Finally chapter two is up! It has only taken a long (long!). I have changed the order of the chapters, but for those of you waiting there is a bit of Ace in here ;)

I have the next few chapters planned out, but it will probably take me a while to write them (unfortunately, I have a lot on my plate).

One Piece is © Eiichiro Oda, additional characters are of my own design.

I must give the impression
That I have the answers for everything
You were so disappointed
To see me unravel so easily
It's only change
It's only everything I know
It's only change, and I'm only changing

-Still, Ben Folds

Onboard the Nocturne, open sea, The Grand Line
Jun. 7th 2407

Calico, captain of the Nocturne, woke in the pale light of predawn and felt anything but rested. She was covered in cold sweat and her breathing was laboured as though she had just recently concluded a training session. What had left her in her current state of distress, however, was as different from her training as fire was from water. She loved to train, loved to move, to glide through the poses as she fought imaginary enemies. She loved how it felt when her two black swords became an extension of herself and the way the world narrowed until the fight was all there was. And she hated the nightmare. It was the same damn nightmare that always haunted her dreams. The same damn nightmare, which had deprived her of sleep more or less regularly for the past seven years. And she hated it. Hated it to the ends of the Earth and back again. Hated it, hated it, hated it.

For a moment she continued to lie in bed, staring at the wooden ceiling of the captain's cabin, and tried to re-establish her inner calm. Then she sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed and, with her elbows on her knees, buried her face in her hands. Her long, flaming red hair dangled in unkempt tangles around her face and down her back as if it was a curtain hiding her from the world.

She got up and pulled the curtains from the great panorama windows in the stern and for another moment she just stood there, staring at the open sea, which stretched endlessly before her. The sun was just making its first appearance, lighting the top of the waves on fire and turning the waters into a sparkling mass of jewels. She felt no joy at the splendid beauty though. Not now, not today.

She would have to get dressed soon. She would have to face them. She had put it off the previous day, preferring to stay in her cabin rather than to look her crew in the eyes, but she could not stay hidden here until the end of days. She had to eat at some point - a fact her stomach emphasized by growling loudly at her.

Two days ago, she had been too hung over to keep anything down and by sunset she had given up trying. The morning after, when she woke with a headache from dehydration and a hollow, rumbling stomach from lack of food, she had eaten a banana and an apple from the bowl of fruit on her desk and taken a long drink from the tap in her private bathroom. When her basic needs had been satisfied, she had crawled back to bed to try and go back to sleep.

Half an hour later, her meagre breakfast had insisted to come back from whence it came.

As the day progressed, she had eaten the remaining fruit, but even though she had spent the day doing absolutely nothing but wallowing in self-pity, two bananas, a grapefruit, an orange and three apples had not been enough to fill the pit in her abdomen. She had gone to bed hungry.

Today there was no more food in her cabin, however, so whether she liked it or not, she would have to leave it. Besides, she tried to convince herself, she was the captain of a pirate crew. She could brave her band of misfits. She could handle her friends… Right? Right.

Still, an hour somehow passed before she was ready to leave her quarters. She encountered no one on the way from her cabin and, except for Barra, the galley was deserted as well. She did not mind though. The silent chef was the only person aboard the Nocturne who could not verbally scold her and so she found the worry in his gaze much easier to ignore. He fixed her breakfast while she went in search of something to spice up her morning tea. In hindsight she should have noticed that the cook did nothing to stop her though the eyes, which bore into the back of her head, was enough evidence of his disapproval. It was not until she discovered that the cupboard where the rum was usually kept was empty that she became suspicious. She distinctly remembered stocking up on several bottles of the spiced South Blue Gold she favoured in the port before Disko Island.

Barra would never tell her where they had hidden the bottles. Aside from the fact that someone had once stolen his tongue, he was not a supporter of her excessive drinking, and she really had been on a bender lately. So Calico went in search of the booze herself. She knew the eccentric chef hated when someone else rummaged around his domain, that he had everything neatly ordered and that he would spend hours undoing every little disturbance she caused. Today, however, she did not care.

The reality was that while she might be able to face her crew and friends, she could not bear the memory of him. She had spent the past two weeks practically drowning every recollection of their time together. She knew it was a bad way to handle her heartache, knew that she was probably doing herself more harm than anything else. She knew it with the certainty of experience.

Yet there was this constant ache in her chest that she could not handle, a sensation like something was trying to suction up her insides and restricting her lungs until she could not breathe. His betrayal was like a knife wound in her stomach, the blade twisting and turning every time she moved. Some times it would disappear for a moment or two as her mind focused on something else only to be plunged back into her flesh with a vindictive violence, which left her gasping and shivering. The only things that could distract her for longer periods of time were her training sessions, which required a massive amount of concentration and self-control, and the consumption of so much alcohol, that it left wide gaps in her memory.

Was she anyone else, Mihawk Calico would have cried her eyes out long ago. She would have been reduced to a broken wreck, lying motionless in her bed as misery and grief washed over her in tidal waves of despair. But the young captain was a stranger to tears, a stranger to sorrow. She channelled her desolation into part rage and part self-destruction and preferred to drink until she blacked out rather than face the cold reality that he was gone. She would not cry for him, she knew. Not a single tear. She had not cried when her mother declared that she had no love for her daughter or when the boys in the village threw rocks at her and called her names. She had not cried as her homeland went up in flames and sank to the bottom of the ocean. So who was he to deserve such lament?

Her search turned her up empty-handed. There was no alcohol to be found anywhere in the galley – except for the blue plastic bottle, which contained the household spirit Barra used for cleaning. For a moment she considered downing it but though better of it in the end. It would be mixed with emetic and Calico was sick of throwing up.

In stead she sat down meekly at the table and let Barra place a plate of fruit, wholegrain bread and butter in front of her. A moment later a cup of steaming tea followed. The satisfied smirk, which curled his lips, did not escape her attention, but she was well enough acquainted with her crew to know that the mute could not have come up with this on his own. Oh no, this had Hawken written all over it.

She ate her breakfast in silence while she plotted bloody vengeance against her best friend. Anger bubbled through her as she stabbed at pieces of melon, boiling in her bloodstreams like a cheap medicine for the pain while she chewed. She grasped it with eager hands and let the heat fill her up until every nerve in her body was thrumming with unreleased aggression. She would do anything to occupy her thoughts, anything to make herself feel better.

"Where is Hawken?" she asked the chef when she had finished eating. He pointed dutifully towards the deck and slunk back into the relative safety of the pantry where he made a great show of rearranging a stack of canned tomatoes. Calico shook her head in half resignation and half annoyance, and stomped off in the appointed direction.

She found her treacherous first mate and almost every other member of her crew on the deck, even Denn and Bol were in attendance though they had had the night watch and should be fast asleep at this hour. Hawken was standing with Val near the railing, with his back towards his approaching captain. As she watched, he lopped a bottle of golden liquor into the ocean with a casual move of his arm. Her anger had died down to embers since she left the dining area, but now it ignited into a roaring fire that threatened to consume her. How dare he! He knew her better than anyone; he knew how much she was hurting. Damn him, he knew she needed the alcohol to forget.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked, her voice like a whip in the breeze, which had picked up since she woke that morning.

Hawken's countenance reflected his determination when he turned to face her, one bottle of South Blue Gold still in his hand, and her eyes zeroed in on it instantly. She moved to intercept him, knew what he intended even before he began doing it. The redheaded captain was fast, but this time her second in command was faster. Before she could snatch it from him, he hurled the bottle as far out to sea as he could manage. She could only stare as it sailed through the air before it vanished into the waves.

A moment of silence stretched on for infinity as the world balanced on the edge of a knife, her crew eyeing her anxiously as if to get some premonition as to which side it would tip.

"What the fuck did you just do?" She exploded as the veil of shock lifted from her mind. She could not believe what she had just seen. She could not believe that that asshole had just thrown all the liquor aboard her ship overboard. "What the fuck have you done?" she shouted as she turned on him, teeth barred and eyes flashing. Had she been angry before, it was nothing against the desperation-infused torrent of fire, which welled up inside of her. Calico was at a point where she would almost relish a fight with her best friend just to get her mind off of things she would rather not think of. But even if she had not been, her anger was not something to be pushed aside just because she might hurt somebody's feelings.

Hawken met the force of her glare calmly; the stubborn steel in those dark eyes told her that this time he would not back down either. He would not let whatever was on his mind go until she had heard all he had to say, and the firm line of his mouth informed her that he would not relent until she complied with his demands. His mind had been made up.

"This is an intervention," the dark-haired man proclaimed, his voice completely steady, his eyes resolved. The rest of the crew had found their way to his side, even Barra had ventured out of the pantry – although it was only to take shelter behind Bol's broad frame – and though she detected a mixture of uncomfortable, nervous and, in Barra's case, fearful faces, they all mirrored Hawken in his tenacity.

"A what?" she asked through clenched teeth, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"An intervention," her first mate repeated, "This is where your friends and crew, who all love you, tell you that your drinking, your denial, and your self-punishment has gotten out of hand. We won't stand idly by and watch you destroy yourself, Callie. Not anymore."

She was deaf to the kindness in his tone, the genuine worry for her well-being. She was blind to the pleading faces aligned behind him. And though she knew that he was right, she did not care to admit it. "You are telling me that you just dumped all the alcohol aboard this ship into the ocean because you think I have a bloody drinking problem?"

"I don't think you have one, Callie, I know." Stable, strong, unbending, Hawken did not yield as much as an inch.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Her voice was incredulous as she screamed at him. Did he not see? Did he not know that she was barely hanging on, that she was just inches away from stumbling into the abyss. Did he not care that the only thing, which kept her sane was a bottle and the fleeting warmth of a stranger's arms.

"You don't want to face reality, so you drown the truth of your broken heart in alcohol and random men. And then you ask what's wrong with me? Here's a wake up call Callie, you are drowning and all the things you have done so far have only made you sink that much faster. And I get it. You literally chased him off with a threat on his life, and though he probably deserved it, I can see you are regretting it now. But this is not the way to handle your problems, Cal, and it never will be. You've got to stop destroying yourself."

"You think I don't know that?" she asked, her eyes flashing like lightning. The wind had picked up and was playing with the strands of her bright red hair, a likeness of the first wee flames that just might grow to become a raging wildfire. "You think I don't know that I am hurting myself and all of you?" She made a gesture, which indicated all of the men and women gathered before her. "He betrayed me, Hawken! He tore out my heart and he stomped on it. I. Fucking. Loved. That. Idiot! And not a second goes by where I don't hate him for doing that. Or hate myself for letting my anger reign supreme when he came after me. And I am sorry that it's affecting you, I am! But what the hell am I supposed to do? Aside from offing myself I don't see…"

"Calico!" It resonated like a gunshot across the deck, short and sharp and to the point. Hawken only ever used her full name when he was pissed, when she behaved like a child or when he was tired of fighting with her. She supposed that all three reasons could be the basis for his outburst, but which was the primary incentive, she could not say.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" she screamed at him, flaming red hair dancing around her face.

"I want you to stop behaving like a spoiled brat. I want you to grow up and take responsibility for your own actions. Damnit Calico, I want to see you smile again." If she did not know better, she would say that he sounded almost desperate.

She smiled at him then, a venomous, sarcastic smile while her eyes remained as hard and cold as ice. "And how do you suggest I do that, hm?" Her words were laced with the same poison, which wrecked havoc on her heart. The same poison, which threatened to swallow her whole and never spit her back out. "I can't just let it all go in a heartbeat. I can't just forget everything that happened. Everything that could have been." She would not cry, she knew. She never cried.

"Callie." His voice was softness and the promise of safety. He would never hurt her, his tone swore. She wanted so badly to believe, yet what had he done so far other than cut off her escape.

She got a sour taste in her mouth as nausea welled up in her throat. Her eyes widened in shock and she raised a hand to her mouth to preferably prevent her half-digested breakfast from spilling on the deck. Three long strides took her to the railing and she just had the time to bend her torso over the side of the ship before she heaved bread and fruit and tea into the waves below.

"Callie?" It was Hawken again, but this time the worry was back in his voice. She could not answer him, as she retched a second helping to the god of the sea.

Two days ago it had come as no surprise that she was violently sick the entire day. Yesterday, she had been a little shocked when she vomited her breakfast back up, but had shrugged it off as the after-effects of the previous night's drunken escapades. After all, she had been really, really drunk. But today? Today she could not write the fact that she had just thrown up a perfectly good meal off as the consequences of her wild night out. She could make no excuses when she had felt perfectly fine since yesterday morning and up until this point.

"Cal, are you alright?"

Great, she thought, now she would have to go see the Doc as well.

"How long has it been since you last had you period?" the Doc asked, looking up from between her thighs. She had spent the last hour in the infirmary where he had fussed over her in the attempt to discover why her stomach refused to accept her morning meal. Then, not so long ago, he had gotten a somewhat funny look on his face and told her to undress.

**Later**

Calico was staring at the ceiling, trying to abstract herself from the fact that the middle-aged man was currently probing around her vagina. Not that it had not happened before; he functioned as a gynaecologist as well as a doctor onboard the Nocturne, and for someone with as great a sexual appetite as she, a regular check up was needed to ensure that everything was as it was supposed to be. But just because it happened on a somewhat regular basis did not make it any more pleasant.

"I don't remember," she told him in a dethatched voice that was the result of her trying not to pay attention to his examination. She could not recall having had her period in the past two weeks, though admittedly, her recollection of that period was rather fractured and inconsistent. Before that there had been her fight with Ace and before that there was their meeting in The Stepstones. The last period she could recall was six weeks or something in the past. But if that was the case, she was two weeks late…

Wait. Hold on. Stop right there!

"What exactly are you saying?" she asked him, dreading the answer to her question. Surely it could not be…

"You have some symptoms, which might be an indication," he told her in a sterilized tone and she knew he was uncertain of how she would react. Her temper was notorious. When she did not respond, he continued, "I'll need a blood sample to make certain, but I'd say you are about five weeks gone."

Black Rock, The Stepstones, The Grand Line
May 1st 2407

The Stepstones was a group of islands, which broke through the sea in a semicircle and, if you ignored the vegetation and the fact that they were not flat, resembled stones that had been laid out in a garden pond so you might step on them. Once, long ago, there had been only one island: a massive sleeping volcano. One day, however, the sleeping giant had come to life in a flurry of lava and ash and destruction. The magma chamber underneath the volcano had been emptied, and what was once a mountain had collapsed into the hollow beneath it, leaving a giant crater as the only evidence of its existence. Once the volcano buckled, the ocean had come flooding in to fill the caldera, the water boiling from the heat of the molten rock, and had left only the highest points of the ridge, which formed the edge of the crater, above sea level.

Their tiny refuge was called Black Rock, a very fitting name in truth. The isle was composed of black basaltic rock, the smallest of groves and an even smaller black, sandy beach where you could land a boat. It jutted out of the ocean on the far side of the sunken caldera, furthest from Black Top, the largest isle, where their respective pirate ships were currently docked.

They sailed out in the hazy ephemera of dawn to spend a day alone, a lazy fog blanketing the sea, which the first hints of day had coloured a delicate pastel purple. On the way they watched the sun be reborn and enjoyed a simple breakfast of fresh fruit in the dinghy as the great star vanquished all others.

They reached Black Rock before the sun began to burn, and tied up the boat so the tide would not steal it. Calico's clothes scattered as if they had a life on their own, and the she dove into the water like a mermaid, who had been gone from her rightful element for too long. Ace remained on the black shore, arm crossed and a scowl on his face. The devil fruit he had eaten had bestowed awesome powers on him, but it had also forever denied him the opportunity of joining her. She playfully stuck her tongue out at him as she floated alongside the shore. He watched her for a time until he waded into the water to try and catch her.

The effect the ocean water had on him was immediate; his movements lost the vigour they had upon dry land and he became rather pale under his freckles. Yet he did not relent, even when the water reached his navel and Ace finally managed to trap his squealing, laughing companion in his arms and drag her onto the tiered, wave-smoothened cliffs.

If not for the unnatural warmth he emitted and the softness of his skin, Ace could have been carved from marble in the image of one of the mythological gods, which had been the preferred motif of Pre-void Century sculptors. He had an almost flawless body with his narrow hips, his toned stomach, and his broad chest and shoulders. Every inch of him was tight, coiled muscle, worked into perfection by countless hours spent training his martial combat skills. And he was hers. All hers.

His eyes seemed as if they were illuminated from within as he gazed down upon her; two radiant dark blue gemstones in a freckled, sunburnt face. She stared into them while she lay there, trapped beneath the weight of his body, and her heart fluttered with happiness. She strained her neck to peck him ever so lightly on the lips.

"I've missed you," she told him in the seconds before his lips crashed down on hers and all conversation ceased for a time. It had been almost a month since they last saw each other, and their longing for each other found expression in the release of the desire they had held pent up inside since then.

Hours later they had found a place in the shade, away from the scorching rays of the sun. Not that Ace would have minded: he never seemed to be bothered by neither heat nor cold. But Calico was just a regular human being, and unlike her blue-eyed consort, she was of a much more delicate constitution.

It was fairly cool where they sat, him leaning against the rock wall and she reclined against his naked body, using his chiselled torso for a backrest. Their clothing was currently cooking under the sun where it had been lackadaisically strewn and since forgotten earlier that same day. The two of them did not worry about their nakedness; they were lovers and as such, used to seeing each other in various states of undress and they considered it a small chance that anyone would come climbing over the rocks and discover them. On a day like this, one would have to be mad to venture out on a hike across the dark magmatic rock, which made up the bulk of the island; with the heat and the relentlessness of the summer sun, the cliffs became what could only be described as nature's own frying pans.

She told him of what had transpired since the last time they had met while Ace played with the tangles in her hair as he listened. They would be a bother to comb out later on, and though his fingers' game with the salt-stiffened strands was pleasant, the twisting and twirling was not exactly creating less knots.

"Kaname insists we're all going to die within the next two months," she confided and shook her head over her unconventional navigator. "I have no idea what basis he has for them, but he makes such predictions from time to time. And until he is certain that his prophecies are not happening, he spends the entire time fretting and worrying if we will all be dead within the hour. It's driving me nuts."

"Honestly Cal, I would have told him to shut it a long time ago. He is always so bleak and gloomy. It's creepy." Ace faked a shiver and she could not help but laugh.

With a sigh she turned serious again. "To tell the truth, I wonder at the same thing sometimes. But he is an exceptionally skilled navigator, and once you get to know him, he is actually quite amiable, more amusing that anything really - when he is not having a doom-is-upon-us fit, that is. Besides he is part of my crew, which is the closest thing to family I have, and family is all about accepting each others' quirks and differences– or at least that's what I've heard." She could not quite keep the bitterness out of her voice when she said that last part.

Before Ace could say anything, however, she quickly changed the subject.

"Kaname is not the only one causing problems either. There have been two attempts on Val's life in the past month. Two! And one of them actually came rather close. The assassins are picking up the pace, and she is scared. She never says anything, and she tries to put on a brave face, but I can see the fear lurking under the surface; it is in her eyes, in the way she moves, in the way she places herself in a room. She trains constantly, and she is getting better at defending herself every day, but sometimes I fear it is not enough. I'm afraid of letting her out of my sight. She's just a child Ace, I don't understand how she can deserve something like this."

"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "You still don't know why they're after her?"

Calico sighed again. "She's not opening up. I suppose she will when she is ready and when she learns to trust us. I don't know what that girl's been through, but with the way she's acting, it has to have been bad."

"She'll be alright," he said in a reassuring tone and kissed her hair. "She's got you now, remember. You and the crew."

Her lips curved into a smile almost of their own volition. "Your optimism never ceases to amaze. I just hope you are right."

He blew in her ear. "Didn't you know? I'm always right."

She chuckled at him. "Oh, I bet you are."

"We got a new crewmember too," he informed her, and she could detect the frown on his face without having to look at him. "Her name's Magara and Pops gave her to me for God knows what reason. One of the first things she did was to smack me over the head with a cod."

The mental image his words left her with was just too comical and Calico could not contain the laughter that bubbled up inside of her. It burst from her like water from a broken dam, slowly at first, but with steadily increasing power until she was curled up between his bended legs in hysteric laughing cramps.

Ace pouted at her - he looked incredibly cute when he did that - and sent her an accusing stare. "It's not that funny you know. My hair smelled of fish for a week."

She just continued to chortle at him until her stomach hurt and she could barely breathe. "Why?" she managed to ask when she regained a bit of control over her respiratory system.

"I made some joke about her being the new fish on the ship, and she just picked it up and slapped me with it. Then she said 'I might be new, but I'm not defenceless'." He was still pouting and she burst out laughing all over again.

Once her mirth died down she returned to leaning against his bare chest and he wrapped his arms around her as he told her more of this newest member of the Whitebeard Pirates. They continued to debate the various members of their crew for a while, and when the subject was emptied, lapsed into a comfortable silence while they watched two seagulls playing tag over the water.

She tilted her head back so she could look up at his face and he saw his chance to steal a kiss. "I saw this wanted poster the other day by the way," she told him when their lips parted, "of this grinning boy with a scar under his eye." She gave him a big smile, eyes glittering. She knew exactly how he would react to this piece of information. "I believe his name was Luffy." She saw his eyes widen and could not help but chuckle at his expression.

"Are you kidding me?" he exclaimed in excitement, arms tightening around her chest as he hugged her closer. His eyes were shining, a big grin plastered on his freckled face. "Luffy's got his own wanted poster? What did it say?"

"Well, he's a Rookie for sure, though that is almost a given with you for a brother. He took down a few big shots – for Blue Boys anyway – on his way up, so he's not without skills, though I already knew that from your stories. It's his first poster and the list of offences is not particularly long; currently all it says is piracy, public disturbances, and destruction of private property, which I suppose will make him a preferred target of many bounty hunters, since none of his crimes are exceptionally menacing. However, the price they are willing to pay for his head might give pause to some of them, while it might make others consider him an easy payday. Dead or alive he is worth 30 million beri."

"30 million?" Ace said, suddenly serious, "Damn, his first bounty is higher than mine was." Then his grin returned and he laughed, "Any bounty hunter who is dumb enough to mess with my little bro' is in for a surprise. He'd be able to trick even the most suspicious of them into believing that he is harmless, I'll bet my hat on it! I can't wait to see him Callie. It's been four and a half years since I left him on Goa, but I feel like a lifetime has passed since then!"

"I know the feeling," she told him, her voice pensive, her thoughts suddenly far away. It seemed like a lifetime since that wretched day when she had watched as her home was obliterated from the face of the earth. And surely it had been ages since her uncle sold his soul to get the Marines off her back, or when the first present from her father arrived. Sometimes she could even fool herself into believing that her crew had always been together.

"But other times, I feel like it was only yesterday that I beat him into a bloody pulp because he would not leave me alone, " Ace continued, unaware that she was not paying attention. "And most of the time I can't believe that years have passed since I taught him how to throw a spear or kick someone in the face. I can never seem to picture him as anything but that young kid I left on the coast of Goa. In my head he is still that stupid, stubborn boy he always was."

He nuzzled her neck, leaving gentle kisses along her shoulder, and Calico snapped out of her own reflection on the concept of time.

"You weren't paying attention were you?" he asked with a teasing look in those twinkling blue eyes and a smirk, which curved the corners of his mouth.

"Sorry, no," she confessed and twisted in his arms so she was facing him instead. "My mind was focused on something completely different." It was her turn to smirk as she closed the distance between their lips, deepening the kiss until she felt him rise to attention between them.

"I love you," he breathed against her skin, the words a gentle caress. She could feel his heart pounding in step with hers, a strong, resonant beating beneath his ribs and she returned the words fervently as she spread her legs to allow him entrance.

Onboard the Nocturne, open sea, The Grand Line
Jun. 7th 2407

She had not believed him at first and had demanded that he redid the tests. He had done it, if only to please her, but when she asked him to do it again, he kindly informed her that no matter how many times he tried, the results would be no different. She had been meaning to storm out of the infirmary then, but she had been so confused and so shocked that she could barely stand on her own two feet. However, when she tore the door to the doctor's domain open and lost her balance, Hawken had been waiting and caught her before she could fall.

"Callie?" he said in a questioning tone as he brushed her hair out of her face. His big, green eyes were laced with worry as he stared into her golden ones and she knew he could read the alarm on her face. "What is it?"

Her eyes welled up with tears. She knew he dreaded the answer to that question as much as she had feared what the Doc would tell her when she had lain on his examination couch with her thighs parted. He would not be expecting what she was about to tell him though. The tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks in gentle, yet persistent streams, and she could not even find the presence of mind to brush them away.

"Tell me," he urged her, though fear was plainly written in his features. She could not say what terrible scenarios were running through his mind. He knew as well as she did that she never cried and thus, he reached the only logical conclusion that what she had learned in the infirmary could only be the most awful of news.

She opened her mouth, trying to find words to express the horror, which had become her reality, only to discover that speech had deserted her. She gaped like a stupid fish while the tears continued to cascade from her eyes and her best friend became more and more anxious.

"I," she managed in a halting, hiccupping voice she did not recognise as her own. "I'm," she swallowed something which seemed to have stuck itself in her throat and closed her eyes for a second. Once she said the words, it would be true and she would have to accept it. She swallowed again and forced the words through the veil of incredulity, horror and fear, which hindered their passage from concept to reality.

"I'm pregnant."

The **Later** -part bugs the hell out of me, but apparently I can't simply make a "larger than normal" space between the two lines. Details I know.. :/

Anyway, thanks for reading. Please leave a review!