Title: Like a Second Daughter

Disclaimer: I do not "own" Degrassi or any of its characters. Linda Schuyler and Stephen Stohn do. I only own this fanfic.

Rating and Warning: K+. Some brief mentions of teen pregnancy.

Plot: Spike's thoughts on Manny's pregnancy. Takes place in February 2004 during the "Accidents Will Happen" episodes. This is in first-person mode, completely from Spike's POV. Oneshot.

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I had just come back from the gymnastics competition that Emma and Manny had participated in. It was a cold winter's day, although a bit warmer than usual for Toronto in February. I was picking up Baby Jack to carry him into the warmth of our home. All of a sudden, I hear someone run up behind me. It was that familiar voice. I turn around and see that it's Manny. She looked frantic, as if she was in the biggest trouble of her life.

"Spike! Spike…I think I'm pregnant."

Well, that's not news you hear from a 9th grader every day. Then again, I had Emma when I was in 8th. I saw how desperate and scared she looked, so I invited her inside to talk about things. She looked like she needed someone to talk to. Normally, she'd confide in Emma about a major life event like this, but they had barely said a word to each other since they went to that rave in November. She didn't even come over to our house for Christmas like she had ever since she was 4 years old.

Once we got settled in, we started to talk about what happened. I handed her an extra home test that I had purchased just before I married Snake but never used. As she was pacing with the stick, waiting for the biggest news of her teenage life to come, she started explaining her current dilemma. It turns out that the potential father is Craig Manning. I know him well. He's the boy I "made" Emma dance with back at Joey's wedding. He's now Joey's stepson and came over here quite a bit last year when he and his late father moved to the neighborhood. Manny also came over here so Craig could pick her up to go out on their one and only date. That girl was so smitten with him, and after he dumped her, it took Emma and me weeks to put her heart back together. And then they hook up again almost a year later. Now that sounds like a plot for a romantic drama film.

When Manny was rambling to me about her fears and what could happen, I saw a lot of me inside her. I remember when I slept with Shane at a party that my friend Lucy was throwing back when we were in Grade 8. A few weeks after that, odd things were happening to me. My period was late, I wasn't so hungry in the mornings, I had psycho mood swings, the list could go on. My gut told me I was pregnant, but I didn't want to find out. My best friends Heather and Erica, however, took me to the drugstore to get a home test. When I got home that evening, my Mom saw the bag in my hand and asked me what I was hiding. I knew I couldn't get away with it, so I showed her after rambling about how she didn't understand what it's like to be a teenager, despite the fact that she was a teen mom herself. We had a nice, long talk that night, and she was so supportive.

I kept assuring her that she was not stupid, but rather, someone who made a big mistake that she would hopefully learn from. And it was true. Manny, despite some of the stunts she's pulled this year, was a decent girl at heart who just wanted to break free of the cocoon that she was placed in by her traditional Catholic immigrant family. I always had a strong feeling that once Manny entered adolescence, she would rebel against her parents' (especially her father's) rules in a major way and develop a dynamic identity. So, when Manny told me of her pregnancy, I was a bit shocked, but not quite that surprised. Kids from traditional families tend to be the wildest.

We discussed how she'd bring up the topic with her parents. I tried to reassure her that her parents might understand, but the girl wasn't having any of that. She said she might get disowned or shipped off to a convent thousands of miles away, explaining how it happened to one of her cousins who got pregnant as a teen. I even offered to go with her as a source of moral support, but she still rebuffed it.

The egg timer then dinged, and Manny nervously got up to check the test. When she looked down and then looked at me, I didn't even need to ask. Her facial expression said it all. The test was positive, and my daughter's best friend Manny Santos was pregnant at 14 years old.

She broke down, and all I could do was comfort her. I promised her that whatever decision she would make, however she would handle her crisis, that I would be there for her, and that yes, Emma would too.

Besides, even if the worst case scenario did happen, and her parents did throw her out, she could always crash here. Manny is like a second daughter and a source of sanity for Emma, after all, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

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