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rsadelleMaster Post
Prologue: February 2011
Victoria wanders around the venue in Charleston, just opening doors and checking things out, exploring. The door isn't locked, isn't even really closed all the way, nothing to warn her not to open it.
Behind it is Jack with some girl, maybe a tech, maybe venue staff. Doesn't really matter who the fuck she is because Jack is fucking her.
He sees Victoria over the girl's shoulder, and scrambles away from her, not even undressed all the way, dick hanging out of his pants, and at least he's wearing a fucking condom. "Baby," he says.
"What the fuck?" It's all she can think. "What the actual fuck?"
"Baby, this doesn't mean anything." Jack pushes the girl away, strips off the condom, and yanks his pants back up.
"You said you loved me!" This is the kind of moment when everything narrows down to one thing that's supposed to matter but apparently doesn't.
"Baby, I do." Jack starts across the room toward her. "Vicks, I totally do." She's told him a million times she hates being called "Vicks." "This was nothing."
"Hey!" the girl says. Victoria and Jack both ignore her.
"If you did, you wouldn't do this! Fuck you!" Victoria jerks away before he gets close enough to touch her and scrambles out the door and practically runs down the hallways until she can get outside and back to her bus.
She wants Gabe or Nate, but she gets Ryland, and he'll have to do. She throws herself down on the couch next to him, and he automatically makes room for her under his arm.
"What's up?"
"That fucker." Victoria hates to cry, especially in front of the rest of her band. But this time she might not be able to keep from doing it. "That fucker," she says again, and this time her voice breaks and she's crying, and Ryland hauls her into his lap and just lets her.
"Jack was fucking someone else," she says when she can speak again.
"Fucking asshole," Ryland says promptly.
He must tell the other guys, because they keep her away from ATL for the rest of the day and get her drunk after the show. She only finds out about Jack's black eye and split lip when she sees a picture on Twitter the next day. She doesn't ask which one of them did it.
First Trimester: March 2011
Victoria is fucking tired. Like, tour takes its toll on everyone, but this is outrageous. She hasn't even been partying that hard, mostly because she's too tired.
At soundcheck in the Midwest somewhere - Indiana or Nebraska or something (time and place seem to lose all meaning on tour) - and there's some problem with Nate's kit, and Gabe leaves his mic and comes over to her. He rests a hand on her back.
"Babe, you okay?" Since he and Bianca broke up, he's been calling her "babe" the same way he calls Alex "papi" or Nate "snookums" (when he can get away with it without Nate retaliating). Victoria figures he needs some kind of outlet for his affection.
She can't even summon up the energy to smile or shrug or anything. She leans back against his hand for a second. "Just tired."
Gabe narrows his eyes at her. "You can nap after this. We'll do the meet and greet without you."
She nods, and Gabe steps away. "Come on, including you, you've got two drum techs here," he yells to Nate. "Get your shit together!"
Nate flips him off and keeps adjusting his kit.
It's all Victoria can do to stay on her feet and with-it for soundcheck, and they don't listen to her when she says she can make it back to the bus on her own. Alex walks her back and talks to her the whole time, chatter she doesn't have to respond to, except when he reminds her to set an alarm.
She sleeps straight through until it goes off, and when she gets up, there's a note outside her bunk that says, "Sandwich in the fridge." She eats the sandwich, a couple of handfuls of chips, and some carrot sticks that probably belong to Gabe or Alex.
She feels like she's forgetting something, but she actually has all her shit together when she walks - slowly, so if she's getting sick she can use all her energy for the show - back to the venue.
"The triumphant return of our keytarist," Gabe crows when she joins them in the dressing room. He swings his arms around her, but it's gentler than it looks. "How're you feeling?"
"Better." Victoria tips her head up and smiles at him. "Good enough for now."
Gabe squeezes he close for a second and then lets her get ready.
Victoria puts every last bit of her energy into the show, and she comes off stage feeling like she might collapse. She practically falls onto the couch in the dressing room, and she can hear Alex and Nate swearing.
"I think she's just getting sick," Gabe says.
Victoria feels a touch against her arm, and she opens her eyes to see Gabe crouched down in front of her.
"Think you can manage a shower?"
She needs one, whether or not she can. "Yeah." She holds her hands out for Gabe to pull her up, and manages enough of a shower that she doesn't feel completely gross anymore.
Ryland and Alex make room for her on the couch, and she waits while everyone else gets their showers, and then they walk her back to the bus despite her protest that they don't all need to come with her.
"Babe," Gabe says, "I'm too pretty to carry you myself if you fall over," even though she knows he's more than strong enough to pick her up, and Nate could probably carry her to the bus and back all day long.
Victoria's really too tired to argue, so she lets them walk her back, and doesn't kick Nate when he hovers to make sure she gets into her bunk okay.
She wakes up in the middle of the night in a blinding panic and scrambles for her laptop to look back at their itinerary and try to match it to her memory. That nagging feeling she had earlier that she was forgetting something? It turns out it's more like something was forgetting her. Despite the way everything blurs together on tour, she's pretty sure it's been too damn long since she last had her period.
She lets out a soft, "Fuck," and slides back down onto her back, automatically pushing the laptop to the inside of the bunk. It could just be stress. Stress can fuck with your period, right? Sure, she's been on tour for years, but the breakup adds to the stress, right?
"Fuck," she says again.
She doesn't sleep the rest of the night, and after the bus stops, she waits until she can hear Gabe's snoring join everyone else's sleep noises before sneaking out to find a drugstore.
She does the test in the drugstore's bathroom, and has to stifle the urge to throw up or cry when it comes up pregnant. She has her phone with her, so she looks up the closest Planned Parenthood office and then calls a cab.
She has to spend time in the waiting room, where she refuses to read the pamphlets they have lying around. She doesn't need anything to make it more real.
The nurse tells her the same thing the cheap test did, and outlines options Victoria hears only in a daze.
She leaves the clinic with a phone number and a handful of pamphlets she's not sure she'll be able to bring herself to read.
She wanders around until she finds a diner, where she orders a giant stack of pancakes and doesn't think about anything but the next bite.
She smokes what's going to be her last cigarette, and leaves the rest of the pack on a bench. She gets a cab back to the venue.
"Hey, where've you-" Gabe cuts himself off. "Victoria?"
Victoria can't make herself walk toward them, or say anything.
Gabe kicks out at Nate and Ryland, on the floor playing video games. "Turn that off, fuckers."
"Ow," Nate complains. "What the fuck?"
Ryland turns and sees her, and pauses the game. He even goes so far as to turn off the TV.
Victoria's breath is very loud in the sudden silence.
"Alex," Gabe calls, "you too."
Alex turns around from where he's doing something in their kitchen and says, "I'm cooking," and then he looks at Victoria, turns around, and then comes farther into the lounge without the knife he'd been holding.
"Victoria?" Gabe prompts.
Her voice sounds very far away as she says, "I'm pregnant."
Nobody moves or speaks for what seems like an eternity, and then Ryland pulls out Guy Ripley to ask, "Is this a felicitous occasion?"
"I don't know." That doesn't feel any more like her voice either.
Gabe gets up off the couch and comes over to her. "It's going to be okay," he says, and he wraps his arms around her. A moment later, Nate's at her back, and then Alex and Ryland, and she just lets them hold her up in the center of them.
*
Gabe posts to their MySpace blog.
*
Victoria reads something, or maybe the nurse told her, that says she's going to be tired for the first trimester. It explains why she keeps napping. Between that and the regular old weirdness of sleep on tour, her sleep schedule is completely fucked.
She's in the back lounge in the middle of the night, watching the lights of passing towns and cars, wide awake and trying not to think. Gabe doesn't turn on the light when he comes in, navigates his way to the couch by the light coming through the windows. He sits down next to her, and she fits herself easily into the space at his side.
She's had her hand on her stomach this whole time without really noticing it.
"It's his." They all have to know, but she hasn't said it out loud yet.
Gabe tightens his arm around her and says, "No. Nothing about this belongs to that motherfucking asshole of a douchebag." His voice is almost too low to be heard, and she's never, ever heard him sound that angry. If she didn't know he was angry for her, she'd be afraid. He gentles and says, "It's yours. Everything about this is yours. Your choice. Your body." He pauses and then says, carefully, "Your kid, if you want it."
"How can I?" Victoria takes her hand off her stomach to wave at their surroundings. This is what she'd been trying not to think about. "How does that fit with this?"
Gabe's silent for a moment, and then he says, "We'd make it fit. You can teach me or one of the techs to play well enough to cover soundcheck so you can rest if you need to. Between this tour and the next one, you'll only be at seven months, and we can take a break after that."
It's what Victoria wants. She's known, really, since the day she took the test. The day she smoked her last cigarette.
"I want to be this kid's mom," she tells Gabe. "Fuck, what if he wants custody?"
Gabe's answer comes swift and sure. "He can't have it. We'll get you a lawyer, a fucking good one, and make sure he doesn't get it."
She nods and closes her eyes. "Okay, fuck, okay."
She doesn't mind when Gabe's hand covers hers, big enough to cover it completely and spread over the edges onto her stomach. She keeps her eyes closed, and apparently it was the worry keeping her awake because she can feel herself slipping toward sleep.
"Babe," Gabe says, "go to bed." He pushes her up and she stumbles back into her bunk.
In the morning, she sees what he tweeted just after she went to bed: Life is a fucking amazing miracle.
*
They have a band meeting between soundcheck and the show. Alex makes half a dozen things for them to snack on and Gabe locks the door to the bus.
When they're all settled around the table, Gabe bangs his fist on the table. "Cobras, come to order."
Ryland promptly says, "Steak, rare, with the baked potato."
Gabe flips him off. "Any other wiseasses?" He waits for a moment, and then shakes his head. "I don't know if I should be glad you're taking this seriously or disappointed only one of you could come up with an appropriate joke." He doesn't wait for anyone to come up with another one before he says, "Victoria?"
She's sitting next to Gabe, and she reaches for his hand. He hums a few bars of "Papa Don't Preach," and Victoria stifles a burst of giggles.
"I'm keeping it." She's a lot less ambivalent about it now, and a smile takes over her face. "You're all going to be uncles."
Nate lets out a whoop. Alex grins and pushes one of the snack trays at her.
Ryland says, "Delicious," but his smile is too open to be Guy Ripley.
It's almost too much, and Victoria grips Gabe's hand to have some kind of outlet for it. He squeezes back and lets everyone spend another couple of minutes making excited exclamations. Victoria swallows the lump in her throat and tries not to let it make her cry.
"All right, assholes," Gabe finally says, grinning the whole time, "we've got shit to discuss."
"Don't tell anyone yet," Victoria says as soon as they calm down. "I haven't even told my parents."
Alex is looking at Gabe when he asks, "When are you going to do that?"
"Tomorrow." They have a day off, so she can spend as much time as she needs to on the phone with them. "And then I'll write a blog entry, and then you can tell people." Gabe usually handles this kind of publicity, but he already said everything about this is hers, and that's going to include how they tell people.
"Next topic," Gabe says. "The bus and the area outside the door are now non-smoking zones."
"We've already been doing that," Ryland points out.
"Mostly. Now one hundred percent." Gabe flashes a grin. "Baby Cobra's going to be as healthy as we can make it." He points at Victoria. "That means regular meals for you and no more weird diets."
Victoria makes a face and lets go of his hand. "I can take care of myself." She picks up a piece of bruschetta and cups her other hand under it as she takes a bite.
"Of course you can," Gabe says, not at all like he means it.
Victoria wonders how fast their hovering is going to get old.
"So a break after the next tour," Ryland says.
"Yeah, at least until Victoria and the baby are ready to tour again."
"Oh, fuck," Nate says, "touring with a baby."
"Can't be any worse than having your ass with us," Victoria shoots back.
"Children," Ryland admonishes. It only makes Nate and Victoria stick their tongues out at each other.
Gabe laughs. "Bottom line," he says, "Victoria sets our pace. Whatever you need, babe."
Victoria reaches across the table. "What I need right now is some of the tapenade."
Ryland slides it toward her with a sigh. "I can see how this pregnancy is going to go."
Victoria smirks at him. "You're going to be waiting on me hand and foot, boys, hand and foot."
*
Victoria commandeers the back lounge in the morning and calls her parents. She tells them a couple of tour stories and hears about the latest antics of one of Mom's friends before she says, "I called because I need to tell you something."
"What is it, honey?" Mom asks.
Victoria knows her parents love her, but she's still scared, so she says it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. "I'm pregnant."
"Well," Dad says.
Mom says, "Oh."
"This is a good thing," Victoria tells them. "I'm happy about it." And even though she is, she's still telling her parents that she's pregnant, so her voice wavers and she has to wipe her eyes.
"What about the father?" Dad asks. If she knows her parents at all, they pointed at each other until he gave in and asked it.
"Not around." They can do the math and figure out it was Jack; she'd rather not say it out loud any more than she has to.
"Oh, honey," Mom sighs.
"It's not like I'm going to be alone." If she turns her head, Victoria can look out the window and see Gabe and Nate playing some kind of improvised game with a basketball and a Frisbee for the benefit of an audience of crew members. "I have the rest of the band."
"A band is no substitute for a husband," Mom says tartly. It's a conversation they've had before. Sometimes Victoria doesn't understand how her mom's carried this odd streak of conservatism through a life around musicians.
"Can't you just be happy for me?" In a minute, she's going to be crying and whining like a teenager, which won't help her case. "Can't you be happy you're going to be grandparents?"
"Of course we're happy about the baby," Dad says, "even if this isn't the ideal situation."
"When are you due?" Mom asks.
"November. It'll be good - we're on tour until September and we were talking about taking a break for the holidays anyway."
"Victoria," Mom scolds, "you can't tour while pregnant."
"Mom," Victoria sighs, "I'll be fine. The guys already agreed to help out."
"Sweetheart, you know you can call us if you need anything," Dad says, probably because he doesn't want to hear another round of "your band is not a husband" any more than Victoria does.
"Thanks Dad." Outside, the game Nate and Gabe are playing now includes a tambourine, a rubber chicken, and people divided up into what are either dance teams or designated cheering sections. "I will."
"We love you, honey," Mom says. "We just want what's best for you."
Victoria smiles at that; if there's one thing she's never doubted, it's that. It's something she'll have to make sure she does for her kid too.
"I love you too." She promises to take care of herself and their grandchild and call again soon.
She watches Gabe and Nate run around for a couple of minutes - that's definitely a cheer routine they have the crew doing - and then leaves her phone in the back lounge and goes out to the front.
"Weezer sing along," she announces. Alex groans, but Ryland starts singing and she joins in. Ten minutes later, Alex gives in and leaves the bus. Victoria and Ryland sing another couple of songs before she has to stop and get up for a bottle of water. She comes back and leans over to hug Ryland tight.
"Okay?" he asks.
Victoria smiles at him, and it doesn't even feel forced. "Yeah, thanks."
She goes back into the back lounge and picks up her phone again.
Her next call is to Amber, who puts her on speaker so Gizmo can hear her. She does the same routine of exchanging tour stories for Gizmo stories before she says, "I'm pregnant."
There's a moment of silence before Amber shrieks. "Gizmo, baby, did you hear that? You're going to have a little brother or sister!"
Victoria grins so hard she thinks it might split her face.
"I can't wait to buy your kid the cutest clothes," Amber gushes. "I hope it's a girl so we can put her in dresses like yours."
Victoria outright laughs. "Between you and the band, my kid's going to be the most fashionable kid on the block."
She makes Amber promise not to tell anyone until after her blog entry goes up, and then she calls Ashlee.
Ashlee answers with, "Hey, sweetie, what's up?"
"You can't tell anyone," Victoria says, "not even Pete."
"Oooh, secrets!"
Victoria grins. "Just for another couple of days, until I make the real announcement."
"Tell me, tell me!" Victoria's pretty sure that if Ashlee didn't need to hold her phone she'd be clapping her hands together. She might actually be jumping up and down.
"I'm pregnant."
Ashlee yelps. "That's great! And I can't tell anyone?"
"Just for a day or two," Victoria promises. "Until I post the official announcement."
Outside, Alex is now somehow involved in Nate and Gabe's game and they've added a handful of limes.
"I'm scared," Victoria admits.
"Sweetie," Ashlee says softly, "so was I. But being pregnant was the most amazing thing. And now we have Bronx."
Victoria tucks her feet up under herself. "Do you think I'm crazy for staying on tour the whole time?"
"I don't know," Ashlee says. "If you take care of yourself and you can handle it. Make the boys carry your bags."
Victoria giggles. "Gabe already said we're doing whatever I need."
Ashlee giggles too. "You have him so wrapped around your little finger."
Victoria keeps giggling. "All of them. Alex keeps cooking, and they won't let me go anywhere by myself."
"Oh," Ashlee says as if she's just thought of something. "Is that where Jack got the black eye?"
Victoria stops laughing. It hasn't been long enough not to hurt. "Probably. I didn't ask."
"Shit," Ashlee mutters. "This is a totally happy thing, and then I brought that up."
"My mom gave me shit about it." Victoria turns so she can watch the boys playing outside. Gabe's pointing at Nate, who's flapping his arms like chicken wings.
"Fuck that! Asshole cheated on you." Ashlee's silent for a moment and then she asks, "It is his, right?"
Victoria pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her forehead on them so it's like she's alone in the world. "Yeah. I told Gabe and he said it's all mine."
Ashlee laughs like she can't help it. "Please. You know Gabe's going to spoil that kid to death. You've seen him with Bronx."
Victoria manages a wobbly smile. "Yeah. He's already calling it Baby Cobra."
"Thank God Pete never got it into his head to make Bronx FOB's mascot. You know your kid's going to be wearing bright colors and cobra jewelry from the day it's born, right?"
Victoria laughs. "It's not any worse than your kid and his Clan merch."
Ashlee laughs too, and then she says, softly, "It's gonna be great. And you can always, always call me if you need advice about being pregnant and famous. And now it's time for me to go be mommy." Ashlee sends a loud kiss down the line. "Call me when you need to."
"I will. Thanks."
"Sweetie, we've gotta stick together." And with that Ashlee hangs up.
Victoria looks out the window and watches Alex do what is probably a victory lap before being handed the rubber chicken. She has no idea what the rules of the game are, but everyone seems to be having fun.
"That's what things are gonna be like," she says out loud, and then feels silly for talking to a baby who probably can't even hear her yet.
She grabs her laptop from her bunk and settles down again. It takes her a while to figure out what she wants to say, and even though it's not very long, she's still not sure about it.
She doesn't end up posting it until the next day.
The rest of her band, Guy Ripley, Pete, and Ashlee all retweeted it, and she has a shitload of comments and replies.
Most of them are congratulations, but there are a fair number speculating about the father and a few calling her a slut or a sinner. She gets a string of about four of those in a row, and she's starting to tear up when Gabe closes her laptop.
"Babe, don't torture yourself."
"I'm fine," she says, even though she's not. "It's just the pregnancy stuff." Even though it's not.
Gabe takes the laptop off of her lap and puts it down on the other side of the lounge. "They're going to talk shit. Don't listen to them."
Victoria nods and doesn't pick up her laptop for the rest of the day.
That night, just before they go on, Gabe switches up the set list and replaces "Send My Love to the Dance Floor" with "Church of Hot Addiction." He comes over to Victoria and passes his hand over her head with "get the Cobra bless now."
*
Over the course of the tour, they collect copies of pretty much every pregnancy and child rearing book in existence, three boxes of stuffed animals, and half a dozen bags of baby clothes.
At one meet and greet that Victoria feels well enough to go to, a woman clutching a bag hangs back so she's at the end of the line. She introduces herself as Teri.
"You're so brave for doing this," she says. She's maybe a couple of years older than Victoria. "I wasn't that brave." Victoria can see her fight back tears before she says, "I made you something." She pulls it out of the bag and holds it up so Victoria can see it before she hands it over.
It's not the first baby blanket she's gotten, but it's by far the best. When Victoria reaches out for it, she finds it's made out of the softest yarn she's ever touched. It has cheerful pale green cobras against a lavender background, and delicate letters spelling out "Cobra For Life" all around the edges.
Victoria stands up and steps forward to hug Teri, the blanket between them. She finds she can't let go.
"Thank you," Victoria whispers. When they step apart, they both have tears in their eyes.
Gabe's hand rests low on Victoria's back as he steps forward. "It's amazing. Come get a picture." All five of them array themselves around Teri. She and Victoria hold the blanket between them. Gabe keeps his hand on Victoria's back and makes sure they get a picture with their camera as well as Teri's.
Second Trimester: May 2011
They get two weeks off between tours, and Victoria's mostly just glad to see Gizmo, sleep in her own bed, and have the entirety of her wardrobe to choose from. She's also grateful for the way it means she isn't in close proximity to Jack anymore. He stayed away from her, even after she made the announcement, but she kept expecting to see him around every corner.
On the second day, she's lounging around in pajamas, cuddling with Gizmo and watching CSI: Miami, when Gabe shows up.
Victoria keeps Gizmo from escaping out the door as she asks, "What are you doing here?"
Gabe holds up a bag. "I brought you breakfast."
Victoria takes the bag from him and heads for the kitchen, letting him follow or not. "I can actually feed myself, you know."
"I know." Gabe has Gizmo cuddled up against his chest when he joins her in the kitchen. "Maybe I just missed you." He grins at her. It's very charming.
"It's been two days." The bag is full of bagels and three kinds of cream cheese. Victoria gets out plates and knives. "That's not long enough to miss me."
Gabe puts Gizmo down so he can slice a bagel for himself. "I was totally lonely," he insists.
Somehow Gabe always knows the best places for food, and the bagels are absolutely perfect.
Gabe glances over way too casually just as Victoria has a mouth full of sesame seed bagel with herb cream cheese. "Don't you have a doctor's appointment today?"
"Not until two." Gizmo's way too excited about people eating, so she gets a treat for him from the jar on the counter. It's why she's not paying attention when Gabe asks, "You want some company?"
Victoria says, "Yes," without thinking about it. And then she stops and thinks about it. She does want company, but she can do this alone. It's a lot easier than that first visit to Planned Parenthood. "You don't have to come with me."
"I don't mind." Gabe puts his bagel down. "We're going to be around for everything else, we might as well be there for this."
Victoria crosses her arms over her chest. "We? Did you all vote on you coming along with me or are you acting alone?"
"Think of it as a royal plural." Gabe bends down and picks up Gizmo. "You're not going to have to do anything alone." He looks at Gizmo and not her as he says it.
Even though he said they would do what she needed and she told her parents she wasn't going to be alone, hearing him say straight out that she's not going to be alone is a relief.
"Okay." She points at his bagel. "What're you having?"
"Strawberry on cinnamon raisin." He picks it up, and holds it out to her, keeping it away from Gizmo. "No arguments?"
Victoria takes a bite of his bagel. It's a little sweet for her tastes. "No." She shrugs. "I did tell my mom I wasn't going to do this alone."
Gabe puts his bagel back on the plate and Gizmo on the floor. "You gonna let me hang out on your couch until it's time to go?"
Victoria scoops up her plate. "Yeah."
She cares more about her bagel than what they watch, so she cedes the remote to Gabe. He flips through the channels and stops on The Karate Kid while she keeps Gizmo off the couch until they're done eating.
*
They take the subway to her appointment, and they're both in casual clothes and glasses instead of contacts, so no one recognizes them. No one even looks twice at them in the waiting room. Gabe reads her advice from parenting magazines and she drinks down a bottle of water while they wait for the nurse to call her name.
The nurse weighs her, takes her blood pressure, asks questions about medications and her last period. She'd be embarrassed, but it's not like Gabe doesn't know anyway. Fuck, they were living on a bus together at the time.
"Doctor Sanders will be right with you," the nurse says after she's asked all of the questions, and then she leaves them alone in the room.
Gabe leans back in his chair and looks at the diagrams on the wall. "Never been in a gynecologist's office before."
"OB/GYN," Victoria corrects absently.
"Never been in an OB/GYN's office before."
Victoria digs through the basket of magazines between the chairs until she finds something whose cover promises fun summer activities to do with kids. "Here." She shoves it at Gabe, and lets him amuse himself suggesting ways they could change up said activities for use on tour.
Doctor Sanders comes back with Victoria's chart in her hand and the nurse following along behind her. Victoria's been seeing Doctor Sanders for years and genuinely likes her.
"Victoria." Doctor Sanders sits down on the rolling stool. "How are you?"
"Good." Victoria gestures at Gabe. "This is Gabe."
Doctor Sanders reaches across to shake his hand.
"Not the father," Victoria clarifies.
Doctor Sanders nods and glances down at her file. "Okay. So do you know about how far along you are?"
"At least three months." Victoria doesn't look at Gabe while she says it.
Doctor Sanders tsks. "You should've been in here before this."
"We were on tour." Victoria resists the urge to reach out for Gabe's hand. "We're leaving again in a week and a half, for four months."
Doctor Sanders tsks again. "So much for celebrity clients being all about the glamour." She makes a note on the chart. "That's going to be tough."
"But I can do it?" This time, she does reach for Gabe. He takes her hand and squeezes it.
"We're going to do an ultrasound," Doctor Sanders tells her. "It'll let me know how far along you are, and if we don't see any problems, you take care of yourself, and we schedule you some appointments while you're on the road, then you should be okay."
She has Victoria settle onto a table and pull up her shirt. Her skirt is low enough that she doesn't have to do anything but tug it down a little bit. Gabe comes over with her and doesn't let go of her hand.
"This is gonna be a little cold and goopy," Doctor Sanders warns, and she and the nurse work together to move things around for a moment before she squeezes something cold and goopy onto Victoria's stomach. Victoria tries not to jump, and Gabe takes a step closer to her.
Doctor Sanders points at the screen. "There it is."
She can see the shape of the baby. Her baby. It makes it almost even more real than the way her belly's just starting to curve with it.
Gabe's free hand strokes over her hair. "Look at that." He sounds completely and totally awed.
"Yeah." Victoria can't look away from the screen.
Doctor Sanders moves the thing on her stomach for a couple of minutes. "You're about thirteen weeks," she finally says, "which makes your due date around November 21, although don't count on it being that day specifically. Everything looks good."
"Can we get a copy of the picture?" Gabe asks.
"Of course," Doctor Sanders says. She moves the thing on Victoria's stomach again, and then stops and does something that presumably has something to do with getting them a picture.
"Can I find out if it's a boy or a girl?" Victoria asks.
"Too early," Doctor Sanders says. "We might be able to tell by the time we do another ultrasound."
The nurse helps her get the goopy stuff off her skin - although she's still going to want a shower when she gets home - and shows her to the restroom. They made her drink a lot of water for the ultrasound. Victoria comes back and sits in one of the chairs by Doctor Sanders' desk.
"Are you going to be back here during your tour?" Doctor Sanders asks.
Victoria shakes her head. "Only once."
"If you can get us a schedule of where you'll be, we'll see about making referrals for you to local places."
Gabe already has his phone out. "I've got it." Doctor Sanders gives him an email address to send it to, and promises to make a list of referrals for them.
She also gives Victoria a sample of prenatal vitamins with strict instructions to pick up her own and take them every day, and the short version of the restrictions lecture Victoria already knows: no alcohol, no cigarettes, no drugs, no raw fish, no hot tubs, and only limited caffeine.
Gabe puts his arm around Victoria. "We're making sure she takes care of herself."
Doctor Sanders says, "Very charming," but smiles while she does, and then hands cards with the office's phone number to both of them. "Call us if you have any questions. We'd rather you bother us than not call and have something happen to you and the baby." She hands over the ultrasound photo too, shakes their hands, and the nurse walks them out.
Gabe insists on taking her to lunch. He finds a diner and they sit there for hours talking about music and telling childhood stories. He takes the subway back with her, too, and walks her all the way to her door where Gizmo jumps on both of them.
"Think you can tear yourself away from us?" Victoria asks after Gizmo calms himself down a little.
Gabe pulls out his phone and looks down at the screen. "I have to. Dinner with my pops." He wraps Victoria and Gizmo up in a hug. "Thanks for letting me spend the day with you."
Victoria hugs him back. "It was fun. We should do it again sometime."
Gabe grins down at her. "We will." He scratches behind Gizmo's ears. "I want a copy of Baby Cobra's first photo."
"I'll send you one."
After Gabe leaves, Victoria takes the ultrasound picture out of her bag and stares at it for a long time. After a while, she puts it on the scanner and emails it to Gabe, the rest of the guys, her parents, Amber, and Ashlee.
Then she takes it off the scanner and puts it in one of the magnetic frames on the fridge.
*
When she told Gabe they should do it again sometime, she didn't really mean the next day, but that's when he shows up.
"Watching TV again? That'll rot your brain."
"We're on a break." Victoria lets Gizmo rush at Gabe. "What else should I be doing?"
Gabe points at the boxes of books she hasn't unpacked. "You could read up on pregnancy and parenting while you have the time."
Victoria stares at him. He's really suggesting she work her way through two and a half boxes of books?
"If I'm doing it, you can too."
Victoria keeps staring at him. "What?"
Gabe kneels down and opens one of the boxes. "What do you think happened to the duplicates?" He starts pulling books out and unpacking them into stacks on the floor.
Victoria sits down next to him. "You mean I have two and a half boxes of baby books and none of them are duplicates?"
"I took the duplicates, and we gave away anything more than that." Gabe hands her a stack of books. "These are pretty good." He points at one of the other stacks. "Those suck." He waves at the rest of them. "I haven't read any of these yet."
Victoria takes the stack of Gabe-approved books to the couch and turns off the TV. "When did you even have time to read all of these?"
"Not all of us spent most of the tour in bed." Gabe smiles, so she knows it's not meant meanly. "And it didn't take long to realize the ones that suck sucked."
Victoria skims the titles and picks the one that sounds the most interesting to start with. She's a couple of chapters in - she doesn't really need to read the things about the first trimester in detail; she already lived it - when Gabe finishes with sorting the rest of the books. He's moved the stacks into boxes and labeled them with his ever-present Sharpie: "good shit - Victoria read," "sucks - burn," and "? - Gabe read." He brings over a bunch of books from the last box and sits down at the other end of the couch.
They read in companionable silence until Victoria's stomach growls loud enough to make Gabe look up from his book.
"Do you have anything to eat here or you wanna go out?"
Victoria does not want to go out. In an ideal world, she wouldn't even have to leave the couch. "I don't think there's anything worth eating. We could order something."
Gabe looks at her for a long moment, and then says, "You need to start eating better. He glances down at his book and then closes it and puts it down on top of his stack. "I'll go down to the corner and pick some things up."
"I'm not cooking."
"Hey," Gabe says, "I'm no Suarez, but I think I can handle lunch for two."
Victoria waves toward the door. "My keys are on the table."
By the time Gabe comes back, Victoria's swapped out one of the pregnancy books for one of the child rearing ones.
"The bodega on your corner doesn't carry shit." Despite the complaint, Gabe's carrying a pair of plastic bags. He takes them through into the kitchen.
"Yell if you can't find anything," Victoria says. Gabe seems to do okay on his own, because half an hour later he rearranges everything on the coffee table so he can set out pasta, salad, and plates.
"I can't believe you made this from stuff you got at a bodega that's not up to your standards," she says when she tastes the pasta.
"Hey, I'm a modern man. I cooked just as much as Bianca did."
Victoria stretches one leg out across the couch and nudges at his thigh. "You okay?" It's the first time she's heard him mention Bianca in a while. For as outgoing as Gabe usually is, he can also be fiercely private.
Gabe shrugs. "Getting there. It'll be better once we can sell the apartment." He rests his hand on her ankle. "How about you?"
She has to think about it, because she's been trying not to think about Jack or anything related to him. Except the baby, of course. The sting of betrayal is still sharp and she misses having someone be there for her, but she doesn't miss Jack himself as much anymore.
"Yeah, I guess," she says. "I still don't understand why he did it."
"Because he's a fucking asshole." Gabe strokes his thumb over her skin. "You know that, right, babe? That it wasn't because of you?"
"I chose him," Victoria points out. "My shitty choice got me here."
"You couldn't know he was gonna do that."
Victoria shakes her head. "We were hooking up for a long time before we were dating. Probably not the best way to start something." She digs back into her pasta.
Gabe watches her eat for a while, and just about the time she thinks that's going to be it, he says, "That's how I met Bianca, you know."
Victoria's heard the story of their first date, but she didn't know that. "You still broke up."
"It was really good for a long time. And neither one of us cheated."
Victoria finishes her pasta and puts the plate down on the coffee table. "I won't be hooking up with anyone any time soon anyway." She puts her hand over her stomach. It's something she does now, without even thinking about it.
Gabe puts his plate down too, and scoots across the couch to put his arm around her. "In a couple of months, you're going to have a kid, and someday you're going to meet a guy who'll want to be a part of that."
Victoria leans her head against his shoulder. "I'm starting to think touring means never having that."
"It's working for Ryland and Alex." Gabe kisses the top of her head. "When it's time, it'll happen."
*
The next day, Gabe makes her leave the house for an epic trip to Whole Foods, and then sticks around to teach her how to make empanadas and read to her from one of the funnier parenting books.
The day after that, they spend much of the day reading again.
The day after that, they go shopping for tour-appropriate maternity clothes, an expedition that leaves Victoria exhausted beyond belief. Gabe keeps an arm around her on the walk from the cab up to her apartment.
After Victoria unlocks the door, Gabe pushes Gizmo away with a firm, "No," and walks her past the couch to her room.
"I thought I was over this." Victoria steps out of her shoes and climbs into bed.
"You had a lot of clothes to try on. You want Gizmo in here with you?"
Victoria holds out her hand to gesture Gizmo up onto the bed with her. He cuddles under her chin, and her eyes close without her having to think about it.
She wakes up later remembering why she doesn't sleep in her bra. She's barely out of bed before she's stripping off her dress to get out of it. Gizmo whines at her while she's pulling on the shorty pajamas Ashlee sent as part of her congratulations you're pregnant but that doesn't mean you can't look sexy present.
"I know, baby. Let's get you something to eat."
She opens the door and follows Gizmo toward the kitchen. Gabe's still there, stretched out on her couch with a book in his hands and a coffee cup next to him. When he looks up, his eyes flicker over her outfit, almost as if he's checking her out.
Victoria keeps walking past him. "You're still here."
"Sure am. Dinner's on the stove, should be ready in about half an hour. Could you stir it while you're in there?"
Victoria measures out food for Gizmo and puts it on the floor for him, then stirs the soup Gabe has cooking. "What is this?"
"Lentils. There's stuff for a salad, too. And bread, unless you ate it all when I wasn't here."
"I think there's some left." Victoria opens the cabinet she's pretty sure she put the bread into. There's enough for them to each have a slice or two with their soup. "Yeah." She comes back into the living room, and Gabe makes room for her on the couch and passes her the book she's been reading.
Victoria takes it and opens to where she left off, but looks over at Gabe instead of down at the book. "So are you just hanging out here the rest of the break?"
Gabe says, "Until you kick me out," without missing a beat, but Victoria knows him well enough to see the hint of uncertainty behind it.
"And miss out on all the home-cooked food? No way." Victoria picks up her book. "Besides, you're not done with your box of books to read yet. I'm doing all the work of carrying this kid; I'm not going to read crappy books on top of it."
*
Sure enough, Gabe spends most of their break hanging out at Victoria's, with the exception of occasional press obligations. Management does a good job of keeping them all up to date on interview dates and the resulting press clippings. Victoria rarely does interviews and only sometimes checks them out later, but Gabe does almost every one and watches or reads all of them. Victoria starts keeping track of the schedule, though, so she knows when Gabe will be around.
He brings over takeout one evening after a day full of interviews, and Victoria finally asks, "Are they asking about me?"
Gabe takes a moment to swallow his mouthful of lo mein before he answers her. "You're pregnant, and we're taking you back out on tour. Of course they're asking. We're telling them how happy we are about the baby, and then moving on."
Victoria eats an egg roll and thinks about what she actually wants to know. "How's the press taking it?"
"They're curious, but no one's hanging around outside your building. Fan reaction's mostly the same." Gabe pauses for a moment and then says, "Lot of people asking why you're not doing interviews."
Victoria groans. "I hate doing interviews. I always sound stupid."
"I know," Gabe says, perfectly calm. "You don't have to do anything before the whole band stuff on tour if you don't want."
It's reassuring, but it still bothers her. Late that night, she tweets, I don't like the way I sound in interviews which is why I haven't been doing them. Still excited to be a mom! And a little scared... Then she thinks about it and sends another one: My mom's great. I only hope I can live up to that for my kid.
*
When they pack up for tour, Gabe makes sure both boxes of books they're reading through make it onto the bus as part of his space allotment, since Victoria's wardrobe takes up about twice as much space as usual with clothes various saleswomen helped her estimate will fit her in a couple of months.
Her band continues to be overprotective. Victoria's hardly ever alone, and they rarely let security take her places without one of them. She sometimes wishes for a moment to herself, but she's grateful for it when it means she's not the only one fielding questions when they run into fans.
She reads, in books and on blogs, about total strangers touching pregnant women's stomachs. With one or more of her band members always flanking her, it never happens to Victoria.
At a meet and greet in Virginia, a woman in the line sneers down at Victoria. "You shameless hussy, displaying your sin to the world."
Victoria's too shocked to do anything other than gape at her. They're spread out across the room, so no one else is close enough to hear what the woman is saying. They must notice Victoria, though, or the momentary silence and subsequent whispers from the fans closest to her, because before she can think what to do, Nate crowds himself into the space between them, Alex snaps for security, Ryland takes Victoria's arm to walk her out of the room, and Gabe appears on her other side looking grim and furious.
"Where the fuck was security?" he demands.
Danny doesn't look any happier about it than anyone else. "Circulating through the room. It's the way we usually handle that kind of setup."
Ryland leads Victoria over to a chair and stands next to her. By now, Nate and Alex have also made it out of the meet and greet.
"And clearly that's working well," Alex says.
"Someone needs to be with Victoria," Nate puts in.
Gabe paces the room. "They can't fucking talk to her like that." He looks murderous.
And that's enough for Victoria. "Gabe," she says, "I'm okay." She's not sure it's true, but she wants him to calm down.
Gabe turns to look at her, and there's something she can't read hiding beneath his anger. "They can't talk-"
"They're going to talk shit," she says over him. "Don't listen to them."
Gabe's mouth tightens, and then he slams out of the room. Danny's on his radio before the door's even closed, telling security to follow him. Gabe doesn't have this kind of temper tantrum very often, but they all know to just let him go until he calms down when he does.
Ryland half leans, half crouches to hug Victoria. "You really okay?" Tears prick her eyes, and she shrugs and then shakes her head.
"Take Victoria back to the bus," Alex says. "Nate and I can finish up here."
Ryland, Danny, and a couple of guys from security walk her back, and Ryland lets her curl up against his side on the couch.
Gabe comes back much calmer an hour later and crouches down in front of Victoria. "Babe, you okay?"
She reaches out a hand, and he takes it. "I'm fine." This time she means it without reservation. "That's probably the worst thing anyone's going to say to my face, and I got to cuddle with Ryland all afternoon."
"Guy Ripley's going to be so jealous," Ryland says.
Gabe brings Victoria's hand up to his lips and brushes a kiss across the back of it. "I'm already jealous."
Victoria smiles because he does.
By the time they get off stage, the story has hit Perez, Oh No They Didn't, and TMZ. Victoria has a slew of texts and voice mails about it. She tweets, People talk shit. Cobras are tough enough to take it.
Gabe reads it over her shoulder and asks, "Is that our official statement?"
Victoria tips her head back to look at him. "It's all I have to say about it."
Gabe drapes an arm around her and tugs her back against him. "Okay." He drops a kiss onto the top of her head. "Whatever you want."
*
Gabe gets falling down drunk in South Carolina. It's not that Victoria's never seen him like that - there were whole tours where he got fucked up every night he could - but not on this tour. He throws up twice and then starts crying.
"Dude," Nate says with wide eyes.
Even Ryland looks worried.
Victoria figures it's her job as the only sober person and the only girl to do something about it. She sits down next to Gabe and puts an arm around him, and he tips down so his head is resting on her breasts like they're a pillow.
Victoria strokes his hair and says soothing, meaningless things like, "Shh," and, "It's okay."
Gabe stops crying eventually, but it takes a long time, and then he's so quiet she thinks he's probably asleep.
"Signed the papers to sell the apartment," he says.
Victoria's been stroking his hair the whole time, but now she stops, and then starts again when she realizes she's stopped. The apartment. That would explain it. The last thing tying him to Bianca. She wonders if he'd been hoping it would be enough for them to get back together, and ignores the way the thought hurts more than it should.
"It's okay," she says instead, and she kisses the top of his head.
Gabe really does fall asleep after that, deeply enough that he doesn't make a sound when Victoria slides out from under him. She gently lowers his head down onto the couch and then picks up his feet and puts them on the couch too so he'll be more comfortable. She gets the blanket from his bed and drapes it over him so he won't be cold. She figures it's good practice for when she has a kid to take care of.
The next day, Victoria's the only person on the whole bus not hungover, so things are quiet. Gabe sleeps all through the morning and into the afternoon.
When he finally gets up, he wraps his arms around Victoria and holds on for a really long time.
*
Gabe reads that hearing is the first sense to develop, so he encourages everyone around to talk to the baby.
Victoria narrates pretty much everything she's doing, just so the baby will know her voice. Alex recites recipes and patter that could fit on any cooking show. Nate's partial to recounting 80s movie plots. Ryland busts out dramatic monologues in a variety of accents.
Gabe puts out a call for people to stop bringing them pregnancy and parenting books and start bringing them children's books in English or Spanish. "This kid's going to be the smartest kid ever," he puts in the MySpace blog when he asks. He finds a book database website where he makes their children's book collection public and keeps it up to date so people won't bring them things they already have.
Instead of getting drunk every night, he sits next to Victoria with a stack of books, and they take turns reading to the baby. Gabe's always disappointed when she makes them stop so she can sleep.
They all sing to the baby, lullabies and rock anthems, their own songs and things they make up on the spot, child-appropriate rounds and the filthiest hip hop they know.
*
Victoria's been able to feel the baby move since just after they left for tour. It started out as a fluttery feeling she wasn't even sure was real, and gradually became stronger.
In the dressing room in New Mexico, Victoria has one hand on her stomach and the other fluffing her hair when the baby kicks hard enough that she can feel it against her hand.
"Oh," she says. Gabe's next to her, so she grabs his hand and puts it on her stomach. "You can feel the baby kicking now."
Gabe turns away from the mirror, toward her, and puts his other hand on her stomach too. There's a look on his face that Victoria almost wants to call reverent.
"God," he murmurs, and then he smiles at her, open and happy and uncomplicated. "Hey, guys, come feel this!"
Victoria laughs and waves the rest of her band over. Gabe's only willing to move one of his hands to make room for them, and Victoria has to physically pry that one away when it's time to go on stage.
"The baby likes shows," she tells him. "It'll still be kicking afterwards."
*
They spend three days in L.A., doing a show and press and taking a day off. Victoria stays with her parents. Nate stays at his place - "My own bed," he both rhapsodizes and gloats - and Gabe, Ryland, and Alex stay with Pete and Ashlee.
"I wish you weren't doing this alone," Mom says for the millionth time.
"I'm not," Victoria says, also for the millionth time.
Since they don't have a lot of time together, they let the argument go for the rest of her visit, although Victoria knows she's going to hear it again later.
*
They go on Ellen in the morning, and the five of them squish onto the couch together. It's a tight fit, and they put Victoria in the middle.
"So you're pregnant," Ellen says not very far into the interview.
"Yes," Victoria answers.
"That must make touring hard."
Victoria smiles. "I was really tired at first, but now I have more energy, and I'm used to it."
"And we all want the best for Victoria and the baby," Gabe says, "so we're keeping to her pace."
"So how excited are you about becoming a mom?"
Victoria can feel her smile stretching wider. "Totally excited."
Ellen grins at all of them. "You all look pretty excited. Who's the most excited?"
All four of them say, "Gabe," at once.
Gabe grins his happy little boy grin and says, "What can I say? I love kids."
"Because you practically are one," Alex says, and then they draw the focus away from Victoria again.
*
They head over to Pete and Ashlee's for lunch afterwards, and Victoria doesn't even suspect anything when they pull up and their driveway is full of cars; Pete and Ashlee will take any excuse to have people over.
Gabe rings the doorbell obnoxiously, and then opens it without waiting for anyone to answer it. "We're here," he calls out, and they all follow him into the house.
As soon as they round the corner into the living room, a chorus of voices calls out, "Surprise!" There's a banner strung over the sliding glass doors that says, "BABY SHOWER" with the figure of a baby between the words, and pastel streamers draped everywhere else.
Victoria gapes at the people filling the room - her parents, their crew, Panic and The Young Veins, a few other people she knows - and then turns and hits a smirking Gabe. "I can't believe you did this."
"Hey, I get some of that credit," Ashlee says. She wraps Victoria up in a giant hug. "And it's my house." She holds out a hand to Pete, who hands over a plastic tiara Ashlee carefully places on Victoria's head.
Victoria works her way around the room, getting hugs and congratulations and catching up with people, until Ashlee tugs her away to get a plate of food.
She's barely finished eating when Ashlee claps her hands and says, "Shower games!"
Spencer gets the closest to guessing how big around Victoria is now. Brendon guesses the most baby food flavors correctly, and names the most number of songs with the word "baby" in the title. Ryan makes a list of baby names Victoria doesn't tell him there is no way in hell she's going to use.
There are presents too, everything from a mobile that's the same kind Pete and Ashlee say Bronx loved when he was a baby to a collection of baby clothes from Mom and Dad.
Victoria looks at the stack of presents in and out of their boxes and asks, "Where am I going to put all of this?"
"We'll hold onto it and send it when you get back to New York," Ashlee says.
It works for now, but Victoria thinks about her apartment and how she's not sure everything will fit in it anyway.
*
Victoria has regularly scheduled doctor's appointments all through the tour, never the same doctor or city twice. At the one in San Francisco, they do another ultrasound and find out she's having a boy. Victoria makes Gabe promise not to tell anyone yet.
Gabe misses only one appointment, when there's a press thing that overlaps. Danny takes her instead, and waits in the waiting room while she goes in to see the doctor.
It's weird not to have Gabe there with her, holding her hand and asking questions she doesn't think to.
"How'd it go?" Gabe asks the moment they get back.
"Good." Victoria sits down next to him and pokes him in the shoulder. "You worry too much."
Part 2
Prologue: February 2011
Victoria wanders around the venue in Charleston, just opening doors and checking things out, exploring. The door isn't locked, isn't even really closed all the way, nothing to warn her not to open it.
Behind it is Jack with some girl, maybe a tech, maybe venue staff. Doesn't really matter who the fuck she is because Jack is fucking her.
He sees Victoria over the girl's shoulder, and scrambles away from her, not even undressed all the way, dick hanging out of his pants, and at least he's wearing a fucking condom. "Baby," he says.
"What the fuck?" It's all she can think. "What the actual fuck?"
"Baby, this doesn't mean anything." Jack pushes the girl away, strips off the condom, and yanks his pants back up.
"You said you loved me!" This is the kind of moment when everything narrows down to one thing that's supposed to matter but apparently doesn't.
"Baby, I do." Jack starts across the room toward her. "Vicks, I totally do." She's told him a million times she hates being called "Vicks." "This was nothing."
"Hey!" the girl says. Victoria and Jack both ignore her.
"If you did, you wouldn't do this! Fuck you!" Victoria jerks away before he gets close enough to touch her and scrambles out the door and practically runs down the hallways until she can get outside and back to her bus.
She wants Gabe or Nate, but she gets Ryland, and he'll have to do. She throws herself down on the couch next to him, and he automatically makes room for her under his arm.
"What's up?"
"That fucker." Victoria hates to cry, especially in front of the rest of her band. But this time she might not be able to keep from doing it. "That fucker," she says again, and this time her voice breaks and she's crying, and Ryland hauls her into his lap and just lets her.
"Jack was fucking someone else," she says when she can speak again.
"Fucking asshole," Ryland says promptly.
He must tell the other guys, because they keep her away from ATL for the rest of the day and get her drunk after the show. She only finds out about Jack's black eye and split lip when she sees a picture on Twitter the next day. She doesn't ask which one of them did it.
First Trimester: March 2011
Victoria is fucking tired. Like, tour takes its toll on everyone, but this is outrageous. She hasn't even been partying that hard, mostly because she's too tired.
At soundcheck in the Midwest somewhere - Indiana or Nebraska or something (time and place seem to lose all meaning on tour) - and there's some problem with Nate's kit, and Gabe leaves his mic and comes over to her. He rests a hand on her back.
"Babe, you okay?" Since he and Bianca broke up, he's been calling her "babe" the same way he calls Alex "papi" or Nate "snookums" (when he can get away with it without Nate retaliating). Victoria figures he needs some kind of outlet for his affection.
She can't even summon up the energy to smile or shrug or anything. She leans back against his hand for a second. "Just tired."
Gabe narrows his eyes at her. "You can nap after this. We'll do the meet and greet without you."
She nods, and Gabe steps away. "Come on, including you, you've got two drum techs here," he yells to Nate. "Get your shit together!"
Nate flips him off and keeps adjusting his kit.
It's all Victoria can do to stay on her feet and with-it for soundcheck, and they don't listen to her when she says she can make it back to the bus on her own. Alex walks her back and talks to her the whole time, chatter she doesn't have to respond to, except when he reminds her to set an alarm.
She sleeps straight through until it goes off, and when she gets up, there's a note outside her bunk that says, "Sandwich in the fridge." She eats the sandwich, a couple of handfuls of chips, and some carrot sticks that probably belong to Gabe or Alex.
She feels like she's forgetting something, but she actually has all her shit together when she walks - slowly, so if she's getting sick she can use all her energy for the show - back to the venue.
"The triumphant return of our keytarist," Gabe crows when she joins them in the dressing room. He swings his arms around her, but it's gentler than it looks. "How're you feeling?"
"Better." Victoria tips her head up and smiles at him. "Good enough for now."
Gabe squeezes he close for a second and then lets her get ready.
Victoria puts every last bit of her energy into the show, and she comes off stage feeling like she might collapse. She practically falls onto the couch in the dressing room, and she can hear Alex and Nate swearing.
"I think she's just getting sick," Gabe says.
Victoria feels a touch against her arm, and she opens her eyes to see Gabe crouched down in front of her.
"Think you can manage a shower?"
She needs one, whether or not she can. "Yeah." She holds her hands out for Gabe to pull her up, and manages enough of a shower that she doesn't feel completely gross anymore.
Ryland and Alex make room for her on the couch, and she waits while everyone else gets their showers, and then they walk her back to the bus despite her protest that they don't all need to come with her.
"Babe," Gabe says, "I'm too pretty to carry you myself if you fall over," even though she knows he's more than strong enough to pick her up, and Nate could probably carry her to the bus and back all day long.
Victoria's really too tired to argue, so she lets them walk her back, and doesn't kick Nate when he hovers to make sure she gets into her bunk okay.
She wakes up in the middle of the night in a blinding panic and scrambles for her laptop to look back at their itinerary and try to match it to her memory. That nagging feeling she had earlier that she was forgetting something? It turns out it's more like something was forgetting her. Despite the way everything blurs together on tour, she's pretty sure it's been too damn long since she last had her period.
She lets out a soft, "Fuck," and slides back down onto her back, automatically pushing the laptop to the inside of the bunk. It could just be stress. Stress can fuck with your period, right? Sure, she's been on tour for years, but the breakup adds to the stress, right?
"Fuck," she says again.
She doesn't sleep the rest of the night, and after the bus stops, she waits until she can hear Gabe's snoring join everyone else's sleep noises before sneaking out to find a drugstore.
She does the test in the drugstore's bathroom, and has to stifle the urge to throw up or cry when it comes up pregnant. She has her phone with her, so she looks up the closest Planned Parenthood office and then calls a cab.
She has to spend time in the waiting room, where she refuses to read the pamphlets they have lying around. She doesn't need anything to make it more real.
The nurse tells her the same thing the cheap test did, and outlines options Victoria hears only in a daze.
She leaves the clinic with a phone number and a handful of pamphlets she's not sure she'll be able to bring herself to read.
She wanders around until she finds a diner, where she orders a giant stack of pancakes and doesn't think about anything but the next bite.
She smokes what's going to be her last cigarette, and leaves the rest of the pack on a bench. She gets a cab back to the venue.
"Hey, where've you-" Gabe cuts himself off. "Victoria?"
Victoria can't make herself walk toward them, or say anything.
Gabe kicks out at Nate and Ryland, on the floor playing video games. "Turn that off, fuckers."
"Ow," Nate complains. "What the fuck?"
Ryland turns and sees her, and pauses the game. He even goes so far as to turn off the TV.
Victoria's breath is very loud in the sudden silence.
"Alex," Gabe calls, "you too."
Alex turns around from where he's doing something in their kitchen and says, "I'm cooking," and then he looks at Victoria, turns around, and then comes farther into the lounge without the knife he'd been holding.
"Victoria?" Gabe prompts.
Her voice sounds very far away as she says, "I'm pregnant."
Nobody moves or speaks for what seems like an eternity, and then Ryland pulls out Guy Ripley to ask, "Is this a felicitous occasion?"
"I don't know." That doesn't feel any more like her voice either.
Gabe gets up off the couch and comes over to her. "It's going to be okay," he says, and he wraps his arms around her. A moment later, Nate's at her back, and then Alex and Ryland, and she just lets them hold her up in the center of them.
*
Gabe posts to their MySpace blog.
We're the band that's always ready to party. We know some of you aren't happy with the way we haven't been hanging out as much recently. It's been a tough tour for us, and we're trying to balance out partying with you and taking care of ourselves enough to give you the best fucking show we can.Half the comments are from people telling them to stay healthy. The other half are people who are bitter they're not hanging out or people speculating about what Jack and Victoria's rumored breakup has to do with it.
*
Victoria reads something, or maybe the nurse told her, that says she's going to be tired for the first trimester. It explains why she keeps napping. Between that and the regular old weirdness of sleep on tour, her sleep schedule is completely fucked.
She's in the back lounge in the middle of the night, watching the lights of passing towns and cars, wide awake and trying not to think. Gabe doesn't turn on the light when he comes in, navigates his way to the couch by the light coming through the windows. He sits down next to her, and she fits herself easily into the space at his side.
She's had her hand on her stomach this whole time without really noticing it.
"It's his." They all have to know, but she hasn't said it out loud yet.
Gabe tightens his arm around her and says, "No. Nothing about this belongs to that motherfucking asshole of a douchebag." His voice is almost too low to be heard, and she's never, ever heard him sound that angry. If she didn't know he was angry for her, she'd be afraid. He gentles and says, "It's yours. Everything about this is yours. Your choice. Your body." He pauses and then says, carefully, "Your kid, if you want it."
"How can I?" Victoria takes her hand off her stomach to wave at their surroundings. This is what she'd been trying not to think about. "How does that fit with this?"
Gabe's silent for a moment, and then he says, "We'd make it fit. You can teach me or one of the techs to play well enough to cover soundcheck so you can rest if you need to. Between this tour and the next one, you'll only be at seven months, and we can take a break after that."
It's what Victoria wants. She's known, really, since the day she took the test. The day she smoked her last cigarette.
"I want to be this kid's mom," she tells Gabe. "Fuck, what if he wants custody?"
Gabe's answer comes swift and sure. "He can't have it. We'll get you a lawyer, a fucking good one, and make sure he doesn't get it."
She nods and closes her eyes. "Okay, fuck, okay."
She doesn't mind when Gabe's hand covers hers, big enough to cover it completely and spread over the edges onto her stomach. She keeps her eyes closed, and apparently it was the worry keeping her awake because she can feel herself slipping toward sleep.
"Babe," Gabe says, "go to bed." He pushes her up and she stumbles back into her bunk.
In the morning, she sees what he tweeted just after she went to bed: Life is a fucking amazing miracle.
*
They have a band meeting between soundcheck and the show. Alex makes half a dozen things for them to snack on and Gabe locks the door to the bus.
When they're all settled around the table, Gabe bangs his fist on the table. "Cobras, come to order."
Ryland promptly says, "Steak, rare, with the baked potato."
Gabe flips him off. "Any other wiseasses?" He waits for a moment, and then shakes his head. "I don't know if I should be glad you're taking this seriously or disappointed only one of you could come up with an appropriate joke." He doesn't wait for anyone to come up with another one before he says, "Victoria?"
She's sitting next to Gabe, and she reaches for his hand. He hums a few bars of "Papa Don't Preach," and Victoria stifles a burst of giggles.
"I'm keeping it." She's a lot less ambivalent about it now, and a smile takes over her face. "You're all going to be uncles."
Nate lets out a whoop. Alex grins and pushes one of the snack trays at her.
Ryland says, "Delicious," but his smile is too open to be Guy Ripley.
It's almost too much, and Victoria grips Gabe's hand to have some kind of outlet for it. He squeezes back and lets everyone spend another couple of minutes making excited exclamations. Victoria swallows the lump in her throat and tries not to let it make her cry.
"All right, assholes," Gabe finally says, grinning the whole time, "we've got shit to discuss."
"Don't tell anyone yet," Victoria says as soon as they calm down. "I haven't even told my parents."
Alex is looking at Gabe when he asks, "When are you going to do that?"
"Tomorrow." They have a day off, so she can spend as much time as she needs to on the phone with them. "And then I'll write a blog entry, and then you can tell people." Gabe usually handles this kind of publicity, but he already said everything about this is hers, and that's going to include how they tell people.
"Next topic," Gabe says. "The bus and the area outside the door are now non-smoking zones."
"We've already been doing that," Ryland points out.
"Mostly. Now one hundred percent." Gabe flashes a grin. "Baby Cobra's going to be as healthy as we can make it." He points at Victoria. "That means regular meals for you and no more weird diets."
Victoria makes a face and lets go of his hand. "I can take care of myself." She picks up a piece of bruschetta and cups her other hand under it as she takes a bite.
"Of course you can," Gabe says, not at all like he means it.
Victoria wonders how fast their hovering is going to get old.
"So a break after the next tour," Ryland says.
"Yeah, at least until Victoria and the baby are ready to tour again."
"Oh, fuck," Nate says, "touring with a baby."
"Can't be any worse than having your ass with us," Victoria shoots back.
"Children," Ryland admonishes. It only makes Nate and Victoria stick their tongues out at each other.
Gabe laughs. "Bottom line," he says, "Victoria sets our pace. Whatever you need, babe."
Victoria reaches across the table. "What I need right now is some of the tapenade."
Ryland slides it toward her with a sigh. "I can see how this pregnancy is going to go."
Victoria smirks at him. "You're going to be waiting on me hand and foot, boys, hand and foot."
*
Victoria commandeers the back lounge in the morning and calls her parents. She tells them a couple of tour stories and hears about the latest antics of one of Mom's friends before she says, "I called because I need to tell you something."
"What is it, honey?" Mom asks.
Victoria knows her parents love her, but she's still scared, so she says it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. "I'm pregnant."
"Well," Dad says.
Mom says, "Oh."
"This is a good thing," Victoria tells them. "I'm happy about it." And even though she is, she's still telling her parents that she's pregnant, so her voice wavers and she has to wipe her eyes.
"What about the father?" Dad asks. If she knows her parents at all, they pointed at each other until he gave in and asked it.
"Not around." They can do the math and figure out it was Jack; she'd rather not say it out loud any more than she has to.
"Oh, honey," Mom sighs.
"It's not like I'm going to be alone." If she turns her head, Victoria can look out the window and see Gabe and Nate playing some kind of improvised game with a basketball and a Frisbee for the benefit of an audience of crew members. "I have the rest of the band."
"A band is no substitute for a husband," Mom says tartly. It's a conversation they've had before. Sometimes Victoria doesn't understand how her mom's carried this odd streak of conservatism through a life around musicians.
"Can't you just be happy for me?" In a minute, she's going to be crying and whining like a teenager, which won't help her case. "Can't you be happy you're going to be grandparents?"
"Of course we're happy about the baby," Dad says, "even if this isn't the ideal situation."
"When are you due?" Mom asks.
"November. It'll be good - we're on tour until September and we were talking about taking a break for the holidays anyway."
"Victoria," Mom scolds, "you can't tour while pregnant."
"Mom," Victoria sighs, "I'll be fine. The guys already agreed to help out."
"Sweetheart, you know you can call us if you need anything," Dad says, probably because he doesn't want to hear another round of "your band is not a husband" any more than Victoria does.
"Thanks Dad." Outside, the game Nate and Gabe are playing now includes a tambourine, a rubber chicken, and people divided up into what are either dance teams or designated cheering sections. "I will."
"We love you, honey," Mom says. "We just want what's best for you."
Victoria smiles at that; if there's one thing she's never doubted, it's that. It's something she'll have to make sure she does for her kid too.
"I love you too." She promises to take care of herself and their grandchild and call again soon.
She watches Gabe and Nate run around for a couple of minutes - that's definitely a cheer routine they have the crew doing - and then leaves her phone in the back lounge and goes out to the front.
"Weezer sing along," she announces. Alex groans, but Ryland starts singing and she joins in. Ten minutes later, Alex gives in and leaves the bus. Victoria and Ryland sing another couple of songs before she has to stop and get up for a bottle of water. She comes back and leans over to hug Ryland tight.
"Okay?" he asks.
Victoria smiles at him, and it doesn't even feel forced. "Yeah, thanks."
She goes back into the back lounge and picks up her phone again.
Her next call is to Amber, who puts her on speaker so Gizmo can hear her. She does the same routine of exchanging tour stories for Gizmo stories before she says, "I'm pregnant."
There's a moment of silence before Amber shrieks. "Gizmo, baby, did you hear that? You're going to have a little brother or sister!"
Victoria grins so hard she thinks it might split her face.
"I can't wait to buy your kid the cutest clothes," Amber gushes. "I hope it's a girl so we can put her in dresses like yours."
Victoria outright laughs. "Between you and the band, my kid's going to be the most fashionable kid on the block."
She makes Amber promise not to tell anyone until after her blog entry goes up, and then she calls Ashlee.
Ashlee answers with, "Hey, sweetie, what's up?"
"You can't tell anyone," Victoria says, "not even Pete."
"Oooh, secrets!"
Victoria grins. "Just for another couple of days, until I make the real announcement."
"Tell me, tell me!" Victoria's pretty sure that if Ashlee didn't need to hold her phone she'd be clapping her hands together. She might actually be jumping up and down.
"I'm pregnant."
Ashlee yelps. "That's great! And I can't tell anyone?"
"Just for a day or two," Victoria promises. "Until I post the official announcement."
Outside, Alex is now somehow involved in Nate and Gabe's game and they've added a handful of limes.
"I'm scared," Victoria admits.
"Sweetie," Ashlee says softly, "so was I. But being pregnant was the most amazing thing. And now we have Bronx."
Victoria tucks her feet up under herself. "Do you think I'm crazy for staying on tour the whole time?"
"I don't know," Ashlee says. "If you take care of yourself and you can handle it. Make the boys carry your bags."
Victoria giggles. "Gabe already said we're doing whatever I need."
Ashlee giggles too. "You have him so wrapped around your little finger."
Victoria keeps giggling. "All of them. Alex keeps cooking, and they won't let me go anywhere by myself."
"Oh," Ashlee says as if she's just thought of something. "Is that where Jack got the black eye?"
Victoria stops laughing. It hasn't been long enough not to hurt. "Probably. I didn't ask."
"Shit," Ashlee mutters. "This is a totally happy thing, and then I brought that up."
"My mom gave me shit about it." Victoria turns so she can watch the boys playing outside. Gabe's pointing at Nate, who's flapping his arms like chicken wings.
"Fuck that! Asshole cheated on you." Ashlee's silent for a moment and then she asks, "It is his, right?"
Victoria pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her forehead on them so it's like she's alone in the world. "Yeah. I told Gabe and he said it's all mine."
Ashlee laughs like she can't help it. "Please. You know Gabe's going to spoil that kid to death. You've seen him with Bronx."
Victoria manages a wobbly smile. "Yeah. He's already calling it Baby Cobra."
"Thank God Pete never got it into his head to make Bronx FOB's mascot. You know your kid's going to be wearing bright colors and cobra jewelry from the day it's born, right?"
Victoria laughs. "It's not any worse than your kid and his Clan merch."
Ashlee laughs too, and then she says, softly, "It's gonna be great. And you can always, always call me if you need advice about being pregnant and famous. And now it's time for me to go be mommy." Ashlee sends a loud kiss down the line. "Call me when you need to."
"I will. Thanks."
"Sweetie, we've gotta stick together." And with that Ashlee hangs up.
Victoria looks out the window and watches Alex do what is probably a victory lap before being handed the rubber chicken. She has no idea what the rules of the game are, but everyone seems to be having fun.
"That's what things are gonna be like," she says out loud, and then feels silly for talking to a baby who probably can't even hear her yet.
She grabs her laptop from her bunk and settles down again. It takes her a while to figure out what she wants to say, and even though it's not very long, she's still not sure about it.
She doesn't end up posting it until the next day.
The TruthShe tweets the link and then closes her laptop and doesn't look again until after soundcheck.
We've gotten a lot of questions about why we haven't been hanging out as much on this tour. Gabe's been answering them, but those of you who thought he wasn't telling the truth were right. Here's the truth: I'm pregnant, and the rest of my band is overprotective. That's it. That's the whole truth. I'm just about through my first trimester. It's supposed to not be so tiring after that. I hope that's true too. I miss you all and I want to hang out again!
The rest of her band, Guy Ripley, Pete, and Ashlee all retweeted it, and she has a shitload of comments and replies.
Most of them are congratulations, but there are a fair number speculating about the father and a few calling her a slut or a sinner. She gets a string of about four of those in a row, and she's starting to tear up when Gabe closes her laptop.
"Babe, don't torture yourself."
"I'm fine," she says, even though she's not. "It's just the pregnancy stuff." Even though it's not.
Gabe takes the laptop off of her lap and puts it down on the other side of the lounge. "They're going to talk shit. Don't listen to them."
Victoria nods and doesn't pick up her laptop for the rest of the day.
That night, just before they go on, Gabe switches up the set list and replaces "Send My Love to the Dance Floor" with "Church of Hot Addiction." He comes over to Victoria and passes his hand over her head with "get the Cobra bless now."
*
Over the course of the tour, they collect copies of pretty much every pregnancy and child rearing book in existence, three boxes of stuffed animals, and half a dozen bags of baby clothes.
At one meet and greet that Victoria feels well enough to go to, a woman clutching a bag hangs back so she's at the end of the line. She introduces herself as Teri.
"You're so brave for doing this," she says. She's maybe a couple of years older than Victoria. "I wasn't that brave." Victoria can see her fight back tears before she says, "I made you something." She pulls it out of the bag and holds it up so Victoria can see it before she hands it over.
It's not the first baby blanket she's gotten, but it's by far the best. When Victoria reaches out for it, she finds it's made out of the softest yarn she's ever touched. It has cheerful pale green cobras against a lavender background, and delicate letters spelling out "Cobra For Life" all around the edges.
Victoria stands up and steps forward to hug Teri, the blanket between them. She finds she can't let go.
"Thank you," Victoria whispers. When they step apart, they both have tears in their eyes.
Gabe's hand rests low on Victoria's back as he steps forward. "It's amazing. Come get a picture." All five of them array themselves around Teri. She and Victoria hold the blanket between them. Gabe keeps his hand on Victoria's back and makes sure they get a picture with their camera as well as Teri's.
Second Trimester: May 2011
They get two weeks off between tours, and Victoria's mostly just glad to see Gizmo, sleep in her own bed, and have the entirety of her wardrobe to choose from. She's also grateful for the way it means she isn't in close proximity to Jack anymore. He stayed away from her, even after she made the announcement, but she kept expecting to see him around every corner.
On the second day, she's lounging around in pajamas, cuddling with Gizmo and watching CSI: Miami, when Gabe shows up.
Victoria keeps Gizmo from escaping out the door as she asks, "What are you doing here?"
Gabe holds up a bag. "I brought you breakfast."
Victoria takes the bag from him and heads for the kitchen, letting him follow or not. "I can actually feed myself, you know."
"I know." Gabe has Gizmo cuddled up against his chest when he joins her in the kitchen. "Maybe I just missed you." He grins at her. It's very charming.
"It's been two days." The bag is full of bagels and three kinds of cream cheese. Victoria gets out plates and knives. "That's not long enough to miss me."
Gabe puts Gizmo down so he can slice a bagel for himself. "I was totally lonely," he insists.
Somehow Gabe always knows the best places for food, and the bagels are absolutely perfect.
Gabe glances over way too casually just as Victoria has a mouth full of sesame seed bagel with herb cream cheese. "Don't you have a doctor's appointment today?"
"Not until two." Gizmo's way too excited about people eating, so she gets a treat for him from the jar on the counter. It's why she's not paying attention when Gabe asks, "You want some company?"
Victoria says, "Yes," without thinking about it. And then she stops and thinks about it. She does want company, but she can do this alone. It's a lot easier than that first visit to Planned Parenthood. "You don't have to come with me."
"I don't mind." Gabe puts his bagel down. "We're going to be around for everything else, we might as well be there for this."
Victoria crosses her arms over her chest. "We? Did you all vote on you coming along with me or are you acting alone?"
"Think of it as a royal plural." Gabe bends down and picks up Gizmo. "You're not going to have to do anything alone." He looks at Gizmo and not her as he says it.
Even though he said they would do what she needed and she told her parents she wasn't going to be alone, hearing him say straight out that she's not going to be alone is a relief.
"Okay." She points at his bagel. "What're you having?"
"Strawberry on cinnamon raisin." He picks it up, and holds it out to her, keeping it away from Gizmo. "No arguments?"
Victoria takes a bite of his bagel. It's a little sweet for her tastes. "No." She shrugs. "I did tell my mom I wasn't going to do this alone."
Gabe puts his bagel back on the plate and Gizmo on the floor. "You gonna let me hang out on your couch until it's time to go?"
Victoria scoops up her plate. "Yeah."
She cares more about her bagel than what they watch, so she cedes the remote to Gabe. He flips through the channels and stops on The Karate Kid while she keeps Gizmo off the couch until they're done eating.
*
They take the subway to her appointment, and they're both in casual clothes and glasses instead of contacts, so no one recognizes them. No one even looks twice at them in the waiting room. Gabe reads her advice from parenting magazines and she drinks down a bottle of water while they wait for the nurse to call her name.
The nurse weighs her, takes her blood pressure, asks questions about medications and her last period. She'd be embarrassed, but it's not like Gabe doesn't know anyway. Fuck, they were living on a bus together at the time.
"Doctor Sanders will be right with you," the nurse says after she's asked all of the questions, and then she leaves them alone in the room.
Gabe leans back in his chair and looks at the diagrams on the wall. "Never been in a gynecologist's office before."
"OB/GYN," Victoria corrects absently.
"Never been in an OB/GYN's office before."
Victoria digs through the basket of magazines between the chairs until she finds something whose cover promises fun summer activities to do with kids. "Here." She shoves it at Gabe, and lets him amuse himself suggesting ways they could change up said activities for use on tour.
Doctor Sanders comes back with Victoria's chart in her hand and the nurse following along behind her. Victoria's been seeing Doctor Sanders for years and genuinely likes her.
"Victoria." Doctor Sanders sits down on the rolling stool. "How are you?"
"Good." Victoria gestures at Gabe. "This is Gabe."
Doctor Sanders reaches across to shake his hand.
"Not the father," Victoria clarifies.
Doctor Sanders nods and glances down at her file. "Okay. So do you know about how far along you are?"
"At least three months." Victoria doesn't look at Gabe while she says it.
Doctor Sanders tsks. "You should've been in here before this."
"We were on tour." Victoria resists the urge to reach out for Gabe's hand. "We're leaving again in a week and a half, for four months."
Doctor Sanders tsks again. "So much for celebrity clients being all about the glamour." She makes a note on the chart. "That's going to be tough."
"But I can do it?" This time, she does reach for Gabe. He takes her hand and squeezes it.
"We're going to do an ultrasound," Doctor Sanders tells her. "It'll let me know how far along you are, and if we don't see any problems, you take care of yourself, and we schedule you some appointments while you're on the road, then you should be okay."
She has Victoria settle onto a table and pull up her shirt. Her skirt is low enough that she doesn't have to do anything but tug it down a little bit. Gabe comes over with her and doesn't let go of her hand.
"This is gonna be a little cold and goopy," Doctor Sanders warns, and she and the nurse work together to move things around for a moment before she squeezes something cold and goopy onto Victoria's stomach. Victoria tries not to jump, and Gabe takes a step closer to her.
Doctor Sanders points at the screen. "There it is."
She can see the shape of the baby. Her baby. It makes it almost even more real than the way her belly's just starting to curve with it.
Gabe's free hand strokes over her hair. "Look at that." He sounds completely and totally awed.
"Yeah." Victoria can't look away from the screen.
Doctor Sanders moves the thing on her stomach for a couple of minutes. "You're about thirteen weeks," she finally says, "which makes your due date around November 21, although don't count on it being that day specifically. Everything looks good."
"Can we get a copy of the picture?" Gabe asks.
"Of course," Doctor Sanders says. She moves the thing on Victoria's stomach again, and then stops and does something that presumably has something to do with getting them a picture.
"Can I find out if it's a boy or a girl?" Victoria asks.
"Too early," Doctor Sanders says. "We might be able to tell by the time we do another ultrasound."
The nurse helps her get the goopy stuff off her skin - although she's still going to want a shower when she gets home - and shows her to the restroom. They made her drink a lot of water for the ultrasound. Victoria comes back and sits in one of the chairs by Doctor Sanders' desk.
"Are you going to be back here during your tour?" Doctor Sanders asks.
Victoria shakes her head. "Only once."
"If you can get us a schedule of where you'll be, we'll see about making referrals for you to local places."
Gabe already has his phone out. "I've got it." Doctor Sanders gives him an email address to send it to, and promises to make a list of referrals for them.
She also gives Victoria a sample of prenatal vitamins with strict instructions to pick up her own and take them every day, and the short version of the restrictions lecture Victoria already knows: no alcohol, no cigarettes, no drugs, no raw fish, no hot tubs, and only limited caffeine.
Gabe puts his arm around Victoria. "We're making sure she takes care of herself."
Doctor Sanders says, "Very charming," but smiles while she does, and then hands cards with the office's phone number to both of them. "Call us if you have any questions. We'd rather you bother us than not call and have something happen to you and the baby." She hands over the ultrasound photo too, shakes their hands, and the nurse walks them out.
Gabe insists on taking her to lunch. He finds a diner and they sit there for hours talking about music and telling childhood stories. He takes the subway back with her, too, and walks her all the way to her door where Gizmo jumps on both of them.
"Think you can tear yourself away from us?" Victoria asks after Gizmo calms himself down a little.
Gabe pulls out his phone and looks down at the screen. "I have to. Dinner with my pops." He wraps Victoria and Gizmo up in a hug. "Thanks for letting me spend the day with you."
Victoria hugs him back. "It was fun. We should do it again sometime."
Gabe grins down at her. "We will." He scratches behind Gizmo's ears. "I want a copy of Baby Cobra's first photo."
"I'll send you one."
After Gabe leaves, Victoria takes the ultrasound picture out of her bag and stares at it for a long time. After a while, she puts it on the scanner and emails it to Gabe, the rest of the guys, her parents, Amber, and Ashlee.
Then she takes it off the scanner and puts it in one of the magnetic frames on the fridge.
*
When she told Gabe they should do it again sometime, she didn't really mean the next day, but that's when he shows up.
"Watching TV again? That'll rot your brain."
"We're on a break." Victoria lets Gizmo rush at Gabe. "What else should I be doing?"
Gabe points at the boxes of books she hasn't unpacked. "You could read up on pregnancy and parenting while you have the time."
Victoria stares at him. He's really suggesting she work her way through two and a half boxes of books?
"If I'm doing it, you can too."
Victoria keeps staring at him. "What?"
Gabe kneels down and opens one of the boxes. "What do you think happened to the duplicates?" He starts pulling books out and unpacking them into stacks on the floor.
Victoria sits down next to him. "You mean I have two and a half boxes of baby books and none of them are duplicates?"
"I took the duplicates, and we gave away anything more than that." Gabe hands her a stack of books. "These are pretty good." He points at one of the other stacks. "Those suck." He waves at the rest of them. "I haven't read any of these yet."
Victoria takes the stack of Gabe-approved books to the couch and turns off the TV. "When did you even have time to read all of these?"
"Not all of us spent most of the tour in bed." Gabe smiles, so she knows it's not meant meanly. "And it didn't take long to realize the ones that suck sucked."
Victoria skims the titles and picks the one that sounds the most interesting to start with. She's a couple of chapters in - she doesn't really need to read the things about the first trimester in detail; she already lived it - when Gabe finishes with sorting the rest of the books. He's moved the stacks into boxes and labeled them with his ever-present Sharpie: "good shit - Victoria read," "sucks - burn," and "? - Gabe read." He brings over a bunch of books from the last box and sits down at the other end of the couch.
They read in companionable silence until Victoria's stomach growls loud enough to make Gabe look up from his book.
"Do you have anything to eat here or you wanna go out?"
Victoria does not want to go out. In an ideal world, she wouldn't even have to leave the couch. "I don't think there's anything worth eating. We could order something."
Gabe looks at her for a long moment, and then says, "You need to start eating better. He glances down at his book and then closes it and puts it down on top of his stack. "I'll go down to the corner and pick some things up."
"I'm not cooking."
"Hey," Gabe says, "I'm no Suarez, but I think I can handle lunch for two."
Victoria waves toward the door. "My keys are on the table."
By the time Gabe comes back, Victoria's swapped out one of the pregnancy books for one of the child rearing ones.
"The bodega on your corner doesn't carry shit." Despite the complaint, Gabe's carrying a pair of plastic bags. He takes them through into the kitchen.
"Yell if you can't find anything," Victoria says. Gabe seems to do okay on his own, because half an hour later he rearranges everything on the coffee table so he can set out pasta, salad, and plates.
"I can't believe you made this from stuff you got at a bodega that's not up to your standards," she says when she tastes the pasta.
"Hey, I'm a modern man. I cooked just as much as Bianca did."
Victoria stretches one leg out across the couch and nudges at his thigh. "You okay?" It's the first time she's heard him mention Bianca in a while. For as outgoing as Gabe usually is, he can also be fiercely private.
Gabe shrugs. "Getting there. It'll be better once we can sell the apartment." He rests his hand on her ankle. "How about you?"
She has to think about it, because she's been trying not to think about Jack or anything related to him. Except the baby, of course. The sting of betrayal is still sharp and she misses having someone be there for her, but she doesn't miss Jack himself as much anymore.
"Yeah, I guess," she says. "I still don't understand why he did it."
"Because he's a fucking asshole." Gabe strokes his thumb over her skin. "You know that, right, babe? That it wasn't because of you?"
"I chose him," Victoria points out. "My shitty choice got me here."
"You couldn't know he was gonna do that."
Victoria shakes her head. "We were hooking up for a long time before we were dating. Probably not the best way to start something." She digs back into her pasta.
Gabe watches her eat for a while, and just about the time she thinks that's going to be it, he says, "That's how I met Bianca, you know."
Victoria's heard the story of their first date, but she didn't know that. "You still broke up."
"It was really good for a long time. And neither one of us cheated."
Victoria finishes her pasta and puts the plate down on the coffee table. "I won't be hooking up with anyone any time soon anyway." She puts her hand over her stomach. It's something she does now, without even thinking about it.
Gabe puts his plate down too, and scoots across the couch to put his arm around her. "In a couple of months, you're going to have a kid, and someday you're going to meet a guy who'll want to be a part of that."
Victoria leans her head against his shoulder. "I'm starting to think touring means never having that."
"It's working for Ryland and Alex." Gabe kisses the top of her head. "When it's time, it'll happen."
*
The next day, Gabe makes her leave the house for an epic trip to Whole Foods, and then sticks around to teach her how to make empanadas and read to her from one of the funnier parenting books.
The day after that, they spend much of the day reading again.
The day after that, they go shopping for tour-appropriate maternity clothes, an expedition that leaves Victoria exhausted beyond belief. Gabe keeps an arm around her on the walk from the cab up to her apartment.
After Victoria unlocks the door, Gabe pushes Gizmo away with a firm, "No," and walks her past the couch to her room.
"I thought I was over this." Victoria steps out of her shoes and climbs into bed.
"You had a lot of clothes to try on. You want Gizmo in here with you?"
Victoria holds out her hand to gesture Gizmo up onto the bed with her. He cuddles under her chin, and her eyes close without her having to think about it.
She wakes up later remembering why she doesn't sleep in her bra. She's barely out of bed before she's stripping off her dress to get out of it. Gizmo whines at her while she's pulling on the shorty pajamas Ashlee sent as part of her congratulations you're pregnant but that doesn't mean you can't look sexy present.
"I know, baby. Let's get you something to eat."
She opens the door and follows Gizmo toward the kitchen. Gabe's still there, stretched out on her couch with a book in his hands and a coffee cup next to him. When he looks up, his eyes flicker over her outfit, almost as if he's checking her out.
Victoria keeps walking past him. "You're still here."
"Sure am. Dinner's on the stove, should be ready in about half an hour. Could you stir it while you're in there?"
Victoria measures out food for Gizmo and puts it on the floor for him, then stirs the soup Gabe has cooking. "What is this?"
"Lentils. There's stuff for a salad, too. And bread, unless you ate it all when I wasn't here."
"I think there's some left." Victoria opens the cabinet she's pretty sure she put the bread into. There's enough for them to each have a slice or two with their soup. "Yeah." She comes back into the living room, and Gabe makes room for her on the couch and passes her the book she's been reading.
Victoria takes it and opens to where she left off, but looks over at Gabe instead of down at the book. "So are you just hanging out here the rest of the break?"
Gabe says, "Until you kick me out," without missing a beat, but Victoria knows him well enough to see the hint of uncertainty behind it.
"And miss out on all the home-cooked food? No way." Victoria picks up her book. "Besides, you're not done with your box of books to read yet. I'm doing all the work of carrying this kid; I'm not going to read crappy books on top of it."
*
Sure enough, Gabe spends most of their break hanging out at Victoria's, with the exception of occasional press obligations. Management does a good job of keeping them all up to date on interview dates and the resulting press clippings. Victoria rarely does interviews and only sometimes checks them out later, but Gabe does almost every one and watches or reads all of them. Victoria starts keeping track of the schedule, though, so she knows when Gabe will be around.
He brings over takeout one evening after a day full of interviews, and Victoria finally asks, "Are they asking about me?"
Gabe takes a moment to swallow his mouthful of lo mein before he answers her. "You're pregnant, and we're taking you back out on tour. Of course they're asking. We're telling them how happy we are about the baby, and then moving on."
Victoria eats an egg roll and thinks about what she actually wants to know. "How's the press taking it?"
"They're curious, but no one's hanging around outside your building. Fan reaction's mostly the same." Gabe pauses for a moment and then says, "Lot of people asking why you're not doing interviews."
Victoria groans. "I hate doing interviews. I always sound stupid."
"I know," Gabe says, perfectly calm. "You don't have to do anything before the whole band stuff on tour if you don't want."
It's reassuring, but it still bothers her. Late that night, she tweets, I don't like the way I sound in interviews which is why I haven't been doing them. Still excited to be a mom! And a little scared... Then she thinks about it and sends another one: My mom's great. I only hope I can live up to that for my kid.
*
When they pack up for tour, Gabe makes sure both boxes of books they're reading through make it onto the bus as part of his space allotment, since Victoria's wardrobe takes up about twice as much space as usual with clothes various saleswomen helped her estimate will fit her in a couple of months.
Her band continues to be overprotective. Victoria's hardly ever alone, and they rarely let security take her places without one of them. She sometimes wishes for a moment to herself, but she's grateful for it when it means she's not the only one fielding questions when they run into fans.
She reads, in books and on blogs, about total strangers touching pregnant women's stomachs. With one or more of her band members always flanking her, it never happens to Victoria.
At a meet and greet in Virginia, a woman in the line sneers down at Victoria. "You shameless hussy, displaying your sin to the world."
Victoria's too shocked to do anything other than gape at her. They're spread out across the room, so no one else is close enough to hear what the woman is saying. They must notice Victoria, though, or the momentary silence and subsequent whispers from the fans closest to her, because before she can think what to do, Nate crowds himself into the space between them, Alex snaps for security, Ryland takes Victoria's arm to walk her out of the room, and Gabe appears on her other side looking grim and furious.
"Where the fuck was security?" he demands.
Danny doesn't look any happier about it than anyone else. "Circulating through the room. It's the way we usually handle that kind of setup."
Ryland leads Victoria over to a chair and stands next to her. By now, Nate and Alex have also made it out of the meet and greet.
"And clearly that's working well," Alex says.
"Someone needs to be with Victoria," Nate puts in.
Gabe paces the room. "They can't fucking talk to her like that." He looks murderous.
And that's enough for Victoria. "Gabe," she says, "I'm okay." She's not sure it's true, but she wants him to calm down.
Gabe turns to look at her, and there's something she can't read hiding beneath his anger. "They can't talk-"
"They're going to talk shit," she says over him. "Don't listen to them."
Gabe's mouth tightens, and then he slams out of the room. Danny's on his radio before the door's even closed, telling security to follow him. Gabe doesn't have this kind of temper tantrum very often, but they all know to just let him go until he calms down when he does.
Ryland half leans, half crouches to hug Victoria. "You really okay?" Tears prick her eyes, and she shrugs and then shakes her head.
"Take Victoria back to the bus," Alex says. "Nate and I can finish up here."
Ryland, Danny, and a couple of guys from security walk her back, and Ryland lets her curl up against his side on the couch.
Gabe comes back much calmer an hour later and crouches down in front of Victoria. "Babe, you okay?"
She reaches out a hand, and he takes it. "I'm fine." This time she means it without reservation. "That's probably the worst thing anyone's going to say to my face, and I got to cuddle with Ryland all afternoon."
"Guy Ripley's going to be so jealous," Ryland says.
Gabe brings Victoria's hand up to his lips and brushes a kiss across the back of it. "I'm already jealous."
Victoria smiles because he does.
By the time they get off stage, the story has hit Perez, Oh No They Didn't, and TMZ. Victoria has a slew of texts and voice mails about it. She tweets, People talk shit. Cobras are tough enough to take it.
Gabe reads it over her shoulder and asks, "Is that our official statement?"
Victoria tips her head back to look at him. "It's all I have to say about it."
Gabe drapes an arm around her and tugs her back against him. "Okay." He drops a kiss onto the top of her head. "Whatever you want."
*
Gabe gets falling down drunk in South Carolina. It's not that Victoria's never seen him like that - there were whole tours where he got fucked up every night he could - but not on this tour. He throws up twice and then starts crying.
"Dude," Nate says with wide eyes.
Even Ryland looks worried.
Victoria figures it's her job as the only sober person and the only girl to do something about it. She sits down next to Gabe and puts an arm around him, and he tips down so his head is resting on her breasts like they're a pillow.
Victoria strokes his hair and says soothing, meaningless things like, "Shh," and, "It's okay."
Gabe stops crying eventually, but it takes a long time, and then he's so quiet she thinks he's probably asleep.
"Signed the papers to sell the apartment," he says.
Victoria's been stroking his hair the whole time, but now she stops, and then starts again when she realizes she's stopped. The apartment. That would explain it. The last thing tying him to Bianca. She wonders if he'd been hoping it would be enough for them to get back together, and ignores the way the thought hurts more than it should.
"It's okay," she says instead, and she kisses the top of his head.
Gabe really does fall asleep after that, deeply enough that he doesn't make a sound when Victoria slides out from under him. She gently lowers his head down onto the couch and then picks up his feet and puts them on the couch too so he'll be more comfortable. She gets the blanket from his bed and drapes it over him so he won't be cold. She figures it's good practice for when she has a kid to take care of.
The next day, Victoria's the only person on the whole bus not hungover, so things are quiet. Gabe sleeps all through the morning and into the afternoon.
When he finally gets up, he wraps his arms around Victoria and holds on for a really long time.
*
Gabe reads that hearing is the first sense to develop, so he encourages everyone around to talk to the baby.
Victoria narrates pretty much everything she's doing, just so the baby will know her voice. Alex recites recipes and patter that could fit on any cooking show. Nate's partial to recounting 80s movie plots. Ryland busts out dramatic monologues in a variety of accents.
Gabe puts out a call for people to stop bringing them pregnancy and parenting books and start bringing them children's books in English or Spanish. "This kid's going to be the smartest kid ever," he puts in the MySpace blog when he asks. He finds a book database website where he makes their children's book collection public and keeps it up to date so people won't bring them things they already have.
Instead of getting drunk every night, he sits next to Victoria with a stack of books, and they take turns reading to the baby. Gabe's always disappointed when she makes them stop so she can sleep.
They all sing to the baby, lullabies and rock anthems, their own songs and things they make up on the spot, child-appropriate rounds and the filthiest hip hop they know.
*
Victoria's been able to feel the baby move since just after they left for tour. It started out as a fluttery feeling she wasn't even sure was real, and gradually became stronger.
In the dressing room in New Mexico, Victoria has one hand on her stomach and the other fluffing her hair when the baby kicks hard enough that she can feel it against her hand.
"Oh," she says. Gabe's next to her, so she grabs his hand and puts it on her stomach. "You can feel the baby kicking now."
Gabe turns away from the mirror, toward her, and puts his other hand on her stomach too. There's a look on his face that Victoria almost wants to call reverent.
"God," he murmurs, and then he smiles at her, open and happy and uncomplicated. "Hey, guys, come feel this!"
Victoria laughs and waves the rest of her band over. Gabe's only willing to move one of his hands to make room for them, and Victoria has to physically pry that one away when it's time to go on stage.
"The baby likes shows," she tells him. "It'll still be kicking afterwards."
*
They spend three days in L.A., doing a show and press and taking a day off. Victoria stays with her parents. Nate stays at his place - "My own bed," he both rhapsodizes and gloats - and Gabe, Ryland, and Alex stay with Pete and Ashlee.
"I wish you weren't doing this alone," Mom says for the millionth time.
"I'm not," Victoria says, also for the millionth time.
Since they don't have a lot of time together, they let the argument go for the rest of her visit, although Victoria knows she's going to hear it again later.
*
They go on Ellen in the morning, and the five of them squish onto the couch together. It's a tight fit, and they put Victoria in the middle.
"So you're pregnant," Ellen says not very far into the interview.
"Yes," Victoria answers.
"That must make touring hard."
Victoria smiles. "I was really tired at first, but now I have more energy, and I'm used to it."
"And we all want the best for Victoria and the baby," Gabe says, "so we're keeping to her pace."
"So how excited are you about becoming a mom?"
Victoria can feel her smile stretching wider. "Totally excited."
Ellen grins at all of them. "You all look pretty excited. Who's the most excited?"
All four of them say, "Gabe," at once.
Gabe grins his happy little boy grin and says, "What can I say? I love kids."
"Because you practically are one," Alex says, and then they draw the focus away from Victoria again.
*
They head over to Pete and Ashlee's for lunch afterwards, and Victoria doesn't even suspect anything when they pull up and their driveway is full of cars; Pete and Ashlee will take any excuse to have people over.
Gabe rings the doorbell obnoxiously, and then opens it without waiting for anyone to answer it. "We're here," he calls out, and they all follow him into the house.
As soon as they round the corner into the living room, a chorus of voices calls out, "Surprise!" There's a banner strung over the sliding glass doors that says, "BABY SHOWER" with the figure of a baby between the words, and pastel streamers draped everywhere else.
Victoria gapes at the people filling the room - her parents, their crew, Panic and The Young Veins, a few other people she knows - and then turns and hits a smirking Gabe. "I can't believe you did this."
"Hey, I get some of that credit," Ashlee says. She wraps Victoria up in a giant hug. "And it's my house." She holds out a hand to Pete, who hands over a plastic tiara Ashlee carefully places on Victoria's head.
Victoria works her way around the room, getting hugs and congratulations and catching up with people, until Ashlee tugs her away to get a plate of food.
She's barely finished eating when Ashlee claps her hands and says, "Shower games!"
Spencer gets the closest to guessing how big around Victoria is now. Brendon guesses the most baby food flavors correctly, and names the most number of songs with the word "baby" in the title. Ryan makes a list of baby names Victoria doesn't tell him there is no way in hell she's going to use.
There are presents too, everything from a mobile that's the same kind Pete and Ashlee say Bronx loved when he was a baby to a collection of baby clothes from Mom and Dad.
Victoria looks at the stack of presents in and out of their boxes and asks, "Where am I going to put all of this?"
"We'll hold onto it and send it when you get back to New York," Ashlee says.
It works for now, but Victoria thinks about her apartment and how she's not sure everything will fit in it anyway.
*
Victoria has regularly scheduled doctor's appointments all through the tour, never the same doctor or city twice. At the one in San Francisco, they do another ultrasound and find out she's having a boy. Victoria makes Gabe promise not to tell anyone yet.
Gabe misses only one appointment, when there's a press thing that overlaps. Danny takes her instead, and waits in the waiting room while she goes in to see the doctor.
It's weird not to have Gabe there with her, holding her hand and asking questions she doesn't think to.
"How'd it go?" Gabe asks the moment they get back.
"Good." Victoria sits down next to him and pokes him in the shoulder. "You worry too much."
Part 2
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-27 03:46 am (UTC)This to me sums up everything about Gabe for me. Gabe and his protectiveness for his band. Because I think that Gabe is FIERCE about his band, and that's my favorite thing about him ever.
When they're all settled around the table, Gabe bangs his fist on the table. "Cobras, come to order."
Ryland promptly says, "Steak, rare, with the baked potato."
Heeeeeeeeeeeeee. I actually snarfled here, so, well done, you.
One thing I like about this chapter is that it really expresses how in control of it all that Victoria is. She's such a strong woman and you give her a lot of justice. (I meant to quote more, but I got so wrapped up that I just didn't. XD)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-27 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-04 06:11 am (UTC)SO FUCKING CUTE!
gah
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-05 01:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-20 03:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-22 05:33 pm (UTC)