A/N: Judging by the comments of my pre-readers, this chapter is le sad.

Friday morning, Emmett woke up gasping. He stared at the ceiling, blinking sporadically through the pain of a kick to the gut and the confusion of being thrown into wakefulness. He turned his head and smiled.

Katie was wiggling, kicking as she slept between Emmett and Jasper. It was only another minute before Jasper woke with a cry, having taken a flailing hand to the face. Emmett chuckled. "Baby," he said, his voice raw with sleep. "Baby, wake up. You're beating us black and blue."

He stroked her unruly hair out of her eyes. Jasper scratched her back. Katie yawned without opening her eyes. "Sorry, Emmy," she mumbled and promptly fell back to sleep.

For the second time that morning, Emmett felt as though he'd been kicked. He looked up over Katie's head and saw the same agony he felt reflected in Jasper's eyes. His husband reached out and cupped his cheek.

They were grieving, their therapists had said. It was a death. In that way, Emmett and Jasper supposed they were lucky. Their baby wasn't dying. They would get to watch their child turn into a sassy pre-teen, an obstinate teenager, a beautiful young woman.

Their baby wasn't dying, but it was a death. The death of their dreams. The death of the journey they'd begun when they walked into the social services offices, interested in becoming foster parents with the intent to adopt. The death of the promise they'd made when they took that tiny, helpless baby into their home. Jasper wouldn't get to help her with her advanced math homework. Emmett wouldn't get to embarrass the hell out of her giving her the talk. They wouldn't get to argue over which of them would walk her down the aisle.

Emmett closed his eyes, and Jasper scooted closer, smothering the space between the three of them. Katie grumbled. "Squishing me," she complained.

Laughing, Emmett pressed a kiss to Katie's forehead and raised his eyes, looking over at Jasper. They shared a bittersweet smile.

~0~

Emmett had always found brushing Katie's hair soothing. Someone had once told him a parent's job was preparing their baby to live without them. One by one, all the things Emmett and Jasper did for Katie, she began to do for herself. She was only six, so that list was limited. Still, she dressed herself, went to the bathroom herself. She could make her own cereal and get the celery sticks and carrots out of the fridge, along with the ranch dressing.

But this? Katie couldn't do this for herself yet. Katie perched on the edge of the bed, and he carefully brushed out all her tangles. Jasper couldn't do it. He always made her cry out. Only Emmett was gentle enough.

He wondered if Edward or Bella had the touch.

Emmett swallowed hard. "How about a braid today, baby?"

"Okay."

Her tone caught his attention. "What are you thinking about?"

She was quiet, thinking. "Mommy and my daddy are going to let me choose all the things for my room." She played with the hem of her shirt. "Is that cool?"

Emmett knew a thing or two about children and their allegiances. Growing up in the foster system, he'd seen countless parents manipulate their children when they visited. It didn't take much. As Marcus had explained to them months ago, a child's mind was particularly malleable-not concrete. Their parents were their gods, and they wanted to please.

He'd seen it over and over again as a cop. Parents whispered whatever version of the truth they needed the cops to hear, and that became the child's reality. He could do it. It wouldn't even be hard. They still owned Katie's heart and soul. She was confused. Her allegiance was wavering, but they still had her.

As both a foster child and a cop, he'd seen what happened to children whose allegiances were torn. He could whisper in her ear all he wanted, but he couldn't take away the knowledge that Edward and Bella were her biological parents, that they loved her, and they had never given her up. Her heart and soul would be shredded. Confusion. Resentment. Fury.

He could ruin his sweet baby girl.

Emmett's hands shook as he plaited her hair. He had to breathe in through his nose and out again, dispelling his own resentment and fury. She was more important. "Yeah, baby, it's hecka cool." He cleared his throat. It was hard to breathe when his ribcage was caving in. "Have I told you anything about the fine art of negotiation?"

~0~

The house was always too quiet when Katie was with her parents, but it was worse today. Today, Emmett knew it wasn't a matter of waiting until it was time for Edward and Bella to drop Katie off. Katie wasn't going to come home. He and Jasper weren't going to be the ones to tuck her in bed. They wouldn't wake up to the sound of her playing or pleading with them for pancakes.

Emmett was well aware his husband was watching him. They were opposites in their grief. Emmett was restless but also listless. He'd started a dozen projects and hadn't finished any of them. The kitchen was half clean. He'd even started to work out and just...stopped. Now, he was wandering around the living room, staring out the window, picking things up, putting them down, turning on the TV and turning it back off again.

Jasper sighed and crossed the room. He took the remote from Emmett's hands and guided him to the sofa to sit down. He tilted his head to rest against Emmett's. "This is it, babe," he said, voice soft and broken. "This is the part where we have to figure out how we're going to survive this."

Emmett closed his eyes. Jasper was way too good at that. Like he knew Emmett couldn't sit still because if he did, if he stopped running, the sickening pain that had been gaining on him all day would hit him full force. He was a strong man, but he would be bowed by that pain. It was going to kill him.

"It's not over yet," Emmett said. "She's still coming home."

Jasper shook his head, his nose brushing Emmett's cheek. "This isn't her home. Not anymore. We have to start to accept that, Em."

Emmett scooted to the side, out of his husband's embrace, at once furious and so sad he could choke. "Sit back, and let those stupid kids raise our daughter? Like they know what the fuck they're doing." He spat the words, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. "Like either one of them went through what we did. They're going to fuck her up. They're going to do it wrong. They're stupid, selfish children," he said through gritted teeth. "What the hell do they know about raising a kid? We wanted this. We prepared. We planned for years before we got Katie."

They'd been thirty-two and thirty-five respectively when Katie was born. Settled in their careers. A far cry from the seventeen-year-old girl and twenty-one-year-old boy who couldn't even be trusted to use contraception correctly.

Edward and Bella were so different from Emmett and Jasper. So often in the past month, Katie had come home from being with them with a whole new attitude. Edward and Bella were strict about things Emmett didn't agree with, and lenient in ways that made Emmett balk. They were just different. They were doing it wrong.

But that, some distant part of him recognized, was exactly why Edward had put his foot down. Doubtless, Edward and Bella had their own opinions about the way Emmett and Jasper had parented Katie. They wanted to do it right according to their own rules, and that meant that yes, Katie had to be theirs.

His shoulders slumped. He rested his elbows on his knees and ran his fingers through his hair, in a tight grip. Jasper touched his arm lightly. "I'm here with you," he said.

"Yeah," Emmett said, his tone bitter. "Like a few months ago when you were so pissed you could barely even look at me?"

For a time, when everything started, Jasper blamed Emmett. He'd been the one to run out the door the second he heard about the genetic test. If he hadn't assumed Edward knew he was Katie's father and therefore had to be stalking the girl or something like that, then none of this would have happened.

At the accusation, Jasper stiffened. He stood and paced a few steps away from Emmett and the couch. "We were over that. We've talked that out already," he said, his tone betrayed.

They had. It was one of the first things they hashed out in therapy. Jasper wasn't really mad at Emmett. He was just mad. They weren't allowed to get too mad at Edward and Bella. Play nice, or the couple would have every legal option to tear Katie from their arms.

And now Emmett was angry he couldn't stop this from happening, and he'd lashed out at the one person who deserved it least. He sighed and got up. He wrapped his arms around Jasper's waist, pulling him back against his chest. "I'm sorry."

Jasper was quiet for a long minute. "She's worried about us, you know."

"Katie?"

"Yeah. She asked me a whole bunch of questions the other night about what we were going to do without her."

It was a good question. It was one of the more frightening of a long litany of questions Emmett didn't have the strength to deal with, not with everything else happening.

Their therapists had said more than once that it took effort for a couple to survive a loss. It wasn't just about grieving together. Emmett and Jasper had to learn how to be a family of two again. They had to learn how to define who they were without Katie.

"Do you remember when we took that trip to New Orleans when she was two?" Emmett asked, resting his head against Jasper's.

"Of course. We thought she was too young to realize we'd gone to have fun without her."

"She was mad for two days after we got home." Emmett swallowed hard. The five days they were gone had been the longest he'd ever been away from his baby before or since.

The house was so quiet.

Right then, Emmett saw something that left him horrified. He released his hold on Jasper and reached behind the sofa, pulling out Katie's worn baby blanket. When he held it up, Jasper's eyes went wide. "Oh, no."

Emmett knew what he had to do.

~0~

"This isn't a good idea."

"You already said that, babe," Emmett said. "And yet you still got in the car."

Jasper sighed and rubbed his eyes. "We should have gone back for the phones. They're going to be pissed we came without calling."

"Katie needs her blanket. You know she can't sleep without it." It wasn't entirely true. Katie had slept just fine without her blanket any number of times, but when she wanted it, she would wake the whole house looking for it. Either way, Emmett had a feeling tonight was going to be a bad night for his baby. If all he could do about it was make sure Katie had her blankie if she wanted it, he was damn sure going to do it.

Of course, as much as he wanted Katie to be happy, the thought that she was perfectly content to be away from him and Jasper terrified him. What if they found her happy to be in her new home with her new parents? It would be wonderful for her, but it would break his heart.

He needn't have worried. As they got to the front stoop, they could hear crying. Katie crying and screaming. They exchanged a glance and Emmett pounded on the door.

Edward opened the door a long minute later, his expression harried. His eyes went wide when he saw them. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Emmett didn't answer. With the door open, he could hear exactly what Katie was screaming about.

"I want to go home! I want to go home! I want my, my, my… I don't want you."

Emmett pushed past Edward, needing to have his baby in his arms five minutes ago, but the other man grabbed him, hauling him back. "You can't go up there."

"She needs us," Emmett argued. He knew he was strong enough to wrest out of Edward's grip. In fact, what he wanted more than anything in the world was to shove the man away from him. It was taking every last shred of his rationality to keep himself still. He swallowed hard. "I...We came to give her this." He held up the blanket. "Let us give it to her. Let us calm her down."

He took a step forward but Edward stepped with him, looking between him and Jasper, who also looked like he was seconds from darting around him up the stairs. "You can't. She can't know you're here."

"She wants us," Jasper said.

"Of course she wants you. That's why you can't be here." Edward looked as furious as Emmett felt . He held his hands out, looking like that kid from the dinosaur movie, taming raptors. "Please leave."

"What the hell is a matter with you?" Emmett asked through clenched teeth. "She needs us. We called Bella when Katie needed her. We called. You should have called us." Katie's cries had devolved into wordless screams, and it was tearing Emmett apart.

"That was different. You know that was different. She didn't think Bella was real. This is just a fit."

"This is more than a temper tantrum. You don't know. You don't know her. She's never sounded like this. Let us help her," Jasper said, and he moved forward.

Edward put a hand to his chest, pushing him back with a firm pressure. Emmett saw red. "Get your fucking hands off my husband."

"Get. Out. Of. My. House," Edward said, his tone just as fierce. "Don't do this. We all knew tonight was going to get ugly. She has to know you're not going to come rescue her from us. She has to know this is her home, and we're her parents." He thumped his chest. "Us. Not you. You storm in here and save the day, we all have to go through this again. You need. To leave."

They all glared at each other. There was so much Emmett wanted to say. He wanted to call the younger man a monster. He wanted to push Edward down and go get his baby, because he couldn't stand to hear her in that much pain for another second. Walk away? Surely, Edward had to be insane if he thought he was going to walk away.

"God dammit." Emmett punched the wall so hard, the plaster cracked. He grabbed Edward by the collar and shook him. "You fucking asshole. You fucking asshole. You think you know what she needs? You stupid prick, look what you've done to my family. My family. You're hurting my baby, and I will hurt you."

"Emmett." Jasper's hand was on his shoulder, the grounding voice of reason as always.

But Edward didn't look scared. He looked fierce. Protective. He didn't raise a hand, didn't raise his voice. "Please leave, and let me take care of my daughter."

Emmett looked into his eyes and saw so much of what he felt reflected there. Edward was a daddy hellbent on protecting his family, his baby. He could see the hurt there, too. He didn't want Katie to feel this. He wasn't backing down from what he believed was right.

Taking a deep breath, Emmett released him. He took a step backward and looked around. He picked up the blankie from where it had fallen. "This might help," he said, offering it to Edward.

"Thank you," Edward said, taking the blanket. He held the door open.

Jasper threaded his fingers through Emmett's. "Come on, Em," he said, his voice shaky. Her cries were tearing all of them apart.

It was the hardest thing Emmett had ever done. He put one foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Away from his child. It felt unnatural and awful. He did it. Somehow, he did it.

Somehow, he got back in the car and started it and drove away from the sound of Katie's torment. Somehow he made it as far as the next block before he had to pull over.

That was when the freight train he'd been trying to outrun hit him full force. He started to scream and couldn't stop. He started to pummel the dashboard and the steering wheel. He didn't care that Jasper was yelling for him to stop. He didn't care that he was scaring the man he loved. There was too much pain, and he couldn't possibly hold it in his body anymore. He wasn't built for this. Growing up in the foster system, he'd promised himself he would have a family one day, and he would treasure and protect them. He'd put together a beautiful little family. He'd loved them, cared for them, done everything in his power to make them happy. His little girl was, even now, crying for him, and he was supposed to drive further away.

When he had no breath left to scream, he slumped forward over the steering wheel, wracked with sobs. Jasper touched his arm, and Emmett had just enough energy to shift, wrap himself around his husband instead of the steering wheel.

"I need you," he whispered in Jasper's ear, his voice a scratchy, trembling, weak noise.

Jasper was trembling just as badly as he was. "I'm here."

~0~

It was over an hour before they were able to get themselves back home. Emmett hadn't ever been more exhausted in his life. He walked in the door and stood in the foyer, unable to summon up enough energy to take another step. His insides were mangled except for his heart. There, he felt hollow.

Looking around this home that rang with the echo of his daughter's laughter, his family's happiness, Emmett thought he might start crying again. Jasper stood beside him, their fingers tangled, as though he was thinking the same thing Emmett was. How the hell were they going to survive this?

Emmett swallowed. "I want to move," he said, breaking the silence after minutes.

Jasper started. "What?"

"When this isn't her home anymore, really isn't her home, I mean. When she calls their house home, I want to move. Not away. Not away from her. Just away from here."

He almost expected Jasper to argue. Why take this away from Katie, too? She would visit. Wouldn't she want to know that something somewhere would remain constant?

Jasper pulled him in and wrapped his arms around him. "Okay," he said.

It was something.

It was a start.

A/N: Sigh. Everyone needs a hug again, don't they?

*hugs all around*