"Mami, I already told you she doesn't want to have a baby shower." Aaron sighed. This was just about the five hundredth time he'd had this conversation with his mom.

"Well I was talking with Sarah last night, and we thought doing something small could be nice." Aaron regretted giving his mom Emily's aunt's phone number. They had allegedly wanted to coordinate schedules for coming to DC after the baby was born, but what there was to coordinate when it sounded like both women were basically just planning on moving in at this point Aaron had no idea. Emily's lack of a baby shower was just one of many topics the two of them seemed to want to discuss ad infinitum. It was right up there with, 'Why don't the two of you just get married before the baby comes?', 'What do you mean you're not planning on getting married in a Catholic Church', 'What are the plans for the Baptism?', and 'When are you planning on having more kids?' Aaron knew Emily was getting it just as much from her aunt and found it equally exhausting.

"She's just missing her mom, and having her here for all this." He felt a little guilty saying that. It's not that it wasn't true, but he found that that excuse was rolling off his tongue a little too frequently these days. It did immediately shut down any thoughts or complaints from his mother, but it also wasn't telling the whole story. Aaron knew Emily wasn't happy with him, he knew she needed more from him than he was giving. Every morning he decided that today when he got home he would talk to her. And then the day wore him down, and invariably something terrible happened, and by the time he got home if Emily was even still awake the last thing he wanted to do was have a real conversation with her. He'd thought he might talk to her today, he had a rare afternoon free, but when he got home he found her asleep.

Now his mom was going on about how he needed to make sure he was taking good care of Emily, which was normally pretty easy to just nod along too, but today just made him feel more guilty. He wanted to take good care of her, more than anything, but he just felt like everything he did made things worse. Feeling the need to cut this conversation short, Aaron said, "I should go, I want to check on Em."

"Of course, you take care sweetie. I love you."

"Love you too." He hung up the phone, and decided he should go check on her. At least that way it wouldn't be another lie he had told his mother today. Walking up to the bedroom he passed the half finished nursery, and felt another pang of guilt. He was supposed to have finished that last weekend, but had been too busy with work. The only reason they even had a crib put together was Seth had come over this week to help Emily out. Emily told him not to worry about it, but he couldn't help but feel it was just another way he was feeling short of the man he should be. Maybe he could put the rest together this afternoon. He didn't know where the last few months had gone, but it felt like all of a sudden they were just weeks away from the due date.

Peeking his head through the doorway he saw Emily curled up in bed. He knew she wouldn't agree that the last few months had flown by. She'd been complaining more and more about being uncomfortable and tired, and lately had been spending pretty much any time she wasn't working in bed trying to sleep. Spying an empty water glass on the bedside table, Aaron tried to walk lightly across the room to grab it.

"Aaron?" Aaron could feel the exhaustion in Emily's voice.

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't, I can't sleep. Are you coming to bed?"

"Em, it's two in the afternoon. I was getting you another glass of water."

"Oh, right. Well, can you turn off the light when you leave?"

"What light?" Aaron looked up, all the lights in the room were off.

"That light." She pointed at the window.

Stifling his laugh as best as he could, he didn't think Emily would find this nearly as funny as he did, he said, "Babe, that's the sun. I don't think there's much I can do about that." Hearing Emily sniffle, he realized she'd started crying. Feeling like a jerk, he sat down on the bed next to her and brushed her hair off her face. "I'm sorry."

Emily wiped her eyes. "You're fine. I've just been feeling crappy all day, and I'm so tired but I can't sleep."

"Crappy how?" Especially this late in the pregnancy, every minor thing put Aaron on high alert.

"I don't know, everything just hurts."

"Anything I can do? More water? Back rub?" Emily shrugged. As gently as he could Aaron laid down in bed next to her and lightly rubbed her back.

They laid there for a few minutes before Emily whispered, "I think I might be in labor."

At those words Aaron sprung up in under a second, "What?"

Still whispering Emily replied, "I thought I was having Braxton Hicks earlier when I laid down, but they feel different now. And they're coming faster."

"Jesus, Em. How far apart are they?" He was scanning the room searching for Emily's go bag and their shoes.

"I don't know, I haven't been counting. I'm scared Aaron. It's too early."

Forcing himself to slow down Aaron sat back down next to Emily. "It's going to be okay. It's just three weeks early. Plenty of babies are born three weeks early." Aaron didn't actually know if that was true, but he figured there was no sense it stressing Emily out more now. It's not like there was anything they could do about it. His only real experience with premature babies was years ago when Nadia was born around two months early. But that was really just a vague recollection of his family spending tons of time in the hospital, and didn't feel like the most helpful anecdote right now. "Let's time your next contraction. The doctor said five minutes and you should call, right?"

"Right." Her voice sounded slightly less wobbly now.

"Okay, tell me when the next one starts." He pulled up the timer app on his phone. Emily still looked incredibly worried, so he tried to distract her. "Did I ever tell you about the time I hit Richmond in the balls with a soccer ball?" She shook her head with the faintest smile on her lips so he launched into the story. There really wasn't much to it, the President had been going a bit stir crazy so he challenged some of the staffers to a game of soccer. Aaron had gotten a bit too competitive and nailed Richmond in the groin. But he drew the story out and exaggerated all the right parts, to try and get a laugh out of Emily. He was mostly unsuccessful, but it did get the time moving a bit quicker. Finally Emily squeezed his hand for the second time. "Starting again?" She nodded. He hit stop on his phone and looked at the time. Four minutes and fifty two seconds. Add that to the fact that she didn't seem to be able to talk through the contractions and Aaron thought it was time to go. Scrolling through his phone he pulled up the midwife practice's number and dialed. As he was listening to the phone ring Emily grabbed his phone away from him. He rolled his eyes, literally in the middle of labor and Emily still wanted to do everything herself, some things never changed he supposed.

Aaron listened to Emily's side of the conversations, which took an infuriatingly long time and was a lot of yeses and nos. As he listened he put his own shoes on and grabbed her hospital bag. Seeing the look on her face he stopped short of putting her flip flops on for her and left them next to the bed. Finally she hung up the phone and said, "Time to go." Her voice was still soft and somewhat shaky.

She wasn't moving so he helped her up from the bed and asked, "Do you need anything else?"

"No everything's packed." Still she wasn't moving.

"Okay then. Let's go."

"It's too early Aaron, what if something happens?"

"The hospital is the best place for us to be Em. Everything's going to be fine." Kneeling down he pressed her feet into her sandals and putting a hand on her back led her out of the room. At least she didn't seem to resist going anywhere. He thought she might just be in shock. "Vanessa's on duty today, We can have her drive with us, you like her. And she was a medic in Afghanistan." Aaron figured there had to be some benefit to go along with the intrusion of having secret service agents trailing their every move, although he hoped they would not need any medical care on the way to the hospital.

Still no response from Emily, but he got them into the car and on the way to the hospital. Once the car pulled out of the driveway he felt his anxiety start to spike. It was one thing when he had something to do, but he was no good at just waiting. He knew he could not let Emily see his anxiety, so he took a deep breath and turned to her. "Do you want me to call anyone for you? Your Aunt maybe?" He knew at one point Emily had been planning on having her Aunt here for the birth, but that plan got somewhat sidelined when the two of them got more serious.

She just shook her head. And then so softly he could barely hear it she said, "I just want my mom." Not knowing what to say he just wrapped his arms around her, and prayed they would be at the hospital soon. He wasn't an expert in labor by any stretch of the imagination, but in his estimation Emily was in too much pain. And if he was interpreting when her contractions were correctly they were speeding up quickly. Now that things were moving so quickly, all he could think was what kind of father he was going to be if he couldn't even seem to take care of his fiancée right.