The next day Rogue went ahead on his own to the guild, just to check, and found that Erza was gone for the day. Jellal was passing through a nearby town, and rather than leave Alex with Bisca, she'd elected not to split the kids up and bring their daughter along to visit Kiseki's mommy. He was afraid to tell Sting this, or rather, afraid to give Sting cause for another breakdown. Much to his relief, Sting took the news in stride. Sure, he was far from happy to learn that he still couldn't see Alex, but Erza taking Alex elsewhere for the day was on her. If it wasn't Sting screwing up again, at least in Sting's mind, then Sting didn't mind.

With Sting speaking again, Rogue seized the day as an opportunity for the two of them to be a normal couple. Sting scoffed at the idea, claiming that normal couples didn't involve heavily pregnant men in wheelchairs.

"Minus the wheelchair, that didn't stop you from dragging me to a couple's vacation in another country," Rogue pointed out.

"Technically, we went together 'as friends' that time," Sting argued. "You were still dating Natsu. And you weren't trapped in a torture chair."

"Sting, this may come as a shock to you, but plenty of people who are stuck in a wheelchair for life go on to do normal couple things. You are only in a wheelchair for a few more months. I think we can handle a nice dinner."

Sting didn't seem convinced, but while had needed to be reminded to get out of bed, he had gotten himself breakfast without prompting or spoon feeding. Granted, breakfast had been a can of tuna that Sting didn't even bother to dump onto a plate before eating, but eating was eating. Rogue had high hopes that, should a nice dinner be presented to him, he would eat that too. At Sting's current energy level, the candle lighting he had planned wouldn't be worth the energy to object to.

Some little part of Rogue hoped that Sting might like the lighting, but he didn't have high hopes for anything beyond apathy.

Conversation was sparse, but Sting responded to one topic in ten, which was a massive improvement from the day before, and he could continue a subject for several minutes at a time before losing interest.

What held the bulk of his interest, much to Rogue's surprise, was Frosch. In the absence of Alex, and perhaps out of guilt for not looking after her during his first meltdown while Rogue was missing, Sting had taken to doting on Rogue's cat. It freed Rogue up more to focus on dinner, and Frosch adored being adored.

Rogue broke up the two's play when dinner was ready, asking the exceed to eat on the couch while he and Sting ate at the dinner table. Seeing Rogue flick the lights off so only candles lit the room, neither Frosch nor Lector protested.

It was Sting who took issue with the setup, taking one look at the table and telling Rogue, "If you're setting the mood up for anything else tonight, I don't think I'm up for it."

"We can stick to pre-Alex couple things."

Ignoring the cats sitting across the room, Sting said, "You say that like having sex occurred post-Alex."

"Well, attempting sex is a post-Ales thing, so we don't have to try that."

That made Sting crack his first grin of the day, and Rogue's heart fluttered. It felt like it had been decades since he saw that look. But then the look was gone. Sting's eyes were downcast again, and try as he might, Rogue couldn't come up with anything else to get him smiling.

-o-

Erza never spent more than a day with Jellal, so neither Sting nor Rogue felt there was a need to check again the next morning. For the sake of getting Sting moving on his own, Rogue told him that they could leave faster if Sting dressed himself while Rogue scrambled eggs. Sting then dressed himself for the first time in weeks, and to keep him from eating a can of whatever he thought would take the least prep again, Rogue insisted he take the larger portion of eggs before they headed out, cats in tow.

Despite Sting's low energy, they had woken up early, and were among the first to the guild. Rogue wheeled Sting up to a table near where Makarov had positioned himself in case Sting wanted to talk to anyone, kissed him, and slipped into the kitchen to help with breakfast prep for everyone else. The first moment he had free, he brought a plat of bacon and a glass of tea out for Sting, insisting that he have more than just the egg. He was eating for three, after all.

Sting gave Rogue, who had loathed being told he was eating for two, a much suffered look, but bacon smelled good. Even in his funk, Sting wasn't immune to bacon. Rogue saw him take a bite on his way back to the kitchen.

He tried to peak out frequently, making sure that Sting was responding to Makarov's occasional attempts at conversation, and that no one else trickling in gave him too hard a time for disappearing for a month. Not that Rogue thought that anyone from Fairy Tail was apt to bully Sting. But he wouldn't be shocked if, say, Gajeel asked him something insensitive without thinking.

It was a relief when Rogue smelled Natsu coming and poked his head out to see him. The door opened for Natsu not long after Rogue looked out of the kitchen, and although Rogue was ready to wave hello to him—something he hadn't done since they were still together—Natsu didn't even glance his way. The roset's eyes went straight to Sting, and he made a b-line for him. Rogue could hear Natsu talking about how Erza took too long fussing with what to dress Kiseki in, so she always ran late to everything, but if Sting was there to see Alex than it wouldn't be much longer.

Smiling, Rogue turned his focus to work. Natsu might have been the last person in the world he would leave a small child alone with, but Rogue knew how well he could take care of a friend. Sting was in good hands.

-o-

Sting didn't feel particularly hungry, something he attributed to two little squirts growing in his abdomen and leaving no room for his stomach, but Rogue insisted he eat. Since he didn't seem to be able to take care of anyone, himself included, Rogue probably knew what he was saying. Sting picked at his plate, summoning the effort to take a bite on occasion, and forced a smile whenever anyone walked in and told him they were glad to see he was out and about again.

Rogue hadn't told any of them about his breakdown, he quickly gathered. The bulk of the guild was under the impression that he had merely been taking it easy after his last hospitalization. Sting would have argued that his hiding in the apartment for three whole weeks was unusual for him, except he'd done pretty much that when he first became pregnant as well.

Why couldn't one of those other pregnancies have taken first? Those hadn't been twins. At least, they probably wouldn't have been. He could have been in significantly less discomfort waiting to give birth if things had worked out when he was only pregnant with one. Maybe enough less to not become completely ineffectual.

Sulking, Sting didn't notice Natsu approach him until the fire slayer dropped onto his bench and slung an arm around his shoulder.

"Hey! I was beginning to worry about you."

Sting gave Natsu a much suffered look and said, "I'm beginning to get real sick of people doing that."

"That's not a friendly greeting."

"We're not friends?"

"Well we're not strangers. You wouldn't let a stranger cook all your lunches and play with your daughter, would you?"

A stranger cooked his lunch every time he went to a restaurant, but that wasn't the point. "We're not strangers either, Natsu."

"Then why aren't you acting more familiar?"

Because he didn't feel like it, but it was too early in the day for Sting to say something so immature, so rather than dignify Natsu's question with a response, he stabbed his fork into a piece of bacon and shoved it into his mouth. He regretted this almost immediately. He'd already eaten way more than he'd wanted to, and with his appetite so thoroughly dead, the fatty strip of meat felt gross on his tongue.

Natsu waited for him to choke the food down before saying, "You're having twins, right? Twin boys?"

This time the look Sting gave him wasn't much suffered so much as it was pure suffering.

"Aw, don't look so upset. You love kids."

"Not in me."

"Well, they won't be there forever. And now if you feel like three's a good number, you don't have to spend years convincing Rogue of it. Do you have any names picked out yet? I want to name one. I didn't get any say in naming Alex."

"Well, Alex kind of isn't your kid, so there's a reason for that."

Natsu paused, looking briefly as if he'd been smacked, then said, "Well, I still should have been in on the decision, because she was going to be mine at the time."

"Are you trying to piss me off?"

"If I do, will you stop speaking in monotone?"

"Natsu."

"We could name one Cole."

"They have names, Natsu. Now if you're only here to antagonize me—"

"What did you name them?"

"Nothing! Leave me alone!"

"Those are horrible names!"

"Yue and Sol, alright! Rogue came up with them. Let me eat in peace!"

"But… you aren't hungry."

Sting looked away, unsure how to debate that one.

At first, Natsu tolerated the silence. It didn't take a genius to see that Sting wasn't in the best mood for conversation. As it dragged on, however, he found himself unable to hold his tongue, and said quietly, "Lucy says that when Rogue was missing, after I left, you shut down. That didn't happen again, did it? Rogue's been dodging questions about you for weeks and saying you don't want anyone visiting."

"I don't."

"Well, since I couldn't come see you, how have you been the past few weeks?"

Sting opened his mouth to try and claim he was fine, but the words didn't come out. He wasn't fine. He wasn't paralyzed by the feeling anymore, but he still felt worthless. He failed to carry a child twice and when a pregnancy finally worked, he failed to keep Rogue safe. He failed to look after their daughter. He failed to take care of Frosch and Lector. He failed so miserably that Frosch and Lector and Rogue couldn't take care of Alex because he took so much of their time. And to Natsu he couldn't say any of it, so he sat there, eyes downcast, mouth open as he choked on words that wouldn't come out.

He shut his eyes, unable to bear Natsu's curious gaze, and wished the whole world would disappear. When he felt Natsu's hand on his shoulder, he was about to scream. Make a scene and demand everyone just go away. Maybe even stand despite all of Rogue's instructions to use his chair and run for it. But then Natsu said something that Sting knew meant he couldn't possibly leave.

"I hear Erza coming. Do you want to see Alex?"

Sting's eye snapped open. Alex. Of course he wanted to see her. Each day he didn't get to see his precious little girl was pure misery.

The seconds ticked agonizingly by as he waited for the front door to open, and when it did, Sting had to blink rapidly to keep himself from tearing up when he saw Alex step in.

She had her thumb in her mouth, a habit that he and Rogue had discouraged, but Erza had always allowed Kiseki, and she was dressed like a God dammed strawberry, but whatever vices Erza allowed and no matter how terrible her taste in toddler fashion was, she was as adorable as ever. Without thinking, Sting tried to stand, only remembering why he'd stopped doing this when a sharp pain in his knee made his leg give out beneath him. Falling back to the bench, he watched her helplessly, and Natsu took it upon himself to catch their attention.

"Hey! Erza! Alex! Little Erza! Come here!"

To the best of Sting's knowledge, the nickname was meant to tease Jellal, which was silly. If anything, Jellal thought it was wonderful that Kiseki had his dad's hair. Neither Erza nor Jellal had any baby photos to compare, and both worried about the possibility that Kiseki would look more and more like his criminal mother as he grew up, but in the meantime they were happy to see that the only obvious feature of Jellal's he'd inherited was his eyes. It significantly lowered the chances of anyone realizing Erza had a child with a wanted man.

If Sting really wanted to get on someone's nerves, he could have called Alex 'Little Rogue'. It wasn't like you could tell at a glance that she was anyone but Rogue's, for as much as she looked like him. But for all the hatchets Natsu and Sting had tried to bury, that wasn't anything she was likely to be addressed by any time soon. And even if Natsu did call her that, Sting was happy enough to see her squeal when she saw him that he was sure he'd be able to overlook it.

Alex broke away from Erza, scurrying towards him as fast as her little legs would let her.

"Daddy!" she cried. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"

"Alex, Alex, Alex!"

His lap being occupied by his stomach, Alex couldn't jump into it, but she did pull herself up onto the bench beside Sting, standing on her toes to throw her arms around his neck and kiss his cheek.

"Daddy, Auntie Erza doesn't know how to play tea party! She puts gross green water in the cups. Tell her to stop."

Sting had dreaded that the first thing Alex might tell him was that she missed him, or that she didn't know why she had to stay with someone else and wanted to come home. While he might have liked being missed, the guilt that would have placed no him would be too much. That, however, was probably the most perfect opening Alex could have made, and Sting found himself chuckling at it. Realizing that Erza probably included real cake in her tea parties, which Alex didn't ask be stopped at all, only made him burst out in laughter.

"Noooo. Daddy, she has to stop."

"I'll…" Sting covered his mouth to smother a snort. "I'll talk to her."

Nodding in satisfaction, Alex pointed to his remaining bacon strip. He gave her a thumbs up, and she tried to fit it into her mouth, eventually resigning herself to the fact that her mouth was too small, and eating it in bites.

Seeing Sting smile at his girl, Natsu leaned over and said "Rogue hated being pregnant too, remember? His pregnancy wasn't as hard as yours, but he still hated it. He didn't like that he couldn't safely take any jobs and he was completely embarrassed with everyone looking at his stomach. You know how he is about too much attention. And he hated how reliant he was on others towards the end. He couldn't fight either, remember? An you can see it whenever one of your injuries acts up. You can see how he still feels bad about how you were hurt protecting him back then,

"But if he had the chance to go back in time and change things, you know he wouldn't," Natsu said. Which, given that Rogue was one of the few people they knew to ever earnestly attempt to change the past, and attempt that hadn't involved terminating his pregnancy before his past self even knew he was pregnant, meant something.

Sting, eyes still glued to Alex as she wiped he greasy hands on the strawberry shirt, then tried to fold the clothes over to hide the mark this left, asked, "You're point?"

"I know you're not happy with how things are now, but don't you think it'll be worth it in the end?"