AN: Wow - thanks to everyone who read and commented the first chapter. And those who favourited and alerted it as well. I appreciate your' awesome response. I also wanted to add to my disclaimer: I, er, borrowed the title from the Joshua Radin song I wrote the first chapter to(/guilty conscience). I know I said that this would be a two-parter but I kind of, sort of can't fit it all in one go. So there will be a third chapter and I'll try to have it up very, very soon.


The words are like a slap. Icy shock rockets through him, scouring through his veins. It felt like falling he'd fallen through ice, hands clawing from beneath, lungs burning for air. His hands drop limply to his sides. His gaze falls to her stomach, flat beneath her black t-shirt. He tries to envision a baby nestled in there, somewhere deep inside her. But he can't.

"You're … ?"

"Yes."

"But we always …" use protection.

"I guess we just got a bad condom on the right day. I don't know how it happened Sam." She smiles wryly. "I'm not sorry about it though – I can't be. I've been thinking about it a lot lately - having children. I'm thirty-six years old. This might be my last chance to have a baby. So I can't be sorry for getting pregnant."

She'd gone in for her annual physical, one of the bosses' new rules, booking a lunch-hour appointment with her doctor's downtown office. The woman, Dr. Mays was a short and plump maternal looking type, likely nearing her mid fifties. White shot through her hair, scooped tidily back in a bun. She was the type that could probably herd circus over a small platoon of chicken-pox victims and think nothing of it. She exuded competence. Which was partially the reason Jules' liked her so much. She was a clear and consummate professional.

So when she'd frowned down at the charts in front of her, flipping through the pages, eyes narrowing behind her wire-rimmed glasses, Jules had begun mentally churning through the possibilities. And realization rammed through her. She was late. She was very. Very. Late.

"Ms. Callaghan, the results of your blood test show some anomalies." Mays stated. "Is there a chance that you might be pregnant?"

"I … uhm. I guess so." She answered meekly. Her head felt light and the tips of her fingers tingled. She curled them into first, urging that wishful response and the hope that fluttered in her gut to subside. It still simmered there, just below the surface. She didn't want to think of the possibility. Not when the disappointment would be so raw.

"The blood test we ran had high levels of hGC – it's a hormone produced when a fetus implants in the uterus. I'd like to run another blood test and take a urine sample to be certain, but I feel fairly confident in saying that you're expecting."

"I …" Jules couldn't speak, gaze dropping to her stomach. She raised a hand tentatively, resting it over her belly. Wow. Just wow. "Should I book an ultrasound?" She didn't know the smallest thing about babies or pregnancy. Did you get ultrasounds? Should she be taking vitamins? God, she'd had two beers at the Goose last week. Christ.

"Well that depends. When was your last period?" The doctor settled onto her stool, tapping her pen against the clipboard.

Jules searched her memory. "First week of April, I guess?"

"Seven weeks." The doctor calculated, jotting down a quick note.

"It's not unusual for me to miss one. After I was shot I didn't have one for almost four months." Jules defended herself. How had she not noticed?

The doctor merely looked down through those small wire spectacles. "Mmhm. And you're still with the SRU, Mrs. Callaghan?"

"Yes." She nodded.

"Well, normally we don't offer tests this early. Usually we perform an ultrasound at about 10 weeks, but given that your job is unusually strenuous and your age, we can push it up. The clinic has an ultrasound. If you don't mind waiting twenty minutes I can squeeze you in."

And so, within the hour, she found herself lying on the ultrasound bench, pants shimmied down to her hip bones and shirt shoved up. She examined her exposed stomach. It didn't look any different – no gentle swell. At least she didn't think so.

"Shouldn't I be bigger?" She blurted out.

Dr. Mays smiled, uncapping the bottle of gel "No. At seven weeks, it would be about the size of a blueberry. Your first pregnancy you might not start showing until the second trimester – about the 12 week more. You've got a while longer yet."

They were going to plumb the depths of her internal organs for something the size of a berry? Jules thought incredulously.

The doctor squeezed a generous heap of the cool gel onto her stomach. The muscles contracted involuntarily but Mays ruthlessly marched on, pressing the flat ultrasound wand to her belly. She smeared the gel across her abdomen in clean, efficient lines.

Jules strained up on her elbows, trying to see the monitor. The numbers and letters across made out some sort of incomprehensible code. She could understand her name – J. Callaghan – but no more. Beside that: nothing. The screen was just a mass of black and white lines, shifting together in a nauseating twirl of patterns.

She glanced at Dr. Mays. Her face squinted in concentration, pressing the wand more firmly to her stomach.

"It might be too early to see anything but … Ah. Ah, there we have it." She smiled, gesturing to the tiny black pocket that had emerged on the screen. At the centre was an unmistakable, pulsing white blob.

That was it. That was the thing that made it real. Watching that blurry, hazy lump on the monitor thump and squirm, in and out of focus. She was going to have what she'd been aching for. Joy and love swamped her. For that little thing – barely even a thing at all – growing there, inside her.

She'd gotten two copies of the sonogram, without even thinking. She'd driven back to HQ, heart beating wildly out of her chest, picture pressed to the inside pocket of her coat. It was only when she threaded her jeep into her stall that reality had slammed her, harsh and bitter.

She slides a picture out of her back pocket and strokes one loving finger over the tiny being. She slowly extends it to him.

He peers down at it, without taking it. There's not head or arms or legs. No discernible, recognizable parts that he can tell. But it's there. Tiny, growing. A child.

"How long have you known?"

"Not long. A day or two." She wished he'd take the damn sonogram instead of looking at it like some alien lifeform in her hand.

"You were going to leave without telling me." His voice is horribly cold. He doesn't sound like Sam at all. She tries to reign in the regret, but it's useless. She feels miserable for keeping it from him.

"I'm sorry." She wasn't sure how many times she'd said it – how many more she'd have to. "I was trying to protect you."

"From what, Jules? Having to take some responsibility? Do you think so goddamned little of me? Do you think I didn't deserve to be a father? That our son or daughter should grow up thinking I didn't give a damn about them? Is the idea of having a baby with me that fucking awful?" He pushes away from her to pace, angrily striding across her small living room in quick steps.

"No. That wasn't the reason." She insists.

Suddenly he's the one that can't look at her. She grabs his hand, clenches it, knuckles whitening and her fingers bite into his palm. "Listen to me Sam." She begs.

"This is a career killer. I'm okay walking away from the SRU – because I've got something bigger to live for now. But if it comes out that I left because I'm pregnant – that you're the father? Sarge would be dismissed forever letting this happen. Even Ed and Spike would get called up for having turned a blind eye. Even if they didn't know they'd hang for it. And you? You'd be destroyed. I didn't want that for you. I thought if I went away, everything could stay the same for you."

"So, what, it came down to you and the baby or the job? And you decided you'd just pick for me?"

"I didn't want to ask you …" to stay. Her voice trailed off.

"Couldn't ask me what Jules? Couldn't ask me for help? Couldn't ask me to stand by you? Yeah. You couldn't possibly stand to ask me for anything because you're terrified I might have said no. You're scared to need anyone because they might let you down. Because you might get hurt. So you decide you can't depend on anybody. Jules fucking Callaghan doesn't need anyone, does she?"

His chest heaves with each ragged breath. She's never seen him angrier.

"Sam, no. I do need you." She has to explain – she has to make him see.

"Do you remember what you said about Kovacs, that day at Godwin? You said that when you come back, you just want to feel something again. You'll do anything to feel anything. When you joined us, you were dead inside. We could all see that. You tried so hard because you needed something to fight for. Team One brought you alive again. I didn't want to take that from you."

"Jules." He interjects.

"I'm sorry. What I did was wrong. I know that. I'm scared. I'm really, really scared, Sam. I just … thought I was doing the right thing."

Sam pressed his fingers to his aching temples. "I do love the job." He said slowly, after what amounted to the longest silence of Jules' life. "I'm not going to deny that. I'm not even going to deny that it saved me. I was headed to a dark place and you guys pulled me around. But this – what I could have with you? It is so much more important."

He reaches for her hand and, gripping it in hers, pressed it to her stomach. "I want this baby. I want you. I want this family."

"I do to." She murmurs. She glances down at their interlocked fingers. She wants that more than anything. They could be a normal family – the kind that doesn't have to hide behind closed door, living in stolen minutes. If they were normal they could proudly announce to their friends and family that's she expecting. She could be excited about the idea of her stomach swelling, growing with their baby. Instead it was just another terrifying sign of their deceit.

"I'll switch to another team." Sam promises. That was the solution she offered him once – one he was too stupid to take.

"No." Jules shakes her head. "I don't want you to do that. I'm not going back to the SRU." She smiles sadly.

"Why not?"

"My mother left our family when I was three months old. Never even looked back. Just walked away. None of us were as important as her freedom. I grew up with a mother and I don't want that for my own child. I was shot on the job. I nearly died. I felt that bullet tear into me and I thought it was all over for me. I can't go to work everyday and put myself in the line of fire and know that every time I do I could leave her an orphan. I want them to know that they came first. That they're the most important thing in the world and I wouldn't risk having to leave them alone."

Her hands tremble beneath his. It strikes him, for the first time, exactly how terrified she is. How utterly hopeless their situation is. Grasping at straws was too generous a term.

"It wouldn't solve our problem anyway. Toth is going to know. He's got us under a microscope. If he finds out that I'm pregnant it's all over. For the whole team." She adds softly.

"Okay, so we'll both go. Wherever you go, I go." He promises. He can't school the frustration from his voice; it's rough with anger and helplessness.

"Both of us resigning in the same week? Sam. We can't. The team can't handle training three new officers at once. Raf's still got the rookie shine. Besides – Toth would suspect something if we both took off at the same time. He'd come down on the team just as hard."

"We don't have a choice." Sam's frustration is clear.

"We always have a choice. It's just not a very easy or happy one." She smiles wistfully, pulling her hands out from beneath his.