...i know it's not friday. i know i'm a date late. shhh. but i just finished this chapter like five minutes ago so.

sigh. okay, people, psa: I DO NOT HATE FABINA. if i did, would i be writing a 34-chapter story centered solely around them? would i have stuck with Don't Be Afraid, who's main couple is fabina, since october 2011? no. i don't hate fabina, but i'm not as fond of them as i used to be. i prefer s1 fabina over jabian, but i prefer jabian over s2 fabina. you feeling me?

this is the last chapter of lost and found that i will write in 2013. whoa. i hope everyone had a great year, and if you didn't, i hope the next year will be even better.

/o~~~o/

Fabian
Chapter 27: "The Kiss"

After Nina called, it took me a minute to put everything away and to get the car heated up, since I wasn't about to drive in the middle of Winter with no heated car. I felt bad for leaving Nina alone, in the bathroom, probably crying at school, but I came the fastest I could.

I pulled up in the parking lot, expecting to have to call Nina again; but she came out, holding her arms behind her back, her cheeks puffed and eyes red from crying. I didn't have to honk or call out to her, as she noticed my car almost as soon as she stepped out of the building. I wondered what could have made her so upset; she didn't tell me when we were on the phone before.

I had warned myself of this happening before actually revealing the truth; I never wanted Nina to be hurt by me, since I knew that everything that had happened since we reunited last August was my fault. Nina had told me, when we reunited, that she never wanted me to come to her in the first place; if I hadn't, where would we be now? A better place, more likely. Nina wouldn't be walking to my cry with tears falling down her cheeks if I hadn't reunited with her, that's for sure.

I watched as Nina wiped her eyes clean with her sleeves, the turquoise blue of her sweater staining with dried tears. She opened the door to my car quickly, swinging her legs into the empty spot underneath the glove compartment.

Silence. I wanted to wait until she spoke first, so I didn't come off as rude or pushy, but she sniffed her nose clean, laughed a little bit to herself, before saying quietly, "Hi."

"Hey," I responded, just as quickly. I didn't move my gaze from her, as she played with her fingers, like she always did when she was nervous. Nina folded her hands, covered with her blue sweater, in her lap and never moved her eyes from it, biting down on her bottom lip to keep from speaking. "You can talk to me, you know," I tried to convince her. "You have been doing that since August."

Nina laughed again, like she couldn't believe she had gotten emotional over something that was worthy getting emotional over. It was always okay to cry in my book, but she was acting like crying was something forbidden. She brushed a large bunch of strands of her light-brown hair behind her ear before turning to me and breathing, "Sorry. I just - hiccup - wanted to collect myself."

I smiled sadly, rubbing her arm in reassurance. Her whole body shook as she took in a large breath of air. "Are you okay?" I asked her, which was beyond a stupid question. Nina was evidently not okay. If she was okay, she'd be talking my ear off, just as she did all the way back in 2009. She wasn't okay, because on a normal night once Nina had warmed up to me, Nina would be telling me all the funny stories about Emma, because she thought I deserved to hear them, as I was her child's father.

On a normal night, she'd be telling me about the week before she sent me the photograph, on July 31st, 2012, how Eddie, Mara, and she were riding bikes down a hill on their block when a car came out of nowhere. Nina swerved to get out of the way, but she hit the curb and tumbled into the bushes. Eddie was laughing so hard he fell down, while Mara, the always paranoid Mara, ran over to Nina to help her out of the bushes, but Nina was laughing just as hard as Eddie was.

I wanted to apologize for reuniting with her all that time ago, since she made it pretty clear on the first day I came that all she wanted to do with the photograph was give me the information that I had a daughter of my own, at eighteen. Her life seemed so much simpler when I didn't know about Emma; she didn't care what people in her school were saying about her until I came back into her life, begging to start a dysfunctional family. When I was back, when she family saw me face-to-face for the first time in over three years, she finally started to let people's words get to her.

And now, here she was, shakily breathing as tears streaming down her cheeks, but she still brushed my questions away like she was fine. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from letting out a large sob, and I thought she was going to break down.

I would've told her that it was okay, that she should feel comfortable with me, that I was never going to hurt her again like I have before. The truth was revealed now, and even though the reveal was most likely the reason she was like this, the truth was out. We didn't have to hide our relationship anymore. I was prepared to hold her, right here, to calm her sobs as she cried in my arms.

But she didn't do that. She wiped her nose with the sleeve of her turquoise sweater again, faced me, and finally answered my question with, "Yeah."

I was silent for a moment, because I didn't know how to respond to that. However, I noticed a few blotches of something red and purple on her wrist; it looked like some sort of bruise was forming there, but some skin was also mixed in with it. "What's that?" I asked Nina, who exhaled loudly and rolled up her turquoise sleeve to reveal some broken skin on her wrist, looking like it stung. "How'd this happen?"

"It's nothing," she reassured me, still looking like she was about to break down. I suppose any amount of torment from your friends, especially people you went to school with, could do that to you. "Some stupid jock and his cheerleader girlfriend pushed me down in the halls before I went to lunch. I guess the cheerleader listens to your music or something, and she talked him into doing his bidding for her or something."

She let me caress the broken skin, which I'm sure did nothing, just as pressing a bruise didn't make it hurt any less. "Does it hurt?" I asked her.

"Sure," Nina shrugged, her voice as hoarse and as broken as her skin as ever. "I mean, it does sting a little. It really skinned the floor, and I guess that's how the skin broke."

With that, I leaned over to her side of the car and searched the glove compartment above her legs; Nina asked what I was doing, but I ignored her as I tossed aside some pointless letters from Aaron and coupons I had received in the mail when I found the mini portable Vaseline that you could attach to your keychain. I twisted the cap open, scooping some up with my index finger and applying it to Nina's broken skin on her wrist.

She smiled as I spread it around, and I hoped the sting she felt had been revealed. "Why do you have that?" she wondered, obviously amused, but I didn't stop rubbing the Vaseline on her wrist until it was thoroughly applied.

"Nina," I addressed her, "I have four sisters, and three of them are stronger than me."

Nina was laughing now, her eyes still red from crying but the edges of them wrinkling as she grinned with pleasure. I think she understood the reason why I needed the Vaseline in my car, just in case Chloe suddenly challenged me to an arm wrestle and her surprisingly strong arms would take down my scrawny ones, or Isabelle tackled me in a game of "Anti-Patriarchal Football" (whatever that meant), or Rosie, her wonderfully confident self, her plus-size self, would do the same thing as Isabelle; either tackle me, sit on me, or bend my arm until I begged for mercy.

"Thank you," she croaked, since she probably couldn't have thrown or made her voice any louder than it already was. "This feels better."

"No problem. Do you want to come to my house?" I asked her, gripping my hands on the steering wheel to keep them occupied. On a normal night, Nina would be ranting about how she wanted to drive, but couldn't because she was declined the ability to take the test when she was pregnant and never had the time to take it since then because of how busy her child made her, plus with all the schoolwork she had to deal with, but she kept silent, staring at the driver's side longingly. "I have hot chocolate."

I supposed you could consider that a bribe, as I knew she liked hot chocolate and it was January 7th; Winter had started about two and a half weeks ago. Nina's voice was hoarse and scratchy from the crying she had done before as she answered with, "No thanks, I'm good. I don't care where you take me, I just...I just want to get out of here."

"I also have apple pie."

"Take me to your house," she answered immediately, her eyes huge, and I laughed. That was definitely a bribe, as I knew her favorite food, among every other food, was apple pie.

"Okay," I agreed, almost smiling. It felt weird to be one of the few people who Nina could open up to; I had always known Eddie and Mara as her only friends, the only people she could truly be herself or be comfortable around. Now, I was included in the "comfortable" group, and it felt strange. How was I supposed to act, now, that I wasn't trying to break her walls? What was my aim, now that I didn't have to knock them down anymore?

As I drove out of the parking lot, Nina's school vanishing in the distance, I told Nina with my eyes still on the road, "Don't listen to them, okay?"

"Who?" Nina wondered, staring at her hands, rubbing the Vaseline on her wrist in a circle. She kept wiping it off and reapplying it, even though I didn't know, but I didn't question it.

"Them," I said awkwardly, trying to gesture behind me, to the vanishing school. "The people in there."

Nina stopped rubbing the Vaseline on her wrist for a moment, and bit down on her lip so hard I was certain it would draw blood. "Oh," she whispered, her eyes still red even though she hadn't cried since we left. After another few moments of silence, she answered, "I know."

"You don't know," I told her softly, so she wouldn't think I was trying to scold her or tell her off. "If you knew, you wouldn't have called me from the bathroom, sobbing your eyes out, begging me to take you home. You let their words get to you again, Nines. I thought you said you could block them out."

"I could," she shrugged, her voice gaining a little bit of volume back. "But I don't know happened. Joy and Patricia were feeling especially cruel today, because Joy really likes your music. They called me all these names, and...I guess I just couldn't take anymore. I just broke down. I had been strong for too long." She sighed loudly.

"Well..." I dragged out, knowing I couldn't move my eyes from the road. I didn't want to get in a car accident because I was reassuring her that everything would be fine, when Nina already knew that. "Just...don't let it happen again, alright? I hate seeing you in pain. It makes me feel...bad." I wanted to hit myself for the choice of my adjective, but I continued on anyway. "And since we're going to face Aaron, my manager, who I know won't be happy about the whole reveal — I just don't want you to break down again because of him, alright? He's just mad. And I can understand why."

"I can too," Nina said matter-of-factly. I knew she was strong, but under pressure, people can crack. "I'm good, though. Really. If Aaron is just mad...it'll be fine. I'm not going to run off crying or anything like that." She laughed lightly, like she was trying to make a joke of it; however, I didn't laugh. This whole matter was much too serious for me to laugh at; people were physically bullying the mother of my child, my manager was about to wring my neck, and people weren't taking this whole reveal the way I expected them to.

"I'm here for you," I told her, taking my eyes off of the road for only a moment to glimpse the person sitting next to me. "I don't care what any stupid jock or cheerleader is saying about you. You're wonderful, honest, you're sure of everything you do and I need that kind of person in my life, and you're beautiful. Don't listen to what anyone says about you, Nina, you're beautiful, okay?"

Nina nodded to say she was listening, but she was blushing so loudly it could've woken the whole town.

/o~~~o/

"Fabian. Thomas. Rutter."

"Uh oh," I said, fear dripping through my tone. Nina slipped her hand through mine, caught my gaze, and nodded me on; she believed I could do this. If Aaron was going to wring my neck, he'd have to wring hers, too.

I wasn't confident at all, nor did I think I could do this, but if Nina believed in me, then I could go in and face Aaron alone.

Hand in hand, we walked into my empty house. I closed the door behind us, and Nina waited for me. The house was so quiet, I could almost hear Aaron tapping his foot in the other room. I took a deep breath; this time, Nina was the one to rub my arm reassuringly. I was usually calm and collected, but Aaron was one of the people that scared me beyond comprehension.

"What have you done?" Aaron boomed once we had walked into the room, the common room, where he stood with his back against the television. I cringed so I wouldn't have to see his dark brown eyes, that were surprisingly very easy to see in any environment. "You didn't ask me about revealing the truth about your...family, I guess I should call it...and now you've ruined your entire career! Was this her plan all along?" Aaron pointed to the woman standing next to me.

Aaron was one person I could excuse for being mad. He was my manager, after all; he knew what was best for me, in terms of my music. He didn't want to see me fail. We'd come a long way together, as he was one of the first people I met on my journey to stardom. Aaron had given countless Confidence Lessons, had patted me on the back before every concert, and believed in me every step of the way, even when I dropped my guitar on the floor the first time I played in front of him. He was very focused on his job, and loved doing it as well.

This must have put me on his naughty list, for sure. However, I pushed Aaron's finger down and told him, quite calmly despite all the anxiety I was feeling moments before, "No, this was not her plan all along. Both Nina and I agreed to this a week ago. It was completely a mutual decision, I can promise you that."

Nina slipped her arm through mine, and I placed my palm over her hand, just to assure her that I was here as well. I couldn't know what that would do to her, having to deal with Aaron after dealing with all the people at her school picking on her all day. "Sit on the couch," Aaron commanded us, so we did as we were told. I didn't want to anger him any further.

I slipped my fingers through hers as we sat down on the brown leather couch. Aaron tapped his foot on the wooden paneled floor again, facing the white wall, probably debating what to say in his head. Finally, after countless seconds of pained silence, Aaron said quietly, "I don't understand why you would want to ruin your career like this."

"I'm not ruining my career!" I said, my voice as quiet as his was. I didn't want to get angry, especially with Nina right next to me. She'd probably dealt with anger all day long; she didn't need to see me, of all people, angry right now.

"Fabian," Aaron breathed, his brown eyes staring into my blue ones, "you are a smart boy. You've been in this business for over three years, now! You know what news like this would do to audiences. Do you know how many people have approached me today, just to discuss what you announced over the Twitcam yesterday?!" Aaron's voice was growing louder, much unlike mine. I was afraid that Nina was going to get upset, but all she was doing was watching Aaron stomp around like he always did when he was mad.

"I don't know," I shrugged, feeling my stomach being brought back in as I exhaled. I could feel a slight tremble in Nina's hands, as they were still entangled with mine, but I brushed it to the side. I wanted to be strong for her, to act like I was confident in what I was doing, but I was anything but that. I was afraid of this happening, and now it was...how was I supposed to act? "What have they said, exactly?"

"Some of them have said bad things," Aaron spoke very slowly, enunciating every syllable as he approached me, sticking his head in my face. He almost seemed as scared as I was, but Nina gasped, evidently shocked. "Some of them have called this young lady over here very bad names, and I'm surprised about that, since the people who I've spoken to are adults. I guess if mature adults are calling her names, then the news went exactly the opposite as you planned it to."

"We can get past the names," I spoke for both of us, since Nina wasn't saying anything. Now we were all scared, all afraid, of the news which I had released. Why did I do that? "They're just names. They don't mean anything."

"Don't they?" Aaron voice was loud now, but Nina still didn't seem disturbed. Aaron moved his hands wildly, like he wanted something to hit or to punch in the rage that he was in. I moved my arm around Nina to protect her just in case; I didn't want Aaron saying that everything was her fault, since it wasn't. But this was Aaron we were talking about, and he could get out of proportion when something went wrong. I wasn't about to let him hurt her, not after all the physical and mental pain she'd been through in the past 24 hours.

"Names are powerful," Aaron told me, sitting down on the couch opposite where Nina and I were sitting. "Bad names are even worse. If a mature adult, that's older than I am, feels the need to call this young lady sitting right next to you a whore because of your Twitcam, who knows what teenagers would do to her?"

Nina rubbed the leftover Vaseline on her wrist in a circle, probably thinking about it skinning as she slid on her school hallway floor.

"Look," Aaron's manic look from before had disappeared, and was now replaced with his normal, fatherly appeal to him, an inviting aroma. His legs were crossed, and his eyes looked straight into mine, while Nina's were staring down at her sweater again. "I don't want Nina to be hurt anymore than you do, but you know perfectly well that if someone calls her a whore, people who don't even know her personally will start doing the same thing. And then it'll affect you, Fabian, and people will start judging you for keeping a secret for this long and for having a child, since you're half the problem here."

I didn't want to talk about it, but people had been sending me hate all day. I could ignore it, usually, as Nina had taught me to just brush other people's opinions to the side (But hey, look who I was talking to), but still, their hateful words invaded my twitter account and called me as many bad words as they called the person sitting next to me. They yelled at me from keeping a secret from the fans, they screamed at me for making this big of a mistake, even when I made that mistake when I was sixteen and didn't know any better.

Nina squeezed my hand, but I couldn't be sure why. It felt good to know that there was a person I could fall back on, a person whom I was sharing this entire experience with. I was parenting at only nineteen years old.

"It's fine," I was reassuring both Nina and myself here, but I don't think I could reach out to Aaron in this particular situation. "We'll...we'll get through this. We always do."

And it was true; Nina and I made a good team, because we seemed to get past everything. We got past the first photograph together, even when she ended up leaving town. We got past the second photo, we got past KT, we got past our huge fight where I ended up hitting her, even when it seemed hopeless for us to mend our relationship. We could get past this.

"I don't know about that, Fabian," Aaron, always the optimist, spoke up from the silence that was surrounding us. Nina, who hadn't said a word since she came in, was just staring at me. Our lips were so close...after everything we've been through, after all that time we'd spent emailing and bonding with Emma and Twitter and everything else, kissing seemed so...simple. Useless. It was just two lips touching, how humans show affection.

Aaron, however, wasn't completely finished. "I have a bad feeling that your career may be ruined. People like your music and you as a person...they can get protective of you. Worse, they can 'disown' you, per say. They can bring you down just as easily as they can bring Nina down. They can call you as many names as they can call her, they can yell at you...you made a mistake three years ago, and now..." Aaron ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation, staring at the walls behind us.

"I've owned up to that mistake," I told Aaron quietly, Nina leaning more into my side. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, which was weird; even over a computer screen, I could tell what she was feeling by the way she typed. If she didn't put punctuation, she was either upset or scared. If she put something in all capital letters, she was either extremely angry or super excited. And when I saw her in person, I could see through that, too, but now I didn't know why she was leaning into me. She was stronger than I was; if anyone was to yell at Aaron, it would be Nina, but now it was like she was too afraid to speak up, which was extremely out of character.

"That doesn't matter," Aaron continued, continuously destroying my ray of sunshine in a dark and depressing state. "Teenage pregnancy...is frowned upon. You know that. And now that the secret is out...no one can look at you the same. You can perform a concert or something, but the fans won't see Fabian Rutter, the singer. They'll see Fabian Rutter, the teenage father. They won't ask you questions about if you like performing, they'll ask you questions about the mother and the child. You ruined your singing career, Fabian."

With that, I exhaled loudly, my face contorting in sadness and grief. Aaron was right; everything I had worked for since January 2010, all the sleepless nights in the studio, all the Confidence Lessons and the concerts and talk shows and interviews and Q&A's on Twitter...was it all over? Could it all be gone?

I buried my head in my hands, my messy hair probably getting messier as Aaron spoke. I felt a hand on my shoulder that was most likely Nina's; she was trying to comfort me, at least, and even though she wasn't doing all that great of a job, I knew she was right there. And as she rubbed her hand in a circle around my back, all I wanted was for me to break down this time, because I had been strong for too long. I wanted to hug her and cry on her shoulder, saying how I had always dreamed of this, and people knew of my music, and it was the life I wanted to live; and because I made a mistake when I was sixteen by screwing a fifteen-year-old girl, I ruined my career. If I knew what was going to happen when I was having sex with Nina three years ago...would I have done it?

"Hi."

I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or not, but no one else talked and the girl sitting across from me didn't say anything either, so I figured she was talking to me. I reluctantly looked up from my laptop screen and replied, "Hi."

"It'll be okay, Fabian," Nina whispered in my ear, the first words she had spoken since we stepped into the house. "If you lose everything, you'll still have me."

I weakly smiled at her, knowing I had said those exact words to her only minutes before, in the car on the way here. I nodded to show I was listening, and even though I didn't cry or break down, I proportioned my body so I hugged her tightly, breathing hard, not caring that Aaron was tapping his foot impatiently again. "Thank you," I whispered to her. "Thank you so much."

"What are you doing?"

I pursed my lips, already knowing she was a girl of many questions. There was no way to escape her, or to brush her off; she would continue asking you questions until you exploded. The only way to get rid of her was to answer her questions until she was bored. So I answered, "Writing."

"I don't want to lose everything," I whimpered. I always thought that if one of us was to break down, it would be Nina, and she almost came close to it in the car before. I had been taught before to be strong, that no one would look up to someone who broke down under pressure. People wouldn't want to listen to my voice if I lost my temper at a paparazzi, or stopped mid-song in a concert, or was accidentally rude to an interviewer. Aaron had taught me all this, so I'd learned to be good, to hold myself over, but now I was leaning over the edge.

"I've worked so hard," I told Nina again. She kept saying "Shhh" which was surprising, since Nina was never good at comforting people. I was leaning into her shoulder, her turquoise sweater all I saw. "I don't want to go to waste. People shouldn't...they shouldn't be...they shouldn't be so cruel, it's not fair, I've worked so hard! And now I've ruined everything!"

"You haven't ruined everything," Nina assured me, brushing some of my long hair to the side (I desperately needed to get a haircut). Her fingers were tangled in my hair, almost like we were kissing, but my lips were on her shirt. "I promise."

"They won't look at me the same," I whimpered again, thinking about what Aaron told me, and he was right. All of the fans were probably discussing this, and calling me names, and saying how bad of a person I was to keep this a secret, and to bang a girl at such a young age like I did. No matter how I put it, no matter if I tried to say that I didn't consider Nina or Emma a mistake, they'd turn it around. I wanted to be looked up to, and not just by Olivia, my fourteen-year-old younger sister. I wanted to be looked up to by a stranger, someone whom I didn't know existed.

"What am I gonna do?" I asked her quietly, but instead of saying something, Nina lifted my head from her shoulder and kissed my forehead, smiling sadly. I wanted to believe everything was going to be okay, that people would still see me, Fabian Rutter, the hardworking musician and singer, but I didn't think that was going to happen.

I was going to ask Aaron what to do; I didn't care that he was yelling at me. I needed advice from someone that was older than me, someone wiser than me. Nina was still seventeen while I was nineteen, and was still in school while I finished school two years ago. She had knowledge that I didn't have, but I also had knowledge that she didn't. We were two different people.

Nina and I were staring at each other; she might not have been the best person, but I was confident in my feelings for her. "I—" I began, and Nina faced me with a curious look, evidently paying much attention to what I was about to say, but her phone beeped and she took it out of her pocket, checking the message that had been received.

"Who is it?" I asked her, once her face contorted in a mixture of emotions.

Nina sighed, and muttered, "Eddie. He says Patricia and some of the others want us back at school. Apparently, a crowd has formed outside, because they want to see if the truth that you revealed on the Twitcam yesterday is really true. I can't believe people still don't believe it..." she rolled her eyes, stuffing her phone back in her pocket. "Well, I guess we better go."

"Go?" I questioned her, as she hung her bag over her shoulder and began to get out of the couch. "You want to go back to your school?"

"Yeah," she told me, almost silently. "Why don't we just go there, tell them they're all wrong, they can go fuck themselves if they thought any differently, and then come back and just spent the day together?" she suggested, smiling sincerely, leaning down to brush my dark brown hair out of my face again.

"Are we going to bring Emma?" I asked, ignoring Aaron as he stood, apparently too shocked to speak up or to protest what I was doing.

"Oh, hell no," Nina shook her head, declining my offer. I understood why, but there was a small part of me that just wanted to see Emma again, to hold her and say that her father's here. I didn't want a two-year-old in the spotlight anymore than Nina did, but...I just really wanted to see her. Nina smiled again, grabbing my hand and squeezing it. We were here, we were there for each other. We had each other. "Come on. Let's go."

/o~~~o/

There was a crowd. There was a crowd with hundreds of people with cameras. The people were screaming, pointing to the car that was approaching. I wanted to duck and cover, to turn around and yell at Nina for even thinking this was a good idea, but I kept my eyes ahead.

I saw Mara and Eddie in the front, standing close and watching the car as it drove and parked in the lot. The screams of the crowd got louder; I never once considered that there were this many people in Nina's school, much less this many people who liked my music. I know Nina only figured out that I was the father because so many people in her school liked me, but this couldn't be everyone who liked me. There were too many people. Some had to have come because their friends dragged them here, or the girlfriends or boyfriends, or just so they could see a real, alive famous singer.

Either way, everything I was about to say, everything I would do or say would be taped and probably put online. I knew how to act, but the only person by my side was Nina. She didn't know how to act in public alone any better than I did.

However, she gripped my hand and squeezed it once again, smiling her bright smile that made me interested, made me fall for her in the first place. She was here, and I had her. She had me. We could do this.

So out we went, closing the doors of the car behind us. We walked hand-in-hand, not caring what anyone thought, ignoring the points and stares and whispers that were surrounding us. I was pretty sure that I was shaking; Nina was too, but whether from cold or fear, I couldn't be sure. The cold was biting, though, and the thin grey sweater I had on didn't help much in the climate.

I was used to being the center of attention, but Nina let out a huge shudder at the sight of a hundred, maybe two hundred, people staring at both of us. I turned around, my back to the crowd, placed my hands on Nina's shoulder and told her, "It's going to be okay. I'm right here. If you want to leave, we can leave."

I could see my breath in the air, thanks to how cold it was. Nina and I stared at each other for a short moment before Nina swiftly nodded, and Eddie and Mara screamed our names as they ran up to us. "Hey!" Eddie called over the chatter of the entire crowd, the however many people were just meters ahead of us. "Where have you two been? We've been waiting! And by that I mean...all of us have been waiting." He gestured to the crowd behind us.

"What am I supposed to do?" Nina asked Mara, who was on the left of her, meanwhile I was on Nina's right. She refused to let go of my hand; she was squeezing it so tightly, I was surprised the blood flow didn't stop and I didn't lose feeling. "I can't talk in front of all these people. I'll...I'll mess up. They'll hurt me...physically."

"I wouldn't let that happen," Eddie commented, as if Nina should have known this originally. "Look. All of them just want confirmation that what Fabian said on the Twitcam was the truth, which I don't understand since he admitted it himself, but you know what? Whatever. Just get it over with. Nina, if you feel the least bit threatened by someone in the crowd, tell me, and I'll punch their teeth out."

Nina nodded, smiled weakly at her best friend, and rubbed the leftover Vaseline on her wrist in a circle once again. "Why can't I punch their teeth out?" I asked Eddie; I wasn't mad, but I didn't want him thinking I was weak, either.

"We don't want any bad press for you," he told me, his hazel eyes sincere. "No more than you've already had. Okay, guys, come on then. They're all waiting."

I squeezed Nina's hand, just to assure her I was right by her side, and we walked in front of the crowd. The chatter silenced immediately once we had stepped into view of everyone, so all the two hundred faces could see us. I didn't recognize any faces; I saw Patricia and Joy, two girls Nina had talked about sometimes in our emails, and the two girls which had visited Nina's household when she was out of town. Joy's eyes widened to the size of Bugsy's as she held up her camera, having the best view as she was in the front of everyone.

"Okay, listen up," I exclaimed over the crowd, so we were all in complete silence. I figured they all listened to me because I was famous, but I continued to speak anyway. "I don't understand why you people refuse to admit that Nina is the mother of my child, but okay. I'm here to admit the truth one more time. I met Nina in a coffee shop when I was sixteen, in 2009. One thing led to another, and we had a one-night stand."

"Why would you want to shag her?" an unknown voice called out from the crowd. "She got pregnant. Why would you want to bang a slut?"

I sighed, and shared a rather impatient look with Nina. People were stupid. "Yes," I breathed, scanning the crowd for whoever said that, "and I was the one who got her pregnant! If she's a slut, than she's my slut."

Nina giggled, but soon turned away so no one in the crowd could see her laughing. "Anyway," I smiled just the same, turning back to the audience, "here we are. In front of two hundred people that still don't believe the truth that I, myself, Fabian Rutter, is a father. More specifically, the father of Nina's child. I don't know why you don't believe it. But it's true, and I'm admitting to it! I'm being a big boy here, and coming to terms with the fact that I made a mistake three years ago."

"So she's a mistake now?" a redhead, Patricia, who was one of the two girls who had met Emma back when Nina was out of town, spoke up. She looked like she wasn't afraid to take a risk, and was proving that right now. "Why would you want to be here if she was a mistake?"

"I've admitted that yes, Nina here is a mistake," My voice was loud, but it was soft. I wasn't angry, and I wasn't trying to frighten anyone, either. "But it turned out to be a good mistake. My daughter means the world to me, she really does."

"How much do you know about her?" The brunette standing next to Patricia was the other girl who was with her in Nina's house, even though I couldn't remember her name. She looked familiar, somehow, though, and I didn't know why. "You can't...you're busy. You can't know that much about...about your daughter."

"Oh, I do!" I defended, smiling slightly. I was about to show these people the truth, even though they wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up and hit them in the eye. "Her name is Emma Grace Martin. She is two years old, and will turn three this May. She likes horses and messing up people's hair and carrots and bananas and my music. She plays with dolls and toy cars and Nina is planning to move her out of the crib in a few weeks. She has brown hair and blue eyes, the same color as mine. She's curious, just like any other child. She's very independent, just like her mother."

"Why would you want to ruin your career like this?" The brunette attacked again. Aaron had told me that they'd be protective, but I never imagined them like this. I'm sure one or two other people in Nina's school had gotten pregnant before; not necessarily with a celebrity, of course, but why would they torment someone who had probably just made an innocent mistake? "She'll...she'll bring you down. I don't want to see you leave the music industry. I like you as a singer, and as a person, too. I don't want to see you leave."

"Me either," I admitted, shrugging. "I love what I do. But I don't care anymore. I made the mistake with Nina before I was famous. When I was just getting into the whole 'fame' thing, Nina was still pregnant with my child. I didn't know she was pregnant. I didn't even know my child existed before August! My...fatherhood, per say, goes back further than my career in music does. And being a father is more important than fame in my book."

The crowd exploded again. People were taking pictures, video, and yelling above the person in front of them to ask me a question. They wanted to know about Emma. There was nothing more to tell about her, plus I didn't want information about my toddler leaking into the internet for anyone to reed. They wanted to know about my relationship with Nina. I told them we were trying to make a family.

"Nothing else?" a different voice from the crowd spoke up after I had silenced them once again. "There's nothing else going on between you two?"

"No," Nina spoke up, the first word she had said since we arrived at the parking lot. I was surprised she was being so brave, but the fact that she had to say there was nothing going on between us surely made me feel horrible.

I had admitted to myself months ago that I was in love with Nina. Sure, she might have been bossy, and demanding, and rude sometimes, but everyone had their flaws. Pregnancy wasn't even an excuse for her behavior, here. But she was amazing in her own way, and that was what I admired about her. She loved mysteries and challenges. She wasn't afraid to call out on someone's bullshit. She didn't let someone hurt the people she loves, nor herself, for that matter.

I loved her. I did. And if I could tell the world that I was the father of her child, than I could tell the world about my feelings for her. It was time to step up and admit to that.

"There's nothing going on between me and Fabian at all," Nina continued. "He's just the father of my child. Nothing more."

Nina began to slip her hand out of mine, but I gripped it tight so she couldn't move it away from me. "No," I counterattacked her accusation. "There is something going between us."

"WHAT?!" was what I heard from the crowd. I knew no one liked it when their favorite celebrity achieved a significant other. Little girls everywhere probably dreamed of being my girlfriend (Or at least I hoped they would). No one would like it. They would attack Nina on Twitter and call her even more names, just because I loved her. But I'd defend her.

"Fabian?" Nina's eyebrows knitted in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Don't deny it, Nina," I spoke to her quietly, moving around to face her. She inhaled slowly, staring at the concrete, but she met my eyes as as soon as I began to speak again. "You know there's something more there. Remember when I first met Eddie and Mara, and you came to my house after the concert on October 20th? That was one of the happiest I had ever seen you. You played around with my phone and Twitter, and...and that was when I really started to fall for you. We'd talk for hours and hours on end when we were emailing. I know you better than you know yourself, and you know me as well.

"I know you feel something," I tried to convince her, getting closer to her. I put my hand on her cheek, and she just stared at me until I continued with, "You have to. You wouldn't have acted that way around me if you didn't feel something. If you weren't comfortable around me, you wouldn't have given me your phone number. If you didn't feel anything...you wouldn't be here right now."

She sighed and looked down at the concrete again, but a voice from the crowd exclaimed, "So, Fabian, if there is something going on between you two, then kiss. In front of us. To get on camera, to put on line. Because, Fabian, if you don't care what we think, then you won't care to show us that there really is something. And if you can't kiss her, because kissing is such a simple thing, well then, I guess there's really nothing going on between you at all."

A stare issued between Nina and me for a good twenty seconds. I didn't know what to do; the random person in the crowd was right, about kissing being such a simple thing. It was just two lips touching. Nina and I had been so close to kissing before, but yet after everything we've been through, we hadn't kissed once yet.

"Fabian," Nina breathed, still staring at me. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"Yeah, I really don't want to," I admitted, moving my gaze to Nina, to the crowd, and back to Nina. "I mean, we're—"

"Oh," Nina's reaction came quick, surprising me. "No, that's okay. You were right, Fabian, about everything. I have feelings for you, and I know you have feelings for me. We're...parents!" she exploded, moving her hands along with her words. The chatter in the crowd continued, and I knew some people were filming this; but I didn't care. Nina wasn't thinking rationally.

"No, Nina—" I tried to interrupt, but she held a hand up to silence me.

"I mean, it's only a kiss!" Nina yelled, exhaling quickly as she paced around the spot, moving further away from me. The only reason I grabbed her wrist here was to stop her from moving away from me again. She twirled around, continued to ignore me, and yelled, "Yet you don't want to kiss me. Am I that horrible? What's wrong with me? Why don't you want to kiss me?!"

"Nina, I—"

"No!" She boomed again, rolling her eyes at how ridiculous I was being, and then proceeded to walk away. I grabbed her wrist again to stop her from walking away, but this time when she twirled around, she screamed, "What?!" and me, being so mad and not knowing what to do, I grabbed her face, pulled her closer to me, and crushed my lips onto hers.

A huge gasp issued from the crowd, and the screams got louder as we kissed.

I didn't know how to describe it. I hadn't kissed anyone since August; I didn't count cheek kisses, or the times when I kissed Nina or Emma's forehead. This kiss was something else, but Nina's arms moved up in protest for only a moment before she settled into the kiss, moving her arms around my waist, laughing as she continued to kiss. Her lips were rough, chapped, like she hadn't used chapstick in months, but my lips smoothed hers out.

We continually came up for air, but then just kissed again. It was weird to be tasting her lips again, after three years of not kissing them, but it felt nice, as well. We moved in harmony, our noses touching each others' cheeks, but I just continually moved in, pressing harder. She laughed and smiled, just as amazed that we were finally kissing as I was.

It was warm, it was gentle, but captivating. It was nice to be sharing this moment with Nina, someone whom I had tons of affection towards. We became one as we kissed, and no tongue was even needed. We constantly moved, but her hands were in my messy, tangled hair, and my hands rested at her hips. Videos were being taken, pictures were being shot, but we were drinking each other in, the rest of the world had disappeared, and we were kissing for the first time.

Our relationship had started. I didn't have to be careful around her anymore, as we were one. It was wonderful.

We pulled away after many moments apart. Nina was wearing a look of extreme exuberance; it almost looked like she was going to bounce up and down from excitement. We were both smiling, and I was so tempted to just lean in again and kiss her, get back all those moments I missed back then. However, I don't think she heard me when I said, "You didn't let me finish."

/o~~~o/

12/28/13: someone called me out on my use of not capitalizing my author's notes. i'm trying to look cool & casual for the internet, dude. but if annoys anyone else, tell me, because i /do/ have a caps lock button...

whew. i guess that's it for pre-fabina here. it'll feel weird to not be developing them anymore, this chapter was pretty much synonymous with the flying scene in titanic (and i watched that movie last night and i'm going to watch it again tonight. someone take my dvd away from me.)

in my rewatch, i'm on house of reflectors & house of illusions. gosh i hate season 2. but the amber/alfie dynamic in this part of the show is the literal best like they're my two favorite characters and i love them so much. /i am so not ready to say goodbye to amber yet though./ i can't wait to get to s3 because ANGRY FABIAN and the weird broken-up peddie and my wonderful, amazing kt. and frombie.

-lia