When I get home, Demyx is really angry with me.

"We were going to go to the cinema this afternoon," he announces loudly when he catches me trying to sneak in through the side door. "You always do this to me! I'm sick of always being ditched!"

I don't say anything; I'm still too shaken from the appointment, the little half-moons in my palms still aching from having my fists balled up so tightly on the way home. Demyx tries to hand a suddenly crying Larxene back to me, saying; "And you left me to look after her all day! Where even were you?"

I just walk up the stairs, my knuckles yellowing as I cling to the handrail, like without it I might just tumble down again and break my neck. Right now, I wish I had a room of my own, a safe space where Demyx couldn't hate me for being a loner, but instead he follows me in and invades my personal space, saying nothing with his mouth but an awful lot with his accusing silence. He sulks on his bed, arms crossed irritably over his chest, huffing every few minutes like his petty behaviour will facilitate conversation. I, under my duvet, try very hard not to curl up into the foetal position. I hear Larxene gurgling unhappily, like she's all too aware of how unhappy and angry we are.

"Why do you always do this?" Demyx asks finally. I don't reply. "Why won't you even talk to me?"

I want everything to go away. Demyx, Larxene, responsibility and secrets and pregnancy. I don't want Aqua to care without understanding: I want her to know why I'm messed up and why my life sometimes feels like a continuous cycle of hell. It's almost funny: I used to hate it when people knew that I was intersex and fostered and had "behaviour problems" but now that nobody knows anything I just feel even more isolated from their normal lives. I want the world to go away; I also want it to give me a hug.

"This is really mature of you," Demyx says spitefully after a few more minutes. Like he can talk. I curl up a bit smaller, tucking my legs tighter to my chest. Larxene is babbling more loudly. I shut my eyes very tight, until I see surreal geometric patterns and rings of stars. I don't want to hear her crying right now. I think about the baby inside me, how it will tear itself out of me in a few months just like Larxene, and at the thought my legs instinctively press themselves together. Oh, God. A terrible realisation hits me as Demyx says "I don't even know why I'm still with you right now." I can't cope with another baby, I really can't. I'm going to have to go up to the hospital where people will ask me more questions and prod me with strange instruments and ask for an abortion.

"Other people appreciate me," Demyx is saying in a petulant tone of voice. I think about his new druggie friends. Is this why he started hanging out with them? Because of me? I want to say that I do appreciate him, but what has he done for me lately? He doesn't take anything seriously even when I wish he would: all he does is play games and talk about his school work like he even cares about it. None of his problems are even real problems. And he never even listens to me. So I don't say anything at all.

"Am I just a free babysitter to you?" Demyx asks. I scowl, wanting to say yes. "Okay," Demyx says snappishly at my silence. "Okay, fine." And he gets up and leaves. My senses reach out for Larxene just as she starts crying again, but my body won't move. I let out a tiny whimper. I'm sorry, I think, I'm sorry, but I still can't sit up and pull her off Demyx's bed and into my arms. She must want feeding, but that involves going to the fridge downstairs, which also entails the possibility of bumping into someone I'll have to talk to.

Eventually, I manage to reach the drawer where things are and pull out her dummy, stroking her hair to keep her content until I summon enough energy to go to the kitchen. I whisper snippets of nursery songs to her to keep her quiet, trying to pretend that I don't have to get up soon. My mind settles on Humpty Dumpty. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again. It's a poem for little kids, so why is it so depressing? Maybe because it's true. Some people fall off the wall and then nobody can save them.

Finally I can't lie to myself any more, so I bundle Larxene up in a spare sheet so she can't kick me and wobble downstairs. Terra and Aqua are chatting about something or other, probably financial, in the kitchen; I try to sneak in without them noticing but Aqua turns to me just as the door squeaks and says; "Marluxia, is everything okay?"

I say "Yeah" in a very small voice. I can't look at her: I just concentrate on pulling the milk out of the fridge and warming it up in the microwave, using each mechanical motion to distract myself from her.

"Demyx says you didn't meet him at the cinema," Aqua persists. I catch Terra slipping out in my peripheral vision.

"I didn't feel like going," I say. There's half an avocado in the fridge too, so I pull it out and grab a teaspoon from the drawer. Larxene and I can share it upstairs.

Aqua sighs at me, but when she says "Can we talk?" it's still in that same, non-judgemental tone of voice, whatever views she has on the matter tucked safely away from me.

"There isn't anything to talk about," I lie, but my throat catches and only half of the sentence comes out.

"I think we both know that's not true," Aqua says, not unkindly. The microwave pings. I pull the milk out and make a run for it; but I moved too quickly and my head spins: I barely make it to the bathroom before I vomit messily in the sink, nearly dropping Larxene in the process. I am gasping for air, but it feels stale and acidic in my lungs. I spend a few minutes reorientating myself before I crawl back to my room, curling up in Demyx's bed. I don't care if he comes in and shoves me off in a stoned rage: I want to be comfortable for once in my life. I pull my duvet onto his bed and make a nest for myself and Larxene to cuddle up in while I feed her milky spoonfuls of avocado, feeling too sick and achy to eat any myself. I could almost be in the car again, we are sardined so tightly. I miss the car. Why do I miss the car? Maybe it's because there I didn't need to worry about a furious boyfriend throwing me out of bed in the middle of the night, even if rats and hypothermia were a problem instead.

"What happens when we break up?" I ask Larxene. "Where do I go then?" I have a bit of money in the bank account that Aqua helped me to set up, so maybe I can rent a room again. At least then I'll have some privacy. "We can work it out," I say a little bit more forcefully. "Okay, so that doctor thought I was an idiot, but they'll see that I'm right at the hospital. They can help me there. Things are going to be okay." I realise that I'm worrying more about my newest baby than Demyx: but the really sad thing is that I don't know how much of a lie this mantra is.

Sure enough, Demyx comes in at one AM, waking me and Larxene up as he staggers through the door.

"What are you doing?" He asks, looking at me in my bundle of bedding. His voice is slow and slurred. Drugs. "Jesus, Marluxia, are you a bird or something?" And as if this is the funniest thing ever he laughs, high and giggly, almost but not quite like that same laugh I fell in love with months ago. A chill suddenly runs through my stomach, quashing whatever words that might have otherwise slipped out of my mouth.

"Still ignoring me, huh," he continues, the humour leaving his voice just like that. I try not to look at his red rimmed eyes and loose limbs as he sways at the foot of the bed. "Look, can you move? I wanna sleep."

My body shifts lethargically as I unravel myself from my cocoon. I'm still not entirely awake, moving in a dream world that buffers me from Demyx's sour mood and the fact that at any other time he would have just climbed in with me. I almost fall face first into the mattress when Demyx's school bag makes me lose my balance. He doesn't thank me for moving, just moving into his bed, giggling again as he recalls some joke from the evening. The smell of cannabis makes me so nauseous that eventually I decamp to the bathroom just in case I throw up again. Demyx cracks one eye open as I leave.

"Where are you going?" I shrug. Like he cares. I don't want to talk to him. What does he want from me, anyway? He probably just took pity on me because I was this pathetic broke kid with a baby. Did he even like me?

I take the duvet with me, wrapping it around us as I sit down on the floor next to the toilet. I stroke my baby's soft hair. It's getting long now, still a silky blonde. I wonder if she'll start going mousy, like me. "Should I apologise?"

Larxene sleeps on.

"I guess I shouldn't have ditched him without saying anything," I continue uncertainly, "But he should expect it from me by now. And anyway, he's the one always going off with other people I don't even know. Who's to say he hasn't just found himself another boyfriend who he likes better?"

I grip the duvet tightly, tears stinging at my eyes. Logically, Demyx wouldn't do something like that: he's too honest, too open, too sincere. I want that to all be a ruse: I want to have a legitimate reason to hate him. But of course, I don't have one because, of course, the problem in the relationship is me.

Eventually, I fall asleep in the bathroom in a position that gives me a crick all over my body, woken only by a surprised Terra coming in the next morning to brush his teeth. He works a long shift up at the bastion, so usually he leaves before I wake up and gets home when I've already retired to my room.

"How long have you been here?" he asks me, only just noticing me in the corner when he glances in the mirror. I stand up without saying anything, and leave. Demyx is fast asleep, sprawled out on the bed with his leg hanging off. A month ago I would have climbed in with him, and I still almost want to, but instead I just sit down on my mattress. I can't go to work today. I'm too miserable. So I just bundle up with Larxene on my lap, gently rubbing her back to keep her quiet. Should I start packing today? Or can we somehow keep struggling on?

Part of me doesn't want to bother. It's more effort than it's worth to be nice to Demyx every day, and it's not like he's trying very hard to reciprocate my affections. Maybe I could just find a bedsit and leave without saying anything, like I always do. I'm not good at goodbyes. I don't understand them. It's not like it matters whether or not the people you leave behind remember you, anyway.

Demyx still isn't moving by eleven o'clock, so I get dressed and go downstairs. The soup kitchen is in full swing, which means I hardly get noticed in the crowd as I slip out into the street. I head down to the bastion, this time climbing up to the upper layers of the castle where the wind howls through the gaping, cavernous holes in the walls. Not for the first time, I seriously wonder what happened to this place. But nobody wants to talk about it, at least not without asking for some answers from me in return.

I dodge a passing builder, one of Terra's friends who I half recognised, and slide through a side corridor. I climb through an ajar door into what looks like a long-undisturbed library, or, to my eyes, a good place to hide. I duck under a desk and unwrap Larxene from her carrier (which is really just a glorified strip of fabric). I like the feeling of this room. It's full of old knowledge and lost memories. Around me, the bastion is half alive with the sounds of construction work. Why are they rebuilding this old bastion, with the rest of the town in ruins? Surely the munny would have been better spent on the shops and houses? But I only entertain these thoughts for a few minutes, because even I - having lived in this town for just six months - have fallen in love with this place and its inexplicable sense of calm. So my thoughts return again to Demyx. "I should apologise," I say to Larxene again, pulling her bottle out of my jacket pocket. "But he was shitty to me last night. And he was high again."

I bite on my knuckles, vaguely hoping that Larxene won't pick these awful habits up from me. Reflecting on the situation, I decide that I don't want to move out. I'll have to send Larxene back to a babysitter, rather than just leaving her with friendly hobos and hoping for the best (a surprisingly effective strategy). Thanks to Aqua's careful guidance, I've been putting most of my money in the bank, the rest of it by and large being spent on baby supplies and ingredients for soup. I wonder how much money I have now. What I do know is that I'd like to keep it for emergencies if I can.

So I go back to the soup kitchen - getting side tracked along the way by a billy of soup in need of stirring - and somehow summon the courage to go to Demyx and say sorry, but when I get to the bedroom he is nowhere to be found.

"He went to school," Aqua says behind me, making me jump about a foot in the air. She leads me away from the mess of a room. "Let's talk, Marluxia," She says, "Just you and I." I don't want to talk to Aqua, but I also do. I don't know. All I can do is let Aqua lead me into the garden. Apart from the bastion, this is where I spend most of my alone time. I like the unruly plants and long grass that nobody has time to mow. Normally it feels free: but not now that Aqua is pulling me by the hand to the corrugated plastic pergola at the end of the garden. She sits me down on a warping chair and says to be very gently: "What do you want, Marluxia?"

I think about this for a long time, but I draw a blank.

"For Demyx to stop doing drugs."

"I've talked to him about it," Aqua ruminates sadly, "But I can't stop him from making that decision any more than you can."

"Didn't you get him clean before?" I ask. "When he arrived here?" But Aqua shakes her head, saying "He chose that for himself."

So it really is my fault that he's doing drugs again. I swallow heavily, my gut sinking. As usual, I use Larxene as a distraction, playing with her soft little hands so I don't have to admit to Aqua that it's me who's the failure here.

"But tell me what you want," Aqua presses on. I look at her delicate hands, crossed on her lap, her clear nail polish belying the calluses I know are hidden on the pads of her fingers.

"That depends on the context," I say evasively, but Aqua just gives me such a penetrating look that I squirm and add "I just want to look after Larxene."

"That's very noble of you," says Aqua. This annoys me.

"You wouldn't say that if I was a girl." I know this from experience. But Aqua doesn't miss a beat, simply derailing me by saying: "Yes I would." Nobody has ever told me that when I was pretending to be female, not even Mrs Merryweather. Yes, she was pleasant to me, but more and more I am convinced that she only did it because I was paying her to be nice. I don't know what to do, so I just let Aqua continue: "I know she's your primary concern, but you have to think of your own requirements, too. Especially when Demyx is involved."

"What if I don't know what they are?"

Aqua looks at me with her deep blue eyes.

"Demyx is a fragile person too," she says, which isn't something that had occurred to me before; "He's been through a lot of difficult things. And he needs a lot of support from the people around him, just like you do. It doesn't take much for him to feel as though he's worthless."

"But he's not," I protest without thinking; "He's still in school and unlike me he's actually good at something. I've never met anybody who was so good at playing the guitar."

"That's true, but he doesn't see that in himself."

"So you're saying that I should be nice to him all the time to make him feel better?" I ask sourly. He certainly doesn't make the effort to do that for me.

"Of course not," Aqua laughs. "Nobody could keep that up all the time." She obviously fails to notice the contradiction that it is her, Aqua Victoria Seymour, who is saying this. "You two just need to talk about your problems and work things out."

"He probably wants to leave me for one of his new friends," I mutter. "So there's not much point trying."

"You don't know that for sure," says Aqua. Someone yells at her from the house, but she calls back that she's busy. "And you won't sort anything out if you don't talk to him."

I lift Larxene up on my lap. She's getting better at standing up on her own now, even wobbling forward by herself for a few steps before she flops down into a crawl again. I pull her into a hug, needing the comfort, even if she doesn't understand why I'm unhappy. I say: "But if I talk to him he might eventually break up with me." This scares me. But what scares me more is that by losing Demyx I lose the security of a place to stay and company to support me. So I add in a very small voice: "Can I stay here anyway?"

"Of course you can," Aqua replies immediately; "We'll find space for you somewhere." I imagine Larxene and I squashed into the airing cupboard, which almost makes me laugh. A small weight lifts off my chest: at least I'll still be able to stay with them if I need to. Yes, there's still that issue of the huge crushing fear of my pregnancy, but at least I don't need to worry about my home for a while yet. So we go back inside where Aqua quickly reasserts control of the cooking processes in the kitchen. I slink upstairs while she's distracted by the oven and spend the afternoon teaching Larxene to walk, holding her hands and swinging her to and fro, loosening my grip a little every time her feet come to rest solidly on the floor. When Demyx comes back maybe I'll convince him to take a photo of her standing up, for posterity. Larxene squeals with delight every time I do this, even pulling herself away from my fingertips to toddle off until she falls head first onto the floor and starts crying. Demyx comes back very late at night, while I am reading Larxene a story about farm animals (although she's more interested in the sound the book makes when she slaps its cardboard pages).

"I didn't think you'd still be awake," he says, sounding disappointed. I look at him, frowning. "Hello to you, too," I say.

Demyx looks at me guiltily as he changes into his pyjamas.

"Hey, we need to talk, I guess," he says.

"Did Aqua ask you to say that?"

"She's right," Demyx says. He sits down on the bed, fiddling with his sleeves, and goes "Um."

I think, I have to apologise to him for yesterday. And also in general. So before he continues I say all in a rush: "I'm sorry I didn't go to the cinema with you. I had a bad day."

"I, uh, that's okay," Demyx replies. He looks at me for a long few seconds, and even though he's my boyfriend I still squirm a little under the scrutiny, feeling as though I am silently being judged. Then he continues: "I didn't care about that. I just wanted to say..." but he trails off, looking away again. He glances over the posters on his wall, torn and peeling and each one taped on in twenty different places. When I can see his face again, he's beginning to cry. He says; "Marly, I met someone. And I really like him. He asked me out and I said no because I already have a boyfriend, but, you know."

The only thing that comes out of my mouth is "Oh". Something sardonic curls in my stomach as Larxene starts babbling, maybe to fill the silence. Demyx looks at me imploringly.

"It's not your fault or anything. I don't want you to think it's because of last night. I should have told you earlier."

I try to laugh, even though it's the last thing I want to do right now. "It's okay," I say; "I know I was a shitty boyfriend anyway."

Demyx says, "I'm really sorry, Marly." And he climbs off onto my bed, wrapping his arms around us. "I still think you're really cute." And he says this without the faintest hint of insincerity or malice in his voice, which considering what I am and how I've treated him is nothing short of a miraculous testament to Demyx's eternal goodwill.

That night I sleep in with him, the three of us all making each other's limbs too sweaty because we're lying so close together. I drink in the fragrance of my first boyfriend, my squeaky clean, deodorised Demyx, for the last time, while he strokes my hair and tries to list good things about me and our relationship. It doesn't take long for him to fall silent, and when he does the lull in conversation is so comfortable and inviting that I nearly tell him about going to the doctor, except a terrifying darkness of uncertainty yawns up inside me and swallows my resolve. By the time it relinquishes its grip, Demyx is snoring softly. I stare up at the invisible ceiling and whisper very quietly; "Demyx, I'm pregnant."

The reality of this fact hangs in the air for a few seconds. Then I wake Demyx up just to cry into his chest. I guess he thinks I'm upset about the break up, but that's okay: he still holds me tight and whispers things that make me feel better like "I'm sorry" and "Everything is going to be alright". I pretend that he knows everything, which helps.