Work Text:
“Jody,” Doctor Stewart says one day. “Would you accompany me later? There’s someone I think you should meet.”
It’s an unusual request, but she agrees anyway. The Doctor so rarely asks things of her, whether in or out of work. The way he says it makes her think this is more than a mere social call, especially when he avoids giving any more details.
Work passes uneventfully for once, and before she knows it it’s time for the two of them to head out. She doesn’t bother changing out of her armour, and the Doctor makes no comments on her attire or where exactly they’re heading to.
The place they end up at is familiar to her in passing, though she’s never stepped foot in it herself.
“We’re here,” Stewart calls, bells ringing as they step through the front door of the Falcon House.
The café is empty of patrons, which isn’t unheard of, though given the hour it’s a little odd. But it’s the man behind the counter that arrests her breathing, stops her heart when he turns around.
“Andy,” she breathes in the face of the ghost that’s haunted her for almost four years now.
“Jody,” he says quietly, coming out to stand directly in front of her.
He’s not in uniform like she’d last seen him, now wearing a black apron and red bowtie. He’s still got that same scar on his face that he’s had for ages, and no other marks on him to show evidence of the explosion that she’d—that they’d lived through.
She doesn’t believe in miracles, no matter what marvels of science Doctor Stewart had worked to save her back then. If Andy is here, then that means…
“Jody, I—”
Jody punches him.
“Ouch,” Doctor Stewart says with a wincing smile.
She whirls to glare at him too.
“How long?” she demands. “How long have you known?”
The smile slides off his face abruptly. “Not since the beginning, if that’s what you’re wondering. I…thought he died as well. I know that that’s no excuse, though. You’re free to punch me too if you want.”
Her hand itches, and she wants to, she really does. But the slump of his shoulders makes him look so aged all of a sudden, in a way she’s never really seen him despite occasionally calling him an old man.
“Why?” she asks, voice cracking like it hasn’t since she was young. “Why did you…why wouldn’t you think I’d want to know?”
Stewart’s eyes are bleak as he looks at her, and she supposes he at least gets credit for not looking away from her accusing stare.
“I wanted to tell you,” he says, hand gripping the red scarf at his neck. “Every day, I thought of telling you. It was my own fear that held me back.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” she starts, but there’s a hand on her shoulder.
It’s Andy, cheek still red from where she’d punched him.
“Don’t blame him. I’m the one at fault,” he says hoarsely. His eyes are bright, but no tears fall.
It’s good that none do. She doesn’t know what she’d do if he cried.
“The government told me…told us to not let anyone know. I agreed, because I thought it was safer that way for everyone, including you.”
Jody opens her mouth to argue, but Andy shakes his head.
“I know, Jody. I know that brand of ‘protection’ is something you’d never wish for. You’ve always been one for painful truths over soft pleasantries. As your elder brother, I was concerned for your safety…but I should’ve also considered your heart.”
It’s unfair of him, pulling the sibling concern card, but ‘elder brother’ really is a role Andy was almost born to play. She knows what he was like when they were younger. He hovered, doted, and generally spoiled her whenever he could. To ask him to choose between her safety or her happiness…it’s cruel, and must have torn him apart.
That doesn’t mean she can’t still be upset about it, though.
“...It’s going to take me some time to forgive you,” she says.
Both men bow their heads.
“Come here,” she commands.
Andy’s spine is rigid as he steps forward, and Doctor Stewart looks like his four decades have doubled since the last time she checked. They stand sombre, silent before her, Stewart’s jaw set like he’s ready to be hit.
Doesn’t he know her better than that?
She grits her teeth and surges forward, hooking an arm around each of them and dragging them both to her chest. Both of them freeze, barely breathing, like twin blocks of wood in her hands. But then her brother hugs back just as fiercely, wrapping her and Stewart up in the larger span of his arms. Stewart laughs, though it sounds more like crying, and squeezes back for all he’s worth.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Jody—”
“Don’t ever do anything like that again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says dutifully, pulling back to snap a salute. Like he isn’t twice her age and the one who saved her life to boot.
“I’m sorry too,” says Andy, still holding her tightly. Like he did to chase away her nightmares once upon a time.
“You should be,” she says, fighting tears of her own. “But…I’m still glad to have you back.”
Doctor Stewart looks suspiciously misty-eyed by the time Andy finally releases her, like he’d cry too if he let himself. Or maybe he had been, and she’d simply missed it while they’d been busy hugging the pain of all these years of separation out.
“Doctor—”
“Since when do you call him Doctor?” Andy interrupts. His brows are furrowed, eyes blinking at her slowly like he’s not quite sure what’s going on.
“It’s been a long few years, Andy,” Stewart says quietly. “Sometimes things change when you aren’t there to look.”
Jody pushes the guilt away stubbornly, even when Andy wilts at the words. Being too close, too familiar with anyone—it would’ve stung like hot coals in the rawness of loss.
“You call him Doctor,” she says instead of spilling how cold distance had been her armour, terrible as it was.
“We’re working on that,” Stewart mutters, flashing Andy…a roguish grin?
Andy blushes for no discernable reason, which is…odd. Or perhaps not so strange considering how often he used to blush around Doctor Stewart way back…
Wait.
Jody looks at them, really looks, because these things don’t come easily to her but she’s known them both for most of her life. Her mind whips back through snapshots of her childhood, her teenage years. How Andy would light up every time a certain Doctor spoke to him. How Stewart’s flat had been as much a home as their own apartment, how he’d gone from Doctor Stewart to Uncle Rob.
In the present, Stewart touches Andy’s arm briefly. His smile shrinks from the wide stretch of roguish to something smaller, softer, a tentative smile spreading on Andy’s face as well.
“Really, brother?” she blurts out, making Andy jump. “Uncle Rob?”
“You haven’t called me that in ages,” says Uncle—Doctor Stewart, smile turning wistful as he completely misses the point.
Andy flushes, looking away, but she knows her brother, even if she’s only seeing him for the first time in years. As clumsy as she is with affection, even she knows when her brother is fond of someone, enough to trust them in every aspect of not just his life, but hers.
For over a decade, Stewart’s stood by them. He’d literally put her back together again. Maybe it’s time to let him know she hasn’t forgotten, no matter what name she calls him by now.
“I don’t know if I can call you ‘brother’ too,” she says, wrinkling her nose as she turns back to him.
“We’re not married,” he says with a laugh.
“Legally. But you two co-parented me, Doctor. It doesn’t get more domestic than that.”
Even Stewart blushes, cheeks as pink as Andy’s, which—yeah, it’s weird. But she loves them both deeply, embarrassing antics included. Even if they both locked her out of the loop.
“I don’t know if I can go back to calling you ‘Uncle Rob’ either,” she says, apologetic. As nostalgic as it makes him, she’s not that same child anymore.
Stewart smiles again, eyes crinkling at the corners. “That’s alright. It helps remind me that our little Jody’s all grown up. You can call me Robert, or stick to Doctor Stewart if you like.”
Jody frowns. “I’m already in my twenties.”
“A baby.”
Stupid old man.
Her growing scowl stalls at the sound of muffled laughter, and she looks over to see Andy pressing a hand over his mouth. He drops it when he sees her looking, but mirth remains in the loose set of his shoulders, the sparkle in his eyes. It’s something she thought she’d never see again—but now he’s right here before her, no longer a ghost with no body to be found.
“Can I…visit?” she asks Andy, feeling all of six years old again despite her age-related protests. She’s practical enough to know that living together would be unfeasible, and even speaking here is probably breaking all number of rules.
But rules aren’t always successful at keeping people’s best interests in mind. She does her best to follow them, because they generally have good intentions…but sometimes one just needs to tell them to fuck off.
“Of course you can visit,” Andy says softly. The scent of salvias lingers in every corner of the room. “Come by for coffee, when you have some free time. I’ll make it just the way you like.”
She nods, a lump in her throat. As important as their work is, family is family. And she won’t let it slip away again.
“My place is still open to you too, Jody,” says Stewart, beaming at them. “Though my coffee’s not quite as good as Andy’s. I might not need to babysit you anymore, but—you’re still free to crash whenever you want.”
She raises an eyebrow. “As long as you don’t try to feed me your cooking. Once was more than enough.”
Stewart coughs as Andy’s shoulders start to shake a suspicious amount. “The smoke detector was just a little bit sensitive—”
“Robert,” says Andy, sounding strangled, “it was an egg. With instructions. How did you mess it up?”
Stewart shoots a betrayed look at him, which only makes Andy finally give in and burst into laughter, patting him on the back. Jody smiles helplessly at the scene before her—nostalgic, familiar.
Their family is whole again.