A/N: Hi all! Sorry for the short break. I was going through some stuff (and do off and on, which makes it hard to write the stories sometimes-loneliness is a real suckerpunch sometimes!)

Hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks for the love on this story so far.

Elizabeth

She leaned back against the cab of the truck, against Henry, and rested her head backwards against his chest. He tugged her in his arms tighter and rested his chin on her shoulder, "You sure this is our last?" He asked.

Elizabeth smiled, letting her head droop down to look at the extra weight she'd been carrying for the past almost-eight-months. "Sure," she confirmed, her thumb gently rubbing his hand as hers laid on top of his. "There's been a few too many complications," she admitted, finally saying it out loud for the first time. As she looked down, she felt her throat tighten up, knowing it to be a strangled mixture of sadness and worry.

Sadness because, yes, this was definitely her last baby. They'd said it back when they first started trying for another, their caboose, their third and final. Henry agreed then, too. But after the concerning tests she'd had at the beginning of the third trimester, it was solidified: this was the last.

She heard him chuckle and she tilted her head back to try to see him, "I can feel her." He whispered, looking down over her shoulder.

She raised her brow, "I still don't see how you think it's a girl." She teased.

So close to her ear, she could hear him smile, "Because we're girl parents." He admitted, moving his hand just slightly to follow the little one's movements. It only took him two tries, but he found the movements again, and the kid was going crazy in there.

She grimaced, jolting slightly to the left and just barely out of his arms.

"You okay?" He asked quickly.

She nodded, "He's strong."

"He?" He teased back.

"He." She confirmed.

A few moments of silence passed by between them, peaceful quiet that they rarely got at home with their two kids. Henry's parents were at home babysitting; his mother wanted to give them the night out. The only thing Elizabeth wanted to do was have burgers and sit in the back of his old truck with him—only skipping the bowling because she'd been told by her doctor it wasn't a good idea.

She rested her head against him again after the kicking had died down once more, "Are you having second thoughts about it being our last?" She asked, listening to the crickets chirping in the distance—a warm July night brought them out worse than usual.

He shook his head, "Not really," he whispered, his palm resting still against her belly. Her shirt had been tucked up at the top for a while by then. "I just know I'm going to miss these moments."

She paused, furrowing her brow. "We're still going to have these moments." She reminded.

"Of course we are," he defended, "But these moments are a different kind of special—this…this is the most…" he shrugged, struggling to get out the words obviously. He took another moment after clearing his throat, "Sitting here with you and—don't get me wrong, having kids in the world with us is…more than words can even describe—but sitting here with you and this amazing little life we created together…this…I don't know. This symbol of our love for each other…" his voice trailed off again, and she reached up behind her and stroked his jaw gently, "I think it's just an end of a chapter that I knew was coming but…I'm having a hard time putting the book down."

But only a few months later, watching the twin towers crumbling on their television, neither needed confirmation. This was actually happening. Henry scheduled his vasectomy for September 13th.

She looks around at the other women in the doctor's office. Some had their significant other with her, holding hands, hands resting on thighs, couples who can't stop touching each other. Some had what looked to be their mom with them, and her heart aches even at this age. The little pang can't be stopped just because she's in her thirties and her parents have been dead for decades now. It never stops, she supposes, the desire to have your mom here for the extra hard moments.

She glances over at Henry's hand, almost touching her thigh but still on his own lap. She reaches down and takes it gently, laying hers on top and wrapping her fingers into his. He looks over at her and smiles, "You okay?" He whispers.

It's a lopsided smile, one that looks exhausted. She wonders suddenly if he's slept since she told him—she knows she hasn't slept well either. She'd been up and down most of the night when they'd gotten home last night and when she was actually asleep—well, she's not sure you could even call it sleep. Maybe some form of rest, but not a sleep.

"I'm okay," she whispers, "Just…nervous."

Her mind is still letting that memory dangle there, resting against Henry in the back of his truck with Jason here but not yet here. She looks down instinctively, thinking back to that moment and thinking back to the time when they said it would be their last. She shuts her eyes, unsure whether the feeling washing over her is shame or guilt or regret or all at once.

He lifts their hands and places his on her thigh, squeezing his fingers so that hers are snuggled in tighter. "No matter what happens," he whispers, leaned over just slightly, "We'll get through this together. Okay? Together."

He's stressing the together, and ultimately, stressing her. She feels her heart flutter and her breath skip, but it's not from butterflies. It's from the thought of this being "the thing," whether "this" ends with a life or not. It could break them either way.

But, as she looks up, she thinks to herself that anything could break them. Jason being so sick when he was a toddler, Stevie riding her bike straight into the side of his old pickup, Alison dumping a whole gallon of paint all over their carpet—any moment over the last fifteen years or so could have broken them.

Yet here she is sitting next to him, loving him enough to be knocked up by a man who had a vasectomy all those years ago.

"McCord?"

The voice startles her, almost making her jump from her seat. She processes it as the nurse calling them back, and Henry's standing up before she is. Her legs feel weak, a bit shaky, and like they'll break into two if she stands up on them right now.

Henry looks back at her, his hand still attached to hers, "You okay?" He asks again, but a different tone this time. He's more worried for her.

She looks at him and makes herself heave in a breath, and she nods, pushing her bodyweight onto her legs and rising. He waits, but then gently tugs on her to get her moving forward, which she finally does, and she hears him greeting the nurse through her ringing ears.

Onto the scale, then a urine cup is shoved into her hand. She feels inanimate, as though she's a pole with a basket that just got a urine cup pushed onto it. In a daze, she manages to make it into the cup, then slides it into the slot for them to come get it and finishes before walking with the nurse into the room.

She feels the blood pressure cuff slide on. The pulse oximeter clamps to her index finger. The room smells of antiseptic of fear—her own or the other mothers before her, she's unsure. The nurse tells her she'll step out a moment while she changes into the gown, and Elizabeth does as she's told. She cracks the door open and climbs backward up onto the table again, and the crinkling sound of the paper makes her feel like she's going to go over the edge.

Over her shallow breaths, she hears the corresponding beeps of the oximeter, knowing that's her heart and knowing it's also much too fast. Guns N' Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine" plays on the speakers above her, just barely audible in that doctor's office kind of way, yet she knows that her heart is beating almost on beat with that song—maybe even a little faster. She closes her eyes and hears the blood pressure machine hiss moments later.

She hears the nurse hum with a disapproving tone, "Your blood pressure's a little high—150 over 95." She says, wrapping the cuff up and hanging it back up on the wall, then coming back to take the clip from her finger. She's glad, suddenly, that she can't hear her heart anymore, though she still feels it beating in the front of her neck. "Heart rate is a bit elevated too," she says, and Elizabeth looks over at the monitor to see it's at 120. "You feeling okay?" The nurse asks more pointedly, a bit more concern hanging in her voice, "Dizziness? Shortness of breath?"

Elizabeth shakes her head, trying to make a shrug though she can now feel the tightness in her chest since the nurse mentioned it. "Just nerves." She admits, and she can see Henry eyeing her out of the corner of her own eye. But she doesn't let herself look over there—he'll know she's lying. He already knows.

The nurse starts asking all the questions—medications, allergies. "Have you had any complications with your pregnancies in the past?"

"High blood pressure," she admits, her hands wringing together in her lap. As usual, ever since she had the slightest inkling, her hands are as far as they can be from her stomach—afraid of touching even close by.

They continue the questions, and the nurse stops at one point to explain that it's to update their systems—it'd been a long time since Elizabeth had visited for a OB appointment, not just the GYN part.

She draws Elizabeth's blood, and she didn't even really feel the poke. She saw the needle, but the feeling wasn't there. Once the nurse finishes with everything, she announces the doctor will be in soon and heads out the door.

Once the door shuts, she looks over to Henry, trying to find the energy to smile or say something, but she can't. Everything is being used to keep herself held together on this crinkly paper while her legs dangle over the edge.

"I—" Henry starts, but he's interrupted by the knock on the door.

"Elizabeth," Dr. Howard says, coming into the door after peeking around it. She smiles a little, "I saw your name on my OB form and knew it couldn't be you—but here you are." She says softly, laying her clipboard down on the desk.

Elizabeth feels shy—maybe it's embarrassment, she's not entirely sure. But her cheeks feel warm and red and she feels like she wants to crawl under the table. "Yep," she says shakily, then the doctor must realize she'd embarrassed her and gives her a sympathetic smile.

"So," Dr. Howard changes the subject quickly, obviously knowing how to read a room. She looks down at the clipboard over her arm then back at Henry, then at Elizabeth. "The nurse tells me that this came as quite the surprise," she starts, clearing her throat. "That this was a vasectomy gone wrong issue."

"Yes," Elizabeth says, and Henry is nodding too. She notes that his hands are clenched in his lap tightly as he sits stick-straight in the chair.

The doctor nods, then grabs her pen and writes something down. Elizabeth squints to see, but when the doctor turns, she goes back to normal. For a moment, she remembers back to when she sat here in front of Dr. Howard when she was pregnant with Jason—yet all those times, she felt different. Lighter.

"Sometimes those permanent solutions can become—well…" the doctor sighs, "A rarity. Sometimes the vas deferens can rejoin after the procedure. Typically that happens months after the surgery, but since this has been years, it is a little bit of an odd case."

Elizabeth looks over at Henry, but he's not looking at her. He's looking at his feet, and her heart sinks as she remembers back to him being so upset thinking she'd cheated—and now she wonders if he's reliving that moment too.

"But it certainly isn't impossible," she reassures, "You're not a miracle case, just a rare case." She tells Henry, giving him a little smile. He finally looks back up at Elizabeth and gives another lopsided and lazy smile, and she tries her best to return it. "The important thing now is that we get you cared for and that we see what's going on." She says, standing up and walking over to Elizabeth.

She slides the doppler machine toward her and prompts Elizabeth to lie back. She hears the paper crinkling again and wants to bust from her own skin, but she forces herself, instead, to take a deep breath. Her hands rest at her sides as she stares at the outdated ceiling tiles—attempting (sadly) to squint and count the dust bunnies as the doctor starts her process. Haunting her down and to her left, just above Henry's head, is a picture of the anatomy of a fetus at the different stages, and she feels as though she may throw up.

Just as the doctor is starting to place the doppler on her stomach, there's a knock at the door, and the nurse comes in once more with a sheet of paper. She hands it to the doctor above Elizabeth's head, and then leaves as the doctor is examining it.

"HCG is through the roof," she confirms, setting the paper down beside Elizabeth's shoulder, "It's definitely real—you're pregnant." She says, giving her a smile.

Elizabeth goes to breathe in but instead chokes, and the doctor is sliding her hand beneath her back and helping her sit up immediately. Henry's on his feet when she sits up, still choking, and he's rushing over to her. But she's waving them both off, "I'm fine, I'm okay," she manages, her eyes shut tight as she feels the air being sucked out of her. She tilts her head back and tries to regain herself, shaking her head as tears fill her eyes.

"Oh," the doctor says, as though she's made a realization and feels guilty at the same time. Her hand is on the middle of Elizabeth's back, rubbing circles, and Henry's hand is holding her own. "I realize now that this…maybe wasn't…" the doctor clears her throat, "A bit more of a surprise than I'd realized."

Elizabeth takes a deep breath finally, nodding, "Very big surprise," she says shakily, her voice barely above a whisper. Henry looks at her again, and she nods at him, "I'm okay," she mouths, then slowly lies back down.

A few more long moments pass by before Elizabeth feels the doppler on her stomach, causing her to jerk just slightly at the cold touch. The doctor is talking, but she isn't understanding anything and just hoping she's talking to try to comfort her or something else that she doesn't have to necessarily be listening to. Or, at the very least, that Henry is listening—he's still standing at her side, and she's suddenly annoyed with herself that she hadn't demanded he be right there the entire time in the first place. This was fear—this wasn't silly nerves. Nerves were for girls going out on first dates with Marines. Nerves were for waiting for him to kiss her for the first time. Nerves were for the night they decided they would elope the next day. Those were nerves—something juvenile almost. This was fear.

She squeezes his hand so tight her wrist feels tired, but she doesn't release.

Her head is back in that hotel—the night she realized that this all could slip away. Twofold, she feels the weight of the guilt that she felt that night when she wondered which would be worse—to be pregnant and actually be having a baby, or to be pregnant and hear no heartbeat. She hated herself for even having that thought, but every time she thinks of how their lives will be turned upside down, the weight gets heavier.

"Alright," Dr. Howard says, pushing her glasses into better position. Elizabeth notices her out of the corner of her eye now—she's older, of course, than the last time. She wears thick glasses now and her hair has some gray in the front. She shuts her eyes and laughs to herself, her lips staying shut. Time has passed right on by. "Still looking around…" she's moving the doppler on her lower abdomen, starting at her naval and then going out from there. She stops, and Elizabeth's eyes shoot open.

A swish. A thud. A thump. A heartbeat.

Again, the air sucks from her throat, but this time she doesn't choke. She's not sure she can. She's not sure she can even think.

"There's the heartbeat," Dr. Howard announces, her voice even this time instead of excited. She'd apparently learned from her last mistake.

She feels Henry squeeze her hand, and she looks up at him and sees the tears in his eyes. "See? It's okay," he whispers, "It's all going to be okay."

But the sinking feeling in her chest is still there. Her ribs feel like they're breaking, and her sternum feels like it's crushing in on itself.

This is fear.

Henry

"Alright Dad," Dr. Howard says, "I'm going to have you hold this while I go ahead and get the ultrasound going."

He's snapped from his trance, from his staring down at his wife and wondering why she looks as though she's seen a ghost. He supposes she has every reason to feel that way—to look that way, even. This was nothing they'd ever imagined. This was in their wildest dreams—and not even in their dreams at all. Maybe it was even in their nightmares. Now he, too, feels the weight of a guilt pull his spirits back down, and he squeezes her hand with his free one as they continue to be engulfed by that strong heartbeat.

He remembers once scooping a baby squirrel from the ground after a particularly bad storm when he was a teenager. He had felt so helpless, all he could do was do his best to keep it warm in his palms and wait for it to stop raining. He had taken it inside that day and hid it from his mother in his bedroom, putting it in a shoebox and poking holes all in the cardboard. After the rain had passed through, he'd surrendered it back to the tree it had come from and waited from afar, hoping to see the mother come back.

Right now, looking at her, he feels even more helpless than watching that dying, baby squirrel.

He can't scoop her up. He can't hold her in his palms, though she looks small enough to do so at the moment. He can't put her back together right now. All he can do is hold her hand, and it feels so weak—such a sad attempt at help.

Inside, he wants to scream. He wants to yell at the world and question why it had to be him—why did he have to have the failed vasectomy and put his wife through all this fear and worry and everything else? Why did it have to be her who had the consequences of his body? Everything felt so unfair to him, much like it did the first time an accidental surprise happened. He'd kicked himself over and over when she told him she was pregnant, and he couldn't wait to get back to the U.S. and be even on the same soil as her—something minute to be able to comfort her. Now, he's standing right next to her, same soil and all, and he can't do a thing to help. He can't take the pain, the worry, and bottle it up and throw it in the ocean. Though every piece of him wants to.

He sees the absolute fear in her eyes as she stares at the ceiling, totally unknowing what the doctor is doing at this point. He's not even sure she's realized the doctor handed him the doppler. He's not sure she's aware of her surroundings or if she's buried in the avalanche of her mind, searching for a way out where only she can hear her screams. He closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath, letting it out slowly before tightening his grip on her hand. That's the one thing he can do—be right here for her.

The doctor is explaining the procedure to Elizabeth, but he can tell she's not listening. He can tell she's in that far away land, locked away by her thoughts. She's done this three other times before, though—this is nothing new. Even he's seen this twice now, it's nothing new for him. The first time, the pregnancy with Alison, he'd been so unnerved by the thing they called the transvaginal ultrasound—but now it doesn't faze him. Now he just wants to let his wife be free of her worries, and he can't do that.

Mindlessly, she's still staring at the ceiling as the image of her insides show so vulnerable on the screen. "Babe," he whispers, rubbing his thumb across her hand to try to get her attention. She blinks a few times and looks over at him, then looks at the screen where the doctor is pointing, and has been pointing for the last few seconds. "Right there," she says, "Everything is looking healthy."

The whimper that comes from his wife's lungs breaks him. He's supposed to be the strong one—the one who she can lean on. But if a simple whimper can break him…

He squeezes her hand again and watches as she closes her eyes. Dr. Howard is mumbling something about vitals and then something else about maybe this is too much for now. Before long, the screen is off and she's helping Elizabeth sit up, and he wants to say screw everything and just hold her in his arms. As if that would help somehow, as if he can shield her from anything.

No, he's having to go through the pain of watching his wife see their lives be turned upside down. He's watching her worry in agony about another pregnancy—another mouth to feed, another being who's reliant on her for so long where he can't even help for a long nine months. It's not a pain comparable to hers—not in the same way at least. But it's a terrible feeling to be so weak.

Henry gathered the papers at the front desk, he paid the copay, and he helped Elizabeth out to the car because her feet weren't working. He could tell by the way she was shuffling, the way her toes would drag. He held onto her extra carefully until she climbed up into the car's seat. He was about to close the door after helping her with her seatbelt, but then he feels her weight be thrown onto him. It knocks the air from him, pushing him backwards. Though he stumbles once, he steps forward again toward her and wraps her into his arms as she hangs halfway out the car. "What kind of mother am I to feel this way, Henry?" She whimpers into his shoulder, feeling it become sopping wet in this short time.

He rubs circles on her back, just above the hook of her bra and to the inside of her shoulder blade—the spot that knots up so easily and so badly, too. "One who knows what it takes to be a good mother," he whispers, "One who's done this three times and knows the toll it takes." He swallows the lump in his throat—she needs his strength. This is what he can do for her, as miniscule as it feels. "Don't be so hard on yourself—this is a shock. Even Dr. Howard said so."

She stays silent for so long that he almost feels the need to check she's still breathing, but finally she pulls away with puffy eyes, tears staining her cheeks. She doesn't have to say anything, and he doesn't have to ask. He leans in and kisses her on the forehead, rubbing her shoulder gently before looking at her once more. "Give yourself some grace." He whispers.

She nods, though it looks much like Jason whenever he gets in trouble and is asked, "Do you understand?" She looks as though she's going to rub her eyes at any moment and burst into more tears, crying about how sorry she is. She has nothing to apologize for—the blame is eating him enough. He wishes she could understand that this is not her fault—and though it isn't technically his, he's the one he wants to blame in this situation.

He kisses her head one more time and then her cheek, and then he gives her a soft look before closing her door and walking to his own. As he's opening his door, he sighs, wondering how in the world they're going to explain Elizabeth's state to the kids as they pick them up from school on the way home. But he gets in the car and puts it in reverse, placing his hand on the back of her seat as he backs out and starts planning a story he can put together for when, ultimately, their teenager asks what's wrong with mom.

Because, one thing is for sure: neither of them can speak the truth right now.