring a little bit.
Tommy nods, squeezing his fingers gently. “You tore your achilles coming down the stairs. They took you into surgery after we got you here.”
Evan winces at the information, more from the realization of how much it must’ve actually hurt than anything else. He closes his eyes for a moment, still fighting the wave of exhaustion over him. The rhythmic beeping is annoying, but he supposes he gets it. Doctors need to ensure his heart is beating properly after inhaling so much smoke. Except the beeping seems to be overlapping itself in an annoying way.
He winces again after a few seconds, but that’s when he remembers, and his eyes snap open as panic floods down through him like ice down his spine.
“B-baby,” he stammers, his eyes quickly finding Tommy’s as his free hand moves to his stomach and the barely-there curve at the base of his abdomen. “Baby-..”
“Is doing okay,” Tommy rasps, his voice tight. He lifts the hand that is curled around Evan’s fingers and points to the monitor on the other side of them. Evan looks over at it, sees the screen reading out 162bpm. He lets out a sob as he squeezes Tommy’s fingers tighter, looking back down at his body. He sees the straps more clearly now beneath the gown, holding the doppler in place, and lifts his free hand to his face, pressing his fist to the center of his forehead.
“Fuck,” he cries softly, shaking his head.
Tommy’s hand combs down through his curls as he leans over him. “Evan, your hands. Be careful.”
He turns his head and pulls the oxygen mask down, looking up at Tommy with wet eyes, ignorant of the wound wraps on his hands from the burns.
“I didn’t know. I swear, Tommy, I didn’t- I didn’t know-..”
Tommy shakes his head at him, leaning down and kissing his forehead. He lets go of Evan’s hand and the younger man whimpers at the lost of contact, but it’s only so Tommy can put the oxygen mask back over his face.
“I know, baby,” he answers back. “It’s okay.”
Evan wraps his hand around Tommy’s wrist, and the pilot stays leaned over him, their foreheads pressed together for several minutes as he murmurs soft reassurance to Evan while he brushes his thumb lightly against the younger man’s cheek.
“Need you to breathe,” Tommy whispers to him. “Our baby needs that oxygen.”
Evan lets out a soft sob at his words, but manages a nod, looking up at Tommy after a few moments. The older man keeps soothing him, talking softly to him as he stands beside the bed. Their attention is only pulled form one another when the door to the room opens and the physician treating Evan enters.
“Mr. Buckley, glad to see you awake and back with us,” she states.
Evan glances up at her anxiously. “Baby?”
“Is doing okay,” she tells him confidently. “The bleeding was brought on by the fall, but seems to have been short-lived. We haven’t seen any dip in heartbeat since you arrived last night. I’d like to keep you for a few days for observation on your lungs, and we’ll keep watching the little one, but so far I feel good about things.”
Evan inhales a choked breath, forcing down another rush of emotion, and Tommy squeezes his fingers. Evan glances up at him.
“I need to go tell everyone you’re awake,” the pilot tells him. “They’ve been cycling through keeping vigil in the waiting room.”
“Do they know,” Evan asks him nervously.
Tommy inhales a deep breath. “I mean, I couldn’t exactly hide the fetal monitor from your sister.”
Evan gulps and nods. That’s not a discussion he was fully prepared for quite yet, let alone what their loved ones will think, given the fact that they were only six months in and broke up, and now there’s a baby and…it’s more complicated than he wants to think about right now.
He exhales a weary breath before looking up at Tommy. The pilot stares back down at him, concern still written into his expression.
“We don’t have to make any decisions right now,” he says. “Nobody needs to know where it all stands when you’re still figuring out. We’re still figuring it out.”
Evan nods, his nerves still on edge about everything that’s transpired.
“Just…give me a few more minutes,” Evan says to Tommy, looking up at him. “Before they really know.”
Tommy stares down at him with concern, nodding after a few seconds and settling back down into the chair next to the bed.
He doesn’t know how to put it into words, but also doesn’t know that Tommy needs him to. To explain that he—really, that they—haven’t had time to themselves to just know and understand. To accept that, regardless of the breakup, their worlds have changed, permanently linked no matter what happens next.
He looks over at Tommy, and the other man stares back at him. Evan inhales a breath, cringing slightly at the pain still radiating in his chest. He opens his mouth to say something, but Tommy shifts forward, reaching up towards Evan’s cheek and brushing his thumb against it.
“Don’t talk right now. Just let your lungs rest.”
Evan sighs, looking back down the bed at where Tommy’s hand is still in his. He finally realizes the bandages, and as he glances down at his legs, he spots several on his knees. Points of contact, he thinks.
He glances up at the pilot again, and Tommy tilts his chin up, curious at what Evan is trying to suggest. He raises an eyebrow just slightly, and Evan shifts his hand in Tommy’s before reaching for his wrist.
Tommy’s arm goes tense under his hand, and Evan looks up at him, questioning. There’s a conflict in Tommy’s expression, like he already knows and isn’t fully letting himself have the moment. Evan tilts his head towards the pilot, his expression softening.
“Are you going to leave again,” he asks, his voice cracking and rasped from the smoke.
Tommy’s jaw tightens as he swallows, but he ultimately shakes his head. “No.”
At that, Evan moves Tommy’s arm, and although he’s still clearly unsure, Tommy lets Evan move it, lets him bring their hands down over his stomach, just above where the doppler straps are still wrapped around his waist.
The breath Tommy loses as his palm presses into Evan’s stomach is audible, clearly fighting back his emotions as his eyes flit up to the monitor with the continuous beeping, still reading 162bpm.
Evan strokes his thumb back and forth over the back of Tommy’s, reaching up with his free hand and curling his fingers around Tommy’s chin. The pilot glances up at him, his eyes showing an unsurmountable level of pain Evan has only ever seen hints of. He doesn’t need Tommy to explain the reason; every single time he’s seen that expression, it’s been at the expense of mentioning Kinard Senior.
There are words not spoken between them. About how Tommy doesn’t want to fail a child, and how Evan knows he won’t. How Tommy fears being his father, but Evan knows he’s nothing like the man. How Tommy doesn’t know that he deserves a family’s love, but Evan knows that’s what he deserves most.
“I’m not going to be him, Evan,” Tommy states. His voice shakes the entire time, but there’s a determination in his eyes. “I won’t.”
Evan just smiles at him, nods. “I know.”
He stares at Tommy until his eyes start to get heavy, and then the next thing he knows, the door to his room is opening and Maddie is standing across from him, a swirl of emotions on her face.
“Hey Mads,” he murmurs softly. His voice sound even rougher than before, but it hurts a little less to breathe.
She crosses the room silently, coming to his bedside and grabbing his hand. There are tears in her eyes as she looks down at him with the worry he’s known from her since before he could walk or talk.
“Don’t you ever do that again, Evan,” she tells him, trying with all desperation to keep her emotions together. “You hear me? I was terrified.”
He gives a small, rueful laugh, wincing at the pressure on his lungs as he nods at her.
“I- I’ll do my best,” he replies. Maddie nods with a stern expression on her face as she squeezes her hand lightly over his where it’s still resting on his stomach. He glances down apprehensively and then back up at her. He has no idea what she’ll have to say, if anything, but if there’s one person who’s opinion matters to him more than Tommy’s-
“You really didn’t know?”
She doesn’t sound mad, more so just curious as she sinks down into the chair next to his bed, still holding on to his wrist. Evan shakes his head somberly.
“Thought I was just…sad and run down.”
He can’t help glancing over at the other side of the bed where Tommy is still seated, fingers still entangled in Evan’s other hand. He doesn’t give an outward response to the statement, but he also doesn’t move away.
Maddie stares at him for a bit longer, but eventually she nods.
“Well, it’s good that you do now, then. Enough time has already been lost to not knowing, so we’re already limited on how much time you have left until,” she comments.
Evan furrows his brow at her, and Maddie chuckles at him, squeezing his wrist.
“You think nine months is a long time,” she states, only half-asking the question. “Just wait. You’ll blink and it’ll be over. And you’re already at least two months in, based on the fact that there’s discernible heartbeat.”
Evan furrows his brow at her. He knows that she obviously has her own experience with pregnancy and childbirth, but being able to pinpoint a conception date when he hasn’t even gotten that far feels a little cocky.
“How can you be so sure it’s already been two months,” he asks her.
Maddie snorts. “Well first of all.” She gestures in Tommy’s direction. “But also, a heart rate over 160 usually falls somewhere around nine to ten weeks. Although, truth be told, you could actually be further along than that-..”
“Okay, hey,” he interjects, his expression becoming mildly panicked at her attempting to math out his pregnancy before he’s really had a chance to digest it. “Lets… leave that up to the doctors to figure out.”
Maddie takes a deep breath and then nods, giving him a sympathetic smile after a little bit.
“So can I tell the rest of the team you’re doing well then,” she asks him when his eyes start to get heavy again.
Evan nods. “An’ I’m sorry-..”
“Your apartment went up in flames,” she tells him, leaning over and pushing his oxygen mask down to keep him from trying to remove it again. “They’ll all understand being sent home.” She looks over at Tommy. “You’re staying?”
He nods at her, giving a weary smile. “As long as he’ll have me.”
“I’ll be back in the morning then,” she states. “With coffee.”
. . . .
He’s done research on drugs during pregnancy, and if he was able to maintain more consciousness, he’d be more concerned, but the doctors keep him medicated enough that he doesn’t have the time to actually spiral about it.
Either way, when he wakes sometime the next day, Tommy is still beside him. He’s curled over the side of the bed, snoring softly, but still has remained, regardless. He also notices the oxygen mask he’d had the night before has been swapped out for nasal cannulas.
Evan reaches across his body, and ruffles his fingers through Tommy’s mussed curls gingerly. His fingertips sting a little from the burns so he doesn’t do it long before letting his arm rest on his torso again. His gaze drifts with it, and then before he can help himself, he’s tilting his head up to look at the fetal monitor.
162bpm.
He lets out a breath, closing his eyes and reminding himself to breathe. Beside him, Tommy continues to snore softly. As much as part of him wants to go back to sleep, he’s both hungry and nauseated, which he can’t imagine is going to go over very well. Still, he knows it’s been more than sixteen hours since he last ate anything, and he knows enough about growing a human thanks to his deep dives when Maddie had Jee-Yun to know that the baby needs food.
Whether it’s timing or that someone actually notices he’s awake, a nurse enters the room a few moments later and greets him softly, clearly being mindful of Tommy asleep beside him.
“Are you hungry at all,” she asks as she checks his vitals and the IV bag he’s still attached to.
Evan wrinkles his nose and she nods as though she understands, shooting a glance toward the fetal monitor briefly.
“I can get you something gentle on your throat,” she offers. “Some yogurt or a smoothie?”
The smoothie immediately sounds enticing, and he nods, but just that quickly, he’s craving something along with it.
“Can I get some toast too,” he asks as she finishes checking him over. She nods.
“I’ll get that sent down to the kitchen right away. Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”
Evan thanks her, trying to shift to get into a more comfortable position as she leaves. Still, there’s not much that actually helps. He can feel each bruise on his back where he slammed into stairs the night before, and his ankle hurts even with the IV pain medication.
Whether his shuffling is too much, or he’s making too much noise with his aborted winces and grunts, Tommy lifts his head off the bed a few minutes later, rubbing his eyes wearily.
“Something wrong,” he asks, attempting to stretch and wincing at the audible pops across his body from the less-than-desirable sleeping position.
“I just can’t get comfortable,” Evan responds.
Tommy frowns sympathetically at him. “I’m sorry.”
He keeps shuffling, but the more his leg moves, the angrier it seems to become, and by the time the nurse returns, he’s actually in so much pain that his heart rate is raised.
“Mr. Buckley,” she warns gently. “I need you to stop moving. You’re causing yourself more stress.”
“It fucking hurts,” he groans, trying to push himself in another direction on the bed, but it does little to solve his issues, especially with the pressure on the burns on his hands.
“Let me talk to your physician,” she tells him. “Try and settle in the meantime; see what you can get down with this smoothie.”
He grimaces at her, but Tommy is beside him, rubbing his wrist lightly. Evan reaches up for the cup, touching it with his fingers and wincing at it, feeling the condensation and realizing it won’t interact well with the gauze wrapped around his hands.
“Let me help,” Tommy offers, shifting in his chair. He grabs the smoothie off the tray and lifts it to Evan’s lips. Evan looks up at him as he sips from the cup. The strawberry banana flavor bursts across his tongue and quickly satisfies the craving that had set in at the suggestion of it minutes earlier. It feels just as good sliding down his throat, soothing the ache still there from the fire. While the smoothie doesn’t make him forget the pain he’s in, it distracts him at least a little bit.
When the nurse does return a few minutes later, she has several syringes with her.
“I’ve got some more pain medication,” she explains to him when she approaches the bed. “And something to help with the restlessness, so you might get drowsy again.”
He tries to shift again, looking over at her.
“The baby-..”
“All medication is OB approved,” she tells him assuredly. “Your overseeing physician and OB are working together to make sure there’s a proper balance.”
Evan nods, although his nerves are still elevated at the response. As he glances up at Tommy while the nurse injects the medication into his line, he can see the anxiety reflected in the other man’s eyes. Still, the calming of his pain and restlessness comes on quick enough that he’s able to settle a bit more over the next few minutes. Tommy helps him to sip on his smoothie more, and he gets down a few bites of his toast as he grows wearier.
“Rest some more,” Tommy tells him softly, brushing a thumb gently against his cheek.
Evan blinks a few times, trying to fight off sleep.
“S’funny, isn’t it,” he murmurs, instinctively tilting into the pilot’s touch.
“Hmm?”
“How-…” he blinks again, opening his eyes wider in an attempt to stay awake, even though he can feel his vision shaking. “How one little thing can- can change…so much.”
Tommy lets out a small laugh, gives an even smaller nod. “Yeah. I guess it is.”
Tommy’s hand keeps moving against his cheek, and Evan wants to tell him to stop, that he needs to stay awake because they need to talk, but his weariness wins out and before long, he’s fast asleep.
At least for a little bit.
His eyes fly open almost as quickly as he’s leaning over the side of his hospital bed, his fingers digging tightly into Tommy’s wrist.
“Whoa, okay,” the pilot states, looking around them. Whether someone had thought ahead or not, he spots a basin on one of the supply cabinets and retrieves it quickly, getting it under Evan just in time as his breakfast comes back up.
It takes roughly a minute to stop, the younger man groaning at the pain it reignites in his throat. Tommy sets the basin aside with his other hand curled around the back of Evan’s head, easing him back onto the pillows. Once he’s settled, Tommy reaches out for the hospital-issued water cup and lifts it to him, letting Evan get a few sips down.
“How often is that happening,” Tommy asks when he has the cup back on the over-bed table. It takes Evan a bit to respond, still reacquainting himself with being conscious. He can still feel the effects of the medication in his system, even as his stomach continues to churn.
“Most days,” he murmurs after a bit, letting his eyes slip shut again. “Sometimes it gets better when I get going for the day, but once I slow down…” His words are slippery, slurring into one another, but he feels the warmth of Tommy’s palm on his abdomen and sighs contentedly.
“Come on, tiny pilot,” the older man murmurs softly. “Dad’s gotta eat.”
Evan’s eyes snap open—or at least attempt to—and he glances down at Tommy, his head rested on his hand near Evan’s waist, staring at where his other hand is rubbing gently over the small curve.
“What did you just say?”
Tommy glances over at him eye an eyebrow raised. “That you need to eat?”
Evan shakes his head. “Not that. You know what I mean.”
Tommy presses his lips together as his cheeks flush.
“Come on,” Evan murmurs, egging him. “What’d you call the baby?”
Tommy stays quiet a beat longer, but the continued pause between them causes the embarrassed smirk on his face to grow.
“Tiny pilot.”
Hearing it again makes Evan’s heart swell, and he knows in that moment. He has zero interest in even trying to figure out a name anytime soon because he just wants to call the baby ‘tiny pilot’ until the end of time. He nods at Tommy.
“That’s it,” he comments. “That’s what we’re going to call them.”
“Yeah?” Tommy look up at him sheepishly, like he hadn’t expected to have any opinions in the situation.
“Yeah.”
. . . . .
The next few days are a blur. Evan is kept medicated well enough that his pain is at least manageable, and little by little, it hurts less to be conscious. By the third day, OB signs off on him being able to be removed from constant supervision, and the process for discharge starts. Throughout the process, Maddie and Tommy ensure he’s scheduled to meet with her obstetrician, which is new for both men given that neither of them expected to need one. Still, to his sister’s overbearing love, she tells him just to take the appointment and get transferred to another physician if he finds that he doesn’t vibe well with hers.
Regardless, it manages to work out that the same day he gets discharged is also his first appointment. The travel isn’t far—across the large building from the hospital portion to the clinic—and when he and Tommy arrive, they’re quickly delivered to an empty exam room.
“Can’t believe I have to be in a wheelchair,” Evan grumbles as Tommy helps him settle up on the table.
“It’s a few days,” the pilot tells him. “Let your hands heal and then you can have the crutches.”
Evan scowls at him, but he doesn’t fight back verbally. He’d seen up close the peeling on his palms from the burns when his dressing had been changed that morning, and even though he’s irritated, he knows well enough that his hands likely wouldn’t tolerate the pressure of crutches.
They don’t wait long, and when the door does finally open, Evan forces himself to change his face into something less of a scowl when Dr. Benton walks in, smiling at him and then at Tommy as she does.
“Mr. Buckley,” she greets cordially. “I’ve gotten your paperwork transfer from the hospital stay,” she explains. “Bloodwork they ran showed confirmation of pregnancy and there was some fetal monitoring during your hospital stay.”
Evan nods, glancing over at Tommy anxiously. The pilot squeezes his hand reassuringly.
“My- my building had a fire, and I, I fell on the stairs. There was bleeding,” he explains.
Dr. Benton nods, continuing to read through the notes on her tablet as she settles it on the table.
“Looks like the bleeding was successfully stopped,” she adds. She sanitizes her hands quickly and walks over to him. “Are you comfortable with lifting your shirt?”
He glances over at Tommy again, and the pilot stands, helping Evan to do so. Dr. Benton feels around his abdomen, nodding as she does. After a few moments, she steps back and makes some notes on the tablet.
“Based on palpation, you do seem to be measuring somewhere around the end of the first trimester,” she explains. “I’d like to get some bloodwork done and have the nurse do a full rundown of your baseline levels so we can know where you’re at. We’ll also check your immunizations to ensure you’re up-to-date and check on anything else we might need before birth.”
“Okay,” Evan answers nervously.
She nods at him and Tommy.
“Any questions or concerns I can answer right now?” She asks it so genuinely that it almost takes Evan by surprise, and it’s all he can to do keep his emotions at bay.
“Is-…should I be worried about more- more bleeding?”
Tommy squeezes his hand tightly, and when he looks over at the other man, he can see the concern in his expression; a silent question as to why he hadn’t mentioned the worry over that particular issue sooner.
“I’m not overly concerned about it at the moment,” Dr. Benton tells him confidently. “You haven’t shown any recurrence of it since it stopped the other night, which is good. We’ll do an ultrasound today too, just to confirm where you’re measuring at, but my guess is that the fall caused a subchorionic hematoma, which we’ll monitor for both size and location.”
Evan nods, sniffling as he looks away from her. Tommy squeezes his hand again and Dr. Benton smiles at them sympathetically.
“Anything else,” she asks.
Evan and Tommy both shake their heads, and when she’s gone, his shoulders settle as he finally lets the wall down.
“Hey,” Tommy murmurs, shooting up out of his chair. He pulls Evan to the side, into his chest, nuzzling into his curls. “Everything’s okay.”
“I…” The younger man shakes his head as he stares down at his hands in his lap. “I could’ve-..”
“You didn’t know,” Tommy reminds him. “There was no way to protect what you didn’t know.”
Evan nods, although he continues to sniffle into Tommy’s chest. The pilot stands beside him resolute, rubbing a hand up and down Evan’s opposite shoulder until he manages to reel in his emotions. When he finally lifts up, Tommy looks down at him, a silent measure of are you okay. He’s been granted that expression so many times from the pilot at this point that neither of them needs the words.
They don’t separate until the nurse eventually turns up, taking his vitals and then drawing an absurd amount of blood—at least in Evan’s opinion—before alerting them that the ultrasound tech will be in soon. There’s a comment about the fact that normally they'd have him switch rooms, but they’re making accommodations for the wheelchair, which nearly sends him into another round of tears, and he can’t help feeling ridiculous about how easily his emotions are coming on now. If he were truly honest with himself, he’d have to admit that they’ve been off for a few weeks at least, but that’s not a discussion he’s ready to have with himself…yet.
“I think I have a solid idea of how we got into this position,” Tommy comments in an attempt to keep him from getting emotional again when she leaves.
Evan glances up at him, curious. “You really think you know when this happened,” he asks, gesturing at base of his stomach. If he didn’t know better, he would assume he’d eaten too much. Truth be told, he figured he’d just been enjoying too much of his own baked goods lately.
Tommy shrugs, although there’s a small smirk on his face.
“I mean there was that night with the cupcakes.”
Evan flushes bright red at the mere mention of it. He’d been well aware of Tommy’s sweet tooth at that point, and they were coming off shift twelve hours apart, so he’d decided to make red velvet cupcakes for his boyfriend. To say that it had gotten messy was putting it lightly.
To say that Tommy had taken it upon himself to rock Evan’s world in appreciation was putting it even lighter.
“S-so I make you cupcakes and you think that seems like a good time to put a baby here,” Evan comments, still gesturing at his abdomen.
Tommy furrows his brow at the younger man, although he’s clearly entertained by the statement.
“I didn’t exactly realize that we were at risk of having this happen,” he replies, rubbing his hand gently over Evan’s stomach. Evan feels the fluttering in his chest at the movement of Tommy’s hand there. He’s never had an issue with it before, but knowing that something that they both created together now rests under layers of skin and fascia inside of him, just beneath the tiny pilot’s father’s hand floods him into an undertow of feelings so thick, he can barely keep the tears from forming.
Tommy leans forward after that, his thumb still stroking in the space beneath Evan’s belly button as he gets toward his ear.
“Besides, I’m not the one who had six orgasms.”
Evan’s eyes widen as he turns his head toward Tommy, squeezing his wrist tightly. Any urge to cry has suddenly been shoved off a cliff by the wave of heat flooding between his thighs and over his chest and cheeks.
“Ix-nay on the ex-say,” he whispers between gritted teeth. “The nurses-..”
“Will never hear me,” he replies back in the same soft tone. Still, Evan digs his nails into Tommy’s wrist as he leans back on the exam table. Tommy stares down at him, a knowing smirk on his face, though he doesn’t press the situation further.
Before long, the door opens again, and an ultrasound tech enters the room with the machine. There’s some maneuvering to get it into place, and then she's introducing herself as it gets plugged in and turned on. Tommy returns to a respectable space next to Evan once the technician is settled, turning back towards them.
“Alright, lets see what we can actually see here,” she states as she squirts the cold gel onto Evan’s abs. He recoils at the feel of it, and she apologizes with a soft smile, rubbing the doppler into it for a few seconds to spread it around before turning back to the machine. She pushes a few buttons and then starts digging the doppler into Evan’s body. It’s not exactly comfortable, but his attention is more focused on the screen and what they can see…or not see, rather.
It takes time—time in which his heart rate keeps rising along with his blood pressure, scared that something is wrong or that he’s somehow hurt their baby more. He already hadn’t been taking the best care of himself due to the break up and all the baking and if something-
Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh.
The technician’s smile widens at the same time Evan lets out a breath doing it’s best not to be a sob.
“There we go,” she says as she alters the angle of the doppler. She keeps moving it around, clicking things on the machine, clearly doing her job while Evan is still caught up in the fact that they’ve heard the heartbeat again. His baby is still in there, still okay.
“Looks to be measuring right around ten weeks as you said,” she states. “Heartbeat is holding at 165. At this stage it’s too early to see a lot, but we do have a general shape.”
She shifts the monitor then, showing them the image on the screen. Evan snuffles another sob, seeing the little twitches on the screen of movement.
“There’s really something alive in there,” he rasps. Tommy squeezes his fingers tightly, and when Evan looks over at him, the pilot somehow looks even more emotional than he does. His jaw is tight and his face is red, clearly trying to keep himself from completely breaking.
The technician keeps talking, pointing out little things to them and taking measurements. At one point, she stops on a specific spot and hums curiously.
“I-is something wrong,” Evan asks nervously.
She shakes her head, looking back over at him. “Not at all. As we suspected, you have a subchorionic hematoma from your fall. I’m just making measurements.”
Evan watches her with even more anxiety, squeezing Tommy’s hand tightly. It doesn’t help that the pain of his burns are even more uncomfortable with how tightly he’s holding on. He isn’t really able to breathe until the technician starts clicking a few buttons and printing out a number of images that she puts together and slides into an envelope for them.
“All measurements look normal,” she states. “And the hematoma should work itself out. It’s measuring small enough to not be considered high risk, but we’ll continue to keep an eye on it just to be sure.”
Evan nods at her, although his expression is grim. She wipes off his abdomen and then squeezes his hand reassuringly.
“I promise, Mr. Buckley. I see these hematomas regularly. The size of yours is manageable and not something I want you to lose sleep over.” She looks over at Tommy a moment later. “Either of you.”
“S-so just one in there, right,” Tommy asks nervously once he has the envelope in his hands, trying to change subjects.
“Yes,” the technician answers confidently. “Based on all visuals, this is a single fetus pregnancy. There’s always the possibility that a twin could be missed this early, but I feel fairly confident in stating that there isn’t at this moment."
Tommy glances over at Evan and the younger man looks back at him, reflecting the same expression. Fairly confident?
The technician finishes making notes and turns toward them a moment later. “You should be all set. I have everything notated for Dr. Benton, and you can stop at reception to schedule out for a few weeks. Dr. Benton will be in touch if she’ll want to see you sooner.”
Evan nods, and then a few moments later, the technician exits the room. With Tommy’s help, he’s able to get off the exam table and back into the hospital-issued wheelchair, and the pilot pushes them out of the room, back to reception.
. . . . .
An hour later, Tommy has Evan settled into his bed back at his house, leg elevated and iced with supplies nearby. He’s still fussing around with the few things Evan has there, and the anxiety in the air is palpable between them.
“Still can’t believe all my clothes are gone,” Evan murmurs as he watches Tommy fold a pair of his sweats. They’d been left at the pilot’s house a few months back and he had just never bothered to take them back to the loft. Given the state of the loft now, he’s a little bit grateful about that fact.
“The insurance claim will come through quick enough,” Tommy states as he settles the pants into a drawer and shuts it. “And in the meantime, take use the LAFD emergency fund to stock up on essentials. I mean I’ve got food covered, but-..”
“You know you don’t have to keep me here,” Evan tells him, tilting his head. Tommy glances over at him, almost looking offended at the statement.
“Evan, I- where would-..” He walks over to the bed, stopping next to where Evan is propped up, his hand open almost as though he’s going to rest it on the younger man’s abdomen, but he doesn’t actually sit down. “There’s-..”
“I know,” Evan answers. “I have the tiny pilot, and-..”
“And that’s not the only reason you’re here,” Tommy answers, finally sinking down into the bit of space next to him.
Evan inhales a deep breath and nods, looking around at the space around him anxiously.
“But without the fire and the baby, we wouldn’t be here,” he states. “Without all that, we’re on two sides of town-..”
“Miserable,” Tommy comments. “Trying to convince myself that I made the right decision by walking away and choosing some false version of self-preservation when I was already-…” He huffs, shaking his head. It takes a moment, but he looks back up Evan. “I said I didn’t think I could survive you breaking my heart, but I din’t really take into account that it didn’t matter who did it. But at least if I did it to us, I could blame myself.”
Evan sighs, his expression forming into a frustrated frown.
“Believe me, if I’d known about…” He pauses again, looking down at Evan’s stomach, finally resting his hand over it, his expression softening.
“But I don’t want to be together because of a baby,” Evan tells him. Tommy looks back up at him just as quickly.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he responds. “But I can’t lie to you and tell you that they wouldn’t have made a difference. But even—ahem—without the tiny pilot…Kinda feels like eventually we were going to end up as spinning tops spiraling closer and closer.”
“Until we crashed,” Evan murmurs. He can’t deny Tommy’s words, given the way he’d reacted when he had found himself on his stairs the night of the fire. He hadn’t called Maddie, or Bobby, or even Eddie.
He’d called Tommy.
“So what do we do next then,” Evan asks him after moment.
Tommy forces a smile against his own better judgment. “Talk about shit, even when it’s hard? Give this kid the best chance we can? The first trimester is already almost over, and your sister was right. We’re going to wake up in a really short time to an actual tiny pilot out here in the world.”
Evan gulps, his eyes flooding at the mention of it. He can already see the baby in his mind. Ten little fingers and toes, curled up against his chest, snuggled into Tommy’s arms, clinging to both of their index finger as they sleep between the two of them. He doesn’t care about things like gender. He just knows that everything he’d been sold on working towards four and a half weeks ago feels just as tangible now as it did then, and he wants it.
He nods after a few seconds, blinking away the tears. “Okay.”
Tommy smiles empathetically at him, his thumb moving lightly back and forth over Evan’s abdomen. He’d swear he can feel the motion of quickening inside of body, but he knows better than that, even if they are only a few weeks away from that happening. That fact brings a fresh rush of tears, and he sucks down another deep breath, trying to reign himself in.
“Okay?” Tommy asks.
Evan nods, laughing at himself and waving Tommy forward. The pilot follows the motion, and hugs Evan, kissing his temple as he does. His embrace is comforting in a way that Evan hasn’t had long enough to totally forget about, and it soothes something inside of him. Still, they hold on for more than a few seconds, and when they finally part, it’s slow, their faces close enough that he can feel Tommy’s breath on his lips when they do.
His gaze drifts up, meeting the ocean blue of the pilot’s eyes, both of them questioning as they stare at one another, unmoving. Evan knows he’s on a countdown, somewhere between a panicked move away and moving toward one another, but he can’t find himself to stop it either way.
Tommy’s hand is on the back of his head then, and Evan sucks in a small breath, feels the nanoseconds in such tiny increments that he swears he feels the very moment their lips finally touch again, the way Tommy’s hand fists around curls as his own hands tangle in the cotton of the pilot’s black t-shirt.
The kiss itself isn’t rushed or overly heated, but instead calm and safe, like coming home, Tommy sighing into his mouth when he finally lets Evan’s tongue into his. He lowers the younger man back down onto the pillows as Evan keeps a hand on the back of Tommy’s head, not letting him go right away. Still, as one minute fades into two, Tommy starts to lean back, ultimately pulling back when Evan starts to breathe shallowly.
“You still need to let your lungs heal,” he states, unable to stop the small laugh that escapes him as Evan sucks down a deep breath. Evan swats a hand at his ribs, although he smiles back at the older man.
“Other things apparently have to heal too,” he responds. “Not that my body has gotten that message.”
Tommy snorts, but then leans down and kisses the corner of his mouth. As he leans away, a yawn escapes Evan, and Tommy gives him an adoring look.
“Rest,” he states. “Tiny pilot needs all your energy.”
Evan rolls his eyes. “You’re telling me.” Still, he smiles, resting a hand over his stomach. “You’ll stay?”
Tommy looks around the room.
“I have to talk to your sister about the supplies she was going to pick up for you, and get a few other things worked out around here. But when I’m done, yes.”
Evan nods then. He lets his eyes slide shut, letting out another small sigh when he feels Tommy’s lips on his forehead. As he drifts off, he feels Tommy’s hand resting over his, calm and protective of something that is just theirs.