A/N: This chapter was a bitch to write. It's either my favorite chapter or my least favorite chapter, I can't decide which. I hope I did these characters justice, to how each one would react based on their characterizations so far. Thanks for the reviews on the previous chapter: novembershowers, Al, Cherylann Rivers, ChrisCorso, sm2003495, MargaretA66, and Nan girl.

"Stop writing with the end in mind and start asking how this character would most naturally respond in this moment." —Steven James, Troubleshooting Your Novel

October 2021

Apparently there were a large amount of scents in the air, everywhere, at all times, and Nancy was suddenly oversensitive to every single one of them.

Nancy's writing quickly deteriorated from less-than-stellar to subpar to terrible; and, as a result, Laura and Fenton couldn't return from their retreat, as Laura needed to pick up the slack. Nancy spent more and more time in the bathroom, sometimes unable to even keep her prenatal vitamins down, and she began to feel dizzy every time she stood up. It started to get easier just to skip meals.

What fool had coined the term "morning sickness?" She was sick morning, noon, and night.

Nancy's heart pounded as she arrived for her second clinic appointment, not just because of her own health, but because it was the second week of October. She knew the exact date of conception, July tenth, and therefore knew that her first trimester had just ended. She needed to tell the doctor today if she planned to end the pregnancy, yet she still hadn't decided.

The receptionist took one look at Nancy and fetched the doctor. They pulled her chart, weighed her, took some tests, and called 911. Nancy skipped the line at the hospital and was quickly hooked up to an IV for fluids and nutrition. She tediously answered the same questions over and over again, how she'd felt fine for the first two months, then felt constantly nauseous. "That would make sense, that's when the pregnancy hormones have built up in the body," one medical person said to another. "The worse case I've ever seen," she later heard the person add, evidently when he'd thought she was out of hearing range.

When Nancy was beginning to feel better due to the IV treatment, a different nurse entered her room and handed her some brochures. "You have a diagnosis. Read this material and make sure to ask the doctor whatever questions you have," the nurse said, and abruptly left.

Nancy saw a Latin name that she couldn't pronounce, sighed, and began to read. It was definitely her set of symptoms. But no one knew why some pregnant women experienced it, there was no FDA-approved treatment, and there wasn't much she could do about it except attempt to "avoid triggers."

That was that, then. She was at high risk of miscarriage, and absolutely everything seemed to be a trigger. So Nancy called her clinic, scheduled an abortion, and signed herself out of the hospital when the IV treatment was finished. She showered, carefully applied makeup, dressed strategically, and invited Frank over to the house, to try to avert suspicion while she was feeling and looking a little bit better.

"Good to finally see you," Frank said, and laughed. "Did you lose weight? Writers. I'll have to start texting you reminders to eat. Hey, don't feel bad about taking a break from Alan Hooper's murder case. The Bridgeport detective is still working on it with me, and we'll let you know if we find anything out."

Right after Frank left, Nancy threw up. She sent another email to her family and friends in River Heights that she was doing well. The day arrived for her procedure at the clinic, and she didn't go.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Nancy finally finished double-ziplock-bagging the last item of food in the Hardys' pantry. There was almost nothing left in the refrigerator; she'd covered up the food smells as much as she possibly could; she'd turned off the heat, opened the doors, and aired out the entire house several times, despite the biting chill in the air. Sometimes she got temporary relief by sitting on the back porch—relief, defined as nausea without throwing up. She couldn't do any kind of laundry or cleaning or showering, or the chemicals made her retch for hours, even the organic cleaners she'd special ordered. She'd taken all the bathroom products out of the downstairs bathroom, as she spent the most time there. It was getting to be too much to go up and down stairs.

Nancy bundled up in blankets and sat on the bathroom floor—just in case—and put a hand on her midsection. She didn't feel maternal. She still didn't want to call anyone and tell them her news. She didn't want advice, she didn't deserve comfort. It was bad enough that Laura was forced to keep her secret. Maybe Nancy would eventually confide in George if she needed help picking up the pieces afterward. She knew that George would drop everything and drive out to go with her to the procedure, if she asked. Nancy decided to reschedule with the clinic. She'd call them first thing tomorrow morning; it was dark out, and business hours had ended a long time ago.

She leaned her head back against the bathroom wall and must have dozed off, as she was now startled by the ringing of the doorbell.

Nancy grimaced and remained where she was. It was probably Frank. She'd text him tomorrow and tell him that she'd gone to bed early tonight. But then she heard a key turning in the lock.

"Nancy? Are you decent?" Frank called. "Why is it freezing in here? Sorry if you're in the middle of a session, but my mom really wanted me to check on you in person—" his voice trailed away as he searched the upstairs hallway first.

Nancy knew she'd get a wicked sore throat if she attempted to call for him. He found her a few seconds later.

Frank stopped abruptly in the doorway to the bathroom, his expression frozen as he adjusted to the scene in front of him. Then he slowly approached and crouched next to her; she felt his hand on her shoulder. "Nancy," he said, using the same assertive, comforting tone of voice that she'd heard him use with victims of violent crime, "what happened? Are you sick? Injured?"

Nancy fixed bleary eyes on him, too drained to summon an emotional reaction to his presence. She licked her lips several times to try to accumulate enough saliva to answer.

"Here. Drink this." Frank filled a cup on the sink with tap water and tried to hold it to her lips.

Nancy took the cup from him but used it only to moisten her lips, giving the appearance of taking a sip. She didn't need anything more in her system to vomit. "Hospital papers on Joe's bureau," she eventually said. She caught a strong whiff of Frank's shirt and gagged. "Your detergent..."

Fortunately he asked no follow-up questions. He left and then re-appeared with the papers in the bathroom doorway, giving her space. "My God, you're pregnant. Hyperemesis Gravidarum, With Olfaction Sensitivity," he read aloud. "Defined as extreme morning sickness, except symptoms of severe nausea and vomiting last twenty-four hours a day, sometimes throughout the entire pregnancy. Which could lead to—" Frank skimmed some of the text silently, then resumed speaking, his voice angry—"and you signed yourself out of the hospital after a few hours of IV nutrition? I'm calling 911."

"No," Nancy protested feebly. "No ambulance."

Frank opened his mouth as if to argue, then shut it. "Then I hope you're willing to let me drive you to the hospital."

"I have a check-up appointment at the clinic next week."

Frank swore violently in response, and Nancy knew that her choices were either to drive with Frank or have a team of EMTs swarming the house. She agreed to go to the hospital. Frank retrieved her coat and approached her. She recoiled.

Frank backed up. "Olfaction sensitivity," he repeated as if to himself, and took off his shirt and jacket. Nancy accepted his support as she stood up; even though she took her time, her blood pressure still plummeted, and she put a hand to her head. The blankets fell to the floor, revealing her pregnancy clearly even through her loose pajamas. Most women didn't show too much at fourteen weeks, but Nancy's overall weight loss made her belly more pronounced. Frank carefully helped her put her coat on.

"I'm going to carry you," Frank said. He put one arm around her midback, then scooped up her knees. She leaned against his bare chest and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. A minute later he gently guided her into the passenger seat of his car and turned the heat on full blast.

Nancy felt extremely grateful that Frank was currently in charge of the shared Honda, not Joe; there was absolutely nothing in either the front or back seats, and less items meant less scent. But her stomach contracted painfully at the smell of a very clean pumpkin.

Frank went back in the house for Nancy's purse and then got into the driver's seat, shivering, still shirtless. He saw her facial expression and threw his hanging pumpkin spice air freshener out the window. Then he took several moments to use his inhaler and Nancy remembered his health problems; he must have pushed himself to the brink of endurance to carry her out to the car.

"I have another shirt in my overnight bag in the trunk," he explained, a comment which Nancy found to be endearing. Of course Frank Hardy would have an overnight bag always ready, just in case.

Nancy asked him to drive her to the out-of-town hospital she'd been to before, not Bayport General, as her previous hospital already had records from her last visit. He nodded in agreement and began navigating the residential roads.

They drove in silence the majority of the way, Frank recovering his breathing, Nancy attempting to cope with her symptoms. Then Frank said, "Congratulations, by the way, Nancy. I have about three thousand questions, but I'm trying not to overwhelm you with them. Really, I just find it sad that you're choosing to go through this by yourself. I don't think your family knows, or they'd have come out here, since you're in no shape to travel right now."

"They don't know," Nancy said.

They pulled up to a red light. Frank began tapping the steering wheel rhythmically, as if he were counting. "Your hospital papers said that you're twelve weeks along, but they were dated for—oh, fuck." He turned suddenly to face her. "Auntie Gert's funeral. This is Tony's child."

Nancy didn't deny it, nor did she make eye contact.

"That lucky bastard," Frank said softly. Nancy looked at him, startled, but he was once more looking straight ahead at traffic.

"I need you not to tell anyone just yet," Nancy said quickly. "Please. Only your mom knows."

"My mom? But she wouldn't have left you alone at the house."

"She doesn't know the pregnancy isn't going well." Nancy licked her lips.

Frank rooted around in his pocket and handed Nancy a chapstick. "If you're worried about Tony's reaction, I promise you he will be happy about this. I promise, he will be very good help for you."

"That's part of the problem," Nancy said wearily. Her vision swam briefly from exhaustion, the streetlights of the city blending, and she forced her eyes to stay open and re-focus. "You read it in my discharge papers. I'm not getting many nutrients, so my baby isn't, either. At this rate, I'm going to miscarry."

Frank exhaled. He gave Nancy's hand a brief squeeze.

"This is his baby, too," Frank said. "That is not a political fact, that is not a religious fact, that is a biological fact. If he was grown enough to take you to bed, then he's grown enough to support you through this and go through his own grief."

"Frank, I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do about this pregnancy."

Nancy's blurted statement hung in the air between them for a long moment.

"Nancy," Frank said in a low voice, and Nancy realized he was incredibly pissed off, "if I found out too late that Callie never told me about a child we conceived, I would never get over it. We are talking about a very good friend of mine. A man has a right to know and this child has a right to both parents. And you have a right to receive support." Frank took a deep breath, and his tone of voice became gentler. "It doesn't mean that this isn't still your body and your choice."

"Then I should call him just for the purpose of breaking his heart, and so he can hate me if I get an abortion?" Nancy demanded. "Tell him he's having a baby, then never mind, he's not having a baby?"

"Yes," Frank countered passionately. "So he can lay his hand on your bump and say goodbye."

Nancy's eyes blurred with tears and she remained silent for the rest of the ride.

When they arrived at the hospital, Frank threw on his extra shirt, carefully transferred Nancy to a wheelchair, and handed the car keys to the valet. Nancy felt fresh waves of nausea at the harsh medical smells of the emergency room, retching into a tissue as Frank completed the sign-in process for her. Then, since it was a busy night, she got a wristband and had to wait for her name to be called like everyone else. She would at least be a priority due to her pregnancy.

"Fine," Nancy said numbly, and threw out the tissue before Frank could see the streaks of blood on it. "Let's call him. I don't have his number."

Frank pressed a speed dial and handed his phone to Nancy. Nancy motioned for Frank to stay with her. Tony answered on the second ring.

There was a pause as images flashed through Nancy's memory: dates that she and Tony had been on in high school; Tony's angry outbursts during their first mystery; the wistful mood during their only night together. She didn't know him well, not any more. She knew that he was against abortion, but he might feel any variety of emotions about the fact that he himself was expecting a baby.

"Frank, man, what's wrong?" Tony sounded alert now, cautious.

"It's Nancy," Nancy said awkwardly.

"Nancy? Are you drunk, what's wrong with your voice? Are you okay?"

She decided to stick with facts only. "Well, the first part of my news is that we're pregnant."

There was no hesitation; Tony shouted and unleashed a stream of rapid Italian. "That means I'm happy," he added excitedly at the end. Then he swore loudly and emphatically several times. "And that's the good kind of swearing. Nancy, we're going to be parents! Of the same kid! Listen, I know this is a shock and neither of us is ready at all, but we'll make it work. Tell me you're happy too?"

At that moment Nancy became distracted by a small, furious doctor striding across the room toward her.

"Nancy? You're not happy about this?" Tony sounded uncertain and disappointed.

"My, um—it's complicated—" Nancy began, and the doctor came to a halt in front of her. She recognized him as her doctor from two weeks ago.

"You sign yourself out against medical advice!" he seethed in a foreign accent. "Do you realize what could have happened to your baby? Come in the back right now. You need IV fluids, nutritional supplements. You will stay in hospital this time or I call Child Protective."

"What?" Tony shrieked on the phone.

Frank took his phone back. "Just come to Shore Memorial. I'll text you the room number when we know it," he said, and hung up. Two ER technicians stood waiting for Nancy like she was under arrest.

"I'll push her," Frank told them. Once in the back, they easily transferred Nancy's light frame onto a stretcher. A nurse began taking Nancy's vital signs and hooking her up to monitors. The doctor gave Nancy more details about his medical opinion of her behavior, his voice rising somewhat; then, evidently under the assumption that Frank was the father, he gave Frank a severe lecture as well. "All right, that's enough," Frank said when the doctor began to list all the pregnancy complications that Nancy might have had as a result.

Fortunately the nurse finished taking Nancy's vital signs so the doctor turned his concentration to completing calculations for treatment. Another nurse began setting up the IV.

The doctor turned angry eyes on Nancy once more. "After you give birth, you are not sick any more. But if you get pregnant another time, this will almost certainly happen again, so this is most likely your only child. You will terminate, or you will learn to think for two," he said to her before he moved on to the next patient.

Nancy lay back in her stretcher.

"I respect how much he cares about your baby, but I shouldn't have let him go on that long," Frank said. Then he leaned forward and put a hand on Nancy's forearm. "But you looked...almost happy while he was scolding you."

"There's nothing he could say about me that I haven't already thought about myself," Nancy said. "I'm unfit to be a mother."

"I happen to disagree. He was right that you had no experience in thinking for two," Frank re-framed. "And now you do."

"I can't believe I reacted like this, Frank," Nancy said. "Good grades came easily for me, I'm logical on a case, but when it comes to my personal life, I stick my head in the sand."

Frank gave her forearm a light squeeze. "There are many, many people who behave like that."

"But to just...to get so paralyzed, pretending it's not happening? Like my body will forget it's expecting a child if I stop thinking about it? Unable to make a decision after weeks and weeks?"

Frank smiled wryly at her. "I wonder if your trying to put off a decision is your decision."

A nurse came behind the curtain to help Nancy change into a hospital gown, and Frank made himself scarce. Someone else pricked her with the IV needle, and a third person injected nutritional supplements into the port of her IV bag to be given along with the fluids. "I'm a pincushion," Nancy commented when Frank returned to her side.

A room was ready right away, which surprised Nancy; she saw with extreme gratitude that, while the room was double occupancy, the other half of the room was empty for now. Frank texted Tony her room number. "What would you like me to do when he gets here?" Frank asked.

Nancy managed a small smile. "I think Tony and I have proven that we're capable of being alone together. Last time I got an IV, it didn't take long to feel better. I have got to get some sleep if I possibly can."

Nancy had her eyes closed, trying to distract herself from the harsh disinfectant smell of the hospital, when she heard rapid footsteps enter her room and stop next to her bed.

She opened her eyes. Tony was leaning over her hospital bed staring at her. His eyes were wide and his mouth was open. At first Nancy thought he was horrified—she did not look healthy, and she wouldn't win any awards for good hygiene—but then she realized that he looked awe-struck, as if she were fragile and miraculous. She got the impression that he expected her to do something, maybe perform a circus trick.

"Nancy," he whispered. "I'm going to be a mom and you're going to be a dad! Can I—" he reached out a hand, but withdrew at the last moment like her belly were a hot stove.

"That was quick. They need to take away your driver license," Frank said dryly, and stood up.

Tony turned to Frank, appearing to notice him for the first time. "So you helped her get here?"

Frank hesitated and looked at Nancy.

"Yes," she said, and realized she'd never thanked him. "Thank you, Frank, for all you did tonight. I didn't make it easy for you."

Tony crushed Frank in a long, powerful hug. Frank was four inches taller than Tony and broader in the chest, but Nancy could tell that Frank was struggling to breathe.

"Tony, you don't realize how strong you are," Nancy said weakly.

Tony let go of the hug but gripped Frank tightly by the shoulders. "You helped my child, my—you helped Nancy, when they needed it—I will never forget this, Frank. The entire Prito family will never forget this."

"You will not tell them, because I don't have room in my fridge for all the food," Frank said, but he looked shyly pleased. Nancy knew that Frank Hardy simply didn't know any other way to live than to think of everyone else before himself, but he still appreciated the gratitude.

"Congratulations to the both of you," Frank said, releasing himself from Tony's grip and giving Nancy a questioning glance. Nancy could feel the IV treatment entering her system, and she felt pleasantly drowsy; she nodded to Frank and promised to text him tomorrow. Tony squeezed Frank's hand in a final, passionate handshake, and Nancy saw Frank wince and massage his hand on the way out.

Tony pulled a chair over and sat right next to her bed. He kept his eyes glued to her midsection. "Definitely a boy," he said. "Since you're making this much mischief even before you're born, you little goomba."

Nancy wondered if she would regret telling Tony in the morning. And she had no doubt that the cat was very much out of the bag; he'd probably called his family while he was on the road. But, for this exact moment, it was quite a relief to no longer be alone.

It was obvious what Tony desperately wanted to do. She took his hand and guided it under the blankets and her hospital gown. Tony splayed his fingers, spanning her three-and-a-half-month baby bump, and swore reverently.

"Nice," Nancy mumbled through her cotton mouth, her eyelids drooping. "Maybe that will be his first word."

"Close your eyes, Nancy," she vaguely heard Tony say. "Whatever happens now, we're in this together."

And her body finally allowed her some rest.