Once they arrive at the Antiquarian, Henry pulls Jo into his arms and carries her into Abe's personal room in the living quarters. He fears that waking in his room will not do well for Jo who already has reason to despise him. Abraham opens the door without question and follows closely on his heels.
"Pop?" Abe asks with worry, letting the familial out when they are alone together. "What happened to Jo?"
"She had a miscarriage," Henry says clinically, not acknowledging that it was his baby they lost. "And now she knows exactly why it happened."
Abe gasps, his hand covering his mouth in concern. "She was going to tell you."
Henry turns, his eyes widening in disbelief. "You knew she was pregnant?"
"Yes. She told me a week ago," Abe says. He looks like he's about to say more but can't decide what to say. "She came to me in hopes I could find you so she could tell you."
Henry's head droops to his chest. "She was standing right beside me when I died. There was no way she was going to keep the baby."
Abe drops down beside her and puts his hand on the sleeping Jo's shoulder. "I'll stay here and take care of her."
"Good," Henry says, already on the retreat.
"Dad, wait," Abe calls out.
Henry doesn't turn around, but he stops, his posture stiff-backed and rigid.
"You lost a baby, too," Abe says gently. "Are you going to be okay?"
"No," he admits. "I need to stop this. I need to stop all of this. I'm going to my lab downstairs. Maybe there's something in the information Joanna sent me that can help. Maybe I'm missing it. I've been clasping at straws so long, and now Jo…"
Henry doesn't finish his thought because he doesn't need to. He tamps the emotion that threatens to spill out of him. He tells himself that he needs to focus as he flees to his lab, leaving Jo with Abe.
When Jo wakes again, she's not sure where she is. She knows she's not at home. The decor is decidedly male, but she didn't go home with anyone last night. She would have remembered reporting herself to the curfew keepers. She doesn't understand, but then it hits her. Henry.
She turns over to see Abe, waiting patiently at her bedside with a cup of tea ready for her. "Good morning, Jo. It's green tea. It should make you feel better."
She takes it slowly, dubiously, but he smiles his patient smile at her.
"Where am I?"
"This is my room," he says. "Henry thought it better if you were here instead of in his bed."
Jo pauses to glare because Henry is not wrong about that. She then sips her tea as the tries to make sense of all she learned. She is quiet and angry, but Abe lets her be. He doesn't jump in to her emotions or make excuses for his adoptive father. He waits and takes care of her, and Jo appreciates that.
"I lost the baby," she tells him, making the act of setting down her teacup a delicate ballet that distracts her from the ugliness of her words.
"I'm sorry, Jo," he says, and it's so sincere, she actually looks in his eyes. "Do you know the rest of Henry's secrets now?"
"I'm afraid that if there are any other secrets that I don't know, I wouldn't be able to bear it," she says with a laugh to obscure that she means what she says.
Henry noisily approaches the room to give Jo and Abe warning. As he steps into the door frame, Jo can tell that he's been up all night. He has the bloodshot eyes and disheveled appearance of one who has been hard at work, most likely in his personal makeshift science lab below.
"We have another appointment today at the Reproductive Center," he says, not looking at her directly.
"I don't think I can ever touch you again, Henry," Jo says in a soft and resigned way that is somehow worse when she is at her fiercest and loudest.
Henry doesn't try to offer apologies. He just explains that they have to keep up appearances so Adam doesn't get suspicious.
"Or what? Adam will do what if he knows? He'll beat you like a steak? He'll kill you only for you to die and live to be killed again? What effect does this have on you, Henry?" Jo demands to know.
"He will hurt those I love and care about! They are precious and few, and right now you are one of them, no matter what you feel about me," Henry answers, passion filling his voice as it does so rarely. "I never wanted to hurt you, Jo."
"Too late for that," she says.
"I think you need help," Abe interrupts them. "You want to finish this, don't you?"
"More than anything," Henry says, and there's an apology in his eyes to Jo.
"Dad, I've watched you my whole life try to figure out the riddle of nanite infection and why it doesn't work the way you wanted it to. You need help. More than Joanna Reece, even as gifted as she is."
Jo latches on to the problem as a way to stop thinking about herself and her pains. She considers her options as if they were a savory flavor. When she comes to a conclusion, she says, "Lucas Wahl."
"The tech from the Reproductive Center?" Henry asks, immediately rejecting her suggestion.
"Yes, Lucas. He was the one who explained to me how nanites worked. He's an intelligent man, but you would never know that because you have Hanson attending to you and your jibblies."
"Jibblies?" Abe asks.
Jo shakes her head. "Nothing. Something one of my friends said to me."
"Ah," Abe punctuates. "Well, he could help. Especially if you clue him in and have him work with you and Reece. Assuming he's trustworthy."
"I think he is," Jo says at the same time that Henry says, "I don't know him."
Abe gets up from the chair and walks out of the room in search of something. The two who remain behind don't use their time to talk. Instead, they perfect the art of making judgmental faces at each other.
It doesn't take long for Abe to return to the room, and he's writing on a piece of paper that he hands to Jo. "Give this to Lucas. It's the best thing I know to lure a poor tech out to play."
Jo looks down and sees that it's a food and drink coupon for the bar. It includes a hand written recommendation to try one of the specialty items that Abe is particularly known for.
"Nice," Jo says. "A hungry man has to eat, and free is good."
"I think so, too," Abe says with a nod. "Now both of you get to the Center. You've got an appointment and a new person to recruit to your secret mission."
He speaks with gravitas as if he is the father, and oddly enough, Henry actually listens to him. He and Jo take the public transportation to the Reproductive Center, and any talk they do make is stilted and extremely shallow.
"How are you feeling today?" Lucas asks kindly as he puts the sensors on Jo's skin.
"I've had better days, but thank you for asking," she says as she looks sincerely into his eyes and takes his hand. "I think you're a good man, Lucas. I hope I'm right about that."
He coughs lightly, and pulls his hand away, stuffing it nervously into his pocket. He runs his other hand through his hair like he's not used to taking a compliment.
"Well, thank you," he says, the words stumbling out of his mouth.
Hanson is talking to Henry and then gives them both instructions. He also lectures the pair that they need to change their supplements in case that could have helped prevent the miscarriage. The pair watch stone-faced, but Hanson has to go through with the drill.
"It's just how we do things," he says in his own defense.
"Thanks, Mike," Henry comments.
Then it is time for Henry and Jo to have their well-observed and statistically recorded sexual intercourse. The goings are slow at first as Jo flinches a time or two as Henry gets in position. Then Jo just turns her mind off for a while, despair her familiar friend.
She now knows they can get pregnant. It was actually easy, even at her age where it is biologically harder with every passing day. Keeping the baby, though, that was hard. A tear escapes her eyes, and Jo later looks up to see Henry's eyes damp with his own unshed tears.
They finish their session and wordlessly go to the sanitary showers afterward as they do every single time. This time, however, a hastily scrawled note waits for Jo in her locker.
"I'll be there. -L"
She holds the note to her chest and hopes that maybe this time her faith in humanity will be rewarded.