As their son's life hangs in the balance, Jo and Alex finally reconcile.

Alex slid open the glass door when he came back from the cafeteria and stood near the door, taking in the scene. Nothing had changed since the last time he was in the room, forty five minutes ago. With a cup of black, sugared coffee in one hand and a bag of roasted almonds in the other, he walked over to the chair that Jo was sitting in and glanced down at the baby that Jo was still haplessly staring at. He placed his hand atop her shoulder and gave it a gentle yet and supportive squeeze. Jo didn't budge when he touched her, her eyes stayed locked on the plastic cradle where the baby lay and her arms stayed neatly wrapped around their sleeping daughter's body. Alex couldn't stand looking at his son in the state he was in, so he quickly looked away and back at Jo.

She had been sitting dormant in the chair for the last hour, still and unmoving, staring at the tiny yet hefty twenty-one inch long, thirteen pound baby laying in the bed. Once he had woken up the first time and fought the tube in his nose, Arizona decided that it was alright to take the tracheal tube out of his neck. He had three single stitches in his neck, a feeding tube up his nose and a tube down his throat to help him with his breathing. He was stable, able to be held and had control over his motor skills, but he remained in a medically induced comatose state so his tiny body could recover from the trauma of the day's events. Jo's mind raced with thoughts of not only her baby boy but her baby girl as well. Her mind jumped from one event to the next, starting with the vision of her son's lips being blue. That was a particularly rough memory for her but the memory that made her want to break down in cry was the flashback of how scared her daughter looked when she was hovering over her.

It wasn't often that Lyla's behavior called for a spanking because truly, she was a very well-rounded, respectful and polite child. Though she was heavily spoiled due to being an only child for five years, Jo and Alex made sure they raised her with respect. Every so often when Lyla would misbehave, Jo and Alex both preferred to put her in the timeout chair and that usually did the trick. However, on the rare occasions in which she did require a spanking as discipline, Jo was always the one to dish it out because Alex was heavily uncomfortable with the idea of being a grown man and spanking his little girl. Truthfully, Jo didn't like to spank. She had used it as a last resort and it wasn't always the first thing she jumped into because she knew how easy it was to cross that line from discipline into abuse. When she found out she was pregnant with Lyla six years ago, she made a mental list of all the things she wanted to be as a mother. She wanted to be the mother that read bedtime stories, the mother that baked cookies, the mother that packed her child's lunch with loving care. Nowhere on that list did she ever account for spanking. She just knew that spanking is something she didn't want to do.

Today, Jo felt like she had done the unthinkable and crossed the line into abuse. When she first found out that she was going to be a mother, she made it a point to do away with the kind of person she used to be. Her violent past, her lashing out, her incredibly short temper; she decided that it was going to be no more a part of who she was as a person. But today, for the first time in a long time, Jo felt herself slip back into the person she used to be and for her, that was a feeling that was far too hard for her to even cope with. With the vision of her child staring up at her with horror in her eyes neatly tucked away in the back of her conscience, Jo geared her head downward and looked at her. She didn't spank Lyla hard enough to leave bruises and the welts that she did leave had long disappeared, but the scars that were emotional were the ones that stung the most for Jo. Lyla laid with her eyes gently closed, pressed against Jo's chest. Her cheek was buried between her mother's breasts, her arms were wrapped around her mother's waist and she was more at peace than she had ever been. Jo knew that holding her daughter while she slept was no consolation for the way she had hit her earlier but it nursed her pride quite a bit to have her in her arms.

"Jo…" Alex slid his hand from her shoulder down to the middle of her back and whispered her name like it was fragile and able to be broken as the syllables travelled through the air. "…It's not gonna be tonight, Jo. We should just…" His eyes made their way to his son and he felt his stomach drop. He knew that it looked worse than what it was; especially since he had undoubtedly seen worse with his profession. Yet, the sight of his son laying in the plastic cradle with tubes and monitors hooked up to his body was still too much for him to bear. "We should just go home, okay?" Jo removed her eyes from her daughter and looked back at her son. Baby Alex was peaceful; silent as if the day's events hadn't even phased him. The only sound coming from where he lay was the beeping of the monitors he was hooked up to. "Come on, Jo…we should go home."

Jo snatched her shoulder out of Alex's grasp and continued to look at the baby. She let her mind roam again, this time with thoughts of how she wished she could have more than two arms. She wished she could magically sprout two extra limbs; limbs that would allow her to disconnect all the scary wires from her little boy and hold him in her arms the way he liked. It was no secret that Jo was little Alex's favorite person in the entire world; she was the only person he would cry for with the sole purpose of seeing her. At nights, the baby would lie awake in his crib and just when the thought of his mommy would cross his mind, he would cry because he missed her. And Jo never failed to come rushing to his aid, immediately making him happy again the moment he saw her face. Jo knew that she had a special connection with her son—the same connection she had with Lyla when she was a newborn. It was killing her that she couldn't at least hold him. "I'm not leaving." She whispered to Alex.

"Jo, he's not gonna wake up tonight. It's not going to happen tonight. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, but definitely not tonight." Alex put his hand on her shoulder again, trying to offer her some more comfort. He didn't know how long little Alex would be in the comatose state he was in. He could wake up in two minutes, he could wake up in two hours…he could even wake up in two weeks, but he was fairly confident that he wasn't going to wake up anytime soon. If he had to guess, he thought that it was likely that he would wake up tomorrow morning; tomorrow afternoon at the latest but in the event that he woke up sooner, he told Arizona to call him whenever he did. "…It's medically induced." He tried consoling her by putting things in medical terms, terms he knew Jo would understand. "He's not going to wake up tonight."

"I'm not leaving him, Alex…get off of me." She snatched away from him again, which made Alex just turn around and sigh. Sometimes, Alex didn't even know why he bothered trying with Jo. At times when he looked at her, he saw the same Jo he fell in love with so many years ago. He saw the Jo that was patient, kind, loyal, beautiful…the Jo that was everything to him. Other times when he looked at her though, he saw the Jo he saw now. The Jo that was cold, almost heartless, intense and sometimes downright mean. As ashamed as he was to admit it, Alex could pinpoint exactly when Jo switched from being the delightful, bubbly person she was. It was the night he came home from work and finally decided to tell her what he did with Maggie Pierce in the backseat of her car. After three days of keeping it a secret from her, he couldn't take it anymore. He came home and found Jo in the bathtub relaxing with Lyla. After Jo put their daughter to bed that night, Alex closed the door to their bedroom so she wouldn't be able to run out and he sat down on their bed and explained to her what happened that night when he made a terrible drunken mistake.

That night, a light inside of Jo went out. She was never really the type that believed in a "happily ever after" and given her childhood, she was justified in that. After being bounced from foster home to foster home and being both physically and sexually abused, she didn't really trust anyone and she didn't think there was such a thing as living happily ever after. When she met Alex however, that all changed. She met the man she wanted to marry. She met the man that would father her children and she was sure that he was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. So when Alex came home that night and told her about the oral sex that he both gave and received, her worst fears came true. She was right back to not believing in storybook romances and from that day on, a small piece of Jo had gone missing. The day after he admitted what he did, Jo packed their daughter up, left divorce papers on Alex's pillow and went to a hotel until she could find a suitable house.

"Fine Jo, you can stay. But she needs to sleep in a bed tonight. I'm going home. Let me take Lyla with me." Alex lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Lyla's torso. Jo clenched her arms around her daughter in an animalistic fashion and turned away from Alex. "Jo, I'm taking Lyla home. She doesn't need to spend the night in a hospital and you know that. Let me take her home and put her to bed, alright?" Jo licked her lips and eventually, she loosened her grip on the slumbering little girl. Easily, Alex lifted Lyla out of her mother's arms and held her against his chest with her head on his shoulder. He supported her weight with his arms under her butt and kissed her on her cheek as she slept. "Text me if anything changes, alright?" Jo blankly nodded her head. Alex gave one last look at his son and turned away. Secretly, he was glad to get out of that room for at least the night. Having chosen pediatrics as a specialty, Alex saw every day the ins and outs and he knew how quickly a baby of Alex's age and size could go from bad to worse. He knew that his son was in bad shape. It was a waiting game to see when he'd wake up and even then, they didn't know how extensive the tracheostomy damage was. He didn't want to be there to witness his son's condition deteriorate. Alex considered himself a really strong man but he wasn't strong enough to sit back and watch his own child slip away.

"…..Wait, Alex." Jo sprung up out of the chair she was sitting in and rushed over to her daughter and her ex-husband just before they got out of the door. "…Lemme see her." To Alex's surprise, Jo had thick tears running down her cheeks. She held her arms out and took Lyla away from him again. "….Hey pretty girl." She sniffed and pressed her lips to sleeping Lyla's ear. "I love you, okay?" She held Lyla in her arms and gently swayed from side to side. She couldn't help but feel partially responsible and very uncomfortable as Alex was preparing to leave the building with her daughter. She couldn't help but think that the last time she took her eyes off one of her children, one of them ended up choking. Baby Alex choking put a lot of things into perspective for Jo and she knew just how quickly things could change in the blink of an eye. "Mommy loves you so much…and she's sorry. She's really, really sorry. She'll never do it again…she promises." She rested her cheek against Lyla's head and rubbed her back. "I love you…."

"She knows you love her, Jo. She knows." Alex took a small step back and looked at his girls. He looked at Lyla, who was still sporting the same clothes she wore to school earlier that day and he looked at Jo…Jo who was so grief-stricken and lost without the baby boy being alert. He suddenly felt conflicted. He didn't know if he should take Lyla home so she could sleep in a proper bed or if he should stay for the sake of being Jo's rock. "…It's gonna be okay." He put his hand on Jo's back and just waited for her to tell him to get off; surprised when she actually didn't.

"…He might not wake up." Jo whispered, finally coming to terms with what exactly her baby's condition was. "…He could die, Alex. And the last…" She clutched her chest as the tears began to take over. "The last person he's going to see is A-Arizona. I mean, what is that?! He's two months old…shouldn't he see us? Shouldn't he at least have us holding his hand? I'm not leaving him. I can't leave him Alex, he's my baby…he's my baby, he's our baby…we can't leave him. We can't leave him…" As she finally lost control, she rested her head against Alex's chest and sobbed. "We can't leave him…"

"Alright, alright…we can't leave him." Alex finally agreed. "But at least let me get someone to bring a cot in here. Ly needs a bed." He ran his fingers through his daughter's hair. "I'll get them to bring in three. One for you, one for Ly and one for me. We'll sleep here." He mumbled, accounting for the fact that Jo still refused to sleep in the same bed as him. He took Lyla back off of Jo and laid her down on the small and uncomfortable couch near the window of the room. "I'll be right back."

"…Alex?" Jo folded her arms across her chest and looked down at the ground, solemn and deep in thought. She herself noticed the same light that Alex noticed. She knew herself that ever since the divorce, she hadn't been the same person. Loving Alex was exhausting in itself. Divorcing the man when she knew that she still loved him took a toll on her, a toll way bigger than anyone ever knew. She didn't even know if it was worth it anymore though. Was wasting energy hating Alex worth it? She obviously loved him enough to lay down one night of pure frustrated passion and make yet another baby with him. She obviously loved him enough to let him move back into the loft. And she would always love him for being the father of her children together. "…Me and you can share a cot." She shrugged her shoulders.

"…You sure?" Alex felt his mood heighten but he didn't want to get his hopes up because getting his hopes up with Jo never got him anywhere. He got this hopes up with her once and all that did was land him in the bed with her and two months later at the doctor's office discovering she was pregnant again. He got his hopes up again when she agreed to let him move back in but all that got him was a spot sleeping on the couch. The last time he got his hopes up with her was when baby Alex was born and that still got him nowhere with her. "I can sleep in my own. I can get someone to give us three."

"No, it's fine." Jo whispered. "I…I want to sleep with you." She spoke up. Alex stared at her, still subconsciously reminding himself not to get his hopes up. "….I love you." He felt his mouth turn up into a smile. Nobody had any idea just how long he had been waiting to hear Jo tell him that she loved him again. He walked over to where she stood and looked in her eyes, silently asking her if she meant it. She nodded her head. "I love you."

Alex gently placed his hands on Jo's face and leaned in. For the first time since the birth of their son, Jo tilted her head to the side and raised up on her tiptoes and finally…

Their lips met once again.