A/N: My schedule is going to start picking up soon but don't worry I won't abandon this. I've invested too much. Enjoy!

Chapter Six

Emma's POV

As her hand closed around the handle of the driver's side door she took a deep breath, preparing herself for the world she was about to transition into as soon as she stepped through the double doors across the parking lot. A more structured, adolescent-focused parallel to the one she had visited for three months.

It had taken the doctors a bit longer than originally anticipated to stabilize Scott and he had remained in the hospital for a week. Once he was transferred to an intensive in-patient program they had not allowed visitors for the first couple weeks and although Emma understood their motives it hadn't stopped her from ranting to Will one night that she just wanted to speak with her friend.

The rooms were brighter than the rooms on the unit she had been on, designed to seem cheery and care-free. To the outsider it would appear they were doing their job and the environment was pleasant but to an insider, someone nervously awaiting each meal, knowing they were gaining weight and torn between wanting that and wanting to go back to their old life, she knew that lime green pillows and an abstract painting of an unidentifiable shape colored with varying shades of purple and blue wouldn't really make that big of a difference.

"Over here!" A voice called out as soon as she set foot in the spacious commons room, open in the center with chairs and tables lining the walls.

He was sitting in an overly cushioned blue chair, somehow appearing more fragile in the street clothes in this place than he ever had at school. His hair was unkempt, falling into his eyes at odd angles and his lips were chapped though smothered with chap-stick but he was smiling, truly smiling.

His body was slight against hers as he wrapped her up in a loose hug she hadn't been expecting. He had never been one to openly display affection. She felt honored that he would entrust her with such a thing. He had once admitted his father wasn't big on hugs and she had caught the hurt in his eyes before he hid it behind a sip of tea.

For a moment she faltered with her words. 'How are you?' seemed contrite and commenting on the décor of his temporary housing seemed superfluous. Instead, while she marveled at the sensation of being the person visiting the ward instead of being on it, she dug through her purse for the packets of tea she had made Will stop at the store for on the first night Scott had been hospitalized.

"You brought it." He mused, his voice infused with an incredulous timbre that undermined the admiration he was trying to conceal.

"Shh," Emma smiled, exhaling over the index finger she raised to her lips "I snuck it in."

His eyes narrowed, slits of laughter upon his emaciated face and his lips curved into a wry grin, beckoning a giggle to spill forth from her own lips. "Okay, so maybe I called ahead and asked." She confessed, standing up to locate two unmarked Styrofoam cups and hot water from where the coffee maker would have been on the adult unit.

Some things were the same. The drawers still had locks, a jarring reminder to anyone who wanted to forget where they were.

Scott was waiting with a black sharpie when she returned and in his angular print he spelled first his name and then hers across the side of the cups. Emma stared at the writing, the pointed tips of the m's that comprised her identity to the world, comparing it mentally with the rounded m's of her own script and the hurried ones of Will's. Everyone wrote her name differently, everyone wrote her differently and sometimes she wished she could see herself through someone else's writing.

"There was a girl back on the hospital ward with really bad OCD. There were other things wrong but she kept thinking the word 'death' when she walked through the door and then she would have to go back and do it over again thinking 'life' to cancel out death. It was weird, and yet I understood it." Scott paused, thumbing the tag that dangled a few centimeters from the edge of his cup. "I was the only anorexic and no one understood that, understood me." Carefully he brought the cup to his lips, inhaling the scent that occasionally tickled her nose from her own cup, his lips pulling into a smile.

"Orange," he said in a contemplative manner, closing his eyes as though he wanted the drops to forget their obligations and linger on his tongue.

She was grateful he had set the tone of their conversation because she hadn't known where to place it, if they would talk about serious things as they usually did or light-hearted things. In a way she was relieved that their relationship dynamic wasn't changing even given where they were.

"I always find it refreshing." She commented, her own thoughts about being out of place as an adolescent on a ward lining with his. "People often think they have an understanding of OCD because everyone has bothersome thoughts they can't get rid of now and then. They, of course, really have no idea what it's like but it's that connection they feel they have that has given it a place in casual conversation. "

Briefly she took a sip of her tea, letting it sit in her mouth before swallowing, continuing with a sentiment she had kept to herself for years. "I get why they say it and maybe I should give them points for creativity but I hate it when people use OCD as a turn of phrase."

"Don't be so OCD." Scott said softly, with an air of realization coupled first with a grin and then with a frown as though he were remembering times spoken that way to a friend.

"It's really awkward when you actually have OCD and then you think they are talking to you.'" Emma smiled, dabbing at a drop of tea that she had been watching journey down the side of her cup, purposefully not touching it until it hit the table because doing so before would have been giving into a compulsion that she was determined to prove, could wait.

That was the difference really. The line between obsessive compulsion and troublesome thought and it had taken her years of therapy to get to the side of the line she was currently standing on.

Now and again when she was very stressed out about work or something that once put into perspective, really didn't matter, she would catch herself engaging in some old behavior. The thing that made it horrible is that once it started, even given all the therapy, it was still almost impossible to stop until the compulsion was completed. She could do it now, force herself to walk away, but she paid dearly by spending the next few hours persuading herself not to go back and finish.

She had heard Will make the comment she had just imparted to Scott once. At a Glee rehearsal he had invited her to attend shortly after they had started dating. Rachel had been on the verge of tearing Finn to pieces over some footwork in a dance and Will, trying to relieve the tension, had jokingly told the group that perhaps she was a little OCD. Everyone had laughed, and he had restored the balance he had been searching for. Emma had laughed to, but only for appearance's sake. Maybe it wasn't fair, that she grew uncomfortable when someone made such a comment, but long ago she had decided that if anyone had the right to feel put off by it, it was those with the disorder. Will had surprised her by approaching her after he had finally gotten rid of Rachel, suggested set-list in hand, and apologized for what he had said. Apparently he had noticed her reaction. She had never heard him use that term or any variation on it again and once she had overheard him politely correcting Puck's speech in the hallway between classes and his effort, all of it, made her feel cherished.

"They asked everyone to write down what their 'one food' was, you know, the one thing that despite it all you wish you could eat." He laughed then, bitterly, sadly, and informed her that his paper was still blank because writing it felt like permission.

God, she remembered that. Staring at a blank page when the question, theoretically, was so simple a child could have answered one hundred times over in the time it had taken her to place the pen against the paper.

She thought only for a second before grabbing a nearby napkin and the sharpie he had finally stopped rolling back and forth along the surface of the table.

After all the time, writing it was still easier than saying it.

Pizza

He nodded almost in agreement as he read and quickly added something at the bottom before sliding it back.

Do it:)

Grinning she shrugged, not committing either way, remembering how easy it had been for her to encourage others to eat when she had been sick and she wondered if he was feeling the satisfaction she had often felt knowing that they were about to consume something she wouldn't touch or if he was feeling the sadness that had set in later, the longing for something that others didn't think twice about.

Snatching up the napkin again, lid between his teeth, he added more to their silent exchange, and with four simple words she knew what he was feeling.

Eat one for me.

"Okay." She agreed, elated at what he had just revealed, the step forward he probably wasn't aware he had taken.

"Did you talk to him?" Scott questioned and for an instant Emma wondered if he had been able to hear her that day in the hospital until she remembered the afternoon where he had stumbled across the papers sitting next to her purse.

Perhaps the conversation should have been inappropriate but her relationship with this young man, so grown up for his age, transcended a lot of boundaries.

"We're going to try." She left it that, not seeing the need to inform Scott that they weren't going to actively try, but they were, and had since the night of their conversation, stopped using birth control.

A nurse interrupted whatever he had been planning to say, politely asking for his name and date of birth before scanning the bar code on his armband and depositing pills into the palm of his waiting hand. She tried not to stare, but she was fascinated by the way he so easily accepted the medication, downing them with the little cup of water the nurse provided as if they were nothing. She envied that, his innocence that wasn't really innocence because of the reason he was here.

That got her thinking about her own medication, the Abilify that she would have to stop taking before her third trimester if she got pregnant because it had been linked with complications at birth. Will had taken the advice of her print-outs to heart and they had made an appointment with her general practitioner to discuss, quite bluntly, getting pregnant when there was a history of eating disorders. The relief that had flooded through her when he had mentioned that there were now medications she could take while pregnant had been shared by Will, who had lovingly squeezed her hand and smiled.

Realizing Will would have been back from Glee rehearsal for almost a half hour she bade Scott good-bye, tucking the napkin into her purse, feeling more at ease than she would have thought about leaving him even though she didn't look back, because that would have been too hard and just like that she understood why Will had done the same.

Will's POV

He purposefully ignored her when he heard the patio door slide open focused on getting the retriever in front of him to back up without him having to move forwards. Propped up against the chain-link fence Will placed a treat in the grass just behind his feet set shoulder-width apart and waited for the dog to venture forward for the morsel. After gobbling up the treat Moritz took a step backwards to look back up at Will and it was during that step backwards that Will clicked and fed him another treat. So far they were making progress and he wasn't going to get distracted now, not when he finally had the hyperactive dog's attention.

A mischievous giggle followed by something soft bouncing off of the top of his head only to fall to the ground a few feet away where Moritz, oblivious to his command to leave it delightedly took off with what he could now tell by the series of rapid-fire squeaks, was a dog toy.

"Dinner's ready you two." Emma called out, leaning partially over the railing on the patio, her hair ruffling slightly in the breeze as she smiled down at him.

The red object Moritz had been displaying to the neighbor's terrier through the fence landed at his feet and Emma laughed when he kicked it over, unable to tell what it was.

"You got him a mutant ladybug?" Will questioned his wife who only shrugged and mentioned that it was on clearance, and that she thought it would look cute.

"Cute? Bud, don't play with that. She's ganging up on us." He told the burly dog currently nudging at the toy with his nose with the enthusiasm of a true retriever then staring stepping back a few feet to stare the toy down in a manner that would have made a Border Collie proud.

Noticing a chance for good training, he waited for the dog to step back one more time and ate his own words for the sake of Moritz' and a potential breakthrough, hurtling the insect across the yard.

"This is degrading isn't it?" He intoned cheerfully as Moritz rocketed back to him, chomping away as he did so, his eyes glossed over and squinty in the universal picture of doggy delight.

"Says the man who enters his dog in beauty pageants." Emma deadpanned just loud enough that he heard her, her accent creeping in on the 'r' of enter.

Feigning shock Will dropped his mouth open to stare in surprise at the dog, and then in mock anger at Emma.

"We can't let her get away with that can we?" He asked the dog in question, giving in one last time to his endless drive to retrieve before turning and racing to the bottom of the patio steps, pausing to grin evilly at his wife, attempting to play innocent.

He bounded up the steps in two strides, trapping her between him and the railing, unsuccessfully trying to resist the laughter that had already overcome her.

"Uh-oh" He whispered with a triumphant smile. "Look at the dog."

Emma glanced out into the yard her features falling. "Moritz!"

Will snorted, watching as the dog momentarily shifted his focus from the toy, clumps of stuffing now strewn about in a ten foot radius, to her, and transformed into a mass of wriggling glee. He side-winded towards them a few feet and then plopped onto his stomach with a huff, stretching his powerful back legs out behind him as he contentedly resumed what he had been doing before what to him, was probably a rather fruitless interruption.

"See, he was offended." Will couldn't help but point out while Emma shook her head and mumbled something he didn't catch about clearanced-out dog toys.

Following her inside, leaving the dog to his destruction, Will came to an abrupt stop as soon as the door slid closed behind him; his nose registering what dinner was before his eyes spied the evidence on the table.

"You ordered pizza." He looked up at Emma, worrying her bottom lip, appearing only slightly nervous before she broke out into a grin.

"Surprised?" She asked, her eyes hopeful and excited.

"Yes," He moved towards her, wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing her briefly before pulling away. "Thank you."

It was more than a thank you. They both knew that but they let it remain those simple words on the surface. The last time he had eaten pizza was a stolen slice at a faculty function. It was, to his knowledge, the last unsafe food on her list that she hadn't conquered and he hadn't pushed her. Their first night in their new house they had eaten sandwiches instead of ordering pizza like almost every other family he knew and he had been okay with that. Once, while Emma had been in treatment, he had gone out to a Pizza Hut with Shannon but declined bringing home the left-over's because he didn't want to make her uncomfortable. He hadn't realized until the smell hit him just how much he had missed what had been a staple in his life since college.

It had taken very little convincing for Emma to let him carry the box into the living room and although he was using a paper towel she had grabbed a plate. They sat on the couch, a wooden tray supporting the box, trading thoughts on the current rerun of Glee.

"It's a good moral Will, be who you are. You should have your kids 'go gaga.'" She emphasized the term in the same ridiculous manner the teacher on the show had, making claws out of her hands and for a moment she sounded serious enough that he turned to look at her, the smirk behind her piece of pizza giving her away.

Not dignifying her comment with a remark he reached out for another slice of pizza, his third to her second. For the briefest of seconds he caught a familiar flicker of hesitation in her eyes when she grabbed another piece and it pained him that it was something that might always be there, lurking.

They finished before the episode was to the half-way point and Will pretended not to notice that Emma had scooted closer to him somewhere in that time. The same way he was pretending not to notice her hand flat against his chest or her breath tickling his ear.

When she whispered that she could change his mind and began to leave kisses on his neck he stopped pretending.

Her hands slid under his shirt, roving across his skin as he crashed his mouth into hers, pulling her against him, and loving the fact that she had started this. She was stretched out on top of him, her hips rocking ever so slightly against his as they kissed and she pulled away just long enough to remove the shirt he had been starting to toy with, peering down at him with a grin that wasn't nervous or hesitant, but seductive and intoxicating.

He moaned when her skin connected with his wondering why he didn't remember removing his own shirt and met her hips with a groan, wanting her to feel what she was doing.

He had been intending to reach for the waist band of her pants when she sat up; leveling him with a smirk and then an innocent expression that belied the hand that was resting lightly over the bulge in his pants. Slowly she trailed her hand over him, pressing downward before retracting her hand as quickly as she had retracted her body.

"Idina's part is coming up!" She exclaimed as though she were a star-struck teenager forcing her begrudging parent to watch, as though she hadn't just been doing what she had been.

"You've got to be kidding me." He whined, glaring at the brunette that had stolen his wife's affection.

He attempted to recapture her attention with kisses to her shoulder but earned nothing save a giggle and a light shove towards his side of the couch.

When she tried to restart things, when the Broadway veteran wasn't on screen, he only feigned indifference knowing full well what was going to be occurring as soon as the credits rolled because he was still aroused and he could see it in her eyes, that she wanted him.

It was thrilling, making love to her knowing that if the timing was right, they could create a child.

Emma's POV

With a determined sigh Emma trudged into the kitchen wanting only to crawl back into the warm, inviting bed she had hauled herself out of over an hour ago. Will was already bustling about and her morning tea was sitting next to her cereal bowl, one of the bowls she had used countless times for oatmeal.

A bright green square on the calendar hanging next to the fridge caught her eye. Today was the day Scott was supposed to get out of treatment. She couldn't believe he had been there a month. If all went according to what he had told her on their last visit he was going to be moved to an intensive out-patient program that would meet in the evenings and on weekends so he wouldn't have to miss more school.

She knew that was going to be hard, transitioning back to the real world. It had been hell for her and she was an adult woman with a compassionate group of coworkers knowing why she had been gone, not an adolescent teenage boy returning to the questioning stares of peers he didn't even know. The news of his hospitalization had spread like wild-fire through the halls of McKinley, something she hadn't figured out how to tell him yet but she had a feeling he knew. He was a smart boy, mature for his age.

She was partially through her bowl of cheerios when she noticed it. The uneasiness in her stomach that she had assumed was hunger before she started eating that was still there, leaving her awash in a sea of memories and fear.

Suddenly she was back to agonizing days of getting her body used to more food than it had been given in a week. Back to the unfamiliar, uncomfortable, threatening tightness in her belly that meant she had eaten and she jumped up, placing one arm protectively about her middle as though somehow her own touch could make it go away.

"I feel sick! Why do I feel sick? I'm not supposed to feel sick! This isn't supposed to happen anymore. I'm normal now…" She trailed off struck by the profundity behind her statement wondering when she had begun to see herself as something other than a woman with, or recovering from, an eating disorder.

Will stood up slowly, concern etched across his face as he asked what was wrong.

"I don't like feeling sick. It makes me think of being sick." She was breathing faster, growing agitated at the knot in her stomach that only seemed to be increasing in size.

He paused then, his head tilting to the side the way it always did when he was curious or lost in thought and carefully he crossed over to her, his body inches from hers.

"Emma, calm down. What if it's not about the food?" He questioned her gently, his hands coming to rest lightly on her upper arms, one raising up to cup her cheek while let his words sink in.

Her eyes widened, her glance dropping to her stomach only to travel back to his face. "Oh…oh gosh." She whispered, embarrassed at her panicked reaction.

It had just been so terrifying, feeling queasy after eating such a simple breakfast. Her first thought had been about all of the times she had thrown up to try and get rid of that sensation. The two sensations she had worked hard to learn to differentiate between; the difference between feeling full and feeling sick. Somewhere to her mind they had become the same thing and that had been one of the most challenging things to overcome. Usually she had to tell herself that she was full, not sick. This morning she had been sick, but not full. She wasn't used to having to work through the problem backwards.

"Morning is the best time." She commented more to herself than him, picturing the three boxes of pregnancy tests still sitting in plastic bag she had brought them home in weeks ago, in the cupboard of the bathroom.

Taking them out of the bag would have colored what she told herself was simply being prepared.

"I'll wait out here okay?"

It was the hint of hope in his eyes, the hushed way in which he had spoken that had her moving down the hall, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door quietly behind her.

Will's POV

Restlessly Will surveyed the living room practically lunging to straighten the blanket across the back of the couch that was already straight. He glanced down at the dog, lazily lounging on the floor in the kitchen and impulsively lobbed the limp body of his lady bug down the hall only to lose interest before the dog had even dropped it at his feet.

Mumbling a half-hearted apology to the retriever for ignoring the game he had started Will flopped himself down on the couch, turning on and then flicking off the television before the image had even appeared on the screen.

"And I told her to calm down. This is ridiculous." He told Moritz, running his hands through his hair while forcing himself to lean back against the couch.

Any pretense that he was relaxed was curtailed by the way he launched to his feet as soon as the door creaked open a quarter of an inch.

His eyes fell on Emma, lingering for a moment on her stomach and suddenly he realized just how wrong everything with Terri had really been. He had been excited for the baby then, hinging his hope for how it might mend their marriage on the child that had never existed. This was a different kind of excitement. This was real.

"I didn't want to look without you." She smiled, her features anxiously nervous yet beautiful and he was by her side in an instant, removing the test from her hand, following her back into the bathroom where he carefully set it on the counter.

"Emma, whatever it says," he turned to face her, dropping his hands to her waist. "Sweetie I'm so proud of you and even if you're not I know that someday you will be."

She rotated in his arms, pressing her back into his chest and he wrapped his arms gently around her waist, propping his chin on her shoulder; staring, waiting on their future.

They both flinched when her phone beeped indicating the time was up.

Separate but together they moved forward, peering over the edge of the counter as though they were physically afraid to get any closer and he wasn't sure about her, but he read the display twice.

Pregnant

Never before had a Liquid Crystal Display conveyed more about his future than it was right now with that one word. Something Emma had once said about the brain seeing what it wanted to see popped into his head and he read it again.

Yes, still pregnant.

"We can do this right?" She backed away from the counter slightly, her face contorting with a hesitant fear he wished more than anything he could take away, so she could just exist in the moment as he was.

"Of course we can do this." He whispered, cupping her cheek with his palm, smiling into her eyes and earning the unbridled grin he had been waiting for in return. "Look at all we've done already."

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the light-heartedness. I have to credit my own dog for the lady bug incident. It was his birthday toy and it was destroyed within five minutes. *sigh*

I'm excited for Will and Emma, for this journey they are going to be taking together. Please let me know what you think! A huge thank you to the people who read and review! You make the world a better place!