As she stood on Fran's front porch, waiting for someone to answer the door, Emily couldn't quite decide which was the more pressing anxiety: her daughter being angry with her or Derek being angry with her. Or, possibly, Fran being angry with her...though she couldn't quite imagine Fran ever being angry.

It had been two long weeks since she'd held her daughter. They Facetimed every night, but it wasn't the same as feeling her baby soft skin and smelling her baby sweet scent. Facetime could never ever be enough.

She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans as she waited, trying her best not to let her mind wander as it was so often wont to do, lest she convince herself that her daughter hated her...

Fortunately, the door swung open and she immediately had an armful of preschooler as Jayde flung herself at her mother with a shriek of, "Mommy!"

Emily wrapped her arms around the little body, lifting her off the ground and resting her on her hip. She nuzzled the girl's nose with her own, then kissed her cheeks. She was doing her best not to let Jayde see the tears that were pooling in her eyes, even if they were from relief rather than sadness, lest Jayde be frightened by them. "I missed you so much, baby..." Emily murmured, pressing a third kiss to the top of her head.

"Mommy...you're holding me too tight!" Jayde complained from the depths of Emily's embrace.

Emily laughed softly, loosening her grip. She looked up at the sound of someone clearing their throat to find Derek standing in the doorway, watching their interaction. Emily immediately felt her cheeks flush, a swell of guilt filling her chest. She cleared her throat, mumbled a greeting.

For a few moments, the two adults just made awkward eye contact, neither quite seeming certain what to say or how to act. Luckily, they were saved further awkwardness by Fran joining them. "Shall we go?" she suggested.

Jayde nodded eagerly. They'd promised to take her to the movies that afternoon so she could see the latest Disney princess movie that she'd been talking about nonstop for the past month and a half. She began wiggling to be released from Emily's grasp and, as soon as she was on the ground, she grabbed Emily's hand, then Derek's, and began tugging them down the sidewalk.

Emily laughed softly. "Slow down – we have to wait for Mrs. Morgan," she gently instructed.

Jayde glanced over her shoulder at Fran then, something suddenly seeming to occur to her. "I wanna hold Grandma Fran's hand," she said. "Derek, you hafta hold Mommy's hand."

Derek's eyes went wide. "What? Why?" he stammered.

Jayde rolled her eyes. "'Cause she gonna gets lost..." she said matter-of-factly.

"I don't think..." Emily started to protest. But before she could finish the sentence, Jayde had taken her wrist and Derek's wrist and mashed their palms together, leaving them no choice in the matter.

They shared a silent conversation then, in which they seemed to ask each other whether this was an acceptable turn of events. And, when neither seemed about to protest, they seemed to decide at once to just go along with the situation to please the child.

With Jayde chattering happily to Fran, it quickly became clear that they had a brief moment in which to clear the air before anyone else could pick up on their suddenly frosty relationship. "About what I said..." Emily started to say.

Almost immediately, Derek replied, "You don't have to..."

She cut him off, "No, I do." She paused, took a shaky breath to bolster her nerves. "What I said... It came out wrong. I think – no, I know – that you and I could probably work if we were to give it a chance."

A beat.

"But?" Derek prompted at length.

She glanced down at where their hands were still joined, then quickly looked away again. "But I think you've probably figured out by now that I don't do relationships. I mean, I've tried in the past...and it ended with me pregnant and alone."

Derek opened his mouth to protest, but she didn't give him the chance to speak.

"I know you're not like that. You and John are barely the same fucking species. But the point still stands that I don't know how to have a relationship. Certainly not a good one. And I don't know that I could live with myself if I were to try and end up completely fucking up our friendship. And I certainly couldn't live with myself if, after seeing how attached Jayde has become to you and your mom, I were to have to tell her she can never see you again because I'm a fuck up." She paused, shook her head, tongue flicking out over her bottom lip. "Am I making any sense at all?"

"Conversationally, yes. Logically, no."

She raised a brow, shot him a look that was part confusion, part irritation. "Excuse me?"

He met her gaze then for the first time that afternoon. "Emily, are you seriously trying to convince me that the reason we can't be together is that you're too chicken shit to even try?"

Her expression became pointed. "Excuse me?" she repeated, more dangerously.

He wasn't about to back down, though. "I don't accept that." She seemed about to protest that it wasn't up for debate, but it was his turn to not let her get the words out. "I don't accept that you get to decide we won't work without even giving me a say in the matter. I don't accept your vision of the future because you're many things, Em, but a psychic isn't one of them. I don't accept this bullshit excuse that you're too fucking damaged or whatever."

"But..."

"It's bullshit," he repeated.

And, before Emily could try to argue the matter, Jayde gasped audibly from behind them. "Grandma Fran, Derek said a bad word!" she tattled.

"He certainly did," Fran agreed, shooting the two adults a 'do you mind having your domestic squabbles elsewhere?' look that clearly said she'd heard far more than either of them would have liked.

"Does he gots to sit in time out?" Jayde asked, blissfully unaware of the silent scolding being shot from Fran to Emily and Derek. "'Cause bad words are naughty..."

Fran nodded sagely. "What do you think his punishment should be?" she asked the child.

Jayde thought for a moment. Then, face a mask of seriousness, she declared, "No popcorn at the movie!"

Playing along, Derek pouted, whined, "No fair!"