"I think I'm going to throw up," Emily insisted. "I really think I'm going to be sick..."

Erik was trying very hard not to roll his eyes. "Don't you think you might be acting a bit dramatic?" he asked her. "This isn't the first time we've been through this – you were fine and she was fine."

That was the wrong thing to say, evidently, because she rounded on him, glaring. "I didn't realize it was dramatic not to enjoy seeing your child in pain..."

"No one said anything about enjoying it," he pointed out, "But it's only a few needles, she'll barely even feel them. Just like last time. And the time before that."

"You don't know that," she insisted.

"And even if it does hurt, she won't remember this," he continued.

"I know!" she snapped, "But she is a baby and she's going to cry and I can't stand to see her in pain..."

Erik sighed, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side so he could drop a kiss to her temple. "I know, but just remember that we're doing this to keep her healthy and safe."

She nodded, exhaled slowly. "You're right," she said. "I know you're right. I've just never done this whole Mom thing before..."

Though he didn't voice it, he knew exactly what she meant – until recently, he'd never cared so much about someone that their pain felt like his own. Wordlessly, he unbuckled Isadora from her carseat and lifted her into his arms.

The baby stared up at him with her brilliant blue eyes, framed by impossibly long lashes. The ghost of a smile tugged at her rosebud lips as she reached out to her father, making a grabbing motion with her little fingers.

Erik met her reach, took her tiny hand in his own, bending so that he could kiss her palm. When she'd been born, he'd promised to protect her from pain, from heartbreak, from the very real evil he'd seen in the world...but he was starting to realize there was so very much he couldn't protect her from.

Erik glanced in the rearview mirror at Isadora sleeping peacefully in her carseat as they drove home. She'd barely so much as batted an eye at the needle prick, preoccupied as she was by nursing – in fact, she'd seemed more annoyed by the interruption than anything else.

Glancing back to the road ahead, he asked, almost apropos of nothing, "What do you think about it?"

Emily raised a brow, looked over at him with mild amusement playing about her lips. "You'll have to be a little more specific..."

He didn't look away from the road as he said, "Trying again."

Now that the baby was approaching six months old, the fact that Emily was breastfeeding would no longer protect them against conceiving again, the doctor had informed them. And, considering her advanced maternal age, if they wanted to try again, now was the optimal time to do it.

For a long moment, Emily remained silent, not quite sure how to respond. Not sure he'd like the response if she did.

"Emily?" he prompted when her silence extended too long.

"Doesn't it seem a little soon?" she asked softly. "Isadora is a miracle, we got lucky that she turned out so perfectly – but there are so many things that could have gone wrong. By all accounts, I shouldn't have been able to conceive in the first place."

"Is that a no?"

"No – it's a...maybe. It's a should we," she said with an awkwardly uncomfortable shrug. "A can we..."

As they pulled up to a red light, he turned to study her as if he might read her mind. "Your doctor said there's no reason why we couldn't," he offered. He seemed to be testing her, trying to unearth the true reason being her discomfort.

She finally looked over at him then, her expression unreadable. "But it's a gamble – one I'm not sure I'm willing to make." She sighed, stared down at her hands where she was twisting her fingers in a loose thread on her sweater. "I love Isadora more than anything in the world, but we both know we never planned on having her, not now...we agreed that our lives were too dangerous, that we had too many enemies, that we would be putting a child at risk."

"Is it me?" he asked, temper flaring in spite of himself. "Is it what I am?"

"No, Erik! Of course not!" she insisted, "It's me... We both know what it's like to lose a parent, to feel alone. I couldn't live with myself if I let my daughter live with that same emptiness."

"Then why?" he demanded. "Why now? Why have her at all if you feel this way?"

He had her full attention then. "Don't ever suggest that I don't love my daughter!" she lashed out. "That I haven't done everything in my power to give her the life she deserves!"

He sighed, almost sadly. "That isn't what I meant, Emily. I only wondered what had changed..."

Her tongue flicked out over her bottom lip as she tried to form some semblance of reason from her mess of thoughts. "I never told you," she whispered. "I didn't want to upset you... But I, umm, I-I died."

"Wh-what?" he stammered, brows leaping up his forehead. It was clear from his expression that if Ian Doyle weren't already six feet under, Erik would have made it his business to execute him personally. (In fact, in that moment he seemed tempted to do it anyway...)

"Only briefly," she amended. "But when I was in the ambulance, I coded; they had to resuscitate me. They said I was lucky, that I shouldn't have survived. And sometimes, when I look at her, when I hold her, all I can think about is that it could happen again. So easily."

His gaze followed hers into the backseat where Isadora had woken up and was cheerfully shoving her entire fist into her mouth, happily gumming her little fingers.

"Isn't she worth taking that chance?" he whispered.