AN: If this chapter seems familiar, it's because I recycled most of it from a oneshot I wrote years ago. But I don't think most people read it, so I think it's okay.

If I expected something to change after we get back from New York, it doesn't.

She doesn't stop seeing Ian.

She doesn't stop being my friend.

The only thing that changes, is Emily.

She's quieter, more reserved, and so obviously depressed I don't know how I'm the only one that seems to notice. I want to help her, somehow, but I don't know how...and I'm not so sure she wants to be helped anymore, anyway.

"Do you think the baby knows what happened?" she asks softly.

We're lying in the dew damp grass, side by side, in my backyard. Though she hasn't said as much, I know she's been plagued by nightmares since the procedure. She frequently shows up at school with heavy bags under her eyes like she doesn't sleep. When it gets especially bad, like tonight, she wakes me up to keep her company. I don't sleep very well at the best of times, so I don't particularly mind.

I turn my head to look at her. She isn't looking at me as she speaks, staring up at the night sky as if it contains the answers she desperately needs. She's gone back to wearing all black, so she seems to melt into the darkness all around us, but for the light of the moon lighting up her profile, making her pale skin glow against the black of night.

"Well..." I say slowly, unsure how exactly to answer. There are so many things I want to say, so many things she needs to hear, but they all seem to stall on my tongue.

She takes my reluctance as affirmation, which seems to be the answer she's expecting. She doesn't say anything for a long time, merely nods, pursing her lips thoughtfully.

I want to say something, anything to make it better for her, but I doubt there are any words adequate to ease the ache I know is inside her. So, I just let the silence linger, thick and weighty all around us like a funeral shroud.

She finally breaks her silence again, "Do you think the baby knows why? That I just couldn't be a mother?" Her voice sticks in her throat, catching on a lump of tears she's fighting with all her might to withhold. She doesn't want me to see her that way, to see her weak.

"I think the baby is in heaven, looking down on you, and it can hear everything you wish you could say." I reach over to clutch her hand, squeezing it the way I had in the doctor's office as silence descends between us again.

She looks down at our joined hands, but refuses to meet my eyes. She squeezes back, though, just as tightly as she did that day.

I can see the glint of her tears as they trail down her cheeks, but I don't ask why. I already know the answer.

She sniffles quietly and, in a wavering voice asks, "Should I...name the baby? I mean, I know I can't bury it or anything and it's not like anyone would ever know, but..."

I stem the flow of her words, replying, "I think it would help you heal. The baby was real – to you, to me, and it deserves to be known as more than 'it' or 'baby'." The words surprise me a little even as I say them, but I don't have to search to know that they're true – try as I might to disconnect myself, I was invested in that little life she'd unknowingly created. I would have done anything to help her, if she'd asked, including, I think, help her raise it.

She doesn't say anything for a long time and I can't help but wonder if she's somehow read my thoughts and been frightened. She picks a dandelion beside her head and blows the seeds up into the air and they rain down around us like snowflakes.

"You're allowed to grieve," I tell her, "You lost someone, someone you loved." I know she loved that baby, even if it never got to take a breath. She would have been a good mother, even as young as she is, as scared as she was. I may not know much, but I have no doubt about that.

She sucks in a shaky breath and wipes away tears with her wrist. "Aibhilin?" she suggests, so quietly I nearly miss it.

"That's beautiful," I reassure. "What does it mean?" I ask.

"It's Irish," she says as if she thinks I won't like it because of the connection to Ian. She may be right, but I could never hold his sins against her or her child. "It means longed-for child. So she knows I wanted her, even if I couldn't have her...?" She says it like a question, waiting for my reaction before getting attached.

"I'm sure she'd like that." Usually, when she talks about the baby, it's a girl and I think it's because, in her mind, men have always hurt her, so she needed it to be a girl.

"Aibhilin Prentiss," she says slowly, as if testing it out, seeing how the words feel falling from her lips.

I can still see the guilt, the doubt plaguing her. I roll over onto my side, sitting up halfway so I'm in her line of sight. She needs to see that I'm serious. "You did what you had to do because you couldn't have had a baby right now, but that doesn't mean you have to pretend the baby never existed. You are a mother; a mother who lost her baby. One day you're going to see that you couldn't possibly raise a baby all by yourself at fifteen, even though you're the strongest, smartest, most capable person I know."

Looking down at her red-rimmed eyes, her tear-stained cheeks, I still find beauty in her pale face. But I'm not supposed to think that way about her.

I lay back beside her, gently pulling her head to rest on my chest. "Hey," I say softly, serious again, "You know I love you, right?"

"I know." She says it quietly, like it pains her to say it, but she doesn't say it back. I've long ago resigned myself to the fact that she'll likely never feel quite the same way about me as I feel about her.

I could probably lean over and kiss her right now and she probably wouldn't push me away…but that isn't how I want things to be between us. She's vulnerable and in pain and I could never take advantage of that. But that doesn't mean it doesn't pain me to know that this is likely all I'll ever have with her.

Suddenly, she leans over and presses a tender kiss to my cheek. "Derek James Morgan, you're the best friend I've ever had. I wish there was some way I could thank you...you've done more for me than you could ever understand."

I want to tell her that I didn't do it for her thanks, that she never needed to repay me, but for now, I let the silence remain. I interlace our fingers again, letting our hands rest in the cool grass as we both lay back in the grass to watch the moon cross the sky, both of us praying for meaning we desperately need but won't find.