nyx

Fifty-three. Fifty-four. Fifty-five. 

She keeps counting the tiles on the waiting room floor, going back to the beginning, starting in the corner furthest away from her each time, focusing on the task she’d set herself in a vain attempt to distract herself from why she was here. To stop thinking about the fact that she could still feel the warmth of Aaron’s blood on her skin even though she’d washed her hands more than once, her skin red raw from scrubbing it under water that was slightly too hot. 

He’d pushed her out of the way. 

The shot had been meant for her. The unsub had pointed his gun at her shoulder, but Aaron pushed her out of the way and was shot in the chest instead. A split-second decision that she knew he had made without thinking, his eyes wide with shock and pain when she fell to the floor with him. Her pants stuck to her knees with his blood as she crawled to his side, everything else around them fading away as she tugged off his vest with shaking hands, cursing the man who’d shot him and the armour piercing bullets he’d bought as she did her best to put pressure on Aaron’s wound while Dave called for an ambulance.  

She’d climbed into the ambulance without thinking about the fact that there was still work to be done, that there was a crime scene that now needed to be cleared, and an unsub that needed processing back at the precinct. All of her focus had been on Aaron, on the man she loves, and the stupid decision he’d made in a split second. 

He’d pushed her out of the way, and she might just lose him because of it. 

One. Two. Three. 

They’d been together for 6 months, and the team had known for half of that time. Aaron had become her solace after she came back from Paris. He understood what she’d been through, had been to the edge himself, and he didn’t expect anything more from her than she could give. It was refreshing, something she needed when every other relationship in her life seemed to depend on her pretending she was still someone she used to be, someone she was before she’d died in order to save her life. She’d got closer to him, had started to spend more of her time with him and Jack, and when she first leant in to kiss Aaron, a gentle press of her lips against his one night as they shared a pizza on his couch, it felt right, like everything in her life had been leading to him, to them. 

The team found out about them after the bank. She’d saved Will’s life at the last second, had cut a wire because it was the last thing she could do. He’d told her he’d marry JJ if they made it out, and he’d smirked as he casually mentioned Aaron - or mentioned it as casually as someone strapped into a bomb could - letting her know he’d figured out what the team hadn’t, what she hadn’t even admitted to herself yet. That she loved Aaron, and if she made it out, she’d make sure she’d tell him. 

When she did make it out, she’d sought Aaron out and sunk into his chest without thinking about their audience. He’d held her back just as tightly, had beaten her to it and whispered the three words against the top of her head that he usually kept for when he thought she was asleep at night, and it was only when she pulled back to say them to him that she remembered where they were. 

Their friends, their family, had questions that they’d done their best to answer, but they’d both insisted they’d tell them more another time, that they should focus on JJ and Will on what turned out to be their wedding day. 

She knew they were still getting used to the idea, that there were reservations about their relationship - mostly from Derek - that she worried today would only ignite further. Aaron’s instinct to keep her safe will have poured gasoline on the spark of doubt in them that already existed, and she worried about what it would mean for their future. 

She’d always known their ability to continue to work together when they were together would be limited, that the blind eye Strauss had gifted them with so far would always have a time limit, but this had pulled Emily back into reality. The warmth of Aaron’s blood, the hazy look in his eyes as she begged him to stay awake, the wake-up call she should have seen coming. 

She loved him, more than she thought possible, more than she thought she deserved to, and she didn’t want to risk losing him because he loved her in the same way. 

Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. 

“Em?” 

She looks up, her neck pulling because of how quickly she does, and she watches as the team filters into the room. They were worried, she could see it on their faces, varying degrees of success in trying to hide it from her painted in the fine lines around their eyes as she stands up, unable to stay still any longer. 

“Hi,” she replies, ringing her hands together in front of her, “He’s in surgery. They think the bullet missed anything vital, but he…” she swallows thickly, feels the burn of his blood against her skin again, and she presses her lips together, “He lost a lot of blood. They said someone would come by with an update soon” 

“Do you need anything?” Dave asks, and she knows he’d do anything for her right now, that if she asked for a drink he’d go somewhere else to get her one so she didn’t have to drink the crap that the hospital dared to call coffee. 

She shakes her head, “I’m okay, thank you.” 

JJ walks over, empathy that Emily thinks might be the thing to break her shining in her eyes, and she unhooks Emily’s go-bag from her shoulder to pass it over to her, “I went to your room to get this for you,” she says, her eyes flicking to Emily’s shirt, to the darker patches on it, Aaron’s dried blood a grim pattern Emily knew she’d see when she closed her eyes for weeks to come, “I thought you might want to change.” 

“Thanks,” Emily says, hooking her bag over her shoulder, trying not to think about JJ walking into the room she and Aaron had been sharing on this case, trying not to wonder if her friend had seen their pjyamas folded neatly and piled together at the end of the bed where Aaron had left them that morning. She suddenly needs space, wants to be anywhere other than her, and she nods towards the waiting room door, “I’ll go get changed now,” she says, looking at JJ, “If there’s any news-”

“I’ll come find you,” JJ promises, and Emily nods, reaching out and squeezing her hand, pressing her appreciation against her friend's skin before she slips by her and out of the room. 

She isn’t sure if she’s grateful or not that there isn’t a mirror in the accessible bathroom. It means she can’t look at herself, can’t see what the others see, but it also means she makes quick work of getting dressed. She throws away her shirt and her pants, stuffs them into the trashcan because even though she’s worryingly good at getting blood out of clothes she never wants to see them again, all too aware she’d see Aaron’s blood, his life force, spattered all over them every time she looked at them. She lingers over a shirt of Aaron’s that she’d packed to wear as pjyamas before she pulls out something clean to wear, and she knows JJ has packed it, so she has options, so she could have part of the man she loves with her if she chooses it. She closes her eyes as she touches the soft material of his shirt, unsure how his warmth seemed to linger on it even though she’d stolen it from him weeks ago, and she blows out a slow breath before she finishes getting dressed. She makes a point of putting on another suit instead of something comfortable, needing the strength it gave her, an armour of sorts that she didn’t think she could be seen without right now. 

As she walks back to the waiting room, she hears raised voices, Derek and Dave both in a heated discussion as they try and fail not to be heard by anyone other than the team.

“Are we really going to pretend what happened today was okay?” Derek asks, and she stops in the hallway, wants to hear what he has to say when he doesn’t know she’s listening, sure that his mistrust of her relationship with Aaron went deeper than he’d ever say to her face. “He jumped in front of a bullet without thinking about it.”

“I don’t think now is the time for this, Morgan.”

“Then when is?” Derek says, and Emily doesn’t need to be looking at him to know how angry he is, “When he’s in the goddamn ground because he made a stupid decison to protect her?” 

The thought of it makes her gasp, has her covering her mouth with her hand, because what if she did lose him? 

“Hotch would protect any of us,” Spencer adds, his voice lower and quieter than the others, “He has protected all of us before.” 

“Yeah, but he jumped in front of a bullet for her, that’s worlds apart from turning a blind eye to subordination, which he’s also done for her in the past.” 

She steps into the room after that and clears her throat. She gets a small kick out of the way Derek looks at her, at the brief flash of shame in his eyes as she stares him down, maintaining eye contact as she addresses the room. 

“Did anyone come out with an update while I was gone?” 

“No,” JJ says, her kindness cutting through the tension in the room, “No one has come out yet.”

Emily nods and finally tears her gaze away from Derek, and she sits down, sinking back into the same seat she’d been in when they arrived. “If he dies-”

“Em, that’s not-”

She looks up at Derek sharply, cuts off his attempt to cut her off with a look before she starts again, “If he dies, I can assure you that there is nothing you could think or say that would be worse than what I’d think about myself.” 

There’s a moment of silence, a tension she hadn’t felt between them since she’d walked into the conference room at Quantico all those months ago, dead to everyone except JJ and Aaron, and then Derek nods. 

Eventually, Penelope clears her throat, “So, what do we do now?” 

Emily blows out a shaky breath and looks back at the floor, “Now we wait.” 

She hears shuffling as everyone sits down, the scraping of metal chairs against the tiled floor as they spread themselves out, giving her as much space as they can. She’s grateful for it, for the support and the space, and she closes her eyes, clenches her jaw as she lets her eyes burn with tears she won’t shed yet, before she looks at the floor and starts to count tiles again. 

One. Two. Three.

___

Once they are told Aaron is okay, that he’d made it through surgery, she sends the rest of the team back to the hotel. 

It’s only when she’s alone with him in his room, her hands sandwiched around one of his, that she finally lets herself cry. She presses his hand against her cheek, and tries not to focus on the coolness of his skin, on how she has to hold it there herself. She knew his skin was cooler than usual because of the blood loss, that his usual warmth would return soon, but it doesn’t make it any easier, doesn’t stop the guilt she’d felt all evening from rolling in her gut. 

She watches him closely, her eyes fixed on his face as she watches for the tiniest twitch in his brow. The first time he wakes up, he isn’t lucid. He’s asking where she is, seemingly unaware she’s the one who is right there with him, and she rests her forehead against his, hunched over his bed as she soothed him back to sleep, reminding him how loved he was, even though he’d have no memory of it. 

When he wakes up for real, his hand twitching in hers as he frowns before he opens his eyes, she notices in an instant. She stands from her spot next to his bed and kisses his knuckles, sitting on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle it as he looks over at her. 

“Hi,” she says, reaching out to straighten the cannula in his nose that is delivering him oxygen, “Welcome back.” 

“Hi,” he replies, his voice rough from the tube he’d had down his throat for hours, “You okay?” 

The absurdity of it makes her laugh, and it catches in her chest, rattles around inside her ribcage as she shakes her head at him. She distracts herself by reaching for the cup of water next to his bed, remembering just how thirsty she’d been after her surgery, and she holds the straw to his mouth so he can take a sip.

“I’m fine, you’re the one who was shot,” she says, hearing the crack in her voice as she puts the water cup back down. He squeezes her hand as firmly as he can, and his concern for her breaks through past the pain and the medication, and she sighs, squeezing his hand back as she offers him a half shrug, “I will be fine now I know you are,” she leans in and pushes his hair from his forehead, takes the opportunity to stamp a quick kiss against his, unfettered by his breath that had seen betters days and the smell of antiseptic that lingered on his skin, “When you’re feeling better, we’re going to have a conversation about you jumping in front of a bullet for me.” 

He nods, his forehead knocking against hers as he tries to kiss her, uncoordinated as his lips catch the corner of hers, “I didn’t think about it,” he says, honest and unbidden, and she isn’t sure if its because of the medication, or because of how much he loves her, or if it’s both, but it makes her ache, “I just did it.” 

“I know, honey,” she says, swallowing thickly as she tries to push everything back down, “That’s what I’m worried about,” she runs her fingers through his hair, straightens his cannula again even though she doesn’t need to, and she blows out a shaky breath, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she adds, talking outloud without really meaning to. It’s only when she sees the flash of panic in his eyes, hears the way he sucks in a painful breath, that she realises what she’s said, how he’s taken it, “Oh, honey, no,” she says, lifting his hand and kissing his knuckles again and again, pressing her love for him against the scars he had from seeking out revenge against man who’d killed the woman he’d loved before her, “Not that. Never that. You’re stuck with me forever.” 

He smiles softly at her, “You’re stuck with me, too,” he says, “So, if you’re not breaking up with me in my hospital bed,” he says, and she rolls her eyes as he smirks at her, “What did you mean?” 

“I think it might be time for me to leave the FBI,” she says, running her knuckles back and forth over his cheek, “Clyde has been offering me a job in DC ever since I turned down the one in London. Maybe it’s time I took him up on it.” 

He frowns, “Em-”

“We’ll talk about it,” she promises him, “When you’re feeling better, and I’m sure you’ll actually remember this conversation,” she says, “But I think it’s time we don’t work together anymore. I don’t want to end up in a situation again where I know you’ve put yourself between me and a man with a gun just because you love me. And I don’t want you to have to be sitting here, feeling just as shitty as I do because I’ve done the same as you.” 

She didn’t want to imagine a world without him, or her future without him by her side, but it was the reality of their jobs, and they’d both been through too much, had been too close to the precipice both together and apart, to pretend it wasn’t a potential reality. She knows that if something were to happen when she wasn’t there, if she got a call from Dave or JJ to say Aaron had been shot while she was working somewhere else, that she’d blame herself. That she’d question whether there was anything she could have done to stop it if she had been there, but she knew she had to do what felt right, that she had to figure out what she could live with if the worst was to happen. 

He nods, his eyes drifting shut a little, and she knows he’ll fall asleep again soon. “We’ll talk about it?” 

She kisses him, a promise stamped against his dry lips, and she smiles when she pulls back, “We’ll talk about it,” she says, “Now get some sleep, honey. You need it.” 

He hums, clearly trying to fight the pull of it, “You’ll be here when I wake up?” 

She nods even though his eyes are already closed, and she kisses his knuckles, keeping a tight grip on his hand as he falls asleep. 

Emily’s heels sink into the soft grass, dipping into the earth as she walks further away from the patio, rocking a fussy Jane. 

“Shhh,” she whispers, shifting her into the crook of her arm, wiping hot tears from her cheeks. Already fed and dressed in a soft onesie dotted with tiny porcupines, she’s an inch away from sleep and struggling to get there. “Shh, baby, it’s okay. Those people sure are noisy, huh? They’re so inconsiderate.” Emily coos, Jane’s cries easing as she takes them further into Rossi’s backyard, letting the quiet envelop them. 

Laughter and warm conversation start to fade. Wrapped in static, everything else falls away; it’s just Emily and her little girl, trekking away under the watchful glow of the moon.

Jane’s breaths fan hot across Emily’s collarbone as she digs a little fist into her eye. She whimpers quietly and Emily hums, weaving her way through trees and underbrush. “I know, honey, you’re so tired. You’ve had an exciting day.”

She and Aaron were tangled together on the couch, her head on his thigh, his hand in her hair, a book half folded into the cushions and the sound of Jack’s video game echoing around the living room, when Jane had stood up from her perch on the floor and taken a hesitant step. The moment almost passed quietly before it was caught by Aaron’s eyes, his fingers stilling in Emily’s hair. Jane had always been a quiet baby, almost shy; even in the midst of her family’s loud excitement, she’d buried her smile into Jack’s arms when he caught her, cheeks tinted rosy, silently pleased with herself.

Walking around with her older brother hovering just beside her, then babbling with Garcia and picking at the textures on her clothes and strung around her wrists, she’d exhausted herself. Emily saw her eyes droop, feeling it herself when the cacophony of noise started to grate on her daughter’s tender ears.

She notices now, as she wades further into the lush garden, how dark the sky is. The glow of fairy lights on the patio fades at her back and is replaced by the faint twinkle of stars above, spread across thick velvet blackness. They’re slightly clearer than they are in the heart of the city; more of them wink down at her the longer she looks, letting her eyes adjust, catching faint blurs that sharpen to pinpricks.

When they’ve strayed far away enough, Emily stops and leans against a tree, rocking a rapidly quieting Jane. She smiles when she sees her daughter’s head is tilted up, pillowed against her arm, her eyes tracking up to the sky.

Emily kisses her hair. “Aren’t the stars so pretty, Janie? They’d be brighter if we got out of the city.” She rubs her daughter’s tacky cheek, catching the last edge of tears along her eyelashes, “But nowhere like France. They shine so bright there,” she whispers, “up in the mountains. I used to sit for hours and watch them, and Grandpère would tell me all about the constellations. Like…” her eyes search the sky, automatically snagging on the most recognizable string of stars.

“Like Orion.” Something in her voice catches Jane’s attention. Their eyes clash, identical shades of brown, and Emily smiles as she wipes under Jane’s nose. “Of course, the belt is the most recognizable part of the constellation. It’s one of the most well known ones—there, see?” She points up to the tilting trail of stars.

Jane’s eyes quietly follow her finger. She babbles something Emily doesn’t understand, her voice drenched in the sticky tone she’s grown to recognize. Her still-damp lashes similarly cling together, separating with more force with blink. 

Emily glows on the inside. She shifts Jane up higher against her chest, arms firmly wrapped around the small length of her that’s become her whole world. Tiny fingers, tiny toes, identical nose; she is Emily’s heart in powder-soft onesies and feet that have only just learned how to take a step.

“Orion’s the hunter.” She murmurs, watching Jane’s eyes droop. A sweet summer breeze ruffles her hair and Emily sweeps it back, her fingers sinking into soft baby curls. “He was a son of Poseidon, the god of the sea. Now Orion was very strong and powerful, and he vowed that he would…” her tongue stills on the word kill, the word seeming too grim for her sweet 11-month-old. Jane is on the precipice of talking, her babbles shaping into more recognizable sounds, so Emily decides to steer clear. “He would slay every animal on earth to prove how good of a hunter he was. Ambitious, isn’t it?” She lays a kiss on the side of Jane’s head, gently stroking circles above her pajamas. Her eyes have already fluttered closed, but Emily continues on with the story anyway, her voice even and whispered in her daughter’s ear.

Aaron always said she has an easier time putting Jane down—and he always said it’s something to do with her voice, his lips reverently pressed to her throat, trailing appreciation down the curve of her neck. Emily knows he’s right, in a way, and not just concerning Jane; once she threads her fingers through any of their hair and goes off on a murmured tangent about whatever, it’s almost a certain she’ll have a Hotchner dozing in her lap before she’s halfway through her ramble.

It’s not long before Jane is fully asleep. Emily is sitting cross-legged at the base of the tree when Aaron comes to find them, her heels on the grass and her thumb tracing circles on the back of a soft dimpled hand.

“She asleep?” He whispers, silently sitting down next to them. The creak of his knee is folded into the quiet.

“Mhm,” Emily hums. “She just needed the quiet.” Like her dad, she thinks, tracing the draw of Jane’s brows with her eyes, still awed at how much of Aaron is in her.

His chest presses warm against her arm. Searching fingers wrap around her elbow, a thumb roving over her skin as Aaron kisses the joint of her shoulder. “She’s had an exciting day.”

“That’s what I said.” Emily grins. But it slips before long, her finger stumbling across Jane’s hand. “God, she’s growing up, how is she growing up already?”

Aaron shrugs, his low exhale warming her skin. His own finger traces over Jane’s knee, a touch so featherlight it doesn’t even dent the cotton of her pajamas.

“It’s what kids do.” He murmurs, the honey-thick of his affection visible even though his eyes are turned down to their baby sprawled on her lap. It’s still enough to make her freeze in place sometimes, even after years of being well acquainted with his way of loving. “But lucky for us, she is still a baby.” A wrinkle smoothed out with his thumb. “Even if she is turning one soon.”

The thought twists her stomach. July is hurtling towards them, and Emily wants to stave it off, though Jane’s limbs are still cushioned with baby fat, her cheeks still rounded and her hands still chubby. Hell, she only took her first steps today and Emily is already close to tears.

“I’m not ready.” She murmurs, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“We never think we are,” Aaron says, so gently, and she’s all at once reminded that he’s done this before. “We tend to sell ourselves short.”

Emily closes her eyes, feeling the vibration of his voice under her ear. The wind plays with her hair and Rossi’s living room is a million miles away. They’re on an island now; surrounded by stars and her preemptive grief and the love that threatens to overwhelm her at any second. 

Emily never thought she’d be able to feel so much. Not after the numb and the cold of the floor in Boston, not after countless pointless relationships and the overwhelming, glittering shards of her own life littered at her feet. 

But somehow, she managed to piece herself together—into something not just surviving, but living. Her days are colored with pride, echoing with the remnants of unrestrained, jubilant laughter. They’re sometimes dulled by a sadness that hides behind her ribs and slinks out when she least expects it, bleeding into the joy of watching her children grow, the still lingering disbelief that she gets to have this. She’s a whirlwind of emotion every day, and thick as they may be on her tongue she wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Emily inhales the scent of grass, Aaron’s cologne, the still night around them. Her finger toys with a crease on the side of his knee, the material of his slacks curving inward into a seam.

“You know, I’m…I’m just so happy we were here for this milestone.” Both of them. “There’s so many that I…”

“That you prepared to miss.”

Yeah. She couldn’t fool herself, not when it comes to this.

Aaron traps her roving finger into his palm. His calloused fingertips gently scrape the inside of her wrist, turning it until their palms meet. Emily does the rest, slotting her fingers in, completing the puzzle piece as a kiss nestles in her hair.

“Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we’re just lucky, and everything happens on a Sunday.” A perfectly ordinary, bordering on boring Sunday. As Jane twitches against Emily’s chest, she smiles; ever since Aaron, Sundays were inarguably her favorite day of the week. “Our luck hasn’t run out yet.” He murmurs.

Emily counts her daughter’s lashes. “No,” she says. “Not yet.”

The knot loosens in her chest when he kisses her softly, his smile against her lips. “You told her about the stars.” He says; it’s not a question.

Emily’s cheeks heat. She lifts a shoulder, lips pressing down against a smile. “They were there.” She says. “I didn’t have to think of a story on a whim.”

“You don’t have to,” he murmurs, lightly tracing the column of her throat. “You just need to talk.”

She wrinkles her nose. “You’re making me sound like Hypnos.”

“Godlike?”

“Mythological.”

May 1995

She was late. 

It’s a thought that had haunted her for days, something she’d done her best to ignore, familiar panic starting to claw its way up her throat every time she looked at the unopened box of tampons in the bathroom cabinet. She kept hoping it would go away, that her period would arrive with the usual cramping in her lower belly and a sudden change in mood, but nothing happened. Instead, she feels tired, exhaustion she’d felt once before creeping up on her and an aching in her boobs that made her chest tight every time she thought about it. 

She was furious with herself, angry that she was back in this situation again, only a decade after the last time, and the need to know for sure one way or the other finally overtakes her desire to ignore it four days after her period was due. She tells Aaron that she needs to go get something from the store and waves off his offer to go for her, forcing a smile she hopes he can’t see through as she kisses him when she leaves. She buys all sorts of things she doesn’t really need - things for the breakfast she’d idly told her boyfriend she’d make him as her excuse to leave, snacks in case she’s right and she needs to cheer herself up, wine in case she’s wrong and she can celebrate - all to disguise the pregnancy test at the bottom of the paper bag she carries into their apartment. 

She kisses him again when he offers to unpack it for her, flitting between overwhelming love for him and irritation that he was just so damn perfect, determined to get her head around this, to make sure that there was something to get her head around at all, before she told him anything. 

They were in the middle of deep cleaning their apartment, getting it ready for their landlord to come over and take pictures of it for the new ad he’d be running since they were moving out soon. They’d just signed the deeds for their new home, the house she’d bought them with the trust fund that had been earned through her stolen childhood, and she was excited for the next chapter with him. Excited to carry on building the life they’d only just started placing the foundations for. 

The life she was worried was about to take a dramatic turn, leading them down a path she hadn’t seen coming for them for years. 

She ignores the shake in her hands as she takes the test, swallowing thickly as she clicks the lid into place, desperately trying not to think about how much simpler the process was than when she’d done it the last time. She wouldn’t be waiting for thirty minutes for life-changing results like she had in Rome, but just three. 

Three long, painful minutes. 

She sits on the closed lid of the toilet seat and clasps her hands in her lap, picking at the already damaged skin of her cuticles, focusing on the spots of blood framing her thumbnail instead of the seconds ticking by on her watch. She jumps when the timer goes off, and she blows out a slow, shaky breath, wiping her clammy palms on her leggings as she stands up, giving herself a moment before she picks up the test and pulls it out of the packet she’d slipped it back into. 

She’s slammed in the chest with long buried memories the moment she finds herself staring at two lines, and she sucks in a deep breath but it catches in her throat. She tries to fill her lungs, but she can’t, and panic floods them instead, making her ribs crack as she drops the test back onto the counter. It clatters, the plastic loud as it rattles against the granite, but she doesn’t hear it as she slips to the floor, only realising she’s crying when tears splash down onto her sweater. 

She was pregnant. 

Again. 

She feels like she’s 15 again, like she’s still in the bathroom she’d all but barricaded herself in to make sure her mom didn’t walk in. She’s thinking about everything all at once, barely able to keep track of thoughts as they fly through her mind, not able to anchor onto anything as she panics, still unable to breathe. 

It’s only as the bathroom door opens and Aaron walks in, his arms full of cleaning products, that she realised she hadn’t locked it, that she hadn’t even thought about it this time around. 

“Do you need help in here…” he trails off when he sees her, his focus no longer on their plans to clean the apartment but on her as he drops the bottles in his arms to the ground. He lands on his knees in a way she must think hurts because she hears the crack of them against the tiles. “Em?” 

She opens her mouth to respond, but a sob escapes instead, and she sinks against him, seeking out the warmth and comfort that he always has waiting for her as he crawls to her side and wraps his arms around her. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, even though he doesn’t know what’s wrong, his lips against her forehead as he rubs his hand up and down her back to try to soothe her, “I’m right here, I’ve got you.” 

She wonders if she should hate the fact that him just being there calms her down almost immediately. She curls up against him, her face pressed against his neck as she breathes him in, letting the remnants of his cologne and something that was just him settle over her. She can finally breathe again, can feel the shudder in her chest as she sucks in much needed oxygen, giving herself one final moment of this, of the before, as she chokes out the words that will change everything. 

“I’m pregnant.” 

He tightens his hold on her, and she can feel how he holds his breath, how he carefully chooses his next words, his knowledge of her and her past overriding anything else. 

“You’re pregnant?” He asks, and she pulls back to look at him, something close to relief flooding through her as she sees nothing back love reflecting back at her. It’s a much needed reminder that she isn’t alone this time, and she nods, “How long have you known?” 

“For sure? About two minutes,” she says, unable to ignore the shake in her voice, “I thought I might be for a few days.” 

He nods, no judgment, no anger in his eyes. Nothing but the love he never seemed to run out of for her, an endless supply of unconditional affection that she’d never had from anyone else before. “Why didn’t you say anything? I would have been here.” 

She smiles tightly and nods herself, “I know,” she says, wiping a tear from her cheek, “I kept hoping my period would just show up, but it didn’t, and I…I just had to know,” she presses her lips together to try to stop them from shaking, “I kept wondering how it could have happened, but I had that chest infection a few weeks ago…the antibiotics must have turned my birth control into fucking candy.” 

They fall into silence, each one of them waiting for the other to speak first, the weight of everything in the air around them, a thick blanket of their own making lying over their shoulders. 

“What do you want to do?” He asks eventually, and it makes her fall impossibly more in love with him. The simple question said everything it needed to - he’d take her lead on this, let her make the final call on what they would do next, and it let her know that no matter what, they’d be okay. 

“I…I don’t know,” she replies honestly, “We could talk about it? Figure it out?” She says, shrugging one of her shoulders, “It’s so much sooner than I thought we’d be doing this,” she says, her hand landing on her belly subconsciously, “But…” 

“It could be nice,” he finishes for her, and she nods, sighing contentedly when he leans forward and kisses her forehead, “We’ll talk about it.” 

She smiles at him, stamping her lips against his, the kiss tasting of her tears, and she blows out the first steady breath she has since she’d walked into the bathroom. 

“We’ll talk about it.”

Days later, when they decide this was something they could do - something they wanted to do - she knows it’s the right decision, and when she holds Ivy for the first time 8 months later, she can’t imagine having done anything else.

___

February 2016

At first, Emily thinks her doctor is joking. 

She thinks it’s a bad joke, a terrible one, but a joke nonetheless, but it’s only after she laughs and shakes her head that she realises her doctor isn’t laughing with her. 

“Wait,” she says, shaking her head, her laugh turning into a nervous scoff, “I can’t be pregnant.” 

Doctor Nicols smiles politely at her, clearly not a stranger to delivering news to people who weren’t expecting it, “I checked the results of your blood tests twice, Emily. You’re pregnant.” 

She sucks in a deep breath and she twists her wedding rings around her finger, “How?” 

She’d come in to discuss the menopause, convinced that she was on the precipice of the next phase of her life. She hadn’t anticipated this at all, hadn’t thought that this was even a possibility, and she feels numb, still half convinced it was some kind of sick joke. 

They had their family, had agreed years ago that their family felt complete.  The kids were older now, well past the stage of spit up, sore boobs and sleepless nights. Oliver was 11. Rose was 15. Ivy was 20. She and Aaron were in a completely different period of their lives as parents now, used to their kids being more independent, and she couldn’t quite believe she was about to be thrown back to the very beginning of it all again. 

“Well, you have three kids already, Emily,” Doctor Nichols says, her smile soft and irritatingly kind, “I don’t think I have to explain that to you.”

Emily chokes on a sound she thinks is supposed to be a laugh, and she nods, “Yeah…” She blows out a breath, “And you’re sure?” 

Doctor Nichols nods, “I’m sure,” she replies, “I know this news is unexpected, but you do have options-”

She shakes her head because she didn’t have options, not really. She already knew what she wanted, already knew she wanted this baby - even if it was a surprise, even if it was the last thing she’d been expected to be told when she walked into Doctor Nichol’s office a few minutes ago. It would change everything, would change the plans she’d had for the next several years, but she knew from experience it would change it for the better. 

It just wouldn’t necessarily always be easy. 

She relaxes as she thinks of a moment over 20 years ago when she sat crying on the bathroom floor of the apartment she’d lived in with Aaron, the first place they’d ever called home together, convinced that he’d be mad at her for something they were both responsible for, and she knows she has to talk to him. Knows that she wants to talk to him, to make sense of this bit of news she hadn’t seen coming with the man she loved, the father of her children. 

“I need to talk to my husband,” she says, twisting her rings around again, shifting them back and forth, focusing on the feeling of the diamond on her engagement ring knocking against the neighbouring fingers. “Can I have an ultrasound?” She chokes on another laugh, “I don’t think he’ll believe me unless I have a picture to show him.” 

Doctor Nichols smiles and nods, “Of course,” she nods over towards the bed in the corner, “I know it’s been a while, but I’m guessing you remember the drill?” 

She nods and laughs, the sounds catching on a sob, and she wipes a tear from her cheek, “Yeah,” she says, “I remember.” 

The rest of the day drags out around her. She can barely focus on work when she gets there. She knows the team can tell she’s distracted. Derek makes fun of her for it, smirking when she narrows her eyes at him and quips back in response in an attempt to throw him and the rest of them off the scent, not wanting the fact that something was wrong to get back to her husband before she could talk to him. Even though she knew her team were loyal to her, she knew they were loyal to him too - that they still respected him as the man who had led them before her. 

They were more like family than friends or co-workers. They loved her, Aaron and the kids, and that love often came with interference, largely from Dave and Penelope, that she knew was well-meaning. It was a kind of love that she appreciated, something she and Aaron didn’t get from many other places. 

It’s the same when she gets home, time moving like syrup until both Rose and Oliver go to bed, both of them promising they’d turn out their lights when they were done with their respective TV show and video game. Ivy was at George Washington University, living in an apartment with some friends a 30-minute drive away. Emily missed having all her kids under one roof, and she knew Aaron felt the same, but she was grateful Ivy had chosen a nearby college, sure that she’d miss her daughter even more if she didn’t come by for dinner - and a laundry drop off - once a week. 

She’s in the kitchen, eyeing up the wine she’d unknowingly had a glass of the night before, when Aaron joins her, wrapping his arms around her from behind as he kisses her cheek. She turns her head to capture his lips in a kiss, sighing into it when his hands settle on her stomach, something he’d done a thousand times over the years that was suddenly more poignant, even if he didn’t know it yet. 

“Funny how you get done with your marking the moment I finish loading the dishwasher,” she says, kissing him again as she turns in his arms. “Convenient.” 

“I’ll unload it in the morning,” he promises, “Want to go sit down now they’re in bed?” He offers, running his hand up and down her back, “Share a glass of wine?” She tenses at the mention of wine, and she knows he senses it, sees how his eyebrows furrow in concern as she smiles tightly at him. “Sweetheart, are you okay? You haven’t been yourself all evening.” 

She rolls her eyes, because of course he noticed, and she reaches for his hand, linking her fingers through his as she squeezes his palm against hers, “You don’t miss a thing, huh?” 

He smiles at her, the edges of it lost somewhere in his dimples, and there’s a softness in his eyes she knows is just for her and the kids. “Want to talk about it?” 

She nods and tugs him towards the living room. The ultrasound picture she has tucked into the inside pocket of her suit jacket suddenly feels heavy, the press of it warm against her ribs. “Yeah, but you’re going to want to sit down.” 

He frowns, but follows her anyway, “Em, is this about your doctor’s appointment? Did the doctor say something?” 

She shakes her head as they settle onto the couch, holding both of his hands now as she sits as close to him as she can, her knees knocking against his, “It’s not bad news,” she says, “Well, I don’t think it’s bad news. It’s surprising, fuck am I surprised, but I don’t think it’s bad-”

“Sweetheart,” he says, cutting her off, squeezing her hands as he smiles at her, a teasing edge to it that makes the tightness in her chest ease, “You’re rambling, you don’t ramble.” 

She nods and she sucks in a slow breath, lets it escape even slower, and then she looks at him, desperate to make sure she watches him closely as she breaks the news to him.

“I’m pregnant.” 

There’s a beat of silence, then another, and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead in a way that would be funny in any other circumstance, “You’re pregnant?” 

“Yeah,” she chokes out, letting go of one of his hands to pull out the ultrasound picture to show him. He takes it immediately, looking at it with such intensity that she suddenly feels like she’s been transported back to the first time they saw Ivy when she was the same size. A tiny, life-changing dot on a picture they had framed in their home office alongside the first pictures of Rose and Oliver. She idly thinks she’ll need to get a frame for this one too, a baby whose name and face she didn’t know yet, but that she already loved beyond measure. “I’m 9 weeks along.”

He nods, tearing his gaze from the picture to look at her, “How do you feel about this?” 

She smiles because it’s a reminder that she’d chosen the right person to do all of this with, that the man she had loved for over half her life loved her just as much as she loved him. A reminder that, no matter what, he always put her and their children first. 

“I was shocked. I think I’m still in shock,” she says, pressing her lips together, “I thought she was joking at first. And I know we’ve been done with having kids for a really long time,” she says, shaking her head at herself, at the stiaution, “But I don’t know…it feels…”

“Right?” He finishes for her, and it feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders, a single word that silences the voice in the back of her head that had been telling her that he’d break the habit of a lifetime and say something that would break her heart. 

“Yeah, it feels right.” She says, and her smile shakes, and tears she knows she’s seconds away from shredding press at the back of her eyes, “I know starting it all over again won’t be easy-”

“Everything is easy when I do it with you,” he replies, reaching out to wipe away a tear from her cheek, “Even the hard things,” he smiles at her, the smile she’d fallen in love with before she could admit it even to herself. “Especially the hard things.” 

She leans in to kiss him, because she can’t think of how else to respond, and when she pulls back, she rests her forehead against his, the scan picture still in his hand between them, “So, we’re doing this again?” 

“We’re doing this,” he confirms, kissing her nose, her cheek, wherever he can reach, “We will have to figure out how to tell the kids, though.” 

Her smile briefly falls from her face as she thinks of all the conversations she’d had with her daughters, Ivy in particular since she was that little bit older, about safe sex and pregnancy prevention, and she closes her eyes, shaking her head as she practically already hears the jokes they’ll make at her expense. 

She’s such a pushover, even if she swears up and down that she’s not. Never with anything important, but her kid asks for ice cream? Absolutely. They want to stay up and watch another episode of a cartoon before bed? Just this once (She’ll say yes next time). When you finally get her to admit it, she confesses that she worries about missing out on important moments, and if those extra memories do anything to combat it, it’s worth giving in occasionally

She’s obsessed with making sure they have plenty of toys, clothes, and anything else they could want. She’s constantly researching the best developmentally appropriate toys for their age. She knows all about what skills they should be learning, and they’re only receiving the very best to get there. 

She’s guilty of a late night online shopping order full of new clothes for them. When the box shows up, she claims that she was just replacing what they’ve grown out of. If it’s all the same size as what’s already in the closet, that’s her business only. 

One time, one of those late night shopping trips results in a very long photo shoot of the baby and Sergio, who are wearing newly purchased matching outfits. She laughs so hard and loves the photos so much that she has them printed out and framed. 

Anytime there’s a hard case, she comes home and NEEDS to be close to her kids. A couple of times, you wake up to her sneaking in late, kid(s) in arm because she can’t stand the idea of sleeping away from them for this one night. 

Later, when they’re older and she doesn’t want to mess up their sleep, she holds back, compromising with tucking them in and a kiss on the forehead. But she’s waking up early and making them breakfast so she can see them as soon as possible in the morning. 

She absolutely sobs on the first day of kindergarten. She knows they’ll be fine, but something about seeing her kid in a backpack that’s bigger than them walking away from her into school just gets her. She ends up late to work because she has to drive back home due to her ruined makeup and red, puffy face.