Nick’s office was quiet, the only sound coming from the small Zen fountain by the window, a small tower of smooth rocks rising up from the center, a wall of bamboo making up the back. His office served as a sanctuary for him in the midst of the daily chaos that was part of being an emergency doctor at Sierra View. The window looked down at the hospital’s courtyard and let in plenty of sunshine throughout the day, brightening up the space and giving Nick a much needed boost of energy. He had been working through most of the night and was ready to call it a day but still had some paperwork he needed to fill out. Although, even if he had found a bed, Nick wasn’t so sure he would have been able to fall asleep. There was so much going on in his life, he was having a difficult time with processing it all. From Anna being a pure monster, to the birth of his beautiful little daughter, to a man who had instantly captured his attention from the start. As he looked over the patient charts and prescription orders, his mind started drifting, away from medicine and directly toward Shepard Kensworth.

He couldn’t shake it. A fucking year had passed since Nick let his walls down and slept with Shepard, and every one of those days contained at least one passing thought about the man. Bumping into him at the gym didn’t help in the slightest. Seeing him wearing a thin, sleeveless shirt and shorts gave him enough material for his spank bank to last… well, at least a week. By then he knew he would need more. Like a drug addict, he’d need another hit straight from Shepard himself. He was so taken, he had seen a flash of red when Shepard’s ex started with his verbal attacks. He felt useless standing by and saying nothing, so he rode that red current and stuck up for Shepard.

Nick couldn’t get him off his mind, and that was saying something, because as a newly minted father, Nick’s mind was constantly full. His entire world had shifted the day Emma was born. That moment was forever cemented in Nick’s heart. It didn’t matter that he and Anna weren’t getting along at all, Nick had left all of that at the door the moment he stepped into the hospital room. He didn’t want any of that negative energy around when Emma entered the world.

Nick sighed into the empty room. He twirled his phone on his desk before pressing the button. Emma’s smiling face beamed back at him, her chubby cheeks taking up the phone from side to side. She was such a pure, innocent little miracle and Nick had never felt more blessed.

The days after her birth were also magical. For a moment, Nick fooled himself into thinking that maybe he could work something out with Anna, only so that their fighting wouldn’t affect Emma. Not a romantic relationship, that ship had permanently left the docks and sank somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, but maybe they could be friends and raise Emma together. All he had to do was look into his little daughter’s crystal blue eyes, and Nick would have been fine agreeing to anything, as long as it was to better her life. He was already wrapped around her finger and she couldn’t even speak yet.

Teenage years are going to be rough.

He already imagined himself handing over car keys and saying yes to whatever Emma asked, all because of a bat of her eyelashes.

Those eyelashes weren’t enough to stop Anna from reverting back to her old self, though. Emma was exactly a week old the night it had happened. Nick had shown up at Anna’s condo, a pillowy white cake in hand, Emma White scrawled across the top in soft pink icing. He was ready to sit down with Anna and work something out. He would forget about all the times she lashed out at him, all because of her own seedy guilt. She was angry because Nick wouldn’t take her back after they had verified that Emma was actually Nick’s daughter and not Aaron’s. Another layer of anger came from the fact that they had signed a prenup, keeping Nick’s finances out of Anna’s greedy fingers. Of course, Nick would send over anything if Emma needed it, but Anna wasn’t getting an extra penny. That definitely left a huge thorn in her side.

She had started off gently campaigning for a relationship again, trying to argue that she and Aaron were a one-time flash in the pan kind of thing. Forgetting the fact that he was one of Nick’s closest friends and a man that was crashing on his couch. There was no way Nick was going to get past that, and once Anna saw that, her actions escalated.

He would accept an apology for all of it, though only if it meant a shot at giving Emma a conflict-free life.

“I brought cake,” Nick had said with a smile as Anna opened the door. It was six in the evening and Anna was still wearing her light blue pajamas, her hair pulled up into a sloppy ponytail, her eyes bright but the bags underneath looked heavy.

“Before you come in, I need you to be real with me, Nick.” She stood in the doorway, arms crossed. “Are we ever getting back together?”

Nick’s jaw had momentarily dropped before he started grinding his teeth. His jaw set, the muscles twitching. He hadn’t been expecting this, and then he suddenly felt like miles and miles stretched between him and his daughter, even though he knew she was asleep only feet away. “Anna, we’ve already talk—“

“—I need a yes or a no.”

“I’ve said it before, Anna. No. What you did shattered me. I’m still picking up the fucking pieces. I’ve been taking it out at work and I’ve been a complete fucking asshole to the one person that I want to be with, all because you broke me. So, no, I can never get back with you. We can work something else out. For Emma. We don’t have to be friends, but we could at least be cordial.”

“Cordial? You want me to be cordial? I want you back, Nick, and you don’t see me getting that, do you?! Instead you’re talking about someone else.” She was beginning to raise her hackles.

“Why do you want me back so bad, Anna? You’re the one who fucked my friend in my own house.” Nick felt his anger rising. He thought of Emma. Her wide smile, her chubby little cheeks. He took a breath. “Please, Anna, let’s not do this. At least let me see my daughter.”

“Not tonight, Nick.”

“What?” Nick had almost dropped the cake. “We decided on the fifty-fifty split. We would make it fair and do what was best for her. That was the agreement.”

“Well that changes tomorrow, Nick.”

“No, no it doesn’t. You can’t stop me from seeing Emma. She’s my daughter.” He remembered feeling like saying the word over and over again would hammer something into Anna’s heart. It wasn’t a fucking old DVD Nick was asking for. This was his daughter. “You have no grounds to stop me from seeing her.”

“I’ve talked to my lawyer. Papers should be getting to your house by next week. You’ll be seeing her two days a week. You aren’t fit to raise her more than that.”

Nick was starting to see red. He was seconds from throwing this cake across the front lawn.

“What do you mean ‘not fit’? What are you talking about?”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Nick, when you’re calmer. Please leave before I have to call the police.”

Nick remembered feeling a deep swelling of hopeless desperation grow inside him in a flash. He wanted to scream, he wanted to run, he wanted to grab that dumbass stone gnome Anna thought was cute and launch it through a window. He remembered wanting to break down and cry. He saw the determination in Anna’s cold eyes. She was set on keeping Nick away from Emma and she was going to do anything she could to do it, even if that meant coming up with bullshit reasons to make people think Nick wasn’t fit. All he wanted was to hold his little girl in his arms and watch her fall asleep.

That had been almost two months ago and each day was a struggle. The court systems worked at a glacier pace. Nick’s lawyer worked hard to prove he was more than fit to raise Emma. They provided character references, filmed interviews, requested a home-wellness visit. They did everything right. And yet, still, the court sided with Anna. Nick didn’t even think it was the work schedule bullshit that did it. He knew it was that Anna actually had the balls to say “she feared for Emma living under a roof with Nick” citing the “ranges of mood he would experience when they were together, most likely because of how stressful his job was”. She had turned Nick’s successful career against him and left the door open for abuse. That alone had his custody rights slashed down to the two days a week Anna wanted.

It devastated him. He spent more time writing prescriptions than he did with his daughter. Nick had felt completely powerless and had fallen into a dark place for a few days. He managed to pull himself out of it after his first weekend with Emma. Her bright eyes lit something even brighter inside of Nick. The day after, he had a long sit-down with his lawyer, who ran down the entire process for him and assured Nick that he would be getting Emma back and he would have sole custody by the end of the battle. A person who went to these lengths to screw someone over — the father of her own child — should not raise a baby by herself.

That felt like ten years ago.

Nick leaned back in his big leather chair, his head dropping backward. His hands came up to rub his face, stress building up again. He tried focusing on the sound of the water running over the rocks just behind him. The bubbling and trickling centered him. The intercom buzzed and a nurse called for another doctor, throwing Nick out of his meditative state. He took a breath and checked his watch. Only two more hours until he had his little baby girl in his arms.

That was when his phone rang. It was Chris, Anna’s brother. Nick reached across his desk and grabbed the vibrating phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Nick, thank goodness.”

Nick pushed his chair back and stood up. “What’s going on? Is Emma ok?” He could hear that something was off in Chris’s voice, but he had no idea what.

Please be ok.