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white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen · 1 year

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Heaven Can Wait

Summary: Neal and Y/N Caffrey have an idyllic domestic life until a terrible accident threatens to rip it all away.

Words: 1,957

I can’t find it in my ask history but it was definitely requested.

Some women dreamed of being stay-at-home mothers. It had been nice for a couple months, until the itch in your legs started and you couldn’t think straight. Before the kids were on solid foods, you were back at work, Neal taking over as a stay-at-home father. Truthfully, you considered as you cooked breakfast, this was probably the best solution for everyone. You made more and had more upward mobility, since you didn’t have a felony record. Still, you were glad that he was happy. Neal hadn’t struck you as a stay-at-home anything while you were dating, but he was an amazing father. It was as if the little ones you welcomed a year ago had cured his fear of staying put.

Knox couldn’t get enough over-easy eggs, and Ellie seemed to think breakfast was for chumps. You looked over at them both after flipping the pancakes with a tender smile. Your son’s shirt had been on him for less than twenty minutes and it was already gross and smeared with egg yolk, while your daughter’s fingers were already covered in a thin layer of crayon wax. Ironically, the child who loved to make art wasn’t the one named after an artist.

Neal came into the kitchen with fluffy, towel-ruffled hair, halfway through a yawn. “It smells delicious,” he said, predictably lured by scent straight to the still-hot coffee. He paused by the children to ruffle his son’s hair and kiss his daughter on her head.

“Da,” Ellie complained about being distracted from her drawing.

He chuckled before leaving them alone. “Do you want coffee, love?”

“I assume you do want to eat today?” You checked rhetorically.

Neal laughed again. “Got it.” He took down two mugs and started pouring one for each of you while you finished the pancakes and plated the scrambled eggs that were just for the two of you. “Same as usual today?”

“I’ll be home by four,” you promised, reaching over and giving his free hand a little squeeze. As you did, you stole a quick look at the glinting silver band on his ring finger and smiled brightly at the sight of it, suddenly delightfully conscious of the weight of your own.

“We can last until four,” Neal said, looking back over at the twins. You hadn’t been trying, exactly, but you hadn’t not been trying, and you’d both been thrilled by the news. Your son had been a surprise, but for however hectic life had been with two newborns, it was also that much more rewarding. “I think Ellie’s ready for watercolors, don’t you?”

“Neal,” you said, giving him a playfully warning look. She’d barely stopped putting crayons in her mouth. Did he really want to start with thin wooden brushes? “Only if you’re careful,” you agreed, seeing the adorably pleading look in his big blue eyes.

The two of you sat close together at the table, the side of your left leg touching his right one as you both ate, yourself in a rush with half your mind on the time. The pancakes were probably the best you’d made in a while, and Neal appreciatively thanked you for the meal with a kiss on the cheek right before letting you get up and take your plate to the sink.

“I’ve got it,” he said before you could turn on the water. “Don’t worry about it. You have to go.”

Smiling gratefully, you downed the rest of your coffee and put the mug down in the sink. “Thank you, darling,” you said, bending over the back of his chair to hug him tightly from behind. He raised a hand to stroke your arm and you kissed his temple before moving on to your little ones. Knox babbled at you a little, not quite ready to say “mama” yet, and Ellie only reluctantly turned her head to you long enough for a kiss before going back to her coloring. “I love you both,” you cooed, stroking her dark hair down the nape of her neck.

“Love Ma,” Ellie said with a pout, the V coming out a little blunted.

You grabbed your bag and took one last look at your little family around the table, thanking the stars that you’d been able to hold onto this wonderful man and that you’d been blessed with healthy, sweet children. Now you couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, and looked forward to every time you got to spend time together as a family. Then you were out the door before you got too emotional and went back in for a second round of hugs.

The route to work was so familiar that you could probably have done it blindfolded, barring other pedestrians. You took the A train downtown and then went a few blocks eastward. Once out of the subway, you only had to walk for about four minutes to get to your job. It was a pretty convenient location and you liked that it was also near a few good restaurants and a pharmacy.

You stopped at an intersection to wait to cross, the red hand blinking at you from across the street. The building was in sight, and your mind was transitioning into work mode. Already you were reviewing what you’d done the day prior and thinking over the next steps – what could you get done by lunch? The boss had been in an unusually lighthearted and laissez-faire mood lately, and you had no idea why, but it was nice to work at your own efficient pace without feeling heat at your heels-

The light turned to the white walk sign. You stepped off the curb after checking the coast was clear and headed across the crosswalk. There was at least one pretty big thing that you could finish by the end of the day if you kept your foot on the gas. A loud screech and the blare of a horn made you turn your head around, but you barely had time to understand what you saw before the car slammed directly into your side and sent you flying away and to the ground.

~~~ Heaven Can Wait ~~~

Neal had been mopping up the mess Ellie made when she knocked over the little water cup for painting when the phone rang. He couldn’t explain how, but he felt his stomach drop right in that moment. Something was deeply, horribly wrong. It took a beat for him to unfreeze his muscles and answer. The nurse making the call confirmed his bone-deep fear when she said she was at a hospital. He nearly threw up.

Ellie was crying, and Knox not much better, only kept on this side of docile by a stuffed green monkey. He kept trying to shush Ellie on the subway because he knew people were giving them baleful stares, but his heart wasn’t in it. All he could think of were horrible, unwanted images of his wife laying lifelessly on a stretcher. A car accident. Jesus, what were the odds when you didn’t even drive? Neal kept running his paint-stained hand through his hair, and on occasion bent down over the handles of the twin stroller as his breath hitched to force himself to keep calm for his kids.

He got looks for bringing two babies to the emergency ward, but didn’t bother trying to explain himself, and when he said your name in an urgent panic, the irritable gaze of the receptionist softened a touch. A nurse was paged. They said words he didn’t understand and a few he did that he wished he didn’t, and finished by pointing him to chairs to wait. His knees nearly buckled as he found a place to sit, the stroller just in front of him.

Transverse fracture. Fractured hip. Two broken ribs. Internal bleeding.

Severe head trauma.

A woman in scrubs came into the room, but not from the direction of the operating theaters. Neal looked up with red-rimmed eyes at the cop, at first not understanding what was happening as the nurse directed the policeman towards him. He distractedly started to push the stroller a few inches back and forth, keeping Knox as calm as he could in the foreign environment with his father so clearly distressed. Ellie, thankfully, had gone to sleep after tiring herself out with tears.

The policeman explained, briefly, what had happened and gave him papers. A man ran the red light to turn and claimed he hadn’t seen you until it was too late. He said he laid on the horn but you didn’t move. A fury started to bubble in his chest at that, burning brighter than any rage he’d felt since confronting Fowler at the Russian Consulate. He knew damn well that his wife hadn’t just not moved. You hadn’t been given a chance. That pathetic, bullshit excuse ensured Neal would be going after his blood however he could – as soon as his family was taken care of.

Next of kin notified, and a copy of the incident papers and contact information given, the policeman gave his token condolences with a sympathetic glance at the twins in their stroller. Neal didn’t read the papers. He knew he’d do something stupid if he had the man’s identifying information. Instead he stuffed them into the empty pocket of the babies’ diaper bag in the bottom tray of the stroller.

It felt like it took hours before he was finally called back to see his wife. A nurse offered to stay with the stroller, but Neal couldn’t bear losing track of his children while he was so affected by nearly losing his partner and refused. She didn’t press, and instead led the three of them down a few halls and to a room with low lights. She held the door for Neal to push the twins inside, and he leaned heavily on the handles as he saw you, the love of his life, lying broken in the bed. The thin blankets laid awkwardly over bulky bandages and a cast around your left arm. Part of your head was wrapped tightly, and as nausea turned his stomach, he couldn’t bring himself to ask yet exactly why. Half of your face was scraped to hell and purple and black bruising had already spread deeply across your cheek.

“She’s stable,” the nurse said, her eyes looking briefly to his violently shaking hands. She was just repeating what she’d already said now.

Neal moved the stroller to the side of the bed so that when you woke up you’d be able to see your kids right away. He cautiously bent over the side of the bed, hovering his hand gingerly over the mostly unharmed side of your face. “Y/N,” he whispered, his sight blurring briefly before he blinked and let the tears start to fall.

You didn’t stir.

“Sir,” the nurse said softly, about to repeat herself again. “Y/N is in a medically-induced coma.”

All the cautions in the world couldn’t have reached his brain in the waiting room, when all he could hear was his heartbeat and blood rushing in his ears, desperate to see with his own eyes. Neal furrowed his eyebrows, trying to tune her out, hoping not to hear. He couldn’t hear it again. He was barely holding on, barely telling himself over and over again that you were okay now, that your mangled body wasn’t dead before him.

It was a few minutes before it really hit him that, wherever he put the kids, however gently he touched you, whatever he said to plead with you to wake up and tell him yourself that you were okay – you weren’t going to wake up. And, if he was deeply, devastatingly unlucky, you might never wake up again.

#white collar lawmen and conmen #white collar #white collar x reader #neal caffrey #neal caffrey x reader #reader insert #reader #kids #family #drama #accident #car accident #coma #requested #oneshot #heaven can wait

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