A/N thanks again for the reviews and alerts...over 15 people following this, wow!


Sadie gave her the news, and calmly explained what she could do and how they could proceed. According to the test, she still had few years left to try to get pregnant on her own before losing all of her eggs, and then there were drugs, she explained, and she could also try improving her diet. Sugar was to become her enemy number one, for example. And that was the only thing Jess clearly heard. Like her life wasn't bad enough. 30, single, living with 3 boys, minimum salary, almost zero chances of getting pregnant and now she had to give up on sugar too. No chocolate, no cookies, no ice cream. Bye, bye pies. Say goodbye to your handmade cupcakes, Jessica.

Other than that... she felt numb. Void.

It was a new sensation, different from anything she had ever felt before. She felt... she guessed it was some kind of twisted betrayal, but she wasn't sure. All she could see was the nothingness, the void. CeCe and Sadie were there, and yet it was like she was all alone, lost in the woods like Little Red Hood or Snow White.

She left her chair in complete silence, and literally turned up on her heels and left the room, without acknowledging her friends' plea, nor listening to the receptionist asking her from afar if she was interested in booking another appointment.

No. Pregnant ladies book appointments. And I'll never carry a child of my own, she wanted to scream, but she didn't. The words died in her throat, and it was like someone had robbed her of her own voice.

A psychologist probably would have said that she didn't want to admit the truth because, otherwise, it would have been real. And she wasn't ready yet to acknowledge such a fact, despite knowing that it was exactly what Sadie had stated.

Besides... as nice as that receptionist was, she couldn't talk with her. This was personal, and if Jessica Day was going to have a nervous breakdown... well, she wasn't going to do it in public. Not this time. Not like this.

And she just... she couldn't stomach facing the very pregnant Sadie, or CeCe, the Queen of the Eggs.

What she needed right now was something the two women couldn't provide, not after such a shocking news. She needed time, not on her own, but away from them. For a short while, at least. She needed to get back in some kind of control of her emotions - not her specialty, but she had seen better days- and she needed to be reasonable about this whole (lack of) baby thing.

And what she needed right now was Nick's grumpiness and his negativity towards all things life; it was Schmidt and his golden boy heart well hidden by his douchebag attitude and Winston being simply himself, the one who could take charge when needed.

Right now Jessica Day didn't need her girlfriends, but her guys.

The loft was empty when she came back home, and of that, she was glad. She prepared a speech, and, even a song and one of her little dances, just in case (mostly because she still wanted for them to see her as Jess, and, ehy, guess what? I'll never have a baby but it's no big deal!), but deep down, she was simply grateful to be alone with her pain for just a bit longer.

She sat on a stool, alone with the silence, busy caressing her belly: her uterus was as empty as her life was going to be. She was going to be an old, unmarried woman, busy raising cats and looking crazier than she normally did nowadays. Or maybe she was going to end up as she was almost positive Nick would eventually: an old scary person, full of regrets and hate, screaming at the kids running in front of her yard.

Who was going to marry a 30 something who couldn't have any children? No one, that was who. Finding out after the marriage was one thing, but before? It was just a no-no. Men got married to start a family, not to see if they'll be able to adopt one day because their wife can't create life like any other woman did.

Damn the test. It was all the test's fault. And Sadie's because she had told her of the test. And it's her own fault because she had been the one talking CeCe into taking it in the first damn place. 12 hours before she had been fine, just a bit freaked out. 3 days before she had been even better, when she didn't know a thing about early menopause and reduction of the 90% of eggs before the age of 30 and so on. Now, her life was a living hell.

She scanned the room looking for something to do, and her eyes fell on the black, full sack of garbage, the same garbage she had "produced" early that day. She moved toward it like on autopilot, and took everything out, sorting the contents. She didn't mind getting rid of the cereals and the sauces, they weren't unhealthy just for a baby but for the people of 4-D too, but she had to admit that Nick was right. A micro-wave oven was what made burritos so good, and now that there was no issue of fertility, she could come back to few of her old habits.

Nick arrived shortly after she had put the piece of furniture back where it used to belong, but he didn't seem surprised. He grinned, of that grin she loved so much... well, at least, that she liked so much. Love was too much of a strong word, but...well, she did feel something weird. But Nick was her friend first, and her roommate. And she (kind of) loved him and the guys, and they loved her back. Things were pretty perfect- until a few hours before, at least- and she had promised herself that she wasn't going to ruin it for... for Nick. She knew that she wanted him, that he was the kind of guy she liked to date. She also knew that they had that connection, that spark (that lacked with both Russell and Paul) and that they cared about each other (something that she didn't have with Sam, who was interested in sex, her body and sex again). But she didn't know if this, and the knowledge that Nick felt the same in some way, was enough to risk it all. She was happy there, in the loft, with the guys and CeCe coming over every now and then, as happy as she hadn't been in a while (especially since she moved in with Spence. She hadn't been happy with him, which was why she had hoped that spicing up their sex life could...help).

"What, we aren't worried any longer about our children's health?" He asked her casually, jokingly (and she realized that it was an innocent joke for him, and it just wasn't his fault, but she really couldn't help it) and just like that, she started crying like she hadn't in a long time. It wasn't a "let's listen to time of our life" or "do you want to watch Dirty Dancing with me 12 times a day?" kind of cry. It was a lot worse. It was deep and real, and it made her wish to just run into her room and hide under her covers to never be seen again. She felt vain, childish and stupid, because she had cried for senseless things, and this was so important, that was something worth crying over. She wondered if that was the reason she couldn't feel her tears. Maybe she had cried too much in the past and now she had run out of them?

She realized in the back of her mind that she was having an attack of some kind- panic? Nervous? Hysteric? - but she seemed unable to stop it and came back to reality. Maybe she didn't want to. Reality wasn't good, and Nick was right: life sucked big time.

(He should have been right about the whole baby making thing, not this, never, ever this!)

She felt his arms around her, his warmth invading her whole being, his breathing soothing on her skin, but she didn't want it. She didn't need any of this. She hit, and hit and hit him some more, his chest and his shoulders, with closed fists, she tried to break free, unable to control herself, but he didn't want to have any of that. He kept holding her, caressing her skin, her face, her hair despite the fact that yes, she was hurting him. But he wasn't stupid. He knew Jess. She would never hurt him. Not if she wasn't hurting ten times more inside.

Schmidt and Winston tried to grab her for the shoulders, to separate them, but they soon desisted (when did they arrived? Was that smell actually sweat?), they were holding each other too strongly, like for dear life, like desperately, almost clinging.

Soon she found herself surrounded by what her mother used to call a hug-ball, but this simple thing didn't bring a smile to her as it would have done in the past. Because she wasn't going to have a little child of her own to teach such a thing to, her mother wasn't going to be a grandma and she was going to be alone and sad until her last breath.

What felt like hours later, she fell asleep on the couch, calmed down but still sobbing. Nick was at her right, still holding and caressing her, Schmidt at her left, his head on her shoulder, and Winston sat on the coffee table, caressing her knee.

The guys were all she needed right now. Tomorrow, she was going to think about the rest. But right now, the only thing that mattered was that they were going to be there for her, no matter what.

Her guys.