A/N: I don't own what you recognize.

Hattie was dating Paul Churchill. George discovered this one windy April afternoon as he stood in line at Amir's Café. At first, he thought he was just standing in line behind two people who happened to look like Hattie and Paul, but then he heard Hattie's laugh. He immediately knew that it was them. And then Hattie turned around and saw him. She greeted him with an enthusiastic hug. "George!" she squealed. "Have you met my boyfriend, Paul?"

George claimed that he could see Paul bristling at the word "boyfriend." Regardless of how Paul reacted, George quickly replied that he had in fact met Paul before-when Paul was dating me. He then made some excuse as to why he couldn't get his lunch from Amir's anymore and then headed across the street to Cosi.

I wasn't entirely surprised to learn that Hattie was dating Paul. He was the sort of man to enjoy a fluttering, flattering girlfriend, and Hattie was exactly the sort of girl who would stroke his ego and laugh at even his lamest jokes. Hannah was pleased to see one of her "dearest friends" making her "darling brother-in-law so happy." West didn't say anything to me about his opinions. George and Mark were steaming mad and had both called Hattie a fool. Betsy, like me, wasn't surprised by this new relationship, but she definitely wasn't pleased.

Because Hannah was happy about Hattie's new relationship, I avoided talking to her about it. Hannah loved talking about it, but I knew better. I had dated Paul. I knew what Paul was like. He could be sweet and kind when he wanted to. He could be the boyfriend of Hattie's dreams. But he would never give her the commitment she craved. The three most magical words in the English language would be used without sincerity as a way to get her into his bed. I knew this from personal experience.

Hattie didn't tell me that she was dating Paul until about two weeks after George saw them at Amir's. And then she only told me because I ran into the two of them together at the Knit 'n' Lit. I had stopped in for a latte and some yarn on my way home from work. George had Elinor at home with him; this was probably for the best. The first indication that I had that Hattie and Paul were there was hearing Paul's voice say, "Man, is that Emma Woodhouse? She looks pretty darn good considering that she had a baby six months ago."

"Oh, I don't know," Hattie said softly. "I think that Emma always looks pretty."

"Are you serious? She was majorly fat after she had that brat. But now, now she looks great. You'd never even know she was ever pregnant."

It was true that I had lost all of my baby weight, something that I was chalking up to my newfound love of running and Elinor's newfound love of the baby jogger. I knew that I looked good. George had told me that he thought I looked great. But there was something uncomfortable about hearing my ex-boyfriend talk about me like I was an animal at a farm auction.

"If you want, I can show you pictures of the so-called brat on my phone," I said without turning around. "That way, you can know that I really did have a baby."

"I've seen the baby!" Hattie added in a tone of voice that was far too perky for the situation. "She's adorable. She looks just like Emma."

Paul rolled his eyes. "I hate babies. They're stupid."

"They grow up to be adults, Paul," I said flatly. "You were once a baby, you know."
"That was a long time ago, and I'm sure I was a very well-behaved baby."

I raised my eyebrows. "Well, as it happens, my daughter is also a pretty well-behaved baby. And some day, she will be an adult, and hopefully, she will have better manners by the time that she's your age than you do right now. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to buy a cup of coffee and go home to my ridiculously adorable baby who is one of the two greatest things to have ever happened to me."

"And what is the greatest?" Paul asked bitterly as I turned away from him.

"George Knightley," I replied without turning around.

"I can't believe you would speak to my boyfriend like that," Hattie ranted to me over the phone later that evening.

"Why?" I asked. "Long before he was your boyfriend, he was mine. And I'll gladly tell you that Paul Churchill is no saint."

"But he loves me!" she protested. "He said that he never really loved you."

"Oh that's sweet of him," I replied, leaning against George's chest.

"It's okay," she said quickly. "Paul said that you never loved him either. He said that you've always only ever loved George and that you were just using Paul as a placeholder until George was finally actually interested in you."

I was flabbergasted. "Are you serious? Paul actually said that."

"Yep," Hattie replied sweetly. "But it's okay because you have George now and he's perfect for you. But I think that Paul is perfect for me."

"Just be careful," I sighed. "I don't want to see you get hurt."

"Don't worry about me, Emma. I won't get hurt. Paul would never hurt me. He's too perfect for that."

"She's an idiot," George said after I ended the call. "I mean, she's sweet and she's cute. But she's an idiot."

I looked up at him. "Hattie is many things and one of them is my friend."

"Yeah, well, darling, your friend is an idiot."

I sighed. "I don't agree with her dating Paul, but I'm not sure that dating Paul makes her an idiot. If it did, then I would be an idiot too because I dated him."

George smiled. "It isn't dating Paul that makes her an idiot. It's the fact that she believes everything that he tells her blindly. You were never that gullible."

I shrugged. "I knew better than to just blindly trust him. To be honest, it probably had something to do with you."

"Is it because I'm so completely awesome that you were secretly in love with me?"

I snorted. "That's not what I meant. I meant that you were the voice of reason in my life."

He smiled. "I always wanted to make sure that you never really screwed up your life."

"And while I've done some pretty stupid stuff over the years, you never let me screw my life up completely."
"That's because I love you," he replied with a smile.

Hattie and Paul were still together and going relatively strong when May of 2013 rolled around. George and Mark had come to the conclusion that Hattie was genuinely interested in Paul and Paul was interested in Hattie because she reinforced his own opinions of himself. "She's hot and easy," Mark said. "It's a terrible thing to say, but it's true."

"I just want her to find someone who is actually worth her time," Betsy said.

"Honestly," I began slowly. "Honestly, I wish that she could find a way to get back together with Rob Martin. He was so good for her."

"But she blew it," Betsy protested. "There's no way that will ever work out after what she did."

"What if we could fix things?" I suggested. "We could explain things to him. We could convince him that she really is worth his while and that he really does want to spend the rest of his life with her."

"Emma, do you remember what David Tennant told Martha Jones in the season three episode, The Shakespeare Code?" my husband asked.

I looked at George with frustration. "Yes, I know. We're not supposed to interfere with established timelines except in the case of cheap tricks. But what does that have to do with me trying to fix things between Rob and Hattie?"

"You can't change the past," he replied flatly. "We can't change what's already happened."

"But we can change the future. The Doctor does that all the time."

George sighed. "Emma, if Hattie and Rob get back together, that will be their decision. We can't force it."

"But we could encourage it."

My husband wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. "Emma Clare, I love you for many reasons, but without a doubt, one of my favorite things about you is your optimism. You are always looking for the good in things and seeing the best in people."

I smiled. "I believe that all people are inherently good. It's life that screws them up."

He laughed. "Is that why you dated Paul?"

"Sort of," I replied. "Paul was my bad boy. Paul was the boy I thought I could change."

Mark snorted. "You thought you could change Paul Churchill?"

I shrugged. "All girls go through that phase. It's like Rory with Jess on Gilmore Girls. We meet a really attractive bad boy. We know that he's flawed. We know that we shouldn't be able to fix him. We know that we probably won't be able to fix him. But we still try. We know that we probably can't change him, but we still want to try to change him."

"And that was your relationship with Paul?" Mark asked, skepticism consuming his voice.

I nodded. "And now it's Hattie's relationship with Paul. I learned my lesson the hard way. I couldn't change Paul. I didn't change Paul. But if a girl is lucky, there's a good boy waiting to catch her when she falls after the bad boy pushes her too far."

"And that was George for you?"

I nodded again. Call me a bobble-head if you must.

Mark turned to his wife. "Did you have a bad boy in your dating career prior to me?"

"Not unless you count Jamie," Betsy replied. "He's the only guy I ever really dated besides you. I mean, I had a crush on a couple of bad boys in high school, but none of that ever went beyond the crush phase."

"Betsy was always the Good Girl," I explained. "She was never the sort of girl who would do the sort of stupid things that I did when I was younger."

Betsy shrugged. "I think I just managed to scare all the bad boys away with my yarn store. Bad boys don't want to date a woman who owns a yarn store."
"But college professors are attractive to bad boys?" Mark asked.

His wife nodded. "It's the same principle as the one that leads your crazy-girl students to hit on you. You're hot, therefore you're fair game to them."

Mark rolled his eyes. "I am not hot. I don't know why everyone thinks I'm hot."

"You look like Henry Cavill," I explained flatly. We had been over this far more times than I could count or even try to remember. "Henry Cavill is hot. Ergo, you are hot."

He shook his head. "I don't look like Henry Cavill, and I'm not hot."

"You can think whatever you want," I told him, patting his shoulder. "But Betsy and I know the truth."

The semester ended the last week of April. Three weeks later, George and I bought our first house together. It was a big step for both of us, especially for me. I began to feel as though, since ending my relationship with Paul, I had finally evolved into an adult. I got married. I gave birth to my first child. I bought a house. I gained a more adult perspective on my emotions. I learned a truer, more incredible love than I had ever known before, a love that I learned from George. If it weren't for the end of my relationship with Paul, I never would have realized the depth of my love for George. He wasn't just a friend. He wasn't just an older brother figure. He was the great love of my life. He protected me. He defended me. He listened to me. He respected me. He held my hand in dark moments and laughed with me in good moments. He was the most important person I could or would ever know. I would never stop being grateful that I had him in my life. He hade made and was making my life and my daughter's life a better life than I could have ever imagined.

A/N: Please review!