This was all completely new to Brian, this... whatever it was he and Teo had begun. It was more than friendship. At least it was nothing like he had with any other friend, even Mikey. There was an undercurrent of real sexual tension, but that still wasn't a step Brian felt comfortable taking with Teo yet.

When he'd met Justin, it had all been about the sexual tension. It was hot, incendiary from the moment they met. Purely physical, at least on Brian's part. It changed over the months they were involved, and a friendship grew. Justin knew Brian in ways no one else had ever known him. But there had been no equality, no equivalence of any power in the relationship. Part of that, Brian knew, was his own inability or unwillingness to allow it. His need for control and emotional distance. His psychological baggage. But a large part of it was simply age and experience.

Brian had a career, college degrees, a home, financial independence. Justin hadn't even had the chance to graduate from high school. The roof over his head was literally there through the mercy of whoever owned it.

Yet, somehow, this kid - this boy - had loved him unconditionally. Had shown him an emotional maturity that belied his youth and inexperience. Had challenged Brian to be more than he was. Had trusted him with his body and his heart. Brian felt incredibly cheated that he'd realized too late how important Justin was to him. How much he loved him.

Now, Teo was here, in the picture, and Brian wasn't quite sure what part he played. If he would play any part at all.

 ::

"You're fucking kidding me?" Brian chuckled.

"I kid you not."

Brian had invited Teo to the house to keep him sane while Taylor used up some excess energy outside. Brian would swear that someone plugged his daughter into an outlet during the night to recharge her batteries. The kid never stopped. Finally she'd run and jumped and toddled her way to the sandbox and, at the moment, was happily engaged in filling and emptying a plastic cup.

"Teophanes? Must've been a bitch to learn how to spell that in pre-school."

"Hey, mom's first choice was Thucydides. You can understand how pleased I am that my father, ever the pragmatic German, convinced her to go with plan B."

Brian laughed loudly. Even Taylor stopped what she was doing and looked at her father. "My daddy is laughin' loud!"

"Yes, Miss T, your daddy is laughing very loud." Teo looked at Brian and smiled broadly. "Sounds nice. He should do more of that."

Taylor held her hands out to her sides in a wide gesture and shrugged her small shoulders. "My Tin laughs all da time!"

"I didn't quite catch that one, Miss T. Who is Tin?"

Taylor shrugged. "My Tin."

Brian took a moment to get his laugh under control before addressing Teo. "Honestly, I don't know who Tin is, but apparently Tin laughs all the time."

"Her vocabulary is pretty extensive for a two and a half year old."

"Given her mother and father's propensity to talk, I'm not surprised," Brian joked. "You ready to put your cup away and go inside for lunch, big girl?"

"No. I'm playin' with da cup, daddy."

"I know you're playing with the cup. But why don't you tell me what you would like for lunch today?"

"Ice cream!" Taylor exclaimed.

"Perhaps we should have something before the ice cream. Okay?"

"'K. Gorilla cheeeese an a pickle an a cookie an... an... an a popscicle!"

Teo laughed at the little girl's enthusiastic list of lunch possibilities. "Gorilla cheese?"

"That would be gorilla cheeeese," Brian corrected, drawing out the second word with Taylor-esque enthusiasm. "And don't forget the pickle."

After lunch, Taylor sat at her small craft table coloring in the Disney Princess book her Uncle Michael had given her last week. Brian had thought it a bit stereotypical, but she liked it, and he supposed that was what mattered.

"I can't believe her hand-eye coordination, Brian. I deal with children all day, every day, and seldom do I see a child her age with the ability to color that precisely in small areas." Teo had been watching Taylor closely. As a pediatrician he watched children develop and judged Taylor's development on the high end of the scale.

"She's... a bit gifted. No doubt about that."

"Much like her father."

Brian smiled ruefully. "You have no idea."

Brian turned toward the play area when he heard Taylor giggling loudly off and on. She giggled and stopped. Then giggled again. He knew he would find her staring upward or outward... at some empty space. It was the first time Teo would actually see what Brian had been describing over the last year and a half.

"Watch her closely," he directed.

Just as Brian expected, Taylor was laughing and staring, outwardly looking for all the world like she was listening closely to a beloved speaker or friend, her lips moving as if she were eating something. "She was about eight months old when I first saw her do that. She just laughs...giggles... and stares. Sometimes she holds her hands out or makes gestures, almost like she's playing a game."

"Does this happen often? On any kind of schedule or in response to any particular stimulus?"

"No schedule and pretty much when she's quiet. Couple of times a month maybe." Brian couldn't help but notice the shift into professional mode that Teo had made. Shit. "Hey, I kept telling you and Dr. Patterson about this, and you both brushed me off as some kind of neurotic parent... You think there's more than just self-entertainment going on."

Teo ignored the slight irritation in Brian's voice, and the implied accusation. He feared Brian may just have every right to be upset with him in the very near future. "Does she seem to be in any distress before or after these incidents?"

"She did at first... maybe the first few months. She would cry afterward, like she was heartbroken or terrified. Then it changed and now she just laughs."

Teo walked slowly toward Taylor and spoke quietly to her. "Taylor? Are you playing a game?" She ignored him and continued to smile and stare. Suddenly she dropped the yellow crayon she had in her hand and picked up a blue one and began coloring a princess dress, looking up at Teo with a wide smile.

"My Tin likes da blue one."

Shit, Teo thought. Shit.

Brian watched the thoughtful look pass over Teo's face as Taylor's little episode wound down. "Hey, little firefly... You think you can stay here for a minute while I talk with Teo for a bit."

"'K, daddy. I'll color da princess."

"You do that for me, and I'll be back here in a few minutes." He nodded to Teo to follow him to the patio. He'd still be able to see Taylor, but could put the barrier of the glass door between them. Somehow he didn't think he wanted her to hear what Teo was going to say.

"Now," Brian began. "What the fuck was all that concern back there, Dr. Marten?"

"First of all, Brian, I have to tell you that every single time I've seen Taylor, she's been the epitome of the healthy, happy child. Absolutely no indication that there could possibly be anything wrong, outside of a cold or ear infection." Teo hoped he could make Brian understand that he had not been deliberately ignoring parental concerns, or the health of a child. "When you described these incidents with Taylor and the giggling, it didn't set off any kind of bells at all, because children have all kinds of odd little behaviors that parents identify as potentially troublesome. They have imaginary friends, they create their own private languages... So there was absolutely no hint that what you were describing was any different."

"But... and I'm hearing a big fucking but coming here."

"But... I'd like to make an appointment for Taylor with a colleague of mine. A pediatric neurologist."

"Because...?"

"It could be absolutely nothing, and I don't want to add an uninformed, knee-jerk diagnosis that I may be completely wrong about just from one anecdotal observation..."

"Jesus fucking christ, Teo! Just tell me why your uninformed, knee-jerk anecdotal observation suddenly makes you want to schedule my daughter with a fucking neurologist!" Brian looked through the glass of the door, watching his little girl blissfully coloring. Her hair flew around her face as she turned and waved at him through the door, that ever present smile on her face. Suddenly it seemed vitally important that he remember this moment. The way the air smelled and how the sun broke through the glass and landed on her right hand. How that little purple stain from a popscicle drip stood out against the pale green of her blouse. How her smile was so fucking much like Sunshine.

Teo closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He put his hand on Brian's arm to draw his attention. "I think she may be having seizures, Brian."

And yeah, another shift in the world.

:: 

Dr. Srilatha Patel's office was three blocks from the main campus of Carnegie Mellon. Over the last two weeks, Brian had the opportunity to get to know the area well. Within two days from that fateful conversation with Teo, Taylor had been scheduled for an initial appointment, and a week later she was undergoing EEGs, MRIs, CT scans... She'd been poked and prodded and generally medically harassed to the point that even her interminably sweet demeanor had disappeared. At least on this visit, her presence wasn't required.

Daphne sat facing an obnoxiously gray desk in the obnoxiously bright office of the woman who was about to give them a verdict. She suddenly felt as if she were back in some attorney's office reliving what she had thought, at the time, was the worst day of her life. As she gripped Brian's hand in hers, she wondered if she would be re-evaluating that when this meeting was over.

"Ms. Chanders, Mr. Kinney. I know the last couple of weeks have been very difficult for you both, and especially for Taylor. I thank you for your patience while we fully evaluated all the findings."

"To the point, Dr. Patel, if you don't mind." The last thing Brian needed right now was medical small talk.

"Of course." Dr. Patel opened a folder and removed documents, placing them in front of the two. "As we discussed earlier, Taylor has been experiencing a form of epilepsy known as gelastic seizure. The syndrome itself often manifests initially in infancy or early childhood as episodes of giggling or spontaneous, often inappropriate laughter, in concert with absence seizures, what used to be called petit mal seizures. The absence seizures can generally be controlled with the use of anti-convulsant medications, and we will develop a regimen specifically for Taylor in that regard. Unfortunately, the gelastic seizures themselves, the bursts of laughter, do not respond well to treatment." She pointed to the documents she earlier placed on the desk. "Our more serious concerns were with the underlying cause of the seizures. This is a rare form of epilepsy, usually resulting from a hypothalamic harmatoma, or a benign disorganization of neurons on the hypothalmus, which could lead to more severe seizures and developmental issues as the child grows. Fortunately, that report before you tells us that your daughter shows no signs of such a tumor, or any other brain lesions. She has the rarest type of gelastic seizure. And like much of epilepsy, it is idiopathic, in that we have no evidence of its cause."

Daphne sobbed her relief into Brian's shoulder as he held her. His own face was a mask of stoicism. This past month had been terrifying and had brought home the old adage that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Once he'd heard the potential diagnosis, he'd begun to research it, and had spent hours trying to drink away his own tears. He'd spent most nights sleepless in a chair pulled up to Taylor's bed or with her tucked tightly into his own.

It could have been worse. A whole lot of fucking worse.

"What is her outlook with the seizures? Will they increase, get worse?"

"It's possible. Epilepsy is a well researched condition, but there are still so many things about the human brain that we simply aren't able to understand, for instance why we can effectively treat certain types and not others. Since we don't know the specific cause of Taylor's seizures, we are only able to treat symptomatically. It is possible that a course of treatment will work and then stop working, and a new course of treatment will need to be designed for her should that happen. However, if the absence seizures are controlled effectively and you all learn to cope with the gelastic episodes, she should live an otherwise perfectly normal life, with a few modifications and limitations." Dr. Patel smiled gently then. "If she develops aspirations of being a pilot, I'd probably advise her in another direction. It may be that she will never drive, and safety precautions will need to be taken, in the kitchen and bathroom, especially. All of that will be covered in a program of counseling in which you should all participate."

Dr. Patel stood, indicating that the meeting was ending. Daphne and Brian stood, as well, hugging each other in relief, knowing their child had new limitations in her world, but not insurmountable ones.

"Thank you, Dr. Patel. This has been a very difficult time for us, and I can't tell you how relieved I am right now."

"You're welcome, Ms. Chanders. Right now, I'm pretty relieved myself. Taylor is a very lucky little girl. This could have gone very badly, and I'm thrilled to not be giving you a worse news... Remember that you will need to make an appointment for Taylor, for tomorrow possibly, so that we can get her medication regimen started. There will also be information on scheduling the counseling when you check out at the front desk."

 ::

Brian was leaning casually against the dark gray BMW, smoking a rare cigarette, when Teo saw him. He debated for a moment as to slowing his steps or quickening them across the clinic parking lot, and decided to do neither. Today, as he knew, was the day of the final diagnosis and he'd been on edge all day. The disorder Srilatha suspected was a rare one and Teo himself had done a little medical research. That hadn't given him much good news. He tried to read Brian's body language, to get a feel for what she might have said. But Brian gave little away at the best of times.

As he drew nearer to his car, he tried to prepare an opener, but was saved the effort when Brian tossed down the cigarette and stated, "She doesn't have any brain lesions, hypothalamic or otherwise."

Teo stopped where he was and tossed his head back, closing his eyes and letting out a long breath. "Thank god."

He'd learned long ago that getting emotional over patients was dangerous for a physician's mental health and, sometimes, for a patient's physical well-being. But this was different. This was Brian's child, no longer a patient, really, and he couldn't separate himself from her emotionally. He found himself tearing up and wasn't in the least ashamed of doing so. Thank you.

"How's Taylor now?"

"She's with her mother at the house. It's been a... long day for all of us, but she needed to be alone with her for a while."

"Yeah... yeah, I can see why she'd need that." Teo dropped his briefcase in the car and rubbed his hands over his face. "I'm glad, Brian. You'll never know how glad... So, just the epilepsy?"

"They think it's manageable, hopefully shouldn't disrupt her life too much." Brian met Teo's eyes. He hadn't talked to Teo since that afternoon on the patio. At first he was angry with him. For dismissing his concerns as the ramblings of an untried parent. For letting it go so long before he noticed anything. Just for saying it at all, really. For making him afraid for his daughter. But it wasn't Teo's or Dr. Patterson's fault, Dr. Patel had assured him of that. The disorder was so rare that some neurologists would never see it, much less a random pediatrician. Teo wasn't to blame. If it hadn't been for him, who knows when Taylor would have been diagnosed, and christ knows what might have happened if she'd had a more serious seizure while alone.

Brian shifted from one foot to the other. Apologies weren't his strong suit. "Uh...," he began, "...I may be breaking all kinds of rules here, written and unwritten..." He watched a small smile break on Teo's face at the remembered invitation. "But I wondered if you'd like to grab a cup of coffee with me." He pulled in his lips and tilted his head a bit coyly.

Teo nodded, small smile still in place. "Yeah, I think I'd like that a lot, actually."

"You know," Brian said, eyes dark and burning into Teo's, "I've never seen your place."

 ::

Two weeks later, Brian, Daphne and Taylor were back relaxing on the beach in Clearwater. They had all liked the feel of it last year, even with the memories the date carried. After a day filled with, for Taylor and Daphne, an outstanding trip to the zoo in Tampa, and for Brian, a horrendous trip to the zoo in Tampa, they were watching the sun paint the sky as it sank into the waters over the Gulf. Taylor had spent the last hour laughing as the tide pulled the sand from beneath her toes at the water's edge, and filling a plastic bucket with ocean treasures.

As the last of the sun hissed onto the horizon, Daphne held Brian's hand as Taylor released her white balloon. "Da sky is all pink for you, Tin!" she said, as she watched the tiny white speck disappear.