Sufficiently crappy day, meet Vegas-verse. What's that sufficiently crappy day? You're turning around? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I think you guys may kill me for this chapter… you'll see why in a little.

Music: I'm in love with a strict machine

There's knocking on the front door and I get up groggily. I don't have to go into work today until the afternoon – Ms. Casetti has some salon appointment in the morning – so I was planning on sleeping in for once. It's probably Seth, wanting to play video games with Cody. The two seemed to have bonded – most likely because they both have the mindsets of thirteen-year-olds.

I pad down the hall in bare feet, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I didn't get much last night – I was too busy worrying about my magnificent fuck up. I open the door.

"Sandy?"

"Hey, kiddo," he grins and moves past me into the apartment. "Kirsten made too much pasta salad last night, so I brought you some."

"Thanks." I follow him into the kitchen, where he puts the container in the fridge before turning back to me. Then he waits expectantly, and really, I may have to kill Seth. "He told you?"

"Yeah, he told me." There's that famous Sandy Cohen sympathetic shoulder pat, and I can't help but feel relieved. Sandy will make this better. "Are you sure about this?" he prods, catching my eyes before I have a chance to duck my head. Damn it, he knows me too well.

"No." There's no need to lie. I'm a horrible liar and Sandy most likely already knows exactly what I'm thinking. "I don't know why I did it…"

"Yes you do," he chuckles, pushing my shoulder and moving us toward the kitchen table. We sit and he folds his hands on the table top, leaning forward. "It's who you are." He doesn't need to make the connections between my situation and Cody's. We both know why I did it. But he's using my hero complex as the cover reason.

"But I don't know what I'm supposed to do with him, Sandy." I keep my voice low. The last thing I need is for Cody to overhear this, and… well, run away. It's what I did. It's what I know he'll do if he thinks he's gonna get put into the system. "I don't have the… money to take care of a kid." He gives me a look that says he knows what I mean – that money is codeword for ability. He doesn't say anything, which makes my heart sink a little. I just want him to tell me how to make this better. "I don't… what am I gonna tell Taylor?"

Sandy sighs and reaches out to pat my hand. "I can't tell you what to do, kid. You're an adult – you have a job, you're getting married. This is your life; I can't tell you how to live it. You need to make this decision on your own. And Taylor? She loves you, she'll understand. And you know Kirsten and I are always here to support you, whatever you decide."

Ok, not exactly the answer I was looking for. I wanted a yes or no. I wanted him to fix this. He gets up to leave and I stand up with him.

"Thanks, Sandy." Crap. Ok, don't let him leave. "I'll see you and Kirsten later." No! Tell him to fix it! Stop him! But I don't and I walk him to the door and he goes.

I hate me.

"Come on!" Kaitlin whines, leaning back against the Range Rover and adjusting her giant sunglasses. I don't blame her for being impatient – the sun is particularly hot today and loading bags into the car in direct line of its rays makes it ten times worse.

"I'm trying," Summer shoots back, one hand on her belly, the other on her back as she comes out into the stifling heat. Kaitlin takes one look at the hand on her stomach and grimaces.

"If you pop the kid out here, I'm gone," she waves her hand vaguely around her. "I refuse to deal with nasty baby juice."

"Baby juice is sperm," I tell her distractedly, throwing a bag into the back. Kaitlin makes a horrified face at my comment and Summer rolls her eyes.

"Whatever," the younger girl amends, pulling open the back door. She gets in the car, leaving me and the pregnant chick to load up the rest of the bags. Which means I get to do it all by myself.

"She does know you're not due for another month, right?"

"She's just being Kaitlin," Summer grouses, leaning against the car to take some weight off her feet. "Why is it so freaking hot?"

"Because it's June?" I supply helpfully, but she glares. "Sorry."

"I wish Cohen had the decency to knock me up at a good time, so I wouldn't have to be giving birth in the hottest month of the year. Bastard." I giggle and shut the hatch before helping her into the passenger's seat. Then I head around the car and get in the driver's side.

"See, this is why you should've made a plan." I tell her, not quite helpfully, because she's already pregnant, so it doesn't do any good for her now.

"Plan?" Kaitlin questions from the backseat, leaning forward as I start up the Rover. Next to me, Summer rolls her eyes. She's read the plan.

"My five year plan," I inform the girl as I merge into traffic. "Ryan and I get married, and then we spend two years getting adjusted to married life and making sure our careers are stable. Then, in year two we're going to get pregnant – preferably in the summer, because – as Summer said – I'd rather give birth in the cooler months. Then we'll wait one year before we have our second child."

"Good God," Kaitlin groans. "Let me guess, you already have names picked out for your kids, too?"

"That's not weird," I protest, maybe a little louder than necessary. I'm not crazy. I'm not.

Ok, maybe a little. But having your children's names picked out isn't crazy. Lots of girls do it.

"Is Ryan ok with this plan?" I snap back into reality at Kaitlin's question.

"Ryan doesn't know about the plan," Summer drones next to me, completely bored with this conversation. Kaitlin quirks an eyebrow at me.

"We haven't had a chance to discuss it yet." Well, that's a lie. I've had this plan from the minute he proposed. I've just put off telling him because I'd rather not freak him out. He does that at any sign of commitment. I just want to get him down the aisle before hitting him with the future.

Although maybe I should tell him about the plan before we get married. If he hears it, it may make him realize I'm not what he wants. And as much as that would hurt, I'd rather him figure that out before we get married than after.

I shake my head and take a deep breath – I need to stop thinking like that. Ryan loves me. He wouldn't have proposed if he didn't and he already said he wanted children with me. There's absolutely nothing to be worried about. He'll love the plan. He loves being in control, so having the future laid out like this should appeal to him. He'll be fine with it.

The plan is fool proof.

"So where are your parents?"

He freezes, spoon raised halfway to his mouth, and he keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the kitchen table. "Cody," I try to make myself sound like a parent – although I'm not sure it's effective – but he looks up at me. "Where are your parents?"

He gives a little shrug, eyes lowering again. "My dad's dead. He got killed." His eyes flick up to me for a brief second before going back down to the table, "this drug dealer got angry and shot him a couple years ago."

"And your mom?" He looks a little surprised when I don't make some big deal about his dad, and he shoves the spoonful of Cheerios in his mouth before answering.

"She's at home."

It's almost scary, the relief that rushes through my chest – he has a mother. I can send him home.

Thank God.

"Alright, I'll call her after we eat." And there goes the relief, because the look of absolute fear that crosses his face ruins that plan. "Tell me about her." I don't want to ask him outright why he doesn't want to go home – he'll just close up and not say anything. It's what I would've done.

He shrugs, stirring his Cheerios aimlessly. "When dad got killed, she got angry. She started drinking a lot. Then she lost her job." He shrugs again, still staring down at the bowl of now mostly milk, "she doesn't notice me much, and when she does…" he doesn't have to say anything else, because I know what he'd say. She drinks, she gets angry, and then she hits him.

"Where do you live?"

"Oh my God!"

"What?"

"Pull over!"

"What? Kaitlin, what's going on?" I pull off to the side of the interstate, breaking hard and putting the car into park before whipping around. "Are you ok?"

"We have to go there!" She points at a large sign outside. "'The World's Largest Thermometer!'"

"Kaitlin!" I turn angrily back around, putting a hand over my heart. I thought she was hurt.

"Come on," she goads, "we didn't get to do anything fun in Vegas. I wanna see this. I mean, it's the World's Largest Thermometer. All the words are capitalized – that's gotta mean it's awesome."

"We're not going to see some stupid attraction, where they probably make you pay fifty bucks just to get in and look at the thing." I turn to look at her again, only to find her with her stubborn face on. And when I look to Summer for confirmation, she just gives me a what the hell? look.

I sigh, put my blinker on, get back onto the road, and take the appropriate exit.

"What d'you want?" the woman slurs at me when she opens the door and she reminds me so forcibly of my own mother that it takes a second to take a breath to talk.

"Mrs. Miller?"

"Yeah?" She looks me over, twisting her face up. "Whatever you're selling, I don't want any."

"I'm here because of your son, Cody." At his name, she slumps against the door – not in relief, because she rolls her eyes.

"You're a cop." It's not a question, which makes me wonder how often the cops have come by to talk to her about Cody.

"No. I'm an architect, actually." Which confuses her, and she crosses her arms over herself. "I found him, and he's been staying with me for the past couple of days." And then it hits me – that I don't want him to go back to this bitch, because she doesn't look even a bit relieved. She looks confused.

She didn't even realize he'd been gone.

"How nice," she sneers, looking me over once again. "He's gone and gotten himself a rich boy to help him." The way she says help… I know what she means. She means help like the system means help. To her, I'm just another useless do-gooder who likes to think they're helping, but they're not.

"Look, he doesn't seem to want to come home," I tell her bluntly, because I don't really like her, and I don't feel like being nice to anyone who hits their kids. "But seeing as I can't legally keep him, I brought him back."

"He with you?" she looks around me, to Taylor's convertible where – yes – Cody's sitting in the front seat, staring at the dashboard. She sighs loudly. "You shoulda just kept him."

"He's not my responsibility," I remind her. It's not that I don't want to help him, but I can't just take her child. Even the Cohens would've had to give me back if my mom had wanted me.

I thank God every day she hadn't.

"Wish he weren't mine," she mutters, looking past me again to my car.

"Well, that was a splendid waste of time."

"Ok , so it wasn't as cool as I thought it was going to be," Kaitlin admits, shrugging.

"I'm tired," Summer cuts in, looking grumpy and pissed off. "I wanna go to sleep."

"It's only eight thirty," Kaitlin argues, looking at her watch.

"And by the time we make it home, it'll be two in the morning." I sigh wearily, noting the sign for the motel nearby. "Let's go get a room."

"Fine. Can I have my own room? Cause I don't wanna sleep with preggo over there, and I want to call Justin. Phone sex sounds fun and I've never tried it."

Which makes me flash back to Ryan and my one bout of phone sex, and I'm tempted to call him. Except would that count as regular sex? Would that break the no-sex rule? Even if it didn't, I don't think it's fair of me to do that to him. He's having enough trouble with this as it is.

"You can have your own room," I agree. "I'll stay with Summer." One of us has to, just in case. Summer throws her arm around me as we walk to the motel.

"I'll try not to move around a lot," she promises, and I laugh.

"We'll need to get you some clothes," I tell him absentmindedly as I put his bags down in the guest bedroom. He nods, looking lost and a little confused, but he doesn't say anything. "Get some sleep."

And when I leave his room, I can't believe this. I can't believe I took him home – again. What was I thinking? I can't keep him. But his mom gave me her full permission to do with him what I wanted. She gave him to me. I could've said no – told her to take her kid back – but I couldn't. I couldn't send him back to that woman.

I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do now.

Well, tonight I'll get some sleep. Tomorrow's Saturday, so – apart from going over little details of the floor plan for Mrs. Casetti – I don't have to work. I'll take him out shopping, get him some real clothes… maybe a haircut. And then I'll have to talk to Sandy or something.

I don't know any of this legal stuff.

"So how are you?" Summer asks, breaking the silence with a low voice. I turn around in the darkness to see her outline against the vague light from the window. "I mean really."

I sigh, shifting onto my back to stare up at the ceiling. For some reason, I find that comforting – staring up at a blank ceiling. I never did before, but lately I've been doing it more often. "I'm nervous," I admit. I haven't told Summer that I'm absolutely terrified of marriage, and I'm not going to tell her now.

"Why?"

Because I'm not sure I'm what he really wants. Because look how well my other marriage turned out.

"Oh you know," I wave my hand, even though I'm not sure she can see it in the dark, "just wedding stuff. Like, my mom's coming, and I have to stand up in front of all those people and what if I mess up?" I hope she misses the fact that my voice is just a little too cheerful, but I can't help it. If I don't go with cheerful I'll end up with terrified.

"Taylor, you've given two valedictorian speeches and you lived with your mom for eighteen years."

"Yeah, but I haven't lived with her for seven and giving speeches to people you don't know is a lot easier than standing up in front of people you do."

"That doesn't make any sense," she tells me, shifting uncomfortably on her bed. "You're being weird again."

"I'm always weird," I remind her, hoping that'll get her off this track.

"That's true," she agrees – a little too easily. Am I that insane? "And I guess Atwood's not reassuring you at all." That earns a snort of laughter from me, which gets her going, and we lay there and giggle for a while.

Is this what sleepovers are like? I never had one when I was little, but they sounded like fun. And even though Summer and I lived together for two years (and that year I lived at the Roberts'), we never actually slept in the same room and chatted like… well, girls.

"Ryan's more tense than I am about it," I tell her. "Although that may have something to do with him not getting laid for two months…" She giggles again.

"He's also just being Atwood. You remember committophobe Ryan Atwood? I think it's a testament to you that he hasn't… fled the country or something yet."

"Maybe he's comfortable," I suggest, voice low. Summer nods, taking it as a good thing, but I didn't mean it that way. She thinks I mean Ryan's comfortable in our relationship – he loves me enough to know its right. I meant Ryan's comfortable in our relationship – he's marrying me because it's easy.

I'm not going to correct her.

Summer's cell phone goes off, and she huffs in annoyance. "Seth," she mutters darkly, looking at the display. "Doesn't he know what time it is? What?" she answers the phone angrily as I look at the clock.

It's nine-thirty.

I roll my eyes as I hear them start to argue over the phone – Summer calling Seth 'immature' for watching 'really random movies'.

What in the world gave him the idea to watch Back to the Future?

Ok, I know everyone was waiting for Taylor to come home, but I had to postpone it a day, because Ryan needed to find Cody's parents. So I promise, next chapter has her coming home.

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