She shot up from the bed and sprinted for the bathroom in record time to empty her stomach into the toilet bowl. She managed to hold her hair back with one hand and clutched the toilet seat with her other hand as if to keep herself grounded.

When it was all finally over, Annie collapsed against the wall weakly and tired to catch her breath. She shoved her head into the bowl again as another wave of nausea hit her; this time she retched dryly until her stomach felt empty and her throat burned. Pushing back the waves of tears that hit her so suddenly her heart skipped a bit, she went to brush her mouth and wash her face until she felt a little better.

After wiping her face with a towel, she made her way out of the bathroom only to be ambushed by Susan and Alix, who seemed to be discussing something in hushed voices, and stopped when they saw her.

"I came to thank you for yesterday. I loved all the dresses and-" Alix cleared her throat. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah."Annie tapped her feet impatiently. "I need a glass of cool lemonade, want to join me?"

"No Lemonade until after this." Susan held out her right hand where a pregnancy kit sat in her palm and waved it in front of Annie's face. "You have to have the all clear."

"All clear for what? Move!"

"You have to pee in the stick,honey."

Annie's thirst for lemonade tripped over sheer shock. "What? Are you crazy? Just because I had sex with your brother twice doesn't mean I am pregnant. I've got food poisoning."

"And may I remind you that you I have been there before?" Susan raised an eyebrow.

"Ha ha."

"And it's interesting how you keep throwing up and how pale you look right now." Marina said.

"I'm not pregnant."

Alix looked at Susan. "That's what they all say."

"I'm not pregnant." She repeated more firmly this time.

"You never can tell." Alix continued. "So let's make this simple. You want lemonade? Go and pee on a stick. You won't get past us if you don't."

Nearly desperate for Lemonade Annie snatched the box. "I am not pregnant." She marched off to the bathroom.

"I hope to God that she is. Everyone would be so happy, and we can choose baby names all we want." Alix squealed.

Susan rolled her eyes,but a smile curved her lips. "Yeah. Are you sure that Jovon is speaking with her parents?"

Alix nodded. "He won't come up for another thirty minutes. Especially when it involves Annie."

"Oh."

Annie emerged from the bathroom after some minutes and went to lay on the bed with a tired sigh. Both girls flanked her sides with concerned looks on their faces.

"We have to wait for ten or fifteen minutes before checking it." Alix voiced the obvious.

"What if I am truly pregnant?" Annie asked no one in particular. "We didn't agree about having a baby."

Susan caressed her hair. "He would be so over the moon. My brother loves children very much."

"I don't want him to marry me because of the baby." Tears welled up in her eyes. "He would resent me later on for tying him down with the baby, and I don't want that. I want him to love me."

Alix met her sister's worried gaze, then dropped back to Annie. "Have you seen the way my brother looks at you? It's like you hung the moon or something. He loves you more than you both realise and he hasn't just realized it yet."

"Don't get my hopes up. I love him so much. I know he'll leave me after this. He will!" A sob burst out of her.

"Shit!" Susan swore as they both scrambled to console her. "He won't Annie. It's okay. Please don't cry."

"He'll leave me." She replies brokenly. "I know he will!"

Jovon chose that moment to walk into the room. The sight of a sobbing Annie in his sisters arms had him sprinting for the bed. He pushed Susan out of the way and took her place beside Annie. Then he proceeded to pull her on his laps so that her face was buried in his chest.

"Please don't leave me." She cried,clutching his shirt with her fists. "Please!"

"Shh,Sweetheart." He combed his fingers through her hair gently. "I won't. I will be with you always."

"Don't leave me."

Jovon glared at his sisters. "What did you say to her?"

Susan gulped. "Nothing. We just came to check on her. Right Alix?"

"Y-yes." Alix nodded jerkily. "W-we didn't do anything to her, we promise. We'll, huh, get her a glass of cool lemonade. She was asking for it."

"Y-yeah. Excuse us." Susan grabbed Alix's hand and dragged her out of the room. They paused outside the door with guilty looks on their faces.

"We didn't say anything to make her cry." Alix said. "Then why did she suddenly start crying?"

"It's the hormones, dear. She's definitely got a bun in the oven. But we can't tell anyone until we're certain."

"Right."

Meanwhile, Jovon shifted as much as he could with Annie on his laps, and managed to lay down with her on his body fully now. He whispered sweet nothings into her ears while combing his fingers through her hair soothingly. Gradually, her sobs died down into sniffs, then her breath evened out,indicating that she had dozed off.

With her asleep, he had the time to think. It seemed that he was not the only one who feared their separation. Although he couldn't help but wonder what his sisters told her to set her off this much. He had never seen Annie cry like this, well except for when he told her about his past but that was different.

Jovon pressed his lips to her soft hair and decided there and then that he wouldn't leave her for anything. Who knew, maybe he could grow to love her.

If he didn't love already her anyway.

°   °   °

The photographer finished up with the mother and children, then came over and hugged Jovon, then introduced herself to Annie.

"I've never been hired from Philadelphia before." The older woman said with an easy grin. "This could be fun."

"We'll e-mail some samples to Cassie, if that's alright with you," Jovon told her. "Annie and I will pick out a few."

"Sure. Great. I have Mui albums over here. I'll show you a big selection, then point out which ones are available to be sent digitally."

Annie watched the easy rapport between Chessie and Jovon. "How did you two meet?" She asked.

Jovon groaned, but Chessie laughed. Then she patted him on the cheek.

"Jovon's parents hired me to take picture for his eighteenth birthday. It was all very formal and solemn."

"So humiliating." Jovon muttered.

Annie grinned. "That portrait wouldn't be in the sample albums, would it?"

Chessie shook her head. "He'd kill me if I put it there, but maybe I can scan one of the proofs and send you a copy."

Annie leaned close to Jovon and rested her head on his shoulder. "I would love that."

"You send it and I'll never forgive you." Jovon told Chessie.

"Of course you will."

They spent the next half hour going over Chessie's samples. Her pictures were incredible. Romantic without being mushy, clear, artistic, yet timeless.

"She captures personalities," Annie said as she pointed at a wedding picture. "Look at the bride's smile. You can tell she's kind of wacky but fun."

"Yeah and he's crazy about her."

Looking at the happy couples made Annie feel a little empty. She wanted what they had- love and trust. Someone she could count on, no matter what. But this day wasn't about her.

"Any of these would be great," she said. "Let's just give Chessie Cassie's e-mail address and she can send whatever she wants. They're going to love her work."

They returned to the studio to tell her.

"Sure, I'll send a big selection," Chessie told them. "But before you go, let me snap a couple of pictures of you two. Having a familiar subject can be really helpful."

Jovon looked at Annie, who shrugged.

"I'll up for it if you are." She said, not exactly sure what Chessie was talking about.

"Good. I'm all set up for next appointment. That will make this go quickly."

Chessie pointed at a muted backdrop done in blues and grays. There were lights alla round and a camera in front of the backdrop.

"Stand in the middle." Chessie told him. "Close together. Let's try a traditional pose. Jovon, put your arms around her waist. Annie, put your hands on top of his."

They did as they were told. Annie did her best to ignore the heat of Jovon's body and the way his nearness made her thighs tremble. The longer he held her, the more she ached for him.

"Big smiles," Chessie said. "Come on, don't make me do the Christmas morning speech a sec-ond time today. It gets old. Think about something great. I know. The last time you had sex."

Involuntarily she glanced up at him only to find him looking down at her. She remembered everything about them being together that morning. His touch, his laughter, the way he'd made her respond in ways she hadn't thought possible.

"Perfect," Chessie called. "Keep looking like that.  Okay now, think of something funny- like Jovon in a chicken costume, complete with a big chicken tail doing the chicken dance."

Annie felt her mouth twitch as she got the image in her mind. Then she started to laugh.

"Gee,thanks." He told her.

"You'd make a great chicken."

"My life is complete."

Annie was still laughing when Chessie told them they were done.

"I'll e-mail this to Cassie, as well," she said. "I'm holding the date, so if you could let me know by the weekend, that would be perfect."

"Will do." Jovon promised.

"Thanks for everything," Annie told her. "You're amazing."

"Words I live to hear."

Annie followed Jovon outside.

"Now that we have all that out of the way, I have a surprise planned for you. By Saturday, we're going to a friends wedding."

"Okay." Annie smiled. "Do you know the person getting married?"

"Nope. We're gate crashing,because we are going there to hear the orchestra."

"I've never crashed a wedding before," she said. "That will make this very special."

"You'll like it."

She smiled and started for the door only for her vision to fog up. Annie pressed her palm against the door to hold her herself up and pressed the other hand against her head.

"Annie!"

The last thing she heard was Jovon shouting her name before her head hit the asphalt.

°   °   ° 

Her lashes flickered once, twice, then a low moan escaped her lips.

"Miss Mckade?"

The voice sounded so far away. Annie groaned, squeezing her eyes shut when a bright light rested on her closed eyelids.

"Ms. Mckade, can you hear me?"

Annie's lashes flickered again, before they shot open,then slid shut when the lights blinded her for a moment. After several tries, the light stopped burning and then she saw a stout bald man pressing a stethoscope to her chest with a frown.

"W-who are you?" She licked her dry lips.

The man raised his head. He hung the stethoscope around his neck, a smile playing on his lips. "How do you feel?"

"Like a truck ran me over." She said. "What's wrong with me?"

"I'm Dr. Benedict. And you're INA hospital, just in case you didn't know. Mr. Phim brought you in two hours ago, while you were unconscious."

"Oh."

"We ran several tests while you were unconscious, and we got back positive results." He beamed at her. "You're two weeks pregnant. Congratulations Ms. Mckade."

"I-i'm. . ."

Dr. Benedict nodded. "It's always shocking to expecting mothers when they learn they are expecting a baby. We are used to it here in the hospital." Then he reached for the jotter pad and pen in his coat pocket. "Have you been having symptoms before now? Nausea? Dizzy spells? Spitting? Or cravings?"

"Nausea." She said. "I just felt a bit dizzy today."

He scribbled on the pad. "It's all normal for the first trimester. And while I would have loved to prescribe something to help with the nausea, it's too early for the baby. But here are some vitamins and irons to help the baby grow healthy."

Annie nodded absentmindedly, still a bit dazed about her baby. Her heart was beating too fast to be normal because of the thought of Jovon learning that she was and had left angrily, seeing as he was nowhere in sight.

He tore out a page from the jotter. "You should drink water more, and also eat health food. Like fruits and vegetables. I would refer you to a OB-GYN, who'll tell you all you need to know about pregnancy." He smiled gently. "Rest a lot and don't lift any heavy object. I'll give Mr. Phim the vitamins prescription-"

"No!" Annie sat up on the bed. At the doctor's surprised look, she lowered her voice. "Huh, I want to tell him myself. Just give me the prescription, I will tell him myself."

"Oh." The doctor smiled. "I get it. I would just tell him you're a bit tired." He pressed the paper into her open palm. "But, please make sure you get the vitamins."

"I will."

Dr. Benedict nodded. "I will go and tell Mr. Phim that you're awake."

Annie lay back on the bed with a sigh. She hated lying to Jovon, but in the case it can't be helped. She needed to figure out what to do first.

Forgive me Jovon.