Father's Day

[intheheart]

Title: Father's Day
Rating: PG.
Summary: Father's Day, 2014.
Date: June 15th, 2014
Notes: A subtle MASH reference in this one, cookies if you get it.


1. Bowling

"Boys against girls?" Aaron suggested.

"Not a chance, boyo," Ivy replied cheerfully. "I'm on Dad's team and you can fight me for it."

Aaron eyed his sister dubiously. "No offense, Vee, but I think you'd kill me."

"Why would I be offended by that? I'm on Dad's team."

Aaron fell back on logic. "You were on Dad's team last year! It's my turn."

Ivy rolled her eyes. "So? You try that boys against girls thing every year and it never works. Give up already. I'm on Dad's team."

Nathan suppressed a sigh. His kids. He really loved them, and he knew they weren't fighting seriously, but he'd been parenting these two for almost twenty years and it got old. He was about to wade in and break up the fight when Summer tugged at his sleeve.

"Daddy?" she asked. "Can I be on your team?"

"Of course, sweetheart," he said, with a considerable amount of relief, and hugged her thin shoulders. "Hey, you two, Summer beat you out. Go pick a lane and fight later."

Ivy and Aaron exchanged looks, then shrugged-- they'd fight with each other cheerfully, but not Summer. "Okay, Dad," they said, and headed for the lanes.

Nathan watched them go, then turned to look at his youngest. "You know, Summer, that might be the best present anyone's ever given me."

She took his hand and looked solemnly at him. "Happy Father's Day, Daddy."


2. Alcohol

"I really fucking hate Dad," Danny said, and took another drink.

Michael shrugged. "I kind of feel bad for him, actually," he said, swirling his beer around in the bottle meditatively. "I know I didn’t go through what you did with him and all, but he had to deal with Mom all the time. Besides, we did the same thing he did."

Danny considered this from her current position, draped over her couch. "You speak truth," she said, finally, and Michael saluted her with his beer. "Doesn't mean I don’t still fucking hate him."

"I'm not denying your right to hate him," Michael said. "Never standing up to Mom was uncool."

"I was thinking more that he didn't stop spanking me until I was fifteen," Danny said. "There is something fucked up and wrong in that."

"Word," Michael said. He knocked back the rest of his beer, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "So when do we get the World's Most Dysfunctional Family trophy again?"

Danny grinned, then scowled as something else occurred to her. "You know what else pisses me off? I can understand leaving. But he left twice, for Christ's sake. If you're gonna leave, make up your mind and stay gone."

"Can't argue with that," Michael agreed. He leaned back against the wall and kicked his legs out. "Kind of makes him a tease."

She snorted. "Cute."

"Ain't I just."


3. Coffee

"Your sister," Henrik Warmind said, with an air of awe in his voice, "is a miracle."

"I know," Lars said, watching Christine shoo siblings, nieces and nephews around with the poise and grace of a long-suffering sheepdog. "How did she ever learn this?"

"You and your siblings," Henrik said, and poured himself another cup of coffee. "The twins in particular were a handful."

Lars suffered a brief and vivid flashback to a childhood incident involving the twins, several crickets and a copious amount of pond scum. "God bless Chrissy," he said.

"Indeed." Henrik smiled, crinkling the corners of his eyes in a way that made his rather bullish and unfriendly face into a warm, grandfatherly expression. "She lets me have my coffee and my grandchildren one at a time, just the way I like it. Your mother tried to hide my coffee, you know."

"That's because the doctor said you shouldn't have any," Lars said, and kicked back a bit. "Your heart and all."

"The doctor doesn't know what he's talking about," Henrik said, grumpily, and swigged the coffee like whiskey. Lars hid a grin behind his own mug. "Thought I'd go before Thea. Man didn't have a clue."

Lars glanced sideways at his father. "Did he know Mom was sick? The doctor, I mean."

Henrik made another grumpy noise. "He should have. He's a doctor, isn't he? And I'll have my coffee any time I like, thank you. What does it matter if I have a heart attack? The twins are out of college now, so that's all of you taken care of, and the grandchildren will be happier not having to visit an old man in a place without any video arcades."

Lars blinked. "I don't think there are video arcades anymore, Dad," he said, and then realized that was the wrong thing to say, because it sounded like something Summer would say. "Anyway, don't talk like that. You're my dad. You're our dad. Of course we want you around."

"You're just saying that because you have to," Henrik said, and topped off his coffee.

"I'm saying it because you're my dad," Lars insisted. "And because I know a guy who's an orphan, and he tells me that it sucks. I'd like to put it off a few more years, if you don't mind."

Henrik snorted, and lifted his coffee, but did not drink. After a moment, he put it down again. "Well, I guess I can wait until you give me some grandchildren, boy."

Lars stifled another smile. "I'll get right on that, Dad."

"See that you do," Henrik said, and then, "Chrissy! Bring me my grandbabies!"


4. Never Love You Less

Olivia played with a loose strand of hair that curled by her ear and smiled shyly at her father. "Happy Father's Day," she said.

If Hugh Marhenke had stopped smiling since they'd found each other, it had not been where Olivia could see. Now, he smiled more broadly, and leaned across the table to kiss her forehead. "Happier for you being here," he said. "Joanna tried, before, but it wasn't the same."

Of course Joanna had tried. Olivia had had some trouble with the idea of a stepmother, but Joanna was such a lovely person, and she made Hugh so happy, that it was hard to dislike her. Living with her made it all but impossible, and after a few weeks Olivia had stopped trying. "She's good for you, Daddy," she said now, earnestly. "You know that, right?"

Hugh laughed. "Yes, I do. Better than I deserve, certainly. But then I got lucky." He sat back, and looked at her closely, his eyes warm but concerned. "Sunny, darling, are you happy here?"

Olivia started, and stared at him. "Daddy, of course I'm happy! I have you back, and Joanna's the most wonderful stepmother anyone could ask for, and of course. I can't think how I'd be any happier."

Although of course she could. She thought guiltily of Jake, but would not bring him up.

"It's just that you've been quiet," her father said. "I know... it's not that I think you don't love me, or Joanna. It's not that. I just think that maybe you miss New York more than you know."

"I do miss my friends," she admitted. "But I didn't really have any future there. Just stupid temp jobs and teaching piano on the weekends." And Jake.

Her father took her hand, and apparently read her mind. "And someone you loved. It's not easy to give that up, Sunny."

A sudden lump rose in her throat, and she bit the inside of her cheek, determined not to cry. "It wasn't... he deserved better. I was still such a little girl then."

"You aren't now," Hugh pointed out. "Sunny, I love you. I will always be glad to have you near me. But just knowing where you are and having you in my life will be enough." He squeezed her hand, gently. "If you want to go back to New York, you should."

Olivia thought of Jake again, and swallowed hard. "I don't know, Daddy," she said. "But... that helps. Thank you."

"Of course." He gave her a warm, soft smile, then added, "Nothing you could do would make me love you less, Olivia. Not a thing."

"I know," she said, and got up, went around the table and into her father's arms. "I know."


5. Dear Dad

"Well," Jake said, and plopped down in the dirt beside his father's headstone. "What a year it's been."

He was quiet for a long moment, sitting with one arm around the headstone and the other across his bent knees, holding the sunflowers he bought every year at the grocery down the road. Then he began, "Might as well start with the sad news, I guess. Olivia broke up with me."

A bird twittered in the tree overhanging the grave, and Jake snorted. "If that's you, Dad, that is not comforting," he told the headstone. "It wasn't because she didn't love me. She found her father again and went back to live with him, and there was something about needing to grow up, I don't know. I loved her the way she was. Still do." He sighed, and leaned his head against the marble. "I don't know. Maybe she'll come back some day. I told her I'd wait. Do you think it was the right thing?"

Silence, then. He sighed again-- he hardly ever got omens when he needed them. "Work's going fine," he said. "O'Brian keeps trying to poach me for his department, but I won't leave. I like Ms. Hirschfeld too much. Anyway, every time he tries to steal me she gives me a raise. At this rate I can have a penthouse over Central Park."

A slight exaggeration there, and a whistle from the bird punctuated that. "Okay, maybe not a penthouse," Jake said, and managed a faint smile. "I don't know, Dad. She pays me way more than what I'm worth anyway."

A roll of thunder sounded in the distance, and he lifted his head, squinted blearily at the horizon. Gray clouds were boiling up in the north, probably over the lake. Damn. "Dad, I'm not done, but I have to go or I'm going to get rained on. Probably struck by lightning too, way my luck is running. I'll come back tomorrow, okay? I know it won't be Father's Day, but... ah, hell."

He got up, brushed dirt off the seat of his pants, tucked the sunflowers in the little vase for flowers, and kissed the side of the headstone, awkwardly. "I love you, Dad. You know that, right? I love you."

Thunder rolled again, like a rumble of laughter deep in the sky.