Work Text:
Of course it’s the first time that Ted’s left in sole charge of Seraphina that she needs to go to A&E.
Trent doesn’t travel overnight all that often, but he’s in Berlin for two days at the same time as the Turners are in the States— Ted’s not asking where, even though he’s got a pretty good relationship with them these days. It’s not a big deal, two years in, and the first twenty-four hours pass calmly enough, bedtime and abbreviated Cuddle Time both interrupted by calls from Trent so he can participate virtually.
And then mid-afternoon Ted gets a call from school that Seraphina went and sliced herself open on some piece of playground equipment Ted hasn’t seen and doesn’t want to, and Ted needs to take her to A&E for stitches. He takes a peek at the damage when he gets to school, and it’s not the worst he’s ever seen, but stitches do seem in order.
There’s an almighty line at triage, but Ted keeps Seraphina entertained by telling her about the time Henry got stitches, age 1.5, banging his head on the fender of a (parked) tractor. At the front of the line finally a bored clerk asks, “Relationship to patient?” and Ted has to pause a sec—“He’s TEDDY,” Seraphina says disdainfully, but it sure gets him thinking.
”Uh— I’m her dad’s partner,” he manages after a second. ‘Partner’ seems more official than ‘boyfriend,’ which always makes Ted feel like he oughta be wearing gingham ruffles and waiting back home on the farm for Trent. Which he wouldn't really mind some days, honestly.
”We need a legal guardian to consent to treatment,” the clerk says, too bored to be more than faintly annoyed.
”Sure, sure. Uh— her dad’s out of town, but I can get him on the phone, does that work?” Ted’s pushing call as he talks. He did text Trent earlier, of course, and got back a single line of exclamation points several minutes later, but it would be just dandy if Trent’s managed to get himself out of his meeting by now…
He has. The phone rings only once before Trent answers, and Ted hits speaker and lets him cow the clerk into submission; the clerk remains bored.
***************
There’s a good long wait before a doctor actually sees Seraphina, while they convert Trent to video call and then back to speaker-only when even a glance at Seraphina’s arm makes him sit down quickly; Ted keeps both of them entertained with stories of Henry’s injuries through the years. Whatever they gave him to keep him quiet when he got stitched up that one time sure seemed like good stuff, and when the doctor finally appears Seraphina’s disappointed six-year-olds are deemed too mature for anything that fun.
Ted’s never been so grateful for his baseline logorrhea, which distracts Seraphina fairly effectively once the anesthetic gel kicks in. They do have to hang up on Trent, because Ted just doesn’t have that many hands, and the young doctor who comes in with a little tray of various intimidatingly small, sharp things watches Ted try to find a good spot to prop the phone while also having both hands free to hold Seraphina’s arm still, and suggests gently that they call Daddy back in half an hour.
“Right,” Trent says crisply. “I’m setting an alarm, Ted, not a minute late. Seraphina, do try not to succumb to tetanus before I see you again.”
“Daaaaaddy,” Seraphina says, rolling her eyes, and the young doctor bites her lips to hide a smile.
“We’re fine, sweetheart, talk to you soon,” Ted says, his attention too pulled apart to notice the public endearment he usually tries to avoid.
The doctor’s name is Dr. Shah; young she may be but clearly with some experience at this sort of thing, as she organizes the tray where Seraphina can’t see it, and gets Seraphina's arm braced nicely on a table, Ted’s hands firmly on her elbow and wrist below a blue drape. Seraphina jumps a little when she sees the needle on the syringe, more anesthetic, but Ted says, “Look at me, honey,” and she obeys bravely.
“Henry had this?” she asks, uncharacteristically subdued.
“Sure did. Now, his stitches were black, as I recall, and it looks like you’re going to have some fancy blue needlework, so you’ve got a leg up on Henry there. And he was so little he ain't got no memory of it at all, so you’ll have a story more than Henry, too.”
“How old was he?”
“Just one, honey, barely more than a tadpole.” They’ve been going through an amphibian phase lately.
“Who is Henry?” Dr. Shah murmurs, gloved hands holding a clamp of some sort with a needle that curves threateningly, for all it’s less than an inch long.
“My son,” Ted answers. Dr. Shah moves her hands toward Seraphina’s arm.
“And where was I?” Seraphina asks, holding Ted’s eyes desperately, her fingers cutting off his circulation under the drape.
“Well, you weren’t born yet.”
“So where was I?”
It’s been a while since Ted had to field these sorts of questions from Henry, but he remembers some of it. “You were in the twinkle of your daddy’s eye.” Dr. Shah snorts, still softly.
Seraphina frowns and changes tack. “Where were you?”
“In Kansas, with Henry.”
“And Aunt Michelle?”
“Yes, and Aunt Michelle. Henry’s mom,” he adds for Dr. Shah, who nods gravely and ties a knot.
“But where was I?”
“Honey, you weren’t born yet, you weren’t anywhere.” Usually Seraphina has a better self-concept than this, but it’s been a long day already, mid-afternoon.
“What do you know about where babies come from, Seraphina?” asks Dr. Shah, and Ted makes grateful eyes at her.
“You need a sperm and you need an egg, and you need a place for the baby to grow,” Seraphina parrots, right out of a brightly-colored book on her shelf at home.
“That’s right. That’s very good; not many six-year-olds know that,” says Dr. Shah. “So when Henry was getting his stitches, the sperm and egg that made you hadn’t come together yet. They were still in the bodies they came from.”
Seraphina frowns; this has been a harder concept for her. “But not Daddy’s body.”
“No, honey,” says Ted. “The sperm came from Grandma and Grandad’s son, and I’m honestly not too sure where the egg came from. We’ll have to ask your Daddy.”
She narrows her eyes at Ted. “You don’t have eggs.” Everyone in her acquaintance had been labeled when they read this book, egg- or sperm-producer. Trent may never recover, and Ted is torn between regret and unholy delight that it’s come up again.
“Sure don’t,” he says. “My sperm helped make Henry.”
“Why not me?”
“Because I didn’t know Daddy yet. Do you remember, I didn’t always live with you?”
She screws up her face some kind of way. Three-and-a-half would have been right on the cusp of forming that memory, but Henry remembers some things from younger, and it doesn’t come up much: Ted’s honestly not sure what Seraphina knows.
“No,” she says finally, firmly. “That’s silly, Teddy. You’re supposed to live with me and Daddy always.”
“I know,” Ted says, trying to get a head start on his prickling eyes. “And I ain’t going nowhere, angel. It just took me a while to find you.”
“Last one!” says Dr. Shah then, clipping threads and vanishing the tray under the drape. “Now Seraphina, you’re going to have to be very good and not pick at these while your skin is healing. I’ll give you a plaster today, and your dad and Teddy will help you keep it clean.”
Seraphina peers at the four neat bristles. “Do I get stitches for always?”
“No, they need to come out in seven to ten days,” says Dr. Shah to Ted, who does some quick mental math.
“We’re going down to her grandma’s in Bristol right in there, and she’s a doctor. Y’all mind if I ask her could she take them out?”
“Not at all,” says Dr. Shah. “I can give you a kit if she says yes, or your GP can easily handle it as well. I’ll just go get the discharge papers ready."
When Ted calls, Sarah agrees, but disdains the idea of a kit— “Don’t bother, dear, I can sanitize the nail scissors.” Ted accepts a kit anyway, and they’re out of A&E a heck of a lot faster than they were in. “Ice cream?” Seraphina asks Ted hopefully.
“You betcha, honey bunches of oats,” Ted says, and his phone rings with Trent’s call back.
***************
Seraphina falls asleep on the couch that night as Ted’s cleaning up. He comes in and sees her, and can’t even move for a moment, just frozen by her perfection, the summer freckles sprinkling her nose, how much he loves her, how lucky he is to have found her and Trent: a family again. He sends a quick picture to Trent before gathering her up in his arms.
“Relationship to patient?” rings in his ears over and over again as he’s falling asleep, leading him down certain paths he and Trent have only sort of walked down before. This is the area of disaster planning that’s really Trent’s area more than Ted’s— but also part of responsible parenting, so Ted figured that gets Trent coming and going, and it’s not even cowardly to lob that ball right into his court, just good communication.
So the next night, after Trent is home again and has duly admired Seraphina’s stitches and been thoroughly hugged from all sides, Ted brings it up. “What happens to Seraphina if something happens to you?” he asks Trent. Seraphina's all tucked in and the two of them are puttering about the bathroom. “The Turners?”
Trent nods, and spits. “Though it’s been a few years since I put the paperwork in place. We ought to consider updating it— I’m sure she’d find a way for her living self to haunt my ghost if she were never allowed to see Henry again.”
“Might be easier,” Ted says, and stalls just for a second. “Might be easier to explain it all to the lawyers if we were married.”
The corner of Trent’s mouth turns up just a little, as he regards Ted. Trent's hair is bent, he's got holes in his t-shirt, and there's a dollop of some sort of face cream waiting to be rubbed in to one cheek. He's as beautiful as anyone Ted has ever seen; Ted's frozen again. “I imagine it would be,” Trent says.
“I know,” Ted says steadily, “we haven’t been in any rush, and I can’t say I mind for our sake. But for the kids— “
Trent is rubbing whatever-it-is into his face, his eyes never leaving Ted’s. “All right, then.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Trent says softly, stepping into Ted’s space, fingers gentle on his jaw. “Yeah.”
Rule Number Four still remains in effect, but they put a few more dents in it before they can sleep.