A/N: I tried to post this all yesterday, but FFN was being a douche. Anyway, who all loves that Bendrian is now CANON?! Way back when I made my first YT video for Bendrian, and later wrote Disoriented, I never in my wildest dreams thought that they would come together on screen, then when they began calling each other and becoming friends, I still had my doubts that they'd ever be more than friends. And while sex doesn't equal a relationship (nor does a baby!), I still feel quite impressed and vindicated that as the first shipper I know, they've come this far. So in celebration, I've written another Bendrian fic! Woohoo! I trust we've all seen the promo where Ben is wearing a suit and staring out the window of his bedroom and Adrian is standing behind him in the gray/silver dress with her hands rising to her stomach? Yes, yes? Well, this is my take on that scene. (And the title comes from Dr. Fields' quote to Anne about mistakes being lessons.) Also, just for the record, this is a one shot and I will not be adding additional chapters.

Painful Lessons

Everything was changing.

It should have been a happy day. His father was getting married, and even though Betty would never be his mother, he should have been happy for his dad. Betty tried her best, after all, and even despite the things he'd said about her out of anger and frustration – things he didn't even really mean but came off just as hurtful nevertheless – she had been gracious enough to forgive him for. Not once, but twice! She wouldn't be the best step-mother in the world, but not even parents could be the best, but she would try, and in the end, that's all Ben knew she could do. So he was getting a step-mother that would try, that generally cared for him, that his father truly loved, and he knew he should be happy, but the truth was, everything was light years from happy.

As the sun beamed in through the window and soaked into the black fabric of his Italian suit, he began to feel hot. He felt like he was sweating at first, then he began to itch, and as his mind dwelled on it, it felt like an unbearable chafing. The sunlight even hurt his eyes, but he couldn't look away. If he stared straight into the sun, then perhaps he could go blind, and then he wouldn't have to see what was about to coming walking through his door.

Right then, he heard it open. Not his bedroom door, but the bathroom door within his bedroom. His stomach was in proverbial knots and at that moment, he knew how Amy must have felt the very first time she looked down at that home pregnancy test. He felt so stupid. The thoughts were weighing on him, pulling him beneath the surface like an undertow. He wanted to put his fist right through the window. No, his head right through the window! The image of the glass shattering around him, blocking out his thoughts, the blood pooling in his ear canals, drowning out the truth…it called to him like a siren on the sea.

Just then, he noticed Adrian's reflection in the glass. He could see her standing in front of his head, looking beautiful and broken in her dark gray dress with the silver sash across her belly. Like him, it also should have been a happy day. She'd just been at her parents' nuptials before arriving at his house, at his bedroom door. Within the ghostly reflection, he could see her raise her hands and gently come to lock her fingers together, resting them across the silver sash. His stomach churned like the waves on the California coast.

"Ben."

He closed his eyes. Everything inside of him was alive: fire danced on every nerve ending in his body! He didn't want to turn around, he didn't want to look her in those glassy, dark brown eyes, but he did. As he swallowed, he could feel the bulky Adam's apple in his throat bob like a buoy at sea. "What did it say?"

"Karma."

The sound of his brand new dress shoes squeaking was the only sound in the room for several minutes.

"I don't understand how this could've happened," he finally spoke, awed by the very fact that he even could speak. He cast his eyes down, staring at the sun gleaming off his black footwear. "I thought you were on birth control."

"Of course I was on birth control! I like sex, Ben. Anyone who regularly has sex and doesn't want to end up pregnant is on birth control, but that's not one-hundred percent. That's why you always need to use more than one preventative measure. And even when I wasn't having sex with Ricky, I was still on birth control…it does more than just help prevent pregnancy, it regulates the menstrual cycle…of course I was on birth control."

"Then how did this happen? You were on birth control, I had a condom…"

"Birth control works ninety-nine point nine percent of the time."

"So you're just part of that point one percent?"

"And the condom?"

Adrian's shoulders slogged, dropping like a beer barrel sinking into the ocean. "Condoms are even less effective than birth control, Ben! It could've been defective, it could've leaked, you could've put it on wrong, it could've been the wrong size…I don't know, okay?! The only thing I do know is that I'm standing in front of you, knowing that I've made the worst mistake of my life!" Her mascara was beginning to shed down her cheeks like a wooly dog. "There have only been two men who I've wanted to have a baby with and neither of them was you!"

The words were jagged, cutting through Ben like a chainsaw. He didn't love Adrian. Not romantically anyhow; he was not in love with her, but still, the words seemed a betrayal somehow. "Adrian-"

"All for nothing! This was all for fucking nothing! I ruined Ricky and I based on a kiss. A kiss!"

He had a bad habit of doing things without thinking: like calling Betty a hooker, kissing Maria, losing his virginity to Adrian…so when he found himself suddenly wrapping his arms around Adrian's withering form, he wasn't surprised. It did, however, shock him that she didn't fight and shove him away. Instead, she allowed him to hold her as she sobbed, spreading her tears deep into the fibers of his suit. His mouth felt sticky and his tongue felt fat, like a wad of cotton balls, but he knew he had to say something to her. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Logically, he knew it wasn't all his fault. It took two to tango, after all, and for that he knew Adrian was just as guilty for their situation as he was. But what he was sorry about was the request he was about to make: "Please don't do it."

"What are you talking about?" she hiccupped, half coughing into his shoulder.

"Don't have an abortion."

She pushed him away then and his arms felt cold as the warm of her body yanked away from him. The look in her eyes was wild, like a hurricane. Adrian shook her head, her perfectly coiled black ringlets bouncing around her shoulders in a blaze. "Don't have an abortion? Have you seen what Ricky's gone through? And even your Precious Amy?! Are you blind? Did you not see the way she was treated at school? And your little friend Heather? And they weren't even The School Slut!" Her hands began to flail in the air like an infant's. "How do you expect me to give all that up, Ben? For a baby I don't even want? How?! I've worked so hard. I have straight A's. I want to go to college. You may be set with your daddy's money, but I'm not. I've worked so hard and come this far…" Her glossy lips shuddered, quivering like a figurine atop a washing machine during its spin cycle. "How?"

Without thinking – again – he placed his hands on her shaking shoulders. "You don't want to do this," he begged. "Think about it: if you did, then why tell me at all? Why tell me you missed your period? Why stand in front of my bedroom door with a home pregnancy test and inform me of this at all if you really wanted to have an abortion?"

Adrian grit her teeth, fighting for something to refute his claim. "Maybe I just wanted comfort? Moral support? Ever think about that, Boykewich!"

"I can't morally support that Adrian, you should know that after what happened with Amy. I know this isn't good. It's not the right time, we're not ready, but I-I can't. I just can't. We created a life. I can't, in good conscious, murder it. I can't support that and I won't!"

"That's easy for you to say. You're not the one with the morning sickness. You're not the one with the growing stomach. You're not the one who has to give birth. It's. Not. You!"

"Think about John," Ben tried desperately.

"What about him?" she snarled.

"Remember how you pushed Amy to have an abortion? And now? Now you love him! You've told me how you imagine the holidays with him and Ricky and your children some day. I've seen you with Ricky and John…you already act like a second mother to him, the way when I'm with Amy, I've tried to act like a second father. You can't honestly tell me you could ever imagine Amy having had an abortion, can you? That sweet little boy, that little life…you can't imagine him slit up and sucked through a tube and down a drain-"

"Stop it!" her manicured nails landed like claws across the side of his face, leaving jagged white streaks of flesh which quickly bloomed in color, before producing thin streams of red liquid. She jumped back, shocked at her own venom.

It burned, but Ben was surprised to find himself unable to back down. On this point, he could not support her. He couldn't let her murder the child that inhabited her womb; their child. Mistake or not, they'd created it and they had a duty to take responsibility. If he'd learned anything from watching Ricky and his father forcing him to work at the butcher shop, it was that: responsibility for one's actions. "And think about yourself! You've told me before that your mom get pregnant young too, on purpose no less, just to keep your dad, but she realized that was a mistake. But you weren't the mistake! And what we did, that was a mistake, but this life – like you and John – is not." He didn't know what else there was to say. "Please, Adrian." And the tears that involuntarily accompanied the appeal were more real than anything he'd ever experienced to date.

She hugged her belly, her face now a zebra-like mask of jagged stripes. "I don't know if I can."

Ben pulled her to his chest again. His long, fumbling fingers wormed their way through her hair and clutched her petite back the same way he'd done that day he saw her smack Jack in the hallway.

"Ben?"

He flicked his eyes up, seeing his father dressed in a brand new tux standing in the doorway. Ben felt his Adam's apple quiver in his throat again and simultaneously, he felt Adrian tighten up and hold back her cries.

"Adrian." Leo stepped cautiously into the room as Ben released Adrian, who was tucking her hear and trying desperately to wipe her eyes and face without smearing it over her dress. "Is everything alright?"

Ben shifted uneasily, hearing his shoes squeak again. He could already imagined how scuffed they were after only being worn an hour at most. "No, Dad. Things aren't alright." His hand unconsciously found Adrian's and as soon as his fingertips brushed the side of her hand, he felt her hand grip and coil around his.

"Mr. Boykewich," Adrian sniffled, her lips unable to form an ending to her address.

"It's okay," Leo offered, his voice soft as the tissue he plucked from Ben's Kleenex box and handed to the teenager. "Why don't you sit down?" he motioned to Ben's bed. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Adrian sniffed and dabbed her eyes and face, smudging the streaked mascara as Ben looked at her. As she gained a control on her breathing, she began to nod towards Ben.

"We made a mistake," Ben said softly, still holding Adrian's watery gaze. He slowly turned his head towards his father. "But I think we're both ready to take responsibility and learn from it."