Cut to Horatio and Alexx walking along. She's dolefully noting, "You sure know how to brighten up a girl's day, don't you?" Horatio says, "I've got nothing. I need an ID on the father." Alexx points out that this will be possible only if the father's DNA has unique characteristics. Horatio asks, "Are you ready for this?" Alexx replies, "Fetal tissue recovery is the one thing I'm never ready for." So long as we don't get shots of her singing lullabies...

Cut to Alexx in the morgue, preparing to cut open the victim's uterus. Horatio is hovering nearby. So that's how it is: a fully grown adult murder victim gets the Voice-of-God treatment, but an embryo gets his undivided attention. I'm not sure if this scene is supposed to broadcast Horatio being supportive of Alexx after he asked her to perform a difficult task, or if we're supposed to get the idea that Horatio has unresolved issues with gestation. The strings of solemnity play as Alexx extracts the amniotic sac and puts it in a jar, then puts the embryo in a petri dish. Horatio looks down and provides Lambs of Christ with promotional material as he asks, "Not just skin cells, is it?" Nobody was saying that it was, my man, but we're still looking at a collection of largely undifferentiated cells that's not capable of surviving independently outside the uterus. Alexx glares at Horatio, and he holds the petri dish aloft, thanking her. The strings continue as Horatio hands off the petri dish, asking a nameless lab tech to set it up for him. She puts it under a microscope, and Horatio bends to the lens. We then see a shot of an embryo; I involuntarily shriek, "Rex the Wonder Preemie has a sister!" See? I told you I was a rotten Catholic. Horatio looks in the scope long enough to confirm that, yes, it is an embryo, thanks the lab tech, then wanders downstage to brood in time with the strings of sorrow. Okay -- bag the empathy for Alexx angle. Horatio's clearly got issues centering around the wee, wee, wee ones.