There's not much Caputo and Fig fic out there, and I LOVED their development in season 6, so I decided to create some. There is some language, but nothing worse than you'd hear in the show. Review and let me know if I should continue!

By his count, it was the fifth morning in a row that Joe Caputo had awoken to the sound of Natalie Figueroa throwing up in his bathroom. At first, he'd ignored it. He knew about her struggles with anorexia and bulimia. It wasn't something she ever wanted to discuss, and as Joe enjoyed keeping his head on his body, he'd learned to leave it alone.

He started to realize that it didn't add up. It wasn't as though 7 a.m. was primetime for a binge and purge fest. He'd noticed during their sex sessions that her tits had felt larger and more swollen in his hands, and that she had yelped painfully once when he grabbed them the way he usually did.

And, she'd been more of a bitch than ever, if that was even possible.

He rose from his bed that she'd left him alone in, pulled on his boxers, and headed toward the bathroom. When he peered in, he saw Natalie sitting against the wall beside the toilet with her knees pulled to her chest. Her face was pale with a sweat-covered forehead, and she had rested the back of her head on the wall with her eyes closed. Joe was caught off guard by how frail she looked sitting there, clad only in one of his Side Boob shirts that was huge on her waifish body.

"Something you want to tell me, Natalie?" Joe asked, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom with his arms crossed.

"Why ask the question if you know the answer?" Natalie quipped without bothering to open her eyes.

Joe was quiet as he took a washcloth from the linen closet. He ran it under cool water from the faucet, squeezed the excess water out, and joined Natalie in the floor. He attempted to dab at her forehead before she grabbed the washcloth from his hands and began doing it herself.

"When did it happen?" Joe asked quietly, sliding down the wall to join her on the floor.

"I'd say it was when we fucked in the coat room during that PolyCon bullshit. We didn't have a condom, you said you'd pull out in time." Natalie looked over at him and glared. "I'm not sure why I believed that from you. I never even bought it when guys said that in high school."

"You were too turned on by the primal sight of blood all over my shirt." Joe smirked.

He remembered Natalie cleaning the blood from his nose at the party. After, he'd pulled her to him, yanked her new jacket off (tearing it, slightly, which pissed her off and made the sex even better), and hiked up her skirt to fuck her. After the devastation of the trial, he couldn't have cared less about a condom. He just wanted to feel something.

"Ugh, that nose blood… Don't make me puke again." Natalie moaned, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

"Or turned on by the idea of fucking with your husband and Linda just feet away?"

"That's more likely. I do hate that bitch." Natalie wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Both of them, actually."

"So, what's that make you then? 4 or 5 weeks?" Joe guessed.

"7." Natalie replied, resting her forehead on her knees.

His eyebrows shot up. "Damn, it's been that long?"

"You don't seem very surprised about… This." Natalie gestured vaguely at her abdomen.

"I had a couple of days before I confronted you to think about it. I was hoping you'd tell me yourself…" Joe was quiet for a moment. "Were you ever planning on telling me?"

Natalie sighed. "My first appointment is next week. I was going to tell you after that. I was sort of in denial about it myself, which is crazy considering I've been puking my guts out – involuntarily for a change – every morning… And noon and night. Calling it 'morning sickness' is really a fucking cosmic joke, you know."

"So I've heard."

Natalie ran one hand absently through her hair. "What do we do now?"

"It's your body." Joe said diplomatically. "It's your choice."

"Don't give me that shit, Joe!" Natalie stood up angrily, towering over him as he remained on the floor. "I'm trying to have a conversation with you here, and I don't need your generic pseudo-feminist…"

Natalie was interrupted as her face contorted and her hand covered her mouth. Joe quickly lunged forward and swept Natalie's curls away from her face just in time for her to be sick again. He held her hair back with one hand and used the other to rub her back gently as she continued to throw up into his toilet.

"Your lovechild would have to be an asshole." Natalie muttered, slumping back against the wall next to him when she'd finished.

"Love?" The corners of Joe's mouth twitched in amusement.

"Fuckchild. Bastard." Natalie quickly corrected herself. "Whatever you want to call it."

Joe looped an arm around Natalie's shoulders and drew her toward him. He felt Natalie's slender body stiffen beneath his touch briefly before she finally relaxed against him and laid her head against his chest. It had taken Natalie time to warm up to any real physical affection from Joe. When they were fuckbuddies, it was easy; he usually did her behind so they didn't have to look at each other. It's easier to have hate sex that way. It was only in the more recent months that she'd become his "girlfriend" that she'd really allowed him to touch and hold her affectionately, but she still kept plenty of guards in place.

"Did you…" Natalie absently picked at the cuticle of one of her deep red nails. "Ever want to be a father?"

"I was… Sort of… For a while. My girlfriend had a baby with my bandmate. It's… Complicated." Joe didn't feel like rehashing the painful history in that moment on his bathroom floor, which he realized could use a cleaning.

"I wanted a baby at one point, you know… It just never happened." Natalie sighed. "Not that there was much trying after I found out my husband was gay."

"That would be a boner killer… Or uh…" Joe scratched his head. "Whatever it is for women."

"How did our lives get so fucked up?"

"Maybe it's not fucked up. Maybe this was supposed to happen." Joe said, answered by a snort from Natalie.

Her husband, Jason, was aware that she had been shacking up with Joe, practically living with him, but they never discussed it – just like they never discussed Jason's relationship with Gavin. Her enormous diamond engagement ring had unceremoniously found its way off her finger and into their safety deposit box at the bank. Their marriage was a piece of paper, existing only for the sake of appearances and political gain. Joe had stopped calling her "Fig," not wanting to use a nickname that constantly reminded him that she was still tied to another man.

"I'm still married, Joe. Technically. Legally. This isn't exactly a fairy tale."

"Doesn't mean it can't have a happily ever after, Nat."

Natalie scoffed. "You're such a hopeless romantic. It's pathetic really."

Joe placed a finger under her chin and tilted her head up, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "You know I care about you, Nat. Whether you like it or not."

"I… Care about you, too." Natalie said, looking back into his eyes. "But we're not good people, Joe."

"We aren't the worst people." Joe pointed out. "We've worked in corrections long enough to know that."

"I don't know what kind of parents we'd be. The majority of our relationship has been toxic." Natalie argued.

"It's been better. It's been great, actually. We go on dates. We kiss. We make each other laugh. We cook. Well, I cook and you don't eat it, but…" Joe trailed off. "Don't you think it's worth a shot? Something that could finally make us happy? Really, truly, happy?"

"Yes… I do." Natalie exhaled slowly, then looked at him thoughtfully. "You're happy?"

"Completely fucking terrified." Joe chuckled lightly. "But also happy. You?"

Natalie finally cracked a smile. "Same."

Joe released Natalie from his embrace and stood. He extended his hand down to her on the floor. She placed her hand in his and he gently helped her to her feet, wrapping his other arm around her waist for more stability when she stumbled.

"So… We figure this out together?" Joe asked, giving her hand a light squeeze.

"Together." Natalie repeated.