"You can stay here, and have your life, and your career, and let this be the past."
It took a full week for the intermittent bleeding to stop and for Peggy to realize that the miniature baby she had held wasn't part of a terrible dream. They had named him Nathaniel and they had held him, wrapped in blankets too big since he had only been roughly the size of a ruler.
When she closed her eyes, sometimes she could picture her first son in her arms instead of the baby who Ted held first because she was afraid she'd break him as she sobbed. She had left the hospital twice now with empty arms and the nightmares of both experiences had twisted themselves into each other like a knot that she'd never be able to untangle.
She had been sent home after two days of monitoring her fever to make sure there hadn't been an infection. Peggy had slipped in and out of consciousness during her entire stay and had no choice but to trust Ted when he said that both her mother and Don had visited, who Peggy apparently had insisted he call during one of her more coherent periods.
Peggy's mind had slipped away from her again when Ted knocked on her bedroom door.
"I'm home," he told her quietly, before walking in and sitting on the edge of her bed. He rested his hand on the blanket, right where her hip was.
"How was your first day back?" she asked, propping herself up on her elbows. Ted reached for one of his pillows that was beside her and placed it behind her. They hadn't slept in Ted's bed since, and he instead had taken the left side of her bed every night.
"Strange without you," Ted admitted before he ran a hand through her hair. "Don asked about you a lot. He started back on Wednesday."
Peggy gave Ted a small smile, and he reciprocated it. However, it only lasted a few seconds on his face before he asked the same question he'd been asking all week.
"How are you feeling?"
Her response had always been that she felt tired, but now that Ted was in front of her in his work clothes, her answer changed. He had gotten to have a day similar to the ones before the baby died, while she stayed at home, only more aware of how alone she felt.
"Empty."
Ted immediately reached for one of her hands and brought it to his lips. He closed his eyes.
She then squeezed his hand and slipped hers out of his grasp, using it to pull the sheets back on his side of the bed. Wordlessly, he stood and slid out of his clothes until he was only in his t-shirt and boxers. He climbed into bed with her and she snuggled against him, resting her head on his shoulder. He stared directly ahead of him at the ceiling while she stared at each of the hairs on his neck that he'd missed shaving that morning.
She looked up at him every once in a while to see that he was still fixed on the same spot on the ceiling. She wished she knew what he was thinking, but the sadness in his eyes that grew steadily ended up convincing her otherwise.
The next evening, Peggy forced herself out of bed for a shower before Ted got home. When he arrived, she was sitting on their sofa, wearing fresh pajamas and nursing a drink.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked, frowning as he set his briefcase by the door. He removed his suit jacket and threw it on the back of the nearby chair before running a hand through her hair.
"I'm not really drinking it. I've only had a sip or two," she said quickly, holding the glass out to him. He accepted it and took a small sip before taking a seat on the couch next to her.
"I needed it, to feel like myself again," she told him.
His eyebrows narrowed, and he rested the glass on his knee.
"I just…" she paused and bit her lip, her eyes watering.
He softened his glance at her, and she could feel anger bubble up in her throat. She was tired of being pitied.
"I realized something today while you were gone." She inhaled deeply. "What's keeping you from going home to Nan and the boys tomorrow? Or the next night? You could pack a bag of things while I was sleeping, and never come back."
"Peggy." Ted's expression had hardened again, but he said nothing. Instead, he sat up straighter.
"Just, the only reason you ever came back to me was because we were having a baby." She paused, trying to swallow back the tears that threatened to fall. However, she started to lose control after uttering her next phrase.
"And now we're not," she told him tearfully.
"Peggy, I love you. I'm not leaving. The boys adore you, I adore you." He reached for her hand, and she could see the muscles tighten in his jaw when his eyes started to water.
She watched him carefully, tears running down her cheeks. He set his glass on the coffee table so he could brush the moisture off her skin with his thumb.
"It's going to get better. I promise," he told her, straining his voice. "It's hard right now. It's hard for both of us." He was speaking in a husky whisper, and she felt a shiver work its way up her back.
"But you're going to go back to work as soon as you're feeling up to it, and it's going to be okay. Things will be normal again."
When he said it, Peggy didn't believe him. But the next week she returned to work, taking the position she'd had before Don left. She exchanged awkward greetings with Stan before making her way to Don's office while Ted was with a client.
"It's nice to have you back," Dawn told her as she knocked on Don's door and let herself in when he called for her to do so.
"It's nice to be back," she said, trying to seem convincing. She wasn't quite sure whether it was more for Dawn or herself.
Don was crushing a cigarette into the ashtray on his desk when she walked in. He tapped his fingers on an open folio resting next to the ashtray.
"The work you did with Hershey's is amazing," he told her.
She gave him a small smile and the slightest tilt of her head. She bit her lip. Don's smile immediately disappeared and his eyebrows knit together.
"Ted says you visited," Peggy told him with hesitation.
"He called me. I had no idea." Don's eyebrows raised, as he immediately jumped to defense.
"No, no," Peggy said, shutting her eyes as she shook her head and held an outstretched hand at her side. "I'm not questioning you, or anything." She inhaled and looked back at Don. "It's… well, Ted doesn't know how to handle it."
She could see Don let go of the breath he'd apparently been holding.
"I don't blame him."
"I never told him about the first time."
"Oh." Don turned to get a drink. He glanced over his shoulder to offer Peggy one, which she declined with the wave of her hand.
"It just hasn't come up."
She wrapped her arms around her midsection.
"I'm was starting to forget about it because we were so happy and excited, but now…" Peggy trailed off, and looked at Don with a sigh. He took a long sip of his drink and leaned against the cart full of bottles and glasses.
"Are you going to tell him?"
Peggy shrugged.
"Up until last week, it wasn't really a big concern. I always figured I'd tell him eventually, but now it just feels kind of like the wrong time. And yet, I want him to know why I feel so sad." She rubbed her elbows with her arms that were still folded. "Because I've been pregnant twice now, and have nothing to prove for it. There are two babies who never met me."
Peggy's chin began to tremble, and she folded her arms around herself tighter to hold back the flood of tears waiting to be shed. Don set his glass to the side as she started to realize she was fighting a losing battle.
When the first sob escaped, he opened his arms and she took the steps necessary to reach them before they wrapped around her. Don rubbed at her back in small circles until she was able to compose herself. When she finally had the strength to pull away, Don held her by the shoulders.
"Tomorrow is going to be easier," he told her with an assuredness no one else could muster.
It was that sentence that got her through the rest of the day until a knock at her office door snapped her out of her failed attempt at brainstorming taglines for the next Avon ad.
Ted was standing at her door in a tuxedo. In his arms was one of her fanciest dresses, still in the dry cleaning bag. It had been in the back of her closet. She wrinkled her forehead when one of her eyebrows raised.
"Remember in the diner when I hired you, I told you that your first night would end with the two of us at La Caravelle?"
"We got coffee and waited for one of the copywriters to pick up our order from the deli instead," she said with a sly smile, though it faded as he stared at her, waiting for her to figure it out.
"You didn't."
"I should have told you that I was going to take you out on your first day back."
"You got a reservation?" The restaurant in question was frequented by the Kennedy and Rockefeller families throughout the past decade. Getting a reservation was harder than scoring a car in the advertising business.
"For seven. Now get dressed - I hope this is okay. I saw it in the closet and wanted to see you in it." He held out the dress draped over his arm and she accepted it graciously.
Peggy got ready in the women's bathroom in record time. When she came back to her office in the black dress that accented every curve and ended right above the knee, he greeted her with wide eyes. She grinned as he swallowed and then opened his mouth, but didn't speak.
After a moment or two, he managed the word "beautiful".
She grasped his hand and he led her out of the building.
After stepping out of the cab in front of La Caravelle, a young boy bumped into Peggy as he was walking with his parents. Ted reached for her elbow when she faltered. The young boy looked up at Peggy, and she realized he couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 years old. His mother dragged him along quickly, apologizing over her shoulder to Peggy.
Ted laughed as he brought her into the restaurant.
"That boy looked a lot like Campbell, didn't he?"
Peggy started to turn around as if the boy had followed them in and she could take a closer look.
"Are you okay?" Ted asked her when she smoothed her dress out quickly and turned her attention forward again when she realized the child hadn't followed them inside. She looked at him and nodded forcefully.
The child occupied all of her thoughts as she drained three full glasses of wine, the first real drink she'd had since she'd found out she was pregnant. She wasn't swayed by the few articles that had come out warning mothers-to-be about drinking during pregnancy - she was just too nauseated to ever want a drink.
Ted talked about accounts and his sons coming that weekend, animated about taking them to Coney Island. He wanted to bring them on their first rollercoaster, which would be Peggy's first too. He mentioned something about the boys coming to stay more often, though Peggy didn't quite catch the details.
"Peggy," Ted started, when their plates were mostly empty. "I've been thinking," he said, before grabbing her hand. She turned her attention to him.
"I want to try again with you," he said. "I want us to have a family."
She thought immediately of the little boy who looked like Pete and felt a rush of guilt run over her. She bit the inside of her lip and nodded, only because she knew that was the response Ted was looking for.
He squeezed her hand. She looked down at her plate.
"Unless you don't want to have another baby," he said carefully, running his thumb over her knuckles. Peggy forced herself to look back up at him.
"No, it's not that. It's…" she paused. The story of her first pregnancy rested on the tip of her tongue. Ted watched her with concern. She felt a sob work its way up her chest; the idea of being honest was enough to bring her to tears. But she was so tired of crying lately. And crying in the middle of the most expensive dinner she'd ever had was a terrible idea.
"I had too much to drink, I think," she said, the words falling out with a stupid laugh at the end that surprised her.
Ted waved his hand for the check.
"We'll get you home, get you in bed," he said, rubbing her knuckles one more time before he let go of her hand to remove the napkin from his lap.
In the backseat of the cab on the way home, she kissed him after he rested his hand on her knee. She closed her eyes as he trailed kisses down from her jaw to her collarbone, trying to push the child out of her mind. As one of his hands crept up her thigh to caress her over her underwear and panty hose, she gasped, suddenly pulled from her thoughts. He whispered sweet nothings in her ear while she combed her fingers through his gelled hair and stared out the window at the lights passing by.
When he was still someone to chase, she could have sworn that Ted would be the missing piece for her. She never thought that even as he fondled her in the backseat of a taxi, she'd be wondering what her life could have been like. But even as he cupped her breast and kissed at her earlobe with all the passion she had fantasized about during late nights home alone in her apartment, she couldn't help but wonder how different things would have been if she had kept the little boy who looked like Pete Campbell.