Heroes...And The Rest Of Us.

I walk into my house alone, barefooted at about 3 a.m. I worked with Xavier waiting tables tonight, while Sully and Tripp bartended. I haven't waited tables in a while, and I'm fucking beat. I took my shoes off as soon as I got in my car to drive home. I drop my purse, keys, and shoes on the floor in the foyer. I can see Adam watching tv in the living room, wearing black shorts, a white t-shirt and a black trucker hat. I walk in slowly with my eyes half shut.

"Hey, Babe." He says, looking up at me.

"Hey." I say groggily. I lay down on the couch, facing the back of it, with my head on his leg.

"How was your night?" He asks.

"Long." I shut my eyes and he strokes my hair, lightly scratching my scalp with his fingernails.

"Are you hungry?"

"Starving." He carefully lifts my head up and stands, putting a throw pillow under my head. I hear him go into the kitchen and pull something out of the freezer, and put it in the microwave. Five minutes later, I feel him nudge my back with his knee.

"Sit up." He says. I groan and sit up, indian style. He hands me a plate with a pizza stuffed pretzel on it, and a glass of Arnold Palmer ice tea.

"Thank you." I say. He goes back into the kitchen and comes back with his own plate and glass. He sits on the couch facing me with one leg crossed under him.

"I was thinking." He says. I motion with my hand for him to keep talking, since my mouth is full of pretzel.

"I think you should quit your job. I mean, it's not like we need that money to survive on, I'm still bringing in royalties from the last tour, and after we finish this album, there will be another touring cycle, so we'll have that money. Anything you make would just be extra spending money, which we would have anyway."

I give him a blank look while I contemplate what he said.

"I don't want to put them in a bind." I say.

"Well, you said that they just hired two new waitresses, and they're looking for more, so it wouldn't be that big of a bind."

"That's true."

"It probably sounds selfish of me, but when we got married, I thought that we would be together all the time. Now, I feel like I'm alone more now than when I was single."

"I get that."

"Plus, I got a call tonight that the label wants us to leave on wednsday to go to Vancouver to record for the new album. I want you to be able to come with me, and not have to worry about work."

"Wow, that was short notice. I mean, wednsday is only a couple days away, Babe."

"I know. I'm not that happy about it either, but it will be good for us." I nod.

"And after that, we'll go on another tour, and I want you to be there for all of that, too."

"I want to be with you for all of that too."

"So, will you talk to Sully about it?"

"Yeah, I'll call him tomorrow and give him my two weeks notice for after we get back from Vancouver. I'll use my vacation time that I've earned over the year to go there."

"Cool, I was afraid that you were going to be pissed at me for wanting you to quit your job for my selfish reasons."

"Not at all. You know I would do anything for you." I smile sleepily at him.

"Are you ready for bed?" He asks.

"Babe, I was ready for bed three hours ago."

It's about five in the morning when I wake and hear the phone ringing. I hear Adam crawl out of bed and walk into the kitchen to answer it. I try to wake myself up a little, I learned a long time ago that calls that come in after 11 at night, don't usually end well.

"Where are you? Why can't you go get him?" I hear Adam say. Theres a pause while the other person is talking.

"What's he on?" This doesnt sound good at all. I get out of bed and put my robe on.

"I don't know if I'm ready for that though." Adam says as I walk out into the main area of the house.

"Who is it, Babe?" I ask and sit down on the couch next to Simba. He shakes his head at me and gives me a sign to hold on a minute.

"Yeah, she's with me." He says. Another pause.

"And you're sure you want me to do this?" I pet both dogs and wait for him to get off the phone. I don't have the slightest clue who he's talking to, but it doesnt sound good.

"Alright, I'll go. What's the room number?" Short pause.

"OK, I'm on my way." They say goodbye and hangup. Adam rings his hands through his hair and looks at me.

"I didn't ask for this shit." He says.

"Who was on the phone?"

"My counsler, Eric. He had to go out of town to help a guy, and he wants me to go pick this other kid up and take him to rehab, otherwise this kid is going to jail."

"Why you?"

"He said that he thought I needed something like this to realize how lucky I am to have people around me who care."

"Where is this kid? What's his name? What is he on?" Suddenly I'm very concerned about this guy.

"He's in a hotel not far from here, his name is Jack and his drugs of choice are heroin and he'll take cocaine in any form. He shoots the heroin."

"Fuck."

"Yeah, it's serious shit. I have to get dressed and head over there right now. He only has until noon before the cops come and get him, I don't want him to have to come down in jail."

"I'll come with you." I say, getting up off the couch.

"You don't have to do that."

"Yes I do. While you're taking care of this guy, who's going to take care of you? You've barely been clean a year."

"You're not going to take no for an answer here are you?"

"No." He smirks. We both go into the bedroom and get dressed quickly. I pack whatever I think I'll need out of my purse into my trenchcoat pockets, so that I don't have to carry it. We take Adam's tahoe, and on out way to the hotel we stop and pick up three coffee's and some cigarettes.

We pull in at 6 a.m. Adam grabs one of the coffee's and leads the way to the hotel room that Eric told him Jack, was staying in.

"You stay out here until I give you the go ahead. Be prepared, I don't know what we're going to find in there." He says to me.

"OK." He knocks on the door lightly.

"Jack? It's Adam, I coming inside, OK?" He walks in the unlocked door and shuts it behind him. I take a sip of my coffee and wait, looking out at the cars on the road, people driving to work probably.

About five minutes later, Adam comes to the door and nods his head for me to come in. There's shit all over the place inside, clothes on the floor, and guitar in the corner, and a bunch of other random garbage scattered everywhere. I see a blonde punk rock looking guy sitting on the edge of the twin bed. He looks at me with his eyes only, then looks at Adam.

"Who's that?" He asks Adam.

"This is my wife, Sophie."

"Hi, Jack. I brought you some coffee." I say and hand him one of the cups and he takes a sip.

"Thanks." He says.

"No problem. Do you smoke?"

"What have you got? I'll probably smoke it." I look at Adam, who's standing on the other side of the room rolling his eyes. I hand Jack a pack of cigarettes from my pocket, he gives me a little smirk and takes them from me.

"You got a light?" He asks. I hand him a lighter and he lights up and hands the stuff back to me, blowing smoke in my face on purpose.

"Watch it, Jack." Adam says, and he laughs, keeping constant eye contact with me. Adam comes over to me and grabs my arm, dragging me gently across the room. He hands me a square tin with a lid.

"Will you go in the bathroom and put anything you find in this?" He asks.

"Yeah."

"Be careful, don't stick your hand in anything if you can see what's in it first. I don't want you to get stabbed with a dirty needle or something."

"OK." I take the tin and go into the bathroom with it. After a quick glance around the room, I find a couple syringes. I use a washcloth to clean the powder residue off of the vanity. I look out into the other room to see what Adam and Jack are doing. Adam is packing clothes from off the floor into a suitcase and Jack is still sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him.

I look in the waste basket and carefully reach into it. I pull out two half full syringes, and small bag, and an empty package of rolling papers. I put it all into the tin and wipe down all of the flat surfaces in the bathroom. When I'm done, it looks like the maid just came through here.

"How's it going out here?" I ask when I come back out. Adam is walking around with another tin like the one he gave me, filling it with any drugs or needles that he finds. Jack is picking the rest of his clothes up.

"Did you look inside the toilet?" He asks me. Adam gives me a stressed look.

"In the top of it?"

"Yeah, I put a bag under the lid." I walk back into the bathroom and lift the lid off the back of the toilet. Sure enough, there's a huge bag of what appears to be heroin taped to the lid. I'm glad I'm the one who found it, I'm not sure how Adam would react to that.

"Where are you getting the money for this shit, Jack?" I ask when I come back out of the bathroom. He snorts.

"I'm not. I owe a bunch of money for shit to people that will probably kill me as soon as I walk out of detox." I walk over to Adam, who's wiping the desk off with a washcloth.

"How are you doing?" I ask him. He holds his hand out and tilts it back and forth. I go back over to Jack and crouch down in front of him, sitting on the bed again.

"Do you have any other hiding places that you want to tell me about?" I ask.

"Get on your knees and come a little closer, and maybe I'll tell you." He says cockily.

"Jack, I will not tell you again, knock it off. We are trying to help you here." Adam shouts. I stand up and go through his suitcase and I shake his guitar to make sure there's nothing inside.

"What kind of band are you in, Jack?" I ask.

"I just got kicked out of a punk band, that's why I'm living here."

"Adam's in a band, did you know that?" He shakes his head and looks at Adam, who's still busy cleaning the room.

"We're going to Vancouver in a couple of days so that they can record their new album."

"I wish I was going to Vancouver. I'll go to detox and then they'll send my ass to jail." He says.

"You're going to rehab, not jail, Jack." Adam says.

"Yeah right."

"What if we get the court to let you come to Vancouver with us, rather than going to jail? Would you come with us if you were under our supervision, or would you rather go to jail?" I say.

"Like house arresst kind of."

"Exactly."

"Sophie, I dont know if we can do that." Adam says.

"Why not?"

"The courts wont give me custody of anybody like that."

"They would me. I don't have any kind of record."

"You guys would do that for me?" Jack pipes in.

"No one in your position should ever have to go through this alone. I know that your parents died awhile ago, and that you're an only child. And if you just got kicked out of your band, I doubt that you'll get a lot of support from them." I say. I look at Adam for some sort of reaction. He nods his head.

"That would be so fucking rad."

"But you have to go to detox and get whatever you're on, out of your system. This is a recovery trip, not a party trip. No drinking, no drugs."

"Understood."

"Good. Is this OK with you, Adam?" I ask.

"Absolutely. I know what its like to kind of be on your own like this."

"OK, good. Now lets get out of here." We get all of Jack's stuff and put it in the back of the tahoe. The detox center is in Chicago, which is an hour away. During the drive, I call and make the arrangements to take Jack to Vancouver. I put my car up as collateral, just in case he runs while we're there and doesnt show up for his next court date.

"I swear, if you don't show up for court, I will personally hunt you down and make sure that you're never able to have children, understand me?" I say to Jack, who's sitting in the backseat.

"Yes."

When we get to the detox center, we get him signed in and dropped off. We tell him that we'll pick him up early wednsday morning on our way to the airport. We take all of his belongings back to our house, and spend the rest of the day doing all his laundry, and getting ourselves packed for the trip.

"We transported ourselves into the future and we have a twenty something kid that's all of a sudden our responsibility." Adam says when we're laying in bed later on.

"Yeah, but the good thing about that is, we didn't age a bit." He laughs.

"That's true."

"I want hime to do good, so badly I want him to be OK. I walked into that hotel room and I saw you sitting there, five years ago."

"I did too. That's exactly what I was like, less than five years ago. If it wasn't for Roo, I would still be there, too."

"Roo?"

"I was over at Neil and Janin's house one day, and we were all playing with her. And I was feeling like shit, so I went into their bathroom and I was going to shoot up, but I saw all of Roo's toys and shit in there, and reality punched me in the face. I went out and hugged Roo and Janin, and had Neil take me to rehab."

"Wow, I never knew that story."

"That's why Neil takes the whole drug thing so seriously now, because he saw what it did to me then. I fucking broke down in that car on the way to rehab."

"Jack doesnt have good people in his life like that."

"He does now. He has you, you arent going to give up on him. Just like you've never given up on me."

"My Billie instincts kick in when I see someone struggling like that."

"Well, thank God for Billie then."

When I wake up on wednsday morning, it's dark out. I can feel Adam moving on his side of the bed, and the lights are on in the living room and kitchen area. Our plane leaves Chicago at eight o' clock, requiring us to wake up at four thiry in order to get ourselves ready, take the dogs to my parent's house, drive to Chicago, pick up Jack, and meet the rest of the band at the airport, and still make our flight on time. I roll over and see Adam pulling on his boots, on the edge of the bed.

"Unph."

"Time to get up, Babe. I let you sleep in as late as possible." He says. He's already showered and dressed.

"Fine, I'm up." I get out of bed and get dressed quickly in my new hot pink Three Days Grace t-shirt and faded jeans. Then I go into the bathroom and start packing the rest of my shit from in there as I get done using it. I open up my package of birth control pills to make sure I have enough for the whole trip. I notice that my monday and tuesday pills are still in their places.

"Shit." I say loudly.

"What's wrong?" Adam asks, walking into the bathroom.

"I've been so caught up in this whole Jack situation, that I forgot two pills this week."

"Does that mean you could be pregnant?"

"NO!" I say sharply and leave the room.

"But, there's a chance of it, right?" He asks, following me.

"I'm not pregnant, Adam. Can we just drop it, please?"

"How can you be so damn sure?"

"Because, I remember what it feels like, Adam! I would love to be able to give you a child, but it isn't happening. It can't happen!" I yell.

"Can't or won't?"

"Did you not just hear what I said, Adam?"

"I heard what you said. After the miscarraige, none of the doctor's ever told us that we couldn't have kids in the future."

"I know that."

"Then, why are you so convinced that it can't happen? Is it because you're scared of what happened?"

"Yes, Adam. I'm fucking terrified! Are you happy now?!"

"No I'm not happy. Babe, you're my wife, I never want to see you in pain like that."

"Losing that baby really fucked me up, Adam. And it's going to take a while before I'm ready to try again."

"I know, I'm sorry. I know that some of those feelings come from me, and the shitty way that I dealt with it."

"It has nothing to do with you, Babe. It's just something I have to deal with, and I've been dealing with it a lot lately."

"Well, if ever need anything from me while you're dealing with this, will you let me know?"

"Of course."

"And I would appreciate it if you took a test."

"I was already planning on it."

"OK, now lets get going."

We load our dogs into my car and take them over to my parents place, then we start the long drive to pick up Jack. The rest of the band was really awesome when we told them about Jack, and they understood why we felt like we needed to do this.

Adam and Jack pretty much talk nonstop on the drive to the airport, while I just listen. I wonder if I really am pregnant. I mean really, what are the chances? When we get to the airport, we meet up with the rest of the band and board the plane right on time. Great Success.