Deliverance (Lucious/Cookie, Anika/Malcolm)

Chapter Six: Going to the Chapel

"What is that, Bach?" Lucious asked, impressed. He was an excellent pianist, but classical music wasn't exactly his thing.

"No, Haydn. And I didn't need to learn no damn music theory to play it, either," Cookie grumbled. But Lucious urged Cookie to stick with it until Cookie could finally read the notes and symbols on Lucious's paper – a song that he had written just for Cookie. That was the first night all their clothes came off, and they were both left panting and trembling, clinging to one another and mutually blown away. It wouldn't be the last.

"Move, Lucious!" Cookie teased night after night when it was all over and Lucious – street thug that he was – wanted to cuddle with the girl he had fallen so hard for. "It's too hot for all that, dang!" Of course, it was never too hot. Lucious and Cookie laid in each other's arms every night, dreaming about the future and learning new ways to please one another. The daytime was for learning and rehearsing and trips and lectures, and Cookie rarely saw Lucious during the day. But the nights belonged to them.

Their last night together, all Lucious had was a cup of ice to bring her, but it felt wonderful against her skin in the heat. Lucious caressed Cookie across her neck, her swelling stomach, her sore and tender breasts and everywhere else, always warming her back up with his lips and his tongue. In time, Cookie would do the same. She knew that only hoes took their boyfriends in their mouths, but then again, eating a girl out made a dude gay, and Lucious was definitely all man. To hell with them, Cookie thought as she fell asleep in Lucious's arms. We'll make our own rules.

Cookie had prayed and prayed that she was wrong, but the stolen test from the corner store turned pink before Cookie finished washing her hands. She couldn't bear facing Lucious and telling him that she was pregnant. How would he react? She'd seen the way boys treated their girlfriends when they got pregnant. "We'll take care of it," Candace promised when Cookie called her in tears. "Just come home."

With four nights left before the final summer performance – after all the rehearsing and all the practicing and all the nights with Lucious going over sight reading - Cookie slipped out of her dorm room without even leaving Lucious a note. Lucious would never want her with a baby, and Cookie had both their futures to think about. Breast milk and Bunsen burners just didn't mix, and neither did Pampers and pianos.

Lucious, as it turned out, had other ideas. Even now, Cookie had no idea how Lucious found out where she lived, but he was banging on her door and yelling her name so loud that Cookie had no choice but to drag him into her house, even though her mother wasn't home. "How the hell did you find me!?" Cookie gasped.

"How could you just leave like that, Cookie!?" Lucious grabbed by the shoulders before he held her in his arms. "You just ran away and didn't even tell me goodbye!" And Lucious began to babble about how much he missed Cookie, even though they hadn't even been separated for a week. He didn't know what he'd done wrong, but he would fix it, and he was sorry for what he'd done or what he hadn't done. "Cookie, please, don't break up with me," he begged, and by that time, Cookie was crying. Nothing Cookie could say would make Lucious stop loving her, except...

"Lucious, I'm pregnant."

Just like that, Lucious became the boy that Cookie just knew he would be. "You're pregnant? Cookie, what the fuck?!"

"I'm sorry!" Cookie grabbed at Lucious's arm, but he jerked away from her. "Lucious, I swear I didn't mean for this to happen! I'm sorry!" Until then, Cookie didn't realize how much Lucious's opinion meant to her. Lucious made her feel beautiful and wonderful and loved, and she wanted to hang on to that feeling for the rest of her life.

"Pregnant...oh, my God..." Lucious began to pace back and forth. The anger and hurt in Lucious's eyes was what Cookie had been trying to avoid when she slipped away in the middle of the night. He would never be the boy who brought her cold treats again, and that made Cookie cry even harder. "I can't believe this...how could you, Cookie? How could this happen!?"