Chapter Text
Jake’s just finishing up in surgery when his life changes. He’s flying the high of successfully fixing a hole-in-the-heart, a fairly routine procedure, but performing it on a three-day old baby is still a high adrenaline moment. He’s whooping with the rush, giving the other surgeon a high five when he catches the sight of the head of surgery standing on the other side of the door, expression grim. That’s never good news and he immediately loses all sense of celebration of a surgery well done.
“Simpson? What is it?”
“Jake,” his tone is serious, no nonsense. But it always is. “There’s been an accident.”
His first thought are his kids, his blood going cold instantly but then he realizes it’s still during school hours, they’re probably fine, but –
“What? Just tell me.”
“Samantha. She’s… she came into the ED.”
“Okay. What’s the prognosis?” Jake asks, stripping off his gloves matter-of-factly, already thinking of arranging care, alternate childcare arrangements, maybe moving in if that’s needed, although Neil will probably want to help –
“She’s dead Jake.”
Simpson calls him an Uber, something he’s grateful for when he realizes he probably shouldn’t be driving until he’s no longer in shock. His first thought is their kids.
His kids.
Only his kids now.
He has to tell them and he has no idea how to even start with that. It feels horrible and cruel to rip their lives up but he can’t not tell them either. He can’t decide whether to leave them in school until the end of the day or pull them out early. There are so many decisions that need to be made. He rings Neil. That is the other person who needs to know immediately, someone who will feel this loss as sharply and as deeply as Jake. Someone he can grieve alongside. Neil who is ever practical and will likely want to take on some of the organizing. Then he rings his parents to let them know.
Neil makes the decision for him that Jake leave the kids in school and pick them up and bring them home. Then there are more logistics and then there are logistics. Some he doesn’t care about, can leave them to others to deal with. There are things though that he prioritizes, and nearly all of those thoughts involve the kids in some way. He doesn’t want to disrupt the kids more, already plans to move into the house so that they have their bedrooms here, where they’ve always spent most of their time, Jake only officially having weekends, and even then, he had hated keeping them away from Sam.
Caroline’s middle school is across the road from the elementary school where both Nicholas and Ella go. He watches from his vantage point, parked down the road and leaning against his car. She’s being the good older sister, waiting outside to collect her younger siblings before heading to Jake. To where Sam would usually be waiting to pick them up. They see him though, and they run to him, smiles bright and his heart breaks because this is the last time they’ll run to him with carefree smiles, believing that their lives are whole and complete.
He swings Ella into his arms and plants a kiss on her cheek, reaches to pull Nicholas in for a quick hug before he squirms away and gives Caroline a little longer one before she’s grinning up at him, and he knows what she’s going to ask before the words are out of her mouth.
“Can I sit in the front?”
“No. Not… not today.”
“Can we get ice cream?”
He supposes he should be grateful that none of them were in the car, that none of them died, or experienced a traumatic crash that killed their mother… fuck he’s feeling morbid.
“Why are you picking us up? Where’s mom?”
He avoids the question by ushering them into the car and talking about maybe getting pizza for dinner. He wants them home, on the sofa, where he can gather them into his arms and hold them while they cry, because it’s going to be awful. This day is forever going to be etched in their minds and hearts and part of him is furious that he has to do this to them, and that he has to do it alone. He knows his anger is futile, that wherever she is Sam is equally furious about not being there and that has him choking back a sound that is half-laugh, half-sob.
“Let’s just get you home okay?”
Caroline is looking at him with narrowed eyes as she slides into the back, helping with Ella’s car seat without being asked and his phone hasn’t stopped vibrating. He hasn’t looked, his attention has been on the school gates and getting his kids. He will have to ring the schools and let them know. School only has four weeks before it finishes for the summer anyway, has no idea if the routine would help or if they’re all going to be messes. His guess is on the latter. He double checks all their seatbelts and again Caroline gives him a funny look like he’s acting oddly. He knows he is.
Neil is waiting at the house, and now Caroline is frowning, she’s always been smart and Jake ushers them inside; Neil has laid out their usual snacks and drinks, because he’s part of their family and Jake doesn’t miss the fact that he gets the same level of hugs from Ella and Caroline, but only a fist bump from Nicholas. He and Neil share what would have been an amused look yesterday but today is edged with melancholy. Sam was the only one that Nicholas would curl up with and accept unlimited hugs from.
“I, uh, need you guys to come and sit on the sofa. I need to tell you something…”
They trail into the living room and Jake wonders if suggesting Ella get her snuggly would be too much. He perches on the coffee table, facing them and close, hands clutched between his knees and he notices that his knuckles are white. He’d thought it was bad when they’d told them he and Sam were separating, this is infinitely worse.
“There was an accident. A car accident.”
Three pairs of eyes stare at him and Caroline’s bottom lip is already quivering. He swallows against the tightness in his throat, grinds his teeth against the threatening tears.
“Mom was in an accident,” Caroline deduces, and Jake is helpless, nods, a solitary tear spilling over he doesn’t bother wiping away.
“Oh. Is she okay?” Nicholas asks, small frown appearing between his brows so much like Jake when he’s worried.
“Can we go visit her in hospital daddy?”
“No sweetheart… we can’t. She’s dead.”
So many people, so many let me know if there’s anything I can do. He doesn’t even know where to begin with that. Others turn up with food and throughout it Neil is there. Jake is the ex-husband, and Neil is the… bereaved partner. Out of everyone Jake thinks Neil might understand best what Jake is feeling. He’s been dating Sam for over a year, closer to two. Had been introduced to the kids eighteen months ago. And now she’s gone from his life as well. The two of them stand out in the back garden, nursing cold beers, the kids all asleep in one bed that Jake has been sharing with them.
“I was going to propose this summer…” Neil says, voice tight and words quiet.
“She would have said yes,” Jake replies, just as quiet. He doesn’t even know if that knowledge makes it better or worse, certain in his answer either way. She’d said she loved Neil and Jake had always trusted her emotions even when he felt he couldn’t trust his own.
Forty-eight hours in, and he’s still counting it in hours, Javy and Natasha turn up. They stay at his apartment while Jake spends his mostly sleepless nights in the guest room with his kids sprawled over and around him, sometimes starting in their own rooms but so far always ending up in his bed before morning. He can’t bring himself to even consider sleeping in Samantha’s bedroom, not that it’s a choice with Neil in there. Jake pretends not to hear him crying.
He grits his teeth and forces himself to try and be normal, to get through the days while he holds his kids as they cry. He does let himself cry, just a couple of times, even though it still feels like he shouldn’t be doing it in front of them. That he’s meant to be strong for them, because he’s all they have now. Samantha’s mother tries to turn up, pretend like Samantha would want her there and he’s never been gladder of Neil’s presence, or the fact that Samantha had had the foresight to have a trespassing notice made out against her own mother so she couldn’t ever interfere with their kids.
He’s definitely bitter over the fact that her narcissistic piece of shit mother is still alive when she’s not. He doesn’t remember the funeral, gets through it in a haze, knows he accepts condolence after condolence and they all start to sound empty after a while. They’d been divorced for four years and had become best friends; after the initial two years of being barely civil, both nursing their hurts and failures. So, he doesn’t feel like he’s cheating with his grief, but he doesn’t give himself the time to really feel. Can’t afford to. His kids have lost their mom. To the outside world all he’s lost is his ex-wife, and some thoughtless dickheads have made jokes about how they wish their ex-wife would die and Jake wants to scream at them.
It’s not fair.
None of it is fair.
He takes a leave of absence from work. He wouldn’t be able to focus anyway, and the kids aren’t going to school. The house feels empty without Sam in it, her laughter and her yelling at the kids to tidy up. After two weeks, three, he suggests that maybe they try and go back to school, just for the last week. See their friends. None of them make it through the day and he stops trying after that. Javy and Natasha are long gone, and he doesn’t blame them, but he wishes they could have stayed. He’s… coping. Mostly. At least he’s making the motions. Feeding everyone. Getting the washing done. Neil is there, popping in at least once a day and Jake just starts making food for him.
His mom comes back. Tells him she’s happy to stay as long as he needs, and he loves her, he does, but he can still feel her judgement itching in the back of his head. The fact he got divorced. The fact he got married to someone who wasn’t Catholic. And now the fact that he won’t even consider moving back home where he’d have his family to support him. He knows all about that kind of support though, can’t go back to it and definitely doesn’t want his kids growing up with the passive-aggressive comments they won’t even realize are harsh judgements until much later and they’re in therapy.
Fuck.
Therapy.
He should probably get them all in therapy.
He mentions it to Javy on the phone that night, isn’t surprised when his friend immediately turns it on him, asks him if he’s considered getting therapy himself and he lets out a long breath.
“You think… you think I need therapy?”
“I think that you’re facing some massive fucking changes in your life. You’ve been divorced, but you’ve still lost a best friend. You’ve lost your co-parent. Your life as you knew it doesn’t exist anymore man. You have to know you’re allowed to grieve that too…”
“Fuck off. When did you get so smart?”
“When you got dumb…” Javy says, and Jake can imagine him being there, reaching over and flicking him in the middle of his forehead or punching him in the arm if they were sitting side by side.
“I miss you man.”
“Yeah yeah. I know I’m the greatest.”
“You are. Thanks. For everything.”
“Of course. Anytime. I mean it though. Therapy. You should look into it.”
He does look into it. But not for himself. Not yet. His kids are his priority and it’s an argument that is infallible when anyone tries to disagree with him. He can get his shit sorted out soon enough. He needs to ensure their needs are met first. Neil has been a fucking godsend, someone he trusts implicitly and who the kids are already used to having around and who Jake genuinely likes. Other people think it’s weird, but Jake had long ago moved past not wanting Sam to be happy and he’s so glad he doesn’t have that additional guilt hanging around his shoulders. There’s enough there to be dealing with, the failed marriage not the least of it and he’s accepted a lot of things in his life and this is just another thing.
Caroline is eleven, she stops being her usual chatty self. He tries to let her be, knows people all process grief differently, and also that she’s on the cusp of puberty, brain working overtime on making a whole lot of new connections and is now faced with the trauma of losing her mom as well. He feels like he’s walking on eggshells with her, terrified of saying the wrong thing, that he’ll make her more upset than she already is. Neil seems equally lost, which makes Jake feel less alone in facing the whole grieving pre-teen who was once his baby girl.
Nicholas is nine and completely obsessed with baseball. Jake is baffled, because he’s always been a football fan, but Sam had loved baseball so Jake will learn to at least enjoy the game for his son’s sake. Outwardly, he seems the least affected, but he also wonders if he’s trying to simply put on a brave face. He’s made an effort himself to let himself cry, doesn’t want Nicholas thinking like he did as a kid, that he wasn’t allowed to show any emotion other than ones his parents considered good ones. He’s had to spend years unpicking some of his more troubling tendencies, and the counselling and therapy he and Sam had sought out had definitely helped, even if it didn’t fix everything like he hoped it would.
“Why couldn’t you fix her daddy?”
The question is out of the blue, Ella sitting at the table doing coloring like it’s a normal Sunday afternoon and Jake’s heart breaks at the innocence of the question.
“I… I’m not that kind of doctor sweetheart. And you know, if I could have I would have done. I hate that we’re all feeling so sad. But we’re feeling sad about the same thing. We all miss her, so we can talk about her, and miss her together. Okay?”
Her expression says this is clearly not the answer she wanted to hear, but she’s nodding, frowning at her picture and then continuing to add color to the printed image. She’s six; a last-ditch attempt at trying to make things work and he hates, hates, that they still couldn’t make it, but also knows that they were so much happier once they’d made the decision to split. Had become better parents definitely. Ella doesn’t seem to even have memories of when him and Samantha were even together, probably the least affected by the separation at least. And now to have lost her mom. His heart aches for all of them.
None of them should have to be dealing with this level of loss at such a young age, it should be another thirty or forty years away. But he knows life doesn’t work like that. That life isn’t fair. Someone, he doesn’t remember who, had said that losing a parent was a natural part of life, the natural progression, and the pain of losing a child is infinitely worse. Jake remembers the flare of anger he’d felt at hearing the words, thinking at the time how callous they had sounded. He knows more than most how often kids get sick and need medical intervention, and even then the idea of one of his kids dying is horrifying. But his kids are too young to understand anything about natural fucking progression.
Ella starts having nightmares. He doesn’t blame her, not really. She’s the youngest and maybe understands the least about where her mom has gone. So, he lets her keep crawling into bed with him, her tiny body plastered over his chest and head tucked beneath his chin. The bigger bed in the guest room allows him the space to lie there with whichever of his kids decide to join him, although Caroline and Nicholas have started sleeping through again. Still, he often ends up with Ella and Nicholas both crawling into bed with him most nights. He’s still not sleeping great, the bags under his eyes are dark and heavy. Caroline becomes more aloof and he feels the distance between them like a yawning chasm.
Trying to find a routine again is a struggle, even after getting the kids into therapy, and continuing with extracurriculars, school is finished for the year so there is none of that routine to try and cling to. He thinks about the start of the new school year, realizes he doesn’t even know when it starts. He’s going to have to figure that out. Maybe he should just move away, move somewhere where they can all have a fresh start. Not have the ghost of Sam in the corner of every room, when he keeps expecting to see her walk through the door any minute.
He mentions it in passing one night, sitting with Neil in the backyard, nursing a beer. He didn’t ever think he’d become close friends with his ex’s new boyfriend, that they were friendly had previously been enough. Now their grief has solidified their friendship into something stronger and he’s grateful for it, glad that the kids will be happy if Neil is there to pick them up from day camps. No doubt people would think it weird that he considers his ex-wife’s boyfriend a good friend, an even better friend now, after the last six weeks of what Jake thinks of as his personal hell. Not because he’s hurting, even though he is, but because his kids are all hurting and he can’t make that stop.
“Are you serious?”
“What?”
“About moving away?”
“I… well. I sure as shit don’t want to move home. But my mom has a point. I can’t do the same job. Not with the hours I used to work. I need something that’s more of a nine-to-five type gig. I want to be there for them. Need to be there for them. They’ve suffered enough…”
Neil hums under his breath, takes a sip from his bottle and Jake knows better than to rush him. Knows he’s thinking about something.
“You don’t have to move away to get a new job…”
“No. But… I’m just thinking of the kids. When they go back to school everyone is going to know them as the kids whose mom died.”
Neil pulls a face, and Jake knows he gets what he means. Having everyone know your shit sucks as a kid, it has its pros and cons but Jake can only understand some of the positives with the wisdom and hindsight of age.
“I think I might know a place.”
“Are you serious?” Jake asks, sitting up a bit more to look at Neil properly.
“Yeah. And… I mean… the kids have been there before. It wouldn’t be completely foreign to them.”
“Oh…” Jake says, realization dawning. “Your hometown.”
“Yeah. I mean… I can’t think of why I would ever go back there. But I loved growing up there. It’s… it’s a town made for families. And my parents are…” Neil trails off and Jake snorts.
“You can say it. I’m well aware of my parents many and varied flaws. I bet Sam filled you in on them…”
“Ah, yeah. She was less than complimentary about them.”
“I bet she was,” Jake says with a snort.
It feels nice. Weird. To be talking about her like this, like she might walk in any second and add her two-pennies to the conversation.
“My parents loved having the kids stay with them last summer. Would mean no new faces or places for them…”
Jake hums, takes a sip of his drink to stall answering, although the idea definitely has merit. He remembers Nicholas talking about it, how there had been a baseball diamond, and a summer fair, Ella talking about a petting zoo, and Caroline, actually talking about the circus workshop she’d gotten to do, along with some of the others who took part in the gymnastics at the high school. There had been happy chatter in their regular phone calls while they’d been gone. However, it’s not an idea without merit, but he’s not sold on it. He’d still need a job, a place to live, for all of them to live. Then move everything and it’s… it’s a lot to think about.
He’s still not back at work full-time. Has managed maybe one or two days a week, when the book his calendar with critical surgeries they want his expertise for, even though Jake knows others could do the work. Neil works from the house, looks after the kids and Jake is fast realizing that being a single parent is going to be nigh impossible for him without some really good support. Or paid help.
Then, a few days later Gail and Andrew Vikander come to visit for Neil’s birthday. They’re staying at Neil’s place, but as Jake watches his kids run to them, Nicholas as well, he notices that the kids seem… happier for the first time in a long time. Lighter. He hadn’t realized that they had maybe developed a deeper relationship with Neil’s parents than they ever had with his. Definitely won’t ever with Sam’s, won’t be given the opportunity until they’re much older and wish to seek their maternal grandmother out; and even then, it will be against Jake’s advice.
Jake has protected them from his own parents, always invited his parents to come and stay in San Diego, put them up in a hotel so as to avoid their comments about toys on the floor, or housekeeping habits. Even when he and Sam had been married, he had tried to protect her from the same. They visited once, when Caroline wasn’t even six months old. His parents had both complained about her crying, and then how messy and smelly she was. Jake had felt every muscle and knot in his neck and shoulders develop new knots and become tenser with every passing minute in his parents’ house. So, they’ve not been back.
While he’s not met Gail and Andrew before, however they’re exactly how Jake imagines parents might be when they raise someone who seems as genuinely nice and normal as Neil seems to be. Neil would have made Sam so fucking happy. Knows he did, in the last two years, and he’ll have to find a way of telling him as much. Andrew is also a doctor, and he and Jake trade some awful work stories back and forth which have Neil and Gail laughing, despite the fact she’s probably heard them before.
They’re doing a cookout, Jake trying his best to provide some semblance of ordinary and also acting as a good host, seeing as Neil is still staying there more often than not. Andrew is on the grill, showing Nicholas how to flip burger patties while Neil is in the pool with Ella and Caroline. Leaving Jake in the kitchen with Gail, preparing salad and rolls, which she has made from scratch. It smells amazing and reminds him of home.
“You know, Andrew’s medical practice is for sale. If that’s something you’d be interested in.”
Jake blinks. He knows now where Neil gets his quiet unassuming nature from. However, it was really fucking sneaky and he wonders if Neil and his parents are in cahoots. Wonders if he even cares if they are. They all genuinely seem to care about him. Care about his kids. His kids need more people in their lives that love them.
“I was so happy when Neil met Sam. They were so happy together…”
“Yeah. He made her really happy.”
“She made him happy. And he always spoke very highly of you as well, told Andrew that you and him would get on… I’m glad to see he’s right on that matter, although I do wish it were better circumstances.”
Jake remembers now, vaguely, that they had been at the funeral, come and gone in a wave of mourners, so many blurred faces.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe talk to Andrew about it. Look at the books. Maybe come out for a visit…”
“Yeah,” Jake repeats, because he’s seriously thinking about it now. Wonders if it’s even the right decision, fairly certain he’s going to forever second guess every decision for a while. What might be right for one of his kids might be bad for another.
“I’d love to have your kids around. I already consider them mine, you know?”
Jake’s throat goes tight, because this is more support than he’s ever received from his own mother and he feels that loss immensely in the moment. He’s going to have to weigh it all up. He trusts Gail though, because she has nothing to lose or gain. She seems to genuinely care about his kids, and want what is best for them, and that that, the idea of family support without it actually being the overbearing nature of his own family that he ran from. A familiar place for the children but without the haunting memories of Sam in every corner. A place where they spent many happy weeks last summer. Maybe he can capture those days for them again.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good.”