It's cool out. Fall is moving in with a vengeance and AJ isn't used to it after so many years of living in California. She sweeps her toes through the grass, enjoying the soft dew against her skin, and sighs. It's quiet, calm, and utterly opposite of her writhing emotions. She feels lonely, burying her face in her hands, trying to breathe in deeply and out steadily.

She straightens up when the door opens behind her, quiet footsteps heading her way. "Here," Ricardo greets her, handing over a mug of coffee. AJ blinks up at him, taking it. "I thought you looked like you could use some company. The kids are asleep, and Alicia is scribbling at some designs. My night is clear, I finished off everything for the wrestling school ahead of time, so here I am. Unless," he says after a quiet, tense moment, "you don't want company, then I can easily go back inside and find something else to do."

AJ smiles weakly. "No," she says. "It's fine, I'd rather not be alone." She taps her fingers against the mug and sighs. "The last few weeks have been really... really hard. Every Monday, I have to brace myself for something awful to happen to my husband, or his fake wife, or our kids, their kids, Ciampa or his family. It just keeps snowballing and I don't know where it's going to stop, or if everyone's going to be ok by the end of it. So I'm sitting out here and relaxing because I don't want to spend another tense night waiting to see if my husband walks out at the end of it unscathed."

Ricardo nods, his eyebrows twitching a little as her rant eases off into unsteady breathing. "Look, we appreciate you spending so much time here while we wait for Alicia to naturally- safely- give birth to the twins. It's meant a lot, the last few weeks. But your family is going through a lot too and Alicia is stable, right now. Sofia and I can take care of her, if you need to go home to take care of things. We would understand one hundred percent."

AJ sighs. "I could," she admits. "I could go back to California and instead spend hours sitting at home, waiting and hoping that Lumis won't somehow find us, but I..." She fumbles with her fingers and closes her eyes. "Selfishly, I don't want to. I want to stay here where my children are safe. I want to be there for my friend until she has her healthy, safe babies. I want... I want to give Mike a place to go when he has time off to just sit and be and not worry about Lumis targeting him. I want..." She stares down at her glistening toes and shrugs. "I want my life to be boring and ordinary again. I want to be able to stop worrying all of the time."

Ricardo blinks at her, then sighs. "You know, I get it. I worry all the time too. My twins were- are- at risk and I... I couldn't do anything," he says slowly. "I still can't. Just sit and hold my wife's hand and hope that she can have a little more time to be pregnant and let our kids be born healthy and beautiful and safe. And I worry that all of this stress will lead to me somehow failing." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his six month sobriety chip, flipping it between his thumb and forefinger. "I can't fail at this again because I have a wife, and three kids who deserve me at my best, and not struggling and suffering with insomnia and angry all the time because when I'm at my worst is when I drink, and I can't stop."

AJ stares at him, eyes glistening in the pale moonlight, before she huffs out a teary kind of laugh. "Some pair we make, huh?"

He chuckles. "I hate us," he admits.

AJ snorts. "Me too." She puts her mug down and reaches for his hands, squeezing his fingers. "Look, right here. Right now, we'll promise. Together, we'll come out here when it gets too much, and we'll share coffee, and we'll talk out our fears. And then we'll go back inside and be whatever our significant others and our children need us to be. Alright?"

Ricardo smiles at her. "I'd like that," he says quietly. "Thank you, AJ."

"Thank you, Ricardo."