Walker and Alex left CD's that night in silence. It was either that neither could believe or wanted to believe in the day's events that caused such hush.

In bed, when Walker usually rolled over to talk to Alex about menial stuff, he remained quiet, stiff. He starred up at the ceiling, counting the times the fan circled before his attention completely drifted off to his niece.

In his mind now, she was 4 again, and huddled into a ball on the bedroom floor. The neighbors had just called him due to an escalating argument That Ann, and James, Faith's father, were having.

"There's a little girl in there, ya know" The neighbors voice rang so clearly in his mind that if he hadn't known better, he'd have said she was still standing next to him.

"Thank you ma'am" Had been his reply, as he opened the door to see Faith huddled and scared of her own parents. When they argued, they sure did argue.

Faith was now 8 in his mind, and he was, yet again, called in as reinforcement to his sister and brother-in-law's excessive fighting. He walked in, expecting to find Faith hiding in one of the various corners of the house, only she wasn't. He remembered finding her in her bed, sound asleep. It was the first argument that hadn't awakened her, and though good as it may have been she was getting sleep, it also meant she was becoming accustomed to her parents' fighting; something which, in Walker's eyes, was not healthy for an 8 year old girl.

"You have to stop this, Ann" He had warned. "She's not going to be 8 years old forever"

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Walker could still feel the fire from his sister's tone that night.

"It means that she's going to grow up and run. Now look, Alex and I talked it over and we want Faith to come live with us. It's a healthier environment"

"Over my dead body" Those were the final words Ann spoke to him before getting up and storming out.

At 12, Faith scored the winning goal on her soccer team, and at 13 she made the winning shot on her school's basketball team.

At 14 she joined the swim team, and at 15 she joined Student Government, which was only because she'd taken up boys as a hobby and fell for the president.

At 16 and 17 she got her first job, bought her first car, and decided that with her life, she wanted, for some unearthly reason, to work with homicide cases. Walker understood why HE wanted to work with psychos, but why his niece decided to try tracking down serial killers was far beyond his comprehension.

At 18 she graduated high school as valedictorian, and held a position at the state university.

Life was traveling full speed ahead for Faith, but Walker, Alex, and their friends never missed a moment though. They were always on the sidelines, cheering her on and showing support. After all, that's what family did, right?

And now she was 20, and by 21 she would have a child of her own to share with them, and they would once again have someone to stand on the sidelines and root for. He couldn't understand why the initial thought of Faith being a mother scared him; sure, she would struggle financially, but he knew now that she was capable of anything, and while it would be hard, she would make a fine mother.

……….. …………… …………….. ……………… ……………….. ………………. ..

The next morning presented itself with as much troubles concerning morning sickness as did the last. From the bathroom, the scent of her last dinner wafted into her room (thanks to her 5 am hurling,) and disconcerted her stomach once again.

Hastily, she bounced to her feet and ran into the bathroom. Head in toilet, all of what she had left in her stomach rushed to the surface and relieved her.

She had been so busy on her date with the toilet that she almost didn't hear her aunt and uncle walk in. "Faith?" Alex looked around, a bit appalled at the mess she saw; Faith had always been a clean fanatic, so seeing a mess couldn't have meant anything good came from the early stages of pregnancy.

"I'll be out in a minute" Faith closed her bedroom door and decided upon getting dressed. With the closet doors open, she poked around to find something cute and comfortable to wear and settled on a loose fitting pair of jeans and a cute, red maternity top she'd gotten from Wal-Mart the other day. Combing her hair back, she left it to dangle loosely on her shoulder and walked out. Her "pregnancy" belly was more obvious to the naked eye now, and she looked rather tired.

"We brought some breakfast for you" His hand reached over and handed her a brown paper bag. Under normal circumstances, she would have been grateful, even elated, but now, all she could do force a smile and try not to gag at the smell of the contents.

"Thanks but I just" Pause as she looked at her watch, it was 9 a.m., "spent the last four hours getting rid of last nights dinner. I'll maybe save this for later." She wrapped the food up in some plastic wrap and stuffed it in her refrigerator, hoping the barrier between her and the inside of the refrigerator could sustain the scent of the food.

Her aunt was staring at her stomach, and by the looks of it was aware of the staring issue. "Its okay" Faith said, "you can touch". All who knew by now that she was pregnant made the quick habit of patting her stomach daily, so she was by far used to the idea.

Alex, on the other hand, couldn't, for the life of her, understand why the stomach amazed her. Why she needed to touch it. 'I guess' she thought, 'it's because I've watched her grow and learn. She's related, she's close, not like all the other times.'

She placed her cool hand amongst the tiny, but visible bump and smiled. "Does it hurt?" 'What kind of question is that?!' she thought to herself, feeling entirely stupid.

Faith just smiled though. "Not really. I mean, my ego does because I've gained weight, but that's about it. Actually, it doesn't really feel like anything unusual, almost like nothings there. But then there's this other part of me that knows a life is forming inside of me, and instead of hurting or scaring me, it excites me, it makes me feel like I'm finally doing something that can only be perceived of as right."

Alex smiled, longing to feel that emotion. "Are you scared?"

"Like hell" It was a simple reply to a simple question, though this was the first time she'd ever admitted to being scared about the whole thing. "I mean, once this baby's here, there'll be no more practice sessions….But being scared doesn't mean it's not happening, and the thing to remember is that you can overcome that fear; that once that baby's in your arms he or she is yours forever, and nobody can change that. All you can do is try your best and give it as much love as possible and there's no way to fail at that"

"How did you get to be so smart?"

"Oprah, I think" She winked, turning to grab her purse. "Now, for the better part of the day I have to sit in a classroom, so will you guys lock up when you leave please?"

"Of course; have a good day in class sweetie" Alex closed and locked the door behind her niece. Unlike her and Walker, Faith looked at this whole pregnancy deal a completely different, more positive way. It wasn't, she realized, something to be afraid of. And it wasn't something that would take away from anyone's life; it simply was an addition to what was already there. And now, more than ever, her biological clock too began ticking.