Did We All Fall Down?

*Emma's POV*

The phone rang, interrupting the soft kiss I was sharing with Stephen. He pouted slightly, he was such a girl, it was so cute.

"I'm sorry," I murmured as I got up to get the phone from the bedroom.

"Hello?" I said gaily.

"Somebody's in a good mood." I recognized Gerard's playful voice. I grinned widely and beckoned to Stephen to follow me into the bedroom, pressing a button to put Gerard on speaker-phone.

"Hey, yeah. Stephen's here, you're on speaker." I told him. Stephen looked at me quizzically then looked down at the phone on the nightstand.

"Hey Stephen," Gerard greeted. Stephen squeaked quietly.

"H-hi," he managed to reply.

"Sorry we haven't seen you in ages. Things have been kinda crazy over here. I wanted to know if you and Stephen wanted to hang out. We'd like to have you guys take a listen to the rough cut of the new record." Stephen and I both squealed insanely.

"I-I'll take that as a yes...." Gerard said, barely keeping the laughter from his voice.

"Uh-huh. That right there is definitely a yes!" I laughed excitedly.

"You guys can't tell anybody though, we don't want any leaks." Gerard warned us.

"Of course!" Steve and I said in unison, identical grins plastered on our faces.

"Okay, so when?" I asked. We quickly made plans for the five of them to come over to my place, bringing the CD with them, tomorrow afternoon. We said our goodbyes and I hung up. Steve and I hopped up and down, screeching at the top of our lungs and holding hands. Stuart and Rizzo looked alarmed from behind the bars of their cage.

*Bob's POV*

"Hey guys!" Emma grinned and hugged us as we entered her apartment. Ray, Mikey, and I introduced ourselves to Stephen, a lanky kid that looked like he was on the verge of fainting.

"Okay, so this is before the bells and whistles are put on, not the best sound, just the rough version." Gerard said as he handed Emma a CD-Rom. She took it in her hands like it was a delicate child.

"And we can't let you keep it, unfortunately." Frank said.

"Of course not, just the fact that we get to listen to this is..." she said, entranced by the little disc as she carefully put it into her DVD player and turned the TV on.

"Um, can I see Stuart and Rizzo?" Mikey asked. Emma giggled and ran to her room to get the rats. He beamed as she handed them to him. She pressed a button on the DVD player and stood next to Steve, barely breathing. A faint rhythmic clicking came from the TV's speakers.

"We're gonna have a heart monitor beeping in place of those clicks," Gee explained as we took seats on the futon. Stephen and Emma stood silently listening intently to the music, their grins growing wider and wider by the second. Mikey passed me one of the rats and tapped his foot lightly to the music. Emma covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes, listening with every cell of her body.

Every once in a while one of us would give the title of the song we were listening to or explain something that was going to be added later. The two of them continued to stand through the whole thing, swaying to certain songs, barely stopping themselves from hopping up and down to others. We finally reached "Blood."

"This is gonna be a hidden track, like a minute of silence and then it'll start up." Gee explained quickly. When it was over, Emma and Steve burst out talking.

"Oh, you go first --"
"No, you --" they bickered politely back and forth until finally Stephen spoke.

"That was fucking amazing!" he managed to spit out. We all smiled widely while Emma nodded vigorously. I don't think I had ever seen two kids look so happy. They dove in, talking about what they loved (which seemed to be pretty much everything), how they couldn't wait to hear the final version, how excited they were in general. It was really kind of adorable.

"And oh my God -- Fuckin' Liza Minelli! Oh my God, it's just so fabulous." Emma exclaimed. Gerard grinned widely, it had been his idea to get her to sing a bit for "Mama."

"So, you guys like it?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Love it!" Steve squealed.

Emma piped up, "And the other hundred million fans you have, are going to fall in love with it too!"