A/N- Sorry its been so long, peeps. I had court yesterday (ugh) and then today, I had to ride into St. Louis with my Dad. Two and a half hours on the back of his motorcycle? Not overly comfortable, but with my gas hog SUV, it was worth it. Oh! We were coming home, south on I255 and I totally saw a sign that was all like '399 miles to Tulsa' and I was like "Holy crap, lets go see some greasers!" and my Dad was like "What the heck are you talking about?". Hilarious.


To enter life by way of the vagina is as good a way as any.

-Henry Miller


Johnny had been laid up on the Adare's sofa for a week and a half. He had the TV, a mountain of books, and a stack of magazines.

He was bored out of his freaking mind.

Daytime TV scared him. It was too much. When he began learning the names of all the characters on As the World Turns, he decided enough was enough.

"I want off this couch." He told AJ and Ponyboy. They were sitting side by side on the floor, doing homework. AJ looked up at him in surprise. Johnny hardly ever spoke sharply to anyone.

"What do you wanna do?" She asked. He shrugged.

"I dunno…something other than stare at these walls." He told them.

"You could read some more of your book." Pony handed it to him. Johnny sighed and took it. He was about a fourth of the way through AJ's battered copy of The Magician's Nephew. It was pretty good and he liked it so far, but he was just bored.

Unbeknownst to the three of them, their afternoon was about to get a whole lot more exciting.

Johnny was just starting to get into the book when the telephone rang. AJ stood, brushed her skirt off, and went to answer it.

"Hello?"

"AJ?" It was her mother.

"Hi, Mama." She said, leaning against the counter. "What's up?"

"Alice is in labor."

It was then that AJ could hear the excitement in her mother's voice.

"Oh my God, for how long?"

"Well, she just got here, but she said she's been "feeling funny" since about noon. Dr. Holstein let me off my shift early, so I could be with her. You think one of the boys could bring y'all down here?"

"Yeah…yeah, I'll get somebody." AJ reassured her, feeling slightly dazed. "Hey, is it all right if Johnnycakes comes too? He's going stir crazy here."

"Yeah, it's fine." Nora said. "Hurry, all right? Brandon's going crazy in the waiting room and poor Tim isn't much of a help. He just looks lost."

"Yeah, we'll be there soon." She hung up and rushed back into the living room.

"Alice's is having the baby!" She burst out. Both Pony and Johnny looked up at her.

"Right now?" Pony squeaked.

"Yeah, and Mama wants us to head down there and try and keep Brandon calm."

"Me too?" Johnny asked hopefully.

"You too." AJ told him. "I'm gonna call Two-Bit and see if he'll drive us. Pony, can you go drag Amy out of her lair, please?"

"Yeah." He said hopping up, homework forgotten.

In less than ten minutes, the four of them were piling into Two-Bit's car.

"Can we swing by the DX real quick?" Pony asked. "I wanna let Soda know where I am."

"Sure thing, kid." Two-Bit swung a right and headed towards the gas station.

They waited in the car for Pony, who hurried in and then back out.

"Soda and Steve are gonna head down too, after their shift." Pony said, climbing back into the backseat with AJ and Amy.

It didn't take them very long to get to the hospital and up to the maternity ward. Brandon was pacing back and forth, retracing the same steps around and around the room, while Tim was stretched out across three chairs, flipping idly through a past issue of LIFE magazine.

Brandon stopped walking when he saw his sisters-in-law. "They won't let me in with her!" He said. "The nurse said it was inappropriate or some bullshit like that!"

"Bran…you didn't know you weren't allowed in there?" AJ asked quietly. She knew that he and Alice had gone over this already.

"He knows." Tim looked up from his magazine. "God, hospitals give me the creeps, man. I'm just waiting for some dead body to roll by and cough malaria in my face."

"Yeah, because malaria runs rampid in the wilds of Oklahoma." Two-Bit said, plopping down in a chair. Amy snorted and rolled her eyes, pulling out the thick book that she had brought along.

"This is the maternity wing." Pony explained, enunciating each word like he was talking to a preschooler. "They're not gonna be rolling any dead bodies through here."

Tim raised his eyebrows at Pony and went back to the magazine. AJ sat down and picked up one of her own. Brandon continued to pace.

Over the next hour and a half, Jesse showed up, along with Steve and Sodapop.

"I hear someone's having a baby!" Soda all but bounced into the waiting room, still dirty and greasy from work. Steve slouched in after him.

"Oh God," Tim looked at Soda. "Who the hell let Mary Sunshine in here?"

Soda flipped him the finger and dropped into the seat beside AJ. "So, you're about to become an Aunt…you excited?"

AJ nodded. "Yeah…I can't wait."

"Yeah, well, we'll be waiting awhile." Amy spoke up. "It usually takes hours to deliver a baby."

AJ looked over at her. "How do you know?"

Amy shot her older sister a despairing look. "I read, Abigail."

"I read!" AJ defended herself. "And don't call me Abigail!"

"Trashy romances and Seventeen magazine doesn't count as reading." Amy replied, dropping her gaze back to her book.

"Well, I'm sorry not all of us have an IQ of sixty gazillion." AJ muttered. Jesse squeezed her hand.

"I like you just the way you are." He told her and she smiled up at him.

On the other side of the room, Steve made a face. He hadn't even wanted to come, not really, but Soda needed a ride. He liked Alice and Brandon and all, but he didn't want to spend his evening sitting in the waiting room watching AJ and Jesse make googly eyes at one another. Gross.

Amy was right; they sat there for a long time. After awhile, Tim stood up.

"I'm going to the cafeteria; I gotta eat something." He said.

His eyes raked over the room. Steve was dozing in his seat; Brandon was back to pacing; Johnny and Ponyboy were playing hangman; Soda was flipping through a children's Bible book; Amy was still reading her own book; Two-Bit was trying to crave his name in the wooden arm of a chair; and AJ and Jesse were talking quietly.

"Anyone wanna go with me?" He asked.

"We will." Jesse stood up and pulled AJ to her feet. She looked uncertain.

"I don't know, maybe I should stay here-." She started.

"It'll be fine." Jesse cut her off with a wave of his hand. "Come on."

Soda listened to the exchange quietly. It was weird, he thought, he had never noticed how pushy Jesse Danvers was. He sat back in his seat, silently vowing to keep an eye on this.