Okay, guys. Sorry it's been a month. It's been hard. Life. My own mental health. Trying to finish and edit this chapter in the middle of life and my own mental health. Major trigger warning for thoughts and mentions of suicide, and fears about pregnancy loss and infant loss. Remember my promise – no one dies. But the characters don't know that.
I have also posted a oneshot, that if you have my notifications on, you'd have already gotten. Read this first. That one is intended as a fluffy palate cleanser, so this one doesn't leave you too far in the dark. I don't want to hurt anyone. Please do not read it unless you're in the mental place to do so.
The news had broken.
It reminded Paige of the beginning of the animated Anastasia movie, although without the dancing and anticipation. Sylvester hadn't known what she was talking about, but she showed him a YouTube video on her phone, and he got the similarities. The small Montana town was a frenzy, people rushing to gather around the police station, the small jail, uncertain of where Tim might be. A couple signs had popped up in support of the former SEAL, while others marched around down holding signs that said "Justice for Lauren." Some shouted at people crossing the street, asking if they'd seen. Others frantically posted updates to their social media. One account appeared to be copy pasting everything the police department tweeted, acting as if their news was exclusive to their feed, and to follow them for more updates. Everyone not shouting or typing was whispering. The newspaper – Sylvester was surprised that a town that small still printed a newspaper, had a front page headline. DID ARMSTRONG STRONG ARM HIS WIFE TO DEATH?
They got on the plane. Law enforcement would take it from here. The FBI was getting involved, so was the JAG corps, and Scorpion, as always, had done its job. It was time to go home.
Sylvester stared blankly at the wall. He was surprised none of them had anxiety over flying. Florence had been fine on the way out. Well. That's all relative. He was almost shocked he wasn't afraid, given his history of, well, being afraid. He wondered if it was a case of what people on the internet called the Ketchup Packet Phenomenon – that is, if you're at a fast food restaurant and you aren't given ketchup packets, you probably are too anxious to go up and ask for them for yourself, but if your friend needs ketchup, you suddenly are able to walk up to the counter with confidence to ask for some. Sylvester had been so worried about Florence. So, so worried. And now, about Paige.
Their plane slipped out of Montana, the nose pointing toward home. It wasn't dark outside, but no one had their windows open, creating the illusion of evening. Paige closed the magazine she was reading, tucked her legs up onto the seat, and leaned over, resting her head on Walter's shoulder. He shifted slightly to better accommodate her, tipping his head a tad to rest against hers. Sylvester's eyes shifted to the other couple present. Toby was dead to the world, asleep on Happy's shoulder.
Sylvester stared down at his knees. He pulled out his phone. Logged onto Twitter. Unfollowed any account he'd followed in the last few days. He knew he'd follow them again later today, or tomorrow, or on one of the days that came next. He couldn't be away from information, not when it was about something his family was so intimately close to.
But for now, he didn't want to think about it.
He posted a tweet, his first in weeks.
SylvesterDodd_Scorpion: I miss my wife.
He held his phone between his knees, shoving his hands in his pockets and tipping his head up, staring at the ceiling. Tim Armstrong was a murderer. Tilly was in the NICU. Scorpion might get a lot of money. Ralph's friend was missing. His brain naturally organized things – categorized them and put them where they belonged. But these things, they were rattling around, unable to work themselves in, unable to settle. It was too much.
His phone buzzed. He reached for it, checking the notification screen.
ItsFlorence89 liked your Tweet.
Ha. '89. She wished.
Sylvester sat up straight. Shit. He didn't think she still used Twitter. She hadn't used it in…in longer than him. He put a hand up to his forehead; she'd probably gotten a 'so and so tweeted for the first time in a while' notification. Would she think he did that on purpose, to get her attention, to guilt her for the way she'd been feeling? He'd never do that. She knew that. Well, the her she was before PPD knew that. Who she really was, knew that. Did this Florence, the one the real Florence had been battling for three months now, know that?
His phone buzzed again.
ItsFlorence89: I miss you, too.
Florence cleaned.
A general statement. But an appropriate one. She didn't clean the counter, or the floor, or the bathroom. Well, she did. But she cleaned. She cleaned everything.
She did the laundry. She scrubbed the floor. She cleaned the toilet, the sinks, the windows. She vacuumed. She dusted. She changed the bedsheets. She wiped the leaves down on the fake plants. She glued a corner of the back of the picture frame that held the photo of Sylvester and Megan, where it was starting to peel back. She showered. She took old food out of the fridge.
Was this just a natural burst of energy? Waking up one morning and feeling productive? She thought she remembered having those days. Before. Was this excitement over Sylvester coming home, after days alone in a house she wasn't used to being alone in? Did some deep, subconscious part of her brain know that Tilly's due date was a month away, and despite the girl being in a NICU eight miles away, this was nesting?
It was afternoon. They should have landed already. She'd let her phone die while cleaning. She should put it on the charger. She was oddly nervous. It was sort of a good kind of nervous, sort of the usual bad kind. She still wasn't really sure how that worked.
Normally she'd have gone to pick him up – well, no, normally she'd be with him, normally they'd be coming home together – but she still wasn't sure what they were, right now. Was it appropriate to pick him up? Was it appropriate to ask? Sure, he'd put on Twitter that he missed her, called her his wife, but he was left brained, logical, and legally, yes, they were married. She was his wife. She wanted to still be his wife. She knew that, even though the fog around her was thick as pea soup, the thought of losing Sylvester was like a lighthouse on a shoal, shining through the haze, warning her do not go here. When she finally heard his keys in the lock, she nearly jumped up from the couch to get the door for him, even though she knew he would have it open before she got there.
She wondered if he'd be surprised to see her there, but then, her car was in the parking lot. He smiled. "Hey."
"Hey."
"You cleaned all this up?" He asked, looking as if he wanted to drop his bags and greet her, but concerned he would create clutter.
She smiled. "I mean, it's not like it was dirty, per se. But…"
"Well, I think it looks great," he said. "How are you?"
She shrugged. "Okay. I missed you. It's weird being here without you. I don't like it."
He smiled. "I know what you mean. Let me just…" he glanced toward the hall.
She nodded. "Oh, yeah, totally." She shifted her weight. Now he was home. Now she wouldn't be so afraid of being by herself. Now she could relax. Now-
Sylvester came back into the living room, sans luggage, and sat beside her on the couch, draping his arm across the back. "I still don't really know what to make of all that."
"Tim?" She asked, wondering if he might actually be trying to talk about their relationship.
"Yeah." He sighed. "It's…it's crazy. Like looking back on things, I guess…I mean the signs were there. We were just so fixated on some love triangle we weren't looking hard enough. And it's hard, too, when the person belongs to a group that's so revered, and also when he seems so perfect at first glance. And he was someone to have sympathy for too, you know, with the PTSD." He sighed again. "And yet. Perhaps if we had seen the signs, Lauren would be here today. In a better relationship."
"You can't blame yourself for all those hypotheticals."
"I know. It's just…a fresh thought."
"I know." They both stared down at the same spot on the couch. Then Florence looked up. "I missed you," she said.
He gave her a crooked smile. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She hesitated, then leaned over and kissed him. She hadn't been thinking about doing it, and yet at the same time it felt as if she'd been waiting for him to get home just so she could. He broke the kiss quickly; it was clear he'd thought she was going for more of a peck hello, a tender greeting, and he smiled at her. She shook her head. "No. No, you don't…" she sat up on her knees, leaning sideways, her upper body over his. She put a hand against the couch, close to his head, for balance. "You don't understand."
When she kissed him again, he understood. They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, and when she curled her hand around his shirt, over his stomach, untucking his undershirt, he pulled his lips from hers just enough to ask, "are you sure?"
"I'm sure," she said, not wanting to separate any more, but knowing that they had to, a little, in order to undress enough for what she wanted.
She eased over him, then onto him, and it didn't hurt, it wasn't uncomfortable, it was far from uncomfortable; one of her hands on his chest, one of his on her thigh, their spare hands together via linked fingers. Afterward she laid forward on his chest, her breath slowly returning to her, her eyelids growing heavy and her body contentedly relaxed against his. He slid an arm around her, his hand resting at the small of her back; she knew it was both affectionate and practical, to keep her in place. She sighed happily, the warmth from their bodies comforting. She remembered all those nights they'd laid together, trying to conceive Tilly, a process which may have taken longer than expected in part due to both their lower than average libidos. But then sometimes, they would want the same thing at the same time, like today. And today was special, after weeks of her body giving mixed signals, of her stopping it before it began. Not today. Not today. Not today.
Unfortunately, no force had been discovered powerful enough to turn off Florence's mind. The contentedness, the satisfaction, the feeling that resembled triumph didn't last long. Florence felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, twisting and growing heavier.
She got up, dropping to the floor just next to the couch, putting her hands in front of her face as if that would keep the fear, the reality, out of her mind. "Sly, I've been…absolutely terrible lately at taking my pills."
Sylvester peered down at her. "Your birth control?"
"No, my crazy pills," she snapped. I'm sorry. She hadn't meant to get short with him. She got this way when she was anxious. Why had she gotten this way so fast? Thirty seconds ago she was basking in the afterglow, or whatever the Hell flowerly language Toby used. And now she was walking the tightrope above a sea of panic. "I obviously wasn't taking them when…and then we weren't, and I wasn't thinking about…and…"
He sat up. "Do we have any Plan B in the house?"
"No." She put her hands back over her face. "It's been so long since we've needed that. Oh my God." Sylvester was tugging his pants up over his hips, fumbling with his belt. "Sly, what on Earth did we just do?"
"I'll go get you some," he said, sitting back down on the edge of the sofa cushion and putting a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay, Florence. You won't get pregnant."
"But what if it won't be okay?" She turned to look up at him. "Sly, do you know how lucky we are that we've somehow managed to go years of close calls and near misses, in work and at home, and not had an absolute disaster happen?"
"I don't," he said, "though I could probably calculate those odds rather quickly."
"It's going to run out, one of these days," Florence said. "I'll get pregnant from today and then this is all going to happen again." Considering how many times her voice had cracked in the last thirty seconds, Florence was almost impressed that she'd held out this long without crying. The tears leaked out. "I can't go through this again."
"You won't have to," Sylvester said. "We've used emergency contraception before. The only time you've gotten pregnant was on purpose."
"I hate the NICU," she said, tears flowing freely. She pulled her knees up to her chest. Her body felt hollow. Like there was no possible place for all these tears to be originating. "No. No." Her voice grew more high pitched, more desperate, the words more drawn out. "No!"
"Lori." He slid down to the carpet beside her, pulling her into his arms. "Lori, it's okay. It's okay."
"No," she said again, this time a faltered whisper. She hated how hard her body was shaking. She let him hold her – it felt nice, for a moment – and then she stiffened in his arms. "Sly, go get the pills. Please, go get them. Please. Please." He didn't move, and she felt herself begin to hyperventilate. "Sly!"
"I'm worried about leaving you alone."
"I'm not going to the store like this," she gasped. Her mind was racing. Another baby, another premature birth, more stress, more fear, more struggling with allowing her husband to be there for her and feeling like less of a person for wrapping so much of herself up in his presence. And Tilly might still need help. Going to doctor's appointment upon doctor's appointment with a baby too young to be considered a toddler, with another little one perhaps fighting for his or her life at the hospital down the road. Oh God. What if the new baby died? What if Tilly didn't make it, and then the new baby died, and then she was nothing but the mother of two dead babies? No, nothing but Sylvester's husband, the mother of two dead babies, and according to her brain damaged coworker, his dead sister.
Florence Tipton, wearer of many hats.
She sobbed harder.
Sylvester shifted, so he could see her face. "Florence, look at me." She did. "I need you to promise me you'll stay right here until I get back. Promise me." He bit his lip. "Promise me you won't do anything that you can't take back."
She felt the tears come harder, as if they were new. "Sly." She buried her head in her knees.
"Lori, you're scaring me. This…you got so upset so quickly…I'm not trying to, to make you feel bad or guilty or, or anything like that. But God, sweetheart…"he kissed her forehead. "Promise me. Please."
"I won't jump off the balcony." As soon as the words left her tongue, Florence regretted them. She could tell by the way that Sylvester's face changed that he hadn't expected her to promise something quite so specific.
"You've thought about jumping off the balcony."
It was something she hadn't even admitted to the group. "The fall wouldn't be enough."
Sylvester put his head in his hands. "I didn't…"
She supposed she hadn't even fully admitted it to herself. "I don't think I knew either," she whispered. "At least, the numbers were there, but I never added them together. Like you see five and five. And you know what they sum up to. But the actual…" she made a motion with her finger, "you never put them into the calculator, and see that big old ten staring you right in the face. Because if you do…"
"I love you," he said. "I don't know if that's for me to say right now, but…Lori, I need to know before I leave that you'll be here when I get back with the pills."
"I'll be here," she said. Or rather, she tried to say, but while her lips moved, no sound came from between them.
He nodded. "The odds are so small of anything transpiring from this, Lori. But we'll make sure. You won't get pregnant, I promise."
"I know. I won't jump off that bridge until we come to it."
"That's not funny."
He was right. "I'm sorry."
"Can I take you to bed?"
She gave him an odd look. "Poor word choice. Sorry. But…"
She nodded, and he lifted her, carrying her down to their bedroom, the one she'd cleaned and dusted and glued and wiped down with such gusto just hours before. If she'd been thinking as clearly as she'd thought she was, she'd have went to the store and bought some damn condoms.
But I didn't know I was going to sleep with him.
Yes you did, you irresponsible broad.
Not consciously.
You knew you wanted to, you just didn't think you had the guts to initiate it.
She wanted the two sides of her brains to reconcile, but no matter how much she begged, she couldn't get even one of them to wave a white flag.
Sylvester tucked her in, brought her a glass of water, and then entered their bathroom. She could hear him rummaging around. "Sly, I told you, there's none in there," she said quietly, unsure if he could even hear.
He came back out after a few minutes, carefully lifting his bag to his shoulder. "I'll be right back. Okay?" He crossed to the bed, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. "Lori, we both know how slow those swimmers are. We both know how low the odds would be anyway. But we'll make sure. I promise you. I promise you."
"Okay." She could barely get the words out. Her throat hurt. Her head hurt.
Her soul hurt.
He released her hand. "I'll be back in thirty minutes."
She nodded, closing her eyes. "Thank you," she said.
When he didn't answer, she realized she hadn't spoken out loud.
It will get better for these characters. Go read my fluffy oneshot for a glimpse of their future. I won't go this long without updating this time.
