Empty. Empty emptiness, where life had emptied out of me and left nothing but a big, gaping, empty hole.

I felt empty.

I was empty.

I'd been empty for weeks, apparently. 

The doctor said Donnie and I had been worshipping nothing for a while.

The emptiness left me limp, like a fish reeled in from the sea - once lively, swimming in an ocean of possibility, of bright and mysterious futures. Plucked up out of the ocean and abandoned on a shore, devoid of life, of hope, of dreaming. An empty shore.

When we first found out we had nothing to prepare for any longer, Donnie had gone about trying to do what he did best. Fixing things.

He wrapped me up in blankets and propped me up on pillows, to repress the life flowing quickly out of me. Gave me good food and warm tea, to relieve the pain, to soften the scar tissue rapidly forming around my heart.

He stayed with me, kissing me over and over, busying my mouth with his so I wouldn't think about the emptiness replacing my happiness, replacing my apprehension, replacing me.

At night, we'd lay awake, his hand pressed against my stomach, where not so long ago, he'd pressed his lips to my naval and cooed to the life inside me, and told stories about our life, about how he was going to love that life inside me so much, too much.

It must have been odd for Donnie, to find out he'd been speaking to nothing but emptiness. Saying all those sweet nothings to my bellybutton, and nothing more.

Adelaide.

Theodore.

Rayne.

Elliot.

Athena.

All names for emptiness, names I'd compiled for a big ball of nothing in my womb.

I sat thinking about those names, in the darkness of our bedroom, while Donnie greeted the mourning procession.

I heard his voice, as broken as mine. "Not good."

'Not good' did not sum up what I felt.

'Nothing' did a better job of that.

The door creaked open, and a sliver of light interrupted my atmosphere of emptiness. 

"L/G brought soup," Donnie called into the bedroom. 

My poor Donatello. His voice was broken, cracking like shards of glass, like shards of a shattered dream.

He would've been such a great dad.

"Yum." My voice doesn't crack. It drones, deadbeat, deadpan.

"We're all here for you," came the sound of Mikey's voice from the living room.

A chorus of 'Shh' answered him.

"You guys can come in. You don't have to hide from me." Why would anyone hide from an empty shell, after all?

"Sweetheart, are you sure--"

"You invited them for a reason. Let them in." I pushed myself up into a sitting position, gazing at my... my Donnie. 

'Boyfriend' didn't seem right anymore. He wasn't a boy anymore, he'd endured too much. Nor did 'Husband' do the job either. We weren't married. We'd skipped marriage. We'd run right past the chapel to the nursery, and now we were somewhere in between.

And my 'lover'... no, you had to be able to feel love to have a lover.

So, yes. He was just my Donnie now.

The light flicked on and flooded the room with light. The procession entered, my Donnie's brothers and their loved ones, crowding at the edge of my bed. I pasted on a closed-lipped smile, accepting the soup I wouldn't eat from L/G.

"Come to see the former Mom-To-Be, huh?" I asked, making eye contact with all of them, though no comprehension of anything transcended from their gazes.

"Y/ N." Donnie didn't scold me, or patronize me, or pity me. He was suffering beside me, I knew. But I guessed he had more wherewithal to recognize when the heartbreak should be masked by hospitality. He said my name in pleading, in a tone that said, 'I'm sorry I invited them, and they'll leave soon, if you just show enough decorum'.

"You don't look like you've cried," M/G observed with hopeful eyes, like the absence of tears might mean the absence of sadness.

"My tear ducts dried out after the first 36 hours of sobbing," I replied shortly, "I don't have the strength to cry anymore."

"How do you feel?" Raph mumbled out, sitting on the edge of the mattress and patting my leg.

"I lost my baby. How do you think I feel?"

"Please honey, go easy on them, they're here to help." Donnie's tone was edging into short desperation.

"Help with what? A miscarriage is a miscarriage, D. They can't do anything to ease the pain." I averted my eyes from my friends, wishing they'd leave me to my miserable loneliness.

Funny, how lonely I felt after losing something that was with me 24/7.

Even if that something apparently never existed past the six week mark.

"Maybe it's for the best," Leo offered up, his eyes sad as he glanced pitifully in my direction.

"Yeah," R/G piped up, sitting hesitantly beside her boyfriend. "You and Don are still pretty young. You two aren't even married yet--"

"Are you implying our child would've been deprived, had it been born to unmarried and inexperienced parents?" I confronted, my glower dawning on my face in a flash.

"You know that's not what she meant," Donnie began.

"Really? Because that's exactly what it sounded like she meant." I let my head fall back into the pillows, letting the blankets cover my face.

"I'm sorry.It's... It's the hormones," I heard Donatello apologize. "Miscarriages throw a woman's hormones off-balance--"

"Don't go blaming this on biology," I snapped from beneath my prison of blankets. "I just lost my baby, Donnie. You have no idea how that feels."

"We lost our baby," he returned icily, and I felt the bed shift as he sat beside me. "And I know I'll never understand a maternal bond, but... I'm hurting too. We're in this together, remember?"

"Go away," I whispered, biting my lip to hold back my tears threatening to resurface.

An audible sigh from everyone in the group, and the sound of footsteps starting to exit the room, finally. 

"Y /N?" Mikey called, just before the door could creak shut.

"What do you want?" I couldn't hide my cracking voice.

"...If you still had it - the baby, I mean - what would you be doing right now, instead?"

"I don't want to think about the baby," I snapped.

"All you've been doing is thinking about the baby," Donatello pointed out from the hallway.

"I get you're sad, dudette. And when I'm sad, I like to imagine what things could've been like. Go to my no man's land," Mikey encouraged, and his approach back into the bedroom made me cower. "Maybe it'll help you come to terms with what you want and what you've got."

"I want my baby," I replied simply.

"Alright. Good starting point." The covers were pulled back from my face, much to my dismay. "I know you had more plans than that."

"Of course." I shuffled away from him in annoyance. "Who doesn't think about raising a baby, and watching them play with its toys, and teaching them how to walk and talk, and laughing while Donnie parades around with them on his shoulders like a total dork..."

I held my abdomen, wishing more than anything I could trade my emptiness for a swollen belly, for stretch marks, for labor pains and soiled diapers. Anything in exchange for that future I'd imagined for me, for Donnie, for the entire family.

"Mikey, I want my baby back." And just like that, the dam of tears broke. I collapsed into the youngest terrapin's arms, my body racked with sobs and snivels. I watched the rest of them crowd about the two of us on the floor, their eyes glistening as well.

"I wish I could give your baby back, Y/ N," the orange clad turtle whispered sadly, "I really do."

It was a few more minutes before I was able to talk normally without my nose and eyes dripping like a sieve. I laughed, at myself, at fate's cruelty, at my sadness. "You asked me what I'd be doing right now. If I still had it."

Mikey nodded, and suddenly I could see the child-like curiosity gleaming in his eyes, probably still thinking how cool it must've been to have a kid, to be starting a family. I smiled sadly, and perhaps the motherly instincts left over from my failed pregnancy began to kick in. 

I explained to Mikey, with all the delicacy in the world, "I'd probably be reading to it. Or laughing while Donnie read to it." I glanced over at my Donnie, who was openly crying now. I reached over and brushed the stream of tears from his cheek. "He liked talking to it. Reading to it. A Midsummer Night's Dream and A Brief History of Time."

Donatello let out a strangled laugh, leaning into my touch and kissing my hand, making my lips prick upwards, despite my own tears.

"Or perhaps it's too late to be reading," I thought, the emptiness starting to ebb as I traveled further into my imagination. "Past the baby's bedtime by now, I think." I turned back to Mikey, his head cocked to the side, listening to every word. "We'd be going to sleep by now. I had a song - D knows - a lullaby I sang all the time. I stole it from this one movie I saw. I had a bunch of cravings for pie; and this movie was about a baby and a pregnant lady and a pie shop, so it just fit."

"A pie shop?" Mikey leaned forward, laying a hand on my stomach without restraint, as if some amazing possibility were still residing within. 

"Mm hm. Remember, D?" I rubbed at my abdomen, humming at first and then singing lowly. "Baby don't you cry, gonna make a pie, gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle. Baby don't be blue, gonna make for you, gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle."

"Oh my god, the Pie Song?" Mikey cried excitedly, hugging me tightly. "I know that! From Waitress, right? With Quincy Coleman!" He cleared his throat, leaning down to croon to my empty belly. "Gonna be a pie from heaven above, gonna be filled with strawberry love..."

"Baby don't you cry," L/G caught on, her voice thick.

"Gonna make a pie," The other brothers joined in promptly.

"And hold you forever in the middle of my heart." Donnie and I finished the last verse together, glancing at each with tear-stained faces.

"It's a beautiful song," R/G whispered, sniffling sorrowfully as I met Donatello's lips with a mournful kiss.

"A baby would've loved it," M/G complimented with a heavy-hearted smile.

"Who says a baby's not gonna hear it?" Mikey asked, all innocence. "You guys... you guys aren't done, are you? With having babies? You're never gonna try again?"

"I... we... well," Donnie stammered, glancing at me inquisitively. We made a mutual agreement with our eyes for a moment, and then he continued. "Not for a while. Not until we have things in order. But... I think it's what we both want, eventually."

"Then here's to the future Hamato Jr." Mikey grinned, giving a chaste peck to my belly. "We can't wait till we can meet you."

I giggled, feeling my heart lift. 

My stomach was empty now, yes.

But maybe I just needed some sweet pie to fill in the space in there.

For now.