"No! Not that one!" Sei cried out. He barely managed to snatch the bottle away from Eduard before the taller boy poured it into the beaker. He sighed heavily with relief as he set it down on the counter.

Eduard blinked at him. "What? Why not?"

Sei picked up another bottle and handed it to him. "Use this one; it will stabilize the mixture first." He gestured toward the bottle Eduard had been about to add. "Then you can add that one."

Eduard blinked in confusion at the bottle Sei had handed him. "I thought this was what I had." He muttered. He shook his head quickly before measuring out the chemical (something else he hadn't done before) and carefully poured it into the beaker.

Sei watched as the liquid in the beaker changed colour. All around the room, as other groups did the same thing, he heard gasps of amazement and even some applause. The change meant nothing to Sei, since it was just colour, which could be changed easily if you knew what you were doing.

"Sorry about that." Eduard said, turning to Sei. "My head must not have been in it."

Sei shook his head. "Must not have." He muttered. It was odd. He had thought that Eduard was a very studious person, and that he took these labs very seriously. If that's the case, then something even more serious than his dedication to school must have happened.

Beside him, Eduard suddenly became very stiff. Looking up, Sei saw that Eduard was staring at him with a kind of fear. He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but before he could say anything, Eduard shook his head.

"Sorry." He muttered. He threw the measuring utensil he was holding in the sink and removed his safety goggles. "I have to go." He said quickly before turning and running out of the room.

Sei stared after him for a moment. Then he turned back and finished the lab. That was odd. He thought as he watched the colour change yet again.

At lunch, Sei found himself sitting with Alfred and his friends again. They all had the same thing for lunch as they did the day before. In fact, as Sei looked around the cafeteria, it seemed that everyone had the same thing.

"I'll be returning home to visit my grandmother." Kiku said. They were all talking about what they were going to do over something called 'March Break'. Sei had managed to gather that it was a week in the near future where they didn't have any school.

"I'll just be playing video games all week." Alfred declared, barely understandable around the hamburger in his mouth. He swallowed and reached for his shake. "I just got a new one."

"Peter and Sophia want to go to the river, since the weather should be nice by then." Arthur said. He didn't sound very happy at the thought.

Alfred turned to Sei, looking like he was planning to say something. Sei flinched slightly. Don't ask. Please, don't ask. He had no plans, and he didn't know how to explain this to everyone.

Luckily, something behind Sei saved him. "Bella!" Alfred called out. He waved at someone.

Sei turned slightly to look at who Alfred was waving at. A girl was walking swiftly toward their table with a smile on her face. She sat down in the last empty seat at their table and picked up something that looked like waffles. "Hey guys." She said cheerfully. Sei had a momentary thought that her cheerfulness was false. Then their eyes met and her cheerfulness turned into confusion. "Who's this?"

"This is Sei." Alfred said. "He's a new friend."

"But do not fear, mademoiselle." Francis said, putting an arm around the girl's shoulders and holding a rose out to her. "He could never take your place."

"He started yesterday." Arthur explained, pulling Francis away from the girl.

"Oh." The girl smiled again. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Bella."

"Hi."

"Speaking of yesterday!" Alfred said loudly, yet Sei seemed to be the only person taken aback by his volume. "Where were you, Bella? You weren't here for lunch, and you weren't in any of your classes."

"Oh." Bella's smile fell away. "I was, uh…" She looked around at everyone. "Um, at the hospital."

"What?" Alfred and Arthur gasped at the same time.

"Mademoiselle, is everything alright?" Francis asked, leaning in closer to her.

"Um, yes. I'm fine." She looked down at her food. "It's just…" She looked up slightly at Sei, looking nervous.

"I can leave." Sei offered, starting to get to his feet.

Bella looked a little awkward, like she didn't know what to say. It was Alfred to responded first. He grabbed Sei's arm and pulled him back into the seat. "Don't worry about Sei." He told Bella. "He may be new, but he's one of the gang. Like all of us, he's here for you if you need him."

Sei had mixed feelings about what Alfred had said. On the one hand, he was almost glad that he had been called part of something other than the Organization, something that he could proudly share his participation in. On the other hand, he didn't know if he could really be there for Bella, if she did need him. He had no idea how she might need him.

Bella gave a half smile. "Alright." She whispered, leaning in closer to the middle of the table. Everyone, including Sei, leaned in as well. "Um, you see, I went to the hospital to get tested. I did a home test, but I wanted to be sure."

"Tested for what?" Alfred asked.

Bella bit her lip. "I'm pregnant." She admitted. "And… I think I'm going to keep it."

Everyone at the table backed away from the center slowly. There were shocked expressions all around. Even Sei knew what this meant. None of them really knew what to do, or say.

Finally, Alfred spoke up. "Who's is it?" He whispered.

"Eduard's." Bella answered, blushing slightly.

That night, Sei lay on his bed again. He had a whole new string of thoughts going through his head. Now he was thinking that the thoughts from yesterday were nothing, simple child's play.

One of the people whom he should be calling his friends was pregnant. She was going to have a baby. On top of that, the father was his lab partner. So he knew both of the parents separately, and he was having to prepare for the possibility that he was not going to be able to escape this thing.

At least now I know why Eduard was acting so strange in Chemistry.

It was strange enough to think that he knew someone who was pregnant, but then he started to think about it in terms of the child. Bella would be having the child, so it would grow up to become its own person. There was even the possibility that it would become the next great world leader.

How would the world be different in the future if she didn't have the baby? He wondered.

That set him off on a whole other string of thoughts. He had never known his own mother, so he had assumed that the Organization had adopted him when he was born. What if my mother had been a teenager who got pregnant? What if she had gotten an abortion instead of going through with it?

How would a world without me be?

Sei jumped up and turned to the intercom. He started toward it, but then stopped. Bella had trusted him with her secret. If he went to the intercom and told them what he was thinking, he would have to share her secret with them. He couldn't do that.

Instead, he returned to his bed, curled up, and fell asleep thinking about a world where he had never been born.

When Sai woke up, he was still thinking about that world. He came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be any different from the world he was living in now.