I'm not right, am I?

Russell isn't sure how he got roped into this.

Maybe it was his idea at first, but somehow that doesn't seem quite right, and he feels like Molly wouldn't have suggested it freely either. He doesn't think Katie was the one to push them into this, but maybe something she mentioned had been interpreted to mean they should do this together, and whatever the case, he supposes it doesn't matter all that much. They're still here, they're still doing this together whether he knows how it happened or not.

They're shopping for baby stuff.

Even with Jamie in his life, Russell isn't sure where to begin with all this. Katie had had all the important stuff by the time he'd come along and he's glad for that, too, because every time he sees the price of a crib or a stroller, he thinks he might have a little bit of a fit or something, because everything is so expensive. No wonder Molly had been so worried about potentially losing her job when all this had been starting.

"What if you just buy a bunch of socks?" he asks, holding up a pair of little green socks with dinosaurs printed on them. "They're way less expensive and babies need socks, right?"

He hasn't the slightest idea what babies need.

He still hasn't gotten used to it.

Even here at home, standing at the kitchen counter, drying the dishes Katie is washing, he's not used to thinking of himself as someone's husband. It's not like that much has changed, it's just a title, but there are days like this, moments really, when he remembers he's someone's husband now and he has to live up to that. It's a bigger, more important role than almost any other he's ever filled, except perhaps for the role of being someone's father and yet somehow that doesn't seem quite as overwhelming at times.

Maybe, because with Jamie, it happened gradually. Russell was acting like his father before it was ever legal and signing the documents didn't change his title. It's probably dumb to make the distinction like that, because it really is just a word, but he wants to make sure he's doing it properly. He wants to do right by Katie and make her happy.

"Y'know, I still think it's too bad we can't really have a honeymoon," he says out of the blue. They had been talking about work only moments before, Katie had been saying she's about ready to get Jamie off to bed, and here he is, bringing up a honeymoon. "How great would it be to do somethin' like take him to Disney World? I guess that's more of a kid's trip than an adult trip, but we'd have to make sure he could come along."

Jamie's too young for them to just leave him behind for a week, he feels very strongly about this.

After all this planning, after everything they've done to get here, Russell kind of can't believe the day is actually and finally here. They've been doing so much work and he's surprised to find out just how much he's actually liked planning his wedding and now that it's all over, now that it's all come together, he's pretty damn pleased with the results. They've done a kickass job with their wedding, everything at the bed and breakfast is beautiful, if he were to say stuff like that, and he can't stop looking around at the flowers and the arrangements and even the way they have the tables and chairs arranged.

The weather is perfect and their guest list is pretty small, but it makes for a great set up. All his life, he figured he'd end up having to have some huge wedding if he ever got married at all, because he knew his parents would want to invite pretty much all his extended family and every single friend they've ever had. He misses them, he still wishes they could be here to celebrate this whole day with them, but this is nice, knowing every single person at the wedding, having invited them all personally. They're all important to him and that's a lot more significant than being surrounded by people he doesn't even know.

He's mingling around and he thinks he should be more nervous, but with their minister here, he's actually pretty relaxed. Soon enough he's going to be marrying the love of his life and that's the only thing in the world he wants. Jamie seems more nervous than he is and he's asked Russell several times now when he gets to come walking over to see him. It's more or less the cutest thing Russell has ever seen and it makes him so happy that this is all coming together.

He runs back and forth between Russell and Katie, and it's all she can do not to scoop him up and kiss his little cheeks every time Jamie comes to her. He wants so badly to do this right and she loves him so much her heart aches with it. For her, though, there are no worries. They worked hard on this, but in the end, it's all been so simple.

She was the kind of little girl who had a million dreams, ever-changing, and she thought she knew what she wanted from a wedding back down. She thought she'd want one of those big church weddings with everyone she knew, practically the whole neighborhood, packed into the pews. When she finally did get married, it was the tiniest little ceremony, just a simple white dress and City Hall. Neither of those were right, in the end. This, this is right, this is her. This is them, here in the open air, flowers in her hair, surrounded by the people they love best.

Jamie's hand in hers, her heart skips and flutters in her breast as she walks down the aisle, unable to contain her bright smile. Russell is waiting for her. He's waiting, and she knows that all the heartache, everything she endured, it brought her here. This is where she was supposed to be all along.

She's perfect. That's the only thing he can think as they hold hands and he's listening to the ceremony, he knows he is, because he keeps saying the right words at the right time whenever the minister asks him to, but he's still entirely focused on Katie. She's absolutely perfect. Jamie keeps offering the rings at the wrong time, but Russell can't stop himself from grinning and when it's finally time to take the rings from their son, he ducks down to press a kiss against his cheek at the same time.

Katie sticks her tongue out at Jamie briefly, pulling a face to make him laugh. But the silliness passes a moment later, because Russell is sliding the ring onto her finger and she's placing the other on his, and she can't quite help it if there are tears in her eyes. If her husband is making her cry already, this time it's because this has to be one of the happiest moments of her life.

The minister pronounces them husband and wife, and for a moment, she just looks at Russell, taking him in, his kind, handsome face, the way he looks back at her, the love she sees there. She wants to remember this. She wants to keep this moment in the back of her mind forever. It's only a moment, though, and then she's letting go of his hands to wrap her arms around him, leaning into a kiss.

There's no way around it. Russell is absolutely petrified.

He shouldn't be, he knows that. He and Katie have done the responsible thing and they've already talked about this. She'd caught him looking at rings and he'd asked her if getting married again would be something she'd consider and she had said she would, so it's not like she doesn't know it's coming eventually. Given their situation, that there's a child involved, he'd had to go about it like that, because the very last thing in the world Russell ever wants to do is hurt Jamie in any way. And he thinks asking Katie to marry him without knowing whether or not she even wants to do that again and making their entire relationship suffer as a result would count as hurting Jamie. So he's glad it's worked out this way.

But he's still fucking petrified.

It's just a Tuesday night, it's nothing special or out of the ordinary. He's not starting back until next week and Katie has the evening off, so he'd cooked and he's not so terrible at it. When he puts his mind to it, he's actually a pretty good cook, so after what Russell is sure was a great lasagna and about six different stories, Jamie is in bed and Russell's pretty sure he's actually sleeping and not just faking it like he sometimes does.

He doesn't bake often, but now and then he misses it, misses the smell of it and how it made him feel when he was still a teenager, baking with both his parents in the heat of the summer, all three of them up hours before dawn just to get everything ready. He misses it, so he's baked tonight. Brownies with a salted caramel filling and when they're done and ready to eat, he brings one to Katie on the couch and offers it to her on a little plate. The ring is in his pocket and his heart is pounding, but he's pretty sure the smile he manages to give her is natural enough.

She knows it's coming eventually. She doesn't know it's coming tonight.

Russell's going to be fine, he knows that. He's been shot before, more than once even, and he remembers how those had felt. Lying on that highway, the life slowly bleeding out of him, he'd been numb. Quiet, peaceful, and numb. He had known he was going to die, he'd been able to feel it.

Nothing is numb now. In fact, everything hurts, which doesn't make any sense, since it's just his leg that's been shot, but everything hurts anyway. His head is pounding and his eyes are burning and every single time he takes in a breath, he feels like there's something heavy sitting on his chest, but the paramedic had told him that's normal. That he's just panicked.

Of course I'm fuckin' panicked, Russell had nearly shouted at him. I got shot in the motherfuckin' leg.

But that's not entirely why he's panicked. There's a little part of him -- maybe a big part -- that's freaking the fuck out because he knows Katie is working today. They're going to take him to the hospital where his girlfriend works and if she hasn't already heard what's going on, she will soon, and he's kind of terrified of having to explain this to her.

What he does can be dangerous, he knows that. But he's here and he's alive and Russell takes that for granted a lot of the time. He's died once already, he died to come here, and sometimes he knows he gets too cocky. Sometimes he knows he lets himself think that nothing that bad can ever happen again, only he knows it can.

He got lucky today. He knows he did.

"Emergency contact," one of the nurses says to him as they wheel him into the hospital.

"Katie Marks," he says, then closes his eyes. "She works here."

It's a slow day.

That's the only thing Russell finds himself thinking as he leans against the hood of his cruiser and scans the street. It's not such a bad thing, really, a slow day means no one is getting hurt, no one is fighting or robbing any stores and he figures down time as a cop is probably the same as down time in an emergency room. Really goddamn rare and pretty freaking welcome all at the same time.

The thing is, Russell's not that great at being idle. He's fine at relaxing when he's off the clock, he's gotten real good at separating his job from his personal life and that's a relief, because he doesn't want to be one of those cops who drags home all the awful shit he goes through and makes his family deal with it. Because that's the thing. He's got a family now. People he loves and needs to look out for. People who don't need to deal with some angry cop's hangups.

But when he's working? He's not very good at just standing around and waiting for something to happen. The radio is silent, though, so quiet that he's stuck his head into the car twice just to call back to dispatch to make sure it's still working. The one call that does come through is all the way across town and he can tell it's a slow day for everyone because six other cruisers immediately jump on it and given it's a domestic, Russell figures they probably don't need a seventh. Besides, by the time he and his partner got there, it'd all be over anyway.

So instead he huffs out a sigh and leans back against his car. "Hey," he calls, spotting a young guy. "You wanna jay-walk or somethin'? Gimme a job to do for about fifteen seconds?"

Thing is, Russell's gotten pretty settled in Darrow. This place is good for him; he's got a job, he's got friends, he's even got a relationship that he sure as hell never expected to happen. It's a good life, a respectable life, and he's happy. But sometimes he feels like he's living on borrowed time and that keeps him up at nights, makes it hard for him to sleep longer than a few hours at a time. Nightmares of his whole damn town burning to the ground push in whenever he closes his eyes and he hears Becca's scream as she's yanked from the car by one of those crazies, a hose looped around her neck.

She'd been dead before they'd even had a second to stop the car. Worst part is, Russell remembers not caring. He'd been sick already, fighting back his own thoughts of hurting his friends, maybe tying Judy up and making her watch while he tortured David to death. Most of the time he thinks he's reconciled that stuff in his head. He'd been sick, it had been that goddamn virus, and he can accept that most of the time.

But some nights he knows he's just not getting to sleep. Most of the time he just deals with it, puts on some late night movie and watches it until dawn, but tonight he's given Molly a call. It's not to late when he calls her, just a little past ten, but he asks her if she wants to come down for a drink. It's gonna be a long night for him and he's not gonna keep her the whole time, but sometimes even just a couple of hours pass by quicker with a friend.

Most days, Russell has a hard time believing he's been here long enough to be celebrating a second birthday. The fact that he's got someone here who wants to celebrate with him is kind of a big deal, too, but most of the time he's just pretty surprised he's still here and still alive.

That's the thing, if he lets himself think on it too much, that really gets to him. He's not supposed to be here anymore. He was supposed to die on that highway letting David and Judy get through to safety, but he didn't -- or maybe he did, the semantics don't matter much -- and now he's here in Darrow where he's got a job and a life and friends. And Katie.

He hasn't told many people about his birthday coming up and since he didn't do a damn thing about it last year, most people don't know. But he couldn't avoid telling her, especially since he'll be turning thirty and that's always a number he thought might freak him out a little, but the truth is, now that it's here, he's pretty glad to see it. It feels kinda nice. He made it to thirty, he's not a total screw up and things are actually pretty good.

He's not sure what she's got planned, really, but he's managed to dress himself this time and he's ventured away from his usual jeans and t-shirts. He's still got jeans on, but they're the nice ones Molly made him buy months and months ago. The holster, badge, gun and cap have all been left at home and it's probably the first time in ages he doesn't look like a cop, but he figures that's probably a good thing.

When he gets to her place, he realizes he's excited. For the first time in a long time, he's actually excited about something, and that feels pretty damn good.

The thing Russell's most aware of is the fact that he's nervous.

His palms are sweating and he keeps blotting them on his jeans, which he feels bad about, because they're not his usual jeans. They're nice jeans, ones that Molly helped pick him out. He feels a little bit like a kid, having Molly help him get dressed whenever he has to be presentable, but it's actually helpful. She sees things he doesn't and if it were up to him, he'd probably end up wearing his uniform on a date.

But he looks presentable and he's nervously blotting his palms on his jeans as he gets to Katie's apartment. He knocks on the door, hoping he's not too early -- hoping he's not late -- and he checks his watch quickly before she answers the door. He's a little early, which he figures it better than being late, but hopefully not the kind of early that's annoying.

It's amazing how nervous he is.