more than i can hold in my heart.

there'll be happiness after you (but there was happiness because of you)

Her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her chest at the sight of two thin lines. Something so simple… and really not.

Her previous pregnancy, she was deprived of this feeling. She had labs drawn up for her, and another human being to relay the results to her.

Now, the two lines that showed her the implications of her situation were severely undermined. How could two damn lines tell her what the hell she should do?

Miranda's hands came together in front of her, unconsciously tugging and counting her fingers. After she counted ten, she seemed to realize it, and she put her hands up, holding them wide as she tried to breathe and calm herself down.

She looked at the positive pregnancy test, and the other two sitting next to it. All of them told her the same thing. She actively swallowed to try to stop her digestive system from launching themselves up her throat.

Instinctively, she put a hand on her stomach, already in love with the life blooming inside. But she was scared, terrified.

"The good and the bad… it's all true." She heard Jo Wilson's voice, and she looked up to the ceiling, feeling a surge of emotions run through her tiny body.

She's pregnant again. And if she was, well, herself five years ago, she would've had her blood drawn to make sure.

But even in the middle of her perimenopausal stage, she could handpick the pregnancy symptoms.

There was the sickness (it didn't deserve to be called morning sickness, she had it every night), the cramps, the much more intense mood swings. And the cravings, God, the cravings hit her like a tidal wave every 2 hours. It wasn't just menopause.

So, Miranda crouched into a ball of tears, right there in the 3rd floor restroom of her own damn hospital. She sobbed, and she sobbed; her tears are a mix of mourning Dani, joy for a new baby, and fear for a second miscarriage.

×+×+×+×

Ben twitched in his sleep as he fell into a dream. He was crying, his tears salty and pooling on his lips.

Dean is dead, his heart had stopped almost an hour now, but Ben continued the chest compressions. He can't stop. He couldn't do that, even as his arms grew tired. He won't stop. Damn it, he can't stop.

The dream suddenly changed, and he wasn't crying anymore. He was standing in Dean's house, still in uniform. The place was familiar and warm, but it felt… different, somehow. It was hazy, as if a fog had entered through the door and filled the house.

Ben scrubbed his eyes, but the filter remained. He stepped forward, and he winced, stepping on a tiny, hard object.

Leaning down, he put himself into a squat and picked it up. It was a rattle. A pink rattle with a white stripe in the middle of the sphere.

He felt tears prick at the edge of his eyes. An exact same one sat at the bottom of his cabinet, hidden behind barely used clothes. He had bought the rattle when he found out about Miranda's pregnancy, but he never told her about it. It was supposed to be this thing between father and daughter, but he never had the chance to give it to her.

Whenever he experienced intense bouts of emotions, may it be joy or sadness, even anger, he'd take it from its hiding place, and he'd kiss it, almost like the ghost of his daughter sat beside him.

In his heart, there was a carved out portion of a girl, barely a baby, really. But in it, the name 'Danielle' is written, and it always tugged at him. Especially in moments when Miranda, Tuck, Joey, Pru and him bonded together as a complete family. Sometimes, a voice would whisper in his ear that they would never be complete, not without his first daughter.