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With a brain like hers, the signs should have been obvious.
Plenty of women didn’t immediately notice changes in their bodies, but Morgan Gillory wasn’t most women.
She’d thought that the first time, waiting on her own in a tiny bathroom while Roman was out tagging a building. It caught her way off guard.
The second and third times were a little easier to predict, though neither Elliot or Chloe had exactly been planned either. Ludo had always felt like a part of the family, he was a solid co-parent and a good friend…but they’d never exactly had the kind of relationship that screamed ‘destined to be together and start a family’. Still, they made it work.
Three kids later, she always figured if (and it felt like a BIG if) she ever got pregnant again, she’d notice right away.
But things changed.
A missed period was easy to go unnoticed when she had so much else on her plate. Between the kids and work, it didn’t even cross her mind that the usual date came and went.
Exhaustion, too, was easy to write off as nothing when working for the LAPD often came with pulling all-nighters. Even when she fell asleep with her head on Karadec’s shoulder in the middle of bullpen, she chose to blame the case they were working on.
It was the smell of his aftershave that finally did it.
“Seems like our victim–“
“Hold that thought,” she managed.
Her brain was full of probabilities in that second - mostly how long she had to make it to the bathroom before the admittedly questionable breakfast burrito she'd had that morning made a reappearance.
Maybe the tortillas had been past their sell by date.
Maybe the eggs weren’t cooked properly.
Maybe she’d eaten too fast.
Or maybe she was in denial.
Morgan groaned as she dragged herself from the cubicle over to the sink, swirling water around in her mouth.
It was only then that it finally hit her.
More exhausted than seemed humanly possible? Check.
Aversion to certain smells? Definitely check.
Adding extra mushrooms to her breakfast that morning, even though she usually couldn't stand them? Yup.
That only left...
"Shit."
Reaching into her pocket for her phone, she checked the date...and immediately paled.
She was more than just a little bit late, and with the amount of times she and Karadec had slept together recently, statistically speaking...
Everyone was still in the bullpen when she headed back out. Soto shot her a questioning look, and she could tell Daphne wanted to ask her about it too.
But it was Karadec whose concern outshone them all.
He'd always been like that, always been the first to ask her if she was okay, the first to check in, the first to want to be there for her.
Nothing had changed there.
He was attentive, in every possible aspect.
The first time they'd slept together had caught both of them off guard, but he'd never wanted to be that guy who pushed the boundaries too far or did anything she didn't want.
Throughout her life, Morgan had never really known a guy like him.
Men usually put their own needs well above hers, and while she had no qualms with a man taking charge of the situation, there was actually something incredibly sexy about how he handled things.
A particularly mentally draining case had led to the pair of them sharing a couple of quiet drinks to get it all out of their systems.
Nobody was drunk, only a little bit buzzed - they'd both been perfectly in control when she kissed him for the first time.
One thing led to another, and the line between partners and something more was finally blurred.
They didn't talk about it at first, even though it was clear they both desperately wanted to.
A few days later, and it was all finally on the table. Feelings from both sides, words they'd both been too damn scared and too damn stubborn to say out loud for a really, really long time.
Dating Adam just seemed to work.
The kids loved him, he and Ludo got along great, and so far, the only time it had really impacted their professional relationship was when he jumped in a little too quickly to keep her safe - and, if she was being honest, he'd been like that with her long before they'd gotten together.
But this wasn't a possibility they'd discussed.
Morgan knew that he'd proposed to Lucia once upon a time, and she knew they'd talked about having children together.
But, was that something he wanted with her? Was that something he was still willing to commit to, after the truth about Lucia came out?
Being around her kids was a totally different thing to having one of their own, especially in these early days.
While Soto continued to talk about the case, likely expecting Morgan to be taking it all in, already ten steps ahead of everyone else, she was spiralling.
As she'd explained to Soto when she'd first started working as a consultant, HPI got in the way of everything; it ruined everything.
She'd never before been able to hold down a steady job or a steady relationship. The LAPD had changed things on the work front, but as for the relationship...
Morgan glanced over at Karadec, well aware he knew her well enough to be concerned just from looking at her.
He'd make an excellent father, but what if he didn't want to be?
What if she simply wasn't destined to be both a mom and somebody's girlfriend?
While she still refused to believe that Roman had left of his own volition, he'd still left.
Ludo never had, but it was different with him. Romantic compatibility just didn't come into the equation.
With Adam...
The second everyone broke apart to work on the case, it hit her that, for the first time since she'd started working for the LAPD, she didn't have a single lead.
Morgan stared blankly at the board in front of her, the photo of the victim filling her with absolutely nothing but uncertainty and dread.
Sarah Driscoll. 34. Murdered in her own home.
A distraught man had called 911 to report it. Her fiancé.
Had they wanted kids?
Had they talked about it?
Morgan jumped, as a hand touched her hip, breaking her reverie.
"You're quiet," Karadec murmured, stepping into her personal space, in a way he probably shouldn't at work. She didn't care. "Too quiet. Should I be worried?"
It wasn't a joke - he really did know her silences.
Bottling it up would have been easy. Morgan knew she could swallow down the truth, attempt to focus on the case, and spiral once she got home later.
Instead, she turned her head, and once she met his gaze? All resolve went out of the window.
The bullpen, however, wasn't the place for this.
Her calculating brain knew the perfect spot to speak to him without worry of being in anyone's earshot.
The second she'd dragged him out into the corridor, she knew it was now or never. If she started to ramble, she was never going to get the words out.
Karadec opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it.
"I'm pregnant."
He stared at her, and she could practically see the wheels turning in his brain.
Morgan continued: "I mean, I think I could be. I haven't taken a test. But my period is about 2 weeks late at this point, and that never happens. And with all the sex we've been having, statistically-"
"Morgan," he cut her off, stepping in to close the space between them. His hand cupped her bicep, thumb brushing over her skin to ground her. "Hey. Breathe."
That undid something inside of her. She stepped forward, arms wrapping around his neck.
Adam met her halfway, pulling her into a hug before she could spiral any further.
"Daphne and Oz are looking into leads on the case," he started, his hand caressing her back in a way that made her practically melt under his touch. "So, we take an hour. Go to the pharmacy, grab a test...take it from there."
Morgan took another deep breath, relieved that she hadn't quite spiralled into panic attack territory this time. "You seem awfully calm about this..."
He looked down at her, his expression softening. "That's because it's you. It's us."
Half an hour later, they were in her house, her foot nervously tapping in a way that would have irritated the hell out of her if it was anyone else doing it.
"I swear these things take longer every time," she muttered, glancing over to a photo of Ava, Elliot and Chloe on the mantel.
Three kids she could handle. Ava was (terrifyingly) edging closer and closer towards college, Elliot was probably more mature than most of the adults in her life already, and Chloe...well, the jury was still out on her.
Karadec reached over, taking one of her hands in his, slowly interlocking their fingers. He really was her rock, now more than ever.
"You know, I've never done one of these with someone else before," she admitted.
That surprised him. "Really?"
Morgan nodded. "Told Roman when he got home. Same with Ludo, both times."
"Well, I'm glad I'm here," he told her gently, and she knew he meant it.
A beat passed, her leg bouncing again, the nerves growing stronger with each passing second. Four kids. It sounded a hell of a lot more than three.
"Is this something you want?" Morgan finally asked, unable to keep the concerns to herself anymore. "I know you'd talked about kids with Lucia, but after everything..."
He shook his head quickly. It was clear he didn't much like talking about her since her arrest, but Morgan and Lucia truly couldn't be more different.
"Things didn't work out with Lucia the first time, because she thought I loved the job more than her," he reminded her, choosing his words carefully. "But with you...our whole lives are intertwined. It never feels like too much, Morgan. I want you to be involved in every part of my life. So, yes, I want this. Do you?"
Motherhood was the one thing that had been a constant in her life.
Like any other mom, she didn't always get it right. There were times when she felt completely out of her depth, times when she messed it all up...but her kids were the greatest parts of her.
Where the high potential intellect had ruined job after job, and relationship after relationship, it had never come between her and the kids. Being a mom was as much a part of her as the HPI was at this point.
"Honestly? I hadn't thought about having another one," she admitted, barely noticing that her leg finally stopped bouncing. He had a calming effect on her. "But none of 'em were planned, and I love them all to death. And I know you would make an amazing father."
She'd already seen it in the way he pushed Chloe on the swings, the way he agreed to take Ava out in the car even after Ludo warned him she was a terrible learner driver, the way he took an interest in whatever facts Elliot was spewing that day. He cared about these kids.
The alarm on her phone finally went off, and she took a breath.
After turning it off, she reached for the test.
Two lines, clear as day.
"Adam..." she breathed, and it hit him the same way it always did when she called him by his first name. It felt almost intimate.
"We're having a baby?" He asked.
Morgan nodded. "Yeah, I guess we are."
It was terrifying, truly, but with him? She knew there wasn't anything she couldn't handle.