Sorry guys, I should have known life would get in the way again but hey it wasn't a terrible long wait this time! One more chapter after this one guys, thanks for sticking with it!

Chapter 21

It wasn't long before it got around school. Ally, being as skinny as she was, started showing obviously only a month or so into the pregnancy and all it took were a few prying eyes in the locker rooms before gym before rumours started flying and before she knew it, she was being called into the nurse's office. A few awkward questions and twice as many useless leaflets later, she was allowed to leave to go to her English class. Austin was always around when she needed him, which she was grateful for because her hormonal imbalances were making her a moody bitch sometimes and she was surprised he didn't walk out on her sometimes. But he put up with everything. (And he was greatly rewarded, because the hormones made her ridiculously horny sometimes.)

Trish and Cassidy were usually around too, (one or the other; the two hadn't taken a liking to each other at all, and considering their similar argumentative personalities it was best for everyone to keep them as far apart as possible), for which Ally was incredibly grateful. Austin was always reluctant to leave her side, even for only a few hours, due to his ridiculous overprotectiveness.

Despite all this support, however, when Ally finally reached the nine month mark all she wanted was to get the damn thing out of her. She'd taken a maternity leave of sorts from school and Austin had been skipping most days and she was sick of yelling at him and she missed the normality and routine of going to Miami High every day and she just wanted things to go back to normal.

She was almost a week past the due date when she finally went into labour. She was with Austin at the time (for which she thanked the Lord because if he hadn't been there his head would probably have exploded) and despite all the articles he had read, he panicked. Just as she expected.

"Ally, shit, help. I don't know. Um, do I call 911?" he stared at her, eyes wide, as she moaned in pain and slid her feet into her shoes. "Where the fuck is your mom?"

She rolled her eyes, slapping his arm hard. "Calm the fuck down, Moon. She's at the store. Call her, then call my dad, then get me to the fucking hospital." She instructed him. He nodded obediently and did as she said.

They got to the hospital only minutes before her mother, her father not long behind. Trish and Cassidy arrived a little while later, after receiving texts from Andrea, and waited anxiously.

"Austin Monica Moon, you are the worst person in the whole entire world and I hate you."

These were the words Austin was greeted with as he walked through the doors into the room where his girlfriend was currently lying on a hospital bed in agony. He'd had to put on the gown and gloves and had almost yelled at the ditzy assistant who seemed incapable of finding a pair without a hole in. Needless to say, he was feeling pretty impatient and certainly wasn't expecting the onslaught, wincing at the insults, but he knew that it was the pain talking.

"I'm sorry Ally. You're doing great. Come on, deep breaths." He told her reassuringly as he stood beside her and took her hand. She glared at him angrily but didn't pull her hand away.

The labour was surprisingly short and Ally only told Austin she hated him three times, so he took that as a win. Her hand remained tightly enclosed in his the whole time, so much so that it took a few tries to pull them apart when the midwife tried to hand her the baby.

They'd decided only a couple of weeks ago that they were keeping her. After many long discussions with Ally's parents they'd formed the beginnings of a plan to keep the baby and also continue their education. But now, feeling the soft, warm body in her arms, Ally couldn't help but feel relieved they hadn't chosen to adopt. She would have hated to see the look of devastation in the couple's eyes when she told them she couldn't give up her baby. Because, really, there was no chance. Austin felt exactly the same way.

They both smiled down at the little girl in Ally's arms lovingly. Their eyes met and suddenly they were both crying, and Austin leant in to kiss her. It was sloppy and awkward and the baby was crying but somehow it was perfect.

It was their first kiss as parents.

…

Cassidy and Trish fell in love straight away and Ally basically had to fight them to get her daughter back. She was relieved, however, to see that they'd finally found something in common and bonded somewhat while waiting for Ally to give birth, and the two seemed almost friendly as they doted on the little girl.

Her parents were incredibly teary and happy and Ally would have been embarrassed if she hadn't been exactly the same. Andrea said she was mostly crying because she felt old, looking at her first granddaughter, but Ally knew it was tears of happiness. Lester couldn't speak, and when he finally managed to collect himself, Ally handed him the baby and one look had him in floods again.

An hour or so of passing the baby around and commenting on how beautiful she was and how much she looked like her parents later and it was Andrea who finally voiced what everyone was thinking.

"So what are you going to call her, baby?" she asked, smiling at Ally. Ally glanced fondly at Austin, who was currently holding the little girl and beaming down at her and seemingly unaware that there was anyone else in the room, and smiled.

"Well, we haven't talked much about it. But we did agree that if it was a boy I would name it, and if it was a girl, Austin would." She reached over to poke him in the side, breaking him out of his reverie.

"What's up?" he asked her, still smiling.

"What do you want to name her?"

"Oh." He frowned, looking almost torn. "Well, actually…there's something I kind of need to tell you. Um…can we have a little time alone, please?" he asked the others in the room, who were quick to oblige.

Once they'd gone, Austin passed the baby to Ally and took a seat on the side of the bed.

"Okay, so…as you know, there's things I haven't really told you about my family." He started. She looked concerned.

"I know, Austin, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I don't mind."

"No, I need to. It's just…I don't want you to judge me."

"Austin, please. I would never-"

"You can say that all you want. But especially once you got pregnant; it's scared me more than anything. So please, just…don't be angry I haven't told you before, but don't make any promises not to judge me. Because even if you don't want to…you still might." He looked pained and all she wanted was to kiss him. She wasn't even sure that she wanted to hear this anymore.

"Okay. Please, Austin. You can trust me."

"I know. Okay. So, it started when my mom was sixteen. She met my father through a friend, Frankie. Frankie was involved with some bad people, nothing like my mom at all, but they'd known each other all their lives so were close. My dad…he was almost twenty seven. Ten years older than her. But she was young and naïve and when he came onto her, she thought she meant something to her. She fell in love with him, and before she knew it she was pregnant and he was gone." His jaw was clenched and ally could see hate in his eyes. She bit her lip, reaching out to take his hand.

"So that's why you were scared? You thought that because he left your mom, I would expect you to leave me?" she asked, voice soft. He nodded, tearing up a little, and she sighed. "Austin, you're still here. That's all I need to know that you're nothing like your father. Nothing. You didn't need to be so afraid."

"No, wait. There's…there's more." He sighed. She shuffled closer to him, shifting the baby from one arm to the other so she could take his hand comfortingly.

"What is it?"

"My mom was pregnant with twins." He breathed out, wincing as if he expected her to hit him, or yell at him. Instead she just stared at him, shocked.

"You mean…you have a twin?" she asked, shocked. He nodded, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

"Yeah. Well, no. I mean…she died. A few years ago." He told her. Ally gasped, tears falling from her own eyes. She tried not to, honestly she did, but she couldn't help but feel hurt that he'd never told her this before.

"I'm so sorry. What…what happened?"

"She was born with autism, really bad. She's been home-schooled all her life because mom never wanted to put her into a public school. And I guess I never really understood until I was too old to change it, but…she was always a secret. We never took her out anywhere; well, we didn't leave her behind. We just never went anywhere. Mom always told me not to talk about her, and if I ever did mention her in kindergarten and a teacher asked her, she'd tell them I had an imaginary friend. It wasn't until I started middle school that I really sort of realised that it was weird to keep her a secret; and then eventually I realised how wrong it was. But by then I could also see how much it tore my mom apart, every time my sister went into a frenzy and she had to deal with it. It was hard; really hard. But we managed." He sighed, leaning into Ally's touch as she rubbed his shoulder.

"So what happened?" she whispered, careful not to wake the baby. He frowned, looking absolutely heartbroken.

"I had a fight with my mom. A really big fight. And me and my mom never fought, ever. I was yelling and slamming doors and I guess it must have all gotten too much for my sister and…and she ran out. We didn't realise until my mom finally managed to calm me down an hour later and we couldn't hear any noise from her room." he screwed his face up and Ally had never felt so terrible.

"Where did she go?" she managed to choke out. He gulped, resting his head in his hands. "Don't tell me if it hurts too much."

"No, you should…you deserve to know." He insisted, taking a deep breath and composing himself a little. "She got into someone's garden. And they…they had a pool." Ally gasped, already knowing what was coming next. "Obviously, she couldn't swim. She'd never been in water deeper than the bathtub."

"I'm so sorry Austin." Ally breathed when he trailed off, crying too much to continue. He nodded, still unable to speak, and after a few moments of silence he held out his hands for the baby, and Ally gladly handed her over. He lifted her up and looked at her face, smiling through his tears.

"My sister was called Katie." He said softly, and Ally nodded, beaming. "She looks like a Katie, don't you think?"

"Yes. Yes, she definitely looks like a Katie."

"Katie it is then." He smiled and kissed Katie on the nose gently. Ally smiled and leant her head on his shoulder.

"Our little Katie."

…

Everyone else loved the name, and already the little girl had everyone wrapped around her little finger. As soon as she opened her mouth to cry there were four people around the cot, holding dummies, bottles, teddies, whatever the little girl could possibly want.

Ally went back to school almost straight away, only taking a couple of days to recover and bond with her baby. Lester drove the two of them to the school, Austin in the front, leaving Ally in the back with Katie.

They pulled into the parking lot and almost as soon as Austin was out of the car, he was surrounded by people, all eager to get a glimpse of the baby. They were shocked; they'd expected ridicule, even disgust. Sure, nobody had been particularly bothered before, but she figured maybe they were saving it until she'd had the baby. But no; everyone still apparently regarded Ally Dawson as the popular girl, even more so now that she had an adorable little girl for everyone to dote on.

Austin ducked into the back seat to ask Ally if she wanted to introduce Katie. She seemed happy enough, so Ally nodded, on the condition that she went back inside as soon as she started crying.

All the girls crowded around, in awe, and Ally was worried Katie might be scared with all the faces and voice cooing over her. But the child seemed to love the attention, laughing loudly and not even protesting when Ally handed her over to Lydia, (she'd been one of Ally's closest friends before summer and one of the few she'd still spoken to on a fairly regular basis).

Everyone seemed to fall in love with Katie. Even Principal Feather, who had wandered over to see what all the commotion was about, asked for a turn holding the baby. (She quickly followed up with a stern 'I don't approve of you two being parents at your young age, of course, but I have to admit, she's a beauty.')

Eventually the bell rang signalling the beginning of school and the crowd dispersed. Ally moved the car seat into the front and strapped the half-asleep Katie, (apparently being doted on is tiring for someone only a few days old), into the seat and kissed her, and then Lester, goodbye.

When Austin and Ally got to homeroom they were almost ten minutes late, but the reproachful look on Miss Denver's face was simply because she hadn't had the chance to meet Katie.

They didn't get a lot of learning done that day, due to the fact that most of the teachers spent most of the lessons asking about the baby and looking at pictures. Ally didn't mind at all, sure that she would never get tired of talking about the most important person in her life, but by lunchtime Austin was getting impatient.

"Why can't people just mind their own business? I mean it's not like everything we've said about Kate today isn't already spreading like wildfire. If things carry on like this the entire school will know our baby better than we do." He huffed.

Ally just rolled her eyes and offered him a bite of her pizza.

Thank you all so much for reading, please let me know what you thought I'm a review!

Song of the chapter: Made in the USA by Demi Lovato

Perfect song, just about love and it's so cute you should listen :)