Hedging Bets – Chapter One – Emersli1

Reading Time:
8 Minutes

The car was quiet as it moved quickly down the empty road.

The driver shot a glance at his passenger and swallowed hard.  “I’m sorry.  I never imagined he was really serious.”

No response.

He ventured again, “At least it was just a weekend.  That wasn’t too long … it wasn’t too bad.”

Still no response.

The man sighed.  “I swear I won’t do it again, but I didn’t have a choice.”

The passenger’s unblinking eyes stared out at the passing night.

One tear slipped slowly down a pale cheek.

The man reached over and patted a still leg.

“We’ll just put this behind us.”

The car sped on into the night.

Evan Buckley and Eddie Diaz stood on the pavement outside the small county hospital in Yreka, California.  Their three-day-old daughter (best guess) lay placidly in the top-of-the-line carseat her Uncle Tony had gotten for her.  Evan held the carseat with its precious cargo and Eddie held everything else, which wasn’t much … just some sample diapers and formula, two spare white onesies and the discharge paperwork for both Mireya and Evan, along with a bag holding everything the guys had brought out of the burned out house.

“Eddie, this can’t be right.  They just let us … leave with her.  They barely gave us instructions.  We don’t even have an operator’s manual.  What do we do if she …”

“Breaks down?  Malfunctions?  If the check engine light comes on?  Querido, she’s a baby … not a truck.  She’s going to cry and get sick and definitely puke on both of us.  She’s going to fall down and scrape her knees, lose her baby teeth, and get tangles in her hair.  One day she’s going to stomp her foot and announce that she’s running away from home.  She’s going to get her heart broken, and she might even bring home an ‘F’ in Algebra.”

Buck had gotten paler and paler as Eddie went on.

“And we are going to hold her, sing to her, and pace the floor while she cries.  We’re going to stay awake all night when she’s sick and take turns in the shower when she manages to get us both at the same time.  We’re going to dry her tears, put dollars under her pillow, and you’re definitely going to do a deep dive into detangler at some point.  We’ll listen to her woes and get her an Algebra tutor.  And one day we’ll have to give her away to some jerk who doesn’t deserve her.”

Buck looked about half a minute from fainting on the spot.

Eddie finished up as Tony smoothly pulled up to the curb in front of them.  “Babies don’t come with an instruction manual, sweetheart.  You just love them, listen to them, and do your best.  Even when you’re tired.  Even when you’re scared.  Even when you feel like the most clueless person on the planet.  You just do your best.  And somehow, they love you anyway.”

Tony hopped out of the car he’d rented this morning and opened the back door.  “OK you two, carseat goes in the back.  You go wherever you can fit.  Sorry I couldn’t get a bigger ride, but this is what they had.”

Eddie immediately dropped everything onto the sidewalk and climbed in to inspect the carseat base, making sure Tony had installed it properly.  After ensuring that everything was as it should be, he turned back to the two men still standing on the pavement, watching him with looks of fondness and exasperation.  Fondness from Buck and exasperation from Tony.

Flushing just a little he climbed back out and let Buck move in to settle the carseat.  

“Do you have any idea how many carseat events I’ve worked?  I had my first one in Peoria, and I’ve done them almost yearly ever since.”  DiNozzo looked at the man standing sheepishly beside him.  “For that, you get to be up with me for the first leg, you … job-ist.”

Eddie meekly moved around the car and into the front passenger seat while Buck happily got settled in the back.  Tony climbed back behind the wheel and turned to look at his passengers.  

“Everybody buckled up?  Anybody need the bathroom?  No?  Ok, let’s go.”  Looking over at Eddie practically turned backwards in his seat … “Diaz, do not make me have to stop this car.  Turn around and sit in your seat like an adult.  You and Evan can swap in an hour.”

Pulling out into the mild traffic in front of the hospital Tony headed for the highway.

They were going home.

The little house on Bedford Street was clearly The Place to Be.

People had been coming and going at all hours of the day and night for the past two days.  Buck and Eddie had hedged their bets, having the IB Starter Pack delivered to Buck’s duplex in Yreka while the extended family had pitched in to make the little house in LA as ready as possible.

The men were making the trip slowly, giving Mira long breaks from her carseat.  The ten-hour trip was being split over three days with no more than an hour and half in each stage, morning and afternoon … and someone was always in the back with her to monitor her breathing.

So in the meantime …

Isabel Diaz took charge of the kitchen, graciously allowing Bobby to pitch in when he wasn’t building furniture or helping unload something.  Paco and Luis painted the tiny third bedroom in a soft seafoam green while Tias Martina and Pilar painted a mural of playful forest animals in a tree-shaded glen on one wall.

Gifts began to be deposited in one corner of the living room while Michael Grant reassembled the armoire/changing table that he had built for his daughter.  Said daughter ran load after load of laundry without complaint, folding tiny rompers and onesies with a careful hand.  This would be the first girl in the family, and May was thrilled.

Out on the small patio Athena carefully cleaned the donated bassinet while supervising Hector and Noah who were assembling the new crib she and Bobby had ordered.  Noah’s daughter Beth was helping Christopher Diaz and Harry Grant make the “most AMAZING Welcome Home banner” ever, while Carla and Pepa directed operations and kept things moving.

Other friends and family had been dropping by with things for days, and Bobby had made regular trips to the fire station as gifts came in from fellow first responders. 

Mireya Rose may have been completely unexpected, but she would never have to doubt that she was wanted.

That night, once the busy little house had fallen quiet, Bobby crept in to check on Christopher.

The little boy had been so excited, so eager to have everything perfect to welcome his baby sister, that he’d overdone it and Bobby was afraid he might be having trouble sleeping as a result.

Sure enough, Chris was still awake.

“Hey buddy, are you having trouble getting your mind to settle down or do you need some of your stronger pain medicine?”  Bobby asked softly as he turned on the bedside lamp.

The little boy looked sad.  “I DON’T want any of my big pain medicine.  Tylenol is fine.”

“Whoa … hey.  Talk to me, buddy.  It’s fine if you need something a little stronger to help you sleep.  The doctor said that might happen, and I know you’ve been working really hard these past couple of days when you’re supposed to be resting.”  Bobby didn’t know where this antipathy towards his meds was coming from.  

Chris thought for a moment, then shook his head.  “I think it’s somebody else’s secret, so I probably shouldn’t tell you.  But I don’t want to NEED it, you know?”

Bobby felt a lump rising into his throat.  “I do know Chris.  And I’m very proud of you for not telling someone else’s secret.  But I swear to you, I will not let you come to NEED your medicine that way.  And I promise you, one dose while you’re healing from surgery … after a day like today where you had to move a lot … isn’t going to make you NEED it.  But if you don’t want it, I’ll respect that choice.”

The man waited patiently as the little boy wrestled with his decision.

“Maybe you could just sit with me for a while Grampa Bobby?  Maybe read me another chapter of my book?  It might help me fall asleep, and I wouldn’t need the pills.”  Christopher looked up hopefully.

Chuckling a little Bobby sat down carefully on the edge of the bed with his back to the wall and reached for the book on the nightstand.  “I think I could do that.”

Watching from the darkened hallway, Athena smiled gently at the picture the man and boy on the bed made.  Then she moved quietly back down the hall to the bedroom.  She had had today off, but had an early shift tomorrow, though she’d told Elaine she’d need the afternoon off to welcome her granddaughter home.

Elaine had just congratulated her at the time, but a gaily wrapped gift bag had appeared at the house today, and somehow the afternoon she’d requested had turned into three days of paid administrative leave.  

Yeah, Elaine was good people.

Lady Magick relaxed, just a bit.

She had been caught by surprise, she admitted.  But it looked as though Mireya Rose would be safe and well-loved.  

She had lost too many of her children.  Lost to stupidity, pride, or ignorance.  Lost to the greed and insecurity within themselves or within their kin.

Lost to the twisted manipulation and deliberate cruelty of others.

After Kouro, after Chernobog, after Kante and Jadis, after Morgoth and Sauron, after Alexander and Attila and Charles and Tamerlane and Adolf.  After Gellert Grindelwald and Thomas Riddle.

After all of them, she had said, “No more.”

Well, actually, she hadn’t been that polite about it.

And Fate hadn’t appreciated it in the slightest, though it was hardly the first time they’d been thoroughly cursed out.

They had struck a deal.

She couldn’t save everyone.

Children still suffered.  Children still died.  Children still grew up neglected and unloved.

But sometimes … sometimes she could give the Universe just a little push.  And slowly but surely those pushes were adding up.

And for Mireya Rose, the daughter of two frightened kids who had given up everything for the chance to hang on to each other … a little push was all it had taken.

Lady Magick smiled.