"Jules!" Shawn yelled before the door had even opened all the way, startling Juliet from her sleep. "Are you okay?"

Juliet opened her eyes to find Shawn scanning her body, picking up her arms and twisting them around in his hands to check for injuries.

"I'm okay." She put one hand on his shoulder and placed his hand on her stomach with her other hand. The baby wiggled and kicked under the new pressure, and Shawn was immediately kissing her stomach.

"Hi, baby," He said, and Juliet could see that his eyes were a little red around the edges.

"We're okay, Shawn," Juliet let him take her face in his hands, pressing kisses on her lips, cheeks, and forehead.

"I'll let you be alone," Henry said from the chair in the corner where he had fallen asleep as well. Shawn whipped around at the sound of his dad's voice, clearly unaware of his presence.

"Dad?"

"Take care of her," Henry said to Shawn, tapping Juliet's feet with his fist and nodding at his son. "Keep me posted."

The door shut behind him and Shawn was immediately invested in his wife again.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," Juliet said quietly, feeling her guard begin to crumble in the presence of her husband. Her eyes began to well up when she opened her mouth to speak again. "I went to visit Lassiter last night and then I fell asleep there. And when I woke up, I was bleeding. I don't understand what happened. I'm not in pain or anything."

"How's Lassie doing?" He asked, partially attempting to distract her and partially because she knew how much he was missing her partner in his own way. The thought of him being concerned for Carlton made her smile. They were two of the most important people in her life. All she wanted was for them to get along.

Juliet shrugged. "He's doing alright. I think he's just getting a bit stir crazy. I was happy I could see him though. I think it helped… at least, I hope it did. I had to leave kind of abruptly."

There was a gentle knock on the door and Dr. Johnson walked in, carrying a folder and taking a seat on the rolling stool to face the couple.

"Dr. Johnson?" Juliet asked, surprised to see her OB in the emergency room.

"Juliet, Shawn," she nodded to both of them, her voice sounding serious. The joyful light that floated around her clinic walls was gone, and she was left with a somber tone that made Juliet nervous. She was already holding Shawn's hands so tightly it was hurting her own knuckles. Though she imagined that partially had to do with how tightly he was holding her hand back.

"First of all, I want to tell you that your baby is okay. The doctors here did some blood work and it all looks unremarkable."

"Then why do you look like you just saw the end of Dead Poet's Society for the first time?" Shawn asked, his hands squeezing Juliet's tighter. Not that Juliet minded. She was grateful for something to hold onto.

Dr. Johnson smiled at him gently before opening up her folder. She pulled out one of the blurry ultrasound pictures and began pointing to the black and white blobs, explaining them as if they were actually comprehensive images.

"The ultrasound showed us that you have what is called placenta previa."

"What's that some kind of French soup?"

"Shawn," Juliet said softly. Not that she had any clue either. It didn't sound good though.

Juliet tried to focus as Dr. Johnson explained what was happening to her, categorizing the information as it came. She tried to focus on every word. Tried to understand how and why this was happening and what she was supposed to do now.

As she listened, the "bad" side of the scale was being weighed farther and farther down, until it felt like it would fall over completely.

Her placenta was low lying. Bad.

Her baby was okay. Good.

She would probably have to have a c-section. Bad.

She would probably have to deliver early. Bad.

She would definitely have to spend the rest of her pregnancy on bed rest. Bad.

Bad.

Bad.

Bad.

"And this just happened?" Shawn's voice was getting louder with the frustration of the unknown and the fear they were both feeling. "And now we're just stuck waiting for her to deliver but hoping that she doesn't?"

"Shawn," Juliet tried to calm him, but he had broken away from her reach, anxiously pacing and bouncing his fists anxiously off his legs.

"Shawn, this is something we can manage," Dr. Johnson's voice sounded calm. Juliet could tell by her reaction that Shawn wasn't the first father to freak out in her office. "We can give Juliet steroid shots to help the baby's lungs grow. So that even if she was born early, her lungs will be closer to fully developed and able to support her. And in the meantime, Juliet will take it easy and when the time to deliver comes, we can handle that too. I know this is a first for you and that makes it feel scary, but it's not a first for me or anyone on my team. We know how to take care of Juliet, and we know how to take care of your baby."

As Dr. Johnson spoke, Juliet could feel herself calming down as well. This wasn't her first time seeing this. It was routine. Part of the job. Juliet would go to work and inspect horrendous crime scenes. This was Dr. Johnson's crime scene. And she was going to solve the case.

Juliet got her first steroid shot that afternoon. Shawn held her arm tightly to support her as he led her out to the car. He opened the door for her and held his hands out for her to help her squat into the passenger's seat, a task that had become increasingly difficult as of late.

"How do you feel?" Shawn asked. She felt the weight of his eyes watching her closely, studying every move she made.

"I feel fine, I guess," she shrugged. "I'm not in pain. I'm just a little anxious. I guess I just go home and take it easy?"

She flipped through the papers Dr. Johnson had given her on bed rest. The dos and don'ts. The can dos and the can't dos.

"I guess I should probably tell Chief. It's not like I can go to work. I'm not even supposed to be sitting up for more than an hour."

"Oh my gosh!" Chief Vick said over the phone when Juliet recapped her morning for her. "Are you alright? What did your doctor say?"

"Yes. I'm okay, the baby's okay." Juliet put her hand on her belly, for once grateful the baby was using her stomach as a trampoline. Grateful to be feeling her at all, no matter how uncomfortable Juliet had become as she neared her third trimester. "I just… can't come into work."

"Oh," Chief Vick said calmly, but Juliet could hear her trying to mask her frustration that now both of her head detectives were literally bedridden. "Right, of course. You just focus on taking care of yourself, and that baby."

"Thanks, Chief." Juliet hung up the phone as Shawn pulled into the driveway, barely putting the car in park before he was at her door, helping support her arms and her back as she lifted herself carefully out of the car, one hand on the towel she still had wrapped around her waist from Lassiter's.

"Let's get you some new clothes and get the bed all ready for you to live in," Shawn said, helping her up the steps. "This is going to be fun."

"Fun?" Juliet asked, suspiciously, side-eyeing Shawn from the doorframe where she had stopped to take a breath from the stairs. She definitely was not in as good of shape as she had been before she got pregnant. More accurately, the constant pressure of her baby on her lungs made breathing excessively difficult.

"Uh yeah." A mischievous grin flashed across Shawn's face. "You stuck in bed all day. I can make that work."

"Shawn," she said, scrunching her nose playfully at him. "You know Dr. Johnson said that we can't-"

"Oh get your mind out of the gutter," Shawn said, kissing her forehead and holding her hands. "You being stuck in bed means that we can spend all day watching movies, wrapped in the green snuggie. Dr. Johnson didn't say anything about no snuggie-ing."

Juliet rolled her eyes as he pulled her hands to his lips. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe it wasn't the end of the world.

She felt her baby slide around her stomach, her butt sticking out of Juliet's side.

I feel you, baby. Juliet whispered silently to her baby as she let Shawn lead her into their bedroom and set up a fort of pillows around her while she changed out of her blood-stained jeans and into one of Shawn's t-shirts that she had been wearing to sleep since her pajama pants stopped fitting her. I can't wait to meet you. You just need to stay in there a little bit longer. Okay?

She lifted herself into the bed and let Shawn tuck blankets around her before he climbed in next to her, his arms through the arm holes of the snuggie that he wrapped around Juliet. She felt safe and warm. And the smell of home on the snuggie washed out the sterile scent of hand sanitizer that filled the air at the hospital.

Juliet looked around the bedroom, sighed, and let herself relax onto Shawn's chest, letting the rise and fall of his breath lull her mind to rest. The anxiety that had ricocheted through her veins since the second Carlton's scared voice had pulled her awake had finally calmed to a dull rumbling in her stomach.

"How do you feel?" Shawn asked, his arms wrapped tightly around her body.

Juliet took a few deep breaths, mentally scanning her body. "You know, I think I feel good." She still had a healthy baby, and she was okay. The stress of what would happen next danced around her head, but she let herself lean into the manufactured calm that protected them for the moment.

"You'll tell me if that changes?"

"Of course," Juliet said, closing her eyes, attempting to let Shawn's soft breath and the collection of pillows ease her to sleep.