"Jude." Tommy's voice sounded broken and exhausted, pleading. "Just eat something, okay? You need to eat something." The sun was setting, and he hadn't seen Jude eat more than a few small bites for almost three days now. The last time had been after the funeral. Those three days had been a blur, and yet it seemed like an eternity since he'd held Jude's hand while sitting in a church pew wondering how this could possibly be happening.

His voice sounded to Jude like it was coming from very far away, but she nodded numbly and picked up her fork, choking down a few cold bites of something she could barely taste. After a moment, though, the tears that felt like they were always in her eyes these days started up again. She tried to stop the flood, but couldn't. She set down the fork and put her head in her hands, crying softly.

Tommy let out a groan. "Jude, come on. Please don't do this to me."

Jude looked up at him in surprise, looking betrayed. "Don't do this to you?" she hissed, anger cutting through the fog of grief.

He sighed. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I'm not doing this to you! This isn't about you, Tommy!" The tears were coming faster now, hot on her cheeks. She stood up, pushing back from the table. He got up, too. "I'm not… Tommy, I can't stop. I can't do anything. I can't… She's…"

Tommy pulled her into his arms, silently. She struggled a little, but he held her tight, and eventually she relaxed into his embrace. She slid her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shoulder, letting a loud sob tear through her. He tried his best to comfort her. "Shh, Jude. It's okay. I'm sorry."

"I can't," Jude sobbed again.

"I know." Tommy's voice cracked, and he finally allowed his own tears to resurface and spill into her hair. "Shh, I get it."

"I can't eat, I can't–"

"I know, Jude. I know." He wanted to find some other words of comfort, as much for himself as for Jude, but he couldn't, so he just kept whispering "I know" and crying softly.

"I'm sorry," she said after a while, as her sobs began to subside. She pulled back far enough to look at him, and guilt rushed through her at the tears on his face. "I know you're going through all of it too. I'm sorry I can't get it together. You shouldn't have to take care of me. I'm so sorry." She started to cry harder again and a sob ripped through the second apology.

"Hey." He reached a hand up to brush some of the tears from her cheeks. "It's okay. I'm here for you, alright?"

"You need someone to be there for you too, and I'm such a mess I can't even–"

"Shh, hey. You are here for me. We're here for each other. You and me. We'll get through it." He pulled her tight against him and buried his face in her hair again. "We'll get through this, okay? I love you." Jude had started to shake, and Tommy was practically holding her up, so he gently shifted so her arm was around his shoulders and half-led her to the bedroom where they held each other through a night of fitful sleep.

A/N: So… I kind of did a bad thing. Oops. I swear I didn't mean to write this sequel until I was already in too deep to stop.

In the summer of 2013, a few months after I finished publishing Lost and Found, a little scrap of a scene between Jude and Tommy popped into my head. (It's in a few chapters, I'll let you know which scene that is when it happens, if you're curious.) It came out of nowhere, and I didn't exactly know what to do with it, but it came with a thought that intrigued me. How would Tommy and Jude react, what does it do to their dynamic, if I kill off the baby?

My first reaction was "no no no, you can't do that, that's horrible," and then I thought "well… it would be an interesting character exercise, though." I planned to write a few disconnected scenes for myself, maybe publish them as extras at the most. At this point, I had already written that Toast extra (which this story contradicts), and I had a whole canon in my head of Tommy and Jude and their daughter (Caroline) living happily ever after. I had written about 5,000 words of an unfinished rambling epilogue to Lost and Found set a few years later, in that happily ever after.

One night in late August of that year, I stayed up all night writing what became these first few chapters. As more and more of the story took shape, I thought "okay, maybe this is becoming more of a short story, maybe a character exercise that's five or six chapters long, spanning the year or so after the death of the baby, showing Tommy and Jude putting their lives back together." I wasn't planning to consider it a sequel, wasn't planning to consider it canon with Happy Birthday, wasn't really planning for it to have very detailed of a plot. I was over 10,000 words into this story, but I was still planning to somehow make a happy ending epilogue of Lost and Found be the real canon.

When I started college a few weeks later, I didn't work on this story (or any fanfic, really) at all for a few months. I took second semester of that year off for health reasons, and that's when I came back to this. Suddenly (in what ended up being chapter 8ish) I realized that this story had a plot. A real and complex one. This wasn't just an interesting character exercise, this was a full sequel.

Over the past couple years this story has taken shape into something that's quite a bit different than anything I'd written before it. Even though it is a sequel to Happy Birthday and Lost and Found, it's quite a bit different than both stories (keep in mind, I started HB when I was 14, and L&F when I was 17. A lot of time has passed since.) It is long, over 110,000 words, 55 chapters. It was very hard to write, and I imagine there will be places where it will be very hard to read, especially because I know quite a few of the people who read my stories have children. (I myself do not have kids, and I'm not really sure I could've brought myself to write this if I did.)

Be forewarned: it's dark, it's angst, it's really really sad in a lot of places. I know a lot of people read fanfiction looking for quick resolutions to simple conflict followed by chapters of fluff. That's all well and good, but if that's what you want, this will probably not be the story for you. I put these characters through hell in more ways than one. But honestly, in my (totally not objective) opinion, I think it's also good. It's been a marathon to write, but I'm proud of it, so I hope you all will bear with me and read it. But don't say I didn't warn you.

So yes, I killed the baby, but please forgive me anyway. For me, at least, the story was worth it in the end.

Circumstances permitting, updates will be Wednesdays and Saturdays, but I'll post the second chapter now.