Insert apologies for posing nearly a YEAR later here. Insert excuses here (broke up with bf, moved states away, got fired, etc., etc.) Insert disclaimer here (do people even do that anymore?)

Maternity clothes were weird. The pants alone looked odd. They managed to fool you into believing they were normal pants, until you got to the top, to the strange elastic material. It looked like the stretchy bit varied, different lengths for different months in a pregnancy. And shirts either looked normal, with the exception of the larger belly, or they were 'cutesy'. I preferred the blouses that allowed for the larger belly, not that I had one yet. Emmett, however, liked to wander away and then come back holding a shirt, a huge grin on his face.

His first offense was with the usual shirt that everyone had seen at least once; the 'Baby on Board' shirt. I quickly shook my head, my eyes widening. "Put that back!"

He pouted, tucking the shirt under his arm. 'But why?'

"I'm not wearing that. Ever. Go put that back." Defeated, he walked away again, and I browsed through the rack behind me.

The next time he tapped on my shoulder, he had that grin again. This time, the offending clothing read, 'Daddy did it'.

"Put it back."

'Are you trying to tell me you don't want a fun shirt?'

"I'm telling you I don't want a shirt announcing to the world I'm pregnant."

'But you are pregnant. And it's not like you can hide it.'

"It doesn't mean I have to draw attention to it."

With another pout, he once again walked away. I laid another pair of pants over my arms and continued with my browsing.

The third time I got the tap on my shoulder, I sighed and braced myself. He was having much more fun here than I was, and though I guess I should have anticipated it... I hadn't. When I turned, he proudly held it up and smiled widely. There was a loading bar, with a baby next to it. 'Baby loading, please wait...' it said. I sighed heavily and glared at him, pointing back the direction he kept going. With a roll of his eyes, he once again walked away.

I didn't see him again until I had made my way to the checkout line, items on the conveyor belt. He came up behind me and pulled out the bar to separate purchases, setting a shirt down behind it. I turned to him. "What is that?"

'It's for me.'

I narrowed my eyes slightly and picked it up. 'Dad to be...' it said, above a loading bar, 'loading, please wait...'

"Are you serious?"

'Absolutely. The line is moving, go. And put that shirt back. It's mine and I like it.'

I shook my head, laughing as I set it down again, raising my hands in surrender. I moved up, paying once everything was scanned, Emmett finished soon after. He took my bags from me and carried them out to the car, putting them in the back before we both got in, going back home.

It was weird to think that we both lived in the same place. That his room was right next to mine. That he had spent the night there. This morning, he had been up before me, smiling when I finally did come down, asking immediately how I slept, how I felt, how the baby was... Like I really knew. It felt almost like... like we were a family.

Which I guess, in some sense of the word, we are. We're having a baby together, after all. That had to count for something... even if we didn't know what we were going to do. Where the baby was going to go.

I pulled up to the house and parked, getting out and managing to grab the bags before he did, sticking out my tongue. He rolled his eyes and darted towards me to take them. I squealed slightly and ran towards the door, running inside and up the stairs, ignoring my mom's calls of, "Bay, what are you doing?" I managed to get to the hallway when I heard him closing in behind me, his loud steps getting closer. I barely had time to open my bedroom door and step inside before his arm wrapped around me and I laughed loudly. I think it probably might have been my first, honest laugh in a long time. I threw the bags towards my bed, all but one missing, clothes spilling out, and Emmett spun me around, grinning. We were... close. And it felt better than I would have thought, to be against him again. He looked like he was about to lean down, to close the distance between our lips, and I quickly backed away.

"I won."

'You cheated.'

"I did not!"

'You had a head start.'

"Hey, if I'm as easy to read as everyone thinks, you should have seen this coming."

'I can carry things.'

"I'm barely pregnant. A few bags of clothes aren't going to be 'too heavy'. Talk to me when there's boxes involved. Or when I'm huge. I barely have a bump."

'How far along, again?'

"12 weeks. Which means I have... almost 30 more to go. Which is months and months of you carrying things."

He nodded slightly, getting lost in thought. I turned and went to the mess of clothes, picking them all up and setting them on my bed, grabbing his shirt and going back to him. He looked back up to me. "Here. Take your stupid shirt."

With a grin, he snatched it from my hand and turned away, leaving my room. I gently shut the door behind him and groaned slightly, resting my head against the door. That almost kiss... That wasn't good. Assuming it was an 'almost kiss' at all, and not just some figment of my imagination. I had been having a lot of day dreams, lately, and for whatever reason they usually made me dizzy. Except I wasn't getting dizzy, now. I felt a little out of breath, which I tried my best to chalk up to the running, but I wasn't fooling myself. It had been... No.

Shaking my head, I turned back to the clothes and hung them all up. It was almost dinner, there was no point in changing today. My life of maternity clothes would start tomorrow.

I went and sat on my bed, after a moment texting Daphne. 'Do you have a minute?'

It was a couple minutes before she texted me back. 'Sure. What's up?'

'Could you come up to my room, please?'

There was no response, but a few minutes later, there was a soft knock. She didn't wait for an answer, coming in and shutting the door behind her. "Hey. What's-"

"I think Emmett almost kissed me."

She blinked and was quickly sitting across from me on the bed. "What? When?"

"A few minutes ago? I don't know. I could have been my imagination. But we were close, and we were... we were having fun, and it almost felt like old times I guess, and-"

"Slow down! Slow down. Ok. First of all, if he did just try to kiss you... Did you want him to?"

I bit my lip and looked away, raising my hands to answer. 'A little.'

"And what stopped him?"

'Me. I walked away.'

"Ok. So you know he has feelings for you. And you have feelings for him." My head snapped up. "Don't say anything, I'm not stupid, you have feelings for him. Did you walk away because you're still punishing him?"

"He lives through that wall, Daphne, I'm not punishing him."

"You just don't trust him."

"I do. I do, I just... I don't know. I'm still... mad, I guess. And upset. And I just... I don't forgive him. Not yet, anyway. I know he's trying, I know that, but... I just haven't gotten that far. It's only been a few weeks."

"I get it. As long as you understand that, too."

"Yeah... Thanks."

"Of course! What are sisters for?" She smiled and got up, leaving the room again. It was a few minutes before I followed her out, going downstairs just in time for Kathryn to announce that dinner was finished, going upstairs to get Emmett herself. I got myself a piece of lasagna, covering it with probably too much cheese, but these days I could get too much of anything and easily pin it on the baby, even with people trying to dictate what I ate.

In the middle of dinner, there was a knock on the door, and I quickly got up. "I've got it, I've got it."

I opened the door, only to see John Kennish on the other side.