Chapter Text
The day Madeline Wachowski turned 40, she had an epiphany.
It’s one of those things that started off as sitting in the back of her mind, crossing her mind every so often with no real weight until now. It sat with her when she’s woken up by her husband with a kiss on the forehead, when she was served breakfast in bed by said husband, when she sat in the car to go to a restaurant for lunch, dressed to the nines.
When there, she saw a family of three sitting together- a mom, a dad, and a little seven-year-old who, slowly but politely, ordered for herself. Tom catches her watching them in the middle of his story about another misadventure he and Wade had, and he watches with her as they celebrate the little girls’ accomplishment.
“Cute,” he comments, before going back into his story. Maddie, in turn, looked back at him, smiled, and took a bite of her pasta. She still heard the happy little giggles behind her, the sweet little voice launching into her own story about her friend’s dog, and her attention was irrevocably split for the rest of lunch.
It weighed on her when her sister calls her on Facetime, teasing her about being old as her daughter, Maddie’s niece, laughs along. Twelve-year-old niece. Almost thirteen. When Rachel chases Tom off of the call, telling him to go make burgers or whatever men do, causing Jojo to race off in order to conduct her own call with her uncle Tommy, Maddie found a quieter spot to chat with her sister.
“Rachel.”
“That’s me,” Rachel confirmed. “Something on your mind?”
“... I’m old,” Maddie said after a pause, and Rachel laughed, snarking, ‘What does that make me? Prehistoric?’ before she noticed the change in her sister’s expression.
“Oh, jeez. Is this a crisis?” She asked, to which Maddie shrugged helplessly. Rachel sighed before she found her own spot to sit where Jojo wouldn’t hear. “Mads, you’re only forty. That’s practically nothing in our family- Dad’s nearly seventy-four, and he’s still kicking. Did you see that he and Mom went-”
“-The trip to the Alps? I did. It’s not that- well, it sort of is. I-” Maddie tried to find the words, tried to describe the sudden rock that's been sitting in her stomach, but Rachel once again jumps in before she could explain.
“Are you finally getting a divorce?” The woman sounded way too excited about the prospect. “Thank God, come to San Francisco right now, you might have to room with Jojo while I clean the attic out but-”
“No! Rachel, quit.” Maddie laughs, and decides to forego prepositions. “I’m just- I’m forty now. I have a husband. We have a dog. We’re making a lot of money—”
“Imagine.”
“And I— could you not? I’m being vulnerable.” Rachel’s laughter rings out from the speaker, but Maddie trucked on, changing tactics. “Rachel, how old were we when Jojo was born?”
Rachel blinks.
“I was thirty-one, that makes you twenty-eight. Why?”
“Did you ever--- regret having a kid?”
“What!” Rachel splutters, and Maddie splutters the beginning of an explanation before Rachel shushes her again. “I get what you mean. I guess- there’s parts I regret. Being a single mother is hard, you know? I regret making Jojo go to that daycare even when she told me she hated it. I regret not letting Mom and Dad around her more often when she was a baby. I regret having that man be Jojo’s father. But-” she shrugged. “If I never did, Jojo wouldn’t be around. I don’t regret having her. I never could.”
And Maddie— Well. Maddie is at a loss for words. Something deep in her gut grows; something similar to what she felt in the restaurant when she heard that little girl laugh, something that reappeared when Jojo stole Rachel’s phone and took it hostage to ask Maddie about Ozzy.
“... Why?” Rachel asks again. A tinny gasp rings through the speakers. “Are you-”
“I feel like we missed our chance,” Maddie admitted, and the Look Rachel leveled her was the special big-sister ‘you’re-being-stupid’ Look. She, in a moment of maturity, turned her phone away and ignored Rachel’s petulant hey! as she continued. “I mean, we always planned on having kids- we both talked about it when we got married, you know? But then we got so busy, and Tom had to work three jobs for me when I went to grad school, and I didn’t want to move him away from his family when Big T was sick, so I guess we just- settled. And I’m happy, you know? Tom got promoted, I’m head doctor, it’s all so perfect now. Ozzy is wonderful, but he’s getting old. He’s a Golden Retriever, they’re always amazing with kids. He and Jojo are best friends, but I can tell that he misses her when you leave, and—”
“Madeline Tika Wachowski,” Rachel’s voice rang, tinny and stern, from the microphone. “Turn me around, or so help— thank you. You’re forty, not four thousand. If you want kids so bad, talk to Thomas about it! If there’s one thing I can positively say about that man, it’s that he listens to you. Probably too much if you ask me, but-” Rachel huffed, but her voice turned soft. “You still have time for kids. If anything, you could adopt, or even just foster. If they won't give you kids, that house you have could double as a nature preserve.”
“But Tom and I are so busy,” Maddie reiterated, leaning back in her seat. “What sane foster system would let a sheriff and the head doctor of a veterinary clinic foster? We’re never around!”
“I don’t know,” Rachel shrugged. “Just- talk to Thomas about it, yeah? Get a teen; they’re pretty easy.” A crash echoed from somewhere off the screen, and Jojo’s voice started calling something before Rachel shouted her name, her head swinging back to the screen. “I have to go. Tell me how it goes with him, and if you need a witness for a divorce proceeding, I got you. Now, if you’ll excuse me— JOJO!”
The call ended, and Maddie snorted before heading back inside, bumping into Tom.
“What’d she do?”
“Accidentally knocked over her shelf trying to show me all of her books,” Tom replied. Maddie cringed. “She’s alright, she was able to jump off before it landed.”
“What was she doing-”
“No idea. I told her not to, but she said that the ‘phone makes it so I can’t tell her what to do’.”
“And you believed her?”
“She told me she’s done it before!”
“Crazy kid,” Maddie laughed. Tom chuckled, and wrapped an arm around her side, gently pulling her in. The smell of the grill clung to his clothes, and Maddie breathed it in. “You finished with those burgers?”
“‘Course I am. Jojo was very helpful.”
Maddie hummed happily and let her husband bring her outside, the rock in her stomach ignorable- for now.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
She brings it up a week later, after nights of sneaking her phone out like a teenager and doing research. Lots of research. Research that both makes her heart sink and sing and do all sorts of gymnastics.
The thing is, she knew Rachel was right. Tom did listen to her every word, and when he could, tried to make it happen for her. He's wonderful like that, and she tries every day to match his generosity and do what he does for her. It kept both of them on their toes, and she knew he wouldn't have it any other way.
But.
Her husband was also such a boy. Not in the immature sense, just in the way-of-life sense. He liked staying up late. He went on joyrides with his buddies, and she knows he loved to grab a beer after work. He was responsible each and every day for his job, and often used the time at home to relax and unwind. She was the same way- it's why she knows he liked to stay up way too late watching bad movies and eating junk, after all.
She didn't want to completely upend his routine with her own desires. She knew that he's fine with other peoples’ kids— it's why he's Jojo's favorite (and only) uncle— but she didn't want to be overbearing or nagging him into something he doesn't want to do.
(She knows, logically, that would never happen.)
Still, though, she was the kind of woman who liked having a plan with these types of things. So, she made one. Spent days on the thing, writing and rewriting what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and fifteen backup plans for each problem that might arise. She also wrote out a script, one that she glanced over nervously again and again as the time drew near. The first step of the plan was lightly suggesting that they have steak, potatoes, and green beans one night: their favorite meal to make together.
She walked to the kitchen, feeling strangely a lot like the one time she was in a play in high school with a lot more lines than she thought she would get. When she finally brought it up, she was sitting at the end of the table, snapping the ends off of green beans as Tom cooked and tried to pretend he wasn't feeding bits of steak to Ozzy.
“Tommy,” she said, instantly catching his attention.
“Uh oh,” he replied, and though he had an easy smile on his face he looked concerned. “Am I in trouble?”
“No,” she reassured, her eyes still on her bowl. “You remember how my birthday was last month.”
“Yeah, it was.” Tom agreed, turning back to his work at the stove.
“Lots of candles.”
“Less than mine,” he countered. “You're still a whippersnapper- I'm practically geriatric.”
“I've been thinking,” she continued, and Tom turns and opens his mouth to tease her before clearly thinking the better of it. “Good choice. But— I’ve been thinking. Doing some research, and—” she almost expects Tom to interrupt her, but when she looked up to see his full attention on her she stammered, lost her perfectly designed script, and decided fuck it. “We forgot to have the baby.”
“What?” Tom’s eyebrows pull together and his grin grows, but he’s confused, looking at her like she had two heads. “What do you mean, forgot to have a baby?”
“You know,” Maddie says, pushing away the green beans. “We always wanted kids, right? So we agreed, seven years after we got married and bought the house, we’d just- pop one out.”
“Not how that works.”
“Shht. But then we got busy, right? Me with grad school, you with your dad and becoming an officer–- we just forgot.”
“We have Ozzy,” he said, like it wasn't obvious.
“Do you remember why we got Ozzy?” She challenged, with the dog padding over to her once he heard he was the center of attention. “He’s a Goldie, they’re good with kids. We always promised him he’d have a little buddy, didn’t we?” She cooed, posing the question more to Ozzy than to Tom as she scratched behind his ears, the gray around his muzzle and eyes more obvious to her than ever before.
“He’s still a young man!” Tom defended, coming around the table to kneel and pet Ozzy. “He’s, what, five?”
“Eight, Tom.” Tom made a sound like he had been winded, and his scratching behind Ozzy’s ears increased. “He’s getting up there in age.”
“He's not geriatric,” Tom joked, though it fell flat.
“Yeah, but he's still an older dog.” The weight in her gut ached, and her hands twitched. “We got him when we got married, and now he's old.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Tom replied, taking his seat at the table. “We’re still young. People have kids in their forties all the time.”
“Yeah, but-” She shifted in her chair. Pulled the bowl of green beans near, just to have something to do. Began snapping. “There’s complications to that. It's not as easy as it would have been. People have babies when they’re my age, sure, but they’re more high-risk. There’s complications, and it’s just— harder. And… and I was thinking, you know, all of our friends have kids and they're all getting up there, like we are- Jojo's almost thirteen, you know? She's almost thirteen, and we're in our forties, and we got the house and the dog and then we forgot to have the baby!” The green bean she had been holding was crushed.
“Maddie, hey, it's okay, it's fine,” Tom soothed as she shook the green bean off of her hands, her cheeks warm. “Is there something-”
“No, Tom, I'm sorry,” she pressed the bottom of her palms against her eyes, taking in a deep breath through her nose and out through her mouth. “I— yeah. I'm sorry. Don't know why I got so worked up-”
“Hey, I get it.” He stood, pulling her into an embrace. “I guess I didn't know you felt so strongly about this.”
“I didn't know either,” she laughed, though it felt almost like crying. “Just- so many candles on my birthday cake, Tom. And in two months, there'll be one more on yours, and who knows where we'll be then?”
“Just another year older.”
God. Maddie loved her husband, but he was just so stable.
Maddie huffed, and gently removed herself from Tom's hold. He let her go, and she went to wash her hands free of green bean guts.
“This isn't how I wanted this to go at all,” she admitted, soaping up her hands. “I was going to bring up statistics, Tom. Had a whole explanation ready. I was going to bring up fostering and adopting-”
“Hey, those are great ideas!” Tom sidled past her to continue cooking, a steak hissing as he set it into the pan. Once she finished washing her hands, she grabbed the prepped green beans from the table. Tom pulled out a pot for her, adding, “I've actually been thinking about fostering, too.”
“You have?”
“Yeah?” His eyebrows drew together again at her surprise. “Always thought about fostering some kids, teenagers, and getting them on their feet for college or whatever they want to do. Be there for them, teach them what they need to know about the world, all that.”
“That…” she reached for words, stunned. “That's smart, Tom.”
“I try.”
“Here I was, thinking about babies and getting pregnant- look at you!” She lightly punched his shoulder as he chuckled, her hand resting on his bicep. “Mr. Thinking Ahead.”
Tom mimicked a stage bow, and the rest of the night— including dinner— went better than Maddie had imagined.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
The process for being licensed foster parents was… easier than what Maddie had in mind. It was all set up and ready to go in less than three months, where the lady had smiled at them and said they would likely be getting a call for their first child, quote, ‘whenever one was compatible and available’. Perfectly easy, right?
Evidently, children weren’t compatible or available in the foster system.
Maddie was practically glued to her phone those first few months, constantly worrying that she wouldn’t be able to receive calls due to how busy she was at work. Tom always reassured her that it was fine, but even he complained every so often that he felt like they were being forgotten.
Until one day, when Tom was on speed trap. It was honestly a miracle that he was the one who got the call; Maddie had been in the middle of a surgery that was taking longer than anticipated due to complications. She was exhausted when the surgery was done, nearly collapsing into the chair in her office and mindlessly checking her phone with bleary eyes only to shoot up in her chair, her heartbeat spiking as a cold rush ran down her spine. Tom's typing was a far cry from the MLA formatted essays he usually sent, short and choppy.
Thomas: We got a boy
Thomas: Nicholas Sasaki, 13
Thomas: Expected to arrive in the next 48 hours.
Maddie: OMG!!!
Her head felt like a balloon, full of helium and spinning. Thirteen was a little younger than what she was expecting- they had made it clear that Tom’s original plan of helping older teenagers onto their feet for the start of adult life and being a steady source for them was their goal- but it was no less exciting. A thirteen-year-old boy! In less than 48 hours!
… Shit, a thirteen-year-old boy. In less than 48 hours.
The rest of the day was spent in something like a haze, luckily with no more major surgeries or cases coming in that Maddie couldn’t put all of her energy towards. She celebrated with the other vets for the rest of the day, the news being spread to all of the animals who reacted either apathetically or got hyped due to the excitement in the voices.
Maddie returned home to Tom being just as happy as she was, Ozzy leaping around them as they danced in the living room. They spent the rest of the day deep-cleaning the house, with Maddie going up to the little bedroom they made in their attic every 20 minutes just in case a new layer of dust had magically appeared since the last time she had been there. The night was spent whispering to each other like children, nervousness and excitement blending together before they dropped off to sleep.