Hey everybody! It's me, Blythe!

So I know I haven't been around much these days because of many things. And by things, I mean work, school, holidays, and overall living in another country. HOWEVER, I didn't forget about you guys! I'd been working on this for a little while, so I hope you like it!

If you want to follow this story more, feel free check out my story "(Please) Don't Read This Journal." In future updates, I will be covering everything that happens in this chapter in the minds of the characters. If you're good with just this, that's cool, too!

Reviews are super appreciated, but please be civil.

As always, enjoy!

-Blythe

There was an air of disappointment in Candace's room following the moment she realized she'd been cheated by the benefits of pregnancy. Taking a section of her orange hair between her fingers, her eyes met the underwhelming reflection of herself staring back in her vanity mirror.

"I don't get it," she lamented weakly, "I thought being pregnant meant I was supposed to be glowing! I see no glow! I've been cheated!"

Her vision lowered to her stomach, moving her fingers slowly over the bulge that was beginning just beneath her naval; the reason for sleepless nights spent craving odd combinations of foods (last night's craving was chilli fries with a cinnamon topping) and mornings spent kneeling on the bathroom floor as morning sickness once again conquered any chance of holding enough appetite for breakfast. The first trimester had not been kind to her, and it hadn't given her hair the supposed 'shine' the ladies at the hair salon were always talking about on her monthly visits.

On top of that life-altering inconvenience, she'd been swelling in other areas beside the bump forming in her lower abdomen - her ankles and arms were beginning to feel the punishment of pregnancy as well, and it had become a household joke to mention how none of Candace's jeans would fit anymore due to the increasing expansion of her thighs and hips as the third month of gestation drew nearer. The more she got up to walk around in her mother's grey sweatpants, the more she felt the same agony a water balloon would as it was being stretched in all directions by a running faucet.

The unbearable physical side-effects revealed the error in all the childish fantasies she'd had as a little girl, which made it harder to believe that, in less than a year, she would be a mother of a little one of her own. Though this reality was once a dream back in those days, she had never guessed it would happen so soon after her teenaged years were over. In fact, as a twenty year-old, her idea of 'ready' was tragically not what it had once been. And she even wondered if there was ever a time in her life when she was actually 'ready' for anything…

Especially not was about to happen following a surprise knock at her bedroom door.

"Candace?" rang a familiar voice from the hall. It was her mother. "Jeremy's here. Should I send him up?"

A deep, startling breath of air interrupted her answer. Quickly, she leapt out of her seat and scrambled to her closet in a quiet panic, tearing through the shelves as she desperately looked for her heaviest sweaters. "Um! No, not yet! Tell him I'm on the phone! Get him something to drink or-! Just don't let him come up here-"

"Candace, what are you doing in there? Is something wrong?"

The anxiety-ridden redhead was already buried under a pile of her winter clothes, stacking each folded sweater on her bed before going back for another bunch. As she reached the closet again, she began pulling clothes off the hangers. Jeremy's too early today, she thought, he wasn't supposed to come until six!

"Candace? Did you hear me?"

"Uh, yeah! Yeah I did!" she replied, pulling a fleece sweater out of the closet and over her head. "I'm fine! Everything's fine!"

"Then I can tell him to come up?"

"NO!" she yelled, pulling a second layer over herself as her madness brought a slight red tint to her cheeks. Without even knowing why he was here so early, she knew she was in for trouble. A confrontation. She didn't know for sure quite yet, but it was bound to be big.

Soon, Jeremy would find out her secret and learn about how his life was about to progress into fatherhood in less than seven months. Surely it will kill him, thought Candace as she forced a third layer of clothing over her body, he's going to be so upset…

"Hello? I'm really beginning to get worried-"

Suddenly a deeper, more soothing voice overlapped her mother's, "Candace?"

It was Jeremy.

"Candace, can I come in?"

"J-just a second!" she hollered, tangled amid a mass of clothes. Frenzied, she threw the remaining mess into her closet, allowing the knitted material to drip off of the shelves and into the hamper with little care. Now all that was left to do was look normal. Yes, surely that was going to be easy. She could pretend everything was okay long enough for Jeremy to believe it. Surely she was a good enough actress for that to happen.

After a moment of reassurance, she swung open the door and greeted her boyfriend with a smile. "Hi, Jeremy! What are you doing here so early?"

It didn't even take more than a few seconds to sense that he was suspicious. Of what, she didn't know, but definitely suspicious.

"Candace," he said slowly, "why are you wearing so many layers again?"

"Oh, no reason! I'm just cold, that's all! Really cold," she replied quickly. However, she could tell that Jeremy wasn't buying it this time.

"It's not even that cold outside today. It's 70 degrees."

He was right. Today it was rather warm considering it was still winter, "Well there's never a wrong time to wear a sweater!"

The look on his face was reluctant to agree, "Yeah, but five sweaters? Really?"

The frazzled twenty-year old came short of a response for his instigation, so she decided changing the topic might prove to be a better idea, "Uh...umm…Some weather we're having, huh? I mean, yesterday it was freezing! I could've sworn there were icicles outside my window this morning and the boys won't even go outside to do any of that crazy inventing! You'd think that by February the snow would start to melt, but-"

Jeremy held his hand up, silencing her before she could allow herself to continue another one of her famous tangents, "Please, Candace. I know there's something you've been meaning to tell me. Something important that you've been keeping from me."

"Oh, um, of course!" she agree hesitantly, seating herself in her window box, "so that illness I've been having recently is completely normal! Turns out nothing's wrong with me!"

"Oh yeah? What did the doctor say?" he said, suspicion still evident in his tone. He crossed his arms, as if expecting her to lie, which she did.

"It's this...condition...I have…" she lied, "it's um...it's a condition that, um, makes me really, really cold!"

"And..?"

"And also sick in the morning...and causes me to gain weight, too." Even she didn't believe the words that were falling out of her own mouth.

The blonde interrogator leaned against the doorframe, clearly not amused, "Yeah? What's this condition called?"

"Oh, i-it's called….uh…" she looked rapidly around the room until her eyes focused on a calendar on the wall, "February-itis!"

"February-itis." said Jeremy flatly. "You're telling me that you have a condition called 'February-itis?'"

"Yes!" she piped up nervously, "A-and it's called that because it...it happens to people in February! It's very common!"

Candace's lie occupied the space between them as neither of them really knew what to say next. But instead of feeding the lie, Jeremy came clean with what was bubbling over inside, much to Candace's dismay.

"Why are you lying to me?"

She gulped, "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Yes, you do!" he snapped, taking a few steps into her room and closing the door behind him. "I already know you don't have an illness called February-itis! Why won't you just say it already?"

Her heart felt as though it was going to hammer right through her chest. He knew. That look in his eyes, the ice in his accusations - it only meant that he had figured her out. And now that she was lying to him, she was seeing the side of him that resented being lied to more than it resented being told the hard truth. This wasn't the Jeremy she'd always known - the Jeremy that had as much optimism about life as he did even while wearing a ridiculous Slushie Dog weiner hat for his job. The young man that accepted every bit of her quirkiness and loved her unconditionally even when she caused a mess for herself and dragged him into it with her. Warm, safe, generous and understanding Jeremy.

This Jeremy was different - he was impatient, afraid, and hurt. The blue in his eyes had darkened. She had done this to him by keeping from him the very thing no person should ever keep from the one they love. Seeing this side of him caused a lump to form at the back of her throat, raw emotion rushing to the corners of her eyes. She had done this, and she knew there was no point in denying it anymore.

"Tell me the truth, Candace," he said, nearly in a mumble. He looked her dead in the eyes, the vivacious blue color of his irises stunning her racing thoughts into silence, "...are you pregnant?"

Neither of them could breathe.

The answer came to Jeremy from her eyes as glistening tears rolled over her flustered cheeks, creating a path to her chin. He knew the whole time, she thought, and he knew I was lying to him. She buried her face in her sleeves, her body sagging against the wall as the combination of fear and remorse overtook her.

Upon the sight of her weeping, Jeremy immediately went to her and pulled her to himself, embracing her with the unconditional warmth that identified the feeling that encompassed him: love. Love for his girl. Candace moved her hands from her face and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, crying gently into his jacket.

"I'm so sorry, Jeremy," she sniffed, "I was so afraid to tell b...because I thought you were going to be upset and…"

"Upset?" chuckled Jeremy warmly, "Why would I be upset at you for something like this?"

"I-I...I don't know, I just thought…" waited a moment to gather herself, "...I just thought you'd think I ruined everything for you! I mean, you work so hard all the time and you're doing so well at college-!" She looked down, moving a hand over her stomach, "This baby could mean the end of that for you. I've ruined your chances-"

"Stop right there, Candace," he interrupted, "Look at me."

She obeyed quietly.

"Don't ever say you've ruined anything for me, because that's not true at all. You've never ruined anything for me, and by saying that you're being totally unfair to yourself." He moved his hand from her shoulders to her stomach, gently placing it over her navel, "this baby is mine just as much as it is yours. And when the baby is born, I'll be there to take care of both of you. It doesn't matter to me if I have to give up a few opportunities to make way for a new life. I'm not going anywhere. Understand?"

A final tear fell from her eyes as she gave a nod, "mhm."

"Good." he said. He leaned over and pulled her in for another warm embrace. As Candace leaned her head against the crook of his neck, the familiar feeling of security enveloped her. This was her Jeremy. The bright-eyed trooper that always survived the vastly rocky, neurotic side of Candace's personality. The boy who, since they were young, always kept her grounded when she endured the emotional winds of adolescence, but also made her feel like her head was in the clouds whenever he was around her, whenever he touched her, whenever he said her name. Over the years, her childhood crush had turned slowly into a deeply rooted love for him. A kind of love you could only feel for one other person - and the kind she was feeling right now.

"In the Johnson family, we have a motto." Jeremy murmured softly as he held her, "Johnsons always take care of other Johnsons. That's why I'm going to take care of you, Candace."

"But...I'm not a Johnson."

He pulled away for a moment, taking her hands into his, "I want you to be one." A smile spread over his lips as he let go of one of her hands and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a velvet box. He held it open for her, revealing the unmistakable glimmer of diamond and fine silver.

"Candace Flynn, will you marry me?"

All her life, the eldest Flynn had dreamt of this moment. The only thing different was the way it was happening. She had envisioned Jeremy climbing off the back of a black stallion and kneeling before her, the roaring majesty of the ocean creating waves behind them as her long, amber hair tossed elegantly in the wind. Then she would throw her arms around him, say, "Why, of course, my love!" and then ride off into the sunset on his valiant steed. But instead, they were in her old room, Jeremy waiting for her reply after she'd just created eye-shaped tear stains on his jacket, and both of them were staring into each other's eyes as if nothing else in the world mattered. This was reality… and it was far, far greater than any fairytale proposal she could've imagined in her youth.

Carefully taking the ring out of the box, she placed it on her ring finger and gazed at it, then back at him as if in a daze, "yes, Jeremy."

He smiled at his wife-to-be, and gently leaned in and kissed her. A moment later, she broke away and groaned, peering down at her stomach.

"Aw great. This means I'm gonna be fat in my wedding dress, doesn't it?"

Thanks for reading, my lovelies! If you wanna read more after this one-shot, keep a look out for future updates in "(Please) Don't Read This Journal!"

I hope to update soon!

-Blythe