Disclaimer: Don't own the ones you know, blah blah blah. Kind of got the idea from the book Awake and Dreaming by Kit Pearson.

"Del Mar! You ever planning on going home?" Ennis's head snapped up at the sound of the foreman's voice.

"Yessir. Soon's I get the last of this hay onto the loft."

The foreman, something-or-other Owerson, pushed his hat back a little, squinting at Ennis in the fading light.

"Boy, ain't you got a family to get to?"

Ennis ducked his head. Instead of answering, he grabbed another bale and grunted noncommittally. Owerson took that as a no and suddenly didn't know what to say. The conversation had turned awkward.

"Oh. Well, uh…" He mumbled something more about finishing up the books and slithered off the office. Ennis leaned against the loft's ladder for a moment, trying to block out the thoughts trying to come in. Suddenly he was mad at Owerson. Who was he to come busting into Ennis's life? Shouldn't he be happy to have someone who worked as hard as Ennis? Why did he have to ask questions all the time? And who was Owerson to call him "boy" all the time, when Ennis himself was older? He threw another bale up onto the loft. And another. And another. He was working furiously now, trying to burn his anger out. And as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. He felt deflated, numb. The last bale of hay felt like it weighed two tons. He could hardly get it up to the loft.

Ennis climbed wearily into his old truck. That bucket of rust was as beaten down as its owner. But both were still holding up, doing their job. Ennis felt understanding for his truck. He felt like a machine himself. He went through his day mechanically, just getting it done because that was what he had to do.

Dropping into bed an hour later, Ennis sighed. When he closed his eyes, he saw a pair of baby blues looking back to him. And he smiled. He certainly did have a family to get to. They just weren't real.

"Daddy!" Ennis jerked awake at the sound of five-year-old Nathan's howls. Receiving no immediate response, Nathan screeched again.

"Daaaaaaaaddy!"

Ennis stole a look at Jack, who was concentrating very hard on pretending to be asleep. He had his eyes squinched up the way he did when he was faking. Ennis flicked his ear as he rolled out of bed.

"Oh, doncha move, Jack Twist. Your son's screaming his lungs out, howling at the moon, but don't worry. Got the pipes from you, wouldn't you know, but go on, sleep in." Muttering darkly, Ennis bumbled down the hall.

"Whassamatter?" He didn't crack his eyes open until he heard Nathan's sniffles.

"D-daddy, I p-peed the bed," Nathan whimpered. Ennis rubbed a hand over his face. This was the third night in a row.

"Okay," Ennis sighed. "Get on in the bathroom, get them clothes off. I'll getcha some clean ones." As he scrounged for some dry pajamas for the boy, Jack decided to amble in.

"He piss himself again?" Jack had a tendency to be less than eloquent at three thirty in the morning.

"Yeah. You want to handle the bath or the sheets?"

Jack groaned, yawning halfway through. "What'd I do last night?"

"You pretended to be asleep."

"Oh. S'pose I can't do that again?"

"Not a chance, Twist."

Jack got the sheets while Ennis headed to the bathroom. He sat on the side of the tub, letting Nathan handle cleaning himself up. When he heard more splashing than anything, he pulled Nathan out of the tub and dried him off. Nathan's blue eyes were already at half-mast, and the little boy was fighting a losing battle to stay awake. Ennis picked him up, leaving the bathtub full, the wet towels and soiled clothes on the floor, and carried his son back to the master bedroom.

In his now well-established spot in the middle of the large bed, Nathan curled up and felt right to sleep. Ennis slid in next to him. He could hear Jack bustling around the laundry room, cursing as he bumped into things. Finally, he made his way back to bed.

"Why's he keep wetting the bed?" He asked crossly, shimmying under the covers. Ennis just shrugged. Nathan wouldn't give them a straight answer. Jack propped himself up on an elbow.

"Pity we're awake now when there's a kid in the bed, hmm?" He wiggled his eyebrows for emphasis. It had been funny two nights ago, when he'd first said it. It had been less funny last night when he'd repeated it. Tonight, Ennis threw a pillow at him.

At breakfast, seven-year-old Gracie looked up from her eggs.

"Natey peed the bed again last night!" She taunted in a singsong voice. Ennis frowned, turning around in time to see Nathan's head drop.

"Ugh, what is wrong with you?" Their thirteen-year-old, Jason sneered. Bobby slapped the back of Jason's head.

"Look who's talking. You peed the bed two months ago."

"Shut up, I did not!"

"Yes you did, I had to clean the sheets," Jenny piped in. Jack pushed a hand through his hair.

"Could y'all just leave each other alone for five minutes so we can eat? Why do you have to argue over everything?" Nobody paid him any attention, but nobody brought up the subject of bed-wetters again, either.

When all the kids had been pushed out the door and onto the school bus, Jack closed the door and turned to Ennis, shaking his head.

"I swear, Ennis, one of these days I'm going crazy. Whose idea was it to have s'many kids?"

"I believe it may have been yours," Ennis replied dryly. He could still remember Jack getting so excited after every one, and sure enough, he'd be begging for more within months. In truth, Ennis had shared his excitement, every time.

Junior had gone off to the college, leaving Jenny the only person in the house with auburn hair, and Bobby had inherited Jack's dark locks. The other three had Ennis's tawny curls, paired with Jack's beautiful eyes.

All the little ones knew that the eyes were Ennis's weakness. He always gave in to the puppy-dog face. He gave in quicker if the puppy-dog face was accompanied by just a glistening of tears. Jack liked to think he was tougher when it came to the puppy-dog face. After all, they were his eyes, and he himself used them against Ennis whenever he felt necessary. Which, knowing Jack, was often.

Ennis left the breakfast dishes on the table and headed out to the barn. Two cows had calved the day before, and he wanted to check up on them. Satisfied that they were fine, he threw some hay out to the herd in the pasture and settled to his favorite part—the horses. Ennis would spend all day out in the stable if he could. He rubbed each nose that was thrust over the stall door at him, smiling. He had seven horses—two young fillies just for breeding, his two he'd had forever, and three gentle old nags for the kids to learn on. He couldn't bear the thought of having kids who couldn't ride horses.

Ennis busied himself brushing, watering, and just simply admiring the look of his full barn. Finally he decided he'd better get back up to the house and make sure Jack hadn't gone back to bed like he sometimes could be caught doing. And then Ennis had those dishes to get to, not to mention going around making all the beds, since none of those kids could get it through their skulls to do it themselves, and there was probably laundry to do.

As soon as Ennis opened the bright mahogany doors, he could hear Jack cursing and muttering darkly.

"…Kids can't rinse their plates off—how many times I ask 'em, I don't even know…so lazy, 's really not that hard…"

Further inspection brought Ennis to the sight of Jack hunched over the kitchen sink, up to his elbows in soapsuds, scrubbing furiously. Ennis couldn't help the chuckle he let loose. Jack turned around, suds flying everywhere.

"Don't you laugh at me, Ennis del Mar! Your damn kids leave this mess all over, and you just disappear out to your barn, leave me to do all the chores in this house!" Jack's anger only made Ennis laugh harder. A few bubbles had come to rest on Jack's eyelashes, and Ennis reached a hand up to brush them away. Suddenly he wasn't laughing and Jack wasn't mad and they had the house to themselves and here they were, alone and—

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. Ennis jerked awake, startled. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. His harsh alarm insistently told him to get out of bed and get ready for work. He slammed his hand down on it, wanting nothing more than to burrow down under the covers and get back to his dreams. But he was awake now, and that incessant voice in his head was harping on him to get up and moving. He climbed out of bed with a groan. He must've been getting old—his bones ached with a deep weariness now.

As he ate breakfast, Ennis noticed his calendar had today's date circled. Rehearsal dinner, his chicken scratch told him. Shit. Junior's rehearsal dinner tonight, and he had no tux. Well wasn't that just like him? How many days had he noticed that big red circle and thought to go get one and just forgot? He'd have to leave work early to go scrounge one up. It'd probably be too short in the arms and legs and the tie would be ugly. But he was never one to really worry about high fashion, anyway.

Ennis finished his stale cornflakes and thought of Jack—big blue eyes, that mole above his lip that just drove Ennis wild. He also thought of the kids—their kids, that they'd had together. Ennis had never questioned how they'd had those kids. In his dreams, they were just there, a perfect melding of the two. And then they still had Bobby and Ennis's girls, but this dream life in no way involved Alma or Lureen.

A glance at the clock, a last gulp of milk, and the machine was back to work.