Addison and Derek as teen parents, requested by Fatema. Alternate universe. Divided into a few chapters due to excessive length, but I'm posting them all at once.

We are young, heartache to heartache we stand
No promises, no demands
Love is a battlefield

We are strong, no one can tell us we're wrong
Searchin' our hearts for so long, both of us knowing
Love is a battlefield

Pat Benatar (1983)

Life goes in cycles. That's what they say, anyway.

The Krebs Cycle, for example. She's got her textbook open in front of her, still covered in green-and-white Academy of the Sacred Heart print. Turns out when they expel you they don't take back the book jackets. Even though she's not supposed to need AP Chem anymore.

Then there are menstrual cycles.

I'm never late.

What does it mean?

What do you think it means?

I think it can't mean that. It can't!

And the feeding cycle.

Jodie's crying again. Jodie's always crying, and Derek's not here. She holds the baby to her breast and waits to feel maternal. It will happen eventually. Everything's a circle, so she'll give her daughter what her mother couldn't give her. Wait, that's not right.

Jodie was both of their idea. The name, not the baby. The baby was no one's idea. The baby was the surprise, the unexpected, her punishment for enjoying herself. She stole seaweed-scented minutes in the boathouse and her swelling belly stole her future in return. You learn, when you have to: how to help the baby latch. How to wait until Thursdays for diapers because that's when CVS puts them on sale. You learn that nothing is guaranteed and everything is reversible.

Don't you have a trust fund or something?

Had. I had a trust fund. It wouldn't have matured until I was twenty-one anyway, but...

She was supposed to wear bikinis this summer, not stretch marks. Sing Pat Benatar, not lullabies. For a while, when she was first morning sick, she thought it was actually sickness. Punishment for letting him touch her. More than touch her. His hands all over her and -

Why is Addie talking to that ... waiter?

He couldn't be a sail instructor because, you know, the hierarchy is strict. Sailing instructors come from the best members' families. Lifeguards, second down the line. Then swim teachers. She assumes it's still this way at the club, but she can't know for sure, because she's not welcome at the Montgomeries' cabana at Round Acres anymore.

It started when he smiled at her. It went like this:

She's wearing a white one-piece suit, a style she copied from one of Archer's girlfriends, cut higher on the leg than usual. She's lining up for the high board because she wants to make varsity swim this year and because her pike needs work. He's passing by with a silver catering tray wearing the silly khaki shorts they make all the guys in the kitchen wear and a forest green uniform polo. Then he looks at her and his eyes are so blue it takes her breath away. She climbs the ladder with half her gaze still on him and when she gets to the end of the board she turns, just slightly, and sees that he's looking at her still. He smiles. Her face floods with heat. She counts, one-two, down-up and it's the best pike she's ever done.

She hits the cool water, plunges deep in, and when she breaks the surface of the pool Trip Stewart, who swims for Boys Academy, actually looks impressed.

Just a smile and she makes the best dive of her life. That's how much she felt it, that first time. That's how deeply.

It's three days before she talks to him again. Her mother's at the lake house and her father's on the Vineyard but she stuck around this summer to take marine biology three mornings a week at the University. College is competitive these days and she wants the best. It won't do just to excel at Sacred Heart, to go to states in doubles tennis. She needs more. But that's just mornings, and she can study in the afternoons at the club, in the sun. She orders an iced tea and when it comes she nods her thanks without looking - like she usually does - and then realizes that it's him. That waiter.

"Marine Bio, huh?"

His voice is light, almost musical.

She feels color rising in her cheeks. Stop being so awkward, Addie! She's shy around boys, always has been, but he's not like Trip and the others, isn't leering at her breasts or making stupid jokes, just looking with genuine interest at her textbook.

"Guilty," she says in response because she heard Lolly Fowler say that once to a boy and it sounded cool.

"Are you in college?"

It's a forward question but she shrugs it off as if she's confused for a college student all the time. "For the summer I am. I mean, I'm taking Marine Bio at the University."

He raises his eyebrows. "Wow. I wish I could do that."

She wants to ask why can't you and then she remembers that he works here, at the club, every day. Maybe he doesn't have time. Or - and this is sort of uncomfortable because it's not polite to think about much less talk about, but maybe he doesn't have the money.

"Are you in college?" she asks, because fair's fair. His nametag says Derek.

He shakes his head. "High school. I'll be a junior next year. I'm starting AP Chem in the fall but we don't have any other AP sciences."

She schools her face in a neutral expression. Only one AP science? She knows her private school has a wide variety of classes and that she's lucky to get such an excellent education - she's not sheltered or anything, she tutors fifth grade kids at the public school in Bridgeport during the year and they're perfectly nice.

"How is it?"

For a minute she's not sure if he means the iced tea or her class, but he's looking at her textbook again so she says, honestly, "It's great." She loves being in the vast college lecture hall with students older than she is, driving herself to and fro in Archer's blue convertible. And the professor, with his handlebar mustache and suede-patched blazer - it's chilly in the air conditioning - the way he handles the subject matter, treating them like adults.

She notices his lips part for a minute like he's going to say something but then he pauses, slips his order pad back into his pocket and says: "Can I get you anything else?"

"No, thank you," she says politely, really thinking ask me more about the class, but she would have had to say it to his retreating back. She leans against the lounge cushions, walking him walk away. She decides forest green is actually a nice color.

The next time she seems him Archer's home and they're in the cabana, sun shining through the open front of the attractively weathered structure. Addison's got her textbook open on her lap, an orange highlighter in her fingers as she reads, and then she hears, "What can I get you?" and recognizes his voice immediately. She looks up, hoping she won't blush too obviously this time.

"A G&T," Archer says coolly and Addison rolls her eyes behind oversized sunglasses, because everyone knows the drinking age is 19 now but Archer and his friends have decided it doesn't apply to them.

The guy - Derek - pauses and Archer pounces. "Is there a problem?"

"No, sir, but-"

"Then what are you waiting for?"

Addison winces, hoping the enormous blue beach towel she's draped over her legs will hide her from view. She knows Archie doesn't mean to be like this, it's just -

"Archie, don't be awful," trills Katie - or is it Cary? - who's a predictably stunning brunette.

Addison looks up then and finds herself catching Derek's eye.

"Hello?" Archer waves a hand in front of his face and Addison finds herself annoyed.

"Cut it out," she says before she can stop herself and Archer shoots her a what's it to you look.

Derek takes advantage of the commotion to say "Right away, sir," and escape from the cabana.

"You know rules don't apply to Archie," Katie/Cary giggles, twisting a lock of perfect hair around one manicured finger. Addison rolls her eyes again, almost hoping they can see her expression through her sunglasses. Or, if she's honest, that Derek could see her expression earlier, and knows she's not like them.

The third time, that's exactly what she says. "I just want you to know I'm not like them." She says it to his back while he's carrying a tray up to the gazebo and if he's startled that she's there he hides it well.

"Like whom?" he asks and she feels a little frisson of delight at his grammar. Nerd, Archer would have said, throwing something at her. He's finished his first year at Princeton now, but that's different, he likes to explain to Addison, nerdiness is about behavior, not grades. Whatever, she feels emboldened and takes a few steps to catch up to him.

"Them," she says. "You know," and, feeling inarticulate, she gestures at the general environment of the club.

He gives her a bland smile. "Okay."

"I'm not!"

"Okay," he repeats. "You're not."

"I'm not what," she prompts, and she feels half a smile quirking at her lips. Is this - is she flirting?

"You're not like them," he parrots. And the smile he gives her then isn't bland at all. She's not the only one flirting, apparently.

"Thank you," she says primly, turns on her heel, and walks away, knowing that he's watching her.

The last time - well, the last time before - it's almost dusk, the sunset sails have already set off, and she's alone in the west gazebo because it's a nice place to study. He takes one step in before apologizing - stammering that he just wanted to clean up from an earlier picnic. "Wait," she says.

"Do you need anything?"

You.

She gestures wordlessly at her book. Then she closes it. The pull she feels is so strong, she can't quite explain it, except that she feels different when he's around and she likes it and so he needs to be around, to stay, so she can be that person. She stands up and walks over to him. "Stay," she says.

"I can't-"

"Please."

"Look-"

"Addison," she says, before he can say anything else. "I'm Addison."

"Addison," he repeats.

"Do you - want to study with me?"

"Study?"

"You said you wanted to learn Marine Bio."

"I do!"

"So have a seat." She pats the cushion next to her.

"I'm - on duty."

"No one can see you up here."

They make it through an entire chapter and two discussion questions before she leans forward and changes her life by pressing her lips against his.

"Addison, people are going to-"

She tells him she knows a place, and she takes him there.

On the canvas striped cushions in the dim peaceful light of the boathouse she learns every inch of him. She runs her hands over his bare chest, notices the flat planes of muscle, the sprinkling of dark hair. The jut of his hip breaks her heart, the length of his leg, the curve of muscle at his thigh. She drinks it all in, can't get enough of him, even his funny-looking long toes with their dark hair. He plays baseball. He's strong but his hands are surprisingly delicate. They're the same size as hers, palm to palm, fingers slim and articulated. And oh, how they make her feel.

He's as inexperienced as she is, he admits it, but whatever drives him - enthusiasm, lust - those fingers make her skin tingle. When he looks at her, she's beautiful. The awkward size of her hands and feet - the Montgomery flippers, her swim teammates called them - her height - she's somehow perfect in his arms. Everything fits. It smells like seaweed in the boathouse, salt and something heavier, muskier, when he peels off her bathing suit and kisses the damp chilly skin underneath. He rocks against her and she decides she finally gets it, she knows what love songs are about, the dog-eared romance novels her friend Halsey used to steal from the library - they just fit. He's hard where she's soft, thrusting where her body gently yields to him.

"You okay?" he murmurs, after, and she tries to think of a word for what she feels. Everything, she wants to say. I'm everything. She just kisses him instead.

The summer takes on a new light, a new rhythm. Three mornings a week she drives to the university with a spring in her step, a sparkle in her eyes. In the afternoons she takes her textbooks to the club, holes up in the boathouse and waits for him. On his breaks she tells him what she learned that day while he massages the tension from her shoulder, kisses the side of her neck. They talk about everything: what they like about school, and what they hate. Where they want to go to college - somewhere in a city for her, and in the country for him. And where they want to live. New York, she says. In the winter I'll skate in Central Park and in the summer I'll lie on the Great Lawn and sun myself. I want to live by a lake, he says. Go fishing. Have it quiet, so quiet, without any neighbors around. She didn't know he could fish, and asks several questions about this.

Maybe I'll catch you a fish someday, he teases her, serve it to you right off the rod. She wrinkles her nose. That sounds a little too fresh, she chides gently. She asks him about the quiet - is it loud at his house? Then it's his turn to get quiet. He has a big family, he tells her. Three older sisters and one little one. There's always something going on.

She's envious, she admits, always wanted a sister.

Take mine, he says, and she laughs.

"My brother isn't - you know, he isn't how he seems," she apologizes for him without knowing how to, tries to explain with hands and words that he's just spent too much time under Bizzy's influence and doesn't seem to mind it as much as Addison does. A strange looks comes over his face when she starts to talk about her parents.

"What?"

"Nothing." He shakes his head. But it's something.

"Tell me."

He looks pained, then finally, slowly, admits what he walked in on in the gazebo last month. She winces, not surprised, and finds herself just hoping the blonde lifeguard was over eighteen.

"I'm so sorry."

She shrugs. "It's - he does that kind of thing a lot," she admits, and it's the first time she's said it out loud. She explains that facts: that her mother doesn't know, that Addison is complicit in his lies, that she can't really blame Bizzy for her maternal failings knowing how badly the Captain has failed as a spouse. How hard it is for her to hide his peccadilloes, but she knows she has to because if Bizzy found out it would be her fault.

"It's not your fault," he says, but she just shakes her head and assures him that he simply doesn't understand.

Derek listens quietly, nods, then tells her his father died when he was thirteen.

Her eyes widen at the thought, then fill with tears when he tells her how it happened. "Oh my gosh, Derek."

She puts her arms around him and he wraps his around her and slowly, carefully, they sink into seaweed scented cushions and make the rest of the world disappear.

No one finds out, not really, but they're spotted together occasionally. Once Archer asks her and she denies everything, of course.

Then there are Heather and Talbot, who are bitches even without Missy, the third member of their crew. They've never been very nice to her but now they look at her like they know, and Heather moves a streaked curl off her shoulder with one perfect manicured finger. Addison shoves her hand into her pocket, wishing she could gnaw on her bitten cuticles without looking like an idiot. She reminds herself they have no idea of the truth. They only know what they think they know.

"A waiter, like, for serious?"

Addison says nothing.

Talbot makes the final pronouncement; she usually does: "Ew."

They turn and walk away and Addison bites savagely at the already shredded skin next to her index finger. Their tight acid-wash jeans disappear and she realizes she's drawn blood.

Derek's friends are no better. The club is their space, just for them, but one morning when she doesn't have class she spots him with another guy she's never seen before, taller than him a square jaw and broad shoulders and sandy hair sticking straight up. Addison can tell before she's three feet away that he thinks pretty highly of himself.

"Addison, this is my friend Mark. He's subbing today as a huge favor."

"Hey," Mark says, his gaze resting directly on her breasts, and she folds her arms. Typical jerk.

"Hi," she says shortly, looking over his right shoulder.

"So." And she doesn't really like his appraising tone. "You're the girl Derek told me about."

"Depends," she says coolly. "What did he tell you?"

Mark chuckles. "She's sharp. I like this one, Derek."

"Don't bother," Addison says and this time both guys laugh. She takes a minute to enjoy the attention, then says: "I'm going swimming."

"Want company?" Mark calls after her retreating back.

"Who was that?" she asks that evening, curled up in Derek's arms, naked. He's running his fingertips down her back in that way she likes that makes her chilly and heated all at once. Everything's hazy and quiet like it is, after.

"He's my best friend." Derek shrugs. "He's like a brother, you know."

"He doesn't seem to be much like you," Addison observes.

Derek smiles; she's not sure why.

"What's going to happen after the summer?" She asks him this one late evening, when they've stayed past closing time and are huddled close under a blanket, sharing one adirondack chair.

He looks past her, toward the water. "I don't know."

They never find out what would have happened. Four days before the club is due to close for the season, she flips casually through her calendar and then gasps when she figures it out.