Bette covered her eyes with one hand, pressing down hard to force back the tears, but the shake of her shoulders gave her away.

Dana, Alice and Tina looked at Bette in amazement. They’d known her a long time, and tears were not something they’d come to expect from her. In the last three years together, Tina had only seen Bette cry twice, once after the miscarriage and the second, after Melvin died. She reached out and laid her hand on Bette’s shoulders.

Bette looked up, her face etched in fatigue. She wiped the tears away with her hand, too spent to be angry that she’d lost control in front of her friends. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she lowered her eyes, as if she were deeply ashamed, “I’m just…tired…so tired…and…and…I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know if my…if our baby is safe, I don’t….”

“We’re all in the same boat here,” Alice reminded her ex-lover.

“But…but I’m scared,” Bette gulped out, “Scared! Scared about what’s happening, what has happened, what will happen!”

“Me too, Bette,” Helena gazed into her nemesis’ eyes with soft affection. “We’re all scared. None of us know what happened, what….”

“You don’t get it, Helena,” Bette slapped her hand on the arm of the chair. “I never get scared. Never! I never get hurt! I never get scared! And…and…” she looked at Tina with such aching sorrow in her eyes, “And I always got the girl.” Her voice trailed away as she buried her face in her hands and tried valiantly to quiet her sobs.

Tina felt her heart sink to her toes. Her eyes flicked to Helena’s face, who looked away, and then to Bette. What could she say? She’d tried. They both had tried. But the love that brought them together, the love that had kept them together for so many years, had slowly withered over time as they slipped into their roles, until they were so locked into their patterns of relating (or rather, not relating) to each other were unbreakable. Anytime they tried, the awkwardness, the unnaturalness of the dynamic set them at each other’s throats. So, what to say? What to do? She slipped her arm around Bette’s shoulder, then rubbed her back. “Let Dana do what she can, Bette,” she said finally, her throat so tight with regret that she could hardly get the words out.