In Summer Bay, where love stories often come wrapped in heartbreak and healing, Mackenzie Booth and Dr. Levi Fowler are stepping into one of their most emotional and challenging chapters yet.

Their journey to begin a family through IVF has already tested their resilience, unity, and emotional endurance. But in the coming week, a shocking twist reveals just

how deeply Mac has been burying her fears—and her hopes.

The couple receive a long-awaited call from the IVF clinic, the results of their latest round of ovarian stimulation hanging in the balance. Their first attempt had offered a spark of promise: seven viable follicles, only for heartbreak to follow. None of the embryos matured into a stage suitable for implantation. The emotional toll of that disappointment still lingers like a bruise neither fully acknowledges aloud.

This time, as the clinic delivers the latest update, the news is, once again, cautiously optimistic. Nine follicles. More than before. More than expected. More than either dared to hope.

Levi reacts instantly with relief, joy even—a small but powerful victory in a process built from waiting, worrying, and wishing. But as he celebrates, something very different unfolds beside him. Mackenzie breaks down into tears.

Levi, always gentle and attentive, is quick to reach for her hand, asking what’s wrong. Yet for Mac, the answer isn’t simple—because her tears aren’t just sadness or fear. They are exhaustion. They are guarded hope suffocating under dread. They are the weight of wanting something so deeply that the wanting itself feels dangerous.

Through tears, she confesses what she has been carrying quietly: Hope has become frightening. Every time something goes right, she immediately braces for it to collapse. Every milestone feels like a setup for heartbreak. She has begun to believe that joy is temporary, and disappointment inevitable.

Levi tries to reassure her with the sincerity that has made him her anchor throughout this journey. “Maybe this time will be different,” he says softly. But Mac, so deeply scarred by the first failure, cannot allow herself to believe. Not yet.

The Emotional Toll Intensifies

As the process moves forward, Mac must undergo the trigger injection—an intense hormonal preparation that she remembers all too well from their previous attempt. The physical side effects will come soon: painful cramps, emotional volatility, exhaustion. But it is the emotional fallout she fears even more—the rollercoaster of hope and despair that the hormone surge churns up inside her.

Determined not to fall apart under the weight of her anxiety, Mac throws herself into work at Salt. Distraction has always been her greatest coping mechanism.

But the moment she and Levi walk in, they are confronted by yet another emotional storm.

Their presence is met with hostility from Levi’s sister, Abigail, whose resentment has been slowly growing ever since the wedding plans for Eden and Cash stirred up painful unresolved tensions within the Fowler family. Abby, still furious over Levi agreeing to walk Eden down the aisle, lashes out with accusation—branding him a backstabber who’s betraying his family.

Levi, caught between loyalties, tries to defuse the situation. But Mac has reached her breaking point.

Something in her snaps.

She unleashes a raw, blistering tirade that silences the entire room.

She tells Abby to stop acting like the world revolves around her. She reminds her that Levi was asked by Eden because she trusted him, and that the decision had nothing to do with Abby. She calls out Abby for making everything, even Eden’s wedding, about her own pain. Mac’s final blow lands with the force of bottled-up frustration:

“I know it’s always the Abigail Show — but I am done.”

The words strike deeply. Abby, blindsided and shaking, rushes out in tears. Levi stands stunned, torn between sympathy for his sister and concern for the woman he loves.

This wasn’t just an outburst. It was the overflow of every fear Mac has been trying to bury—the fear of failing, the fear of hoping, the fear of wanting something too deeply.

Silence, Secrets, and Strained Hearts

Once alone, Levi tries gently to reach her, but Mac retreats inward. She feels ashamed of her explosion, guilty for hurting Abby, and frightened of losing control. Levi sees her pain but cannot fully understand the terror beneath it—the terror of another loss that might break her beyond repair.

And so Mac hides it.

She hides the fact that, despite every fear and every tear, she still wants this child more than anything she has ever wanted.

She hides her hope—because hope has started to feel like a trap.

What Levi sees is the struggle. What he doesn’t see is the flicker of belief she is choking back, too terrified to feed it.

A Wedding Shadowed by Family Fracture

Meanwhile, Eden and Cash’s wedding continues to be overshadowed by emotional conflict. With family members already at war and old wounds reopening faster than they can heal, the question looms:

Will anyone in this family make it to the altar with their relationships intact?

And for Mac and Levi, the stakes are rising far beyond event planning, arguments, or family loyalties. Their future—both as partners and as future parents—hangs in the balance.

Because sometimes the hardest part of love is not what we lose.

It’s what we fear we might never get to have.