A/N: Hey guys, sorry it's been another slow update. This one goes out to The Sway Wannabe, who is constantly pestering me to update… thank you, it's what I need :) Hope you like it. Remember, this started mid-season 5ish, so we have no Lucy, but a different baby, no dead Angell and DEFINITELY no Adam/Stella. AT ALL.

Smile like you mean it

Hawkes was half running down the hospital corridor, the time seeming to fall through his hands, like an hourglass. Lindsay's baby couldn't be coming, not this early, and Danny had sounded so panicked down the phone, and no one could seem to get hold of Flack, Angell, Sid or Adam…

He reeled into the room, and what he saw there gave him the shock of his life.

Everything was pristine, perfect, the way it should be. Lindsay, looking tired and flushed, but healthy, sitting up in bed, and Danny perched on the edge, holding a tiny baby swathed in a blue blanket. Angell and Sid were already standing at the end of the bed, smiles breaking on both their faces. Lindsay looked up as Hawkes entered, giving him a tired smile.

"Don just went outside to call you and Adam." Angell breathed, and then returned her gaze to stare at the tiny sleeping boy in Danny's arms.

"Liam Mac Messer." Danny said quietly, and they all nodded. There hadn't been another option for the middle name, not really, and there were no prizes for guessing, either, what it would have been if the baby had been a girl.

They all stood quietly around the tiny new life, as if, for a few moments, they could forget.

Stella gripped the rim of the toilet bowl until her knuckles turned white, heaving forward, her whole body convulsing as she emptied the contents of her stomach. Eventually, she managed to sit back on her heels on the toilet floor, shaking, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, though not with the nausea. She was shuddering in fear.

She wasn't stupid, never had been, and she knew that as this was the third morning in a row she'd been up before the crack of dawn vomiting into the toilet, something wasn't right. And she thought she knew all too well was exactly that was.

She couldn't have a baby. This was impossible, this was ridiculous, she was in a fake marriage, for Christ's sake, and however wonderful Mac might be, however wonderful she might be able to pretend it was… she simply couldn't be starting a family. For one, their situation was still dangerous. Would always still be dangerous. And Mac was… Mac was Mac, and although in the last few weeks things had been perfect, blissful between the two of them, she couldn't help thinking that this was too much, too soon.

She leant against the cabinet, counting weeks, counting months, counting chances. They'd been trying to be careful… they were always trying to be careful, but the night of her birthday, the emotions had been so heated, and the words Mac had almost said hanging in the air between them… she just wasn't sure. That was just under a month ago now…

The nausea rose in her throat again as she realised the possibilities, and she retched into the toilet, salty tears streaming out of her eyes with the force of it all.

When it was over, she rinsed her mouth out, dried her face, and darted out of the bathroom for her early morning run, keeping her head down and trying her utmost to avoid her husband.

***

Stella, now Rachel, had become a stereotype of a stereotype of a housewife in the past weeks. She went out for a run early every morning, cooked breakfast – she was, they both were, beginning to get the hang of cooking now, slipping with ease into their guise, rather than with struggle and Bolognese sauce coating the kitchen walls – visited Elena next door, who was on bed rest now, due to the difficult pregnancy, did a spot of shopping, cleaned the house, and cooked dinner with Mac when he got in from work in the evening. It wasn't perfect – the frustration at not being able to be cops, the one thing that had always defined the pair of them, was undeniable, and sometimes unbearable, but they muddled through, smiling and holding hands and musing about the team back in New York. Stella had become friendly with Elena next door, and there was something comforting about that.

In retrospect, Stella would look back and wonder whether or not she could sense there was something not quite right with Elena and Rodrigo, something almost akin to the situation she and Mac were in, and that was why she'd taken so very well to the young Hispanic woman, but in the next breath she would wonder how she could possibly have known. Elena's house was kept perfectly, immaculately, and their guise was flawless, without a single fault line.

The story Stella knew was that they had just moved from Ohio, and they'd been married a year, and the baby they were expecting was their first. Rodrigo was a high-school teacher, Elena had worked for a firm of surveyor's before her maternity leave. They seemed very much in love, very prepared for the baby, very normal, and Stella found and almost jealousy rising inside her at the perfect little mirage her friend was laying out, that everything, for her, was wonderful. Everything was natural, nothing was forced, pretend.

Looking back on it, she would laugh bitterly at how wrong she had been.

But that day, when she stopped in with a box of shop-bought brownies for her friend, and sat on the edge of her bed and poured her some green tea, she was all smiles and light.

"I hope she comes soon…" Elena complained, patting a hand absent-mindedly over her distended belly. "I'm not sure how long I can take this."

"It'll be worth it when she arrives." Stella smiled, her own stomach twisting in knots at the thought of her epiphany that morning.

"Are you alright, Rachel?" Elena asked, cocking her head to one side and studying her neighbour. "You look… pale."

She swallowed, wishing her cheeks would regain some colour instantly, so Elena would brush off her comment as a mistake, wishing she didn't have to take the home pregnancy test in her shopping back in the hall up into the bathroom she and Mac shared and watch a clock to determine her own future.

"Just a virus, I think." She half-whispered, wondering if she sounded in the slightest bit convincing, "Just been feeling a little washed out lately."

Elena gave her a reassuring smile, her dark eyes softening around the edges, and she leant her head back slightly, closing her eyes.

A loud buzzing from the bedside drawer made her lift her head, and the transformation was tangible. Her eyes hardened, her fists clenched, and she jolted up in the bed with surprising agility. Within seconds, she'd pulled a black cell phone from the drawer and pressed it to her ear, refusing to meet Stella's eye.

"Yes… uh huh… of course… everything's fine… I'm with a friend… ok… thank you…" Elena's answers to the voice on the other end were sharp, and her voice seemed to take on a slightly different tone as she spoke. Stella watched the changes in her friend's face, changes most people wouldn't have noticed, but years in interrogation gave her a distinct advantage. Elena's eyes were suddenly wide, and she looked very young, but her jaw was set, her teeth clenched – she looked frightened, but determined. She plastered a false smile on her face as she hung up the phone, sliding it straight back into the drawer, out of view, and turned to Stella.

"My mother in law." She said, and although she was very good at it, Stella recognised the lie, "I'd rather not speak to her for long."

And the silence fell between them, because they both knew it was all smoke and mirrors.

***

When Mac came home, he went straight upstairs to shower, whilst Stella was cooking dinner, humming lightly to herself and trying to forget the events of the day. What he found, carelessly left by a mind that was overwrought by worry, changed everything.

Stella turned round when he stepped into the kitchen, smile plastered over her features. Mac held the home pregnancy test in one hand.

"Stell?"

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes were stinging. She hadn't wanted him to find it, not like that, still in it's packaging, it's owner not quite ready yet to use it.

He took a shaking step towards her, and she could read the fear in his eyes mirroring her own.

"I… I…" there were no words that were bridging the gap between her racing heart, her rushing brain, and her mouth, which was gasping for air.

"Did you?"

"Not yet." She managed, and he closed the gap between them and took her hand, wrapping his arms around her. He was there, he was present, but something about his hold was hard and cold, soaked in terror.

They stood there in silence for long moments, lost in their own thoughts.

"Want to… do it now?" his voice was low, so quiet she almost missed it.

***

He held her hand as they waited, and she put her head in her hands and refused to look at him. The safe haven she'd created was crumbling.

After the allotted time, he picked it up, because she couldn't.

"Negative." He whispered, and she burst into tears.

***

She was already half-asleep when he climbed into bed, and her pulled her close to him and kissed her just in front of her ear.

"I love you." He breathed, and she was just awake enough to hear.

***

Next door, screaming in pain and cursing in Spanish, the woman whose name wasn't really Elena gave birth to a baby girl, and as her husband placed her in her mother's arms for the first time, she whispered her name.

"Ellidy."

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