A/N: This is a pretty short chapter. I'm trying to get back into the swing of writing, and I figured this chapter had taken long enough. Thanks to anyone still with me after my extremely long hiatus.

"So, are you knocked up or what?"

Joanie's question takes me by surprise. "I beg your pardon?" I ask frostily, trying to myself some time.

She wrings out the rag she's using to wipe down the bar. "Knocked up. You know, pregnant. Bun in the oven."

"Of course not, not that it's any of your business."

"Well don't get upset." How she manages to sound so innocent and shocked is beyond me, and yet her tone implies that somehow it's completely unreasonable for me to be insulted by her impertinence. "It's just what people are saying. You missed a spot, by the way, over by the door."

I take my time, both in finding the spot she's talking about with my broom and in responding. "Who is saying I'm pregnant?"

"Everyone." Joanie giggles. "They're saying you're knocked up but Darry won't marry you 'cause he doesn't think the baby is his. He's just letting you live with him 'cause if he doesn't you'll have your lawyer daddy make all sorts of trouble for him."

For a moment I almost admire the me that's been conjured up by the gossip of crowds, a far more devious and diabolical girl by far. But then I have to laugh. "Don't you think if I were the kind of girl who would blackmail Darry into letting me live with him, I'd manage to blackmail him into a wedding ring while I was at it?"

Joanie frowns. "Well, that's just what I heard. If you say it isn't true…" she trails off, smiling at me in a way that lets me know she doesn't believe me.

"What happened to the baby's real father?" I ask, curious despite myself. "I mean, did he die? Is he married? Did he join the army?"

Joanie looks momentarily thrown by my question, but she recovers herself quickly. I guess a few years of spinning bullshit about the inspiration behind her mediocre paintings has taught her well. "Oh, well, I heard he couldn't marry you because you're Jewish-"

"That's convenient."

"-and that when you told him you were pregnant he accused you of trying to trap him and beat the tar out of you." Joanie pauses for maximum drama. "And you ran here to spin your sob story for Darrel."

"Sob story? I thought I was blackmailing him!"

Somebody slams a glass down on the bar top. "It isn't funny!" Nancy Jenkins cries. She looks close to tears, but then she always does when forced to work with me. "You're awful! And you're ruining his life!"

"I'm not really pregnant," I say gently. I feel sorry for Nancy, mostly. "It's all rumors spread by people with too much time on their hands."

Joanie flushes. "I heard it from a very reliable source!"

"Clearly not, because it's all made up!"

Our boss, Charlie, pokes his head out of the back room. "Everything okay out here?"

The three of us fall silent. It's up to me to give a very halfhearted "yes" when neither Nancy nor Joanie bother to answer. Charlie is clearly unconvinced, but he's too uninterested in our lives to care. He knows our names and availability, and that's the extent of his involvement in our lives; those were his exact words when he hired me.

"Finish cleaning up," Charlie orders. "And then get out of here. I don't want to hear your little girl dramas, got it?"

We all nod. Charlie is a pretty good boss most days, he isn't handsy and manages to keep the rather rough clientele in line. It's made for a nice change and I don't want to lose the job.

And for the first time ever, I can't lose this job. I thought I knew what living independently meant, but my mother was right that day when she told me I didn't know the first thing about being poor; it's a struggle, a struggle I never understood until recently.

"Charlie!" It's Joanie, of course, and her syrupy sweet voice she uses for starting trouble. "I don't think Diana should be sweeping up the floor in her… condition."

Charlie's eyes flick to me, confused. "What condition is she in that she can't sweep the floor?"

"I'm mildly irritated," I volunteer. "It makes me drowsy."

Charlie pinches the bridge of his nose. It's funny, my dad used to the same thing. "Just finish cleaning up. Whatever is going on here, take care of it after work. When I'm paying you, you get along. Got it?"

We all three nod once more, and Charlie disappears into the stockroom once more.

"I'm not pregnant," I tell both Joanie and Nancy loud enough for them to hear, but quiet enough that Charlie doesn't come storming back out. "I'm not."

Nancy hates me, and I can't blame her for it. If my only way to climb out of poverty was to find a man I'd throw myself at Darry too; anyone with half a brain knows he's going to go places despite the temporary setback he's received.

Joanie though… I don't know what I ever did to her.

"You still seeing that cowboy?" I ask. "The one with the golden eyes?"

Her eyes burn and she doesn't answer. I guess that's answer enough. I finish sweeping and hang up my apron.

On my way out the door I hear Joanie's voice again, pretending to whisper to Nancy but loud enough for me to hear, "I bet she has an abortion."

Darry waits for me in the parking lot, dozing off in the front seat of his truck. He jumps when I open the door, blinking a few times in confusion. "You 'Kay?" He asks me, voice thick with fatigue.

"Oh, you know, just winning hearts and minds wherever I go." People used to like me, at least I think they did. I don't know when it all started going downhill. "I made five bucks in tips."

"Oh. Great." Discomfort oozes out of his every pore. Shame, pride, I don't know. But he takes the bills and coins from me and shoves them deep into his pocket like they'll burn him if he holds on to them for too long.

"By the way," I say as he starts the truck. "I'm pregnant."

"Uh, what?"

"Don't worry. It isn't yours."

"What do you mean it isn't mine?" He sounds more confused than angry.

"It's what people are saying. Cal knocked me up and pawned me off on you. Or maybe I'm blackmailing you. I don't know. I lost track." I rub my forehead. "My head hurts."

"I have to stop by the store and get some aspirin. So you aren't pregnant?"

"You of all people should know I'm not," I point out. "We haven't done it in ages."

"Yeah." The wistfulness in his voice is unmistakable. "I should've figured people would talk, I guess. Hell, I'd probably think it too."

"So would I," honesty compels me to admit. The things I've said about other girls… suddenly uncomfortable, I quickly change the subject. "How was work?"

He perks up just a bit. He's got a new gig now, working for his construction company balancing the books. He'd never complain, but I know he likes having a job where he can use his brain. "Good."

"Have you been home yet?"

It's the wrong question. I know that as soon as his jaw tightens. "No."

"Darry-"

"Don't, Diana. Just… don't."

I hesitate. Self-interest should compel me towards silence, seeing as how I'm all out of places to run to, but that's not in my nature. "But, Darry-"

He groans. "I know. I know. I shouldn't have blown up this morning. I'll apologize later, okay?"

"This morning, yesterday night, the day before yesterday-"

He stiffens. "What're you trying to say?"

"Maybe you ought to stop yelling at him and just listen once in a while."

I guess we've come a long way in our relationship: he doesn't cover my mouth with his hand and tell me to shut up. Maybe he'd like to, I don't know, but the main thing is that he doesn't.

"I know," he admits. "I do try, Diana-"

"I know you do!"

"-but everything just comes out wrong-"

"I know," I assure him. "I know."

And the thing is, he isn't wrong. Darry and his youngest brother are just too much alike for their own good: Smart, stubborn, and absolutely unable to see things from anyone's viewpoint but their own. Darry, however, is twenty years old. I expect more from him.

"Soda thinks we ought to take him to a doctor. A shrink or something."

"Oh?"

"Even if I wanted to, we don't have the dough for that kind of sh-stuff."

"Sure you do," I remind him. "The money that was donated to the paper."

After the story about the hoods turned heroes ran, and Darry and Soda's story too, a bunch of readers donated a lot money for Pony and Johnny. Darry hadn't wanted to accept it, but he hadn't wanted Johnny's folks to get all the money either.

"I thought I'd use that for college. His college," he specifies, like there was ever any doubt.

"Well he isn't going to get there if he doesn't figure things out now."

Darry swallows, hard. "Yeah," he admits, and I know how hard it is for him to do that. He clears his throat. "D'you need anything from the drugstore?"

I shake my head as he pulls into the parking lot of the only drugstore in Tulsa still open this time of night.

"I guess it's too late to offer you a box of condoms." He says this with a straight face. "Since you're already pregnant and all."

"Ha. Ha." I roll my eyes. "Nancy says hi, by the way. She thinks I'm ruining your life."

"Who's Nancy?"

"Nancy Jenkins," I remind him. "Your good friend Amos's sister."

"Doesn't ring a bell," he claims. He opens the door and hops out. "Lock the doors, okay? I'll be right back."

He disappears before I can call him on the rather obvious lie.

It takes him a long time, longer than it should to just run in and grab some aspirin. I settle back into the seat of his truck, head against the window. I like working at the bar, I really do, but it's hard work and keeps me out so late… of course it keeps Darry out late too, because he insists on picking me up after my shifts end. I ought to find something with normal hours, I think, my eyes closing. If only the money weren't so good.

"Didn't I tell you to lock the doors?"

"Sorry." I yawn. "Pregnant women are very forgetful."

It's his turn to roll his eyes at me. "Here," he says, thrusting a paper bag at me. "I got you something."

I have the good sense not to ask if we can afford that or not. "It better not be a pack of condoms," I warn. I peer into the little bag. "A book?"

He grins. "It gets better."

"Project Sweetheart," I read. "A romance novel? But you've always said they'd rot my brain!"

There's a slight tinge of pink to his cheeks, just like there always is whenever he does anything that might be taken as a romantic gesture, and he busies himself with backing his truck out of the parking lot. "Yeah, well… I was a jerk in high school, okay? I'd rather you just be you, and you like romance novels. Besides, the guy on the front is wearing a hard hat, so it can't be but so bad."

The guy on the front is indeed wearing a hard hat, I notice, and the entire novel seems to take place at a construction site. I scan the back. "Yeah, but Darry, I think the guy in the hard hat runs the company."

"Well, shoot," he says, sounding every inch like the arrogant jerk he swears he isn't anymore. "Maybe one day I will too."

It isn't lost on me that with Paul Holden on his way to Vietnam and Dallas Winston six feet under that my relationship with Darry has substantially improved.

I wake up the next morning, a Sunday morning, hugging the edge of the bed and feeling guilty as hell. If Dally were still alive, me staying here would be almost unthinkable. If Paul were here, well, I don't know.

I never thought I wouldn't get to say goodbye.

I reach my hand under the bed, groping around blindly until I touch the soft fur of my stuffed rabbit Ferdinand. I'd like nothing more than to pull him out and into bed with me, but as a nineteen year old college dropout living with her boyfriend out of wedlock, I'm much too mature for that now. So I just hover on the edge of the bed and stroke his fur, all the while wondering how Darry and I are going to have a lasting relationship if the merest hint of external pressure can make or break us.

Darry shifts suddenly, and I almost fall off the bed. It's only Darry catching me by the back of my shirt that prevents me from hitting the floor.

"Whoa," he says. "You okay?"

I nod, heart pounding at my close call. "Yeah."

"What're you even doin'?" He asks. He pulls me closer. "Crazy."

I shrug, unwilling to tell him about Ferdinand. Which is silly, really, because Darry knows he's here. Darry's the one who grabbed him during that uncomfortable visit I'd made to my house, tossing him into the box I was throwing clothes in while my dad stomped around making threatening noises and my mother cried noisily from the bedroom.

"I was just thinking."

"About?"

"Nothing." I bury my head into his chest. "Nothing at all."

"Is there something wrong?" I feel him tense against me, and his arms tighten around my body. "You're happy here, aren't you?"

"I… I don't know. I'm not unhappy. It's just, things are happening so fast. A year ago we weren't even dating, and now we're living together-"

"D'you want to leave?"

"And go where?"

"Well, I don't want you with me because you've got absolutely nowhere else to go." He tries to make it sound as neutral as he can, but the bitterness seeps through.

"That's not why I'm with you," I remind him, kissing his neck. "Don't be like that. You know what I'm trying to say. I know you do."

He lies still, letting me kiss along his neck and then his jawline, speaking only when I pull away. "Yeah. I know," he admits. "A year ago…"

He trails off, likely remembering that a year ago his own life looked radically different.

I kiss him. It's the only thing I can think to do. I kiss him. Before I know it, he's kissing me back, and then his hands are under my shirt and everything else seems so unimportant.

"It hasn't been six months yet," he reminds me, panting, as he works my shorts off.

I twist, letting him pull my little shorts off. "It was never about the time limit, idiot."

We cuddle afterwards, breakfast forgotten, both of us just wanting to enjoy the moment. Neither one of his brothers bother us, either enjoying the first argument free morning in ages or because they know what just happened. Since the idea that they might know embarasses me, I pretend that it's because they're just enjoying the morning.

Maybe he'll be in a better mood now, I think, giggling into my hand.

Darry raises an eyebrow at the sound of my suppressed laughter. Looking over the cover of Project Sweetheart, he fixes me with a stern look. "I really don't think you're taking this seriously, Diana. Are you even listening?"

"Of course I am." I giggle again. "Of course."

Darry opens his mouth to start reading from the romance novel again, but before he can get started a knock interrupts him. "Darry?" I hear Ponyboy call.

And just like that, it's over. Darry's face ages ten years as it takes on the worried, pinched look I've become so used to. He shuts the novel. "What?"

"There's a social worker here."

"On a Sunday?" Forget worry, now Darry just looks scared. He looks at me as he throws his clothes on in record time.

"I'll put some clothes on," I promise his back as he shuts the door firmly behind him. "And pretend I don't live here."

No one has thought to bring it to the attention of the State that I'm living in sin with my boyfriend. And who would?

You've got your lawyer daddy making all sorts of trouble… Joanie's voice echoes in my head. My dad… but surely he wouldn't…

When Darry comes back into the room, I'm making the bed with trembling hands. "Is it my fault they're here?" I ask, sick to my stomach with fear. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry-"

Darry holds up a hand to stop me. "It wasn't a social worker," he says flatly.

I'm confused. "Then who-"

"Diana…." He licks his lips, looking just as sick as I feel. "Diana, it's your mother."