"They should be back soon."

"Okay."

Lucy looked away from the window to study Sting. He lay curled up in bed, like he had the past two days, staring blankly at his wall. She had been the one tasked with bringing him the news that they'd learned what became of Rogue, and were going to rescue him. Since he dark guild that had captured him planned on using him for ransom, it was assumed he would be in, if not good condition, then good enough that he could recover.

It was supposed to be good news, but he'd fallen silent when she told him. After a few minutes of her prodding, he'd risen and excused himself to bed, and that was it. She hadn't seen him step out into the hall since. He only got out of bed when he absolutely had to, and while she'd tried to bribe him with food, even reminded him that his baby was counting on him to keep it fed, he hadn't budged. Eventually, rather than her persuading Sting to get out of bed, Lector persuaded her to bring food to him.

"Do you want to wash up? Rogue's going to worry about you if he comes home and you look like you haven't taken care of yourself."

She hoped that was tactful enough, saying he only looked like he'd given up on self-care.

Sting glanced up at her, and considered telling her that Rogue would worry no matter what, but it didn't seem worth the effort.

"Well… I guess I know you've had lunch… Should I go get Frosch?"

Sting didn't respond.

"Alright then. I'll be back in a little bit. Oh! I'll take Alex with me… in case she needs anything…" Lucy hesitated, waiting for Sting to reply, and when he didn't, added, "You take care."

Sting waited until she had left before pushing himself upright, then decided he'd been rather stay horizontal. He flopped back over and shut his eyes, trying to block out thoughts of what had happened for Frosch and Rogue and how he hadn't been able to do anything. How everyone had gone out of their way to make sure he couldn't even try to help. That he'd been too stunned with that revelation to even take care of Alex only made it worse.

Rogue was right. This whole thing was a bad idea.

Closing his eyes wasn't working, so Sting tried to pull the covers over his head and block out all sounds too. Even when Lector shook him, he refused to acknowledge anything going on around him.

Then he felt the blankets roll back and arms wrap around him, and someone's lips pressed against his cheek. Curious, Sting let his consciousness surface again to see what had happened.

"Welcome back to the world of the living," Rogue said. "Lector thought you went catatonic."

Sting's throat constricted so tightly that when he tried to respond, all he could get out was a small, choked noise before bursting into tears.

"W-whoa! Sting? Is everything alright."

Sting shook his head, but his throat still felt tight, and there was no way he could manage to say everything that was wrong. He settled for explaining one problem. The one that took the fewest words.

"I thought I'd lost you."

Rogue smiled gently, and pulled Sting up into a sitting position. "I'm here now. I'm not weak, you know. It would take more than something like that to do me in."

But whatever that was that the dark guild had put Rogue through, Sting could see that it hadn't been pleasant. His torso was heavily bandaged, and his arm was in a splint. Beneath the wrapping on Rogue's thigh, he thought he saw the tip of a burn mark.

"Does Alex know you're back yet?"

Rogue looked away. For a second, Sting thought it was a sign of guilt. That he wasn't the only one who had failed to address their daughter's needs. Then he realized Rogue wasn't looking away so much as looking at his leg. His leg which a little toddler was clinging too.

"I think she's determined to never let me leave again."

"Well… it would be a bad idea to go on another job with her hugging you like that the whole time."

"She has to sleep eventually."

"So the plan is now to bail when our daughter passes out form exhaustion. Do you ever think we might be bad parents?"

Rogue, who had yet to hear anything about Sting's breakdown or Alex and Frosch ending up in the care of other guild members, laughed.

"You should wash up," Rogue told him. "Lucy says you haven't felt well the past couple days, but I'm told you've been to the guild often enough that Wendy has helped with your injuries… right?"

Sting nodded.

"So was it morning sickness?"

"No."

Rogue's expression softened. "Were you worried for me?"

"Yeah." He'd been worried sick about Rogue. And disgusted with himself.

"Well, I'm back now, so you don't have an excuse to stop taking care of yourself anymore. I can draw up a bath for you, if you need a minute to get ready. You haven't had much to eat lately, have you? I'll make something special for you. For both of us. I'd like to celebrate being back."

"You hate cooking."

"But I like pie, and the guild doesn't serve any."

That was hard logic to argue with. Sting pushed himself up and out of bed, feeling everything creak after several days of disuse, and told Rogue, "Apple, please."

"Apple season isn't for half a year. Strawberry."

"We can't do apples?"

"Well, technically I didn't finish that job, so I wasn't paid. And any apples we bought now wouldn't be fresh anyway." Rogue gave his leg a test wiggle, found Alex still clinging to it despite having dozed off, and ruffled her hair. "Strawberry pie is still good. I'll make enough for all five of…" He froze, realizing something was horribly amiss. "Where's Frosch? I-I was told Natsu found her a few days before me. Is she alright?"

"Wendy took care of her."

"Oh." Rogue visibly relaxed. "I'll have to thank Wendy for that when I pick her up. I don't suppose you would mind if the pie came a little later in the day so I could do that…?"

"Go ahead."

Rogue waited only long enough to pick Alex up in his arms—since it didn't seem like she was going to stop holding onto him unless he held onto her—and took off as fast as he could to retrieve his darling cat. Sting might have felt abandoned, if he didn't know that he would do the same for Lector. Assuming he was capable of moving that fast to go and make sure Lector was safe and sound. Hell, even if he was, someone would probably grab him and hold him down so he couldn't hurt himself, or refuse to tell him where Lector was so he wouldn't be tempted to go at all.

He stopped on the way to the tub to examine himself in the mirror, and scowled at his stomach.

"This is your fault."

The baby kicked in response.

While trying to get pregnant, Sting had imagined that every little motion from the baby would be taken as an affectionate gesture. He'd fantasized about rubbing a hand lovingly over his stomach and feeling the baby reach out and place its own hand where his was.

Now that he was actually pregnant, Sting took it as a sign that the baby was fighting him for disliking it.

That idea disturbed him. Had Rogue ever said he outright disliked Alex? He'd made it no secret that he disliked being pregnant, to put it mildly, but Sting had no recollection of his expressing negative feelings for the child he was pregnant with.

He needed to find someone else to blame for his predicament. Not himself. He already did enough feeling lousy about himself as of late. Not Rogue either. Rogue had been against him having a baby for fear of everything that had gone wrong. He couldn't even really blame the truck driver who had struck him and given him the injuries that were acting up in the first place. That man had lost control of his vehicle through no fault of his own (unless you wanted to count him choosing to enter a demolition derby in the first place) and even then, Sting had deliberately run in front of it. It also wasn't really Rogue's fault that Sting had needed to run in front of the truck to throw him to safety, since he had been pushed onto the track.

That left… well, Sting didn't know who'd pushed Rogue. Rogue, when recounting the incident, wasn't even sure how deliberate the push had been. So that left the people Rogue had been running from when he was pushed. Sting and Natsu. Since Sting had already disqualified himself for being to blame, Natsu was his only option.

And why not? It seemed fair. Rogue had bailed on them because he was fed up with their fighting over him, which wouldn't have happened if Natsu hadn't gone and pounced on Rogue as soon as he and Sting hit a rough patch in their relationship. He was obviously the only one to blame for all the problems Sting was dealing with as of late.

Not that Sting was stupid enough to take out any of his frustration on Natsu. Not when the roset regularly brought him good food, provided extra hands to help with Alex, and saved Rogue and Frosch. Still, it felt nice to fester over something other than his own inadequacies for a change. Between mentally ragging on Natsu and a good long soak in hot water, Sting almost felt good by the time Rogue and Frosch returned.

Since there was no pie yet, Rogue had purchased doughnuts on the way home, and Sting sat at the kitchen table and munched on one while the family caught up. Frosch, having been unconscious at the time, had no recollection of Sting insisting someone else take her, and thus had no opportunity to tattle on him. She alternated between snuggling into Sting and Rogue's laps, mostly Rogue's. Sting didn't have much lap available for snuggling into. Alex babbled on about what fun it had been staying with auntie Bisca and how Asuka didn't know the rules of a proper tea party. At least, Sting thought it was Bisca and Asuka. Alex couldn't remember any names, referring to the people who had taken care of her as "Big Lady" and "Little Lady" as she recounted the highlights of the last few days without her parents, but Sting vaguely recalled being told that Bisca was going to look after Alex until he was better.

It didn't seem to have occurred to Rogue earlier that there was anything odd about picking Alex up from a guild mate's house. Sting had hoped Rogue might assume it was only a play date—especially since Lucy still brought Alex over during the day, in the hopes that it might rouse Sting from his depression. Listening to Alex, however, Rogue caught on to the fact that she had spent multiple nights with someone else.

The look Rogue gave him when he realized this wasn't as accusatory as Sting had feared. Instead, Rogue's face held so much concern that it made Sting nauseas. He'd abandoned Frosch. He'd been so wrapped up in self-pity that he hadn't been able to look after their daughter. If Rogue had been mad about that, then Sting would know that his lover had expected more of him. To see that worried look, it felt like Sting had met some worst fear again. Like Rogue already expected him to fail.

"Would it be alright if I wait in bed until the pie is ready?"

Rogue shook his head. "I threw the sheets in the wash. They were covered in crumbs." At that mention, he shot Sting the first accusatory look of the afternoon. "If your back is bothering you, you can lie on the couch. Where's your brace?"

"I hate lying down in it."

"Noted. Now where is it?"

"I threw it out the window. Lucy set it somewhere in the living room."

And with that, they'd reached the point where the elephant in the room could no longer be ignored. "Something went wrong while I was gone."

"Mostly, the issue was that you were gone," Sting informed him.

"You threw your splint out the window and left Alex with someone else because you were worried about me?"

"I threw the splint out the window because I hate it. You weren't there to breath down my neck about all this crap I have to use for my stupid injuries, and I wanted to throw something anyway."

Scowling, Rogue got up and began to shuffle through the cabinets for the cooking ingredients.

"Rogue?"

"Sorry for caring about your wellbeing," Rogue said. "Go lie down while I make your fucking pie."

"Papa, what's fucking?" Alex asked.

Both parents froze, looking to her, then to one another.

"Gotta lie down. No sheets is fine," Sting told him, darting for their room and the unmade bed.

"W-wait! Hold on! You had a hand in this!" Rogue yelled after him, even though Sting had already shut the door. "Come back! You're the one who's good with her!"

-o-

Sting contemplated bracing a chair against the door, but his fight with Rogue wasn't nearly that bad. And between Rogue's melding with shadows and the cats' flight, Sting was the only one who couldn't get in when the door was blocked anyway.

He sat down on the bed and looked out that window, wondering how long it would take Rogue to pursue him. The answer was a long time, which irritated Sting until he realized he wasn't going anywhere and Rogue knew it. With a bad knee and back, he wasn't about to jump out a window. Especially while pregnant. In fact, with the baby getting bigger, he didn't even know if he could fit through the window. It was already getting harder to pick things up off the floor. If he wanted to leave, he would have to go through the front door—past Rogue—to run for it.

That gave Rogue ample time to somehow convince Alex that the word she'd heard wasn't one worth adding to her vocabulary and make the pie. Sting didn't know if Rogue accomplished the first or not, but when the shadow slayer finally came to check on him, he had a slice in hand.

"Took you long enough."

"I assumed you wouldn't want me to worry."

The words came out clipped, and they both winced when they noticed that.

"Sorry," Rogue said before Sting could. "I've… had a rough time lately. I'm still a little on edge. Pie?"

"In bed?"

"Just this once. Lean forward so your crumbs fall onto the plate."

Sting obliged, even though his stomach made it a little awkward.

"Sorry," he said himself once Rogue sat down beside him. "My week hasn't been great either, but yours would have been worse."

"Nothing went wrong, did it?" Rogue asked. "It's alright if you had to rush to the hospital. I mean, not really, but you can tell me if something went wrong. I had a few unplanned trips myself when I was pregnant with Alex."

"Oh yeah. The one where we thought you went into labor early."

"Yes. The one where you and Natsu were too busy fighting to notice me panicking because I thought I was in labor." Sting had to glance at Rogue and see that he was grinning to be certain that this detail hadn't been recalled out of malice.

"Sorry?"

"It's alright. I did… encourage you two to go after one another. Even if I told you not to. But I'd like to be as aware as possible of your health."

"I wasn't in the hospital."

"Was it an issue with Alex, then? I heard she took it harder than you when I disappeared."

"Not really."

"Then what happened."

"Alex didn't take it harder than me," Sting clarified. "Or… maybe you being gone in particular she took harder. I just…"

He froze there, realizing how hard pressed he would be to speak his mind without breaking down. He didn't need Rogue to see him breaking down.

"Just…?"

"Nothing."

"Couples that don't communicate properly fall apart," Rogue told him. "As we've both experienced."

Ouch. Fair point. Although the communication error that caused their last breakup was mostly on Rogue.

"I'm no good for anything," Sting admitted.

"Where did you get that idea from?"

"I can't work. I can't walk. When Frosch came back, I couldn't deal with taking care of her. I told Wendy to keep her, Rogue. I was offered her back and I told Wendy to keep her instead. Everyone left to rescue you without even telling me. I don't know. Maybe they thought I'd try to sneak into the rescue mission, which is stupid, because I know I'd be no help when I can't walk or fight but it still sucked to be left out and—"

"Hold that thought." Rogue reached forward and brushed a tear of Sting's cheek. "Okay. You were saying?"

"I just… I don't know. I lost it. I couldn't do anything. Lucy came over to take care of Alex because I couldn't bring myself to, but she wasn't sure she could do day and night care, so she slept over with Bisca's family." Upon finishing, Sting rubbed his own eye.

"You're not useless."

"Yes I am. I hate this. I hate being pregnant. You were right. This was a bad idea."

Rather than deliver the long dreaded 'I told you so,' Rogue said, "We're too far in for that. We can find out the baby's gender soon—tomorrow if you want, and come up with a name and you can look forward to having it instead of wishing you'd avoided this. And even if you had a few days where you weren't able to do it on your own, you're note useless. Now go make yourself useful and convince Alex to stop swearing."

"If you haven't managed by now, it's a lost cause," Sting told him. "She's bound to have figured out it's a forbidden word by this point. The temptation to say it will be too great. Any punishment for using it is going to seem like a game to her. Where is she, anyway?"

"I put her in her crib as punishment for swearing. Then I said that since I swore too I also had to go to bed."

Sting laughed at that. "She's out for the night then?"

Rogue nodded. "For a few hours, at least. Lector and Frosch are keeping her company until she stops pouting and goes to sleep."

"If we're counting pouting time and sleeping time, that gives us half the night."

"It would be a rare opportunity to catch up on sleep, if we hadn't both finished having a few nights without her."

Sting hesitated a moment, then set the pie dish on the floor and asked, "Do you want to do something else with this time, then?"

"She might hear us."

"We can be quiet."

From experience, Rogue doubted anyone could be quiet, and he strongly suspected that Sting would be loud. But it had been a few years since the last time he'd had sex, and Sting was still a virgin, and it seemed like a nice way to celebrate reuniting.

"Let me get the sheets out of the drier first. They'll be easier to clean than the mattress."

Sting grabbed Rogue as he stood and pulled him back onto the bed.

"Now."

"Okay."

Rogue needed no more direction after that. In fact, he led. He flipped Sting down onto his back and crawled on top of him, shucking off his own clothes as he went. Sting, half pinned down, didn't even bother with his shirt. Instead, he tried to slide out of his pants, wiggling to get them down off of a waistline that he felt was getting wider than it out to be.

The week of forgoing his brace whenever he could caught up to him with one particular twist, and he hissed in pain. Rogue, at the same time, felt the burnt skin beneath his bandages stretch uncomfortably with all the sudden motion, and withdrew.

"Maybe just cuddling."

"Yeah. That sound good."

"Bedsheets? It will be more comfortable with a blanket."

"Go for it. It's harder to kill the mood for cuddling."

Sting slid off the bed while Rogue ran out of the room, and sat beside it as his lover hastily pulled the sheets on. When Rogue lifted him up, careful not to disturb his injuries, Sting made no protest.

They curled up against one another, warm under the sheets, and were comfortable with their usual level of intimacy.

"I probably will die a virgin."

"We're still young. We have decades to make this happen. Sooner or later it has to work."

"I'm starting to doubt that."

Rogue chuckled. "It's possible that things will get in the way forever. I'm really glad, though."

"Why?"

"You stopped crying so fast."