A/N: So all of the cases from here on out are completely out of question for any pregnant woman but I try my hardest to make it so she's processing and just talking to witnesses and suspects. Anything out in the field is not exactly possibly. but she's not crazy big yet because she's supposed to be anywhere between 21 and 23 weeks pregnant.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Emily

So bed rest for a week, was not fun. I was home for three days and when I finally got an okay to come back early, after another ultrasound because I was worried that the baby wasn't going to stay alive, I didn't have much to do so I stayed in the precinct with Don and I helped him out with his case that he was working.

We do get a case though, kind of, and we pick up this kid from school because he's a murder suspect on the case of a Mr. Nelson, who's body was cut up and disposed of around the city and he looks out of it when we get to the precinct. What's going on with him? There's a man struggling to get out of the cuffs that police are trying to put him in as we walk in.

"Cadillac Kligman. Six Million Dollar Man."

"Six pins in his leg and a bunch of screws loose in his head. And I was hoping for a slow day," Don jokes.

"I'll get started on the paperwork. Better get him out of here," I say to Don about the kid.

"Have fun," Don tells me. I smile. The man we see, Cadillac Kligman, throws cops over desks and stands on mine, trying to kick cops off of him. Rude.

"What the hell are you doing? That's my desk! Get down now!" I yell at him, my mother voice turning on. At least, it sounds like what my friends' mothers sound like. He complies. Good. His commotion is hell and he's kicking and pushes uniforms and it's not a good day. I shouldn't even be in here. He grabs a chair. Now I really shouldn't be in here. I draw my gun. "Get on the floor now!" I order, my mom voice still intact. "Get him down!" I order. Not hurt. Good.

"I need an ambulance in here!" I hear Don cry out. Shit. "Get me an ambulance!" I rush to the back room as fast as my little legs with an extra twenty pounds in my front can take me. "Come on, Todd, come on!" Don is preforming chest compressions when I get back there.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I don't know, one minute he was fine, then he started convulsing and he fell over." I rush over and I tilt the head back and I open his mouth. I put my ear to his mouth and I don't hear anything and I don't feel anything. I sigh. "Come on, kid," Don says. "Come on!" I check the kid's pulse. Nothing.

"He's dead," I say. Don continues the chest compressions ignoring what I said. "Don, he's dead," I say a bit more forcefully. He stops. He looks up at me and he's heartbroken. I lead him out of the room. Mac and Danny soon take up residence in the room with the boy and I. Though before Mac got in there, he and I started talking to Don. I doubt I can be on this case though, since I'm his wife.

"I was questioning him. He was getting agitated, then he started talking crazy. Then he started shaking. Foam was coming out of his mouth and he hit the ground," he tells us.

"Don't worry. Sid will get to the bottom of it," I tell him, resting a hand on his arm.

"Detective Flack," A detective says. We both look up. He looks a bit confused then gets it when he sees the rings on our left hands. "You mind answering a few questions?"

"No problem." He takes a step back then Mac stops him.

"Don, don't you want to wait for a union rep?" Mac asks.

"No, no, no, no. I'd rather take care of this now." He looks into my eyes and I see love and adoration for me and my support but I see heartbreak and disappointment for the kid. He walks away with the detective.

"Mac, I have to take myself off this case don't I?"

"I would assume so." I sigh.

"Promise to keep me informed about everything?"

"No, because that would break protocol."

"Again with the protocol. I hate that word. Can we just say rules?"

"You're slipping into mother mode again." Mac and Stella have been calling my funky mood shift since I got pregnant, mother mode because I sound like one and I think it's funny and it brightens my mood when they call me out on it because it's not an insult. It's the complete opposite.

Flashback

"Flying tomato over here took a dip in the garbage while he was snowboarding. Landed right next to the foot," Don tells Mac. I'm with Don today because today is my third day off bed rest and I am helping out with the case, collecting evidence, talking to people when the time comes.

"The rest of the body?" Mac asks.

"We're canvassing garbage receptacles in the area," I tell Mac. "The city only picks up trash once a week on account of the budget cuts. This place is turning into a cesspool."

"Look what I found," Stella says, holding up wrapping paper. "It's got dried blood all over it." Don's phone rings.

"Looks like the foot was wrapped in it."

"Now I've heard of re-gifting, but this is pushing it," She says. I laugh.

"Danny and Hawkes just found an arm in a trash bin a couple blocks away," Don says, coming back to us.

Lindsay and I end up going to Vincent's wife's house and telling her.

"Vince was the head wrestling coach at Hillridge High for eight years. Five championships. Are you positive it's really him? I mean, I mean, how can you be sure? Maybe there's been some kind of mix-up," she says.

"We've identified him by his fingerprints. Every employee in the school system has them on file," I say.

"Mrs. Nelson, when was the last time you saw your husband?"

"Yesterday at breakfast. He was taking a business class at NYU on Thursday nights. He wanted to open his own wrestling school."

"So he never came home last night after class?"

"I fell asleep. I called the police in the morning when he wasn't home. But they said I had to wait 48 hours before he'd be officially missing."

"Looks like your husband was quite a successful coach," Lindsay says. "Mrs. Nelson, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your husband?"

"No. Vince was a great guy. Everyone admired him."

"Did he owe anybody money? Or have a drug problem or a gambling habit?"

"I'm sorry but if you knew him, you'd know how ridiculous your questions are."

"Okay. Thank you so much. Please, give us a call us if you remember anything else," I hand her my card.

"There was one thing. I don't see how it could be related, but yesterday when I came home from work, someone was lurking on our roof. I saw their shadows through the skylights there. Looked like two people. I heard them talking. Creeping around. It was kind of scary."

"What time was this?" I ask.

"Around 4:00. I knocked on my neighbor's door. He said he would go up and check."

"And?"

"He said he saw something that looked like blood, but no people." We nod and leave to go up to the roof. I get a camera from the car and when we get to the roof, I take photos.

"Be careful," I tell Lindsay. "So far the ice as been a bitch for me. How's it been for you?"

"The same. Danny helps me a lot. I don't go outside much but when I do, the ice is killer." I nod. "She said she saw them from the skylight." We walk over.

"Yeah, this would be the Nelsons' apartment right here," I say. "Yup, here we go." I see blood and I point it out. "This is the blood the neighbor was talking about." I take photos then Lindsay gets a sample. She sprays it and it turns pink.

"Boom."

"You've been around Danny so much."

"Like you haven't with Don."

"I live with him. He's my husband."

"You work in two different places yet you still sound exactly the same." I smile and nod.

"Just you get ready. We are bringing another Flack into the world soon."

"There's going to be a lot more booms as well from this child." I laugh with Lindsay.

"So get this, there's no Thursday night business classes at NYU or any of its extension schools," Don says to me and Mac as we walk from an extention hall to the main hall, which is good because I have to pee. I just saw them and I walked out and I stayed with them till the main hall. "And there's no Vince Nelson registered with them period.'

"Nelson was lying to his wife."

"He also withdrew 200 bucks from an ATM on the Upper West Side the night he was killed."

"Maybe he had something going on the side?" I offer.

"Confiscate his computer, bank records, credit card statements, I want to know what else he was hiding," Mac orders.

"Done." Don walks away and I stay with him, heading to a bathroom. "Hey," he says, pulling me off into a secluded part of the locker room. "How's our baby boy?" Don asks me.

"He's good. But right now, he's sitting on my bladder and I need to pee. It's a favorite position of his as of late." Don chuckles.

"Then go."

"I love you."

"I love you too." I peck his lips quickly and rush into the bathroom.

Turns out the blood, belongs to an alligator. I work on it alone since Lindsay got something else to work on. She lets me know about the print and I end up going with Don to talk to the person who's print she found.

"Mind if I cut in?" He asks, showing his badge after she runs into us.

"Prostitution?"

"Come on, Ms. Love, I got a rap sheet here says you've been arrested four times for solicitation."

"I'll see you next week, George," he leaves. "This isn't what you think, Detectives."

"This isn't what you think either, Ms. Love," I say. "We're not Vice. We're with Homicide. And we have your fingerprint on this acupressure disc," I point out, handing her a picture of it.

"I bought one of those to quit smoking. I lost it."

"Well, we found it near this guy. You know him?" Don asks handing her a picture.

"That's Vince. Vince Nelson. Why are you looking for him?"

"Because he was killed," I say.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Don asks.

"Last night. He comes here every Thursday night for a lesson."

"Exactly what do you teach?" Don asks.

"Private salsa lessons? Is that what they call it these days?" Mac asks..

"No, these were legit," I say. "Nelson wanted to surprise his wife for their fifth anniversary. Take her out dancing." I look at Don and I can see the gears in his head shift. "And our salsa instructor had a client right after Nelson who corroborated her alibi." We walk up the stairs toward the main hall and Sheldon is waiting.

"Mac, I found something on Coach Nelson's computer you should see."

"Now when you and Detective Flack first approached Todd Fleming, he was at wrestling practice, correct?" A detective from high up in the chain asks me.

"That's correct."

"And what was his demeanor?"

"He was fine."

"Did you notice any injuries when you picked Fleming up? Eh, bruises?"

I shake my head. "No."

"Was Detective Flack ever alone with him? In the car, maybe?"

"I drove. Detective Flack sat in the back with Mr. Fleming. We were together the entire time."

"What about at the school? Fleming was in his street clothes at the time of his death. I'm assuming he changed somewhere?"

"In the locker room."

"Who accompanied him there?"

"Detective Flack." I was calm but he didn't necessarily believe me. "Look, Detective Flack did everything by the book. The guy's a total professional."

"Unlike your relationship with him, which I understand is less than professional?"

"Not only is that none of your business, but it has nothing to do with Todd Fleming's death," I point out. Mom voice coming out. He dismisses me and I walk out of there and to Don who is sitting at his desk. I sit on his desk and I make no move to touch him.

"Say hello to the newest member of the rubber gun squad. I've been officially removed from active duty."

"How do they know we're married to each other, Don?"

"Who?"

"Internal Affairs. Weren't we trying to keep this separate from work? I mean that's why I switched into the crime lab, so they can't use that against you. I didn't say anything to anyone."

"People talk. They make assumptions."

"Because of those assumptions now, my word doesn't mean squat with IA. I mean, who could've told them?"

"Look, Em, I'm sorry. But I got bigger things to worry about right now than squad room gossip. I've got being removed from active duty and I've got you and the baby to worry about. Just find evidence that I didn't kill this kid, please?"

"Of course." I blow him a kiss and I go to the lab.

I walk into the conference room as Mac is saying, "Detective Flack's working this case until IA's finished with their inquiry."

"Inquiry? Is that what they're calling it?" Danny asks with a sassy undertone.

"They can't possibly think that Flack's responsible for Todd Fleming's death. I mean, he is so by the book. He doesn't even swear."

"None of us are happy about this," I say in response to Stella's comments. I'm happy she and the rest of the lab is on our side. "In the meantime, IA's got a job to do and so do we."

"All right, well, Fleming's been ruled out as a suspect in Coach Nelson's death. According to his mother, he was taking an SAT prep class at the time of Vince Nelson's murder. The police confirmed that."

"Still working on the sawdust, but based on extracted hydrocarbons, I've narrowed it down to three families," Danny says after Stella gives her report on what is going on.

"Good. Stay with it."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't so lucky with the Christmas wrapping paper. It's manufactured in China and mass-marketed to department stores all over the U.S." Mac's phone rings.

"Taylor. I'll be right there. They just found a head."

"He's coming together," Danny says. I start conversing with Stella until Lindsay comes up with information on the blood Sid found on the vic's neck.

"All right, I'm going to see Flack, want to come?" I shake my head.

"No, he wants me to find evidence that he didn't kill Todd and that's what I'm doing. Besides, I can't give IA anymore ammunition to use against Don."

"Ammunition?"

"They think our relationship is less than professional. Please. I transfered to the crime lab so I could be with Don and not let emotions interfere with my work, like what would happen if we stayed together in the precinct. One of us would eventually go crazy and we can't let them use that against us."

"They can't do that. You transfered before you got married, before you got pregnant. You were transfered a long time ago." I nod.

"I wish I could go down there because all I want to do is hold him and make him feel better, but it's not possible until we get home or IA is gone. And that won't be for a while. You know, they called me Porter today. Detective Porter, like they didn't want to face the fact that I married Don." Stella nods. "It just hurts. I haven't heard Detective Porter in a long time and I want to be called Detective Flack. I like that better than Porter." I sigh. "Just tell him I say hi, please?"

Stella nods. "I'll tell him you send your love."

"Thank you, Stel."

"Of course."

Flashback

"I worked with Coach Nelson every day for three years. We went to meets together, had a few beers after work, then I find out he's into something like this."

"Any of the guys on the team talked about the e-mail or the murder?" Don asks one of the coaches that we are talking to.

"No, not in front of me, anyway. We got state championship coming up tomorrow. That what they're focusing on. Life goes on, right?"

"Not for everybody," I say.

"Is Todd Fleming around? We want to ask him a few questions."

"Fleming! Front and center." He comes to us and we pull him off to the side.

"Look, I don't know anything about what happened, okay? None of us do. If that's why you guys came down here..."

"We found alligator blood on Coach Nelson's roof. We think it was a part of your science project," Don says.

"What were you doing up there, Todd?" I ask. Wow Don and I sound like parents trying to get their kid to give up information.

"I wasn't up there. I..." Don and I both look at him, both of us know he's lying. "Look, even if I was, up there, what does it matter?"

"'Cause it's a murder investigation, smart guy. Everything matters," Don says.

"I didn't kill him."

"We'll talk about this downtown," Don says.

"I'm in the middle of practice."

"Practice can wait."
"Am I under arrest or something?"

"Look, Todd, do you have any street clothes you can change into? We just want to talk to you," I say.

"Yeah, in, in the locker room."

"Let's go," Don says. They walk away while I stand watching the wrestlers. What if our son becomes a wrestler? What if he doesn't like sports and he takes up band or art? What if he's in love with math and science and becomes an astronomer? I can't wait to find out.

"What are these, bitch cuffs? My hand, man! No!" I hear a large man yelling.

"Better get him out of here."

"Have fun," Don says.

'Hey, I love you too.' I see on my phone. Don texted me and I'm sure Stella already left to talk to Johnny Holt. I smile at the message and I put my phone back into my pocket. I get information back that I started to help Lindsay with. I go to Mac's office with her.

"So far, I haven't been able to find a single connection between him and Nelson," we hear Stella tell Mac as we walk in.

"And I doubt you will. Ribosomal analysis shows that the sample of Johnny Holt's blood that we found on our vic is at least three months old," I tell them.

"While he was still in Sing Sing," Stella says.

"Sid found the dried blood on Nelson's throat. Said he must've been hit there with a pipe or club. The blood must've been on the murder weapon," Mac points out.

"Transferred onto Nelson when he was killed," Lindsay says.

"I think we just found our connection," Stella says. I turn to Lindsay and we high five.

"Go us. We're great at this." Lindsay smiles at my childish behavior while Stella kind of chuckles.

Lindsay and I go back to the Nelson's and talk to his wife.

"No. I've never seen him."

"Are you sure? He might've been an acquaintance of your husband's," Lindsay says.

"Absolutely not."

"What about this boy?" I ask.

"I don't recognize this child at all. And to save you a question, I have no idea what these pictures are doing on Vince's computer." The phone starts ringing. "Ever since this e-mail thing came out the phone's been ringing nonstop. Someone put a pile of dog feces on my doormat this morning." Gross. I feel bad.

"Mrs. Nelson, did your husband teach anywhere else where he might've been in contact with younger boys? After school program? The local Y?" I ask.

"Look, I'm just going to say this once. Vince was a normal guy. Okay? A normal, boring, regular guy. He watched football in his underwear. He never took out the garbage unless I told him to. He forgot our anniversary year after year and tried to make up for it two days later with a, with a bouquet of white roses. But I didn't care, because he loved me."

"Mrs. Nelson, was there anybody on the wrestling team that your husband seemed especially close to? Anyone he saw outside of practice or talked about more than any of the others?" Lindsay asks.

"No."

"Did he seem to have a problem with any of the boys on the team?" I ask.

"Look, just because he worked with boys doesn't mean that... I don't know why I don't just unplug it. I guess I keep hoping one of these times it'll be someone with something comforting to say!"

"I-I'm so sorry. We're almost done here," I say.

"I know what you're thinking. 'Oh, poor woman. How could she possibly deny the fact that her husband was a pedophile? We have these pictures. This e-mail.' Well, Vince wasn't a pedophile. He was a loving, innocent man who was murdered. Why don't you put your energy into finding his killer?"

Danny comes and gets me soon when he finds what the species of tree the wood is.

"So how's Flack in all of this commotion?" Danny asks me in the car. He's driving.

"Not good. He's irritated. Why don't they just send him home? He needs to take the garbage out anyway." Danny laughs.

"All ready putting him to work, huh?"

"Well I would do it but I'm pregnant."

"That you are. You're stomach is huge. How many weeks are you?"

"Twenty eight. I'm about to enter my third trimester."

"Ten more weeks?" I nod.

"About ten. Unless the baby decides to come late. Which I have a feeling that the baby won't want to come out till later. We haven't told anyone, but it's a boy."

"You're having a boy?" I nod. "That's amazing. I have a feeling that Lindsay and I are having a boy as well."

"Are you sure?"

"No doctor confirmation but I'm sure it's a boy."

"Eh, talk to Lindsay she may know better." He shrugs.

"Still think it's a boy." We get out of the warm car when we see who we are looking for.

"Kyle Sheridan?" I ask. He realizes who we are and he runs. "Why the hell do they always run?" I say aloud. Danny runs and falls onto some bags and I run, kind of, and I slide across the hood of a car and I tackle him to the ground. I cuff him. "Three count, buddy. You lose," I tell him.

"High school wrestling team?"

"An older brother and sister. Plus their kids when we were older and Don." Danny glares at me. "Oh come on, like you and Linds never did." He rolls his eyes. "Come on," I tell the kid, standing up.

We are back at the precinct and I am with the kid, putting him in an interrogation room. I haven't stopped to speak with Don but I did see him and I blew him an inconspicuous kiss. Mac comes down and starts to interrogate with Danny so I sit this one out. I go to Don's desk and I bend down to search through his drawer to get my crackers. He looks at me over his cross-word and I smirk at him.

"I thought you were working," he says.

"Was. Now the baby is hungry and he wants crackers, therefore." I hold up the package of Saltines. I pull the chair from my desk around to his and I put my feet up next to his on his desk. I sit and I eat the crackers while we share looks. I giggle as we flirt with our eyes. "Don, stop doing that thing with your eyes."

"What thing?" He's smirking and he does that thing with his eyes again.

"That one! The one all males are genetically programmed with." He chuckles. "JFK director Oliver blank. Five letters."

"Blank." He chuckles at my joke, as do I. "It's Stone."

"Philosophy of Lao-tzu. Three letters."

"No idea."

"All right, then Jesse Ventura was one. Four letters."

"Wasn't he an actor? But actor is five letters. What letters do you have filled in already?" I ask.

"E and L." He shows me and the space looks like _E_L.

"Seal! He was a war veteran too." He nods. "Does it work?" He nods. "Good."

"Okay, one more. Plot deviously. Six letters."

"Design, not project cause that's seven. Uhm. Scheme," we say at the same time.

"And it fits!"

"Good!"

"Emily," I hear Mac say. "Come on. We've got a court officer to apprehend."

"Whoa, what?" Don asks.

"Something that has to do with the case. I'll tell you later Don." I bend and I kiss the corner of his mouth as does he for me.

We walk down the halls to find Alex Sheridan. We see a court in recess sign and we walk right past it and into the room. He's sitting, looking over something and when we walk up to the desk he's at, he looks up at us. I pull him up and out of the court house and we take him downtown. Mac goes in and takes the interrogating for me and I appreciate it.

"Think Mac keeps me going because he knows I need to excercise with the baby?" I ask Don as I bend to get more crackers.

"Probably. You should start to take some time off." I shrug.

"I'm okay hun." The love in his eyes is so strong. Every time he looks at me, I can feel it radiating off of him. "What have you been doing all day?" I ask him.

"Crossword."

"And that has to be boring."

"It has been so boring. But I've been kicked off this case. I can't work it."

"Well this is what has been going down," I start. I explain everything to him. He asks questions and I answer and this is a conversation that lasts at least fifteen minutes. For the rest of the day, we talk about the move that is going to happen. Wait, I never mentioned that. We are moving! The surprise after the last case was that we are moving into a new apartment and it's got two bedrooms instead of one.

He surprised me by bringing me to an apartment building that wasn't ours.

"What are we doing here?" I ask.

"You'll just have to find out." He gets out then helps me. We walk to the elevator and we take it up to the third floor and we walk down the hall till we get to a door. It's a nice building too. He takes out his keys and he unlocks the door. He covers my eyes and then leads me inside. He flips on the lights and the room is eluminated and all of our furniture is inside and there are boxes laying around but the big stuff is here.

"Don,"

"Welcome to our new apartment Emily." I feel water building in my eyes. He holds me in his arms as he decribes it to me. "It's got two bedrooms and the movers baby proofed the entire apartment for us. Thank goodness. They did it out of the kindness of their hearts. I felt that we should move because while there have been several thousand good memories at old apartment, there was a few bad that made this decision easier."

That was a great day. We are packing up to leave, since I moved all of my things down here since I was off before Don and he's putting files away when Mac walks up to us.

"You going somewhere, Don?"

"Yep, there is no point in me hanging around pushing papers. It's not my style, Mac."

"You've been cleared." Don's eyebrows raise. He's happy, I know he is. I turn to him. I smile and I wrap my arms around his waist. He wraps one around my shoulders. "I just heard. I want you to know, I never doubted you."

"Thanks. You know, for a long minute there, it felt like everybody else did."

"Todd Fleming's medical records show that he was prescribed an anti-depressant eight months ago. When Sid did a screen for that particular drug, he found more than ten times the recommended dosage in his system."

"Enough to cause the seizure?" I ask.

"Found an empty prescription bottle in his locker at school."

"I stood by the door while he got changed. That's the only time he was alone. God, what a waste."

"Seems to be a lot of that in this case." Mac starts to walk away and I turn to Don.

"Don, this is so great. You're off!"

He smiles. His fingers trail from my cheek to my jaw and he lifts my chin up and I stand on my toes, my hands on his chest, meeting him for the kiss.

We pull away when Mac says Don's name. "Don." We turn. He hands Don his badge back. 8571, the number I know and love. It's my password on my phone. "You know, the Rangers are playing tonight. We could catch the third period at that new sports bar on Lafayette."

"I didn't know you liked hockey."

"I don't." Don looks to me.

"Go! I'll go unpack. I love you."

"I love you too." He kisses me once more and leaves with Mac.