*~*~*~*~*~

You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back. ~William D. Tammeus

*~*~*~*~*~

Two weeks after Callie had a miscarriage she filed for divorce. George was openly dating Izzie and had not bothered to come and tell his child goodbye. She held the tiny fetus in her hands, hysterically sobbing, and Mark Sloan of all people had comforted her. Callie had handed over the bloody mass with shaking hands and Mark had crawled into the bed beside her, pulling her head onto his shoulder. He had been the one to find her bleeding out in the stairwell and it was her blood that stained his scrubs.

One month after the miscarriage, a four year old boy was brought into the Emergency Room via ambulance. He was defiant and refused to cry, even when Callie set his broken arm and put it in a cast. After it was over, she sat on the edge of his bed and ruffled his shaggy black hair. He pushed her hand away and said that he didn't like her and told her she looked like the Wicked Witch of the West, only less green. She gave him a sucker and waited for his parents to arrive.

They never did.

Social services collected the child and took him back to the group home where he lived. Three months later, he was back. This time with a broken finger. Callie put it in a splint and impulsively kissed it. The little boy sucked in his breath and gazed up at her. "My name is Jack. What's yours?"

"Callie, but a lot of people call me Dr. T."

"I want to call you Callie."

"Okay."

Nine days later, Callie was working on a chart when someone tugged on her lab coat. Jack was there yet again and he held up his thumb, which had been dislocated. She picked him up, carried him to an empty trauma room and said, "Okay, what's going on, kid? Is someone hurting you?"

"No."

"Then what happened?"

"Nobody picked me." Jack looked down at his thumb. "Nobody ever picks me."

"What do you mean?"

"People come to look at the kids and they always pick the babies. They look at me a lot and I smile and make sure my hands are clean, but they never pick me."

"I know the feeling," Callie told him, then pulled his thumb back into place before he knew it was happening. He didn't cry this time either. "So, when they don't pick you ... you hurt yourself?"

"I jump off the roof sometimes. That's how I broke my arm. Sometimes I just slam the door on my hand, though."

"Why?"

"Because." Jack shrugged. "Do you got kids?"

"No."

"Want one?"

Callie sat beside him on the stretcher. "I don't think I'm supposed to have kids. I don't have a husband."

"So? Nurse Beckett at the home has four kids and she don't got no husband." Jack put his hand on hers. "If you do want a kid you can pick me."

She put her arm around him. "I'll keep that in mind."

Two weeks later, Jack was admitted with internal injuries. Callie moved into his room. When she wasn't on duty, she was with Jack. He didn't wake up for five days and when he finally did, she was there. He held up his skinny, bruised arms and she hugged him. He didn't let go. He crawled into her lap and fell asleep with his hand on hers.

Everyone had an opinion. Chief Webber tried to bar her from spending so much time with him. Bailey warned her not to get involved ... as a last resort she invoked Izzie Steven's name and reminded Callie of Denny Duquette. Everyone thought she was depressed, that she was missing George, missing her own baby, but Callie knew better.

Mark Sloan seemed to know better, too, because he encouraged her every step of the way. He introduced her to a leggy female lawyer who was able to expedite the process and when Jack was released from the hospital several weeks later ... he didn't go back to the group home. He went to the house that Callie had paid cash for ... a house with a pool, a big yard, a swingset, and a playroom in the basement that made him squeal with delight.

He had officially and legally become Jack Torres.

Callie embraced being a single parent with both arms.

Jack was all she had in the world.

*~*~*~*~*~

(1)

Mark looked up from his newspaper and watched Callie tape a piece of construction paper to the inside of her locker door. It was something he did every morning. He waited for her to come in and he covertly enjoyed the view. Ever since he had held her during her miscarriage they had been friendly with one another and he looked for new and inventive ways to make her laugh. Lately, she didn't need much prompting; she smiled all day long. It was nice to see considering the hell she had been through.

When she sat down to slip off her shoes, he smiled. She had silly string in her hair. He set the paper aside and got to his feet, tapping her on the shoulder. "Did you have a celebration before work?"

"What?" Callie asked, looking up at him. She wrinkled her nose when she saw that he was gazing at her hair. "Oh my god, I didn't get it all."

"You didn't get it all," he agreed. "Want some help?"

"Sure." She sat still, letting him pull the string from her hair. When he dangled it in front of her face a moment later, she laughed and closed her hand around it. "Thanks. I - Jack is hard to wake up for school so the silly string gets him laughing and it's just easier to have it all over the place than deal with tardies. His school is strict."

"How is the kid?"

"He's adjusting. The night terrors stopped last week, knock on wood, and he's being so good that it's scary. He literally has a halo around his head. I don't have to ask him to do anything twice."

"Does he like that stuffy pre school you're sending him to?"

"He despises the tie and everyone there, but he needs the structure and he can't get that anywhere else. Plus it's right across the street so if anything happens ... I can be there in three minutes."

"I saw him a few days ago with his nanny," Mark said, sitting down on the bench beside her. He stretched his long legs out and crossed his ankles. "He ran into me in the hallway and told me to move the hell out of his way."

"I'm sorry!" Callie gasped, looking mortified. "We're working on manners. It's slow going."

"When do I get to meet him?"

"You want to meet him?"

"Well, I did help you get him. And like you said ... he's adjusting. Introduce me."

Callie looked away. She wasn't going to be the kind of woman who paraded men in front of her kids. Her grandmother had done that to her father and he had spoken with her at length about it when she took Jack home to meet her family. He had made it very clear that it damaged a child to watch a revolving door of men and she couldn't go there. Not considering how many revolving doors Jack had already seen in his short life. Changing the subject, she pointed at her locker. "Before school yesterday he accidentally broke a plate and told his teacher he needed to apologize to me in a card."

Mark leaned a little closer to her so that he could see the artwork. She smelled good, like clean cotton and ... vanilla. He forced himself to gaze at the card instead of her cleavage. The little boy had traced his hand in the center of the paper. Scrawled in crayon, he had written 'Im Sori' and at the bottom it read 'I wil b gud I luv u'. "Damn. He's text messaging you on paper."

She grinned. "He has definitely learned in just a few short weeks how to make me roll over. When we went shopping for his bedroom, I was going for functional and now he has a bed shaped like a car and a climbing wall."

Mark laughed. "And you don't mind at all."

"I really don't." She glanced over at him, then bit her bottom lip. "Oh my god, you so don't want to hear about the joys of single parenting."

"I'm still listening." Mark pointed at the photo of Callie and Jack that was in the top corer of her locker door. It gave him a reason to sit so close to her. "It's amazing that he actually looks like you. You do know that, right? Black hair, brown eyes, and you'd probably tell me to move the hell out of your way, too."

She gave him a knowing look. "I think I did during the one, two, yep, three dirty times that you had your way with me."

Mark had to fight hard to contain his shock at her words. He cleared his throat and said, "I still maintain that it was cheerful."

"Cheerful has never bruised me before," she told him, her eyes twinkling. She was enjoying his discomfort far too much and she was enjoying being flirtatious even more. She was a single mother ... she wasn't dead. Before she could continue, her pager went off and she made a face, lifting it from her purse. "It's going to be one hell of a day."

Mark watched her wordlessly.

He would embarrass himself if he stood up at the moment.

When she finally disappeared behind one of the many changing curtains, he got to his feet and buttoned his jacket to hide the fact that talking about the joys of single parenting had an unexpected effect on him that he never saw coming.

*~*~*~*~*~

In the lunchroom at noon, Mark paid for his food and picked up his tray. A table full of nurses sat to his left and Callie sat alone to his right. Several of the nurses waved at him, smiling invitingly, and he nodded at them, then glanced back at Callie. She had been on his mind the entire morning and their one, two, yep, three admittedly dirty sexcapades they had shared had caused him to need a chart in front of his crotch every time he walked down the hallway and she was near. He felt like there was a magnetic field around her and the butterflies that had suddenly appeared in his stomach were all made of steel. He was drawn to her and his body wouldn't let him shake it. He walked across the cafeteria and stopped beside her. "Is this seat taken?"

She looked at him then at the many empty seats around them. Her gaze landed on the nurses who were glaring at her with the heat of a thousand lightning bolts. He either wanted to make someone at the table jealous ... or her flirty banter that morning made him think she would drop her panties for him again. The latter wasn't actually such a bad idea. Maybe she could lure him into an on call room for a little afternoon delight. It's not like she could date and she was definitely tired of self pleasure. "What's so special about this spot, Sloan?"

"It's next to you ... and God, I really just said that." He cringed at the look she shot him. "Can I sit down or what? My tray is loaded."

"Knock yourself out." She grinned, thinking of what else appeared to be loaded beneath the tray.

Mark tugged the chair beside her with his foot and flopped into it. "What are you reading? Parenthood?"

She closed the magazine and grinned at him. "Try again."

His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw the cover of Playgirl and the hot young guy who was wearing a stethoscope and not much more. He took it from her and flipped through it, shaking his head. "I can't even pretend to be shocked."

Callie stole a fry from his plate. "You really want people to see you looking at man boobs and artfully displayed penises?"

He closed the magazine so fast that he earned a papercut for his efforts. He put it under his tray and bit into his corndog. "You're a pervert."

"You're the one looking at naked guys and biting into phallic shaped food."

Mark choked and glared at her. "You're are gonna pay for that."

"Promises, promises." She snuck another fry and dipped it into his ketchup. "So, what's up? Which nurse are you avoiding?"

"All of them." He shrugged, watching as she chewed the potato. Who knew that it could be so erotic. "Would you ... have dinner with me?"

"Er ... huh?"

"Dinner. You know, sorta like what we're doing now only at night and -"

"Hey, Mister! Who the heck are you?"

Mark turned at the sound of the voice and smiled down at Callie's son. The little boy stood just behind his mother with his hands on his hips. His tie was covered in mud and his navy blue blazer looked like it had been run over by a bus. He was tapping his foot and his nostrils were flaring as he waited for Mark to answer. "Hey, Jack." Mark held out his hand. "I'm Mark Sloan."

"You're in my seat." Jack glanced at Mark's hand, then crossed his arms over his chest. "Mom, why is he here?"

"Why are *you* here, kiddo?" Callie asked, pushing her chair back and opening her arms. Jack hopped up into her lap and laid his head on her shoulder. She felt his forehead, which was cool to the touch. "Where is Gertie?"

"That old nag? She's probably at home watchin' her television and fartin'." Jack looked up at Callie, trying to appear apologetic. "She dropped me off at school and the teachers kept being stupid so I left at recess."

Callie's mouth dropped open. "Did you walk here!?"

"No, I flew like Superman. All the way across the street." Jack sat up in Callie's lap, his attention on Mark again. "You're still here? How come?"

"You be nice and shake his hand, Jack! You're in enough trouble already." Callie nudged him in the back. "Go on."

Jack held out his hand and let it lie limply in Mark's large one. "Mark Sloan, can you tell my mom that it's okay to miss school when it's the last freakin' day?"

"How old are you?" Mark asked the little boy, trying hard not to laugh.

"Nearly five." Jack leaned back against Callie's chest again. "Preschool is for babies anyway. If you finger paint once then why should you have to do it again? It's damn stupid."

Callie prayed for patience. "You know, Jack, I pay a lot of money for you to go to private school and -"

"Apparently they let kids vanish during recess," Mark told her. "You need to roll a few heads for that, Callie. And save your money by getting his tuition for free next year."

Jack smiled up at her. "Yeah, save your money. You can buy me an air rifle so I can join the Army instead."

Mark laughed outright now. He couldn't hold it in another second. It forced Jack's attention back on him and Mark was struck again by how similar mother and child were. The little boy arched his eyebrow the same way Callie did and when he cocked his head to study Mark, Callie was doing the same thing.

"Don't encourage him," Callie told Mark. "He's cutting class before he's even in a *grade*."

Jack watched his mother pull her phone from her bag and snatched it from her hand, stuffing it under his shirt. "Don't call Gertie! She smells like feet and she'll make me sit right beside her while she watches those people kiss on the t.v. and I'll fall over dead from it. I really will."

To prove his sincerity, Jack slumped forward in a very fake faint. Callie was forced to shift in her seat to hang onto him. She looked at Mark and rolled her eyes. "We've got a temporary nanny until the agency can find someone suitable and he doesn't like her."

"She's horrible," Jack chimed in, still dangling weightless in Callie's arms. "Her arms are hairier than my head."

Mark reached down and put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "I think I may have a solution, little guy."

Jack looked up hopefully. "What?"

Mark met Callie's eyes. "Dr. Bailey needs one more signature on the petition for the hospital nursery and after school program. Do you want to sign it or should I?"

"What's that?" Jack asked, riveted by possibilities he didn't fully understand.

Mark explained the concept and when the little boy realized that he would be able to stay at the hospital and see Callie as much as her schedule would let him, he leaned forward and took the pen from Mark's front pocket. "I'll sign it too. I can do my name, just not in joined up letters yet."

"Show me." Mark pulled a napkin from the holder and held it firm on the table while Jack wrote on it. The child's tongue stuck out between his lips and his brow was furrowed from the concentration. He was literally straining to make it perfect and when he finished, he looked at Mark expectantly. Mark picked up the napkin, turning it different ways to examine it from all angles. "It's a little messy," he finally pronounced.

"Nuh uh!" Jack shook his head. "I was 'specially careful!"

Mark took the pen and wrote Jack's name in cursive below the boy's attempt. Jack took it and rubbed his fingers over it. Mark put the pen back in his pocket and said, "You know where I learned to do that?"

Jack was still looking at the complicated signature with awe. "No. Where?"

"At school." Mark grinned at him. "Where you should go even if it is the last day."

"Oh, maaaaan." Jack folded the napkin and carefully put it into his pocket. "I can't fly any more today. I'm Superman and there's kryptonite on your plate. It made me too sick to go back."

"Kryptonite?" Mark looked down at his food and picked up a brussel sprout. "You mean this?"

Jack clutched his throat and pretended to die, flopping like a fish for several seconds.

"Okay, Superman, we're walking back to your school. Where I will roll some heads." Callie set him on his feet and gathered her purse before she stood. Watching Mark interact with her son had done strange things to her insides and she needed to get out of his vicinity for a while.

"It was nice to officially meet you, Jack." Mark popped a sprout in his mouth and watched the kid dry heave into a pretend bucket.

"I'll see you later," Callie said, not looking at Mark.

"Wait!" Jack put his hand behind his back when Callie reached to take it. He gazed at Mark with big, bright eyes. "Sorry I was rude before, Mark Sloan."

Mark smiled. The little boy said his first and last name the way most people said Billy Bob or Mary Sue. "You can call me Mark."

"And you can come to dinner at our house," Jack replied. "That's what you were saying before ... it's Thursday. That's 'sgetti night and my mom makes real good 'sgetti."

Mark had to smile when Callie quietly covered her face to hide the blush that was spreading through her cheeks. He should have okayed it with her first, but the invitation was too promising to pass up. "I'd love to come. Can I bring anything?"

"Cookies!" Jack declared. "She *can't* cook that."

"Cookies it is."

Jack walked forward and held his arms open. "Hug me bye."

Mark leaned down and gave the little fellow a one armed hug. Both of Jack's arms went around his neck and then he planted a sloppy, wet kiss on Mark's cheek.

Mark's hand was still on the spot when Callie disappeared around the corner with Jack.

*~*~

He arrived at six thirty, balancing a bakery box full of three dozen cookies and a bottle of champagne. Callie's house was impressive. He had heard rumors that she was insanely rich, but he hadn't paid it any mind. Faced with the fact that she was wealthy didn't affect him in the least. Instead, it made him feel better about her tackling motherhood on her own. Not worrying about money was probably a relief for her.

Jack opened the door and hugged Mark's leg the second he saw the pink box. "My bedroom is the first door upstairs. Hide 'em under my bed, 'kay?"

"No way." Mark eased past him and shut the door. Jack stayed attached to his leg as he looked around the living room. The floors were hardwood, light colored, and the walls were taupe. Everywhere he looked there were large paintings and his eyes widened. He never would have pegged Callie Torres for an art kind of girl.

"My mother decorated it," Callie told him, coming out of the kitchen. "She decided that Megadeth posters, incense, and my college banners would not make the best decor for impressing the social workers."

"It is impressive," he replied, but he was certainly not referencing the house. She was barefoot and had on a pair of jeans that looked painted on. The black tank top she wore was snug in all the right ways and his mouth watered a little when she reached forward and took the cookie box, thanking him.

Callie gasped when she felt how heavy it was. "Holy sh ... crap, Sloan. How many cookies did you bring?"

"A lot." He shrugged apologetically. "I didn't know what kind he liked."

"If it rots his teeth, he'll eat it without complaining." Callie looked down at Jack, who still had one arm around Mark's leg and was pushing buttons on his phone with his free hand. "Did you wash your hands yet?"

"No."

"Can you go do it? Now?"

Jack nodded. "Hey, Mark, wanna see my room?"

Mark waited for Callie to nod before he followed his pint sized host up the stairs. The hallway was covered in photos of people who had to be Callie's relatives. He lingered for a while, gazing at a family photo that showed her at probably sixteen. Her hair was chestnut brown instead of jet black and she was so scrawny that she looked sickly.

"Come on!" Jack cried, impatiently bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Okay, okay," Mark told him, following him through a door that had yellow caution tape across it. The sheer size of the bedroom was amazing. It was larger than two of the rooms at the Archfield and each wall was painted a different primary color.

Callie had not been kidding about the bed. It was shaped like a race car and held a twin sized mattress that Jack jumped on and bounced up and down, ripping the cover off as he leaped. Mark simply shook his head and turned his attention to the rock climbing wall, which took up one entire side of the room. There were rope swings attached with large metal rings and he grabbed one, checking how sturdy it was.

"You can swing if you wanna," Jack told him. "I don't mind sharing."

"Maybe some other time." Mark pointed at the corner of the room where a sheet had been tacked to the wall and the floor, making a one sided tent. "What's that?"

"That's where my special things go." Jack moved between Mark and the sheet when he stepped toward it. "You have to say the magic word to go in there."

"Oh? What's the magic word?"

"Fun."

"Okay. Fun." Mark got onto his knees and crawled under the canopy, stretching out on his stomach in front of a small camouflage box. "Is that your special stuff?"

"Yep." Jack sat Indian style, opening the lid. "My grandpa gave me the box. He said boys have to have secrets."

Mark accepted the four leaf clover that was sealed in a zip lock bag. Jack tapped it and said, "We found that in Papi's yard when Mom took me on the big plane. And this is the plane she bought me in Malami."

Not having the heart to tell him it was *Miami*, Mark simply nodded. "Did you like Florida?"

"It was too hot." Jack reached into the box again. For five minutes he showed Mark everything from a broken jump rope to an empty bottle of shampoo (Callie's). He finally pulled out another zip lock bag. "And this is your napkin that you wrote my name on. I've been practicing a lot."

Mark didn't know why seeing the neatly folded napkin made his heart swell so much, but it did. Jack was just like Callie in a lot of ways.

He had gotten under Mark's skin without even trying.

After dinner, Callie parked Jack in front of the television with a learning game and headed back into the kitchen to clean up. Mark was standing at the sink, scraping out their leftovers. "I've got this," she told him, finishing off her one and only glass of wine.

"I don't mind." Mark smiled at her. "It's been so long since I had home cooking or a kitchen to clean that I'm enjoying the hell out of it."

"Are you ever going to move out of the Archfield?" she queried, lifting a cookie from the box.

"Why bother?" he asked, rinsing out the sauce pan before he put it in the dishwasher. "Thanks for having me tonight, by the way."

Callie hopped up on the counter. "Adult conversation. I had forgotten what it felt like."

He chuckled and reached past her to grab the baking sheet. Her scent, that same cottony clean smell from the locker room, invaded his senses and he met her eyes, still leaning over her lap. "Your skin. I have *not* forgotten what it felt like." He reached up, brushing a cookie crumb from her mouth. "Or what it tasted like."

Callie licked her lips. Jack would be in bed soon and ... no ... no, she couldn't let that happen. Her father's warning flashed through her head. She closed her eyes and exhaled. "I can't."

He didn't back away. "Why not?"

"Mom!" Jack cried suddenly. "The damn television won't work!"

"That's why."

"So, you're going to be celibate until he's eighteen?" Mark watched as she slipped from the counter and walked from the kitchen. He finished up and joined them in time to fix the television, which Jack had somehow autoprogrammed with the remote control so that most of the channels had been deleted.

Callie didn't look at him or talk to him very much after that. He showed Jack how to make it to the next level of Mario Brothers and then said that he should go. Jack held his arms up and Mark leaned down to receive another wet kiss. "Seeya, Jacko."

"Are you coming to our next 'sgetti night? It's Thursday. It's always Thursday." Jack looked at him, then at his mom. "He can, right? You said I can have friends over this summer and he's more fun than Tuck."

"I - I don't -"

"I'd love to." Mark shot her a playful look and when Jack started to cheer ... he knew that he had at least *one* person on his side.

~*~*~*~*~

Four weeks and four Thursday night Spaghetti dinners later, Callie and Mark stood side by side at the glass window of the Seattle Grace nursery watching Jack play with Tuck. He was gentle with the smaller boy and obviously protective because when a rowdy little girl knocked Bailey's son off his feet, Jack told her off with much animation and finger pointing. Mark grinned, nudging Callie on the side. "Now I *know* that he's your son through and through. You did that to me the other night when I gave him a video game."

"You gave him a video that's rated 'T', Mark!" she replied. "But I've been enjoying the hell out of it so thanks."

"You are horrible." Mark studied her profile, fighting the urge to reach up and brush a strand of hair off her cheek. She had certainly been nice to him during their dinners, but she made no further mention of their past indiscretions. As a matter of fact, she had not flirted with him at all. He didn't get it. She treated him like a co-worker whether they were at work or not and that bothered him more than he liked.

Callie's peripheral vision was in working order. She knew that Mark was watching her again. He had been doing it a lot the past few weeks. Every Thursday he showed up with a carb filled treat of some kind and a movie (all G rated which was destroying her brain cells)and ate pasta. He sat as far away from her as possible and talked more to Jack than her and usually left the minute the credits rolled on the DVD. He never made any excuses ... he simply said good night. She had stopped trying to make sense of it. "Jack's birthday is coming up," she said.

"I know. Am I getting an invitation after the whole video game thing?"

She smiled, meeting his eyes. "Absolutely. He would kill me if you weren't there."

Jack ran up to the window, smiling at the two of them. He put his palms against it and Callie covered one of them with her own. Jack looked at Mark, wiggling the fingers of his other hand. Mark laid his against the glass and chuckled. Jack moved his hands a little higher and Callie and Mark followed with their own. It was a game for about ten seconds and then Jack moved his hands together and Mark's and Callie's collided. They both pulled away as if they had been burned.

Mark crossed his arms. "Uh, so I'll be there at six thirty tonight. I'll bring cookies again even though -"

"You shouldn't come." Callie's heart hit the bottom of her stomach as she said it. Jack was watching Sloan with a look of complete adoration and she knew that heartbreak was in her son's future. She needed to stop it now, before he got too attached to Mark.

"Wait, it is Thursday, right?" He pulled out his BlackBerry and nodded. "How about donuts for desert?"

"Mark, no." She shook her head. "When the novelty of this wears off for you ... you're going to find a better way to spend your Thursdays. A way that doesn't involve spaghetti sauce on your shirt or getting drenched after a kid ropes you into giving him a bath. You're going to get tired of -"

"Well shit, Callie. I'm really glad that you've become an all seeing Oracle. Maybe you should take the crystal ball out of your ass before you try to read it because you don't know what you're talking about."

Red, hot fury rose inside her. "I have a child! An actual living, breathing, human being who depends on me. He already has attachment issues and it will devastate him when you get tired of playing house *one* night a week."

"You having a kid is obviously a bigger stumbling block for you than it is me! You're the one who is living like a god damn nun and -"

Callie turned on her heel and stalked off. Mark watched her go, swallowing back the apology that almost ripped from his throat against his will. When he looked back into the nursery, Jack was peering up at him and there were tears on his cheek. Mark swore under his breath and pointed at the door, which required a code. Mark put it in and smiled at one of the instructors as he kneeled down to talk to Jack. "What's wrong, buddy?"

"Why are you fighting?" Jack rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes.

"We're not." Mark gave him a hug and smiled at him. "It just looked like it. We were talking, that's all."

"Is she gonna cry before we eat now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I think 'sgetti makes her tummy ache 'cause I can hear her crying after I'm in bed."

Mark felt a fluttering in his chest. "She only does that after spaghetti?"

"Uh huh." Jack sniffled. "Every damn time she eats it."

"We really need to work on your vocabulary, Slick."

"Sorry. Every freakin' time she eats it," Jack amended.

"Still bad."

"Shit."

Mark goosed the little boy in the ribs, causing him to giggle. "Behave yourself. You don't want your mom to get angry notes about you using bad words in front of the other kids."

"Little pitchers have big ears." Jack looked conspiratorial. "That's what Mom told the furniture guy when he said she was pretty and asked her to the movies."

The smile on Mark's face was gone in an instant. "What did she say?"

"She said little pitchers have big ears and pointed at me."

"Is she going?"

"Where?"

"To the movies."

"Oh." Jack shrugged his shoulders. "She told me that guys are 'sposed to bring flowers before they call someone pretty. He didn't have no flowers." Jack put his hands on Mark's shoulders. "I think she was pissed off. She threw things when he left."

"Pissed is also something you need to stop saying."

"If I stop saying everything that's bad then what's left?"

"I think your mother should have your I.Q. tested. You're too smart for your own good."

"What's that?"

"Nevermind." Mark hugged him again. It was a daily thing for him to stop by and bring animal crackers just to get a hug. Especially when the day was going to hell in a hand basket. "You go play with Tuck, okay?"

"'Kay."

*~*~*~*~*~

"But where is he?" Jack had pulled his chair against the window and was peering outside, his knees in the seat. "It's almost time."

"I told you, kiddo, Mark's busy."

"Can I call him?"

"No." Callie shut the blinds and picked him up, kissing his neck as she set him on his feet. "Please go wash your hands."

"You made him mad!" Jack accused, stomping his foot. "I know you did!"

"Grown ups sometimes make each other mad."

"When I make you mad you make me say sorry!" Jack darted out of the way when she tried to pick him up. "I'm not eating your stupid shit dinner!"

"Hey!" Callie caught his arm. "What did I tell you about that word?"

"Shit shit shit!" Jack chanted, yanking his arm lose. He ran across the kitchen and picked up the box of garlic bread, throwing it at her. "Shit shit shit shit!"

Callie was stunned. In the months that she'd had Jack, he had never come close to a full blown tantrum, unless you counted his refusal to warm up to Gertie and the dead spiders he had left in her denture bowl ... which prompted her to quit. She gasped when he opened the door under the sink and intentionally slammed it on his hand. "JACK!"

"Shit." He sat down in the floor and cradled his hand. "That hurt."

Bending down, she picked him up and sat him on the counter top. He burst into tears and she was torn by whether to comfort him or examine him. His wails were earsplitting and it scared her half to death. Most people who cried that way had open fractures. There was no blood, however, and she gently cradled his arm, pressing against several bones in his hand. It was red, already swelling, and he jerked away when she pressed the worst of it. "Let me see it, baby," she pleaded.

"I'M NOT A BABY!" he squealed. "LEMME ALONE!"

"Jack-"

"I hate you!" He jumped off the counter and raced past her.

A second later Callie heard his bedroom door slam.

It would have hurt less if he had slapped her in the face, she decided as she retrieved the garlic bread that he had thrown across the room. She opened the box and put the slices on a pan and by the time she finished, she was crying almost as hard as he had been. The doorbell rang as she slid it into the oven and set the timer. Grabbing a paper towel, she wet it and wiped her face before she headed through the living room.

"I know you said for me not to-" Mark began as soon as she opened the door, but he trailed off when he saw how upset she was. Wordlessly, he stepped past her and took her hand, still hiding the bouquet of flowers behind his back. "What happened?"

"Can you watch dinner?"

"Yeah, sure."

"The bread's in the oven and the pasta is probably very over cooked and ... I don't care."

"Callie, what -"

She held up her hand and vanished up the stairs. He went into the kitchen and put the flowers on the table. He drained the noodles, leaving them in the colander in the sink. The bread still had several minutes to go so he headed toward the stairs himself. Jack was sitting on the top of the landing, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. "What happened?" Mark questioned, noticing how puffy the little boy's eyes were.

"She's giving me back." Jack puckered up and started to cry.

"What are you talking about?" Mark sat down two steps below him so that they were eye level.

"She's gonna make me go back to that place because I can't stop saying bad words," he cried. In a much lower voice, he added. "And I told her that I hate her, but it was a lie so I lied on top of saying bad words. Plus I hurted myself."

"What? Where?"

Jack held his hand out. Mark took it in his own and felt it until he was convinced that nothing was broken. Callie had told him about Jack's penchant for self injury and he had hoped that it was behind him, but it apparently wasn't. "Let's go get you an ice pack."

Mark glanced behind Jack at Callie's closed bedroom door as he lifted the little boy in his arms. "She would never give you back, buddy. She's your mom and mom's don't do that."

"Yes, they do. I've had a bunch of moms."

"Oh yeah?"

Jack nodded as Mark sat him on the island in the middle of the floor. "They call them frosted homes."

"You mean foster homes," Mark corrected. "And I lived in foster homes too when I was your age."

Jack stared at Mark as if he had just told him that Santa Claus was in the front yard. "You did?" he whispered.

"I did. I finally got adopted, but my mom isn't as good as yours. She ... she wasn't much fun. She never woke me up with silly string or let me have a car bed. She didn't get a rock climbing wall or make me spaghetti and it didn't matter to her that I didn't like my nanny." As Mark spoke, he filled a zip lock bag with ice and wrapped a dish towel around it. "I brought you that dinosaur movie to watch. Why don't I start it for you? I need to go talk to Callie for a minute."

"Don't let her give me back."

"Don't even think like that. It's not happening."

He took the bread out of the oven and wrung his hands as he headed up the stairs.

*~

Mark knocked on her bedroom door and waited a few seconds. He knocked a little louder when she didn't answer and then he pushed the door open, uninvited. She was sitting on the bed, her back to the door. "Callie?"

"I'll be down in a minute."

"You know he didn't mean it."

"I know."

"He's terrified that you're going to give him back. Come downstairs and -"

"I suck at this."

Mark walked around the bed and sat beside her. "You do *not* suck."

"Did you check his hand?"

"It's fine. He's got an ice pack and he's watching a movie." Mark did something he had been tempted to do all day. He reached out and pushed her hair back, letting his fingers slide almost to the end of her raven locks. It was soft and silky and he swallowed hard. Never one to pay attention to hair color when it came to the opposite sex, he made the decision in that moment that black hair was the sexiest color a woman could have ... no, he amended, just one woman. "You know I was adopted, right?"

She turned her head, her eyes wide. "No!"

"When I was seven. This wealthy family decided they needed the midlife crisis baby and then realized that a baby would be a pain in the ass. So, they got me instead." He had mussed her hair so he smoothed it back down. As an afterthought, he tilted her chin so that she couldn't look away. "Coming here and spending time with him is not a novelty for me. This is the highlight of my week and I can understand why you're leery and why you'd want me to stay away, but -"

"You don't have to stay away. He's crazy about you and so am -" Callie trailed off, pulling away from him. What she had almost said hung thick in the air around them and she started to stand. When he caught her hand, she sighed. "Mark-"

"So am I," he replied softly. "And I'm not going anywhere. I'll wait."

She didn't know why she felt like an awkward teenager all over again. She was tempted to run, to hug him, to kiss him, to hit him. "Why?" she finally breathed. "Why me?"

"How can it not be you?"

She had to laugh as she ran her free hand over her face. "You know, there's something behind that whole MILF thing because when you guys see that I have a kid ... you try to -"

"That's not a novelty for me either."

"Mom?"

Callie turned and saw Jack behind them carrying a bouquet of flowers. He laid them on the bed as he pulled himself up on it and then he picked them up again as she crawled toward her on his knees. "I won't say shit no more," he told her in a barely audible voice as he stopped right behind her. He held up the flowers and smiled tentatively. "I'm sorry. And - and you're pretty. And I love you."

As Mark watched her pull Jack into her arms ... he wondered if she understood that her son had just taken the words right of his mouth.

And his flowers, too.

*~*~*~*~