Maria entered the dingy little pub she had promised to meet Eli at. It was just as she remember from their teen years; the perfect place to hit up before you're twenty one—everyone knew the staff never checked IDs, the booze was cheap, and despite its reputation for being the spot to drink underage it never got shut down and the police never busted them. There so many memories of drinking a shit ton before she would eventually black-out. Maria liked to believe she would get into awesome bar fights beat up a couple of beefy dudes then somehow end up back at home with minimal vomiting and chances of alcohol poisoning (if she was really lucky she wouldn't get into any trouble with her father—though she was pretty sure he'd given up completely on making her into his "sweet little girl again").

She scanned the dimly lit basement room, it wasn't nearly as crowded as it was on those weekend nights ten years ago, so she quickly spotted Eli. He was sitting in the same booth he, Antonio, Francis, and herself would occupy with whatever girl Francis was currently dating. "Yo bro," she said brightly sliding into the seat across from him a huge smile on her face, "been waiting a long time for me?"

"It's been about fifteen minutes, but I'm smart enough to know better than to expect you to be here on time."

"It's not like I can force the bus to speed, baby. I made be made of awesome, but it works by completely different rules then magic." She smiled.

"I thought that they were the same thing." Eli said with a little laugh as the first two beers were brought to the table, "I went ahead and ordered the first two, you still like your booze cheap as long as it gets you drunk right?"

"Oh I don't drink anymore…" Maria said looking down at the grimy table with swear words and initials of couples that most certainly had broken up carved into the surface.

"Court Ordered AA finally get you to quite?" he laughed sliding the glass mug towards her.

"Fuck no! The police cannot get me, and you know it. It's not that at all, my reasons are more temporary."

He shrugged sliding her portion closer to him, "Fine then more for me I guess." He took a long swig from his own drink and as he was busy beginning to drink Maria went ahead and ordered herself a Coke and the two of them some chili cheese fries. "So why is it?" Eli asked once she returned to her seat.

"Oh nothing," she turned head and mumbled, "I'm just pregnant."

"Hm? What was that?" he leaned across the table.

"I just said that I was pregnant." Again she mumbled the last word.

"I can't be hearing you right… because I swear I heard you just say that you're pregnant." The look on his face was clearly pure confusion.

"That's what I said." She said with a little sigh, "I've got a little bun in the oven or whatever the fuck people say."

Eli just starred at her for a moment in silence, like she had just proven she really have a five meter dick. It was shocking to him to say the least there was something about Maria Beilschmidt being pregnant that was kind of borderline disturbing. It was seemingly impossible, sure she was sexually active and he was pretty sure that she wasn't always careful (no one could boast a perfect record as far as that sort of thing went). "No way… who managed to conquer the savage bitch beast?"

"Ha ha ha" Maria's arms were crossed as she shot him a look, "No one real important, just some dick wad that I will not be talking to again anytime soon."

"One night stand?"

"Nope, we were dating—just no longer interested in him."

"Why not?"

Maria sighed, "It wasn't working out." She shot him a look before taking a long drink of her soda, hoping the glare she was giving him would be enough to give him the hint to drop the topic. The waiter dropped off the fries then backed away clearly feeling the tension between the two of them.

Eli looked her right in the eyes not ready to back down, "If I tell you what went wrong with Rue and I, would you tell me about your doomed relationship." He took a fry and popped it into his mouth, "After all here we are two old friends, recently made single, sitting in a bar; despite the fact that you're not boozing it up there is no reason we can't be as cliché as possible."

"I guess we could do that?" Maria said with a little laugh (pulling the fries closer to her, she needed the calories and all of the greasy badness- what with the diet Francis had been forcing on her). Sure she really didn't feel like discussing the details of her most dysfunctional relationship with her crazy-ass Russian baby daddy, but the temptation of knowing what it was that had made Eli no longer want Rue was too great. It was completely unhealthy and certainly abnormal to have such a strong hatred for her cousin. But, after being compared to the perfect little Rue her whole entire life, and having the prissy little bitch steal away most of her men (all of them but Francis really)—there was so much satisfaction to be gained when it came to her failures. There was no way in hell the symphony nor her record label was going to drop her anytime soon so the only thing that was going to be able to feed her hunger until those happy happy days (that would likely never come) was knowing why it was she was unable to have a successful marriage yet again.

The gossipy, bitchy, vindictive (and totally stereotypically female) wheels in Maria's head began to turn. She could practically feel herself getting giddy. Rue had been the one to cut off the marriage to Antonio. He was all about trying to make it work out, but had been "too stupid" in the bitch's words to be able to fix it. Sure Antonio was an idiotic airhead (most of the time) but that was what his charm was all about! She found him to be lazy because of his refusal to get a job after she had Lovino, but there was no way she was going to take any time off and he felt guilty about leaving their child with someone that wasn't him nor her, and he still kept the house clean and cooked three square meals everyday on top of taking care of that little asshole Lovino (no way would she ever call the kid that to Antonio's face but frankly the kid was an asshole—and everyone but his father seemed to see that). Eli was a pretty well rounded guy pretty much everything that Rue wanted in a husband outside of being a spineless puddle of goo.

Eli snuck a couple of fries past Maria's arms earning another glare from her, "I need some energy to get through it OK." He added a bit of an uneasy laugh before sighing, reaching up, and running his hands through his hair, "Right, well the quickest way I can say it is that Rue was having an affair—"

"No way." Maria mouthed.

"Apparently with her solo tour manager Vash, which is weird because I always thought he was asexual, or interested online in his weapons or something weird like that." He shrugged, "there was no way I would be able to stay with her and have her sleeping with another man while she was away on tour, especially when I was sitting back home being faithful, save for my left hand and everything."

"No way. Rue actually was cheating on you—like having sex and what not?"

"Yeah, the kicker is she's been with this guy like that since before she left Antonio."

"Oh my god! Why would she even go ahead and get with you?" Eli shrugged, "Shit man, that sucks. I would never guess she would be up to something like that." Maria kept her face serious but tucked that information into the back of her head ready to pop out next time her father asked why she couldn't be more like her cousin or the next time Antonio was getting all sad and stuff over his failed marriage.

"So what about you, and the kid's father?"

"It was both of us." Maria said with a gulp, "Basically the relationship was purely physical because that's what I was looking for, combine that with the fact that he probably needs to be medicated, and my lack of ability to be mature." She shrugged and didn't a slight pout-frown thing that she so picked up from years of being around Francis, "Really I should have broken it off years ago, but hey there was something about him that kept bringing me back, until our last fight and my given into actually believing that I was really pregnant. That's what it took for me to get that the relationship was going nowhere good. It just didn't seem fair to the kiddo to birth it into that kind of environment."

"That's kind of a mature and grown up thing…" Eli said with a little smile, "That kind of thinking isn't typical of you is it? But at the same time it's not and frankly unfair… maybe a touch selfish too."

"What do you mean? He'd slap me around sometimes." She pointed the last fry which was in her hand at Eli, mostly for dramatic effect. "Don't get me wrong though," she popped it in her mouth, "I don't take that kind of bullshit from anyone, huge cock or anything, I always got a few good hits in before it was said and done." Eli scoffed as if saying iYeah and you probably were the one to start with the punches and what not more than half the time too/i, "So yeah it was the best choice really."

"But that doesn't change the fact that you're not going to let the baby know his father." He eyed her, "And you have to admit that that's not fair."

"Fuck no, I'm awesome. The only parent the kid could ever need."

"Did you even tell your ex-boyfriend that you are pregnant?"

She shook her head, "Nope. He doesn't need to know and if he did it would just make things messier. I don't want him around and knowing his crazy-ass he would so want to be ioverly/i involved." She shuddered, "I can imagine him with that creepy smiling, rubbing my stomach, and cooing—so disturbing."

"Most women would find that endearing."

"Most women aren't pregnant with the child of a man that needs to be institutionalized. He has this scarf that he always wears. The only time he takes it off is in the shower, summer, winter, sleeping, having sex, ialways/i. What kind of mentally stable person does that? The only time it gets washed is when he's at his older sister's place, she can coax it off of him but no one else."

"That is kind of sweet…" he looked confused, "in a weird way… yeah your right it's not normal." Maria nodded to extenuate her point, "But he still has a right to know, you know?"

"You're not going to convince me otherwise Eli, so it's best if you just don't try to."

He laughed a little, "You're always so stubborn. But I can't help but worry about you, if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask, OK?"

"Don't get mushy on me man. You know with these pregnancy hormones I never know when I am going to blow chunks."

Maria entered her apartment building, this time through the front door, waving at Eli as he pulled off seeing that she had made it into the building alright. She was still riding the high of seeing the guy and having a chance to go ahead and catch up on everything, hell even telling him about Ivan felt kind of good (and knowing the truth about why he and Rue had called it quits, the fact that it had been her fault made knowing all the more better). She made her way up the wide staircase hand on the banister , then to the apartment on the third floor.

Before she could even get her key in the hole the door swung open and she was pulled into a hug, "Thank goodness you're alive." Well it looked like Antonio was over.

"Glad to see you're alive too buddy." She said patting him on the back as she shut the door and took her shoes off.

Her Spanish friend took her by the hand and led her to the couch, "We were so worried about you. It's nearly nine-thirty and you weren't home yet."

Maria turned to look at Francis and smirked, "You were worried about me?" she asked tilting her head to the side, "Oh I am so touched."

"It was all Antonio." Francis said casually as he cleaned under his finger nails.

"You must be hungry being out so late." Antonio stood up, "I'll fix you a plate, just sit here and wait."

Maria sighed, he was always so eager to make sure she was fully fed. At least he respected her decision as a grown woman to not like to eat her vegetables. She looked down at the floor where Antonio's two boys Lovino and Feliciano were playing. Or well Lovino was building with his over sized blocks and Feliciano was sucking one of his covered in drool looking up at Maria. She melted with his big brown eyes on her and she couldn't help but pick up the younger boy grinning as she hugged him close to her chest, he was so cute despite his drooling problem. Plus he was a sweet child that didn't swear and hit people like his older brother. The older boy shot her a look though as she cooed and gushed over little Feli who made happy little baby noises. Maria would be pretty happy if she wound up with a baby like Feliciano, sure he cried a lot; but he made up for it by being so cute and generally well behaved otherwise. Plus he didn't crawl around and move a lot so as long as he had something to chew on and something else to distract him there wasn't a reason to worry about him eating chemicals or getting hurt.

Antonio returned with a plate of food and the two of swapped causing Lovino to kick his building over and march to his father demanding to be picked up as well, complete with calling him a bastard. "So where were you?" the Spaniard asked completely unfazed by his child's insult.

"Out with a friend—"

"Was it Eli?" Francis asked as he inspected his handy work on his nails lounging on the other sofa.

Maria felt her cheeks get warm and went right to willing the color away, thankful that what Antonio had cooked was a bit spicy. That was an easy scapegoat. "Yeah, we went out to dinner."

"How is he doing?" Antonio asked brightly, despite the change in his face going just a touch darker.

"Alright from what I gather; we were just talking and catching up on everything. He knows I'm pregnant now."

"That's good." Francis said with a smile, "I was worried you were going to sleep with him as soon as possible then try and pin the kid on him." He seemed to be finished with his inspection.

"Like hell—" she glanced at the two boys who seemed unfazed by her curse and Antonio didn't seem to mind either, "As if I would do something shady like that." She stuffed her face with a forkful of food.

The Frenchman eyed her a bit with suspicion, "What did you two talk about?"

"How much life sucks. Basically I went on about Ivan, he went on about Rue," Antonio's face got a degree darker, "how much or jobs blow. Typical stuff like that."

"So was it a date?"

"No way, just two people catching up."

"Over dinner—" Antonio said, grin brightening up.

"Talking about their most recent past lovers—"

"Did he drive you home?" the Spaniard asked.

Maria nodded.

"It was so a date then!" her two best friends said in unison as she felt her cheeks getting warmer.