Fic: Talitha
Title:Talitha
Rating: PG-13 for implied sexuality
Disclaimer: Never happened, won't happen, please don't google yourself.
Pairing: Mikey/Alicia, glossed over Gerard/Lyn-Z, Frank/Jamia, Pete
Summary: Everything's changed by two lines on a stick, and she's suddenly wide awake and looking at a clock.
Notes: This idea was spawned from a comment I read in an Alicia picspam somewhere, about her having kidney issues. Thanks to the lovely choclitbunny for the beta.
When she knows, she wishes that she could remember the exact moment that it happened, knew like she always heard women that were trying knew, somewhere in the afterglow when sex was still awesome and sort of beautiful, before the sheets started to stick uncomfortably to sweaty skin. Everything's changed by two lines on a stick, and she's suddenly wide awake and looking at a clock.
She doesn't call Mikey right away. It's hard, hands shaking when she calls her mom and wishes that she was out here, in New York, before she steels herself and makes a visit to her PCP. Dr. Lewis is a kind man, with soft blue eyes who hadn't heard of My Chemical Romance before she mentioned that her husband was a member. He does blood test, draws dark vials and covets them away for secret tests, and there's the pee test, just to check functions and there's nothing to worry about because she's been watching her kidneys for years. They made it through Warped; living in a nice apartment in New York with running water and shampoo will be nothing.
As soon as she gets the call, she calls Mikey and asks if she can come visit earlier than before. It's late April now, and the doctor's think she's little over a month already. She knows that she can't tell him over the phone. Everything is too big, too fast, and she's not yet twenty-four to have to face this down. She can't tell him over the phone and waiting for him to get off tour will be too long; she'll crack under the pressure of not being able to tell.
She calls her mom first, when she knows for sure-for sure. She's excited, all Oh, honeys on the same phone that Alicia used to try to call for tickets with. Then she goes quiet.
"Mom?" she says, and she feels five years old, hand still in Bunny's fur.
Her mom sighs. "What do the doctors think about this?"
It's not what she means, and they both know it. Alicia pushes Bunny off her lap.
"They're pretty sure this is going to be okay." It's not the best answer, but there was probabilities and everything seems pretty remote now. Her stomach clenches at the thought in a way that has nothing to do with morning sickness when her mother just makes a Marge Simpson sort of noise and launches into plans to come out to visit for the summer (don't even think about getting out of it, Alicia Marie.)
***
She ends up telling Gerard before Mikey, completely on accident, when he calls her in the taxi on her way to the hotel to meet up with the band. It's barely six AM, and they all know Mikey wouldn't be coherent enough to come pick her up until after nine.
He calls and says, "Hey, any special requests for the bus? I'm going down to the 7-11 with Worm for cigarettes."
Alicia laughs, and it makes her stomach curl in. She thought this shit was only supposed to happen in the mornings, not carry over from two nights before. "Please, please no food." She'll regret it later, she knows, when all there is are cheese curls and Coke Zero. Anything curled with cheese sort of sounds like death right now.
"No food?" Gerard laughs, too high pitched for the hour. He probably hasn't slept. "You want to live on ramen?"
She forces a little laugh until the cab goes over a pothole. Some of the roads in Austin are complete shit, too old and crumbling. It never bothered her before. "I don't think I'm up to discussing food right now."
"You ate airline food?" Gerard's voice goes from teasing to concerned, and he's probably walking closer to Mikey's door already, ready to tell on her. "What did they serve? Last time I had sausage on a red eye, and it was sort of suspect."
"No, Gerard, it's--"
"Oh, shit, you're sick, aren't you? You're not supposed to fly when you're sick or anything. You should have waited until we hit Philly or something." His words are stumbling together, and she's sure he hasn't slept. "You can't be on the bus if you're sick. I mean, no one wants to be on the bus when they're sic--"
"It's not that sort of sick, okay, Gerard? I just need to talk to Mikey about it." She loves her brother-in-law, she does, but at six in the morning, when her stomach is revolting, and she knows that she's going to have to tell Mikey in less than three hours, she can't handle him and his chatter. "Just buy me some orange juice and fruit or something."
Gerard goes quiet, and she loves him a little bit more. He doesn't--usually--make faces and flail around when girls mention periods or cramps or things that could be periods or cramps. He just shuts up.
"I'll be there in twenty, all right?"
He makes a noise, and she hears the elevator open. Apparently he's not going to tell. "You're all right, though, right?"
She sighs and "I'm just pregnant, all right?" slips out before she can stop herself. She's not allowed to take it back.
There's a lot of quiet, like she vacuumed the air out of the elevator and sucked Gerard out into space.
Gerard loses reception before he responds, and she turns her phone off. It's childish and sort of wrong, but she wants the remaining eighteen minutes of her young adulthood to be spent without Gerard being excited or doing the loud, frantic stutter he uses when he doesn't know what to do.
***
It's not that they've never discussed it, but it always was in the frame of a few years from now, when touring slowed down to one a year, maybe less. He didn't want to put that burden on the band, and she didn't really want to give up her time. She had cats and Sharpeis and Myspace to fill her days.
But it was always on their list of things that would happen, like buying a house on the New Jersey coastline in a little tourist town with a boardwalk or repainting the kitchen to match the red and black refrigerator they bought.
***
She doesn't get to tell Mikey until they're all on the bus. Gerard is hovering in a way that's sort of cute in an aggravating way, chewing on gum because he's actually listening to the "No smoking on the bus" rule now, not even cracking a window and smoking out of it, like he is making Frank and Bob.
It's not until they're wrapped around each other, watching Bob decimate Ray on Guitar Hero. She's never met a drummer who wasn't awesome at the game and thinks it's part of some sort of secret training all drummers have to take now. Ray keeps making little distressed noises even though he always knows that he is going to lose against Bob, and Mikey's laughing into her shoulder.
She touches his hair, leans close enough for her lips to brush his ear, and murmurs, "We're going to have a baby."
Alicia feels him go completely still. He turns his head a little, just enough to meet her eyes, and there isn't actually any sort of expression on his face. She's not used to looking at him and not knowing at least part of what he's thinking. He raises his eyebrows.
She stares back and shrugs softly. She starts to pull back, pull away from the strange lack of expression.
He doesn't let her, hands moving so they're under her thighs and he's pulling her close. "Seriously?" There's a faint tremor of something in his voice.
Alicia nods against his shoulder. The game doesn't seem so loud now, and Ray's whines of defeat are distant.
Mikey lifts her off the seat, swings her around in a way that she always forgets he can do now, now that he tries to have muscles and not be Gerard's skinny, awkward little brother. He's fucking beaming now, crooked teeth exposed in the sort of smile that always makes her beam back because he's still sort of stingy with it.
"Oh, oh, shit," he says when he realizes what he's doing, that Ray and Bob are sort of looking at them like he's insane and she's not much better. "Are you okay?"
Alicia doesn't have any of it, launching herself onto Mikey with her legs wrapped around his waist so he has to brace against her thighs. "Not breakable, Mikeyway," she whispers before she kisses him. He laughs into her mouth before pulling back and easing her legs down so she has to stand.
"Fuck," he says, soft, before looking over at Gerard, at Bob and Ray. He kisses her again, hands ghosting along her sides and against her stomach for a moment. "Can I..." He motions to them with his head.
Alicia looks over at Gerard, at the fucking beaming grin that he is barely, barely containing. "Go ahead." She leans against him when he calls for Frank, as loud as he ever gets. His arm wraps around her shoulder. He hasn't showered since the show, and he's sort of rank but still warm and there. There's something besides nerves and fear and worry rushing through her now, some bizarre cross between elation, relief, and pride because he looks so fucking thrilled with his arm around her as he tells the rest of the band, his hand tucked protectively around her elbow.
***
They call friends that night, people that they both know and think need to know now. They call his parents first, and he does most of the talking, first to his mom and then to his dad. She sits and ducks her head, embarrassed by all the questions that Donna asks about her body. It's sort of weird, like they're just now admitting to Mikey's mom that they've had sex, awkward enough to make her squirm in the bunk beside him
They call Sarah next, listen to her giggle on the phone and shriek that "it is seriously the most fucking awesome thing in the world, and I am going to have to call you back so we can talk more about the babyway."
There are a few others, people that Mikey has kept in touch with, and she scrolls down to Pete's number without really thinking about it. She still talks to Pete, likes to harrass him for all the bullshit he put her through, and he and Mikey have casual conversations.
Except when they tell him, Pete is quiet, just long enough for Alicia to twist dirty cotton sheets in her hands. He says, "Can you handle that?" and she tries not to remember the week they spent together, telling each other their dark secrets, all the pills they've ever taken and why.
Mikey grips her hand, but she laughs it off. "Thanks, Pete," she says with all the bitchiness she can manage and ends the call, turns the phone off. She curls up with Mikey in the bunks, wrapping a fleece throw around them even if the bus feels like its 90 degrees.
***
The transition is sort of painless, she tells herself. They were planning on going on hiatus for the next album anyway, and now there's no real way that Mikey is going to leave her for more than a week or so at a time. The rest of the band will do a few special shows with Matt on bass, just a few because it's summer and it's a shame to waste the heat and how most of the fans don't have to get up the next morning for school. It's strange, completely different from the eight months they spent learning to live around each other, and sort of smothering at first, the way he likes to watch her while she eats, likes to attempt to make food for her that almost always burns.
The band agrees to record in New Jersey again. Gerard tries to come over as often as his allergies will allow, in between squabbles about getting a better, bigger apartment (his idea) and if they should make the movie room into a nursery and move all the DVDs and computers into the living room (hers).
She doesn't know why it's so thrilling, to bicker into June when they can find out the sex of the baby and then what they can name it. He wants to know, wants a girl for some reason that he can't explain, and she wants a boy because boys seem like they'd be more fun, easier to handle. She doesn't want to know what the sex is.
The official due date is November 27th, 2008. She sort of hopes that it will be a little earlier, so the baby can be a Scorpio like her. She doesn't tell Mikey, because he's reading more than she is, brain filled with facts that she doesn't want to know.
Gerard waits until the Madison Square Garden to tell the fans that Mikey's going to be going away for a while, gives her a big grin from where she's lurking, just off stage, before he off-handedly mentions that they're going to be expanding the My Chemical Romance family this fall.
She looks at some of the blogs to see what they make of it, and there are some pictures of Mikey looking down and grinning, and how he's not on tour again, and some speculation that one of the "My Chem" girls is could pregnant, but it's mostly more twittering about James and pianos. She's glad in a weird way, because she wants this to be a secret as long as she can keep it.
But it's easy, Mikey spending almost every night at home, and she sleeps with him curled around her. The cats join them, Piglet stretched across her feet. It's safe, easy, and the most serious thing she deals with is whether or not they need to know the sex before they can start haggling names.
***
It doesn't stay that easy. When she wakes up on June 14th, she can't pee. She's pregnant; it's supposed to be natural, things pressing on her bladder and forcing it, but she can't. Over the phone, the nurse sounds sort of concerned and makes an appointment for 10:15 that morning.
Alicia tries to ignore the way her hands are shaking when they get there. Mikey's got her hand in a white-knuckle grip. She's had almost five glasses of water since the night before, and none of it has passed.
When her blood pressure comes back 153/80, it's like the floor gives way, and she's falling. Her head bangs against the opening, and she has to lean onto Mikey more heavily than she meant to. The doctor orders more tests, talks about kidney function and specialists.
Mikey holds onto her. His palms are sweaty. She hopes he's listening or the doctor is writing this down because her mind is flashing back to being six years old and not able to go to sleep overs because she can't not wet the bed. Words like "renal cyst" and "60% function" were tossed around, and her mom was there to soak it up and explain it later.
When the doctor says that things will probably be okay, she doesn't believe and doesn't believe. Her eyes are too warm and there are skips of time, where she's living in her head and remembering things that she wanted to forget. Mikey gets her home and into bed somehow, and they lay wrapped around each other in a way that it too uncomfortable in late spring with the heat from the city, when she's wearing a hoodie and he has jeans on. Neither of them bother to get up and turn on the air conditioner.
***
The band goes on hiatus for real then. You can tech out instrumentals but there isn't a way to replace Gerard. Mikey calls him when they get the results back, that her cysts are back and she has to go back on medication for the first time in eight years. His voice reminds her of the Paramour, lower than normal with just the edges of pleading.
Gerard flies out the next day and gets a hotel as close as he can. There's talks about getting allergy shots, mostly to make Gerard go paler so she and Mikey get to laugh, which is totally sweet because she spends a lot of time on the couch, curls around Bunny or Snowball when she can't be wrapped around Mikey. The dogs don't seem to mind, content to chew on bones at the other end of the couch.
Their apartment is too small for Gerard's presence, visits that are broken up with loud sneezing no matter how much they try to vacuum, and her mom sleeping in the movie room with her clothes in a laundry basket beside the television. They all sort of stumble around each other, except that no one wants her to lift or cook or sleep too little. She spends more time with her nose in baby books, but she only sees all the things that could be going wrong.
There's still some moments where she's excited and still, like when she wakes up on a July morning that's unseasonably cool and she tries to button a denim skirt that used to be just too big enough that she had to use a belt.
Except that it doesn't button or zip because there's a small, small bump just below her bellybutton that sticks out just enough that it doesn't feel like bloat,. Her fingers tremble when she touches it, before she runs back into the bedroom and grabs her camera, takes pictures of Mikey's face when he wakes up and his eyes go soft from sleep and wonder.
His hand is callused but feather-light before he moves to kiss the bump and pulls her back into bed with him. The bedroom door is open; they're terrible hosts.
***
Her mother takes her to see another specialist, another one in a line of doctors that all sort of look the same and don't have names anymore, when the tests are all back and they have to look at their options. The boys need to work on their new album, and she can't be around to see if any of the songs are even remotely connected to this. They're going to have some sort of potluck at Donna's house, even if Donna and Mrs. Iero are the only ones cooking, and Alicia tries to think about that when the doctor slides into his desk across from her.
(Her mom's sharp nails are biting into her skin, constant pressure, and she's glad that she's not in her underwear yet. It's another new doctor, and she's sort of tired of having to get naked, expose her abdomen that isn't as lean as she remembers. She has long skirts made with tie-waists instead of jeans because she's not sure that she wants to get into the giant mess of maternity clothes yet.)
"We have a few options on the table, Alicia," the doctor says, but the options aren't the ones she wants to hear. "We'll try to keep your levels regulated with medication and diet, but if things don't get better, we're going to have to start using dialysis." Her mother's hand slides away from her. Alicia tries not to flinch away from the word, some ugly monster in the shadows that's trying to turn her day into a nightmare.
She nods. "All right."
The doctor is quiet for a moment, flipping through her charts before settling the folder back onto the desk. "I'd be lying if I didn't say that termination might be the safest path for you, at this point."
"Termination," her mom whispers next to her, and Alicia remembers why she didn't want Mikey to come. When he thinks no one's looking, he spend a lot of time with his head down, shoulders hunched up like he's waiting for some bully to come punch him.
Alicia tries to swallow down her words, and she doesn't mean to press her hand against the raised bump that could be gone in three days if she just went with the path of least resistance. "We'll try the meds first, I think."
***
At the potluck, she sits outside with Gerard while he smokes. Mikey is inside helping wash dishes, cleaning up with Frank, Lyn-Z, and the rest of the little crowd that showed up. The house was too small, people tripping over each other, and it made her skin itch to think about it.
He makes noises about how she's not supposed to be around cigarette smoke right now, scratching the cherry out even though he's only had three hits and tucking the cigarette behind his ear.
She nods and pulls her legs up to her chest. There's laughter inside and music, memories being passed back and forth. It's family and good times, exactly the sort of thing that you're supposed have when you want to bring kids into the world.
Gerard sits with her on cold cement and doesn't mention that she's not wearing a coat, just drapes his hoodie over her shoulders.
"The doctor suggested we terminate today," she says, voice just above a whisper. She looks at him, and there are other things that she wants to say I don't know how to tell him or maybe I don't think I can do that. Somewhere her 18 year old self, who was on every Planned Parenthood and NARAL email list possible, is rolling her eyes and stomping about how it's her right.
He lets out a long breath, head tipped back like he's studying the mostly grey sky. He reaches over and rubs her neck and shoulder. It's not a hug, because she would cry if he hugged her and they have to go back inside to all that happiness. They sit on cold concrete in silence until Mikey comes outside and drops down next to them with three plates with chocolate pie.
She leans away from Gerard and whispers that she wants to find out the sex against Mikey's jaw. He kisses her hair and makes contented sounds because he doesn't know that he's not getting to make a choice.
The pie is tasteless, just chocolate pudding cake mix in a store bought crust.
***
Again, she feels like she should know that they're probably going to have a girl. She's not sure why. She's only got a little belly. No one seems to agree on how it should be carried, and it's still a few weeks until she's supposed to be able to feel anything.
Mikey smiles for almost a whole day, and they throw out the three lists of boys' names that they've started. Ultrasounds are never conclusive, but it feels like a safe bet. Now that they have some sort of conclusive reasoning, everyone is telling her that she's carrying too high for it to be a boy.
On the car ride back, when they have pictures that barely look like a baby to her, Mikey says, "I want to use Elena as a middle name. Gee's sort of got dibs on it for a first name, so..."
She nods and leans against him. She's not surprised. "We've got time to figure out the rest."
***
They don't really have time and it seems like they have years. Alicia wakes up every morning to more pills than Mikey and has an empty day in front of her. There's 100,001+ Baby Names and What to Expect When You're Expecting on the table in the living room. When July comes and hits with its heat, she can't get comfortable, all her muscles feeling weirdly stretched as she tries to walk around.
Her mom goes home when she hits week twenty. They hug for too long in the airport terminal, and she whispers encouragement into her hair. She almost wants to get on the plane with her, fly back to wheat fields and hide in the summer sun.
Three days after her mom goes, she finally feels it--her, she has to remind herself, her move. For the first big moment, the happy ones that go in baby books with pastel gingham covers, she doesn't run to find Mikey. She sits on the couch and just feels, follows the movement with her fingers even if she can't see kicks stretch her skin yet.
***
Mikey spends more time with his therapist now, and she tries to devote enough time to all the animals. It sort of breaks her heart that Piglet and Puddles are sort of being edged out, slowly. Mikey plays with them when he's not curled with her on the couch, working, or out with Gerard, but she used to take them on walks and just be able to play. Now her days are filled with making sure she drinks ten glasses of water and measuring sodium, eating steel cut oats and cranberry juice that isn't from concentrate. There's creatinine tests and urine collection which never gets less gross no matter how many times you do it.
***
She has a list of names, goddesses because she can't really name any kid of theirs after something silly. They've gone with Something Elena Rose, because Rose is her own gramma's name. It's got a nice flow to it, three names instead of the usual two.
There's Athena, which is sort of already off her list because there's something about it that drives chills over her spine. She's more into Eastern mythology and history, but everyone knows that Athena burst from her father's skull and never needed a mother. It's the same sort of thinking that she can't have when Mikey's around or when she's on the phone with home.
Anyway, "Athena Elena" sounds sort of tacky. She's really championing something like Brigid or making Kathleen, Deirdre or Elizabeth. Something that has weight and history and strength, which is shockingly hard to find in girl's names.
She starts making videos, little five minute snippets where she talks to the baby. She tells her about the sort of epic name battle and her reasons for the names, how Kathleen was originally because of Katherine of Aragon, except that she liked the clean sounds of Kathleen better. She'd started watching The Tudors with Gerard, and he made Katherine's story sound fantastic, strength and conviction that you'd want. She tells her that she knows that she'll back down, eventually, because Mikey won't be in favor of naming his daughter after a martyr.
Then there's Elizabeth, and she tells the baby to watch the first movie as soon as she's old enough, even if Alicia says no, because you have to understand how a woman that young made an entire ripped-up nation heal. She also like Artemis, but it's a boy's name now.
Sometimes she leaves messages that she's sure the baby won't need if she's there raising it, but she can't stop herself from doing it. It's like a safety net, something to ease her mind because she's having trouble with her kidneys again and every moment is sort of uncomfortable pressure that won't release.
***
They end up spending Mikey's birthday in, just with the band, Matt, Brian, and all three Lord of the Rings movies (if they're still awake, they'll move on to Star Wars). They order Chinese, with plain rice for Alicia. There's too much sodium in the pre-made stuff, so she has to steam her own vegetables to stir in. It's quiet, different from the night they had for his 27th, going to Angels and Kings and dancing in the dark corners with bad music bursting through them.
She picks at her plain rice, steamed baby corn and carrots adding color and only a little bit of flavor, trying to sit so she can breathe easily. The baby is high and into her ribs, kicking where ever it feels that it needs to kick. Mikey has his hands against her belly under the first "maternity" shirt she bought (an XL shirt with an empire waist and ties in the back so it wouldn't fall off), hand against the baby's kicks.
Frank talks about Mama a little, and she wonders if they could maybe send the dogs to live with him and Jamia. She doesn't want to part with them, but they're becoming periphery, all whining and gentle licks to the hand to remind her and Mikey that they're still there.
The television has been moved out into the living room, because Mikey understands compromise when it suits him. They have a non assembled crib and a Pack and Play next to the couch, the only real signs that there is a baby coming besides the name book on the coffee table and the small collection of pregnancy books in the bedroom.
At the end of Fellowship, Alicia gets up to try and use the bathroom while Frank and Brian dispose of the takeout containers. She doesn't feel the least bit bad about her friends cleaning up her apartment, even if she knows they're going to refill her water glass while they're up and moving around.
No one mentions that she has to waddle when she walks now, and no one seems to think that she's a weirdly bloated and distended as she feels, pink stretch marks marring her stomach.
She looks in the mirror and sighs. Her hair is frizzy for the first time in years, roots inches long and coming in wavy, and the delicate skin under her eyes dark looks bruised. The lighting in the bathroom makes her skin seem yellow-tinged and thin. It's not the sort of glow that you hear and read about; it worries her.
But she forces herself to wash her face and go back out to the movie, snuggling back down with Mikey and watching Gandalf fall into Khazad-dûm.
***
Shopping for baby things is perhaps the most bewildering things ever. Alicia expects it to be a lot like regular shopping, like when she and Mikey went to buy their couch. It was new and exciting, buying a new couch for their apartment because they were married and married couples did things like buy couches.
Buying baby things is nothing at all like couches.
Donna takes her, just to look, to a Babys'R'Us when the boys are busy arguing over string arrangements, and it's like everything's sort of gone off its access. There are carseats that cost three hundred dollars that look like they should be able to shoot your toddler into space and rich oak furniture that is probably heavier than her entire bedroom set. It's uglier too.
She fingers the edge of some yellow bedding that reminds her of marshmallows. There are lambs and chicks printed across it. She remembers the dye packs that her parents used to buy for Easter eggs and thinks maybe this is going to be all right.
***
The only thing, the last thing, she knows for sure about this pregnancy comes when she goes to yet another nameless, faceless specialist. The doctor is a woman this time, who looks at her results and crosses her hands over the files. "You have to go on dialysis."
Alicia nods and squeezes Mikey's hand before she takes off her fall jacket and shows the doctor the white crystals on her shoulders, on the bend of her arm. Mikey found them, and he flinches away having to see them again.
The doctor makes a grim sort of noise. "You have to go on dialysis today." Her eyes go soft. "At this point, the fetus should be viable." It's only been twenty-nine weeks. The baby doesn't even weigh three pounds. "We could go in, do a C-section, and a tubal ligation while we're there."
The air is sort of sucked out of the room. She feels like she's been cunt-punched, like she's drunk on tour again and one of the three other female techs fought a little too dirty and now she can't breathe. Mikey doesn't look too much better, shoulders curved in with an abused-puppy look to his eyes.
She takes his hand again, threads their fingers together. He's letting her make this decision. Her mouth is bitter. "Can I go on dialysis while I'm still pregnant?" she asks.
The doctor nods. "You could. It's not a permanent solution."
"I'm not permanently pregnant," she says, voice soft. Mikey squeezes her hand.
The doctor--the plaque on her desk says Dr. S. K. Henceroth but they won't remember it when they leave--rubs her eyes. She's tired. "Ms. Simmons, you understand that you're in kidney failure?"
Alicia notices that the carpet is orange but completely flat, the 70s retrofitted for the modern business chic. The doctor doesn't have to tell her what's going to happen next, how this little miracle is going to end. "We know."
When they get home, Mikey calls Ray to let him know that he won't be at practice. She watches him from the kitchen, head bowed as he says, "Hey, Toro. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, I just need the night off." She can hear that something's wrong in his voice, something that Gerard would hear even over cellphone lines, maybe even Brian. Ray's half drunk on new chords, not thinking clearly.
Alicia puts water on for tea, walking around him and careful not to touch while the conversation goes on a little bit longer. Mikey has the phone turned almost all the way up, and she can hear snatches of what Toro's saying on the other line, revisions to the basslines that he wants to make.
Mikey takes off his jacket and drapes it over the kitchen counter before he looks at her. She busies herself with tea, even if neither of them particularly like it. She's not allowed to drink coffee anymore, and there are a few cans of instant lurking around if Mikey gets too desperate.
She's pulling the box of Celestial Seasoning's out when he takes her arm, turns her gently to look into her eyes. They can't hug very well anymore.
"Alicia," he says. His voice is higher, like a boy. His eyes look twenty years younger, pupils too wide in the dim light. She looks at him and knows all the words that he wants to say, the questions. He kisses her forehead and murmurs, "We'll get through this." It sounds more like a prayer than a promise.
***
When two days pass and Mikey finally leaves to go back to the studio, she's not exactly surprised when she gets the call from Gerard. "Hey."
He exhales loudly. "Hi."
Piglet drops a ball at her feet, and she shakes her head sadly at him. There is no way that she's bending down to pick that up. She kicks at it half-heartedly, and it seems to be enough. Dogs are simple like that.
"Mikey told you?" It's weirdly quiet in the apartment, without the hum of the air conditioner. Her laptop is in another room; there isn't any music playing. She can hear the bell on a cat collar and her legs shifting on the couch. "He's on his way."
"I know. He's late." Gerard sighs. A lighter flicks on the other side. "Tell me how bad this is, really."
She closes her eyes and kicks the ball when Piglet brings it back. "How bad did he say?" Alicia doesn't recognize her voice.
"He's worried that you're both going to leave him." There's a long stretch where neither of them talk, and she can hear Frank laughing in the background. Idly, she wonders if the rest of the band knows. She hasn't even called her mom, doesn't know how to put it into the words.
"It's not that bad." Alicia wishes she could curl her knees up. "There's a good chance that," she stops herself, steadies herself. She's not sure what she wants to say.
"You didn't tell him that the doctors wanted to terminate." His voice isn't accusatory, but she feels like he wants to yell. There's just a fine tremor in his voice, something that reminds her of California, when he called her and said that he was worried Mikey wasn't going to come back.
She exhales through her nose. "I couldn't put that on him." She chews the inside of her cheek.
"I know."
Alicia rubs her eyes. They're dry. She's cried about this with Mikey, but now it's just cold scientific fact. "The baby is going to make it." She tries to say it like she'd imagine a lioness talking about her cubs, ears back from a threat. She doesn't feel that brave, but she can fake it.
"Oh," Gerard says. It's all there really is to say.
"Yeah." She pats the couch when Piglet comes back over. The dog hops up, and she runs her hand over its warm fur. "You'd better not be writing a song about this." She keeps her tone light.
Gerard doesn't laugh. "Hey, Mikey's going to be here soon. I probably shouldn't be on the phone, in case, you know." His voice is sort of shaken, and she's worried about him now. "And Toro and Bob have some shit they want me to hear. So I should go, and I will see you at lunch tomorrow or something." He ends the call without saying goodbye.
Alicia taps her Sidekick to her mouth for a few minutes before calling Donna and Lyn-Z, just to let them know what's going on. She makes it through both conversations without crying and considers it a coup. She leaves a voicemail with Brian, glad that he doesn't pick up because she doesn't know how to tell him Hey, I just told Gerard that I'm dying, He seemed sort of freaked. Watch out for him and Mikey, all right? without breaking down.
***
She starts making more videos, and they're things that she always wanted to tell her daughter. Some of them have to be stopped and restarted because she does break down. She talks about elementary school and is careful to censor her mouth. She doesn't know who is going to show these to the baby.
Mikey is home more, clings to her when he can. He goes hours without speaking to her, just holding onto her arms like she'll crumble if he lets go. They ease into October with twice weekly appointments at the hospital and at least one specialist appointment. Her entire family is coming to town for her birthday, and they're going to stay. She sees Gerard and Donna almost every day. No one mentions that there's an album being stalled.
She idly wonders if she's going to get to hear any of it, before it's polished, like she was able to with The Black Parade.
When she tells her mom, her mom snaps that she's being morbid, that she'll be fine.
Alicia starts making her videos in the bathroom, where Mikey usually won't follow her. There's one for her parents, even though she doesn't know what to say beyond that she loves them and Peter and Dakota. She cries in this video and decides Fuck it. Her hair is a mess, she hasn't put on any makeup in three weeks, and she has to sit on the toilet to talk into a video camera because standing for too long is too hard on her. She's tired and her back hurts. Her skin itches.
There's videos for Mikey too, carefully burned onto DVDs with her laptop when he finally falls asleep. She keeps the original video files in .rars, in case DVD goes out of fashion sooner than predicted.
When she's done with her videos, she has enough to fill one of her fat CD wallets, and she gives it to Donna on October 21st. She doesn't say what they are, just that she needs to keep them safe for Mikey. There's one for her, to thank her for everything and hope that she watches out for Mikey.
The backups, .rars and another stuffed CD wallet, are packaged up, and she sends those to Lyn-Z because her organization system is better than Gerard's.
***
It's harder and harder to concentrate, and she and Mikey don't get out of bed on the 24th beyond to get waffles and water for their medications. She assumes that he feeds the cats, and the dogs but time is starting to become fluid when it's not sticking to her and refusing to budge. She's been pregnant forever. Her breasts ache, feel swollen, and she just wants everything to be over. There's still a month left.
Mikey winds himself back around her, arms around her body and one leg between hers, breathing against her neck. "We still need a name."
She wishes it was easy to turn around and look at him, memorize the way his face looks. "I like Deirdre," she says. It's a morbid name, with a morbid story, and she sort of likes that. "She was a beautiful Irish princess."
He laughs and shifts. He crawls over her carefully, mostly standing up to get over her gross fatness so their faces can meet. Mikey hasn't flatironed his hair in days, and there's no product, just sort of flying around his face, wispy. "Deirdre Elena Rosemarie Way."
His chin is tilted up, like he's daring her to question the change he's made. She just says, "That's a very big name for a little girl."
"She'll grow into it," he says quietly, and he kisses her. It's gross with morning breath layered with syrup and butter, but she leans into it anyway.
***
The next morning, she wakes up and only makes it three steps before she's bent over and puking on the white carpet. She closes her eyes, still can't look at her own vomit. It's just a series of wet splats, some of it on her belly and seeping into the ridiculously plus-sized t-shirt she wears to bed now.
She slaps a hand over her mouth when the gagging stops, her stomach twisting in a way that lets her know it's not over. There are only nine more steps to the bathroom, and then there's the sink. She can make it that far, maybe, in a minute.
Alicia holds terribly still, clean hand clutching the corner of the bed and trying to figure out the best plan of attack.
"You okay?" Mikey murmurs, still wrapped in three comforters and an old afghan that some aunt crocheted for a wedding gift.
"I threw up on the carpet," she says. It's like being in Kindergarten again, when she went to go sit for story time and it just welled up, unable to hold it in. The nine steps seem like ninety now.
Mikey's up and at her side before she can ask him, shivering slightly in his boxer briefs. He sidesteps the mess of sick and takes her elbow, and squeezes it. "Come on," he whispers. They always seem to whisper and murmur now, like they're hiding from some monster in the wings that will swoop down if they're too loud.
She doesn't make it to the bathroom before she throws up again, and her throat burns with it. Mikey holds her, pushing back her hair. Some hits her feet and she's sure that it gets him too.
"Sorry," she says when it's over, absently brushing her mouth clean with the hand that Mikey isn't clinging to. "I just couldn't--"
"It's okay," he says. His voice runs high, sort of frantic, and he's suddenly shaking as he flicks on the lights. She squints. "We need to get you to the hospital." He doesn't let her go, hand gripping tighter and almost bruising.
"It'll be okay--"
Mikey pulls her back from the second mess. There's blood mixed in, with the run of brown and yellow bile, and she can taste it now around the morning breath and acrid taste. He helps her into the bathroom, maneuvers her so she can sit on the toilet and kicks the bathroom trash can over. "I have to call for an ambulance. Just stay there, okay?"
He looks at her like he wants to break, and she wants to be the one to run around and make these arrangements. He's the baby of his families, even if there are only two of them in his first and he's got a year on the youngest in his second, and he shouldn't have to handle everything alone.
She nods, mute, and looks down at her yellowed hands.
***
Later, when it's almost the 26th, she can't remember coming into the hospital or leaving the apartment. Everything feels like it's sort of swimming in her head. She knows that Mikey's by her side, his hand holding onto hers with bruising force, and she can smell old cigarettes. Gerard is close or has been close.
She's vaguely aware that she's not pregnant, that they brought in Deirdre (Elena Rosemarie Way, because Mikey was absolutely serious and the nurses cooed over it) who weighs a little over four pounds, almost four and a half. She holds her with loose arms until someone, probably Donna, takes her. They're talking about diuretics because she's retaining fluid. She's not coherent enough to know if they mean her-Deirdre or her-Alicia. There's more words, things sort of sliding into Charlie Brown speak.
Her eyes slide closed, and she feels Mikey press his mouth to the side of hers, the top of his lip scraping her cheek with the stubble.
***
Mikey's dozing in the chair pulled closest to her bed when she wakes up again, sunlight in through the hospital window. She's not exactly sure where she is, just that Gerard and Lyn-Z are sitting against the wall facing her with sketchbooks and charcoal smudges on their cheeks. They're both in sweat pants and black t-shirts, like they just rolled out of bed and came here. It's probably even true. Everything still feels sort of numb. She's aware of the incision on her belly, but she can't actually tell how deep it is. She doesn't look.
There are machines making noise, bags hanging off stands that remind her of old coat racks. There's a bag near her bed with brown urine dripping into it. She feels small and washed out, tattoos like bruises on her skin.
It takes her two tries to talk. "How long have you been here?" she says.
Lyn-Z is up before Gerard, grabbing a pitcher just out of Alicia's reach and filling a styrofoam cup with water. "I've been in and out. Gerard got here yesterday, with Donna." She hands the cup over to Alicia.
It's only half full, and she has trouble holding onto it. Some of the water slides down her chin, dots her hospital gown.
Gerard stands at the foot of her bed, fingering the white blankets with dirty fingers and looking vaguely apologetic, big eyes and overly large frown, when he leaves fingerprints. "Your parents are here. Mom went to pick them up." He hasn't shaved either, pale enough that she can make out the fine dusting of a neck beard.
They're all whispering. Mikey snorts in his sleep and shifts, head tipping down so his chin is planted firmly against his chest.
She nods and looks around the room. "Where's Deirdre?" She wants to know where everyone else is, the rest of the band and maybe her friends that she hasn't had time for in three months.
"Nursery. They took her when Mikey passed out." Lyn-Z takes the cup and holds it for Alicia without having to be asked, tips it up so she can drink without dribbling on herself like a baby. "We can have them bring her back. They're going to need to change your pad soon anyway."
Alicia makes a face that sort of mirrors Gerard's, scrunched up nose. She'd almost forgotten that part. The best part of being pregnant, honestly.
She pushes on Lyn-Z's wrist to tell her that she doesn't want anymore water. She's coherent enough to understand things now. "I want to see her, and I want to talk to a doctor, find out what's going on." Her voice lilts up at the end like it's a question. She learned in college that it was a linguistic characteristic of women, something to make them seem less assertive. If there was ever a time she wanted to sound assertive, it was then.
Gerard and Lyn-Z exchange a look, eyebrows moving. The air goes tense for a moment, eyebrow talk falling into an eyebrow fight, before Lyn-Z sets the cup down on the side table. "I'll go take care of it."
"How long has he been asleep?" she asks, as soon as Lyn-Z is gone.
He doesn't look at her, playing with the burn hole on his shirt that is big enough to fit his second and third hole through. "I think about forty-five minutes. He wanted to stay up long enough to talk to you, I think."
She nods and moves her legs under the blankets. They're smaller than she remembers, bone thin. "Has he taken his meds?"
"No," Gerard sits down on the edge of her bed, just to the left of her feet. "He hasn't eaten either." He looks at her, and he seems older than thirty-one, dark circles and lines around his eyes and mouth.
She almost reaches over and touches Mikey's hair, but his entire body is curled up around itself, protecting itself from something bigger. She settles for just watching him breathe, ignoring the sensation that wells up from just below her stomach and pushes itself all the way into her skull. Her lips tremble.
They wait for the doctor and Lyn-Z, with the baby. It's not quiet with the beeps of machines and Gerard humming something under his breath that she doesn't recognize.
***
When Deirdre is brought in, she holds her as close as she can and just breathes in, tries to make a memory of it, the sour smell of formula and the new smell of baby. There's dark hair on her head, just a dusting, and her eyes aren't open. She smells Alicia, and her lips move, seeking out. She expects her to make a squeak, like the litter of kittens did in Missouri, in the back of her uncle's shed, when they were first born and blind and only knew their mother through scent.
She nicknames her Cat in her head, none of the Dee shit she was considering before, and she's crying now as she kisses the baby's small cheeks and looks at her impossibly small fingernails that shouldn't be real.
Mikey sleeps through most of her first embarrassing attempts to feed the baby, with Lyn-Z and the nurse on hand and Gerard looking politely away until Cat's latched. It hurts, sharp tugs and pulls that she hadn't been expecting, but she can feel her nose pressed against her breast, the tension that falls out of the baby's body when she's feeding.
Her stupid blubbering wakes Mikey up, but he doesn't seem to mind, crawling half into the bed to watch Cat. His eyes are soft when he tries to wrap Cat's fingers around one of his, but they don't go all the way around. His mouth tastes like bad hospital coffee and jello when they kiss. Someone's camera goes off.
***
The doctors are barely optimistic that she'll be able to last until they can find a transplant. It's going to be two months, has to be after any major surgery, before they can put her on a list. One of them pats her hand and says, "You're young, a new mother, and were good health besides. You'll look great to the committee."
Her brain sticks on the "were." Mikey doesn't want to talk about it.
She's allowed to go home a day before her twenty-fourth birthday, and the apartment is shockingly clean, with her parents and brothers, Mikey's bandmates, and just people. There's more food than has ever been prepared in their kitchen before.
"Oh, fuck, I'm crying again," she mutters when Mikey helps her onto the couch, which has been vacuumed, seriously. There's a noticeable lack of cat hair.
Frank comes up behind her and gives an awkward hug over the back of the couch. "You just gave birth. I think you're allowed to cry. You're still hardcore."
Mikey kisses her again, even if Frank is holding onto her, with that weird soft look on his face, all understated smile that looks different--dreamy--and smooth forehead. "We sent the cats over Mom's for now, just 'til we get settled."
"And Jamia and I have Pig and Puddles. They're giving Mama hell." Frank pulls his arms back so Mikey can have her to himself.
Alicia nods. She's off most of the pain meds now, but she's still dreamy, still tired most of the time. Someone gives her a plate of food and she nibbles on it, watching Cat being passed from Frank to Ray to her mom to Dakota and back to Mikey.
His hands don't shake anymore when he takes her, not like they did at the hospital for the first time, and she fits in his arms. She watches Mikey move to talk to Gerard, rocking back and forth where he stands to keep Cat asleep and knows things are going to be all right.
***
She sleeps more and more now, misses most of the visitors coming through. Cat sleeps next to her, and they've kicked most of the their blankets aside for the crocheted coverlet and a space heater. Their bed is warmer than she would have thought. Mikey doesn't complain of being cold, just wears a hoodie to bed and keeps one hand on the small of her back.
Her body feels both heavy and light, and she knows that she's running a fever most days. Her skin feels like it's baking off some nights, when she's lying there in a pair of granny panties that she'll probably bleed through and nothing else. Her stomach is soft and stretched out, but Mikey still kisses it and lays his head against it when they're alone in the apartment, Cat curled up on her chest.
Mikey goes to practice on the 7th because Gerard shows up at the apartment and literally stands in their bedroom and waits for him to get dressed. Alicia lays in bed with the baby and watches Gerard. She's too hot to bother wearing a shirt. He only looks into her eyes when they make small talk over Mikey's shuffling.
When Mikey goes into the bathroom, she sits up and gathers the coverlet onto her chest, covers the nursing bra "Hey," she whispers, because she doesn't want her husband to hear. She's learned to love the soft and dreamy look he has, where he whispers about how tiny Cat is, how he doesn't know how he could have some part in that.
Gerard's eyebrows shoot up. He looks better than he did in the hospital, showered, shaved, and wearing clothes without holes. "Yeah?" He moves forward and sits on Mikey's side of the bed. He makes some motion towards Cat.
Alicia picks her up and hands her over. The coverlet falls down; Gerard's eyes snap back up to her shoulder like they're made of rubber bands. "I need you to do me a favor."
"Sure." Gerard's less sure about holding the baby, holds his upper body very still. He won't stand and hold her, or walk.
"Can you buy formula, while you're out?" The fever is drying her out, and she's worried that there won't be anything for Cat. She feels her teeth chattering and lays back down. It's too, too cold, even with the space heater blasting. "Just a can or so."
Gerard's eyes are on the baby's sleeping face. She sleeps more than anything. Her eyes haven't opened yet. "Sure. Anything else?" He glances at her.
"Tell me I made the right decision?" She tries to make it into a joke, but there are tears sliding out of her eyes, warmer than her body. She's surprised they don't turn to steam.
He leans over and kisses her forehead like she's seen him do to Mikey. "Get some sleep, all right? Your mom is here if you need anything, and Lyn-Z said she'd stop over later." He shifts Cat so he can wipe tears off Alicia's face with his left hand.
She watches him and tries to think how she can plead her case, the decisions that she made to protect Mikey and the ones she's going to make now. Her mind is blank.
Gerard lays the baby down next to her. "Come on, Mikey," he calls as he slides off the bed. "None of us give a shit about your hair." He stops by the doorway, his face half angled away from her so she can't read his lips. It sounds like he says "You did good, kid," but she could be wrong.
It's easier to pretend that she's not.
Mikey emerges from the bathroom ten minutes later smelling like her pomade and too much mousse. He kisses her feverish mouth, and she clings to him for a minute. "I love you," he whispers because she's almost asleep, again.
"Love you, too," she says, just as softly and bites teasingly on his lip. "Hurry back."
"Always." He kisses her again, three quick, chaste kisses, before Gerard is calling his name again, and he leaves with a sheepish look on his face and one of her scarves.
She lays on her side tries to remember to be careful of her stitches, and listens to her mother cooking in the kitchen, wishes she could hear the click-clack of dog nails on the linoleum.
Alicia sleeps to the steady sounds of Cat's breathing and dreams of waking up, of seeing her as a little girl and a young woman with her eyes and Mikey's smile and asphodel petals in her hair.
Rating: PG-13 for implied sexuality
Disclaimer: Never happened, won't happen, please don't google yourself.
Pairing: Mikey/Alicia, glossed over Gerard/Lyn-Z, Frank/Jamia, Pete
Summary: Everything's changed by two lines on a stick, and she's suddenly wide awake and looking at a clock.
Notes: This idea was spawned from a comment I read in an Alicia picspam somewhere, about her having kidney issues. Thanks to the lovely choclitbunny for the beta.
When she knows, she wishes that she could remember the exact moment that it happened, knew like she always heard women that were trying knew, somewhere in the afterglow when sex was still awesome and sort of beautiful, before the sheets started to stick uncomfortably to sweaty skin. Everything's changed by two lines on a stick, and she's suddenly wide awake and looking at a clock.
She doesn't call Mikey right away. It's hard, hands shaking when she calls her mom and wishes that she was out here, in New York, before she steels herself and makes a visit to her PCP. Dr. Lewis is a kind man, with soft blue eyes who hadn't heard of My Chemical Romance before she mentioned that her husband was a member. He does blood test, draws dark vials and covets them away for secret tests, and there's the pee test, just to check functions and there's nothing to worry about because she's been watching her kidneys for years. They made it through Warped; living in a nice apartment in New York with running water and shampoo will be nothing.
As soon as she gets the call, she calls Mikey and asks if she can come visit earlier than before. It's late April now, and the doctor's think she's little over a month already. She knows that she can't tell him over the phone. Everything is too big, too fast, and she's not yet twenty-four to have to face this down. She can't tell him over the phone and waiting for him to get off tour will be too long; she'll crack under the pressure of not being able to tell.
She calls her mom first, when she knows for sure-for sure. She's excited, all Oh, honeys on the same phone that Alicia used to try to call for tickets with. Then she goes quiet.
"Mom?" she says, and she feels five years old, hand still in Bunny's fur.
Her mom sighs. "What do the doctors think about this?"
It's not what she means, and they both know it. Alicia pushes Bunny off her lap.
"They're pretty sure this is going to be okay." It's not the best answer, but there was probabilities and everything seems pretty remote now. Her stomach clenches at the thought in a way that has nothing to do with morning sickness when her mother just makes a Marge Simpson sort of noise and launches into plans to come out to visit for the summer (don't even think about getting out of it, Alicia Marie.)
***
She ends up telling Gerard before Mikey, completely on accident, when he calls her in the taxi on her way to the hotel to meet up with the band. It's barely six AM, and they all know Mikey wouldn't be coherent enough to come pick her up until after nine.
He calls and says, "Hey, any special requests for the bus? I'm going down to the 7-11 with Worm for cigarettes."
Alicia laughs, and it makes her stomach curl in. She thought this shit was only supposed to happen in the mornings, not carry over from two nights before. "Please, please no food." She'll regret it later, she knows, when all there is are cheese curls and Coke Zero. Anything curled with cheese sort of sounds like death right now.
"No food?" Gerard laughs, too high pitched for the hour. He probably hasn't slept. "You want to live on ramen?"
She forces a little laugh until the cab goes over a pothole. Some of the roads in Austin are complete shit, too old and crumbling. It never bothered her before. "I don't think I'm up to discussing food right now."
"You ate airline food?" Gerard's voice goes from teasing to concerned, and he's probably walking closer to Mikey's door already, ready to tell on her. "What did they serve? Last time I had sausage on a red eye, and it was sort of suspect."
"No, Gerard, it's--"
"Oh, shit, you're sick, aren't you? You're not supposed to fly when you're sick or anything. You should have waited until we hit Philly or something." His words are stumbling together, and she's sure he hasn't slept. "You can't be on the bus if you're sick. I mean, no one wants to be on the bus when they're sic--"
"It's not that sort of sick, okay, Gerard? I just need to talk to Mikey about it." She loves her brother-in-law, she does, but at six in the morning, when her stomach is revolting, and she knows that she's going to have to tell Mikey in less than three hours, she can't handle him and his chatter. "Just buy me some orange juice and fruit or something."
Gerard goes quiet, and she loves him a little bit more. He doesn't--usually--make faces and flail around when girls mention periods or cramps or things that could be periods or cramps. He just shuts up.
"I'll be there in twenty, all right?"
He makes a noise, and she hears the elevator open. Apparently he's not going to tell. "You're all right, though, right?"
She sighs and "I'm just pregnant, all right?" slips out before she can stop herself. She's not allowed to take it back.
There's a lot of quiet, like she vacuumed the air out of the elevator and sucked Gerard out into space.
Gerard loses reception before he responds, and she turns her phone off. It's childish and sort of wrong, but she wants the remaining eighteen minutes of her young adulthood to be spent without Gerard being excited or doing the loud, frantic stutter he uses when he doesn't know what to do.
***
It's not that they've never discussed it, but it always was in the frame of a few years from now, when touring slowed down to one a year, maybe less. He didn't want to put that burden on the band, and she didn't really want to give up her time. She had cats and Sharpeis and Myspace to fill her days.
But it was always on their list of things that would happen, like buying a house on the New Jersey coastline in a little tourist town with a boardwalk or repainting the kitchen to match the red and black refrigerator they bought.
***
She doesn't get to tell Mikey until they're all on the bus. Gerard is hovering in a way that's sort of cute in an aggravating way, chewing on gum because he's actually listening to the "No smoking on the bus" rule now, not even cracking a window and smoking out of it, like he is making Frank and Bob.
It's not until they're wrapped around each other, watching Bob decimate Ray on Guitar Hero. She's never met a drummer who wasn't awesome at the game and thinks it's part of some sort of secret training all drummers have to take now. Ray keeps making little distressed noises even though he always knows that he is going to lose against Bob, and Mikey's laughing into her shoulder.
She touches his hair, leans close enough for her lips to brush his ear, and murmurs, "We're going to have a baby."
Alicia feels him go completely still. He turns his head a little, just enough to meet her eyes, and there isn't actually any sort of expression on his face. She's not used to looking at him and not knowing at least part of what he's thinking. He raises his eyebrows.
She stares back and shrugs softly. She starts to pull back, pull away from the strange lack of expression.
He doesn't let her, hands moving so they're under her thighs and he's pulling her close. "Seriously?" There's a faint tremor of something in his voice.
Alicia nods against his shoulder. The game doesn't seem so loud now, and Ray's whines of defeat are distant.
Mikey lifts her off the seat, swings her around in a way that she always forgets he can do now, now that he tries to have muscles and not be Gerard's skinny, awkward little brother. He's fucking beaming now, crooked teeth exposed in the sort of smile that always makes her beam back because he's still sort of stingy with it.
"Oh, oh, shit," he says when he realizes what he's doing, that Ray and Bob are sort of looking at them like he's insane and she's not much better. "Are you okay?"
Alicia doesn't have any of it, launching herself onto Mikey with her legs wrapped around his waist so he has to brace against her thighs. "Not breakable, Mikeyway," she whispers before she kisses him. He laughs into her mouth before pulling back and easing her legs down so she has to stand.
"Fuck," he says, soft, before looking over at Gerard, at Bob and Ray. He kisses her again, hands ghosting along her sides and against her stomach for a moment. "Can I..." He motions to them with his head.
Alicia looks over at Gerard, at the fucking beaming grin that he is barely, barely containing. "Go ahead." She leans against him when he calls for Frank, as loud as he ever gets. His arm wraps around her shoulder. He hasn't showered since the show, and he's sort of rank but still warm and there. There's something besides nerves and fear and worry rushing through her now, some bizarre cross between elation, relief, and pride because he looks so fucking thrilled with his arm around her as he tells the rest of the band, his hand tucked protectively around her elbow.
***
They call friends that night, people that they both know and think need to know now. They call his parents first, and he does most of the talking, first to his mom and then to his dad. She sits and ducks her head, embarrassed by all the questions that Donna asks about her body. It's sort of weird, like they're just now admitting to Mikey's mom that they've had sex, awkward enough to make her squirm in the bunk beside him
They call Sarah next, listen to her giggle on the phone and shriek that "it is seriously the most fucking awesome thing in the world, and I am going to have to call you back so we can talk more about the babyway."
There are a few others, people that Mikey has kept in touch with, and she scrolls down to Pete's number without really thinking about it. She still talks to Pete, likes to harrass him for all the bullshit he put her through, and he and Mikey have casual conversations.
Except when they tell him, Pete is quiet, just long enough for Alicia to twist dirty cotton sheets in her hands. He says, "Can you handle that?" and she tries not to remember the week they spent together, telling each other their dark secrets, all the pills they've ever taken and why.
Mikey grips her hand, but she laughs it off. "Thanks, Pete," she says with all the bitchiness she can manage and ends the call, turns the phone off. She curls up with Mikey in the bunks, wrapping a fleece throw around them even if the bus feels like its 90 degrees.
***
The transition is sort of painless, she tells herself. They were planning on going on hiatus for the next album anyway, and now there's no real way that Mikey is going to leave her for more than a week or so at a time. The rest of the band will do a few special shows with Matt on bass, just a few because it's summer and it's a shame to waste the heat and how most of the fans don't have to get up the next morning for school. It's strange, completely different from the eight months they spent learning to live around each other, and sort of smothering at first, the way he likes to watch her while she eats, likes to attempt to make food for her that almost always burns.
The band agrees to record in New Jersey again. Gerard tries to come over as often as his allergies will allow, in between squabbles about getting a better, bigger apartment (his idea) and if they should make the movie room into a nursery and move all the DVDs and computers into the living room (hers).
She doesn't know why it's so thrilling, to bicker into June when they can find out the sex of the baby and then what they can name it. He wants to know, wants a girl for some reason that he can't explain, and she wants a boy because boys seem like they'd be more fun, easier to handle. She doesn't want to know what the sex is.
The official due date is November 27th, 2008. She sort of hopes that it will be a little earlier, so the baby can be a Scorpio like her. She doesn't tell Mikey, because he's reading more than she is, brain filled with facts that she doesn't want to know.
Gerard waits until the Madison Square Garden to tell the fans that Mikey's going to be going away for a while, gives her a big grin from where she's lurking, just off stage, before he off-handedly mentions that they're going to be expanding the My Chemical Romance family this fall.
She looks at some of the blogs to see what they make of it, and there are some pictures of Mikey looking down and grinning, and how he's not on tour again, and some speculation that one of the "My Chem" girls is could pregnant, but it's mostly more twittering about James and pianos. She's glad in a weird way, because she wants this to be a secret as long as she can keep it.
But it's easy, Mikey spending almost every night at home, and she sleeps with him curled around her. The cats join them, Piglet stretched across her feet. It's safe, easy, and the most serious thing she deals with is whether or not they need to know the sex before they can start haggling names.
***
It doesn't stay that easy. When she wakes up on June 14th, she can't pee. She's pregnant; it's supposed to be natural, things pressing on her bladder and forcing it, but she can't. Over the phone, the nurse sounds sort of concerned and makes an appointment for 10:15 that morning.
Alicia tries to ignore the way her hands are shaking when they get there. Mikey's got her hand in a white-knuckle grip. She's had almost five glasses of water since the night before, and none of it has passed.
When her blood pressure comes back 153/80, it's like the floor gives way, and she's falling. Her head bangs against the opening, and she has to lean onto Mikey more heavily than she meant to. The doctor orders more tests, talks about kidney function and specialists.
Mikey holds onto her. His palms are sweaty. She hopes he's listening or the doctor is writing this down because her mind is flashing back to being six years old and not able to go to sleep overs because she can't not wet the bed. Words like "renal cyst" and "60% function" were tossed around, and her mom was there to soak it up and explain it later.
When the doctor says that things will probably be okay, she doesn't believe and doesn't believe. Her eyes are too warm and there are skips of time, where she's living in her head and remembering things that she wanted to forget. Mikey gets her home and into bed somehow, and they lay wrapped around each other in a way that it too uncomfortable in late spring with the heat from the city, when she's wearing a hoodie and he has jeans on. Neither of them bother to get up and turn on the air conditioner.
***
The band goes on hiatus for real then. You can tech out instrumentals but there isn't a way to replace Gerard. Mikey calls him when they get the results back, that her cysts are back and she has to go back on medication for the first time in eight years. His voice reminds her of the Paramour, lower than normal with just the edges of pleading.
Gerard flies out the next day and gets a hotel as close as he can. There's talks about getting allergy shots, mostly to make Gerard go paler so she and Mikey get to laugh, which is totally sweet because she spends a lot of time on the couch, curls around Bunny or Snowball when she can't be wrapped around Mikey. The dogs don't seem to mind, content to chew on bones at the other end of the couch.
Their apartment is too small for Gerard's presence, visits that are broken up with loud sneezing no matter how much they try to vacuum, and her mom sleeping in the movie room with her clothes in a laundry basket beside the television. They all sort of stumble around each other, except that no one wants her to lift or cook or sleep too little. She spends more time with her nose in baby books, but she only sees all the things that could be going wrong.
There's still some moments where she's excited and still, like when she wakes up on a July morning that's unseasonably cool and she tries to button a denim skirt that used to be just too big enough that she had to use a belt.
Except that it doesn't button or zip because there's a small, small bump just below her bellybutton that sticks out just enough that it doesn't feel like bloat,. Her fingers tremble when she touches it, before she runs back into the bedroom and grabs her camera, takes pictures of Mikey's face when he wakes up and his eyes go soft from sleep and wonder.
His hand is callused but feather-light before he moves to kiss the bump and pulls her back into bed with him. The bedroom door is open; they're terrible hosts.
***
Her mother takes her to see another specialist, another one in a line of doctors that all sort of look the same and don't have names anymore, when the tests are all back and they have to look at their options. The boys need to work on their new album, and she can't be around to see if any of the songs are even remotely connected to this. They're going to have some sort of potluck at Donna's house, even if Donna and Mrs. Iero are the only ones cooking, and Alicia tries to think about that when the doctor slides into his desk across from her.
(Her mom's sharp nails are biting into her skin, constant pressure, and she's glad that she's not in her underwear yet. It's another new doctor, and she's sort of tired of having to get naked, expose her abdomen that isn't as lean as she remembers. She has long skirts made with tie-waists instead of jeans because she's not sure that she wants to get into the giant mess of maternity clothes yet.)
"We have a few options on the table, Alicia," the doctor says, but the options aren't the ones she wants to hear. "We'll try to keep your levels regulated with medication and diet, but if things don't get better, we're going to have to start using dialysis." Her mother's hand slides away from her. Alicia tries not to flinch away from the word, some ugly monster in the shadows that's trying to turn her day into a nightmare.
She nods. "All right."
The doctor is quiet for a moment, flipping through her charts before settling the folder back onto the desk. "I'd be lying if I didn't say that termination might be the safest path for you, at this point."
"Termination," her mom whispers next to her, and Alicia remembers why she didn't want Mikey to come. When he thinks no one's looking, he spend a lot of time with his head down, shoulders hunched up like he's waiting for some bully to come punch him.
Alicia tries to swallow down her words, and she doesn't mean to press her hand against the raised bump that could be gone in three days if she just went with the path of least resistance. "We'll try the meds first, I think."
***
At the potluck, she sits outside with Gerard while he smokes. Mikey is inside helping wash dishes, cleaning up with Frank, Lyn-Z, and the rest of the little crowd that showed up. The house was too small, people tripping over each other, and it made her skin itch to think about it.
He makes noises about how she's not supposed to be around cigarette smoke right now, scratching the cherry out even though he's only had three hits and tucking the cigarette behind his ear.
She nods and pulls her legs up to her chest. There's laughter inside and music, memories being passed back and forth. It's family and good times, exactly the sort of thing that you're supposed have when you want to bring kids into the world.
Gerard sits with her on cold cement and doesn't mention that she's not wearing a coat, just drapes his hoodie over her shoulders.
"The doctor suggested we terminate today," she says, voice just above a whisper. She looks at him, and there are other things that she wants to say I don't know how to tell him or maybe I don't think I can do that. Somewhere her 18 year old self, who was on every Planned Parenthood and NARAL email list possible, is rolling her eyes and stomping about how it's her right.
He lets out a long breath, head tipped back like he's studying the mostly grey sky. He reaches over and rubs her neck and shoulder. It's not a hug, because she would cry if he hugged her and they have to go back inside to all that happiness. They sit on cold concrete in silence until Mikey comes outside and drops down next to them with three plates with chocolate pie.
She leans away from Gerard and whispers that she wants to find out the sex against Mikey's jaw. He kisses her hair and makes contented sounds because he doesn't know that he's not getting to make a choice.
The pie is tasteless, just chocolate pudding cake mix in a store bought crust.
***
Again, she feels like she should know that they're probably going to have a girl. She's not sure why. She's only got a little belly. No one seems to agree on how it should be carried, and it's still a few weeks until she's supposed to be able to feel anything.
Mikey smiles for almost a whole day, and they throw out the three lists of boys' names that they've started. Ultrasounds are never conclusive, but it feels like a safe bet. Now that they have some sort of conclusive reasoning, everyone is telling her that she's carrying too high for it to be a boy.
On the car ride back, when they have pictures that barely look like a baby to her, Mikey says, "I want to use Elena as a middle name. Gee's sort of got dibs on it for a first name, so..."
She nods and leans against him. She's not surprised. "We've got time to figure out the rest."
***
They don't really have time and it seems like they have years. Alicia wakes up every morning to more pills than Mikey and has an empty day in front of her. There's 100,001+ Baby Names and What to Expect When You're Expecting on the table in the living room. When July comes and hits with its heat, she can't get comfortable, all her muscles feeling weirdly stretched as she tries to walk around.
Her mom goes home when she hits week twenty. They hug for too long in the airport terminal, and she whispers encouragement into her hair. She almost wants to get on the plane with her, fly back to wheat fields and hide in the summer sun.
Three days after her mom goes, she finally feels it--her, she has to remind herself, her move. For the first big moment, the happy ones that go in baby books with pastel gingham covers, she doesn't run to find Mikey. She sits on the couch and just feels, follows the movement with her fingers even if she can't see kicks stretch her skin yet.
***
Mikey spends more time with his therapist now, and she tries to devote enough time to all the animals. It sort of breaks her heart that Piglet and Puddles are sort of being edged out, slowly. Mikey plays with them when he's not curled with her on the couch, working, or out with Gerard, but she used to take them on walks and just be able to play. Now her days are filled with making sure she drinks ten glasses of water and measuring sodium, eating steel cut oats and cranberry juice that isn't from concentrate. There's creatinine tests and urine collection which never gets less gross no matter how many times you do it.
***
She has a list of names, goddesses because she can't really name any kid of theirs after something silly. They've gone with Something Elena Rose, because Rose is her own gramma's name. It's got a nice flow to it, three names instead of the usual two.
There's Athena, which is sort of already off her list because there's something about it that drives chills over her spine. She's more into Eastern mythology and history, but everyone knows that Athena burst from her father's skull and never needed a mother. It's the same sort of thinking that she can't have when Mikey's around or when she's on the phone with home.
Anyway, "Athena Elena" sounds sort of tacky. She's really championing something like Brigid or making Kathleen, Deirdre or Elizabeth. Something that has weight and history and strength, which is shockingly hard to find in girl's names.
She starts making videos, little five minute snippets where she talks to the baby. She tells her about the sort of epic name battle and her reasons for the names, how Kathleen was originally because of Katherine of Aragon, except that she liked the clean sounds of Kathleen better. She'd started watching The Tudors with Gerard, and he made Katherine's story sound fantastic, strength and conviction that you'd want. She tells her that she knows that she'll back down, eventually, because Mikey won't be in favor of naming his daughter after a martyr.
Then there's Elizabeth, and she tells the baby to watch the first movie as soon as she's old enough, even if Alicia says no, because you have to understand how a woman that young made an entire ripped-up nation heal. She also like Artemis, but it's a boy's name now.
Sometimes she leaves messages that she's sure the baby won't need if she's there raising it, but she can't stop herself from doing it. It's like a safety net, something to ease her mind because she's having trouble with her kidneys again and every moment is sort of uncomfortable pressure that won't release.
***
They end up spending Mikey's birthday in, just with the band, Matt, Brian, and all three Lord of the Rings movies (if they're still awake, they'll move on to Star Wars). They order Chinese, with plain rice for Alicia. There's too much sodium in the pre-made stuff, so she has to steam her own vegetables to stir in. It's quiet, different from the night they had for his 27th, going to Angels and Kings and dancing in the dark corners with bad music bursting through them.
She picks at her plain rice, steamed baby corn and carrots adding color and only a little bit of flavor, trying to sit so she can breathe easily. The baby is high and into her ribs, kicking where ever it feels that it needs to kick. Mikey has his hands against her belly under the first "maternity" shirt she bought (an XL shirt with an empire waist and ties in the back so it wouldn't fall off), hand against the baby's kicks.
Frank talks about Mama a little, and she wonders if they could maybe send the dogs to live with him and Jamia. She doesn't want to part with them, but they're becoming periphery, all whining and gentle licks to the hand to remind her and Mikey that they're still there.
The television has been moved out into the living room, because Mikey understands compromise when it suits him. They have a non assembled crib and a Pack and Play next to the couch, the only real signs that there is a baby coming besides the name book on the coffee table and the small collection of pregnancy books in the bedroom.
At the end of Fellowship, Alicia gets up to try and use the bathroom while Frank and Brian dispose of the takeout containers. She doesn't feel the least bit bad about her friends cleaning up her apartment, even if she knows they're going to refill her water glass while they're up and moving around.
No one mentions that she has to waddle when she walks now, and no one seems to think that she's a weirdly bloated and distended as she feels, pink stretch marks marring her stomach.
She looks in the mirror and sighs. Her hair is frizzy for the first time in years, roots inches long and coming in wavy, and the delicate skin under her eyes dark looks bruised. The lighting in the bathroom makes her skin seem yellow-tinged and thin. It's not the sort of glow that you hear and read about; it worries her.
But she forces herself to wash her face and go back out to the movie, snuggling back down with Mikey and watching Gandalf fall into Khazad-dûm.
***
Shopping for baby things is perhaps the most bewildering things ever. Alicia expects it to be a lot like regular shopping, like when she and Mikey went to buy their couch. It was new and exciting, buying a new couch for their apartment because they were married and married couples did things like buy couches.
Buying baby things is nothing at all like couches.
Donna takes her, just to look, to a Babys'R'Us when the boys are busy arguing over string arrangements, and it's like everything's sort of gone off its access. There are carseats that cost three hundred dollars that look like they should be able to shoot your toddler into space and rich oak furniture that is probably heavier than her entire bedroom set. It's uglier too.
She fingers the edge of some yellow bedding that reminds her of marshmallows. There are lambs and chicks printed across it. She remembers the dye packs that her parents used to buy for Easter eggs and thinks maybe this is going to be all right.
***
The only thing, the last thing, she knows for sure about this pregnancy comes when she goes to yet another nameless, faceless specialist. The doctor is a woman this time, who looks at her results and crosses her hands over the files. "You have to go on dialysis."
Alicia nods and squeezes Mikey's hand before she takes off her fall jacket and shows the doctor the white crystals on her shoulders, on the bend of her arm. Mikey found them, and he flinches away having to see them again.
The doctor makes a grim sort of noise. "You have to go on dialysis today." Her eyes go soft. "At this point, the fetus should be viable." It's only been twenty-nine weeks. The baby doesn't even weigh three pounds. "We could go in, do a C-section, and a tubal ligation while we're there."
The air is sort of sucked out of the room. She feels like she's been cunt-punched, like she's drunk on tour again and one of the three other female techs fought a little too dirty and now she can't breathe. Mikey doesn't look too much better, shoulders curved in with an abused-puppy look to his eyes.
She takes his hand again, threads their fingers together. He's letting her make this decision. Her mouth is bitter. "Can I go on dialysis while I'm still pregnant?" she asks.
The doctor nods. "You could. It's not a permanent solution."
"I'm not permanently pregnant," she says, voice soft. Mikey squeezes her hand.
The doctor--the plaque on her desk says Dr. S. K. Henceroth but they won't remember it when they leave--rubs her eyes. She's tired. "Ms. Simmons, you understand that you're in kidney failure?"
Alicia notices that the carpet is orange but completely flat, the 70s retrofitted for the modern business chic. The doctor doesn't have to tell her what's going to happen next, how this little miracle is going to end. "We know."
When they get home, Mikey calls Ray to let him know that he won't be at practice. She watches him from the kitchen, head bowed as he says, "Hey, Toro. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, I just need the night off." She can hear that something's wrong in his voice, something that Gerard would hear even over cellphone lines, maybe even Brian. Ray's half drunk on new chords, not thinking clearly.
Alicia puts water on for tea, walking around him and careful not to touch while the conversation goes on a little bit longer. Mikey has the phone turned almost all the way up, and she can hear snatches of what Toro's saying on the other line, revisions to the basslines that he wants to make.
Mikey takes off his jacket and drapes it over the kitchen counter before he looks at her. She busies herself with tea, even if neither of them particularly like it. She's not allowed to drink coffee anymore, and there are a few cans of instant lurking around if Mikey gets too desperate.
She's pulling the box of Celestial Seasoning's out when he takes her arm, turns her gently to look into her eyes. They can't hug very well anymore.
"Alicia," he says. His voice is higher, like a boy. His eyes look twenty years younger, pupils too wide in the dim light. She looks at him and knows all the words that he wants to say, the questions. He kisses her forehead and murmurs, "We'll get through this." It sounds more like a prayer than a promise.
***
When two days pass and Mikey finally leaves to go back to the studio, she's not exactly surprised when she gets the call from Gerard. "Hey."
He exhales loudly. "Hi."
Piglet drops a ball at her feet, and she shakes her head sadly at him. There is no way that she's bending down to pick that up. She kicks at it half-heartedly, and it seems to be enough. Dogs are simple like that.
"Mikey told you?" It's weirdly quiet in the apartment, without the hum of the air conditioner. Her laptop is in another room; there isn't any music playing. She can hear the bell on a cat collar and her legs shifting on the couch. "He's on his way."
"I know. He's late." Gerard sighs. A lighter flicks on the other side. "Tell me how bad this is, really."
She closes her eyes and kicks the ball when Piglet brings it back. "How bad did he say?" Alicia doesn't recognize her voice.
"He's worried that you're both going to leave him." There's a long stretch where neither of them talk, and she can hear Frank laughing in the background. Idly, she wonders if the rest of the band knows. She hasn't even called her mom, doesn't know how to put it into the words.
"It's not that bad." Alicia wishes she could curl her knees up. "There's a good chance that," she stops herself, steadies herself. She's not sure what she wants to say.
"You didn't tell him that the doctors wanted to terminate." His voice isn't accusatory, but she feels like he wants to yell. There's just a fine tremor in his voice, something that reminds her of California, when he called her and said that he was worried Mikey wasn't going to come back.
She exhales through her nose. "I couldn't put that on him." She chews the inside of her cheek.
"I know."
Alicia rubs her eyes. They're dry. She's cried about this with Mikey, but now it's just cold scientific fact. "The baby is going to make it." She tries to say it like she'd imagine a lioness talking about her cubs, ears back from a threat. She doesn't feel that brave, but she can fake it.
"Oh," Gerard says. It's all there really is to say.
"Yeah." She pats the couch when Piglet comes back over. The dog hops up, and she runs her hand over its warm fur. "You'd better not be writing a song about this." She keeps her tone light.
Gerard doesn't laugh. "Hey, Mikey's going to be here soon. I probably shouldn't be on the phone, in case, you know." His voice is sort of shaken, and she's worried about him now. "And Toro and Bob have some shit they want me to hear. So I should go, and I will see you at lunch tomorrow or something." He ends the call without saying goodbye.
Alicia taps her Sidekick to her mouth for a few minutes before calling Donna and Lyn-Z, just to let them know what's going on. She makes it through both conversations without crying and considers it a coup. She leaves a voicemail with Brian, glad that he doesn't pick up because she doesn't know how to tell him Hey, I just told Gerard that I'm dying, He seemed sort of freaked. Watch out for him and Mikey, all right? without breaking down.
***
She starts making more videos, and they're things that she always wanted to tell her daughter. Some of them have to be stopped and restarted because she does break down. She talks about elementary school and is careful to censor her mouth. She doesn't know who is going to show these to the baby.
Mikey is home more, clings to her when he can. He goes hours without speaking to her, just holding onto her arms like she'll crumble if he lets go. They ease into October with twice weekly appointments at the hospital and at least one specialist appointment. Her entire family is coming to town for her birthday, and they're going to stay. She sees Gerard and Donna almost every day. No one mentions that there's an album being stalled.
She idly wonders if she's going to get to hear any of it, before it's polished, like she was able to with The Black Parade.
When she tells her mom, her mom snaps that she's being morbid, that she'll be fine.
Alicia starts making her videos in the bathroom, where Mikey usually won't follow her. There's one for her parents, even though she doesn't know what to say beyond that she loves them and Peter and Dakota. She cries in this video and decides Fuck it. Her hair is a mess, she hasn't put on any makeup in three weeks, and she has to sit on the toilet to talk into a video camera because standing for too long is too hard on her. She's tired and her back hurts. Her skin itches.
There's videos for Mikey too, carefully burned onto DVDs with her laptop when he finally falls asleep. She keeps the original video files in .rars, in case DVD goes out of fashion sooner than predicted.
When she's done with her videos, she has enough to fill one of her fat CD wallets, and she gives it to Donna on October 21st. She doesn't say what they are, just that she needs to keep them safe for Mikey. There's one for her, to thank her for everything and hope that she watches out for Mikey.
The backups, .rars and another stuffed CD wallet, are packaged up, and she sends those to Lyn-Z because her organization system is better than Gerard's.
***
It's harder and harder to concentrate, and she and Mikey don't get out of bed on the 24th beyond to get waffles and water for their medications. She assumes that he feeds the cats, and the dogs but time is starting to become fluid when it's not sticking to her and refusing to budge. She's been pregnant forever. Her breasts ache, feel swollen, and she just wants everything to be over. There's still a month left.
Mikey winds himself back around her, arms around her body and one leg between hers, breathing against her neck. "We still need a name."
She wishes it was easy to turn around and look at him, memorize the way his face looks. "I like Deirdre," she says. It's a morbid name, with a morbid story, and she sort of likes that. "She was a beautiful Irish princess."
He laughs and shifts. He crawls over her carefully, mostly standing up to get over her gross fatness so their faces can meet. Mikey hasn't flatironed his hair in days, and there's no product, just sort of flying around his face, wispy. "Deirdre Elena Rosemarie Way."
His chin is tilted up, like he's daring her to question the change he's made. She just says, "That's a very big name for a little girl."
"She'll grow into it," he says quietly, and he kisses her. It's gross with morning breath layered with syrup and butter, but she leans into it anyway.
***
The next morning, she wakes up and only makes it three steps before she's bent over and puking on the white carpet. She closes her eyes, still can't look at her own vomit. It's just a series of wet splats, some of it on her belly and seeping into the ridiculously plus-sized t-shirt she wears to bed now.
She slaps a hand over her mouth when the gagging stops, her stomach twisting in a way that lets her know it's not over. There are only nine more steps to the bathroom, and then there's the sink. She can make it that far, maybe, in a minute.
Alicia holds terribly still, clean hand clutching the corner of the bed and trying to figure out the best plan of attack.
"You okay?" Mikey murmurs, still wrapped in three comforters and an old afghan that some aunt crocheted for a wedding gift.
"I threw up on the carpet," she says. It's like being in Kindergarten again, when she went to go sit for story time and it just welled up, unable to hold it in. The nine steps seem like ninety now.
Mikey's up and at her side before she can ask him, shivering slightly in his boxer briefs. He sidesteps the mess of sick and takes her elbow, and squeezes it. "Come on," he whispers. They always seem to whisper and murmur now, like they're hiding from some monster in the wings that will swoop down if they're too loud.
She doesn't make it to the bathroom before she throws up again, and her throat burns with it. Mikey holds her, pushing back her hair. Some hits her feet and she's sure that it gets him too.
"Sorry," she says when it's over, absently brushing her mouth clean with the hand that Mikey isn't clinging to. "I just couldn't--"
"It's okay," he says. His voice runs high, sort of frantic, and he's suddenly shaking as he flicks on the lights. She squints. "We need to get you to the hospital." He doesn't let her go, hand gripping tighter and almost bruising.
"It'll be okay--"
Mikey pulls her back from the second mess. There's blood mixed in, with the run of brown and yellow bile, and she can taste it now around the morning breath and acrid taste. He helps her into the bathroom, maneuvers her so she can sit on the toilet and kicks the bathroom trash can over. "I have to call for an ambulance. Just stay there, okay?"
He looks at her like he wants to break, and she wants to be the one to run around and make these arrangements. He's the baby of his families, even if there are only two of them in his first and he's got a year on the youngest in his second, and he shouldn't have to handle everything alone.
She nods, mute, and looks down at her yellowed hands.
***
Later, when it's almost the 26th, she can't remember coming into the hospital or leaving the apartment. Everything feels like it's sort of swimming in her head. She knows that Mikey's by her side, his hand holding onto hers with bruising force, and she can smell old cigarettes. Gerard is close or has been close.
She's vaguely aware that she's not pregnant, that they brought in Deirdre (Elena Rosemarie Way, because Mikey was absolutely serious and the nurses cooed over it) who weighs a little over four pounds, almost four and a half. She holds her with loose arms until someone, probably Donna, takes her. They're talking about diuretics because she's retaining fluid. She's not coherent enough to know if they mean her-Deirdre or her-Alicia. There's more words, things sort of sliding into Charlie Brown speak.
Her eyes slide closed, and she feels Mikey press his mouth to the side of hers, the top of his lip scraping her cheek with the stubble.
***
Mikey's dozing in the chair pulled closest to her bed when she wakes up again, sunlight in through the hospital window. She's not exactly sure where she is, just that Gerard and Lyn-Z are sitting against the wall facing her with sketchbooks and charcoal smudges on their cheeks. They're both in sweat pants and black t-shirts, like they just rolled out of bed and came here. It's probably even true. Everything still feels sort of numb. She's aware of the incision on her belly, but she can't actually tell how deep it is. She doesn't look.
There are machines making noise, bags hanging off stands that remind her of old coat racks. There's a bag near her bed with brown urine dripping into it. She feels small and washed out, tattoos like bruises on her skin.
It takes her two tries to talk. "How long have you been here?" she says.
Lyn-Z is up before Gerard, grabbing a pitcher just out of Alicia's reach and filling a styrofoam cup with water. "I've been in and out. Gerard got here yesterday, with Donna." She hands the cup over to Alicia.
It's only half full, and she has trouble holding onto it. Some of the water slides down her chin, dots her hospital gown.
Gerard stands at the foot of her bed, fingering the white blankets with dirty fingers and looking vaguely apologetic, big eyes and overly large frown, when he leaves fingerprints. "Your parents are here. Mom went to pick them up." He hasn't shaved either, pale enough that she can make out the fine dusting of a neck beard.
They're all whispering. Mikey snorts in his sleep and shifts, head tipping down so his chin is planted firmly against his chest.
She nods and looks around the room. "Where's Deirdre?" She wants to know where everyone else is, the rest of the band and maybe her friends that she hasn't had time for in three months.
"Nursery. They took her when Mikey passed out." Lyn-Z takes the cup and holds it for Alicia without having to be asked, tips it up so she can drink without dribbling on herself like a baby. "We can have them bring her back. They're going to need to change your pad soon anyway."
Alicia makes a face that sort of mirrors Gerard's, scrunched up nose. She'd almost forgotten that part. The best part of being pregnant, honestly.
She pushes on Lyn-Z's wrist to tell her that she doesn't want anymore water. She's coherent enough to understand things now. "I want to see her, and I want to talk to a doctor, find out what's going on." Her voice lilts up at the end like it's a question. She learned in college that it was a linguistic characteristic of women, something to make them seem less assertive. If there was ever a time she wanted to sound assertive, it was then.
Gerard and Lyn-Z exchange a look, eyebrows moving. The air goes tense for a moment, eyebrow talk falling into an eyebrow fight, before Lyn-Z sets the cup down on the side table. "I'll go take care of it."
"How long has he been asleep?" she asks, as soon as Lyn-Z is gone.
He doesn't look at her, playing with the burn hole on his shirt that is big enough to fit his second and third hole through. "I think about forty-five minutes. He wanted to stay up long enough to talk to you, I think."
She nods and moves her legs under the blankets. They're smaller than she remembers, bone thin. "Has he taken his meds?"
"No," Gerard sits down on the edge of her bed, just to the left of her feet. "He hasn't eaten either." He looks at her, and he seems older than thirty-one, dark circles and lines around his eyes and mouth.
She almost reaches over and touches Mikey's hair, but his entire body is curled up around itself, protecting itself from something bigger. She settles for just watching him breathe, ignoring the sensation that wells up from just below her stomach and pushes itself all the way into her skull. Her lips tremble.
They wait for the doctor and Lyn-Z, with the baby. It's not quiet with the beeps of machines and Gerard humming something under his breath that she doesn't recognize.
***
When Deirdre is brought in, she holds her as close as she can and just breathes in, tries to make a memory of it, the sour smell of formula and the new smell of baby. There's dark hair on her head, just a dusting, and her eyes aren't open. She smells Alicia, and her lips move, seeking out. She expects her to make a squeak, like the litter of kittens did in Missouri, in the back of her uncle's shed, when they were first born and blind and only knew their mother through scent.
She nicknames her Cat in her head, none of the Dee shit she was considering before, and she's crying now as she kisses the baby's small cheeks and looks at her impossibly small fingernails that shouldn't be real.
Mikey sleeps through most of her first embarrassing attempts to feed the baby, with Lyn-Z and the nurse on hand and Gerard looking politely away until Cat's latched. It hurts, sharp tugs and pulls that she hadn't been expecting, but she can feel her nose pressed against her breast, the tension that falls out of the baby's body when she's feeding.
Her stupid blubbering wakes Mikey up, but he doesn't seem to mind, crawling half into the bed to watch Cat. His eyes are soft when he tries to wrap Cat's fingers around one of his, but they don't go all the way around. His mouth tastes like bad hospital coffee and jello when they kiss. Someone's camera goes off.
***
The doctors are barely optimistic that she'll be able to last until they can find a transplant. It's going to be two months, has to be after any major surgery, before they can put her on a list. One of them pats her hand and says, "You're young, a new mother, and were good health besides. You'll look great to the committee."
Her brain sticks on the "were." Mikey doesn't want to talk about it.
She's allowed to go home a day before her twenty-fourth birthday, and the apartment is shockingly clean, with her parents and brothers, Mikey's bandmates, and just people. There's more food than has ever been prepared in their kitchen before.
"Oh, fuck, I'm crying again," she mutters when Mikey helps her onto the couch, which has been vacuumed, seriously. There's a noticeable lack of cat hair.
Frank comes up behind her and gives an awkward hug over the back of the couch. "You just gave birth. I think you're allowed to cry. You're still hardcore."
Mikey kisses her again, even if Frank is holding onto her, with that weird soft look on his face, all understated smile that looks different--dreamy--and smooth forehead. "We sent the cats over Mom's for now, just 'til we get settled."
"And Jamia and I have Pig and Puddles. They're giving Mama hell." Frank pulls his arms back so Mikey can have her to himself.
Alicia nods. She's off most of the pain meds now, but she's still dreamy, still tired most of the time. Someone gives her a plate of food and she nibbles on it, watching Cat being passed from Frank to Ray to her mom to Dakota and back to Mikey.
His hands don't shake anymore when he takes her, not like they did at the hospital for the first time, and she fits in his arms. She watches Mikey move to talk to Gerard, rocking back and forth where he stands to keep Cat asleep and knows things are going to be all right.
***
She sleeps more and more now, misses most of the visitors coming through. Cat sleeps next to her, and they've kicked most of the their blankets aside for the crocheted coverlet and a space heater. Their bed is warmer than she would have thought. Mikey doesn't complain of being cold, just wears a hoodie to bed and keeps one hand on the small of her back.
Her body feels both heavy and light, and she knows that she's running a fever most days. Her skin feels like it's baking off some nights, when she's lying there in a pair of granny panties that she'll probably bleed through and nothing else. Her stomach is soft and stretched out, but Mikey still kisses it and lays his head against it when they're alone in the apartment, Cat curled up on her chest.
Mikey goes to practice on the 7th because Gerard shows up at the apartment and literally stands in their bedroom and waits for him to get dressed. Alicia lays in bed with the baby and watches Gerard. She's too hot to bother wearing a shirt. He only looks into her eyes when they make small talk over Mikey's shuffling.
When Mikey goes into the bathroom, she sits up and gathers the coverlet onto her chest, covers the nursing bra "Hey," she whispers, because she doesn't want her husband to hear. She's learned to love the soft and dreamy look he has, where he whispers about how tiny Cat is, how he doesn't know how he could have some part in that.
Gerard's eyebrows shoot up. He looks better than he did in the hospital, showered, shaved, and wearing clothes without holes. "Yeah?" He moves forward and sits on Mikey's side of the bed. He makes some motion towards Cat.
Alicia picks her up and hands her over. The coverlet falls down; Gerard's eyes snap back up to her shoulder like they're made of rubber bands. "I need you to do me a favor."
"Sure." Gerard's less sure about holding the baby, holds his upper body very still. He won't stand and hold her, or walk.
"Can you buy formula, while you're out?" The fever is drying her out, and she's worried that there won't be anything for Cat. She feels her teeth chattering and lays back down. It's too, too cold, even with the space heater blasting. "Just a can or so."
Gerard's eyes are on the baby's sleeping face. She sleeps more than anything. Her eyes haven't opened yet. "Sure. Anything else?" He glances at her.
"Tell me I made the right decision?" She tries to make it into a joke, but there are tears sliding out of her eyes, warmer than her body. She's surprised they don't turn to steam.
He leans over and kisses her forehead like she's seen him do to Mikey. "Get some sleep, all right? Your mom is here if you need anything, and Lyn-Z said she'd stop over later." He shifts Cat so he can wipe tears off Alicia's face with his left hand.
She watches him and tries to think how she can plead her case, the decisions that she made to protect Mikey and the ones she's going to make now. Her mind is blank.
Gerard lays the baby down next to her. "Come on, Mikey," he calls as he slides off the bed. "None of us give a shit about your hair." He stops by the doorway, his face half angled away from her so she can't read his lips. It sounds like he says "You did good, kid," but she could be wrong.
It's easier to pretend that she's not.
Mikey emerges from the bathroom ten minutes later smelling like her pomade and too much mousse. He kisses her feverish mouth, and she clings to him for a minute. "I love you," he whispers because she's almost asleep, again.
"Love you, too," she says, just as softly and bites teasingly on his lip. "Hurry back."
"Always." He kisses her again, three quick, chaste kisses, before Gerard is calling his name again, and he leaves with a sheepish look on his face and one of her scarves.
She lays on her side tries to remember to be careful of her stitches, and listens to her mother cooking in the kitchen, wishes she could hear the click-clack of dog nails on the linoleum.
Alicia sleeps to the steady sounds of Cat's breathing and dreams of waking up, of seeing her as a little girl and a young woman with her eyes and Mikey's smile and asphodel petals in her hair.