Did We All Fall Down, Well After All

::Hannah's POV::

Mikey held out his hand to help me up. I gazed up at his eyes, not ready to touch him again.

"Sorry," he said, his eyes down cast. I pulled myself up and walked past him and into the room to sit on the bed next to Dad. He followed, but sat on the ground next to us. Dad was fidgeting in his sleep and groaning. "Gerard." He poked his shoulder. Dad didn't wake up. "Gee, wake up." He began to shake him a little bit. "Gerard!" He bolted up, almost knocking me to the floor.

"Daddy?" His head snapped over to me and I saw that his eyes were red and puffy. I gasped.

"Gee." His head turned over to Mikey, to me, then back again.

"Mikey. Where were you?" How could he not know?

"In Nashville." His brow furrowed and he yawned. Mikey switched focus to me.

"Hannah, I don't want you to be here for this." What!?

"No, please! Un-"

"Hannah," he said more sternly. There was no arguing with him now, no matter how much I wanted to stay. Reluctantly, I got up and left the room, headed towards the rest of the guys. When I knocked on the door, it was quickly opened with all of them at the door.

"He made me leave. I'm really scared." Frank instantly took me into a hug. I wanted to cry, but couldn't. It wasn't in me to cry right now. Frank picked me up and sat me down on the bed.

"To be honest, I'm scared too," he said. Bob and Ray looked at eachother. Being the strongest of the group at the moment, they tried to help.

"You guys hungry? We could order room service," Ray offered.

"That sounds good," Frank answered, and I nodded. I was starving, myself.

"Frank, can I use your phone?" He gave it to me without question and I punched in the memorized number. "Ray, could you see if that any pineapple? And get me any kind of soup."

"Sure thing, Hannah." The ringing stopped.

"Hello?"

"Bert, something terrible has happened." All of the guy's heads snapped over in my direction. Bob motioned for them to leave me alone. I mentally thanked him.

"Shit. It's not the baby is it?" My hand went to my protruding stomach.

"No. It's my Dad. We think he's on drugs again." Bert was silent.

"Hannah, I-. . . . Is he. . . Is Gerard overdosing?"

"I don't know. I hate this Bert!" Then my mind flashed to a shouting conversation I had had with Uncle Mikey a little over a month ago.

"They sounded really sweet. Especially Ber-"

"Bert's the worst! He's the one that got Gerard into drugs and farther into alcohol. Whenever they were around eachother it was like their brain cells just evaporated in their heads!"

My attention went back to him. "Bert? You had something to do with him and his addictions didn't you?"

"A long, long time ago, but not now. I've stopped, myself. I'm surprised he's doing them again. That's the reason we had a falling out. He said I was a 'bad influence' for him after he became sober." Frank came and sat down next to me. Or, rather, laid down with his head at my feet. He stared emotionlessly up at the ceiling.

"Why does my life have to be so terrible?"

"It's not terrible! You have a family and tons of people that love you-"

"I mean in general. All of the things that have happened to me. I've had to deal with living with a drug addict before. I don't want to do it again." Frank poked my leg. I looked down at him.

"Can I talk to Bert?" he asked, turning his head slightly upwards towards me.

"Bert? Frank wants to talk to you."

"Wow. Really? Put him on then." I handed the phone to Frank.

"Hey Bert."

::Mikey's POV::

I got up and made some coffee as soon as Hannah left. It was obvious that Gerard could not keep himself awake for very long. I told him to flip through the channels on the television until he found something he wanted to watch. Soon, I reentered with two cups of coffee. One for me, and one for him.

"Thanks bro." He took it and gulped down half of the burning liquid.

"They told me." His face contorted into a questioning look.

"Told you what?" he asked. I got up, went to his bag, and pulled out the bottle of pills. He winced. I looked at the bottle. It really was full, but the tablets were different.

"Is this really Xanax?" I asked. He nodded his head slowly in shame. "They don't look the same." His gaze shifted to outside the window.

"They're not. Before, I only had half a milligram. These are three milligrams." My eyes bulged.

"Three? Gerard!" His eyes squinted closed as I shouted his name. I watched as tears began to roll down his cheeks and drop onto the sheets of the bed. I set down the bottle and went over to hug him. "Oh, Gerard. Why do you have to do this to yourself?" I could hear him heaving in air as more droplets came from his eyes.

"Everything is just too much right now!" he cried. "I couldn't think of anything else." I sighed.

"I can't help you get out of this. You have to make the decision to stop on your own. But, if I do seeing you go too far I will intervene."

"I can't Mikey! I need them!!" He burst out into tears and collapsed onto my shoulder. "Hannah must think I'm a terrible person. . ."

"She would never think that about you. I know she has faith that you can get through this. We all do. But we can't help you. You have to stop this by yourself." I couldn't force him to do anything. And if I got rid of them, he would just find a way to get the pills back and would be at it worse than before. I knew from experience.

::Hannah's POV::

When Frank had finished talking to Bert, he offered the phone to me, but I didn't take it. I wasn't in the mood to talk to him. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. I sat on the bed, eating my soup while the guys mindlessly watched the news. I hated the news. Nothing good ever happened. All it's ever about is death, war, and murder. This is the world I live in. I'm going to have to raise a kid in it as well. But I tried only to deal with the current problems of my own life. My Dad. He won't be able to get through this. I won't be able to get through this.
Whatever the future held for me, I was hoping that it would end up better than this.