A/N - Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am thankful today that we're going elsewhere for dinner so that I had a little time to write. It's been so crazy insane at work lately, that I come home completely fried and unable to muster even a few words on a page. But I'm hoping to have ample time the next few days. Peace and love. Be kind, be hopeful, be thankful. xoxo

I met Vanessa the semester after I blew out my knee on the football field. Having been extended my scholarship even though I could no longer play, I decided to throw myself headlong into my studies. I felt like a stranger in the dorm that was largely occupied by the football team, and found myself spending more time in the library and far less time with the constant partying that was going on now that the football season was over.

I revisited the fiction books I'd read when I was younger in the confines of small corners in Northwestern's main library. All those books I'd read as an escape when I was younger were even better to me the second or third time reading them, when I was away from Carl Buford.

It was a cold Friday in February when Vanessa rounded the corner of one of the book shelves and found me sitting on the floor completely absorbed in The Catcher in the Rye.

"Didn't you read that in high school?" she asked.

I looked up to see an attractive woman with startling green eyes that were partially hidden by smudged glasses. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and her body was hidden by layers of baggy clothing. She was also weighed down by about a hundred pounds of large books.

I blinked at her and saw her question wasn't meant meanly, more as a joke.

"Twice, actually," I replied.

She fidgeted a bit. "This is usually where I spend my Friday nights."

"Me, too. Lately."

She shook her head and smiled slightly. She had a beautiful smile. "No, I mean here. As in right here. This is kind of my corner. I hate studying at the tables. Too many distractions."

"Oh," I said, moving to stand up. She looked grateful and bent to relieve herself of the burden of books in her arms.

I started to walk away and she whispered, "Do you read quietly?"

I turned and raised an eyebrow at her. "I think so."

She sighed and settled herself on the floor. "Then you can stay here, if you want."

For whatever reason, I sat back down on the floor next to her. I opened my book again and started reading, and she grabbed the book from the top of her stack, pulled a notebook out of her bag, and started reading and taking notes. After about thirty minutes, I reached for one of her books, and then another. They were all criminal law books.

"My father is a civil rights attorney, and I intend to be one as well. My father graduated second in his class here. I intend to graduate first," she said with a smile.

I stared at her and stuck out my hand. "I'm Derek. And I have no idea what I want to do with my life."

She laughed and shook my hand. "Vanessa. And if my father could have stuck a JD at the end of my name on my birth certificate without my mother killing him, he would have."

Neither of us did much reading for the remainder of the night. We talked. Vanessa was twenty-four years old and had three semesters to go before she got her JD. I was a child to her, several months shy of twenty years old, a football player who could no longer play football, and a liberal arts major at the time. She told me about her family, about her father who grew up in Alabama and was the black sheep of his family for all his liberal thoughts, and how she'd grown up in New York, a childhood spent at sit-ins, rallies and protests. I told her about my father, and mentioned I'd probably join the police academy after I graduated.

For the rest of that winter and into the spring, we met at the library most evenings. I helped her study and found I was quite good at memorizing facts and case studies. And in between, we had deep, meaningful conversations. It was Vanessa who talked to me about declaring a major that would at least give me options if the police force didn't work out. It was Vanessa who suggested I get out of the dorm I was currently living in and move someplace where I felt more comfortable; who understood when I told her it wasn't the same anymore now that I knew I could no longer be on the team.

The last day of the semester, we went to her small studio apartment to celebrate the fact that I'd officially changed my undergraduate major to criminal justice. She made dinner and opened a bottle of wine. She poured me a glass and laughed when she said she was technically breaking the law by giving me alcohol. I'd never had wine before, and I sipped the cabernet slowly. Vanessa on the other hand, whom I'd never seen drink, downed several glasses and opened a second bottle.

"I've never done this before," she said rather sloppily when we were done with dinner.

"What?" I asked.

"Gotten drunk," she said with a giggle. "All I've ever done my whole life is study."

I never had, either. Being drunk dulls the senses, and I was always scared I'd say something while under the influence of alcohol that I'd regret, or that I'd let my guard down. Even at all the college parties I'd attended in the past, I only sipped a single beer during the night, though I often pretended I was drunk along with everyone else.

The alcohol hit Vanessa hard. She ended up getting sick and came out of her bathroom in nothing but her bra and underwear when she finished throwing up. She could barely walk and she stumbled towards the ground. I grabbed her before she fell completely and carried her to her bed. I got her under the covers and brought her some water, then I fished around her bathroom and found some ibuprofen. I sat next to her while she took the pills and I coaxed two glasses of water into her before she finally passed out.

I didn't want to leave her. She was my friend, probably the best friend I'd ever had in my life up until that point, and I was worried about her getting sick again and needing help. So I found a blanket in her closet and laid down on the floor next to her bed. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and saw Vanessa staring at me from her bed.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

"Like something died in my mouth," she whispered.

I grinned. "How's your head?"

"Actually, it feels fine." She looked down at her blanket and then back at me. "I knew I'd be safe with you. I don't know why I drank so much, but the reason I drank at all was because I knew I didn't have anything to worry about with you, that you wouldn't take advantage of me, that you'd just be my friend."

I smiled at her again. "Of course."

"Can you hand me my robe?" she asked. "It's on the back of the bathroom door."

I stood from my bed on the floor and went to the bathroom, retrieved her robe, and turned my body while she stood and put it on. I heard her walk the few steps to the bathroom and bent to pick up my blanket. I heard water running and the toilet flush. I was just putting the blanket back in the closet when Vanessa stepped out of the bathroom.

She surprised me by stepping in front of me. She pushed gently on my chest and walked me backwards until my legs hit the edge of her bed. Then she pushed a little harder and I sat down. I watched in stunned silence as she dropped her robe. I had studiously tried not to pay attention the night before, but underneath the baggy sweaters she typically wore was a stunningly gorgeous body.

She put a knee up on the bed and straddled my lap. She smelled like soap and toothpaste, and her lips were a whisper against mine when she first kissed me.

"I've never done this before, either," she whispered shyly.

I wasn't sure I was the right person for the responsibility of being her first, and I felt my nerves kick up into high gear. But she trusted me, and she was about as close as I'd come to trusting anybody.

She was the first person I was ever with who taught me that maybe there was more to sex than just fucking. That maybe when you felt something for someone, a whole different world could open to you.

I wouldn't say I was in love with her. I was still three weeks shy of twenty years old at the time and I wouldn't have known love back then if it was thrown right in my face. And she was several years my senior, and completely focused on her studies. But there was a mutual trust there, and a connection I'd never experienced before.

Two days after that, I started summer school classes, and she left to get on a plane to LA where she was interning in a law firm for the summer. It was the summer of 1992, just six weeks past the LA riots, and she was going to work with the people in the community of Compton, helping sort out charges and build cases for a public defender of those involved in the riots.

I didn't want her to go. I grew up in a neighborhood that was barely one step above Compton, and I knew what racial unrest looked like first hand. She was a petite white woman with auburn hair that would stick out like a sore thumb. But I kept those thoughts to myself. She was strong and determined and trying to talk her out of her summer internship would have ended up with her leaving anyway, but pissed off at me.

We promised to write each other and call when we could. When she was stepping into the cab that would take her to the airport, she turned to look at me. "I'll see you in the library the first day of school in the fall."

"Absolutely," I responded with a smile.

"Derek. Thank you. You're the best friend I've ever had."

For some reason, I felt myself biting back tears. I hadn't cried since I was fifteen years old, the night Carl raped me for the first time, and I swore I'd never cry again. The feeling was surprising and uncomfortable, but I swallowed past the lump in my throat and smiled at her.

"Me, too," I said.

And then she was gone.

Three weeks later, a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting struck Vanessa in the head. She died instantly. She was the second person I cared about taken from me by a bullet.

I gave myself a weekend to grieve her death, and then I did the only thing I could do for her, for her memory - I worked my tail off in college. I went on to get the JD she never got a chance to finish. I graduated first in my class in her honor.

It was a warm June evening, well over twenty years after that one night with Vanessa that I officially turned in my resignation at the FBI. I'd start working part time for the Department of Justice the following Monday, finally putting to use the JD degree I received as a way to remember my first true friend.

I remember that I was out on the back porch of our home in Alexandria, just enjoying the scenery, watching the water from the Potomac ripple in the distance, waiting for Chris to return with the boat and a catch of fish that we'd cook for dinner. Leon was off playing with friends and my mother was in her apartment.

Emily found me out there. She'd gotten home from work and changed into sweats and a t-shirt before joining me on the back porch. Though I was lost in my thoughts and feeling both unsettled and excited about the path of my career, I immediately focused on her - the gentle smile on her face, the slight swell of her stomach that had really started popping out in the past couple of weeks.

She came and sat gently on my lap, leaning her back against my chest.

"How are you doing?" she asked softly after she kissed my cheek.

I settled my hand over her stomach, under the waistband of her sweats. I thought about how I was feeling and then felt the slight fluttering of our baby against my fingers. The unsettled emotion left me instantly. That was what I'd left the FBI for - Emily, Leon and our baby who was on the way.

"I'm looking forward to the future," I said.

I felt Emily's smile more than saw it, the way the skin of her cheek moved against mine. "Me, too."

"I'm also thinking about my past. I've never told you why I got my JD. I've never told anyone the real story."

Emily turned in my arms so she could look at my face. "Why did you?"

So I told her. For the first time, from start to finish, I told her about Vanessa. That young, studious, open woman was the reason I was sitting there with Emily on the back deck of a beautiful home in Virginia as much as anything or anyone else had led us to that point.

When I was done, Emily kissed the few tears that were on my cheeks. She ran her fingers over the skin on my neck and pressed her forehead to mine. "I'm sorry you lost a friend like that. You're a beautiful man," she whispered. "I trust you with my heart and my life."

Turning fully in my lap, with her chest against mine and our baby pressed between us, she kissed me. "Nothing is ever going to take me away from you, Derek."

Emily's picking her nails again. She stops when she sees me watching her, but she's constantly digging into her digits. It's a nervous habit of hers that I haven't seen since she worked with me at the BAU. She's also not working; she's essentially quit since there's no leave of absence for a part-time contract employee who's only been with the State Department for a couple of months.

She's picking her nails, and she's barely eating anything, and she's exercising like she's obsessed.

The first night we were home, I didn't wake up when she left the bed. I did wake up enough when she climbed back into the bed, wet from the shower and smelling like the soap she always uses.

"Why did you shower in the middle of the night?" I asked her.

"I couldn't sleep," she whispered back.

But I've woken up on the subsequent nights when she's escaped my arms and our bed. She's slaying demons she's not talking to me about in our home gym, lifting weights and doing push-ups and running faster and longer than I've ever seen her run on the treadmill.

The morning after we got home, I found her in Leon's bedroom. He was dressed and ready for school and Emily was putting a watch on his arm. "My friend Gil set this up for me," she told our son. "Look."

And she showed Leon her phone and a little red dot flashing. "I'll be able to see where you are, and if you press this button here, you can talk to me and I can hear you. So if you're scared or worried or just want to check in, just press this button. I won't be able to talk back to you, but if I touch here on my phone, the light on the watch will flash red, and you'll know I've heard you."

Leon looked at the watch on his wrist. "It's like an Apple Watch," he whispered.

Emily grinned slightly. "Kind of, but it looks like a regular watch, so no one will ever know."

Leon looked at the watch again then stared at Emily's face for several seconds. "You found Nana, didn't you, Mama? She came back right after you did. I think I know you found her, but no one else can know that. Just like no one else can know that you weren't with us in a safe house. You got the bad guys, didn't you?"

His voice was curious and breathy and sure.

"No one's going to hurt you or take you, Leon," was Emily's non-answer to all his questions. "This is just to help make you feel safe."

Leon at looked at her face and nodded. He wrapped his arms around her neck. "I'm not scared. I spent my whole life being scared, but I'm not scared when I'm with you and Papa."

Emily hugged him back and kissed his cheek. "Good. Now go on downstairs and have your breakfast. Nana and Grandpa are up and in the kitchen with Rory."

I took a step into Rory's room so Leon wouldn't see me as he exited his bedroom, and then stepped back into his room once he hit the stairs. I found Emily sitting at his desk chair crying. She turned when she heard me step in the room, and shook her head slowly at me. "I never wanted them to fear anything," she whispered.

Then she stood and brushed the tears from her face. She smiled at me. "It's okay now. No one else is coming after us."

She reached out and straightened my tie before resting her hands against my chest.

"Do you really believe that? Because if you don't, we can disappear. I just want us happy and for you to feel safe, Em. I saw the fake IDs in the bag you brought back from London. Whatever you want, Emily. I mean that."

She kissed me and then shook her head. "I don't want to disappear. This is our home. I don't know if your mother or my dad would come with us, and even if that did, where does that leave the rest of our family? If someone wanted to hurt us and we were gone, they'd go after JJ or Hotch or anyone else on the team, and we'd come running back. And we can't all disappear together."

I nodded at the truth in her words and kissed her back. And then I hugged her to me like leaving for an eight hour work day was tantamount to leaving on an eight month business trip. "You're not going to work?" I asked.

"I can't," was what she finally managed to whisper back.

Back then, I thought it was just for that day or week, while we all recovered from the upheaval in our lives and my mother's body healed. But it wasn't.

Four nights after we were home, when Emily went to get out of the bed and head down to our home gym, I didn't let her go. She thought I was sleeping, but I wasn't. I clutched my arm around her and implored her to stay, and she stiffly settled back against me. Then she flipped her body over so she was facing me and kissed me.

Emily and I have had some pretty wild exploits with sex over the past couple of years, but those physical expressions, no matter how crazy things might have gotten, where always making love. It took me until after to realize that night that there wasn't that deeper connection there. Emily was fucking me, and that was it. She was using me as nothing more than exercise apparatus, keeping herself walled away from the emotional side of things, working up a sweat and accelerated heartbeat until she could pass out from exhaustion. She settled her body next to mine when she was finished, and drifted off to sleep, while I silently cried with her in my arms.

Back then, I thought her world had been rocked by my mother being taken and she was feeling unsure. I thought maybe she was feeling remorse for slitting the throat of a secured man, for the fact that a toddler died in an explosion even when she didn't cause that explosion. And then I thought that maybe Patrick Joyce becoming repentant and merciful was what was causing her to be so distant from me.

But I don't think that's it either, though that's what she tells me when I ask her, when she's not pissed off that I'm asking.

October has rolled into November and I'm starting to stack up a pile of nights where Emily won't talk to me about what's bothering her. Sometimes I still catch glimpses of the old her, like when she's interacting with Leon and Rory, but whenever there's a childless moment, she seems like she's a million miles away.

I've talked to JJ, and her story matches what Emily told me and Hotch. I've spoken with my mother, who, for her ordeal, is recovering far faster and better than Emily is. I've spoken to Chris who insists that there's something Emily's not talking about.

We're all a little sad and broken that we're not getting our lives back to where they were, but we're all holding out hope that it's just going to take time after something like what happened.

It's the first Monday in November now, and I arrive home from work to Emily banging around the kitchen.

"What's wrong?" I ask gently.

"My dad's back in his cabin. The alarm was installed this morning. And your mother has decided that she's healed enough to go back to her apartment. Leon's visiting with her up there now," Emily says icily.

"That's a good thing, Em," I whisper. "It means they're not scared and want to get back to our old lives."

She turns towards me, a pan in her hand, and waves it wildly as she hisses, "We're never getting our old lives back."

The words stun me. Here I thought we were just taking the necessary time to all heal in our own ways, and Emily's telling me that that's not going to happen.

"They'll be a little different. The motion sensors and cameras around the property are being installed tomorrow, though. We'll have more safety, and it will start to come back, Emily. This home, our life. It will be good again. I know what you did was terrible, but you did it for the right reasons - to get my mother back, and to make sure we were all safe. And you'll see that. It will just take time."

Emily shakes her head and lets out a mirthless laugh. "It's all different now. You don't understand. You weren't paying enough attention."

Now I'm totally confused. All I've been doing was paying attention, waiting for her talk. And I'm pissed because I feel like she's throwing this back on me when it's she who is holding back. I snap.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? You've been brooding since you got back and won't tell me a damn thing. You fuck yourself into exhaustion on my dick every night like you're not even really in bed with me, and on the nights you don't do that, you exercise until you practically pass out. Don't tell me I haven't been paying attention. I've been paying attention every day, watching you move further away from me!"

I watch as her face crumples and tears fill her eyes. She looks down but doesn't respond. Just then, Rory cries out for Emily from her crib, where she's woken from her late afternoon nap.

Emily puts the pan down to go get her and doesn't lift her eyes to meet mine. So I reach out and touch her shoulder gently. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "It's just that you promised me that there was nothing that could take you away from me, and I feel like you're getting further away everyday."

She glances at me and touches my hand where it rests on her shoulder. "I love you. I'm not going anywhere, Derek," she whispers.

I believe her, I do. She means it, physically. Her body will be present in this home forever, but I'm not sure how to find her heart again.

"Tell me, Emily," I implore.

She shakes her head and squeezes my fingers. "I have told you. You're right. It'll just take time."

With that, she lets go and moves away from me, heading towards the stairs to get Rory.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Last year, when Rory was just an infant, Derek and I spent hours in the backyard, raking leaves and throwing them at each other, rolling around in crunchy piles of fallen foliage and laughing. This year, we hired the same company who pulled the bushes from the water's edge to clean up our backyard.

Halloween's over. I did a pretty passable job that night playing my part as doting mother while we took Leon and Rory out around the neighborhood to trick or treat. I even managed to have a few, light conversations with the neighbors.

I'm not sleeping enough, my stomach lurches and rolls every time I contemplate food or even smell it. I'm barely hanging on. I know it and Derek knows it - hell, everyone who really knows me knows it. I know I just need to tell him, that I should tell him, but every day that goes by where the words get stuck in my throat feel like an abyss I can't cross over. I should go back to therapy, but this isn't something I can tell a therapist either. Gil calls every few days to check in and let me know Holly seems to be getting better and stronger, that she's started taking correspondence courses. Maybe I could talk to Gil, but I don't do that either.

I've been holding out for time. That time will heal the wounds and I'll wake up one morning and that little toddler I let go of, and the break-in, and Fran disappearing will just be a distant memory like so many other parts of my past that I've done a good job of forgetting and letting go of.

This morning, Marcus Klaus called me. He told me in a questioning tone about a house in England where the bodies of three people were found amidst the wreckage of an explosion and fire. He told me that everything in the house was pretty much burned beyond recognition, besides three charred bodies. That of a woman, who had DNA that wasn't in the system anywhere, that of a man whose DNA matched some unsolved murders in Queens a couple years back that Derek was investigating before he was kidnapped, and that of a child whose DNA matched the woman's and that of Adrian Stancu's.

I told him Fran's story - the same one that's on the official records. I speculated that perhaps this was where Patrick Joyce had been; where they'd maybe held Fran.

Marcus contemplated that with silence and breathing for several seconds, and I knew on some level that he knew I was probably in England a few weeks back. But I trusted him not to press me, and he didn't. Instead, he dropped another bombshell. "Adrian Stancu's dead."

"How?" I asked, shocked.

"A man named Thomas Brisbane killed him in prison. It's interesting. I know Thomas. Clyde did, too. He was part of the Royal Marines with us, along with a man named Gil that I haven't heard from in decades. Thomas left the service and became a murderer for hire. He was caught in Italy about a decade ago and sentenced to prison. Last week, he was transferred seemingly randomly to the same prison as Adrian, and a few days later, Adrian was murdered. Thomas snapped his neck. It's quite a coincidence, isn't it?" Marcus implored.

"Yes," I whispered.

"I thought so. You know, Emily, I'm in my kitchen right now. I'm staring at your Christmas card from last year that's still on the side of my refrigerator. I'm looking at you with your family, and I'm thinking that if I were in your shoes, I'd do anything in the world to protect my family. I would do anything to protect my family."

"Yes," I whispered again.

"Thank you for not involving me, though know that I would help if you ever needed it," Marcus said softly before he hung up.

Feeling both relieved and thankful, I set down my phone. Knowing Adrian was dead gave me a boost of safety I hadn't felt since I'd been home. Even if there were potentially other victims of Adrian's who had come to be his followers, there wouldn't be a whole lot of wind in those sails now that Adrian was dead.

I didn't dare call Gil to thank him, even though I knew he was probably the one who orchestrated the murder. Instead, I did the first normal thing I'd done since my birthday - I looked at Fran, who was playing with blocks with Rory. "I have a doctor's appointment later this morning. I was going to postpone, but I should probably keep it."

Fran smiled, clearly relieved. I'd been stuck to her like glue since we'd be home, and I sensed that she'd been waiting for this - for this glimpse of normalcy.

I didn't think much of my yearly visit with Dr. Craig. I told her that I thought I was starting to become premenopausal or that my hormones must be a little off, because in mid-October, even though Rory wasn't breastfeeding much at all anymore, my milk supply surged and then receded again a little over a week later. I figured she'd take that in, I'd get a pap smear, have a breast exam, and then head back home.

Instead, when Dr. Craig was palpating my uterus, a strange expression flitted across her face and was quickly gone. When she pushed two gloved fingers inside me and pressed down on my abdomen, the same expression crossed her face.

"What?" I asked, worried. Wouldn't that just be some poetic justice for me to have some sort of medical problem now, I thought.

She shook her head, "I can't feel your IUD string."

I watched in a combination of panic and horror and awe as she wheeled a small cart towards my stirruped legs. I was very familiar with the transvaginal ultrasound device.

"It's not totally unusual," Dr. Craig said. "Depending on where you're at in your cycle. You say you've not experienced any menstrual bleeding?"

I shook my head, still apprehensive. "You know I don't have periods with my IUD."

Dr. Craig nodded. "Let's see if we can find it. It's possible it's lodged into your uterus."

I was watching her face. I know a liar when I see one, and she was keeping something from me. She turned the monitor towards herself and inserted the wand inside me. I felt it twisting and turning and watched Dr. Craig's profile, the stunned expression in her eyes.

"Do you check for the string every month?"

No. Aside from the first year I switched to an IUD from birth control pills, which was around the time I started at the BAU, I never checked. Sure, I felt it sometimes when I masturbated, back when my nights were long and lonely. And Derek had mentioned nonchalantly that he'd felt it a couple of times, but that had been awhile ago.

I shook my head.

Dr. Craig turned to look at me fully, a mixture of uncertainty. "Well, you lost it at least about eight weeks ago, but it may have been gone for longer."

"What?" I whispered, finally realizing that my potential medical condition was not a potential tumor or an IUD lodged where it shouldn't have been.

I was thinking about a small purple cottage and blinding white sand and a blue ocean as far as the eyes could see. I was thinking about crazy, endless sex in the Bahamas. Sex in the jacuzzi tub in our cottage, and even one night in the ocean. Drunk sex and sober sex and nights where there was nothing but Derek inside me, both of us reveling in our love. All of his fluid inside me. I could almost see then how I could go to the bathroom and lose my IUD and never even notice or pay attention, flushing that small little device that was the difference between pregnancy in my late forties and not right down the toilet.

I watched in horror and fascination as Dr. Craig turned the monitor towards me. There was not just my uterus, but a very definable baby, now that I knew what a baby at this stage of the game looked like. And the pulsing flutter of a heartbeat.

I didn't know I was already crying until I spoke. "They fall out?" I screeched somewhere between a whine and a wail.

Dr. Craig's face turned sympathetic. "They can, Emily. It's rare, but they can."

I wiped the tears from my cheeks and just stared at that image. How different this was from the last time, when there was nothing but joy and euphoria. "I'm forty-seven years old," I wailed. I don't deserve another baby after what I did, my inner voice whispered.

Dr. Craig patted my leg and handed me a tissue. "Rory's a beautiful, healthy little girl. There's no reason to believe that this baby won't be as well. But it's entirely your choice Emily. I know you took precaution to prevent pregnancy. I'm here to support you no matter what."

What the fuck was she saying? I could barely breathe, let alone think.

"You're far enough along for the fetal DNA test. Do you want to do that now?" Dr. Craig asked.

I nodded, feeling like my head was detached from my body. Yes, that would be good. I could keep this secret for a week while I found out if the baby was healthy.

That was my initial plan, and I realized in that moment that secrets were a lot like lies - once you keep a secret or tell a lie, the next one is easier to keep or tell. Or so I thought.

I took the blood test. I drove home, though I couldn't tell you a detail about the path I took to get there. I watched in horror as my father and Fran took their belongings back to their respective homes on this property. I rocked Rory with tears in my eyes as I put her down for her afternoon nap, and I hugged Leon when he got home from school.

By the time Derek returned from work, I had left sadness and worry behind and replaced it with frustration and fear - two emotions that looked a lot like anger. How could this happen? How could this baby even have a chance to be healthy at my age? How could we possibly take on another child when we couldn't even ensure the safety of the two children we already had? How is it possible that in all our times together Derek didn't even notice that that wiry string wasn't inside me anymore?

I was pregnant before I left for London and didn't know it. All those many days since I'd been home of swallowing past my gag reflex at the smell of eggs and meat cooking were not me being torn up about what had happened in England, but about the baby growing inside me.

It's erroneous, how we assign blame when we're backed into a corner, and that's how I felt when Derek came home from work - desperate and backed into a corner. I snapped at him. He snapped at me, speaking harsher to me than he ever had before, and I was almost relieved by it. I realized that's what I wanted on some level, for him to get angry with me.

We muddled through dinner that night with the kids and Fran and my father, and just like before Fran was taken from us, after dinner, both my father and Fran left for their homes. And it was just the four of us again.

I vowed that I wouldn't say anything to Derek until I got the results of the fetal DNA test.

Tonight, I wait for him to fall asleep. Though I probably should be taking it easy, our home gym is the only thought on my mind. For the first time since we started living together since over two years ago, Derek's arms are not wrapped tightly around me. He only has a tentative hand on my hip.

When I think his breathing is even enough, I try to slip out of bed, but his fingers clasp me. "Please don't leave tonight," he whispers. "I'm sorry I said what I did. I just want you to talk to me, to talk through it with me, and I don't know what to do when you won't."

I roll over to face him, and then I roll my body on top of his. "It's okay. I'm sorry I snapped at you, too. It just all so much." That's not a lie - I'm drowning in the enormity of what's happening right now, things he doesn't even know about.

I strip off my pajamas, and then I strip off his. But he doesn't let me have the upper hand tonight; he doesn't let me be distant. I'm straddling him, about to screw myself into an oblivion of sleep when he grabs my thighs and flips us over. Immediately, my heart starts hammering in my chest. I feel his lips on my face and neck and his body surrounding mine, and then he does something he's never done before - he clasps my wrists over my head, holding them so firmly that there's not a chance I can pull away. The moonlight through our curtains is enough for me to be able to see his eyes, and I quickly shut mine.

"Emily," he whispers.

Slowly, fear filling me, I open my eyes again to look at him.

"Come back to me," he breathes out as he enters me slowly.

I thought I was the vulnerable one here, but looking at him, at all the fear and love in his face, I realize that he's the one who's even more scared than I am. He's the vulnerable one, really believing that leaving him is an option, that he might not ever get me back.

I wasn't sure I could totally come back to him the same way as before, but looking at his face and feeling a few tears drip from his eyes onto my cheeks, I know that I have to try.

I have two secrets inside me right now, and I'm not sure which one to let loose first. But I have to give this man that means the world to me something to hold onto.

I pull on my wrists and he lets go of me.

I put my arms around his back and hold him tightly to me.

His hips are barely moving and the warmth of his body like a blanket over me is more comforting than anything I've ever felt. I almost let myself forget what this was like.

"I'm pregnant," I whisper in his ear.