A/N: warnings/pertinent info in prologue. Thanks for reading and reviewing! :-)


Part 6

When morning comes to the Parker-Nichols house, the sun is shining brightly. It is a beautiful day to pretend that tragedy did not strike the day before. But they will not pretend there; they will tiptoe around and over eggshells.

Drake's already awake, eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table, when Josh sneaks into the house through the backdoor.

"Hey."

"Hey. Are mom and dad up?"

Drake shrugs. "They haven't come down." He chews a mouthful of cereal. "I kind of told Megan about what happened. She kept asking."

"Okay. I don't care if Megan knows; it's not like she's going to go around telling everybody."

"Yeah, but, what if she wants to talk to you about it?"

"I want to talk about it. I don't want to keep it all inside," Josh says with a shake of his head, sitting across from his brother.

"You and Mindy didn't talk last night?"

Josh deflates even more than he already is. "She doesn't want to talk about it. She's not ready to."

"Are you back together?"

"No."

Drake raises an eyebrow. "But you spent the night with her?"

"Yeah. We didn't do anything. We didn't even really talk."

"I'm sorry, man." He is. Drake's sorry that he and his mom saw what they did and he's sorry that Josh is feeling so rotten. He's even kind of sorry for Mindy. He's sorry for all of them because there is a heaviness, a cloud of sorrow that has descended upon his family. He doesn't think that it will last long but he hates that it's there. He hates that something that was so small and barely existed is making them so sad.

Josh is growing tired of the word "sorry." It's a good thing that Mindy hadn't been further along and that more people didn't know because then it's all that he would hear for days from everybody.

Further along.

It's painful enough since he didn't even know that she was pregnant and she could only have been just over a month along. A tiny selfish part of him wishes that he still didn't know. That Mindy had not been at his house when it happened, that she had been at home and that it was a secret that only she and her parents knew, one that she would keep from him until a future date. If he didn't know, it might be easier for him to accept the break-up. She would have made up an excuse that he would have been forced to accept and then she would have let their friendship die a slow death; all the while, he would have been oblivious.

Josh would much rather have preferred the heartache and pain of just a break-up as opposed to the amplified emotions that he's feeling now. And the thoughts. The "what-ifs" have not even begun to start but he can sense them on the corners of his mind, creeping in.

He can try to give Mindy some time and space if that's what she needs until she's ready; it's going to be difficult for him when all he wants is to be with her through this. He is not just going to give up. This isn't going to be the end of them. It's not fair.

None of it is fair.

"Josh?" Drake is looking at him funny. He blinks a couple of times. "You zoned out there. You okay?"

"I was just thinking."

Drake doesn't ask what about because he's pretty sure that Josh was thinking about Mindy and the baby. It'd be weird if Josh wasn't thinking about that, about them. It hasn't been long enough that Josh's mind should be filled with thoughts of other things. Drake wants to tell Josh that he'll get over it and he'll get over Mindy, sooner than he thinks, sooner than he wants to, and that he will feel so much better when he does because it will probably be for the best. He's not going to say any of that to Josh. Not yet. Josh would not understand; it would be cruel for Drake to say these things because it is too soon (and maybe because there is a chance that he is wrong). He's not happy about what happened but he's trying to find the good in it.

"What are you doing up so early?"

"I couldn't sleep."

Josh doesn't have to ask why Drake couldn't sleep. He's almost positive that the only reason he got any sleep last night was because he was with Mindy and in their mourning, they had found comfort and peace with one another. Which only proves that they need to be together right now; maybe not forever, but right now they need each other. He knows that he needs her and he refuses to believe that she doesn't need him right now. They need each other because no one else knows how they feel.

"I thought I was going to have nightmares," Drake says as his eyes flicker to the foyer, "but instead I just couldn't sleep."

"Yeah." His tone is full of understanding.

The thought comes unbidden: He and Mindy would have had many sleepless nights with a newborn.