A/N: Yeah, I haven't been updating. Mel has been being a slacker with updating. But this should control your hunger for a little bit. 3,100+ words, it's my longest chapter yet. This one actually contains a few Hunger spoilers, and a teenage pregnancy. Nothing graphic, but quite a bit of swearing. You have been warned now, and from now on, the story will be acting it's rating, which is M, in more ways than language.

​EIGHT|

It had been six months. Six months since all the adults had vanished. Six months since anyone had gone to school. Six months since the FAYZ had started. Three since Drake had died. Three since Diana had come close to death in that same moment. Three since she cropped her hair.

Three since she became pregnant.

Something she never thought would happen. At least, not at fifteen. Not in the FAYZ.

Not with Caine's child.

"Diana," he said in a gentle tone. She was his soft spot and she knew it.

That didn't mean that she wasn't mad at him. "What?" she snapped.

"Are you okay?"

"Okay? Do I sound okay? Do I look okay? I'm pregnant, you asshole. With your child!"

That got to him. She hadn't told him yet. Sure, he had his suspicions, but he never thought... Never dreamed... "You-you're what?"

"Pregnant! Do I need to spell it out for you?"

"N-no," he stuttered. "I- I just can't believe..." He swallowed and regained his composure.

"How many months are you?"

"Three. Three months give or take."

"Do you know anything about-?"

"No, Caine. How in the world would I know if it was a boy or a girl, or twins or anything like that? No one can give me an ultrasound here!" She was getting angrier by the second. How could this boy be so incompetent? He was supposed to be a leader, but they had been in hiding for three months, coming out only to get food, which still was in short supply.

"Maybe we should go to Perdido Beach," she suggested. "Maybe you could make up with your brother for the sake of getting food for the baby. Maybe."

"Maybe I have to Diana. Just maybe..."

"You do want this child, don't you?" Diana was awestruck. Caine had never seemed like a person who wanted a family- let alone a relationship. "Who are you and what have you done with Caine?"

"It's really me, Diana. Your news changed me."

"Oh, don't tell me you're now on the straight and narrow," she said in a sarcastic tone. This could not be the Caine she knew- and though she didn't want to admit it, loved. He was controlling, bossy, and insane. But he held her together, just as she did for him. They were an odd couple, to say the least, always fighting, never admitting anything to each other, but they did love each other, deep down at least. Not that either would admit that they loved each other. That would be like a suicide to either of them. They would never be Sam and Astrid. They would never be like them, able to be a real couple. Sam and Astrid were so different, yet they were so alike. Diana and Caine, they were so much alike that they butted heads constantly. Both were stubborn and short-tempered. Neither was willing to back down.

Yet at the same time, neither could live without the other.

And that was the reason why, whether they liked it or not, that Diana Ladris and Caine Soren were having a child together. One of them, at least.

They were in a dormitory at Coates Academy. There was nowhere else for them to be. Caine had already tried to take over the power plant, and look where that had gotten them. Drake was dead, not that either was complaining, and they had lost Jack to the townies yet again. Most of the Academy kids were with the townies now. Bug was. They were losing people right and left to the townies, all because they had food. Quinn had discovered that they could fish. Why no one thought of that before was beyond Caine.

After a while in thought, Caine responded to her question. "Yes, I do want this baby. I want it to have a good home, well, as good a home we can give it, anyways. And if that means," he winced, "I have to go and be a good brother and say I'm sorry to my brother, then I'll do it Diana. For the baby."

"For the baby."

Caine was not behaving like himself. Diana was expecting him to throw her across the room with his telekinetic powers. She was expecting that she would have been dead. The FAYZ must have gotten in his head. It must have a mind controlling power, somewhat like the Darkness. The very same Darkness that had almost killed everyone in the FAYZ. It was the thing that made Caine go insane for the first three months of the FAYZ, when she put up with him when no one else would. The deeds that showed no matter what, she did love him more than she was willing to admit to anyone. Not even to herself. Especially not to herself.

"Do you love me?" Diana whispered, barely audible.

Caine pulled her in close, stroking what hair she had. It had grown back from the half-inch buzz she gave herself, but it could barely be a pixie. Her hair grew rather fast, but it was still extremely short. "When you were... almost dead... I didn't let anyone get healed before you. I was begging Sam to kill me because I thought that you were dead. I love you more than my own life, Diana."

She was crying into his shoulder. It wasn't very Diana-like, but then again, her hormones were raging. She wouldn't be like Diana for another six months at least. If this had happened before the FAYZ, which it probably wouldn't have, she would have probably put the baby up for adoption. She wouldn't have had an abortion, she didn't believe in them. She definitely wouldn't have kept the baby, though. She went to a boarding school, so she couldn't take care of it.

Caine kissed her head and cradled her in his arms. He didn't care about anything but her.

"I d-do Caine," she said, between sobs. "I... I love... you." She just sat there in his arms, letting herself be loved for once. Letting someone else in.

She was wearing a boy's shirt so you couldn't really tell if she was pregnant or not. She did have a bump, though, but it wasn't huge. She had a feeling that if she wore her own shirts, though, that people would be able to tell.

"I wonder if I'll be a good mother."

"You took care of me, Diana. You took care of me for three months. I don't know, but me when I'm cranky is probably a whole lot harder to handle than a baby," he tried to sound reassuring, but it was hard when you didn't know what would happen to a baby coming into the FAYZ. He honestly did not know what would happen.

She snorted. "I wonder if you'll be a good father, Caine. If it's a boy, play catch with him when he's big enough. If it's a girl, make her a daddy's girl."

"I don't know if I'm the parenting-"

"You've helped your moody, pregnant girlfriend through a lot. You lead a whole school for a while. You survived the leap- and with your help, I did, too. I doubt we'll be the best parents, but we can try to be good ones."

I doubt that we'll even be good ones, Caine thought. We can't even get along most of the time. "We can try, Diana. It's going to be hard. I don't even think that we'll be able to be parents. Where will he or she be born? In the dorms? In the nursery? Where?"

"I'm not hugely pregnant, asshole. We have six months to worry about things like that." Her mouth defaulted to smirk, telling him that no matter what, she was Diana. And that no matter what, they would still drive each other crazy. That smirk told everything about her.

She pushed herself away from his chest and stood up. "Now, are you going to go try to play nice with Sam, or shall I make him pity me by telling him my sob story?"

"You're definitely Diana..." Caine mumbled, halfway to himself.

"And who else would I be?" She was glaring at him, waiting for him to answer the question. "Did you think I was different because I'm pregnant?"

Caine shrugged as if to say "Well, yeah."

"You can be such an incompetent bastard sometimes, Caine," she said as she shoved him out of her way. "It's so annoying!"

Caine groaned. He had made Diana, pregnant Diana, the very same Diana that could hurt him in more ways than he could count. It was not good. He braced himself for the worst, although he could very easily just restrain her with his powers and stop it all before it happened and she wound up hurting herself. That or she made him so angry that he forgot about her condition and threw her against a wall.

He was not prepared for what she did next.

"Who the hell do you think you are, Caine? My fucking father? You aren't that bastard, oh no. But you're coming close in how much either of you piss me off. Just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean I'm any fucking different than before, you fucking asshole. Just because I'm pregnant means that I need more food than you do, because I'm eating for two. I'm no fucking different than before. And there is no fucking way that you can make me be any different than I am now. I hid this from you for three months, and I could have hidden it longer if I had kept my fucking mouth shut.

"Hell, I could have prevented this whole fucking scandal in the first place had I just kept you out of my pants and kept myself from getting knocked up. Had I done that, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, now would we? You know that I could very well shun you for doing this to me. I never wanted to have a child at this age, let alone in this FAYZ. But now, we're going to have the first fucking child born in the fucking FAYZ, thanks to you wanting to have sex while my judgment was very impaired. You know what, Caine? This is the worst place for anyone to be. Anyone. And now, it'll be a bad place for a baby to be. A very bad place."

Caine opened his mouth to speak, but Diana kept going on. "Why must you always be in charge? Why do you want to control me? Sure, I would rather you than Drake boss me around, but I don't want to be bossed around anymore. I don't think that you care, though. You'll keep telling me what to do and how to act and how to think and-"

There was a rap at the door. "Caine? There's a kid here that wants to see you," said a female voice. It was a girl named Holly, a girl with powers. Not very good ones- she talked with birds and snakes- but a "moof" as they were called. A mutant freak. Caine was one, Diana was one, Sam was one. "He's short and nerdy looking. He said his name was Jack. Do I let him in?"

Jack. He wasn't really a double agent, but he came to Caine and Diana every once in a while- he kept them in the loop. "Yeah. Let him in, Holly."

"'Kay Caine." There were footsteps moving away from them, back down the hall. Diana and Caine kept glaring at each other until they heard footsteps coming towards them yet again. This time, it was Jack. It had to be. There was no other person in the FAYZ that could make that much noise. No one in the world who could make that racket without tripping, that is. Caine doubted that he knew that his steps caused earthquakes, but for a smart kid, Jack could be so oblivious to the world around him. The FAYZ around him.

There was a knock on the door. More like a bang, so Caine was even more positive that it was Jack. "Come in Jack. Don't break the door," he said lazily.

The boy entered with a confused look on his face. "How'd you kn-"

"I can hear you from a mile away with those feet of yours. And by the way you knock on the door," he said in a laid-back voice. It was no matter to him.

Diana on the other hand, it was a big deal to. A huge deal. "Who do you think you are pounding on the door like that? You could have broken down the damn door! You idiot! You could have killed us if you splintered the door!" She wrapped herself around her stomach, protecting her baby. She would be an overprotective mother, that was for sure.

"You and your fucking heavy feet," she mumbled.

Caine, who completely ignored the outburst nodded to Jack and said, "So what do you have to tell us at the moment?"

Jack was a little bit shaken by Diana's peculiar outburst, but responded to Caine quickly. "Well, we aren't the only FAYZ anymore."

"Ah," Caine said. He was genuinely interested. "And where might this second FAYZ be?"

"Um... Well, so far as I know, the FAYZ is in New York, in a place called Auburn. Sam's cousin- and yours, but she has no idea you exist, lives there. It was good that they figured out that their cells worked so quickly- and that Sam let me put up the network. Rather, the Temporary Council did."

"Ah." So Sam wasn't the only leader anymore. That was a good thing for Caine.

"Oh, being the leader is too big a job for little Sammy?" Diana's voice was saturated with false pity. Caine smirked at that. It seemed that Diana would never lose her sarcasm.

Jack noticed something was off with Diana. Caine knew, he always knew, but Jack felt that this secret was one that would change everyone's life. "Is there something here that I should know?" He knew that he sounded like a parent, but these two were acting stranger than usual.

Diana glanced over at Caine and mouthed the words, "Should we tell him?"

"He'll find out sooner or later, Diana. Most likely sooner."

"Find out what?" Jack was suspicious. Diana bit her lip, which was a very un-Diana move, as her hand flew to her lower stomach. Jack's jaw dropped. There were a few possible messages that it could convey, but only two were logical- either she had really bad cramps due to PMS, or she was pregnant. It seemed more logical that she was pregnant to him. Her next move confirmed what he was thinking. She stood, one hand on top of her stomach, the other on the bottom, cradling a bulge in her stomach. Cradling her stomach.

"I'm three months pregnant." Those four words confirmed his suspicions even more. Jack knew that the two of them knew that Coates would be a dangerous place for a Mom-to-be. A very dangerous one.

"Who's the father?"

"Who do you think is the father, asshole? Who's the only other person in this room? Honestly, Jack. I thought that much would have been obvious."

"Caine's the father."

"No duh." Caine came up to her and squeezed her hand then gave the soon-to-be mother of his child a peck. Diana slapped him.

"That's for getting me pregnant." She walked over to Jack and slapped him as well. "And that's for being an idiot."

It seemed to Jack that even though she was pregnant, she was going to still have attitude and act like herself- why she wouldn't was beyond him. She was Diana, and Diana had an attitude. And a tendency to slap you or hurt you if you bugged her.

"As I was saying," Caine said, "we have to go make up with Sam and the townies so she can have some care and food. We ran out today, at least of anything with nutrition."

"I hope the council will let us come."

Jack shrugged. He didn't read minds- nor was he part of the council. "I can't really say anything for them."

"Can you talk to them, Jack? Please?" She still had some power over the boy, even though he had a petty crush on another girl, Brianna, not that any love was returned on Diana's part. It never was.

Jack turned on his heel and started to walk out. "Are you guys coming? I think that they'll take pity on you, if not, maybe the kids from Auburn will. Maybe. Hopefully. I think that they have a mall there, so maybe you can get maternity wear, Diana. By the looks of you, you'll need it soon."

She didn't like to admit it, but she was getting big. But the prospect of looking girly again worked for her. And the prospect of new clothes did, too. She took Caine's hand and led him out the door after Jack.

Caine looked at Diana. It was true, she was getting bigger. He had barely noticed her bump earlier. Maybe it was some freak mutation because they conceived in the FAYZ. But it couldn't be because of that. Most of these kids were born in the area, and the radiation didn't effect them. But then again, they weren't born during the FAYZ. None of them were. It could also be that both Caine and Diana had powers. Very powerful powers at that. Their child- possibly children- could be born mutants, be born dangerous. That was more than likely at this point.

"Diana," Caine said to her. "Are you okay? You look-" Caine didn't have time to finish his sentence. Diana ran out of the hallway and into a dorm bathroom and vomited.

"I hate this..." Diana groaned. "I hate being pregnant..." She threw up a few more times before any of them moved, for the two boys had followed her. After she was done, Caine just sat with her and held her until she was ready to move. It was lucky that the room she wound up in was a boy's room, and a rather large boy's at that, because by the time she was done, she needed a new shirt.

"Shall we leave?" she asked them after changing into a new shirt. She wasn't absolutely huge, but she was big. She thought she was huge, but she was always critical of herself. Even when she wasn't like this, she was always critical of her figure.

"Let's."