Best Man

Four days after Mike's second heart attack was the 2nd of December and also one week from Tre's birthday. Billie Joe had flown home to California that Sunday with Estelle so she wouldn't miss any school; despite her ample protests.

As for Caroline, she spent every day at the hospital. The only time she left was to go home to her grandmother's so she could shower and change. And that took all of a half hour. She even had the hospital set up an extra bed in the room so she could stay with Mike.

Not only had Billie Joe and Estelle left on Sunday, but it was also the day Mike's doctor insisted he start to get up and move around and undergo his first stress test. They put him on a treadmill and hooked wires to him to monitor his heart rate and whatnot, but after about fifteen minutes, he had to stop.

Walking the hallway in his hospital gown and holding onto his IV pole with Caroline beside him, they made their way back to his private room where she helped him back into bed and began to tell him the latest news she'd heard from their lawyers about suing the Internet company responsible for selling copies of their sex tape.

And on Tuesday, the 2nd, Mike was sitting up in bed with a smile on his face as Caroline curled next to him as much as the narrow hospital bed would allow while they watched their favorite soap opera, One Life To Live, together.

"I think Evangeline should just be shot. I can't stand her character. And Natalie should do it because that'd be ironic, yet not," Mike commented.

Turning her face up at him, Caroline gave him a look. "But if Natalie did that, John would be forced to arrest her because she's really the only one who can't stand Evangeline."

"But it'd be funny."

Caroline smirked. "Dork."

"In the flesh," Mike nodded.

Craning her neck she pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth which caused him to grin a little wider, then she placed her head on his shoulder and returned to watching the soap.

"Babe?" he muttered when the show went to commercial.

"Hmm?"

"Do you know how much it means to me that you haven't left my side, not once, since I've been here?"

"Technically I have," she muttered. "When I went home to my grandma's to shower and change, but I did that when you were asleep so that when you woke up I was right here."

"As long as I can see you and hold you, that's all that matters."

Turning her head to look at him better, her heart broke a little as she reached a hand up to cup the side of his face furthest from her. Brushing her thumb along his cheek, she studied his eyes; biting her bottom lip.

"What?"

Emitting a small sigh, Caroline parted her lips. "I'll never leave you as long as you never leave me."

"I think that's pretty much a given."

"I'm serious."

"So am I," Mike insisted.

After a few moments of silence and forgetting about the soap returning from commercial, Caroline simply held his gaze as she traced the outline of his jawline with the fingertip of her right index finger; like she were meticulously painting a work of art. And, in her eyes, Mike was a work of art. And as for the bassist, he just laid there, watching her do this, loving the fact she cared not that he were only wearing a hospital gown and had nearly a week's worth of stubble on his face.

It was hypnotizing, calming and it made him so very content.

"Our lives are chaotic, complicated..." he muttered softly as she brought her gaze to his neck where she started to trace little circles with her fingertip. "But with you, I'm at peace. Everything's serene and my heart..." he trailed as it felt like a sob was about to get stuck in his throat. "My heart is never ill or broken. It's perfect."

Stopping her fingertip's movement, Caroline lifted her hazel eyes to his face, but not to look in his eyes just yet. She let them linger a while on his lips; swallowing back a small lump in her throat while thinking back to the emotional discussion she'd had with Billie Joe the day he arrived to the hospital.

"We're perfect," Mike added.

A tear or two stinging her hazel eyes, Caroline smiled a little as she cupped the opposite side of his face and kissed his jawline, then finally his lips.

"I can't wait to marry you."

Mike just smiled as the sound of someone clearing their throat grabbed their attention.

It was the bassist that looked upon the third presence first until Caroline turned her head, and there they found Tre standing with his hands in his pockets, in the doorway and a sheepish smile.

"Hey," he spoke quietly.

"Hey," Mike replied. "Thought you'd get here sooner."

"I would've been, but holiday traffic is a bitch and one of my flights was delayed about a million times," Tre replied. "I got here last night, got a hotel room and then cabbed it here, but the nurses said visiting hours were over, and that you'd be sleeping anyway. They told me to come back this morning and, well...here I am."

The drummer took a few steps closer to end of the hospital bed and then placed his hands on the footboard as Caroline tried her best to sit up without having to lean any of her weight on Mike in the process.

"Well..." Mike began. "I'm glad you're here."

Tre offered a smile as he looked between the betrothed couple who'd been comfortably snuggling together before he arrived. "I, um...uh...how're you doing?"

"A little better. I've been going for stress tests since Sunday, some general walking around, shitty food that's made up of mostly Jell-O and other liquids. Other than that; I can't complain." Mike turned his head a little to glance at Caroline's profile. "I got my own, personal nurse," he added with a smirk.

Caroline looked down at her lap and flashed a smirk of her own before looking up at her ex-boyfriend as if trying to gather the guts to say something.

"I see that," Tre commented. Looking down at his hands, he ran them back and forth along the footboard, emitting a shy breath and clicking his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

"Tre?"

Both the drummer and Caroline brought their gazes to Mike.

"Yeah, Mike?"

"Was it you?" the taller man asked, vaguely. "Did you take the tape?"

Feeling his face become flush, Tre swallowed back a lump in his throat and slowly...he nodded. "I'm so fucking sorry," he apologized. "I didn't know I'd taken it. Th-there were a bunch of DVDs on the coffee table and I just picked up the wrong one on mistake and took it to Blockbuster. What they did with it after---"

"How come you didn't know which one you were grabbing?" Caroline finally piped up. "All of the DVDs on the coffee table had writings on them with Sharpies. The movie Giselle rented would've had some pictures and the title of the film on it." Hazel eyes boring into Tre's face, she continued. "I know that because I watched the movie with her. And you were apparently watching it too the day you went to pick it up. So...what's your excuse?"

"I sa---"

Mike's deep blue eyes flitted between the ex-lovers before settling on Tre. "You what?" he asked without getting himself worked up this time.

"I saw the video. I was curious. I mean, there were a bunch of random DVDs just laying there. I didn't think the one I happened to pick up and pop into the player would be a sex tape," Tre admitted guiltily. "If I'd known..."

"You watched it? You watched us..." Caroline couldn't finish that sentence without getting a little upset. So, instead, she took a steady breath and glanced briefly at Mike who looked at her out the corner of his eye.

"That's why you were so jittery when I came home. I almost caught you watching it," the 36-year-old deduced.

"I swear I didn't see much. I...I was shocked. Not that you made a tape like that, but that I happened upon it at all. And, Christ...Mike. Care. I am so sorry. I really didn't mean to see it. It was an accident. I thought it was just something random..."

"What happened when you took it to Blockbuster? Do you know what might've happened next? And which one did you take it to? Maybe we can find out the path it went and the hands it passed through before that website got it..." Caroline rambled insistently.

"This girl Rose that works there. I see her every time I rent movies. She's always trying to flirt with me, out of good fun. She took the DVD case from me when I returned it, but I know it wasn't her. She said she'd seen the movie...the one Giselle rented and thought I was bringing back. I doubt she took it in the back to watch it and passed it off..."

"But they check those things, Tre," Mike commented. "They open up the case to make sure the right DVD is there and that there's nothing wrong with it. And if this Rose chick didn't watch it to figure out exactly what DVD was in the case, then one of the other employees did and then they got it out to that website." Mike turned to Caroline with an insightful gesture of his hand. "Billie did say the webmasters of the site are based out of Sacramento. So the tape didn't travel far."

"I'm so damn sorry, guys," Tre repeated as he hunched forward a little, bowing his head. "I didn't know..."

Tilting his head to the left and looking down at his hand, Mike let out a sigh as he gestured with said hand for Tre to walk around to the side of the bed instead of standing in the shadows like Gollum from Lord Of The Rings; heartbroken for losing his 'precious.'

Hesitating for a moment, Tre obliged and took the needed steps to be beside his friend, and fearing the worst.

But what came next was pretty much unexpected for the drummer.

Reaching his arm up, Mike grabbed a hold of Tre's shoulder and pulled him down for a hug; patting him on the back and whispering, "I forgive you."

Pulling his face away from the vicinity of Mike's, Tre stared at his friend of nearly the last twenty years and tried to smile, but he still felt horrible for what he inadvertently caused.

"Well, uh...okay. Um..."

A part of her feeling relieved, Caroline sank back down to rest her head on Mike's right shoulder while reaching her right arm across his chest but, instead of wrapping it about his chest, she reached for Tre's hand and held it in hers, surprising him a little further.

"I forgive you, too," she muttered. Then, "Truce?"

The funny man of Green Day let his eye flicker back and forth between his friend and ex-girlfriend before grasping Caroline's hand a little tighter and gripping Mike's shoulder as well.

Tre smiled. "Truce."