something something Theo having a great childhood where he wants for nothing and always has adults around him who adore him, from his toddler years with Connor and Kameron to his time with Buck before adoption, and then eventually both Evan and Tommy, who he starts calling dad and papa around age five. and life is awesome. his parents keep a rigorous schedule for him to manage his hyperactivity, allow him to pursue all interests and get help where he needs it. There’s really nothing to complain about.
and then one day when he’s 11, he comes home from a day of sixth grade, whips his backpack on the couch and refuses to talk to his dads. for days.
they try everything. Evan offers his favorite snacks. Tommy offers to take him up in the helicopter. they cancel prior engagements and spend the weekend in, try to pull Theo into game night with them. he barely engages.
it’s a Tuesday when Tommy sees the note on the calendar. send flowers. his stomach sinks.
He takes Theo out to the hangar with him and they go up in the chopper. Tommy flies them up into the mountains, close enough that they can get home quickly, but far enough out that they can really talk without any pressure. Theo kicks rocks while Tommy stares at the sunset.
“I never knew them. Your parents.”
Theo doesn’t talk, but the anger about him ebbs off like steam. He stares at the dirt beneath their shoes as though its personally affronted him. Tommy stares at the horizon, adjusting his sunglasses on his forehead.
“I wish I would have. Evan makes them sound like great people.”
Theo throws a rock over the side of the cliff they’re near. The chasm is wide and deep below, and the small rock barely makes any noise as it drifts hundreds of feet below them.
He wants to find the right way to connect—to fill whatever hole his son clearly feels inside—but nothing that comes to mind feels right. He didn’t know Connor or Kameron. Talking about his own dead mom doesn’t feel right, either.
“There’s this story I heard once. This guy, driving all over civilization, taking on odd job after odd job, trying to find the answers to his own life without actually facing that life. It’s like…trying to remember a place you’ve never been.”
Theo doesn’t talk. Eventually, he goes back to the helicopter, puts his helmet on and buckles in.
Tommy stares at the sunset a few minutes longer before standing. He holds a pebble in his hand for a moment. Bounces it.
Throws it out into the chasm.
He finally speaks as Tommy’s pulling on his seatbelt. Tommy glances over at Theo slowly, terrified his going to spook the child. Those teenage hormones have been coming on more and more in recent months, and it’s nothing to spook the kid back into silence.
Theo sniffs, kicks his bag on the floor.
“Declan was talking about this foster sibling he had when he was a little kid during soccer warmups. It made me think about life with Bu-…with dad. Before the adoption. A-and I realized, I can’t remember them.”
When Theo looks up at Tommy, it’s like having his heart pulled from his chest and shredded in a blender right before his own eyes. Because it’s Evan, but it’s a child, and it’s his son, all at once. The tears shining in those eyes staring up at him feel like individual slices into his sternum.
“I-I know we have videos, and pictures, and all that. But I don’t have memories of them. I can’t remember a-a daycare drop off, or, or being tucked in at night, or what- what my mom smelled like. What my dad liked to listen to….” Theo trails off, and Tommy nods. He gets it. He wasn’t much older when his mom died, and he’s struggled with those same feelings. It’s one of those things that never really stops hurting. You just learn to live around the hurt and try and fill possibilities into those unknowns.
“I know that you know my mom died when I was a little older than you when your mom and dad did. And…it’s hard. There are no perfect answers,” Tommy tells him. “In a perfect world, you never would have lost them.”
He pauses for a moment as he hands Theo a tissue and watches him wipe his face. Theo passes it back to him, crumpled and used, like he didn’t just absolutely blow his nose into it. Tommy stuffs it into his pocket.
“Sometimes you have to decide on those things yourself. Other times you recover a memory. I don’t remember what my mom’s hair smelled like, but I know she was always baking pies, and at some point I decided that meant she always smelled like apples and cinnamon. And there,” he laughs, shaking his head at himself. “There was this song I heard when I was fifteen. It was from deep in the hippie movement, very much what I think an acid trip probably sounds like. And… I can’t prove it. But I decided that my mom would’ve loved that time in her life, in the sixties. But she would’ve agreed that that song was horrendous.”
Theo isn’t exactly smiling, but something that doesn’t look like complete misery has replaced his expression. He sniffs again, leaning into his seat and crossing his arms like he’s trying to disappear into it.
“I don’t want dad to think I don’t love him,” he murmurs.
“Oh man, Theo. Your dad would never think that you wanting to have pieces of your parents means you don’t love him. Life is complicated, and it’s hard. It’s even harder when death and grief get involved.”
Theo curves his mouth at an angle, like he’s not entirely sure.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Theo glances back up at Tommy.
“Sometimes I feel selfish,” he admits. “Because the world where your parents get to live isn’t the one where I get to-…” He pauses, huffs a breath out of his nose, struggling against the obvious gravel in his tone. “To be your dad.”
Theo scowls, if only to hide the teenage angst under the surface.
“C’mon Pops,” he grumbles. Tommy can’t help the chuckle that slips out. Rarely does Theo say Papa lately, shortening it to Pops as though Papa is too childlike and sentimental to let on in front of his peers. Tommy didn’t love it at first, but then Evan had reminded him that he used to call Bobby that. And damn, if Bobby could see them all now…
He starts the wings up on top of the chopper, checking over his dash as he mentally goes through the preflight checklist. Beside him, Theo is on his phone. The storm troopers theme plays from it—a notification sound set for him and Evan only.
“Tell your dad we’ll be home within the hour,” he says.
