A/N: Sorry for the wait (the show went wonderfully but I only now am getting back on track sleeping wise) and thanks for the feedback! Here, have a new chapter!

CHAPTER THREE

The door creaked open and Melchior slipped inside. Moritz was sitting at the table, hand propping up his face as he tried to not fall asleep.

"Your mother went to bed already. She was worried about you not being home earlier," Moritz muttered, looking up.

"Sorry," Melchior replied simply, waking towards the stairs. Moritz jumped up and followed him.

"Why weren't you with Wendla?" he asked as they made their way into Melchior's room.

Dropping onto his mattress in exhaustion, Melchior groaned as if he didn't want to talk about that.

"What wrong?" Moritz asked, not sure yet if he really wanted to know.

Melchior exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. "Wendla Bergmann is going to have a child."

School would be out in a few minutes. Moritz was sitting in a tree, reading his essay religiously- searching for something that could explain pregnancy. He had discovered that Melchior only lightly brushed against the topic in the essay.

Their classes were over and the boys began to walk out, passing by Moritz's tree without the slightest clue someone was above them. Feeling even more like a ghost watching a play unfold than he had the other night, he listened to his friends talking and felt himself learning more about them than he had ever known before. Georg was telling Otto that he had composed a piece for "her", which Moritz could only assume was his piano teacher. He was caught off guard when Otto mentioned "her mother" which seemed a very strange thing to say about a fully grown woman. He wondered if Georg had his eye on one of the girls, but Otto and Georg had already passed by and were out of hearing range.

He saw Ernst and Hanschen walking at a slower pace and noticed for the first time how Ernst was watching the taller boy's feet and trying to match his own walking so it was in synch. It wasn't working but Ernst was so focused on the task that Moritz envied him for a moment. He wished he could be focused on one simple thing instead of many different yet all equally confusing things.

Melchior finally appeared and Moritz made his way down the tree trunk and over to his friend.

"Melchi, are you sure it always leads to children?" he asked quickly, his words all running together in his rush.

Melchior smiled sadly, putting an arm around Moritz's shoulder as they walked. "There is no way Wendla isn't pregnant at this point. I wish there could be… but perhaps it will all work out. Wendla and I were talking about maybe running away to England after--."

"What if Ilse is going to have a baby too?" Moritz interrupted, feeling a little guilty that he hadn't been more concerned with his friend's troubles.

"Ilse isn't pregnant," Melchior said slowly. Moritz began to ask hypothetical questions and Melchior began to look very tired of answering them. This wasn't his strong point when it came to his vast knowledge of the forbidden.

"I'm going to go see her," Moritz declared at last.

"Do whatever you wish as long as it isn't rash," Melchior told him with a sigh. "I'm going to go find Wendla."

The two went their separate ways- Melchior to find Wendla, Moritz to Priapia.

Ilse and Moritz sat by the creek, Ilse hanging her chafed feet in the cool water as Moritz sat with his knees pulled up about his chest. Conversation had been more of Ilse rambling in confusion about how it was so strange that Wendla was pregnant. She was explaining how Wendla had always seemed this and that, and how she had expected so-and-so to get pregnant before Wendla did, and wondering how so-and-so was dealing, and her words began to simply be strings of sounds and syllables. He wasn't even listening to her words anymore, but rather to her voice and how lovely it sounded.

Suddenly she had stopped talking. He knew from experience that when everything was silent it meant he had missed a question.

"What?" he asked, hoping she would repeat herself.

"Are you still staying with the Gabors?"

He nodded silently. There was a moment of hesitation, and then he could not restrain himself.

"Ilse, are you pregnant?"

There was a silence and then Ilse began to laugh. Not knowing what was so funny, Moritz just sat there, twiddling his thumbs impatiently. Ilse shook her head. "No, Moritz. I'm not."

"Are you sure?"

She stopped laughing and nodded. "I think I would know if I were pregnant," she said. Moritz wished he knew how she knew this and wished even more that Melchior did too so that he could explain it to him. He thought back to Ilse's stories about the artists and came to a horrifying realization. Had Ilse already been pregnant? Discarding Melchior's advice about not doing any rash, Moritz seized Ilse's shoulders.

"You need to leave Priapia! We could move to England with Melchior and Wendla!"

"Why do I need to leave?" she asked, no amusement in her voice.

"You'll get pregnant!" he exclaimed, shaking her a little.

She laughed but it was bitter this time. "If I wanted a sermon, I would have gone to church," she mumbled, getting to her feet and walking away.

Moritz wondered if he should call for her but decided it would be useless in the end.

He wished Melchior would write him an essay about how to treat a girl… how to understand them when they make no sense.

But then, he realized, Melchior was surely just as clueless as he was.

A/N: Maybe one day I'll figure out how to end a chapter.