Usually when people are sent to jail they take the time to think back on their past actions. Maybe they think of what they could have done differently to make their get-away plan a success. Perhaps they use time to repent their sorrows at what they had done. Murdoc did neither of those things. He preferred to live in the present; the here and now; the time that really mattered.

Day after day, night after night, he heard his fellow prison mates mourning the loss of their freedom and wishing they could all take it back. He just sat in his cell in the hideous ugly orange jumpsuit and waited for the right time to strike. He had done it once before in Mexico, why couldn't he do the same here?

Murdoc expected every little upset. A change of cell assignment? No big deal. Fork rights revoked? Just a blip on the big screen of things. New roommate who threatened to rip his endocrine out of his body? A laughing matter and also completely impossible. The one thing he didn't expect was her.

Everyday, like clockwork, the guards got him out of his cell to talk to Noodle who over the course of a few months had become one of his best friends. And that fateful day was no different. "Niccols, you've got a visitor." The guard said at precisely noon.

"Yeah, yeah. I've always got a visitor, don't I?" Murdoc grumbled, stepping to the side to allow the man to open his door and lead him down to the waiting room.

However, when he turned the corner he didn't see the familiar cat mask. No he saw her. The one woman he had been positive he loved and at the same time the woman he hated. His beady little eyes darted around searching for the idiot she had taken up with but he was nowhere to be found. Finally his eyes landed on her, she looked uncertain; obviously her trip here hadn't been approved by her Face-ache.

"Elle," he said, his eyebrows arching, "what an unpleasant surprise."

Her eyes dropped down to her toes. "I came to tell you the news."

He looked back at the guard, still standing at his back. "Can you give us a minute?"

The guard narrowed his eyes at Murdoc but didn't move. Murdoc heaved a sigh and turned back to Elle. He shrugged his shoulders at her in a gesture that said "What can you do?" and gestured to the table nearby. He saw her eyes widen at his sudden change in manners and then she sat down. He sent one more glance back at the guard and then sank down in the seat across from her.

"So what can I do you for?" he asked her.

She heaved a sigh and looked up at him, making eye contact with him for the first time. He could see a kind of apprehension in her eyes and honestly he couldn't blame her. She was in a prison for Satan's sake. In a prison with the man who had held her captive on an island for months.

"Well, I've had the baby." She said, letting all the words out in a rush. "It was a boy."

Murdoc tried not to let the rage show on his face. Why was she telling him this?

"Well congratulations. Is that all?"

Elle didn't answer. Her eyes darted back down to the table top. She was twisting a picture in her fingers and finally she placed it upon the table.

"We named him Zeke." She said, her voice betraying an affection that he had once wished was for him. "He's got his father's hair."

Murdoc plucked the photo from the table and studied it. The baby was reaching up at the person holding him, probably the Face-ache who had ruined everything for him. There was a tuft of blue hair poking out from the blanket he was wrapped in. Murdoc shoved the picture away from him, unable to look at the happiness he would never be able to have.

"Obviously." He sneered. "Anything else?"

Elle picked up the picture and examined it herself. The love so obviously displayed on her face was sickening. Murdoc had to look away to keep his lunch down.

"I was just seeing how you were." Elle's voice was so low he almost missed it but Murdoc's ears were long since tuned to the sound of her.

"Oh, how I am?" He couldn't help the sarcasm that was leaking into his words. She wanted to see how he was? How dare she! She dumped him in this place and left him there to rot and now she was here to see how he was? "How I am?"

"Yes." Her voice was so small; it reminded him of a mouse.

A mouse he wanted to stomp with his metal toed boots.

"Elle let me tell you something," His voice was low and dangerous, "of all the people in the world, most of whom hate me more than you do, you would be the absolute last person I would want to come to see how I was."

He imitated her voice sending his own up several octaves. As he flounced around in his seat, pretending to be the woman he once loved, he noticed her eyes fill with tears. There was a moment where he was struck with guilt but that quickly evaporated when he noticed her fingers still twisting around the edge of the photograph she had brought with her.

"I think it would be best if you go." He said, dropping his hands to the table top and curling them into fists.

Elle stayed still for a moment, gathering her confidence. He raised his hand to tell her to get lost but she stood up. She stared down at him and whispered to him.

"I'm sorry, Murdoc."

Then she breezed past him and out the door. Murdoc stayed at the table clenching and unclenching his fists, resisting the urge to punch something. If he did then he would lose everything that he had worked so hard for. Finally he stood and made to go back to his cell but the guard stopped him.

"Wait Murdoc." The guard said, placing a hand on his chest. "Go sit back down, you have another visitor."

Murdoc stared at the guard. Another one? Really? He didn't think he could handle another meeting but he knew this visitor. This visitor he looked forward to.

"Noodle."

I couldn't believe what I had done. Why did I ever think that Murdoc would be happy to see me? Why did I think that he would want to hear about baby Zeke at home with 2D? Why was I so stupid? I pulled my sweater closer to my body, a shiver running through me that wasn't completely because of the chill in the air. It had been such a long time since I had seen Murdoc; I had foolishly thought that he had changed. I had thought maybe in the months that he had been in jail he would have some change of behavior but the thought of those fists clenched on the table made me shudder and pull my sweater tighter around me.

2D hadn't moved much since I left him a few hours earlier with the excuse of needing milk. He was curled up in the armchair, Zeke asleep in his arms. He looked up at the sound of the door closing and sent me a bright smile that warmed my heart and lit my guilt.

"How is he?" I whispered to him, placing a quick kiss to his lips.

"He fell asleep a while ago." 2D whispered back, brushing his fingertips through the fine blue hair on his son's head.

He looked up at me, a smile still gracing his lips.

"Where's the milk?" He asked.

My heart stopped.

"What?"

"The milk? You went out to go get milk."

I paused, I was positive I looked like a deer in the headlights. I scrambled for an excuse and quickly made up something on the spot.

"I-I went to the grocery store nearby but they were out of milk so I went to other grocery stores in search of milk. We must be in a milk shortage or something."

2D blinked at me and for one heart stopping moment I thought he had seen through my lie. Then he smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders.

"K." And then his attention was back in the little bundle wrapped up in blankets in his arms.

I never thought I would actually be thankful that the man wasn't the brightest bulb in the bunch but at that moment it was a godsend.

"May I take him?" I asked, reaching down for my son.

2D nodded, placed a kiss on the sleeping baby's forehead and handed the child over to me. As he reached my arms Zeke's eyes opened and his green eyes gazed up into mine.

"Hey there, lovie." I cooed at him, placing the already dozing baby into his crib.

I stayed leaning over his crib watching his chest rise and fall with every deep slumbering breath until the aching guilt in my chest took over. Tearing myself away from the sleeping baby I wandered back to the living room where 2D still sat, his head leaned back, eyes closed. For a second I thought maybe he had fallen asleep but at the sound of the creaking floorboards his eyes opened and looked up at me.

He reached a hand out to me and I had to hold myself back from racing to his arms. With the guilt at seeing the man who had kidnapped 2D and had thrust us both into danger countless times eating me up inside I climbed into 2D's lap and captured his mouth. It took a moment for him to respond and then he wrapped me up in his arms and all thoughts of Murdoc wasting away in his prison cell evaporated.

HEY GUYS HOW'S IT GOING?

Who is this?

IT'S EMMA. REMEMBER ME?

No.

Ah, well. I guess that's what I get for not updating since January. Welllllllllll, here's the next update. Sorry it took me so long to update. I hope I still have readers. If I don't I guess that's what I deserve. I don't know how long of a gap will be in between this update and the next one but hey, you got an update now! :)

Also I got a job. FIRST JOB BABY.

That is all.

Stay classy.