Author's Note: Thanks to all who reviewed - eternally grateful! xoxo - E

CHAPTER 2

"Happy Birthday!" Voices called out around me provoking me to promptly burst into tears.

"Oh! Sweetie!" My mother was instantly at my side, her arms wrapped comfortingly around me. "Sweetheart don't cry! Everything's going to be all right." Slam. I glanced up. The door to my parents' room had swung shut, my father disappearing inside.

"Mom, why has dad been so distant lately? He won't talk to me about it and he keeps just up and leaving any time a conversation gets difficult in the slightest."

"He's just tired these days, sweetie." She tried to assure me. "Ever since that oxygen fiasco they've had everyone working double time to be sure they can catch something like that in time again if it ever becomes a problem." She was lying. She always scrunched her nose up when she lied. Well, mostly lying, I knew that after dad and his team had fixed the flawed system that was allowing oxygen to escape they had been on hyper vigilance that something like this had never happened again. If dad hadn't caught it and fixed it in time with his apprentice, Raven Reyes, Jaha would have been forced to do something drastic to save everyone's lives.

"Yeah, mom. Whatever."

"Come on, get dressed. The Drawing starts in an hour in First Station Auditorium." I pulled on my clothes for the day, more utilitarian than fashionable. Leather boots, thick manufactured wool socks, dark green pants that fit around my legs like a glove and a grey v neck with arm warmers. They'd dropped the heat on the ark, again, conserve energy and all. I considered grabbing the old leather jacket that hung on my bed post but I knew mom would already be upset that I wasn't dressed in my Sunday best, adding dad's old work coat wasn't going to help much.

I hated dressing up when we went to assemblies or meetings. I'd be sat next to all of my peers and a decent number of them couldn't afford the nice clothes mom bought me. I felt like a snob when I wore my best. Besides. This was far more comfortable and it wasn't like I was trying to make a good first impression with Wells, he knew exactly what I looked like and one day of dressing up wasn't about to change anything. My stomach was twisting again, and I swallowed back some vomit before pulling and pinning my hair away from my face. Ugh.

Hours later I was sitting crammed between Wells and and Fox, both of whom were twitching nervously. Fox was picking at the scarf she wore and Wells' foot was tapping like he was dancing. I was still. Perfectly frozen. I didn't twitch when I got nervous. I froze up. Silent, still and terrified. That was me right now. Names were being called and one by one, we stood to meet one another. They called us up alphabetically. Sort of. The started with Albert Adams and went through the list alphabetically through each of our surname groupings. Then they'd call of matches for that group. Sometimes groups were substantially smaller, usually meaning two people with last names close alphabetically had been matched, or that someone hadn't been matched at all. Groups were usually from 12 to 16 people once everyone and their match went up, in the beginning at least. By the time they hit the M's and beyond, so many of us had already been called up with the match, there was occasionally a group of only two people. So much for learning privately. You'd think with all our advanced technology we would have figured this out a bit better by now. It really was supposed to be private. No one was supposed to know who was even possibly matched with who. But it was a bit obvious. When Helen Richards got called up with the A's through D's it was clear she had been matched with one of the 6 boys who were organically in that grouping of surnames. She had blushed as she walked past the boys, each of them eyeing her up wondering which of them had been paired with the thin beauty. I noticed that Gemini Stangis was glowering, knowing that since Helen and he were both called out of order, she wasn't meant for him. He'd always been an arrogant son of a bitch. First Station. Arrogant. Entitled. Annoying as hell. Always got whatever he wanted. Apparently what he had wanted was Helen. Too fucking bad dickwad. Okay it was probably relevant to note that I had a personal issue with Gemini and that I may not be the most biased person after he had cheated on Fox with her neighbor and upon our confrontation he had simply pointed out that Ville was prettier and could Fox really expect him to stay true when she only put out once in a while? Yeah. Dickwad. I hope he got matched with a guy. I hoped he was straight as an arrow, and matched with a guy who blackmailed him into going through will all of this. Or that he was matched with someone with an undiagnosed STD that didn't affect women but killed the man. Melodramatic, sure, but effective. My murder plans were interrupted as councilwoman Peters led the first group away. We were up next. Why oh why did the alphabet but G so damned close to the beginning?!

This was going to be horrible. It was humiliating. We'd get to the E-H group and Wells Jaha would be called up and everyone would know that what they'd suspected for years would be true there would be nothing romantic or private about it. And all the other kids would whisper behind their hands that two of the most privileged kids on the Ark, of course they get paired, and that this whole thing is rigged and then I would have to marry Wells and pop out some perfect little baby who annoyed me and reminded me about this whole damn thing every day and then for all I knew I'd start resenting Wells' kid - my kid - and I'd be the worst mother on the Ark and let's be honest, regardless of all of this, I'd probably be a pretty shit mom. I was barely 18 for Christ's sake. How did Wells expect me to do this? Why was I supposed to suddenly just... grow up, get married, have a baby, just because Wells was ready? I wasn't ready. I didn't want Wells' stupid baby. Except I knew Wells too well. His kid would be a freaking genius. All the idiocy, and anxiety, and self doubt the child was destined to have, was all coming from me and I damn well knew it. My heart was pounding. I held onto a hope in my mind that they wouldn't call my name. Just jump straight from Hayley Fox to Brick Gustus. Maybe there's someone better for Wells than me. Maybe there isn't anyone the test wanted to punish with getting matched with me. Then again, I really wasn't that lucky.

Maybe I should just say no. Maybe I should refuse to marry Wells, never have a kid at all. I could probably do it if it wasn't Wells. He was one of my best friends and chancellor's son or not, if we didn't get married, he probably wouldn't get to have a kid. And he really, really wanted a kid. He was a family man. It would be cruel to deny him that. It would be... I couldn't do that to my best friend. Even if he said he understood, he would grow to resent me and then I wouldn't even have a friend and then I would end up a loner in my own little personal pod and I wouldn't speak for days at a time because I would be so completely alone and then eventually I'd do something stupid for the sheer need to do something and then I'd get floated all because I was too nervous to marry my best friend.

God. I really was a fuckup sometimes.

"Ladies and Gentlemen we are ready for the next group and we would like to remind everyone that these names are called in no specific order. This is done so that the first knowledge of pairing is given to the pairs themselves, so please refrain from speculating and commenting." The request was met with a soft tittering of laughter by the otherwise tense group. Chancellor Jaha winked at the small cluster who had been whispering the loudest as he stood, taking the scroll from Marcus Kane and stepped forward, ready to read the names. They blurred together until I heard one I recognized well.
"Hayley Fox, please stand." Oh hell. This was it. I was next. They were going to call me up next. Or not. Don't do it. Don't say my name Jaha. I'm not ready for this. "Clarke Griffin, stand please. Hell. I was going to be sick. I was actually going to be sick. Fox reached over and took my hand, gripping tightly. Brick's name was called and that would be the end of the G names. There weren't any H's in our group. Now Jaha would say our pairs and our fates would be sealed. A few names were read and I stood, frozen, clenching Fox's hand waiting to hear 'Wells Jaha'.

Five names were called. None of the E-H's had been called up with the first group and since we were paired alphabetically in school a lot, I knew how many there were supposed to be. That meant there was only one name left to be called in our assemblage.

One more left. And I already knew what name that would be.

Wells stood beside me, and took my hand with a reassuring grin as his father red the last name off the sheet.

"Bellamy Blake."