Author's Note: I have been really busy so I totally apologize for the lack of updates. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter and another will follow soon. Thanks for all your patience.

Emma awoke with a start. According to the clock it was only a little after five in the morning. Careful not to wake Gerry she pulled herself to a sitting position. Her son was really kicking, she thought with a half smile. He was kicking so hard almost as if to say he wanted out. Cradling her belly, Emma rose and tip toed to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. Something didn't feel quite right. Taking a deep breath, she gulped a sip of water. For a second everything was okay, then it hit. It started. A deep, ripping, searing sharp pain that began in her thighs and ripped through her lower back and stomach like a hot knife. Emma screamed and dropped to the floor, the water glass shattering around her. Instantly Gerry's eyes popped open.

"Emma?" he yelled.

"Gerry! Gerry, help me!"

She could barely get the words out and she knew it would take a few minutes for Gerry to get himself situated in his chair. In record time he was wheeling towards her.

"Emma? Sugar, what happened? What's the matter?"

Her eyes, barely recognizable, were glassed over with pain.

"Emma, talk to me, baby. Come on. Open your eyes."

It was a struggle just to keep her eyes open. She hurt...everywhere. A physical pain so agonizing and profound that she couldn't talk, couldn't see, could barely think. All she could do was focus on the raging inferno within her middle and the desperate and worried eyes of her husband. Her tiny hand reached out for him, grabbing at the front of his tee shirt. For a few seconds she held on with all her might, then she went limp and her vision grew black. As she faded away she could hear him calling out to her but his voice began to flow out into the distant. In one final act, she draped an arm over her stomach, a desperate last attempt to protect their precious little boy.

Emma's eyes fluttered open. They felt heavy and weighed down, almost blinded by the bright light shining down on top of her. She didn't recognize her surroundings and for a moment it felt like a dream.

"Sugar..."

"Gerry", she managed to smile.

He carefully stroked her forehead and gave her a simple kiss. His eyes were swollen and red rimmed. He looked so tired.

"Where...where am I?" she asked, confused and trying to sit up.

It was to no avail. Her entire body felt like jello.

"We're in the hospital. Don't you, remember? Last night..."

The memories of the pain and terror came flooding back.

"The baby?" she asked with sudden panic. "Is he okay? Is..."

Her hands instantly found her stomach, relieved to feel the now familiar weighted budge. Her relief was short lived as there was the eerie feeling of complete stillness. Something felt wrong and the sad look on her husband's face only confirmed the unthinkable.

"Gerry..."

Huge tears welled in his eyes as they were joined by the doctor.

"Mrs. Bertier, how do you feel?"

"Our baby! Is everything okay?"

Her eyes pleaded up at the doctor and at her husband. She desperately needed reassurance. She needed to hear them say that it was a fluke, just a minor scare and that everything was going to be okay.

"Mrs. Bertier, there was a problem", the doctor began.

Emma shook her head violently. Inside she screamed the word no a thousand times.

"It's a very rare condition that occurs in pregnancies when the placenta separates itself from the uterus. When that happens, the baby is deprived of oxygen and nutrients and everything it needs to..."

"No!" Emma screamed out loud.

She knew what was coming next but she wasn't prepared to hear it. Who would be?

"Mrs. Bertier..."

"Emma, sugar..."

"No! No! Noooooooooo!"

Emma hoped if she could just keep screaming then she wouldn't have to hear it. Then it wouldn't have to be true.

"I'm sorry but...your son is gone."

The words hit her like a piercing knife aimed directly at her heart. The sorrow was overwhelmingly unbearable then she just went numb.

"We are going to schedule you immediately for a caesarean section. It is important that you deliver as soon as possible. I'll give you and Mr. Bertier a few minutes, then a nurse will be in for surgery preparations."

The doctor placed a sympathetic hand on Gerry's shoulder before exiting the room. Loss and death unfortunately came with the job and it was a sadness many doctors saw everyday. Still even the most seasoned professional would be brought to tears by the tragic scene before them. A young couple in love, happy and busy making preparations to welcome their miracle child into the world. Then in one moment, so brief, so harsh, it was all over. Their little boy was gone and if that wasn't bad enough, now the couple would be forced to endure a delivery.

All Gerry and Emma could do was cry and hold each other. It was a nightmare.

"I don't want to see him", Emma whispered to Gerry as tears fell and her entire body shook violently. "I don't want to see or hold him."

Gerry wiped at his eyes and held her hand tightly. He was lost in an emotional fog himself where life had suddenly turned so cruel that it no longer seemed real. But he did agree with his wife. He did not want to see or hold their son either.

"Mr. Bertier, Mrs. Bertier...it's time", a nurse quietly announced.

Gerry and Emma were taken from the hospital room a few floors up to the Labor and Delivery section of the hospital. An anesthesiologist administered the drugs that would allow the physician team to perform the operation on Emma. She would feel no physical pain but she would be awake.

"Incision", the lead doctor instructed and by the feel of the tugging, Emma knew she had been cut wide open.

There was no physical pain but there was a certain level of discomfort as she felt them pulling on her from the inside out. It didn't matter though. She may as well have felt the agony of being split open with a scalpel and it still wouldn't have compared with the pain in her heart. A million thoughts raced through Emma's mind. It was as if her entire life flashed before her eyes. All of a sudden she was five years old and sitting at her parents' kitchen table preparing to blow out candles on a Barbie birthday cake. She was ten years old clowning around on the monkey bars at recess with her schoolmates. She was fourteen again, smiling shyly as she and Susan Woods walked by History class as Gerry frantically sharpened pencils. She was sixteen and parents picketed outside the newly integrated T.C. Williams. She was by Gerry's side in the hospital after the car accident that paralyzed him for life. She was his bride on the happiest day of their lives. She hugged him on the second happiest day of their lives when they found out they were pregnant. And now here they were on the saddest day ever.

"He's out", a doctor announced. "Mr. and Mrs. Bertier, do you want to see your son?"

Emma furiously shook her head, bitter tears falling all over again. A huge lump formed in Gerry's throat. He didn't want to but he knew what he had to do. Holding their lifeless baby would be the hardest thing he'd ever have to do but he knew that if he didn't, then he'd regret it forever. In his heart, he knew that Emma would too.

A nurse wrapped the tiny infant in a blue receiving blanket then handed him into the waiting arms of his tearful father. Gerry's heart melted into a thousand and one pieces. In his arms was the son he had prayed for. So tiny...so still...so perfect.

"Emma..."

"No Gerry", Emma protested, biting the inside of her lip.

"Emma..."

He brought the baby, their baby, over to her. Their tears flooding everywhere, Emma reached out a shaking hand to gently stroke the face of her son.

"He's still warm", she sobbed.

Gerry sighed and fought back tears as he cradled his wife and their newborn son. When Emma had first collapsed, when the doctor had first told him that their little boy was gone, he had felt an overpowering rage directed at God. How dare He! Hadn't their family suffered enough? Why? They were law abiding, God fearing, decent living human beings who had endured more than their share of tragedy. Gerry had already been deprived of ever walking again. Hadn't that been enough for God? Why did He have to go and take away their beautiful baby? But as he stared down at Emma and their son, an uncanny sense of peace began to settle over him. It still hurt. It still didn't make any sense but for some reason at that moment he felt like they were all going to be okay.

"I want to name him", Emma sniffed. "He's a person and he deserves a name."

"The one we were thinking? Christopher Michael?"

Emma nodded as she cuddled him.

"And we have to have a funeral. We can get him a little blue casket."

Gerry agreed. It was only appropriate, he thought as he looked down at their son. He knew he would miss little Christopher forever but in a way he was still their miracle baby. He was the littlest angel, their new guardian angel. Holding and loving Christopher had put them in contact with Heaven. What gift could be greater than that?