A/N: If you recognize it, I don't own it. And I really appreciate all of your reviews. The comments keep me going with this.

Unlike George, Hannah did not seem to understand that I would talk to her when I was good and ready. She wanted me to be ready to talk to her as soon as possible. She called me. She sent me text messages. She called George. She sent emails. She wanted us to both know that she was "soooooooooo sorry" and she was certain that if we could all talk she could sort everything ought and make everything better.

"Horse hockey," had been George's reply to one such email. "She betrayed you. She needs to learn to deal with the consequences. It's just part of life."

I nodded. "That's what Betsy says."

"Smart woman," he replied with a smile. "I knew I liked her. To tell you the truth, if she wasn't already with Mark when I met her, I might have tried to marry her."

I looked at him. "George, I don't like that idea."

"What idea?" he asked.

"I don't like the idea of you with Betsy."

"Why not?"

I shivered. "I don't know. It just makes me uncomfortable. It makes my skin crawl. I don't know why it does, but it just bothers me."

He smiled. "Well, you don't need to worry about it because she's got Mark already. And I think they're a pretty fine match for one another."

"So, have you had crushes on any of my other friends?" I teased.

"Why, are you jealous?"

"I'm curious, George."

"No, I'm curious George. You're Emma."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Just behave yourself and tell me if you've had crushes on any of my friends."

"Well, I thought Hattie was cute the first time I saw her."

I was aghast. "Hattie? I thought you didn't like her."

George smiled. "I said I thought she was cute as in attractive, adorable. But then she opened her mouth, and I knew that she was not for me. She talks too much and there's no sense in anything she says. She's just plain silly."

"And whatever I might think, men of sense do not want silly wives," I said.

"Thank you, Jane Austen," George answered with a smirk. "But yes, I don't want a silly wife. I want a wife who will have an intelligent conversation with me about the articles I write, and Hattie probably only cares about articles in People or Cosmo."

I smiled. "George Knightley, you can be nasty when you want."

"When I want," he replied.

A week after our ill-fated lunch, I came home from work to find Hannah sitting outside my office. "Can I help you?" I asked grimly.

"I want to apologize," she replied sweetly. "I'm sorry about Paul. He wasn't being himself. He's just angry. I didn't realize how angry he was. I didn't realize that he would say things like that. I thought he would be more polite when he was face-to-face with you. I thought that seeing you pregnant would help him to move past his anger."
I cut her off as I led her into my office and shut the door. "Hannah, last week was not the first time that Paul has seen me pregnant. He's not going to move past his anger just because he sees my enormous belly or my swollen ankles. He doesn't want a baby. He doesn't want me to be pregnant. He doesn't want a relationship with me."

"He doesn't have to date you. You're not dating George. He just needs to be in the baby's life."

"But he doesn't want to," I replied firmly. "He doesn't want the baby and he doesn't want to be in her life. Nothing will change that."

"But don't you believe in true love, soulmates, and destiny?" Hannah asked.

I shook my head. "Not a bit, have you met my parents?"

"Hey, your mom is happy with your stepdad," she replied.

"And yet none of my mother's children can stand the jerk."

Hannah sighed. "You're not helping."

"Why should I help you prove me wrong?" I asked her.

"Why are the walls in this office purple?"

I rolled my eyes. Trust Hannah to change the subject when things got difficult. "It's not a big deal to me," I replied. "It's leftover from whoever had this office before me. But I fail to see what that has to do with your interference in my life."

"We're friends, Emma. We're supposed to interfere in each other's lives. You interfere in George's life all the time."

"That's different."

"How?" Hannah's hands were set firmly on her bony hips, and she was glaring at me.

"I may interfere in George's life occasionally by changing the brand of coffee we buy or telling him when he should go back to England for Christmas. But I would never do something that he had specifically told me not to do."

"I was trying to help you."

"And you didn't help me!" I yelled. "You put me into a situation where I would get hurt. And I did get hurt. And instead of apologizing for hurting me, you're defending yourself and acting like it's my fault that this happened."

"Well you're the one who slept with Paul. George told you that was a bad idea."

"And you told me it was a good idea," I snapped. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm having lunch with George. I'll see you later when you're ready to apologize."

"Emma," she started, extending a hand towards me.

"No," I said. "I'm done with your act, Hannah. I'm done with your interference. If you want me to be happy, you'll leave me alone. I have George, and that's good enough for me. I don't need or want Paul. And the baby doesn't need him either. Now you need to leave so I can lock up my office."

As I walked out of my office, Hannah followed me out with her mouth just hanging open in the exact way that my father had spent much of my adolescent years criticizing.

Betsy and my sisters threw a baby shower for me the first week in October. It was a great opportunity to see my two sisters, Bella and Cassie. Neither of them lives in Michigan, so I don't get to see as much of them as I might like. But they were both in town for my baby shower and I was really excited to see them-and to see Bella's two daughters, Grace and Norah.

The baby shower was held at Betsy's house, a sweet little place that she and Mark had bought after Natalie was born. The guest list was entirely people I wanted at the shower. Hannah was there, which I was entirely crazy about, but I had put her on the list before our falling-out and I was hoping that we would, with time, be able to heal our rift. Betsy had invited a few family members and my closest friends. It was just the women who I wanted to help me and support me as I brought my daughter into the world.

I wore a plum dress that George told me made me look "utterly fabulous. I mean, to be honest, I'd probably grab you and snog you right now if I thought you wouldn't deck me for it."

I laughed. While I still loved George as my best friend and we were even sharing a bed, the third semester had killed any interest I had ever had in any man. I just felt massive and enormous and ready to give birth. "Yeah, right now, I'd deck David Tennant if he tried to kiss me."

"Now that's a sign that you're just not at all in the mood," George said.

"True story," I replied. "If I wasn't pregnant, I'd let David Tennant do whatever he wanted to me whenever he wanted."

"I really don't need to hear about this."

"But you're my best friend."

George clenched his jaw and shook his head. "That doesn't mean I want to know about how you feel about David Tennant. I know you have a massive crush on him. That doesn't mean that I want to know what you'd let him do to you when and where. I don't tell you about my celebrity crushes."

I smiled. "Sorry."

"It's all right. I just chalk things like this up to pregnancy hormones."

I shook my head. "What are you going to do after I give birth?"

He shrugged. "Then I'll just go back to calling it good, old-fashioned Emma Woodhouse crazy."

I laughed. "George, I don't know why, but some days, I love you more than I love anyone else in the world."
"It's my hair. You love my stunningly blond hair. It blinds you to all other possibilities in life."

I laughed and hugged him. "George, you're the best friend a girl could ask for."

He smiled. "I do it all because I love you."

The shower was lovely. My mom and sisters were so supportive. My nieces could not wait for the arrival of a baby girl cousin; they already have a brother and four boy cousins on their dad's side. Everyone was there to focus on the amazing event that was going to turn my world upside-down in early November. They were also full of advice on how to raise the baby and suggestions for what George and I ought to name the baby.

"Isolde," one friend from work suggested. "It fits perfectly with your degree and George's."

"Or you could go with something out of Jane Austen to fit with Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley," my mom proposed.

"Uh, no," Betsy Williamson said. "I think we need to put that sort of naming pattern out of commission."

"What's wrong with Elinor Knightley?"

Before Betsy could anything, I smiled. "I don't want to say this, but I actually like that name. I like the sound of Elinor Madeline Knightley."

"It is pretty," my mom said.

"Very pretty," Betsy assented. "I have to admit that I really like it."

"I really like Abigail," Cassie told me. "If Jonah and I ever have a daughter, we're totally naming her Abigail."

"Then why do you want me to use it?" I asked.

Before Cassie could answer, Bella had to throw in her two cents. "What makes you think that you and Jonah are ever going to have kids? You guys haven't been together for that long and you don't know how successful things are going to be for you guys yet."

And then my sisters went off on each other in a fashion that only Isabella Woodhouse-Knightley can go off on Cassie Woodhouse. (Bella, if you're wondering, is married to George's cousin, Jack. We try not to copy Jane Austen too much in our personal lives.) Bella and Cassie had spent most of the past twenty-five years vying for attention. As the typical middle child, I spent my life on the sidelines.

But before Cassie and Bella could really start to rip each other's head off, Betsy announced that it was time for gifts.

When George came to pick me (and Baby's gifts) up, his jaw dropped. "How the heck am I supposed to get all of this stuff into the car? And if I can get it into the car, how am I supposed to get this into the apartment? And why does the baby need all of this crap?"

Betsy smiled. "Do you want me to call Mark and have him swing by with the Escape to help you take stuff back to the house?"

"That's not the point," George sighed. "Why does the baby need all of this stuff? What is all of it anyway?"

"Oh, things like a crib and a pack 'n' play and clothes," I replied. "Just the little things that the baby will need. There are sheets and other things for bedding. There are toys."

"But she'll just be a little baby. She won't need toys."

"Not right away," I said, resting my hands on my belly. I was feeling particularly enormous that day. "But she will get bigger and she'll want toys and books. Just ask Betsy. She'll back me up on this."

"We need a bigger place, Emma," George sighed. "We don't have enough room in apartment for the baby."

"I've been saying that for two months."

"And you're right. You're absolutely right."

"Can I have that in writing, signed and dated?"

George snorted. "You're so funny, Emma Clare. But I'll start looking for a new apartment soon. And for now, we need to talk about rearranging things so that we can fit the baby into the apartment."

"Do you want me to call Mark?" Betsy offered again.

As George nodded, Hannah came up next to us. "If you need help, West would be glad to help."

"Mark is enough help, thanks," George replied thickly. He didn't like Hannah or West much before I got pregnant, and now with their connections to Paul, he almost seemed to hate them.

"I'm a helpless, useless whale," I moaned to George that evening. I was sprawled on the couch with a book while he was trying to put the crib together. Mark had offered to help him put it together but George had steadfastly insisted that he was a real man and he could do it without anyone's help.

"I can put this dumb crib together. I don't need anyone's help," George grumbled.

"I'm not talking about the crib. I'm talking about the fact that I can't stand up without help anymore. I'm an enormous whale."

George pulled away from the crib and sat down next to the couch. He rested a firm hand on my enormous belly. "You are pregnant. Yes, you are very pregnant, but still you're just pregnant. In a month, you'll give birth and then you won't feel like a whale anymore."

"Do you promise?" I whined.

He smiled. "You have my solemn word."

"Lovely," I moaned. "But George, how am I going to get bigger?"

"Huh?" he had started to move back to the crib.

"How am I going to get bigger?" I repeated, pulling my shirt up to expose my enormous belly. "The doctor said that I'll get bigger in the next five weeks before the baby comes, and I believe her because the baby has to get bigger before she's born. But I'm huge. Like, I'm enormous. I weigh one-eighty now. And I'm supposed to get bigger in the next five weeks. I don't know how I could get bigger. How can there be more of me? How can I get any bigger without exploding?"

George scrambled back to me and rested his hands on my belly again. "Emma Clare, you are beautiful. I know that you think you're enormous. I know that you feel like a whale right now. But you know what? Your body was designed for this. Your body was made for making babies and bringing them into the world. So if the female body is designed to carry a baby through forty weeks of pregnancy, then somehow your body will continue to expand and grow for the next five weeks. I don't know how, but that's one of the wonders of the female body."

"But I feel fat," I moaned.

He kissed my cheek. "You are beautiful. I know you don't believe me, but you should."

"It's just weird being this huge."

He smiled as he rubbed my belly. "Oh, Emma Woodhouse, there are some things on which you and I will never see eye to eye."

"I don't know why you put up with me. I'm whiny and cranky and I dated Paul Churchill. You should be canonized for putting up with me. I really don't know why you do it."

"Because I love you," he replied. "I've known you since you were a baby and you've always been lovable."

"Even when I was a chubby, annoying two-year-old?" I asked.

He smiled. "You were a cute, chubby, annoying two-year-old. And now you're a cute, chubby, annoying twenty-nine-year-old."

"Did you just call me fat?"

"Chubby, Emma Clare," he replied, tracing circles on my belly. "And as I've been telling you since you were about fourteen, I like girls with a little meat of their bones."

"But I spend half of my time whining about how fat I am. How can you handle that?"

"It's a combination of love and patience," he replied. "I love you. I'm excited for the baby. And I understand that this is just your personality mixing with hormones. I know that most of this will be gone after Baby comes."

"Baby needs a name," I sighed. "She'll be here in five weeks and we still don't have a name for her."

"Emma," he replied. "After all M and A are the two letters that spell perfection."

"You're pathetic," I moaned. "That is truly awful. I may be a beached whale who whines about her weight all the time, but you are truly pathetic. You have the worst lines of any man alive."

"It made you smile though, didn't it?" he said with a glint in his eye. "You liked it even if you thought it was cheesy."

"I did like it."

George smiled. "Admit it, Emma Clare. You love me, warts and all."

I kissed his cheek and ran a hand over his blond head. "You are the most wonderful man in the world and I would be lost without you."

"Wow," he sighed. "That's a bit over the top but I'll remember that for future arguments. But now, do you have any ideas about Baby's name?"

"What do you think about Elinor Madeline Knightley?"

"No Woodhouse?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I'm going to marry you in July anyway, so why bother with my last name?"

"Emma Clare Woodhouse, I think that you might love me more than you are willing to admit right now," George replied with a smile that some might call adoring.

"I'm raging with pregnancy hormones right now," I replied. "Let's talk about love some other day when I'm not pregnant."

A/N: Please review!