I woke up early. I'm a nervous wreck. I start a pot of coffee, compulsively clean my house and stare at the clock.

"A watched pot never boils" I tell myself aloud when I catch myself looking at the clock again and the hands have barely moved.

Karen flounces downstairs quite cheerfully and I smile at her. "Morning, Stevie!" She says.

"Good morning! You're in a good mood"

"I am"

"Care to tell me why?"

"You're going to talk to Lindsey and I have a very good feeling about it"

"I hope you're right" I tell her.

"You're nervous, aren't you?"

"As hell" I confess. "I am so scared he won't give me a chance even though I know I don't deserve it..."

"You do. You gave Lindsey a chance, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but he didn't cheat on me"

"Yes he did. You were married and he was sleeping with Kristen"

"We were separated and on the verge of divorce"

"You forgive too easily, Stevie. I just hope he gives you the benefit of the doubt like you always give him" Karen says.

"What do you think about all of this?"

"You don't want to know"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know"

"I think you're both idiots" she says and I'm so caught off guard that I burst out laughing.

"Alright, alright...I guess I didn't want to know"

"Told you." She pours herself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot and sits at the counter.

"But seriously..."

"I meant what I said. You wait years and years to be together and instead of forgiving each other or breaking up for good when one of you messes up, you go back and forth for months just to sweep it all under the rug. It's the dumbest thing I've ever witnessed. My thoughts are if he really can't forgive you, you can't blame him. Break up and try to be peaceful for your children. Yes, I know you're in love and so is he. I can see it written all over your faces. It's disgusting." She says, mimicking sticking a finger down her throat. "Be mature about this. If you both want to make this work, you have to stick it out. For better or for worse, remember? Stop being babies when there are real babies involved"

"Are you done?" I ask and she laughs. "That was a pretty good rant, Karen"

"Thanks, I learned from the best" She gives me a look and I laugh with her.

"I'm grateful you put up with me. I know I'm not easy"

"You're right, you're not but I know that you're always worth it. And I think today, Lindsey will see that."

"I really do hope you're right"

She looks at the clock. "I think you'd better get ready. You said one, right?"

"Yep. Thanks for everything, Karen"

"You're welcome" I squeeze her shoulder lovingly and head upstairs. I pick out my outfit, shower, do my hair and makeup and try to be as quick as possible. The door bell rings and I'm sure Karen will answer it. I spray on Lindsey's favorite perfume and descend the stairs, checking my appearance in the long foyer mirror for a split second. I see him and smile instantly. I'm so in love with him and even though I should be scared still, it all melts away. He has always been my safe place.

"Hi" I say, waving awkwardly.

"Hey"

"Would you like a cup of coffee? Fresh pot"

"Sure" he says simply.

"Make yourself at home, I'll be right back" I tell him, leaving the room. I make an effort to pour carefully- a little milk, a little sugar but not too much. Never too sweet. I return and he takes the mug from me.

"Thank you"

"It's no problem at all." I say, my own coffee cup in hand. I sit on the arm of the couch, facing him in the big chair. I know he chose it so he wouldn't have to sit by me and that kind of puts a damper on my positive mood.

"So uh...where should we start?"

"You lead, I follow" I take a sip of my coffee, looking down into my cup when I let it rest in my hands in my lap.

"I guess I will dive right in" he begins and I nod, though I'm not sure I'm prepared. "How long did...that go on?"

"Only a few weeks."

"Only" he says, scoffing and shaking his head.

"I didn't mean it that way. I'm not trying to minimize it. You asked so I answered"

"I know, I know."

"I don't want to fight" I tell him and he nods. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, yeah..."

"What made you come here, to Phoenix?"

"You really want to know?" I nod. "You're my only family, Stevie. My parents are gone, I have one brother left. The girls wanted to see their grandparents. What did you want me to do?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all" he says, shifting around in the chair. I can tell he's fighting the urge to leave.

"I love you. Can we please talk? Don't shut down on me" I plead.

"How can you say you love me when you've been fucking Don behind my back? I trusted you, I watched you put your hands all over him and I wrote it off as you doing it just for the fans. Then I come to find out that my wife is acting like a cheap whore and only because the guy she was having an affair with told me!" He's angry and he leaps up from the chair. It startles me and I get up from where I'm seated. I put my coffee down.

"Don told you?"

"Yeah, and I broke his nose for saying nasty things about you. I was angry and jealous. Tell me, Stevie, how many other men have you fucked on the road?Let's narrow it down to just that tour. How many? Or was it just Don? Why is he so special?"

I start to cry, hearing the anger and malice oozing from his words. I knew he would be mad but I didn't know he'd say such awful things to me. He must have been holding it in for so long. He's bad for bottling it up and when it comes out, it's volcanic, just like this. "That's not fair" I whisper. "I was lonely"

"I am always there for you, Stevie. What the fuck is wrong with you? We have children."

"You cheated on me too." I say without meaning to. He stares at me a second, shocked at what I had said.

"That was almost 8 years ago, Stevie! 8 years!" He screams

"I was pregnant!" I yelled back.

"Neither of us knew that. Give it up, Stevie."

"I loved you and you betrayed me"

"Don't turn this around! You always do that and I'm tired of you playing the victim. I love you, Stephanie. Goddammit! I want to take you back so bad and say it's all okay. But you're breaking my fucking heart, angel." He begins to cry and it hurts me. "I committed to you and recommitted to you. I did everything you said you wanted."

"I know, I'm sorry, Lindsey" I sob.

"You're just sorry you got caught. That's it. This affair...my God. I can't even stand to think about it. It makes me fucking sick. Were you ever going to say anything? If Don wouldn't have opened his trap, would you have ever told me?"

"I, I..."

"You wouldn't have! I know that look anywhere" he says, angrily.

"Why ask if you won't let me answer?" I ask, feeling hopeless. This didn't go at all how I thought it might.

"Do you still cycle?" He asks suddenly.

"N-no, not in some time."

"I still want you to take a pregnancy test." He tells me. "I will not raise Don's bastard. Not this time." That cut me like a knife and I fall to my knees before him in tears, feeling too weak to stand. The heaviness in my heart was too much to handle.

"Fine" I say, doing a terrible job at wiping away my endless tears. I can't look at him. I feel so ashamed, so worthless. Lindsey is pacing the room, tears still falling down his cheeks and his bottom lip is quivering.

"Goddammit, Stevie." He says, and I wait for what is to come. Words fail him for several excruciating minutes. "Why do I have to love you so goddamned much? Why do I want to comfort you when you're crying on the floor in front of me? You're destroying me. I'm in such a bad place right now, Stevie, and all I can think of doing is holding you. I want to hate you but I love you way too much."

"I love you too" I tell him, finally able to speak, even though my voice wobbles uncontrollably.

"Stop, Stevie. Don't say it back."

"I can't help it. It's true. I love you so much. You gave me my daughters, you took care of me and loved me more than anyone else in this world. And I will love you with everything I have until my very last day and beyond. You make me weak in the knees, you put butterflies in my tummy, my heart skips a beat when you come near. I'm still so in love with you that it hurts. I know you shouldn't forgive me but I pray one day you can."

He stares at me, letting me watch him cry. He can't hold it together and neither can I. Not even for a minute. "Why did you do it, Stephanie? Why? If you were lonely, why couldn't you come to me?"

"Don wanted to talk." I sniff. "He would let me cry with him and comfort me. He would listen to me. Mostly we would talk about the baby you and I lost, sometimes we would talk about Sara."

He looked up and me and it finally all made sense. He took advantage of me. He saw a way in and he used it. "Sara? Oh Steph..."

"I love her so much still and I can't forget her. I won't forget her." I can't speak anymore and I sit there crying into my hands.

He sits by me and strokes my tear-soaked hair away from my face. "I won't forget her either. I said I would help you all those years ago"

"I know you did. Even after all the trouble, you loved me, us." I touch my stomach briefly as the memory passes through my mind. "But I knew I couldn't do that to you. You're a good man Lindsey. Not everyone would have stepped up like that."

He sighs, looking at me with new eyes. "If you want to talk, I will talk. I'm still grieving. You say you're hurting, well so am I. It wasn't just you, Steph, I lost our baby too. Jesus, you don't know how much I wanted them"

"I wanted them too. I thought for sure it would be a boy. He would have been such a special little boy."

"Yes, he would have been very special" he agrees.

"You can say no but...can I please have a hug?" I ask. He nods and pulls me into his body and it feels like coming home "I'm so sorry." I tell him.

"I'm sorry too, baby" he says and I feel affection from him immediately. He lets his guard down, I feel it, and he got out what he needed to say. It was burning inside him and though it wasn't easy to hear, I needed to.

"Can I ask you one more thing?" I ask, pulling apart. "Why did you leave? You are angry and I knew you might never forgive me but when I came home from the hospital and you were gone..."

"Years ago, in the 80s, you overdosed on cocaine. You were in such a bad way, Stevie. I left the band because I couldn't watch you die. That sweet girl I knew was long gone. You were high all the time by that point and I had to call and tell your poor mother you were in the hospital the night I found you. You scared the shit out of me. We weren't on good terms but baby, without you in this world...it's no world at all. Then the Klonopin and god, that was hard. You were so scared and confused. The vacant look on your sweet little face was too much for me. It hurt to look at you. A porcelain doll in your ribbons and ruffles with nothing behind your beautiful eyes. All of that came back to me when you started with the drinking. You were barely a person. You were mean a lot, even to our little girls. To Karen, to me...and you don't remember any of it. You were so desperate...any love or attention you got from anyone, you had to have it. I couldn't watch. You almost died from alcohol poisoning and I flashed right back to the time I found you bloody and cold on the floor." I'm crying again, listening to him tell me about myself. He was right, I didn't remember. It was like hearing about a very sad stranger. "I thought you were dead when you fell into my arms at your last show. Our daughters watched you lay unconscious on the floor and had to be taken by Sharon to calm down. Willow asked me such painful questions and Aria didn't stop crying for a week. She was so scared you died. It was hard to look at them and tell them you were sick but you still loved them, when they asked."

"I'm so sorry I put everyone through this."

"I'm just happy you're getting better. You look amazing. I can see the old you again."

"I feel a lot closer to the old me too"

"Good. Is there anything you want to talk about besides that?"

"I don't know, I just want to show you I won't be going back. I want to be a mom again and at the very least, I want to be your friend. I need you in my life. I can't imagine living without you"

"I don't want to be your friend" he tells me and I frown. "I want you to be my wife. We had such a beautiful life together and eventually, I would love if we could get a piece of that back"

"Really?" I ask, sniffing.

"Yes. I love you and I don't want to live without you either but I can't just go back home with you and have you relapse"

"I won't"

"You say that and I want to believe it but those girls deserve more than promises" He squeezes my hand and looks me straight in the eye. I know he's not saying it to hurt me. He loves me and wants to see me get better. Just as I think it, he tells me exactly that and it only confirms all I feel. "We are going to stay here until Aria and Willow need to go back to school in the fall. Are you going to stick around?"

"Yeah"

"Okay, great. Maybe we could do visits? Spend some time with their grandparents, spend some time here with you? Switch off?"

"Alright"

"I know it's not what you want to hear but I can't lose you, Stevie. I love you too much to see anything like that happen to you ever again. Three times is three times too many"

"I know"

"I love you"

"I love you too" I lean forward to kiss him and he turns his face so I get his cheek. I bite my lip, unprepared for him to do that. Maybe I misread his signals.

"I guess I will see you later?" He half asks, getting up from the floor.

"Do you have to go?" I wipe my eyes and get up to meet him.

"Honey, if I stay we will just end up going up there" he says, pointing up the stairs. "And that's not how we should fix this. We need to talk more, we need to find each other again. We need to go slow"

"Okay."

"But that does not mean I don't forgive you because I do. It fucking hurts, God it hurts. But I forgive you. I want to work past it but I'm still in a lot of pain"

"I understand. I hurt you. I hurt you so much and I should be grateful you even decided to forgive me"

"I've hurt you too. I know I have, I see it in your eyes. I love you" he repeats, kissing my forehead. I close my eyes, taking in the contact. "Come by for dinner this evening. The girls would love to see their beautiful mama."

I smile a little "I'd love to"

"Good bye" he says, waving and I follow him to the door.

"Good bye Lindsey" I say sadly, a tear falling down my cheek.

"Stop it" he says, wiping it away. I nod and watch him go to his car. It breaks my heart to see him go but I stick it out, refusing to look away. He waves at me one last time and I wave back. I blow him a kiss and he smiles, catching it and mimes putting it in his shirt pocket. I shut the door and go back inside. I walk down my long hallway, admiring all the pretty little things I'm passing and sit on the couch. I don't know how to feel. Relieved? Happy? Sad? Hopeful? I feel everything at once. I hear the back door open and close but I don't move.

"Stevie?" Karen asks. "I felt like I should give you guys some space. It got pretty heated"

"Yeah..."

"So what happened?"

"He said to take it slow. He wants us to work on coming back together as a couple and as a family but it will take time"

"Well that's good"

"And he invited me for dinner tonight to see the girls"

"Can I come too?" She asks like a child afraid of being left behind and I chuckle.

"Yeah, you can come too" I tell her and she smiles broadly, putting an arm around my shoulders and hugging me to her.

A/N- title inspired by fritz song where was I? Check it out on YouTube and hear sweet baby Stevie!