Follow that dream

HISTORY

stephen was born in Manhattan, New York on a cool and rainy thursday morning in june, to a young couple who had conceived their first child on their honeymoon. It was a tale straight out of a story book, and phen was loved just as much as any child could hope to be.

he spent the first four years of his life being doted on by his parents so much that many members of the extended family worried that he would grow up to be spoiled. Their fears were put to rest, however, when his baby sister came along. rather than being jealous of the time and attention the infant received, stephen became obsessed with her, often calling her 'my baby' while holding her protectively in his lap.

the obnoxiously happy family suffered a minor scare when stephen was eight and charlotte was four; the little girl had stayed home from preschool with complaints of a bellyache, and what her parents had at first assumed to be simple indigestion was soon revealed to be appendicitis. The entire family spent five straight days in the hospital to be with her. They waited for her to get into surgery; they waited for her to get out of surgery; they waited by her bedside as she took a bit longer than was typical to wake up from the anesthetic. by the end of the five days, the family was exhausted, but charlotte made a full recovery. After that, Phen became even more protective of his baby sister.

phen didn't know it at the time, but those long days spent in the hospital, waiting for his sister to be well enough to take home, had lit something within him. A tiny spark, barely anything when he was eight. But there was something there, something that would one day shape his entire future. The doctors and nurses had been kind to him, showing him around when they weren't busy, and telling him what the different machines did. it was exciting for him, even while he was worried about charlotte.

with no more health scares, save for the one time when phen got a piece of ribbon stuck up his nose ( please don't ask ) the hartley children were happy. they picked on each other, the way that siblings often did, but they were happy with each other more often than not. stephen would help charlotte with her homework, and charlotte taught her big brother how to ice skate. and when he was eighteen, and she was fourteen, he made a vow before going to college that if any boy got fresh with her, or hurt her in any way, he would find them and he would end them.

phen was a smart kid, even if he tended to goof off a little, and he got top marks in all his classes. This was enough to earn him a full ride at NYU, where he began the long and arduous process of his pre-health education. Yes, that little spark that had come when charlotte had been in the hospital, ten years previous, had never gone out, and the only thing that phen wanted to be was a doctor. he wanted to save people, the way the kind doctors at the hospital had saved his sister.

university was hard. med school was harder. The only things that made either of them worth it was the tight circle of friends he had made, the fact that he was close enough that he could go home to eat and do his laundry for free, and the occasional boyfriend he managed to hold onto for longer than a week. it was hard to maintain a healthy relationship when he was spending seventy percent of his time in class, but he managed once or twice. Of course, they never lasted all that long. he had bad luck with threes; every relationship he had ended in three weeks, or three months, or even three days. one lasted three hours, hand to god.

med school wasn't easy, but it was damn rewarding, and his four year residency was even more so. getting to learn in the shadows of real doctors, actually being able to treat patients, and have a hand in whether they lived or died ( or if they got the color cast they wanted on their broken wrist. both extremely important ) gave him a sense of purpose that nothing else in his life ever had. at least, up to that point.

once he'd finished his residency, stephen decided that it was time for a change of scenery. not a dramatic change, but he wanted to get out of manhattan. and opening his own practice, at the age of thirty-three, was the perfect excuse. after doing some research on where good doctors were needed, he made the big move to new orleans, louisiana to start his new life. it was weird, but even though he was in his thirties, he didn't really feel like a true adult until he made that move. maybe because his mother still cooked dinner for him three days a week.

it took him awhile to start his own practice, and it was a slow start before his name got out there. but he was gentle with children, had a good rapport with his patients, and was quick to make everyone around him laugh. within a few years, he had a waiting list for patients, and his small practice was flourishing. and phen was extremely happy with his life. almost cocky.

perhaps the reason why phen was so good with his patients was because he had always felt some kind of instant connection to them. it was more than just wanting to take care of people, the way he'd seen the doctors take care of his sister when she was suffering. he actually felt their pain, their fear, their each and every emotion. he had felt this way since he was a child, when he would randomly become overwhelmed by feelings that he had no real reason to feel. he was, it would turn out, an empath. more than just sensitive, he was actually sharing the every swirling emotion and stab of fear that the people in his general vicinity experienced. and phen, who had always been a believer of everything weird, wacky, and supernatural, only had to do a little asking around before he found out that not only was this empathy an actual thing, but he was not the only one who experienced it. there was, it turned out, an entire community of people who had similar psychic abilities. and nearby, too. it only made sense to move into that gated community that they shared, and become more familiar with that group of people that were linked only by their inherent sameness.

flash forward two years. riding on the high of a career that made him happy, and the success of the biggest and scariest thing he'd ever done, phen had taken to going to a local watering hole that medical professionals tended to frequent a few times a week. he didn't always drink; sometimes he just went to shoot pool and shoot the shit with the other doctors. but one night, he did get drunk. it was the night before his birthday, and one of the well-meaning doctors he'd done his residency with kept feeding him shots. In time, he was well and truly smashed, and wound up going home with a pretty redhead who'd been sitting at the bar all night. one of his only sexual experiences with a woman, he was almost too drunk to remember it. she told him that it was wonderful the next day, and assured him that she had been completely sober, so if anything he should feel like he was the one who was taken advantage of. phen liked her bubbly, slightly sarcastic personality, and asked if he could keep her around. she told him sure, but strictly on a platonic level, because she didn't want to be the reason that he might one day wake up and discover he resented her because he really was gay, and she was holding him back from being truly happy.

A few months later, kayla ( the woman from the bar, and his new bestie ) came to him, looking wryly amused. when he asked her what the hell she kept smirking about, she handed him a blue hallmark envelope. inside, was a 'happy father's day' card, and after she told him that no, she wasn't kidding, that their one and only night together had resulted in her getting pregnant, he did what any reasonable man would do; he laughed hysterically, then threw up. his father reacted much the same way, when he called and told him. no vomit, but lots of laughter. his mother was much happier, screaming loud enough that phen had to hold the phone a foot away from his ear, while kayla rolled on the floor in peals of laughter of her own. stephen vowed to murder them all, before booking kayla for an ultrasound. and when the ultrasound technician announced that there were two heartbeats, he skipped the vomiting and promptly passed out.

kayla, who had never actually wanted kids, knew that phen did. and so, for that reason, she carried the twins with very little complaint. Phen tried to convince her to move in with him, so he could keep an eye on her, but she laughed him off, saying that they weren't married, and he would cramp her style. thankfully, her pregnancy went so smoothly it was almost frightening. At 20 weeks, they found out that they were having a boy and a girl.

As kayla got closer to her due date, she told phen that they would need to discuss custody over the twins. in the end, the arrangement they made was they would live with phen full time -- he was the one who wanted kids, after all, while she had never felt that maternal desire. when they were older, and would ask about their mother, she would be there. If they wanted to live with her, she would open her home to them. and of course, she'd be present for all birthdays and holidays. the children would never wonder who their mother was, and they'd always have two parents who loved them. which is all that stephen could ask for.

the twins were born on december sixteenth, twenty-twelve. like her pregnancy, kayla's labor and delivery were almost eerily easy. the twins were born twenty-seven minutes apart; the boy first, and then the girl. They named them Kadrian and Odette, respectively, and the pair of them weighed eleven and a half pounds combined. After a short stay in the hospital to make sure everything was as it should be, phen took them home. he, once again, asked kayla if she wanted to come stay with him for awhile, but she refused. true to her word, she's been around for all the babies' milestones, and she and stephen remain very close to this day.

currently, phen's life revolves around his still-successful practice, his children, and his fiance, tobin -- an automatic writer who he met at a block party thrown within the gates of the ridge, and became incredibly attached to in an almost frighteningly short amount of time. Life is crazy at times, but he wouldn't change it for the world.