A/N: GUYS I WOULD NEVER GIVE UP ON THIS STORY. The problem is that I got too cocky and thought that because I could handle (barely but I didn't think of it at the time) two stories at the same time, I could bring more into the picture. I published a Max Ride story, and I only planned it to be 8 chapters, but then BOOM INSPIRATION. An idea just struck me, and then I outlined the story and it ended up having over 25 chapters. Not to mention that inspiration was a bitch because I got TEN NEW IDEAS FOR ONESHOTS but I saved them until later but omfg guys I WOULD NEVER GIVE UP ON LOST & FOUND. I know some people consider writing their fics a chore, but not to me, omg i can't believe you guys thought that.

Okay, enough of my venting. I have a lot of news, though; I added 4 more chapters to this story, so now the original 26 chapters have turned into 30. The new chapter names are 1) The Emails, 2) The Carnival, 3) The End (those are pretty self-explanatory) but the 4th one is a confidential name because it contains my secret, which only two people know about (it's kind of cliché but i'm like 97% sure that all of you are going to curse me out when I publish it.) I'm also planning on making this story an original novel, with original characters, I'm just not sure when I'll do that.

Also, because you guys pretty much made me hate myself, I stayed up all night and pre-wrote a lot of chapters, so you'll be getting updates constantly for the next couple of weeks, so enjoy that while it lasts, lol

What's funny is that you guys picked a funny time to get annoyed me with over the fact that Patricia wasn't in this story as much as the other characters were; in the original outline, which I wrote on March 3rd, 2013, Patricia was only featured in chapters 5, 8, 15, 18 (this one), 23, and 26, and is not featured in the 4 new ones I added. So I'm sorry I don't include her as much, but when I was figuring out which characters would be on which side, I put Joy with Team Nina and Patricia came along with her, so ((also if you want to see the original notes for Lost and Found just tell me and I'm post them on a website.))

Okay! You should know that this will not be the only long Author's Note, because I'm one of those author's that feel the need to write a million words a chapter. ((You should see the new chapter of Picking Up the Pieces that I'm going to post this weekend, jfc)) And without further ado, the three-week-late chapter of Lost & Found!
~Lia

Fabian
Chapter 18: "The Outing"

Fifteen minutes proved to be fifteen seconds or less to Emma; after countless attempts at trying to get her to calm down, she was still screaming her lungs out over nothing. I didn't understand why two year olds were so confusing; what could have frustrated her?

"Oh, please calm down!" I whimpered, bouncing Emma up and down in my arms once again. It didn't work the first time, but or the second time, but hey It got to the point where I ran into the common room, where everyone was sitting, and begged for help; but they all shook their heads and declined. At one point, Eddie even stood up and told me, "She's your daughter, Fabian. Not ours. You have to get her to calm down." Instead of agreeing with that statement, which was completely right, I groaned and just ran back into the kitchen, where Emma was sitting on the counter tops, tears streaming down her little cheeks.

"Jesus, Emma, what do you like?" I complained, leaning against one of the drawers, eyeing the little girl, who was sucking on her thumb as she cried. I'd hate to see how wet her finger would be after she took it out. "Like, Eddie said you like horses...but there are no horses around...so what else is there? You have to give me a hint!?"

When she continued to cry and suck her thumb, I almost ripped my intestines out.

"Alright, alright..." I muttered, mostly to myself, to keep myself calm and collected and to not drive myself crazy with the sound of my daughter's wails. I remembered how, only a few hours previous, Emma went into a fit of wails as well; Mick had looked up how to stop a screaming toddler temper tantrum and told me they needed something to distract them; something that was more interesting than crying. "Distractions, distractions..." I muttered.

Then I realized; I was a famous singer. I had tons of songs. Music was a common distraction item when someone was feeling down or sick. I released a sly smile as I slinked my way over to my daughter, placing my arms on either side of her on the counter; Eddie had told me that when Emma was a year old, Nina placed her on the counter and she slid off; Mara denied that, saying that he was only trying to scare me, but I wasn't taking any chances.

"Hey, do you remember, how we would stay up all night..." I picked the song "You" by Robin Stjernberg, because of how much it related to me and my situation; it was scary, even, how relatable it was.

Some people might think I was extending the truth here, but it was true; I really did owe my career to Nina. If she hadn't sat down next to me in the coffee shop, if she hadn't started a conversation with me, if I hadn't taken her back to my house, where she encouraged me to go for it, to aim for the stars and succeed in what I want to do, then I wouldn't be a famous singer.

I sometimes wondered what my life would be like if Nina hadn't been in that coffee shop at the same time I was: I wouldn't have a daughter. I'd be going to college, taking classes in something that interested me much less than music. I wouldn't have met Jerome, Mick, Alfie, Amber, Aaron, or anyone else in my team. I wouldn't be a famous singer. If Nina hadn't been in that coffee shop, I wouldn't have known her. My life would be so much different than it was now.

It was strange to think how things worked out; when I received the photograph of Emma, I hadn't given a thought to girl I'd had sex with when I was sixteen...since I was sixteen. I thought that was just the first out of many times I'd have sex. And if I was being completely honest, yes, I did it with Jessica and Grace, the other two girlfriends I'd had since 2009, too.

"Talking 'bout our destiny..." I continued, seeing Emma stop crying — it was only for a second, but it was the best second of my life — and by the time she continued wailing, I heard a bunch of groans issue from the common room; I knew they were getting as frustrated with Emma as I was. "And I play the piano..." I attemped to continue, begging Emma with my eyes as I sang. "And you would strum on your guitar. Those were the days. If only you could see me now; I live my dream, I owe it all to you...I owe it to you. Isn't it crazy? Yeah, isn't it crazy? I owe it all to you...I owe it all to you...I owe it all to you! I know that if the sky would fall, I'd survive it all, because of you!"

But Emma didn't stop crying. The groans were steadily getting louder and louder, and I knew that if she cried any more, they would start leaving; possibly even Eddie and Mara would leave, too, and I couldn't do this without them.

"Damnit, Emma!" I complained, moving away from her to another counter. "What makes you not upset? What could've done this to you? What the hell makes you happy?"

And then — suddenly — she stopped crying. And it wasn't for just a second. It was two seconds, and then three seconds, then four, then five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten...she never continued crying after she stopped. Instead, she started laughing at me, and someone from the common room screamed, "HAVE I GONE DEAF?"

That's when I realized something was on my hand. It was soft and gooey and orange; when I had pounded the counter with my fist because I was as frustrated as Emma was, I had hit the carrot that Amber had taken out from the cabinet and smashed it with my hand, splattering all the gooey insides onto my hand.

Emma, obviously, thought that tiny little action was hilarious, because her tiny little cheeks were inflated like a balloon and her tiny little teeth were showing. Her tiny little figure and her tiny little laugh was the most adorable thing I had ever seen; I had just stopped by own child from crying my laughing. It was the first time I had heard her laugh, and I was grateful for that, even though my singing hadn't calmed her like I thought it would.

"Aha!" I cheered weakly, not truly knowing how to react; Emma had just laughed at me. I couldn't show how relieved I was that the crying was silenced, there would be no more screaming or wailing, and we could go back to normal. Emma could go back to staring at the carpeted floor in the common room and think about how high she was off the ground.

"Oh, thank you so much, Emma," I breathed, enveloping her tiny little figure into my arms, and she giggling once again. I lifted her up off the counter, sat her in my arms, and carried her all the way back to the common room, where everyone was sitting; when I stepped onto the carpet, everyone cheered. I set Emma down on the floor, and she ran awkwardly back to the couch and attempted to pull herself up off the couch; before I went and helped her, though, I bowed while everyone clapped their hands and cheered.

"Why, thank you," I laughed, now walking over to my daughter and starting to give her a push so she could climb onto the couch more easily. "I try, I try."

"Well, it took you long enough," Jerome complained, laughing along with Alfie at the same time. "I was getting so sick of that kid wailing."

For the next few minutes, we discussed what was going to happen; who was going to come to Nina's house on what days, who would look after Emma when and where, and what would happen in the next two weeks that Emma's mother was out of town.

We had finally made the arrangement that I would take Emma to my house tomorrow, and then after that I would come to Nina's house every other day to spend the afternoon with Eddie and/or Mara, when there was a knock on the door.

"Who's that?" Mara wondered. Eddie shrugged, pushing herself off the couch to walk to the door; I stood up, however, before he could reach the door, but he motioned with his hands for me to sit down.

"Oh," he announced as he threw the door open. I couldn't see who was in the doorway from where I was sitting, but I could see from an odd angle that Eddie looked a tiny bit distressed. "Hey, what are you doing here?" His voice was rising steadily; "What could PATRICIA WILLIAMSON and JOY MERCER possibly be doing in this house?"

"Um," a different voice began, presumably Patricia Williamson or Joy Mercer. Mara, who was sitting across from me, seemed to be frozen in shock; her eyes were the size of tennis balls and she was bouncing up and down in her seat like a squirrel on red bull. The voice continued, "Well, Joy and I were in the neighboorhood, when we saw your car in front of this house, Eddie, so I thought you'd be here with Mara and Nina and such, and, well..."

Then they were silent, and so was the rest of the common room. Mara looked like a volcano, while the rest of the group wore confused expressions; Mara was gripping Jerome's shirt sleeve, looking as if she was about to faint, which wouldn't be so far from the truth. I heard a soft "ow", before the voice continued, "We were thinking of how cruel we had been to you three. And I felt bad, because Joy has had a rough time at home lately, so I've been cranky because she's been cranky, so I've been cruel to you as well, Eddie, and I'm sorry."

"It's no problem, Patricia," Eddie laughed weakly, leaning his hand against the wall to the side. "I know you, and you're a big pain in the ass."

"Excuse me?"

Eddie chuckled, and from what I could see, he leaned in for a kiss. I couldn't understand what was going on, but from what I could see, 'Patricia' and Eddie were a couple, but she seemed to be a bully towards Nina and Mara. I know that if Nina was cruel to Mick and Jerome, I wouldn't want to be around her. I wouldn't be in love with someone if they hated my friends...

"You're my pain in the ass," he told her, putting his arms around her. "Why are you here, though?" His gaze traveled to the girl next to Patricia, the one named 'Joy'.

'Joy' cleared her throat and announced, "We're here to apologize. I know I've been cruel to all three of you, and when we were passing by this house on our walk...well, I don't know, I felt guilty. I was mean to Mara just because she got better grades than me, and I was mean to Nina because she just liked Fabian Rutter, which was ridiculous. I guess...I don't know. I really was mean for no reason. I don't know the slightest thing about Nina or her daughter, and yet I judged her. For all I knew, the guy she met could've been amazing, and I'll never know."

"Oh, yeah, he was amazing," Eddie joked sarcastically, and I had to resist the urge to walk up to him and slap him upside the head. What stopped me was Mara's look of desperation; something was obviously bothering her, and I had no idea what it was. "Well, JOY, that was very kind of you," Eddie continued, enunciating the names of people very loudly; I still had no idea why he was doing that, but he didn't seem to be stopping. "But MARA and I really have to go the store. It was nice to see you, I'll talk to you later, Patricia, goodbye -"

"No, wait!" Joy exclaimed, making Mara release her grip on Jerome's sleeve and walked on her knees towards me, digging her Wolverine claws into my forearm; while Eddie spoke to the girls, Mara's eyes spoke for her. She whisper-shouted into my ear, "HIDE."

"What?" I whisper-shouted back, trying to sneak a glance at the people whom Eddie was speaking to, trying hard to convince them to leave. "Why do I have to hide?"

"Just hide?!" Mara's voice was pleading, but at the same time, I detected a bit of insanity to it; she kept glancing back and forth from the door, to back to me, and I could've sworn her fingers were going to protrude my poor arm and draw blood. Her voice was no louder than someone in a movie theater's as she literally pushed me off the sofa and led me to the back of the couch, out of sight from the naked eye. I felt everyone in the common room staring at me as I crawled on my hands and knees, thinking that I was playing a game of hide-and-go-seek without the young one in the group, as I muttered, mostly to myself, but not caring if anyone heard: "I feel like I'm eight years old."

I listened to Eddie talk to Patricia and Joy, Mara going to join them, as I played around with the white rug in an attempt to make myself comfortable. I figured I'd be here for a while; if Eddie spent any longer kissing and hugging that 'Patricia' girl, I'd have to spend the rest of the evening in a very uncomfortable position behind the very-much see-through sofa. "...Like I said," Joy continued, "I feel bad. I've never even met Emma, and I was friends with Nina when we were thirteen! Where is the little cutie? Can we see her?"

"No, that really isn't a good idea," Eddie told them uncertainly, and I had to resist the urge to get up from my position and punch the two girls in the nose. Who did they think they were, asking to see my daughter without the knowledge that the father was in the same house as they were? Nina had never once told me she had been 'friends' with 'Joy' when she was 'thirteen' (but then again she barely told me anything about her life before I broke into her house at four in the morning and asked her friends to come to my concert).

It was when I was threatening 'Joy' in my mind when I remembered:

'It was only because I liked Fabian Rutter'.

'It was only because I liked Fabian Rutter'.

And that was when I switched from wanting to punch Joy to wanting to punch myself.

Granted, I had no idea if it was true or not; but if Joy was telling the truth, if they really were friends when they were thirteen and somehow fell apart, Joy was one of the people who had tormented Nina and her friends, just because they liked me and my music. And I could not live with that.

I had known that Nina didn't know who the father was when she found out she was pregnant. I had known that she still didn't know who the father was when she gave birth to his baby. I had known that she had found out who the father was when Emma was a few months old, because her school had developed an extreme attraction to me, so word got around. Fabian Rutter, the boy most commonly known at Nina's school, was the father of her baby, and tore apart friendships. Joy and Nina had probably broken apart long before that, but it tore them apart further when Nina devoloped a 'crush' on me too. And Joy, the girl who 'liked' my music, didn't know that the baby she had just asked to see was the child of her favorite musician.

But I wouldn't let her see my baby. I had missed the first two years of my child's life, and so had Joy. If I couldn't go back in time, if I couldn't go back to when Emma took her first steps, or first ate solid food, or said her first word, neither could Joy or Patricia. I was there pretty much as long as those two girls were, and I had been as cruel to Nina about the baby as they had been. Not being there was worse than being cruel but being there.

I craned my neck the slightest bit, trying to catch a glimpse of the two girls; Joy, who was currently speaking, had dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail, looking down the hall, trying to see my child; and Patricia, the girl with red hair, who was supposedly Joy's best friend and Eddie's girlfriend, was picking at her nails as if it was too much trouble to be here.

"Emma," I whisper-shouted, trying to get my kid's attention, who was still sitting on the sofa from which I had been rudely pushed off of; when I was sure that Joy and Patricia weren't looking into the common room, was sure that Joy wouldn't see her favorite musician in her former friends and now-enemies house, I tried to reach over and grab my daughter. It was proving to be harder than I had expected, as I couldn't seem to extend my arms to grab her tiny two-year-old form.

"EMMA?" one of the girls called, and in response, I ducked behind the couch. I waited a few seconds, listening to myself breathe, praying to everything good and holy that no one saw me, but when I looked up again, Emma wasn't on the couch. Mick, who was still sitting in the common room, caught my gaze and pointed to the foyer, and in response, I felt my whole world crash around me.

"Oh," Patricia breathed, her tween self now showing. "Eddie . . ."

Betrayed by my own brethren, Emma giggled the whole way as she wobbled toward Patricia, who's red hair I could see from where I was hiding behind the couch. When Patricia reached down to pick MY DAUGHTER up, Emma didn't oppose it; instead, she held out her arms for Patricia to reach under and scoop her up, and laughed when Patricia tickled her belly or said nonsense words like, "Who's the cutest little person ever? You are! Guess who? You are!"

"I can't believe I've never met Emma before," Joy commented, moving closer to her best friend to get a closer look at Emma, while I struggled to glance at the two girls I had just been 'introduced' to, to make sure they didn't skin my daughter alive. "And to think, two years in the running. Wow, Eddie, Nina's daughter is so beautiful. I feel bad that this cutie doesn't have a father..." Joy then seemed to notice that the mother was, in fact, nowhere around.

She asked Eddie where Nina was, and he replied with, "Um, getting milk. With her grandmother. You know, the norm. Just went out into town to get a jug of milk. What Nina usually does. Get milk."

He was a worse liar than Nina.

"Oh," was the two girls' only comment on the subject, but from the little field of view I had to work with, I could see that Patricia was passing Emma from her arms to Joy's; now, that wasn't a problem: what the problem was was that she was being careless with a poor two-year-old child. I knew they could handle a baby, but at the same time, I wanted to pop up from my hiding place, say, "NO THAT'S MY BABY GIVE HER BACK TO ME STEP AWAY" and take her from their grasps and just sit on the rug, watching her play with her toy cars and Barbie dolls and I'd have a grand old time, just me and my child.

Not to mention the danger of them dropping the toddler on her head (I learned the way against that the hard way; it must have been back in September, the month after Nina sent me the photograph, that I saw Nina and Emma in person again and almost dropped my child on her head and cracked her skull open; Nina, who, at the time, was still distant around me (She's still distant around me, who am I kidding?) I almost hurt my child and Nina had yelled at me, taking Emma away from me, not allowing me to go near them for another ten minutes.)

My thoughts scared me a little bit.

I still remembered the day after I had reunited with Nina, Mick had come over my house to talk to me about my situation. I had denied having anything to do with Nina and/or Emma, since I still hadn't met my daughter (I met her two days after I reunited with Nina herself). Thinking back on it, it was a dick move, but I wasn't willing to admit I was a father yet. The words "I'm a dad" hadn't fully sunk in. I went from "Emma's not my daughter. She can't be" to "If those two girls drop my daughter I will punch them in the throats".

And even when Emma turned fifteen, and really wanted those pairs of shoes from the store, she'd always be my little baby girl, because I had missed her at her baby stage. I missed her first word, her first steps, the first time she ate solid food. I couldn't go back in time and experience those things for the first time, like Nina and Mara and Eddie did. They were more of Emma's family than I was, and I was related to the damn girl by blood.

"DADDY!"

The sound of my new name brought me back to reality, where I was hiding behind a couch so I wouldn't be seen by two fans. The only person in the world who would ever use that name to address me by was yelling for help. My daughter was in distress.

And that was when I almost blew my cover; my head shot up to fast I was surprised it didn't hit the ceiling. But Joy, who was now currently holding the daughter of her favorite singer without knowing it, asked Eddie, "The father's here?!"

"The father's here?" Patricia repeated her question, and Emma repeated hers.

"DADDY!"

"Can we meet him?" Joy voiced angrily, "I want to give him a piece of my mind! Who does he think he is, leaving a fifteen-year-old girl pregnant without the father of the baby?" I refused to go on another guilt trip, but Joy just sent me down Memory Lane.

I really, really wanted to go over to them and make sure she was safe. Just one second, I could just peek around the corner of the couch and make sure my child wasn't being tortured or anything; and sure enough, instead of her being held hostage, she was crying, wanting to be let down; Eddie did the talking for me this time, as he led the two girls out of Nina's house and bringing the poor toddler back in with him.

She wobbled back across the room towards me, and I stood on my knees and enveloped her in a hug. Amber cooed from across the room, but it was Mick who ultimately came over to help me up, still holding my daughter's head to my chest.

"I think we should go out," Mara interrupted my bonding time with my daughter, the one Nina had originally wanted me to have. "It isn't safe here. You know...in the walls of Nina's home...yeah, it's safer outside, totally. We should go out. Right, Eddie?"

The poor boy didn't have a choice in the first place.

v v v

"What would have happened if I had produced a son?" I voiced my thoughts.

From a quick glance, Eddie looked taken aback. He repeated my question back to me, and in response, I nodded; Eddie shrugged before he answered with, "Nothing different, I guess. Just a different sex and a different name."

I blinked. "Oh, yeah," I said, "Why did you pick the name Emma, anyway?"

"So you're saying you never asked why Nina named her child what she did?"

I shook my head.

"Well," Eddie breathed, "Funny story, actually. So on the morning of May 25th, 2010, Nina came pounding on my door — we only live a few blocks away from each other — but she came pounding, woke me up in the middle of the night, screaming that her water broke. So I ushered her into my house, woke my dad up, and he drove me and her to the hospital.

"She had been pregnant for nine months before that, of course, but we never really discussed baby names. She told me that 'I'll give the baby a name when I find the father', and, well, she never found the father. She wanted the dad to contribute to the name as well, so . . . even when she pushed a living thing out of her uterus, she still didn't have a name.

"So by the name Mara got to the hospital, Nina was crying because she still didn't give a name to her child. So Mara searched up, 'most popular baby girl names' and Emma was number one on the list. So in a panic, Nina said, 'I like the name Emma! Let's name her Emma! So we did."

I licked my lips. "So if Emma was a boy, her name would be, like, Michael?"

"Yup."

"Okay."

v v v

By the time we collected my daughter from her hiding place and changed her clothes, it was half past noon. Mara insisted that I wear sunglasses to 'protect me from old men with cameras', but in reality I was just as famous as the person who discovered that salt killed slugs.

"I want banana!" Emma exclaimed when I lifted her off the ground and onto my shoulders, preparing to go out with everyone.. "Daddy, I want banana!"

"I agree with the kid," Mick told me, rushing into the kitchen. "I want banana too."

He grabbed two yellow fruits from the basket in the kitchen as I protested, "Mick, no! Banana's, like, give you constipation and I don't need to spend another hour or two next to Emma on the toilet."

Mick rubbed his left index finger with his right. "Tisk, tisk. I can't believe you're denying your own child what she wants."

"I WANT BANANA!"

Mick jumped the slightest bit, but recovered just as quickly. "I know, kid, I know. Here's your fuckin—"

I shot Mick a glare so strong it could bend metal.

"Here's your silly banana," he corrected himself, shooting me a grin, handing to the fruit to my daughter, who proceeded to stuff the mush into her light brown hair. Knowing that I'd have to suffer through another screaming temper tantrum when I got home, I stomped over to the fruit basket in the kitchen and grabbed a banana for myself, aggressively chewing on the yellow mush as Emma giggled because she continued to stuff it into her light curls (which she inherited from her mother.)

"Jesus," I muttered, standing by the door, waiting for Mick, Jerome, Alfie, Amber, Eddie and Mara to approach me, with Emma still on my shoulders. "This is going to be the longest day of my life."

v v v

And, as I predicted, it was the longest day of my life.

Alfie was trailing along next to me with Amber glued to his hip. We were walking side-by-side on the sidewalk to wherever we were going, as Eddie led us out of the house without telling us our destination. Emma was still sitting on my shoulders, and I was holding her legs so she wouldn't fall off, but Alfie was being as annoying as ever. "So, what really happened when you met Nina?"

"I'm not going to tell you!

-insert flashback here-

"Why not? And what happened that was so bad that you can't tell me what happened before you had sex?"

-insert flat flashback here-

"Look, Alfie, I'm just not going to tell you, okay?"

"I know what you are," Amber said mysteriously, as Alfie expressed his look of disappointment. Amber groaned, walked in front of me, and moved her feet backwards so we were face-to-face as she spoke. "Fabian, there's nothing to be ashamed of. I know you blame yourself for a lot of this —and to be perfectly honest, it is like 75% your fault — but you met a girl you really liked. One thing led to another, and you had sex with her, you got her pregnant, she gave birth. It's all in the past.

"Now stop moping and look on the bright side! You have a child! You're a father. Your daughter is the cutest little girl on the entire planet! She's going to grow up! You're going to watch her go to school! And finish school! She's going to like shoes! And boys! And dresses, and television! And she's going to turn sixteen, and want a car, and she's going to be a snotty, bitchy teenager. Emma is your daughter, she's breathing the Liverpool air, she's alive and she has a father. Emma's a living, breathing, human being that feelings and emotions and likes and dislikes.

"All I'm saying is that while you made a mistake — and I know you don't consider her mistake, but just think about it, Fabes — but that was three years ago. And maybe it was a mistake, maybe you fucked up a girl's teenage life two years into it, but it lead to something good. And now that it has happened — now that you've been a father for four months — you shouldn't be ashamed, you know? And neither should Nina. Some things can start of bad: Nina pregnant and giving birth without parents or a second half to her own baby — but turn out to be amazing: you and Nina, now in love. If you had never met her that day, you wouldn't have known the girl you're in love with today. How would that be like? Not knowing Nina, Emma not existing? I mean, when I met Alfie, the only thing I thought of him was a jokester who got bad grades. But now I see him as jokester that gets bad grades, but I see the good in him, too. I see how he has a kind heart and is really brave when he has to be. I'm not ashamed of dating him, and you shouldn't be ashamed about what happened with Nina either."

I took in a deep breath of air, knowing that Amber was right. I shouldn't ashamed. I wasn't ashamed.

And if I wasn't ashamed, I should do something about it. It was my fault in the first place that the photograph of Nina and myself at the park was taken; my fault that she left town. I doubted Nina and her grandmother had much money to their name right now.

I made a silent plan with myself that as soon as Nina came back, on November 15th, I would take her out to dinner. Maybe privately, but I figured after all the shit she'd been through, she deserved to eat some good food and some apple pie. I know she wanted to take things slow, but four months was enough time to know I'd always be there to support her. I wasn't here to tease her or to be cruel to her because she was a teen mom.

I could see it then; we would be eating dinner by candlelight, and her usual puke-green eye color would turn emerald because she was emitting the smile that made me fall for her in the first place — and then I would lean across the table and slowly press my lips on hers — then seconds would pass, and our lips would be moving in perfect unison, faster and faster, just like how kissed that first time back in August 2009, when we met at that coffee shop. And instead of the steady cinnamon scent that I tasted on her lips back then, now she'd reek of baby powder and bananas while the faint smell of cinnamon would still be on her lips; and just like the last time, we'd be laughing as we kissed, having a wonderful time.

And maybe after that first time we kissed, I fucked up her life forever. Maybe I wasn't always there for her in the beginning. But I was damn well there for her now.

...

I watched Amber turn back to Alfie and talk to him about some reoccuring nightmare she'd been having about some girl who was trapped in 'Shadowland', and that she was 'forced to send her friends dreams so she could get out', whatever that meant. So instead, I walked up next to Eddie, who seemed to be walking alone, since Mara was now talking to Jerome.

I had mixed feelings about Eddie. I knew he was 1/3 of Team Nina, but I related more to Mara than I did to Eddie. Mara was more of a geek and Eddie rebelled by ditching school and fishing trips with his dad. He could bit a bit immature, but when Mara, Nina, or Patricia was in need, he never failed to do his duty (and laugh at the word 'duty' all the same). There were times when I swore he despised me and had to resist the urge to place his fingers around my throat and choke the life out of me, but then there were the days when he called me to come to the hospital because his girlfriend punched my [pre] girlfriend in the nose, or now, when he seemed to enjoy my presence.

"Hey," I greeted.

"Yo," was his response.

"So, um, where are we going, exactly?"

"Just to town."

"Where in town?"

"You know, a place with stores. Figured we could buy your daughter some cheap toys or something. You have any money on you?"

"Yeah um, thirty pounds I think. Why?"

"No reason. Just wondering."

I could barely feel the toddler sitting on my shoulders until she started entertaining herself by playing with my hair. I tried to stop her by holding her tiny little hands, but she wormed her way out of my grip and started ruffling my messy, uncombed hair again. Eddie grinned at my child's actions, so I lifted her off my shoulders and held her out for Eddie to take, but he only titled his head and told me, "Really?"

I blinked.

"Fabian, are you forgetting about the note?"

I blinked again.

"I've known Nina for four years now, and you've only known her for four months. I know her better than you do — and I'm not saying you don't know her, because you do — but I know that if she really wanted to take Emma with her, the little child wouldn't be in your arms right now. She wanted you to bond with your kid, Fabes," he finished by repeating the girl 'Joy''s nickname for me.

I nodded, then attempted to make a joke: "Wouldn't it be funny if I wasn't the father, and you were?"

Eddie was the one to blink this time.

"Aw, come on!" I complained, ducking so Emma could climb onto my shoulders again. "I made a joke and it was funny! And you know it was. It's not like you and her actually had sex together...right?"

Eddie gaffawed, attracting the attention of everyone on the sidewalk, and probably a couple of passer-by pedestrians. "Jesus Christ no way. Yeah, sure, I was Nina's first kiss, but I never slept with her. We were fourteen when we kissed at that end-of-school party. I don't think we really knew what sex was at the time, god."

I laughed. I thought I heard Eddie say "Nina" again, and I didn't know why, but I didn't particularly care, either. Him and I were walking side-by-side, and as the sun beat down on everyone else, my sunglasses blocked out all the harmful UV rays from invading my pupils. Amber was still talking to Alfie about her dreams, Mara was talking to Jerome about whatever, and Mick was standing by himself, the poor guy, typing something in on his phone.

When I heard the name "Nina" like seven more times, I turned around to ask Eddie to stop talking to himself, but he had his headphones planted in his ears, mouthing to words to some song silently. And from another quick scan, I noticed that Mara was the one on the phone, the one saying the name "Nina" continually. And instead of being kind, instead of tapping her shoulder and asking her nicely if I could talk to the mother of my child for a bit, I ran over to her and grabbed the phone out of Mara's grasp. I heard her complain, "Hey!" but I didn't care as I said, "Nina?" into the receiver, only to hear silence.

"Nina?" I repeated again, hoping to hear that familiar voice, the sound of her laugh and bossy 'tude that I had grown so familiar with in the past four months. "Nina, are you there? Nina?"

Silence for another few seconds.

"Damn you, Mara," was Nina's first words to me, and I released a stupid grin, knowing that Nina was alive and healthy, not lying about her note to make sure we didn't know that she had killed herself over the bullying due to the photograph that was taken of her and me at the park.

"Hey," I breathed. "It's Fabian, obviously. Not that it would be anyone else. Were you expecting anyone else?"

"Relax, Fabian," she calmed me out of a quick, stupid panic, like she always did. Nina had only spoken two lines so far, and I was already grateful I had stolen the phone from Mara's hands. "It's fine. I wasn't expecting anyone else. I mean, I was expecting Mara, obviously, but...if you're talking about some other love interest, no. Not that I could actually get someone to go out of me after everything..." She muttered the last part.

"Um," I decided to continue, rubbing the back of my head, ignoring Mara's glare. "So...why did you leave?"

She sucked in a breath. "Isn't she obvious?" she asked. "All that hate I was getting over that dumb fucking photograph...even people at my school, that I knew personally, were saying stuff about me. And I really couldn't take it anymore. So, I left town. Is it that hard to understand?"

"No!" I exclaimed, but Nina didn't continue. "It's not, I — I actually understand completely, and — I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm also sorry because I know like 75% of this is my fault, but I hope you know that I...I hope you know that I...I...well, I — I really hope you know —"

"Did you lose your train of thought?"

"Yeah," I admitted, scratching the back of my head, and I heard Nina giggle through the receiver. I didn't even give a thought to the fact that it was the first time Nina and I had spoken over the phone, and I'm pretty sure Nina didn't either, so I let it be.

"It's okay, Fabian. I'm sure it would've been just as jumbled and messed up if you didn't forget what you were going to say." She laughed again, mostly to herself that time. "So...um...how's Emma?"

Knowing that we were back on track, that I could proceed as if we were emailing again, I told her all about how Emma had had two screaming temper tantrums since this morning, she yelled at Mick over who wanted a banana more, and she found a new interest in messing up my hair. Nina told me all about where she was staying, a motel in the Liverpool area, and how she already found one cockroach and a nest of spiders and the toast wasn't toasted correctly (because we all know Nina has special needs for toast). It was nice to know that she wasn't mad at me, that wasn't holding yet another grudge against me and we could talk like we had been for the past four months.

"So what's next?" I asked her, ignoring Mara's plea for her cell phone back, and it looked like Jerome was ready to pound in my skull as well. I wasn't sure where those two had suddenly come from, but I wasn't one to question. I knew Nina for like three hours before we starting having sex.

"What do you mean?" she asked, and I explained to her how I wanted to know where we would go in our relationship, what would happen next, what would happen. "Well, I think we should wait until I come back to talk about that."

"Awh, come on, Nina," I complained, "please just tell me! I've waited four months to tell you I lov—I mean, to tell you how much you mean to me as the mother of my child."

"What was that you were saying earlier—"

"Hey you know what I think Mara wants to talk to you!" And, without a goodbye, I handed the phone back to Mara, who huffed at me and started conversing with Nina again. I desperately wanted a goodbye, but it was one I would never get.

"HERE!" Emma exclaimed, pulling on my hair just like Ratatouille pulled on the chefs hair to direct him how to cook. "DADDY! HERE!"

"OW!" I yelled, pulling Emma's hands off of my hair, as Eddie tapped my shoulder and showed me that we finally arrived at the town, where all the stores were. I pulled my thirty pounds out of my pocket, grabbed my daughter off of my shoulders again, and placed her on the ground so she could walk along next to me.

"Okay..." I muttered, looking back at Amber, Mick, Alfie, Jerome, and Mara, who were trailing along behind was, talking about their own things. "So where are we going?"

"I guess we leave that to Princess Pushy here," Eddie commented, pointing to the little girl who's head barely reached my waist. "So, Emma, where should we go?"

"COOKIE!" she yelled, and Eddie looked at me like: To the bakery we go.

And when we arrived, Mara stopped me from entering. She said she'd go in for me, order the cookie for Emma, myself, and the rest of the group, but before she went in, I crouched so I was down to Emma's length and pointed into the mirror. "So, Emma, what do you want?" I asked, but she seemed to excited to really make a choice.

"Brownie?" I asked, but she just shook her head and said no. I was pulling her leg through all of this, knowing that she wanted a cookie even after she ate a banana, but it made me so ridiculously happy to see my own daughter smiling at the stupid little jokes I made. And I think that was when, even four months after, that I really became a father.

A/N: Do you ever just kinda watch season 1 again AND CRY

BECAUSE I DO.

Three new one-shots should be up tonight; one for HoA, and 2 for A&A. I haven't abandoned HoA fanfiction, though; my love for the show is still growing strong, even when I started rewatching the entire series, cried over season 1 and groaned over season 2 and counted all the times Eddie called Patricia "Yacker" (I have 17 times so far!).

Jesus Christ guys, just remember that if I ever miss more than four weeks, I'm either dead, kidnapped, or Writer's Block became more of a bitch than Allen in A New Beginning. I seriously love you all and I don't know how to end this Author's Note so OMFG HOUSE OF HADES IS ONLY 11 DAYS AWAY I CANNOT HANDLE THIS SOMEONE HOLD ME.
~Lia('s going fucking insane because she's had to wait one year for House of Hades)