Thanksgiving was always a huge deal in my family. Mom always figured the more people that came over, the better. And the only way to survive the day was to completely avoid the kitchen.

This year, Daphne was helping, and I think she may have been worse than Kathryn. It was a whirlwind of activity, and it was my mission to avoid it at all costs.

On my fourth attempt, I managed to leave the house and get in my car, leaving as quickly as I could without being noticed. Emmett had left that morning to spend the day with his family, before bringing his parents over for dinner. Thankfully, Olivia had prior engagements. It was weird to think that this was our first major holiday as a family. Not the Bledsoes coming over for dinner with the Kennish's and the Vasquez's, but... Me and Emmett, and our baby.

I made my way to the park that Emmett had tried taking me to on the day of the accident. I walked for awhile before I found a bench close to the water.

Thanksgiving was a day of, well... Giving thanks. So what was I thankful for?

Despite everything that had happened, all the drama and the heartache, I was thankful for the switch. I was thankful for that lesson in science. I was thankful to have found Daphne and Regina. I was thankful for Angelo, and that Regina had married him so he could stay with me. Sure, everything was a mess, but it was my mess. It was my family, and families were messy.

I was thankful for Emmett.

The wall I had tried to keep up between us had dwindled down to a brick or two. I'm not sure if it was his persistence, or if the wall had been weak to begin with. Either way, it was almost gone. We slept in the same room most of the time, even if we started apart. At some point, I had my baby's playlist going every day. Sometimes it was in headphones over the belly, and others I would play it throughout the room. I especially liked to play it when I was drawing on the walls of the nursery. What had started out as one wall had grown to nearly the entire room. When I wasn't in the room, Regina would paint the pictures. At this point, we had half of the first wall painted, and half of the third wall drawn.

I had managed to narrow down everything I wanted in the bedroom, and Mom was waiting for the word to order everything, all the while trying to convince me to have a baby shower.

That's something else I was thankful for. All of the support I was getting. Except for Angelo, I guess. He had gotten an apartment a couple miles away, after the settlement, and didn't visit very often. He didn't approve of this baby situation, but at least he wasn't acting like John. Angelo was more a fan of the 'ignore it until it goes away' method, so when we did spend time together, he didn't so much as look at my belly. It was an unspoken rule that he wouldn't ask, and I wouldn't tell. It would have been annoying, and might have even made me angry, if not for my desire to get away sometimes.

It was weird, thinking about all of the support sometimes. Just last year, I didn't know who Angelo was. I was nervous around Regina, and I flat out hated Daphne. Now, we seemed to be the strangest definition of 'sisters' in the world.

Just last year, I had been fighting Daphne for Emmett. I'm not entirely sure he ever figured out what exactly had been going on with us, but he had to have known that something was happening. And now I was pregnant with his child.

Just last year, Melody hated me. Now we were almost friends. I'm sure she wasn't too pleased that her son was going to be a teenage father, but she handled it gracefully.

"Life is weird, baby," I said softly. I had read that it was good to talk to the baby, so that when they were born, they knew your voice. Something about it being easier to soothe them. "You're about to be born into a pretty crazy family. You'll have... six grandparents. You'll think that's normal. It will probably confuse the hell out of you when you meet people with only four. Wait, should I say hell? Does that matter yet? I should stop saying it, just in case, huh? No, who am I kidding, that's not happening." I fell silent when people walked past, though as it was a holiday, the park was mostly empty.

"You see, when Mommy-wow, I'm your mom, huh?-anyway, when Mommy was only a few months older than you, something happened. That's right, I was five hours old, and my life was already filled with drama. I guess that shouldn't be too surprising, huh? I've always been pretty dramatic. Anyway, the nurse took me away, and then put me in the wrong crib. I was switched with another baby, your Aunt Daphne. Speaking of, you're not leaving my sight. You're staying in my room where I can see you. And then when we get home, we're having a DNA test done. Just in case. These people can't be trusted with babies."

I don't know how long I sat on the bench, going through the story of how Daphne and I had been switched at birth. How I had figured out my blood type, and how I had insisted on a blood test on my parents... partly just to prove my dad wrong. Except he had been right.

In the middle of my explanation of how I had met Emmett, someone tapped on my shoulder. Once upon a time, that might have startled me, but now I was used to it. I turned and smiled slightly. "Speak of the devil, baby. Daddy's here." Yep, 'Daddy' was still a weird thing to call Emmett. I raised my hands. "What are you doing here?"

'Looking for you. Who were you talking to?'

I pointed down to my belly. "I read that talking to it is good."

'And what have you been saying?'

"My story. Switched at birth and all that. Why are you looking for me?"

'It's almost time to eat.'

"Already?" I pulled out my phone and glanced at it. One missed call and a lot of texts. "Oh. Oops."

He grinned and nodded. 'So, ready to go?'

"Yeah, I guess." I made my way back to my car, and he followed me. I turned to him, confused. "How did you get here?"

'Bus. My bike still needs a couple repairs done, and it didn't make sense to take a car to find you so we could both drive back.'

I nodded and opened my driver's door, getting in beside him. Before I started the car, I turned to him again. "How did you know I'd be here?"

'I just knew.'

If anyone else had said that, I would have questioned them further. But with Emmett...

I started the car and made my way home.

...

We had finished Thanksgiving dinner and had gathered in the living room to watch the game. It didn't seem like anyone was particularly interested. I think we did it more out of habit, because that's what John liked to do after dinner. We mostly talked over the game. Melody and Cameron seemed to be getting along better today, Regina laughed frequently, even Kathryn and Angelo seemed open with each other. Toby and Daphne seemed to jump from conversation to conversation, picking whatever seemed interesting.

Emmett sat beside me, signing happily to someone, while I mostly just tried not to fall asleep on the couch.

...

When I opened my eyes, I was moving through the air. It took me a moment to realize Emmett was carrying me from the room, on his way to the stairs. He was abusing his shoulder again, but had stopped wearing the sling after a couple days, refusing anytime I brought it up. He would just tell me that he needed both arms, and if it took longer for his shoulder to heal, so be it.

I tapped his cheek to get his attention. "Put me down, I can walk."

He nodded and carefully helped me down. 'Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.'

"No, no, it's fine."

'Bay?'

I raised by eyebrows slightly.

'I wanted to say thank you.'

"What do you mean?"

'Well, it's Thanksgiving. So I wanted to say thank you. For letting me stay here. For letting me get involved. For... For everything. Thank you.'

"Yeah. Of course. Um..." I looked down for a moment, faintly hearing a knock on the door, before lifting my head again. "Thank you, too. For wanting to be involved. Instead of being one of those guys who finds out about a kid and... you know."

He blinked, surprised. 'Did you really think I would just leave you like this? Refuse the baby?'

"Well, I don't know. A part of me did, maybe. We weren't in a good place."

'I would never do that.'

"I know that. Now. So anyway... yeah. Thank you."

He smiled slightly, taking a step closer to me, and I didn't move. He leaned his head down, our foreheads lightly resting together. He brought a hand up to my cheek, and I set a hand on the side of his neck. I tilted my head slightly, ready to kick away those last two bricks.

"Bay?"

I quickly pulled away before the kiss could happen. "Mom! Hi. Hello. Yes?"

"Um, honey... Sorry to interrupt, but... Your father is here. He wants to talk to you. I... I believe him."

Emmett frowned, looking at me. 'What?'

"John is here."

His face hardened, starting to turn away. I quickly pulled on his arm and he turned back to me. "Wait, wait, I have to tell you something. He was texting me, and I blocked his number. I don't know if he tried again after that, but he's been trying to contact me."

'When did this start?'

"Um... Our last appointment?"

'That was almost four weeks ago.'

"I know! I know, I'm sorry, I didn't think it mattered."

He nodded slightly and followed Kathryn, with me close behind, to a sitting room where John was waiting. Emmett made sure to be between me and John.

Something flashed through John's eyes when he saw me, but it was gone too fast for me to tell. I would ask Emmett if he had seen it later. John didn't look angry, as he had last time. He looked almost tired, and sad.

"Hi, baby. I heard what happened. I wanted to make sure you were alright."

I didn't say anything, just watching him.

"I've missed you. I've missed all of you. I'm sorry for everything that I said. I just wanted to protect you. But I just have to learn to accept that you're getting old enough to make your own choices. And... You're a mother. Or about to be. You'll understand when it's born. You have to do what's right by the baby. And you're my baby."

He seemed sincere enough. And honestly, waiting for him to just show up again was exhausting. "Ok."

He smiled. "Really?"

"Whatever. Stay. Go. I don't care."

I turned and made my way up to my room. As usual, Emmett was close behind.

'What happened?'

I raised my hands, not wanting to be overheard. 'You know that saying, keep your friends close?'

'And your enemies closer.'

'Yeah, well, I don't want to just wait for him to show up. Either he's telling the truth, or he's not. If he's not, at least we know where he is.'