Did We All Fall Down, Well After All

::Hannah’s POV::

The doctor wrote a few more things down onto his clipboard and then looked up at us with a smile. A wave of relief rushed through me.

“Everything is normal. The baby is growing at a little bit of a faster rate than usual, but it shouldn’t be a problem. But because you haven’t completely finished going through puberty, we will most likely have to do a caesarean section.”

“What? Why?” I don’t want a big scar on my stomach. I’m already going to have stretch marks galore.

“It’s just because your hips are not wide enough to have a baby pass through them yet. And you’re going to need to eat more calcium and iron.” I nodded, the mentioning of food making me even hungrier.

“When can we do a sonogram?” I asked, anxious to see what was growing inside me.

“Well, we can do it whenever, but you won’t be able to actually see anything until about a month or so.”

“Alright. Thank you doctor,” Grandma finished up.

“Thank you. Have a nice day.” I jumped up from my spot, shook Dr. Andings hand and we all left.

- - -

::Third Person POV::

“I’ve been thinking of names,” Hannah said nonchalantly in between oversized bights of grilled chicken.

Jamia and Grandma leaned over the table anxiously. “Do tell!” Jamia insisted. Hannah smiled.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about Caleb Anthony for a boy and Emma Claire for a girl. But I’ll have to check with Bert to see if he likes them. Speaking of which. . .” she started digging through her bag for her phone. Donna was going to stop her, but Jamia held her back.

“She’ll start to figure out something is up,” she whispered. Donna gave a hesitant but knowing glance as Hannah started punching buttons on the device and putting it up to her ear. She scarfed down another piece of chicken as she awaited him to pick up. Soon, the buzzing stopped.

“Hello?” She swallowed her food.

“Hey Bert! I just got back from the doctor’s office. He says everything is normal except for the fact that the baby is growing faster than normal.”

“Hell ya. Our baby is superhuman. So is it a boy or a girl?”

“We don’t know yet. I think it should be a surprise.”

“Fuck surprises! As soon as you find out, tell me. Actually, I was thinking about coming to visit sometime in early November.” Hannah tried her best to hide what they were talking about because she knew for some reason Donna and Jamia didn’t want Bert or anyone else staying with them.

“Why not earlier?” she almost complained.

“I’ll do my best babe. Listen, I love you, but I have to go finish writing a record.”

“Alright. I love you.”

“Bye.” He hung up and Hannah looked over at Jamia and Donna.

“He thinks our baby is superhuman,” she announced, giggling to herself. It was so good to hear him. Donna and Jamia gave apprehensive smiles and quickly went back to eating their food. Inside, they both knew that Bert was going to show up at their doorstep sooner or later.

::Quinn’s POV::

I picked a few chords on my guitar as Bert tossed his phone across the room onto the couch.

“Was that Hannah?” Jeph asked.

“Ya. I think my sperm is on steroids cause my baby is bigger than the other little bastards in that place.” Jeph and Dan laughed as I ignored them, continuing on with my short melody. “I still think it’s funny that they made Mikey have sex with her. Why didn’t they come ask me? I would have totally been up for it!” He started laughing even more to himself, rolling around overdramatically on the floor. I looked over at him curiously.

“She wasn’t supposed to enjoy it,” Jeph noted, causing Bert to smirk.

“I can be rough,” he replied coyly, thrusting his hips towards the carpet, pretending to have an orgasm before collapsing further into a fit of laughter.

“Are you planning on doing anything to Hannah?” I asked cautiously. Bert scratched his head. He had recently gone back to his original ginger hair color, which still took some getting used to.

“Now that I think about it, why not? I’ll come up with some more shit to mess with them.” My eyes widened. Goddamn it Quinn. Why can’t you keep your mouth shut! I sighed and stood up, setting my guitar off to the side.

“I’m gonna go get a beer.”

“That’s the spirit!!” Bert encouraged. I frowned. This isn’t going to end well.

::Mikey’s POV::
::Next Day::

I sat uncomfortably between Bob and Ray on the front couch. They were both watching some movie Frank had put in to try and distract me from the sound of Gerard mumbling in his sleep. He had announced a little bit over an hour ago that he was going to take a nap and barely five minutes later gibberish was heard throughout the bus. It sounded as if he was cutting off the ends of words and piling them all together.

I glanced up at the screen to see a girl falling into a pond, followed by a dashing young man coming to help her out. Too cliché. That does not happen in the real world. A wrinkle appeared on my forehead as an emotion I was unaware of began to accumulate in me. But Frank noticed. He had been watching me consistently ever since Gee left.

“Hey Mikey.” My head snapped in his direction. “Do you want to go get a burger with me?” The emotion expanded.

“You’re a vegetarian Frank.” Embarrassed by the obvious mistake produced by his sorry attempt at getting my mind off of our situation, he tried again.

“Fries?” My eyes observed my surroundings, trying to find a good excuse to decline his request, but were at a loss. A sigh fell from my lungs and I gave an unenthusiastic “Sure.”

Bit by bit I pulled myself up and followed Frank off the bus. We were at a Burger King in some state. I didn’t even know where we were. Or what time it was. But it was cold. Frank pulled the door open for me and I instantly spotted Brian sitting with a few members of our crew. My conscious told me to leave, but Frank pulled me into the heated building, which I was partially grateful for. One of Bob’s drum technicians spotted us and gave a small wave. I nodded curtly as Frank put in our order to the acne covered boy at the register. “We’ll have two orders of fries.”

“One.” I corrected. Frank looked up at me confused. “I don’t want any.”

“Right,” he added quietly. He knew when I was like this I didn’t eat much. He was trying to help, but I didn’t want him to. I appreciated it, but I want to get through this on my own. Because Gerard has to get through his problem all by himself, so I will too.

Brian was watching me. I could particularly feel his eyes on me, over-analyzing every move I made. I was nervous; it felt like if my noticeable frown fell one degree lower he would call off the entire tour. So I loosened up, uncrossed my arms, stood up straight, and tried to look as content as physically possible, which was all quite the task at the time. But, the show must go on. Christy turned around and flashed me a huge smile. “Hey Mikey. Hey Frank. Want to sit with us?” she offered. Frank looked over at me for an answer. I didn’t move.

“No thanks. But you can come back with us to the bus if you want. We miss having a female presence on board.” Her smile grew, knowing that Ray was on the bus and that she actually had permission to go on it now. Ray had told her not to come on because he didn’t know what state anyone would be in at any given time. But Frank had offered, and she immediately accepted the invitation.

A female presence

I reminisced on when the bus had been completely filled with estrogen. Jamia and Alicia and Christy and Hannah. All of them in their made the bus a whole lot more bearable. But now it was back to us five. Just the guys. My thoughts went back to Hannah. I was so grateful that she had no idea what was going on. Perhaps that sickness was a blessing in disguise. Maybe it was the perfect time for her to leave.

And by perfect I’m talking about the fact that she doesn’t have to see her father scrounging around for a drink every chance he can and somehow managing to get…… I don’t even know if I can think about that right now. We had found him late last night outside at the back of the bus lying on a patch of grass. His eyes were the size of fucking saucers and he had a sloppy grin plastered onto his unshaven face.

We didn’t know that it was possible for him to fall this fast.

We weren’t expecting things to get this far ever again.

I don’t want to watch my brother die.