I had a random idea for a story swimming in my head, so I decided to write it out and see if I wanted to make this a oneshot story or not. I decided, since I had a bunch of ideas for this, that it would just be a story. :) Enjoy!

The Girl

1. Eighteen

The echo of footsteps running across the hard linoleum floor made Eli turn his head.

Panting, Adam asked, "Why aren't you in there with her?"

"She said she didn't want me to be in there," Eli retorted, turning his gaze onto the door of the hospital room.

"She probably thought you would pass out at the sight of all that blood," Adam said, grinning smugly.

"Oh please, Adam. Don't be such a child."

"Yes, I'm being the child. Who's not in that room with their baby mama, again?"

Eli scowled. "You make this seem like it's all a joke. Well it's not."

Adam watched the hospital door too, then looked at Eli again. "Are you…are you guys going to keep the baby?"

"No," Eli replied harshly. "Not only are her parents furious enough that we even had sex, but if she kept the baby…"

"She's eighteen. She can do whatever she wants," Adam pointed out.

"Not when she's still living at home and certainly not when she hasn't graduated from high school yet," Eli rebuked.

"We'll just see. In the end, one of you is bound to be begging to keep that baby."

A loud scream, almost a wail, came from inside the room, and Eli tensed, hand on the doorknob, ready to go in. Silence followed after, but Eli didn't relax.

"Just go in," Adam said softly, pushing Eli's back encouragingly.

Eli grimaced and opened the door slowly, closing it behind him. He walked slowly over to the bed where Clare was lying, nurses swarming around her. Her parents sat, tired, in chairs a few feet away from her.

Eli didn't care about anybody else, though. His eyes were all for Clare, who's face was shining with sweat, her curls damp. He kneeled down next to her, taking one of her sweaty palms in his.

Clare turned to look at him with those blue eyes, her chest rising and falling quickly as she attempted to breathe through the pain. "I thought I asked you to wait outside?"

"Well I didn't listen. I'm not leaving your side," he said sincerely, squeezing her hand once.

Clare nodded quickly, then suddenly squeezed Eli's hand back, hard, gritting her teeth as a contraction overcame her. Eli didn't protest as he looked at the nurses expectantly.

"Okay Clare, we want you to push on the next one," the doctor said, lifting up Clare's legs and asking the nurses to hold them up for him.

It angered Eli, for some reason, watching them do that. He knew it was their job, but he felt like they were…violating her. She was only eighteen years old, and here she was, in pain and having loads of strangers stare at her unmentionables. It seemed utterly wrong.

Lost in his thoughts, Eli barely noticed when the doctor yelled at Clare to push, too busy keeping his eyes trained on Clare's face - how her nose was scrunching up in effort, and her eyes were squeezed tight in focus.

But he did notice when a shrill cry split the air.

His head automatically turned to look for the source of the sound, his eyes resting on the squirming red bundle in the doctor's arms. He watched as the nurses took the little thing away, wiping it down as it screamed, then wrapping it in a blanket.

"It's a girl!" a nurse announced.

The nurse carried the baby over to her mother and father, carefully placing her into Clare's arms as Eli watched in awe.

"Hi, baby," Clare cooed, staring down at her daughter, a smile breaking across her face. Randall and Helen edged over to the side of the bed Eli wasn't at, looking at the baby with blank faces, not sure what to make of her.

"What are you going to name her?" Eli breathed, mesmerized by the sight of the tiny being.

"We're not," Clare said, voice stiff as she forced the words out.

"Wait, what?" Eli asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

"We're not going to name her or else we'll get attached to her. We're not keeping her, Eli," Clare reminded him.

"But Clare, this is our baby!" Eli protested. He had promised himself he wouldn't change his thinking on the subject. He thought Clare would be the one pleading to keep her. Not him.

"We can't take care of her, Eli! I have to graduate high school, and go to university, and…and live my life! I can't have a baby on my hands," Clare told him, voice strained.

"I can take care of her during the day when you're at school and work on weekends. I already have my own apartment and everything. Please, Clare?" Eli begged.

Randall and Helen shared a look. "Clare, you know what we think about this…" Helen started to say.

Clare ignored her parents, lowering her voice so only Eli could hear her. "I can't," she said with a sigh. "My parents wouldn't even let her live with me."

"Then she can live with me. Please, Clare," Eli protested.

"I…but if we keep her, I'd like to see her too. I don't want us to seem like we're a divorced family, each of us only getting to spend a certain amount of time with her; I want us to be a real family."

We're practically still teenagers. What kind of family can we really be? Eli thought to himself. "Move in with me," Eli suggested quickly. Clare's eyes widened as she tore her gaze away from their daughter to look at Eli, and he continued, "You're eighteen years old. Your parents don't have a say in whether or not you can move out."

Clare opened her mouth to protest, then closed it, looking back at her daughter. Her eyes shined with longing, and finally she relented with a sigh. "All right."

Eli's face brightened. "Really?"

"How can I resist you wanting to be all fatherly?" Clare teased.

"Excuse me? Clare Edwards, we had an agreement," Helen said sharply.

"Yes. Our agreement was that no baby would be living in our house. That we'd just forget about the fact that I even had a baby."

"Right, and -"

"Well, the baby and I won't be living in that house."

"Clare Diana Edwards!"

"I'm an adult. If I want to move out, I can."

Helen and Randall glared at their daughter, then switching their gaze to their granddaughter. Helen sighed. "We'll talk about this later. Your father and I are going home for a bit of sleep. See you in the morning."

Helen and Randall opened the door, where Adam was waiting. Adam moved over to let them out, then walked in, assuming he was allowed to.

"Aw, she's adorable!" he crooned, seeing the baby.

"Can we name her now?" Eli whispered. Clare nodded, and he suggested, "Sophia?"

"I like it," Clare murmured. "Sophia…Julia."

Eli looked at her, baffled. " Julia? Are you sure?"

"The name means a lot to you, so I figure why not? Don't even protest. You got to choose her first name. I have rights to her middle name."

"She does," Adam piped up, nodding.

Eli looked at Sophia, who's eyes had opened to reveal a dark green, like her father's. "Sophia Julia Edwards."

"No. Goldsworthy. Sophia Julia Goldsworthy."

Author's Note: I'm not usually one for stories about Clare and Eli having a baby at a young age because Clare just doesn't seem like that kind of girl. But when I think back on it, a lot of girls are like that, but just one time and you can get pregnant. So that's what happened with Clare. She had sex with Eli only once and got pregnant, and since she's Christian, abortion was not an option. Basically I wrote this to show Eli and his tender side, rather than showing Clare out of her usual character. I hope you guys liked it all the same. Review, please! :)