captain scurvy.

“Everything okay?” Robby asked curiously.

He was…shocked, mostly. He and Abby had slept with each other twice since Tanner was born; his mom watched Tanner, and he’d come home for the weekend for some weird, COVID-induced conjugal visit. He knew once was all it took – he’s a fucking doctor, for Christ’s sake – but he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. Of all the bad luck in all the world.

“Abby’s pregnant,” he muttered, dropping his head into his hands.

Robby didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, he sat down next to Frank on the couch, and clapped him on the back.

“Congratulations,” Robby told him, and he snorted. “I mean it, Frank. You’ll figure it out.”

He stared blankly across the room, but felt just a tiny bit better, just like he always did when Robby voiced his confidence in him.

And then, the corners of his lips turned up.

“A baby,” he whispered to himself, as Robby got up to answer his phone.

A baby was a good thing, he felt, deep down, beneath all his dread and anxiety. A baby was a good thing.

And Robby was right. He’d figure it out. He had to, and he’d always seemed to figure out everything life had thrown at him so far.

He’d figure it out. A baby was a good thing. Maybe they would be a girl this time, with his blue eyes and Abby’s curly hair. He smiled for real this time, picturing it.

Abby called him four days later, just as he was coming off an eighteen-hour shift, and informed him she’d had a miscarriage.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. He didn’t know what to say, or how to make it better. He needed to make it better. He was a husband. He was a father. He was a fucking doctor. He opened his mouth, figuring he’d wing it, but Abby beat him to it.

“Thank God,” she said, exhaling roughly. “Thank fucking God.”

His eyebrows pulled together, the relief in her voice so palpably different from the way his heart had started to break. When he didn’t speak, Abby grew suspicious.

“Wait,” her voice crackled through the phone. “You’re not sad, are you?”

“No,” he said quickly, but his voice cracked, and a tear fell from the corner of his eye.

Abby sighed.

“Frank, you can’t possibly think a baby right now is a smart idea.”

“Of course not,” he assured her. “I know the timing sucked. But…I don’t know. A baby is a good thing, right?”

“No, Frank,” Abby answered bluntly. “A baby is not always a good thing.”

And he knew that, vaguely, somewhere in the back of his brain. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the little girl with blue eyes and curly hair that had started appearing in his dreams.

“Look, Frank. After this whole shitshow is over, I promise we’ll try again. You know I want at least one more kid. But this one…it just wasn’t meant to be. My body knew that, and now you and I know that, too.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, shaking his head. She was right. Abby was right. He knew that. He would force himself to accept that. “Yeah. You’re right as usual, Abs.”

She laughed lightly into the phone.

And when Penny was born, with the blue eyes and curly copper hair that he’d seen in his dreams two years ago, he finally did.

*            *            *

He’s careful with Mel in a way that he never was with Abby.

Not because he thinks she’s too delicate, or made of glass, or unable to handle herself. He just…he can’t fuck this up. She’s the most important thing that’s ever happened to him, alongside Tanner and Penny. He can’t fuck any of this up.

This care comes in many forms – the way he always listens to her without interruption, pauses after he makes jokes so she can light up from the inside out when they click in her brain, always makes time and space for her wants and needs and desires.

Another one is the conscious way they plan their future together. Mel told him, two months after they started officially seeing each other, that she didn’t know if she ever wanted to have children of her own. He’d ignored the passing pang in his heart, because that’s exactly what it was – a passing thing, that was here one second and gone the next. He had Tanner and Penny. He had Becca. He had Mel. He had more than he’d ever hoped or dreamed for.

That’s why, on their first marriage anniversary, when she told him she wanted to start trying for a baby, he fell over. He literally fell over, tripping over his own two feet, spilling Mel’s can of 7Up all over their kitchen floor.

“Are you okay?!” she asked in alarm, hopping out of her chair and helping him to his feet.

He ignored her question and the pain in his back – hell, he could hardly take in any other sensory input other than the way his heart was racing in his chest, beating Mel, Mel, Mel over and over again.

“Wait. Are you serious?” he asked, his voice shaking with feeling, with the kind of warmth that blooms when you realize something you’ve always wanted but stopped wishing for long ago might finally be coming true.

“Um, yes?” she said, a slightly nervous lilt to her voice. “Why, do you not – “

He didn’t let her finish her ridiculous question, instead leaning down and kissing her, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her feet off the ground, once again ignoring the way his back was protesting.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” she murmured against his lips.

“I don’t fucking care.”

And he didn’t, truly. He thinks he could’ve lifted a city bus over his head in that moment, if she asked him to. All he cared about was her – his Mel, the best thing that ever happened to him.

“So you want to?” she asked, pulling back from him again so she could lock their gazes, her brown eyes shining in the soft yellow light of the kitchen. “Have a baby, I mean?”

Two more ridiculous questions. He leaned back in, peppered kisses on her cheeks, her eyelids, along her jaw.

“Mel, honey, love of my life,” he said, and she giggled. “Of course I want to have a baby with you.”

“Good,” she whispered, and then kissed him again, sinking her tongue into his mouth, tangling her fingers in his hair and tugging slightly.

He was fully hard about three seconds in, so he moved them towards the staircase, still not letting her feet touch the ground.

“Frank,” she said, smiling into his mouth, knowing exactly where his mind had gone.

“I think we should begin working on this right away,” he told her, and she laughed again. “Like, immediately.”

“I do like to get a head start on things.”

“Fuck yeah, you do.”

And he somehow managed to make it up the stairs with her in his arms. His back ached for five days afterwards.

It was worth every second of discomfort.

*            *            *

It takes them another year to get pregnant.

It takes dozens and dozens of pregnancy tests, countless tears from both of them, a few fights that only started because they both wanted something so much and were starting to believe they might never have it. Sometimes, he would hear Abby’s voice in his head, the words she said to him after that miscarriage all those years ago.

It just wasn’t meant to be.

It takes them both almost developing a fear response to sex. It takes negative after negative after negative after negative.

It takes 413 days.

She takes a pregnancy test on the morning of her 31st birthday. He tries to talk her out of it, because he’s afraid of what it will tell them, because he doesn’t want her to have to spend her birthday dejected and despondent. But she insists, saying that she just wants to know. She just wants to get it over with.

That’s what this process has become. Something they just want to be done with. All it’s doing is breaking both of their hearts, over and over again.

He stands in the bathroom with her, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, the timer on his phone counting down slowly. He can hear Mel chewing on her thumbnail.

When his phone rings out, he doesn’t open his eyes right away. He’s already trying to swallow down his own disappointment, so he can be there to support her through hers.

Then, he hears her voice. A little breathless, a little stunned, a little watery, but unmistakably hers.

“Frank.”

His eyes fly open. She’s looking down at the test in her hand. There are tears in her eyes – there normally are – but this time, her hand is pressed to her mouth, almost in shock.

“Mel,” he murmurs cautiously, taking a second, not letting himself believe just yet.

She looks up at him, the most brilliant, beautiful smile he’s ever seen on her face. They just stare at each other for a moment, almost like if they move, they’ll scare one of the two lines away.

Then, a sob rips from his chest. He drops his phone on the bathroom floor, kneels on the ground and wraps her in his arms, his tears falling into her braid as he looks down at the positive pregnancy test.

“Holy shit, Mel,” he says, his voice breaking. She turns so she’s facing him, that blinding smile still on her face. “Holy shit, Mel.”

“We’re gonna have a baby,” she tells him, nearly bouncing in his arms. “Frank!”

He kisses her, urgently, thoroughly, like his life depends on it. It might, actually. He kisses her, and then pulls back, their lips parting with a loud smack that echoes against the tile in the room.

“I love you so much, baby. So fucking much.”

“I love you, too,” she says, as she helps him pull her shirt over her head. “I love you so much, Frank.”

“I love you,” he says again, kissing her, licking into her mouth, nibbling on her bottom lip. “I love you. I love you,” he says, staring at her flat stomach as she giggles. “And I love you,” he finishes, tapping her on the nose with his index finger.

She gets up off the floor so quickly that the loss of her almost startles him. She holds her hand out, and he takes it as she helps him stand.

“Let’s celebrate,” she says excitedly, hopping once and then reaching around her back so she can unclasp her bra, dropping it to the floor and turning to walk back into their bedroom.

He follows helplessly, stumbling over his feet again as he does, managing to swat her ass playfully before she can crawl onto the bed. He crawls on top of her, pressing nearly his whole weight down onto her like he knows she likes. Then, he brings his mouth back to hers, wrestling her pants and underwear down her legs. He slides two fingers into her, she gasps against his lips, and he doesn’t think he’s ever been happier than he is right now.

For the first time in months, sex doesn’t feel like a chore. And when they fall asleep afterwards, the late morning sun streaming in through the window, it’s with their hands clasped together over her abdomen.

*            *            *

It happens on the first day she wears her maternity scrub pants to work. They’re a little big on her still, but they were delivered the night before, and she can’t help herself. So she ties off the string in the waistband tightly, and he watches her the whole time, a smirk on his face. She turns from side to side as she looks at herself in the full-length mirror, and he gets up from his seat on the bed, stands behind her as he snakes his arms around her waist, his palms settling over the bump that only the two of them can tell is there, so far.

(After it happens, she’ll use this as one of the many reasons that it was her fault. That she wore them too early. That she pushed her luck, and some cosmic force that she never even believed in before punished the both of them for it.)

He can tell something is off with her about an hour into their shift. She keeps brushing her hand over her stomach lightly, which she usually avoids doing pretty well, since they haven’t told anyone at work yet. She’s stretched and grabbed at her lower back a few times in a move that’s usually his when his old injury flares up.

“You okay?” he asks her when she does it again while they’re standing at central, looking up at the patient board.

“Yes,” she assures him. “My back is just hurting a little. I think I slept wrong.”

“Do you want something for it?”

She shakes her head.

“Not yet. I’m sure it will go away. I just need to walk around a bit, I think.”

He eyes her curiously, but lets it go. She’s a doctor, and he trusts her; she’d tell him if there was something more going on.

“Take a break if you need to,” he reminds her, even though she’s been better at doing that since they found out. She’s staring into space, and his brow furrows. “Mel?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “I will.”

“Mel...”

“I’m fine, Frank,” she says again. “I’ll go sit down for a minute when I have a chance.”

He nods, and is about to tell her to just go now, that he’ll cover for her, when a trauma rolls through the door. She leaps into action before he can say anything, and he only frowns for a moment before he follows behind her.

(She’ll use this to blame herself, too. That she should’ve taken that break instead of jumping onto another case.)

It’s when she freezes in the middle of the trauma that he realizes something is really wrong. He’s standing across the table from her while she does chest compressions, and she simply stops, her eyes going wide the tiniest bit.

“Mel,” he says, but she doesn’t move. “Santos, take over compressions from Mel.”

“Sorry, Melodrama,” Santos mutters as she pushes her out of the way.

Mel allows herself to be shoved, and then takes a step back, her arms falling to her sides, the expression on her face a little out of it. His stomach starts to churn, and he rushes around the patient to her side of the room.

“Mel, are you – “

“I think I just peed myself a little bit,” she whispers, as much to herself as she does to him. “I have to use the restroom.”

He barely has time to process her words before she’s pushed past him and left the room. He shakes his head once, something white hot and raw beginning to curl in his gut.

He checks the time after they stabilize the patient. It’s been ten minutes since Mel dismissed herself. He wanders around the floor, looking in every room and in the lounge, not finding her. He deduces that she must still be in the bathroom, so he goes over and stands in front of the door to wait for her.

At minute twenty, the white hot feeling has worked its way up to his lungs. He walks over to central in a daze, and catches Dana’s eye, waving her over to him.

“Can you check on Mel?” he asks before she can question what’s going on. “She’s been in the bathroom for twenty minutes.”

Dana frowns.

“Sure, kid. Was she feeling sick this morning?” she asks as she starts to walk over to the employee restrooms.

He follows her, and shrugs.

“She said her back hurt a little, but that was it.”

Dana hums.

“I’ll make sure everything is okay. Hopefully she’s not puking up her breakfast, right?”

Dana goes to push the door open, but he reaches out and grabs her arm with a shaky hand before she can.

“Dana, she’s pregnant.”

The charge nurse’s – the mother’s – face falls.

“How far along?” she questions.

“14 weeks. We were waiting to tell people until after her OB appointment next week.”

Dana visibly swallows, and squeezes his hand that’s still on her arm.

“I’ll go check on her,” she says, and then she sends a smile to him that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Everything’s gonna be alright, Frank.”

She enters the restroom, and he watches her go, his breathing shallow, his heartbeat tachy.

Fifteen minutes later, Dana opens the door to find him in the exact same position she left him in. Her face is grave. He feels like he’s suffocating.

“Dana…”

“Go in there,” she says, her voice low and serious.

“I can’t go in there. It’s the women’s – “

“She’s the only one in there right now. I’ll guard the door. Just go in there.”

“Dana,” he says again, his voice half strangled.

She hesitates for a moment, and closes her eyes. When she opens them, they’re filled with tears.

“It’s what you think it is,” she admits, and a sound rips from his chest that he doesn’t recognize. “I’m sorry, kid. She’s gonna need a D&E, but right now, she needs her husband. I’ll get someone from L&D down here ASAP and make sure no one bothers the two of you.”

He stares at the woman blankly. He can’t process what’s happening. He feels like he’s floating above his body.

“Frank,” Dana says firmly, snapping her fingers in front of his face. He blinks slowly, and her face is blurry when he opens his eyes again. “Pull yourself together, and get in there. Mel needs you.”

Mel. His sweet, beautiful, perfect Mel. The love of his life. The best thing that ever happened to him.

“Yeah,” he chokes out, as a tear falls from the corner of his right eye. “Yeah, okay.”

He can hear her as soon as the door shuts behind him. She’s all the way in the furthest stall from the entrance, but he can hear her all the same. The stall is thankfully unlocked, and when he slips inside and looks at the scene in front of him, all the breath leaves his lungs.

“Oh, honey,” he whimpers.

There’s so much blood. So much blood. Is there always this much blood when someone miscarries? She’s still sitting on the toilet, her maternity scrub pants and underwear around her ankles. She’s sobbing so hard that she’s started to hyperventilate. He drops to his knees, gathers her in his arms, remembers that the last time he was in a bathroom like this, the two of them were staring at a positive pregnancy test, and almost throws up.

She buries her face into the side of his neck, her fingers clutching his scrub top with fists so tight the skin stretched across her knuckles is white. Her tears are hot against his skin, and she starts mumbling no over and over and over again, until she’s out of breath again. Until another sob rips from her chest, loud and raw and ugly.

“I know, honey,” he whispers into her hair. “I know, Mel. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere. I promise, I’m never going anywhere.”

She twists herself closer to him. His tears fall into her braid, and again, Abby’s words ring in his head.

But this one…it just wasn’t meant to be.

*            *            *

They don’t get home that night until midnight, after the D&E, after they meet with a grief counselor, after Dana brings their stuff up from their lockers and sneaks them out of a back entrance of the hospital so they don’t have to walk through the ED.

He nearly carries her out of the car and into the house, her arm slung around his shoulders, one of his wound around her waist, their belongings forgotten in the car. He manages to get her up the stairs, sits her on their bed. He undresses her, moving her limp limbs around like she’s a doll. Then, he maneuvers her into the bathroom, places her on the toilet while he turns on the shower. He strips his own clothes off, and then steps under the spray with her. He soaps up a washcloth, runs it over her body gently. The water running down the drain is slightly pink; she still had some blood on the insides of her thighs.

He’s in the middle of washing her hair when he realizes how much she’s crying. He couldn’t tell at first, because of the water and because she’s managing to be pretty quiet about it, like the many sobs she’s let out today have tired her all the way out, but haven’t used up all the tears in her eyes.

He rinses her off quickly, and then pulls her against him. She doesn’t hug him back, but she doesn’t pull away. He tries to take it as a positive sign.

She won’t notice if he starts to cry, he realizes, just like he didn’t know the water droplets on her cheeks were tears at first.

So he lets go, lets the events of the day seep into his bones – all the sadness and terror and pain. So much pain. He lets himself feel it, all of it, for the first time.

He lets himself cry.

*            *            *

They fall asleep curled around each other that first night. But when he wakes in the morning, after a heavy, dreamless sleep, she’s not in bed with him. He panics slightly when he doesn’t find her in the bathroom, tries to slow his feet as he starts down the steps.

He finds her on the couch, sitting straight up and staring at the powered-off TV like she’s watching a movie. There’s a mug of barely sipped tea clasped between her hands.

“Mel,” he says carefully, like he’s trying to handle a scared, stray cat.

“I missed drinking tea with caffeine in it,” she says, her voice devoid of any emotion.

When she doesn’t elaborate, he murmurs, “Okay. Um. How are you – “

“I’m going to go back to bed,” she tells him suddenly, before he can finish his question. She stands up, setting her mug down on the coffee table without using a coaster. “I’m tired, so I’m going to sleep.”

He nods as she walks around the couch. She moves towards the stairs, but stops before she can start to climb them. Instead, she walks over to him, stands in front of him and lifts onto her tiptoes, presses a stiff kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Before he can react, she pulls away and begins her trek up the stairs.

“Mel,” he calls gently, but she doesn’t turn around, and he hears the bedroom door click shut.

He spends most of the day pacing. He has to call his mom and tell her. He has to call Abby. He has to tell Becca and Tanner and Penny. God, how is he going to tell Becca and Tanner and Penny?

He makes chicken parmigiana, because Mel likes it and they have the ingredients and it takes a fucking long time to make, so it eats up a good chunk of his day. He goes upstairs to tell Mel, even though he doesn’t even know if she’ll eat any of it.

But when he opens their bedroom door, he finds the room empty. He checks the ensuite bathroom, and she’s not there either. He walks out into the hall.

“Mel?” he asks.

And that’s when he realizes the door to the guest room is closed. The room – Jesus – the room they were going to turn into the nursery. They hadn’t made any changes yet, thank God. The last thing Mel needs to do is sit in their dead child’s half-finished nursery.

He walks over to the door, knocks gently.

“Mel,” he says softly. “I made dinner.”

She doesn’t answer, so he goes to open the door. He finds it locked.

Fuck.

“Mel,” he says, more urgently this time.

“I’m fine,” he hears her say finally, after he’s fiddled with the doorknob for a good thirty seconds and tried to frantically rack his brain for where he put the keys to these doors. “Please don’t come in.”

“O…kay,” he agrees hesitantly. “Do you want dinner? I can bring you up a plate.”

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry. Just…leave me alone, please.”

“Okay,” he repeats. “Okay. I’ll…see you in a few hours when it’s time for bed, alright?”

She doesn’t answer him.

“I love you, Mel,” he tells her, leaning his cheek against the door.

“Please go away, Frank.”

He flinches.

But he listens to her. He doesn’t want to pressure her, to end up pushing her away, to fuck this up. He can’t fuck any of this up.

He eats dinner by himself, then goes out on the deck and chain smokes one of his old, half-empty packs of cigarettes. He sits on Mel’s porch swing until the sun sets and his fingers are numb from the cold, and then he makes his way upstairs, strips down to his boxers, and collapses onto the bed, on top of the covers.

And he falls asleep, still cold and all alone.

*            *            *

Mel doesn’t leave the guest room for three days.

Well, that’s not entirely true. She comes out every once in a while to use the hall restroom. When he realized she was doing that, he tried to intercept her after she was done, and she literally ran from him and closed herself in the guest room again.

He heard the click of the lock turning, and he stood there for at least five minutes, staring helplessly at the shut door.

When she skips breakfast, the day after it happened, he decided to start bringing her up plates of food and glasses of ice water, setting them just outside the room and telling her through the door that it’s there if she wants it.

She doesn’t eat lunch or dinner that second day, either. She doesn’t even drink any water. He twists and turns in bed that night, thinking of her in that room, sad and hurt and alone, curled into the fetal position in the middle of the double bed. He looks over at her nightstand to see if she even took her headphones in so she could listen to her white noise, and he sees the book of baby names she’d been pretending not to read because they’d agreed not to think about those kinds of things until they knew the sex. He flips through it mindlessly, sees that she’s taken notes in the margins just like she does in all her medical journals, and he tosses it under the bed angrily.

He lays on his back, stares up at the ceiling fan, wills unconsciousness to take him. When he finally does fall asleep, he dreams of a baby girl, just like he used to, except this time she has his hair and Mel’s eyes and nose and chin and cheekbones. And he wakes up gasping, tears in his eyes.

He checks on her in the morning – and by that, he means that he checks on the food he’s left outside the door – and finds the glass of water is empty. He thanks a God that he most definitely doesn’t believe in anymore that she’s still alive in there, and then goes downstairs to start his day.

He gets texts from everyone at the Pitt that shower him with condolences, telling him to give Mel their best. He would, if he could get her to fucking talk to him. If he could get her to come out of the damn guest room.

Even Robby texts him.

I heard about the baby. I’m sorry, Frank. Tell Mel we’re all thinking of her. I know the two of you will figure it out.

You’ll figure it out. It’s what Robby had said to him all those years ago, after he found out about Abby’s second pregnancy. The words had made him feel better, then. Now, he just laughs once, humorlessly and almost bitterly.

Dana calls once, asks how the two of them are holding up, and he lies through his teeth, says that they’re heartbroken but managing. She tells him to call her back if they need anything, that she’ll be over in a heartbeat.

His mom calls a few times, too. He can hear the tears in her voice when she tells him how sorry she is for them. She calls him Frankie for the first time since he was twelve, and asks if he wants her to come stay with them for a few days. He tells her no, that Mel isn’t in the mood for visitors, that otherwise, they’re doing okay, all things considered.

He calls Becca to tell her what happened. She hangs up on him as soon as she hears Mel lost the baby. He curses to himself, tries to call her back immediately. He texts her when she doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t respond for a few hours.

I’m ok Frank. Just take care of Mel.

He’s trying, he wants to scream. He’s fucking trying.

It’s Abby that finally manages to break him.

He texted her from the hospital after it happened, told her that Mel had miscarried and that she’d need to keep the kids at her house until further notice. She’d agreed immediately, told him not to worry about anything, that she’d take care of it, that she would be thinking of both him and Mel.

He calls her after he’s finished vacuuming the living room for the seventh time since they came home from the hospital and used up all the flour panic baking sugar cookies. It takes her a few rings to answer, and he taps his fingertips against the countertop anxiously as he waits.

“Hello?” she answers finally.

“Hi, Abs,” he says, his voice breaking on her name, and he can hear her breathe into the phone.

“Oh, Frank.”

He lets out a sob, sinking down to the kitchen floor as he cries, ugly, loud noises echoing off the kitchen cabinets. She waits on the other end of the line, waits for his breathing to somewhat even.

“Are you okay, Frank?” she asks softly.

“Fuck no,” he tells her, almost laughing before the sound turns into a cough. He sniffles. “No, Abby. I’m not okay.”

He takes a deep, shaky breath, as she waits for him to continue.

“She won’t come out of the guest room. She locked herself in there the morning after we got home, and she only comes out now to use the bathroom. If I try to talk to her when she’s out, she just runs away from me. She’s not eating, either. I’ve been leaving her plates of food outside the door and she hasn’t touched them. I mean, fuck, she just started drinking the water I brought up for her this morning.”

Abby sighs.

“I’m sorry, Frank. I wish I could help. I wish I knew what to tell you.”

“But you went through this before,” he says desperately. “Maybe you can help her? You know how it feels.”

“No, I don’t, Frank,” she tells him gently.

“But – “

“I know what it feels like to miscarry, sure. But I don’t know what it feels like to lose a baby.”

“It feels like shit,” he murmurs, sniffling again. “It feels…I don’t even know what it feels like. I think I might be dying, honestly. I think we both might be.”

“You’re not dying, Frank. She’s not either, and she needs you.”

“She won’t even talk to me.”

“She will,” Abby assures him. “And she’ll need you to be there for her, just like she’ll be there for you.”

“You said,” he begins, trying to get out words through his tears. “You said, when you miscarried, that it wasn’t meant to be. That your body knew, and now we did, too. How…”

He pauses, exhales unsteadily.

“How could this not have been meant to be? How could our baby not have been meant to be?”

“They were, Frank. What we went through was nothing like this. Hell, Frank, I probably would’ve gotten an abortion if I hadn’t miscarried. That was totally different. You two wanted this baby, and you dreamed of this baby, and you planned for this baby. They were meant to be, Frank. You just…you got dealt a shit hand by God. I…I don’t know, Frank. I really don’t. You don’t deserve it. Neither of you deserve it.”

“Then how do I fix it?” he asks, running a hand through his hair and tugging on the strands. “How do I make this better? I don’t know how to make this better.”

“You can’t, Frank,” she tells him. “You’ve always been obsessed with making things better. It’s probably why you became a doctor, and probably part of the reason our marriage ended. You never were good at letting things breathe.”

“Abby.”

“Frank. You aren’t going to be able to fix this for her or for you. You just have to endure it. And it’ll get easier after a while. Little by little, you’ll be able to smile again. But until then, you just have to hunker down together and let yourselves feel it.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” he mutters into the phone.

“Nobody does. But you’ll figure it out as you go along, I promise. The two of you will figure it out together.”

He snorts.

“That’s what Robby said.”

“Fuck me,” Abby says. “No shit. Finally, that asshole says one intelligent thing in his life.”

Neither of them speak for a moment. They just breathe together.

“Now go try to talk to Mel.”

“How are the – “

“The kids are fine. They’re sad – they don’t really understand what happened – but they’re okay. I’ve got them, Frank. Take care of your wife.”

“Thank you, Abby. For…for everything.”

“Of course. I’m not a total monster, you know.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I do know.”

He makes toast after he hangs up with Abby, spreading sun butter onto it. He slices up a banana, too, and fills up another glass of ice water. Then, he takes all three dishes upstairs, sets them outside of Mel’s door. He swallows thickly, and knocks.

“Mel?” he calls softly.

She doesn’t answer, of course. He keeps going anyway.

“I just…I wanted to tell you that I love you. I love you so much, honey. And I’m not going anywhere. So when you’re ready, I’ll be here. I promise.”

He sinks down onto the floor, leans back against the door, and closes his eyes.

“I promise I’ll be here,” he whispers.

The next thing he registers is the sound of a lock turning. His eyes flow open. His mouth is dry, like he’s been snoring lightly like he does sometimes. Shit, he must’ve fallen asleep after sitting down on the floor.

Before he can process anything, or even get up, the door opens quickly, and he falls into the entrance to the guest room. He hits his head on the floor a little.

“Ow,” he mutters. He’s flat on his back now, and staring up at the ceiling. “Fuck.”

“Frank?”

And then her face – her beautiful, devastated face – moves into his line of vision. He can’t help the smile that plays on his lips.

“Mel.”

She takes off her glasses, wipes them with her shirt and then puts them back on her nose.

“Did you…sleep out here?”

“Um. I think so?”

She stares down at him. He vaguely realizes he’s still laying on the floor.

“Get up,” she tells him. “You’re going to hurt your back.”

He sits up, and she’s right, as she usually is – his back is killing him. But he manages to stand with only a slight wince. He looks at her when he’s finally upright, and she’s staring down, twisting her toes into the hardwood floor.

“Do you want to come in?” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “I really want to come in.”

She steps aside and lets him enter the room. She doesn’t follow him right away, and for a moment, he’s worried she’s going to leave and lock him in here by himself. But when he looks over his shoulder, he sees that she’s just picking up the toast and fruit. Thank fuck.

He sits down in the chair at their desk while she crawls onto the bed, placing the plates down on the comforter in front of her and folding her legs under her. Her braid is so messy – it looks like she hasn’t redone it in days – and her eyes are red and glassy.

But she’s here. She’s here and alive and real and in front of him. And she’s eating a piece of toast. Jesus, he’s never been so happy to see someone eat.

They don’t talk while she finishes a slice of bread and half of the banana. She reaches over to the nightstand and takes a sip from a half-empty glass of water. Then, she folds her hands in her lap, her glasses falling down her nose slightly as she stares down at the bed.

“Thank you for all the food,” she murmurs after a moment. “I’m sorry I didn’t eat much of it.”

“It’s okay,” he tells her gently. “I’m glad you’re eating it now.”

She lets out a breath, worries one of her thumbs over the back of her opposite hand.

“I’m…sorry for everything else, too.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he tells her firmly, trying to keep his voice even. “We’re both dealing with it. You did what you had to do.”

Her head lifts to look at him, her brow furrowed.

“No, that’s…that’s not what I’m talking about.”

He tilts his head slightly.

“What are you talking about, then?”

“I’m…”

She pauses, and breathes in and out slowly. She’s trembling slightly, and a tear falls down her cheek.

“I’m sorry about the baby,” she breathes. He opens his mouth to ask her what she’s talking about, but she continues before he can. “I’m sorry I couldn’t take care of them the right way.”

His mouth falls open. For a moment, he’s too stunned to speak, and he can only watch as more tears fall down her cheeks. She takes off her glasses, drops her head into her hands.

“I’m really sorry, Frank,” she whispers, her voice breaking.

“Oh, Mel.”

He gets up from his chair and moves to sit on the bed – not close enough to touch her, but near enough that he can duck his head down and catch her gaze.

“This is not your fault, honey.”

“How could it not be my fault?” she whimpers. “You have Tanner and Penny, and they’re healthy and beautiful. It’s my body that’s the problem, obviously. There…there must be something wrong with me.”

“Listen to me, Melissa,” he tells her, trying to pour all the earnestness he can into his voice. “There is nothing wrong with you. Sometimes, things just happen, and we don’t know why, or how, or – “

She hiccups, but the sound turns into a sob, and his self-control snaps. He crawls farther onto the bed and cradles her in his arms. She falls into him, her hands wrapping around his biceps as she cries, and a tiny part of him heals.

“It’s okay, honey,” he murmurs, dropping a kiss onto the crown of her head as his own tears fall into her hair. “I’m right here, Mel. I’m always going to be right here.”

“Even if I can never have a baby?” she asks, her voice small and scared as she speaks into his chest.

“Even then. I love you, Mel. Above everything else, I love you. I want to be with you. And that’s never, ever going to change.”

She breathes him in, and then presses her lips to his collarbone, nuzzling her face into his neck.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “You’re hurting, too, and I…wasn’t there for you. You were making me food and sleeping on the floor outside my room, and I wasn’t there for you.”

“It’s okay, Mel. I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’m here for you.”

“No,” she tells him, shaking her head and then looking up at him. “We’re a team. We take care of each other. That’s what we do. That’s what we’ve always done. Even on that first day.”

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, a few tears roll down his cheeks. She gets up on her knees, kisses them away, before resting her forehead against his.

“Yeah” he agrees softly. “That’s what we do. And that’s what we’re going to do. From now on.”

“I just…” she starts, another sob wracking through her chest. She drops her head down onto his shoulder. “It feels like nothing will be okay ever again.”

“I know, honey. I know. But someday, it will be. I promise it will be.”

“How do you know?” she murmurs into his shirt.

And the corners of his lips twitch up, almost involuntarily. He cradles the back of her head, wraps his other arm around her waist and pulls her flush against him.

“Because it’s you and me,” he tells her. “We’ll figure it out. It might take us a while, but we’ll figure it out.”

“It’ll always be you and me,” she whispers.

“Always, Mel,” he exhales, and he kisses her temple. “Always.”

*            *            *

Two nights later, she whispers to him, as they’re lying in bed, her back against his front.

“I think she was a girl.”

He opens his eyes, and tightens his arm around her waist.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, turning over and running her hands over his bare chest, fiddling with the hair there. “I know that’s kind of silly, and there’s no way of knowing for sure, but I just…feel like she was a girl.”

He smiles gently.

“I’ve been dreaming of a baby girl.”

He can see her eyes light up, even in the darkness.

“Really?”

He nods.

“Really. She has my hair, but your eyes. And your nose. Really, she kind of has your everything, but – “

She cuts him off with a kiss. When they break apart, he smooths his hand over her hair.

“I had some names picked out. I know we weren’t supposed to do that yet, but I couldn’t help myself.”

He hums, and presses his lips to her forehead.

“Will you tell me what they were?”

“Hmm. There were a few. I thought about Rosemary, because that was my mom’s middle name. And then I thought Isla sounded pretty. But I think I really liked Clementine? Clem for short. It means merciful and gentle. And I just thought…after everything, we deserved something gentle, and sweet.”

He rubs his nose along hers.

“Clementine,” he breathes, testing the name out in his mouth. “I love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, honey,” he tells her. “I think it’s perfect.”

(And the next day, she’ll take a pen and write Clementine in the top border of their sonogram pictures, in her neatest handwriting. She’ll call him over to show him, and he’ll run his fingertips over the black-and-white photo, and press a kiss onto her hairline.