Apparently I'm on a Secret Life kick. This fic is a bit dark, but I hope you like and please review! Also, the Secret Life/Firefly crossover I mentioned in Screams In The Night has been posted. Just click my username and scroll down to my stories if you want to read. It's an eventual Ricky/Amy. It's called He's Just A Child. Hope you check it out.

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Secret Life, but I don't. If I did, Ricky and Amy would have gotten together a long time ago.

Story Setting: This is a little gap-filler for The Father And The Son (1x14). Takes place the night after Amy told Ricky she wanted to consider adoption, but before Bob went back to prison.

Just Wanna Fly
One-Shot

He liked roofs, always had, but this time was different.

It used to be his release, just standing on the roof and letting the wind whip his hair. It used to feel like that wind was pushing every bad thing out of him, clearing his mind enough that he'd make it back to ground level, not with a smile, but with his frown gone.

Not this time, though.

Ricky stood on the roof of his therapist's office and stared below him. He didn't used to stare at the ground. He used to stare at the moon, at the clouds, just wishing that he could run away and hide there.

But it was dark and there wasn't a moon out tonight. There wasn't even a star that he could see. So he stared down, down, down. Down five stories. He knew he wouldn't make it if he jumped. Where he was standing, it would be instant depending on his position on impact. He'd done the math years ago. It would only take seconds.

Rats were eating at his stomach, his own childish cries of nights long past echoing in his head.

"Daddy, please. No."

Echoes of pleas that went ignored and phantom touches of hands, lips, and the other all over his body. He felt sick, wanted to throw up, but knew there wasn't anything in his stomach. There wouldn't be. He hadn't eaten in two days or been able to keep anything down in four.

He moved another inch, just that much closer to the edge as the wind whipped around him. It didn't push the feelings away. Instead, it seemed to just push them further into him, further into his heart.

His eyes were glassy and a tear dropped off his lashes when he blinked, diving away into the darkness below. It disappeared.

He envied it.

His legs were shaking as he stood there. They wanted to move, to step forward, to jump, to just fucking end it, but something held him back. His baby.

The baby Amy wanted to put up for adoption.

The baby that would never know him if she did.

What difference did it make? He couldn't care for a baby on his own and if she wanted to give it up, it wouldn't matter what he wanted.

What he wanted never mattered.

Another inch closer and he felt a small, almost invisible sense of relief. The closer he got to the edge, the freer he felt. He spread his arms wide, feet halfway off the ledge as he tilted his head back. His right foot lifted off, hovering over nothing but air as he stepped forward and his body began to move.

Then stopped.

His pocket was ringing, reminding him that he'd come here with a lie to Margret that he'd set up a meeting with Dr. Fields. But it wasn't Margret calling to call him on his lie. It was Amy's ringtone, something he'd found when he was surfing online one day. It was nothing special to anyone else, just a French horn playing a delicate little tune, but it had been so distinctly Amy that he'd bought it without a second thought.

His hands moved of their own accord, reaching in and accepting the call before the plastic was pressed against his ear. He didn't want to talk. He just wanted to fly.

"Ricky?" she checked, sounded nervous and unsure when he didn't make any form of a greeting after a minute.

"Hm."

"I just...everything at school and before...I never asked if you were okay."

No.

"Hm."

She coughed, sounding a bit uncomfortable at his silence. "It's just that...You know I know and I know that you must be having a hard time, but...I think you're strong. To survive that, I mean. I don't think I'd ever be able to and...I know it's personal, but I wanted you to know that." She coughed again. "I guess I'll see you at school."

The phone cut off and his hand dropped to his side as he stared at his foot still hovering over the ledge. He bit his lip, eyes moving from his foot, to his phone, and back.

His foot stepped back, and he closed his eyes tight for a second before he forced himself to sit on the concrete. He straddled the rail, torn between himself for a long while until he swung one leg over to meet the other.

A decision.

He pushed off, wind rushing around his face.

It only lasted a moment as he fell the two feet to the floor of the roof. He turned back, feeling like half of him was still up on that edge, and stared out at the complete blackness before him. There wasn't any solace there tonight.

His hand was shaking enough that he feared he'd drop the phone before he was able to put it back into his pocket.

His feet felt like lead as they moved towards the door that would lead him down to ground the safe way. They didn't want safe. They wanted freedom.

He wanted freedom.

He still wanted to fly, still wanted to turn and run back to that ledge. He wanted to leap off and escape.

But not tonight.

Not after the call. It had taken a courage out of Amy to call him and say that and as much as he didn't want to go another day with his father out on the streets, he couldn't let her courage be for nothing.

He doubted Amy knew what she'd done and he knew she never would.

He still wanted to fly, but he'd force himself to wait. Even if it was just another day.

For her.

The End

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