I drove along the highway with my CD player playing my favourite songs. My car's engine purred. I was heading back to the house that I shared with Hilda, Deneve, Helen, and Clare. I was more than ready to face another year of school drama. I was hoping that I could get the marks that I was after. I had wanted to focus on studying so staying with Seto was a good idea. I got through all of my study and I was able to have stress free dates. I did not have Helen down my neck demanding details, or Hilda drooling over my outfits, and saying that she wished she could look as pretty as I did. I sighed. Sure, I enjoyed their company, but did they have to be so draining at times? Well Hilda and Helen at least. I knew that I didn't have to really worry about Deneve or Clare. I slowly pulled up to the traffic lights and pondered on the last month and a half. I absently looked at my left hand and felt a blush creep up on my cheeks. My eyes snapped back to the road and I saw that the lights were green; I then lightly tapped the accelerator.

As I pulled into the driveway, I could see Hilda's cute little Excel in its usual place, under the carport on the left. I knew that the others were a little jealous of me because my car was a fancy Porsche. It was a gift from my late father Rigaldo, who I'd never met.

I could see Hilda out on the veranda with a drink in hand. Knowing her it wouldn't be her first, it would be about drink number 5 or 6 and she'd be drunk at that stage. For some funny reason, she seemed to love the sensation of getting smashed from time to time. Although it was happening less and less as she got older.

When I got out of the car, Hilda came up to me steadily and gave me a quick hug.

"Hey Miria, glad you had a safe trip."

Her brown eyes were quite pretty, and today saw Hilda in her bright green dress, with her pink and blue sweater over the top. Her short orange hair clashed wildly with the entire ensemble, much to my amusement. Hilda was always like that though.

"Anyways, Clare's got some news Dr. Miria, and she needs your help."

"Why?"

I asked.

"Oh, she'll tell you."

"This isn't about the amount of sex that she's been having with Raki is it?"

Hilda looked away and blushed.

"I told her that if she kept having sex with him that she would need to use some method of contraception or that they wait until Raki finishes high school."

I sighed; sure, I didn't have to worry about Clare…unless it involved Raki. They were asking her to get pregnant, considering that they were as sexually active as they were it was small wonder that they should find themselves in this position.

Even when they got together, it was one of the biggest scandals of last year. It had everyone talking, here we were thinking that Clare was all serious and all that. Then none other than Helen caught her making out with Raki, the handsome young eleventh grader, two years her junior. It was down right shocking! Secretly I was glad that the "Claki" scandal came up, as it distracted everyone from me. It was so nice, not to have the girls gossiping away about my relationship with Seto and just how long we'd been dating.

I entered the kitchen and looked around for Clare and the others. I saw that Clare, Helen and Deneve were sitting down in the lounge room and were also sharing a drink. I belatedly noticed that they were drinking ice tea. Ah, so Hilda wasn't drinking alcohol. I sighed and pulled one of the glasses out from the freezer. I then got myself an ice tea and went into the lounge room. I sat in my usual place, the large arm chair that I'd claimed for myself, four years ago. Since then I was the only one who sat in the chair, unless anyone could answer a few questions from Helen as to why they were in my chair. I found it quite funny actually. Not even Kakashi could sit in my chair, without Helen interrogating him. Seto was luckier; Helen left him alone if he sat there…although, I was usually in his lap, so she couldn't do anything about it.

Clare looked at me,

"Don't say it."

She growled her green eyes narrowing at me.

"Say what, Clare?"

I asked. She continued to glare at me.

"You know what."

I was sure that Clare would say what it was in her own time.

"Well, I told you so."

If Clare wasn't sitting down, I'm sure that she would have given me a right hook, as she looked furiously at me. I had a rough idea as to what made her so angry, so I then said,

"Well, well, well, looks like you're pregnant Clare. Lemme guess, Raki's the father."

I knew I shouldn't have said that, but I some how knew that it was true, as I continued,

"Since you didn't listen to my warnings, I can tell that you won't listen now. Nevertheless, I'll try to get through that thick skull of yours.

You should at least expect that you had a chance of getting pregnant in the first place, since both of you are having sex, and as far as we know it's been unprotected sex at that. It was not like we didn't know it either,"

I paused to catch some breath before continuing,

"Especially since you have a tenancy to be quite loud when you are having sex. It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out when you two were doing it Clare."

I knew that I'd hit the mark when Clare went bright red and looked down at her feet. Helen gaped, Deneve's grey eyes were wide and Hilda looked like she wanted nothing more then to escape the shouting match that was bound to happen. We all looked at Clare.

"We did try to prevent it."

Clare said in an unusually small voice,

"We'd used just about every possible contraception method that we could."

We all looked at Clare.

"Wow, Raki must be really fertile then!"

Helen gaped.

"Shut up Helen."

Deneve snapped.

"That's not the real issue here anyway."

Helen looked to me,

"Shit Miria, are you psychic?"

Her eyes had widened and she was looking at me with an unreadable expression on her face

"It took us an hour to get that out of her and you do it in less than 15 minutes! God, don't let me ever get interrogated by you big sis!"

I took a sip out of my glass,

"Well, have you told him?"

I asked,

"I did and…he said he wanted what was best for us and the baby."

Clare replied.

"He said that he was more than ok with whatever choice I made, but…I don't know if I want it or not."

I sighed,

"Clare, out with it already, we're not about to judge your choice, because it's between you and Raki."

She gulped then said,

"I was thinking of keeping it."

She admitted,

"Then that is your choice Clare. Don't let anyone else tell you what you should do. If you want to have the baby, that's fine, we're more than happy to help you if you need it. The next point of call would be to tell Raki, but only when you're ready to do so."

"Wow, Dr Miria to the rescue!"

Helen grinned.

"Shut up Helen."

Deneve said, sounding a little annoyed at her now.

"Well, now that that's sorted, how was your holidays Miria?"

Hilda asked me. I held up my left hand so they could see the ring.

"Oh, my fucking gosh, Miria!"

"He proposed!"

"You're getting married!"

I waited for their squeals to die down. Once things settled a bit, Clare asked,

"When's the wedding?"

"This time next year."

"Next year!"

Helen moaned,

"Aww, come on big sis! You've been going out with Seto for nearly five years now, you two should have gotten married ages ago!"

"We were hoping that I could finish this year's study so that I wouldn't have the stress of getting married on top of that. Besides, I haven't spoken to Mum yet. And we all know how she hates being left out of things."

I sighed.

"I guess it works."

Hilda replied.

"It should do. Anyway, I need to get to bed, so I'll see you all nice and early in the morning."

I told them as I drained my cup and walked in to the kitchen again. I washed it out in the sink, dried it and put it back in to the freezer. I then went and unpacked my bags and put my things away. After that, I crawled into my pjs and slowly climbed into bed