David took off his shoes at the door and padded forward on socked feet to stand in the doorway of the living room. As Olivia had predicted, Amanda lay on the couch. She was covered in a blanket, and sleeping fitfully, her cheeks streaked red from tears that were still slowly making their way down her face. Her pretty face twisted, caught up in whatever she was dreaming, and she whimpered.

"God, help us." David whispered under his breath, approaching the couch.

His heart broke a little when he made out a coherent plea in her mumblings. "Don't leave us."

He gently shook her shoulder, needing to pull her from her nightmare, one that – in the past – he had willingly caused for her.

"Amanda, c'mon Milady, wake up now. It's just a dream. Wake up."

She awoke with a small gasp, shoving away from his touch. "David."

"Hey," he murmured, sliding to his knees beside the couch.

Amanda closed her eyes, tensing wordlessly as she allowed him to brush her bangs back out of her face.

As the tendrils fell from his fingertips, he pressed his palm to her cheek, then her forehead, asking softly, "How are you feeling now? Any better?"

She brushed his hand away, snapping, "I don't have a fever, David."

"But how do you feel?" he questioned, noting the red streaks on her cheeks that meant dried tears.

"Better. Sort of. In a way. Mostly worse."

He wanted to ask her about the possibility of a baby, because he knew that she could know by now, but he didn't. Something in her eyes stopped him from voicing the question.

He sighed. "Is there anything that I can do?"

She shook her head, "No."

"Alright." He got to his feet. "Well, if you think of anything, you can tell me. After all, I just got home. I'm not going anywhere."

As soon as Olivia had been put to bed that night, David could feel the difference in the air between him and his wife. This felt like the night of their wedding. She had pulled back into herself, afraid and in pain. And short of calling her on it, David didn't know what to do to help her.

"I'm going to bed." David announced.

Amanda nodded. "I think that I'll sleep in here tonight." She waved a hand at the living room couch.

Yep, they were definitely back at some version of square one.

David sighed heavily. "Amanda, we've discussed this. If you need space, tell me and I'll back off. As it is, there is absolutely no way I'm letting you take the couch. I will." Seeing that she was about to object, he tacked on the sentence, "Either I take it or neither of us do."

A split second of indecision before his bride nodded. "Alright."

David walked back over to the couch and took a hesitant seat next to her. "Amanda, do you want to tell me what's wrong? Something happened today, has been going on for the past week-"

"No." She cut him off harshly before she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, explaining haltingly, "I just… can't. Not tonight. Not yet."

"Milady," He gently took her hand, trying and failing to get her to meet his sincere gaze. "You know that I'm here for you, no matter what, right?"

She jerked into a standing position and headed down the hallway. "Goodnight, David."

July 24, 2012

Amanda arched her eyebrows when the phone rang.

"Who would be calling this late?" David asked, looking away from the late-night television program that the two of them were watching.

"I have no idea." Amanda said, reaching for the phone. "Hello?"

"Amanda? It's Haley Brooks. I can't get him to stop. I've tried everything. What do I do?"

The teenager sounded close to tears, much like Amanda could hear Haley's three-week-old son screaming. Amanda ran through a number of solutions with Haley declaring in increasing desperation that she had tried each.

"Have you tried driving him around? He likes riding in his car seat, right?"

"Just randomly driving around?"

"Yeah. It actually worked a couple of times for Olivia."

"You know what? I'll try it. Thanks, Amanda."

Amanda smiled softly. "Anytime. Call me back if that doesn't work, alright?"

"Alright. Thanks so much."

"You're welcome so much."

Amanda put the phone back in its cradle, sighing softly.

"What was that?" David asked with a horrified expression.

Amanda half-smiled at her hands, memories of that hard first month with Olivia flooding her mind. "Cody Brooks."

"Poor Haley. Where was Bobby?"

Amanda raised her head, feeling her eyebrows rise at the same time. "He has a place of his own. After all, they're not married yet."

"Yeah. Right. They're just always together. It's kind of easy to forget that they're not married."

Amanda laughed, but she had to agree.

Twenty minutes later, both she and David were startled again by a knock on the door.

What on earth? Amanda opened the door to see a disheveled Haley standing on the other side of said door.

"He just won't stop. I didn't know what else to do." The teenager was crying now as Amanda ushered her into the house and shut the door behind her.

"It's alright." Amanda assured her, taking the baby, car seat and all, from his mother and setting it on the living room coffee table. She spoke as much to mother as she did to child when she repeated, taking Cody out of his car seat. "It's alright, sweetheart."

David just stayed on the couch, knowing that it was probably best for him to stay out of the way for now. Amanda settled in the lazy boy, rocking the ever screaming infant as Haley folded onto the couch on the opposite side as David.

"I am a horrible mother." Haley sobbed over Cody's screams.

Amanda wanted to refute that, but Cody upped the volume on his screams and Amanda knew that talking would be impractical until the child was quieted. In desperation, she looked to David, eyes begging him to help somehow. She had meant for him to talk to Haley, but he had other ideas.

He stood up and walked to Amanda, reaching for the baby. "Here, let me try." He leaned in towards her ear and suggested, "Maybe you could take Haley back into the bedroom or somewhere, get her away from Cody for a few minutes. Give her time to breathe. Talk to her, since you know what this is like."

Amanda bit her lip before she nodded, handing Cody over and then pulling Haley to her feet and leading her down the hallway.

After ten minutes, the teenager's tears had stopped and Haley was in a much better frame of mind.

"Hey, listen." Haley said in wonderment.

Amanda listened, eyebrows drawn together as they sat together on the edge of the bed. "I don't hear anything."

"Exactly." Haley scrambled up off of the bed and down the hallway. "David got Cody to stop crying."

Amanda followed Haley into the living room. Both of their mouths dropped at what they saw. David was calmly rocking in the lazy boy, a silent Cody sleeping peacefully in his arms. David looked up from the baby, to them, and put a finger to his lips.

"How?" Haley whispered in shocked awe. "You are a miracle worker."

"Nah." David shrugged. "He just... wore himself out, I guess. I just happened to be the lucky guy holding him when that happened."

"Well, you're still good with him. Actually, all the kids like you, don't they?"

Another shrug from David. "I guess. It's just 'cause I'm willing to get down to their level and mess around with them."

"Well you're obviously good with the babies too." Amanda jumped when Haley continued, stating, "I think that you'd do well with one of those of your own."

David's gaze flickered carefully between Haley and Amanda, who couldn't meet his gaze, before he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to think that I would."

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