"Hey Jules," Shawn said, watching as the medical staff nodded to him before leaving him alone in the room. They had begun to pick away at the pile of meds that she was on keeping her asleep. They told him it was so she could be awake enough to breathe on her own. And yet, despite the smallest wiggles of life that would roll through her fingertips, she still wasn't breathing on her own.

"These things take time sometimes," one nurse said.

"The fact that she's starting to wake up from the sedation and paralytics is a really good sign," the doctor told him on his way out.

"She really is improving," a therapist reminded him, patting him on the shoulder before closing the door behind her.

But despite their attempts at comforting words, Shawn still felt deflated, watching his unconscious wife's chest rise and fall with the forced breaths the machine was pushing into her rib cage.

"Jules. I got to hold our baby today," he said, his hands resting on her arm, tracing her cold knuckles with his fingertips. "She's so tiny. I thought I was going to throw her through the ceiling when the nurse put her in my hands. But she's so beautiful. She looks just like you, but mini. Jules, I can't wait for you to see her."

A sudden ache spread across his chest. "Jules, you've got to wake up so you can meet her. And name her. Jules, I don't know what to call her. I just keep calling her Pineapple. The nurses are going to think I'm crazy. But I can't name her on my own."

He ran one hand quickly over his face, attempting to fight off the sadness that had suffocated him since the moment he got the worst phone call imaginable.

"You can't leave me like this, Jules. Okay? You can't. I can't do two dudes and a baby with Gus. We would not be good at it, even if I do have the Ted Danson, Cheers-era mane."

He watched the lines tracing her heart rate jump up and down.

He watched fluids drip into her IV lines one drop at a time.

He watched her chest rise and fall, in and out.

He watched her eyes, longing for her to open them. Longing for this nightmare to be over. Longing to take his wife and his baby home. Longing to never ever step foot in a hospital ever again.

"You know, if this was a movie, that would be a really great time for you to wake up, right in the middle of my awesome speech. You would bat your eyes open and look at me and tell me that it is all going to be okay." He paused, a tired hope coursing through his veins. "I could really use some of that movie magic right about now."

The monitors continued beeping quietly.

The fluids continued dripping softly.

Her chest continued to rise and fall.

But her eyes stayed shut, undisturbed by Shawn's perfect speech.

Shawn leaned back in the chair, his hands still holding desperately to Juliet's hands willing his heartbeat to bring her back to life. He needed to hear her voice. She was his compass. She had been since the second they met.

His mind drifted aimlessly, replaying every killer they had saved each other from. He watched memory after memory of her protecting him, and memory after memory of him protecting her right back. They made a promise that they would and they never stopped doing so. But then again, that had been well before any promise had been made. Before any night riddled with nightmares of near misses had kept them up talking until the sun rose. Before their lips had even met the very first time and they had become one forevermore.

He didn't know how long he was asleep, but when the beeping of a monitor jolted him out of his sleep, the sky out the window was filled with the purple and pink clouds of the winter sunset. He instantly looked up, disheartened to see his wife's eyes still closed but grateful to see her chest still moving.

The room was otherwise quiet, and Shawn rubbed his face to reorient himself to his surroundings.

"I've got to go see the baby," Shawn whispered, pulling his wife's hand to his lips. "I love you. So much. I'll see you again tomorrow. Just… keep breathing, okay?"

He leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on her temple before slipping through the door, taking one last look before he left- just in case.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Deflated, he turned and retraced the maze back to the NICU, stopping at the door of his room. The seat that he had left Gus in that morning was pushed into the corner, and instead, someone was sitting in a high seat that had been pulled next to the baby's bed. He had to squint in the dim light to make out a face. "Dad?"

Henry turned towards him and smiled, his face looked softer and older than he had ever seen him before.

"I just came to meet my granddaughter, since I couldn't seem to get an invitation from you."

"Are you kidding?" Shawn's voice dropped and he crossed his arms. He was not interested in doing this with his father. Especially not right now. "Do you know how much I am dealing with right now?"

"No," Henry stood up from the chair and began inching towards Shawn, "No Shawn, I don't. Because I didn't know anything was wrong until Karen called me and asked if there was anything she could do to help. I had to find out from Gus that my daughter-in-law had been shot and my first grandchild had been delivered two months early."

"Dad! This is so not the place for this!" Shawn yelled in a hushed tone, throwing his hands up. "I cannot do this with you, okay? Not now and not ever, actually. I don't know if either of them are doing okay, I haven't slept in four days, people keep saying words to me that I don't understand and I can't be in two places at once. I don't know what I'm doing and I… I…"

And then he ran out of steam, his hands falling to his sides in defeat. He felt his knees begin to buckle but before he hit the ground, he felt his dad's arms around him.

"Shawn!"

Fear and surrender coursed through Shawn's veins like lead, pulling him to the shiny tile of the hospital floor. His father eased him down, supporting his limp weight as he fell.

"She's not waking up, Dad," Shawn whispered, his hands hiding his face. "What if she never wakes up? I can't do this alone."

"First of all, Shawn. You're not alone. You have me and you have Gus. You have a whole department of people who would do anything for her, including help you. And second of all, this is Juliet we're talking about. She beat serial killer after serial killer and a deadly virus and cancer? This little flesh wound will not beat her. She's stronger than that. I know it and you know it too."

Shawn breathed into his hands, letting his dad's words fall over him, soaking up his confidence as best he could. He wanted to believe him. He did believe him. But believing that his wife was the strongest person he knew and believing that the woman he saw knocked out in that hospital bed would ever wake up felt like two very different things.

"Stand up," his dad said, pushing himself off the ground before turning to help Shawn up. Reluctantly, Shawn put up his hands and allowed his dad to pull him up. He followed his dad to the bed in the middle of the room, occupied by his little, tiny bean.

Shawn looked at the baby in the incubator, watching her little ribs move with every breath and her hands occasionally jump, her little fingers extended. She had soft blond hair starting to grow on top of her head, which was finally clear of the IV poking out of her forehead. She scrunched her little nose up again, making Shawn smile.

"Dad, this is Pineapple."

"You're joking, right?"

"Yes I am," Shawn said, not taking his eyes off his daughter. "I can't name her without Jules."

"I'm not calling my granddaughter Pineapple, Shawn."

"Would you please just be fun, for like once in your life?"

"Fine," Henry said, throwing his hands up in exacerbation, "Hello, Pineapple." He shot a look at Shawn who was beaming from ear to ear before continuing. "I'm your Grandpa Henry. You can come to me anytime your daddy's being a real pain in the ass- he can be like that sometimes."

"Really, Dad?" but he was smiling. Henry had just called him a dad. He was a dad now. He wasn't about to do this alone, he had people in his corner, no matter what.

But he could still really use his wife right about now.