A/N: This is one of those stories that I had to write basically against my will. Sorry. I don't know how to explain it. Like so many others, I heard the song and the story started forming. It took hours of research to try and marry all the holes in some important plot points but I won't bore anyone else with that, really (more than I already have.) Many thanks to those who have supported this far. This is very different from my normal writing, so please take a second and let me know what you think.

I don't know if this needs to have a trigger warning or not because it's not particularly graphic, but it does have several unveiled references to drug use, specifically heroin. If you are sensitive to that please proceed with caution or do not read.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this stuff but I'd like to think I leave it better than I found it. (It's called Google and it's amazing research tool, writers.) Title and inspiration from This Isn't Everything You Are by Snow Patrol.

There's Joy Not Far From Here

He makes her laugh and that has always seemed really important. It wasn't that she had a rough time of things before, but it seemed like everything was different after; the world was brighter, the future was brighter and she was just… better. He said he was too. They were young, probably too young, but it was bright and it was fast and they thought it would be fine.

Before she knows it, they're married. It's not really that fast, but it still goes by in the blink of an eye. She's only twenty-two and she switches from her half-finished art history degree to a nursing degree instead because it will be so much easier to get a job. And really, she knows because her parents especially tell her, it doesn't matter anymore if you're the man or the woman, a degree that will help you actually get a job is a good thing. Plus, she's always been a caretaker; a little bit of a nurse at heart. Her father has had quite a few health problems and though her mom always tried, she was the one who nursed him back to health and put him back together. Especially after the wedding, being a nurse makes sense.

They give Christopher the same talking-to; in fact, all of it is the same conversation. Her parents are extremely supportive, but they're also concerned that the young couple has been together less than a year and they're already married. Carole switches her major to nursing but Chris… he enlists before he even really discusses it with her and she hates it. She hates that they're supposed to just be together, in the bright world full of laughter and good things, and he's enlisting. There's actually a group of boys they know—a group being four total—who enlist as the talk about conflict in the Middle East gets more serious and well…it's better and more honorable to enlist than get drafted, isn't it? She's not so sure about that, but she still goes with him to the post in Cleveland when he leaves for recruit camp at Parris Island the following month, doubt still clawing away at the bottom of her stomach and tears in her eyes. She wonders if everything that made her laugh or made her world bright is gone; more importantly, she wants to know when it's coming back.

She finishes school while he's gone and begins preparing for the NCLEX with a punishing study schedule to keep her mind off of things. It's almost as much of a blur as their courtship was, but this one has the occasional knot in the line in the form of his short letters from camp. He's exhausted, she can tell, and she's already exhausted just waiting for him to get back. She's not going to tell him that though because underneath it all, he has a new, thin layer of pride that she will never fully understand.

One by one, the boys who enlist are deployed. Christopher is last because he elected to try for Special Forces (Recon) and he got it but it required a bunch of extra training. He's barely there in time for Operation Desert Storm, but he's there and she's nervous. It gets to the point she sells their television and refuses to listen to the radio because she cannot stand the conversation.

He comes home and doesn't say much about it; he accepts a post as a trainer and they move to Virginia for a while so he can help train the incoming Recon groups. He's not actually deployed again, but he does more than one tour and isn't really allowed to give details about any of it. She imagines he's getting the next groups settled into their various assignments. She doesn't need details to see how it's all changing him, though. He's getting quiet, losing his sense of humor. He's still the same sweet, gentle guy when it comes to her but that's the only thing that's the same. She catches him staring with a grim look on his face and he sleeps less than he used to. He just jokes that means he needs to drink more coffee and she pretends that can explain why he seems so… so on edge all the time. She doesn't even believe herself really, but she doesn't say much to him about it, either.

It falls apart about as quickly as it had all come together. He's gone for a month when the military police notify her and say he's coming home but some of his actions—even as part of a peacekeeping force in Kuwait, which will never actually entirely make sense to her—are under review and they will be confined to the base until its sorted out. She's told by the commanding officer not to worry until she needs to, but she's worried because she's pregnant and he's being court martialed.

She finally gets to see him and he looks terrible, but they only have about ten minutes with someone standing over his shoulder the entire time. She can't help it and she blurts out that she's pregnant and so he's got to figure it out and his eyes just fall closed but there's a glass wall between them and he can't take her hand and she can't give him a hug. She wishes she could get a smile but that doesn't really happen either. Instead, she gets a quiet promise through a crackling phone line.

"I'll…Carole…I'll try okay? This is just…this is really bad."

Her life, really, becomes two things: their child—and him. Well maybe it's three things because he can't get a job following his dishonorable discharge and the three months he has to spend in confinement with it. They had a decent lawyer barter him down; she was nearly ill reading the official documentation with initials and numbers and reasons and… a list of drugs and things he'd been putting into his body and selling to others, the people he was training. Well okay; they'd never proven he was distributing anything but said he'd had enough on his person that it qualified as 'intent to distribute' and even the good attorney his parents paid for couldn't talk Chris' way out of the stiff punishment.

She's a nurse and basically that means she sees what happens when he commits himself to getting away from what he's been doing. She probably should ask for specifics because he's her husband and they have a child on the way (which turns into just having a child who looks just like his baby pictures and she automatically hopes won't have his coping mechanisms) but she knows the fallout and that's bad enough. He has headaches. He can't sleep. He's restless and panicky and seems disconnected.

Even worse, she can tell when he gives into the cravings and goes back to using again because the symptoms of withdrawal stop and he has this sorry look in his eyes all the time if he even makes eye contact at all.

Finn Christopher Hudson comes quietly into her world on the aptly named Labor Day, a sleepy-eyed little angel who lives to snuggle from basically the moment he's laying on her stomach. She watches him dozing off and realizes how tired she is too and how she hopes he can steady his own father. She's really sad, knowing that's a huge responsibility for such a little guy (little meaning youngbecause he's a healthy weight—nearly 9 pounds and just over 22-inches long when he's born.) At the same time, she has this hopeful feeling like if ever a family could conquer something, it would be theirs because this little man is perfect and innocent and he deserves that.

She comes in from work one night in February, sometime around Valentines Day—which she feels a little ridiculously schmaltzy to admit is their anniversary—after an interesting day in the Emergency Department; the house is nearly spotless and smells incredible. Her husband is sitting in his cherished (she kind of hates it, truthfully) leather chair, holding Finn and he's got a piece of paper or something next to the baby's sleeping face. The look on his face though, the placid concentration, is enough to draw her in and also keep her quiet.

When he speaks eventually, his voice is low and smooth, the even and clear baritone she loves and doesn't hear that often anymore. The only thing that's a little off about the whole scene is that Christopher is dressed in his fatigues. She's reasonably certain he was supposed to return those, but… but here he is. And at this point, what's keeping one uniform?

"He's me," Christopher finally says. He flips his wrist and she sees that the piece of paper is a photograph. She didn't know he knew she was there and he looks up at her with a look that says he knew the whole time. "He's…mine. Ours."

"I know," she admits. She settles onto the couch right next to him.

"I'm trying," he breathes. "He…he needs his dad."

"I know," she says, more firmly.

"I love him," he says, the smooth voice still breaking. His eyes glance up to her. "And I love you."

"I love you, too, Chris," she agrees, feeling something in the back of her throat. He looks back down to the baby and she thinks she'd probably kick herself later if she didn't somehow mark this moment because she definitely just felt something shift. She's been keeping a camera close by because Finn is such a funny child and she wants to remember how blatantly silly he can be sometimes, even as an infant; this isn't silly but it seems appropriate to go get it all the same. By the time she's back with the camera and tears in her eyes, Finn is awake and Chris is talking to him, saying the same kinds of things to those wide, brown eyes that he just said to her. She wonders if he feels like he's looking at his own reflection, because he's completely right. Finn, aged almost six months, is like looking into the face of Christopher, aged 22, when they got married and thought that was all they would ever need.

They fight over something stupid on her only day off in three weeks and he leaves. He doesn't come back home that night.

The next time they fight and he leaves, he does come home. But he's stumbling; his eyes are glassy and he's already crying about how he failed his son. The drastic difference between his anger when he left and his broken-hearted sobbing tells her basically everything she needs to know; the last two months where he was almost finally getting back to the man she married are over.

She comes home one morning from a graveyard shift and he's sitting slumped over in his chair, head in his hands. She can hear Finn crying and she can tell from the dull intonation of the sound that it's been that way for a while.

"Christopher?" She asks. He doesn't move. "Chris!"

He looks up at her, his expression blank. "Hey baby," he finally says slowly.

She's exhausted and she gives him a dirty look. "Hey," she manages, even if the word is sharp. "How long has Finn been awake?"

"Finn?"

"Yeah, you know… our son?" She says, folding her arms across her chest. It's the first time she's come home to this. Usually when he's home alone with the baby, he's stayed sober long enough for her to at least come take over; she's never seen any major proof that he's using again. He's always kept it separate from their house and more importantly, kept it away from Finn. Now… now their 10-month old is crying and there's a pipe, a red plastic Bic lighter, and an empty plastic bag on the table next to Christopher's chair. She really wishes she didn't know what it was for as she picks it up. "Is this all of it?"

Because really… she can't just leave that out and go get Finn up; she can't stay in the house knowing it's here at all. He's never been this blatant before and she can feel her heart breaking through everything else—the anger, the fear for her son and her husband… she knows already she won't be going to bed today. But she's not about to let her child play on the floor while those things sit on the table or… God knows where else in the house or what he even has.

"Um."

Her jaw is tight and her words are terse at best. "You cannot do this. Your son needs you but… he needs you to be his dad. Not…." She waves her hand in his general direction. She isn't sure if it's disappointment or if it's exhaustion but the tears are coming on almost as fast as her resolve. "We're leaving."

His blink is too long. His eyes are rimmed so red it almost looks purple. He has that pale, emaciated look of the guys she sees every so often that she knows are homeless addicts. It hurts her heart a little to think of how much the guy she helped last week looked like he looks now. And just when did her husband start looking like those people? It's all happening too fast for her to save him. She wants to save him, but instead…

"No. I'll go," he says. He stands up, takes the stuff from her hands, and he walks out. She never sees him standing, walking, never hears him talking… she won't see him alive again. And he doesn't even kiss her cheek before he goes.

She never really thought of Cincinnati as the city where her life would come to a screeching halt; even when the police officer knocked on the door and said the words, she didn't make the connection. It isn't until she's sitting there at her kitchen table at 9 o'clock at night, waiting for her mother to come sit with Finn so she can drive to that horrible place by herself, that it occurs to her. They've lived in a few places: she grew up in Toledo and he grew up in Ann Arbor. They went to school in Columbus. They moved to Beaufort during his training and later to Quantico. When he was discharged from the military, she tried to move back home but the closest she could find a job was in Dayton, so that's where they settled. But Cincinnati is where it all ends.

The four days it takes her to bring back his nearly unrecognizable body are probably the worst days in her whole life. She will always think that and, even if the police officers and victim's advocates were really nice, she knows she never wants to go back to Nati for the rest of her life.

Her parents are utterly shocked because the distance was a buffer and they had no idea things had gotten so bad. Honestly, Carole didn't know herself until the autopsy comes back and reveals that he'd delved into a more hardcore area and, in his final days, had been using needles. The overdose had been a "bad batch" combined with a lot of alcohol (she knows too much about medical lab values not to be shocked when she sees how much), and the victim's advocate in Cincinnati had even said that was a bit of an epidemic in the area they'd found him in. Afterward, it takes her some time to be able to touch a needle at all, which is a little bit of an occupational hazard and she starts to feel like she needs to leave her job, to leave the city she's in, to go back home and let her parents help as they keep offering. In the end, that's what she does. She and Finn move out of the house as soon as their lease is up and she takes only what fits in her little car and sells the rest. She kind of hates that she's moving back in with her parents, but she doesn't know what else to do.

Finn makes her laugh and that seems really important. It isn't as though she isn't having a rough time of things, but when she has her little boy, the world is brighter, the future is brighter and she is just… better. She feels better. He's young, definitely too young for the job, but he gives her enough hope she'll do whatever it takes for them to be fine.

She'll be kind of embarrassed about it later, but there are days, weeks, and even a couple of months she doesn't really remember about the "after." She knows, obviously, that they get to Toledo. She knows her parents take them in. Her dad is extremely sick and they all agree that the tradeoff will be Carole providing basic care for him while her mom takes care of them all. She drinks a lot for a while, but it doesn't really do any good and she feels guilty because alcohol is half of what killed Christopher. She starts to get really angry because she would never mix it with the other crap he did, but…well. That's what makes them different and also what makes her a single mother. She eventually stops going out and stops drinking and starts appreciating the beautiful little boy that is the only reason she has to keep going once the depression sets in with its chokehold. Ever so slowly, the chokehold loosens and she feels like she can breathe again.

"Honey, you have a lot on your plate," her mom says one day while they're filling a small swimming pool in the backyard for Finn to splash around in. It's unseasonably warm this summer and Finn is turning out to be such a simple kid – all he needs to stay busy is a pool of water or a jar of bubbles. He chases butterflies for hours at a time and 'adopts' snakes that he finds in the backyard garden. Carole's eyes fill with tears at least half the time she's playing with him because he gets this goofy smile that looks like his dad and then she starts thinking about how she never really saw that smile from Finn until after Christopher was gone and… well, it makes it all really hard not to be defined by her loss.

It's another one of those times when Carole is watching Finn, throwing rocks into the swimming pool and giggling a little with each splash, encouraging her to "Look at this mom!" when the splashes are particularly large; she looks over at her mother with tears in her eyes.

"I don't even have a job, Mom," she protests, swiping her fingertips under her eyes.

"No, that's true," her mom says. "But… well, maybe you should try to start organizing some of it a little bit and thinking about what's next."

"What do you mean?" She asks dubiously.

"Sweetheart…" her mom starts. Finn jumps into the pool and then gasps out a sharp laugh at the cold water, earning a laugh from his grandma and at least a smile from his mom. "…he's starting school in a couple of months, right?"

Carole sighs and looks at her four-year-old tank of a little boy. He will turn five just before the dates cut off for him to attend school; he is bright and social and happy but he has a little trouble focusing and he has so much energy she literally cannot keep up with him. Some days it's all she can do to get out of bed, really; her old friends that have come around have said it isn't like her at all, not the Carole Harmer they used to know and they're right. She knows all of them are right. One of them asked if Christopher had been worth it and, when she paused, told her he wasn't worth all this. She thinks that might be what her mother is getting at now, but she's going about it a different way. Her mother is right and her friend was right.

Very bitterly and only to herself, she lets herself think that Christopher probably wasn't worth it; being bitter is easier than remembering all the things from him that she sees in their son. The trouble is, though, that she still remembers the laughing and the happiness and all the good things. She remembers because she has a daily reminder of all those things and Finn is worth it. She needs to organize their life.

"Yeah, I guess so," she says slowly.

"He's going to see those other kids with dads," her mom says—accurately. "He's going to start asking questions. We're lucky we've made it this far. But you probably need to know what you're going to tell him when he does ask."

She thinks about the relationship she has with her parents. She's an only child and they've always been utterly honest with her. She's always been pretty close to her parents and she really wants the same kind of family for her son. At the same time, she sees the spark in his eyes—the way he believes in magic and the way the right Band-Aid or an hour with the Power Rangers can make everything right again. She doesn't want him to lose that spark the way his dad did.

"I'm going to tell him the truth," she starts. She glances into the yard again at Christopher's son who looks and acts like the boy she first met so much it makes her heart ache. "That he has all the best things from his dad; and I think I can just leave out all the rest. I want him to think his dad died for a reason and not…" she sniffles, but she's not completely crying and she won't. "…not because some things are just impossible to face."

"Okay," her mom agrees. "That's your choice, darling. So we'll just… we'll tell him the war killed him. We don't need to get into details."

And even though Carole agrees, she buys a journal and writes down all of the nasty details one last time – before she closes the book, literally.

She finds a job in the family unit at Lima Memorial Hospital a few weeks later, working in labor and delivery, does a rent-to-own on a small house, and enrolls Finn for Kindergarten. They don't know anyone in Lima, so it works out well that's where the best job opened up for her. The life she's planned out for herself and Finn turns into the life they have and she honestly lives in the moment and doesn't revisit Christopher's memory that often—only on milestone days or maybe when Finn asks. She gets used to the picture Chris' parents left on their one visit to the house and doesn't really see it. There are so many joyful moments like Finn practicing drums (and she kind of wants to kill him or maybe buy earplugs), him doing well in almost every sport he attempts, her going back to school and getting her PNP – Pediatric Nurse Practioner—and getting a huge raise not too long before she meets Burt… and finally building a new family from the pieces they'd been holding onto so tight.

There are a couple of waves that crash into her, though. The first one is finding the journal when they're unpacking at the newly-named "Hudmel" house (Kurt's the one who calls it that.) She lets Burt read it and is a little surprised and a lot relieved he doesn't regret asking her to marry him, given what happened in her first life. The second wave is when the entire truth comes out and she sees the spark in Finn's eyes, the one she was trying to preserve—go away. And she thinks she sees the cycle repeating, swallowing her whole again but… but Finn surprises her in the best possible way and she realizes he has the best of her too: he holds on tight to the things that matters and she's along for the ride. His grip isn't as slippery as his dad's really and when she knows he'll be fine, well… that's when she finally knows she will be fine, too.