Don't own it, never will, no money made here, it's J.K.'s.

AN: Wow, been a while, yeah? Sorry about that. Just a bit longer, now.

Madame Pomfrey glanced up at Draco as he moved behind the screen again. He was visibly worried and her own expression softened. She held Hermione's wrist in one hand to take her pulse and Draco's eyes moved from Poppy's fave to that of her ward. Hermione still looked pale, but decidedly better than she had when he'd found her on the floor of the lavatory. His eyes flicked back to Poppy's.

"How…is she?" He kept his voice quiet and Madame Pomfrey could tell he was expecting the worst. She gave him a gentle look.

"She would have lost the baby if you'd gotten her here any later," she told him and saw with satisfaction the way he sagged with relief.

"So she's ok?"

"She will be, with proper rest," Poppy said, "but I mean that. Bed rest for at least two weeks. All her schoolwork will need to be collected and she'll have to stay her for a few days before she can return to her dorm. And absolutely no extra stress. She must keep calm and relaxed. Now, I'm going to go inform Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore of the situation. You may sit with her a brief while, if you don't excite her when she wakes up."

Draco nodded mutely in agreement and watched her bustle away. He heard Ginny and then Harry accost her for information, heard her explain the situation even more briefly, then give them an extra warning. He didn't draw any satisfaction from it, though, as he took in Hermione's wan features again. He couldn't help the guilt he was feeling, knowing he was as much a part of the problem as Potter and Weasley. Poor girl.

She couldn't catch a fucking break, could she.

Seeing her eyelids flutter, he moved closer and forced himself to take her hands in his, although he rather thought he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near her just then. Not when he was so clearly part of the problem- when he was so clearly a monster, being the cause of grief between her and her best friends. Turning her entire world upside down, and all because he'd had the audacity to fall in love with her, and make her fall in love with him.

She opened her eyes and blinked a few times, then took a deep breath and focused on him. He was immediately still.

"Draco," she breathed. He launched into an explanation, before she could smile angelically at him and make him feel even worse.

"You almost miscarried," he told her, voice sad and face grim. Her hands went limp in his and she swallowed.

"I thought something was wrong," she admitted, "but I felt so tired…I assumed it was just exhaustion."

"It wasn't," he said, a bit more sharply than he meant to. "It was stress, Madame Pomfrey says."

"I should've known something like this would happen," she responded quietly. "What with…everything."

"Everything, right." Draco gave a bitter laugh. "You mean me."

"What? No!" Hermione shot him a startled look. "You've been wonderful, Draco. How can you even say that?"

"Because if it weren't for me, your friends wouldn't be giving you such grief. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have to worry about tricking the next Death Eater that tries to Legilimens you. I'm nothing but-"

"Stop it, Draco," Hermione told him, her voice steadier than she felt. "Please. If it weren't for you, my child and I would be the target of every Death Eater in a hundred mile radius. You're being ridiculous. This entire situation is stressful and horrible, you're right about that. But it would be ten times worse for me without you, trust me."

He tried to step away, but she held his hands tight and gave them a squeeze. He glanced away, but didn't try to let go again.

"Look," she said, her tone cajoling, "Harry's a complete idiot sometimes and he'll go on being one- so will Ron. That's who they are and I've known it for a long time before you and I…well. But he'll come around eventually. I'm still very hurt, but he'll apologize to me again soon, I bet."

"And then you'll go back to being best friends?" Draco asked with a slight sneer. Hermione frowned at him.

"Everything is changing," she said softly. "I know that. But I know that he needs me, no matter what he says, or how he acts. Just like I know I need you."

Draco looked suspiciously as if he wanted to cry.

"How can you simply accept all this? It isn't fair. We're just sixteen. You shouldn't have to deal with any of this."

"You're right about that, too," Hermione agreed. "But it's what we're faced with. And I can't just think about myself anymore, or what's fair or not. You understand, Draco," she said, smiling weakly at him. He sighed and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.

"I do," he said, looking at her again. "But I still think that perhaps it would be better for you if we didn't see each other as much in the coming weeks."

"Better for whom?" she asked, the hurt plain on her face. She shook her head. "Absolutely not, Draco Malfoy. You're stuck with me. You're stuck with us."

"We've already convinced the world we're in love, Hermione," he said, lowering his voice. "Now I just want some distance to ensure your safety-"

"You can't ensure that, Draco," she said. "You've never been able to ensure it. Not entirely. Not even Dumbledore can promise me that everything will be ok, and Voldemort is frightened of him."

"Hermione-" Draco's face was pale and pinched, but Hermione still wouldn't let go- she wouldn't let him let her go.

"Please," she whispered. "I trust you, as much as I can right now. I need you to trust me, now."

"In spite of your friends, despite the fact that you're in a hospital bed right now?"

"Yes," she replied firmly. "But not in spite of those things. Because of them. I know what I'm doing. I knew what I was doing the minute I agreed to everything."

"And if the danger becomes too great?" Draco went on, pushing the issue, unable to allow her to make what he saw as the biggest mistake of her life. "Hermione, don't think I want this. I love you, or as close to it as I can get, but you have to admit that this situation isn't good for you."

"I'll admit no such thing," she shot back. "Not unless you're willing to admit the same for yourself."

"How can I?" he said with a weak laugh. "I'd never say the same- you're one of the best things that's happened to me in the last year. I can at least be happy with you, even if I am worried sick."

"There you are," she responded, and if she seemed slightly out of breath, neither noticed or cared. Draco leaned over and placed a kiss on her forehead and she tugged on his robes until he met her lips instead. When he pulled away, he gave her a soft, brave smile. She returned it readily.

"I will have to focus on my task more in the coming weeks," he informed her and her face fell. "But I'll still see you everyday," he added quickly. "And I'll be taking your notes for your missed classes. I know Potter takes them for shit."

"Oh, thank you," she said, rolling her eyes. Her face grew somewhat pale with the effort of conversation. "Just don't ignore me again like you did today. I can't…it was awful."

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I thought it was best-"

"Well it wasn't," she interrupted. "Don't do that again. Ever. Don't abandon me."

"Ok, ok," he said. "I promised I wouldn't, didn't I?" He gazed down at the hand that bore the ring and she smiled up at him.

"You did."

"So you can hold me to that, from here on. Now," he went on with a look over his shoulder, "you'd better get some rest. Pomfrey will be all over me if you're still awake when she comes back."

"Alright. See you tomorrow, and Draco- thank you."

He lifted her hand to his lips in response and then backed from the area, holding eye contact with Hermione as she watched him go sleepily, before her eyes finally fluttered closed. Draco wondered if they would ever be able to truly surmount the difficult days that lay ahead of them, or if they'd be stuck in this holding pattern the rest of their lives.

And then it didn't matter because Madame Pomfrey and McGonagall were bustling past him into the screened area with nary a sideways glance at him; and then he was being accosted by Harry-freaking-Potter yet again.

"What did you say to her?" Harry demanded of him. Draco decided he just didn't have the energy for a good sneer. The only good thing in his life besides his mother was lying in a bed, pale and ill and had nearly lost the baby that they were both giving everything to protect.

"Sod off, Potter," he said. "I'm not in the bloody mood. For your fucking information I tried to tell her that I'm no good for her and she's begged me to stick around, so you tell me: what the hell am I supposed to do? If your main concern is her well-being, then in order for her to have a stress free life she apparently needs- or at the very least, wants- me in it. Are you going to continue to be a part of the problem, Potter, or are you going to be part of the solution and start focusing on the things that really matter, for once?"

Harry was speechless and Draco gave him one more once-over, managed a derisively raised brow, and then swept away, leaving the scrappy lad staring after him in puzzlement. Ginny moved away from Ron's bedside to stand beside him and stare after the tall blond with a matching look of confusion on her face.

"What did you say to him?" she asked echoing his own question from a minute before.

Harry sighed.

Hermione slept through most of the prodding and conversation that went on around her the rest of the day. All she knew was that she was tired and her baby was once again safe; that her friends still cared for her; and that Draco would not attempt to leave her again as he had today. She also knew, somewhere in the haze of exhaustion and pain, that things were not going well. She knew that Draco's task was bringing them all- the entire school- into more and more danger. She knew that Harry wasn't any closer to helping Dumbledore solve the riddle of Voldemort's power than he needed to be- than he ought to be, at this point. And she knew that she couldn't save both boys- she could barely save herself, after all. Oh, she was going to try her best. She'd help Harry by pushing him along and she'd help Draco by continuing to love him. But at the very end of the day, she'd be forced to make a hard choice unless the war ended this year.

With Draco's being a double agent now, he'd be in that role until Voldemort was killed…or he died, himself. Whichever came first. And if she chose Draco, for her baby's safety…then she'd have to leave Harry behind, because Draco's double agency was different than Snape's. With Snape, he was already a member of the Order. Draco was understood to be a Death Eater, through and through. There would be no meetings at Number Twelve, no stolen kisses when he came to play his part at Order meetings. Not once school ended, anyway. He'd continue to live at the Manor and work for that madman…

And she also knew that he somehow believed he deserved that life- the life of imprisonment and torture. The one where he had to do bad things for a bad man, because it was all he was really good at. She knew that Draco Malfoy felt very deeply that he was not a good person; and unless she chose him utterly, she didn't see how she could convince him otherwise- even if no one really knew what a good person was.

Not that Draco would listen to an argument like that. He'd never let her explain how Dumbledore was far from good, or how Harry, though the world thought of him as the chosen one, was a teenaged idiot with as many hang-ups as a middle-aged Death Eater. (Though he might believe her on principle alone, if it came to that.) Even the Weasleys, bless their souls, were deeply and bitterly prejudiced against Draco and his brand of purebloods as the Malfoys were against them. And dear, sainted Sirius…well, suffice to say that no one in this situation was entirely good or evil, save Voldemort, who was simply a psychopath.

The bottom line was that Draco's underpinnings were bullshit. All the people they knew were flawed, deeply and, in some cases, fatally. And just as she knew she'd have to choose by the end of the year, she also knew that Draco would never overcome his own flaws until he was ready to, no matter how much she loved him.

With a restless heart, she forced herself to relax and go back to sleep. There was only one thing she had any remote amount of control over, and that was her child's health and safety. And if she wanted to be in any condition to help any of her loved ones and friends, she needed her own health, too. So, she kept her eyes closed and continued to drift away into darkness, all the while praying for answers she knew she'd never find.

AN: Oh, the drama! The angst! Boohoohoo!