Never a Clean Break

by your rolling wheels

Actions have consequences, and part of growing up is learning to accept that. It’s a lesson even Tim Riggins has to learn to cope with, especially when a one night stand leads to much more serious outcomes. Read & rate, please! Tim Riggins/OC.

1. INTRODUCTION

TITLE: Never A Clean Break

PAIRING: Original character (Noelle Parker) & Tim Riggins

RATED: T for teenage pregnancy, language, etc., at the moment.

INTRODUCTION: LIVING THE IMPOSSIBLE

"This can't be happening," she mumbled, slipping down to the cool tiles of her bathroom floor with the pregnancy test still in hand. The pink plus sign glared back at her, and though she had the urge to write it off as a false positive, odds were that on the fourth test, something was probably up. In layman's terms, the directions on each test had spelled out what a pink plus sign meant, as if any idiot couldn't guess – pregnant. The signs had all been there – nausea, back pain, fatigue. All the textbook symptoms. But those signs, on their own, were easy enough to write off as anything else but what they really were. She'd been dealing with denial for a good stretch of time, but there was only so much she could do to deny it then. Four plastic sticks lined up neatly on the counter were pretty damning evidence as far as her hope to keep breezing over the truth.

But the story didn't begin in that bedroom or even at that party truthfully, and it would have hardly made sense to leave out the rest. 'She' was Noelle Parker, the girl who'd been the shiny new student a mere month or so before that night, the new transfer from a town a few cities over. She'd moved there with her mother and the man her mother had attached herself to most recently, assimilating herself as best she could into the Panther's student body. It hadn't worked well so far, however; Noelle hated football and despised the zealousness the whole lunatic town went at it with. So much ado for kicking around a pigskin ball, and such little importance on academics and the like. It was hick town idiocy at its finest.

It was that same bad attitude towards the sport that had made that night her first Panther party, and from the moment she'd stepped in the door, she vowed it would be her last. There was no reason for her to join in those sorts of things, and after being seen leaving a bedroom that housed a passed out fullback, she was sure she'd have an interesting reputation when she showed her face around the halls, let alone at a party. Until shortly after, she wasn't exactly filled in on the fact that each and every single girl who would put out for Tim Riggins had been there and done that, most with stories much more memorable than hers. For a while, it seemed as though nothing about her reputation would change, at all

The party hadn't been interesting in the slightest, just a run of the mill celebration in honor of a big win for the Panther's, and the first she'd attended. From there, she could hardly say how she ended up in bed with one of the numbskulled football players, or rather the idiot football player, but it had happened. She was sure he could barely remember any of it, but she definitely could. She'd been more sober than he could've hoped to be, that night.

It had been all hands, lips, and drunkenness combining in a never ending grope fest that mildly failed to live up to the reputation of Timothy Riggins' sexual prowess. She supposed that wasn't really his fault; with how inebriated he'd been at the time, it had to have been a struggle to stay conscious, let alone move with grace between the sheets. It was also not as though she had much experience as to what to compare the ordeal to, not having shacked up with many drunken football players in back bedrooms of Dillon Panther party houses, at least before coming to the small town.

And there she was, a little over two months later, after receiving nothing so much as a phone call from Tim, sitting in her bathroom with tears streaming down her face. Her life as she knew it was most definitely over, no matter what she did at that point, though she couldn't even bring herself to consider anything more than that moment. Even thinking ahead to the next second made her chest go tight, locking up her airways. She was seventeen, for God's sake. Seventeen, and a junior in high school, who'd made one stupid mistake that probably a million girls before her had made with the same guy.

She had to imagine she wasn't the only one who'd paid some sort of penance, but at the moment, she couldn't have felt more alone.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, guys, so there's the first chapter! I'm hoping you dig it, because I've got a very clear idea where I want it to go, and I'd love for you all to be there to see it, for sure.