A/N: This will be two or three chapters long, and it's set after the loss of Adrian and Ben's baby. It's definitely Ricky/Adrian, along with some Ben/Adrian and Ricky/Amy which is necessary for the story. Don't like, don't read. Also reviews are love.

A/N2: In this story, Ben and Adrian haven't gotten married and she still lives with her parents.

There's also kind of a 'love square' going on in this story, but as I said it's mostly Ricky/Adrian, and also Ben/Amy.

- chapter one

Adrian sat silently against the wall of the nursery in her white robe with her dark, damp hair thrown down her back and across her shoulders.

She had dark circles under her eyes and she couldn't bring herself to do much of anything. She couldn't help trying to imagine what her daughter would be like and who she would have grown into and what her voice would have sounded like.

She was clutching - clinging lifelessly to, really - her English Lit. book that Ben had brought her today and she was blearily trying to find the words that had once flowed so naturally in her head and write them down on the paper.

She didn't care.

School used to be one of the most important things to her and yet she couldn't bring herself to care.

When she would be sitting alone late at night by herself because despite what anyone said she really wanted and felt like she needed to just be alone, sometimes she didn't even realize that she was crying because she had grown so accustomed to it over the past month and she was having a difficult time deciphering all the feelings that were currently reverberating through her.

She had so many feelings that sometimes she didn't feel anything at all.

After two months, Ben and both of Adrian's parents were trying to convince her to go to her daughter's grave, just get out of the house and do something, but she refused because the thought of going to Mercy's grave was unbearable.

She could almost say that she would rather stare at her crib in the nursery and pretend she was there instead.

She knew that Ben had already gone, and she knew that it must be hard for him, having to see his baby's tombstone right next to his mother's.

Adrian didn't want to go, but she had internally decided that she would go sometime during the summer.

School would be ending in two months and she didn't plan on going back. She planned on getting her GED, and with that she could get into college later if she ever felt up to it again.

Still, she honestly didn't care.

Even if she were to go back to school she was sure she wouldn't be able to focus and would inevitably fail everything. She had never failed a class before in her entire life, always having straight A's and especially a perfect average in English.

She didn't feel good enough anymore.

And she wasn't okay, no matter how many times people asked her that.

Adrian was pulling away from everyone. Everyone thought, and hoped, that it would have gotten better by now, but it'd only gotten worse and she pushed people away even more.

It was nearly impossible to get through to her.

Amy came by the house earlier and the loud raps on the door could be heard from the living room where Adrian stubbornly remained, and after she didn't come to the door, Amy walked over to the window and peeked in.

Adrian saw her, but she neither acknowledged her by letting her come inside nor answered the text message she received instantly after.

Adrian's mom was out of town for training and her dad had a meeting, but she wasn't deluded into thinking that meant she would be left alone.

She let Ben in - she felt like she had to or whatever - and he talked to her for nearly twenty minutes before she finally got him to leave and go to school. He stuffed his books into his locker and warily leaned against a locker next to Grace.

"I wish you would talk to her."

"I've tried talking to her." She frowned. "I just don't know what to say... I don't think there's anything anyone can say to pull her out of this."

"You're her best friend," he continued desperately. "You have to keep trying, Grace."

She solemnly stared off into space, trying to think of something she could do or say that would ever benefit. "What about Amy?" she finally asked, her eyes returning to Ben's again. "Amy might be a good friend for her."

"Amy's tried, but I... I don't think Adrian really wants Amy around her right now," he said slowly, drawing in a deep breath. "The doctor said this was a normal stage, and also the most difficult stage to get past." Ben was only able to say this because he hadn't reached this point yet; he was still in a state of surrealism.

"She went to the doctor?"

"Well, no. She wouldn't go. I've gone for her a couple of times." He paused, eyes lighting up slightly with a gleam of hope and slight reluctance. "Hey, do you think maybe Ricky could talk to her?"

"Ricky?"

He sighed and nodded. "I just think she needs someone who will get her up and out of the house and force her out of this." He shrugged. "And, well, he knows her better than anyone."

And all she could do was nod, because everyone already knew that.

Adrian could hear Ben's car pulling up in her driveway, and she glanced up over her box of donuts and listened as he begin knocking on the door lightly.

"Come in," she mumbled toward the door, staring at the blank television screen and not really caring if he heard her or not.

She heard the door open and close and looked up briefly as Ben cautiously made his way over to her. She didn't take much notice to him as he sat down beside her, but it was okay, because he was practically used to this.

"I'm sorry, Adrian," he finally said softly. She glanced over at him quickly before looking away as she realized the conversation he was attempting to start with her again. "I'm sorry this happened."

She nodded stiffly, her eyes cold and empty as they locked on his. "Saying sorry doesn't change anything, Ben."

"I wish it could."

She pursed her lips furiously. "It's not going to bring her back."

His breath caught in his throat and he reached out and placed his hand on top of hers gently. "You just need to get out and do something..." His gaze fixed on the food spread out across the table. "I'm really worried about you, Adrian. This can't be healthy for you."

"I'm tired," she said icily, trying to change the subject he was so determined to continue with her. The fire burned in her eyes. "Just please leave me alone, alright? I'm sick and tired of everyone worrying about me. Just go."

"I just want you to get better. I feel like I should be doing something for you."

"I don't need you to do anything," she snapped.

"Adrian..."

"Ben," she said mockingly, looking to the front door and pushing him there with her mind. The donut she bit into muffled her voice as she spoke. "Stop worrying, and stop coming here during lunch period to check on me, and stop telling me to get better. I. Don't. Want. To. Get. Better. I'll just see you tomorrow."

He hesitated before slowly nodding. "I hope so," he said softly with a defeated sigh before silently walking to the front door and letting himself out.

"Please, please talk to her," Ben said in a rush, tearing into Ricky's apartment late one night before being invited in. Ricky stood in the doorway and rolled his eyes before closing the door and turning around. He knew who her was.

Ricky furrowed his eyebrows. "Why? What am I supposed to say to her?"

"Anything," Ben said before beginning to ramble again. "She says she's getting her GED, and she may not even be going to college. I wanted her to retake her senior year, graduate with me or something, you know? Then maybe by then she'd be ready for college. She just needs someone to talk to, someone to pull her out of this slump, and… and apparently that's not me, and it's not Grace, and it's certainly not Amy." He paused, giving him a pointed look. "It's you."

"And how's it me, Ben?" he asked, eyes narrowed. "She's your girlfriend, not mine."

"Yeah… Well, I don't really know about that."

Ricky raised an eyebrow.

"At this point I… I don't really know what we are," Ben continued, shaking his head warily with pleading eyes. "But she needs someone."

"What do I even say, Ben?"

"That's the point. You don't even have to say anything.

"How the hell not?"

"Because you're you!" He sighed. "Just being there with her… it'll help, and I just know that if anyone can help her through this, it's you."

Ricky snickered and asked quietly, "Then who's gonna help you, Ben?"

"I'm fine," Ben lied shamelessly. "I'm fine."

Ricky nodded disbelieving and, after Ben left, plopped onto his bed and gazed down at his phone, going to his contacts and hovering his thumb right below Adrian's name, even though he had her number memorized.

He decided against it and tried to get some sleep, contemplating whether or not he would call her tomorrow.

Adrian stared at her house phone lighting up with Ricky's name on it. It was late afternoon, and she couldn't really remember the last time he'd called her. She grabbed the phone from the kitchen and walked over to sit down at the edge of her bed and continued watching the phone lighting up, trying to decide if she would answer or not.

The phone stopped ringing, and she could hear on the answering machine that he was still on the phone, about to leave a message on her voicemail.

She was tired of having to ignore and delete voice mails and text messages. She clicked the 'talk' button and pressed the phone to her ear.

"Get off my voicemail," she snapped, not really sounding like herself.

Ricky waited a few seconds before responding, and he would have smiled at her tone if he didn't hear the sadness in it. It was her, only it wasn't. "Hey, Adrian. I just...wanted to talk to you. Is that okay?"

She drew in a deep breath and let it out. "Why?"

"You don't have to say anything," he told her. "I've been wanting to talk to you for a while now, I just couldn't seem to do it."

"So why are you?" she pressed on firmly, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Ricky knew she was stubborn.

He didn't have an answer for her though, because what was he supposed to say? Ben thinks you need to talk to me or maybe I can help you? He still needed help himself, how was he going to help her?

But even if he didn't know it, she thought it was good to hear his voice again.

Adrian went back to school today. She wasn't sure what compelled her to go back. She tried to ignore the curious stares she received all day in the hallway and in the classrooms.

She had a lot of work to make up, although she wasn't entirely sure it would matter. She didn't know if she would actually graduate with her class.

But she found herself slowly beginning to care again, and Ben figured that probably meant she was getting better.

"I think I'm ready," Amy told Ricky one night in his apartment. He wasn't really in the right frame of mind and his mind was wandering to a thousand places tonight, but he shifted slightly on the bed to look over at her when he realized what she just said.

"You are?"

"Yeah..." She bit her lip, pushing a strand of brown hair behind her ear. "I mean, if you want."

Of course I want.

He sat up, sitting over her and looking down at her. "Right now?" He wasn't sure why, but this didn't feel right, not here and not now. But it wasn't like he was going to say no.

She simply nodded shyly, and he leaned down and kissed her before she murmured, "It's what we've both wanted for a while now. There's no reason to keep waiting."

"Good," he mumbled, although his mind continued to drift elsewhere, "'cause I don't wanna wait anymore."

The bed creaked as he shifted and leaned over to press his lips to Amy's again and hazily kissed her, pushing her shirt up and tugging at her sleeves. His mind was still wandering and he couldn't hold himself entirely responsible for the words that slipped from his mouth, muffled against Amy's neck.

"I spoke to Adrian today."

She snapped away like someone had just slapped her and she glared up at him, quickly shoving her shirt down and suddenly feeling flushed and embarrassed, her face turning pale and then light red with anger.

Now was definitely not the time for him to start a conversation, much less that.

She jumped out from underneath him and asked furiously, "Why would you say that?"

He narrowed his eyes as he watched her pulling away from him. "I don't know."

"Why would you say that when we're about to do this? This is supposed to be special and you're talking about another girl? A girl you've slept with before hundreds of times." She paused, chewing on her lower lip and shaking her head at him. "Ricky, why did you say that?"

He sighed, trying to clear his head. He was in such a daze that he barely remembered even saying it.

"I don't know, Amy. You asked earlier how they were doing and I never really gave you an answer." He moved closer to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. "C'mon, Amy. I don't know why I said it. Forget I said anything. It doesn't matter."

"Ricky, it matters." She recoiled from his touch and quickly scrambled up from his bed. "I can't- I can't do this now. I'm sorry."

She couldn't do this when his mind was very clearly somewhere else, when his mind was obviously on another girl.

She worried that now his mind would always be on another girl.

Ricky and Amy were fighting. Again.

School would be over in a week and they'd heard that Adrian would be graduating with her class and Ricky would be off to college - it was only fifteen miles away - but right now was probably not a good time to fight.

They'd been fighting ever since they almost had sex at Ricky's apartment two weeks ago, before he didn't think about what he was saying and Amy got upset and took off.

Only now, she was upset because yesterday at school a girl told Amy that she and Ricky kissed last night.

Amy currently paced her kitchen back and forth with tears in her eyes as Ricky stood numb and awkwardly beside the dining room table. She whirled around and ran a hand through her hair as she faced Ricky.

"I told you I didn't kiss her, Amy. She kissed me," he said, and she glared at him, because she'd certainly heard that excuse before.

What really hurt her, though, was not just that another girl had kissed him.

It was because the girl who kissed him was slightly curvy and had wavy dark hair and tanned skin and happened to look somewhat like her.

She couldn't help feeling insecure. He'd been with Adrian for nearly two years and they had more history together than Amy had with Ricky, even if Amy had a baby with him.

Honestly he knew precisely what this was about, but there was no way in hell that girl looked like Adrian. There was no way in hell anyone could ever be like Adrian.

He couldn't say that to Amy, though.

And he also couldn't tell her that he was calling Adrian every other day now and had begun to make a habit of it. Amy would definitely make more of that than what there was to make of it.

Adrian was completely disoriented when her phone rang on a rainy Friday that summer at two thirty in the morning. As far as she was concerned it was in the middle of the night and she fumbled for her phone and was surprised to see Ricky's name flashing on the screen; he hadn't called her this late since they were together over a year ago. "Hello?"

"Hey, Adrian."

"Ricky? What are you doing?"

"I didn't mean to wake you. I'm sorry if I woke you. I guess I just couldn't sleep."

She reached over to turn the lamp on from her bedside table and squinted before slumping back underneath the covers, listening to the way the rain sounded as it poured against her window for a few seconds before responding. "It's okay. I wasn't asleep anyway," she murmured, although she was so accustomed to not being able to sleep and only being halfway asleep that she honestly couldn't even remember if she'd actually been asleep or not. "Are you okay?"

He noticed each time he called her that the anger in her voice slightly withered away a little more.

"Does that matter?"

She could picture him sitting up in bed, listening to the storm and unable to sleep. She remembered him telling her a long time ago that he could never sleep during thunderstorms, because when he listened to them they made him start thinking about things and he could never seem to turn his mind off.

"I'm fine," he said. "Not that that matters. Are you okay? You said you couldn't sleep."

"That's nothing new."

"Where's Ben?"

She slowly let out a breath and closed her eyes, letting the sound of the thunder fill her ears. "Don't know. Don't care."

She loved Ben, but she liked having the house to herself once again tonight. Her dad tried to stay home with her as much as he could, but with her mother having a job as a flight attendant she was often away for days at a time.

"Can I ask you somethin'?"

Always. She nodded, resting her head against the pillow and feeling a haziness take over her mind. "Sure. Go ahead."

He hesitated, and her eyes stayed closed as she listened to the clapping of the thunder and the sound of his voice. "Do you ever, just, wake up in the middle of the night feeling like you're alone, even if you're really not? Like everything you're doing right now is wrong and you're just screwing everything up and everyone along with it and maybe it's never really been your place for you to screw things up?"

She let her eyes slip open, seriously taken aback because she had rarely ever heard him open up quite like this to her before.

She just nodded her head although she knew he couldn't see because, yes, this happened to her on and off several times throughout the night. "Do you?" It was obviously rhetorical, and he knew that.

"I just don't know what to do."

She sighed. "Is this about Amy?"

"I don't know. Yes and no." She wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, but she didn't necessarily mind that he didn't elaborate.

He paused, shaking his head and staring up at his ceiling as he quietly admitted, "I guess I just don't know anymore."

She nodded in understanding. "Yeah. Me neither."

And she just let out this quiet and bitter, somewhat reminiscent laugh and she was surprised to find that it actually felt kind of good.

They started to expect each others calls now, and it was almost becoming second nature.

Even when Ben would come over and spend almost the entire day with her, she still couldn't help but think about Ricky and look forward to his call later.

It was in the middle of the summer, and that basically summed up her feelings: in the middle of a sort-of-trying-to-see-if-it-can-work halfway friendship and halfway relationship with Ben, and in the middle of this reconciliation and friendship or whatever with Ricky.

Stuck right in the in between of everything and not knowing really what to do or what any of it meant.

Adrian wouldn't admit that the highlight of her day was late at night when she saw Ricky's name flashing across her screen, and she couldn't help but be grateful for the fact that she had someone to talk to now when she was never able to sleep at night. He managed to keep away the dreaded thoughts for her, and she didn't even know why.

Ben came over one evening, and she turned toward him when she heard the door open and close. "Good afternoon."

She forced a small smile and slowly sauntered over and met him at the front door, allowing him to wrap his arms around her. "It's evening," she informed him matter-of-factly as he pulled away. "What's up?"

"Nothing. Just thought I'd stop by." He paused, looking around the room. "I'm guessing your parents aren't home?"

"You're guessing correctly, then," she said sourly, letting the door close and stepping further into the room.

"I was just thinking and...wanted to run a few things by you," Ben said awkwardly as he sat down at the end of the sofa. She sat down next to him and turned her body to face him, furrowing her eyebrows as she waited for him to continue. He didn't.

"Okay," she urged, staring over at him expectantly. "I'm waiting."

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "I love you. You do know that, don't you?"

"Yes," she drawled, still confused. "Why?"

"What would you say if... if I told you that Amy and I are friends again? Or, well, trying to be."

"I guess I don't care... Again, why?"

"I just- I went to... I went to her grave yesterday." His voice grew quieter and he paused, looking over as Adrian's breathing suddenly stilled and she looked at him cautiously, knowing that by 'her' he's referring to their daughter. "I ran into Amy after that and we just got talking. It was nothing, really."

"You ran into Amy at a cemetery?" she asked, unamused and brow raised.

"No," he said simply, veering toward the center of the subject. "Do you think you might ever be in the position where you feel you're able to go see her? I mean, I'd just really like you to go with me, but I understand if you still feel like you can't."

She broke eye contact, trying to figure out why Ben would want her to go with him, much less want to go at all.

She nodded slowly without meeting his eyes. "One day, Ben," she forced out through clenched teeth, that familiar sadness building. "Not right now. I'm not going right now."

He nodded. "I wasn't asking you to go now."

"Good. Because I'm not."

The conversation didn't progress very far after that, and he left a few minutes before nine after making sure she was okay here by herself.

She rolled her eyes and told him she was fine and she was used to being home alone, and he kissed her quickly before slipping out of her house and she looked out the window and watched as his car backed out of her driveway.

Her phone lit up exactly two minutes past eleven, and she hesitated before pressing the phone to her ear as she listlessly pushed open the door to her bedroom and sat down on her bed without turning the light on. "Hello."

"Adrian. I need to talk to you."

It took her a minute to respond, because the tone in his voice immediately told her that something was wrong. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I am. It's Amy."

Of course. She rolled her eyes after she deciphered his tone and realized that nothing's actually physically wrong with Amy. "What is it?"

"Do you think she still has feelings for Ben?"

"Well, I don't exactly speak to Amy," she began, thinking about what Ben said earlier about how he and Amy are 'trying to be friends again.' "Who knows, Ricky? They were together for a while."

"Yeah, but that was a long time ago. A lot's happened since then." Obviously, she wanted to say. "Don't you think she should tell me if something's going on between them?"

"I don't know." She paused, speaking quietly and hoping he realized that she wasn't solely talking about Ben and Amy anymore. "Maybe she doesn't know if anything's going on between them yet."

He had a pretty good idea he knew what she was doing. He played along. "Yeah, but nothing can happen, right? That'd be pretty messed up."

She smiled sadly. "Things are already messed up, Ricky."

They hung up several minutes after that, but he called her back almost immediately after. "Hello?"

"Adrian, look, do you maybe want to come over Friday? Just talk or whatever?" He had that tone. That slightly angry tone where he was saying something that he wasn't really sure he should be saying.

She knew she shouldn't say yes.

Something, however, compelled her to nod.

"Sure."

And she knew that right now, they were probably blurring the lines, but she couldn't stop the anticipation from running through her.