Summary: After Nico's death, John finds out that Nico had a 14 year old child. To help ease the guilt, he adopts the child.
At first the kid is quiet. They refuse to look at him or acknowledge his existence unless told to do something.
Things are tense as John truly tries to make up for his actions in some way. Giving the kid a nice home, good clothes, tasty food.
It's not helping at first, but soon the kid starts to relax and give at least one word answers.
It's a stalemate till John sits down with the kid and talks to them like an adult, something no one else did. He apologizes for what happened. No bullshitting, no excuses. A simple 'I'm sorry. I was wrong.'
That's when things start to change for the better.
When the kid needed something, he did his best to do it himself and leave John out of it, but now he's coming to John for help with simple things.
First it's homework, math is kicking their ass.
Math soon kicks both their asses.
Then it's an English paper, signing up for after school activities, getting more things for their room.
Jokes start happening, a bit awkwardly, but they happen. John doesn't get the humor that the kid has, but he tries.
John introduces the kid to some friends, announcing them as 'his kid.'
It's clunky and doesn't feel exactly right, but after a few times it becomes second nature.
When things start to get into a rhythm of sorts, the nightmares start.
The kid would try to deal with them on their own, but soon their cries woke John up.
John panics as he's not sure how to help or comfort, but he tries by staying up with them in the living room eating ice cream. After all, he doesn't sleep that well anyways.
When the kid asks to have friends over, John is almost too excited for it, wanting to plan cool things to do to impress the friends, but then he calms down and says 'Yeah, of course. Just make sure it's okay with their parents.'
John is allowed one day a month to plan activities to show off to the kid's friends if the kid can learn to drive.
They try to learn to drive one time and it ended up in a fender bender with a lamp post in an empty parking lot. John quickly signed them up for Driver's Ed when the time came.
Summer vacation is stressful because John doesn't know if he should leave the kid alone all day or put them in activities or if he can take them to work. (Nope, definitely not take them to work.)
The last two weeks of Summer end in a road trip to national parks for camping and it's not that bad.
It's underneath the bright sky in Rocky Mountain National Park that there's a slip up.
John says goodnight and the kid says 'Goodnight, Dad.'
No one says anything, the kid panicking but when John just stays quiet, he's relieved.
John is smiling like an idiot in the dark.
There's a conversation the next day that dances around the incident till finally the kid admits to it and apologizes.
John says that it's okay and they can call him Dad if they want. It doesn't mean they don't miss or don't love their birth father any less.
There's an air of happiness when they get home from the trip and it's quickly crushed by the kid being asked out on a date.
John didn't know how to deal with that and didn't like the idea of his kid out with some other kid wanting to do kid stuff like ski ball or roller skating.
Turns out it was just a movie and John felt better to know the only condition was from the other parents that John had to chaperone. He was okay with that.
When the date is over, everyone kept their hands to themselves and John didn't have to embarrass them or himself, the kid and him get home for bed.
Before saying goodnight though, John is taken aback when the kid gives him a tight hug.
