Hyde's body wakes him up in the middle of the night with a start. The blankets are kicked to his feet and the tiny spot next to him is vacant, but warm, meaning Evie had only left moments before. Hyde runs his hand over his face, grabbing at the scruff of his beard now grown an inch out from his face. He was going to shave it, but Evie had made a comment about how hot he looked with facial hair, so on his face it stays.

He sinks his hand down into the thin mattress to push himself up, but stops short when his palm encounters a wet, sticky substance on the blanket. He grimaces at the unknown liquid clinging to him and gingerly hops over the spot. He makes a mental note at the back of his mind to deal with whatever it is when he comes back.

The house is quiet, as it should be for this early in the morning, and Hyde climbs the stairs slowly, hoping to find Evie somewhere in the house and not discover that she left to go back home. He is starting to get used to her sleeping in his bed, too used to it for his comfort, because in the back of his mind the thought continues to cycle that no matter how much he wants it to, it's not going to last. He calls her name softly as he wanders the main floor, but finds no one in the kitchen, den, or living room. He figures if she's not in one of those rooms then, she's probably gone. He turns around to head back downstairs, resolving to call her in the morning, when the almost imperceptible sound of crying from upstairs stops him in his tracks.

Hyde cautiously treks up the stairs to the bathroom, a room he wouldn't have thought to check because, one, it's on the second floor, and two the light is off. The only indication anyone is inside, besides the noise coming from inside, is a slightly cracked door.

He pushes it open slightly, unable to see anything but a glint of a golden halo reflecting the dim moonlight streaming through the tiny window. Hyde reaches around outside to turn the hall light on, letting a beam of light cascade over Evangeline's hunched body. A sliver of her eyes peeks out from under her arm as she immediately slows her crying with a shaky inhale.

"Evie?" Hyde crouches down in front of her and brushes a hand against the arm slung over her knees. "What's going on?"

Another choked sob wracks her body, but she remains mute. Hyde glances around the room trying to see if there's anything that might indicate what's wrong, but finds nothing. "Evie, talk to me." He gently calls her name again, prying her arm away slowly and urging her to lift her head. Suddenly and all at once, her body goes limp and she falls into his arms, her legs stretched out across the tile in front of her. That's when he notices the blood soaking her shorts and tracking down the inside of her thighs, and dried spots on the hands gripping onto the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "Evie, what's going on—that's a lot of—do you need—maybe I should get Mrs. Forman."

Evangeline cries out in protest, holding onto his arm tightly and shaking her head. She buries her face in his soft shirt, soaking it with her tears. "Evie, she's a nurse; she can help." She breathes in a shuddering breath, letting him go and crunching up into a ball again against the cold floor. "I'll go get her."

It takes Hyde longer than he thought to wake up the lady of the house. He feels weird disturbing her at this hour, or going into their bedroom at all, but he doesn't know what to do. Mrs. Forman is still half-asleep as he guides her down the hall and she asks him multiple times what's going on. Hyde just brings her to the bathroom, figuring seeing Evie would be enough. When she notices the state of the girl on the floor, sobbing now uncontrollably, and the blood forming a tiny pool on the black and white tile, she gasps and bends down, immediately alert. She whispers something in the girl's ear and Evie simply shakes her head. A weird look crosses Mrs. Forman's face as she glances back at Hyde.

"Steven, honey, go grab me a pair of sweatpants or something for her to wear, please." He looks between the two women before nodding slowly and backing out of the room. The sound of the door shutting behind him sends a shock of worry down his spine. His mind won't stop turning as he finds Laurie's room and grabs a pair of his pants. He didn't like the way Mrs. Forman looked at him, like it was his fault she was on the floor of their bathroom. He knocks on the door, feeling that if he just walked in he wouldn't be welcome. Mrs. Forman cracks the door open slightly grabs the bundle from his hands with a quick thanks and shuts it again.

Like a zombie, he sinks to the ugly, orange-shag carpet, the rough material scratching his arms. He glances down at his hands, noticing the dried brown-red crusting the tips of two of his fingers. He realizes that must have been blood on the blanket; he knows he should get up and wash his hands and sheets, but can't make himself move away from the door, wanting to be there if they need anything and fearing he'll miss something if he goes. Despite his attempt to stay awake, he's asleep before he realizes it.

The door swinging open wakes him up from his unintended slumber, and Mrs. Forman, with a towel sling over her arm, ushers a slightly fresher-looking Evangeline to the room across the hall, the one Hyde had been in not long before. He scrambles onto his feet as Mrs. Forman closes the door quietly and pulls her robe tighter around her body. "Oh, Steven, you're still here. I thought you'd have gone back to bed."

Hyde shakes his head and glances over her shoulder at the door. "What's going on? Is Evie okay?"

Mrs. Forman brushes a sober hand over his cheek and gives him a sedate smile. "She'll be fine. Physically."

Hyde furrows his brow and reaches out for Mrs. Forman's arm as she starts for her bedroom. "What do you mean physically? Mrs. Forman, what's going on?"

"Steven—" Kitty begins to say that if Evangeline wants him to know, she'll tell him, but the distraught look on his face indicates to her that he won't be okay until he knows what's going on and that Evangeline is okay. Kitty sighs and adjusts the curlers on top of her head. "She's had a miscarriage."

Hyde blanches and takes a step backwards. That was an answer he had not been expecting in the slightest. "What?"

"She'll be fine, but she's pretty upset about and shaken up from it." Kitty looks back towards her room longingly and then back at Steven. "Tomorrow you can try and talk to her, but for now, let her sleep." Hyde nods numbly as she reaches up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "I'll see you in the morning. Good night, Steven."

Hyde mumbles a good night back to her as she shuffles back to her room and shuts the door. For what feels like an eternity, Hyde stands on the worn carpet, caught between his desire to talk to Evie immediately and accepting that Mrs. Forman's knows what's best for Evie right now, understanding she needs her sleep above all.

As he makes his way back to the basement slower than molasses, his mind goes into overdrive obsessing about the new information.

Why hadn't she said anything? He hadn't even known she was pregnant, she definitely didn't look it, but as he thinks back on the past two months a lot of their interactions and Evie's mannerisms made more sense.

Was it his? This is the main question haunting him as he pulls the sheets off his bed and throws them into the washer. He remembers at her house on her birthday when she asked him to promise they would be better parents to their kids than theirs had been to them. He'd brushed it off as a kind of joke, but maybe it had been her way of trying to tell him.

He knows any speculation he has is in vain until he can talk to Evangeline tomorrow. So he lies down on the sofa, pulling an extra blanket from his room over his shoulders, and hunkers down into the dingy cloth of the cushions. As he tries to shut off his brain, the only comfort he finds is that, no matter what has happened or what will happen, Evie is going to be okay.

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as though the whole house is buzzing. The Formans wake up bright and early—even Eric is downstairs when Kitty serves breakfast. Steven enters the kitchen just as Mrs. Forman dances over to the table, balancing their plates deftly on her fingers like a seasoned waitress. She greets him happily and he stops just short of crashing into her as she skips back to the stove. "Pancakes?" She holds up a plate to him, inviting him to join them.

He nods and sidles you to her, accepting the plate and watching as she stacks three perfectly shaped pancakes on top. "Mrs. Forman," he says quietly as she slaps a pad of butter on top and drizzles some syrup over them, "is Evie awake?"

Kitty stops, spatula poised to flip as she turns her head to face the boy. "Oh, gosh, I completely forgot she was here!" Suddenly she's putting pancake after pancake on a second plate, topping it with all the fixings. "I should see if she's hungry."

Hyde shakes his head, carefully taking the plate away from her. "I got it, Mrs. Forman." The lady nods slowly after a moment, then as he turns to go she remembers something and slaps two forks on the plate to eat like civilized people, she says.

Hyde carefully backs out of the room and takes the stairs one at a time before approaching Laurie's door. He pauses, wondering if he should try and open the door himself, despite two hands full of food, or knock and see if she answers. Deciding to be courteous of her privacy, he balances a plate on his knee and gently taps in the door. Quiet is all that answers him. The only signs of life are shuffling and tidying of covers and a sniffle. "Evie, can I come in?"

The door opens with a click and a Evie peeks at him with one eye. It's rimmed with red like she's been crying all night, but her cheeks are dry. She glances down at the plates in his hands and says, "I'm not hungry."

Hyde shrugs. "I'll eat it, then. If you want to be alone, tell me. I'll go back downstairs."

Evie shakes her head and opens the door. "Come in."

He keeps his mouth in a somber line as he enters and she shuts the door again. He notices she's wearing yet another pair of pants and the blood-spotted towel she quickly balls up and tosses into the bathroom. Hyde takes a cautious step towards the desk, setting one plate down on the right closer to Evie and sitting down in the frilly chair to eat his. Neither says anything as Hyde eats and Evangeline watches.

"So," Evie starts softly, holding onto the foot of the bed as she folds her legs under her body. "I'm guessing Mrs. Forman told you about—"

Hyde shrugs as she trails off, hanging her head and picking at the fraying end of an old blanket. "Only the basics."

"And I'm guessing you have questions." Her voice is small, as if she can't bring herself to speak at a normal tone anymore. Hyde nods, and she adds, "It's a long, sad story."

Hyde sets down his fork, and scoots the chair towards her, settling down so he's facing her. He reaches for her hand, smiling as she grips onto it like a lifeline. "I'm a good listener."

"I guess I should start by saying, it wan't yours." Hyde relaxes slightly, careful not to make it too obvious that he is relieved. The tiniest twinge of disappointment lurking under the surface of his relief surprises him; why would he be disappointed about something he doesn't want?

Evangeline watches him, searching his eyes for something, though he isn't sure what. Finally she lets go of a shallow breath and begins. "I would have been ten weeks today, almost three months." Evangeline takes a deep breath and squeezes Hyde's hand. "It's the reason I came back to Point Place. I messed up too much for my parents to handle."

Hyde squeezes her hand back as she goes on to explain her story. Evangeline starts by vaguely detailing her promiscuity of the past few years of her teenage life, the countless parties and one-night stands, not to mention use of drugs, alcohol, and occasions of breaking the law—all a desperate attempt to get her parents attention, even if it was only because she'd done something terrible. Then she started up a relationship with a boy in her town from a family with old money and roots so deep you couldn't go back far enough in their state's history to find a time they weren't there.

It was completely casual; both used each other as an escape: him from his overbearing parents and her from her uncaring ones. It lasted about a month, until she found out she was pregnant.

She waited a while before telling him, and when she did, he freaked out and disappeared for a few hours. When he found her again it was with his parents who handed the Rosses a fat check and told them to make their little problem go away. They threatened, not-so-subtly, that their daughter, a gold-digging whore, was to never set foot anywhere near their family again and if the Ross family didn't accept their generosity and do as they said, they would ruin their name from there to the western seaboard. Her parents immediately accepted.

Evangeline couldn't believe them—except that she could—as they started making calls for doctors who could take care of it discreetly. Just a quick operation and she'd be back before anyone noticed, to keep up appearances.

Maybe it was because for years it was her job to test her parents limits and openly defy and challenge them, or maybe because she had been thinking that maybe this was her chance at unconditional love, but she refused. So, they packed her up and sent her on the next flight to Wisconsin, and told her not to come back. She figured they told anyone who mattered that she was aiding an ailing family member or attending a prestigious school somewhere across the country or perhaps even that she was dead. She didn't care anymore.

Evie tells him that despite her grandmother's outward expression of emotion, and how strict she is, through the past two months she'd shown more kindness to her than her parents had her entire life. She cared slightly less that the girl was pregnant, and had slowly been warming up to the idea as the days went on. "And now I'm just—not. But, hey! At least my grandma will let me go to school next year." Her attempt at a joke falls flat, neither Steven nor Evangeline truly finding it funny.

"I was actually starting to get excited about having a baby," Evangeline says, twirling a loose string around her finger and staring at the quilted pattern. "I had woken up yesterday morning, looked in the mirror, and realized I was starting to show finally."

"I hadn't noticed anything," Hyde says, playing with her fingers gently as she looks up at him with the tiniest of smiles.

"That's because you're a guy, focused completely on one thing only." Hyde snorts, arguing that he has more hobbies, to which she says smoking doesn't count. "You probably wouldn't have noticed for a while longer, but it made me nervous 'cause it meant people would start noticing. You would notice. I didn't know how you'd react, especially now." Hyde opens his mouth to say he wouldn't have, but he realizes he couldn't because the thought of having a kid, no matter whose it was, scares him. "If made it more real."

Evangeline takes rapid, shaky breaths as if she's trying to calm and keep herself from crying. "Evie," Hyde reaches a hand to her cheek, brushing away a tear that slips past her strong defenses, "it's okay to cry."

The dam breaks and suddenly she's in his arms sobbing. "I didn't know I could hurt this much." Hyde pulls her onto his lap so she's straddling his waist, wrapping one arm around her lower back and running his fingers throw her hair with his other hand. "It feels like a piece of me is gone."

Hyde doesn't know how to respond to that, or to any of it. All he know is he has an intense desire to do whatever he can to make her feel better, to see her truly smile again. He only hopes he'll have the chance.

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so i've had this chapter planned/written for a while

but i didn't know where it fit until now

surprised? like it? not for it? thoughts?

only abt two more chapters

and maaaybe an epilogue

i haven't decided yet

as always, y'all are the best! xx