"What's that smell?" 

Of course, Robert already knew what that smell was.  He knew before the words were barely out of his mouth. Dixie was cooking. God Bless her, she was a great wife and mother, but five years of marriage and two years of parenthood hadn't done anything to improve her culinary skills.  When they first married they'd made an agreement that Robert would cook and she would clean. And when Dixie deviated from the tried and tested formula he knew something was up.

He found his wife in the kitchen, bent over the stove. In some men that sight would bring them a feeling of hominess, but in Robert it brought a feeling of fear. Last time Dixie had cooked, he'd been sick to his stomach for three days afterward. Thankfully that had been easy to hide since she was going through morning sickness at the same time. In fact, that had been why she tried to cook him dinner that night, to tell him she was pregnant.

 

Sometimes, usually in the still of the night, Robert Romano realized that death had passed him over.  He would wake with a start from a dream about that fiery helicopter falling from the sky and think that by all rights he should have been under it. The fact that he hadn't been did alot to repair his belief in God and got him going back to weekly Mass again. He was living in the bonus round, because his life was supposed to end that Thanksgiving back in 2003.

But it didn't.

This particular night when he woke with those thoughts was in the heat of summer. He'd celebrated his fifth wedding anniversary three days before, and he couldn't help but smile at the sight of his beautiful wife sleeping beside him. By the time he almost lost his life, he had pretty much given up on ever getting married. Then after the brush with death he started to look inside a little. Not so much that he became someone new.  He'd always be an asshole, and was proud of that in a way. But when a pretty redhead walked into his ER the spring afterwards, he had made a vow not to make the mistakes he made with the last redhead he'd adored. And lost.  Something must have changed inside of him that Dixie, in all her sweetness and kindness, had been able to love him in return.

And then there was Madeline, the second love of his life. He had definetly never thought he'd be a father, especially with one arm. But the precocious little two year old taught him the more about life then he ever thought possible. And most of all, she taught him that every day was a gift and an adventure, to be cherished and enjoyed. Days weren't for passing, they were for living.

Moments like this, feeling the warmth of his wife's body against his, and listening to his daughter's soft breaths as she snuggled bewteen them, he couldn't help but lift a silent prayer of thanks for the prevention of two passings. The passing of his life and the passing of his days. Through nothing short of Divine Intervention he was here, he had his girls, and life had never been so good.

Muse: Robert "Rocket" Romano
Fandom: ER
Word Count: 379

Though he'd lived a full life, he'd never visited someone in jail before today. It seemed like this visit was wasted on someone who didn't deserve it, on someone he would like to choke the life out of with his bare hands, but he had felt compelled to go anyways. Why, he wasn't even sure of himself. Perhaps he never would be.