Better Than Yesterday

Twenty-One

14 Weeks

"Has she been doing any better?" Ashton asks, glancing past Calum to the woman asleep on the large bed.

"I mean yes, but also no?" Cal sighs, pulling the bedroom door shut, she's sleeping, he'll bring her food when she wakes up. No need to wake her when she might not be able to sleep later, and she might not even want to eat. No, her schedule is whatever the hell she can manage, even on days like today.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ashton laughs, following him back down the stairs.

"It means she eats sometimes, and she sleeps sometimes, but never when it's traditionally done. She will be awake half the night and only eat at like four in the morning and between naps sometimes in the afternoon. She has stopped really throwing up, but she barely eats enough and she never actually wants something, like if she asked me to make or buy her something specific I might cry. She eats because logically she knows she needs to, not because she wants to. She just, she just seems to have lost her Skye sparkle." He sighs.

"She'll get it back. This will pass, Cal." Ashton smiles sympathetically at his best friend, "Soon you'll be in the get the fuck out of this house for at least an hour and you better come home with ice cream stage and be praying the damn babies work their way out of their very pregnant and very uncomfortable mother very quickly."

"I already want that baby to get the fuck out of their mother, I want her to be her again, and while she's been pregnant she hasn't been her, she's been sad and sick and exhausted, and I hate it. We were gone for six months for tour, and I missed her so much. And now that we are home from tour, it still feels like I'm living with a half version of her 99% of the time. I feel like I've only seen glimpses of the full Skye since getting home. Fuck man, is this really what it's going to be like?" He vents, sitting down at the counter as Ash digs through the fridge for a drink, popping the cap off a beer before handing it to Calum, taking a water for himself.

"It's going to get better. It already has right?" Ashton frowns, leaning against the marble counter top across from him.

"That's the worst part though isn't it? This is better than it was. At least now it's been three days since she threw everything up. She's kept some basic foods down and sleeps like fifteen hours a day, but the wrong hours. And I'm supposed to be glad this is the improvement? I hate it, I want to take it all away from her, I never want her to go through this again, I don't care if I only have two kids. I just want Skye to be okay." Calum's voice breaks slightly.

"Hey, don't cry, Cal. She's going to be okay, so is the baby. It's all going to be okay." Ashton frowns moving around the counter to hug Calum to his chest.

"Do, do you think Nika's mom went through this alone? Do you think this is my fault and I was just oblivious to the pain and sick I put someone else through too?" Calum whispers.

"What? Nika's mom? You haven't ever talked about who she was. Or about her at all."

"It never mattered before. Nika is mine, and Skye's. But if I caused another person to go through this hell... I would feel awful. It's hard enough now when I can pamper her and rub her back, and run her a hot bath. If her mom had to do it alone... so young and afraid..."

"Calum you can't think like that. You can't focus on things you don't know, can't know, and can't change. Don't focus on the past, focus on the woman you have now, the one who is carrying your baby, the one who you love."

"This pregnancy is bringing up a lot of guilt I didn't know I had... I always wanted to experience this, to be part of the pregnancy part of the baby, to do it with someone I loved. But between Skye being sick and just watching her change physically and mentally, I feel guilty that Nika's mom had to do it all alone, that I wasn't there. Would I have even been there? I was in a different place then, Ash. If I had— If I had known before Nika was laying in front of me, all bundled up in that little blanket, If I had known from a phone call nine months earlier, or whatever, would I have had the same reaction? I was so lost until I held her in my arms. I was leaning towards adoption, I was going to let her go, and then Crystal put her in my arms and it changed. I don't know if I would have done that if I knew at six weeks, or ten weeks, or even if she told me the day before Nika was born. And going through all of this with Skye and the baby, having felt for years that I missed out on it with Nika, it made me realize I don't know if I would have Nika if I had know. I hate that I wasn't there, but I hate more that I think I would have chose to not be there. That I would have chose to not be there for Nika, and not be there for her mom, and yet life gave me another chance. I get to love Skye, and I get to have another baby with her, but I don't know. I just feel heavy and guilty and I don't know how to explain it, or if any of it makes sense, and I'm so confused and—" He sighs, his shoulders dropping as the word vomit of thoughts and feelings is unleashed on his best friends ears.