"Morning." Emitt mewls as he turns into me, his hands landing on my chest while our legs tangled naturally.

"Ew, morning breath." I groan sleepily when he tries to kiss me.

"Shut up and kiss me." He commands before gripping my jaw tightly and pressing his lips to mine. I hum in delight as our lips move in sync, the action soothing to me. "Mhmm." He hums pulling back as he presses light kisses all over me making me laugh.

"Stop." I groan as he straddles me and showers me with kisses that were not only cute but ticklish. "Emitt!"

"Yeah." He asks with a smile as he stops momentarily, sitting up to look at me. "Beckett, I have to tell you something."

"What?" I ask as I let out a heavy breath.

"I love you." He says with a giddy smile that warms my heart. I flip us quickly making him squeak out as I slam him onto his back before kissing him hungrily, letting my mouth explore his ruthlessly. He whimpers in my hold, shivering slightly as I pinned his hands above his head with my own.

"I love you too." I breathe out, watching him pant with slightly swollen lips. "Don't you forget it."

"I won't." He replies as I climb off him and head to the bathroom to clean up quickly. After a brief shower, I pinch myself for forgetting to take a change of clothes with me. Tying a towel around my waist, I head out for a change of clothes.

"You're done al.." His words drift away as his eyes scan my body. We'd nothing more than kiss in the last week, the most I've seen of Emitt's body has been his legs and the same could be said for me. Suddenly feeling self-conscious, I grab my clothes quickly before heading back to the bathroom but he stops me.

Only then do I realize that he's looking at my scars.

His fingers hover over my skin hesitantly as he searches my body with confused as well as pained eyes. I stand still allowing him to scan me, knowing it was better to get this over with now. When his finger touches the one on my chest, I tense a bit as his thumb glides over the scar that rested on my heart. Tears forming in his eyes as his breathing started to quicken.

"What happened..." He gawks out, his words shaking as his fingers were.

"A lot," I say not wanting to go into detail, I take his hand away from my chest and lift his chin to look at me instead. "Don't worry about it."

"How can you say that?" He says as his lips begin to wobble. "Your body is covered in s-scars and you say don't worry about it. Beckett, what happened to you?"

"Let's sit," I say with a sigh before sitting on the edge of the bed with him. I take his index finger before tracing it along the thin scar that ran across my shoulder. "A knife in a bar fight." I run it along the claw mark the was on my waist. "A rogue fight, thirteen against one. A claw mark is not bad for those odds." I continue to the one of my thigh. "Aiden stabbed me, I don't remember what happened." I go to a small thick one. "A bar fight I loss. The rest are from wars, fights, and conflicts."

"And this one?" He questions returning to my chest, one I hope he'd leave alone. "What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it," I say dragging his hand away from it as I stand to throw on a shirt to hid my permanent reminders of a darker time in my life. Slipping on some underwear and pants, I try to leave but he grabs my wrists.

"Why not?" He questions with a firm grip.

"Because it makes me uncomfortable," I say honestly looking straight into his eyes.

"Why else?" He probes without letting up. I turn to face him before letting out a deep breath.

"Because you'll blame yourself and we'll end up taking one hundred steps backwards. So please, for both of us, can you drop it?" I ask ignoring the concern that arose within him, if I told him it'd break him and we only just began to put the pieces back together again.

"Okay." He says finally, his face showing his reluctance, his concern and his guilt I knew would bud from this issue.

"Thank you." I say pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Now let's go wake up our daughter, have a lovely breakfast and have a day as a family." This makes a smile tug on his lips as he looks up at me with a rekindled light.

"Sounds good."

-------------------------------

"Panda!" Amelia screams making all eyes turn on her. "It's so fluffy!"

"Keep it down princess." I try with a chuckle.

"Look, it's waking up! It's waking up!" Emitt screams alongside her making me sigh as I watch the two scream and jump with their faces pressed to the window like it'd help them see any clearly. Wiping out my camera, I take a couple pictures that I'd print and frame and place somewhere that would be too high for them to take it down.

"What's with you and pandas?" I ask walking up to Emitt. "You passed on your crazy obsession."

"Did you know one of the reasons Pandas are on the path to extinction is because they are too lazy to reproduce?" He asks with eyes of passion I didn't care for. "Along with China's growing population taking away their homes. But isn't that so amazing, they're too lazy to fuck!"

"Fuck!" Amelia repeats making me gasp as I immediately cover her mouth, while Emitt blushes at the disapproving stares people sent us.

"Let's try and keep the language AA please," I say sternly as I eye Amelia a bit before uncovering her mouth. "You can't say that word until you're at least fifteen."

"Okay," Amelia says nodding as I pull her into my arms before I walk away from the panda exhibition with Emitt following besides us. "Fuck!" Amelia screams before giggling.

Great....

------------------------

"Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want." Emitt starts before pointing to Amelia.

"So tell me what you want, what you really really want." She tries to say, but it really just came out as gibberish. We didn't tell her that though.

"I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want." Emitt sings again.

"So tell me what you want, what you really really want." Amelia tries to continue.

"I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha." I finish making both of them cheer and clap in excitement. We were driving to Pizza Hut for the third time this week, the entire gang officially becoming Cinnamon Stick Addicts.

"Dad," Amelia calls making my eyes drift to her through the rearview mirror. "Can I get a dog?"

"You'll have to ask your daddy," I say looking to Emitt who frowned in confusion.

"Why? You're her father too Beckett." He says making my eyes widen in realization. I'd kept a clear barrier to myself that put Emitt as the one who decided all things, Amelia, I was just happy getting to know her. "If I haven't made this clear, I'm sorry. You have as much of a say in Amelia's life as I do. We live with you, do practically everything with you.....we're a family. Right?"

"Right." I say with tears flooding my eyes. "We're a family."

"A family!" Amelia squeals making me laugh as we all share a moment of pure joy.

A moment where I forgot all the pain, all the suffering, all the sleepless nights, all the soaked pillows, the nights I wanted to end it all, the nights I tried to end it all.

That moment, I forgot.

I forgot and that's when I let it go.

That was the moment when I felt pure happiness, where I was so content with my life, with the people in it, with the people around it. The moment I was so happy....because I was whole again.

I could breathe.

I had a family.

I was happy again.

-------------------------------------------