AN: I do not own any of Taylor Swift's music or the lyrics to Happiness.

Dear Alex,

The moment he read those words, written in Jo's beautiful and perfect cursive handwriting, he braced himself for the heartbreak that was about to come. He wasn't sure what he expected when he opened the mailbox that afternoon and found the letter from her with the divorce papers. He wondered if she would write him back or if she would call and leave another voicemail. Hell, he half expected her to show up on his doorstep and herself, with the furious anger that he knew so well. But he couldn't deny that he loves the chance to read her words.

Loves. Loved. Past tense, present tense, or it was still hard not to think of her with anything but love. Her love used to carry him around with light footsteps, a happy heart, and a warm belonging in his chest. Now he carried it around like a tattoo, the black ink bleeding across his skin. Her love and her words burned into him like the heavy mark she left upon him.

He knew he deserved every heartbreaking word she had written in this letter, and he dreaded every word but eagerly read her letter.

The last thing I ever thought you would do is leave me. You and I, we've been through hell and back. I was there when you almost threw away your life and your career, and although we weren't together during those few months. I never stopped loving you, not once. It was you who made things right, who proved to me that I could trust you and that you had changed, and I did trust you, Alex. I trusted you with all of my heart. I trusted you not to break my heart again and even as I read the words in your letter, I still couldn't quite believe it. I still can't believe that after everything, you would betray me like that.

It's been a year now and I think I have finally accepted that you're gone. That you're not going to just walk back into my life one day. That you're not going to show up on my doorstep one day. Getting your letter broke the fairytale life that we had together. I felt like the music stopped, and I was still standing there waiting for you to come back. Until the moment I got your letter, I was waiting for you to come back to me because you always did. You always came back to me, except this time you didn't, and I know that you won't come back again.

It still doesn't feel like it's okay because you were my life for six years. I've known you since I came to Seattle. For the entire time I've been at Grey-Slone, you've always been with me, and the hospital still doesn't feel like home without you, but it's starting to be, and I'm learning to live without you. My entire life revolved around you. Everything I had was because of you, and life without you was like an uphill battle, but I did it. In the past year, I have changed so much, and you would be so proud of me. You haven't met the new me yet, but I think you would like her.

Now that I'm above it all, I see it for what it is, but a year ago, I couldn't. I was still in the middle of it all and I was still so full of hurt. I gave you the best years of my life, and then I packed you away in a box and shipped you off to someone else. All of the things that we had collected over the years, from the very first thing I bought you, the couch, to the box of bandages you bought today before you left, and now it's all just shit that we're dividing up. Sometimes I feel like I should have fought for you, like I should have gone to Kansas and demanded to stay with you, but I didn't. I couldn't. I was...

She had written something else there but had erased it and written something else. He wasn't sure how, but somehow he knew there was more to the reason why she didn't come to Kansas for him. He hoped that it would be revealed as he read on.

I don't know if it's fair to say, but I would have loved you for a lifetime. I did love you for our entire life together, and I don't know if I should say this, but I will love you for the rest of my life. You're it, Alex. You're my one and only. I would have left it all behind to go with you to Kansas to be a part of your kid's life. We could have been together and we would be happy.

I was so happy with you, happier than I've ever been in my entire life. There was happiness because of you, but I know that I'll be happy again because I am happy, Alex. After you left, I chased happiness, and I found it. In the most unexpected ways, but I'm happy, and I hope you are too.

So as much as I hate you for leaving me, I understand why you left. Of course, your kids come before me. They should, as much as it breaks my heart, but I'm also still so confused and angry because I would have done this with you. I would have co-parented with you and Izzy, and I would have made one hell of a stepmom. I would have loved your kids, Alex because they are part of you, and I loved everything about you.

You said you weren't going anywhere except home with me, and then you said you weren't coming home. You said you would never hurt me and then you did. You said you love me and then you said you love someone else. You said you wanted to be my husband and that you wanted me to be your wife and then you sent divorce papers. You said not to let anyone treat me like trash and then you threw me away. You said you loved me, and I believe you, but you still left.

Now that a year has passed, I see the mistakes that you've made, and it still hurts. I still can't sleep on your side of the bed, but when I do, it is both a comfort and a sadness because you're not here to comfort me yourself. I gave you the best years of my life. I wrapped my arms around you every single night, and I pulled your body into mine, and I still don't understand how you left my arms and my body and our bed. I don't think I ever will. You asked me to find better than you, but I don't want to find better. There is no better. You were the best man I've ever known.

I know you still love me when you say you love her. I hope you're happy loving her, knowing you'll never have me again. I know that she's beautiful, Izzie, and I hope that she is enough of a fool to believe it when you say that you love her. I know I did.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I guess I'm still angry at her and at you. I don't think that anger will ever go away. Yet, as much as I hate you for leaving, I can't stop loving you. I guess that's what I get for loving you for six years. Just because I love you doesn't mean I want you back. I want to make that very clear to you, Alex, this letter isn't me asking you to come back.

She had pressed in with the pencil so hard that it looks like she had nearly broken through the page at one part. As much as he knew she meant what she said, that she didn't want him to come back, he knew her well enough to know that she was forcing herself to write it. Deep down, she didn't really mean it, but he would respect her enough not to go back, no matter what the rest of her letter said. He still had several pages to go, and if the rest of her letter was as heartbreaking as this page was, he knew he deserved it, but that didn't make reading it any easier.

I always knew how to leave bad guys because that's what I'd known before you, but you're not a bad guy Alex. You're a good man, but no one teaches you what to do when a good man leaves you.

You taught me so much, you taught me what real love was like. You taught me that I was worthy of that love. You taught me what a good man looked like. You taught me how to fight for myself and for others. For so long, I fought for us, and you did too, every break-up, every fight, you and I would come back to each other. You used to say that we were like two magnets always getting pulled together. You taught me cool tumor in a bag surgeries and how to talk to kids about guts. You are the reason why I wanted kids. You were part of the reason why I wanted her.

I think that the reason I fell in love with her and why I fought so hard for her, you said I would find something to do with your shares in the hospital, and I did, but not in the way I'm sure you thought I would. I was never good with leadership or anything. I hated being chief resident, you know that. That's kind of what I like about OB because it's not about what I want or what I need to do sometimes. It's about my patient, it's about their birth and their child. I'm just the person that helps them bring their child safely into the world.

Sorry I kind of rambled off there, but anyway, I sold the shares of the hospital to Tom Koracick, which I feel like I should tell you about, considering I know you don't like him. Bailey likes him even less. I was kind of terrified to tell her, so I just let Tom tell her. Anyway, I'm rich now, I guess, which is so weird, and I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I still find myself checking my account balance and freaking out when I see the number of 0. I haven't gone totally crazy. It's still sinking, but yesterday I did buy this fancy stereo, so I guess I'm sort of getting used to it. I still find myself eating boxed mac and cheese. I don't think I'll ever give up that habit, as I'm sure you know that. Growing up the way that we did, no matter what, we'll never get used to being financially stable, much less rich.

I guess that brings me to my next point. I switched careers. Not to pediatrics before you get all proud or anything, you were always trying to convince me to join you and the Ped's squad. I switched it to OB/GYN. I am part of the vagina squad now, pink scrubs and everything. Although I kind of like the pink, I still kept my blue scrub cap though.

I don't know what it is this past year, but everything I've done has just been baby related. Maybe it was my hormones, maybe it was fate, but I just, it felt right, and I love it. You and me were trying for the baby, and when I got pulled into the delivery room one night at the hospital, the amount of joy in that room was overwhelming. We were in the middle of the pandemic, but these parents were so happy because their baby had been born. They welcomed them into the world with such love. I've kind of been chasing that love ever since you left, and I found that love and that happiness again in more ways than one.

I'm sorry I'm rambling so much. Even after a year, it's still hard to sort through all of my thoughts. The main reason why I wrote this to you was that I wanted to share some of the changes in my life because even now, after the things you've done, you're still changing my life.

Starting off, I moved out of the Loft, if you can believe it. Well first, I move someone in. After you left, it felt too big and empty without you. So I did something crazy and I invited Levi to stay with me. He was my roommate for a year and he's been my friend. I still own the Loft, but he and now Helm too, rent it from me, and I've completely moved out. I am now the owner of a top floor penthouse! It's Jackson's penthouse actually, he left to run the foundation in Boston and sold it to me. I'm actually writing this on the floor of my new place because I don't have much furniture. Despite the fact that I've been here a month. It's just the bed, the couch, and a crib.

A crib.

There was a crib in Jo's new home. A crib meant a baby. A baby meant that Jo was a mother and the possibility that he was a father again. The initial shock caused him to pause before he read to the next line. His heart raced, and he couldn't help but smile at the thought of them having a child. It was everything he ever wanted with Jo. It was why he had deliberately waited several weeks to send his letter on the off chance that she might be pregnant. That she would have something, anything, that would bring him back to her. Maybe that made him an asshole or coward for only wanting to return to her if they had a baby together. As selfish as that was, he couldn't leave his children without good reason. Although his hopes were dashed with her next few lines.

I suppose I should explain that to you. Although I know you don't deserve to know about my daughter or the family we have together, I want to share with you anyway. I have a daughter, her name is Luna Valerie Wilson. I adopted her and that adoption was finalized last month. Today marks the first month that we've been a family. It feels like I was just bringing her home from the hospital yesterday, but being the mom of a baby doesn't really leave me much time to get anything done. Like I said, I still haven't finished furnishing this place, but I'm getting around to it, and at least the nursery is done!

I guess I should tell you how Luna came into my life. I've known Luna her entire life. Her mother, Val, was my patient, and unfortunately, she died. She came into the ER with stomach pain, and her labs came back saying she was pregnant, but we couldn't find the baby in her uterus because Luna was on her liver. I call her my little liver baby and my little moon. So we delivered Luna, but Val's liver was bleeding, and I had to remove part of it. She deteriorated until she eventually died.

Val loved Luna so much and she never even got to hold her. She wanted Luna so much, she named her before she was born with the name she had picked out since she was a young girl. All she wanted was to hold Luna, but she was in liver failure, and neither she nor Luna were stable enough to meet, but I couldn't bear to keep them apart. If you were here, I know I wouldn't even have to ask, but you weren't. I finally convinced the new Ped's guy, Hayes, to let me bring Luna to see her. Hayes is pretty nice though and I think you would have liked him. I'm sure Meredith talks about him to you. I'm not sure what's going on between those two, but he makes her happy.

Anyway, Luna needed surgery for a bronchogenic cyst, so I suggested we make an extra stop. We made it to the hallway of Val's room before she coded. I ran the code for an hour. That was my worst death in the pandemic and I didn't even lose her to covid. That night after she got out of surgery, I held Luna's hand for the first time.

Something about the whole situation just grabbed a hold of my heart and wouldn't let go. I didn't even realize it. I fought so hard for Luna and her mother to be together that when she died, I didn't know what else to do except to keep caring for her baby. I never even considered adopting Luna until Link brought it up. We were talking about Scout and he mentioned how good it felt to be a parent. I laughed it off because I didn't think I could even consider it. It wasn't until Luna almost died that I realized it. She aspirated after a feeding, and Hayes paged me and I, I was a complete mess. I just stood there watching her. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move until they got her back. When they did, I realized that I wanted to be her mom more than anything.

Why I ended up selling the shares and used some of the money to adopt Luna. I applied to adopt her first, but I was denied because of my history. I'm sure you can guess why. After I was denied the adoption, I was devastated. That year it felt like I lost everything, I lost my mom, I lost my mental stability, the whole fucken world went to shit, I lost you, I lost Luna, I lost the only thing that I never wanted. I lost…

There it was again, that line that trailed off, the eraser on the page, lines rewritten with something she didn't want to say. There were still a few pages left, but there was something she wasn't telling him, something she had been erasing. Things she would say and things she wouldn't. Despite that, Alex knew that she would tell him eventually, she always did. Even if it was years later, Jo was like an onion in that way sometimes.

He first thought of it when they were making dinner one night, although she had thrown the onion at him when he called her that. But it was the best metaphor he could think of. She had a thousand layers of history, each layer was sadder than the one before. Her history was filled with enough sadness to make anybody cry. Still, he loved her onion heart because, despite all of the sadness, no one else in the world made him as happy as she did. Alex took another deep breath as he carried, on knowing the sadness that awaited him.

I decided that this time I wasn't going to let the world chew me up and spit me out without a fight. I wasn't going to lose her without fighting for her as hard as I could. So I hired a lawyer. Hence the reason why I sold the shares. She was insanely expensive, but she was worth it. It took a year, and in that time, Link was gracious enough to apply to be a foster parent for me, and with his help, and since she was still at the hospital, I could see Luna whenever I wanted.

This week the judge reviewed my case and he gave me custody of Luna about a month ago. The past month has been a whirlwind and I've never been happier. Due to being a preemie, she's still a little delayed, so she's not quite walking yet, but she crawls everywhere and gets into everything. Just the other day, I left a bag of chips on the couch, and when I came back from the bathroom, she had dumped it all over the couch on the floor and was playing in it like leaves in the fall. It was so adorable, I just took a picture of her and played with her for a little bit. It took forever to clean up though and I'm still getting chips out of the couch even now.

Alex paused to laugh for a second. He loved the vision of Jo and her daughter playing in the chip. He had spent years imagining what it would be like to see Jo with her child and he was so happy to hear that was a mom now. It was all the happiness he had ever wanted for her.

I never want to give her up or let anyone else hold her for too long. Despite the fact that she's 17-months-old, I still feel like a mom of a newborn. Meredith pointed that out to me when we were over at her house the other day. I kind of snapped at her when she wouldn't give Luna back after she started fussing. I feel like such a new mom, but I'm slowly getting used to it. I can now successfully make dinner and get Luna to fall asleep in my arms, which feels like the biggest accomplishment in the world. Sometimes I just look at her and I remember how tiny she was in the NICU. She was barely the size of my hand. I remember holding her in my arms when she barely weighed as much as a feather. She was certainly a lot lighter than all the other babies that I'm holding these days.

Now she's so big, she pulled herself up the other day, and I know she's going to start walking any minute now. She just started talking, and she can say five whole words, and she called me mama, and I feel like my heart is going to burst every single time. She has her favorite toys, and her favorite blanket, and she's just this little tiny person. She has such a personality Alex. She reminds me of Val in that she's just so happy and calm, but she fights for what she wants, and she is insanely sassy and stubborn, which I think she gets from me. Either way, it's this knockout personality, and I can already tell that the toddler and the teenage years are going to be insane. Yet, I am so looking forward to watching her grow up and being her mom throughout all of it.

Sometimes I play with her and I wonder if you're playing with your kids too. To be honest, I didn't understand why you left me for your kids, but now I do understand. I get what it means to have kids and not want to leave them. Even now, I still have two months left on my maternity leave, but I have no idea how I'm going to leave her at daycare. I'm her mom, and I feel like I need to spend every moment with her, getting to know her because we haven't had that time together. She's been in the hospital, and I've been working, and fighting for her. Now that we have every waking second together, I still feel like it's never enough. I hold her while she naps, and she sleeps through the night. Which I know for most first-time parents is a blessing, but sometimes I just wake up in the middle of the night, and I stare at her because I miss her. I don't want to miss another second of her life. I know you understand that. I know you understand why I could never walk away from Luna for a second, even to be with you.

I don't know how to explain it. Something about Luna just captured my heart and wouldn't let go. I just had to fight for her. I didn't want her to grow up in the system with no one fighting for her the way that we did, with no one fighting for us. I held off for so long just watching over her in the NICU, and then I almost lost her, and I knew. I just knew I wanted to be her mom. I had to fight for her, but with my history, you know I wasn't considered the best option for a foster placement, much less than adoption. But I fought for her because Luna was worth fighting for. I had to protect her. I owed that to Val, who I couldn't save, and I owed that to our baby, who I couldn't save either.

We had a baby Alex. I was pregnant when you left.

And there it was, the last layer of the onion. The last thing that Jo was waiting to say.

Alex's heart stopped at that moment. It's then that something else slipped out of the papers of the letters. A tiny little black and white ultrasound photo with the name Jo Karev in the corner. She could have been more than ten weeks along when it was taken, and their baby was still so small. Alex could see their little legs curled up and the outline of their little head, their nose, and their mouth. It was their baby, it was their child.

I was pregnant. I found out I was pregnant after you left. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. I wanted to wait until you got home to tell you, then I got your letter, and the pandemic hit, and I just didn't know how to tell you. But I was going to tell you. I swear, I was, but I just didn't know how.

And then I didn't have to.

I was so excited when I found out we were having a baby, Alex. The moment that stick turned pink with two tiny white lines making me a mom, I've never been happier. You and me, the three of us, we were gonna be a family. I missed you like hell, and every appointment I went to alone, all I wanted was to have you next to me. I got the first ultrasound, and I couldn't wait to tell you until you got home, but you wouldn't return my calls or my texts, and I had no idea where you were.

Then you sent me the letter.

I was so heartbroken when I lost you, but I still had hope. I thought that we could figure something out. I wanted you to be a part of our child's life. I know you would have been the best dad in the world to our baby, just like I know that you're the best dad in the world to your twins. I wanted you to know them and to love them as much as I did, and I'm sorry you never got the chance to. It all just happened so quickly. You sent me the letter, and while I was still reeling from that, the pandemic hit, and then I lost our baby.

I miscarried the day that Val died.

I don't know what happened. I did everything right. I took all my prenatal vitamins, and I went to my appointments with Carina. I read your letter, and I carried on because I had to be strong for our child, our baby. I did everything right, but I still lost them. It was after I had visited Luna, and I held her hand for the first time right after Val died. I was in the attending's lounge, but I felt the pain, and the blood started dripping down my thighs. It all happened so fast and there was so much blood. Apparently, I passed out, and when I came to, Carina was at my bedside. She told me my baby died and that I almost died too. I had hemorrhaged, and they had to do a D&C and pump me full of new blood.

Meredith was at my bedside when I woke up the following day. I was kind of in and out of it those first few days. They almost called you, I guess you were still in my emergency contact at the time, but they didn't. And I'm kind of glad they didn't because after losing our baby. I was so angry. I blamed you, but you weren't to blame, no one was. I know that now.

It took me a long time to process it all. I kind of just buried it all deep down. I focused on my work and on Luna, and it's only now that I'm really starting to process it. I've taken all that anger and hurt, and I buried it like I always do. It wasn't until the night that I was denied to adopt Luna that I really started to process it all. Thank God for Michelle and Carly. I think I saw them every day that week, and I'm pretty sure I have solely funded their next ten vacations. Meredith helped me too, and so did Bailey and Link. If it wasn't for our friends and family and for the love I had for Luna, I don't think I would have made it. I still have the trauma of losing our baby, and it was the reason why I didn't tell you earlier, and I'm sorry, Alex.

Alex can see his name, written out in her handwriting, but it's smudged by a drop of water that must have been from a tear falling down her face. Tears streamed down his cheeks now as he brushed them away before they stain in the paper. Jo was pregnant, she miscarried, they lost their baby. He was forced to take a moment to remember how to breathe as he sat there and cried for the family, for the wife, and the child that he lost.

It's all his fault and she was right to blame him. If he had been there for her, if he had watched over her, if he was there when she started bleeding, maybe, maybe, this wouldn't have happened, but maybe it would have regardless. At least he would have been there. He could have rushed her to surgery before she passed out. He could have held her and comforted her as they grieved for their baby, but he wasn't there. Jo miscarried and almost died alone, because of his selfish choices. His kids, they needed him, they loved him, and he loved them too, but Jo needed him as well. For some reason, he thought that she didn't need him because she was an adult. She was his wife, and even if she hadn't miscarried, he was the person who was always supposed to be in her corner, for better or for worse, that was what he promised, and he wasn't there for her.

He left her.

How did he do it, how did he leave her?

As Alex sobbed, the tears streamed down his face, and he just put his hand in his arms, and he cried. He cried harder than he had ever cried in his entire life. He was thankful that he was alone in the house because he screamed and shouted and cried. He grabbed all of Izzie's perfect pillows that she kept in the living room and threw them against the empty fireplace. He grabbed the studded animals that Alexis and Eli had been playing with before school and he threw them against the walls. He screamed and cried so much that his voice became hoarse as his throat hurt, but he didn't care. He raged and threw things and cried until he was exhausted.

He sat on the floor against the fireplace on the cold, rough bricks. The one thing he hadn't thrown was Jo's letter. It was still clenched in his hand, the paper was wrinkled from his fist, but he smoothed it on his knee. Her letter wasn't over yet, and he had to continue reading.

There were so many people that this past year, people I couldn't save, but I could save Luna. I just looked at her, and I thought that maybe I could keep her safe, that I could raise her and take care of her. And I know that she doesn't replace the baby we lost. But when our baby died, I had all this love stored up, love for you and love for our baby, but Luna didn't have anyone to love her, so I did. I took all of my love and I loved her. That's part of why I fought for her because I thought that if I could look after Luna, then Val would do the same for our baby in the afterlife. We could look after and love each other's babies.

So I did, and I love Luna so much. She is my daughter, she is my baby, and I know that with my whole heart. She is a whole new life that I love, and I've never been happier than when I was with you. She is the love and the light of my life, and she's the reason I get up in the mornings. She is everything to me as I'm sure your kids are everything to you.

There are three pictures on my shelf right now. One is the first photo I have of Luna and me together in the NICU, the second is a photo of Val that one of her friends gave me, and the third is the ultrasound photo of our baby.

Losing them felt like losing the last part of you. After losing them, you vanished from my life completely because there was nothing left of you or our baby. There was no baby to bury, nothing to put in a casket and in the ground, and no gravestone. There was no proof that they were loved, and they were loved, Alex. I want you to know that more than anything that our baby was loved. Not very many people know about them, just Link and Meredith and a few others, but they were so excited, and they loved and took care of our baby and me.

After I lost them, I wished that I had something to hold on to. Something that was theirs, and then I realized I did have something. I had quite a few things. I had been given a few baby gifts and things that I had bought for the baby. I took everything and sorted through it. Sorting through their things reminded me of sorting through your things, and it reminded me that I had just lost you all over again, but I still did it. Some of our baby's things I used for Luna, but a couple of very special things I put into a little shadow box.

In it, I put one of the blue onesies that has little clouds on it that I was compelled to buy the second after I found out I was pregnant. There's the ultrasound photo from the eight week scan and one of my pregnancy tests. There's this little grey bear that Link gave me, and Meredith gave me this little brown beaded pacifier clip that she swore was good luck and would make it, so I never lost a pacifier or something. Arizona and Callie sent me back this blue scrubs onesie that they said you made for Sophia. Even Christina sent me the little onesie that says 'Evil Spawn's Spawn'. Although I tucked that away in the bottom of the box. Amber sent out this pink cloud swaddle blanket that she swore would get them to sleep in 60 seconds and a pack of diapers because she knew that our kid would go through them like crazy. I used most of them for Luna, but I kept one and put it in the box.

After you left, I still kept in touch with your mom. She's so good to me. She said that I would always be her daughter-in-law, and she was excited to meet our baby. She sent me all of the hats that she had ever knitted for us, and she sent me this grey giant hat with tiny matching booties. I don't know why, but those booties were my favorite out of everything.

I put the hat in the box, but I carried one of the little booties around with me for the longest time. I would just carry it around in my hand, or I would just tuck it in my bra close to my heart, or just put it in my pocket. I still do that even now, that's the one piece of our baby that I don't think I'll ever let go. I sent you the matching booty in a separate package. I wanted you to have something of our baby too because they were real, Alex, and I know you would have loved them if you knew. My entire pregnancy, I whispered to them that their Daddy loved them.

I wanted you to know that I was always going to tell you. I would have never kept your child from you, but at the time, I was still in the thick of it. The hurt from you leaving and everything else going on in the world. I just wanted to figure out what I was going to do before I had to think about what we were going to do together. I was going to tell you, and then I didn't, and then I couldn't.

I lost them a year ago, and for the first time, I felt like I could tell you about them. I suppose I could have never told you about them. I could have spared you the pain, and the heartbreak, and I'm not telling you now to hurt you or punish you, I swear. Well, maybe just a little bit, because it hurt to lose our baby alone. I wish you would have been there for me, and then other times, I'm glad you weren't. You would have apologized, and it would have been all about how you left. I just thought that you deserved to know about our baby even if I lost them like I lost you.

So now that I've told you all that I wanted to, I don't know how to end this letter. I don't know how to end us. I guess that's something we share. I just hope that you're as happy with Izzie, Alexis, and Eli, as I am with Luna. I hope that you get the family barbecuing on the back porch, and the soccer games, and the movie nights, and the book reports. I hope you have the family you always wanted. I know that you're a good Dad, and I can almost see it. I know that you're happy and that's how I know I can end it. I also want you to know that I don't hate you anymore, I've forgiven you. I'm sorry I didn't want to take your happiness with this letter. Just know that our baby was loved and I was happy to have them while I could. I hope that you have a good life and I hope you're happy Alex, I truly do.

All my love,

Jo

As soon as he finished Jo's letter Alex looked up. He went over to the kitchen bar rifled through the mess for the tiny post box that Jo had sent. He didn't want to open it until after he read her letter and he thought he should save it for last and he wasn't sure if it would have been better to know this heartbreak beforehand. Alex sank back down to the floor leaning his back against the wall. He ripped off the tape and opened the box, delicately wrapped in tissue paper was the tiniest of baby booties. It was well knitted and soft with two tiny buttons. His mom had done a good job like she always did. As he picked it up it seemed too small in his big hands, but he could imagine his and Jo's tiny baby wearing this booty. Jo was right, holding this booty now, their baby felt so real and the loss felt so great. Their baby would never wear this booty and he would never hold their child in his arms.

As he held the booty and for the first time since he sat down to read Jo's letter, Alex looked around the perfect house that he shared with his two perfect kids and Izzie, and suddenly it was all too much. Because Jo was wrong, he wasn't happy. Every day he fought with Izzie over how they should parent the twins. Every day, she reminded him that she never wanted him in their lives and that she was supposed to be their only parent. Every day Izzie reminded him that he was an unwanted presence in their lives. Things with the twins were good, and they loved having a dad, but when they were in school and Izzie was at work, he was all alone. He felt the loneliness creep in like a fog and he missed Jo now more than ever and he grieved for their lost baby.

Alex decided he couldn't stay here any longer. He grabbed his phone and the letter while holding the booty in his hand and he took off. He got in his car and drove away. He ended up in the city because that was more familiar than the back roads of Baldwin. For some reason, he wasn't surprised when he ended up at the airport. He parked in the parking garage and just stopped for a second.

How could he go home now? A year had passed since this had happened. Since he left, since he sent his letter, since Jo was on her own, since she lost their baby. Jo had well and truly moved on, but as he looked down at the tiny grey booty, he was still in the thick of it.

He decided to call the one person who he could always talk to, and Meredith picked up after just a few rings. "Hey."

"Hey Mer," Alex said, somehow keeping his voice steady as he looked down at the letter and the booty in his hands. "I um, I got Jo's letter today."

"I know," Meredith said, her voice soft and gentle. "She told me she was sending it to you."

Alex just nodded his head and licked his lips as the saltwater tears collected in his eyes. "Jo was pregnant."

"I know."

"We were going to have a baby."

"I know."

"But she, she miscarried and, and our baby, our baby died."

"I'm so sorry, Alex," Meredith said as he just closed his eyes, feeling the tears fall from the corner of his eyes. "I was there the day she miscarried, she cried out for you. She wanted you there, but I couldn't, I couldn't get a hold of you. Then Jo hemorrhaged and I didn't want to leave her, by the time I was going to call you again, she, she asked me not to."

"She, she cried out for me?" Alex asked, finally breaking down, knowing that Jo had gone through the miscarriage all alone and that she had asked for him to be there, and he wasn't. Instead, he was in bed with another woman, with other children, and another family, and she was all alone. He left his wife, the love of his life, and their baby all alone.

"We were going to have a baby," Alex cried, as he put his arm on the steering wheel and leaned his head forward to hide in his arm. "But she miscarried, Jo miscarried alone, because I wasn't there."

"She wasn't alone, I was there, and Link was there. She wasn't alone." Meredith tried to reassure him.

"But I wasn't there," Alex stressed, picking up his head as he held the phone to his ear again. "I wasn't there for her, I'm her husband, and I wasn't there for her. She went through the worst possible thing imaginable alone. She lost our baby, and I wasn't there for her. I was off playing happy family with Izzie. Frecken Izzie, who left me the same way I left Jo. I know that pain, and I still chose to give it to her. I gave her the worst pain imaginable. I left her alone, and she miscarried, and it's all my fault."

"Alex, this wasn't on you. Jo didn't miscarry because anything that you or she did, it just happened," Meredith insisted, but her words didn't make him feel any better, and through his tears and his sobs, he could barely hear her.

"I wasn't there. I should have been there," Alex cried, he sobbed, and he wailed, breaking down in the car as he clutched the baby booty, the soft yarn folding in his hand as the buttons pressed against his palm. "It's been a year but, but I still love her. I never should have left her, Meredith. It was the worst mistake I've ever made in my entire life. I left her, I left our baby, I left our family. I left and our baby died and Jo was alone. I should have been there."

Alex cried, he cried for his wife, he cried for their baby, and he cried for his stupid mistakes. The tears trailed down his cheek and it felt like they would never stop. He openly sobbed much more than he had ever cried in his entire adult life. Big ugly tears filled with saltwater that stung his eyes and snot dripped down his nose as he wiped it away on the cuff of his shirt. He just cried. He couldn't seem to do anything other than that.

He just cried.

AN: You can come kill me now, but if you do I can't post traitor tomorrow.