December 10

Bobby wakes up next to Athena. She's snuggled up close to him, her head on his arm, her lips parted so he can feel her soft breathing against his chest. He smiles at the sight of her. In their bed like this she looks exactly how tiny she really is, only 5'4'', and not how big she seems when she's in her uniform with her hands on her hips because someone's annoyed her. He gives her a few more minutes of sleep, and then just before their alarm rings, he reaches over and turns it off. He wakes her with a kiss to her forehead and squeeze of her shoulder. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead," he whispers, and laughs when she grumbles at him.

In their bathroom Athena showers first while he brushes his teeth, washes his face, and shaves. Her showers tend to run a little long, and she likes them very hot, so he leaves the door open to let out the steam. She sings in the shower, wrong words to different songs she mashes up together. She somehow manages to slip from Natalie Cole to Carly Rae Jepson without missing a beat. She interrupts herself to ask him questions about what he has planned for the day and when she can expect to see him that night, and Bobby asks her if she wants him to pick anything up before he gets home. After she gets out and wraps herself in her huge terrycloth towel, Bobby sneaks in a sweet kiss. She swats him and says sternly "I'm still all wet!"

"Just how I like you," he says, and darts into the shower before she can hit him again.

Athena wakes May and Harry while he's in the shower, and when they're both back in their room he pauses his own morning routine to watch her. She puts lotion all over, using different ones for her body and face. Then she sits in from of her vanity, legs crossed and towel still high on her head, and leans in to apply her makeup. He knows he has a big, dopey smile on his face, but he can't help it. She's so lovable and so pretty. She's got her mouth open and her eyes wide to apply her mascara and she doesn't look silly at all. She catches him looking in the mirror and rolls her eyes at him. "You're gonna be late," she says.

"You always say that."

"You always stare!"

"That's cause I want to make you late."

It makes her laugh, which is exactly what he wanted, and her laugh, the fact that he can put a look of joy on her face, makes him buoyant. When she stands he takes her gently by the waist and gives her a kiss. "Mmm," she says when she pulls back. "Sorry, Captain, not this morning." She gives him a quick, firm peck on the lips and then turns away to finish dressing.

Downstairs Bobby gets Harry's lunch ready. He tries not to make anything too fancy because he doesn't want the other kids to tease him, so he just packs a pastrami sandwich, carrot sticks cut like lightning bolts with ranch dressing, juice, and a cookie. He checks with May to make sure she has enough money to buy lunch and that she's printed out her essay for AP English and packed her running shoes for her track practice that afternoon. For breakfast he makes something easy and quick—toast with jam and butter, with orange juice for May, milk for Harry, and coffee for him and Athena. She likes hers very sweet, with just a little bit of cream.

Athena comes down with only minute before the kids' buses come to pick them up, and then they're all spilling out of their front door, grabbing keys and pulling on backpacks and hats and stuffing the last bit of toast in their mouths, but Athena still cries out "Hey!" when the kids start running for their buses without kissing her goodbye first. Harry and May both rush back to her to smack their lips against her cheek, and before Bobby even knows what's happening, they do the same to him. May gets up on her tiptoes to give him one, and Harry grabs him by the arm to yank him down and give him his. Then they're off again, and Athena turns to him.

Bobby's a little bewildered. It's the first time the kids have kissed him goodbye, but he doesn't think Athena notices. She reaches up to cup his cheek. Her face is full of fondness and she's smiling at him.

"I'll see you later, honey," she says. The endearment still undoes him, even though she calls him by it all the time. "Honey" and "baby" and "my man," those are her words for him. Before her, he'd gone so long without hearing words like that, without the affection and intimate familiarity Athena treats him with. He'd believed he'd never hear them again the way he believed in gravity, like it was a fact of nature that existed without his having to think about it, and in fact the thought had been so far from his mind that he hadn't realized he'd missed that kind of tenderness until Athena started calling him by her pet names for him.

"I'll see you later," Bobby says, and kisses her.

They don't meet each other over the course of any of his rescues that day, but she's always on his mind. It's nice. It's nice to have someone to think about. It's nice to check his phone and see a text from her, nice to text her back to let her know he's doing ok. It makes him feel safe, somehow, to know that someone's thinking of him, looking forward to seeing him, to know that the people whose lives he touches when he saves them or fails them aren't all he has. He hasn't figured out a way to tell Athena this yet, that every day with her is a small miracle, because he isn't supposed to be this happy, be this loved.

At the end of his shift Bobby goes to church. He tends to go a few times a week, but this time of year, with the Christmas music on in the supermarkets non-stop and the house decorated with twinkling lights and fake snow in every room, he goes almost every day.

The holidays are hard for him. Before Thena and the kids, back when he wasn't a husband or a father any longer, but just a captain to a group of people he cared for deeply but who didn't really know who he was, the holidays had been harder. Back then all he'd lost hadn't been a memory, but the very material that made his days. His loss had been who he was, and he'd been nothing outside of it. The hollowness inside him had been physical, and even as he'd felt the pain of loss, deeper feelings of guilt and anger at himself had come with it, because what right did he have to miss his family when he was the reason they were dead? Him and his weakness and selfishness and fear? What right did he have to mourn them, to feel lost without them, to think he was nothing without them, when he had betrayed their very lives? Bobby knew what dying in a fire was. It was the worst death, evilness given form—worse than drowning, worse than execution. It was something he wouldn't wish even on people he despised, and he'd brought it with his own two hands to his wife and to his children. They'd trusted him, and he'd failed them.

Bobby relaxes and gathers himself. He empties his mind and focuses on the present, on his body as he sits in the church. The quite and dimness, the heaviness of the air and the familiarity of the pews help him feel less powerless. They remind him not to be so full of himself, to think that he can mete out justice and punishment. He reached out for the love he now has in his life, yes, and he works everyday to keep it, nurture it, and grow it; but it's something God has given to him, a gift or a blessing or both, and at church he remembers not to feel guilty for it, not to feel it's a burden or undeserved. Never mind that it would be arrogant of him, it's unfair to Athena and everyone else who's let him into their lives.

Bobby breathes deeply. In his prayers he greets Marcy and Brooke and Robert Jr. He tells them how much he loves them, how much he misses them, and how he still hopes one day to meet them again.

For dinner that night Bobby makes chuck roast and mashed potatoes. Before eating Harry says grace. He gives thanks, like he always does, but then he says something that makes Bobby's heart jump into his throat. He says, his voice small but even and sure, "God, please keep Bobby's family close to you."

Bobby's confused at first, because they are his family, him and Thena and May, and he doesn't understand why Harry doesn't just say "us," but then Harry continues.

"I know Bobby misses them, but please let them know we love him and we're taking good care of him."

It hits Bobby all at once then, and he has to blink back tears, he's so overcome with emotion. It's a whirlwind inside of him, the longing he feels for Marcy and Robert Jr. and Brooke, and the deep love he feels for his family sitting around him. He's silent for a long moment, swallowing and trying not to cry, but then he feels Athena squeeze his hand. He squeezes hers back, and then he clears his throat.

"Thank you, Harry," he says. "I love you, too, so much."

Later in bed he and Athena make love, and afterwards he holds her close, her back to his front. He asks her, "How did you and Michael do it?"

"Excuse me?" Thena's voice comes quick and scandalized. She twists in his arms to stare at him, and she looks horrified. Bobby has to tuck his head down to her shoulder to muffle his laugh.

"Oh, no, that's not what I mean," he says.

"You better explain yourself quickly and clearly, then," Thena says, but she's already lost all her bite, and is snuggling back against him.

"I mean how did you and Michael raise such great kids?"

"Mmmm." Athen makes a soft, low sound, considering his words. She runs gentle fingers up and down his arm. Bobby lets her think, and then he lets her talk.

"You know I had them late, right?"

"Mmhmm."

"We both work such crazy hours, me with my shifts at all time of day and night, and Michael with his 80-hour weeks. But then I hit 33 and realized if I wanted kids, and I did, then I had to have them soon, or else it was gonna be too hard."

"So you guys planned it?"

"Mmhmm. We sat down and talked about what kind of parents we wanted to be. Firm, but not so much that they didn't feel free. We didn't want them to feel suffocated. We wanted to give them everything we didn't have, but not spoil them and have them think the world is easy."

Athena shakes her head and laughs, and Bobby feels it against his chest. "I guess we were just trying not to be like our own parents. Of course, the plans you lay out get thrown out the door once you have the reality of being responsible for a living, breathing person in front of you.

"…I don't know. Michael and I trusted each other. We still do. We believed we could do it together. And we trust our kids."

Bobby doesn't say anything once Athena falls silent. The silence is comfortable between them and they enjoy it together, enjoy being so close to each other, for a long moment. Bobby closes his eyes and thinks of a younger Athena deciding to become a mother because she wanted it, believing she's be wonderful at it and then going and doing just that.

She shifts against him, turns in his arms so that she's facing him. Bobby opens his eyes agin to look at her in the darkness of their room. She's so pretty, gorgeous, really. He kisses her, long and sweet, and he puts all the wonder he has for her in it. She smiles at him when he pulls away.

"You're a part of it, too, now."

"Me?" Bobby asks.

"Yes, you. You think I married you without thinking what kind of parent you would be?"

Bobby's heart beats faster with a sudden trepidation. He wants to be good to Athen and May and Harry, wants to live up to the yes Athena gave him when she'd agreed to marry him. "What kind of parent is that?" he asks, his voice quiet.

"You tell me," Athena says. The kiss she gives him then is gentle, encouraging.

Bobby thinks about everything he wants to be and do for her, everything he wants to be and do for May and Harry. "I want… I want them to feel safe with me," he says. He doesn't know if she understands what he means. It will take so much and too long to explain it all, and he doesn't have the words anyway, but he thinks maybe she does. If they could feel safe with him, if they could trust him, and if he could rise up to that and honor it.

"I want them to ask me when they want something, and to know that they can count on me. I want them to know I'll take care of them, and that I love them."

Athena's smile was wide. "I think they know."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

December 25

Athena had sent out Christmas cards so they arrived after Thanksgiving, but before December 1 st . She tells Bobby it's a precise science. She has the entire family, him and the kids and Michael, pose in front of their Christmas tree, which they'd had to set up an entire week before Thanksgiving just for the cards to be sent out on time. She makes them all wear Santa hats. Harry and May put their proverbial foot down when she'd suggested wearing elf ears and socks. The cards say "Happy Holidays from the Grant-Nash family!"

Chim comes in with his card the day after he receives it and pokes fun at him for how cheesy the picture looks, but Bobby just shakes his head and takes the lighthearted ribbing in stride. He doesn't tell Athena this because he doesn't want to betray Harry and May, but he loves that picture. The kids grumbled the entire time setting up for it, but in it they're beaming, and Athena's grinning like everything she could ever want is right there with her. Bobby has it as the background on his phone. He prints it out and tapes it to the fridge in the station, and soon everyone else starts bringing in their holiday family photos to tape up, too.

Christmas day both he and Thena have to work, but Michael takes it and the eve before off, and he stays with the kids and their grandparents, cooking all day. Back in Minnesota Bobby'd been the only one in his family who could cook, but with Thena sometimes he ends up play-fighting over who gets to cook dinner. When they go grocery shopping they have to first work on a list together, plan out the food they'll be cooking for the week, otherwise they'll each buy what they want to make and come back with way too much food. Even Harry knows how to cook a mean chili, and May bakes muffins and breads that are divine.

Christmas night, after dinner, after saying goodbye to Hen and Karen and Denny, Chim and Buck and Maddie, Christopher and Eddie, May puts on what she calls her Grant-Nash Christmas Playlist. She's put everyone's favorite Christmas songs on it. It starts off with Whitney Houston's "Joy to the World" (Thena's favorite), then goes to Louis Armstrong's "Zat You, Santa Claus?" (Beatrice's favorite), and then Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" (May's favorite). Then comes "Linus and Lucy" from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. That's Bobby's favorite. It had been Robert Jr.'s favorite, he'd been obsessed with it after seeing the cartoon for the first time.

A few seconds in and Schroeder starts hitting the mid-notes on the piano, and they all, Bobby's whole family, Athena and Harry and May and Michael and his boyfriend Nathaniel, and Thena's mom and dad Beatrice and Samuel, get up and start dancing to it, the kids trying to imitate Charlie Brown and his friends by bobbing their heads and bopping their shoulders, and Beatrice and Samuel really dancing, hands on waists and all. He and Thena and Michael go in with the kids, mimicking their moves, acting silly and having fun. Bobby is so happy, he's filled up to the brim with it, shimmering like a just opened bottle of champagne.