Lassiter got the breathing tube out!

The doctor said he looks good!

Shawn felt a wave of relief wash over him as the texts came in from Juliet. That was good. That was a step in the right direction. A step closer to Juliet getting her partner back. A step closer to things being the way they were.

"It's gonna be okay," Shawn said to the tiny, blurry picture in his hands. The sun had just crossed over the covering of the porch, illuminating the glossy sonogram picture he had been staring at for the last two hours. He could feel hope welling up inside his chest with every breath. He tried to stop it. He tried to put it away. He tried to save it for later. There was no use for hope now. Things could still go wrong.

Because even with the hope soaring, every time he looked at the picture, he was also reminded of the last picture they had held. The picture they had hung on the door of the refrigerator that he made up songs for every morning while he was making Jules breakfast. The one he had shown Gus and his dad when they had told them.

The one they had put in a box and buried in the backyard after the worst night of their life.

"It's okay," Shawn said, sitting on the rim of the bathtub, rubbing Juliet's back. She sat on the toilet, folded over her knees with her arms pressed tightly against her stomach, bleeding heavily.

He could see she was in pain. Not just emotional pain either- real, shooting, physical pain. The glossy shimmer of life that had lit up her eyes for the last fifteen weeks was gone, and her deep blue eyes had turned a dull gray. She looked so weak he had carried her in from the car, afraid if she walked, she would pass out.

"I'm so sorry," Juliet whispered, her voice catching in the back of her throat. Shawn could see the tears gliding steadily down her cheeks. "I really wanted this for us."

Her voice cracked, tugging at his heart as it split and fell quiet. He took his hand and quickly rubbed it across his face, trying to keep his own sadness from spilling out.

"Hey Sweetheart," Shawn said, moving to the ground so he could look straight up at Juliet. Her eyes were closed with exhaustion, but he traced his hand down her face and looked right at her, "This is not your fault. These things just happen sometimes."

"This was a miracle," Juliet said, her face twisting with a new wave of pain, "This was a miracle and I lost it. I lost our miracle."

"Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. We can just be the two of us. That's good too." Shawn stumbled over his words, unsure of what to say. Unsure of how to reassure her. Unsure of how to make it better. What could he possibly say to make her feel better?

"Let me change you out of your suit," Shawn said in an attempt to distract her, noticing that she was still in her pantsuit from earlier that day. Back when everything was fine and normal. She was supposed to come home from work, and they would eat dinner and make more plans for the nursery until she got tired and they fell asleep, his hand over her stomach. But instead, their whole world was destroyed in a single moment.

They had felt scared before. She had survived cancer after all. Night after night he would try to make her comfortable as they both did everything they could to not let their nightmares get the best of them. He had seen her in pain. He had watched the world try to attack and kill the woman he loved. But this was different. It was loss, plain and simple.

If only it felt that simple.

Shawn returned to the bathroom as fast as he could, touting Juliet's day-off sweats and his oversized blue sweatshirt. He crouched down in front of her again and carefully slid off her blood-stained pants, throwing them into the trash can without hesitation. They seemed like bad luck if anything else.

He carefully lifted her feet and slid the fuzzy sweats onto her legs. He saw her grimace silently with the movement.

"Do you want the sweatshirt?" He asked softly.

She nodded and carefully pushed herself up to an upright position. He gently pulled her pink shirt over her head, but before he could replace it, her eyes started to flutter and her whole body began to sway sideways.

"Jules!" he said, quickly reaching out and grabbing her by the shoulder before she tipped sideways off of the toilet. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," she said calmly, letting her eyes remain shut.

Shawn looked down to see more blood than he ever wished to see of anyone he loved staining the white ceramic of the toilet. He could feel his own blood draining from his face.

"Jules, you're bleeding a lot," he said, blinking heavily to keep from passing out himself, "Maybe I should take you back to the hospital."

Juliet opened her eyes and looked at him. They were red with tears and stood out in an aggressive contrast to her especially pale face. She looked deep into his eyes, willing him to feel her fear.

"I can't…" she said, letting her eyes drift to the ceiling as she struggled to inhale. "I can't go back there, Shawn." She finally managed to fill her lungs, but Shawn could hear the air shaking as it hit the back of her throat. "Please don't make me," she exhaled, a fresh batch of tears bubbling to the surface.

"It's okay," Shawn said, understanding tearing his heart like a knife. He knew why she didn't want to go. How could he not? The hospital had only been a tragic place for them, especially in the last twelve hours. How could he drag her back there and ignore the worry that was beginning to suffocate him?

"Can I take you to bed, then?" He asked, gently rubbing his thumbs across the palms of her hands.

She nodded silently, wrapping her hands around his. He lifted her hands to his face, placing a gentle kiss on the back of each hand, unsure how more he could convey his love and sorrow for her.

"Can you stand for a second?" He asked, supporting her weight upright when she nodded again and readjusting the sweats around her waist. With her shirt still off, Shawn could see the remnants of the baby bump that had once held their child and was now… empty.

He carefully picked her up and carried her to the bed, gently placing her on a pile of towels and blankets he had made for her. As soon as he lay her down in the bed, she rolled over into a fetal position, tucked so tightly in on herself he was afraid she would disappear entirely.

"Are you in pain right now?" He asked, kneeling next to the bed to resume rubbing her back.

"It comes in waves," Juliet said, biting her lip in concentration. "It's how I had imagined contractions would feel…" The word spilled out slowly, calculated.

Shawn put his head on the bed, hiding his face with the sheets. This wasn't fair. Why does she have to go through this faux labor when all she is getting out of it is a sticky pile of blood? How is this her consolation prize?

He felt tears begin to fall down his own cheeks as his heart shattered. A million little pieces, for him, for her, and for their baby they would never get to meet.

Shawn climbed into bed next to her and she reached out to hold his hand tightly to her chest. He could feel her grip tightening and loosening every so often as a new wave of pain washed over her, but she remained quiet, the steady stream of tears leaving a small spot next to her shoulder. Slowly her grip got softer and the squeezing less frequent as Juliet drifted into a seemingly peaceful sleep.

Shawn couldn't sleep. He was afraid to take his eyes off her. Afraid that the second he did she would stop breathing or bleed out. Instead, he watched her carefully, sinking his own breaths with the rise and fall of his wife's.

He spent the whole night next to her, watching her sleep, his mind racing. He thought about the case that he had been helping Jules on that morning. He replayed the moment he walked into the room of the ER to find her laying curled up on her side on an observation table, Lassiter pacing anxiously by the window. He carefully recalled every second that he had seen Juliet that morning, wondering if there was anything he could have possibly done- any way that he could have known that something was wrong.

Most of the time, he was actually grateful his dad had engrained a photographic memory in him, though he would never admit it. It had gotten him out of many questionable situations, even if it had also somehow gotten him into that situation in the first place. But it had also given him a job to get out of bed for every morning and brought him to the love of his life.

And yet…

It was nights like this when he wished with every fiber of his being that he could unsee some things. The day his dad got shot, the night Yin nearly killed Gus right in front of him, the first time he saw Juliet lying on the bathroom floor after getting sick from chemo. And now tonight.

He could add tonight to the top of the list. Without hesitation.

Around five in the morning, he could feel Juliet's breaths begin the quicken and her grip around his hand become more conscious.

"Sweetheart?" Shawn whispered gently into the dark. He was met with a slurred murmur and felt her stir underneath his arm. He watched her closely as her eyes flickered open. They looked light for just a moment before the darkness set back in and tears returned to the corner of her eye.

"I forgot," Juliet said, tilting her head down to look at the yellow-stained-red towel underneath her. "My eyes were closed, and I thought I could feel her and just for a moment I forgot."

"Her…?" Shawn whispered softly.

"I saw her, Shawn." Wet lines were beginning to cascade down her cheeks. "In my dream. I saw her and held her. She was perfect and beautiful and she was in my arms and she was here."

Shawn watched her closely, the slightest flicker of jealousy that she got to see their baby beat across his chest. That even for a moment, she had felt it in her arms. Held it. And sadness that he would never get to now.

"Can we bury her?" Juliet asked slowly, not making eye contact.

"I think that is the perfect idea," he said.

And they did. After three long days, the bleeding finally slowed and Juliet had regained enough energy to walk farther than the bathroom by herself. They stood side by side in the backyard, Shawn holding Juliet, Juliet holding the blurry picture from the refrigerator door.

"You ready?" Shawn whispered, not wanting to break the serene silence of the moment.

Juliet nodded and knelt down to place the picture in a small wooden box on top of the pregnancy test and a onesie they had picked out together the day after the positive test. She closed the box, revealing the name painted across the top in looping letters.

Millicent.

"I always wanted to name my first daughter Milly," Juliet said, snapping the tabs into place to secure the box. "I guess I just always thought I would get to meet her first."

She placed the box into a small hole Shawn had dug into the dirt at the base of the new tree they had planted for their baby. Silently, they took turns scooping handfuls of dirt onto the box until the ground became even and undisturbed. Like she had never even been there in the first place.

Shawn looked up from the sonogram to the growing tree in the corner of the yard.

"Please protect this baby," Shawn said out loud. He didn't know if he was asking Milly or just the universe, but he needed to put them into the world. He could already feel the hope beginning to rise in him again. "Please let us meet this one."