Alright, this one and the one right before it are a bit like two mini-chapters, they go together.
"Joey, I'm sorry." He knocked on her door for the umpteenth time, listening to the rustles inside. Finally, he heard footsteps.
"She's not here, asshole." It was Reid, hair tousled. Pogue saw Cameron behind him, topless. He repressed a shudder. "You must've fucked up pretty bad though," he sounded almost amused.
"Fuck you, Reid- where is she?" He ran a hand through his hair. Sighed.
"Try Sarah's." The door shut in his face, the last thing he saw a long and pale hand, pointing left. Pogue heard giggling coming from Jordan's room and grimaced, walking quickly in the direction Reid had pointed. He knocked on the door of the leftmost room in the hall, and Joey answered. When she saw him, she moved to shut the door but he'd stepped a foot into the threshold, blocking it.
"I'll wait," he said quietly and after staring hard at him for long moments, she dropped her hand and turned away from him, receding into the room- the most of an invitation he'd get. She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling without motioning for him to sit. He stood next to her instead, and began to talk. "Joey. I am so, so sorry. Really. I never meant to hut you, or lie to you, but it was years ago, and I was stupid and angry then and I didn't give a fuck about anything, except for Caleb and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. And you. Mostly you. I love you. I want to love you forever. It's cheesy, whatever, I know, but I do. I want to love you forever." Her gaze didn't move, but a muscle in her jaw jumped. Sarah emerged from the bathroom just then, about to leave for Nicky's.
"Give us a sec, will you?" She said to the long-haired boy. He gladly went outside.
"Jordan Leigh Cahill. What are you doing? Are you seriously telling me you are gonna sit there and let the person who loves you most in the world walk away? Kate used to tell me about him, about the way he used to be when we were friends. He is so, so different now, and it's you, Joe. You did it. Don't fuck it up." She left then, and Joey tilted her head up to catch the last scent of her perfume. Pogue came in maybe a minute later, and sat on Sarah's bed.
"I'm sorry." She still didn't respond. They sat like that, frozen in silence for long minutes before he stood, abruptly, and left. "Bye, Joey." She rolled onto her side, and then her stomach. Her face was pained, warring thoughts nearly visible in her eyes.
She sat up so quickly that she was dizzy, for a second. "Fuck it." She tore out of the room and down the hall, though he wasn't there.
"Pogue!" Her voice echoed down the hollow stairway, and she descended the steps two at a time, halting on the step above him. She met his eyes bravely, slightly lower than her own gaze. "I'm sorry." Her voice was soft, and warm. "I suck, I'm sorry. I love you?" She said it like a question, a question he gladly answered with his own lips, tipped up to meet hers above him.
It was like stars fell out of her mouth, like she held the stars inside, crumbled and brilliant as her mouth left a trail shimmering and damp along his hipbone in the room where the moon in the window was the only light. Later, as she lay in the crook of his arm, she tipped her chin up to meet his eyes.
"I'm keeping it. I don't care. I'm not throwing away my future, or any of that bullshit. I don't care what happens." He only tightened his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him.
"I know."
"Do you? Do you really know?" Her face was serious. "Because I don't want you to pretend you want this when you don't. It's okay if you want to go." The look in his eyes was hurt, and incredulous.
"Why would you ever think I don't want this?"
"Because you should grow up, and go to college, and travel, and-"
"Joey. Stop. Please. I don't want that. I want you."
"Yeah, but it's not just me. I'm two and a half months pregnant, if I'm not mistaken." He thought for a second. Oh. Oh- yeah.
"I really do. Stop being stupid. Of course I do. You know, it might be a good thing if you don't go to college, because if you can't figure out that I'm not going anywhere than you have some serious problems." She elbowed him lightly, and he chuckled. She could hear the vibrations in his chest. "How long have you known?" She sighed.
"Since yesterday. But, uh, I'm about two and a half months late. I thought it was because I was running so much, but apparently not." He liked the arch tone in her voice. It was the old Joey.
"Have you seen a doctor? You stopped smoking, right? And you can't drink, you know, or have coffee, or-" She laughed a sweet, lilting laugh and he stopped.
"Whoa there, Mr. Pregnant. No, I haven't gone to a doctor, yes for all the others. What, have you been reading Babies for Dummies again?" She teased him, and he scratched the back of his neck, uncomfortable.
There were millions of questions he wanted to ask her, but as she rolled against him and he spread a hand over her stomach, he kept his mouth closed.
"We can call a doctor tomorrow, how's that?" Her voice was sleepy, soft and hypnotic. "Okay?"
"Okay," he said. It was all he needed to say. Sarah didn't come back that night, but it was perfectly fine with them.
"Ms. Cahill? Um, Jordan Cahill?" A frazzled-looking woman in a white coat and rectangle glasses called across the sterilized waiting room. Jordan tightened her hold on Pogue's hand for a moment before releasing it as she stood.
"Do you want me to come in?" Pogue whispered, but she shook her head.
"Not for this part." As she walked away, he found himself feeling pathetically anxious.
"Erm, Pog? Pog Parry?" The frazzled-looking nurse called about twenty hand-twisting minutes later, ducking her head into the waiting room.
"Yeah, it's Pogue." He rose, and put the Highlights back on the stand.
"Pogue- you can go on back now, meet your girlfriend." Pogue followed her directions through the too-white halls to the door frazzle-woman had said Jordan was behind. Jordan.
"About three months, I think." She was saying to Dr. Lind. She was beginning to show, now, though invisible under her sweatshirts, her stomach slightly convex. There was something different about her, something almost tangible. Pogue wondered if he could touch it, the mysterious something. He figured it would smell sweet, like lilies. Her hair was beginning to wave more- it's natural, he told her when he was being Mr. Baby on the internet- and it created something like a halo around her, the golden strands trapping light, illuminating her gold skin and her dark eyes. He hoped that the baby would have that crooked tooth, and those black eyes that didn't just absorb light but reflected them. He hoped it had the beautiful skin and her unusual hair, the features that got her stopped on the street, telling her to model or date them or whatever. He hoped the baby was good and true and beautiful in it's eyes like Joey was, the kind of beautiful that made you realize it was on the inside.
Dr. Lind talked and talked and Jordan faked it and nodded and nodded, but she knew he was listening for her. He always was. They got to listen together to the baby's heartbeat for the first time small and fast and she almost thought she couldn't remember how to smile, because she didn't realize she already was. Her eyes were wide and his too and they look at each other, kind of, and they wondered what color it's eyes would be. She talked more, and they made another appointment, and Joey wrung her hands as they walked through the parking lot. They walked to the fixed Buick and he went opened the passenger's side door for her, and bowed, like a chauffer.
"I'm kind of freaking out a little bit and I want a cigarette so fucking bad. Kiss me?" Doctors always made her want cigarettes, a protest against health, maybe, and Pogue was happy to oblige. He closed the door and pushed her against it real quick, and she lost her balance but didn't worry because he'd be there to catch her. She thought that she'd never felt so beautiful as with his tongue in his mouth and his hand on her stomach. Dr. Lind looked out of her second story office window, and she saw the two so young and beautiful and love and she smiled for a second, before she caught herself and shook her head. Kids.