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Missing Piece

Summary:

Lenny and Midge have been married for over a year, but there's one thing that's still missing.

Notes:

While this can be considered a follow up to Sell Me on California, but you don't need to read it for this to make sense.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"It's a bit late to be doing laundry, isn't it?" Lenny joked from the doorway of the utility room as he watched Midge scrubbing at something in the sink. It was past 10pm.

Midge stopped, looking up at him wide eyed. "You're home."

"I am," he confirmed with a sly smile. "I got an earlier flight."

As much he would never admit it, Lenny had become one of those sad sacks that didn't sleep well without their spouses. The regular end of night phone call was nice, but it just wasn't the same as having his wife in his arms. Needless to say, he jumped at the chance to get an earlier flight home from the short tour he had been on.

"Midge, are you alright?" Lenny asked as he walked over to her, the smile on her face doing little to hide the fact something was troubling her. "What are you doi-" He stopped abruptly when he caught sight of the recognisable lace trim of her underwear in the sink and saw the coppery red hue of the water. Looking at her face close up, he could see her mascara had smudged into dark rings under her eyes. She had been crying.

"It was four days late," she said quietly, the low volume of her words ostensibly so as not to wake the children, but truthfully, it was probably more because of how painful it was for her to say them. "I really thought maybe this time…"

Lenny sighed and took a step towards her, turning off the still running faucet. "I'm sorry," he said, reaching out to tenderly touch her cheek.

Much to Midge's relief, she found out early in their relationship that Lenny was completely unfazed when it came to matters of the female reproductive system. His mother had after all instilled the normality of the process to him from an early age. "It happens to all women, so you might as well get used to it," she told him frankly when he had asked questions upon seeing her purchasing sanitary products when he was little more than 12 years old.

Then there was his time spent backstage at strip clubs. As he'd told Midge once: "That shit doesn't bother me, I've seen strippers cutting the strings on other girls' tampons while they're wearing 'em." They may not have been the most honeyed of words, but Midge was very relieved to hear them, especially after living with the overly squeamish Joel who insisted her period had completely finished for at least a day before he would so much as consider having sex with her.

"I don't understand," Midge said with sigh, looking at Lenny doe-eyed as he stroked her jaw soothingly with his thumb. "I've got kids, you've got Kitty, there is no reason why it shouldn't have happened."

They had been quite frankly reckless as far as contraception went even before they got married, but Midge just figured that they were lucky. However, the wedding was now over a year ago and they had stopped any thoughts of protection, but still no pregnancy, and certainly no baby.

"Midge, you're young, you've still got plenty of time," Lenny said with a shrug and a gentle smile, moving his hand from her face to take hers in his. "It'll happen when it's meant to happen."

"I know," she said with a heavy sigh. "I know you're right, it's just I never thought I'd have another baby, but lately it's all I can think about. People were always telling me 'three before 30' but after the divorce I thought…" She shrugged. "I had Esther and Ethan, so I figured, 'I don't need another one anyway, I've got one of each, so this baby making factory is now strictly only open for pleasure and not business.' But now…" She paused. "Now it just feels like somehow there's this…missing piece"

"I know. Come here," he said, opening his arms to her.

"I'm glad you took an earlier flight," she mumbled into his shirt, breathing in the comfortingly familiar scent of cigarette smoke mixed with his woody cologne.

"Me too," Lenny agreed before pressing his lips to the top of her head, inhaling the strawberry scent of her shampoo. "Me too."


"You're back!" Kitty screeched happily when she entered the kitchen and saw her father at the stove. Running to him, closely followed by Esther, the girls clung to him in a hug.

"Hey girls," he said with a smile, breaking his concentration from the griddle in front of him for a second to give each of them a kiss on the head. "I missed you."

"Well, this one is going to be very pleased to see you," Midge said as she gestured from her place at the kitchen table to Ethan as he entered the room. "He had the audacity to tell me the other day that he didn't like my pancakes because - and I quote…" She took a dramatic breath before affectionately parroting her son: "'You don't make them the way Lenny does'."

10-year-old Ethan looked less than impressed that his mother had shared his comment; Lenny however, couldn't have felt happier to have heard it.

One of his stipulations when he and Midge had got married had been no maid ("The last thing I need is someone like Zelda forever chasing me around and trying to press my pants," he had grumbled), to which Midge had reluctantly agreed. As a compromise, they still had someone come in once a week and clean, but managed things themselves the rest of the time. Lenny had surprised Midge with his domestic skills - the man could starch a shirt better than she could - and indeed, just how much he was willing to pitch in with the household duties, especially when compared with Joel ("Thank fuck I'm nothing like him!" he exclaimed triumphantly, before adding: "I might have got kicked outta the Navy, but it did teach me something about how to keep things in order").

Lenny had even tried his hand at cooking, but after a couple of meals that Midge had suffered politely, even when the kids made some protest - including one dinner where the food would have been closer described as incinerated than cooked - it was decided that he was, ultimately, better sticking to breakfast.

"Hey kid," Lenny said with a smile and a gentle nod in Ethan's direction, earning a nod and a tiny smile in return as the boy sat at the table. "Chocolate chip alright with you?"

"Yeah," Ethan agreed with a surprising amount of enthusiasm before putting his emotions back in check. "Thanks," he added more quietly.

"You got it."

"So, I was thinking today," Midge began as she sipped her coffee, "we could go to the zoo in Central Park."

"Really?" Esther asked with wide-eyed excitement. "Dad said we could go last weekend but then he had to work."

"I know," Midge said with a nod, well aware that Joel had let her children down in what was becoming a regular occurrence. "But we're going to go, the five of us, and it's gonna be fun."

"Can we get ice cream?" Ethan asked hopefully.

"I think that can be arranged," Lenny replied as he placed a plate of pancakes in front of the boy. "And maybe we can even stretch to cotton candy and hot dogs."

Ethan beamed as he tucked enthusiastically into his food. Lenny flashed a smile at Midge, the look of contented adoration on her face as she watched him impossible to miss.

By his own admission, Lenny had missed out a lot when Kitty was younger - either from being a touring comic, an addict, or more often than not, both - but after getting clean, he had really grown into a great father. Midge loved not only the idea of him getting to experience the early parenting years again now his life was in a better place, but the fact she would get to do it with him this time. While she loved her children fiercely, and considered Kitty basically as one of her own, a little person they could raise together who was part of each of them would be special. Possibly the most - to quote Lenny's detractors - "foul mouthed" child to ever exist, but definitely special.


"Do you and Leonard ever think about having a baby?" Rose had skirted around the question before, but this was the first time she had come out and asked Midge so bluntly - and of course it would be two days after Midge had had something of minor breakdown over the matter.

"Lenny, Mama," Midge said in exasperation, having had the same argument with her mother for years now. "Just call him Lenny, please."

"Fine," Rose said, a tad disgruntled. "Do you and Lenny ever think about having a baby?"

"I…I don't really want to talk about it," Midge told her, avoiding her gaze as she drank her coffee.

Rose could see something was wrong and her interest was piqued. "Oh?"

"It's just…" Midge sighed and put her cup down. "We've been more than thinking about it since the wedding, but it…" She let out a heavy breath. "It hasn't happened. Not yet."

"Hmm," Rose hummed, stopping to sip her coffee and think for a moment. "You know, you didn't exactly come to being easily."

Midge raised an eyebrow in question.

"Your brother…" Rose paused and chuckled to herself. "Well, let's just say I didn't have time to think of the color scheme for the nursery before I got pregnant."

"Mama…" Midge protested.

“Oh Miriam, please,” Rose shooed away her daughter’s disapproval. “Don’t act like you’re such a prude. I’ve seen your act, remember?”

Midge really wasn't sure about this new openness her mother had developed. Shuddering, she scrunched her face up before finally conceding. "Fine."

"My point was, you did not come into being as easily as your brother. We tried for years, but nothing. We had all but given up hope, and then there you were. So, just relax, you've got plenty of time. It'll happen when it's meant to happen."

Midge smiled philosophically. "You know, Lenny said almost the exact same thing."

"Well," Rose shifted in her seat, clearly a little pleased she and the son-in-law she had grown so fond of shared the same opinion, "I always knew he was much wiser than all those expletives he utters made him out to be."