From the time I started watching the show semi-regularly, I had such an interest in Doctor Cox. His sarcasm, his ego, his juxtaposing compassion—all of this was enough to keep my focus and eventually get me off my noncommittal ass, only to work on this story during a few tired, early mornings.

I can only hope I've done him some justice—and, if not, that you'll offer me a few remedies.

I disclaim all known characters as creations of Bill Lawrence. If there are any comments or questions you wish to share, please send them through review, e-mail, or private message, whatever convenience is more effective for you. And if I'm not actively shirking my authorial duties, then I'll be trying to respond to your messages quickly, kindly, and, possibly, coherently.

Thank you and please enjoy.

(Minor revision 10 November 2008)

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"Scratch"

"You're a father. Can you believe it?"

"…Nope."

-- Jordan and Doctor Cox, "My Dream Job"

Much as I hate to admit it, Jordan was right: if she had ever told me that that baby was mine, I would've chained myself to that relationship and landed right back in hell. It would've been a sight, let me tell you— there'd we be, Jordan and me, going at it and dragging the kid along with us, and him trying to understand what was wrong and what the hell had started it. I don't doubt that we would've suffocated each other eventually, and then things would've just started repeating, one smack right after the other: argument, affair, alimony. God, what a wreck we'd have left that kid with.

But she didn't. Nope, she didn't say a word; it was Newbie's hungover buddy that had the honors. And even if it takes a bonafide jackass to tell you that the kid you've been regarding as a stranger's son is actually your own, I've gotta give him some credit. At least he let it out when the rest of them decided to leave their balls in their other purses.

I tell you, though, when I first heard it – congratulations, you've got a son, you're a father – it was enough to shut me up. (It can happen sometimes, you know; I'm not immune to shock for things like…well, fatherhood, anyhow.) Just the thought of being a dad and…being committed to someone without even knowing it—it's a helluva inspiration for silence.

Commitment – now there's the oldest monster in a guy's closet. It's your garden-variety man-phobia, one of those fears you'll encounter in almost anyone with nuts to his name. For example, no rational man actually wants to get married; it's the love that hazes your judgment and gets you caught with a ring on your finger and a lady in your house. Marriage is such a limitation on your liberty as a young guy, especially when you're probably already bound to another institution—say, a hospital, for instance. Alright, so I wasn't exactly "young" when I married Jordan – thirty-five's a pretty stable age for a guy – but I was certainly dedicated elsewhere. She knew it, too—I made damn sure she did with all the crap I put her through.

And still, that's where you can talk about commitment, with the two of us. Not that any straight-minded person would believe it, but it's true: we're more hitched than Ghandi and Carol. Of course, we may not have the nauseating sensitivity that those two ladies do, but we're just as much a permanent couple.

That's where Jordan was right, too. The thing about us is, we've always been stuck with each other in this godforsaken loop—one of us gets worked up and runs while the other one's left to be stubborn and not do anything about it. I mean, honest to God, we knowhow to play each other like a record—just scratch the needle on the vinyl and let it slide.

But now…now we've got a kid together, and he doesn't need any of the crap we've been flinging. He doesn't deserve it, for one, because he hasn't done anything but get us out of that cycle we've been so good at driving. And even if he's got one hell of a psychological inheritance to his name, he still oughta have some stability in his life.

I'm not saying that we're not gonna prod at one another—all I'm saying is that it'll be out of love rather than a consuming, mutual malice. We're still gonna pry at the each other's patience and then have to deal with each other at the end of the day because of it; there'll be no change there. The only shift is that, some of that energy we've used to bust one another, it's gonna go to a place where we can both forget ourselves for a minute and appreciate something more important.

I don't want to be a sentimentalist, honestly I don't, but this is…how I feel. With this kid, we've got a real chance to resolve some of our issues, and I know I'm sure as hell exhausted of living a loop with Jordan. This time, we can both dedicate ourselves to something other than making each other miserable, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna ruin this kid's life for him by doing just that.

Still, I can't shake the feeling that something's gonna go wrong here, that I'm gonna royally traumatize this kid and then watch him warp into some jackass. I can honestly say that I don't want the kid to be like me, because no one wearing booties should be tearing towards that kind of jerkdom—but the thing is, no matter how much I try to watch myself in front of him, I'm bound to brush off on him anyhow. Trust me, there's no stopping it, and once the damage is done, it doesn't heal much.

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I know that I can care for people, because I don't come to this hellhole every day just to get a kick out of mortality, and I know I believe in love, but this is…different. For some reason, when I didn't know the kid was mine, it was a lot easier to…start loving him after a while. Now that I do, though, I have all this anxiety over how I'm going to positively suck as a father and just trash this kid's life because of who I am.

Frankly, I don't know what I'm gonna do about it, because even while I'm confident I'm not gonna leave Jordan, and there's no chance in hell that I'm gonna miss out on being with the kid, I have to wonder if I can do this. I'm invested, that's for sure, but you bet your ass it's hard to feel all too committed when you've got paranoia riding your thoughts.

You know, I could probably sit here for hours and mull all this over till I'd put even Barbie to shame, but something tells me that I'd just be graying a few more hairs. Honest to God, I don't get why it matters that he's got half my demented biology, thank you very much. I mean, damn it, he was gonna be my kid, anyhow! I wasn't planning on upping and leaving because it wasn't my genes the kid was cursed with—God no. I didn't have anything like I do now, none of this fear over my competence as a father, and it's…wrong. It's wrong that I didn't have any of this when he was just someone else's son, because all that tells me is that I didn't care as much about him.

I was going be a father whether or not he was actually mine, for God sakes. Nothing was going to change that.

Commitment – I said it was an every-guy's terror, and this just proves it. Now that I know the kid's mine, I can't run from him if I need to, because I'd beat myself up so bad I'd come right back. Of course, then I'd just end up hurting him like I thought I would, and in the end all I'd do is catch us in this agonizing cycle of flee and return. So really, I'm stuck—and I'm just doing what Jordan said I would do in the first place if I knew: chaining myself to this relationship.

God, I hate when she's right.

The worst part about this, though, is that it's all become about this handicap, and it's not too tough to see that, if anything, the situation should be the opposite. I've got a kid that I love and a woman who respects who I am…and that means, beyond myself, there's nothing else here to ruin this.

And that's the worst thought of them all.