Sorry for continued sporadic updates. A lot of this stuff is hard to write.

I also plan to treat myself to actually READING fics soon as a birthday gift to myself (I read the other day that initially spinsters were unmarried women between 22-26, so I'm amused that as of the 28th of this month I will officially be too old to be a spinster xD).


Daisy had greenstick wrist and ulna fractures, a mild concussion, and a puncture wound to the side that – thankfully – had not penetrated any organs. "Not a good enough reason to use the word 'penetrate'" she'd mumbled with a smirk when the doctors had relayed her injuries to Ralph and Patty when they'd located her in her room. She also had, as she put it, "some incredible bruises." Daisy was obviously trying very hard to stay lighthearted, and Ralph understood. If she let herself break even a little, she'd be an emotional mess, and she likely wanted to wait and do that at home, without the risk of a medical professional walking in.

Paige was still an hour or so out; Ralph would be leaving soon to pick her up. He was glad she was coming. He was old enough now, and independent enough, to be fine, most of the time, without her, and they would go weeks without talking before he even realized it. But then he'd start missing her like crazy, and whenever he called and heard the excitement in her voice, he felt bad for the time they went without speaking. Then he felt bad that he didn't talk to Walter much either. Then he felt bad that he did talk to Walter slightly more than Paige.

Then he thought about how part of the reason he didn't talk to them much, and visited even less, was to assuage that guilt. Out of sight, out of mind.

Daisy was cleared to eat, as she put it, "actual food," and had sent Patty out in search of some, since no one was able to take orders from the room at the moment. Ralph had volunteered to go, to give them time alone, but Patty had insisted. "I take care of my girl," she'd said, smiling at Daisy before hurrying off. Ralph wondered if there was some guilt involved in that, too.

"I'm sure production knows about this by now," Daisy said. "I haven't said anything, they wouldn't expect me to contact them quite this quickly, but I'll have to soon."

"For all they know you're still being worked on."

"There's photos out there. They know I'm alive if they look hard enough."

Ralph didn't tell her that's how he and Patty had found out.

"I have some emails," she said. "My mom said my iPad kept pinging."

"She'll be here with it soon."

"I almost don't want to know. I could log in on your phone, you know. Or Pats'. But I haven't asked – no," she said when Ralph held out his device. "I'm too scared. They're going to take it away from me, I know it."

"No you don't."

She stared up at the ceiling. "I initially went into acting with such a gusto because I thought maybe if I got really good, if I became a star, then my biological father might want me."

Ralph nodded. Daisy's father had left when she was four years old. "Just hung around enough for me to have a shadow of a memory," she'd say. He could relate to that. He remembered every detail of when he and his mother had moved to Los Angeles. At that point, they were leaving Drew to set up their new life. But instead, Drew had been the one to ultimately leave them.

"Over time, my acting became for me. About me. It helped me express myself. Slipping into other characters allowed me to test out how I felt. I got to have all these experiences, and try out how they made me feel, and I had a cover. They were roles. But they weren't. They helped me discover who I was, under that desire to bring back someone who I thought held the key to my identity. But in reality, my identity was inside of me. And I just had to find it. And this role in The Prom, it spoke to me like almost no other role has. It's the most actually me role I've landed. And now I'm not going to get to do it."

"You could still do it," he said. "Remember a couple years ago when those people got sick and the other woman had to fly to London to do it until they were better?"

"You are so lucky I know what you're talking about," she said with a smirk. "And I don't know. Maybe. But it isn't like the show is currently running and so the understudy can just be on for a couple weeks. This is original rehearsals for the revival. It's different. I just don't know how different. I haven't been on this level long enough to know how these circumstances work. I don't really know what the standard policy even is for this stuff, because how often does this happen? My guess is Adelaide – you remember Adelaide the understudy?"

Ralph didn't, but he nodded.

"My guess is she would just prepare to go on if I couldn't be ready, until I was. But I'm so scared to get access to my voicemails. Or to check my email. Because that part is still mine until I hear otherwise. And I'm clinging to that."

Ralph reached out and squeezed her hand.

Daisy stared at the ceiling again. Quiet. Ralph watched her. He wanted to speak, but wasn't sure at all what to say. Daisy broke the silence with a question he wasn't expecting. "Do you ever think about what will happen if Caleb contacts you?"

Ralph turned away, staring at a blank spot on the wall.

"Sorry," Daisy said. "That's not for me to ask.

"No," Ralph said, "it's okay." He gave a deep sigh. "I hope he will grow up the same way I have, learning that blood doesn't mean a thing. But if he wants that closure, and he wants us to meet, I'll do it. It took Drew coming back into my life for me to truly understand that I don't need him around. And that I don't want him around. He and I aren't right for each other. Walter's the dad I was always meant to have."

"What if he asks you why?"

Why. Why he was adopted by a woman old enough to be his grandmother. Why the people responsible for his existence didn't want him. Why his biological parents weren't together. "He is being raised by someone who fosters. He'll understand how different families can be. But…if he asks, I'll tell him that we were kids ourselves. That our relationship had turned into something that wasn't sustainable or healthy, and that it was over before we knew about him. I'll tell him he was adopted because it was the best thing for all of us. And I'll tell him that it wasn't his fault."

"You've put some thought into it."

"I have. A little. Truthfully, I hardly ever think about him. He's the product of a part of my life I'm glad I've moved past. He doesn't feel like mine. And in all the ways that matter, he isn't."


"Here you go," the nurse said, "you've got her."

Florence took the baby stiffly, awkwardly, like she hadn't once crawled in to a burning house through a window to pull Tad from a deadly trap. She was comfortable holding babies. And yet this felt completely new, in the heavy, clueless way.

Sylvester was the reason why she'd come. The day before, at work, in an attempt to create small talk and distract from waiting on news from Paige, Florence had blurted "seen Tilly lately?" She'd hated herself for that. Despised herself even – that word sounded worse to her than 'hate' did. 'Hate' implied straight anger. 'Despise' added disgust. Of course he'd seen Tilly lately. He visited her almost every day. She didn't have to be spending time with him to know that.

Sylvester hadn't given her the odd look or snarky answer that she perhaps deserved. "I am going in the morning," he'd said. "If you want to come, I could drive you."

She'd just stared, for what was probably a painfully awkward amount of time. She didn't want to go. She didn't want to walk in there and be able to put a face to people who were talking about her behind her back, it's her, it's that mother who doesn't come visit her preemie. Probably. They were probably saying all that and more.

But now that the offer was extended, the idea of turning it down made her feel more guilty than the idea of going. So the word "okay" had slipped from her dry throat.

"I'll leave you three alone," the nurse told them. "Sylvester, you know how to get ahold of one of us."

"I know how to get ahold of you too," Florence said shortly. "The call button is very clearly marked."

"Florence," Sylvester said quietly.

Florence sighed.

When the nurse was gone, she looked down at the baby in her arms. Tilly was still so very small. She was two months old, but still much…less than a two – month – old who had been full term. They were still two months from Tilly's due date. She'd double her amount of living outside of Florence by the time she was initially supposed to be born.

If she lived. She was so, so small.

"She looks a lot better, doesn't she?" Sylvester asked. "They almost never have her on oxygen anymore. She can see. She can hear. She almost smiles, sometimes. And she can recognize voices."

"She wouldn't know mine," Florence said. "They can't really hear until twenty – four weeks and that's when she was born."

"She might. They can hear as early as eighteen, though to be honest I don't know how much they can recognize at that point."

"She doesn't know me, Sylvester."

"She will. Eventually."

If she lived. She was so, so small. Florence lifted her up, holding her against her chest.

"Is it good to see her?" Sylvester asked. "I know you worry."

"I…" she bit her lip. "I don't know."

Sylvester nodded. "Okay."

"I don't know how I feel about her." Shit. She hadn't meant to say that thought out loud.

"You…you don't…" Sylvester looked conflicted, as if he didn't want to finish that sentence in fear of getting an answer, but at the same time desperate to know what she'd say.

"Love her?" Florence asked. She could tell by the way his jaw moved, slightly side to side, that she'd gotten it right. "I…" she gave the tiniest of shrugs. "I wish I did. I did when she was born." Florence lightly patted Tilly's back. The baby's hand, curled into a fist, lightly bumped against her mother's shoulder. "I feel detached. Like she's mine, but she isn't. Or mine, but not supposed to be."

"Or yours, but not thriving?"

Sylvester asked it gently, but Florence was angry. "You think I can only love her if she's perfect?"

He sighed. She wanted to cry. She wished she could remember what it was like to not get so defensive all the time. Sylvester used to be someone she could relax around. Maybe he still was. Maybe she'd changed. Maybe this had messed her up more than she'd let herself believe.

"What I mean," Sylvester said, quietly, "is maybe you're scared. Really, really scared. If you get attached, and she doesn't make it, then you won't make it either."

Florence could feel her hands shaking. She clutched Tilly tighter, terrified that she'd tumble to the floor.

"Maybe I'm wrong," he continued, and she was grateful for that, grateful for him not trying to push her into a corner, into his theory of what was the matter. "It's just a thought."

"You're probably right," she said, her voice almost too low to hear. "If I was falling all over her with rainbows draining from my nose and sunshine shooting out of my eyes or whatever flowery language people use, and something happened to her…" she shook her head. "There isn't enough of me in this world to overcome that." But if I'm removed from it, I can survive. If I'm removed from it and she dies, only one of us have been destroyed.

"Are you really surviving, though?" Sylvester asked.

"I'm alive."

"Okay, fair. You're surviving. But are you thriving? This can't be what you want, Florence."

"You're right," she said. "It's not what I want. But I'm not going to get what I want. Ever. I want her still inside me. I want to feel her kicking and doing somersaults. I want her head in my ribs. I want her punching my bladder. I want a baby shower. I want to be making stupid bets with you about if the baby is a boy or a girl, and then have serious conversations with you about how we're going to support the baby if we find out differently later on. And then I want that early stage of labor, where we're excited instead of scared. Hell I even want the part where I'm in so much pain I curse you for doing it to me. But I'm never going to have that. I know me. I know what I can handle. And I know I won't ever be able to get pregnant again." She tapped her temple. "Mentally. I can't spend up to nine months terrified the same thing is going to happen again. Tilly is my only baby, and I don't know how to handle how everything played out."

"I know," Sylvester said. "I know my…experience isn't the same as you. But I get it. I was expecting all those things, too. Even you telling me you were never letting me close to you again. Because…at least then I'd know to just chalk it up to the pain."

Ouch. Florence knew he wasn't intending to make her feel guilty. He was being honest. He was just being Sylvester. But she knew how much she had to have hurt him by leaving.

Happy had once accused her of trying to destroy Scorpion. There was a time, back in 2018, when she doubted herself, when she wondered if everything she touched was given a detonator. Then, there was a time she hadn't believed it. But now, these past months, she's wondered if her initial assessment was in fact true.

What is wrong with me?

She thought about being in this same hospital, under different circumstances. Sylvester holding her hand. Sylvester encouraging her. Sylvester rubbing her back, massaging cramps in her legs…

Florence suddenly felt dizzy. Memories were returning, were clearing up, slowing their spin around her head. She'd never completely blocked out Tilly's birth; she'd actually been fixating on it, or else she wouldn't have been able to recount the events to Sylvester the day she'd left. But imagining Tilly being born here…the imagery was too much. It danced with the memories and created a monster.

Florence started to cry.

"Lori," Sylvester said, reaching out to put a hand against Tilly. Florence wanted to snap at him, that of course she wouldn't drop the baby, and how dare he imply she might, but she couldn't get any words out. She clutched Tilly to her, her body shaking, shaking like her damn leg in that airplane.

She knew it would have been out of line for Sylvester to hold her, to cross the boundary she'd set, but she wished he could read minds and know that that's what she wanted. So she leaned against him, slightly, trying to wordlessly give permission for something she craved but was too proud to ask for.

He slid an arm around her shoulders. His other hand stayed on Tilly.

"Will you see someone?" He asked. "Not for me. Not because I want you better. But you…you left me to look for yourself, right? Don't you want to give that self the best chance? Walter got a doc for his thing."

She was quiet, gathering herself, wanting to respond without her voice cracking. "Why does some random psychiatrist deserve to know everything in my head?" She asked finally, after a long silence that she was glad he allowed. "It's so hard for me to share. Why would…" She took in a deep breath, "why would I grant some stranger access?"

"Because it's clearly too difficult to do on your own. And you don't want to talk to us."

Florence sat up and adjusted her hold on Tilly, stretching her arms out toward Sylvester. "Can you take her? I need…" Sylvester gathered the baby into his arms. "Easy, T," he said with a smile when the baby grunted. Florence got up, crossing the small room and getting a tissue, which she used to dab at her eyes and then wipe her cheeks off. She looked back at Sylvester and Tilly, He was smiling down at her, rocking her gently, quietly 'bum – bum' – ing the Super Fun Guy song. She smiled. It was the first smile she couldn't help in months. It lasted only a moment, before the squeezing sensation returned around her heart and lungs, the fog settled back around her eyes, and her limbs grew heavy. The funk had returned. It was gone for only a moment.