When Mike gets back to the house, Paige isn't there. He sits on the couch staring blankly ahead, his thoughts racing. He tried to calculate out in his head when this all happened. They'd been secretly dating for a little less than three months, and they'd first slept together a month before that. As far as Mike knew, she hadn't slept with anyone else since they'd first been together. She hadn't been out drinking recently, but she'd been working hard on one of her cases, so it could just be that.

Mike hears the door open and nearly jumps off the couch.

Paige walks into the room, looking distractedly in her bag, but she pauses when she sees Mike standing in the middle of the living room.

"Hi." He says, and his voice cracks with a tinge of panic.

His eyes rake over her body, looking for signs. Changes he might have missed. She looks normal. Maybe a little tired, but she seems relaxed. His eyes sweep over her body carefully, and he notices the bandage on her arm from where blood was recently taken and the prescription bag peaking out of her purse. His heart feels like it's pounding so hard it may jump out of his chest.

"Hi." She answers, putting down her purse as she approaches him. She immediately notices Mike's strange behavior, and she walks curiously over to him. "You ok?"

"Are you ok?" Mike turns the question right back on her, "I mean, you would tell me right? If you weren't ok? If everything was ok? Or not? Or if you thought something was ok, but thought I wouldn't be ok with something that you were ok with? Because I would be ok with anything you were ok with, as long as you are ok with me being the one who wants to be ok with you and…"

Paige stands there and crosses her arms across her chest, listening to Mike babble on. He is really worked up. She's not sure she's ever seen Mike so flustered. It is surprisingly adorable. She waits patiently for him to finish talking, or at least pause for breath.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Mike finally gets control on his babbling, and just asks her flat out. This question explains Mike's erratic behavior to Paige immediately.

"Well, you clearly already know." She says rolling her eyes. She's surprised to feel relieved. She didn't know how to broach the subject with Mike, and she'd been trying to plan out the best way to do it. While this certainly wasn't she had in mind, at least it was happening sooner, rather than her stressing about it any more.

"...What do you think that I know?" Mike asks guardedly, "...And if it is what I think I know, why didn't you tell me?"

"Who told you?" Paige sighs, leaning against the arm of the couch.

"There are multiple people who could have told me?!"

"I don't know. It's hard to keep secrets around here." Paige shrugs casually. She hadn't confided in anyone about her suspicions, but in a house full of spies, she wasn't surprised someone had found her out.

She was surprised that someone hadn't been Mike. He normally watched her like a hawk. He must be relaxing into their relationship if he no longer felt like he had to carefully monitor her every moment waiting for her to have a breakdown. She did feel better recently. Stabler. More like her old self. She was seeing her psychiatrist once a week still, but the depression had passed, and she was working on the shame issues. Given everything that had happened, she felt surprisingly secure and she knew her relationship with Mike had a lot to do with that.

"So you do keep secrets from me?" Mike asks intensely. He suddenly wonders what on earth else she was hiding from him. The last few months he'd been in a daze. Everything had seemed perfect. They were keeping their relationship a secret, but everything had been great between them. Maybe they were just in their honeymoon phase.

"Apparently not very well." Paige grumbles.

"Why did you feel you needed to keep this a secret from me, Paige?" Mike's throat feels dry. He thought they had come so far, and the idea of her closing him out again terrifies him.

"You're coming from the doctor's..." Mike stares at her arm, and suddenly another even more terrifying thought occurs to Mike. That Briggs was wrong and she's not pregnant, that she's got cancer or something worse. That he's going to lose her. He didn't even consider that before, but suddenly the fear of it all punches him in the gut. "Fuck, are you… sick? Is it not… well the other thing, and are you sick?"

"I'm not sick." She says simply, not letting him worry about that for a second longer.

"Thank God." Mike rushes forward and pulls her into a firm hug, as he waits for the fear to drain him. Mike feels like he can breathe again, but only slightly. Pulling slightly away, so he can stare down into her eyes he asks softly, "Did you… Did you go to the doctors to have it 'taken care of'?"

"Do you want me to have it 'taken care of'?" Her voice darkens, and she pulls back to cross her arms back over her chest. She stares at him guardedly.

"I want..." Mike chooses his words very carefully. He knows this is a delicate moment. "I want you to feel like you can talk to me. About anything. We're in a good place. I don't want to wreck that."

"And you think 'this' would wreck what we have?" Paige says, trying to interpret Mike's words.

"No!" Mike quickly says, taking a step forward and bringing her into his arms, "I just don't want you to go back to you feeling like you have to take on everything by yourself. I want you to let me be there for you. We're a team."

Paige leans up and kisses him, and his arms wrap tenderly around her. He's treating her as even more fragile than usual, but it doesn't bother Paige the way it used to. He's strong and Paige allows herself to be supported by him. She kisses him softly, and she can tell by the tentative touch of his lips he's still worried and confused. She pulls away and he rests his forehead against hers, waiting for her her to talk as patiently as he can.

She smiles to herself, gathering the courage to say the words out loud and finally whispers in a conspiratorial manner, "Well Mike, our 'team' is about to grow…"

"Really?" He looks down at her, his heart pumping in his chest. Somehow her saying the words out loud makes it suddenly real for both of them.

"I wanted to go to the doctor and make sure…" Now that Paige has started talking, she can't seem to stop. There's so much for the two to talk about. "I mean, I wanted to tell you. I just couldn't believe it, and I wanted to make sure that I was right, and that everything was safe…"

"And it's really ok? I mean, you're not going to put your body through too much danger, and everything looks healthy?" Mike asks urgently. He wishes he could have been there at that doctor's office with her, but he's so nervous and overwhelmed by what's happening he's not even mad she chose to go alone.

Paige nods excitedly, her grin mirroring the one that's flashing on Mike's surprised face.

"We're going to have a baby?" Mike's words are barely a whisper.

"We're going to have a baby." Paige can't help but smile. This wasn't something she had ever thought she wanted, but now that it's happening… now that it's happening with Mike, she's so excited!

They both stand there staring at each other grinning, both minds racing and overwhelmed. A thousand thoughts and emotions are firing through them all at one time leaving them dizzy and breathless.

Just then they hear a gunshot upstairs and Jakes voice shouting out "DAMMIT JOHNNY! THERE'S A SAFETY FOR A REASON! I liked that lamp."

"My bad! My bad. But dude… it was an ugly ass lamp. Here's two dollars, go get a better one."

Mike and Paige exchange glances, and without words, quickly agree on one thing.

"We have got to move."

Author's Notes: There you go! Story finished. I couldn't not give these two a happy ending after what I put them through. I hope that this wraps up all the loose ends for you. Paige is physically healed and is doing better emotionally as well. Mike is not as overprotective hovering (though I think he would be as a dad), and the two of them are moving to DC together to fade off into the hypothetical wedded bliss.

While I appreciate the enthusiasm asking for new chapters, and I feel like I could write this version of the characters forever, this is logically the place to end the story. I may take some of my unused writings for this story and turn them into short stand alone pieces in the future, but right now life is quite busy. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and for the support! It's been fun for me.

-J