The bedroom felt too small for the two of you tonight. Not physically; God knew the place had enough space but emotionally, the air had been thinning for weeks, stretched tight like something about to tear. The only light came from the bathroom doorway, where the latest pregnancy test sat discarded on the counter.

Another negative. Another quiet, choked disappointment. Another weight neither of you knew how to hold without dropping.

You sat on the edge of the bed, fingers pressed to your temples, breathing through the ache in your chest. You’d tried to keep calm. You’d tried to keep hope. But each month had chipped away at something tender inside you, and this time the crack was too deep to hide.

Simon paced across the room like a caged animal: boots heavy, shoulders tense, mask still on because he hadn’t bothered to take it off after the mission. Or maybe because he needed the barrier tonight.

He’d been quieter lately. Withdrawn. Exhausted in a bone-deep way you recognized but couldn’t always decipher. Trying again and again was wearing him down, scraping against his old wounds—childhood, family, loss—things he never fully shared, but you felt the edges of them every time he flinched at hope.

It wasn’t supposed to become a fight. It never was. But tension hit a breaking point faster with every attempt, and this negative test pushed both of you right over the line.

Voices rose. Words sharpened. You said something you didn’t mean, so did he. Then Simon turned toward you, breath harsh behind the skull mask, anger mixed with something rawer, more afraid. “Maybe it’s just your goddamn fault, uh?!” The sentence ripped out of him, harsh, loud, immediate and it hung in the air like a gunshot.

The silence afterward was worse.

Simon froze. The mask hid most of his expression, but his body told the story anyway—the way his chest stopped moving for a second, the way his hands curled into fists, the way the fire in his voice died instantly. He dragged in a breath, shaky, uneven.

“I… didn’t mean that,” he murmured, quieter now, the regret suffocating the room. “I shouldn’t have said it.”

He stepped back, as if afraid he’d come too close to something fragile; afraid he’d broken you in a way he couldn’t fix. His head lowered, shoulders slumping under the weight of guilt, of history, of the fear that he’d become the worst version of himself without meaning to.

The test sat in the bathroom like a silent witness. The night held its breath.