Effie was, in a word, pleased. After being evaluated, she was let go, under close supervision from Tony. And he was spending time with Sid. All he said was that he was helping Sid deal with a crisis, so she had the house to herself. The TV, the liquor cabinet, the fridge, everything all to herself. After Tony left that night, she took her pants off and lay on the living room floor, absorbing all of the noise.

A couple a floor down from them was fighting, which soon gave way to sex. The TV was playing on the floor above them- it sounded like the news. She got up again, and got his bottle of vodka, and she lay back down, sipping it, focusing on the couple having sex. Life, at the moment, couldn't get better for her.

Sid didn't knock before coming in, he guessed that, most likely, Cassie would go here, because there wasn't really anywhere else for her to go at the time. Well, he checked the bench first. He expected for her to be there. He just ran inside, clear to the living room where his mother was cradling Cassie in her lap, brushing her hair gently.

"Sid. You can't just burst in like that. You gave us the scare of your life."

"Sorry…Mom…" He sat down, torn between kissing both of them and walking back out.

"Go brew some tea, Sidney."

"Yes, Mum." He got up and escaped into the kitchen. Cassie sighed and shook her head, sitting up. Elizabeth stroked the side of her face. "You can do this, my dear." Cassie shook her head, getting up.

"No, Elizabeth I don't….he doesn't love me anymore. And I can't blame him for that. I shut him out. I don't blame him for leaving me."

"Cassie, dear, Sidney's not leaving you."

Cassie shook her head. "Sorry, Elizabeth. I didn't mean to disrupt you like this." She started walking toward the door when Elizabeth took her hand-

"You are my daughter-in-law, Cassie. And I've always felt like you were a kid of my own. You did not disrupt me, but you are not leaving. Not in the rain, not like that. If you are tired, go upstairs. There's plenty of beds up there."

Cassie hadn't had an 'adult' reprimand her in, well…ever. Her mom was never a fan of it. Wasn't her style of parenting, maybe. But she didn't want to cross Elizabeth again, so she trodded upstairs, to Sid's room. She was so tired, she didn't even think about it – she just curled up in Sid's warm, soft twin bed, sniffed him in the bat-man sheets. She fought against letting the smell of him make her cry.

She tried to tell herself that Elizabeth was right- Sid wasn't going to leave her. After all, in their history, she had only left him, and only because she was scared. And she needed him – she wasn't about to leave him.

Sid heard every word Cassie said. He was still leaning against the doorway when Elizabeth came in, no evidence of tea boiling whatsoever. He walked over and sat down by the fridge, watching her start the kettle, wondering who was going to talk first. His mom was an expert at cold silence, so he went ahead and piped up.
"I'm not going to leave her."

"You'd better not." He just looked at the ground. He'd been about to walk out the door with his bags packed when he called Tony, hours ago.

"You know what God says about divorce, Sid." He nodded.

"Has she cheated on you?" Elizabeth handed him a cup of hot cocoa and sat down beside him. Sid shook his head. "No."

"Have you cheated on her?"

"No."

"Then what's going on? Why the fighting? Why is it a big tragedy that she's pregnant?" He took a sip of his hot cocoa, rubbing his forehead.

"She's not eating."

"Oh." They both got silent for a while, and Sid, for the first time in a long time, felt comfortable with his mother there. Like maybe she knows the clues to everything going on.

"I want to make her eat, Mom..but…it's bad." He looked up at her. "I haven't ever seen her this bad. You know, like, that's bad enough. And now she's pregnant."

She simply rubbed his back in response. "Tony came over tonight. I freaked out and I called him. We prayed. A lot."

"That's good -that's a good way to respond to a situation like this."

"And then she dropped the pregnancy test on my lap and left."

"Sid, you know this might help her get better." Sid shrugged and shook his head.

"She wouldn't eat for me. Why is she going to eat for the baby? I want to get her help, but we may have to go back to New York to do so. Treatment here is shoddy."

"I'll help you with that, Sid. Just say the word. I'll buy the plane ticket." Sid rested his head on his mom's shoulder and she kissed his forehead. He finished up his hot chocolate, then ventured upstairs to Cassie – she was in his bathroom, getting ready to take a shower. "I'm not leaving you." She turned around, a bit startled.

"Sid…" He walked closer to her.

"This scares me. It does. It scares me to know that whatever I do I can't make you eat, I can't keep you from fainting, and even now…I can't make you get better. I love you."

"Sid." He walked closer to her still. She stepped into the shower. He just continued on.

"I love you. I'm not going to leave you. Never, Cassie."

"But you can, Sid. I'd understand it." He walked up to her and took her hand. They were getting water all over his mother's tiles, but he didn't care. They'd clean it up later.

"Cassie- I'm not going to leave you. I love you. I always will. I am never, no matter how bad it gets, going to leave you. I love you. I love you I love you. I married you because I'll never leave you."

"Oh, Sid."

"Cassie we can make this work. We were praying today. Me and Tony."

"I saw." She sounded hurt. He then realized she'd heard everything. He sighed.

"We were praying for an answer. I was freaking out. I needed Tony there. And then you came in the room and dropped that test on my lap. Cassie. That's our answer." She didn't really know what to say, so she just stared at him.

"We'll get through this. We'll both have to work at it. Really hard." He kicked off his shoes then jumped in the shower with her.

"Sid your clothes!" He ignored that, pulled her towards him and kissed her. She laughed. "You're going crazy, Sid! Your clothes are all soaked!"

They both started laughing, and he kissed her again. She pressed her forehead against his, and he closed the shower curtain. "I love you too, Sid. I won't quit, either."

He whispered, again, "Never, ever be afraid that I'll leave you, Cassie. I never will." She smiled and, with a couple of tears running down her face, removed his glasses and kissed him again.

When Tony arrived home, Effie was in her pajamas, sitting on his deck with his handle of vodka, considerably less full than he left it. He put his keys on the table and went outside, sat with her. "How'd that crisis go?" Tony crossed his legs, and took the bottle.

"Oh, you know. It's under control. Why the vodka? Your counselor said no drinking."

She reached for it, and he stopped her. "Oh, you know," she gave, and began giggling. He just watched her, crossed his arms. After a while she stopped her fit of giggles. "Fred's not coming back. I fucked it." He didn't reply to that, either. No, Fred wasn't coming back for her. And, yes, the incident had a lot to do with what sent Fred running to the hills.

"I loved him, Tony. I REALLY loved him. And I decide to get all drunk and go insane, and of course, he leaves. Who could blame him, though?" He studied her, leaning against the sliding glass door opposite him.

"He's just scared, Effie."

"Right. That I'll go all crazy and kill myself like his mom." Her tone was remarkably sarcastic. He glared at her for making light of it.

"Yes, Effie. He is extremely scared of that."

"I'm not dead."

"But you could've been. And he's scared of losing you."

"Well, didn't he kind of finish the job though? Leaving me?" Tony shrugged, put up his hands.

"Probably trying to spare himself from what's worse- finding you dead or something." She looked at him- hurt by his bluntness. He gave her a look. "I'm being honest with you, Effie. I love you. But I don't blame him for being scared. You know how you'll get him back?" She replied with a raised eyebrow. "Getting better." She laughed.

"You sound like my group therapist." He shrugged, but dropped the matter, picked up the handle of vodka, and went inside to get ready for bed.

Sid and Cassie's peace lasted a couple of days. After the amazing sex, the most amazing they'd had since they got married, in the shower of his bathroom and then his bed, complete with his bat-man bedsheets, they didn't fight for days. But Cassie still didn't feel like eating. She still wanted to hold onto this jean size, maybe get smaller. She just had to get clever about it. Sid even knew about her mealtime tactic- shifting around food, talking a lot, distracting.

That didn't work on him. So she just had to get by. Luckily, he wasn't policing her, until he broached the possibility of seeing a therapist along with a prenatal doctor. "I don't have to do that, Sid."

"Yes- actually, you do. I'm insisting that you do."

"Wait – when did this become your decision? Maybe if you married Michelle instead of me she'd let you make these fucking decisions. But not me. MY body, Sid. ENTIRELY MY CHOICE."

He lost his temper at that point. "Oh FUCK IT Cassie, will you ever give it up about Michelle?" He was doing the dishes.

"She always gave you better head. Admit it." He dropped the plate he was washing and turned around, stared at her incredulously.

"Yes and the factor I consider most prominently in a wife is a gag reflex?"

"So you fucking admit it! You probably wish you could pop over to her place after work, huh? Get some good sex in? With someone who's not too fucking skinny for you?"

"Cassie! Stop!" He picked up the dish and shattered it in the sink. "You know that's not what this is about, Cassie. You need to schedule an appointment-"

"OH The fucking appointment again, is it?" She yelled over him as she walked, seemingly carelessly, into the living room. He followed her, as calm as he could make himself.

"YES! Yes- that's what all of this is about, Cassie! It's not about sex, is it? And you know it! You fucking know it! It's my business-"

"NO! NO it's NOT!"

"YES! IT FUCKING IS!"

"Oh yeah?" She stood across from him. "It's MY fucking body, Sid. Mine. I can do whatever the FUCK I want with it. This ring on my finger?" She took it off, silencing him, and she threw it at him. "It does NOT mean you can tell me what to do with my body."

He picked up the ring. "Oh, well, you know, it does. Actually. It does. Because you're carrying my baby, Cassie. Mine. And you're my wife. I don't want to lose you, and I KNOW you don't want to lose that baby. If you don't try to get better, you WILL lose it."

He looked at her face, really looked at her. She was crying now. "Fuck you, Sid." She walked past him into the bedroom, slammed the door, then into the bathroom, slamming the door.

He cursed, and got his keys, walking out the door. He didn't come back until 1 or 2 AM. Him and Tony spent a night at the pub like they hadn't done since they were sixteen. He didn't tell him about anything, but Tony could tell something was up by the way he was drinking. Sid wasn't a heavy drinker. He didn't like to get plowed.

But he did that night, shot after shot. Tony ended up helping him up into his apartment. Cassie was sleeping in the bed, and she had a pillow and a quilt sitting on the couch for Sid. "Guess I'm uh…sleeping on the couch tonight, eh?" Sid giggled, barely able to stand up if not for Tony forcing him up. Tony helped him get his shoes off and them got him successfully into bed.

"There you go, Sid. There you go. All better now." He made sure Sid was sleeping before he left the apartment.

Sid woke up that morning hazy. He reached over for Cassie so he could kiss her but ended up falling off of the couch. "Right. Well." He picked up his glasses and stood up. He went in the bedroom and was surprised to find that Cassie wasn't in her bed.

It was 6am, and she was always sleeping during this time. "Cass?" He heard a faint sniffling sound from the bathroom, though, so he gently opened the door to find her on the toilet, covering her mouth but weeping. "Cassie, are you okay?" He knelt before her instantly, took her hand. She took it, squeezed it in pain. "Cass, what's going on? What can I do?"

She kept trying to say something, but she couldn't get it out. He held her for a little while, and she kept getting more pale. "I'm losing…I…lost…Sid I…" He instantly wrapped his arms around her, rubbed her back. \

"It's okay. Cassie, it's okay. You're okay. We've just got to get you to the hospital."

"But I'm bleeding and it's gross and-" She'd wiped the tears off of her face by now.

"I don't care how gross it is, Cassie. We've got to get you help." He quickly went to their closet and got her a pair of undies and sweatpants, gave her a pad. She tried to slip her legs into the panties but almost fell off the toilet. "Oh, honey -here- here-" he helped her get ready. He didn't look when he pulled her pants up onto her, flushed the toilet for her. She could barely stand up on her own. "God, Cass, we've got to get you there now."