Dallas, Texas

Cautiously knocking on the bathroom door early on Tuesday morning, JR worried about what he'd find waiting for him when he entered; he could hear Sue Ellen crying quietly and from the way she'd been up and down over the last few weeks anything was possible.

Looking up from where she was perched on the edge of the bathtub, she leaned into him when he sat down beside her on the uncomfortable narrow porcelain. "I'm… not… pregnant", saying the words between sobs she answered the question he hadn't had a chance to ask.

Letting the words sink in, he meant it when he whispered, "it's ok darlin', there's still time".

He didn't want her to be upset about it, they'd agreed just over three months earlier that they'd see what happened, without pressure, which they had and the monthly reminders of her empty womb hadn't upset her too much, until now.

Shaking her head into his shoulder, she responded, "no…"

"Yes", holding her tightly he reinforced his positive message. They'd been a little less active in the bedroom over the last month because with everything that had been going on in the family sometimes intimacy was the last thing on her mind, but they'd been nowhere near abstinent and he doubted that going forward things would drop to levels below where they were already at.

Pulling back, she looked at him, her lip quivering as she whispered, "no, I…"

Stopping short of what she'd started to say, her unfinished sentence prompted him to ask, "you what?"

Wiping her tears with her hands, she took a few moments to steady her breathing, breaking eye contact as she answered, "I'm relieved".

"Relieved?" finding her difficult to read, both because she wasn't looking directly at him as she spoke and because what she was saying didn't make a lot of sense to him, he repeated her answer back to her as a question.

"I'm alive", speaking in a whisper, her words presented more questions than answers. He was used to her emotional spectrum, they'd known each other for six years now and he'd seen it all, but that didn't mean he knew when to expect a sudden change in emotions.

"Of course you're alive", cracking a smile, he assumed she was being dramatic as she'd been known to before; she had the ability to take something simple and blow it out of proportion for no reason other than that was her nature, she worried and it didn't help her.

"No, I mean, I'm not going to die from complications", shaking her head, she clarified what she was actually feeling, without actually clarifying anything at all.

"Complications? Can we take that back a step please, I'm afraid I don't understand", gently explaining that she wasn't making any sense, he stood up and walked across the room to find a box of tissues for her tears.

"Complications, like what happened to Pam", confessing her fears, she gratefully accepted the tissue he offered her, drying the new stream of tears that began to roll down her cheeks.

"Not that again", knowing they weren't beyond talking about their former sister-in-law, he had optimistically hoped that the further away from that time they got, the more at ease her mind would be, but if what she was telling him now was true, it hadn't.

"It's a real concern", glaring at him, her mood appeared to change from upset to angry in a split second.

She knew she was prone to dramatics and so did he, however, it apparently still came as a surprise to her when he refused to play into her hysterics and offered a more grounded perspective, "maybe, but you're not Pam. Maternal mortality is not as common as you've convinced yourself it is".

"Maybe not, but I have first-hand experience now and I'm frightened", raising her voice, her fear was clear, she was overly dramatic sometimes, even now, but perhaps she did have a point. In the space of just a few months she'd had a miscarriage and then lost a sister-in-law and a nephew, it wasn't expected that something else would happen to her should she conceive again, she was healthy, but it was understandable why she might think her chances of encountering misfortune were raised now that she was seemingly surrounded by tragedy.

"I know", sitting beside her again, he hesitantly reached out to hug her, aware that from the way she'd been looking at him a moment ago she might not warm to his intended affection. Thankfully, she accepted his action, leaning into him and crying into his shoulder.

Holding her, he comforted her silently for a long while, thinking about the situation as he balanced on the side of the bathtub. They'd made a lot of progress in their marriage and she'd personally made a lot of progress emotionally, but as he was experiencing now, it only took one thing for her to be sent over the edge again and that was something he couldn't deal with alone. She'd need to see Doctor Williams, that was essential, he'd like her to see Doctor Krane or someone of equal qualification too though, someone who could physically assess her and reassure her that she was in fact perfectly healthy just like she'd always been told.

Naturally, he worried about her health, he loved her and never wanted to see her hurt, upset, or worse, but he was also a much less emotional thinker than she was, so while she worried herself sick, he took a step back and thought about it from a factual perspective. "What happened to Pam was tragic, but it's not something that happens often. If you need to see a doctor or multiple doctors to hear that then we can, but I'm telling you now, you're healthy and you're working yourself into an emotional state about something you don't need to worry about", wanting to sound supportive and comforting but also realistic, he couldn't be sure of the way she'd interpret anything he said.

"Maybe", still sounding a little sceptical, she made some progress when she pulled back to look at him and seemed to be actually considering what he was telling her.

"You are", reiterating what he thought, he wondered how they'd gotten to where they were now. Her state of mind had improved dramatically over the past few months only to be knocked back by the shocking reality of death; it was understandable why she was shaken, but regressing to the state she'd been in in the past didn't help anything.

"I'm still relieved. I don't think now would be a very appropriate time to announce a pregnancy", looking down, she added another element to her feelings, one that he understood but they disagreed on.

"Perhaps not, but we can't live our lives tiptoeing around Bobby and his feelings. I don't know if you've forgotten, but he and Pamela didn't think twice about your feelings when they announced they were expecting", recalling the timing of his brother and sister-in-law's surprising news, he remembered how upset Sue Ellen had been and couldn't help but feel she was perhaps being too thoughtful now.

Meeting his eye again, she frowned as she told him, "this is different, and it scares me that you don't see it. What it would take to emotionally shake you like it has me?"

Considering it, he told her what he knew to be true, "personally experiencing it, but I never wish to go through what Bobby is". He understood why Bobby was hurting and why Sue Ellen felt similarly, he just didn't feel the same depth of pain himself, he was a step removed from the situation and would like to keep it that way. If Sue Ellen wasn't ready or didn't think it was the right time to have another baby then that was something they could talk about, but he didn't think it necessary to worry about all of the outcomes that might have happened if she had been pregnant seeing as they now knew she wasn't.

"No, neither do I", looking beyond him, Sue Ellen's attention drifted away, her mind clearly fixed on Pam's fate.

"Come on", standing, he helped her up, guiding her out of the bathroom back to bed. Lying down wasn't going to repair her emotional state, but the bed was a far more comfortable place to wallow in her sadness and relief than the bathroom.

To be continued…