Neither of them slept that night. Idina tossed and turned, cold and alone in her thoughts. At least it was what she deserved. She tried baling up her sheets, but it was nothing like holding onto him. So, she threw them all on the floor and basked in her discomfort and wished that Aaron would come and pull her out of her misery and her spirals.

Aaron was much the same. He wondered if he could or should have done something differently and was cold as well, for Idina had taken the blanket and he could only find sheets in the linen closet. He hugged his pillow, but it was not like cuddling with his wife. He wondered more then once if he should go to her but decided that she probably needed her space right now.

The next morning everything was packed. No one spoke as they were driven back to the house and left there as if nothing had ever happened.

~

REASON FOR IDINA MENZEL'S AND TAYE DIGGS' DIVORCE REVEALED!

In the past month, the world has been worried as the beloved voice of Elsa in Disney's Frozen, Idina Menzel, and her family including her husband Aaron Lohr, her son Walker Nathaniel Diggs, and foster child Erika Rivera, were whisked away because of intense blackmailing and threats. It has recently been revealed that Menzel ex, Taye Diggs, was behind these horrible series of events. Leaked messages show Diggs threatening in detail to torture and hurt his son unless Menzel returned to him and agreed to be his wife, divorcing current husband Lohr in the process. Menzel made a public statement via her publicist stating that while Diggs had always been obsessive, she was willing to overlook it for the benefit of her son. Her reality was shattered when he turned his aggressive tendencies towards their son, and she knew she had to get out. She is devastated and is asking the public for privacy on the situation for the sake of her son. Diggs is now detained in an undisclosed location. No bail has been set.

~

Erika was at ease with the new household dynamics. No one bothered her. No one asked her questions she did not understand. No one tried to force-feed her false promises of affection.

Erika excelled in intense environments. She was in her element avoiding projectiles and swings. She was used to disappearing and doing whatever she could to make an unstable environment stable. These past few months had made her stressed. It was a new environment she had no ideas on how to react too.

Now Aaron and Idina were barely talking. They were acting the closest to how she knew couples to act since she had met them. Maybe their façade was finally falling, and she could be at ease and not have to worry about someone swinging a sledgehammer at her walls.

It was familiar and comforting and she soon found herself falling into old habits. Sneaking around the rooms on silent tiptoe, never leaving a trace. Not talking, even when spoken too. Having to act more like the adult on days when Aaron worked late and Idina was incapable. Having to hide the fact that she could do things herself from the parent.

She had never expected herself to feel so at ease in this house. Before, she had been apprehensive. Every time Idina walked into a room there was a chance she would ask Erika a question that made no sense and try to hug her. Questions about things she liked, dreams, hopes. Things that Erika did not understand. She knew she wanted to live till nineteen, but that was because she wanted to give a metaphorical middle finger to the social worker her paraded her around in front of foster parent hopefuls, giving them the 2/3 of these children will die when they turn eighteen and age out of the system speech. But she did not hope for it. It sounded miserable. And dreaming was something stupid people did. Erika was not stupid.

Liking something was foreign too. She knew what it was to need something and to want something she needed. And she supposed the liked getting what she needed, but when it came down to it food was food and water was water. Shelter was shelter. What difference did it make if it did the job? None.

And Erika did not like people trying to hug her either. She would rather someone tired to punch her because then she knew how to respond. But when Idina wrapped her in a hug all she could do was go rigid and stop thinking because there was nothing else to do. She could shrug the celebrity off, she supposed, but Idina was quite persistent and Erika wanted to save the heavy artillery in case she needed it later. And with all of her and Aaron's talk of adoption, she might need to prove to them that they were making a mistake. Because things were calm now because Erika was checking herself. If she let emotions get involved, she would have to stop checking herself and then she might slip, and they would get into an argument and they would send her back. She needed to trigger the argument once it was certain they were too stubborn to quit but before she got herself emotionally involved. If it was even possible for her to get emotionally involved.

She bit her thumb as she rode the bus to school. Someone tapped her on her shoulder.

It was Hudson, the mute kid, and his interpreter. He kept trying to converse with her since she had accidentally let it slip that she knew a few signs. She'd picked some up in New York, not a lot, but enough to know that he was making fun of her oral presentation because she had not yet mentioned a fact about her topic that she had been planning on doing, and if he'd been civil and waited a few more minutes she would have mentioned it. She told him in no uncertain terms to cut it out because she was going to mention it. He had turned as white as sheet, clearly not expecting anyone but his interpreter to know what he was saying. They gave him a warning, but his parents were filthy rich, and no one wanted to aggravate them. Now every single teacher paired them together no matter what. Erika wondered if maybe they wanted to groom her to be their son's bride or something with how much time they had insisted they spend together. The cabin had been a relief.

Hi, he signed. Then he signed something else Erika did not understand.

She just shrugged. She did not move her backpack.

"He said he's surprised you're back so soon."

How are you? Hudson signed.

F U, she signed back. She knew the alphabet. Then she turned back to the window.

Her backpack brushed past her feet as he moved it to the floor and took a seat beside her.

"This is normally where we sit," the interpreter said. He was an old man in his thirties with long straight blonde hair that made him look fifty. It was thinning and rat-like. She did not like him.

"There's no room anywhere else," she replied.

Hudson asked her to move over so that they could fit three on the bench, since, as she said, there was no room anywhere. She pulled her backpack up on her lap and pressed herself as close to the window as she could, not looking at them. She just wanted Hudson to leave her alone. She wanted everyone to leave her alone. It had never been an issue before, so why are people bothering now?

Hudson tapped her shoulder again.

"Touch me again and I'll break your fingers," she snapped. She hated people touching her. Period. Idina was different, she was always much too gentle to do much more than startle her, but everyone else was a different story. And she would follow through with her threat if he did it again.

Sorry, he replied. T-A-Y-E D-I-G-G-S he spelled out, then formed his hands in a question mark.

"I met him once," she said truthfully.

Spill.

No. Go away.

Cannot, bus is moving.

Stop trying to talk to me.

I cannot talk.

F U

Erika turned away after that. She pulled out her phone. Of course, Idina had bought her one. It had hers, Aaron's, and Walker's number in it and had unlimited data and calling. And of course, she had written her pin down on a post-it note and given it to Idina. It was just the way things went.

There was not anything on it besides the school app. She had never been bothered to put anything on it. But she stared at it anyways because social norms dictated that only the elderly and rude interrupted someone when their phone was out, and they were staring at it. Sometimes she browsed the internet, but not today. There was nothing she was interested in looking at and all her schoolwork was done.

"Um," the interpreter said. "Hudson wants you to know that all of your tests have been pushed to December. He argued since the two of you studied together and you can sign, he would be at a disadvantage if he were to write the tests without your study sessions."

They were study buddies of sorts. However, Erika passionately believed that it did not give him the right to be friendly. Work stayed in the workplace, home at home, and so forth. There was no intermixing in her books because school was her safe place away from home. It was the place where she did not have to worry about anything because she could disappear in a way she never could in Home. Whether the foster parent cared or not, she was still there. She was still a check or a charity case, or an outlet to be vented and yelled at. At school she was nobody. She did not exist. Which meant that to herself she could exist in the fullest.

Hudson took her phone form her. "Give that back," she growled. She swiped it back from his hands instantaneously, harder than she had meant too. She had too many people swipe necessities out from under her when she was younger. She had learnt to react fast and get her stuff back. There were a lot of things one learned when one's survival depended on it.

I just want to talk, he said

"I thought you said you couldn't."

You are mean.

"So?"

He signed something she did not understand.

"Don't know those ones," she said.

Then he spelled it out for her. It was much of the same sentiment.

"I don't care," she replied. But by now they were almost at the school and they had different homerooms. The rest of their schedules were practically identical, but for now, they had to migrate to different sides of the building.

She apologized at lunch. Her life was worlds of insane she had never even imagined right now. He got it, or at least, he got that he did not understand it one bit. And he loved to gossip. Also, November was her least favourite month, followed by January, and then December. Somehow, the crazy nuns she had spent a year with had made January her second least favourite month. She had been banking on December.

~

When she got back to the house, she was not feeling good. It was probably the heat. It was infuriatingly hot, especially for November. She missed the snow. She would probably never see it or New York again, she realized. She would age out of the system, here in LA, and die here in LA.

"Erika," Idina said, almost as soon as she had stepped through the door.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Your stuff from New York is here, I put it in your room," Idina said.

"You didn't have to do that," she replied. "I don't want it."

She went upstairs. There an unopened box on her bed. She moved it by the wall, then got changed and laid down. Her head was spinning. She took some water, which helped, then went back downstairs. She sat down on the couch and cracked open her assigned reading. It was Moby Dick. That book had an entire chapter dedicated to how a pipe describes a man. She had a feeling school wanted people to hate reading. She could list ten modern books off the top of her head that dealt with the same issues in a more accessible manner. But no, those were not 'high literature' and here she was reading it for the third time because no teacher believed that were cliché enough to assign the same book as every other English teacher across America.

Idina was trying to cook something, but it was already starting to smell off.

Aaron walked through the door at half-past six, looking exhausted. Idina did not run to him for hugs or kisses, nor did he offer to save whatever monstrosity she was going to try and force-feed everyone later in the evening. Even Walker had stopped complaining about the food when he realized his mother was determined to domesticate herself and would not stop for anything or anyone.

It was the calmest example of what Erika believed family to be. A bunch of people who could not stand each other stuck together because of 'love' and 'blood' and things that never mattered.

Idina talked about some projects she was thinking of taking on. She was not doing much until the bruise faded. Aaron was plain stressed. The holidays were coming up, making him work double time. He and Idina had a schedule, he took the morning Idina did after school. It worked for them and they rarely saw each other or talked. It was atypical for them, but exactly what Erika was used too, minus them actually caring about trying to care for her.

Either way, the tension made her relax because she knew they would not be focusing on her. She could just hunker down and wait for it all out if this continued. That gave her a solid chance of having some feet to stand on when she made eighteen. Then it was 365 days until she could prove that idiotic social worker wrong. Then her life would be complete.

~

A week in and Aaron was still sleeping alone. He had barely spoken to his wife and he was too emotionally drained to try and start up a conversation. Good to her word, Idina had been stepping up because she knew how important his work was during this time and the toll it took on him, however, they did little more than text each other updates throughout the day.

Not to mention he was sleeping alone. It was so jarring after a month of Idina laying on top of him. And he had no idea where she was sleeping. He had found her curled up with Walker the first few nights, either in his bed or on the couch on weekends. But he had stopped checking and was sure Walker had grown embarrassed of his mother and kicked her out by now.

She was the one going to all the support group meetings for foster parents because he was on call in case one of his clients needed his help. He had already talked three people off the edge of a building.

When Idina went out, she covered up the bruise in more makeup than she ever needed and spent hours trying to get it off without hurting herself. He knew this because he would listen to her sneak into the ensuite bathroom and stay there for hours. She thought he had already fallen asleep, so he played the part, hoping she would just crawl in with him for a second, or kiss him, but she did not.

He would go to work worried about her because the last time they had spoken seriously she had still been torn up about Taye and had two anxiety attacks, back to back. It had been barely a half-hour before he had sent her storming off to the cabin bedroom.

He liked his mornings though. He spent them with Walker and Erika, and they were nice. Walker was being brave, and Erika seemed to have found her balance in the household. He was teaching Walker to cook with her help, lest he turns out like his mother, and for those few moments, he could pretend like his world was perfect with his children. And the more he got the know Erika the more he felt like they had made the right choice. It was not like she was opening up to him in any large capacity, but he was seeing was encouraging, even if she refused to see it herself. It was going to be a long haul, but if they made it, it would be one of the most rewarding things in his life.

He was dreaming about Idina and the twins again. This time he was wandering through the walls of their house, except it was like falling through cobwebs, calling out for her, until he found her on the floor of the bathroom surrounded by blood. First, he thought he worst, then he saw that she was crying blood.

"They're gone," she wailed into an abyss, red streaming down her cheek. "I told you I'm a murder."

And because dreams felt like real life, he was at her side immediately, though the seconds it took for him to sink to her level felt like an eternity. He could not move fast enough and was sinking into the floor as he desperately tried to get to her. Suddenly there was a knife sticking out of her abdomen, being held by two mutant children.

"Killer," they cried, "you killed us." And Idina cried more, her blood turning emerald green. It meant something, something horrible, only Aaron could not quite figure out what. Only that blood turned green when something worse than death occurred.

"Aaron," they said.

"Aaron," Idina said.

"Aaron," his receptionist snapped, shaking him awake.

"What?" he wondered, looking around.

"Aaron," she said again. "You fell asleep in your office."

"Oh," he said. "Sorry Jen, you're a lifesaver."

"Is everything good at home?" she asked bluntly.

"Yes, why?"

"Well, you know there's all that stuff in the media and you look like you haven't slept since it started."

"I'm just stressed, as you know," he said, downplaying it. He had not been sleeping. He could not sleep without Idina. He had tried pillows and blankets and everything. He could not sleep without her. He worried too much, knowing how much she needed him. He worried that she was not taking proper care of herself even though she looked healthy. He wanted to caress her and rest his hands on her abdomen and pepper his developing children with kisses while she giggled and told him it was too soon.

"If you ever need someone to talk too," she said, "I'm on the other side of that door." She motioned to the foggy glass door that had his name and doctorate engraved in gold lettering.

He nodded. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind," he said with a smile.

"Your next client gets here in ten," she informed him. "Abigail Harwood."

He nodded. He had been working with her for years. Now they mostly went over the events of her day and sorted them out. It was not that hard, and she did a lot of the work herself. She just came here because it was her only safe space.

~

Idina could not function without her other half. It was tearing her apart. She tried everything she could to cope. She slept with Walker nestled in her arms till he grew bored of it. She tried to distract herself from Aaron by focusing on Erika. But she had no idea what to do. They were talking; she seemed comfortable. There was nothing else to do right now. The box form New York remained unopened, but that was Erika's property and Idina was going to respect it despite everything in her being telling her to go through it for a clue.

When it came to Erika, actions spoke louder than words. Going through her tings would signal that Idina did not trust the teen. They needed to build up trust if Erika was ever going to open up. And she was, in a way. Idina had started reading Howards End and Far from the Madding Crowd. They were not her cup of tea, but she would do it for something to talk about. She wanted something that was their thing, just like she and Walker had their own secret stories and played Fort under his bedsheets.

Idina was also thinking a lot about Elsa. She had never heard Erika mention her once. Idina had not even brought it up to the support group. It just seemed too personal to risk getting leaked. But she desperately wanted guidance on how to navigate the situation.

If Erika had ever seen Frozen, she would probably hate it. She knew a lot of girls named Elsa or families of girls named Elsa who hated the movie. She just wanted something for them to bond over. But she could not force it. She reminded herself of that every day.

She spent hours looking for auditions and projects because it took her mind off everything. Aaron was to busy to be the one responsible for taking her out of her spirals and Erika and Walker did not deserve nor sign up for that burden. She did whatever she could not to start them in the first place. Aaron was too busy saving people's lives to be burdened by her, so she left him alone.

She started pinching herself subconsciously until she had almost mutilated a section of her skin, then she wrapped it up. Then she started pinching her other arm. So, she filled down her nails so that she could only leave bruises. When the holidays were over and Aaron got a break, she would go to him, but until then she had to sort this out herself. It was that or no Aaron. She did not want him to crack. Just like it had been her in pain or meds that might induce a miscarriage, meaning no Idina. There was only so much one could go through. Aaron had to suffer through her in pain for her sake, now she was suffering through her pain for his sake.

She was not sure if she was showing or paranoid, but she was nine weeks pregnant with twins. Three more to go and the scariest part would be over. She went to the OBGYN alone and sent Aaron all the ultrasounds and updates. Apparently, the twins were in the same placenta. This did not mean identical, as some fraternal twins ended up in the same placenta and vice-versa, but it was odd seeing as the first ultrasound looked like they were in their own separate ones. Either way, they were healthy and growing normally and Idina was responding well to the stitches. The ones on her stomach could be removed soon as well before the cuts healed too much. It did not look like there would be a visible scar. Erika had taught her well. And she made sure to thank the girl for her help, even though Erika shrugged it off as no big deal.

She snuck into the master bathroom after she had finished reading to Walker and had checked up on Erika. Aaron was asleep on the bed. She wondered if she could just crawl up to him and curl up beside him without waking him. He was so peaceful when he slept, with the glow of the moonlight illuminating his face and his soft, stressless features. And she lips she wanted to kiss so badly. And his thick glossy hair that she could not get enough of, especially after dating someone without. But he needed his sleep. He had been so out of it when he had arrived today that she thought he might have just fallen over. She did not want to disturb him when he was this peaceful. She could have him back later because she would be there later. His clients might not be if he did not give them his all.

She did not know that Aaron was screaming silent prayers for her to leap into the bed and smother him with herself in every way imaginable.

Quietly as she came, Idina left the room. She fell asleep in the guest bedroom, feeling utterly alone without her big spoon and took comfort in the 'last day of chemo' bear that Aaron had gifted to her. She kissed it and pretended like it was him, closing her eyes and imagining herself soothing him to sleep after a busy day like she had done the previous year.

~

Two weeks in and Idina had still not come back to bed. Aaron had no idea how to get her back. He was starting to sleep without her, but it was more like passing out dead than sleep.

He woke up in the middle of the night, hearing something in the basement.

He went down to investigate. Idina was running something underwater in the kitchen.

"Dee?" he asked groggily.

"Yeah?' she replied, her voice quiet. It took all his self-restraint not to run over to her.

"What are you doing?"

"Did I wake you? I am sorry, I was just hungry, so I was cutting up some vegetables. I'm just cleaning up," she explained.

"How are you?" he asked. How are the twins, he wanted to say, though right now those two were synonymous.

"I'm good," she said.

He took a few steps closer. Idina placed the knife she had been rinsing away after drying it. She turned around and they were face to face in the dark. They could feel each other's breath. He wanted to reach out for her, but he needed permission. He had no idea how to ask for it. Her very existence made him tongue-tied.

"I'll go," she said, walking past him. He reached out and grabbed her wrist.

"No," he said, the fear of losing her too much, "stay with me? Please?" he begged.

"Okay," she breathed.

She bridged the gap and hugged him. They both melted into the hug. Aaron held her like he might never get the chance too again. He ran a hand down her arm and paused when he felt gauze wrapped around it.

"What's this?" he asked, his heart caught in his throat.

"Nothing," she said.

"It's something," he replied.

"I'm a clutz," she said, "don't worry yourself about it or me. Go back to bed, you need your sleep."

"I can't sleep without you," he said. "Dee, please come back. I can't sleep without you."

"Alright," she said. She led him upstairs and tucked him in before shimmying underneath and curling up beside him.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. He kissed her forehead and her nose and told her he loved her.

"Go to sleep," she said in a soothing voice.

They cuddled and Aaron suddenly felt tired and wide awake at the same time. This had to be a dream, yet he could already feel the effects of Idina being close. He buried his face in her hair and reminded himself repeatedly that tomorrow was a weekend and he did not start until three in the afternoon. He soon drifted off into the best sleep he had had in a couple of weeks, his wife wrapped in his arms and their hands on her abdomen. A bump was starting, he could feel it. Two more weeks would mark the end of the first trimester.