Thanks everyone for your patience! I promise there should be multiple chapters in the next week or two. I just had some fairly major surgery, so I'm stuck in bed for awhile, and hopefully it'll give me time to write! This chapter may seem a little more confusing, but I promise it will start to make sense! I hope you like it!

Emily

"What?" I asked, trying not to laugh. I bent down to rub some white streaks left on Spencer's face from the sun block in, and looked up at Nikolas. Spencer was starting to walk now, so we were taking him around the Island, me tightly holding on to one hand and Nikolas holding onto the other.

"I think we should get married now," he repeated.

"Mawied!" Spencer attempted, only to have his pacifier fall out of his mouth. I picked it up and put it in my pocket before he had a chance to try and put it back in his mouth.

"But . . . why now?"

He sighed and picked up Spencer, then turned to face me. "After everything that's happened this year . . . I don't want to wait anymore. I don't think there's any need to wait anymore. I don't want anything big or fancy; I just want to be able to call myself your husband.

I tried not to look shocked. "You're serious."

"Completely. I mean, if you want something big, it's not even too late to plan a wedding. I'm sure that Carly would let us use the Metrocourt and-"

I kissed him. "Stop talking," I whispered. "You don't need to sound like you're apologizing by asking me to marry you. I don't care if we only do it here, I don't want anything big. I just want to marry you too."

"Mawied!" Spencer squealed again.

"That right," Nikolas told Spencer. "How would you feel about Emily becoming your mama?"

"Mama?" he asked with a puzzled look.

"We'll work on that," he promised me. "So, really? This weekend?"

I took a deep breath and smiled. "Really. This weekend."

He kissed me again, and Spencer started clapping. Or at least as well as a one year old could clap. I grinned, and he put Spencer down.

"You're getting too heavy for me to carry around," he told Spencer. "Now what do you say we go back home? We've got lots of planning to do." We both took his hands again and set off towards the house.

Lulu was waiting for us when we came in. She was sitting on the sofa, looking nervous.

"Lulu, what's going on?" Nikolas asked when she didn't say anything.

"I need to talk to you guys."

"Both of us?"

"I think. . . kinda."

Nikolas looked at her, then over at me. "I'll put Spencer down for his nap and be out."

"Is everything okay?" I asked, taking a seat facing her on the sofa.

"Emily, I know you and Nikolas just got back together and there's been so much insanity lately, and this couldn't come at a worse time, but this was the best solution I could come up with."

"You know you can come to us anytime," I assured her. She was looking increasingly upset, and I was getting increasingly worried. I tried to figure out the best way to ask her what was going on, but before I could come up with anything, Nikolas came back out. I felt relieved, then guilty for feeling relieved. Nikolas had never had any sisters growing up, from what I had heard never even any girlfriends before Elizabeth's sister, Sarah. He had an excuse for being clueless when it came to any problem with Lulu. I, on the other hand, had been a teenage girl not that long ago and felt like I was supposed to know how to act and what to say and do. But I felt equally clueless.

"So," Nikolas said, sounding slightly annoyed, taking a seat beside me. "I had an angry voicemail from Edward. Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?"

She nodded. "It's. . . part of it." Lulu adored Nikolas, no matter how it came off sometimes, and she was afraid of disappointing him. She looked even more nervous than before.

"I, um. . . my dad left," she said softly, looking down. "Again."

I didn't need to look at Nikolas to see his reaction. "What happened this time?" he asked, not even feigning surprise.

"He didn't say," she said softly. "But that wasn't the problem so much as. . . Tracy's fallen for my dad. And when he left, she basically held me responsible. She was really mad. So I left. And didn't go back last night. Hence the angry phone call from Edward."

"Please don't tell me you were off with that kid. . . Spaghetti?"

"Spinelli. And no, I wasn't with him."

"Then where were you?"

"That's not really the issue," she said quickly. "I just. . . I don't know where else to go. And I know it's not fair for me to be asking, because I know you and Emily just got back together, but. . ." she looked at him through her think eyelashes. "I don't know where to go."

Nikolas was quiet for a minute. "You want to move in with us?"

"Unless you can come up with another idea. . . then yes."

Nikolas sighed. I didn't let him think about it though. "Of course you can move in with us," I told her.

"Really?" she asked, the first makings of a smile I had seen from her all day spreading across her face.

"We'll have to establish some ground rules first," Nikolas interjected. He wasn't happy. But there was no way I was going to say no to her. "But first, I'm going to call Edward and let him know you're okay." He excused himself and left Lulu and I alone again.

"Thanks Emily," she said softly.

"You're Nikolas' sister. I'm not going to force you to live somewhere you don't want to live. Besides, I know Tracy's been a particular breed of crazy for awhile, and it's not fair to make you deal with that."

"Thank you," she repeated, and before I knew what was happening, she had her arms wrapped around me.

Lulu

After I finished with Lainey, I went back to my room. They had told me another two weeks before I could leave. I didn't want to ignore what they said, but I didn't think I could handle two more weeks in a place I didn't belong. I opened my door to find Spinelli sitting on my bed in a set of scrubs, but still with his signature beanie.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, suddenly self conscious of my appearance. Since I had been here all I had worn were sweats and messy buns. I hadn't seen him since. . . before.

"Greetings Blonde One."

"How did you get in here?"

"The jackal made himself a functional maintenance pass."

"Okay, but . . . why?"

He dropped the laugh that seemed to be embedded into his speech. "I wanted to see you. And apologize."

"For what?"

"You being here. . . it's sort of my fault. Well. . . completely."

I shook my head. "No Spinelli. . . the only person responsible for me being here is me."

"But it was I who-"

I shook my head. "It wasn't your fault." As much as I was glad to finally have a visitor- a visitor I wasn't allowed, mind you- but a visitor nonetheless, I was tired from my session with Laniey and wanted to crawl into bed. "Look, I appreciate you coming, but if they catch you in here, I'll be in trouble."

"Not to worry, Blonde One," he assured me, the lilt back in his voice. "The Jackal just wanted to make sure that he couldn't be of service." He nodded a goodbye, and quickly disappeared from my room.

I sat down on my bed and found a letter, a bag from Sonny's coffee shop, and a magazine sitting beside my phone. As he did every day when he got off from work, Milo had dropped something off for me. Even though he couldn't see me, he would walk up whatever he had brought me and make sure that it was left for me in my room. Since we didn't have access to e-mail in the hospital, he always left a letter. It didn't always say much, but always ended with I love you. I had memorized his handwriting. I loved the way ever single letter was perfectly detached from the others, how the letters slanted to the right, how he dotted his "I"s with the same lines he used to cross his "t"s, and how most importantly, I could count on it being there every time I opened a letter. I still wasn't used to that. I wanted to trust that it would still be there tomorrow, but I wasn't there. At least not yet.

In the bag, he had a couple of mini-biscotti's, two triple chocolate brownies, and a couple of caramel chocolate cookies. I was going to be 300 pounds by the time I left here, but the treats reminded me of him, of just sitting in the coffee shop for hours with nothing to do but be together.

Sonny had been great with him after everything had happened with me. He had offered him time off, alternate assignments, whatever would help Milo. Especially after he found out what me being in the hospital had done to Emily. I knew he and Emily had been together between the two times that she had been married to Nikolas, and he seemed to be willing to do anything for her and the people she loved. Of course, she never would ask him- or anyone else- for anything. But he was there for anything she needed. And as a result, he had offered to do anything and everything to make my life easier. Unfortunately, money and power did nothing to help me.

I picked up the magazines to find the latest copies of Cosmo, Marie Claire, and The Economist. I smiled. I had to give him points for trying. He wanted to make sure I had something for whatever mood I was in. I pulled a cookie out of the bag, opened the Marie Claire, and sat back on my bed to cry.