Nick might possibly become a father. That was the only thought that echoed through my head for the remainder of the ride to the hospital. Nick a daddy? He was the biggest kid I knew. This was the guy who was still amused by playing practical jokes on people. He wasn't exactly Mr. Maturity. Definitely not the type that I could picture with a kid at this stage of his life. Yet, it was something that I'd probably have to face. Even though there was the possibility that Katie could just be making this up, there was also the possibility that she was actually telling the truth, and the truth seemed pretty scary. If Katie did happen to be pregnant with his child what would happen? Would they work out some sort of partial custody? Would Katie insist on Nick being the picture? Where would I fit in? Too many unanswered questions were swimming in my head.

"We're here," Izzy announced as he parked the car. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," I said as I stopped out of the car and headed for the hospital doors. That nervous twinge in my stomach was back once again.I swear if I don't cut down all this stress I'm going to give myself an ulcer, I thought. 21 years old and I was worried about ulcers? What was wrong with me?

"Relax Mel," Izzy tried to calm me down as we entered the doors. "It's going to be fine. I'm almost positive that Nick wants you here because he wants to make things right between the two of you."

I just nodded nervously and waited while Izzy asked at the nurses desk where Nick's room was. When she returned I asked, "Are you going to come in?"

"Yea, I at least want to say hi to Nick, but I'll find an excuse to leave for a good 15-20 minutes so you guys can talk things out okay?"

Again I nodded. That sounded good to me. Somehow having Izzy with me for at least the beginning made me a thousand times less anxious.

Before I knew it we were standing outside of Nick's door. Here goes nothing, I thought to myself as I stepped inside, hiding behind Izzy.

"Nick!" Izzy squealed as soon as she caught sight of him. "How are you feeling?" she asked as she leaned over the bed to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Like I've been hit by a truck. No pun intended," he answered with a little grin.

"I wanted to bring you flowers or something, but I figured that's too girly," she told him as I just watched on from where I was standing praying that I was invisible.

"So you convinced Mel to come along huh?" he said as his eyes met mine. So much for being invisible.

"Yea," I answered a little weakly. "I hope you're feeling better." Now what? I didn't know if I should go over and give him a hug or a kiss or what? So I just continued to stand there awkwardly.

"You must be starving with all this horrible hospital food," Izzy piped up, trying to end the awkward silence. "How about I go and get you some Mickey D's? I think there's one around here somewhere."

"Thanks Iz," Nick told her. "I'll have my usual." Was it my imagination or did he seem almost happy that Izzy had an excuse to leave?

"All right. I'll be back in like 15 or 20 minutes," she promised. Then she was gone. It was just me and him.

"You can sit down," he tried to assure me. "I don't bite."

Without another word I grabbed a chair and dragged it towards the bed. As I sat down I was amazed to find his hand reach out to touch my own. Next thing I knew our fingers lay intertwined. Finally finding the courage to speak, I cleared my throat. "Nick, I think that we need to talk."

"I think we do too," he agreed, glancing down at our joint hands. "There's so much I need to say to you, but I'm not even sure where I'm supposed to start."

"Take your time," I told him. "I'm not going anywhere."

He just nodded and took a deep breath before beginning to speak. "I know that lately I haven't been the nicest guy to you. To put it bluntly, I've basically treated you like shit. As weird as it may sound though, I was only pushing you away from me for your own good. I didn't want to hurt you any more than I already had. I know I promised you that I wouldn't see Katie again, but when I made that promise I also wasn't aware that I'd have to face her again."

Should I tell him that I know about Katie being pregnant? I wondered to myself. I could already see that he was trying to dance around the topic and that he was unsure of exactly how to say the words. My mind was made up. "Nick," I interrupted. "I know that Katie's pregnant."

"What? How?" he asked, looking confused about how I'd found out.

"Izzy told me," I confessed. "Please don't be mad at her though! She thought that she was helping, and in a way I'm happy she told me because it gave me some time to think about it. Otherwise I'd be unaccountable for my actions."

"You're right," he agreed. "I wasn't quite sure how to tell you or how you were going to react."

"So, now that I know maybe we should talk about where we're going to go from here?" I suggested.

"To tell you the truth Mel, I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do about Katie yet. She's supposed to give me a call once she gets settled into an apartment here and everything. She wasn't very specific if she wanted money or if she just wanted me to be part of the baby's life. Hell, I'm not even 100% sure if it's even mine yet! That all still has to be worked out. Anyway as you can see, Katie might just have to be a big part of my life as much as I don't want her to be. I'm not sure how you feel about that. That's why I acted like such an ass to you. I thought that if I ended things before you found out you wouldn't have to worry about where you fit in this whole mess. In reality, it was killing me inside to act so coldly towards you. That's why I finally told you to get out of my life. I figured that if I didn't see you it would be easier, but that was stupid. We were bound to have to face each other eventually. Laying here, I realized how stupid this was getting. If you cared about me that much then we'd be able to work through this," he explained. "So, how do you feel about Katie being pregnant? I want your honest opinion."

Honestly? I myself wasn't exactly sure. I'd barely digested the news, never mind formulated my own opinion on the matter. "To tell you the truth Nick I don't know how I feel yet. I mean I know I'm not joyously happy about it, but you can't change the past. No matter what it's your decision and I'll support whatever you want to do," I finally answered.

"What about us?"

"What do you mean what about us?"

"You and me. Where do we stand?"

His question certainly threw me for a loop. I wasn't sure how to answer that. Yes, I wanted things to go back to normal, but I knew that if Katie was pregnant that would be nearly impossible. I wasn't sure if I could compete with another woman who was carrying his child.

Nick sighed, obviously discouraged by my silence. "Look, I guess what I'm trying to say is that most girls would've gave up on me by now and moved on, but not you. You're stubborn and you refused to give up on us. As much as it frustrated me, it also showed me how much I must mean to you. Our relationship has been anything, but smooth. We were just REALLY getting to know each other and reach a point where we could begin to trust one another before I left for Europe. Of course being away from each other for almost four months didn't help much. Then the whole thing with Katie happened and it's been downhill from there. I guess what I want to say is that I'd like to try to start over, if that's all right with you. I know it's not going to be easy, especially with Katie back in my life, but I'm willing to make the effort if you are."

My heart stopped in my chest just then. He WAS apologizing and he DID want to resume our relationship after all. It was exactly what I'd been hoping he'd say for weeks now. All I could do was just stupidly nod my head. Finally finding the ability to speak again I somehow managed to squeak out, "I want to start over too." With that I could feel him giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. Oh, God, I thought. Any minute now I'm, liable to burst out into tears.

"Thank you for giving me a second chance," he told me.

"You don't have to thank me Nick. Like you said, I'm stubborn. I just refused to let go of you." My eyes wandered down to gaze at our hands once more and then back up to find myself staring into his eyes. Before I knew it our faces were only inches apart...

"I'm back!" we heard Izzy's voice as she entered the room, holding a McDonald's bag. "Well, I see you two finally made up!"

Jumping back a little I looked up at Izzy. "Yea, we did."

"Like I said before. It's about damn time! I kept telling Nick to make things right between you two before it was too late. Guess he finally listened."

"Yea, it was real cute the way you conveniently left us alone together so we could talk though," Nick teased her.

"Hey! I wouldn't complain! I bought you McDonald's!" she pointed out as she handed him his meal. "I also got you something to eat too Mel."

"Thanks. I'm starved!" I realized that with all the drama that had went on earlier today, that I had totally not had an opportunity to eat. "What about you?" I asked when I realized that she had gotten nothing for herself.

"Oh, I'm not really hungry," she said quickly. "I just figured that with all the excitement you had today you better eat."

"Excitement? What excitement?" Nick asked curiously.

I shot Iz a dirty look. God, she has a big mouth. I really didn't want to tell Nick about the break in at my apartment just yet. I mean we'd just made up and the first words out of my mouth were going to be about my apartment. Great way to kill a mood. "My apartment was broken into sometime between last night and this morning," I explained.

"What? Was anything stolen? Do they know who did it?" Nick looked genuinely concerned and quite shocked.

"The place was just ransacked. The house is a mess. All the kitchenware is smashed. Clothes and jewelry are all over my bedroom floor. It's gonna take days to clean up," I replied.

"Do they know who did it?" Nick repeated.

I exchanged a glance with Izzy. "They have an idea. Erika's ex is kind of obsessive and she sort of left California without telling him. Turns out that he somehow found out that she's staying with me and has been calling her late at night to threaten her. We have the feeling that he may have done it to get a point across."

"You're not still staying there are you?" he asked.

"We're staying at Kevin's until we get the place cleaned up, but then I guess we'll go back."

"You're going back there? He knows where you live Mel! If he broke in once he could certainly do it again and this time he might have more in store than just trashing the place," Nick argued.

I sighed in exasperation. "I don't have much choice in the matter. We can't just move into Melanie and Kevin's house forever and finding a new apartment is out of the question. I can't afford a new place. So, I'm kind of stuck. I guess I'll just look into a burglar alarm or something."

"A burglar alarm? You think that's REALLY going to scare this guy off?"

"Fine, Nick. You have all the answers then why don't you suggest to me what I should do then," I challenged.

"Move in with me," he blurted out.