Emergency Medical Dad

XLIII: present, mid July

JORGEN

I'm barely back in the door from the early shift, tugging off my boots and retying my hair, when Connor comes sprinting around the corner.

Jessie leaves him home with me when I have the morning shift so that we don't have to pay for the school to watch him every third week. She leaves him home with me two out of three weeks, night shift and morning shift. Not during day shift, then he's at the school so that my parents can work. My mom had been taking every other day off in tandem with my Dad at the beginning of the summer but it just wasn't sustainable.

"Jorgen!" he blurts, skittering to a halt having almost slammed into my thigh. I blink down at him, half registering what's going on, half flipping into a panic. Normally I don't panic when I see blood.

"Shit, Connor," I don't really even know what to do, where to go with anything for a moment, having to get over my emotional tie to him. That's one of those things about first response, if the person is in relation to you, you absolutely should not be responding to them. It fucks things up.

His hand is cupped under his chin, "I dunno what happened I just pushed my tongue against it and it just-"

Teeth. I panic, wondering how in the hell my kid had knocked out one of his teeth in the ten minute bridge period where he's home alone on these days.

I scoop him up, hands under his arms, cupping his ribs, and set him up on the counter in the kitchen. My hands are already thoroughly clean from leaving the station and because I know him and his medical history well I don't have any worries about bloodborne anything so I skip gloves, cupping his chin in my hand, turning on the overhead light with the other.

"Open for me," I tip his head back gently and he opens his mouth despite the fact that his eyes are watering. "Does it hurt?"

He makes a very small affirmative noise and I force myself to breathe out and not go overprotective on him.

"I'm going to feel around for a moment, did your tooth fall out or is it still attached?"

"Attached," he manages.

"Okay," I hold his jaw very gently in one hand and run the pad of my pinky finger just inside the gums of his mouth, finding the sharp bottom edge of a tooth mostly fallen out within seconds, right in the front on the bottom. "Would it hurt if I pushed on it?"

He nods.

"Noted," I pull back his lip to look at the position in his mouth, where it's bleeding from. "I'm going to put my finger against the base of the tooth, is that okay? I want to see where you're bleeding from."

He nods very slightly again, being a considerable bit more cooperative than most kids in pain.

I settle my pinky finger against the gum-line of the tooth, giving it a half ounce of pressure, knowing from what I felt that it's almost completely detached. He winces. I pull back but it's a little late, the tiny motion of him squeezing his eyes shut and grimacing pressed my finger just a tiny bit harder, sliding the remaining tooth out of his gum.

Carefully, I pinch it between my thumb and pinky, pulling it out of his mouth, "Connor, if you ever meet my team, don't tell them I said this, but you're much tougher than most of those guys when it comes to losing teeth. Hold out your hand."

He's still got his eyes closed so his little hand bumps into my stomach trying to find my hand, opening in the space between us. I set the tooth in his palm, closing his fingers around it.

"Did, wait-" his eyes fly open and despite my gentle hold on his jaw, he stares down at it. "I didn't even feel it."

"Like I said," I smile. "Much tougher than my team."