Todd ducked into the girls' bedroom and was reminded, with a stab of disappointment, that Starr had stayed out with her cousin Langston. He could have used his Shorty's level head right about now. Hope was sleeping peacefully, at least.

In the boys' bedroom, Sam, too, was asleep. Jack was watching a movie which he hastily shut off when Todd entered the room, as if Todd would have given a shit whether Jack was watching gunplay or porn.

"I have to take your mother to the hospital. Stay with Hope and Sam. If Hope wakes up crying—"

Jack waved Todd off. "I've been dealing with Hope longer than you have. I play her some heavy metal and she shuts up," he said witheringly. "What's wrong with Mom?"

"It might be a miscarriage," Todd said, frighteningly ready to grab Jack by the throat if Jack made this about proof that his parents had had sex. But he couldn't very well lie to Jack, not with everything that had passed between them since the day of Jack's birth. "She's had two before—"

Jack shook his head. "Three."

"Three?"

"There was one before Starr was born when she tricked you into marrying her. There was one where the father was Cole's dad. And then about five years ago…" A shadow passed over Jack's face at the memory. He lowered his voice. "It was awful. They took us out of school to say goodbye to her. They thought she was going to die. They never told me that, somehow I was supposed to be too dumb to realize it. But she went off the roof and then Spencer Truman attacked her in the hospital, and…"

Todd stood mesmerized, waiting for Jack to say more.

"Dad!" Jack snapped. Todd jerked to attention. Jack still didn't call him "Dad" very often; it was usually a matter of life and death when he did. "I've got it. Take care of Mom."

"I love you," said Todd, and he clapped Jack on the shoulder. A shock shot through his hand when he touched his son, as if he was being reminded by fate that he had tempted it. He had pretended that Jack was dead even though he knew what it felt like to lose a baby and he might well be about to find out again.

"Go!" ordered Jack, and he pointed at the door. "And text me," he added, just before Todd got Blair out of their suite.


Blair didn't like to cry, but this time she gave up the fight before she and Todd even reached the hospital. She cried with each wave of cramps as she thought of her three dead boys and the one who was soon to join them. She cried as she tried to count the glasses of wine and cups of coffee that she wouldn't have inflicted on her youngest son if she had admitted to herself that she was showing signs of pregnancy.

By the time she stumbled into a hospital gown—clean and folded, but well used and fraying at the ties—her cheeks were sticky and her eyes were sore.

She couldn't choke out more than a few words to the nurse who got her situated or the doctor who examined her. She couldn't even answer Todd, who firmly announced that he was her husband and no he would not wait outside. She felt Todd's presence all around her. An hour ago, that had been bliss. Now it was a string of bad memories as he told her that their first baby was dead. And that Brendan was dead. And that Jack was dead.

"She is pregnant?" Todd asked more than once, disbelieving and frantic.

"She is," the nurse told him every time, and Blair turned her head away because she didn't want to watch the nurse commiserating with Todd over how a woman of Blair's age could possibly have been stupid enough not to prevent this or acknowledge what was happening to her body.

Several times, the doctor and nurse asked her to look at something. She refused. She did not want to see.

She had never been conscious for any of her miscarriages; she had merely woken up to be told that Todd Junior or Brendan or Jeff was gone. Slowly she came to realize that miscarriage, when not accompanied by a car accident or a trip off the roof, was not unpleasant. The cramps faded to nothing and warmth spread through her.

"Is it over?" she asked at last. She did think it could possibly be. There was not enough blood; there was not enough pain.

"I think you're through the worst of it, Blair." The doctor beamed at her like they were old friends, and like Blair's soaked, reddened face was pretty to her. "We'll move you upstairs and keep you for the rest of the night just in case. And you will go see your own doctor just as soon as you get home."

"Blair, look." She suddenly became aware that Todd had been stroking her hair. With his other hand, he put a printout of a sonogram under her nose. "Hands, feet, fingers, toes," he told her excitedly. "We couldn't see anything this detailed when you were three months pregnant with Starr."

"This technology gets better and better all the time," the nurse agreed. "People who had a baby just a few years ago are surprised when they come back."

"Starr turned twenty this month," Todd said proudly. "It's been a while."

Blair gingerly touched her belly with her fingertips, truly registering for the first time that it had been coated with gel and then patted dry. They had done the ultrasound while her mind had been elsewhere. "He's still there? Still alive?" she asked.

"He's doing very well," the doctor said gently. "We can't tell for sure that he's a he just yet."

"He is," Blair said weakly. They always were.

"She's never wrong," Todd bragged. "She knew Starr was a girl way before the tests came back. Just said she had a feeling."

Blair closed her eyes against Todd's joy. She wondered how Todd could be so naïve as not to realize that they were taking this little boy home to die inside of her like the others had.


When Blair awoke, she was in a different room and Cassie and Kelly were sitting at her bedside.

"Blair is so lucky," Kelly was pouting. "She always has been. She's always been able to get pregnant without even trying, and at her age?"

"You're not that young yourself," Cassie told her.

"I know that! Zane was my one and only shot, and even he was a miracle. It was a miracle I got pregnant at all, and then a miracle that he survived. It's harder at thirty than at twenty-five, and once you hit thirty-five…" Kelly made a crash and burn sound. "Blair's over forty!"

"I don't think it's a record or anything."

"She wasn't using fertility drugs," Kelly rambled on. "She wasn't even trying! All Todd has to do is look at her!"

"So you said, Kelly."

"Aren't you a little jealous? When you lost your William, you went completely crazy, right? And you tried everything to have another baby and you couldn't."

"I know that. I was there."

"It was like that for me, too, when I lost Kevin's son. I was so desperate I stole another woman's baby. And Blair just—"

"I'm in the room, Kelly," Blair put in at last, when she thought that the sound of her younger cousin's voice might lead her to puncture her own eardrums.

"Blair!" Cassie and Kelly jumped to be closer to her.

"Where's Todd?" Blair asked Cassie. She was surprised that he had left. Either she had slept longer than she'd thought, or he and Dorian had killed each other.

"He's here. I'll go get him," said Cassie.

"No!" Blair's heart began to pound. The last thing she wanted to do was see Todd's inexplicably happy face. He'd nearly been jumping up and down when the doctor had told them that baby appeared to be doing well.

"Okay, I won't." Cassie eyed Blair with concern and gave her arm a squeeze. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." Cassie jerked her head at Kelly to indicate that she should leave. Kelly obeyed. "What's wrong, Honey?" Cassie asked softly. "Did Todd do something?"

"No. Todd's wonderful. He's great with the kids, he's romantic with me, he's getting used to having his life back." She choked on her next words. "He's happy. He wants this baby."

"And you don't?"

"I know he's not going to live. I can't let myself get attached to him, but I don't know how to stop Todd."

On cue, Dorian banged into the room. "Stop Todd from doing what?" she asked. "I promise you, Blair, we can stop Todd from doing it. I'm so thrilled. Two wonderful things happened today- another Cramer baby, and you've finally seen the light about Todd."

Cassie made a slashing gesture across her throat. The threat looked so ridiculous coming from her gentle cousin, and Dorian's loathing for Todd was so predictable, that Blair laughed. The laugh felt out of place in her grief-wracked body.

"Well, what has Todd done?" Dorian asked, her eyes darting from Blair to Cassie. "All Kelly said was that I was needed in here."

"Todd has not done anything," Cassie explained for Blair, who had lain back and closed her eyes again. "Blair is concerned that she will lose this baby and that that loss will hurt Todd."

Dorian's hands fluttered simultaneously to Blair's head, abdomen, and medical chart. "Are you in pain again, Blair? The doctors assured me that you were asymptomatic, and I reviewed the test results myself. Everything looks regular. Of course it's unfortunate that you didn't start on prenatal vitamins sooner, and you'll need to eat better and sleep more, but this shows every sign of being a healthy pregnancy. Everything's perfect except the father."

"I've lost three babies, Dorian. Even Starr and Jack were premature," Blair said without opening her eyes. No one but her seemed to remember this.

"You lost three pregnancies as a result of severe physical trauma. No one is going to throw you off a roof this time."

"I'm a lot older now. I'm a grandmother. Kelly is right. I'm too old to do this."

Dorian inhaled sharply. "Cassie, go out and send Adriana in, please."

Cassie exchanged a look with her mother and did as she asked. A moment later, Adriana appeared. She offered a perfunctory get-well wish to Blair and plastered herself as far away from Blair's bed as possible.

"Blair, open your eyes," Dorian ordered in a tone that no one in her right mind would ignore. "Open your eyes and take a good look at Adriana, please. Adriana." Dorian made a twirling gesture; Adriana spun like a model on a runway. "Good. I do like that color on you," Dorian added parenthetically. "Isn't that a good color on Adriana, Blair?"

"Dandy," muttered Blair sarcastically.

"You will notice that Adriana is beautiful and perfect in every way, inside and out, just like all of my other girls. And you will recall that Adriana was born after my first grandchild and that I was perhaps not in my twenties or my thirties at the time."

A flutter of hope rose up in Blair's chest. She did her best to stop it. For her own good, her expectations needed to stay low.

"You know," Dorian continued conversationally, "I never planned for Cassie. I thought I was too young. If terminating a pregnancy had been a realistic option at the time, I might have done it. I never planned for you either, as you well know." Blair couldn't quite bring herself to smile. "You stormed into my life with no warning whatsoever. And then Kelly, Melinda hardly asked my permission or told me how Kelly came to be. I certainly did not plan to have a child with Carlotta Vega's crimelord brother." She nodded at Adriana. Adriana shrugged. "You were there, Blair, when Langston walked into La Boulaie with her skull necklaces and blue streaks in her hair and her stories about her parents who were mysteriously out of town. I still knew right away that we had a special connection. Every one of you was a happy accident and I can't stand the thought of a life without all of you."

Blair did her best not to see Dorian's point. Dorian wasn't having it.

"You know how that is," Dorian continued. "Starr, you tried for. Jack, too. But you certainly didn't expect to acquire Sam the way you did, or dream of becoming a grandmother at forty. And now you wouldn't trade Sam or Hope for anything, just like you won't let fear stop you from embracing this new life the way he or she needs you to."

"Of course not," Blair said numbly. She couldn't remain detached. It wasn't good for the life growing inside of her.

Dorian cast an admiring look at Adriana. "Even though I knew I would have to give Adriana up for her own good, being pregnant with her was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I knew what to expect. I knew what was important. I wasn't a young woman afraid that motherhood would keep me from making my mark on the world. I let myself enjoy the bliss, and enjoy loving her while she was with me. It wasn't the same frantic, nerve-wracking experience it was with Cassie. Pregnancy mixed with wisdom?" Dorian smiled again at Adriana, and then at Blair. "It's magnificent."

Blair decided to be open to the possibility.