Meet the daughter

The childrens wing of Julius Caeser Memorial Hospital looked like every other childrens wing. Hand drawn pictures lined the walls along with colorful paper displays following common themes. This corridor's theme was superheroes. Nurses and the occasional doctor walked passed them, with cheerful smiles on their faces. Those smiles occasionally disappeared once they walked into some hospital rooms. Masie's hospital room was at the end of the hall, near the nurse's station.

When they arrived, the only people in there was Masie's nurse, Louie Miller. She was a short blonde woman, clad in scrubs with little astronauts all over them. She smiled when she saw Bronte and Liam enter.
"You just missed her," She said as she wrote on Masie's chart, "She's in the playroom with Dr. David."
"Thanks," Bronte said with a wave goodbye, turning around and continuing down the corridor.
"It's a good program here," She said as she walked down the hall, "Much better than the last place. It's smaller so there's more individual care."

Bronte stopped just before the door to the playroom. She sighed, knowing this would have to arise eventually. "Wellllll," she started, "She thinks you're a firefighter in New York, and that you were too busy saving cats from burning buildings to stay with us. It's a long story." Bronte remembered the day clearly. Masie refused to go to sleep until Bronte told her who her father was. She had a deadline the next day, and Masie wouldn't stop hounding her, so she said the first thing that came to mind.

Bronte looked towards the door, and then back at Liam. "Just wait at the door, I need to talk to her first." Bronte walked into the playroom. There were a couple other kids around, playing with their supervisor. Some were nurses, some were parents. In the middle of the room was a four-year-old sitting at a miniature table next to a woman in a white coat and light brown hair pulled into a ponytail. They were building things with legos. The woman looked up from her contraption, and smiled at Bronte.

"There's mom." She said with a grin.

Masie gave Bronte a toothy smile, "It's a spaceship!" She exclaimed, holding up her masterpiece made from green and orange legos.

"It's amazing." Bronte told her, pulling up a ridiculously small chair. "Sweetheart, I have something to tell you. Remember how Daddy has been in New York for the past many years? Well, he's here now, and he's going to help you get better." Bronte looked back to the door, and then back to Masie.

"You wanna meet him?"

Masie nodded.

Bronte stood up and walked back over to the playroom door. She gave Liam a small smile, her way of reassuring him that everything was going to work out.

"She's all yours." Bronte said, "If you run out of topics to talk about, she'll talk about the backyardagains for hours, just ask her who her favorite character is." She gave Liam a pat on the shoulder, and turned towards Dr. David, who was walking to join her.

Dr. David smiled at Liam and held out her hand, "Hi, I'm Dr. Mara David, I'm Masie's oncologist. We'll have to talk later about your role in Masie's treatment, but for now, I need to talk with Bronte about the rest of our plan."

"You'll do fine." Bronte assured again, "Have fun."

Masie added another block to the spaceship, and then reached over to her doctor's creation and used another lego to connect the two into one very large space station. She looked up at the man who had joined her and smiled shyly before asking, "Are there a lot of fires in new york?"

Masie looked up at him "Space station. It's there to protect the world from snakes and fires." She said matter-of-factly. "Is that why you were gone for forever?"

Meanwhile Bronte and Dr. David walked down the hall of the hospital, passing room after room. "What are her chances with her father's bone marrow?" Bronte asked, she knew there was no point in formalities.

"Better than before." Was all Mara could reply, "But her cancer is aggressive, so there's no telling what could happen. Unfortunately, if the stem cell transplant doesn't work, her chances of fighting off another relapse goes down. At some point, chemo isn't going to be enough. That's why I want to fight as much as possible. We'll be incorporating nectar and ambrosia into her treatment, as well as some personal magic of my own."

Masie nodded, picking up handfulls of legos and dumping them in front of him. "Are you back forever now?" She asked.

Bronte nodded, meanwhile her mind was flooding with information and worries. "Thank you, Mara." She smiled and started her walk back to the playroom. She stopped at the door, leaning against the frame as she watched her child and her father play. She wished she could've had this life somehow. A co parent would've been nice. Being with Liam would've been nice too, but things just didn't work out that way. Part of her didn't even want to wish for a life like that, because she knew it would hurt if it didn't come true.

Masie smiled, before asking "Are you going to be a firefighter here?"

Bronte decided to interject then, "Actually, monkey, your father isn't going to be a firefighter here anymore." She figured she'd save Liam some time and long winded explanations.

"But what if there are fires?" Masie asked, adding yet another block onto her space station. By now there was a tower being built in the middle.

"Someone else will put them out. Your father is changing careers." She didn't say what that career was, because she didn't really know. She figured Liam would just answer for himself.