Family Reunion

Tre and Rose hadn't realized it but it had been over two hours since they had said they would meet their friends and family back at Mr. Toads Wild Ride. Adrienne, Billie, Mike and the kids were all waiting outside the ride. Jakob asked if he could ride it again but Billie Joe told his youngest son that they would be leaving soon.

"Hmm, I wonder where they went in the first place... " Adrienne said.

"Frig, who knows," Billie Joe sighed.

"Yep, this is Tre we're dealing with. He could have taken your cousin to Honk Kong for all we know," Mike laughed.

"Oh well either way, I'm going to kick his ass for being late," Billie Joe said. The group of friends and family waited another ten minutes before Billie Joe spotted Tre and Rose sauntering over to them.

"You return... " Mike said to when Tre got up close to him.

"Ah yeah, I'm back," Tre said while everybody waited for him to pull a joke. The joke never came and everybody thought it was slightly odd but shrugged it off.

"So where'd you guys go? And why are you so late?" Billie Joe asked.

"We went and got some Chinese food," Rose said.

"Oh great, let me guess," Billie Joe said with a smirk on his face. "Tre called the waiter wonton right?"

"Yeah how did you know?" Rose said and she seemed pretty serious too.

"Well Tre and I were goofing around on the deck of a pool in a hotel in Beijing and Tre pushed the bellhop into the pool," Billie Joe said while laughing as he recalled it. "And Tre started shouting 'wonton soup!'"

This gave Rose a small chuckle as she pictured it; that was totally something Frank would do. She looked at Frank who was standing right next to her and she smiled at him slightly.

He returned the smile and they didn't say a word to each other. "Okay so let's go home!" Billie Joe said.

"Oh, I want to stay... " Jakob pouted.

"We can always come back another day," Adrienne said to her son.

They all headed out to their separate cars in the parking lot. BJ, Adi, and their sons all got into Billie Joe's scratched BMW. Mike was only going to drive back with his daughter but Ramona said she wanted to drive back with Estelle.

Tre invited Rose to drive home with him and Frankito but Rose felt she should go back with her cousin to surpass any suspicion. Adrienne once again noticed how quiet Rose was. But she didn't say a word to the young woman.

* * *

Almost six and a half hours later, the three vehicles arrived back in Berkeley. Another 10 minutes had past and they were pulling up in Billie Joe's driveway. Rose jumped out of the car quickly and noticed when Mike and Tre's vehicles didn't pull up. 'They must have gone home,' she thought to herself.

It must have been a long time that Rose stood staring at the driveway waiting for Tre because Adrienne was asking her from the front door if she was coming inside. Rose was a little bit embarrassed when she snapped out of her trance and realized everybody was already inside. "Yeah, I'm coming."

Rose went inside slowly and closed the door behind her. She didn't say much to any of her family. She just said, "Hey," to her mom who had spent the day at home.

Then she escaped to her bedroom upstairs and flopped down face first on her unmade bed. She sighed to herself as she turned her head to look at the guest bathroom. Rose slowly lifted her self from the mattress and stumbled her way into the bathroom while dropping her black overcoat to the bedroom floor.

She closed the door and undressed herself while turning on the hot water tap in the bathtub. She slowly stepped into the hot water, while sitting down and starting to bask herself in its painful moisture.

This felt a lot better then what had been troubling her mind for the last day. And what was now newly troubling her mind; the fact that she had found out she was pregnant with Tre's child.

She thought about the harm the hot water might bring to her body and she quickly got out. She sat on the edge of the tub naked while holding her stomach and rocking her self back and forth while starting to cry again.

A part of her hoped the result of the pregnancy test she had taken at Disney Land was a lie. And she still prayed every moment it was.

She dried herself off and without even washing her hair she put on a clean t-shirt that said 'The Clash' across it, and jumped into bed. She closed her eyes and she lay there thinking of Frank. What was he doing right now?

* * *

Ramona wanted to spend the night at Mike's house so Estelle and she could have a sleepover party. Mike arrived home with the two girls and called up Tre as the two friends went to Estelle's bedroom to watch a movie.

Mike tried Tre's home phone and there was no answer. So he called Tre on his cell and Tre took about 20 seconds to pick up. "Yeah?" Tre said quietly as he picked up the phone while sniffling in his sinuses.

"Hey, your not home yet?" Mike said.

"Ah no," Tre said and he sniffled again and tried to wipe his subtle tears by lifting his hand from the wheel of his SUV to his face quickly. He looked in his rearview mirror at a sleeping Frankito in the back seat.

"Ah, Ramona wants to spend the night with Estelle. Are you okay with that?" Mike asked and he sounded kind of like he could tell Tre was upset over something.

"Ah yeah sure, that's fine," Tre said.

"Are you okay man? You've been acting kind of... ." Mike said but he was cut off by somebody talking in the background on the other end.

"Why are you crying daddy?" Frankito asked his father.

"Ah, I got to go," Tre said and he quickly hung up his cell and threw it down on the seat beside him. He had been driving around trying to clear his thoughts. "I'm not crying," Tre said to his now half awake son while looking at him in the mirror. Tre pulled a silly face, "See? Nothing's wrong with daddy."

* * *

Mike sighed as he realized Tre had hung up on him. This was really odd behavior for Tre. Usually he was giddy as hell after going to Disney Land. 'Something must have happened in the last couple of days,' Mike thought.

* * *

Tre arrived home with his son who was very overtired. He carried him upstairs and put him into his pajamas and brushed his teeth. Frankito did not get to stay awake long enough to say good night to his daddy, he was out cold.

When the day was coming to a close Tre wandered into his own bedroom. It was only a few doors down from where Claudia slept with her new boyfriend. He fell down face first on his bed just like Rose did. Except he would stay like this for the rest of the night. "Fuck, what am I going to do? I'm a dead man," Tre said to himself so that only he could hear.

* * *

Another morning rolled around and the hot summer's sun was really beginning to set in. This was the fourth day Rose had been in Berkeley and she would have only about another three days left.

She awoke to the sound of many people talking downstairs. She felt exhausted, but that was because for the second night in a row she had lost sleep over you know what.

She put on a black pair of pants and left on the same t-shirt she had slept in. She had to apply her eyeliner; it was just something she did before ever setting foot outside her room.
She went downstairs and was first met by Jakob and Frankito running through the foyer. As soon as she saw Frankito she knew that Tre was here. She slowed down slightly as she walked into the kitchen. "Morning," Rose said to her family and Green Day's bassist and drummer. She gave Tre a look, and he returned it.

"Ah morning, it's 1:30 though," Billie Joe said as he pointed at the clock.

"Oh crap I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me I was just really tired," she lied.

"Oh well, I've been up since 7," Billie Joe said and he thought about how late that was compared to waking up at 5 while the band was on tour.

Rose saw her mom eating some toast and marmalade while sat on a stool at the counter. Sher put down her toast and looked at her daughter, "So how did you like DisneyLand?"

"It was fun....In fact I bet that's what made me so tired," Rose lied again.

"Yeah you must have been tired. I didn't even know you came home, you just went straight to bed," Sher said.

"I went up to Rose's room before I went to bed at 2:00 and she was still awake," Adrienne added.

"Yeah well I really was tired. I just have a hard time settling down at night. My body clock is all messed up. I think its jetlag." she said. She then looked at Tre and she knew by the look on his face that he had done the exact same thing all night

Sher finished her toast and wiped down her hands and she came over to her daughter and gave her a nice hug. "Oh well, I'm glad you had fun."

"Yeah thanks mom," Rose said and she was actually quite surprised how friendly her mom was being to her.

Her mom pulled out of the embrace and looked at her daughters face, "Ah, why so much eyeliner?"

Rose sighed to herself and thought 'oh well I guess the two seconds of friendliness is over now'. "My eyes are fine," Rose said.

"I don't like it. You try to make yourself look ugly. I know that's not who you are, you use to wear pink and be into non-violent things," Sher said to her daughter.

"Well thank you for calling me ugly AGAIN. But I've grown up and I don't care for pink anymore, but that doesn't make me a violent person," Rose snapped back.

"I didn't say you were violent. I said you were into violent things!" Sher replied.
"Well, I'm not obsessed with Satanism or Marilyn Manson mom! You act like just because I talk in that dark voice sometimes that I'm really evil. It isn't evil I'm just trying to have some fun!" Rose said and she turned to look at the rest of the family.

Billie Joe and Mike were looking up at the ceiling uncomfortably and both sighed. Tre wasn't uncomfortable at all. All he could do was look at Rose and shake his head. "She seems like a pretty nice girl," Rose heard as Frank stepped in.

"This isn't any of your business!" Sher yelled at Tre. Frank stepped down for the mean time and Mike and BJ looked down from the ceiling to stare at Tre.

"Mom, don't yell at him!" Rose shouted.

"I'm getting really fed up with you Rose! All you can do is act like a nasty unlikable person!" Sher yelled at her daughter.

"You're the one that insulted me!" Rose shouted at her mom.

"I don't think we can live together anymore! I'm going back east and you're not coming with me! Stay the fuck out of my life!" Sher said only before Rose ran back off to her room in tears.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Frank snapped at Sher and then took off after Rose.

The rest of the family was more then a little bit shocked at Tre's involvement in their mother daughter fight. "Tre you should just mind your own business," Mike said before Tre had left the room and ran up the stairs.

Tre went up to Rose's room to find the door was locked and he knocked on it a few times. Rose was unsure who was on the other side of the door, but she didn't really care all she said was, "Go away."

She assumed it was her mom who had come upstairs to fight more. Rose would always try to run away from the argument. But her mom would usually follow her around and not give her any space.

"Rose...let me in," Tre said.

She was quite surprised to hear Frank's voice and not that of her mothers. In fact she found it quite relieving. She still didn't like Frank to see her cry. She mumbled something inaudible.

"Come on...unlock the door," Tre said.

Rose was reluctant too, but she unlocked the door quickly and before Tre could open it she ran over to her bed and pulled the comforters up over her body and face.

Tre heard the door unlock and he slowly opened it just in time to see her covering herself with her blanket. He didn't say a word and he quietly stepped into the room and walked towards her bed.

He sat down on the edge of her bed. She couldn't see him but the only way she could tell was when the mattress moved and tilted downwards. "You don't have to keep sticking up for me you know?" Rose said while sniffling.

"I know..." Frank said quietly.

"It's not right what we did together," Rose added.

Frank shook his head while staring at the lump that was hiding under the blankets. He then slowly lifted the blankets off her face and looked her straight in her burning red eyes. "It's not right. But it's so right," Frank smiled before leaning in to kiss her.

It was when their lips parted Tre looked towards the open door and there Billie Joe stood looking on in utter shock.