(A Very Ramble Filled) Author's Note

Hell yeah I'm back once again people. And sorry to break it too you guys; Erica's whereabouts are pretty much still on the down low in this chapter too. Yup, I enjoy making you guys sweat. =D I found this chapter a bit difficult to piece together; I wrote them as separate pieces which I then tied together. Also; attempting to write an itty bitty one-shot on the side. It's not a Friends related one though. Anyone who's seen my profile as of late and seen the kinds of stories I've been reading might get an idea what section it belongs in! Anyways, I must stop writing random tid-bits in these Author's Notes... they never have anything to do with the story more often than not. I just like to ramble! Anyways, kudos to the following awesome people; AilenNinja, The One With (awesome user name, by the way) and xXStrawberryBethXx for their reviews on the last chappie! On with my first double digit chapter ever!

Chapter Ten - Use Somebody

Emma sat on the bed in the now practically empty room that her beloved cousin had once inhabited. Now it was just a shell of the welcoming room she had once known. Photos had been torn down off the lime green walls and scattered around on the floor. Quite a number of the photos of Erica and her family had been ripped in half, faces had been scribbled out or scrunched up and thrown in the bin in the corner. Emma had found only one surviving picture of herself and Erica - either it had been too high for Erica to reach, or she hadn't seen the photo. It was an old photo of the two girls; when they had been in Junior Year perhaps. They were sitting on the beach on a trip they'd taken to Key West, Florida. It had been a difficult trip to organise; trying to get both families to get organised enough to go.

Emma sighed. She hoped she could back there one day. She'd enjoyed that holiday to no end; a group of them had gone jet-skiing. Emma went with her father (who shocked everyone by volunteering to go on!) as Erica had with hers; as neither had been old enough to drive them. They had sworn they'd go back again one day to do so.

Well, that plan may have gone out the window. Erica had vanished; and Emma wasn't sure if she'd ever be forgiven enough to go back to speaking terms.

Emma needed somebody to talk to. Badly. Andrea was busy with work and going through things of her own; Erica wasn't talking to her obviously, Luke was working - and a guy, Ben had caused the whole mess, so Emma didn't feel like seeing him. And she knew if she saw her parents she'd feel guilty that she hadn't told them about the whole Delilah thing. Delilah herself wouldn't be much good to talk to; she wasn't herself these days with the things she was dealing with. And Isabella... well Emma just didn't feel like talking to either of her sisters. That left very few options. But Emma could've really used somebody to talk to; whether they take her mind off things or not.

Almost as if fate was reading her mind, a doorbell interrupted Emma's thoughts. Strange; she hadn't even heard any car pull into the drive. And who would be visiting the house anyway? She sighed as she trudged downstairs to answer the door.

"Emma!" Mia yelped in surprise as her soon to be sister in law answered the door. Emma groaned internally. Her appearance seemed to be setting off alarm bells for everyone lately.

"Hey Mia. How've you been?" Emma asked, initiating the small talk.

"I've been... okay."

"That's good." Emma replied stiffly.

Uncomfortable silence. After five minutes of this, Mia couldn't take anymore.

"I came to apologise for Ben's behaviour last night... but Erica isn't around is she." she guessed.

"No," Emma sniffed, "she's gone."

"I'm sorry," Mia sighed, "everything went so wrong at that damn party."

"Have you and Ben patched things up yet?" Emma asked as she tossed another used tissue into the bin.

"Yeah, we talked a lot last night. About our... options."

"Options?"

"About children."

"Oh," Emma mumbled.

"It's just... Ben doesn't think the chances of him having kids are very good. I mean, Monica had to adopt."

"But my dad didn't," Emma pointed out, "he had four kids! Ben, myself, Isabella and Delilah."

"But... it's not just him to consider." Mia mumbled looking down at the ground.

Emma looked at the older women confused. "Mia, you're only in your early thirties; I'm sure you'll be fine."

"I know I'm young... it's just... I'm afraid."

"Of what?" Emma asked curiously. For the first time since Mia entered the house, Emma felt a little grateful she had. It was taking her mind off of her AWOL cousin.

"I'm afraid of ending up like my mother." Mia muttered, looking down at the ground.

Emma was even more confused. "What do you mean?"

"She died in childbirth... it doesn't happen very often anymore; but it does happen."

"Oh," was all Emma could respond with.

"I know it isn't a very genetic thing - well, I'm no doctor so I have absolutely no idea how these things work - but it still worries me." Mia said, as her voice broke a little.

Emma wasn't quite sure what to say, so she just went for something typical to say in a situation like this. "Mia, it's going to be okay," was her extremely creative reassurance.

"Emma I need to ask you something... but it would only be in a case of emergency. Me and Ben have talked about it, and he said not to say anything to you until we got tested. But I feel like I should ask you anyway, just so you know how much me and Ben trust you."

Emma wasn't entirely sure where this was going, but she could hazard a guess.

"Ask me what?" Emma asked somewhat hesitantly.

"If me and Ben aren't able to have children... we were thinking to go for the surrogate option. And we wondering if you could ever consider being a surrogate for me and Ben?"

Emma had had a feeling that when the conversation had gone in this direction, things wouldn't end well for her uterus.

Hooray! First chapter in double digits down! Hope you guys enjoyed it! And don't worry, you'll find out what happened to Erica soon enough! And could that have been a more random ending line? Oh and could you guess I've never been to Key West? *cough cough* ;)

x JTHT