While Ari walked down the street of Toranto, she held her jacket around her tighter to keep warm, and probably to protect the child that was slowly growing in her stomach. She needed help from the one person in the world who she could always turn to before, and while their relationship was strained, it was worth saving.

Ari stopped when she finally saw Paul talking to their mother and felt his heart break a bit for her brother. She knew that she had been in the right at the time, but she was so wrong in claiming that he was disrespecting the memory of his mother. Ari was the disgrace. She was the royal fuck up in almost every aspect of her life and now she had the proof of it under her sweater.

She slid onto the roof of his car and looked over at the older man,
"You ever hear the old thing about a drunken man mistaken for wise?" She knew that probably wasn't a real thing, but it was the only thing that came to mind. She missed being able to turn to Paul with everything. When her pregnancy was confirmed, she wanted to run to her brother and have him tell her what to do. Gaspard seemed as conflicted as she was, so she needed some guidance. Already she was turning into a terrible mother. She had been drinking with Ted and Fox before finding out, and she cried when it was confirmed. She was an idiot if she thought that she would be any kind of a mother for this baby.

Ari watched her brother look like a fierce forest creature, and then like a sad puppy about to get in trouble for peeing on the carpet. She was terrified about what was going to happen when she told the family about her pregnancy. When she told them that the father was close to double her age and worked at the school. That the manipulated Ian into giving them more time alone and it led to her becoming pregnant with his baby. More than that, she was going to keep him. She watched him turn away from her and felt some tears spike at her eyes. The one person who would hear her out with all of this, who would see her side and understand that she was in love with Gaspard and needed him in her life. Especially now that she was having his baby.

"Followed the headlines, rising star MMA fighter hiding out in Canada." She knew that he was drunk, and that there was a good chance he wouldn't react right to her news if he was half out of his head.
"Can you please just sit and stop drinking, Paul, I really need to talk to you about something." She leaned back on the glass of his windshield and looked up at the sky. Ari could tell that he was upset over what happened, and she didn't blame him. He wasn't in his right head, and he seemed to be holding up his end of the deal. She wouldn't tell the family what happened, and he would stop shooting that junk into his body.
"Here." She took a water bottle out of her bag and held it out to him, "You need to drink some water."

While some of the family might be angry at Paul right now, they had no reason to know why. They didn’t know that Paul was the one who hurt her. They didn’t know that Ari broke into his apartment to find his drugs, they didn’t know that he shoved her to get her out of his home and out of his life. She was the disgrace to their family right now. She was the one who was pregnant by the librarian. Ari was the one who was a trashy sixteen year old who couldn’t keep it in her pants while in the library and was now going to have to raise a child while finishing out her education. She was the idiot and the one who was ruining lives. She ruined the Madigan’s by joining in their ranks, she ruined Gaspard’s by sticking him with her for life now. When would the chaos around her end?

“I can’t go on with my life, Paul. Not knowing that things are messed up between us.” She looked at her brother and knew that while he might hate himself for what he did, she hated herself so much more what she was going to have to tell him. Hate herself more for getting into this situation when she was being so careful otherwise. Paul was the only one she knew that she could turn to for an honest answer about all of this. If she should keep the child and raise him with Gaspard, or if she should just terminate the pregnancy and save them both from the potential horror.

When he snapped at her, Ari just let it roll off. He was being an ass and once he got out of his own head, he would be back to being a decent brother to her.
“I’m pregnant.” She snapped back at him, knowing that the shock of it might cause him to turn into his wolf form again. During the Christmas fiasco with Dante she had admitted that she had a crush on someone.
“I’ve been seeing the school librarian since the summer, he took my virginity and I’m in love with him. Now, I’m pregnant and I have no idea if I even have a maternal bone in my body and I’m terrified.”

Tears stung at her eyes and she knew that Paul was probably going to scream at her, probably call her a slut and right now with how she was feeling about herself, she deserved it.

When she was a little girl, she thought that she had won some lottery. Things had been so horrible while she was growing up, and then it turned out that she was a witch. More than that, she never had to go back to a foster home. She could live in a magical school, she could have some stability for once, and more than that. There was a family who took a shine to her. When Rita first insisted that she had to come to a family dinner, she never thought that things could be any better. When the Madigans fully accepted her into their lives, she thought that her life was complete. With them she was able to become the woman who Gaspard fell in love with.
“Paul you weren’t in your own head that day. You know you weren’t, when you’re healthy you’re the best brother ever.” She needed his love but more than that she needed his support. With some hope, Paul would accept the pregnancy and help her with the rest of the family.

With everything spilling out, she felt an absolute weight lifted from her chest. She needed to start telling people about her pregnancy, she needed her friends and family to know about her loving relationship but that didn’t stop her from being scared shitless about it. Gaspard could be taken away from her, she could be stuck in another foster home, or worse than all of it, she could end up deciding not to keep the baby and lose Gaspard forever. Sure he claimed that he would support her no matter what, but she could only imagine how it would be if she got rid of their child. If he would be able to look at her the same way, or if there would always be a shadow of remembrance there. He would always remember that she had been pregnant with his baby and then just got rid of him.

She wiped her eyes from the tears and saw how stressed he looked. What big brother really wanted to hear about his younger sister being pregnant at sixteen by a man almost eleven years her senior. When he snatched her off the hood, she wrapped her arms around him and gave him the biggest hug that she could muster,
“I forgive you, Paul. I love you, you know that.”

Ari snuggled into his arms, feeling like this was how brothers and sisters should confront each other. Not by breaking into each other’s apartments looking for evidence. Not by shoving them down flights of stairs. Even if Paul insisted that it was his fault she got hurt, she knew that there was a danger in it. That she was wrong to have been there in the first place. She could have talked to his coach, she could have gone to Ian, and there were just so many better options that didn’t involve putting herself in harm’s way. The only good thing to come from the whole event was that she had conceived her baby a month after she woke up. If she hadn’t been behind in classes, she might not had been in the library that day. Assuming she even decided to keep the baby.

“I don’t even know if I can keep it.” She placed her hands on her stomach while she spoke. Even though there was no way to tell that she was pregnant, she felt like she was. She felt like there was just something different about her. The child growing inside of her wasn’t some drunken mistake, or with someone who would bail out on her, or harm her. It was a child created out of the pure love between herself and Gaspard.
“They say I’m due on October 30th, but Paul… do you think I can honestly care for a baby at sixteen?” She knew what a lot of people would say, that she shouldn’t have been having sex if she wasn’t ready to be a mother. In her defense, every time before that had been protected. She was even on muggle birth control! There was just a heated moment while she was going between pills, and mistakes happened. The question was, was it right to have Gaspard pay for that mistake for the rest of her life?
“I’m so confused and I don’t know what to do.”

Why not? Why not? There were a million reasons why not. Ari was sixteen, had not even finished her magical education yet, and she was pregnant by the school librarian. Just to name a few,
“Paul, I don’t know if I can even be a mother. I don’t even know how to be a mother.” She knew several different types of mother’s in her life. She knew her biological mother who made her marry a man old enough to be her grandfather. The same woman who beat her senseless when she tried to deny that same man on their wedding night by attempting to burn him to a crisp. She knew Evangeline Redwood, the woman who she took her last name from. Evangeline was a lovely woman, who also didn’t know enough about the man who she married to know that there was a felony in his past. Then, finally there was Rita who was killed before Ari had a chance to even get to know her as more than the woman who would drag her places and buy her things.

“What if I hold that beautiful baby for the first time and I don’t feel anything? What if I take him into my arms and I just hate him?” She asked both her brother and herself. The absolute fear and truth in the words burning her skin with their harsh tone and her eyes with the tears they dragged out of her frigid body.
“How am I supposed to protect a baby, when I never had a mother who did that for me? I don’t know how to be a mother, Paul.” The tears poured down her cheeks, even as she was tugged against her older brother and wrapped into his strong arms she knew that it was all true. How could someone as horrible as her have even gotten a wonderful man like Gaspard to look at her, let alone fall in love with her? Not that he would stay in love, not when he realized that the woman he was in love with was cold and heartless. Everyone said it, it was about time the rumor mill got something right about her.

“I’ve ruined everything. If I keep this baby, Dad is going to kill me. He’s going to rip up those adoption papers and send me back to whatever side of the road I was left on.” She knew that Gaspard wouldn’t allow it, he would hold her tight and say sweet things in her ear about giving her a life for her and their baby, but how could he continue that when he realized that she might not feel anything towards their child? If he was smart, he would take it from her. Take the child and find a functioning woman. Someone who would be able to love a baby as much as a mother should. Ari placed her hands on her stomach and knew that she might love her little bundle of cells now. She might already want to protect him with everything that she had in her body, how was she supposed to know if that feeling would continue? What if she turned out worse than all of the mothers she had? All of the mothers: biological, adoptive and foster who let her down?
“What should I do?”