mifan-swat

[mifan-swat]

I’m not a carrier.

Neither was my brother, Lucy had said. His kid’s three now.

Tommy had sat in his car for a while after that, staring at the post-it note she’d scrawled the phone number on. Just the number, no identifying information, which was thoughtful, he guesses.

He’s staring at it again now, after the twenty minutes he spent staring at the positive pregnancy test.

He’s not a carrier. Just ask his fucking medical records. He couldn’t have gotten into the Army if he was, not under DADT; male carriers, regardless of orientation, are just a little too close to queer for the average conservative’s taste. Tommy’s never had much invested in it one way or another other than being just as careful about condoms once he came out and started fucking men instead of women.

Maybe puking his guts out for the fourth shift in a row, long past the point of being able to blame it on a simple stomach bug and ignoring the way Donato had started to eye him, is some new allergy surfacing. Maybe crying (a little!) over a Lifetime commercial - not even the movie, the fucking commercial - is because Deidre Hall’s acting has always gotten to him. Maybe it’s a false positive and he just has cancer instead.

And maybe he’ll open his door to Andrew Lincoln and a bunch of cue cards.

He wishes, for just a moment, that he hadn’t worked quite so hard on not lying to himself.

Then he gets out his phone and sends a text.

Is the kid at least cute?

The cutest, Lucy sends back promptly. Cuter than yours could ever be, not even a little sorry.

He sends back the obligatory eyeroll emoji with a snort.

Pete was about your age and he had a rough time. If you even think you MIGHT want to keep it, make that appointment NOW.

Tommy reads the text, looks at the post-it.

(He does not think about Evan. At least, not any more than he’s always thinking about Evan.)

They squeeze him into the schedule for the next afternoon.

*

The actual test to confirm is quick and easy, and he figures it’s positive right around the time they take him to see the doctor herself.

She’s already there, waiting when he comes in, which is a novelty, but then a forty-six-year-old male carrier is gonna need all the help and attention he can get. There’s a reason he’s refused even the thought of Evan, of telling him, of seeing the look on his face when he realizes he’s going to be a dad, and it’s because he probably won’t be. Tommy knows his odds.

He knows his odds, and something about the neutral smile Dr Colton offers as she stands to greet him is making this real, and jesus christ he’s about to make his first impression by puking on his obstetrician.

She grabs a small trashcan from under her desk as she rises, handing it to him smoothly. He nods gratefully and has the presence of mind to turn his back to her as he loses what little breakfast he managed to get down this morning. He keeps it all in the can liner, at least, which he ties off after to buy himself an extra moment to get his shit together.

He’s pregnant.

Dr Colton takes the can back from his numb hands and stows it aside where neither of them has to look at it, saying,

“You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.”

Her words sort of go in one ear and out the other; Tommy is still shaking as he sits down. Dr Colton has sat down as well and is pretending to go over his paperwork. Giving him a little space.

“I’m pregnant,” he says blankly.

She looks up and puts the folder aside, the neutral smile back in place.

“You are,” she agrees. “The records your doctor’s office sent us indicate that you’re not a carrier, so this must be quite a shock for you.”

“Uh. Just. Rearranging my entire sense of identity, you know. No big deal.” In some ways, it’s not even the first time.

She laughs even as she says,

“The screening rejection movement in the eighties has a lot to answer for.”

“I always figured - I mean, my dad wouldn’t have, but I - Mom went behind his back a lot with my medical stuff before . . . uh, sorry, that’s my therapist’s problem, not yours.” The therapist he’s gonna need and never get before this is all over, anyway.

“Well. You’re here, and part of my job is to help you navigate exploring your options and any history that might influence your decision. You don’t have to choose right away, but it is important that you make the choice that’s right for you.”

“Assuming it ends up being my choice.”

“You are facing challenges that other carrying parents don’t,” Dr Colton acknowledges, “but that’s true of every pregnancy, and I actually like your odds.”

He blinks. “What?”

“You are a male carrier in your mid forties, yes, but you are not defined by your demographic alone. You’re also in good condition and excellent health. You’re in communication with your primary physician about changes to your diet and exercise. All of that means that you know how to take care of yourself and you are proactive about doing it. And while it’s true that none of that cancels out the complications brought on by your demographic, I feel safe in saying that your odds are much closer to those of a man in his early thirties.

“So. Assume you have a choice.”

Tommy put away any ideas of being a dad a long time ago. That wasn’t where his life was going, so why think about it? Why risk finding out that he does want kids? He’s got plenty of grief and regrets already, no need to add to the pile.

But for all of that -

For all of that, the choice is so simple it’s hardly a choice at all.

“I want to keep it,” he says, and finds that his hand has gone protectively to his abdomen without any input from him.

This time when Dr Colton smiles, it’s warm and easy. “In that case - congratulations, Mr Kinard.”

“Tommy,” he says, automatic.

“Amelia, then.”

He nods, also automatic, because he’s pregnant and he’s keeping it. Or he’s going to try his best, anyway. He waits to get sick again, but he just feels . . . calm. Clear. Like the world makes sense, has taken the shape it was always meant to be.

“Tommy, I want you to know that I think of us as a team, working together for your child’s benefit. I will do everything I can, and I know you will too. I’ve known too many first responders to think otherwise.”

He wonders what she would think of the fact that the father is a first responder too. He wonders what she makes of Evan not being here. If it means anything that she hasn’t brought it up. He looked her up last night, knows she specializes in male carriers and has a high success rate with geriatric pregnancies specifically - she must see a lot of men like him, reeling and alone.

He forces himself to stop thinking about it, to tune back in to what Amelia is saying about light duty (which he expected), no flying (it being a matter of course doesn’t make it less painful to swallow), and bed rest.

“What?”

“There’s a silver lining. You’ll be so busy hating me for it that you’ll forget to miss flying. It’ll be third trimester at the latest - I make that standard procedure for all the geriatric pregnancies I oversee. You’ll be bored and miserable and it will be worth every second. Until then, you’ll be coming in for weekly appointments as well as any other issue that might crop up, no matter how small. I know you’ve spent your career conditioned to disregard the little things, but right now a little thing can become a big thing very fast. If you feel like you’re being foolish or making a fuss over nothing, remind yourself: it’s not just about you anymore.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, avoiding snapping off a salute by the skin of his teeth. She laughs.

“That’s enough for today, I think. I try not to send my new patients off looking too shellshocked. I’m glad you came to us. Walking through that door today is another way you’ve given the both of you a better chance.”

*

Tommy spends the next week grappling with his new situation, poring somewhat obsessively over all the information Amelia sent home with him (“Call me with any questions you have. Do not consult Doctor Google”) and not telling anyone.

(Not telling Evan. It’s too soon to tell Evan. He hadn’t needed Amelia’s confirmation to know he’s only eight weeks along. He knows the most likely time of conception. He did the math. He appreciates Amelia’s optimism, but it doesn’t stick as easy as it did in the warm confines of her office and it is too soon to tell Evan. Tommy has already hurt him enough.)

Giving the doctor’s note ordering light duty to his captain doesn’t count as telling even if it does state the reason why, and if his coworkers exchange knowing looks when they see his new assignment, well.

“Obvious to everyone but me?” he asks Lucy, wry. She just snorts and thumps him on the shoulder, and he could hug her for doing him the kindness of not pulling that punch one damn bit.

So. He almost doesn’t tell anyone and he does breathing exercises recommended in Amelia’s literature when the boredom of light duty starts getting to him about five minutes in and he thinks about being pregnant almost more than he thinks about Evan and then somehow a week has passed.

This appointment feels like what the routine will be for - for however long he ends up seeing Amelia. She doesn’t ask about Evan; he leaves feeling raw all the same. He’s so preoccupied with the loudness of Evan’s absence that he doesn’t register the familiar voice at the front desk until he turns and finds himself meeting Maddie Han’s shocked stare with his own.

Fuck.

Fuck.

There’s no chance of hiding anything. He didn’t get the few seconds he would have needed to wipe the truth off his face, and even if he had it’s not like Maddie became one of LA’s best dispatchers by being an idiot. Why else would a lone man be walking out of an obstetrician’s office?

“Maddie,” he says, helpless.

“Tommy,” she answers, then, “We’ll talk outside.”

Tommy confirms his next appointment in a daze, going over talking points in his head like that’s going to do him any damn good. She’s going to tell Evan, of course she is, she’s his sister and it’s her job to take his side, and then -

Fuck. He can’t start spiraling right now, he cannot, with his luck he’ll just end up puking down Maddie’s front if he does. He pauses for a long, slow breath, then another, and then he goes outside.

Maddie is waiting not quite by the door, but close enough that he couldn’t escape by any means short of just blowing her off, which he can’t really afford to do. So he stops, and forces himself to meet her eyes.

“Let’s not have our episode of Maury in the parking lot,” she says, crisp and unreadable.

“The coffee place across the street,” he offers. “Uh, apparently they keep a good selection of herbal tea for patients here.”

“Sounds good.”

At the counter, Tommy orders himself something with a stupid ambiance name that sounds like a Yankee Candle. He’s not done weaning himself off caffeine yet - Amelia called it the lesser of two evils when the other choice is abrupt withdrawal from a substance he’s relied on for decades - but he’ll be damned if he’ll consume any in front of Maddie. He can just imagine what she’d think.

(That he doesn’t care, that he’s not taking it seriously, that he never took Evan seriously -)

He tries to pay for her more sensible peppermint. She doesn’t let him.

They get a table in the corner, maneuver briefly over who gets the seat facing the store before Tommy gives in, and then -

Then they’re sitting, and Maddie is stirring sugar into her tea, and she’s watching him.

He knows exactly what she’s doing. It gets to him in a matter of seconds anyway; he sips his tea nervously, discovers as he burns his tongue that Sunset Breeze is citrusy with a mildly baffling hint of cocoa, and asks - okay, kind of blurts,

“Where’s Howie?”

Maddie sets the stirrer down on her napkin.

“On shift. I’m far enough along that we don’t need Bobby to work his schedule around every appointment anymore.”

“Right,” Tommy says, “right, I didn’t mea -“

“Buck doesn’t know,” she says, flat. “About you. I know he doesn’t, because if he did then I would, and I had no idea.”

“I’m only nine weeks,” he says. The last of the shocked fog dissipates under the rush of desperation, the need for her to understand. “I’ve only known for a week to be doing the right things, and I’m forty-six, Maddie, I’m a forty-six-year-old male carrier, you were a nurse, you know my odds, you know there might not even be anything to tell i-i-in a day or a, a, a week -“

he wants this baby so much, it’s been a week and he already wants it so much -

Evan will -

“Tommy.” Maddie is saying his name, he realizes, probably not for the first time, and no wonder. His breathing’s gone short and shallow, he’s shaking, and he’s getting lightheaded.

“There you are,” he hears Maddie say, “now breathe with me, okay?”

Okay. He can do that.

“Shit,” he mutters when he’s back at baseline, wiping his eyes with the napkin Maddie hands him because of course he started fucking crying too. “This is really gonna suck, isn’t it?” He hasn’t gotten that close to a panic attack since basic. Jesus.

She laughs a little, not unkindly. “Yeah. It’s also really gonna be amazing. Anyway, that was at least half my fault. I was having way too much fun watching you squirm.”

“I think you’re entitled,” he says. He doesn’t say and I deserved it but she must hear it anyway, because the last of the reserve falls from her expression.

“Forget what the books say about your odds. What does your doctor say?”

“That they’re pretty good for a guy my age,” Tommy admits, “and, uh -“ He can’t bring himself to say if to Maddie’s face, but when feels like asking the universe to smack him down. “Second trimester raises odds significantly.”

If Maddie notices the awkward u-turn into passive voice she doesn’t call him on it, saying instead,

“That it does. So - maybe then would be the time to tell him? I’ll sit on it for now, he should hear it from you, but I won’t keep it from him forever.”

Tommy’s chest tightens threateningly at the very thought, but he pushes that down hard, because only only is she being more than fair, she’s also right. If he makes it to the second trimester, if he does, then -

Then Evan should know. Because that’s also only fair.

He takes a breath, mostly to make sure his body isn’t gonna decide to puke about it next.

“Okay. Second trimester.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Maddie says, half-teasing, half-warning.

“You might have to.”

She tilts her cup at him. “Don’t make me have to.”

Tommy takes another, careful sip of his tea, re-scalding his burned tongue.

“So, uh, that’s me covered. How about you? Evan mentioned you had a tough time with Jee?” He hadn’t gotten much further into it than that, just enough to leave Tommy with the impression that “tough time�� is something of an understatement.

Maddie graciously allows the blatant subject change.

“That and the geriatric pregnancy are why I’m still on weekly appointments, but my doctor thinks that can change soon -“ she begins. Tommy gradually settles as he listens, both into his chair and a little back into his skin.

They end up talking for almost an hour; Tommy leaves with Maddie’s number in his phone and plans made to meet up again after their appointments next week.

He also leaves feeling a little less alone in it all.

*

On their second tea date, Maddie declares them pregnancy buddies.

“We’re what now?” Tommy asks, tea paused halfway to his mouth. He’s giving Sunset Breeze another spin; it never really had the chance to make a good first impression.

“Pregnancy buddies,” Maddie repeats. “The people who love and support us are great, but they don’t know, you know? They don’t get it. They’re not in the trenches with us. And I don’t know about you, but every friend I have who’s been pregnant did it almost twenty years ago at the earliest. The world has changed so much since then. We’re bringing our kids into a pretty crazy place.”

The world has, in Tommy’s estimation, always been a pretty crazy place, but he sees what she means. The potential future they could be leaving for their - for the newest generation, in all its possibly-apocalyptic glory.

He has a better handle on his new reality now than he did two weeks ago, but it’s still only been two weeks. Still that if hanging in the air. Maybe it would be for the best. Maybe in thirty, forty years his kid will be wishing fetal dissolution had come for them.

Or maybe Tommy needs to lighten up a little. He’s certain that’s not where Maddie’s thoughts are going, so he gives himself a little inward shake and raises his cup in a toast.

“Pregnancy buddies,” he says. Maddie grins and taps her cup to his, and they drink. Tommy swallows thoughtfully. Maybe it would make more sense as an iced tea.

“Besides,” Maddie says, “I’d like us to be friends. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed at you for hurting Buck like you did, but the second he finds out he’s gonna want me to get over it. And that’s my niece or nephew you’ve got in there.”

“I -“ Tommy falters. An apology here feels about right, but Maddie isn’t the one he should be apologizing to and she’ll tell him that if he tries.

She continues as if he hadn’t said anything. “And since you’re not letting him in yet, it also makes me feel better to be keeping an eye on things myself.”

He huffs a laugh at that despite himself, because yeah. That’s the first responder talking. Every single one he knows, including himself, would say the same thing. Hell, he knows Maddie’s safe and healthy and he still feels better knowing he’ll have his own eyes on her on a regular basis.

“You know he’s going to be an amazing dad, right?” she asks suddenly.

“I - yeah, of course. I keep thinking about how he is with Jee.” He’s thought about that a lot since he made his promise to Maddie, the way Evan lights up whenever he sees his niece and how much she adores him.

“Good. Because everything else aside, I know the breakup complicates things, but that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. He is gonna love that kid.”

“I know.” Tommy runs the back of his hand over his eyes for approximately the millionth time this week. “I couldn’t have gotten cursed with the weird cravings instead?” he mutters.

Maddie laughs, looking a little misty herself. “Just wait until everything starts swelling. You’ll be begging for the constant crying to be your worst problem.”

“So you are in this to taunt me.”

“Oh, that’s just a bonus of being my friend.”

Tommy’s pretty sure this is the first time he’s smiled like this since the breakup.

“Oh! Before I forget,” Maddie says, “today was my last weekly appointment. I am officially on a monthly schedule -“

“Congratulations.”

“- thank you - so come find me here next week when you’re done.”

*

She isn’t there when he shows up.

He doesn’t think anything of it at first, just goes back outside to wait so they can order together. He thinks she might let him pay this time.

It’s at about the twenty-minute mark that he starts to feel uneasy. He learned long ago to be flexible about friendly get-togethers in LA because you never know what the traffic might do, and he still doesn’t know Maddie that well, but. Surely she would have texted or called by now if she was just running late?

Maybe she forgot. His coworkers have given up on pretending they don’t know and he’s been hearing a lot of stories about pregnancy brain, among other things.

He texts her.

He calls. Gets back in his car and turns it to face the parking lot.

An hour in, he texts again.

Maybe, he thinks briefly, she changed her mind, realized she was angrier at him than she’d thought she was. Who could blame her?

No. He’s more than just uneasy now; his gut is shouting at him, the instinct he’s honed as a firefighter over the years and learned to listen to. She didn’t forget and she’s not icing him out. Something is wrong.

The car is starting to feel a little confining; he gets out and takes a careful, possibly precious minute to decide who to call. He doesn’t know enough to raise an official warning, not yet, so dispatch is out. Someone close to her.

Not Evan. Not Howie. Tommy and Maddie spending time together, and behind their backs at that, is weird and they’ll have questions that will waste time.

In the end, he does what he probably would have done in a maybe-emergency, especially one that affects the 118, a decade ago.

“This is Bobby Nash.”

“Bobby, it’s Tommy Kinard. Listen, do you know about anything going on with Maddie?”

“Why do you ask?”

Oh, he really doesn’t like the sudden alert focus in Bobby’s voice.

“I was supposed to meet up with her an hour ago. She never showed and she hasn’t been in touch about running late or having to cancel.”

“Has she contacted you at all since last night?”

Tommy’s heart starts to sink. “No. Bobby, what’s going on?”

“Maddie’s gone missing. We believe she was abducted, likely by a serial killer she took calls from at dispatch.”

Tommy - is sitting on the ground suddenly, slumped back against his car, head full of gray fuzz. His phone is also on the ground. He can hear Bobby’s voice. Can’t make out the words. Bobby sounds urgent. Slowly, Tommy picks it up. Puts it to his ear.

“- okay? Tommy?”

“I’m fine,” he says reflexively. He doesn’t sound fine, not even to himself.

‘Where are you?”

“Wh - Bobby, I’m fine.”

“I’d be happier if you were fine where I can see you. Are you at the coffee shop?”

There’s something strange about that question, but Tommy can’t parse it through the fuzz. “I - yeah. Wait, no, Evan and Howie need you -“

“They have other people with them right now.”

Tommy has - Amelia, across the street, who would be incredibly pissed if she knew he’s trying to turn down help right now. This is exactly the kind of thing he’s supposed to see her about, what is he doing?

“Okay,” he says, “okay. But if you hear anything on the way -“

“I’ll be there soon.”

“- you’ll turn right back aro - Bobby?”

Bobby’s already hung up.

*

By the time he gets there, Tommy has been helped inside by a couple of concerned patrons and furnished with water and a cup of Sunset Breeze on the house.

He is, apparently, the only person in recent memory who’s ordered it more than once. He’d better learn to like it, because now he can never order anything else.

He’s also clearheaded enough to have realized why Bobby knew he’d be here.

“Tommy.” Bobby gives him a quick lookover.

“Bobby,” he answers. “My doctor’s expecting me, isn’t she?”

Maddie only said she wouldn’t tell Evan.

‘Knew you’d figure it out. You good to stand?”

“Should be, yeah.” He lets Bobby help him up, not entirely sure he doesn’t need it. He’s spent most of his wait trying to hold on to at least some calm, trying to keep that gray fuzz from creeping back. That’s worked about as well as anyone might expect. It’s beginning to dawn on him that his body, which he relies on knowing completely and has for decades, is becoming something unfamiliar. Something he can’t predict with full confidence.

So he lets Bobby help him up and take some of his weight.

“Going across the street,” he tells the barista who brought him the tea. “Okay to leave my car here for a while?” Valerie, he remembers, that’s what her nametag says.

“Absolutely, long as you need.”

He thanks her. Lets Bobby help him into his, Bobby’s, own car. Closes his eyes. Listens to the engine start.

“She needed someone to talk to. Knew I’d respect your wishes.”

“Bobby,” Tommy says. “When we find her she can tell whoever the hell she wants. She can rent a billboard. I don’t care.” He’s crying by the end, silent tears sliding down his face. He leaves them alone. At least this time they make sense.

The short ride is quiet after that.

He thinks about objecting when Bobby gets out and comes around to help him out of the car, if only for his own dignity, but decides against it. It’s starting to look like he’s just going to have to get used to this shit.

That’ll be one perk of bed rest, anyway.

Inside, Bobby gets a couple of curious looks while Tommy checks (back) in, and he belatedly realizes how this must look.

“They think you’re the father,” he says quietly to Bobby, who isn’t actively holding on to Tommy now that he’s got a counter to lean against, but is still doing something that could best be described as “hovering.”

“You could do worse.”

“You’ve already done better.” Tommy smiles a little at the pride that puts on Bobby’s face. He’d never have guessed at Bobby and Athena after how Bobby’d left her hanging with that goddamn rooster, but ever since he watched their reunion after the cruise he finds it hard to imagine they ever weren’t each other’s.

. . . Athena will be looking into Maddie’s disappearance right about now, he thinks, whether she was assigned to it or not. There’ll be a search party that he probably dragged Bobby away from. A massive one, because first responders look after their own. If Maddie can be found, she will be.

There’s barely time to sit down in the waiting room before he’s brought to Amelia’s office. He explains that he’d received a shock (and that Bobby is not the father) and that the situation is ongoing. And when that leaves Amelia looking more worried than he’d hoped, he clarifies: a friend has gone missing. It could end well. It could end badly. He’d rather not talk about it any more than that. She sighs.

“I can’t tell you not to worry about your friend, but you do need to go home and rest. Do you have anyone who can stay with you?”

“I don’t think I’m getting rid of Bobby any time soon,” Tommy says, a touch dry. “He was my captain a few years back.”

“A first responder like you, then? Surround yourself with those and you’ll be the safest patient I’ve got,” she remarks, and sends him off with instructions to have Bobby take Tommy to the ER - “or call an ambulance, he can use his best judgment” - if he has another episode in the next twenty-four hours.

Bobby’s response to this is,

“Good, ‘cause you weren’t gonna win that fight.”

“I wasn’t gonna try to fight that fight.” He still thinks Bobby should be with his team, but they must have everything handled if they could spare him in the first place. And here’s Tommy, needing someone to actively keep an eye on him. Giving Bobby something to do. MADDIE FELT BETTER

Yeah. Tommy gets it.

In the car, an unexpected wave of exhaustion hits, even though objectively speaking he’s hardly done anything today. He must fall asleep anyway, because the next thing he’s aware of is Bobby outside his open door saying something like get you out of the car so you can sleep in your bed. He wakes enough to get himself on top of his bed, at least, maybe even gets his shoes off, with Bobby promising through the door to wake him the second there’s any news.

*

Tommy’s so exhausted after a long, rough shift that his dick isn’t cooperating despite Evan’s very best efforts.

And Evan’s very best efforts are so, so good. Tommy’s been luxuriating in the hazy bliss that comes with Evan’s touch and attention, too tired for self-consciousness, and he smiles at Evan’s consternation as their eyes meet. Evan relaxes a little and smiles back.

“We can stop,” he says.

“Mm, don’t want to. Want you to fuck me.”

“Are you - ?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Want you inside me.” It’s tonight, he knows. He did the math, after all. When Evan comes he’ll kickstart the process, and when Evan asks him to move in a month from now Tommy will already know about the baby, and everything will go differently from there. Everything will be better.

“Besides,” he adds, because this is how this conversation goes, “you should get a little something for yourself after all your hard work, and I will fall asleep if I try to blow you.” It makes Evan laugh.

He’s missed that.

“Well, when you put it that way - Tommy? Tommy, you’re bleeding.” He’s staring in horror between Tommy’s legs.

“No, no,” Tommy gasps, clutching his abdomen hard with both hands. Blood soaks the mattress, it’s all over Evan’s hands, and Evan is staring at him now, accusatory.

“Tommy, what did you do?”

“You should have been more careful,” Maddie says. Half her head is gone, blown away, her one remaining eye echoing Evan’s angry stare. “Why didn’t you pay attention?”

*

Tommy wakes silently, body tense and unmoving as reality filters back in. He’s awake, it’s dark out now, he’s still fully dressed, the baby is fine. Evan isn’t here and, of course, neither is Maddie.

It isn’t even the first or the second time he’s had that nightmare, though before it’s been Amelia making that little cameo at the end, whole and unharmed. Not hard to guess why Maddie showed up tonight instead, complete with an injury courtesy of one of his less pleasant memories of his Army days. Hell, and miscarriage doesn’t even work like that for male carriers. The body treats a dead fetus like a foreign object and attacks, breaking it down for reabsorption while the poor fucker who got himself knocked up suffers through a wicked fever. He still doesn’t know where that part comes from. Some half-remembered Rosemary’s Baby ripoff seems about right.

There. Deconstructed like that, the way he’s trained himself to deal with his nightmares over the years, it’s just a dream to be safely put away.

Except that Maddie is missing.

Yeah. Tommy’s done sleeping now.