#nockett

Parenting

Crockett turns the page for Harper, even though she likes to do it. She needs to keep her arm still for the IV, for the chemo, that’s made her just as sick as the cancer has. She’s too young for it all, he thinks, and too precious to be subjected to the agony of chemotherapy before she’s walked into an elementary school classroom. The little downy coating of hair on her head has vanished. Her cheeks don’t flush pink when she smiles anymore. She sleeps more than she doesn’t. There are bags under her eyes, contrasting her chubby cheeks, making the saddest picture of a child. More than anything, Crockett wishes he could make it better. 

He does what he can, though, and sits in the hospital bed with her in his lap, reading “Goodnight Sweet Butterflies” on a brisk winter day. Harper doesn’t like the winter much, and he’d be doing this even at home, but there is a special sadness in his own heart for the family they won’t get to see and the friends she won’t make. Other kids her age have at least a couple from daycare or the like. Harper has nurses, and she has Noah. 

Normally, Noah makes a point to come by when Harper has chemo, his presence soothing to her, but he’s busy having his own medical crisis this morning. His sats dropped too low again, meaning he’s back on a proper oxygen mask rather than the cannula and too exhausted and unoxygenated to come visit the pediatric oncology ward where Harper has spent so much time, the nurses have taped her drawings up around the room.

They’ll visit him when her chemo bag is empty, to cheer him up and help wash away his guilt for not being here, misplaced as it is. Noah isn’t Harper’s father. He’s just a friend Crockett made, the only one he has since coming to Chicago. Yet, he’s always here, dependable even when his lips tinge a little purple or he has a coughing fit behind his blue medical mask. 

Harper had asked for him when the nurse brought her chemo, citing the fact that it doesn’t ache as much when Noah is here. She calls him Noah in her small voice, but Crockett can nearly imagine a fatherly substitution. It’s silly, he thinks. He’s just lonely. He just misses having another person who loves Harper as much as him and can help him stay upright when the grief tugs him down. 

Falling in love again is hard, but going through it all alone is harder. Neither Noah nor Crockett were really looking for love at their lowest points, and yet somehow, it happened anyways.

Dr Noah Sexton..!!!❤️His character is funny and he has really grown up!!!!

Thriving well under the professional tutelage teaching of Dr Marcel.

Window

“Will you open the window?”

The nurse hesitates. She knows the rules in the ICU, and how important it is to keep him safe, but it’s warm spring afternoon and after a winter on the ward, Noah would do anything to breathe fresh, non-recycled air. He makes puppy dog eyes, begs and pleads- but it’s when he threatens to have Crockett come open it that she acquiesces and cracks his window enough to let in a soft, honeysuckle breeze from the gardens outside the hospital. 

“Five minutes,” she warns. 

“Five minutes.”

Noah has to enjoy the fresh air while he can, and shuts his eyes to imagine walking around on the grounds instead of sitting in his bed and taking short walks up the hall every couple days to keep his muscles from atrophying too badly. He imagines his bare feet on the warm sidewalk, and the sun beating down on his shoulders. The wind is cool and light, a perfect counterpoint to the heat. He bends down and smells the flowers, and picks a couple to bring back up to his room to liven it up like the bouquets Crockett replaces every week at his bedside after they enjoy a 24 hour quarantine at the nurse’s station. 

The window clicks shut again, and his fantasy draws to a close. He knows Crockett will come to visit soon, with fresh flowers and probably another stuffed animal. Maybe even Harper will be on his hip when he comes in. But for now, he’s been ripped back to the reality of his stuffy hospital room and the cannula fit to his face like it was made just for him.

It’s been a good day. The three of them are out in the park, taking in the fresh air and sunny day. Noah loves being outside, Crockett knows, because he spends so much time trapped away from it. His eyes light up like nothing else whenever they go to the park or walk for coffee, even on days he has to lean on his cane to walk, or even use the walker. Today is a good pain day, a good lung day, and so Noah is only on his own two feet while Crockett spreads a blanket on the ground for them to sit on while they have lunch. 

“Sweetheart,” he calls to Harper, who’s already managed to climb the jungle gym, “it’s time for lunch.”

She comes running over in the way excitable little children do, happier and stronger since finishing chemo. She’s never been healthier. With both her and Noah in remission, Crockett finally feels like he can breathe. He unpacks sandwiches and chips and fruit, spreading everything out on little paper plates while Noah wipes down Harper’s hands with a wet one so she doesn’t get germs from the playground on her food. It’s a domestic, beautiful sight. 

“It’s a nice day out,” Noah says. He’s rubbing his chest, a telltale sign that he’s not feeling well. Crockett’s smile fades slightly. “Thanks for packing lunch babe.”

“Of course. You feeling alright?”

Noah shrugs. “Hurts a little, but nothing serious.”

It takes everything Crockett has not to immediately go overboard. “It shouldn’t hurt to breathe, Noah.”

He digs into his backpack to produce Noah’s inhaler, which he takes two puffs of before handing it back. 

Trees

Harper and Noah are both bundled up- Noah because he can’t keep his body temperature up very well, and Harper because she’s small- in contrast to Crockett’s blue coat with his hands in his pockets. It’s getting chilly in Chicago, the first snow of the season threatening at the sky any day now, and of course they have to pick out a tree for their first Christmas as a family. 

Noah is having a good day, one of the reasons they were able to come out. He has his cane with him, just for extra stability, but his other arm is around Harper’s small body. She prefers it when Noah carries her. 

(“Papa,” she has begun to call him in earnest, making grabby hands for Noah to hold her while he smiles and says “Just a minute, let me move my tank, baby.” Harper is his baby as much as she’s Crockett’s little girl. It feels like they were meant to be a family.)

“Big,” Harper suggests, pointing at a nine foot noble fir that’s both too large for their low ceilings and too expensive coming off of a hospital visit for Noah. “Daddy, big!”

“Too big,” he says gently, and places a hand on the small of Noah’s back while they walk toward an area with trees a little closer to their preferred size. There’s a slight strain appearing in Noah’s muscles from trying to walk and carry Harper when he’s still weak, so Crockett wordlessly pulls their toddler onto his hip instead. Harper pouts, but she’s long since realized that sometimes Noah can’t hold her but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her. “How about some of these, Princess? They up to muster for you?”

She points at a tree and Crockett comes closer, inspecting the branches for any bugs or signs of rot. It seems to pass his standards, and Noah is smiling at him with this indecipherable softness, so really it just matters if Harper thinks this is the one. Her speech is still short, clipped words that don’t really string together. She’s still so young. But she seems older every day. 

It hits Crockett, out of the blue, that he never thought she’d be well enough to come pick out a tree and make a face at being told no. He spent a long time grieving for his living daughter in anticipation of the unimaginable. Despite it all, however, she’s alive and in remission, grabbing onto the tree’s needles and turning puppy dog eyes on Crockett and Noah. He sets Harper down- mindful of her slight unsteadiness on her feet, and waits for Noah to take her little hand before he picks up their chosen tree to bring to the front. 

“I know,” he hears Noah stage-whisper to Harper, “he’s like the strongest man in the universe.”

Harper giggles. 

Crockett’s heart is full. 

“They’re better fresh,” Crockett had said.

Noah didn’t think they had the time, and he’s not anywhere near as much of a chef as Crockett is, but he allows himself to be dragged to the orchard outside the city, crisp with fall air and just chilly enough to warrant a warm sweater. He keeps the sleeves over his hands protectively. Crockett carries a little woven basket as they walk among the trees, carefully selecting each apple before plucking it off the tree. 

“You have to get good ones,” he explains. “No soft apples, Noah.”

“No soft apples,” Noah repeats, and picks one out with a shiny red skin and a classic round-ish shape. He gets a nod of approval before putting it into the basket. This is kind of peaceful. On this day, there aren’t any families with small children running around; mostly other couples, of varying ages, walk among the rows and taking what they like. He feels meditative in it. It’s a beautiful moment. 

They fill the basket to the brim over the course of the morning, Crockett explaining all the things he’s going to make. Tarts and pies and cider and this and that, things that Noah knows will be a million times more delicious made by Crockett’s warm hands than by any machine that prepares things for the store. 

“I was also going to make one of those bread things that’s really more like pound cake, with a nice cinnamon glaze-”