Heroes...And The Rest Of Us.

It feels so good to be home again. Back in my own bed with my husband and my dogs. We got home two nights ago, and for the first day we all pretty much just slept. Tonight, Adam and I have dinner plans with my parents at a really fancy restaraunt, so I have to go out today and find something to wear. I roll over in bed and see him still sleeping, so I just watch him for awhile, just taking him in. His hair has grown out to the length it was when he cut it, so it's hanging in his face a little. He has his arm on top of the blankets, in between our bodies, with his hand on the pillow.

I carefully get out of bed and put a pair of denim cutoff's and a gray zip-up hoodie on over the Chicago Blackhawks jersey and lace underwear I wore to bed, and go out to the kitchen to make coffee. The dogs are hot on my heels. Simba immediately runs over to the french doors that lead out to the deck and starts growling. I look down at Mabel, who's looking at him like he's crazy or something.

"What's up, Simba? What do you see out there?"

I walk over to the doors, figuring that he saw a squirrel or a bird, or something like that. When I look out, I see Jack sitting on one of the lay down plastic chairs. He doesn't seem to notice me or Simba. I open the door and both dogs run out to him, I follow with a cup of coffee in my hand. Jack looks up when the dogs and I come out.

"Good morning." I say to him and sit in the second chair, next to his. Adam and I bought the chairs along with a table and four regular chairs for in the summertime.

"Yes it is." He says.

"Thank you for making coffee." I had noticed the coffee machine had been on, but Simba's antics had distracted me from thinking about who turned it on. He shrugs.

"No big deal. I figured you guys were gonna sleep in, so I thought I'd come out here and hang out for a while." He pauses. "Is Adam still sleeping?"

"Yeah." We both drink some coffee and look out through the woods at the lake.

"It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?" I say. He snorts a little to himself.

"I watched the sun rise this morning, and I was thinking to myself, that this is the first one of these that I've seen in a while where I wasn't so fucked up that I didn't realize what it was." He looks at me and smiles. He has a cigarette hanging between his lips, and his Sid Vicious hairstyle is pointing out in all directions.

"How fucked up is that? I thought I was tripping out and it was just the sunrise." I smirk and take a sip of coffee.

"Don't take moments like that for granted, Jack. Because now that you've seen a sunrise sober, you'll never want to go back, but there are people out there that want to see you fall for their own selfish reasons. And if you let them bring you back down, you'll wish you watched more sunrises."

"No one is going to bring me down."

"I hope not, Hon. I really do." I hear the doors open and I turn and see Adam walking out with his own coffe and his digital camera in his hands.

"Hey, Babe." I say.

"Morning, guys." He leans down and gives me a kiss, then sits down at the table.

"How long have you guys been up?" He asks, petting the dogs.

"I just got up about fifteen minutes ago."

"I watched the sun rise." Jack says. Adam raises his eyebrows and turns his camera on, pointing it at Jack and I.

"Smile." He says. Jack flips him off and I lean in closer to him and smile big at Adam. He takes the picture and looks at it on the little screen.

"Ugh, I have to go shopping." I groan.

"You poor thing. I've never heard a woman complain about going shopping." Adam says, still snapping pictures, mostly of the dogs.

"I just don't understand why Billie want's to go to this fancy place."

"She already told you, she never gets to go to nice places, and plus she wants to spend my money." Jack and I both laugh.

"Well, that's true." He comes over and sits on the end of my chair. I sit up and wrap my arms around him from behind and he snaps a picture of us.

"Alright well, I should get going. What are you two doing today?" I say and stand up.

"Probably just hang out around here." I nod and go inside to get dressed. I put on a ribbed tank top with my shorts and then put my hoodie back on. I peek my head out the french doors and see Adam and Jack still sitting and talking.

"Bye, guys. Love you."

"Bye." They both say.

On my way to the mall in Chicago, I call Daisy and chat for a while. Then I call and talk to my dad, who tells me that my brother, Brayden, is coming home from Iraq in two weeks. I also call Liv, but she tells me that she can't talk long because Kya has an ear infection. When I get to the mall, I immediately go to Macy's and find a great dress within twenty minutes.

I'm pretty proud of myself for getting in and out of the store so fast, and I'm actually getting pretty excited for dinner tonight. When I get home, I see Shaun's car parked behind Adam's in the driveway. So, I grab my dress, in it's garment bag and go in the house. I toss my keys on the little table in the entryway where Adam's keys are, and take my dress and hang it in the closet. When I come back out to the living room, I see Adam and Jack sitting on the couch, and Shaun standing behind them. Jack is holding his guitar, and there are three or four notebooks on the coffee table, so I assume some writing was going on.

"Hello." I say to all of them. Shaun comes over and gives me a hug.

"Hey, Sophie. Long time no see, huh?"

"Yeah." I go over and sit on Adam's lap and read what they've written in one of the notebooks.

"Did you find something to wear?" Adam asks me, kissing my ear.

"I got a dress. A cocktail one." He laughs.

"Good, will I like this dress?"

"I hope so."

We all hang out, and the guys play me a song they wrote called "Goin' Down". Jack decides that instead of hanging out at the house by himself tonight while we're at dinner, he's going to to over to Shaun's place and hang out and write some more. We're supposed to meet my parents at the restaraunt at 7:00, so I start getting ready at 5:45. I take a shower and put my make-up on, and do my hair. Then, I put my dress on, with a pair of strappy black sandals that I already owned.

I have a slightly nervous feeling in my stomach. I locked myself in the bedroom so that Adam couldn't see me while I was getting dressed. A part of me still gets butterfly's when I'm getting dressed up like this for my husband. I check my appearance one last time in the mirror before I head out to the living room. The dress I chose is a black tank dress, with a cutout design near the left shoulder. It comes to my knee in length. I walk out to the living room, where all the guys are still hanging out. Adam is dressed up already, he looks up at me and smiles when I come in the room.

"Hey."

"You look amazing." He says. Shaun looks up and whistles at me.

"Are ya feeling sexy? Ready to go paint the town?" He asks me.

"Whatever. I thought you guys were leaving?"

"We decided that we would just stay here instead."

"Gotcha."

"Well, be good. I don't know when we'll be back." Adam says. Shaun salutes him.

"Yessir. You can count on us, right Jackie?"

"Uh, yeah." Jack says, not really paying attention.

"No, seriously. Have fun, don't worry about us." Shaun says.

We go outside and Adam opens my car door for me to get in. The restaraunt that Billie picked out, is on the other side of town, so we have a 30 minute drive. It may seem weird to be driving to a fancy restaraunt, wearing fancy clothes, blasting loud Seether on the radio, but whatever. The silence would drive me crazy, and opera music isn't really our thing. We arrive at the restaraunt and Adam takes my hand and leads me inside to where my parents are sitting, and we sit on the side of the booth opposite to them.

We all talk about the album and how it was being in Vancouver. We discuss throwing some kind of a welcome home party for Brayden in a couple of weeks, and after a couple hours and a couple of glasses of wine, we head home. When we get there, we find a note from Jack and Shaun on the table in our foyer.

'Went out to GL's for dinner. Be back in a bit."

"So we're alone. What do you think we should do?" Adam says. I spin around to face him and wrap my arms around his waist.

"I think you should make love to me before I crawl out of my skin."

"Hmmmm." He unzips the back of my dress and pushes me into the bedroom, where he lets it fall to the floor. Leaving me in my shoes and underwear.

"This is much better. I think we're on the right track, here." I say. He smirks and takes off his jack and shirt quickly. I take the rest of my clothing off and lay down on the bed.

"Are you going to tell me what you want now?" He asks, standing over me.

"Maybe you should guess, but you should hurry because I don't know how much time we have." He smirks again and does exactly what I want him to do to me. We fall asleep afterwards and don't wake up again until 2 a.m. when the phone starts ringing in the living room. I start to get up to answer it, but Adam grabs my arm and pulls me back down.

"Babe." I say.

"I'll get it."

"If it's your counsler, hang up." I tell him, remembering the last phone call we got in the middle of the night. He laughs and walks out to the living room. I can barely hear him talking to whoever it is on the phone.

"Are you serious? Tomorrow?" I hear him say. Oh great. I try to force myself back to sleep and hope that this phone call is a dream. Please, God, no more people that need our help. A couple minutes later, I'm still pretending to be asleep when Adam comes in the bedroom with the phone in his hand.

"Are you faking?" He says.

"No."

"Here, Austin wants to talk to you." He hands me the phone and I stick it up to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Sophie! I'm gettin fucking married!"

"What?"

"Yeah! Can you believe it?"

"No, Austin, I really can't. Congratulations. May I ask who the luck lady is?" I hear Adam snort.

"Jackie, of course! Who else would I be marrying?"

"Are you drunk? And more importantly is she?"

"Well, maybe a little. But who cares? I'm getting fucking married!"

"When?"

"Tomorrow, in Vegas!"

"What?"

"Yeah, that's why I called you and your hubby. Jackie and I need a couple of witnesses, and all of our friends think this is a bad idea for some reason, so they won't come out. Which is total horseshit."

"Totally."

"So, your hubby thought that you guys could do it."

"You want us to fly out to Vegas, tomorrow?"

"In the morning. I've got plane tickets out of St. Louis in the morning."

"Oh my God, Austin."

"So will you do it?"

"Oh my God. Yeah, we'll do it."

"Thanks so much, Soph! See ya in Vegas!" He hangs up on me. I pull the phone away from my ear and look at Adam.

"How do you feel about Vegas?"