Authors notes

First off I'm not quite sure how I feel about this chapter but I hope you guys like it. Second, please don't expect my uploads to be this frequent all the time, I'll try keep them as constant as I can but I'm really not that organised xx

After spending that one night over at the Curtis' house it became a much more frequent occurrence. It was like Darry just couldn't get a good night's sleep without Billie by his side and he wasn't the only one having trouble at night. Ponyboy had started to have hideous nightmares ever since the funeral, he'd wake up screaming and covered in sweat, but he could never seem to remember what he'd been dreaming about. It got so bad that Darry took him to see a doctor. He'd said that Ponyboy just had an overactive imagination and that he should focus more on studying and reading and playing sports, it seemed like total bull to Billie but she was certainly no doctor. Either way, after Soda started sleeping in Pony's bed things seemed to calm down a bit.

That night she'd slept at her own house and there wasn't a cat in hell's chance Darry could stay at hers. She lived in a big house that was owned by a woman in her 70s called Mrs. Woods, she was nice but strict. She rented out rooms to young women, said she wanted to give opportunities to girls looking to move out and gain a bit of independence whilst also making sure they still had guidance. She wasn't all too strict about what you did outside of the house but while under her roof you followed her rules; no heavy drinking, no smoking in bed, no bringing boys over, and no getting into trouble. So long as you followed them and helped round the house she was pretty nice. To pay her rent Billie had gotten a job in a dress store up on the east side as a sales assistant, it wasn't well paid by any stretch of the imagination but it was plenty to cover what she needed and it was a pretty easy gig, she'd help girls find which dresses fit right, man the counter and sort out stock every so often. She didn't have work today, however, which was a godsend considering she felt as sick as a dog. She'd already been sick twice but to save face she still went down to breakfast and tried to eat something, this didn't work at all as almost every girl who walked by mentioned how rough she looked.

Kathryn, one of the younger girls, was sat touching her forehead and staring at her with wide grey eyes. "Maybe you've got flu or something, you should really go to the doctors, what if it gets worse?" Billie smiled and nodded, she'd been to the doctors already and was going back that afternoon, but it wasn't for flu. She had a horrible feeling she knew exactly what was wrong with her but she had to be sure. For now though, she was fine letting everyone think it was flu.

Billie's days off were usually spent running errands like picking up some thread or posting a letter, they were menial tasks and normally she loved them, she could just wander and get lost in her own thoughts. Not today though. Today her thoughts were far too loud and frantic to allow her to get lost in them and they carried on like that all the way through into the afternoon where she found herself sat in a small waiting room with the same thoughts still buzzing round her head. Why was it that in a waiting room you felt like you have to be silent, she was sure there was a reason but at that moment it just made Billie feel awkward, like all eyes in the room - what few there were - were all fixed on her.

She tried to focus her attention on a plant in the corner that rustled and swayed anytime the door opened but she kept drifting over to a child sat in the corner with her dad, she was making a hell of a racket and it was clear he wasn't used to being the sole watcher of the child as she kept tugging at his sleeve and babbling about nonsense all while he tried to read his paper and ignore her. They were clearly socs, well the father was, she supposed the little girl didn't even know what a soc was, she hoped she didn't, hoped she still held onto the innocent notion that all people were equal no matter what. She was taken aback when the girl's sharp bright eyes shot up to meet hers and she thought for a second that she was about to be sucked into whatever odd conversation the girl was having with herself but got saved when her name was called.

The walk to the office felt like a trip to the gallows, the door, a big foreboding gate to an answer she didn't really want. Despite her fear she grit her teeth and knocked lightly. She heard a gravelly voice tell her to enter and when she did she saw the equally gravelly man it belonged to. He had a dark beard with little specks of grey running throughout and half burned cigarette hung from his mouth. He gave a curt nod of recognition. She sat down timidly as he flicked through some papers, his dark eyebrows creased as he skimmed the words.

After what seemed like hours, but was more likely seconds, he spoke. "Well Miss.Carter, your results came back and it would appear that you are in fact pregnant. It would be wise to have appointments with a midwife, getting more frequent the further along you get, just to keep a check on things. Congratulations." His tone in no way matched his words but Billie couldn't think to even get mad at him, after a gruelling week of waiting, her fears had been confirmed in a matter of minutes. She was going to be a mother. In her haze of worrying she hadn't noticed that the stout doctor had carried on talking until she heard him mention adoption which made her head snap faster than a rubber band.

"No."

He sighed and looked almost pityingly at her, "Look sweetheart, you seem like a nice girl and it's not exactly uncommon for nice girls to get into little situations like this but a kid is a big responsibility, and one you don't necessarily have to take on right now, there's plenty of good homes looking for babies to take in and…"

"No," she cut him off. "I appreciate what you're trying to say but I can't do that."

He sighed again, "Alright, well good luck Miss Carter." She thanked him and left with the feeling of her heart jammed right up her throat.

She walked out in a daze and somehow found herself perched on a creaky bench in the park. All the typical noises seemed dull and far away to her, like she was in a bubble, lost in thought. She thought about the first time she'd been with Darry, it wasn't incredible, nor was it anything like the horror stories she'd heard of from other girls, it was nice, intimate. In all honesty she remembered more of what happened afterwards, they'd laid in the dark in a tangle of limbs with only a pale strip of moonlight falling on Darry's face and for that short time there was nothing else to worry about, no jobs, no bills, no responsibilities.

Responsibilities, crap, how on earth was she going to be responsible for a child? She'd only just got properly on her feet herself and Darry already had Sodapop and Ponyboy to look out for, what if he couldn't look after her? What if he just didn't want to?

She went deep into this spiral until the sun started to set and she must have been sat for well over an hour before she noticed the slowly darkening sky and started to walk home.

She tried to go straight upstairs to her room when she got home but was stopped by Mrs.Woods asking her to step into her study. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence but when Billie turned and saw the look on her face a lump formed in her throat, this wasn't a typical chat, Mrs.Woods knew, she didn't know how but somehow she knew. The tension hung in the air as the two women sat opposite each other.

"How did it go at the doctors?"

"Good."

"What did he say?"

"Just a stomach bug, should be gone soon."

She could feel cold eyes boring into her. "What did he really say?"

She couldn't speak, she just sat there and stuttered shakily. Mrs Woods sighed and pushed her moon like glasses up her nose, "I should never have let you stay at that boy's place. I thought that under the circumstances you two could be trusted to behave but I should have known. Just sleeping over, my ass." Billie gasped at her language but she took no notice and carried on, "Do you have any idea the trouble you've just gotten yourselves into, that hood already has his brothers to look after what makes you think he's gonna be able to care for two more?"

She tried her best to ignore the tears stinging her eyes but eventually they won out and ran freely down her face, "I'm so sorry Mrs Woods, I never meant for anything like this to happen and it's not like we did it a lot, I never thought it'd happen so fast. I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry."

The older woman's expression softened at her confessions and she placed a comforting hand on her knee, "You girls never mean for it to happen, doesn't stop happening though."

After a thick, awkward silence had settled Billie eventually questioned her, "How did you know?"

"You're not the first girl here to have gotten themselves in this kind of trouble, and besides, pregnant women have a look about them, can't explain it but once you've been through it yourself it's easy to spot."

Mrs Woods had had a two children and she'd outlived them both, one she'd lost at birth but the other, Daniel, had lived to be 20. He'd died in the war and it was known mainly through gossip but she'd never spoken about them, never even mentioned them. Another silence over took the room but this one wasn't like the other, it was one of calm contemplation, one that let Billie know she was understood.

Again she broke it by asking, "Can I still stay over with Darry?"

Mrs Woods scoffed, "Well it's not like it's gonna make the situation worse is it. You should probably go there now in fact, let the poor boy know just how big of a mess he's made, and don't give me any of this 'I'll tell him tomorrow' rubbish because tomorrow never comes and then it's far too late, just get it out of the way." All Billie could do was nod as Mrs Woods showed her out.