A/N: Shortly after I published "Anyone Who Had a Heart…" I got a PM from the lovely Emolichic1 asking me if I would write an epic fanfic based about Julie getting pregnant after the lake, and I was more than happy to oblige. This will take place pretty close to S.3 canon with some changes to accommodate a baby, although this particular chapter is pulled from whole cloth.

Blonde hair blowing in the summer wind

a blue eyed girl playing in the sand

I'd been on her trail for a little while

But that was the night I broke down and held my hand

A teenage rush, she said "ain't we all just runaways? we got time, but that ain't much, we can't wait till tomorrow."

~The Killers, Runaways

On a completely unremarkable afternoon three weeks after their late night swim, Julie didn't show up for lunch.

She and Matt had been eating lunch together every day since they had formally gotten back together, with him picking her up from her english class by hovering shyly in the doorway until she came out, hair bouncing, beaming at him and full of stories. They ate and they talked and then he walked her to biology before he headed off to Earth Science, but on this particular afternoon, she simply didn't come out of the classroom. He waited until the last person filed out—a quiet mousy girl whose name he thought might be Alana—and grabbed her by the arm. She looked startled, and he let go, a little embarrassed of his own force. "Uh, sorry," he said, and she just stared at him, wide-eyed, as if she couldn't believe a member of the football team was talking to her. "Have you seen Julie?" he asked. "We were supposed to meet for lunch."

Alana shook her head. "She left a couple minutes early, but she didn't say where she was going."

Matt tried to quell the instantaneous panic that came—that something had happened, or that she had just randomly up and changed her mind despite having just been kissing on him that morning—and thanked Alana, walking as quickly as possible toward the cafeteria. Maybe she'd decided to leave early to surprise him, or maybe she'd had to go to the bathroom and just decided to not go back to class because there wasn't a lot of time left. Whatever it was, she was surely going to show back up in the cafeteria. She had to. There was no reason why she'd miss a date.

Julie was not in the cafeteria when Matt got there, but Landry was, and Matt all but flagged him down. "Have you seen Julie?"

"Well hi to you too, Matt," Landry said dryly. "Nope. I thought she was coming with you?"

"She wasn't in english." He grabbed a tray, getting in the lunch line. "She didn't text me or anything either, she just…wasn't there."

Landry assumed an expression of mock horror. "Julie Taylor? Missing class? Why I never."

"Shut up." Matt lifted the plate off of the hood, thanking the lunch lady and making his way over to their usual table. "Maybe she's working on homework or something, I'm sure she'll catch up."

"So why," Tyra asked, "was it necessary for me to drive all over creation to a Wal Mart on our lunch when we very well could have been doing something useful with our time? Especially because we haven't seen each other in, oh, forever?"

Julie shrugged, picking at her thumbnail. "I missed you," she explained, "and it's kind of nice to go for a drive once in awhile."

Tyra looked over at her, giving her the patented Tyra Collette "I might not be a genius but I sure as hell ain't stupid" look. "What's the actual reason we're driving into Austin to go to a Wal Mart?" she asked.

Julie blushed aggressively and started chewing on the thumbnail she had just finished picking at, staring down at her shoes as she whispered, "I'm late."

Tyra gawped. "You're what?"

"I—I was supposed to get my period last week and I didn't."

"Well shit." Tyra smacked the steering wheel. "Do you think you're…?"

"I don't know," Julie snapped, and then immediately regretted her snappishness. "I don't know," she said again, softer. "I…maybe. I threw up the other morning, but maybe that was something else. I just want to be sure, now."

When Tyra looked over at her again, it was gentler, more sympathetic. "God, if I wasn't driving and not really in the mood to kill us both, I would so be hugging you right now."

Julie laughed, and then was surprised to find that her eyes were filled up with tears. "You're the best friend I've ever had, you know that?"

Now it was Tyra's turn to have to wipe tears out of her eyes, smiling mistily out at the road. "You're the best friend I've ever had, Taylor. Even if I made some bad choices and got you in trouble, you're the only real friend I've ever had."

Julie buried her face in her hands. "Shut up!" she said, half laughing, half crying. "I can't handle people being mushy right now!"

Tyra giggled, pulling into the Wal Mart parking lot and cutting the engine. "Come on, baby momma."

By the end of lunch, Julie still hadn't shown up. Matt had pretty much surrendered to the fact that she'd left him and he would never see her again just like everyone else in his life when his phone pinged with a text from Julie. "was sick went home," it said, "love u". He let out his breath, relieved that it was something as simple as being sick. How silly of him to worry. "missed u," he texted back, "ill come see u after?"

The next text came back almost instantly, a "let u know", and Matt felt his heart sink with disappointment but sent back "feel better", dropping his phone in his backpack and promptly forgetting all about it.

"Who knew there were so many different kinds of pregnancy tests?"

Julie bit her lip, staring at the rows and rows of different tests, suddenly realizing that if she was pregnant, she was already in so far over her head that she couldn't even tread water. If she couldn't pick out a pregnancy test, how was she supposed to raise a baby? "Um…this one. This one has words. Let's do this one." Grabbing it off the shelf, she raced toward the checkouts, moving as if someone had pressed fast-forward on her, and Tyra grabbed her arm. "Hey," she said, "hold on a second."

Julie turned to face her, her eyes wide with fear, close to crying again. "What? What."

Tyra grabbed her and pulled her close, hugging her tight enough that Julie made a choking sound. "I love you, okay? And no matter what happens, I'm gonna be here. And if Saracen isn't? I'll cut his balls off."

Julie let out a choked laugh, trying to hold it together. "I love you, too," she mumbled into Tyra's shoulder. "Thank you for being there for me."

"That's what friends are for," Tyra replied. "Now go pee on that stick before I explode."

Ten minutes later, Julie emerged from the bathroom and sunk down on the bench next to Tyra with her head in her hands, and Tyra didn't even have to ask, just wrapped her arms around Julie's shoulders. "Hey," she said, "Don't you cry. Remember what I said, okay? I'm here for you, you've always got me on your team."

Julie nodded without looking up. "I know," she whispered. "I know. Can you please take me home?"

Matt was laying stretched out on his bed, half-reading his assigned english book, when his phone buzzed with a text. "can u meet me?" it said, and then another followed in quick succession, "at alamo freeze."

He jumped up, typing back a quick reply and pulling on his pants without even bothering to question what was going on.

When he arrived at Alamo Freeze Julie was already there, slumped down in a booth, her face all puffy from crying, and Matt rushed over, holding out his arms for her immediately. "What's wrong? Is everybody okay? Your mom? Your dad? Gracie?"

Julie collapsed into his arms and sobbed, crying steadily for what felt like eternity while Matt, terrified, held her and rocked her, stroking her hair. Finally, she lifted her head, looked up at him, and asked, "Do you love me?"

Matt replied without hesitation, "Of course I do. I've loved you for a long time, Jules."

"Good." She took a deep breath and then said the three little words that were going to change the course of their entire lives. "Matt, I'm pregnant."