The Intelligence Unit Series

Shawn walked down the hallway in Remington Memorial's Emergency Department on legs that didn't quite belong to him. They were attached to his body, of course, but right now, those legs he'd always depended on to outrun a fleeing suspect or sneak him soundlessly into a hidden space on an undercover op felt as if they were being auto-piloted by some unknown force.

He had a daughter. A little girl, who looked like him. Who needed him.

Who he was about to meet for the very first time.

"So, ah." Shawn forced his feet to stop their left-right-left, turning toward Tess just shy of the exam room. "Can we talk for a second? Before I go in there?"

"Of course." Tess, who had never been bullshit's biggest fangirl, said, "I'm sure this is overwhelming as hell for you. Why don't I get Natalie, too? We can answer whatever questions you've got before you meet Isla."

A quick text had Natalie Sheridan in the hallway, her blond braid as rumpled as her doctor's coat, but her smile reassuring as she reached out to squeeze Shawn's forearm.

"Hey, Maxwell. I'm not even going to ask how you're doing," she said, thankfully sparing him from having to scratch together a response that wasn't a balls-out lie. "But I can promise you that Isla is one hundred percent unhurt by the accident. She's been asleep for a couple of hours, now."

His heart galloped a little, but he strong-armed it with a deep inhale. "Thank you. I guess I just don't know what to do, here."

"I bet not," Natalie said. "Will it help you to talk about some essentials, first?"

"Essentials," he said slowly, and Tess nodded.

"Yes. Do you have room at your place? Somewhere Isla can sleep, even if it's short-term?"

Shawn nodded. Concrete plans. Specifics. Okay, yeah, these, he could do. "Yes. I mean, it's a spare bedroom with a futon right now, but yeah. I can make that work, right?"

"Absolutely," Natalie said. "We can get you a car seat, too. She'll need to ride in one until she's about five, then a booster seat after that," she added, "but they're super easy to use. No sweat."

Christ, all of this was so far above his pay grade as a human. Which was going to become really obvious, really fast, so he just bit the bullet and said, "I don't, uh, have any idea how to really take care of a three-year-old. I've never really been around kids, other than yours." Even then, he'd only been around Tess's two-year-old son, Jackson, and Natalie's adopted four-year-old twins, Emma and Henry, on occasion.

"Don't worry. You don't have to do it all at once," Tess said. "And we're here to help with logistics."

"If you'd like, I can talk to Hope about getting Isla's things moved to your apartment," Natalie said, gesturing toward the hallway where the social worker had disappeared to make a few calls. "I actually know her from when Jonah and I were foster parents." Shawn nodded, another detail falling into place. "That would be really great. She'll want her stuff, right?"

"Having familiar things like clothes and toys and books will help with the transition, yes," Tess said, her eyes growing serious. "More importantly, you're going to want to set up an appointment with a professional for grief counseling as soon as possible. Isla is young, and she won't understand a lot of what's going on. Having an expert to help you two navigate that path-and all the feelings that will go with it-is really essential."

His pulse flared-feelings? God, he was so unequipped for this, what the hell was he even thinking?-but he forced himself to nod. "Okay. Can you maybe refer me to someone?"

"Of course." Reaching out, Tess put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "This is all really overwhelming right now, I know. But I promise, you'll figure it out. Let's get you two through tonight, and then we can tackle the rest, okay?"

Natalie cleared her throat and looked at the door to the exam room. "Have you given any thought to how you'd like me to introduce you to Isla?"

Shawn's thorough state of WTF must've been plastered all over his face, because she added, "I think it seems safe to assume that Lori never said anything to Isla about having a father."

Oh. Oh, hell. Maybe he should just go with "Shawn" and ease into the "Dad" thing. The kid was probably just as overwhelmed as he was right now, if not even more.

But then, Frankie's words came back to him, loud and clear and right there in his mind, reminding him that Isla was his daughter, the only person she had, and nope. No way.

He might not know the first thing about being a parent, and he might be scared shitless right now, but he was Isla's father. She should know it, right from the start.

"Well, I'm her dad even if she doesn't know about me, so let's go with that."

"You got it," Natalie said. Tess excused herself to go look up a few child psychologists and track down a car seat, and Natalie walked him to the exam room and over the threshold. Shawn's heart climbed the back of his throat with every step, but he metered his breathing to temper it. His composure, which was pretty much hanging on by a pair of clothespins and a wad of pure, dumb luck, damn near evaporated at the sight of the little girl curled up on the gurney in front of him, her body covered only by a thin blanket, and oh, shit, she was so tiny.

Also, staring at him with a pair of wide, blue eyes that were eerily familiar, even in the shadows of the small room.

"Oh, hey, kiddo. You're awake," Natalie said softly, sitting on the edge of the gurney. "Do you need to use the potty?"

Isla shook her head, almost imperceptibly, and sweet Jesus, how was Shawn not going to break this kid?

"Okay. Well, I'm glad you're awake, because I'd like you to meet someone. This is your dad, Isla."

Isla's eyes widened. Shawn was struck by how spot-on Tess had been; Isla might have a head full of dark curls where he had only a shadow of hair, but her face was a miniaturized version of his own, sweetened by smaller features. But the shape of her face, her nose, her jawline, they were all echoed versions of the face he looked at every single day in the mirror, and didn't that just make this officially surreal.

Isla's watchful eyes narrowed, watching Natalie with extreme care even though she didn't say a word, and oh, yeah. Definitely his kid.

"Hi," Shawn said. But she didn't answer, and he had no idea what to follow up with, and an awkward silence invaded the room until Natalie had mercy on him.

"Your dad's going to take care of you, sweetie. That way you don't have to stay on this lumpy, bumpy bed anymore." She pressed a hand into the gurney mattress and made a face. "He'll take you home with him and make sure you've got everything you need. What do you say?"

Isla stared at him, her tiny face impossible to read. "I want my mommy," she whispered.

Shawn's heart torqued in his rib cage, but once again, Natalie swooped in with a much-needed assist. "I know you do, and I know this all feels pretty scary. But I promise you'll be safe with your dad."

"I don't have a dad. Only Mommy."

Isla sent a searching gaze around the hospital room, and realization slammed into him, leaving behind zero remorse. "She doesn't know, does she? About Lori," Shawn asked Natalie, slipping the words between them quietly enough to keep them from Isla's ears, and she shook her head.

"We don't do notifications for minors, no. Especially when they're this young," she murmured back, just as quietly. "That's probably something you'll want to work out with the child psychologist. Young children don't understand the permanence of death the same way adults, or even older kids, do. It'll be a process for her to understand what's going on."

"A process," Shawn repeated, his stomach clenching with dread.

Natalie had to have seen it on his face, because she reached out to squeeze his arm. "You don't have to tackle it all tonight. For now, she just needs to feel safe."

Shawn was tempted to laugh. How could he ever keep someone so small safe? Isla was so tiny, he was scared to even touch her.

Not that he could say that to Natalie. "Hey, uh, Isla. It's okay to want your mom." Please,God, don't let me be screwing this up. "But she was in an accident, and she..." Think. Think. "Ah, she can't take care of you right now. You could come home with me, though. What do you think?" Isla's little brow furrowed. "You're a stranger."

Her little voice blurred the "r"s together just enough to show how young she was, and Shawn's heart yanked in about seventeen different directions at once.

"Oh, sweetie," Natalie started, but he lifted a hand.

"You're right," he told Isla. "You're not supposed to go with strangers. That's very smart."

Isla looked at him, then at Natalie, who gently intervened. "Isla, you know how if you get lost, you're supposed to find a police officer to try and help get you home?"

Isla nodded slowly, and Natalie smiled. "Well, your dad is actually a police detective. I've known him for a long time, and I cross my heart"-she paused to draw an imaginary X over the front of her scrubs-"and promise you that it's okay to go with him. He'll take very good care of you."

For a minute, he was sure Isla would balk, which meant they were going to spend the night in the hospital, Shawn guessed, because no way in hell was he going to force her to do anything right now. But then, miraculously, Isla nodded.

"Okay, good." Natalie smiled. "Let me go check on that car seat so you can get going."

A thread of panic re-formed in Shawn's gut as Natalie slipped out of the room, leaving him alone with Isla. But she simply lay there, looking at him with those huge blue eyes, and he figured the best thing to do was let her. Tess and Natalie must've worked some pretty serious magic, because fifteen minutes later, they were all on the way out the door. The car seat really was pretty straightforward, and Natalie tucked Isla into the backseat with the blanket from the gurney. Her wide eyes never stopped taking everything in, but she didn't protest when Tess handed over a stack of paperwork from the social worker, nor when Natalie said goodbye and waved from the curb.

"Okay, kid," Shawn said, certain he was f*****g this up. "Guess it's just me and you now."

Isla kept up her serious stare, resting her head against the cushion of the car seat. She had to be exhausted. Even he knew that three-year-olds weren't supposed to be awake in the dead of night-a point that hit home as soon as he pulled into his designated spot outside of his apartment building ten minutes later and realized Isla had fallen fast asleep.

Well, shit. If he woke her up, she might start to cry; plus, God knew she'd had one hell of a night already. Waking her just to get her inside seemed cruel and unusual. Carrying her seemed like the smarter plan.

Maneuvering Isla out of the car seat, inch by painstaking inch, Shawn managed to get the blanket around her and lift her into his arms. The process took forever, mostly because he was terrified to either wake her or inadvertently hurt her somehow, but after what felt like a hundred and fifty years, he finally got her to the door. The whole key-in-lock thing was a little tricky, but Isla couldn't weigh more than twenty-five pounds, thirty max, so he managed well enough. She nestled in against his shoulder, her arms circling around him in what he'd bet was a reflexive hold, but it shot fireworks off in his chest all the same. Finally, he got her to the futon in his spare bedroom, kicking the thing open and adjusting it one-handed before placing Isla in the center. She didn't budge, save to let out a sleep-sigh, and the finality of the past few hours hit him like a wrecking ball.

He had a daughter. A little girl who needed him because she had no one else in the world.

And so, Shawn did the only thing he could think of to take care of her. He got good and comfortable in the chair next to the bed and watched over her as she slept.