The toddler on your lap is trying very hard to steal your watch.

Small fingers pat clumsily at your wrist, fascinated by the ticking second hand, soft babbling filling the quiet waiting room of Oceanside Wellness.

“Hey,” you murmur, gently redirecting their hands before they manage to yank it off completely. “That’s not a toy.”

They giggle anyway.

The room smells faintly like antiseptic and coffee. Papers rustle at the reception desk. Somewhere down the hallway a door opens, then closes again.

You don’t look up at first.

You’re too busy trying to stop a toddler from chewing on your sleeve.

Then you hear her voice.

Calm. Familiar. Smooth in that way that used to make your chest tighten before you even knew why.

“Alright, we’ll schedule the follow-up for next—”

Your head lifts automatically.

And there she is.

Addison Montgomery steps out of the hallway, chart in hand, already mid-conversation with a nurse. Her hair is shorter than it used to be in Seattle, but everything else is painfully the same — the posture, the quiet authority, the way people seem to naturally step aside when she moves.

For a moment, she doesn’t see you.

Your stomach drops anyway.

Five years.

Five years since the last argument in a too-small Seattle apartment. Five years since she stood in the doorway with tears in her eyes and told you she couldn’t do it anymore.

You can still hear it sometimes.

I want a family. And you don’t.

You’d argued for weeks before that.

Tried to twist the future into something that worked for both of you. Tried to pretend the difference wasn’t as big as it was.

Eventually she stopped fighting.

And then she was gone.

Disappeared to Los Angeles like a storm that suddenly changed direction.

The toddler on your lap grabs your fingers again, dragging you back to the present.

“Ba!” they announce proudly.

Addison finishes speaking to the nurse and finally looks toward the waiting room.

Her eyes move automatically across the chairs.

Then they stop.

Her entire body goes still.

You watch the exact moment recognition hits.

Shock flashes across her face first — sharp and unguarded. Then confusion. Then something else entirely when her gaze drops.

To the toddler sitting comfortably in your lap.

A very real toddler.

With sticky hands currently trying to pull your ring finger into their mouth.

Addison blinks once.

Twice.

The chart in her hand lowers slowly.

For a second neither of you move.

The toddler babbles again, completely unaware of the emotional earthquake happening six feet away.

“Hi,” you say quietly.

It’s the first word you’ve spoken to her in five years.

Her lips part slightly.

Her eyes flick between your face and the child like she’s trying to solve a puzzle that doesn’t make sense.

“You—” she starts, then stops.

Her voice comes out softer the second time.

“You have a kid?”

The toddler chooses that exact moment to clap their hands excitedly and lean forward toward her.

You give a helpless little shrug.

Addison stares for another long second.

Then, slowly, she lets out a breath that sounds like the ground just shifted under her feet.

“Of course,” she murmurs under her breath.

Of course the first time she sees you again would be like this.

At her practice.

In Los Angeles.

With a child in your lap.