A/N: I don't own it, any we all know that. This is the final chapter of Unexpected, but there is an epilogue on its way. Thanks to everyone who either read or reviewed. I really appreciate it.

Chapter Seven

Grace had been living with the Girardi family for a week now. Luke wasn't at all sure how he felt about Grace living there. On one hand he was ecstatic, as he could see her whenever he wanted. All he had to do was go into the next-door room and she was there. To be fair she usually kicked him right out again because he was bugging her, but he knew where she was and that she and the baby were safe.

But on the other hand all of this terrified him. He felt a little like they were married. His parents insisted that he practically wait on her hand and foot, and he couldn't ever get away from her. And to tell the truth, all Luke wanted to do at the moment was escape. He had to see Grace all the time, and at home she just wore t-shirts and jeans. This meant that her stomach was constantly on display, constantly reminding Luke of his future and new responsibilities. This scared the crap out of Luke and for once he wanted to be able to forget that his whole life was changed.

He was sitting in AP Biology, taking notes on what the teacher was saying and worrying, when a spitball hit the back of his neck. He didn't even need to look round to know who had launched it. That was the one good thing about the last week; touchy-feely Grace had disappeared, and had been replaced with the bitchy, sarcastic, 'anti' Grace that Luke had fallen in love with.

When the class was finally over, Luke didn't move. He just looked through his notes one last time, and methodically packed his book bag. He wasn't exactly trying to avoid Grace, but he did just want some time to himself. Not that that was possible in school.

"Mr. Girardi, just the man I wanted to see." The teacher came over and stood by Luke. "I'm very interested in your science fair project. I'm sure that it will come up to your usual standard, well, your usual standard excluding the destruction of all the other projects." Luke blushed. "And I though I would give you that little extra incentive by telling you that the local admissions officer from MIT will be here for the fair. I've spoken to him in particular about you, so I though I'd warn you. Good luck then."

With that, the teacher swept out of the room, leaving Luke to his thoughts.

"Great, just great," Luke muttered to himself. "It's not like I'll even get a chance to go to MIT now." The Luke decided to do a very un-Luke-like thing and ditch for the rest of the day. He headed out through the back of the school, and walked off to the city library.

The science section there was deserted, but Luke still chose to sit on the floor, in the stacks, rather than sit at one of the tables. This was one of the only places Luke had found that he could really think; now his home had been invaded. He tried not to feel bitter, but it wasn't working at all. The frustration just kept building and building. Yes, he loved Grace, and yes he wanted this child. He just wanted a life too, and he could see that wasn't going to happen. He'd probably end up as a mechanic or something, not a scientist, and the $30 000 scholarship he already had to MIT from the Tri-Mathalon was useless. Everything he'd ever worked for was slipping away. It wasn't like he could do anything about it though, so he did what he always did. He went back to work.

He pulled the file with all his notes for the ultrasound scanner from his book bag and set them on the floor. He also grabbed a couple of books he'd been using from the library's shelves. He worked solidly for a couple of hours, refining the design and making notes on the operational uses. He used up the couple of spare sheets of paper he kept in the file, and had to dig around in his bag for some more. He pulled out his homework planner, and with it came one of the sonogram pictures from the last checkup. He just stared at it, and traced around the outline of the child. This was his life, he realized. It wasn't exactly what he planned, but it was what he had.

Joan had study hall last period and wasn't exactly thrilled about it. She had to sit behind a group of jocks, who never stopped talking and made it impossible to work. That meant Joan usually sat and daydreamed, but today she actually had to get some work done. So Joan decided to play the rebel and ditch last period. She headed home and found Grace already there on the couch, watching TV.

"Hey." Grace looked at Joan and did kind of a sarcastic half-wave. "Don't you have class?"

"Study hall. You?"

"Phys. Ed. Didn't want to sit and watch. You realize your Mom's going to throw a tantrum tonight, right?"

"Um, why? It's not like I haven't ditched study hall before."

"Yeah, but this time all three teenagers living under her roof ditched on the same afternoon."

"Luke ditched class!"

"Yeah, I know. I wanted to talk to the geek but I couldn't find him at lunch. Friedman told me he ditched right after Bio."

"God, that is so not like him, and also, ew. You talked to Friedman voluntarily?"

"I felt dirty afterwards." Grace paused. "Is your brother avoiding me?"

"Not that I noticed. He's just acting like his usual freak self. And what's with the whole angst, insecurity thing. Please don't tell me the pod person is back."

"Hey," Grace sat up and hurled a pillow from the couch at Joan. "Not funny, ok! It's driving me nuts. One minute I'm fine, the next I'm feeling all depressed and angsty. It's not fun, at all. And it's supposed to get worse."

"Well it's kind of ironic that your hormones are messing with you, seeing as it was 'hormones' that got you in this mess in the first place."

"Ok, first, was that supposed to be a joke? Sorry, but not funny. And secondly, like you can talk. Don't think I don't know what's happening when you're at Adam's house a couple of times a week 'doing homework.' I didn't know AP Biology was anatomy based."

Joan blushed bright red. "Uhh, umm."

"You're just lucky your dad hasn't figured out Mr. Rove is working nights at the moment."

"God, you're right. I think Mom knows though. Right after new years she gave me another one of the horribly embarrassing birth control talks. And the whole 'how relationships change after sex' talk. It was so bad."

"You're lucky. At least you got those talks from you mom. I got them from my dad, along with the 'sex before marriage is specifically against our religion, but you're so determined to rebel you're going to do it anyway and you'll be pregnant and alone by the time you graduate high school' talk. And I can't even do the indignant thing, because... Well look at me."

Joan couldn't help it, she started to laugh. Grace glared at her.

"I'm sorry, it's just that you look so..." Joan trailed off and stopped laughing as Grace bent over suddenly and clutched at her stomach.

"Oh, God, Grace! Is something wrong? Are you ok? Is it the baby?"

She looked at Grace, and saw that her friend had started to laugh.

"Oh, wow, that is so odd!" she half giggled in a totally un-Grace-like manner.

"What is it?" Joan looked at her friend like she was insane, which honestly, was quite possible.

"It's moving. I can feel the baby moving about. It's kind of like butterflies."

"Oh, wow!" Joan reached out to touch Grace's stomach.

"What the hell do you think you're doing Girardi?"

"Chill Grace. That's my niece or nephew in there."

"In there is right. Have you not heard of personal space?"

"You lost all rights to that when you did something as gross as sleeping with my little brother."

"It wasn't gross at all. It was kind of fun."

"Ok, eww, gross. C'mon Grace, please don't say things like that. You're gonna traumatize me for life."

The day of the science fair had finally arrived. Luke had been in a panic for the past three days and had been up almost all night trying to perfect their design. It was actually pretty cool. The pictures weren't as good as the one's from the doctor's office, but their demonstration, which involved looking at Luke's heart, was good. It was clear enough to see all the major structures and the blood flow, which Joan had declared totally gross.

It took Joan a while to set up their posters, but she was actually proud of what they had done. It was certainly better than her last science fair project. She had last entered the science fair in the 6th grade. She'd done a project on using worms in compost, and then had been way too grossed out to go near the worms at the science fair. She'd stood like three feet from her project at all times. Not a success.

It amazed her that she and Luke had gotten along enough to build the machine, or even that she'd been allowed to help build the machine. Ok, so she'd been limited to handing Luke the tools most of the time, but she still felt like she'd done this. Plus the posters had been mostly her. She was amazed that she'd actually been interested in what they were doing. It was possibly because she wanted the extra credit grade, but probably more that she wanted to see the scanner in action, on Grace's stomach, showing her her niece or nephew.

"Yo, Girardi," Grace called from behind them. Joan and Luke both turned around. "Not you nerdboy!"

Luke rolled his eyes and went back to hooking up the wires of the scanner to the monitor.

Grace stood there, arms crossed, glaring at Joan and Luke's stand.

"You built a sonogram machine?" Grace looked incredulous.

"No, we built an ultrasound scanner. A sonogram machine is an adapted version especially for the scanning of fetuses. An ultrasound scanner has many..."

Grace cut her off. "Ok, I get it. No need for the entire speech. Now can I ask why you built this 'ultrasound scanner'?"

Joan could hear the quotation marks in Grace's voice.

"You ditched Luke to work with Adam, I said I'd work with Luke, and it was the first thing we thought of." Grace looked skeptical. "Ok, so I might have gotten the idea from the sonogram picture my mom insists on keeping on the refrigerator. But relax. It's not like we're going to tell the entire school. I'm gonna demonstrate by scanning Luke's heart, not by dragging you up there."

Grace looked puzzled for a moment. "Why Luke's heart, not you?"

"Did you actually think I would take my shirt off in front of everyone?"

"He has to take his shirt off?" Grace almost yelled.

"Yeah, chill Grace. You get a clearer picture that way. We tried it with a shirt on, but it didn't work as well."

Grace grabbed Joan by the arm and almost dragged her back to Luke.

"There is no way my boyfriend is going to take his shirt off in front of the entire school!"

"Hey Grace, how's it going?" Luke ignored her and went back to setting up the machine.

"Are you kidding me? Geekboy, there is no way you're taking off your shirt."

"Ok, Grace. I know you want your project to go better than mine, but you can't stop us from demonstrating the scanner."

"And they call you a genius? Ok, Geekboy, take your mind back two nights, and now tell me why I don't want your shirt off in front of the school."

Luke thought for a moment, then turned bright red.

Joan suddenly got it. "Ok, eww. Thanks guys for that stunning mental image. But putting aside the fact I'm going to have to charge you two for my future shrink's bills, if we can't demonstrate on Luke, what're we going to do?"

"Why can't he test it on you?" Grace asked.

"Ok, yeah, because Price is going to let me take off my top in front of the school, even in the name of science."

"What about Adam?" Luke suggested.

This time it was Joan's turn to blush. "Um, I don't think that would be such a good idea."

"Ohh, right. I saw the hickey on his neck last week. He has them on his chest now?" Grace asked, relishing the chance to embarrass her friend. Joan just blushed harder.

"Do you have like a quota or something? Like if you don't embarrass or taunt enough people every day you don't feel complete?" Joan muttered. Luke and Grace just laughed.

"Ugh, your kid is going to be so twisted!" She paused, thinking. "Your kid! That's it!"

Grace instantly understood. "No way. Absolutely not."

"C'mon Grace. If you hadn't mauled Luke then this wouldn't be an issue. This is totally your fault. Besides, it's not like you're going to be able to hide it for much longer, even with those baggy clothes you're wearing."

"Are you saying I'm getting fat?" Grace sounded outraged.

"Sorry, but yeah, that's what I'm saying. Besides, think of how shocked everyone's going to be. You might even sent Price into cardiac arrest."

"Ok, as fun as that sounds, no way! I'm not sacrificing my dignity for you guys!"

"Please?" Luke sounded desperate. He leaned forward and whispered something into Grace's ear. She scowled, then smiled.

"Ugh, ok, fine. Whatever."

"Ok, please don't ever tell me what he said to you to make you agree, but thanks Grace."

"No problem. But let me stress that I'm going to be craving things at three am for the next month and one of you will go get what I want." Grace stepped forward menacingly. "Ok?"

"Deal."

Grace hung around glaring at Luke and Joan for a few more minutes, but eventually headed back to her own stand to make sure Adam had set up everything the way she wanted. They didn't see her again for another hour, just after the demonstrations began.

"Rove and I were up first. We're done, so I though I'd head over here and bug you guys 'til it's your turn. "

Luke dragged Grace out of Joan's earshot for a moment.

"You don't have to do this, you know."

"Luke, since when have I ever done anything because I had to. Your sister's right. I can't hide this much longer, so I might as well cause as much drama as possible. Plus," Grace pointed over to the corner. "Price is over there, and this is going to kill him." Grace smiled in a disturbingly evil manner.

"What is it with you and Price? I don't think I've ever seen anyone take as much pleasure from tormenting a teacher as you."

"He makes bullshit assumptions. He assumed Rove was a stoner. He still does, even though he's tested him every couple of months for the last four years and never found anything. It just pisses me off when people do that."

"Yeah, it pisses me off too." Luke paused. "You know none of the teachers like Price either. Mom was telling me there's a specific table in the faculty lounge where you go sit by if you want to bitch about Price. I think Mom ends up there at least once a week."

Grace smirked. She and Luke headed back to the stand where Joan instantly pulled Luke into a conversation about the changes she'd made to the presentation now they were doing a pregnancy scan and not a heart scan.

Eventually, it was Joan and Luke's turn. Joan did really well on the presentation. She avoided stumbling over words, didn't mispronounce anything and actually managed to explain about ultrasound scanning, it's uses and how they'd built their scanner. But it was the demonstration that was the hard part.

Luke took a deep breath and stepped forward. He could hardly switch on the machine; his hands were shaking so much.

"Uhm. As Joan explained, one of the major uses of ultrasound scanning is in medicine." Luke coughed to try and get rid of the wavering in his voice he was sure everyone could hear. "It's typically used in ECGs or Echocardiograms and in sonogram scanning of the abdomen. We're going to demonstrate this."

Grace stepped forward and smirked at Luke. This made him feel a little better, but only a little. She lay down on a massage table Joan had borrowed from one of the many friends she seemed to have that Luke had never met.

Grace tried to keep control of her breathing. She was just as scared as Luke. She was just hiding it better. This had seemed like a good idea a few minutes ago. Now it was just terrifying. Grace didn't like being scared. It made her feel weak and just too damn girlie. There was only one thing she could do, and that was go for it. She pulled her shirt up half way so her stomach was exposed.

All of the students and teachers watching just kind of stopped. The room was silent for a few moments while everyone took in what they were seeing. It was possibly the last thing anyone had expected.

"In order for the sound waves to conduct effectively, a gel is used." Luke quickly applied the gel to Grace's stomach. He wanted to get back in control as soon as possible. He noticed Grace flinch from the gel, which she still claimed felt like liquid nitrogen. This made him smile a little. Maybe this wasn't so bad. He sneaked a look over to where he knew Price was standing. The vice principal looked like he was about to pass out from shock. That made Luke smile even more.

Luke placed the scanning wand on Grace's belly. "As you can see, the sound waves bounce back off different density objects, providing the image." He motioned to the screen, where his child had appeared. "The fetus you can see is about 20 weeks old." It felt really odd talking about his child like this. "You can see there the head and you can just about see the facial features." Luke motioned to different things. "The spine is very clear in this, but it's actually clear on fetuses as young as eight weeks. That there is the heart which you can see beating." He leaned over to flip a switch on the monitor. A rushing sound appeared. "And that's the heartbeat you can hear."

Luke moved the wand around again so that everyone could see the baby moving its arms and legs. There was almost total silence. Everyone was still too surprised to talk.

Grace could see Adam standing a few feet away, with a broad grin on his face as he watched the monitor. The judges had a rapt look of concentration on their faces, but she supposed they were impressed. She looked back at the screen and saw the baby moving about. It was kind of odd to see it moving on the screen and feel it moving inside her at the same time.

Luke just stood there, kind of proud of what he'd achieved. He'd built this machine, and it worked really well. It was an impressive project and that made him feel pretty good. But all of that paled in comparison to what he felt when he looked at the screen. He'd done that too, and he wasn't exactly proud of it, but it was his child. There wasn't anything to compare to that depth of feeling.

Eventually the judges moved on to the next stand. The spell of silence seemed to be broken, and everyone started talking at once. Adam pushed his way over to the stand and put his arm around Joan's waist.

"Dude, that was so cool. You guys have to win."

Joan smiled at her boyfriend's enthusiasm. "I think we were kind of upstaged by the baby."

"Cha, of course. Did you see everyone's faces? I thought Price was going to fall over when he realized what was going on." Adam grinned. "It was pretty cool though, seeing it move and everything."

"Yeah, it was."

"Anyway, c'mon." Adam pulled Joan away from the stands and into a corner. He just stopped and looked at her.

Joan started to feel a little shy. "What?"

"You are so beautiful"

Joan turned pink. She leaned forward and kissed Adam softly on the lips.

"Jane, I love you, you know that right? And science fair's kind of special for us."

"The Kiss." Joan felt like it deserved capitalization.

Adam just smiled. "I just wanted to give you this." He handed Joan a small box. She opened it and inside was a ring. The ring. The ring she had seen at the mall. For once in her life, Joan was absolutely speechless.

"Oh God! Adam, it's perfect. How did you know?"

"I went to the store, and the assistant showed me some of the rings. I just liked it. Plus the assistant bugged me until I got that one."

Joan started laughing. "This assistant, what did he look like?"

"Tall guy, early thirties. Blonde hair, I think. Why?"

"That was Him. Like, you know who."

"It was?"

"Uh huh. I went in there after winter break and he told me to enter the science fair. I picked out that ring. That exact ring, but it was way too expensive. How the hell did you afford it?"

"Your mom gave me the names of a few people. I sold some sculptures."

"Yeah, like $1000 worth. Adam, you didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to."

Joan smiled and kissed him. She pulled the ring out of the box and slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand. It fit perfectly.

Grace and Luke were sitting in the hall that had held the science fair. They had volunteered to clean up afterwards, wanting to avoid the inevitable questions for as long as possible. Luke had been folding and stacking chairs and tables, but Grace had been relegated to supervision and picking up bits of paper. She'd wanted to hit Luke when he'd insisted on this. She knew he was right, but it still made her mad.

Now they were done and they were just hiding out, talking.

"So?"

"Yeah. Kind of an odd day, huh?"

"I guess. It had to happen though. I'm turning into such a whale I'm gonna have to break out the actual maternity clothes soon, which sucks. I mean have you seen them? They all look like stuff my grandma would wear."

"They don't make maternity leather jackets then?"

Grace smacked her boyfriend on the arm.

"Hey! That's boyfriend abuse!"

Grace just raised an eyebrow.

"There was an admissions guy from MIT here today." Luke changed the subject.

"Yeah?"

"Mr. Roberts asked him to take a look at my project."

"That's great."

"Yeah, it is. I mean it's not like I'm going to be able to go or anything but..."

Luke stopped when Grace smacked his arm again.

"What?"

"You're an idiot."

"Probably."

"What do you mean you're not going?"

"You really think I'm going to leave you alone to take care of our child?"

"You're an idiot."

"You already said that."

"Dumbass. There's only going to be a problem if you don't go to MIT."

"Huh?"

"What college am I going to?"

"I don't know."

Grace smacked Luke's arm for a third time. "You're the only person I told and you don't remember?"

Luke looked blank.

"Harvard, dumbass. I got into Harvard."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I got in early acceptance about a week before I found out about this." Grace put her hand on her swollen belly. "I called the admissions office about a week ago and explained what was happening. They were actually pretty cool about it. They said it was fine to start a year later than I was supposed to. So if you get your ass into gear and get into MIT then we'll both be going to Cambridge at the same time. If you don't get in, however, I will kick your ass. I am not up for the whole single parenting while trying to study thing."

"I'll get in."

"You sound pretty confident." Grace smiled.

"Well, only a geek worthy of MIT would build his girlfriend a sonogram machine."

Grace smacked Luke again.

The End