A/N - I wasn't planning to go into a lot of detail about the pregnancy, but a few of you mentioned looking forward to reading about the kids' reactions, and I'm only here for my readers! This is a quickie, but here goes.

Thanks for reading and for your suggestions!

"Well, Wayne," Paige said with an excited smile, "I just want you to know that you're going to have a little brother or sister soon."

"A little brother!" Wayne yelled enthusiastically, pumping his fist into the air.

"Well, we don't know that yet."

"Oh." Wayne was disappointed. He thought Paige was asking him to make the choice.

"Why do you want a little brother?"

"Because boys are cooler than girls."

Paige rolled her eyes. She'd raised Wayne better than that. But she understood his reaction. It was very age-appropriate. "Well, what about Anna? Is she cool?" Wayne nodded. "See? You don't wish that she were a boy, do you?"

Wayne shrugged his shoulders. "Sometimes!"

Paige couldn't help laughing to herself. Her arguments may have been valid for an adult, but not a five-year-old boy. She knew better than to try to argue with him. "Look, Sport, I'm just saying. Suppose this child ends up being a girl. You'd still love her, right?"

Wayne took a moment. "Yes, I'd still love her. Just not as much as if she were a boy."

Paige face-palmed. Wayne, seeing her distress, tried to make her feel better.

"It's okay, Mommy," he said softly. "I already know that it's a girl."

"You do, huh?" Wayne nodded. "And how do you know that?"

"Because, if it were a boy, you'd tell me. But you won't say it's a girl until you try to get me used to the idea."

"But, that's just it, Wayne. I don't know whether it's a boy or a girl."

"So, who gets to choose?"

"Nobody gets to choose!"

"Does God choose?"

Paige shrugged her shoulder. "Some people think so."

"Well, I'm going to ask God to make it a boy."

"Good luck with that," Paige muttered to herself. She decided to change her strategy. "But, Wayne, if it's a boy," she said, trying to sound distressed, "I'll be outnumbered! You don't want me to be the only girl, do you?"

Wayne thought it over for a minute. "But, Mommy, if it's a girl, I'll be outnumbered! You don't want me to be the only boy, do you?"

"Don't you think it would be nice for Mommy to have a son and a daughter?"

"What about Anna?"

"What about Anna?"

"Well, if you and Ms. Emily get married, won't Anna be your daughter?"

Paige smiled, not out of amusement, but at the possibility that Wayne had gotten some inside information, like the time he announced that Emily liked her. She decided to do a little fishing. "Who said anything about me and Ms. Emily getting married?" she asked coyly.

"I don't know. But you love her, right?"

"Yes, I do."

"And don't people who love each other get married?"

"Well, it starts with love, Champ. But it takes more than that. The people have to be committed to each other."

"What does 'committed' mean?"

"It means..." Paige sighed as she thought about how to explain it. "It means that, whatever happens, they decide that you're going to stay with that person."

"Are you and Ms. Emily committed?"

"We're working on it..."

"Oh." Paige could see Wayne filing that information away, trying to process it.

"Listen, though," she told him in a serious tone. "This is just family business, okay? You don't need to tell anybody that we talked about it."

"But you said Ms. Emily was like family."

"And she is... It's just... I just don't to put pressure on her, if she thinks that I'm talking about marriage. Do you get what I'm saying?"

Wayne nodded his head. He was quiet for a moment, and then he perked up. "Mommy, I don't want Anna to be a boy. I like her the way she is, even though she's a girl!"

Paige hugged her son, laughing at his epiphany. But she got serious, knowing that she had to tell him the rest of the story. "Well, there's one more thing, Hon. Your Daddy is also the daddy of this baby."

"He is?"

Paige nodded. "But, that's family business, okay?"

"Okay." Wayne acknowledged that, but quickly moved on to the question in his head. "But you and Daddy aren't committed anymore!"

"I know, Sweetheart. It's just... Well, babies take a long time to be born, and, sometimes, things change after you start the process." Wayne's blank expression said that this was going over his head. "Look, let's say your Daddy and I put some cookies in the oven, and then he got called in to go to work before the cookies were done. The cookies would still come, and they would still be our cookies, but he wouldn't be there to enjoy them." Paige smiled to herself for having come up with that example. She carried it a step further. "And, let's say, when you got home from school, I told you that we had put some cookies in the oven. You might want chocolate chip, but, if we had already made oatmeal raisin , it would be too late to change it. But you'd still like the oatmeal raisin cookies, wouldn't you?" She swiped his face with her index finger, excited about the clever point that she had made.

Wayne nodded, but added, mischievously, "But not as much!"

"Not as much!" Paige tickled him and gave him a hug. "Well, at this point," she told him, "I don't know whether we're getting chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin."

"Mommy, is Daddy going to take the baby?"

"Well, he and I have to talk about that, but, no, the baby's going to stay with us."

Wayne nodded his approval. "Good." A moment later, he asked, "Mommy, were your eyes closed?"

Paige was stunned at the question. It seemed a little personal, though, of course, Wayne was too young to know about how babies are conceived.

Before she could address his confusion, he expanded on the question. "When you and Daddy put the cookies in the oven," he clarified. "Is that why you don't know what kind of cookie?"

Paige laughed at the model that Wayne had constructed in his head. "Yes, Champ," she told him. "I closed my eyes, because I wanted it to be a surprise!"

That was a good enough explanation for the time being, she decided. She really didn't want to get into the subject of unplanned pregnancy or the beauty of the human reproductive cycle.

Wayne was quick to move on. "Mommy, can we make some cookies?"

"That sounds like a great idea," Paige said, grateful that she had put an idea in his head that got him to move past their conversation. It was a lot for him to process in one sitting. She knew that they would come back to the subject later.

"And, let me guess: You want to make chocolate chip cookies!"

Wayne nodded eagerly, but he touched Paige's arm, leaning in as if to tell her a secret. "But, sometimes, I want oatmeal raisin cookies, too."

"You know, Ms. Paige is going to have a baby," Emily announced, as she and Anna worked on dinner.

"Is that why her stomach is getting bigger?"

"You think her stomach is getting bigger?"

"No, but Auntie Hanna said."

Emily chuckled. "Oh, she did, did she? Did she say that Ms. Paige is pregnant?"

"No," Anna said without emotion or judging, "she said that Ms. Paige must be slacking off in the gym, now that she's got you locked down."

"I..." Emily gasped. She didn't even know where to begin. "Do you know what that means?"

Anna nodded. "Uh huh!"

Emily shook her head. Had it been anybody else, she might have warned Anna against talking to her anymore. Or she might have talked to that person about what was and what was not appropriate to say around her daughter. But it was Hanna. Why should Emily be surprised that she would say something like that to a five-year-old?

"Well, trust me," Emily said, pointing with the wooden spoon that she had been using to stir some batter, "Ms. Paige is not the type of person to slack off!"

"Okay, Mommy." Anna didn't know quite what to make of that comment.

"Anyway, she hasn't started telling people yet, so, please don't tell anybody."

Emily realized that she needed to have a talk with Paige. If Hanna noticed her nascent baby-bump, other people would, too, and Paige might want to get out in front of the story.

As they continued their work in the kitchen, Anna noticed the smile that Emily was wearing. "Mommy, why are you smiling?"

"Hmm?" Emily stepped away from her dreams for a moment. "Oh, I'm just excited for Paige, I suppose." She stopped to hug Anna. "I remember when you were just a little one... holding you in my arms, seeing you smile, changing your poopy diapers..."

"Ew! Gross! You liked changing my diapers?"

Emily shrugged. "I didn't mind your diapers. The potty was the thing that got me. I'm so glad that's over with! But, anyway, yeah, I kind of miss it. It's all part of being a mommy."

At that point, Anna wasn't so sure what the advantages to being a mommy were.

"Well," Emily said, still smiling, "Ms. Paige is probably going to need some help, once the baby comes. We might have to have playdates with Wayne, if she needs to take care of the baby. And we might even have to take the baby sometimes. Are you okay with that?"

Anna nodded. She enjoyed having playdates with Wayne. And she wouldn't mind a baby to play with, as long as Emily was the one changing the diapers. "I'm okay with it, Mommy."

"Are you going to be my helper, if I have to help Ms. Paige?"

Anna nodded. "But not poopy diapers!"

Emily rubbed her daughter's shoulder, excited about the adventure that lay ahead of them. She kind of wished that Paige had already talked to Trevor, so that they could start telling other people. Hanna, in particular. She knew that Hanna would have a million comments and questions, most of them inappropriate.

"So, how was your day? How are you feeling?"

Emily had called Paige to find out how Wayne had taken the news, to let her know that she had told Anna, and to fill her in on Hanna's comment. They knew, of course, that people were going to start noticing and speculating sooner or later. Emily wanted Paige to know that it might be sooner than they thought.

But, mainly, Emily just wanted to talk to Paige; to hear her voice, and to find out how she was feeling.

"My day's been good," Paige said, sounding more tired than enthusiastic. "I'm not looking forward to meeting Trevor tomorrow."

"Did you tell him why you wanted to meet him?"

"No," Paige said with a scoff. "Let him twist in the wind for a while."

Emily wished that she were next to Paige, so that she could squeeze her hand or rub her back, or give her a friendly kiss. "Well, don't let him get to you, okay? Whatever he says, just remember what's really important."

"I will," Paige assured her.

Emily pouted, grateful that Paige couldn't see her. "I wish I could go with you."

"I appreciate that." Paige knew that the situation was going to be volatile enough without adding fuel to the fire by letting Trevor see her with a woman. "But I know you'll be with me in spirit."

"I will," Emily assured her.

"You know," Paige said wistfully, "I've been thinking about something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I've been thinking about what this baby represents. It just shows how something really great can come from really bad circumstances. Like, it was a bad circumstance that made me come to Rosewood, and our relationship came from that. And this pregnancy came from a bad circumstance, but we're going to have a beautiful addition to our family as a result."

"And that bad circumstance brought you and me closer together," Emily said softly, remembering the relationship discussion that they had after Paige told her the news.

"Exactly," Paige concurred. "Whenever I see this child, I'm going to remember that the bad things in life aren't the end of the story. My appendix scar and your shoulder are proof of that, too. Beautiful things can come out of our challenges, as long as we don't give up."