Stay Till Midnight || Jolex

Bittersweet

I walk up the stairs to find Jo. My mind is reeling. She has a baby. A baby that looks about five months old. Is she mine? No, Jo would have told me if we had a kid. Would she though? Even after I left her for Izzie? 

I'm walking down the hall when I here Ellis' voice. "I'm so sorry, Auntie Jo." 

My heart starts beating faster. I open the door and walk in. Jo is sitting on the bed beside Ellis. On her lap with her arms wrapped around them, is not only the baby but also a little girl who looked about four or five. My breath hitches. She looks like a youger, blue-eyed, lighter-haired  version of Jo.

 "Kiddos can you let me and Jo talk alone for a second please?" 

I watch as Ellis jumps off the bed and the little girl on Jo's lap squirms out of her tight embrace. Once the girls are out of the room, Jo looks up at me and asks "What do you want?" 

I flinch at her harsh tone. Oh Jo, I'm so sorry. I try to say those words but my lips don't move, I feel paralyzed. Snap out of this, Alex. You can do it. I can do it. 

"How are you?" Really is that the best I can come up with? 

"I'm fine." the brunette snaps.

 I should get straight to the point, right? But I can't just ask, hey is that kid mine? Can I? "How old is she?" 

"Five months." 

"Is she mine?" 

"Yes." She pulls the baby closer to her chest.

I feel like I got punched in the gut. She actually kept my kid away from me. How could she? Of all people I thought she would understand how important family is to me. I want to stay calm. I'm really trying to stay calm. But my self control snaps the second I look at my daughter. 

"How could you?! How could you keep my daughter from me?!"

 I see tears stream down her face but right now I don't care. I want answers. 

"Because I was scared." she chokes out. 

"Scared?! Scared of what, Jo?!" Why the hell would she be scared? 

"Scared of you, Alex." 

I can't believe my ears. Yes, I broke her heart but when have I actually given her a reason to be scared of me? Well other than the DeLuca incident. 

"I was mad so I decided not to tell you. By the time I started regretting my choice our daughter was four months old and I couldn't look you in the eye and say I kept her from you. So I stuck with you never knowing she exists." She looks me in the eyes. "Then I got pregnant again." 

I feel my body freeze. Again? She looks at the brown eyed baby then back at me. 

"I was scared you'd get mad at me for keeping our daughters from you and sue me for custody." 

"What?! Why the hell did you think I'd take our kids away from their mother?!" I yell, perhaps a tiny bit too loud. 

"Because I can't lose my kids, Alex! They're all I have!" she fires back at me. The little girl in her arms looks up at her mother and gives an upset cry. Jo's words hit me like a bus. These kids are the only real family she has. I don't know what to say or do. I need time to process the news. So instead of standing here like an idiot, I turn around and power-walk down the stairs and to my car. I have to go for a drive to make sense of all this. 

Jo actually thought I would sue her for custody. I want to be in their lives but I'd never put my kids or Jo through a custody battle. Damn it. This is messed up. I left my wife for my ex-wife so I could be in my kids lives and it turned out I missed the first few years of my other daughter's life, that I didn't know existed. At least my youngest daughter is too young to remember those months I wasn't there. Damn it, I don't even know their names. At that moment my phone rings and breaks my train of thought. 

"Hey Izzie." I answer it. 

"Alex, what happened? Where are you?" she says in a concerned voice. 

"I'm fine, I'll drive back to Mer's, can you please wait for me outside? We'll head back to the hotel and catch up with everyone another day."

 I feel bad for asking Izzie to leave so early but I can't be in that house right now. Yes, Jo was the one who decided to keep our kids, my kids a secret but Meredith and Amelia and everyone else went along with it. So much for being my friends. Didn't they think I deserved to know my daughters? 

Izzie and I went back to the hotel and ordered pizza. The rest of the night we spent watching movies. I haven't told her about what happened in Ellis' bedroom. I'm less mad than I was earlier and I understand where Jo was coming from. But Jo seemed pretty convinced a custody battle would happen if I knew about them and that shocked me. She was an epic love for me, still is really. How could she think that I'd hurt her like that? I understand her being scared, but does that outweigh the fact that kids need their father and that perhaps I'd want to be in their lives? I'm going over to the house tomorrow. 

The night flew by and pretty soon I'm standing in front of my old house that is now her's. My gut feels like it's turning 100 miles per hour. 

"Alex, what are you doing here?" she says as she opens the door. She sounds less mad so that's a good sign. 

"I want to talk, please Jo," my voice is much softer and calmer then it was yesterday. "No yelling, no fighting, just talking."  

She nods her head and ushers me inside. "Mer and Amelia took the kids to school and daycare, it's just us." 

We both sit down on the couch and she looks at me clearly waiting for me to start the conversation. I'm not sure where to start. When are their birthday's? What are their favourite food? Favourite toy? Are they happy? I start by asking, "What are their names?"