Maria continued to wipe her eyes with a clumped up piece of toilet paper (as if she were the sort of person to actually have tissues on hand) after Francis left her room. She felt so pathetic laying there curled up on her side, eyes bright red and stinging from all the crying. Francis had done his very best to cheer her up; her roommate had spent the last two and a half hours rubbing her back and telling her things would be alright in the end. But she had to admit that his words were not enough to quiet her fears.

Ivan was an ice burg of crazy, the majority of people could only see the tip of his insanity (by judging his cover of being a perpetually smiling over-sized child); Maria though had swam in the frigid water around him and knew just how big that crazy got when you dove under the surface. But she could be just as crazy as he was too. Most of the time she was the one to initiate their fist fights and bouts of rage; but he knew just what to do and say to set her off (though to be fair she did the same things to him often enough). It was a mutually destructive relationship.

With Eli though, Maria could be herself. She could go back to how she was in high school, and he could do the same thing. They two of them shared a certain since of immaturity, though the healthy kind (Ivan's was the sort that a kid plucking each leg slowly off of a spider or one who chopped worms in half had). Eli knew what her buttons were, and while he did press them from time to time to see her reaction her still knew when to stop and what to say to make it better. Maria had thought she knew everything that drove him insane but earlier on in the night she had learned one more thing. And with the way he seemed so disgusted over the fact that she did not want to tell Ivan about the baby, it was almost as if she did not feel nearly good enough for him.

Eli was an honest and decent guy, even if he had married her she-beast of a cousin. He was the sort of person she wished that she was carrying the child of. Not a man who had never really grown up, who was over sized, unnecessarily cruel (though in his defense she had never been able to tell if his cruelty was intentional or not), and intimidated others into doing what he wished. In the end though it was that man she now hated and had only been with for the sole purpose of seriously mind-blowing sex that was the father of her child. And he wanted her back.

Maria rolled over in her bed grabbing another pillow that wasn't wet with tears, salvia, and snot holding it close to her body. What were her options?

Ivan would surely come back for her. She could cut things off with him but he would find her again. And he had seemed so excited about being a father (she really did hope he'd be the sort of scum bag to run off and pretend to never have slept with her). And he wanted to name the baby boy Boris. That was a pretty terrible name as far as she was concerned and another reason for her to not make it work with him. Even if the relationship between the two of them was an unhealthy and toxic environment for them as adults; let alone a poor innocent baby that had done nothing wrong.

Maria still had her father available. Ivan had never met the man and had no idea where he lived. She knew her father was disappointed in her; he never would want his only child to end up as a single mother. But she also knew that no matter how disappointed her father was or how strict he seemed, he would never turn her away, especially, in a time of need when she was carrying his grandson. If worst came to worst she could quit her job teaching, and kick it old school living off of her inheritance on her father's property in the country side. Well minus being a single mother (though she could make up a story that his father died in the war before he was even born only to tell him the truth and ruin his childhood memories when he was eighteen).

There was still her third choice. To not give into Ivan and not runaway; just tell the oversized Russian child that she did not want to be with him. She could stand her ground let him know what exactly she thought of him and inform him she did not want him in the kid's life. If he wanted to take her to court he sure as hell could try, but she knew the kind of money he had in his bank account (next to nothing), so a good lawyer could be hard to get (and she could hope for one of those crazy old fart judges that instantly hated anyone from Eastern Europe because of commies and shit).

Maria's third choice seemed like the best one. It was the one that she could look at herself in the mirror the easiest with. But it didn't change the fact that Ivan's word earlier really stung. No matter what she had to admit to herself that Eli seemed to be just too good for her. She'd grown up her whole life being teased and picked on for her appearance. Sure she could pretend that the words of her classmates didn't get to her, that she was stronger than all of that. But, years and years of hearing it over and over again was enough to get to her. She had dated a guy with was just as fucked up from years of peer tormenting; and she had been with him not out of love but her own self-gratification.

And Eli, he just seemed so perfect and balanced. His only teasing in school had come from Antonio, Francis, and her. It was all in good light hearted fun though. After all they teased everyone and there was no malice in it. He had been in a marriage to the she-demon Rue, and that had to be built off of something other than raw passionate wild sex all over their way too big house (Antonio had told her things she never really wanted to know ever). It just wasn't fair no matter how Maria looked at it.

And oh did Maria want Eli for it. She wanted to be in a normal functional relationship, with the sort of man who made her feel well, normal. She wanted happiness. And most of all in probably the least selfish feeling she had ever had in her life, she wanted for the child she was carrying to have a father-son bond with a man that she felt was decent enough for the task. And it seemed as though Eli was the perfect one for that duty.

The first thing Maria heard when she woke up was the blasting of her alarm clock at six. She rolled over and slapped the machine off. She stripped her clothes off and tossed the clothing off into the hamper in the corner before making her way naked to the bathroom. She scrunched up her nose catching a glance of her red-rimmed eyes, complete with a lovely layer of crust from crying, her swollen stomach, and the network of stretch marks that were spreading over the bulge. Francis had bought her some sort of cream to fight off the scaring, and she was starting to regret tossing it somewhere months ago (she'd have to dig around for it).

Turning to face the mirror she wiped away the eye crust flicking it off her fingers into the great unknown behind the toilet. With the eye crust gone she squinted better able to examine her face and figure (curse her god awful eyesight) wrapping her arms around her belly in the sort of way she'd seen pregnant women cradle their wombs in various magazines. Maria gave her blurry reflection a bit of a grin before sticking her tongue out in fake disgust, grabbing her toothbrush and toothpaste (brushing her teeth in the shower was always her favorite way to shave time off of getting ready in the morning), before hoping into the shower.

Once she was bathed, with a squeaky clean mouth and body, she wrapped up in a towel before catching a whiff of something delicious. Maria decided she could hold off on getting dressed because whatever Francis was cooking she needed it in her body ASAP.

"What are you cooking babe?" she asked poking her head into the kitchen. The movement of Francis jumping in surprise was not wasted and she chuckled.

"Breakfast. You were so distraught last night I thought the least I could do was make you a delicious meal. I would like to remind you I am up entirely too early for it to be good for my complexion." He flipped whatever he was making over in the frying pan. He turned his head to look at her and scrunched his nose up in disgust, "And yours looks terrible! I would lend you some cover up but I'm afraid it's not nearly light enough."

"Oh fuck you. I'm GOREGOUS!" Maria half hissed making her way closer to him to peak over his shoulder, "Ohhh pancakes. Francis let's get married, you know everything to make me happy."

"Mon dieu! I will not have Ivan breaking down my door again."

"Oh come on. We can run off together and he'll never find us."

"Isn't Eli your knight in shining armor anyways?" Francis asked raising an eyebrow before sliding a pancake nearly effortlessly onto a plate. Quickly he slathered it in fresh butter so that it could melt before starting the next. It was a process that took a little more than half a minute to complete, and Maria remained silent the whole time. He let out a sigh as the hot cake began to cook before turning and fixing his roommate with a concerned look. "Have you spoken to him yet?"

"No," she pouted a bit in a way that was entirely too childish for a mother-to-be, "I just, I just don't know what to say, plus he was pretty pissed at me last night for you know not having told Ivan about the baby."

"I'm sure he'll understand."

"Yeah I'm sure he will too but there is just something about it that feels so weird, and what that over-sized dick-wad said is kind of true. I'm pretty dysfunctional you know? And if he wants in on the kid's life then I am going to have to let him in."

"As much as it pains me to say this, no you don't."

"How does that pain you exactly?"

Francis fixed her with a look over his shoulder as he finished up with the last pancake and turned the stove off. "Women pretty much control the shots when it comes to children. Whatever a woman wants is what goes pretty much."

"Yeah only you don't have kids, which by the way is still a total shocker!"

He was busy not cutting up some strawberries, "Doesn't mean I haven't had scares. And as much as this may shock you to hear, I would honestly not mind doing the whole fatherly thing all that much. Sure it means I would have to give up my life-style of constant dating; but I am getting kind of old at this point and I would love to be a PILF—"

"'PILF'?"

"'Papa I'd Like to Fuck'—" he said it easily and Maria made a face of slight disgust, "Anyways the fact of the matter is that I am not a very good guy and I know that any of those girls I have had my scares with could decide to not let me see the child or children if she wanted to. And you've got the money to set it in stone."

"I thought about that last night. But what if kiddo wanted to know Ivan? He's a total bag of douche and all, but somehow I get the feeling when it comes to a child he would be able to control his high levels of dickery." she leaned on the counter trying to decide to tempt fate by snatching a berry or not.

"Court rulings can be changed. I really wish you would figure out what to name the poor boy though. Always calling him 'kiddo' is getting exhausting to listen to!"

"Fine then I will call him 'Boris'." The two of them waited only a moment before they cracked up laughing.

"That's probably not the best thing to go with if it makes us cackle. Why don't you borrow a naming book, or buy one; Toni can come over this weekend and the two of you can go digging for baby names. It could be fun. Plus you'll get to see little Feliciano again."

Maria practically started gushing, "He's just so darn cute, even with all of that drool everywhere! But mine is gonna be way cuter, I promise!"

"You can't promise that sort of thing."

"Yes I can. I'm awesome with awesome genes and junk."

Francis just shook his head and handed Maria over her plate of pancakes covered in fresh berries, "now go to the table and eat your food before I decide to make you get dressed first!"

Maria sighed propping her body up against the frame of the door outside of her classroom. It was the end of the day and she was waiting for the appropriate time to head out to the bus stop. Ivan had been calling her phone the whole day and leaving messages that Maria would delete the moment that her students left the classroom. She had been told off by the administration for texting during class way too many times.

She was dreading picking up a call from him or even worse having him show up at her apartment again. Mostly though Maria was hoping she would be strong enough to hold her own against him this time and not at all back down from the man. She still needed to go ahead and contact Eli. Sure she hadn't actually resolved things with Ivan, but she did go ahead and tell him that he was going to be a father in the biological sense. That did seem like what he was the most concerned about.

"When are you leaving for maternity?" Maria's attention snapped back to reality by the thick accent of the Chinese orchestra teacher, Yao, who was standing in the doorway of his own classroom.

"When are you going to stop sucking?" She snapped at him. The administration had also told her off for creating a hostile working environment. She had been tempted to yell at the principal that she fully had it in her power to really make a 'hostile working environment', but she did have the common sense to not do it.

"Me sucking?" Yao gave a shallow little chuckle, "When was the last time that any of your classes won an award? Need I remind you I am taking my advanced class to a states for the fourth year in a row."

"And how many of those did you win?" she muttered under her voice, "Anyways why should it matter to you when I am leaving for maternity."

"I have my reasons."

"Well I have my reasons for not telling you." She crossed her arms and retreated back to her classroom. Yao went back into his own classroom as well.

Maria sighed sitting down in one of the plastic chairs and propped her feet up onto the one in front of her. She fished her cellphone out of her bra and opened up one of the stupid apps she had downloaded to eat up her time while she rode the bus home. The door to the classroom opened up. Without looking up from her phone she snapped, "Yao why don't you go back to the Dork-estra room?"

What she got instead the male Chinese accented voice she was expecting, was feminine an Eastern European accent. "I'm not Yao."

She snapped her head up with such force that there was mild dizziness and a quick little snap in her neck. The voice wasn't instant recognition, and due to her shit-tastic eye sight Maria couldn't make out the face. She could however make out the shape of the woman's body, and those tits. She knew those tits anywhere. "KATYA! THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

The woman just walked closer to her until her face came into better focus. She stopped adjusting the strap of her purse, "Ivan called me last night,"? she stepped close, "He told me you were pregnant, and that that's why you've been avoiding him"

"Yeah, and?" Maria said in a low voice staring right at her, "What else did he tell you?"

"That the two of you were getting back together—"

"Yeah he thinks that. We're not I told him we were over!"

Katya sighed sitting in one of the chairs next to Maria, "I figured that much. Ivan has never really been good at making friends and the only ones he has are his friends solely because they are too afraid to not be." She turned her body taking the other woman's hand in her own, "I know you don't like Ivan very much; he's a bully after all, and really I blame myself for letting him become one… but still he's my brother and the baby is my nephew."

"Are you really sitting here telling me to date him again just because I'm having his kid?" Maria was honestly horrified She knew that the other spoiled Ivan completely and babied him at every chance she could get, but she had also thought was the only Braginsky not complete batshit insane. Apparently she was wrong, "Really how could you even—"

"I would never do that!" Maria was suddenly relieved, " It's impossible to build a relationship on just the fact that you are expecting. What I was trying to say is that, he still needs a relationship with the child."

"But he's crazy!" Katya fixed her with a disapproving look, "I mean… well I mean that he's not exactly someone I would want to have around the kid. Like for visits and stuff."

"I'm sure something can be worked out… maybe I could keep him at my house when it was time for the two to see each other. But I have to admit despite what most people think, Ivan is great with children! He loves them, is rather gentle, and can play with them for hours on end. My little Vanya is so much sweeter than people give him credit for being."

Maria just crossed her arms before looking at her phone, "Yeah well I have a bus to catch… so I'll be seeing you." Maria stood up stretching her arms into the air.

"I can give you a ride if you'd like."

"Yeah… no, I'd rather not. You may try and guilt me into making decisions I would rather not."

Katya chuckled standing up too, "I am quite persuasive. Though for some reason with women they tend to not come to my side of things as easily as with men. I wonder why…"

"I'm sure it's something that you can figure out if you think about it long enough." Maria said with a little sigh making her way out of the classroom and down the hall. Off to the bus stop.

"Oh what about Alejandro?" Antonio asked lifting up one of the naming books so that it was inches away from Maria's face. He had to quickly put it down though because the squirming of Lovino was no longer able to be contained to one arm. His older son was getting dangerously close to tumbling off of his knee and face planting into to carpet.

"I dunno that sounds kind of gay." Maria said with a sigh. She'd picked up a few different naming books from the school library. At first she had been a bit baffled as to why a middle school would have such things, but then she remembered how kids now-a-days were.

"It's so not, it means 'defender'. That's a pretty masculine meaning."

"Yeah still sounds gay." She said with a sigh, "I need something manly and powerful. The sort of name that gains respect the moment you hear it."

"Then why not 'Arsenio'? It was my uncle's name and means 'virility'."

"Still sounds gay. How about you lay off the Spanish section and choose something originating in a language where the correct way to pronounce it involves a lisp."

"Then what do you like smarty-pants." Antonio had never been one to swear, though now that he always had two small children around him at all times the words he used in place of curses was far more annoying; though somehow Lovino had still managed to get a filthy mouth.

"Hmm… oh Friedrich is a good one." Maria declared just as Feliciano started to make up pleasant noises from her lap. She picked him up and started cooing in his face, "You'd want to be best friends and play with a little boy named Friedrich wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?"

"And you think Alejandro sounds gay."

"Hey now, Friedrich is an awesome name. You give me another name shared with a king who modernized Prussia, was pretty kick ass with war fare, had a legacy of religious tolerance, and could play the flute like a boss."

Francis now chimed in from his bedroom doorway, "And also a suspected homosexual by many historians."

Antonio snickered. Maria just puffed up her chest, "And the most kick ass gay to ever gay if those historian's theories were correct."

"So do you want to go with something German then?" the Spaniard asked wanting to be productive. "What is your father's name?"

"I'm not naming him after my dad, it would be way too weird, you know? Every time I say it, I am going to think of disapproving looks, scolding, and attempts at discipline. Shit would be nowhere near being cash." Maria said with a sigh, totally disregarding the fact that she was around two small children, one of them already having a language problem.

Antonio gently clicked his tongue at Lovino, who was now letting out a stream of swear words after hearing Maria swear. He however didn't even shot his friend a disapproving look for setting his older son off. After a couple of minutes he sighed deciding to give up and let Lovino down so that he could run off and destroy Francis's carefully arranged pillows on the couch.

Maria meanwhile was still holding tight onto Feliciano who was drooling all over his hands as she looked through another one of the baby naming books. She then suddenly looked up and stared at Antonio. She just stared at him until he looked back at her.

"What is it?"

"I have found the name." Maria was beaming, "It's so perfect."

Suddenly he was excited, "Tell me!"

"Ludwig."

"Like Beethoven?

"Yeah I guess. I mean I wasn't thinking of that guy though. It just sounds good and when you combine it with the fact that it just works well with 'Beilschmidt', you know? Plus it is masculine unlike those shit names you were thinking of man."

"It sounds like something Rue would come up with." He laughed a little bit mentioning his ex-wife, but the moment Maria gave him a death glare he stopped right away, "Sorry."

"Yeah well I think I'll go with this one because it's a million times better then Boris." She sighed closing the book with purpose, "Now how about you take your sweet ass to my kitchen and make me some lunch."