The Best By Far Is You

by bralliex

It was because of him that they believed in angels, and because of her that they believed in miracles. (Brandon and Callie's journey through pregnancy, life and loss, future-fic, brallie one-shot)

A/N: I haven't even written it yet and I already know this one-shot is going to be incredibly lengthy. So, I advise you to grab yourself a snack, and make sure you have plenty of time on your hands. This is a long one. This is an emotional one.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

(EDIT: Okay, I've finished it now and it's nearly 27,000 words. I may have gotten slightly carried away?)

---

CALLIE

Callie stared down at the plastic stick in her hand. She could just make out two lines. The first was prominent, but the second dulled in comparison. Despite this, it was evident that there were two lines. Even if one of the lines was faint. After the initial shock faded Callie found herself fumbling blindly through the bathroom. She yanked the small cardboard box, she's so carelessly thrown away, from the trash and helplessly scanned the instructions. What did two lines mean? Two lines meant negative, right? Two lines had to mean negative. She couldn't be...they weren't...they hadn't been trying...Callie felt as though she was on autopilot, unsure what to do, or how to feel. A part of her was trying to convince herself that two lines meant negative. The other part knew better.

There were only three options.

Option A: She could get an abortion. After-all they weren't ready to raise a child. They were still practically children themselves! (At least, Brandon was). Sure they'd talked about starting a family before, but nothing they'd said had been of any merit. They hadn't been serious. They hadn't been trying for one. They'd only just gotten married. They'd only just had their honey-moon. All conversations had been just that, conversations. They'd been wistful, naive, innocent. There'd been no plan. No time-frame. Just a few casual conversations regarding their excitement for the future. For their future.

Callie had, and she assumed Brandon had too, always expected they would start a family once they both had stable careers. Heck, Brandon's current job was so uncertain it had reached the point where they'd been considering moving back in with Stef and Lena. For just a few months. To "get back on their feet." Callie's sole income as a social worker wasn't enough to afford an apartment in San Diego. And it definitely wasn't enough to afford an apartment and a baby. No, they simply couldn't afford to raise a baby. They just couldn't. But could she live with herself if she got an abortion? Could she live with herself if she terminated something that she and Brandon, the man she loved more than anything, had created? The answer to that question came to Callie instantaneously. She knew if she went through with an abortion she'd spend the rest of her life wondering "what if?" and regretting the decision she'd made. Abortion was not an option. Not for her.

Option B: She could put the baby up for adoption. After-all there were so many families looking to adopt children, especially infants. There were so many families who couldn't conceive children naturally, but deserved children all the same. That being said could she carry a baby inside her for nine-months only to give it up? Could she bare to feel the babies kicks, and to share the spectacular moments of pregnancy with Brandon, all with the intention of letting their child go? Of giving it up? Could she live with herself if she gave her baby away to strangers? No, she knew for her adoption would be worse than abortion. She knew she'd live the rest of her life wondering what had happened to their baby. She'd forever wonder who he or she had grown to become. What they looked like. If they were happy. If they ever wondered about her too? Besides Callie personally knew just how uncertain adoption and the foster-care system could be. It was too risky. There were too many uncertainties. No, she couldn't give their child up for adoption.

But if she couldn't have an abortion and if she couldn't give the baby up for adoption then the only option left would be to...

The sound of the front door slamming shut jolted Callie from her thoughts. The commotion sounded even louder than normal and it echoed around the entirety of the small apartment. Callie swore she could feel the noise vibrating throughout her body. It only increased in magnitude as she heard what could only have been Brandon's footsteps move from the entry way and into the kitchen. Then into the living room. Down the hallway. Towards the bedroom. With each footstep Callie's heart seemed to pound faster and faster. She knew Brandon was calling out to her. She knew he was confused by her lack of response. But she couldn't bring herself to even open her mouth. Let alone to speak. It was as if she'd gone mute. She couldn't remember how to form words.

"Hello? Callie? I'm home!" Brandon sounded far away, despite the fact he was getting closer by the second. "Cal?" Closer still. "Hmm maybe she went out for something..." Brandon talking to himself. "No, that can't be right, because I saw her car in the lot." Correcting himself. "Callie are you in here?" Brandon entering the bedroom. "Callie if you're in the bathroom can you please just say something?" Brandon noticing the locked door. "Callie?" Brandon's knuckle rapping against the wooden door.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

"Cal?" His voice. It didn't sound as far away any longer. It didn't sound so loud. In fact it sounded soft. Subtle. Quiet. Callie felt her gaze fix on the door and watched as, seemingly in slow motion, the doorknob turned. "I'm coming in. God Cal, please don't be hurt." She watched as the door swung open. Her eyes found Brandon's.

Dark brown on green-grey.

Callie watched relief flood Brandon's eyes and his lips curled upwards into a smile. Her heart twisted. He'd been worried about her. She shouldn't have put him through that. She should have responded. Said something. She opened her mouth then. She tried to speak. Failed. Closed it again. "Jesus Callie you scared me! What's wrong? Is everything - " Brandon stopped.

His eyes fixed on the pregnancy test in her hands.

Callie was sure anyone within a two-mile radius of their apartment could hear the pounding of her heart. She froze. Awaiting Brandon's reaction. Worried for Brandon's reaction. What would he think? What would he say? What would she say back? Would he be okay keeping it? Because she sure as hell couldn't let it go. But could they do it? She knew financially it would be difficult, but finances was the last thing concerning her in that moment. Instead she was questioning whether or not they could do it, not financially, but emotionally? And on top of that could they do it well? Would they be able to dedicate the next nine-months and eighteen-years and really the rest of their lives to being good parents? Was she ready to be a mom? Was he ready to be a dad? Surely they were too young. Only just married. What would other people say? Callie was so lost in her thoughts, so wrapped up in her own emotions, she hadn't noticed that Brandon had crossed the room towards her. She hadn't been aware of his hands finding hers, and upon looking down she saw they were now both clutching the pregnancy test together.

"Two lines," Brandon whispered. Callie tightened her grip on both the test and his hands. Desperate for Brandon to never let go. "Two lines is...?" His eyes found Callie's once again, and perhaps it was the amount of love reflected within them, or the fact he was staring down at her as if she was the best thing to ever happen to him, but somehow, because of Brandon, Callie found her voice.

"Positive," she choked out.

"Positive," Brandon echoed and Callie watched in utter disbelief as he broke down into tears. He smashed himself against Callie, pulling the brunette into the tightest hug she'd ever experienced. Her arms were unable to reciprocate the action, because she was still clutching the plastic stick. Her vision began to blur and she didn't realize she too was crying until she felt tears land on her hands. She reckoned the pair of them looked like a couple of idiots: standing in a bathroom, one hugging the other, one holding tightly to a positive pregnancy test, both crying.

Callie could feel Brandon's body convulsing as the tears continued to stream down their faces. Her heart pounded even more furiously as she realized that Brandon wasn't happy. He wasn't laughing or acting excited, or anything even moderately close to that. No, he was crying. His reaction only solidified Callie's belief that they weren't ready. Would Brandon suggest they go through with option one or two? Would he not support Callie's choice to keep the baby? Callie pushed the thought from her mind. That was irrational thinking. She knew Brandon would support her no matter what. He loved her more than life itself. He would be a father to her child if that was what she wanted.

But was it what he wanted?

"Shit," Brandon murmured after a few minutes. Callie's heart sank to an unimaginable low as Brandon's feeling on the matter seemed to become even more apparent: he wasn't happy.

"I'm sorry," Callie whispered against his chest, "I don't know what happened. We always use protection. I never thought - " Callie was cut off by Brandon's sudden movement. He'd pulled Callie from the hug and crashed his lips onto hers. This reaction only heighten the level of Callie's confusion. What's going on in his head? She wondered, but all worries and anxieties dissipated as Brandon deepened the kiss. Callie's hands went to his shirt, hungry for more, only to let go as Brandon pulled away. His hands found, not the hem of her shirt, but her face. And they stayed there. Pressed against Callie's face. His thumbs caressing her cheeks.

"We're gonna have a baby," his voice was hoarse from the crying. "Cal, we're gonna have a baby!" The tears continued to flow from his eyes, but they were accompanied by a grin. A grin larger than Callie thought humanely possible. In fact it was so wide Callie was certain it must've hurt his face. "A baby, Cal!" Brandon's breathing was still heavy from their kiss. (Frankly Callie was slightly annoyed he'd ended it, but she knew there were important things to discuss). "We're gonna be parents!"

Brandon looked the happiest Callie had ever seen him and his stupid grin brought one of similar size to her own face. She couldn't help it, she just loved that boy so much. Sometimes she felt as though she loved him so much she would break. Sometimes she thought she couldn't possibly love him any more, but then moments such as these would occur, and her love for him would somehow expand and become even more prominent. Even more powerful. Despite this initial euphoria, reality returned to Callie fairly quickly. She, unlike Brandon, was less able to evade the questions that once again filled her mind. The first being the most important.

"So," Callie bit her lip, choosing each word carefully. "You want to keep it?" She'd intended it to come off as more of a statement, but her voice rose at the end thus turning it into a question. Brandon's face fell instantly, and his hands dropped to his side as though weighed down by anchors.

He seemed to age ten years in one instant.

Callie immediately regretted her words. She knew she'd spoken too soon. She hadn't picked her words carefully enough. She desperately reached for him, placing her own hands upon his face and holding on tight. She wished more than anything the stupid, dorky grin would return to Brandon's face and she could erase all implications of her words. He'd been so happy. So stupidly happy. And what had she done? Stomped all over it. What a joke of a wife she was. She pulled Brandon's face down to her own and rested her forehead against his. "That's not what I meant." She promised.

"You don't...?" Brandon trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. His eyes were brimming with tears.

"No!" Callie exclaimed. Her words, and more importantly the emotion behind them, surprised not only Brandon, but herself as well. And it was in that moment that Callie realized she couldn't go through with adoption or abortion. Not just because she might regret it later, but because she didn't want to. She wanted a baby. She wanted their baby. She wanted to be a mom. She wanted Brandon to be a dad. She wanted them to start a family. "I want a baby." Her words brought not only a smile to her own face, but the grin back to Brandon's. "I want this baby. I want us to be parents. I want to start a family with you. I want us to build something permanent. I want to give my children the childhood I never had..." Callie trailed off.

"But?" Brandon seemed to always know exactly what she was thinking, sometimes even before she knew it herself. The thought made Callie smile even more. God, she loved him. Did she tell him enough? Tell him that she loved him? That she loved him so much it was honestly ridiculous?

"But, we weren't trying. We weren't planning on this. I don't know about you, but I always thought we would start having a family a few years from now. Once we'd been married a while. Once things were more, I don't know, stable?" Callie's eyes found the splash of freckles on Brandon's nose, a detail you would only notice if you stood at an incredible close range to the boy. A detail Callie had prided herself in finding. A secret of sorts, on the face of the man she loved.

"So?" Brandon seemed to push all Callie's fears aside with one word. With him by her side her previous anxieties didn't seem so big. Didn't seem so 'all important.' They'd been through hell together and had managed, Callie still wasn't entirely sure how, to survive it all and their struggles had done nothing but solidify their relationship. They'd been through hell. They'd proved again and again that they were capable of handling whatever it was that life threw in their way. Besides a baby was heaven. They could handle a little heaven. Heck, they deserved a little heaven after all that they'd been through.

"Do you think we're ready?" Her voice was quiet. Small.

Brandon took her hand in his left and rested his right upon her face. The action brought her eyes to meet his.

For a moment they just stared at each other.

And then, "What does it mean to be ready?" He asked, his voice too was quiet. Yet not so small.

Callie shrugged. Her eyes moved from his. Her body moved from his. Her hands gestured, somewhat wildly, around the bathroom."I don't know! We've only just gotten married, Brandon! Heck, we only got back from our honeymoon three-months ago and we only bough this apartment a few months before that. I'm barely earning enough at my job to support us as is, and your work is..." Callie trailed off, she knew how touchy Brandon could get about the lack of financial stability in his field of work.

Callie supported Brandon's passion for scoring movies and TV more than anyone. She loved the way his eyes lit up when he was composing a new piece or how eager he became when discussing it. She would never think to ask him to get a more 'financially acceptable' job. Ever. Even despite his frequent protests that it would be more beneficial to them if he did. Callie had told him time and time again that she supported his dream and would hate to see him behind some stupid desk, even if it meant a nicer apartment or more spending money. She'd tell him that she was happy just the way things were. That she felt like the luckiest girl on the planet to be his wife and she didn't need the newest designer shoes or purse. All she needed was him. She'd tell him they were doing just fine, and they were.

Callie's annual salary was enough to live on, and it wasn't like Brandon was making zero money. In fact, he often made a good amount. However, sometimes he'd work on a project for months only for it to fall through, or he would do work 'free of charge' in exchange for publicity or to add works to his resume. Yes, they were doing just fine financially, that is, for the two of them. But a baby? A baby was a lot of money. Money that, at least at these early stages of their life together, they did not have.

"Unpredictable," Callie finally decided, Brandon opened his mouth to respond, but she quickly continued. "And no, don't even think about telling me you'll get some other job to save up money. I'm not letting you put your dream on the back-burner and go be miserable behind a desk for my sake. That's not the point. It's just...a baby is incredibly expensive. I mean first there's the question of medical bills, not to mention the fact that babies need a crib and clothes and diapers and a room. Brandon we don't have any space for a baby in this apartment! I always thought by the time we were going to have children we'd have a house. A nice house to raise a family in. Maybe a cat or two to practice on beforehand?" That brought a grin from Brandon, but only for a fraction of a second as he continued to listen intently to everything Callie was saying. "This apartment is hardly baby-proof, and we can't afford anything bigger right now. We can't afford a baby!" Callie finished. Her hands were still held above her head. She crossed them protectively over her chest.

"Is that it?" Brandon spoke slowly, drawing out each word, "You're afraid we won't be able to financially afford a baby?" Callie looked at him, blinking away residual tears and swallowing as she took in his piercing gaze. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. Finally, she sighed. She'd never been able to lie to Brandon. Not even when they were teenagers.

"No." Her voice was a whisper. "No," she repeated again after a few moments.

Brandon tipped his head to one side: waiting.

"I'm afraid," Callie admitted after a few more moments of silence. "Okay?" She added rather angrily. "Is that what you wanted to hear? I'm afraid. And I'm not just afraid about finances. I'm afraid of..." Her eyes met Brandon's again and she squeezed his hand. Hard, "...of being a mom. I'm afraid of being a mom." Her words were barely audible, but she knew Brandon had heard them, not that he'd needed to, he'd figured out the source of her anxiety before she'd consciously known of it herself. "There I said it," she added after Brandon didn't respond. "I'm afraid I won't know what to do. I barely remember my mom as it is, and Stef and Lena have been lovely to me, but I was already a teenager when I arrived..." Her voice had become hoarse, her breathing slightly hitched, "I don't think I'm ready."

Brandon took both her hands in his own. "Who is, Cal?" He asked. Her eyebrows furrowed in silent question, confused at what it was he was getting at. "Who's ever ready to be a parent? I don't think anything can prepare you to be a mom or a dad, or to bring a child into this world. No one's ready. No one even knows what it feels like or means to be 'ready.' If every man and woman sat around and waited until they felt 'ready' to have a baby, then my guess is that there'd be a whole lot less babies in this world. It's not something you can be ready or prepared for. I don't care how old you are or how financially secure you and your husband or wife are. That means jack-shit when it comes to being a parent. Sure, maybe the older you are the more you know about the world and maybe that means you'll make less mistakes, but you'll still make mistakes. You'll still mess up. All parents do. No matter your age. And sure, maybe people who have fancy houses and all the newest baby-gadgets will be able to provide their children with more things, but what does that help? Money and experience don't make being a parent easy. I've seen teen-parents with no money raise well-behaved, beautiful children, while rich parents in their thirties ship their kids off to daycare or boarding schools, because they have no idea how to handle them. None of that stuff matters. What matters is if you want the baby, if you love the person you're going to raise it with, and if you're willing to do everything in your power to protect that baby and make sure no one ever does it harm." Brandon smiled down at Callie, and she couldn't help but smile back. "I'm not ready to be a dad, Cal. But I sure as hell am ready to try, ready to learn."

"Me too," Callie said, surprised not only by her words, but by the sudden desire she had to protect the baby inside her against all good and all evil. Her hands went from Brandon's to that of her still-flat stomach. She smiled again.

"For the record," Brandon brought his own hand down to meet Callie's at her stomach, "You're gonna be a pretty amazing mom."

/

"Jesus, Brandon calm down," Callie scolded. She kept her voice down so not to disturb any of the other patients in the waiting room. But it didn't matter as Brandon didn't seem to hear her. He went right along bouncing his leg against the ground, all while grinning like some-kind of idiot. Every time the door to the unit open he looked as excited, if not more excited, than a toddler in a candy shop. And every time a nurse called for someone that wasn't Callie Brandon looked as devastated as a child who'd just been told Santa wasn't real. His disappointment; however, lasted less than a minute as he quickly reverted back to his cheery self.

Callie pretending to be annoyed with his behavior, but secretly she was rather amused by his actions. He was just so damn excited, it was next to impossible not to share the excitement that seemed to spill off him in waves. Seriously it was as if he was radiating a kind of infectious intoxication. Callie was surprised no one else in the waiting room had caught it. She couldn't help but find the situation rather endearing...but that may have been because Brandon looked incredibly cute acting all nervous and jumpy.

Callie reached her hand out to physically stop Brandon's leg from bouncing, and it was only then that he finally turned to look at her. "What?" He asked innocently, oblivious to all the ruckus he was making.

"Calm down, our appointment's not for another ten-minutes!" Callie exclaimed, adding in a softer tone, "...and people are beginning to look at you like you're on some kind of drugs." She gestured towards an elderly couple in the corner. Brandon didn't even bother glancing at them. He clearly wasn't phased, or even moderately interested in, how strangers perceived him.

"I don't care what anyone thinks," Brandon said. Sometimes Callie swore that boy could read her mind. "I'm so excited!" He squinted his eyes at Callie, almost as though she was the sun and he was just getting used to her presence. "Aren't you excited?" He didn't wait for her to reply. "How could you not be excited? We're about to find out the gender of our baby! I've been wondering about this since you told me, and truthfully even before then. I always imagined us having a boy first."

"Oh, did you?" Callie asked, a smirk playing on her lips. Of course Brandon assumed it was a boy, could he be any more stereotypical? "And what makes you so sure?"

Brandon looked at her as if she was crazy, "I have to be sure!" He said rather forcefully, and then, when she still looked confused, he elaborated."Mariana and Jude have each bet twenty-five dollars that it's a girl. That's fifty bucks!"

Callie laughed aloud, her efforts to not disturb the other patients momentarily forgotten. She tipped her head to one side as she took Brandon in. "So, you're telling me that you've used the gender of our first-born-child as some kind of way to make money off your siblings?" She teased, laughing again as she watched Brandon's pupils expand and him begin to squirm under her gaze.

"It's not like that!" He defended, "Mariana started it and before I could tell her how incredibly wrong of her it was to make a bet regarding my son or daughters gender Jude and Jesus had already joined in." A pause. "Jesus is on my side if you're wondering," He added ever so helpfully.

"Mmh," Callie nodded sarcastically. Brandon broke into a rant that supposedly justified his actions, but Callie was only half listening. The brunette didn't care one bit that Brandon and their siblings had conducted a bet, (in fact, she had her own bet with Daphne and Kiara), but she couldn't resist the opportunity to tease Brandon into thinking she was upset. Mostly because his expression morphed into that of a hurt puppy-dog and his voice got all high-pitched. It was fucking adorable.

Eventually, after a few minutes of enduring Brandon's ramblings, Callie decided she'd better tell him she wasn't actually angry. "Relax, Brandon I'm not mad." Callie watched him physically deflate in relief, before returning to his all-grinning persona of minutes before. "And by the way," Callie added and waited until Brandon was looking at her before she continued, "Add another twenty-five dollars to the pot, because I think it's a girl."

Brandon grinned, "You're on Ms. Foster."

Callie accepted his fist-bump, and a matching grin spread across her face.

She would never not love being referred to as Ms. Foster.

/

"Do you really need all these books?" Brandon asked as he momentarily lifted Callie's feet up from the couch and sat down, before placing them gently in his lap. He then picked up one of books in the gigantic stack Callie had beside her - there was also a stack on the floor, as well as another on the coffee table. "Hope and Help for Children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)?" He read off the books title, his eyes growing wide, and looked at Callie. "Cal, our baby doesn't have SPD."

Callie shrugged, "Who knows? I want to be prepared just in case - "

"I know," Brandon interrupted rather sharply. This caused Callie to look up from the book she was reading and study him with a confused, yet concerned expression. "Nothing is wrong with our baby," Brandon continued, picking up the large stack of books on the couch and returning them to the floor. He ignored Callie's protests.

"You say that but - " Callie tried again, reaching for the stack of books he'd displaced.

"But nothing!" Brandon yelled, and this time he was unable to hide the underlining anger in his tone. Callie pulled her hands quickly away from the stack of books, and placed them protectively and almost instinctively, against her round-belly. (She seemed to be becoming bigger and bigger by the day.) Brandon saw her defensive reaction and his expression melted into that of guilt."I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I just don't like thinking - "

"I know," it was Callie's turn to cut him off, "I know." She repeated, letting out a slight gasp as she felt a soft poke in her stomach. The kicks weren't yet strong enough to be visible on the outside, or for her hands, which were still pressed against her belly, to feel. Pretty soon they will be, she thought to herself. I can't wait for Brandon to feel them. Callie kept her gaze fixed on her belly, as Brandon began to speak.

"I guess it bothers me that you're working yourself up over nothing," he said softly. "All our scans and ultrasounds have been perfect. All the tests results have been perfect. The doctors aren't worried one bit. So, it doesn't make any sense to me that you'd check all these books out of the library, to what? Worry yourself?" Brandon held up the book closest to him: Diseases and Disorders in Infancy and Early Childhood.

"I just want to be informed," Callie said quietly, her gaze still on her stomach, "Just in case anything goes wrong." She knew it probably sounded naive and stupid, and heck, maybe it was. She wasn't sure exactly what had prompted her to check out as many books as she could find on potential disorders or developmental delays in infants. But she did know that she wanted to be prepared in case anything went wrong. It sounded silly, and she knew the odds were in their favor - most of the diseases effected .00001% of the population, and often they occurred in less developed countries - but she wanted to educate herself just in case the unthinkable happened.

"Callie, it's ridiculous to get yourself worked up with all this. It's only stressing you out, and stress isn't good for the baby. If anything these books are only going to make things worse. " Brandon's tone was calm yet firm.

Callie nodded, "I guess I'm still afraid." She admitted.

"About being a mom?" Brandon asked, his hand on her cheek brought her gaze to meet his. She shrugged and then nodded. Brandon was quiet for a few moments and then, "Do you think reading these books is gonna make you a better mom?" He asked.

Another shrug followed by another nod.

"It's the only way I can prepare myself, and I need to prepare myself somehow - " Callie inhaled as she felt a series of jabs in her stomach. It was as if their baby was telling her they loved her already, and she'd do just fine.

"Is he kicking?" Brandon asked, and Callie couldn't help but roll her eyes at his over emphasis of the word 'he.' They'd found out the baby was a boy weeks ago, and yet Brandon still made sure that everyone knew he'd been right. Especially since neither Mariana nor Jude had forked over the money they owed him yet. He'd stopped pressuring Callie about her end of the bargain only after she'd reminded him that she was his wife and his finances were her finances and vise-versa. "Where? Here?" Brandon pressed his hand down firmly against Callie's stomach, and she winced in pain. His hand immediately recoiled, hesitating as it hovered a foot over her stomach. Callie grabbed it and placed it over the lower left side of her stomach. Brandon's touch, even over her t-shirt, sent shivers up Callie's spine.

"Here," she corrected, and her heart twisted as she watched Brandon's hopeful expression fall slightly when the kicks, once again, didn't quite reach his hands. "You'll feel him soon," she promised.

Brandon looked up at her, then down at her stomach, then over at the books. "I'll tell you what," he began slowly, "Tomorrow I'll go to the library with you and - "

"Return all these?" Callie suggested rather dryly.

"Yes," Brandon admitted, "And we'll both check out some parenting books," he added. Callie's face brightened.

"We will?" She asked.

"Yes," Brandon repeated, "Some normal parenting guides for healthy children." He moved his hand up from her stomach, she stifled a groaned at the lack of contact, and stuck his hand out. "Deal?"

She clasped his hand in hers.

"Deal."

/

"Love you," Brandon placed a kiss to Callie's forehead, "I'll be back by seven." Callie grunted in response, curling her arms around her pillow and squeezing her eyes shut as tight as she could. Brandon laughed at her reaction, and possibly the fact that she was sleeping at two in the afternoon.

In her defense she was pregnant, and she figured that was the best defense there was.

Callie had heard so much about the 'pregnancy glow' and how great expecting mothers felt, but she was convinced that was an urban legend. Why? Because she looked and felt like absolute crap the majority of the time, and it was only getting worse as the weeks wore on. She'd decided early on in her pregnancy that 'the glow' was bullshit. For all the incredible moments pregnancy had, it sure had a lot of awful ones. Her back-ached twenty-four seven, the kicks were beginning to become rather forceful and unpleasant, and she had zero energy to apply any kind of makeup and sometimes not enough to even comb her hair. She was lucky enough to be able to work from home, or in her case, work from her bed, or else she was sure she would've been fired.

Callie heard the front-door slam close and she figured she may as well get up and get some work done since Brandon had, not so nicely, woken her up. Okay, so maybe a kiss was the preferred way to be awoken, but she'd rather he'd kept his lips to himself (for once) and just let her sleep.

With a rather dramatic sigh Callie pulled her laptop onto her bed and booted up her computer intent on getting a few emails sent before Brandon got home, or she fell asleep again (whichever happened first). However, she stopped short when she noticed the small brown book on her bedside. She put the laptop down and picked up the book. She fingered through the pages until she reached a blank one, surprised at how few were left.

"I'm gonna need to get another notebook," Callie said to herself and this fact caused the corners of her lips to curl upwards.

She'd been hesitant regarding the idea to start a 'pregnancy journal.' Surprisingly enough Stef had been the one to press the subject, going as far as to show Callie the journal she'd made during her pregnancy with Brandon. Callie had been pleasantly surprised by how open and emotion the Stef within it's pages had been. A Stef so different from the guarded and responsible Stef she'd grown to know and to love. After that It hadn't taken very much convincing at all for Callie to hop on board the idea, and it didn't hurt that Stef had bought her a notebook of her own to get her started.

A notebook that now, in Callie's second trimester of pregnancy, was almost entirely filled. Needless to say Callie had fallen in love with the idea of writing a journal to her son, one that he'd hopefully read one day. One that would hopefully show him just how much she loved him, just how much she'd loved him even before he was born.

Callie smiled as she felt a flutter of movement within her, her hands immediately went to her stomach. "Speak of the devil," she murmured fondly, closing her eyes and trying her hardest to convert his kicks to memory. She enjoyed the peaceful oblivion for less than a minute before the kicks grew more painful and, needless to say, were no longer quite so pleasant.

With a sigh, she rested the pen against the top of the paper.

Dear Baby...

Work could wait.

/

"I'd better get my seventy-five dollars today," Brandon mumbled as their car pulled to a stop in front of Stef and Lena's house.

Callie rolled her eyes, "You're still on about that? It's been weeks!" She teased, "And for the record it's fifty."

"Huh?" Brandon looked over at her.

"Mariana and Jude only owe you fifty-dollars, because I bet the other twenty-five and - " Callie started.

"You're too cheap to fess up that you were wrong," Brandon finished, his green-eyes gleaming with amusement. Callie resisted the urge to slap the stupid-grin off his face, instead producing a smirk of equal mirth and fixing Brandon with a wicked glare.

"Need I remind you that I'm the one carrying this child? The very baby that you so stupidly used in some kind of twisted way to make money off your siblings - " Callie was cut off by Brandon's lips forcefully against her own. Her pretend annoyance vanished within seconds, and the kiss deepened to the point where Callie had to pull away to prevent things from going any farther; after all, they were in a car right outside their parent's house.

"Touche," Brandon whispered. His voice was low. Sexy. Callie bit her lip to refrain from kissing him again. His face was still pressed close enough to Callie's own that their noses were touching, and both of them were breathing rather heavily. Callie was momentarily considering ignoring the fact they were outside Stef and Lena's and just jumping his bones right then, when a sharp jab in her stomach brought her back to reality.

"Ahh," she exhaled, her hands moving from Brandon's shirt down to her stomach. "I swear he gets more powerful by the day," she grumbled in mock annoyance. "I have no idea how I'm going to carry him for that much longer." She pushed her hair behind her ears and attempted to straighten her blouse which had gotten rather crinkled during their 'activities.'

Brandon leaned down until his face was level with Callie's stomach. "Listen here, mister. I need you to stay in there for a few more weeks, you hear me? We need you to grow big and strong." Callie raised her eyebrows. "But not too strong, I mean strong, but not enough to put your mom in any more physical pain. I've given enough back-rubs these past six months," Brandon caught Callie's eyes again, "I mean not that I don't love giving your mom massages - "

"Oh fuck off," Callie elbowed Brandon in the side.

Brandon's hands moved to guard her stomach,"Shhh! He'll hear you!" Callie watched her husband for a moment, admiring the look of protectiveness and amazement that he wore every time he touched her stomach and could actually feel their little boy moving around inside. Brandon had cried the first time he felt the baby kick, and then he'd laughed and now he couldn't get enough of it. In fact, sometimes he went as far as to accidentally wake Callie in the night, because he'd "just wanted to feel him one more time before he went to sleep." It was ridiculous, and yet, endearing.

Callie rolled her eyes again, "Come on Beethoven. We don't want to keep your family waiting." She began to unbuckle her seat-belt and was just reaching to open the passenger door when Brandon caught her lips with yet another kiss. Callie groaned against him, but couldn't help but give in. "Brandon we," she pulled away slightly, "have to," he kissed her again, "go inside," it was her turn to kiss him, "they're waiting." Despite her reminders Callie wasn't exactly putting up much of an effort at getting away from Brandon's embrace, but rather helping to prolong and elevate things.

In fact, neither of them pulled away so they could blame no one but themselves when a knock at Brandon's window caused the pair to freeze in alarm. Slowly Brandon removed his hands from Callie's face. Slowly Callie removed hers from around Brandon's neck. Slowly they turned and met the gazes of Stef and Lena.

It was as if they were sixteen again.

"Hi moms."

/

"Who knew you actually had to host a baby shower for yourself?" Brandon mused, absentmindedly batting a balloon he'd just inflated across the kitchen. Callie could tell he was bored, but despite her insisting she could get the apartment ready on her own Brandon had stayed. He had, as he put it, "nothing better to do." Though Callie knew for a fact he had a deadline on a composition coming up, and he seemed to be going a bit 'stir-crazy.'

"Technically Stef and Lena are hosting it," Callie reminded him, batting the balloon she'd just inflated at his head. It missed and he grinned at her.

"Right, mom's are hosting it at our apartment and we have to do all the preparation and clean-up," Brandon aimed a balloon at Callie, successfully knocking her in the forehead. She scowled.

"Stef and Lena should be here any minute to help us set up, Mariana and Sophia too. And you know as well as I do that their having it here only because of the construction going on in their kitchen," Callie reminded him.

Brandon continued to blow-up balloons while Callie opted to fold napkins. A comfortable silence settled over the pair, but it was short-lived as Brandon whacked another balloon at Callie's head, "Hey!" She protested, hitting it back at him. "I swear if our son is anything like you I'm gonna - "

"Feel incredibly lucky to have a son that has his father's lovely charm and incredible good looks?" Brandon offered innocently.

"Something like that," Callie muttered and a rush of relief filled her when she heard the lock on the front-door click open and watched as Stef, Lena, Mariana and Sophia fill their tiny entrance hall.

"Help has arrived!" Mariana exclaimed in a sing-song like tone.

Callie gratefully stood to greet their family, only to be ushered to the couch and told to rest almost instantaneously. Although she did protest at first, she didn't argue all that much, because honestly? She was in her third-trimester of pregnancy and she was beat. She did protest; however, when they allowed Brandon to join her, insisting he was "perfectly capable" and "didn't deserve a rest," but she didn't protest that very much either, because it felt good to settle into his embrace and close her eyes while their family did the heavy-lifting.

She felt Brandon's breath upon her ear, and she tightened her grip on him as his hands brushed past her belly.

"It's all beginning to feel so real isn't it?"

/

"You will not believe what my mom just suggested!" Callie looked up from her spot on the couch as Brandon threw open the front door, crossed the living room, and plopped down beside Callie headfirst.

"Hello to you too," Callie greeted, placing a kiss atop Brandon's head. She knew whatever it was that Stef had said it couldn't have been all that bad, because Brandon didn't actually look angry or upset. A bit flabbergasted perhaps, but that was probably just due to his own personal dramatics.

"She asked about baby names," Brandon began, his head lifting from the couch and craning upwards to meet Callie's gaze.

"Oh dear," Callie grimaced, "That's never good. I swear a new person suggests five names to me everyday. Mariana is dead-set on us naming him after her and I have to remind her basically everyday that it's a boy," Callie chuckled at the thought of her sisters antics, "Jude isn't much better."

"We should just tell everyone we've figured it out so they'll stop bothering us," Brandon suggested, and his eyes lit up at his own words. "That's an idea!"

Callie shook her head in amusement, "Or we could actually figure it out?" She countered, "I mean I am pretty far-along now. At this point who knows when he's coming. I could go into early labor, and then what? He'd have no name?"

In fact, if she was being completely honest the fact that they still didn't have a name for their baby boy was pressing on her more and more with each passing day. It wasn't that they hadn't had ideas. They had. It was more that they hadn't been able to agree on a name they both liked, and if they did they'd fall in love with the name for a day only to hate it the next day, or realize it was the name of a friend's baby or an old teacher from high-school. (Callie had almost lost it when Brandon suggested they name him Wyatt).

Callie wanted the name of their son to be unique. She didn't need it to be rare, but she didn't want it to be popular. Just uncommon. Brandon's only parameter was that he didn't want to personally know anyone with the name, unless, that is, they were naming it after a relative or close-friend. Callie thought that to be an unlikely choice seeing as neither of them had vocalized any interest in doing so. She wasn't about to let Mariana's hopes down though. Their sister's newest focus regarded middle-names, and Callie figured that was easier to deal with than a first-name. Jude hadn't given up on the title of 'Jude Jr,' despite Callie's objections.

"As long as it isn't Frank," Brandon quipped, his words pulled Callie from her thoughts and she raised her eyebrows.

"Frank?" She repeated, "Was that Stef's idea? Frank? Really?" Callie shook her head. "Not happening."

"That's what I said!" Brandon agreed, "My grandpa wasn't even that good of a guy, he had a lot of faults. And frankly - "

Callie snorted.

Brandon glared at her.

"...frankly I wasn't all that close to him. At least, not nearly close enough to name my son after him. Not to mention it's a pretty ugly name," Brandon furrowed his brow, "Didn't they name Frankie after Frank?" He wondered aloud.

"I think so," Callie said.

"Doesn't make any sense..." Brandon grumbled to himself, "She seemed genuinely upset when I didn't like it too."

"I actually had an idea for a name," Callie blurted, before slapping a hand over her mouth. She hadn't been meaning to tell Brandon about the name yet. Truthfully, she'd held off for quite a few weeks. This was simply because she absolutely adored the name and was terrified he wouldn't like it. But she couldn't keep it inside forever if she actually wanted it to be the name of their son. Besides the conversation and opportunity had presented itself so nicely to her. Maybe it was fate. Callie shook her head, she didn't believe in fate. Fate had kept Brandon and her apart for too long. No, she just had to say it. She couldn't do anything if he hated it, but she wouldn't know how he felt until she tried. Maybe saying the name aloud would change her mind anyway.

Here goes nothing...

"Oh yeah?" Brandon's eyes were closed, he hadn't noticed her hesitation, "What is it?"

Callie told him.

Brandon repeated the name aloud. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Five. Six times. To the point where it didn't sound like a word anymore, and yet, it still sounded like a name.

It sounded like his name. (Needless to say saying it aloud had only furthered Callie's belief that it was the perfect name for their son).

She held her breath.

"I think I like it."

And that was that.

/

"I still cannot believe Jesus made this!" Callie praised, her eyes taking in the structural beauty that was their son's new crib. The baby shower had resulted in so many amazing gifts, both hand-made and store-bought, but their gift from Jesus was Callie's favorite. A crib had always been a subject of unnecessary tension for Callie and Brandon. If Callie was being honest it was mostly her causing any sort of strife, but she couldn't help it, to her a crib was a big deal. Perhaps it was because it was her first-child, or perhaps it was because cribs, high quality ones that is, were crazy expensive, or perhaps it was because of all the 'horror stories' she'd read online regarding crib safety (or lack of it), but for some reason or other Callie had put off purchasing a crib.

It was a bit ridiculous really.

At that point the baby really could come at any time and then what would happen? Where would he sleep? It had gotten to the point where Brandon had nearly purchased an IKEA crib by himself, only to have Callie find out and freak. Looking back on it Callie knew her reaction had been uncalled for, but what could she say? She was pregnant and hormonal and a crib felt like a huge deal.

Callie had made it very clear going into the baby shower a few weeks back that she didn't want anyone's gifts to be extravagant. She had assumed that parameter would included a crib. Stef and Lena had obeyed by her wishes gifting Brandon and her with some of Brandon's old-hand-me-downs, (why they kept them for over twenty years Callie wasn't sure, but she was glad they had), as well as a few new outfits they'd bought shortly after discovering the gender of the baby. Mike and Ana had also gifted hand-me-downs, both from Isabella and their new baby boy, as well as an adorable elephant mobile to hang above the crib. Mariana had handmade a lovely sign that read: This Is How A Heart Beats - one that Brandon was currently hanging in the nursery, under Callie's watchful eye of course. Sophia had purchased a stack of books for the baby, personalizing each one of them with very thoughtful and kind inscriptions in the front covers. Callie's personal favorite had been in Winnie The Pooh: This was my favorite book growing up. I hope one day when you're a little older I can come over and read it to you. Already love you so xxx Your Aunt (wow that's weird to write) Sophia. Jude had gone the "fun-route" with a handful of baby/toddler toys, a teddy bear and a small, soft yellow duck that squeaked - it reminded Callie slightly of a dog toy but was cute nonetheless. The rest of the guests, including Rita, Daphne and Kiara, had all purchased clothes. In fact, Callie was sure she wouldn't need to buy a single clothing item until the baby was at least six-months. This fact brought her a great sense of both relief and joy.

However, two people had seemingly not read the inscription on the invitation regarding the policy surrounding expensive or extravagant gifts. The first, being Callie's dad Robert Quinn. This hadn't been very much of a surprise to Callie, and he had purchased objects that Callie had been eyeing, but due to their price-tag never would've purchased herself. The first being a retractable stroller and the second being a top-of-the-line car seat. Robert had even said he had "just one more 'little thing' coming in the mail," to which Callie had first rolled her eyes and then protested, but her words went completely unnoticed. Robert was incredibly excited to meet his first grandchild and nothing Callie or Brandon could say would stop him from showering the new baby with gifts. Callie knew she'd have to cut her dad off on the spending at some point, but for now she took his excitement as endearing and allowed him to do as he pleased. It was incredibly generous of him, after all.

No, she hadn't been surprised by Robert's level of extravagance, but she had been shocked by Jesus's. Shocked, delighted, and incredibly thankful all at the same time.

Jesus had built his nephew a crib.

A crib!

And it was absolutely gorgeous. It was everything that Callie had been looking for. It hadn't been expensive due to it being a gift, it was wooden (she despised plastic cribs), it was the perfect blend between old-fashioned and modern, it was just the right size for their temporary makeshift nursery in the corner of their bedroom, and to top it all off it had a beautiful story behind it. A homemade crib for their first-baby from his uncle. Callie was sure it couldn't get any cuter than that.

"I swear you love that thing more than me," Brandon's voice jarred Callie from her thoughts and she looked over at her husband to see he had successfully hung Mariana's sign and was staring back at his wife, a smirk playing on his lips.

"You got me on that one," Callie teased, crossing the nursery and giving Brandon a side-hug, or at least trying to, her belly made it more of an awkward back-rub, but Brandon didn't seem to mind. "I just can't believe he made one for us!" Callie continued, "I know it's just a crib and it's silly that I'm so excited, but I've been worried about getting the right crib for so long - "

"Good thing you waited," Brandon cut in.

Callie grinned, "Good thing you waited."

"Me?" Brandon retorted.

"You're the one who was going to buy that awful IKEA crib - " Callie reminded him.

"Okay for starters it wasn't that awful - "

"Brandon it was beige!" It was Callie's turn to interrupt.

"I like beige! What's wrong with beige?" Brandon demanded.

Callie just rolled her eyes, rotating Brandon around until they were facing each other. She then reached up on her tip-toes and placed a kiss to his forehead. He went on to capture her lips with his own. "Only a few more weeks," Brandon murmured when they pulled apart.

"I can't wait," Callie whispered back. "These have been the slowest nine-months. I feel like I've been waiting a lifetime!"

A thoughtful expression crossed Brandon's face and it took a minute or so for him to reply, "Haven't we?" He finally said, "Haven't we been waiting our whole lives to meet our baby? I mean, we didn't know who we'd be having children with, but we were always waiting for them, even when we weren't conscious of it. Always waiting for our happy ending."

"And what a happy ending it is."

/

Callie was thirty-nine weeks pregnant and everything, absolutely everything hurt. Her back. Her legs. Her feet. Her joints. Her stomach (the kicks were more than unpleasant at this point). Her doctor had said that there was no telling exactly when she'd go into labor. It could be before her due-date, it could be on her due-date, or it could be after it. Callie was adamant on doing everything in her power to make sure she didn't go even one day over forty-weeks. She wasn't sure she could physically stand it at that point. Not that she had very much of a say or choice in the matter, she didn't. But that wasn't stopping her from trying every possible 'old-wives-tale' Mariana had sent her in order to speed-up the process.

It wasn't just that she was tired of being pregnant, she also wanted to meet their son more than anything. Brandon had been right, they'd been waiting far more than nine-months to meet him. They'd been waiting a life-time, and Callie didn't think she could wait any longer.

It had been Stef and Lena who had suggested Callie organize a small family get-together in an effort to distract herself. At first Callie had scoffed at the idea; after all, she couldn't so much as leave bed most days, much less plan a party. But after thinking it through she'd decided it was a pretty brilliant idea. It would both help speed the days along, and give Callie something to do to occupy her time.

So, in a way she could blame the party for what had happened. Truthfully she couldn't blame anyone or anything, not even herself. Especially not herself the doctors kept saying. She'd settled on blaming the party instead, as lame as it was, to prevent herself from going insane. After all, hadn't the party been the catalyst of all of it?

If it hadn't been for the party she wouldn't have been disobeying 'bed-rest.'

If it hadn't been for the party she wouldn't have been moving around so much.

If it hadn't been for the party she wouldn't have been so distracted and 'in her own head.'

If it hadn't been for the party maybe she would have been more conscious of his movement.

If it hadn't been for the party maybe she would have noticed sooner that something was wrong.

If it hadn't been for the party maybe she would have told Brandon earlier and maybe he would've suggested they go in.

If it hadn't been for the party maybe he would still be there. With them. Or even in her stomach.

Callie would give anything to have him back in her stomach, it was ironic really, she'd wished so bad for him to be born, and now that he was she wanted nothing more than to shove him back inside. To keep him safe. To keep him healthy. To protect him.

From the big-bad world.

From oxygen.

It was foolish to blame the party, Callie knew that nothing could've been done. The doctor's kept telling her that nothing could've been done. That his heart just stopped. But Callie was too stricken with grief, too angry to listen to them. What did they mean his heart had just stopped?

Heart's didn't just stop.

A heartbeat didn't just flicker and then die out. Mariana's sign said so: This Is How A Heartbeats. Callie was no doctor, but she knew hearts didn't just stop for no reason. Not nowadays. Not with how advanced medicine had become! Not at 39 weeks! A baby was viable after 23 weeks! All his scans had been perfect. He had been perfect.

He was perfect.

She smiled then, staring down at his perfect being. His perfect eyes. His perfect little nose (Brandon had cried when he noticed it, when he'd noticed that their son had his nose). His perfect sprinkle of dark hairs sprouting from his perfect round head. His perfect little hands. His perfect little feet. His perfect little toes. His perfect little fingers. His perfect little mouth. His perfect little body.

His perfect little body that had died inside her.

His perfect little being that hadn't even stood a chance.

Callie felt the tears fall then. She'd been crying non-stop ever since she'd delivered him, and even before that really. She'd been crying since the evening following the party when she first suspected something was wrong, and when she'd awoke that night and instantly known her suspicions had been accurate. Why hadn't she gone in sooner? Maybe if she'd gone in sooner he'd be okay. Even if the doctors kept telling her otherwise. Kept telling her there was nothing she could've done.

She'd cried on the way to the hospital. Her hand clutching Brandon's as it was now. She wasn't sure she'd ever even let go. She hoped she hadn't. Brandon was the only one who would understand, who could understand the pain she was feeling right then. A pain more unbearable than anything she'd ever been through.

The pain of losing a child.

Nothing was worse than that.

Callie looked up at him, allowing herself to become lost in his gaze. She saw her own grief reflected in his eyes and his sadness broke her even more. Shattered her really. On one hand Callie was glad that Brandon and her were going through it together, but on the other hand it made things all the worse. When Brandon hurt she hurt for him, and she couldn't very much afford to hurt for him when she was already hurting so much for herself, could she?

Her eyes scanned their small hospital room. It was covered with cards, balloons, flowers, dishes of homemade food that had gone - and would go - uneaten. Everyone who loved them had sent something, anything to express their grief and condolences for the loss of their son. Callie hated it. She hated seeing balloons and flowers and cards - stuff she associated with happiness and with life - resemble the emptiness they were feeling and the body of their dead son. Because that's all he was at that point - all the life had been sucked from him, leaving just his cold, broken body behind.

Callie didn't know what to feel, didn't know how to feel. How does one feel after the death of their child? Sad? Angry? Confused? She just felt empty. Numb. How was she meant to move on from this? How was she meant to live her life as if it hadn't already ended? As if her baby, her child, her beautiful little boy hadn't been taken from them? How would she ever go on? Could she even go on? What would Brandon and her do after they left the hospital? Go home to their apartment? Take down the nursery they had spent so much time and effort into constructing? Go back to work? Carry on as if everything was normal? As if she didn't have to plan the funeral of her baby boy? Demand an autopsy of their son? Demand answers? But what would answers do? He was already gone. Gone, but never forgotten. Never ever.

Callie looked down at her son again, trying her best to convert every ounce of his appearance to memory. She didn't want to forget it. She could never forget him. He was everything. The sun. The moon. The stars. The whole galaxy. Hell, the whole universe. What a terrible mother she would be if she forgot the face of her own son? No, she wouldn't let herself forget. She couldn't let herself forget. A mother didn't forget the face of her son. Yet again, a mother usually got to see the face of her son everyday. Everyday for years. Everyday for a lifetime. Not just for a few days. Not just in a cramped hospital room.

If Callie was grateful for anything it was the 'cold-cart' that had allowed Brandon and her to preserve their son's tiny body for a few extra days. Allowed them to maximize their brief time on earth with him. Allowed him to share his beauty with his grandparents and his aunts and his uncles who all loved him so very much. The day their families had come to visit had broken Callie the most. She didn't care if she hurt, but to see others hurt made everything all the more worse. She'd thrown up multiple times that day, thus prolonging their hospital stay a few more days for 'medical observation.' As well as scheduling appointments for Brandon and her to see a 'grief counselor.' Callie doubted it would help, but she wasn't opposed to trying.

"He's perfect," Brandon whispered, echoing Callie's earlier thoughts and drawing her back to reality. Back to the bleak hospital room. Back to the cold body of their dead son. Back to the balloons and the flowers and the cards and the uneaten trays of food. It was comforting in an odd way, having Brandon bring her back down from her thoughts. It hadn't been the first time he'd done it since the birth and Callie was sure he would continue to do it in the months to come. As she would for him. If anything Brandon would be the only thing, the only person, keeping Callie alive. That wasn't entirely true though. She looked down at their son. He would keep her alive. He would keep her going. Keep her fighting. She would live for him. Because of him. Because he hadn't gotten the chance to.

Yes, she hoped one day things would get easier and she'd be able to live for herself. But for now she would live for the two most important boys in her life.

She would live for Brandon Foster, and she would live for their son,

Henry Micheal.

/

The first week was a total blur.

Callie and Brandon did their best to move through the 'motions', but Callie knew neither one of them was present or even moderately grounded in reality. No, they were both up in the sky. Up in the clouds. With their beautiful little boy. Their curly haired heaven. They thought of him and nothing else. Callie wasn't entirely sure what she'd even done that first week. Who she'd even spoke to. Frankly, she wasn't sure she'd spoken to anyone - a part from the occasional nod "hello" or a "yes" or "no" at best when asked a question. She was positive there'd been many blank stares on her part, and many expressions of commiseration on the faces of those who interacted with Brandon or her. Callie hated those looks more than anything. She hated feeling like she was being pitied; as if everyone was walking on egg shells around her. That being said, she knew she couldn't blame anyone for not knowing what to say - how to act - around her. If roles were reversed she probably would've been just as cautious and unsure around the mother of a stillborn baby.

But roles weren't reversed.

If Callie was being completely honest it hadn't quite hit her yet. She hadn't quite wrapped her head around the fact that her baby was gone. That she would never hold him in her arms again. That he wasn't inside her anymore, but rather in the ground. Her little boy. Her perfect little angel. In the ground. In a graveyard. Never to be seen again. Never to be held again. She was left with no emotions, no words, no feeling when his due-date came and went and she had to remind herself he'd already been born. She was just numb. Frozen. She couldn't believe it when she looked down at her still-round belly and felt no movement inside, no flicker, no painful jabs, just emptiness. She couldn't believe she wasn't pregnant anymore. She couldn't believe her baby hadn't even been given a chance, not even a few hours to fight for his life. No, he'd just been born still. Born dead. He'd died inside of her. Had she killed him? The doctors said she hadn't, swore she hadn't.

But could she believe them?

Surprisingly Callie didn't find it difficult to distract herself by keeping busy during the first week postpartum. After being discharged from the hospital Callie and Brandon had gone home to Stef and Lena's, rather than their apartment. This was mainly for two reasons, the first being that Callie's doctors had advised her to be on modified bed-rest and since Brandon worked during the day no one would be at the apartment to take-care of her; the second reason being that the couple simply couldn't bare going back to the apartment so soon after what had happened. They couldn't handle seeing the beautiful nursery they'd created for their son, but hadn't gotten a chance to use. And yet, they weren't ready to take it down just yet. Plus the idea of being surrounded by family brought a great deal of comfort to Callie. She'd been so ready to be a mom and to take care of her own child, but now...well it was slightly therapeutic to convert back to being a child and having a mom, two moms, to take care of her.

Callie kept in contact with her work and was allotted just under a month of paid-leave for bereavement. Her boss had promised her job security if she needed an extra month or two off, but he'd regretfully informed her that any extra time after the first month wouldn't be funded by the company. Upon hearing this Callie had broke down (once off the phone of course), because she couldn't imagine only having one-month to grieve her little boy before returning to work. She couldn't imagine returning to work at all. She felt as if she needed eons to heal.

She felt as if she'd never recover.

It was because of this that Stef and Lena suggested Callie take as many months off of work necessary, proposing that Brandon and Callie move back in with them. "Just for a little while," Stef had said, "For as long as you need." At first Callie had been opposed to the idea, but after a bit of consideration and a brief conversation with Brandon they decided to accept their mom's offer. Callie knew eventually Brandon and her would have to go back to the apartment and pack their things. She knew eventually they'd have to see the nursery again, but, for now, they could bask in their mother's affections and live among the clouds for just a little while longer.

It was Stef and Lena's hospitality, the paperwork from the hospital, the planning of Henry's funeral and his eventual burial that kept Callie and Brandon busy during the first week. It all happened so fast, it didn't quite feel real. It didn't quite feel possible. Children should outlive their parents, not the other way around. They couldn't be filling out paperwork regarding the death of their son; they couldn't be holding his death certificate in their hands; they couldn't be giving eulogies at his funeral; they couldn't be watching his tiny casket as it sunk into the ground; they couldn't be planning what his tombstone would say.

And, for the first week, it felt like they weren't. Some way or another, Callie wasn't exactly sure how, she managed to get through everything with as little emotion as possible. She was used to blocking things out when tragedy hit and found herself resorting back to tactics she hadn't practiced since the death of her mother. She kept her thoughts in the clouds. She ignored everything going on around her. She didn't shower. She barely touched the countless dishes that seemed to arrive at the house in multitudes - each brought from someone or other who was "expressing their deepest condolences."

She barely talked to anyone, not even Brandon. If anything Callie said more to Stef and Lena than she did to Brandon. She wasn't sure why that was, shouldn't she be pushing him closer and not farther away? Shouldn't she find comfort in the fact that he understood better than anyone what she was going through? Shouldn't she accept his hugs and kisses and not duck away from him or stiffen at his touch? Shouldn't she be doing everything in her power to make sure this made them stronger, and didn't tear them apart?

Callie felt them drifting and she did nothing to stop it. Brandon buried himself in work, in music, and composed songs Callie knew were for Henry. She hated those songs. Callie kept to herself, often locking herself away in small corners. She found comfort in drawing all the blinds in Brandon's childhood bedroom, curling herself into a ball, closing her eyes and pretending she was sixteen again and the biggest problem was whether she wanted a family or a boyfriend. Even despite everything she knew she'd chose right.

Everything came crashing back to a painful reality as Brandon and Callie reached the second and third postpartum. Once all the paperwork and planning was completed; once the funeral and burial had passed; once there was nothing left to do but move on. To continue life as if their worlds hadn't just fallen a part. That's when it started to hurt the most.

On the rare instance Callie managed to drag herself outside, (usually after much prodding from Stef or Lena), she found herself in a state of bewilderment. She'd stare at all the people walking around her and wonder how they could go on acting like everything was normal when her Earth had stopped spinning. She'd wonder how they could smile and laugh and go about their daily lives completely carefree and oblivious. She'd wonder how the sun could dare show it's face. She'd expected thunderstorms and rain. She'd expected grief. Grief that mirrored her own. Grief that she could see. Grief she could hold onto, and not just feel.

But the truth was they didn't know. They didn't know he was gone. The truth was that the sun wouldn't stop shinning. The world wouldn't stop spinning. Life would go on. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Just as there'd been absolutely nothing she could've done to save Henry. He'd been there one moment, and gone the next. A flicker and then a flat-line.

Callie wondered how many of the people around her had lost a child.

Only to dive back to the safety of Brandon's bedroom.

Stef and Lena didn't force her outside again for a very long time.

/

"We'll plant it here, right next to Frankie's," Lena said, in a voice so soft it was as if she thought Brandon and Callie were made of glass - glass that could shatter at any instant. Callie thought that was probably an accurate portrayal of the both of them, except she figured they were already the broken bits. They'd already shattered. And no matter how hard they tried they could never piece themselves back together in the quite the same way.

Not to mention they looked like complete hell. Dark circles under eyes stained red from crying. Callie had cried more than she ever thought possible that past month. She figured at some point her tears had to dry up. She figured at some point she'd run out of them. But they just kept on flowing. She'd given up trying to fight them anymore. Frankly, she'd just given up.

Callie was only half there, only half standing in the backyard, the rest of her was still in the clouds. Still with Henry. She knew that Stef, Lena, Robert, Brandon, Mariana, Jesus, Jude and Sophia were in the backyard with her, but they all felt far away. She hadn't spoken to any of them, she'd tried to, she really had, but no words had come out. If she'd tried again she might've been able to say something, but she'd just given up. That seemed to be a reoccurring theme in her life lately. Giving up.

Brandon had spoken to the family, Callie knew this because he didn't feel quite as far away as the others. They still only touched when Brandon initiated the contact, and she slept curled away from him with at least a foot of space between them. They still rarely spoke because Brandon knew Callie wouldn't respond, but she could still feel him. She knew he was there and he was hurting. She knew he was waiting for her to come back to him. She knew he needed her to come back to him. And as much as she tried - as much as she fought to let Brandon in, for some reason, at that point, she just couldn't.

However, Callie had let Brandon take her hand. She hadn't pulled away. He'd squeezed. She'd squeezed back.

Her hand in Brandon's was the only thing Callie was aware of in that moment. That, and the small cherry tree Brandon was holding in his other hand. The cherry tree that Callie and him had bought for Henry. The cherry tree they were going to plant beside Frankie's. To commemorate their babies death with a symbolic planting of a tree. It was supposed to promise new life. To prove that life could go on. That life would go on. Callie thought the whole thing to be rather silly, but she hadn't argued when Stef and Lena had approached Brandon and her with the idea. She'd just shrugged and nodded. She'd given up fighting, remember?

Ever since losing Henry Callie felt as though her relationship with her moms - Lena especially - had deepened. A kind of mutual understanding had passed between them; a mutual grief that 'loss parents' felt for their babies. In fact, Stef and Lena had not only become a support system of sorts, but they'd become role models of Callie's as well. She looked up to them in a different way than she had in the past. Her respect for her moms and for everything they'd done for her through the years had reached new heights.

When she was sixteen, only a few months after she'd arrived at the Fosters, Lena and Stef had lost their daughter Frankie at twenty-weeks. Looking back on it Callie wasn't sure how they'd done it. She wasn't sure how they'd gone on raising five teenagers after losing a baby. She could barely take care of herself. She couldn't imagine how awful it must've been to lose a baby and not have any time to grieve, because there were five other - herself included - teenagers whose lives hadn't stopped. Even if their moms had. Callie couldn't even recall any memories of Stef or Lena grieving after Frankie's passing. They'd kept their private lives to themselves. They hadn't wanted to weigh the entire family down with grief. Callie found solace in the fact that her moms knew, to some extent, what Brandon and her were going through. And it was comforting to know that if Stef and Lena could be okay then maybe, just maybe, that meant someday Brandon and her would be okay too.

As Brandon lowered Henry's tree in the ground Callie felt her legs grow weak. Her mind flashed to images of Henry's casket being lowered into the ground. Her breathing hitched, her vision tunneled and she felt as if she was going to pass out. Callie knew what was to follow. She'd become an expert on panic attacks over the years. Yet, she'd never experienced them to such an extent as she had following Henry's death. Since then they'd become so much worse. They'd felt never-ending, as if she was living one day in and day out. It didn't help to practice breathing or to hold Brandon or a loved one close. If anything that just made things all the more suffocating.

Disappearing helped. Losing herself in the darkness of Brandon's room. Curling herself into a tiny, indestructible ball. Pounding against her empty stomach. Crying. Silently screaming. Those days she let the panic attack overtake her. She didn't fight to stop it or to lessen it's impact. She wasn't interested in making sure it didn't take hold of her entire day. Instead, Callie let it consume her. She wanted to disappear, she wanted to be invisible. She didn't want to fight. The only thing that kept her going - the only thing that was preventing her from staying tucked away all day - was Henry, and the fact that he hadn't even been given a chance. She didn't want to fight, but she'd try. She'd try for him.

The minute Henry's tree was safety in the ground Callie fled back to the confines of Brandon's room. She fled back to darkness and allowing it to consume her being. No one came for her. No one tried to stop it. They had when the panic attacks first hit, but overtime they'd given up trying, just as Callie had. She knew eventually Brandon would come for her. And he did. He always did. He'd hold her close to him. He'd endure her thrashes and screams to "let go." He wouldn't move until the sobs stopped racking her body. He wouldn't move until she gave into the very sleep she'd been so desperately (and successfully) fighting time and time again. He'd hold her as she slept, and Callie thought maybe, just maybe, he sometimes gave into the sleep himself. She thought maybe she didn't need to give up anymore. Maybe the problem was she needed to give in.

/

"Maybe it was a sign," Brandon's voice filled the silence that had settled over the bedroom. Callie had figured he was still awake, seeing as they'd both taken to staying up until the early hours of the morning. The supposed they did this, because they were afraid. What if they never woke up? What if they were met with dreams far more painful than their waking thoughts? Or worse, what if they dreamed that Henry was alive? What if they were given a few hours of peaceful oblivion and upon waking it would all be ripped away from them all over again?

Yes, Callie had assumed Brandon was awake - she'd slept beside him long enough to know the difference between how his breathing sounded while he was awake as opposed to how it sounded while he was asleep - she just hadn't expected him to talk. They hardly spoke much during the day as it was, and they never talked during the night. Callie usually slipped into bed around nine, positioning herself on the very edge of the bed and waiting in silence for Brandon to join her; which, he always did just after eleven. His entrance was usually followed by a long, sad sigh before he'd slip into bed beside Callie, making sure their bodies didn't touch. Callie knew Brandon probably wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and pull her close to him. She knew he wouldn't demand anything 'more than that,' he was Brandon after all. Brandon freaking Foster. She knew he would never put her in any kind of position that she didn't want, the proof of this was in the way he kept his distance. In the way he didn't push her. No matter how much he wanted to hold her, he respected her wishes and stayed away. It broke Callie's heart every night, and she couldn't explain why she felt so closed off from him. So scared of him. Of what being with him had created. A baby. A baby who hadn't stood a chance.

"A sign?" She surprised not only Brandon, but herself as well, when she uttered those two words. As she did so she felt the room closing in around her and a paralyzing shock gripped her body. She tried to push it away, but lately she hadn't been very good at fighting.

"Maybe it was some way of telling us we weren't ready to be parents yet," Brandon continued.

Callie converted every word to memory. God, how she missed him. Why couldn't she just let him back in?

"We're still so young," Brandon continued, "Too young." His words had a haunting familiarity to them. They were the same fears Callie had shared after first discovering she was pregnant; the same fears that Brandon had so easily dismissed. It tore Callie's heart in two to know that Brandon was hurting bad enough to believe that they hadn't even been ready. Callie knew Brandon was wrong. She knew his words weren't true. The same way he'd known it all those months ago.

They'd been ready. They'd grown so much over those last nine-months. They'd done so much to both physically and mentally prepare themselves for a child. To prepare themselves to be parents. Hell, Henry had a nursery back at the apartment. He had books, toys, clothes, a homemade crib from his uncle Jesus. Henry had parents who loved him so very, very much and who were so very, very ready for him. They were supposed to bring him home! To bring their baby home! To start a new chapter in their lives. They'd been ready. More than ready. After all, what did 'ready' mean anyway?

Callie knew the truth - Brandon probably did too - but she didn't rebut him or argue in their favor. She figured he needed it. He needed to hold onto something, just as she did. Perhaps believing it was 'a sign,' or that they hadn't been ready...perhaps that made it just the tiniest bit easier for him.

Callie sure hoped so.

/

"But they're 'Brandon and Callie!' They're untouchable!" Callie came up short at the sound of Daphne's voice. Stef and Lena were hosting a small fundraiser at the house for Stef's new job, and Callie hadn't quite gotten used to the commotion. She wasn't used to the mingling of voices - loud voices. She wasn't used to the music wafting room to room. Most notably she wasn't used to the laughter. It didn't feel right. It felt unnatural. She had become so prone to the house being still, quiet, empty. She'd become so used to the house reflecting her own emotions, her own sadness. To see it all lit up and to hear all the people...well if she squeezed her eyes shut and just listened, Callie wouldn't have recognized she was home at all. It felt so different. It felt so alive.

At first both Brandon and Callie had been hesitant about the party. Stef and Lena had asked their permissions beforehand, insisting it would be completely understandable if they "just weren't ready for those kinds of pressures yet." Callie had been tempted to admit she wasn't ready and to ask the moms to host it somewhere else, but she also knew that would've been childish of her. The months since Henry's passing were slowly dragging by and at some point the brunette knew life would have to go back to normal. She couldn't stay curled up in Brandon's bedroom forever. Maybe a party would be good for her. Maybe it would be a chance to face her fears. Maybe it would be a good distraction. Maybe it would be a good chance to open up, to share Henry's story.

Maybe so.

Maybe not.

The night had gone by rather smoothly, at least, Callie hadn't had a 'fit' of any kind, and as emotionally draining as it was, she'd managed to stay downstairs and to converse as though everything was normal. Or if not normal, as if everything was getting better. As if she'd be okay. Even if she didn't believe it herself. At some point Brandon had disappeared from her view, but it wasn't like she'd asked him to stay with her or anything. She could practically feel him slipping away. But maybe that was just nerves. Maybe that was just her ingrained belief that everyone she loved ended up leaving. She knew Brandon wasn't like that. He'd never leave her. God, she didn't deserve him. Especially not after how she'd been treating him.

Callie had known Brandon and her were both conscious of the fragility in their relationship, but it had never occurred to her that anyone else would notice, or become concerned for their relationship. Until, that is, she overheard the conversation between Daphne and Mariana. Her sister and best-friend were in the kitchen, and Callie was heading there to get another glass of water, when she'd heard Daphne's voice and fell short.

The concern in her Daphne's voice was apparent, and Callie knew that if Daphne of all people had noticed the distance between Brandon and her, then the family must've picked up on it ages ago. That realization caused her heartbeat to quicken, and her body to heat up an extra two or three degrees. Her brain felt fuzzy and she strained to hear the rest of the conversation, but it felt as if a giant wall had been constructed between the three girls.

When Callie finally managed to process what was being said it was Mariana who was speaking.

"I'm really worried. All of us are. We're just so used to seeing Brandon and Callie as practically one person. You know, the 'two halves of one whole' type deal you always hear about, but never actually see. Well, Brandon and Callie were that. They were unbreakable, untouchable like you said. We all thought they could get through anything as long as they had each other, and we're trying to be optimistic about the whole thing now but..." Mariana trailed off.

"They both seem so broken," Daphne's voice was quiet. Callie could practically feel the pain radiating off her friend.

"I can't help but wonder what will happen if this goes on any longer," Mariana was speaking again, "I mean you can't stay married to someone if you don't even speak! Mama said she went into Brandon's room one morning to ask him something and found the pair of them asleep with their backs facing each other. The first few weeks we all kind of expected this behavior, from Callie at least, what with her history of running when things get hard." Callie felt sick. She felt like she was going to throw up. Her knees began to wobble and she clutched the stair railing to prevent herself from falling.

"You don't think they'll get a divorce!" Daphne's voice rose slightly, but not to the point where anyone who wasn't a part of the conversation (or listening as intently as Callie was) would hear.

"I don't know," Mariana's words sent chills up Callie's spine. She clutched the railing harder. Her knuckles turned white. "But I did some research online and divorce is quite common in couples who've lost a child. It's like the two people blame the other for what happened, and they shut each other out and after awhile..."

Callie couldn't take it any longer. In the past she might've exploded into the kitchen and demanded Daphne and Mariana listen to her as she confessed her love for Brandon Foster, or perhaps in the past she would've found the whole thing comical and laughed it off with the two girls. Brandon and her getting divorced? Please. Stef would marry Mike again before Brandon and Callie even considered getting divorced.

But this wasn't the past, and all Callie could do was slowly retreat upstairs. All she could do was curl up in the far corner of Brandon's room and tell herself again and again that she would never, ever even consider divorcing Brandon. She knew it was true. It was comforting to know for certain that she still loved him after everything. That she still loved him even despite their physical contact. For a few minutes she was comforted by this. Until, that is, she thought of Brandon and of how he felt. What was going through his head? How much longer would he last being a husband to a wife who flinched every time his hand so much as brushed against her back?

Was a divorce not as crazy an idea to him as it was to Callie?

/

Callie hadn't meant to eavesdrop. Honestly she hadn't. In fact, ever since she'd overheard Daphne and Mariana's conversation she'd been going out of the way to make her presence known, rather than hide in the shadows. She knew people were talking about her and talking about Brandon, but she didn't want to hear it. She'd rather let them say what they wanted to say and stay oblivious to it. So what if they talked? What she didn't know - or couldn't hear - didn't hurt her. It was what she did hear broke her to bits.

That's why Callie really hadn't meant to eavesdrop again. She'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it hadn't felt right to interrupt the exchange she was witnessing. Especially once the subject of Henry, of her son, reached her ears.

"I wanted to say thanks. I know we've been living here a while now, but I don't think I ever really thanked you guys. You let us move in on such a short notice, and you've put up with everything we've been going through...I know Callie and I haven't been the most easy guests, but you and mom haven't ever made us feel like we were a burden. Not once. I know we can't be easy to have around..." Brandon was speaking. It was strange to hear him say as many words as he had. It made Callie stop. Wonder. When had he started talking so much? She was only just beginning to open up verbally herself. How was he able to speak so confidently? At least, to the point where he might pass as doing okay. That is, if you didn't know him well. Callie could hear the brokenness in Brandon's voice, but she figured others would't. Then it hit her. Maybe Brandon had never stopped talking to others. Maybe he'd just stopped trying to talk to her. And who's fault was that? Her's and hers alone.

"...Being here, being somewhere safe, it's helped Callie a lot. I can tell. And, uhh, it's helped me a lot too." Brandon was speaking again. Callie figured Lena must've said something in-between, but she'd missed it - she wasn't the world's best eavesdropper. Callie heard a rustling in the kitchen and she figured Lena had reached for Brandon and he had, in turn, wrapped his mom in a tight hug. Callie's arms ached for Brandon's embrace. She took one slow step down the stairs. Then another. She was just about to enter the kitchen when Brandon spoke again.

"Why'd he have to die?" He was crying. Callie's hand went to her mouth. Her own vision blurred with tears. How had she let Brandon grieve without her for so long? How had she managed to grieve without him? "He was so perfect, mama." Callie felt herself nodding blindly along with Brandon's words, because he was. Henry was so perfect. "Why'd he have to die?" Brandon's voice was quiet now. Broken. Lost. Alone. Callie leaned against the wall, pushing some of her grief and emptiness into the wall and using it as support for her quaking body. She couldn't fix Brandon's brokenness, but she could prevent him from feeling so alone.

No words came from Brandon or Lena for a few minutes. Callie could tell they were holding each other. No words needed to be said, really. Brandon just needed to know someone was there for him. He deserved that.

Finally Lena spoke, "It'll be okay. I know you can't see it right now, but one day it'll be okay. One day you'll find your happiness again. Your purpose. And everything will fall back into place and it'll feel like a distant memory. You'll always love Henry, but sooner than you think it won't hurt to love him anymore. And that'll make all the difference." Callie drunk in Lena's words, silently pleading for them to be true.

"How do you know?" Brandon was clearly just as hesitant and guarded as Callie.

"Frankie," Lena whispered. Callie felt her whole body shudder and then dart forward. Not towards the steps, not back up to the darkness, but towards the kitchen, towards the light.

The light that was Brandon Foster.

"Shit mama, I never thought - " Brandon started, but he was cut off by the creaks of the floorboards. Callie knew he could feel her presence before she came into view, heck he'd probably known she was listening in all along. She didn't have to speak for him to know she was there. So, she didn't. She just stared at the image of a mother and son wrapped in a tight embrace. She stared through her own tears at the tears in both Brandon and Lena's eyes.

Callie knew eventually Brandon would turn around and see her round, dark eyes. She knew he'd see the expression on her face that made her look young, scared, helpless. Sixteen again. Callie knew that Brandon knew she had an ingrained instinct to either fight or flight - the same instinct she had when they first met. She knew Brandon knew that she hadn't been fighting. She knew he'd noticed she'd reverted back to her instinct to flee, to isolate, and to grieve as if she was the only person in the world. As if Brandon didn't share the same pain.

God, why did she think that? Because Brandon hadn't carried Henry like she had? Because he couldn't feel the same overwhelming sense of emptiness that she did every time she looked down at her flat stomach and knew there was no longer a baby inside? Whatever the reason was, it had taken Callie far too long to realize her reasoning was rubbish. To realize that Brandon hurt just as much as she did, and that Brandon had not only lost a child all those weeks ago, but he'd lost a wife too. He'd lost a wife when he'd needed her the most of all.

As they stared at one another Callie could tell by the way Brandon was holding himself that he was trying hard not to be angry with her. He'd snapped a few times over the course of the two-months. As had she. Their emotions had been haywire, and they hadn't known what to do with themselves. Callie knew that Brandon craved nothing more than to be close to her again, physically and emotionally. She knew he was kept up at night not only by memories of Henry, but by the emptiness that had settled between them as well.

Callie knew Brandon was worried that one day Callie would become so small she'd disappear completely. She knew Brandon wanted her to let him in. He'd never been shut out from her before. She knew he hated it. She hated it too, but she couldn't help it. Callie knew her continued effort to push Brandon away had instilled a new fear within him. A fear he hadn't felt since they were kids. She knew he was afraid that one day he'd wake up and she would be gone. That she'd have run off again. Callie knew Brandon knew those feelings were irrational. She'd never leave him. But she hated that the worry would have even crossed his mind. She hadn't meant to cause him any pain.

So, when Brandon pulled away from Lena and took a few steps in Callie's direction she knew what she had to do. Brandon's gaze met hers and it all became suddenly overwhelming. Callie couldn't help it. Her gaze quickly switched to that of the window. It locked on Frankie's tree. Then, on Henry's tree. She hated that tree. Callie felt the panic rising within her and she began to dash for the stairs.

Brandon reached out suddenly and grabbed her hand.

Enclosed his fingers over her own.

Pulled her, rather forcefully, into him.

Wrapped his arms around her.

Rested his forehead against her own.

A fresh wave of tears hit the both of them as Callie's arms encircled his neck and she felt her body slowly responding to his touch. To his warmth. To the silent promise of security. She felt her whole being quiver as the proximity between their lips closed.

"I love you, Callie." Brandon's words didn't feel far away. They felt close-by. They felt just as they were supposed to. "Please don't shut me out."

She uttered one simple word that brought meaning back into Brandon's life.

"Okay."

/

Getting Brandon back was...well it was ineffable. In fact, at times Callie felt giddy with happiness when she took Brandon's hand underneath the table, or wrapped her arms around him when he came home from work, or pulled him close to her at night and let herself not be scared of the possibility of dreams because if they came, and they often did, she'd have Brandon beside her when she woke up and he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her ever again. Not that he had much control in the matter, he hadn't with Henry, but it was a comforting thought. The belief that he could protect her. And she him.

Some might've considered the few months the pair spent apart as time wasted and time they could never get back. However, Callie didn't see it as so. She'd needed those months to grieve Henry in private, before she was ready to grieve him with someone else, even if that someone was Brandon. There may have been months without words, but Callie figured no words were better than painful ones. For Callie was sure that if she'd let Brandon back in sooner she might have blamed him for everything; she might have cut him down and broken him, simply because she needed to break something. No words was far better than words she'd later regret.

Callie did wonder; however, why it took her as long as it had to let Brandon back in. She did wonder why she hadn't been able to see the love in his eyes in the months following Henry's death. For she saw it now. Every time Brandon looked at her he smiled. God, Callie loved it when he smiled. They'd reached the point in their 'recovery' in which they were beginning to be able to reminisce about the good times, and not just see the bad. And when the bad did overtake one of them the other was always there to lead them to safety.

To bring them home.

Being with Brandon again brought color back to Callie's life. It brought hope. It brought joy. It brought security. She'd waited a long time, but when she finally did let him back in she knew it had been worth the wait. They'd need the time to just be Brandon and just be Callie before they could be 'Brandon and Callie' again. Why? Because Henry had been them. He had been the both of them. He'd been a protect of 'Brandon and Callie,' and for so long Callie had seen Henry as something bad she and Brandon had done, as something painful. But being with Brandon again showed her that Henry had not been a disaster or a mistake, but rather the opposite. He'd been beautiful. He was beautiful. And if 'Brandon and Callie' could create something so lovely and so amazing and so absolutely breathtaking as Henry, then Callie was not scared of what they'd create in the future. She was excited.

"Promise me this," Brandon had whispered to her one night shortly after she'd let him back in, "Promise me that no matter what happens in the future; no matter how much pain you're in; no matter how angry or upset or confused you are...promise me you'll never shut me out ever again."

"I promise," Callie had said effortlessly.

"I mean it Cal," Cal. Callie smiled at the use of the word. She hadn't heard it in what felt like forever. "I can't ever lose you like that again. I know you couldn't help it and I'm not mad. I truly believe it was for the best. That being said, I don't ever want you to do it again, okay? We're in this together. No matter what trials and tribulations life throws our way. We tackle it. We face it. And we overcome it together. Not individually. As a unit. As one being. No more shutting me out. I won't allow it, alright?"

"Alright," Callie agreed, and with a smirk she'd raised her pinkie-finger up. Brandon grasped it in his own, all while wearing a rather serious expression on his face. Callie held back her laughter as much as she could. Her laughter! She hadn't come close to laughing in weeks.

"You're stuck with me," Brandon murmured.

"You're stuck with me too," Callie replied softly.

"That's where you're wrong, Callie. It's a privilege every second I'm with you. I don't deserve that."

"Shut-up Foster, you deserve the whole-wide world and dammit I'll throw in the moon too."

Brandon smiled against her lips.

/

Callie stood in the doorway. Her hand was clutching Brandon's so tight Callie was almost positive it was hurting him, and yet, he didn't complain.

"Are you ready?" Brandon asked, looking down at her with his brilliant green-grey eyes.

They were currently outside their apartment. Brandon had been back a few times 'here and there' since Henry's death to get clothes for Callie and him or a half-finished composition for work, but Callie hadn't been back at all. She'd known all along that the day was fast approaching in which she'd have to return, it just wasn't realistic to have others put away the nursery for them, but being there, standing there, made it all feel so real. But she didn't want anyone else touching Henry's stuff, and she would've never forgiven herself if she hadn't seen the nursery just one last time. So there she was. Feel the fear and do it anyway, right?

Callie shook her head and swallowed slowly, "No." She admitted, "But I'm ready as I'll ever be."

Brandon nodded and silently inserted the key into the door, pushing it open and half guiding, half dragging Callie into the apartment. She stared at it in awe. Everything was completely the same. It looked just how they'd left it the morning of the day their lives fell apart. "What?" Brandon asked, clearly confused by her expression.

"It's exactly how we left it," Callie whispered.

"Yeah," A painful chuckle from Brandon, "Come on." He tugged her hand towards their bedroom door. Towards the nursery. "The twins agreed to help moms clean the rest of this place out, we've just got to do the nursery." Another tug of the hand. Callie eventually caved, allowing Brandon to pretty much carry her from the entryway and into their bedroom.

Callie's eyes snapped towards the bathroom, and she found herself walking towards it. Brandon hadn't let go of her hand (Callie figured he wasn't ever planning to, which was fine by her), and so he was heading towards the bathroom as well. "What are you...?" He asked, trailing off as Callie reached into the top drawer of the sink and pulled out a small plastic stick.

Her pregnancy test.

Henry's pregnancy test.

The pregnancy test that had started it all.

"Oh," was all Brandon could say. His hand reached up and clasped the stick, as well as Callie's other hand. Callie could feel him shaking, or maybe that was her. It was probably the both of them.

"It doesn't," Callie choked back a sob, "It doesn't say pregnant anymore." She whispered. For months after she'd taken the test, even up until the last time she'd checked (which hadn't been that many weeks before Henry's birth) the test had always read positive. Callie had been amazed and surprised by this discovery - by the fact that the pregnancy test hadn't faded over time. Now, she was heartbroken to see it had finally gone away. Gone away just as Henry had.

"Come on," Callie could hear the pain in Brandon's voice, and she could tell just how hard he was fighting to be 'the strong one.' "Let's get this done with and then we can go home and we'll never have to come back here ever again." He placed the pregnancy test in one hand, and steered Callie to the door with the other.

Callie blindly followed him from the bathroom, across the bedroom, and into the small corner where they'd constructed the nursery.

Henry's nursery.

"It sucks we have to leave this place," Callie whispered as she took in the sight before her. Brandon gave her a funny look. "The apartment I mean," she added for clarification. "It wasn't all that bad a home," she continued. "We do have a lot of good memories here. It sucks that they have to become tainted with the bad." She looked over at Brandon only to find he was already looking at her, and that, much to her puzzlement, he was smirking. "What?"

"You hated this apartment," Brandon said, his eyes glazing slightly with tears as he too took in the sight of Henry's nursery.

"I did not!" Callie protested. Brandon raised his eyebrows. "...maybe it wasn't my ideal living situation but I'd hardly say I hated it I - " Callie's words were cut short by the sound of crying. At first it sounded eerily like a baby's cry. Like how she imagined Henry's would've sounded if he'd woken them in the night. When Callie realized it wasn't a baby, she put a hand to her own chest and stomach, trying to figure out if she was the one crying. It wouldn't have been the first time she heard the tears before she felt them or realized it was her who was upset.

But It wasn't her this time.

Callie's eyes went to Brandon.

At the exact moment he collapsed to the floor.

"Brandon!" Callie's voice was frantic, and she scrambled to meet him at the ground, to figure out what was wrong. It took a few minutes to assess what was happening to him. His whole body was convulsing, his face was streaked with tears, and pretty soon he was not only choking out sobs, but screaming as well. Callie had never seen Brandon act that way, but she wasn't foreign to what was happening. It was a panic attack. Brandon was finally breaking down, in the nursery of his stillborn son. He was finally giving in to his emotions and admitting that he wasn't 'okay.' Callie grabbed a hold of him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in close to her, to the point where he was practically on her lap.

"Shhh..." she soothed, stroking his hair and squeezing him as tight as she possibly could. "You're having a panic attack, Brandon." She figured it might help to let him know what was going on. "It's going to be okay though. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm never going anywhere. I'm right here." She continued to stroke his hair and rested her head against his own. Her mind flashed back to when Brandon had broken down in her arms after the death of his girlfriend Grace. So much had changed since then. Her grip tightened around him. "Shh..." she repeated.

"He was so," Brandon tried to speak, "So beautiful."

"I know," Callie breathed. "Believe me I know."

They sat there. On the floor of Henry's nursery. Callie holding Brandon close while he rode out the waves of a panic attack. Both of them crying. Both of them broken. But both of them knowing that they had each other and that one day they'd be whole again. They didn't know when. They didn't know how. They could barely even believe it themselves.

But they had each other.

And that was enough.

More than enough really.

/

"Why don't you guys just foster or adopt?" Mariana asked. The seven Adams-Fosters were gathered in the living room after a particularly delicious meal Lena had prepared for their monthly 'family dinner catch-up night,' as Mariana had coined them. It was the first family dinner, since Henry's passing, where Callie had felt present and had been able to laugh and participate joyously in conversation. Brandon and her were getting stronger with each passing day. Of course, this serenity was so delicate, so easily broken, and it came crashing down with Marina's words.

"Mariana," Stef's infamous warning tone echoed throughout the now silent living room. Callie felt Brandon's arms tighten around her. She gripped his hand.

It would've been so easy for Callie to close up, to ignore Mariana's question, to change the subject and to continue on as if nothing had happened. Yes, that would've been easy. That was what everyone was expecting her to do. No one expected her to answer the question. Callie found this comforting, and yet also infuriating. She wasn't as fragile as glass anymore. She wanted to talk about everything. About Henry. And if she was ever going to allow herself to say she was 'healed' or whatever then she couldn't shy away from any sort of question. No matter how hard it hurt.

"To be completely honest I've considered it," Callie began slowly, "And I know eventually down the line I do want to foster and I do want to adopt. Brandon and I have even talked about it since Henry died," Callie paused. "We just always planned on having one or two kids biologically before we decided to take that leap. If we're being practical about the whole thing it's easier to have children when you're younger, so we always figured we'd have them biologically first and then once those kids were a bit older we'd try and start fostering, maybe adopting as well." Mariana nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer, but something within Callie felt wrong. As if she hadn't told the whole truth.

"Adoption can be expensive too," Lena chimed in.

Callie nodded, though she barely heard Lena's words. She felt Brandon squeeze her hand again, a silent signal of sorts, a silent signal telling her it was okay to keep things inside, but it would be okay to share them too. Callie looked up at him and she knew she had to say more.

"Foster-care can be emotionally challenging," Callie continued, drawing all eyes back to her once again. "I'm not sure that after losing a baby I could take the rejection of a child. I want to be strong and stable when we invite a potentially broken child into our home." Another pause. "And I'm not fine right now. Not even one bit."

"Well then I guess your next baby will be your rainbow baby," Mariana said cheerfully - she was never one to allow grief to hold her back for very long. Although Mariana's demeanor had initially annoyed Callie she'd grown to admire the fighting spirit within her sister. Mariana was tough and she didn't often get credit for it. However, Callie was emotionally drained enough from having to bring up the subject of children, even just for a few minutes. The last thing she wanted to discuss at that moment was having another baby, yet Mariana's words had caught Callie's attention.

"Rainbow baby?"

"It's just an expression coined to a baby that is born shortly after the loss of a previous baby due to miscarriage, stillbirth, or death in infancy," Mariana explained. She sounded like a dictionary. Callie was almost certain Mariana had memorized this line and had been waiting for the right opportunity to say it. That's just how Mariana was. "You know, the rainbow after a storm."Callie smiled, squeezing Brandon's hand.

"I like that," she whispered. "Hope for what's to come."

/

Callie stared down at the papers in her hand, unable to fully comprehend the words on the page. Her first response had been that of a shock. A kind of shock that seemed to paralyze her entire being and leave her immobile. Slowly, realization began to sink in and she felt her entire body seize in a kind of panic only to burst seconds later. Her arms found Brandon's and Callie clung to him tighter than she had in a long time. She felt Brandon's arms surround her and his own tears mixed with hers as their faces rested against each other.

"I knew today was going to be difficult," Callie managed, "But I never thought..." she trailed off eyeing the papers she had flung onto the floor in distress.

It had been hard enough to gather Henry's papers together and read through records, including his death certificate, in order to make sure all the information was accurate. But Callie had done it. She'd done it. She'd done it with a heavy heart, but also with a feeling of hopefulness. She'd done it for clarity. For answers. Their healthcare hadn't covered an autopsy, but they had been able to afford genetic testing of her placenta. The doctor had phoned and told Callie the results would be ready soon, but they required various documents both from Henry's birth and death in order to legally release the results to Brandon and Callie. It was because of this Callie had been able to gather everything together and drive the two-hours to Los Angeles without having a complete meltdown.

The hope had kept her going. The idea that after today Brandon and her would finally know why. Why had Henry died at 39 weeks? What had gone wrong? Could it be prevented in future pregnancies? It was the possibility of some kind of closure, and some kind of course of action, that kept Callie going on that particularly difficult day. Things were slowly getting easier as the months wore on, but there had always been the overwhelming question of what it was that had gone wrong? And after so many months they were supposed to, they deserved to, know.

It had never even crossed Callie's mind that the results would be 'inconclusive.' It had never occurred to her that there might not have been a clear answer. So, when she'd taken those papers, the results that already meant so much, from the small orange folder and read them over the first time she'd gone very still. She'd then read them over again, a second time, because she hadn't quite understood what they were saying. Then again, a third time, she'd read them. At that point it hadn't been because of confusion, but because she couldn't believe what she was reading. Her initial thought had been, "that can't be right, I must've missed something," until, that is, she'd looked up at Brandon and witnessed the same sorrow reflected in his eyes. They deserved closure, and they weren't getting any. Not even a little bit.

"How can they do this?" Brandon demanded, it was clear that his grief was giving way to anger. "How can they hurt us like this again?" His eyes shown with pain and with an emptiness that was far too familiar to Callie. She pulled him closer to her. "This was..." Brandon's voice broke, "This was everything." Callie felt the rigidness leave his body as he relaxed against her touch. It used up too much energy - energy neither of them had - to be angry with the world. "These tests were supposed to tell us what to do moving forward. They were supposed to tell us if you could safety be pregnant again. They were supposed to tell us what happened to him. What happened to our baby boy..." Callie felt a sob rack Brandon's body. "We deserved to know."

"Maybe there's a kind of beauty in not knowing," Callie found herself saying, surprising both Brandon and herself with her words. "What happened with Henry happened, we can't fix it - "

"But we could be more prepared!" Brandon argued.

Callie shrugged, "Maybe. Maybe not. Nothing could prepare us for what happened with Henry, and nothing is going to make another pregnancy easier. I mean, think about it. If we try again we're still going to be terrified of what might happen, even if the results had given us some kind of clue. Frankly, I think we put too much importance into them - "

"Callie, he's our son!" Brandon interrupted again.

"I know, Brandon. I'm not saying the test wasn't important. It was. But it isn't going to change anything. It was never going to change anything. We were always going to try again. We were always going to do everything in our power to be parents and to bring a baby home someday. These tests don't change any of that. We're not gonna give up. We're gonna fight until we have a little boy or girl in our hands again."

A silence settled over the pair and Callie found herself eyeing Henry's tree in the back-garden. She'd hated that tree for so long, and a part of her still did. But she loved it too. She loved what it represented: Her beautiful baby boy. When Brandon spoke it seemed as if he had read Callie's mind, as if he had seen the tree and thought the same thing.

"We deserved to know for him," Brandon's voice faltered. "I don't think I wanted these results, because of any future pregnancies, or to form some kind of plan moving forward. I think that's just what I told myself I wanted when really...really I wanted to know simply because he's our son. We don't get to watch him grow up, or see his milestones. We don't get to have him in our lives, at least not in the way we'd like. I guess I just thought that maybe, because he was taken from us, we'd at least get these results. We'd at least get to know why. We'd at least get some kind of - "

"Closure," Callie finished.

"Exactly," Brandon pressed a kiss to Callie's hair.

Callie looked up, cupping Brandon's face in both her hands. "We'll never know what happened to Henry. We'll never know why we lost him. But you know what we do know?" Brandon shrugged. "We know we loved him. We know we'll always love him. And nothing will ever change that. Not time. Not future children. Not these results," Callie motioned towards the papers, and a small smile flickered across her face. "You know we might not have gotten the outcome we wanted with the results. We might not have gotten the justice that we deserve but - "

"You can't just quote our first kiss and - " Brandon started.

Callie ignored him, "I know what we deserve now." Her eyes glistened as she placed a kiss against Brandon's lips. Upon pulling away she smiled sadly. "Brandon, we deserve to be happy. We deserve to go on with our lives and never forget Henry, but never dwell on it too much either. He would've wanted us to be happy. In fact, after he died the only thing keeping me around, besides you, was the knowledge that I had to live. I had to live for him. We both do." Callie paused. "There's gonna be more bad days. Probably ones way worse than this. There are gonna be days in which we don't want to get out of bed. No matter how much time has gone by. But there are going to be good days too. And we owe to to ourselves, and to Henry, to try and be the best versions of ourselves as we can on bad days, and not feel guilty about being happy on good days." Callie's hands moved from Brandon's face to the back of his neck, and she lowered her head against his chest. "I can't promise any of this is going to get easier, and there will most definitely be more disappointments, just like these results, but we'll learn to cope with them. We'll learn to live with the bad and focus on the good. There's no doubt we've become stronger because of this, and that we will be better parents in the future because of this. We'll love our future kids even more, specifically because of how hard we fought to have them. And Henry gave us that. Henry gave us so much."

A silence settled over the pair for the second time that afternoon.

Until Brandon spoke, "When did you become so wise?"

Callie smirked, "It helps when you live with someone who's pretty much an eighty-year-old man. I swear you've had like seventeen past lives."

"Well then it's not only Henry I waited a lifetime for is it?" Brandon's voice grew soft.

"Huh?"

"I've been waiting a lifetime for you too."

/

Callie and Brandon had vowed early on to spend Henry's first birthday celebrating the nine-months they'd gotten with him, and not focusing on the pain they'd endured afterwards. Callie and Brandon were tired of bad days. They wanted to remember Henry's birthday as a good day. A special day. It had been hard, knowing all their lives had been forever changed in the most horrible way just one year ago that day. But, it was also rather gratifying to see how far they'd come since that fateful day at the hospital. To know that their world fell a part just one year ago, and now, they were doing okay. They weren't one-hundred-percent healed, and they probably never would be, but they were better than they'd ever been. For that, Callie was incredibly proud and incredibly grateful.

Callie and Brandon spent the morning, and a good part of the afternoon, at Henry's grave, and upon returning to Stef and Lena's they'd found a cake awaiting them. Along with their family who had brought with them cards, flowers and balloons. The sight of these gifts didn't bring Callie any kind of annoyance or dislike. She didn't react to them then as she had in the hospital. Instead these symbols of happiness brought Callie exactly that - happiness. They reflected the happiness she was both feeling on the inside and exhibiting on the outside. That wasn't to say there weren't tears that day. There were. But there was also a plethora of hands at the ready to wipe them away, and to get both Callie and Brandon smiling and laughing again.

Callie felt the happiest she'd felt since Henry's birth, and that only made her even more happy. It felt good to honor Henry that way. To set aside one day a year to really, truly remember him and everything he taught them and how he'd helped them grow. Mariana had already coined September third (the date of his birth) as "Henry day," and Callie couldn't have given it a better label herself.

Callie was incredibly touched by the fact that every single one of her family members had managed to take time off of work, and to make it back to Stef and Lena's house, to be with Brandon and Callie that day. To see how many people loved Henry, well, that was simply incredible. Callie felt greatly comforted surrounded by all her family, she was certain she wouldn't have made it through the past year without every single one of them. Brandon was her rock. The family was her support system.

That being said, Callie couldn't help but feel relieved when the party dwindled to a close, leaving Brandon and her alone in the living room. Leaving them with time to themselves. Time with each other. Time for the two people who loved Henry most of all to grieve in peace.

"I talk to him sometimes," Brandon admitted breaking the silence that had gone on for nearly an hour. Callie looked up from the book she'd been reading, looked over at her husband. She mentally prepared herself for the broken expression that was sure to be on his face, and was surprised to see that he didn't look sad. He wasn't crying. In fact, he looked happy. At peace. He wasn't looking for empathy or comfort. He didn't even need it. His tone was as calm as if he was discussing the weather. He was just sharing a fact with his wife. Something he'd kept close to him, a secret of sorts, for exactly a year now. A secret he was finally willing to share. The thought caused Callie's heart to swell.

"So do I," Callie said, a smile creeping across her face.

Brandon flashed her a smile of his own, before turning back to the music sheets he'd been furiously scribbling on for what felt like weeks. Callie turned back to her book, a smile now permanently plastered to her face. The comfortable silence surrounded the pair once again.

Nothing more was said.

Nothing more needed to be said.

And they sat like that, in peaceful oblivion.

...until Mariana burst downstairs, (she was spending the night), threw her hands into the air and declared that she had committed "social suicide."

Callie and Brandon exchanged a look.

"We really need our own apartment."

/

One particular night, a few months after Henry's birthday, Callie awoke to find Brandon's side of the bed empty. They'd moved into a new apartment just over a week earlier, so it didn't take long for Callie to find Brandon, seeing as they were confined to only four rooms - a joint kitchen and living room, their bedroom, a bathroom, and a spare guest bedroom. She eventually found him. Alone. In the kitchen. In the dark. A at the dimly lit clock on the old oven. 1:07. A cup of tea in his hands. He hadn't taken a single sip, instead using it to warm his hands. His cold hands. His eyes fixed on the window, and yet, not on the city streets below, but on something far away. Perhaps something far from earth. The silence was deafening. So quiet Callie could hear his breathing. Slow. In and out. In and out.

"Brandon," Callie's voice cut shards into the silence. Her voice broke whatever had been the cause of his deep concentration. Slowly his head turned from the window. Slowly his eyes met hers in the darkness. Illuminated by nothing but the moonlight washing in from the windows. Callie thought he'd never looked more beautiful. More broken.

"Will I ever be happy again?" Brandon asked. He sounded so devastated. So tired. So unhappy. So tired of feeling unhappy. He'd been through hell in his lifetime. He deserved happiness more than anyone else. They both did. Callie wanted nothing more than for Brandon, whom she loved so much, to be happy.

In fact, in her vows to him at their wedding she had declared that "you're always saving people; you're always saving me; you're always putting others above yourself; you're always making sure others are happy before it even crosses your mind you might want to think about yourself. That is one of the things I admire and love most about you, but, it is also something I hate, something that makes me so angry. Because you, Brandon Foster, deserve the entire ocean and I wish I could give it to you. So, I stand here, in front of all of our friends and I promise. That from now on. Until death do us part. I will make it my goal in life to put you first. To put us first. To save you for a change. To make you happy. Because you being happy makes me happy, and you deserve it. After everything you've been through. You deserve to be happy." She'd given Brandon a coy smile after that line, knowing that he alone would be the only one who would know the weight of those words. The only person who would know that was where it all began.

At a wedding quite similar to their own. When they were only sixteen. Their first kiss. How she'd thought she'd known how happy kissing Brandon would make her, and yet, how surprised she'd been afterwards when she'd felt a thousand times happier than she'd ever expected. (Before Jude interrupted that is). She'd been happy then. As had he. Years of pain and guilt and sadness and heartbreak would follow, but in that moment, they hadn't known. They'd just been, honestly and completely, happy. They'd been happy once. Callie knew they would be again. She smiled.

"Yes," Callie confirmed. If she was being honest Brandon's question surprised her. She'd been under the impression they were both beginning to find some-kind of normalcy. She had thought their lives were slowly reverting back to 'normalcy.' She knew they'd never be the same again, but she'd thought they were getting closer. Better. And they were. They smiled often, joked with each other, even laughed. But maybe Brandon was digging at something deeper than temporary happiness. Maybe he was thinking about something bigger. Something more permanent. Maybe he was really asking if grief would ever go away.

Callie took one step towards Brandon. Then another. And another. Yet another. Until she was just inches away from him. Brandon looked up at her, his expression similar to that of a wounded child. A child looking for guidance. A child who needed to be saved. She'd promised, at their wedding, to save him whenever she could. A moment had finally presented itself in which she could follow through with that vow. Callie reached her hand out, placed it in his. Again, smiled.

"How?" Brandon grasped Callie's hand tightly in his own. "I thought I was prepared for anything, Cal." Brandon's voice was quiet, almost nonexistent in the empty kitchen - they were still in the process of unpacking all the boxes. "I thought we'd been through it all, you know? I thought hell if our love can survive the improbable odds that it did. If we could spend years apart, before finally going back to each other. Finally finding each other. If we were able to convince our family that it wasn't a choice to fall in love, that we didn't do it hurt anyone, that we couldn't help it. If we could get Stef and Lena, if we could get Mariana to support our relationship," Brandon chuckled, "I guess I just thought that we could do anything, you know?" His eyes met Callie's for confirmation and she simply nodded, tears flooding her eyes, but not falling. Not lately. "At our wedding I thought. This is it. I wasn't naive enough to think we wouldn't have hard times. I knew we would. I expected we would. I just...I never thought it would be something so hard. I never thought it would be something this hard. I thought we could face anything. I thought we could overcome anything. I never thought we would lose a..." tears falling now, from both of them, "...I never thought we would lose a child. I mean, no one should ever think that. No one ever thinks that."

"Until it happens," Callie whispered, reaching her fingers down to wipe tears from under Brandon's eyes, running a hand through his hair, down his face. Crying, and yet, still smiling.

Brandon leaned his head into her outstretched hand. "Until it happens," he agreed. "Why did it have to happen?" Brandon crying into Callie's outstretched hand. Callie, crying with him. "Are we ever going to be happy?" Brandon asked again, though Callie noticed what was once 'I' had changed to 'we.'

"We will," she nodded.

"How can you be so sure?" Brandon's eyes ever-searching hers.

"I'm not," Callie said, choking back a sob. "But I have you, and as long as I have you then I know I'll be okay." Brandon wrapped his arms around Callie's waist, and she encircled hers around his head. One standing. One sitting. Two crying. Crying for their little, beautiful, baby boy. Whom they still loved so much, and would love for all eternity. The little boy they'd felt so much joy for and cried so many tears for. They were both tired of crying. So insanely tired of crying.

They needed a little piece of happiness.

They needed some light to illuminate the dark kitchen.

To be synonymous with the moonlight.

"Brandon," Callie waited until his gaze traveled from her hand, up her arms, up her neck, up her face, to her eyes. "Brandon, I'm pregnant." She inhaled sharply as she let go of the secret she'd been carrying with her since the previous evening. Her heart felt as if it was crawling up her throat. She was uncertain. Unsure of what Brandon's reaction would be. Then again, she'd been worried for no reason when she'd told Brandon she was pregnant last time, so what did she know. This was different though. This was life after loss.

"What?" Brandon stared blankly at her, either unable to formulate the meaning of her words, or to afraid to. Perhaps a little bit of both.

"Brandon, I'm pregnant," Callie repeated and she allowed herself to smile this time. To feel excited. To feel happy. To momentarily push away the fear that had taken over her life ever since that fateful September day at the hospital. The fear that the next baby they had wouldn't come home. The fear that the next baby would be just like Henry. For just a moment - just a split second - Callie let that all go and simply basked in the love she felt for Brandon. For Henry. And for their unborn son or daughter.

"You're...?" Brandon's hands reached out to touch Callie's stomach, which, was still quite flat considering she was most likely only a few weeks at that point, as though unable to comprehend that there was, once again, a baby inside - their baby inside. Henry's brother or sister!

"We're gonna be parents again," Callie said, both smiling and crying at the same time. Her hands found Brandon's and held them against her stomach.

"I'm gonna be a dad," Brandon said slowly. And then. His infamous stupid, dorky grin appeared on his stupid, adorable face and Callie half laughed, half sobbed as he rose like the tide to capture Callie's lips in his own. "I love you," he whispered in-between kisses. "I love you so much it hurts." The pair broke apart and Brandon pulled Callie into a hug. "God, Cal. This is crazy. I mean, I know we were technically trying but...I never thought..."

"I know," You could practically hear the smile in Callie's voice, "I know, me neither. You don't think...I mean, you don't think it seems too soon?" Callie asked quietly. Brandon looked down at her. Silently questioning. "Too soon after Henry, I mean. You don't think we're..." she swallowed. Hard.

"Dishonoring his memory?" Brandon offered.

Callie simply nodded.

Brandon smiled and shook his head, "No, Cal. He'd want us to be happy. He'd be happy for us." Brandon promised, and Callie knew he was right. But there was something about hearing it from Brandon that made it seem all the more true. She swore if he told her to jump off cliff she'd probably think it a good idea. He just had that effect on her.

A few minutes of serenity. Of silence.

Then, "God, Cal. I'm scared." Brandon.

"Me too," Callie whispered, "This is going to be a scary nine-months." Pause. "But we can't let fear control us. The doctors said what happened with Henry was just a fluke, right?" Callie winced slightly at the use of the term 'fluke,' it seemed such a childish, meaningless way to describe what had happened their son. "The chances of it happening again are unlikely. We can't let fear control us." Callie said, just as much to reassure herself as to reassure Brandon. "I do think," Callie added, "We should wait until twelve weeks to tell everyone."

Brandon nodded, holding Callie tighter.

A few more minutes of serenity.

Then, "We're gonna bring our baby home this time, Callie. I just know it."

nine months after that

Callie and Brandon had thought that losing Henry was the hardest thing they'd ever have to go through. And there was no doubt in either of their minds that had been hell. But nothing had prepared them for just how much harder Callie's second pregnancy was in comparison to her first. Nothing had prepared them for the constant state of anxiety that was the cause of multiple late-night trips to the ER, because Callie had been worried the baby wasn't moving enough.

The anxiety was temporarily treated every time the pair saw the flickering movement of their baby's heartbeat, whether it was at a scheduled ultrasound, or at one-in-the-morning in a makeshift ER unit. This sense of calm; however, was just that. Temporary. Momentary. The anxiety always returned and it was an anxiety that could not be assuaged. Not through therapists (though those did help some), not through doctor's visits, not even after scans that depicted nothing but positive results. Nothing would sway that anxiety. Nothing except their baby, alive, breathing, in their arms.

The anxiety took hold the minute Callie saw those two lines, and it didn't leave for nine-months. Instead, it controlled Brandon and her every move. Anxiety moved into their new apartment shortly after they did, and made itself a permanent resident. Anxiety forced them to put off baby showers and the decoration and construction of a nursery. Anxiety made them hesitant to order any kind of baby products, and it made them nervous when they did. Anxiety sucked the joy out of picking out baby clothes at the mall. Anxiety turned what should've been an incredible, joyous experience into something ridden with fear of the unknown.

Anxiety convinced Callie and Brandon to wait to learn the gender of their child. Not because they wanted it to be a surprise, but because they were afraid. They were afraid they'd find out the gender and become too attached and then be devastated when everything went wrong again. After all, there'd been no warning signs with Henry, so who was to say it couldn't happen all over again? They decided that waiting to learn the gender provided them some sort of - if only figuratively - shield. (This didn't stop Brandon, Mariana, Jesus, and Jude from creating yet another bet much to Callie's disdain).

Another baby journal was created, and Callie poured just as much, if not more, of her feelings into the new baby's book than she'd expressed in Henry's. However, much to Brandon's delight, she stayed far away from all things parenting books. They were no longer scared to become parents. It was quite the opposite, really. Callie felt a burning desire within her to be a mom, and Brandon wanted to be a dad so bad it physically pained him sometimes. Whether or not they were ready wasn't even a question. They were. But Brandon had been right all those months ago when he'd asked what it meant to be 'ready,' and if being ready - whatever ready was - helped at all.

Brandon and Callie had learned the hard way that it didn't.

Wanting to be parents again didn't make the bad days any easier. It didn't help Callie after a woman smiled at the two of them and asked if she was a first time mom, to which Callie nodded and replied that "yes she was." It didn't help when she broke down in Brandon's arms the minute the lady disappeared from view, because she felt as though she was dishonoring Henry's memory by not telling the truth.

No, she wasn't a first time mom. She had a son. A beautiful, perfect son. An angel baby.

Holidays were particularly hard - being surrounded by family and friends and seeing the excitement in their eyes; trying to mirror that same excitement themselves. Ending up only feeling overwhelmed. Stressed. Annoyed even. Annoyed that no one could see just how scared the both of them were and just how hard they were fighting for normalcy. Desperately wanting someone - anyone - to see that they weren't okay and that, although overjoyed at the prospect of being parents again, they weren't able to fully enjoy the pregnancy like they were supposed to. Like they deserved to. Instead, clinging to each other for air and counting down the days until their son or daughter arrived.

This wasn't to say there weren't moments of happiness. There were. But they were always overshadowed by fear. By anxiety. By doubt. By uncertainty. Brandon and Callie could no longer plan their future, because they simply did not know what would happen. They did know; however, that no matter what they'd have each other. After much procrastinating they constructed the nursery again and tried their hardest to hold onto the hope that everything would be okay.

No one could've prepared them for Henry's death.

No one could've prepared them for everything that transpired after Henry's death.

No one could've prepared them for the anxiety that controlled their second pregnancy.

And yet, no one could've prepared them for the words "it's a girl!" (To which Callie responded with "is she breathing?")

No one could've prepared them for the sound of their baby girl's first cry.

Callie had thought that she was broken. Callie had been convinced that a part of her had died with Henry - that a part of her would never, could never be mended. But that all changed the instant the doctor held their daughter up for Brandon and Callie to see. Callie's eyes fixed on their baby's stomach - at the rising and falling that meant she was breathing - and she felt her whole world, her whole broken, messy world, and all her shattered pieces mend. Callie felt all the fear and anxiety rush out of her. She felt a weight she'd been caring for nearly two-years lift. Callie's eyes found Brandon's across the room, and they stared at each other.

Unblinking.

Unmoving.

And then, as if in slow motion, grins spread across both of their faces. Brandon rushed forward to stand by Callie's side, and the pair could do nothing but laugh and cry and smile as their beautiful daughter rested her head upon Callie's chest for the first time. Their rainbow baby. Their moon. Their sun. Their stars. Their whole entire world. A fresh wave of tears hit Callie and she reached her hand across the hospital bed to grasp Brandon's.

"It's a girl," she said with a smile.

"I know," Brandon's eyes were wide. A second passed. Then another. And another. Until. "I owe Mariana and Jude one-hundred bucks."

Callie was so happy she couldn't even attempt faking mad. She just smiled even wider and shook her head at her husbands antics. God, did she love him. And god, did she love the two children they'd made together. She felt as if all she'd do for the rest of her life was smile. If only things were that simple. She knew there would be bad days ahead, there was no question, but not only did she have Brandon now, she had a daughter as well.

"I'm a mom!" Callie whispered, and Brandon looked at her with such an intensity, with such love, Callie felt as though she might explode.

"She's beautiful, baby. Callie, she's beautiful." Brandon whispered, "Absolutely, perfectly, and utterly beautiful." Tears in his eyes, a smile on his face, laughter. Callie felt as if she hadn't heard him laugh; hadn't seen Brandon as happy as he was since before Henry died. "God, Cal." Brandon's gaze switched from Callie's to his daughters and then back to Callie, as though unsure which girl he loved more. "God, Cal. We did it. We made that. We made her," Brandon. Grinning stupidly. "And she's fucking perfect."

"Brandon!" Callie exclaimed, reaching to cover her daughters tiny ears. Marveling at just how small she was. Just how small her ears were. Her fingers. Her toes. "No swearing in front of the baby!" She teased, laughing as Brandon rolled his eyes and reminded her that he had been the one to scold her about swear words while she was pregnant, so she was being an outright hypocrite. Callie denied all accusations, only half paying attention as she continued to marvel in their daughters beauty.

Their daughters!

"God, moms are gonna lose it when they see her," Brandon mused, his own fingers finding his baby girls. "I can't believe their grandparents!" Brandon shook his head in amusement. "I can't believe we're parents!" He paused, softly added, "Well, parents again." Callie smiled. Her gaze found the window, found the sky.

"She's got the most incredible brother watching over her," Callie whispered. Brandon kissed her forehead. Kissed both their foreheads. "He'd love her so much," Callie fought back a sob. Scolded herself for feeling sad at a moment that was supposed to be just happiness. Pure happiness. "He should be here."

"Yeah," Brandon nodded, "...but then she wouldn't. Be here I mean." His words sent a wave of security and closure coursing through Callie. They would always love Henry. There was no doubt that was true. But they had a daughter now. And Callie was no longer uncertain about whether or not they'd be okay. She knew, without a doubt in her mind, that they would. That their daughter had already begun to pick up their pieces, to fix the holes in their hearts. She would save them. She was already saving them. And, as Callie heard their daughter's faint cries - a luxury Henry never had the chance to bestow upon them - and looked down at her perfect, little body she knew they'd be just fine. Brandon knew it too.

They'd both deserved happiness, and they'd finally found it.

They'd found it in the form of a precious little baby girl.

"We get to take her home, Brandon." Callie whispered and a fresh wave of tears hit her. "We get to take her home," she repeated, almost as if she was unable to comprehend the meaning behind her words. Unable to believe that they'd been in that very hospital almost two-years before and been forced to say goodbye. They didn't have to say goodbye this time. They'd never have to say goodbye. She was theirs. She was breathing. She was healthy. They were going to take her home. But in a way weren't they already home? After all, sometimes 'home' isn't four walls. Sometimes, it's two eyes and a heartbeat. Callie's mind momentarily drifted back to the sign Mariana had gifted Brandon and her prior to Henry's death.

This Is How A Heartbeats.

Callie finally understood.

Despite her overwhelming sense of a multitude of emotions Callie was exhausted. She'd been in labor for quite a few hours and she'd been living in a constant state of anxiety for nine-month before that. Needless to say, she needed a nice, long nap. Callie also knew she'd be a better mother to their daughter - and frankly a better and much less crabby wife to Brandon - once she managed to get a couple hours of 'shut-eye.' Despite this Callie couldn't help but feel hesitant to leave their daughter so soon after giving birth. She presented these fears to Brandon, to which he replied by lifting their daughter into his arms and insisting she get some rest, "they'd be just fine" he said, and Callie eventually gave in - but not before making Brandon promise to wake her if anything went wrong.

Callie glanced over at Brandon one last time, she watched his arms curl around their daughter's tiny body for the first time and she was certain his eyes saw nothing but his child, their child. Until, that is, he looked up and met Callie's gaze. They knew each other well enough by then to have a conversation non-verbally, entirely through touch, through eye-contact.

Their eyes met.

Dark brown on green-grey.

Callie knew neither of them had to speak to know what the other was thinking. To know how incredibly happy and how incredibly sad they both were in that moment. That they were thinking, not only of their beautiful daughter, but their beautiful son as well.

There would certainly be tears tomorrow and tears in the days and weeks following, but there would also be an unbearable amount of love, of joy, and of peace.

There was that saying, "If you're going through hell, keep going."

And they'd kept going.

They'd kept going and look, Brandon's eyes seemed to say as they flickered from that of Callie to their sleeping newborn daughter, at the incredibly beautiful result. Callie smiled, fully confident that she could close her eyes, get some much needed rest and their daughter would be completely safe within Brandon's arms. After all, Callie herself knew just how safe his embrace was. There was no doubt in her mind that he would be an incredible father.

Callie's smile morphed into that of a smirk as she realized that Brandon, considering how overly protective he was of his loved ones, (Callie especially), would most likely become completely and entirely wrapped around his daughter's finger. She was convinced he'd spoil her rotten and do absolutely anything she wanted. (Which, Callie realized with a sigh, meant that she'd have to take up the disciplinary role).

Their daughter would truly be 'daddy's little girl.'

Callie feared for any future-boyfriends lives, as Brandon would most definitely set them straight. She chuckled softly, pushing the thought from her mind: that was light-years away. She was only just hours old. Boys wouldn't be around until high-school, that is, if they were lucky. Callie took one last glance at her two most favorite people, silently thanked Henry for watching over all three of them, and closed her eyes. Sleep came quickly - she really did need it - but she managed to catch Brandon's first words to their daughter just before it did so.

"Of all the things my hands have held, the best by far is you."

THE END

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There we go! If you managed to finish this entire fic than congratulations! I know it was a long one. My apologies. (Or maybe that's a good thing?)

I just wanted to 'pop down here' and say two things.

The first being that it took me ages (and I mean days and days) to finish writing/editing this story and so I would really, really appreciate it if you left a review telling me your thoughts! All feedback - whether it's positive or negative - is welcome! I was actually pretty hesitant to post this, because I was worried it was "too dark," but I've put so much time and effort into it that scrapping it would be a waste.

I have some other, more uplifting, brallie one-shots on my page if you enjoyed this one - and maybe even if you didn't ;)

Secondly, I hope I did pregnancy/stillbirth justice. I'm only seventeen so I (obviously) have never experienced this myself. However, much of this story is based on what my parents went through when they lost my brother at 39 weeks. His name was Henry, so I guess you could say this is dedicated to him.

I love you Henry.

~Vivian