You'd heard your patients say how quickly the months pass before a first baby arrives, and you see their point as your pregnancy advances and the snickering in the hallways grows louder whenever you and he are within thirty feet of each other. You try not to spook him when you swap the high-rise condo for a house with a yard, wordlessly exchanging the keys on his key ring as you hand him the new address. That may have been a mistake, you suspect until later that week, when he turns up with his milk crates and tooth brush, and you hastily hide your book of baby names.

You try to be patient, because it's not his fault, and it's not really what he wants, and he has to put up with the hospital grapevine, too, with the teasing of his friends and the disapproval of his superiors. You ignore how he occasionally glances at your growing girth as if it's a crime scene, and how panic darkens his eyes when he passes the baby's future bedroom. You avoid stilted work conversations, since he now works in Plastics exclusively, and try not to giggle as he unpacks his milk crates - one filled with trophies, another with sports gear, a third with medical journals – and roots around for closet space for his clothes.

He had no say in the neighborhood, or the style of the house, or even the furnishings, and you realize that may have been a mistake, too, even though he's never said a word about any of it, and you doubt he cares. But it was rushed, and you have time now since you're on leave, so you have some shelves built for his trophies, and clear space in the bedroom closet, and neatly stash his journals.

You wonder if any accommodations you make will make him feel welcomed or make him feel trapped, and you try not to ask too many questions. You learn that what you'd taken for sullen silence is usually just quiet, that he can cook surprisingly well, and that he's moderately housebroken but has a visceral disdain for coasters and cloth napkins. You watch baffled as he paints the nursery yellow, and you wonder if he secretly hopes for a girl, until the Iowa baby blanket appears in the crib, and you recall his school colors.

You get better at matching his eyes to his personalities, and you learn that the five year old leaves cookie crumbs in bed, and the twelve year old leaves the milk on the counter just because; that Karev studies harder for his surgeries than you ever imagined, and the wrestler always goes on the offensive at the first hint of a fight; that jaguars look sleekest amid dark green sheets, and Alex notices everything. They all do.

You wonder if it's a good thing, all this noticing, because it's sweet when Alex knows how much non sugar to put in your ice tea, but it's scary how well the wrestler knows your weaknesses, and its sad when the vigilant five year old peeks out at you as if he's still waiting in that closet, terrified. You wonder if it's a good thing, that the jaguar knows just how to ensnare you, and the twelve year old just how to infuriate you, and Karev just how to drive you away. You wonder if you weren't better off with Derek's indifference or Mark's self-absorption, which at least were predictable. You wonder if it wasn't better to remain unseen, and you recall your mother's warning to be careful what you wish for.

That admonition crosses your mind when you hand your daughter to him for the first time, and you see his bewilderment as her big brown eyes stare back at him. You feel it too, when Madeline's eyes lock onto yours, because they look so familiar, as if they see right through you. And you're not religious, not formally, but you still say a silent prayer to whatever deity's on call that evening that her first word won't be "whatever."

--

You see her watching, as she has the past year and a half, watching this awkward dance between you and the child sleeping in your arms, her fingers curled around yours. You're familiar with the incredulous looks she gives you when you read to her daughter about wrestling, or face lifts, or football. You watch her shake her head as she retreats from the doorway, and you know she expects better from you, and you wonder if she knows that you're trying, and you wonder if trying matters.

You place the child gently in the crib, and wonder if you'll ever feel as if she's as much your daughter as she is her mother's, and if the child will resent your fumbling stabs at being a decent father. But you know the answer to that last question already, and you curse the hesitancy of your hands and your heart with her, and your face burns bright red, and you wonder if this child you still can't quite fully embrace will hover over her own child's crib someday with the same reluctance.

You know she's angry, so angry she can't speak, and you know she blames herself as well as you, and you know she wonders how different things might have been, if she had stayed married to Shepherd, or had had Sloan's baby instead of… instead of the one she got with you. You know that she deserves better, they both do, but that it's too late to run and too screwed up to continue as it is, and you knew it would happen this way and you tried to warn her but nothing ever goes as you plan, and it would help if your hands were just a little less stiff when you held her, and your breathing a little more steady.

You know she gets some of it, but you never did tell her the whole story about Ava, about your mother, and you know she doesn't get that you just can't, and that you just can't fail any more people, because that's all you ever do and that's all you are, and it's sucking the life out of what little is left of you. But you know there are no excuses, and coming close still means that you've lost, and you're a surgeon and surgeons can't just try, and you've always played to win.

You hear the child fussing and you pick her back up and return to the rocking chair, and you feel her head against your chest as she settles into you and you review the pathway of blood through the arteries and veins and you know it's all about tissue elasticity and fluid hydraulics and arterial valves opening and slamming shut. You know that that's all there is to a heart beat, that it's just the rhythmic, unconscious workings of a mechanical pump. But you know that hearing it calms her, and that her mother will say you're spoiling her again, and insist that she needs to learn to sleep on her own.

But you know that it gets cold at night, and dark even with a nightlight, and that monsters hide in closets, too, and that protecting her from the cold and the dark and the monsters can't possibly count as spoiling. You feel her go limp in your arms and you know that her mother will throw a fit if she catches you like this, again, in the morning. But you know that she just doesn't get it, that this is the best you can do, and that you may not be able to love her, but you can protect her, and make her feel warm, and safe, and not alone.

--

You knew that you should have warned him before you left that evening, but it was an emergency call. You knew you should have told him that she'd had her first nightmare the day before, and you knew the same fight was brewing when you returned to find him sitting in her closet, watching her sleep, idly fingering an extra Holly Hobby nightlight. He knows all about childhood phases; he's read the same books you have. But sometimes they're not phases, and you know better than to say much as you sit beside him.

You wish he would just stop, because you know why he's shaking almost imperceptibly, and you wish there were words to erase the fear carved into him as if with a scalpel, and you cringe when you tell him because you know he's heard it his whole life – heard it so long that he'll hear it no matter what you say – that he's not doing good enough, that he has to do better.

You hate this interminable civil war. There can be no truce, because all he hears when the guns start blazing is that he's a fool or a coward, even when you try to assure him, again, that her fears are different from his, that they're normal and common and that she'll grow out of them by herself. But you know he'll never believe that, that he can't imagine any other kinds of nightmares then those he knows, the kind that never go away, and that he's sure she can't be left alone with them.

You know you can't win this fight, but you can't lose it, either, because she has to learn to manage this for herself, or she'll be just like him. And you cringe when you think that, and you'd hoped he'd never notice, but he sees everything. You're not sure what's worse: that you don't want her to be like him, or that he'd agree. The equation's not that simple, but you know he still thinks you'd trade him in a heartbeat for a better model, and that really, that's all he can imagine.

But there's no point waking him now, and you knew it would be a long night. Pulling a blanket from the top shelf of the closet, you settle in on the floor beside him, spying your daughter's lacey princess costume from below. It reminds you of your wedding dress, of the day you married Derek, of the dancing and the finery and the cake, of what you had before you threw it all away – the Hamptons, the Brownstone, Central Park, the picture perfect life - before you were forty three, before you were a single mother, before you found yourself half stuffed into your child's closet at three a.m., listening to Karma chortle about being careful what you wish for.

--

You stir restlessly beside her, and it's been three weeks, and you still blush furiously when you recall that night. You wander out onto the wide covered porch, and it's just as quiet in this neighborhood at three a.m. as it is at noon, and you know that the cheap beer you're drinking would probably embarrass her in front of the rich neighbors, and that you'll always hate cloth napkins and fancy coasters, and that people like you don't live in neighborhoods like this.

You hear the porch creak, feel her sit beside you, and you're sure she's angry, and you wonder if maybe she thought you'd taken off for good. And you know she saw that look, when she'd blurted out during dinner that she wanted to get married, and you damn near chocked on your peas. You're sure she's disappointed, and you wonder if she'll say she didn't mean it. But she takes your hand, and you're sure she's expecting some kind of answer, and you know there's no winning out-come.

You see her fingers curled in your rough palms, and you're sure she still snickers at your choice of Plastics, at the great truth teller Karev pasting lies on peoples' faces and fake contours on their bodies. You're sure she'd think you had it coming, if you ever told her everything about Ava. You know you can out-earn her, when your residency's over and your practice is established, but you know you'll never erase the poverty that clings to you like a skunk's stench.

She's Addison Forbes Montgomery, and names like that don't marry names like yours, and she has everything she wanted - the career, the kid, the house, the clothes, the shoes – except the guy she dreams of, whose nothing like you. But she's leading you back to her bed, and it's not demanding or angry or frantic and it doesn't draw blood and your hands stop trembling, and this can't be what she wants, because that would mean she wants you, and no one has ever wanted you before - not for real - and you're sure she'd planned better than to end up with leftovers.

Then her soft lips and her precise surgeon's fingers are perusing you, finely dissecting tendons and ligaments, shearing muscle from bone, and you hear her contented murmur, and you wonder if this is what she wanted. You swear you glimpse a smirk as her teeth brush your neck, and her hands delicately unravel your body, leaving you defenseless in her snare. You puzzle over the care that she takes with leftovers, and you wonder if your bones will be picked clean by morning, your carcass tossed casually to the insects. But day break comes, and she's still curled around your remains, her skin melded to yours like a bandage placed tenderly over raw flesh, and you wonder if this is what she wanted, when she said she wanted more.

--

The civil war continues, and you know he's not Derek, and he's as far from indifferent as you could have gotten, and you're surprised that he spends some evenings on the porch as her latest phase passes. You hesitate to say anything because then he'll think you've won or that he's failed, and you know that he's out there muttering under his breath that she's not even two years old yet. You know that he's trying, but you wonder sometimes how different a child with Mark's brilliant blue eyes and sunny exuberance might be from the stubborn, brown-eyed cyclone wreaking untold havoc across the hall.

You shake your head again later that night when he reads to her from Sports Illustrated and you watch him put her to bed, double checking the night light and the window locks before he leaves her room. You cringe at his vigilance and you know that this fight will get worse as she gets older, and that sometimes she still falls asleep in his arms before he's done recapping the boxing match or the football game, and that he still thinks you'd disapprove. You wish you didn't need him to believe that at the moment, and you hope someday he gets it anyway, that warm and safe and not alone are a lot of what love is.

Later the following evening you wait. You know that he's still at the hospital with a burn victim, but that he usually spends his days inserting fake boobs into co-eds and sucking imaginary fat out of twenty-somethings, and that that's not really medicine, and you're forty three and had a baby late and are back to your usual weight but it's not all where it used to be. You know he sees it because he sees everything, damn him, and you know he notices, and you think you've still got it, but you wonder if whatever it is that you've still got is any longer to his taste.

But then it's melting in his hands and quivering at his touch, and a pounding rain sweeps the windows and thunder rumbles through your body and you spy his eyes glinting as he surrounds you and you remember that he hunts under the cover of darkness. You know you need to defend your territory, even as the roar of the jungle fades into the chatter of insects and the muted purr of the predator coiling lazily around you. You know that a drowsy jaguar is still a grave threat, but defenseless when your claws tease the soft spots under his ribcage. You know you shouldn't listen too closely to his murmurings, since you realize as well as he does that any vocalizations can be dangerously ambiguous.

You know that he doesn't trust proposals or plans, and you're sure that he's been preyed on before, that he heard promises and excuses and lies, before his blood spattered and his bones broke. You know that you're a surgeon, that it's your job to cut out the disease and tend the wounds and hope for healing. But you know that surgeons often do more harm than good, and you wonder if you're being humane, or if PETA would be aghast, your mother horrified, and Callie amused, if they knew you slept wrapped in a jaguar pelt.

You know he's doing his best, and you wish you could tell him that without it sounding like a frontal assault. But you saw his face when you proposed, and at first you thought he feared being trapped, but then you looked again, and saw that he was shocked that you wanted him. You wondered if that was Karma's ultimate revenge, that he saw through your cheating on Derek, that he saw through your aborting Mark's baby, that he saw you just for you, and wanted you anyway, but figured you'd never want him.

You're already half asleep when he comes home the next evening, and you wonder if he'll say a word about your proposal, but you know he's tired because you hear no cookie wrappers crinkling – a just cause for murder if ever there was one - and because he's still a little damp from his shower. You shiver slightly as he crawls in beside you, reminding you that a jaguar's coat is cool and silky when moist. You know that it's force of habit, how your hands smooth his velvety skin as it dries, but then he's warm and purring and you gather him closer and you wonder if he'll ever get that jaguars are hunted, too.

You know that he stalks you still, even through the halls of Seattle Grace, where you're the top surgeon in your field, his unquestioned superior. You hail a cab at lunch, and you watch his hand shake slightly when he signs the forms, and you breathe a sigh of relief when his "I do" does not come out as "Dude, whatever" and you share your first meal as husband and wife – hot dogs on the court house steps. You giggle as he wipes mustard off your nose, and gasp when you realize that you forgot to change your shoes, and are wearing old sneakers. You know that he notices, because he notices everything – damn him - and you wonder which eyes will look back at you today, and whether you've gone from adulterer to polygamist, since you apparently married all six of him.

You know time flies and it's been six months and you should have tossed those sneakers weeks ago. But they are technically wedding shoes, and you wonder if someday you'll show your daughter the photograph album that you can't quite part with, of the day you married your prince, of the fairy tale party with the beautiful flowers and the elegant gown, or if you'll admit to her that you're relieved no photographers caught the mustard on your nose, the day you married the help.

You see the moonlight glint off his wedding band, and you track your fingers down his spine, and his eyes peel open and you remember all those warnings from your childhood trips to the zoo about not disturbing the wild life, and you're all for enforcing the rules, but his purring is dangerously hypnotic. You hear Karma in the corner, chortling at you to listen to your mother and keep your hands to yourself and be careful what you wish for, and you're gripped by a sudden urge to reach under the bed and hurl an expensive Manolo at Her. Then you remember that Manolos scuff, and that your old sneakers are still under there, too. But to reach them, you'd have to loosen your grip, and a predator never releases her trophy in the presence of jackals.

.