A/N: Sorry that updating has been so slow and infrequent for all of my stories – but uni has been unbelievably busy this year. When I don't have an assignment due or an exam coming up, I have a truckload of essential pre-reading to do. Plus my music commitments have been pretty hectic.

Anyway, hope you find this final installment satisfying – please review with any thoughts!

In the early hours of the next morning, Emma was awoken by the sound of the baby crying, and with a small sigh she got out of bed, securing her dressing gown about her and lighting a candle before padding softly to the nursery.

From the corridor she could see a light flickering in the room, and knowing Sarah the nursery maid to have been lying ill with a worse bout of measles than had plagued either Arthur or Fred, she quickened her steps to see who was in the room. At the threshold, observing Mr. Knightley holding their daughter in his arms, speaking softly to her and pacing slowly to try and calm her, Emma hesitated for a moment before entering.

He looked up at the sound of her footsteps, and indicated with an inclination of his head that they both sit in the small loveseat in the corner of the nursery. Once settled (somewhat uncomfortably, for it was cramped), he spoke quietly. 'What does Perry say about her?'

Emma looked down into the face of her now softly whimpering ten-month-old, whose tender skin was covered in the miserable red rash typical of measles, and sighed. 'He says there is nothing to worry about at the moment, and that even if she continues as she is for some time, it is only to be expected; apparently the illness hits babies worse than it does older children.'

He only nodded, but she could see the relief in his eyes. For a moment they were both silent, but then he swallowed hard, and spoke after a little hesitation. 'I should have been here,' he said softly.

Emma cleared her throat in a futile effort to try and dislodge the lump which had welled up in it, and shook her head. 'The harvest is important for the whole of Donwell; I understand that.'

The arm that was not holding their daughter came around her, and with a sigh she rested her head on his shoulder. 'It is,' he said, 'but perhaps it should not have been more important than our family.'

There was no reply to be made to this, so for some time they were silent. Finally, sounding tired, he asked, 'Why did you say that to Fred, Emma?'

She was unsurprised at the question; she herself had lain awake for hours trying to puzzle it out, trying to understand why Fred's timidity had caused disappointment, but more than that, envy, to wash over her like something hot and corrosive. He was a boy, she had thought, a boy who had the luxury, the freedom to do anything he wanted if only he would take it, a boy whose parents would not wrap him up in cotton wool, a boy who had the opportunity to live. She shook her aching head wearily. 'I don't know – I didn't mean it, and yet I did. I should have said it some other way, but I just… I didn't think.'

'He had tears in his eyes, Emma,' Mr. Knightley said quietly, and there was no overt reproach in his voice, but all the same at the picture his words conjured the lump in Emma's throat grew so painful she thought she would choke on it.

'I will talk to him tomorrow,' she said finally. Then she sighed, trying to put some of her jumbled thoughts into words. 'It's just that sometimes, I worry about Fred; he's always been such a quiet, cautious child – nothing like Arthur. While Arthur's climbing trees and riding horses and falling into lakes and breaking windows, Fred's sitting quietly with his nose in some book of maps or fiddling with a compass. I just want him to be able to try new things, and to not think so much and scare himself out of experiencing things for himself – is that so unreasonable?'

'Arthur will be delighted, even if William Larkins won't, that you hold his breaking that window in such fond remembrance,' remarked Mr. Knightley somewhat dryly. Then he continued more seriously, 'While I see your point, Emma, I don't think we can – or should – change him. We can encourage him, maybe we can occasionally nudge him, but he needs to experience things in his own good time.'

She nodded, trying to accept this. 'That sounds perfectly sensible – and yet…' She paused, and then decided to voice her thought, the thought at the root of the matter. 'And yet I can't help thinking that if I had been in his position, if I had had the opportunities he has, I would have embraced them.'

Mr. Knightley's eyes were warm with sympathy. 'I understand that. Much as I esteemed your father, I have always felt that perhaps he sheltered you a little too much.' Then he was silent for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. 'And yet I don't think you quite understand Fred – perhaps you cannot fully understand the expectations that come with the freedom he has; with so much opportunity, the fear lies in the doubt in one's own ability rather than in missing out.' And then, haltingly, he told her about another small boy who had feared his first riding lesson, and whose fears had proved so unfortunately well-founded.

Emma listened intently; for all she had known Mr. Knightley all her life, he had been grown-up and invincible ever since she could remember, and all she knew about his childhood had been from the occasional comment dropped by himself or John. He had never really talked about it in any detail until now.

She winced in sympathy at his brief mention of the horse's hoof coming down on his leg. 'But I never noticed,' she said, surprised. 'You do not walk with a limp – at least, not that I could ever discern.'

He smiled grimly. 'I was lucky – the fracture was simple, and had not punctured the skin, so there was no infection and the bones were well aligned as they healed, and thankfully they grew normally afterwards.'

Emma could not help feeling indignant on his behalf. 'And your father – he let this happen?'

'Well, he could hardly have prevented it by any action of his after that gunshot had sounded,' said Mr. Knightley reasonably. 'But later I could not help thinking that it would not have happened if I had had a little more guidance – and so I was determined to give Fred as much.'

For a moment, Emma absently stroked her daughter's hair, but then she said abruptly, 'Then I am sorry for what I said to Fred.'

'I am glad – but perhaps I overreacted when I condemned you for what you said. I felt almost like I was defending my five-year-old self, and yet I recognize now that the circumstances are different – Fred is older than I was, and he was, after all, in my capable hands,' he smiled.

Emma could not choke back a gurgle of laughter. 'You are an abominably conceited man, do you know that, Mr. Knightley?'

The arm that was around her clasped her fondly, and, still smiling, he kissed her. 'Well, lucky for me that I'm married to an abominably conceited woman,' he said. Such a slanderous indictment of her character could not pass without an attempt at silencing him, and Emma threw herself enthusiastically into the task.

Some moments passed in delicious silence before Emma realised that it truly was silent. She looked down at her daughter, lying in Mr. Knightley's lap, her mouth open, her little chest rising and falling, sleeping peacefully for the first time in over a fortnight.

The End