She smiled, her face lit up by his arrival. He gazed at her, and a smile eased onto his handsome features. She gently pushed her hair behind her ears and walked over to him, he opened his arms and took her in a gentle embrace, and she leaned deeply into his chest and relaxed to mould his body. Her head lay on his shoulder and she gently brushed her lips onto his neck. He held her close and she kissed him gently, moving slowly up his neck then onto his jaw until she found his lips, they kissed deeply then parted slightly.

She gazed into his eyes, he met her gaze with eyes that were like another world to her, eyes so beautiful that they entranced her. Her hand reached down and took his, and together they walked over to the cot. Holding each other, they looked down; a proof of their total love for each other lay quietly sleeping before them. She was less than six months old, her hair was dusty brown like her father's, her face was like her mother's, beautiful, sculpted like a china doll, but her eyes, her eyes were her father's, an emerald green flecked by azure blue and bright hazel. They loved this child so much she was their life. She had never been planned, they were barely of consensual age, but now, looking at her, they knew that it was worth it.

She looked away from the child and about the room, it was brightly painted in a sunshine yellow, an old armchair stood in the corner, a patchwork blanket draped lazily over it, the battered chest of drawers which stood beside it had been hers as a child, now it was her child's. In it, it held all the child's belongings, all the kind gifts, on it's scratched and heavily used surface lay her book, a cheap romance novel. The room seemed perfect to her, it showed their poverty, but their love made the room glow. The curtains were fraying with age, the teddy bears on them tired looking, but she had still dressed them up, tying them back in a huge, floppy bow with a simple yellow ribbon.

The flat wasn't much; she knew the nursery was the best room. The kitchen was so full of damp and rot that she didn't want to cook in it. The floor was bare, she often got splinters on her feet, but it didn't matter. The baby was what mattered, it didn't matter that the furniture they used in the living room had been found lying at the side of the road, or that they slept on an old, bare, mite-ridden mattress in the middle of an equally bare room. Life would get better, he was working, she managed to do a small part time job and they were saving, they starved themselves to feed the baby and put money away so they could afford things for her. He had lost his muscular look, she knew it was malnutrition and she was practically anorexic. But they would suffer on, because they loved each other and they loved their child. The baby never suffered, she always got the best, it was them who were slowly fading away.

Fading away in more ways than one. In school, they had been popular, he had been the most sought after boy in her year, and she was a gentle beauty who the boys lusted after. Now they were forgotten, the child had made them non-existent to their friends from school. Her friends never called round anymore, they used to, in the beginning. The idea of a baby was such a novel idea, that everyone had wanted to hold her. Not now, she felt isolated, even the women she worked with looked down on her. They felt she was too young to have had a child, and they didn't approve on the way she lived. They knew she starved herself, but they still thought the child suffered.

He still managed to see friends from his former life as a teenager; he was something of an idol to them. Most of them still were virgins, and there was he, a father! He didn't feel like an idol. He remembered the mischievous passion as they lay together for the first time on his bed, he had taken her tenderly and it had been a moment that he would always cherish, but if he could go back now, he would leave it at a tender kiss, he loved his child, but he never wanted her. He never wanted the stress of having to build a home this young, he had had grand dreams of university and working in law, now those dreams were shattered, he did manual labour ten hours a day for minimum wage, and it barely kept them going.

She, like him had had grand dreams, she had wanted to be a model and she had already been accepted by one agency, she had her whole life planned out, walking the cat walks in Paris and earning millions. Now, those dreams were gone, she was a full time mother and part time factory worker. She remembered back to the days when she had been a young girl, free and easy, he had been her first boyfriend, her first everything. She remembered the day it happened, the conception, the beginning of her fall from grace. They had spent the day together and that night they had messed around, he had taken her to his room and they had lay together on the bed, fooling around. He had been very loving with her, gentle and tender, and she had responded to him, and let him do what they both wanted. What their hormones wanted. She knew now, that if she had had the chance, she would have stopped it all, or at least thought of protection.

Protection, the school preached about it, they knew what teenagers were like, that hormones ruled their actions, they had said protection against STDs and AIDs but the protection she would have wanted was the protection against this life she now lead, the life of a young mother. She loved her child, she loved him, but she would trade both for her old life. Her life as a silly young schoolgirl, yet she knew that it couldn't happen, and that because of their raging hormone and need for sexual fulfilment, this was her life.

They would always love each other, and their child would never be without love. They would allow themselves to starve and go cold, as long as their child was healthy and happy. They didn't know if they would always be together forever, they hoped they would, they hoped oneday their parents would accept them as who they were, and accept them back into the family. She knew that their condition would improve as sure as she knew that she loved him with all her heart.

She looked back at him and smiled again, he smiled back and grinned. He clasped her one hand in both of his and slowly led her out of the room. She followed, closing the door silently behind, he turned around and lifted her easily into his arms, kissing her, he walked into their bedroom and lowered her onto the bed. She reached under the top right of the mattress and waved the condoms at him, he grinned then slowly began to undress her.

She lay there, her heart full of love, and lust. Her life wasn't so bad, and she knew they would never make the same mistake again, at least not until they were ready to give little Elen a brother or sister. She knew that might not be a for a long time, but already she felt ready.

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