Author's Note: As I'd anticipated, cleaning up these first couple of super old chapters is a real bummer. My old writing makes me sad :( So basically I have to SLOWLY work my way through, literally line by line, to get them to a tolerable draft. Then I have to walk away for a day or so for my own sake, before I come back and actually clean them up. But I know it'll get better after chapter 4, so I'm sucking up the pain here :)

And now the original, still relevant, note below here.

I'm going to (roughly) try to work around a format of two chapters covering each month of her pregnancy. That won't be a hard rule, as there are a couple of story arcs planned, but at least this way we can keep skipping ahead and not get bogged down. We've already played the minutia version of 'getting to know you' over in Girl and the point of this world is for them to get to know each other in a different way. So there will be a little recap in each chapter of where they are to date.

Week 5

A Clean Conscience

"Will that be all, sir?"

Hotch looked at the items on the counter of this 7/11 in Norman, Oklahoma.

. . . Ginger ale

. . . Caffeine free diet coke

. . . Gatorade

. . . Mouthwash

. . . Box of unsalted saltines

With a furrow in his brow, he leaned back to look at the candy options on the display beneath him. On an impulse, he reached out and grabbed a Hershey bar, which he dropped onto the counter with the rest of his purchases. Then he looked back over at the kid.

"Okay, that's it."

As the clerk started to ring up his order, Hotch shot another look over his shoulder to see if Emily had come out of the bathroom yet.

No.

Damn. Because she'd been in there long enough now that he was starting to get concerned.

It had been eleven days since Emily had knocked on his door to tell him that she was pregnant. They'd gotten coffee together at least seven or eight times since then. And though they'd had a bit of a rocky start with the off duty stuff, they were doing better now. They still had the occasional awkward pause, but those were brushed over much more easily than they had been initially.

Overall they were . . . for lack of a better word . . . bonding.

But still, pretty much all of their conversation circled around her pregnancy. With the exception of that first day, their coffee breaks were relatively short, only ten or fifteen minutes. That wasn't a lot of time to get into new things. So there really hadn't been a lot of personal information exchanged that wasn't in some way related to Emily's impending motherhood. Basically she asked him questions . . . and he told her about Haley's experiences with Jack. Initially, some part of him had felt like it was a violation of the marital trust to talk about those things.

But then he'd remembered that he wasn't married anymore.

And more to the point, Jack was as much his as Haley's. So even though the physical effects of the pregnancy were Haley's alone, the experience of a new life growing . . . that belonged to both of them. Those were his memories too.

And he had decided that it was okay to share them.

The team of course, had noticed they'd been spending time together, but nobody had said anything. At least not to him, and he was pretty sure that Emily would have told him if she'd received any comments from the others. He had received some smirks from Rossi though, which was a whole line of commentary by itself.

Pain in the ass.

But Hotch didn't really pay him too much attention . . . or give him the satisfaction of acknowledging the smirks . . . simply because he was enjoying this new aspect of his relationship with Emily far too much to let anything ruin it. Even though he had figured out on his own that he'd been working too much, until the two of them had started meeting up, he hadn't consciously processed just how MUCH of his life had been taken over by the ugliness of his job. It was nice to talk about domestic things again.

Really, it was just nice to talk to a woman again.

For twenty years he had been married . . . and then all of a sudden he wasn't. Female companionship, in all of its incarnations, had been ripped away from him without his permission, and without any prior notification.

But now that he and Emily had begun sharing some of their personal time, he had become very appreciative of having balance in his life again. And between their personal breaks, and work itself, they would often spend a straight ten or twelve hours a day together, so he'd very quickly come to know the symptoms of her pregnancy pretty well. And it was just three days ago that he'd noticed how she had started looking a little peaked in the mornings. When he'd asked her about it, she'd told him that she was just a bit queasy, not actually sick.

That had been back home.

Now they were in Oklahoma investigating a series of prostitute murders. They'd flown in late last night, and he and Emily had gone to do an interview first thing this morning. And even though Emily had asked all of the usual questions of the witness, and had been completely engaged in the conversation, she had been a noticeably pale shade of green for the entire length of their visit.

So as soon as they'd stepped back outside and the door had shut behind them, he'd asked if she was okay. But she'd insisted that it was still just queasiness, and said she was going on the mind over matter approach.

But as Hotch had expected, given her awful coloring, Matter had kicked Mind's ass ten minutes later.

It was during the ride back to the station house that she'd suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth, and groaned, "we need to stop right now."

Fortunately he'd already spotted this 7/11 on the corner, so he'd done a quick U-turn to get them back to this place in two minutes flat. Which had still not been quite fast enough, because she'd already been out the car door, and racing across the parking lot before he'd even gotten the key out of the ignition. And as she'd sprinted up to the entrance, she'd inadvertently plowed over a woman who was walking out the door.

Emily literally KNOCKED her, to the ground.

Hotch had winced when he seen it happen, because of course Emily was by then long gone but he'd had to stay and smooth that one over with the woman's husband.

A very large man with a lot of neck tattoos.

Unfortunately a straight apology hadn't worked. The guy had wanted to fight him. Like he had time for that macho bullshit. So after close to a minute of being threatened to, "have his ass kicked" . . . Hotch had admirably refrained from throat punching him while the threats were being spewed . . . he had just pulled out his badge and told the idiot to get the fuck out of his way. Then he'd again apologized to the wife, because again, Emily had flattened her.

So once Mr. and Mr. Lords of Death had vacated the area, Hotch had started going around the store to pick up a few things that he hoped would settle Emily's stomach. They were things that he'd remembered had working for Haley.

The things he had just bought.

And now that the clerk had just handed him his bag, Hotch turned to look towards the bathrooms again.

Still no Emily.

He checked his watch . . . okay, they were definitely closing in on a full fifteen minutes.

That wasn't good.

So now someone what anxiously tapping his thumb on his holster, he walked down to the back of the store and turned into the shiny white hallway off to the left. From there he could tell from the two marked doors, that there was just one stall for women and one stall for men.

After hesitating for another moment in front of the women's room, he finally knocked on the door.

"Emily?" he called softly into the door, "are you okay?"

No answer.

Which was definitely not helping his level of concern. So he began to slowly push against the door, hoping that in her haste to get to the toilet, that she hadn't thought to lock it.

Luck was in his favor.

And as the door began to open, he announced a bit more loudly, "fair warning, I'm com . . ."

And he stopped short in the doorway, his heart clenching when he saw Emily slumped down on the dirty floor by the toilet . . . she was sobbing.

Which was just when she looked up at him, and with the tears running down her face, she choked out, "Hotch, I CAN'T stop throwing up!"

And if to punctuate the point, she turned then . . . and retched into the bowl behind her.

His eyes popped . . . oh shit! She was shaking, vomiting, and crying ALL at the same time, and he didn't know what the hell to do about any of it!

As he stood there, being ACTIVELY useless, he was flashing back on Haley being sick, and what he'd done for her back then . . . but the circumstances here were different. Emily wasn't his wife. He was her chief, but more to the point, right now they were still technically on duty.

Those latter points only held any weight with him for another three point two seconds.

Because that's when Emily started to throw up again, and he just said fuck it.

He'd go with what he knew.

So he dropped the bag on the floor and hurried the rest of the way across the room, murmuring, "oh, Emily." Then he was crouched down behind her on the floor and reached out to hold up her hair as he gently rubbing her back.

When she stopped throwing up, he asked sympathetically, "is it getting any better?"

In response, she sucked a gasping breath and looked up at him with tears in her eyes, "not really," then her gaze dropped as she winced and closed her eyes, "and I'm so sorry, "her voice cracked, "I know we have to get back."

That was all she kept thinking as each wave of nausea hit her . . . we don't have TIME for this! But her body was INSISTING on making time! And now she was screwing up work. And she'd been so good about not letting this affect her job. But now, women were being murdered, they had an UNSUB to find, and not only was she out of commission, but she'd gotten the lead investigator on the case tied up in here with her too.

God damn it!

Hotch blinked and shook his head as he reached out to brush Emily's bangs off from her sweaty face.

"Emily," he whispered in astonishment, "don't apologize for being sick. It's not your fault."

Before she could respond, another wave of nauseas hit, and her head went back over the bowl. By then though she had nothing left but dry heaves . . . which were now killing her stomach!

Seeing Emily's hands clench her abdomen, Hotch had a jolt of panic.

"What?" he asked with a worried squeeze of her shoulder, "is it the baby?!"

But she shook her head as she leaned back again, gasping for breath and trying to blink away her tears . . . there was no way she was rubbing her eyes when her hands had been on the toilet.

"My stomach muscles," She moaned in pain, "Christ, I can't keep doing this!"

God! When did she become such a pansy?! She was barely halfway through her FIRST trimester and she was already getting her ass kicked by this pregnancy!

How the hell was she going to get through the rest of it?!

Hotch didn't really have a response to what Emily had said, at least nothing that he thought would be helpful, so he just kept rubbing her back. And when her breathing and her tears finally seemed to be under control, he asked quietly.

"Do you want to try to stand up?"

"Yeah," she nodded and sniffed, "I'm not sure how well it's going to go though, because the last time I tried, my stomach flipped again."

Foolishly, she'd assumed after she'd thrown up the first time, that she was done.

That was a good one.

But with Hotch's help, specifically with one of his hands on her back and the other on her upper arm, she slowly came up to her up off the floor. Basically he pulled her up, because her leg muscles were pretty wobbly for being crouched down for so long.

So she was leaning slightly against him, as she rubbed her stomach.

Then she felt the hand on her back, slide down until his arm was around her waist . . . oddly enough, that didn't feel strange. Then he patted her hip and asked quietly, "you doing okay?"

By Emily's estimate it had been at least two minutes since she'd last thrown up, but before she answered Hotch, she closed her eyes for a second and took a couple of slow, deep, breaths. Finally she nodded.

"So far, so good," she let out on a sigh.

So Hotch reached out and flushed the toilet, and while he was murmuring, "k, let's just try to get cleaned up then," he started walking her over to the sink.

His arm was still around her waist.

And it still wasn't weird.

When they got to the sink though, she felt a fresh wave of nausea hit her. She moaned and again slumped into his side with her hand on her stomach.

"Shit," she muttered. But he just murmured back, "it's okay, Prentiss," as he tightened his hold around her with the one arm, while he leaned over her to pull down a strip of paper towel. A strip that he quickly wet with cold water, and squeezed out before he began lightly wiping her forehead.

Her eyes again started to sting, that time though not from the stress of being sick, but just because he was being so sweet.

She looked up at him with a sad smile.

"Thanks, Hotch."

It was embarrassing having him see her like this. But not as bad as she would have thought it would be. As it was she just didn't have the energy right now to be the level of mortified that she definitely would have been even two weeks ago. Because one bright side of it being Hotch here with her, and not one of the other guys, was at least he already knew what the problem was. So he wasn't going to start asking her questions which would send her into a blind panic.

If Morgan had found her like this, he probably would have dragged her to the hospital.

Dave too.

Hotch's expression softened.

"Why don't you wash your face? And I bought you some mouthwash. That might help a little too."

Her eyes crinkled slightly, "thanks."

After he'd patted her arm and started over to get the bag by the door, Emily looked into the mirror . . . she winced.

God, she was a fright.

Her eyes were puffy from crying, what was left of her makeup was smeared all over, her nose was running, and her skin tone was a chalky white. When she came into the bathroom though, she was pretty sure that she was a chalky green so maybe the white was an improvement.

The nausea was fading, though the stomach cramps were still there. But she was pretty sure that was just her muscles recoiling.

Hopefully they would settle down in a minute.

In the meantime, as he'd suggested, she started to clean herself up.

First she rinsed out her mouth with water, and as she was splashing more water onto her face, she looked up to see Hotch was holding out the mouthwash . . . he'd already filled the cap for her.

She gave him a grateful smile as she turned to take it.

"Thanks."

And after she rinsed her mouth out with the green liquid, she actually did feel slightly more human. At least the worst of the yuck taste was gone. It was still kind of in her nostrils though.

Uck.

Although he knew that it was a bit rude, Hotch couldn't help but stare openly at Emily as she pulled herself back together.

It was obvious from the clench of her jaw that she still didn't feel well. Not to mention the way she kept clutching at her stomach. And God, did he wish he could just send her back to the hotel, but he knew that she'd never go for it. And if he started coddling her and ordering her to go lie down, it would likely just piss her off. Though he didn't see sending her to rest as coddling, she was sick and she needed to recuperate. Still, he knew the conversation was a non-starter.

One thing was for sure though, she was definitely out of the field for the rest of the day.

And as they began to walk the few steps over to the door he asked softly, "are you sure that you're feeling better?"

Again, he knew that she really wasn't. The question was more to confirm that she was well enough to leave the bathroom without retching.

With a faint nod, Emily stepped through the door Hotch was holding open for her.

"Yeah, I feel . . ."

And then she stopped, not sure why she was about to lie to the man. Especially after he'd just held her hair back while she'd had her face in the toilet bowl. And they were spending the day together, so if there was a risk of her vomiting on his shoes, then he really deserved the right to know that up front. So she finished her thought with a sad head shake.

"Um, no actually, not really."

Honestly, she wouldn't mind the throwing up so much if it had just made her feel better. Like if she was told that every morning she had to throw up once and then she would feel fine, well, that would be okay. Or if not 'okay,' at least tolerable. It would be a schedule, and a schedule gave you a sense of security. Of normalcy.

You knew what was coming.

But as it was, she'd felt like crap for the last three days and now she'd just thrown up for almost twenty minutes STRAIGHT! And she still didn't feel any better!

It was so frustrating.

As they started to walk back out to the SUV though, she tried to refocus her thoughts . . . the ones which served no purpose . . . by gesturing down to the plastic bag Hotch was carrying.

"What else did you buy besides the mouthwash?"

He bit down on his lip, "just a couple other things that I thought might help you."

Hotch handed her the bag as they separated to go to their respective sides of the Suburban.

Emily climbed up into the passenger's side seat, and slammed her door shut before she began looking through the bag of purchases that he'd made.

Her eyes crinkled with a faint weariness as she looked over at him snapping his seatbelt into place.

"Thanks, Hotch. This was really very nice of you."

"Yeah, well," Hotch slid the key into the ignition and tipped his head, "I remember the ginger ale and saltines definitely settled Haley's stomach, so I thought it might work for you too. And I got you the unsalted kind because you should watch your blood pressure."

Her eyes crinkled . . . he could be really sweet. And the doctor had told her that, although she was fine right now, her blood pressure was something that she might have to watch in the future.

She sighed as she looked back at the bag of supplies he'd bought her.

"I hope something here works." She broke open the box of crackers with a grunt, "this really sucks."

Hotch glanced over.

"I'd suggest small bites."

At this point her stomach might reject the food just on principle.

With a nod, Emily nibbled a little corner of her saltine and washed it down with a sip of ginger ale. She gave it a minute, and when that didn't come right back up, she continued eating the cracker. Once she'd finished it, she had two more the same way. She wasn't hungry, not at all, but she'd lost all of her breakfast. So in addition to hopefully settling her stomach, Emily knew that she also needed to get some food back into her system or her blood sugar would drop.

Yeah, that would be all she needed to top off her morning . . . she rolled her eyes . . . to pass out. But Hotch was right about the crackers and ginger ale. She was feeling a little better.

For the past couple days she'd been queasy, but she'd been able to keep it tamped down by sheer force of will. Apparently she wasn't always going to win these arguments with Baby.

After she'd slid the sleeve of crackers back into the box, she noticed the chocolate bar in the bottom of the bag. She pulled it out and held it up between them.

"Was this a Haley trick too?"

After giving her another glance, Hotch shook his head.

"No, that's just for you. For when you're feeling better."

Emily slipped it into her jacket pocket with a soft smile, "thanks."

He really was being great about this whole thing. Not only had he kept her secret, but he was giving her advice, and also going out of his way to help her with this other stuff too. Definitely well above and beyond the support she would have thought she'd get when she'd knocked on his door a few weeks back. Thank God though that he'd decided to take an interest in her pregnancy, because she couldn't even imagine how awkward this car ride would be right now if he hadn't!

Still though, she felt badly for causing a delay.

So she looked back over at him contritely.

"I am really sorry about this, Hotch. When I said that I wanted to keep working, I obviously wasn't anticipating this stage of it being such a problem."

Hotch shot her a look.

"I already told you Prentiss, don't be sorry. It's just what it is. It's part of the process."

When he saw her flinch slightly at his words, Hotch realized that his tone was coming off as though he was annoyed with her, when he didn't mean for it to be. So he added on a gentler note.

"Hopefully the morning sickness will pass soon. It's usually only the first trimester, and sometimes it doesn't even last that long. If you can figure out any particular triggers, that might help to keep it under control. It might have just been the travel that threw you off, because we didn't get much sleep last night. But either way, in the meantime," he jerked his chin towards the bag, "you might want to find a place to hide that mouthwash, because the team's going to think it's odd if we're driving around with a large bottle of Scope."

She huffed slightly, "I'll just tell them that you insisted on making out in between interviews."

Hotch hit the directional while responding drolly, "yes, well, as solid a plan as that is," he shot her a look, "perhaps you could just put it under the seat."

Her eyes now crinkling in amusement, Emily moved to tighten the cap.

"Okay, we'll do it your way Hotch," she leaned over to slide the bottle back under the bench seat, "but my plan would have been way funnier."

Now that she spent so much more personal time with him, she was much more comfortable teasing him. Of course she wouldn't do it in front of anyone else though.

Hotch huffed.

"Yes well that may be. But I'd kind of hoped not to end my career by getting fired for egregious acts of harassment."

"Ah, but sir," she answered with a tired smile, "if you're going to go out, then you should really go out with a bang," she tipped her head, "so to speak."

They'd just stopped at a red light then and Hotch's lips twitched as he turned to her.

"You do remember that you're going to be somebody's mother, right? You're going to have to watch your language around the little person."

"Baby."

Hotch's brow wrinkled in confusion as he looked over at that random utterance, "excuse me."

Her hand moved to her stomach as she patted her barely existent belly.

"Baby, capital B. Until I know what he/she is, and start thinking about names, that's what I decided I'm going with." She tipped her head, "and besides, that wasn't 'foul' language, that was an inadvertent double entendre." Her lip quirked up slightly, "I highly doubt the fetus understood what I meant."

"Probably not," Hotch raised a droll eyebrow, "given that it doesn't have ears yet."

Emily winced as she looked down, gently rubbing her stomach.

"Ooh, don't say that, it freaks me out." She was quiet for a second before adding faintly, "what if they don't grow?"

That thought kept coming to her. It was stupid but she kept worrying, like obsessively, that maybe there would be something wrong with the baby. Of course she knew it was probably just her own guilty conscience. For getting pregnant by another woman's husband, that would be a fitting punishment.

Hotch looked over to see Emily blinking away tears and he winced.

Damn it.

He hadn't meant to upset her, but it was true! The baby really didn't have ears yet! Fetuses didn't come fully miniaturized. Most of that stuff took the full nine months until all the parts were in working order.

Then he quickly berated himself.

The science behind the whole process isn't really what's important right now Aaron!

Here he was in the car with a first time single mom who was already sick, exhausted and stressed out from throwing up for almost twenty minutes straight. Not to mention that she'd been putting herself under a ridiculous amount of strain over the guilt of the conception, and he'd just told her that her baby had no ears. He internally rolled his eyes.

God, why don't you give her something else to worry about jackass?

And seeing that the light was still red, he reached over and picked up her hand. When she looked up at him, he said softly, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put a bad thought in your head. Your baby's going to be just fine."

At Hotch's kind words, Emily's tears spilled over. And she hated that she was crying again, especially in front of him. He'd already seen her much too weak today. But she'd been keeping this one bottled up since she'd found out that she was pregnant. All of the previous conversations they'd had, she tried to keep them light, to not burden him too much with her worries. But apparently the combination of the exhaustion and the hormones were catching up with her.

She sniffled.

"I just keep thinking that there's going to be something wrong with it. That God will punish me for what I did."

Hotch's eyes widened as he looked over at her in disbelief.

"Emily, you don't really believe that, do you?"

She wiped her hand across her cheek.

"I might be a lapsed Catholic, Hotch, but a lot of that stuff takes root. And I know it's completely illogical, but all I can think is that I did something bad, and that my baby might suffer because of it."

They both looked up when they heard honking from behind them.

The light had turned green.

For a moment though, Hotch ignored the other cars as he just stared at her. Because he could see that she really did believe what she was saying. But he couldn't have that. That was just . . . no.

Absolutely not.

And although he knew that they had to get back to the station, at the moment he felt this was more important. So when he took his foot off the brake, rather than continuing straight, he turned off the main boulevard and down a residential street. He drove another half mile, ignoring the questioning look he could see out of the corner of his eye. Finally he figured that they'd gone far enough, so he pulled over and stopped on the side of the road.

They were in the midst of suburbia.

Again he looked over at Emily. Then he picked up her hand and squeezed her fingers between his.

Her eyes were still wet as she stared at him in obvious confusion.

"Prentiss," he started softly, "I've already told you that you didn't do anything wrong. But even if you had," he squeezed her fingers again, "God doesn't punish like that," he looked away and out the windshield as he gestured with his other hand, "look out there. Look at all of these homes, with all of these bicycles and toys on the front lawns. Swing sets in the backyards." He looked back at her, holding her gaze steady, "now do you think these are all good people? How many of them do you think cheat on their spouse? Cheat on their taxes? Drink and drive? And those are just the standard sins. Now think, statistically, how many of them have things on their hard drives that they don't want people like us to see."

When he saw Emily look out the window, he continued with a deep breath.

"All of those people, breaking the law, sinning against God, and look at all of those bicycles and swing sets and toy trucks. So I promise you, Emily," he finished on a whisper, "your baby will be fine."

It wasn't a promise that he should be making, because it wasn't one that he could personally keep. But Emily was young and healthy, so the odds were good that everything would be fine. And if God forbid, on the off chance that something did go wrong, it wouldn't be because God was doling out karmic punishment. It would simply be because a cell didn't divide correctly. And that could happen to anyone.

That was just life.

Emily stared out at the toys, thinking about what Hotch had just said. Thinking again about what she had done, and what she had witnessed over the years. How many terrible tragedies she'd seen happen to so many families. Not that she'd ever thought that anyone . . . ever . . . had deserved those horrible things that had happened to them. Of course not. Those people had been victims and they'd deserved nothing but her compassion and her sympathy.

But sometimes she had seen something in their eyes and she had wondered . . . just to herself . . . if maybe they'd thought they had it coming.

Because that's how she'd always looked at her own life. That there was balance and punishment. And eventually things caught up with you.

That way of thinking had started when her sister had died.

She sighed, feeling Hotch rubbing his thumb along her hand . . . but maybe Hotch was right. Maybe it was all random. The drunk drivers, the icy roads, the sparks from frayed extension cords . . . the birth defects. Maybe all tragedies were random. Wrong place. Wrong time.

No reason.

Some part of her would be more comforted if there was a reason. If it was punishment. But most of her wanted to embrace this new way of thinking that he was showing her. It seemed freeing, liberating . . . letting the guilt go. And as she thought about everything that she was going to be dealing with over the next seven and a half months, she realized maybe that maybe this new way of thinking, would be the best way of thinking.

If she just let the other stuff go.

Guilt really served no purpose beyond mental anguish. It was punishment that you inflicted upon yourself. And Hotch was right, Chris was the one who should be punished, not her. She hadn't known that he had a wife. So although she had slept with a married man and gotten pregnant by him, at the time, she hadn't known that she was doing anything wrong. And legally, without intent, the punishment for a crime was less severe.

Perhaps that held true morally as well.

Perhaps she'd punished herself enough.

She looked back over at Hotch . . . saw how closely he was watching her . . . and she gave him a slow nod.

"Okay."

His eyes widened slightly, "okay?"

Really, he'd been expecting more pushback.

But then she nodded again, this time more firmly.

"Yeah," she bit her lip, "I can't promise that those thoughts won't creep up, because it's sort of the way that I've always looked at the world. But I see your point. And um," she swallowed, "well, I'll work on letting some of this stuff go."

His eyes crinkled slightly as he gave her a sad smile, "good."

Then he was silent for a moment, wanting to offer more, but not sure if there was anything else he really could give. These were her issues, and she was going to have to find a way of dealing with them. The best he could do, all he could do, was what he had already done. Just show her an alternate viewpoint.

A different way of seeing the world.

So with a final squeeze of her fingers he finally let her go and started the ignition again. After he'd gotten them turned around, he started back towards the stationhouse.

They drove along through that neighborhood full of pretty houses and well used swing sets, in complete silence. But it was a comfortable silence.

They had broken down another wall.

When Emily murmured that she was going to rest her eyes for a minute, Hotch started thinking about the look on her face when she'd told him that she thought God was going to punish her. He just couldn't believe that she'd gone her whole life just waiting for the universe to come around and take its pound of flesh.

From her of all people.

Of course she wasn't perfect, nobody was, but she was compassionate and good natured, and a genuinely kind person who devoted her life to helping people. If there really was such thing as karmic justice, those qualities would mean that she would have lived a happy life. But he'd seen the things in her file, and he knew that hadn't been the case.

Not even close.

And though he didn't know the exact circumstances, beyond just what was in the file, he also knew that the Prentiss' had had another daughter. A younger sister who had died when Emily was in college. It had happened not long before he'd done the security check for her mother. The only reason that he knew about the death at all, was because the State Department had privately warned him to tread lightly on questions about the daughters.

That one of them had died six months earlier.

At the time there had been no Internet, so he hadn't been able to easily research to find out what had happened. If it had been relevant to the security review of course he could have gotten the information straight from State. But his curiosity about the death was personal, not professional, so he had thought it would be inappropriate to ask. Ironically, his curiosity about the situation had actually stemmed from a chance encounter he'd had with Emily.

He'd met her just once, when she'd come home from Yale on a weekend visit.

Their meeting had made an impression on him, because although she had been intelligent and polite when they had spoken . . . it had been a brief conversation in her living room about inconsequential things . . . her eyes had been incredibly sad.

He had felt her pain.

When they met again that day in his office years later, she'd had more spark in her, but there was still something in her. Something that she carried.

Something that weighed her down.

Maybe that loss also explained the parade of losers that he'd seen go through her life. Because he knew that there was always a reason that the nice girl fell into that rut. The one that made her attract that same asshole over and over.

She deserved so much better.

They came to another stoplight then and he looked over to see Emily had fallen asleep. His expression softened.

She definitely deserved better. And maybe if she could start thinking differently . . . he wiped a bit of drool off the corner of her mouth . . . maybe better would come along.

A/N 2: I gave Em a whole new shadowy back story. The infamous file. But given that she has more vulnerability in this story than my others, I wanted there to be some serious stuff there would explain it. And I have given her a bit more of a spiritual bent, though I'm not even sure if that's the right description for it. She's not religious per se, just, I've personally found, in 'moments of crisis' that all of that old school Catholic stuff you get raised with, comes around and smashes you across the face again like a damn two by four. Bad stuff happens, you're getting punished. I think that about myself, but again, I don't assume that about others. I don't assume people got what they deserved, just that I did! Yes, it's warped. But unfortunately it's really hard to shake off that stuff you learn when you're a kid. That's your original programming, and it's hard to wipe the hard drive :)

I really can't think of a worse place to throw up than a convenience store bathroom. Except maybe a gas station bathroom. Blech to both, but it was better than throwing up in the car.

And fun fact, my baby research showed that in fact the internal workings for the ears are just starting to form around the 6th week. Right where she is.