Warning: WIP. I currently have 16,000 words of this written. Not beta read. Contains consenting adults engaging in polygamy, adults talking about family planning and pregnancy, and discussion of religion.

It begins with a mistake. Too much alcohol, too much stress, too much being alone since Emily left the BAU. It's the kind of mistake that Emily thinks she can put behind, let go so long as Gabriel stops giving her too-intimate glances at work, as though somehow their relationship has changed because of a brief lapse in judgment on both of their parts.

Except life, at least hers, is rarely that simple. The seed of doubt is planted in her mind when the aversion to intense smells begins, when Emily finds herself no longer able to tolerate her morning coffee. The doubt increases when she finds herself suffering from a stomach bug that just wont let up, nausea with no apparent fever. The final blow comes when she tries to think, weeks after the symptoms begin, of when her last period was.

Emily tries to reason with herself when she buys a handful of pregnancy tests on the way home from work that evening, stashing them into her purse like the evidence of a crime. At thirty eight and living a high-stress lifestyle, this wouldn't be the first time her periods were somewhat irregular. But the doubt lingers, tells her that there's more to the story, that she must take the test.

She does. The directions say it's best to wait until first thing in the morning, but it's been hours since she's last gone to the bathroom, and she can't possibly wait any longer. Weaker concentration of hCG or not, the fates promptly reveal some of their cards for her, two clear lines. Pregnant.

Emily thinks of the child that could have been hers, so long ago. She'd have been sixteen when he or she would have been born. They'd be all grown up now, off on their own, living some life she cannot imagine. She'd be living some life she cannot imagine. Emily thinks that it's cruel she find herself in this position now, when she'd stopped believing that it could ever happen, when she'd given up a tiny corner of her mind that had always wanted.

She doesn't regret the choice she made, twenty two years ago. All of the good things that had come in her life would likely have never come to be in her life had she made a different choice. She had been so young then, so stupid.

Yet she finds herself staring at the same results all these years later, and the doubt in her mind grows. When she'd told Gabriel about the symptoms, about the pregnancy tests, he'd pulled her into a quiet corner of the hallway and told her that in no uncertain terms that he was never going to be a father, that he wanted nothing to do with any baby. If she was pregnant it was best for them both if she got rid of it.

She tells herself not to think of that, to continue to function, at least until she can see her doctor and find out for certain.