*Reagan’s POV*
My shower was delayed until my mom left. She still seemed uneasy about everything concerning me so in order to give her peace of mind, I decided to go downstairs to talk and spend time with her. Persuade her that I was healthy and normal and not an emotional mess driven by prenatal hormones. It took at least an hour of convincing her that I was fine until we both started to believe it, though both of us were hesitant in our thinking so. I’ve tried to sway her idea so much that it made me question my own.

Channel looked less than enthused when I opened the door to let her in. I was still in my night shorts and t-shirt with my hair in a messy bun on the top of my head, adjusting my glasses to fit correctly on my nose. There was a confused look on her face as she furrowed her lovely thick eyebrows and then pointed at my attire from head to toe.

“Rea, what the hell is this? I called you two hours ago and you’re still not dressed...or showered. Your hair looks greasy.”

I rolled my eyes before pulling her inside and subtly running my hand through my hair to see if her comment was true. After closing the door behind us we made our way into the kitchen where I hopped on top of the counter peeling an orange as Channel continued to scold me about being on time. She slapped the orange out of my hand before I could even get a good piece of it causing me to stand from my perch on the counter and look at her with my mouth agape, halfway stunned and confused.

“Why the hell did you do that?”

“Go shower and get dressed! We’re getting out of here. You’ve been in the house for too long. You’re starting to resemble a couch cushion. I swear the last time you were outside besides going to your sessions was the last time I was over.”

“That was the last orange Channel..”

“Yeah, well.”

I roll my eyes picking up the orange and rinsing it off under the sink. I was in the mood to leave earlier because of the pressure that my mother was putting me under, but now honestly I don’t want to. Nothing about outside seems appealing to me and the more I think about setting foot outside this door, the more my focused subconscious tells me to run to the nearest corner store and buy a pregnancy test when I’ve convinced myself that I’m only in this predicament due to stress...I think.

“Cant we just hang out here? I’ll go outside and we can go swimming again. Look I’m getting pale we can lay out, relax. I won’t wear a towel.”

Channel primps her lips and grabs my hand, dragging me up the stairs in my own house. I almost want to protest by kicking and screaming, but by then I’m sure that my sessions with Dr. Stone would be about something else entirely.

“How healthy do you think it is for you to be in the house all the time? For someone who’s going to school for psychology, you certainly don’t apply the rules of well-being to yourself.”

Channel shoved the clothes that I’d laid out for myself, but failed to put on into my arms before turning me towards the bathroom and pushing me in. She had only given me a few minutes of privacy and enough time to get into the shower before I could hear the door creak open and her put down the toilet lid to sit on top of it as she began to talk to me.

“We’ll just go get some dinner and then maybe out to pamper ourselves...unless you want to go to this party at UCLA?”

“I’m not in the mood for a party, Nel.”

I spoke as I stood under the shower head with soap suds running down the side of my face from the shampoo, looking down at my stomach and rubbing it furiously in the hopes that the friction would bring on anything to silence the new worry my mom planted.

“I’ll take that as a ‘I’ll think about it after we get a pedicure’ answer…Come on, Rea-Tard! Please? We haven’t been out and had fun like that since London. You have to–”

“Channel have you ever been late?” I peeked my head out from behind the shower curtain, not being able to hold my anxiety to myself any longer. Channel stopped mid sentence and stood from the toilet seat with a concerned look on her face.

“How late Rea?”

“A few days, give or take. Four?..Four days...Maybe five to a week?”

Channel rubbed her hand over her face in frustration, causing me to roll my eyes. No one is more frustrated with the issue than I am right now. With so much going on already, this is the absolute last thing that I want to be worried about, but the universe and mother nature seem to have some sort of vendetta against me.

“I’ve been late before, yes. Maybe a day, but ‘four days to a week’ is a bit fucking much Reagan! At least tell me that the condom broke?” Channel waited for a reply but never received one.

“You took Plan B?” I bit my lip and furrowed my eyebrows while shaking my head.

“Something?!”

“He never came inside of me. He pulled out both times.”

“Both times?! More than one time Rea?! Do you realize how dumb that sounds? It only takes one drop to–”

I lowered my head in silence and could feel the lump form in the back of my throat. Channel sat down on the toilet seat again with her head in her hands, once again at a loss for words mid sentence and rubbing her temples before she stood back up handing me a towel. She left the bathroom and as soon as she left I quickly got dressed and met her downstairs where she looked at me as if what I said to her hadn’t registered like it did when we were in the bathroom. Her eyebrows raised and her arms crossed as a small grin graced her lips. For a moment she almost looked mentally unstable and I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel intimidated.

“We’re going to stop at a corner shop and get you a test and then we’re going to go to dinner. After that we are going to go get pedicures. You are going to try to enjoy yourself as if you didn’t just share with me what you did upstairs, and then when our date is over, you’re going to come back to my place and take that test and pray for a negative. Am I understood?”

I nodded my head in agreement, not daring to offer up any kind of opposition with the silent storm that I saw within my best friend. She’s been the best support system that I could ask for right now and though I wish this conversation could have gone differently, I can understand the disgruntlement with me that she must feel.

---

Everything went smoothly and I had even enjoyed myself at dinner. I was somehow able to numb all feeling that I had for that hour and a half and push to the back of my mind that inside my purse, tucked away in the side pocket, were pregnancy tests that I would be taking as soon as the powder pink color on my toenails dried. I didn’t even flinch when I made the purchase, though Channel stood by my side as if I were a time bomb of emotion that could go off at any moment.

But yet somehow I knew the numbing feeling would subside soon. My mind has become my own personal prison, juggling from one problem to the next. I feel like I’m running out of breath because as soon as I feel that I’m able to tame the flames of one fire, a new one grows that has the potential to be more damaging than the last. Harry and I can barely withstand a stable relationship, if it can even be called that at this point. Throwing a child into the mix would not only damage us, but everything that I’ve managed to build for myself. It’s selfish to think that way, but I’m at a selfish age. To even imagine caring for someone else besides myself is a daunting thought, but to imagine that someone else as a little creation of Harry and I both absolutely terrifies me; especially in the mindset that we’re both in.

As I sat quietly in the chair allowing my thoughts to run away with me like they always do, Channel reached her hand over to my lap grabbing my hand away from magazine I held and giving it a convincing squeeze.

“Hey, you just zoned out on me.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. What were you saying?”

"Nothing. Never mind. It's going to be okay Rea."

I smiled smally before I picked up my magazine and continued to flip through the pages with my eyes secretly going blurry. With all the things that have been going on recently, it was about time that I’d found a way to hold everything in.

When we stood from the salon to leave, I noticed that the sun was setting just behind the buildings casting off a beautiful orange and pink sky. But as the sun sets here, it prepares itself to rise in London.

Eight hours ahead of me, a new day awaits Harry and it’s only then that I realize that I had never gotten the call that I was promised from him when his work shift was over. When I take out my phone and read that it’s half past seven here, that means that its two thirty AM in England, the day of Harry’s trial.

Channel gets into the car and starts it smiling over at me as she does so. When the engine silently purrs and we pull out of the parking lot, I take the test box out of my bag and read the back of it as if there’s more instruction to it than ‘point and shoot.’

“Does Harry know you’re taking a test? Hell, does he know that you think you might be in that motherly way?”

I look at Channel halfway amused.

“Motherly way? Did you really just say ‘motherly way’? You watch too much Downton Abby” I smirk, making light of a dark situation.

“What? Downton Abbey is a good show and the ‘p’ word freaks me out. I refuse to say it.” We both laugh before things get serious again.

“He doesn’t know I’m taking a pregnancy test because up until a few hours ago, I was convinced that I was just stressed out. That’s what I told him. My mom kept talking and pushing it. She’s like a hammer. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and tell her to leave me alone, but by then the idea had already started to grow.”

Channel nodded her head as she pulled into our old apartment complex parking lot off campus. My legs quaked slightly in anxiousness as we neared the doorway and I’d gotten that nervous ‘I have to pee’ feeling knowing full well that I had gone at the restaurant. Part of me thinks that my body had went early on purpose.

When we stepped inside, I made a hesitant beeline towards the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub. Channel followed suit, but stared at me as if to ask why I’m not sitting on the toilet instead. I take a deep breath before answering her unasked question.

“I don’t have to go yet. I shouldn’t have went at the restaurant.”

Channel stands up to leave the bathroom and comes back with two bottles of green tea handing me both, then sitting back down beside me. I look at her quizzically and she explains to me, taking one of the EPT boxes off of the counter and reading the box the way I did in the car.

“Tea is a diuretic. It makes you have to go.” My eyes widened at Channel’s nursing major lingo. She has fun and parties so much that sometimes I forget how well rounded she is in her school work.

As I guzzle down every last drop of both of the bottles in record time, I can’t help but wonder if Harry is sleeping peacefully, or at all. I try to numb myself again because in the back of my mind I know that today could change the course of our lives forever if left with the wrong outcome.

---

*Harry’s POV*

Dr. Koch sat silent at the table and before he got the chance to respond I stood and walked back to the bar. I could feel myself shaking as every nerve ending in my body stood on edge from the adrenaline rush of blackmail, causing me to pace back and forth behind the bar. Louis eyed me suspiciously knowing that the last time that I was like this, Peyton had just left,bar glasses were shattered, and an unwanted scene was caused.

“Break got you wound up?” Louis asks while draining beer from the tap into an awaiting customers glass.

“No!”

I lied, snapping at Louis before stopping mid-pace, running a hand through my hair and then forcing a grin on my face as I recognized the state of myself. I grabbed the empty glasses off of the bar top and put the sink behind me before I corrected my cross demeanor.

“No. Sorry. I’m good.”

“Harry, I WON’T HAVE YELLING AT THIS ESTABLISHMENT!” Louis shouted before I flipped him off.

I was still shaking, but the more I thought about the exchange the more proud with myself that I was, causing my fake smirk to turn into a real one. Koch wouldn’t dare show up with those photos tomorrow, not if he was smart that is. I would honestly do anything to stay out of Maudsley and if that meant ruining his career to do it then so be it. I looked at the table where I previously sat with him to find it empty except for the glass that was filled with gin at one point and the ashtray that he left.

I’d managed to finish my shift with a few more mood swings in between. For the most part I remained mellow and unphased by anything else that was going on around me. It wasn’t until the night slowed down and I left to go home that the realization of what was supposed to happen in a few hours hit me, causing my anxieties and feelings on the issue to spike tenfold.

When I pulled into my front drive, I couldn’t bring myself to go into the house whether my pills were there or not. I received about five missed calls from my mum and about two from Robin and Gemma each. I know that I was out of line for what I said to my mum earlier, but for her to react the way she did reminded me too much of how things started off with Clive. If I go in there now I know she’ll be awake and the way I’m feeling right now would result in another blowout that I don’t need or necessarily want.

As I pulled out of the front drive to go towards Gemma’s house, I could see Robin’s Volkswagen pull in causing my blood to reheat and think about this morning again. When I got to Gemma’s I could only hope that she would be awake and at least let me stay on her couch until morning. When answered the door, she scolded me for not answering anyone’s calls and I rolled my eyes in response. I’m not in the mood for this shit! Not now at twelve at night. Not when there are too many other things that burden my mind at this moment.

“Can I stay here or not Gem? I didn’t come over here for a lecture and I’m tired. Please? If not I’ll call Liam or Niall and ask–”

She stepped aside closing the door behind us as she dialed a number in her phone. Probably to call mum and tell her that I’m here no doubt.

When she left to go get covers and pillows out of the linen closet, I found myself looking at the picture of her and Tamsin that was on her mantelpiece, rubbing my finger over the photo with furrowed brows as I fought an internal battle within myself before quickly setting it down as she came back.

“We’ll have to get up early tomorrow. Probably around six so that you can get home and get dressed. What time do you have to be at the courthouse?”

“Seven thirty.” I sat down on the couch, running my hand through my hair and pushing it off my face before I pinched my bottom lip and stared at the wall in front of me in a blank daze. It wasn’t until I felt Gemma’s arms wrapped around me that I knew that she was in fact sitting next to me and embracing me in a hug.

“I love you donut. You’re a pain in my ass, but I love you none the less. Everyone is in your corner for tomorrow. Even mum and Robin. She told me what happened. Personally I think you deserved a good slap, but she’s sorry and she loves you very much. We all do. Remember that before she talks to you–.” I raised my eyebrows at her in curiosity and cut her off before she could continue.

“Talks to me about what?”

Gemma paused before she replied, knowing that I was on edge and trying to find the right words to say.

“...Anything. Remember that we all love you. Regardless of what happens tomorrow or in the future. We’ll all always be here for you. Now go to sleep. Long day ahead and all that. We don’t need you cranky for tomorrow.”

I pat Gemma on the back before she gave me a kiss on the cheek that I wiped off in mock disgust. As I lie back on the couch, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Two in the morning rolled around quickly as I scrolled through the text messages from Reagan earlier today in my phone, forming a plan in my head sure to be executed if I'm not hauled back to my old room in Maudsley by later this afternoon.

Notes

Hi loves! Its rather late, but I have an update! (that rhymed!) I missed you all! What did you think of this chapter? I know there is a lot going on in it and its kind of boring (soz) but there are a few of subtle important things that need to be paid attention to here, so there's that. Please load me up with Comments as you all should know by now, I love them and I live of reading them and replying to them (nothing has changed in that retrospect since book one!) Also, Please Vote and Subscribe as both are very inspiring and make me do all kinds of weird happy dances in the sanctity of my own room. Its now 12:24 am in Chicago and I'm tired so, off to bed now. I ADORE ALL OF YOU BEAUTIES FOR READING! ~Xx :*

PS: THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR JUST OVER 100,000 VIEWS ON ITP 1 AND JUST OVER 60,000 ON ITP 2! It means so much to me! Please give my other story The Resistance a read and comment on it as well!

PPS: Boys start their tour today and im kind of happy about it tbh