A/N: Thanks to Phish Tacko for her help with this! Go read her stuff!

Ch. 41

While Sweeney was trying to warm up, Gilbert was just finishing up his typical Wednesday routine. Usually, on Wednesdays, he went food shopping and took Tommy with him. In the afternoon, he would go to the shelter and have his weekly appointment with Dr. Schnabel.

This time, he got to the shelter a bit early. His appointment was scheduled at 2, and it was 1:45. He waited outside in the hallway, as he usually did. A few minutes after he got there, he heard a door open. The man he'd spoken to a few weeks ago – Tom – stepped out.

Gilbert noticed that the young man looked a little bigger than he had the last time they'd spoken. He had to be close to his third trimester by now.

"Hey," Tom said as he walked towards Gilbert.

"Hey, man," Gilbert greeted him. "How's it going?"

Tom shrugged. "Eh, same shit, different day. You? By the way, I'm Tom. I don't think I introduced myself before."

"Cool. I'm okay, here for my checkup as usual."

"I give ya credit, man," Tom said. "I can't imagine having one kid, never mind two. But, I guess you're older, so maybe it's different for you."

Gilbert sighed. Tom's pity-me type of attitude was a little annoying. He himself had gone through something similar to what Tom was going through, and he'd come out okay. If anything, Gilbert's situation had been worse. Not that he told many people about it. It was a secret that only he, Amy, and his mother had known about.

"It'll be okay," Gilbert said, trying to sound reassuring. "Lots of men go through what you're going through all the time, and they turn out okay. If you want a good life for your baby, you'll give them a good life, even if you have to work really hard to do it at first."

"Yeah, right," Tom scoffed. "That's way easier said than done. I'm way too young to have a kid."

Gilbert frowned. His mind brought him back to his sophomore year of high school, when he'd been a lonely fifteen-year-old boy.

The other kids at school had picked on him a lot for having such a weird family. They mocked his obese mother, slow brother and dead father.

Most of the time, Gilbert tried to ignore them and focus on his schoolwork, but one day, some of the boys in his class took things a step too far. A group of three of them had gathered in the locker room, and jumped him as soon as the place was clear. They'd insulted him, beaten him, and shoved him to the ground. One of them- the biggest one, a big, fat senior named Joe- raped him. The other two boys kept Gilbert from moving his legs or arms. One of them stuffed a shirt into his mouth to keep him from screaming, and the three of them took turns with him.

The encounter had left Gilbert bruised and bloody. He remembered barely being able to drag himself home that day. He didn't go back to school for a week after that.

Two weeks later, he had started getting sick. Mostly it was just bouts of nausea and vomiting, especially in the mornings, but every day he felt more and more tired. It had scared Gilbert. He wondered if something was really wrong with him. Maybe one of those boys had given him a disease. His young mind couldn't really comprehend the reality of the situation, that he was pregnant.

Amy had been the only one who knew about what had happened. She had patched Gilbert up and held him while he cried and held ice to his bruises and all of that. So, when she noticed that her brother was getting sick all the time, and that he was having a hard time buttoning his jeans and that he seemed to be sleeping constantly, she had a pretty good idea of what was happening.

After school one day, she'd confronted him.

"How are you feeling, Gilbert?" She asked, closing the door behind them.

"Um... Tired," Gilbert answered honestly.

"Not sick? Hungry? Anything like that?"

"I'm kinda hungry. And nauseated. It's weird," He replied, resting a hand on his slightly rounded stomach.

"You seem like you've been sick for a while now."

Gilbert frowned. "A few weeks... I keep hoping it'll pass."

It was now clear to Amy that Gilbert had no idea what was going on. He looked scared and like he was about to cry. Amy came closer to him and pulled him into a hug.

"Gilbert, I think you need to take a pregnancy test."

"What?" Gilbert pulled back. "Why that?"

"Well... you're showing all the symptoms of pregnancy, and the gene does run in our family, after all."

So he'd ended up taking a test, which had come out positive. Amy had taken him to a doctor, who'd confirmed that he was two and a half months pregnant. He'd tried to hide the fact from his mother, but she'd noticed his belly when he'd gotten to five months, and she'd figured it out pretty fast. Oddly enough, she wasn't angry like he'd thought she would be.

He'd ended up giving birth on the last day of finals. He had felt something odd in the shower that morning, and had felt pain and off throughout the day, but had still made it to class and finished his tests. Only later, when the contractions became more frequent, did Amy rush him to the hospital. He'd given birth to a boy. He hadn't gotten to hold him. They'd taken the baby right after he'd been born to give to a family who was ready for children.

Still, not a day went by when Gilbert didn't at least consider him. He wondered how his son was, now that he was ten. Did they look the same? Did he have red hair, too? He didn't even know who the father was. He didn't really want to know. He just hoped that wherever the kid was, he was better off.

"Hey, you there?" Tom's voice snapped Gilbert back to reality.

"Huh? Oh, sorry, I was just thinking."

"Anything good?"

"Not really. Anyway, as I was saying, I think you'll be okay. Really."

"I hope you're right."

"If you want to talk any time… You know, to speak to someone who's been there, I can give you my phone number," Gilbert offered. Tom frustrated him a little but he understood that the boy was probably just scared.

"Sure. Thanks." Tom pulled out a cell phone and began entering in Gilbert's number as he read it off. "I appreciate it."