Disclaimer: I don't own any of Crossing Jordan's characters, I just pretend.

Authors Note: This takes place after "What Happens in Vegas Dies in Boston"

Authors Note 2: Suspend what you know about how old Abby Macy is...I had to change it

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"It's not yours." No words had ever hurt him as much as those three. It wasn't his. Why should it matter? She wasn't his. Not then anyway. He had lost her. He hadn't fully accepted that fact until that day. He didn't want a baby. He didn't think she did either. But after that day, he wanted it to be his. He couldn't stand that it was someone else's. He couldn't stand that she was someone else's. So he turned everything off. He shut down. He shut her out. It was easier that way.

Likewise, she avoided his office. She sent her clerks to collect files from him instead of coming in person. She let her assistants prep him for trial. She had her secretary make all her calls to his offices. After that fateful day he didn't see her until after the baby had been born. They hadn't talked about it, but the morgue rumour mill kept him up to speed with what was happening. He heard it was a boy. He heard he was born premature. He heard called him Jake. He heard her ex-husband wanted nothing to do with it.

He bumped into her about six months later, after testifying in a sexual assault case. She had been prosecuting a murderer in an adjacent courtroom. They had been polite if nothing else. He could hardly look her in the eye, even though his heart ached for her. He felt like a fool. He shuffled his shoes, wished her well and walked away. After that, she came to the office every now and then but always for business. He convinced himself that she would never come to his offices for him again. But then one day she did and he had been more than surprised.

It had been almost three years since she told him about the baby, but there she was, six weeks ago, standing in his office, staring at the floor like scolded child.

"Hi, Renee," he said, recognizing right away that something was wrong. She nodded ever so slightly in greeting. "Sit down," he offered, anxious to break the tension. She sat on the sofa and after a time, got the courage to look up at him. He stared back at her. She looked awful. Her eyes had dark circles under them as if she hadn't slept in days. Her shoulders were slumped as if the weight of the world was resting on them. He had never seen her look like this before, it was as if all of her trademark confidence was gone. And although he had never seen her cry before, he could tell she was on the verge of tears.

"What's up?" he asked her finally. The sound of his voice scared her in a way it never had before. Her eyes darted to the floor again. It was killing him to see her like this. He got up from his desk and shut his office door, slowly making his way towards her. She looked at him with teary eyes as he sat beside her.

"I didn't know where else to go," she whispered. He took her hand in his own, knowing instinctually that she needed him to comfort her, even in the smallest of ways.

"What happened?" he asked tentatively, knowing that if he pushed too hard she'd close up again.

"My mom," she said, her voice threatening to give her pain away. "She's dead, Garret." She could barely choke out the last few syllables through her sobs. He pulled her into his chest and held her as tight as he dared. He didn't know what else he could do. He had barely spoken two words to her for three years, and now here she was, crying her heart out in his arms. When her tears subsided, she smiled a half smile, as if to convince him that she could be strong again.

"You want to tell me about it?" he asked after a time. And to his amazement, she opened herself up, in a way she never had when they had been together. She told him how her mom was in car accident earlier that morning. She had been at her mother's bedside all day long. And finally, a few hours earlier, her mother had given up fighting. Once her story was finished, Renee gave up a few more tears. They sat in the quiet stillness of his office for a long time. He didn't know what to say. He dealt with death and grief everyday, but at that moment, he had no idea how to console someone he cared about.

After what seemed like hours, he turned to her and asked about her son.

"Where's Jake?" he asked, immediately regretting the words. Jake's babysitter had been an issue of unspoken tension between the pair. Renee's mother watched him during the day while she was at work. But whenever, she needed a babysitter for the night or just a few hours, Renee called Abby. While Renee and Garret had been together, she had become close with his daughter. They enjoyed each other and Abby was glad for the extra pocket money she earned. Garret on the other hand was uncomfortable with the situation now that he and Renee had broken up. But, like many things in his and Renee's relationship, the issue remained unmentioned.

"Do you need a ride home?" he asked, changing the subject from their children.

"No," she said flatly; back to her old self. He walked her to her car. She thanked him and drove off.

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"Jake," Renee whispered, rubbing his back and kissing his tiny ear. "Jake, get up baby." His brown eyes fluttered open. It was early for him. His grandmother would have let him sleep for a few hours yet, but his grandmother wasn't there and wouldn't be again. Telling him about her mom was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. She had it all worked out in her head. She sat him down and told him that his grandmother wasn't coming back. Even though she wasn't sure if I believed it, she told him about angels and heaven. She thought perhaps that idea would be easier for him to handle. She didn't think he understood. That made it easier for her. She was having a hard enough time with her own grief; she didn't think she could have handled his as well.

After the funeral she had to get back to work. She had to put Jake in daycare. Abby was in school, and she had no other family or friends to watch him during the day. She sat at a little desk filling out his registration papers. She left the 'father' section blank and wondered how many other mothers had done just the same. When she reached the 'emergency contact' section she stopped. Having no emergency contact for herself, she searched her mind for someone to put down on the paper for Jake. The week before she would have wrote her mother's information without hesitation. But now she had no one. She could feel the daycare woman's eyes on her. She stared at the form again and thought of all the people she knew. Who would she want the daycare to contact if, for some reason, they couldn't reach her? She knew of only one person. She scratched down Garret's name and contact information without a second thought. As she turned the papers over to the daycare woman, she thought about the emergency contact and silently hoped there would never been a need to call the numbers listed there.

She left Jake at the daycare that day. He was too involved with the other kids to even notice she left. She hated like hell to leave him with strangers, but what other choice did she have? She left him there the next day and the day after that. She left him there every work day for the next six weeks. She felt like an awful mother for doing it, because she knew everyday that she would be late picking him up. Jake knew he'd always be the last kid to leave. The daycare ladies knew it too. She saw it in their eyes when she arrived at six thirty instead of six o'clock. They had no idea. She never signed up to be a mom, but she knew that was no excuse. She hadn't expected to be pregnant. She had never especially wanted children. After Eddie, she always thought that if she could just be the best at her job that that would be enough. She wouldn't need anything else. But since having Jake, she could hardly imagine what she'd do without him.

It was when she first found out that she was pregnant, that Renee started to turn away from Garret. She didn't want to, but didn't know what else to do. After the Mulden case fiasco and her unfortunate interruption of Garret's kiss with a certain grief counsellor, they had stepped back from each other, even though neither especially wanted to. Then one night she ran into Eddie. She couldn't even remember how it happened, but it did. She had betrayed Garret in the worst possible way. After that she couldn't even bare to talk to him. She didn't want to hurt him. When she found that was having Jake, her world stopped. She had to tell him Garret about what happened with Eddie. She couldn't keep her swelling belly a secret for very long. And to add insult to injury she had to tell him the baby wasn't his. He was so mad. She didn't know what she'd expected his reaction to be. She just knew it wouldn't be good. He yelled at her. That was nothing new. They'd yelled at each other more times than either could count. But he looked at her that day in a way he had never looked at her before. As if he was disappointed in her. As if he hated her. She had to get out. She didn't go back to work that afternoon. She went home and cried for the first time in years. She blamed her tears on her pregnancy, but knew that that had nothing to do with it.