He laid in bed for a bit, that morning, instead of getting up. There was no rush, honestly, for anything. The day could unfold and progress at its own pace. It was meant to.

Still, he probably should have felt at least a bit antsy as he laid there, alone, in the bed too big for just himself. Andre, their pet Mastiff, had been with him, in his wife's spot, for a good part of the night, but was over by the door then, no doubt having wanted to be let out at some point and, not getting it, fallen asleep there.

Paul just rested there, arms on his stomach, watching the change in the shadows as the sun slowly rose and light began to come through the far windows. The blinds were drawn, but the curtains were open because he hadn't thought to close them.

It was only the smell of coffee that got him up. And even then, he was rather languid about it. If there was coffee brewing, it meant that someone else was up too. And depending on the person, he might not want to see them.

It could be Vince. He was there, in the lake house, for the weekend, with them. He was always up at odd hours. Paul wasn't exactly wanting to see him, but he wouldn't hate it.

Or maybe Linda. She was there too, of course, but far less likely, he felt. The first thing she would have done, were she up, would be to check on the girls, and he would have heard that, if she woke them up. Having to deal with her so early wouldn't be horrible, but again, it just wasn't what he wanted.

Shane was there too. With his sons. And wife. The boys were sleeping down in the basement, where he knew at least one of his daughters was sleeping too, as well as Paul's nephew from his sister, who'd already come down. His niece, sister, and mother and father would be there that afternoon.

For the party.

Actually, as he thought about it, Paul didn't really wanna see any of those people that much. He didn't want to see anyone. But Andre was up then and probably needed to take a leak, so there was kind of no other option.

Since extended family was around, Paul slipped on some sleeping pants over his boxers as well as a skintight undershirt before leading his dog through the house, the dog's nails clicking loudly on the same hardwood floor that was freezing to the pads of his master's feet.

The house was too silent, it felt like, for so many people to be housed with in it. It helped, of course, that they were spread across two floors (three, including the basement), but still; it just felt off.

Then again, recently, nothing had quite felt on either.

Andre was a good boy though and didn't bark or anything, awakening the others. Not even when they passed Shane where he was, still sleeping on the couch, having fallen asleep from the looks of it, watching the still on television, now rerunning the previous night's Sports Center on a low volume.

Leaving it be, Paul and Andre headed to the backdoor, the man letting the animal run free, knowing he was trained to come back the second even the first syllable of his name was called. He'd been a Levesque for a little over a year by then (very little) but had quickly acclimated into the fold. It was no easy job in the world, after all, being the only son in a family (especially after the last only son had left such big paw prints to fill), but he did okay. Held his own.

Paul let the pooch get his business taken care of in private before heading off to the kitchen to find out just who it was that had gotten up to brew some coffee. His bet had, honestly, been Shane, but this wasn't the case as he found, rather, a much smaller version of the man, filling up his own cup of it.

"You drink coffee?" he asked, in slight shock, at the sight of his oldest nephew from his wife's side there, in the darkened kitchen, doing just that. "Declan?"

His nephew glanced up at him, nearly spilling some coffee in the process, as if shocked to see him. Then, with a frown, the thirteen year old told him, "I'm not a little kid. I can drink it if I want."

Though it had started out somewhat peeved by the question, Declan's tone had slowly gotten softer as he seemed to realize who he was talking to, recalling all his uncle was currently going through. Not that Paul held it against him.

It was easy for him to forget, it was for Paul, as he was so busy dealing with the emotions of his three daughters that Shane's three sons had lost too. A seemingly permanent fixture in their life had disappeared just as suddenly as it had in his daughters'. Even though he was older than the others, Declan was still a kid too.

Which is why, with a shake of his head, Paul only came further into the kitchen, going to gently tap the teen on the head. He stared up at him too, his nephew did, waiting to be reprimanded or something. When none came, he watched instead as his uncle reached around him for one of the coffee cups lining the back of the counter to get one of his own.

As the boy moved on to filling his cup with extras, Paul only went to fill the cup. Even though he liked sugar and such in his as well, he took a sip, always, first, to find out just how dark it had been made.

Very.

In fact, it about made him choke.

"Dark enough for you?" he got out as Declan dumped at least half the container of creamer in his cup which already housed at least five sweeteners. "How much coffee did you put in this?"

"I made it like I always make it."

"Yeah, too dark." Paul even shook his head at him. "You wouldn't need so much sugar and creamer if you just..."

But he didn't want to get annoyed with the boy (though he found it easy to then, even more so than the attitude he'd had before, as he'd ruined an entire pot of coffee), even though it was one of the last emotions that he could easily come by, and only let out another long breath before ruffling the teen's hair that time.

"Let me get some of that creamer, huh?" He took the bottle from his nephew's hand. "I definitely need it."

They didn't speak after that and, with his own mug all set, the teen left the room quickly, off to do...something. Paul really didn't care what. He just sort of hoped that he didn't wake anyone else up because literally the last thing he wanted at the moment was more human interaction.

He was pretty alright with canines though, or so Andre found out as his father came to drink his coffee out on the back deck with him. Other than that though, he was alone. It wasn't nearly as soothing as it should have been.

Andre whined some, as they sat out there, lying at his master's feet and nuzzling up against them. Paul knew what the animal wanted, what he'd wanted since it all happened, but there was no helping him. Fuck, Paul wanted the same thing. He just wasn't at the same disadvantage as the poor pooch and knew how impossible his desire had become.

If anything, he felt a tad more foolish than Andre, in that he knew of the impossibility and yet still hoped for it, as he sat out there, alone, in the slight chill of the end of summer air, kind of sort of hoping that...that Steph would...join him out there.

Like she usually did. Always did. Even though she typically desired more sleep than him. No matter how sleepy she was, Stephanie would push it aside because she thought it was romantic. That's what she always say. How cute and romantic and all that womanly shit that he mostly just pretended to notice for her sake it was for them to be out there, watching the sunrise over coffee, not really talking, but that was okay, because they'd sit real close to one another, whether they be at home or at the lake house, making it to where their chairs were touching and their elbows brushed.

She liked that stuff. He just put up with it.

Or at least that's what he thought.

Now that he was sitting there though, knowing that it wouldn't be coming back, he…

It felt like forever ago that that the whole thing started. But it wasn't even a full year since it first…

Paul kind of joked that she was getting lazy. That was the first time he could remember anything really being wrong. Different. It was the week after their anniversary and, for the second time in a row, Steph claimed she was too tired for one of their workouts.

"I am not," she said through yawns as he left her upstairs, in bed, as he headed down to their basement gym to meet up with Joe, their trainer. "I just… I can try, baby, but my back hurts and I could hardly stay awake all day and-"

"You're fine." He even went to kiss her head. "Just more lazy than me. Admit it."

"I admit it," she groaned, just a bit, as she shoved his head away. "You're so strong, Paul. Stronger than me."

"Hell yeah I am." But he grinned down at her. "Feel better though, baby."

"I'll try."

But she didn't get better.

Not that it was really anything noticeable. Steph just started napping more, during the day, when they weren't busy, instead of spending time with the girls. She all but quit with their midnight workout sessions. To combat this, he'd thought, she frequently claimed not to be hungry and would skip out on most of dinner or eat next to nothing, at best.

Paul honestly thought that turning forty was just hitting her hard. He mentioned to her more than once that she really should be eating more, as that was his biggest concern, but honestly, they had so much going on in their lives and saw so little of one another that, really, how was he supposed to know?

Anything?

At all?

Maybe that's just what he told himself afterward to help feel better. Cope. That there was no way for him to notice.

Because if he had noticed, had suggested sooner that maybe she got get checked out, skip a bit of work one day just to make sure she was alright, maybe they'd have caught it sooner.

They would have caught it sooner.

Which, necessarily, might have done nothing to change their current outcome, but if it had…

Steph went to the doctor on December 16th. Paul remembered it exactly because it was a Friday and they'd woken up together, at home, and he was the first one to notice what was up with his wife.

"This isn't normal, Steph," he told her as they stood in the bathroom, her staring at herself in the mirror while he stood beside her, neither having gotten ready for the day, nor woken the girls who needed to as well. As Steph stared at herself though, Paul stared down at his cellphone, looking up just what could be the cause of his wife's current predicament.

"What do you mean you have yellow eyes?" Vince asked about twenty minutes later, over the speaker phone. Steph had text him to say she wouldn't be there, for that reason, and that she was going to the doctor.

Her overly concern father (mixed with slightly peeved boss) called immediately.

"She means what she says, Vince," Paul grumbled. They'd shifted to her home office then, where Steph was getting ready to call to see if she could make a doctor's appointment (it being Friday, she was doubtful, but Paul was insistent) and her husband was with her because, well, his wife was turning fucking yellow; he wasn't going anywhere. "The whites around her eyes have turned...you know, yellow. And I guess her skin too, maybe-"

"My skin is fine," Steph grumbled, glaring down at where she'd sat her cell, on the desk, between her and her husband, so they could both hear the man. "It's just my eyes."

"Is not."

"You didn't say anything about my skin, Paul, until you noticed that-"

"I didn't know to look."

"Oh, bull."

"The only time I've ever heard of people turning yellow," Vince had grumbled over their bickering, "is when their livers have gone because of their drinkin'. Only reason I gave her to you, Paul was to keep her off the bottle."

"Gave me?" Steph remarked.

Paul, however, still only dressed the sleep pants he wore to bed, grumbled out, "This isn't a joke."

"Sounds like a setup to one," Vince said as Steph grinned over at her husband, finding his annoyance kind of reassuring, no doubt. She was worried, Paul knew, even that day, about what was wrong with her, but seeing him even more concerned than her was very cute. "If it isn't drinking that's brought this on-"

"I assure you," Stephanie sighed, "it isn't."

"-then what else could cause-"

"Something's probably up with her liver," Paul said, quite loudly, tone absolute. "Or pancreas. She probably has gallstones."

"Gallstones, huh?"

"I do not," Steph grumbled, making a face at the phone. "Those are for, like, old people, aren't they? Or something?"

"You're forty." Vince snorted. "You are old."

"What would that make you, Dad?"

"I-"

"Steph's not gonna be at the office today was the point." Paul was moving to pick up the phone then, despite his wife's complaints in the background that she very well might be in by the afternoon. "She's gonna go to a doctor."

"If I can get an appointment," she reminded both of them. "If I can't-"

"Then you'll go to the emergency room," Paul finished, ignoring the annoyed look in her tainted eyes.

Vince, for once, seemed to recognized the seriousness of the situation, and said, "That's not debatable either."

"Don't let him fool you, Dad," Stephanie said with a roll of those eyes then. "He's read a few articles on the stupid internet and now feels like an expert."

"I do not." Paul even shook his head. "That's why you're going to get checked out by someone that actually is. So, bye, Vince; Steph's got shit to do."

At that point, Paul honestly did think that it was just some sort of deficiency or something. Maybe she had a liver infection. Something like that. Or those gallstones he was talking about, blocking access to something.

Nothing super serious.

Because he didn't think he was an expert, like Stephanie thought, but he did trust the articles somewhat. And since Steph wasn't having trouble breathing and wasn't all unresponsive or whatever, like some people who woke up that way were, he really didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal.

Even as he got the girls ready for the last day before winter break all on his own, Paul's thoughts were, of course, on his wife, but also split between the nonstop talk that his girls were going on about their class Christmas' parties, as well as, for him, just Christmas in general, which was thankfully on a Sunday and not a RAW or Smackdown day (that was always a big thing, every few years).

It was just so obvious that Steph was going to get whatever was up with her all worked out and they'd be fine.

He just sent her a text, when he arrived at work, reminding her that the girls had half days since they were getting out for break, but one of the nannies was picking them up, and to text him whatever she found out at the doctor.

Which she didn't. Text him that. But she did text him.

He was in a lunch meeting when he got the concise message.

Call me when you get a chance. We have to talk.

This worried him, if only for a moment, as just as quickly his phone was buzzing again as she sent him a pic of some article from a magazine she'd no doubt read in the waiting room about aging men with some sort of joke about how old he was getting that went along with it.

Paul should have realized, as he did thinking back on it, that she only did that to keep him from worrying. It worked, of course, as he thought if she was in a joking mood, clearly it wasn't anything serious, just something too long to be spoken of in text messages.

He didn't get around to calling her back until about two in the afternoon. She answered on the first ring.

"Hey, baby," he greeted as he walked through the halls of headquarters, headed to his office. "Where are you?"

Instead of answering that, she only responded with, "Are you alone?"

"About to be," he said, nodding at some people as they passed him in the hall. "When I get to my office. I-"

"Well, get there, Paul." He could remember hearing her swallow, too, and taking note of just how serious she sounded. "We got some stuff we need to talk about."

It didn't take him long to get there. The second he was, he shut the door behind him before saying, "What's wrong? Do you need me? Do-"

"It's not… I'm just waiting for some results."

"Oh." He even let out a breath. "Then you don't know-"

"And I have some other...tests that I have to do."

Heading over to his desk, Paul didn't sit down at it as he was too antsy then, instead asking, "What do they think's up, Steph?"

"Something with my liver." She laughed, then, but it was nervously. "I'm such a baby though. You know I hate doctors. I just wanted to hear your voice."

"I can come down there. Or-"

"No. Don't." She sounded more sure of herself on that. "Just...I just wanted to talk. I'll probably be here awhile. Blood tests and all that."

"Good. That's where you need to be." Again, his fears felt quelled. "Do you need anything else?"

"No. Just..."

"Keep texting me. Until you're finished up there." He laughed a bit too. "Since you need me. You big baby."

Which she did, after they hung up. And even though Paul had his hands full up at work, he tried to text her back as often as possible.

The day drug on though, for Steph, up there. The longer time went on and they told her even less, the more Paul started to think that it wasn't just gallstones.

Then she stopped texting him. For awhile. It was only after he grew annoyed with this and text her back that she explained why.

At hospital now. Call you later.

Which wasn't cool. At all. For a number of reasons. Clearly whatever was up with her was serious enough to be there, so he certainly was worried about that, but oddly the first place his brain went was annoyance over the fact that she clearly drove herself from her doctor's office to the hospital. Plenty of time to call her damn husband. Admittedly, the first was right down the road from the second, but still.

A lot of the days after that one kind of blurred for Paul. Because even as he got off work to go sit up there with Steph, at the hospital, they really didn't know for certain yet just what was causing her problems. They had a short list, but it wouldn't be for another day before it was certain.

Though Paul was worried, his wife was pretty upbeat on the way down to the hospital, to find out the results of those last few tests.

"It is gallstones, I guarantee you," she told him with a grin that he couldn't quite return. "All the symptoms are there."

"What symptoms?" he grumbled. "You have jaundice; that's a pretty broad-"

"There were others," she said, looking off, out the window, as he only made a face over at her, still gripping the steering wheel pretty tightly in his worry. "That I didn't tell you about."

"What are you talking about? There were other-"

"Just...personal things."

"I'm your husband."

"That's kind of why I didn't wanna tell you. We do sort of still have sex."

"Only sort of," he carped with a frown. "Steph-"

"It's not...something you tell a guy that you're-"

"It's not something that 2000s Steph should tell 2000s Paul. It's 2016, babe; so spill."

"You can't even hold my hair back when I puke."

"I can. I just don't."

"Paul-"

"Tell me."

He had to goad it out of her, but she basically told him about just how much her back had been hurting, recently, and how even though she'd stopped working out, she was noticing how much weight she was losing.

"Not that much," he told her as they drove along. "I haven't noticed."

"Well, I have. Not a lot, but… It's just weird."

"That's a sign of gallstones?"

"I don't think so, but-"

"And you're not getting off the disgusting things you didn't wanna tell me."

"If you really wanna hear-"

"I do."

So she told him. And she was right, it was kinda nasty. Just...bathroom things that she'd been experiencing. That he'd use later to bolster his case that he just didn't know everything. If she'd had told him before about her stool or pee being discolored and shit, he'd have told her to get checked out a long time ago.

He wasn't at fault.

Right?

Paul didn't really know a lot about pancreatic cancer. At all. And when they first told them that they believed that was what was wrong with his wife, he got a bit annoyed. Because it didn't make any sense.

It was her liver that was bothering her. Liver. Not her pancreas.

Granted, Paul wasn't really well versed in what exactly each of those things did, but that was besides the point.

He got a crash course though, very quickly. In the days that flew by, he couldn't remember thinking about work, really, once. Just Steph and the tests they were doing to determine the staging of her cancer and, really, he spent most his time on his phone, looking up different things and sifting through all the stories of how sometimes, doctors were wrong and gave the wrong diagnosis and that was just the case.

It had to be.

Steph was only forty.

Pancreatic cancer was for people in, like, their seventies.

So...just no. And there wasn't a really big family history there or anything, so that wasn't it.

They were just wrong.

Regardless, it kind of put a damper on Christmas, to say the least. The kids knew there was something wrong, but not exactly what (expect Rora, who overheard them late one night talking about it, but Paul kind of sat down and told her to keep it to herself and that everything was alright), while everyone else was pretty much in the know. They spent Christmas Eve with Vince, Linda, and Shane's family, where most adult topics were focused in on that while the kids played with the few gifts they'd been able to open that night.

Murphy, while Paul was stretched out on Vince's couch in the living room, trying to numb his mind with It's a Wonderful Life as it played on the television, felt the need to let her father know that the gig was up by crawling onto his chest and staring down at him.

"Daddy," his eight year old said as they only stared at one another, "I know."

Blinking, Paul's mind went one place first and, quickly sitting up, he ran through all the things he could tell her about cancer and sickness that she didn't already know in the basic way just from their foundation.

She spoke before he found the words.

"I know that Santa isn't real and that you've just been lying this whole time."

Oh. He almost fell back to the couch in relief.

Doing some more blinking, Paul reached up to scratch at his head with one hand while the other came to push some of her blonde strands out of her face.

"What makes you say that?" he asked softly as they heard the others, in other parts of the massive house, talking and laughing (though the latter was mostly fro the children). "Murph?"

"Because I'm not a baby." She even frowned at him. "And you shouldn't treat me like one."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm just as old as Rora!"

"I know. I mean, minus two years, but I know."

"You should tell us the same things."

With a nod, he said, "Though there is one thing, Murph."

"What?"

After pressing a kiss to her forehead, he muttered against it, "Rora's known all along that Santa isn't real. Since she was, like, six, so-"

"What?"

"Which means she figured it out before you. Age wise and chronologically. Maybe she's just less of a baby than you."

His chest got shoved and even though he didn't feel like it, he grinned for his daughter because they always made him feel better.

Always.

His parents made him feel a lot better too, when they got there, late Christmas Eve, with his sister and her kids (he knew they were pretty much grown, but he liked calling them kids) arriving the next morning.

"It's inoperable," is what he told them as they sat in his kitchen later, after Vince's place, with Steph and girls in bed and only the three of them up. The word felt heavy on his tongue and still made very little sense to him. At all. "Is what they say. That it's spread into other.. But don't you think they're wrong? I mean, how could it have spread that much, so fast? Without us even knowing? That's...stupid, right?"

But what could they do other than agree with him and pat him on the shoulder and tell him it would be alright?

Honestly, what?

They didn't tell anyone until after Christmas though that they kind of already knew a bit more than they were letting on. As far as staging went. Paul because he was holding out that it wasn't true and that a doctor would be calling them soon to let them know just how untrue it was (the age didn't make sense even though he kind of did find a few cases of it in the forties, how far along it was made more sense, but still no sense to him and a bunch of other stuff that added up, but he refused to accept like how Vince mentioned that there was some history to it, on his side, like three off the top of his head that got it in their sixties) while Stephanie was just trying to keep the holiday fun for their children.

But...they pretty much knew then that it was stage four and that it had spread from the pancreas to the liver and they were dealing more in containment than curing.

Which is just what got him, so fucking much, so fucking often.

If he had just paid attention, even just by a few weeks, then maybe…

Because at some point it had to have been in the other stages. Before she got that bad. Before they noticed. And if he had been able to figure it out, that there was something up, before then, even in stage three, then there would have still been a chance and...and…

And Andre had gotten up, from at his feet, and left, while Paul was staring out at the sky that he didn't find nearly as romantic as Steph would have, the animal only returning when he'd found one of his tennis balls scattered about the property.

Giving up on whining until his father found his mother, the animal decided that it was time to play instead. Until Mommy could be located.

Paul didn't want to though. Declan's coffee was too strong and it was making his stomach sick. Er, well, something was making his stomach sick. Just the thoughts, probably. And he couldn't be sick that day.

It was the 24th after all. Of August. Which meant, of course, that it was Vince's birthday, but more importantly that it was Vaughn's.

The first time they were all together again, since Steph's funeral three weeks ago.

He couldn't lose it already.

Not before the sunrise was finished.

"Come on, buddy." He patted Andre on the head as he got to his feet, leaving his mug outside. "We gotta go make the birthday girl her birthday breakfast."

Which was fine with Andre, as it meant waking the birthday girl and the other girls and children, which would lead, he was hoping to finding someone that would play fetch with him.

Or find his Mommy.

Honestly, Andre was up for either at that point.

Probably five chapters on this one, will suffice. Expect this kind of back and forth story telling of the present, flashback, then present again because it just works well with the flow of this, I think.