Well, here it is, once again as I've procrastinated on doing homework and my brain came up with this one-shot while attempting to do some major homework. You know how it is, when that inspiration hit's, you have to write it down. I know you know the feeling. Anyways, I really hope you ENJOY! Please read and REVIEW!
"Aunt Sonny, I wanna go home," my five year old niece, Bridgett told me, I smiled down at her, my smile not quite making it to a full blown Sonny smile, how could it after what had just happened a week or so ago.
"I know, Bridge, I know," I told her as we walked into my producers office.
"Sonny, how are you? You could take more time off if you need it," Marshall Pike said to me, he grabbed the bowl of candy on his desk and offering it to Bridgett, who looked up at me and I nodded.
"Marshall, I was named Bridge's guardian while I was home. I don't think I can stay here and raise her right while trying to focus on my career."
"I understand," Marshall said, he held his hand out and I shook it, realizing that this was his way of saying goodbye to an old So Random! favorite.
"I don't want a final show or no goodbye, I just want to grab my stuff and leave. My stuff at my apartment's already packed up, if you are ever in Wisconsin, you should drop in and say hi," I said, tears threatening to leak out of my eyes.
"I'll pass that on to the others, I'm sure they will take you up on it. Sonny it's been a great four years and you'll be missed."
"I'll miss it here as well, but I have to do what Adam would want, and he didn't want Bridge being raised in California, he loved Wisconsin, that's where he'd want her raised."
Marshall smiled and I had to leave the room or I'd be begging for my job back.
"Okay, kiddo," I rubbed my hand in Bridgett's brown hair, she only came up to my waist at five, but I knew she'd be tall, Adam was tall, so was her mother, Lacey. "Let's get packed."
I went to the dressing room I'd once shared with Tawni Hart, my best friend, so many memories where held in this room. Puddy Two Shoe's getting shredded, Zora living in the vents for that week when she was striking Bernie being taken from her, getting ready for my first date with Chad, our first kiss had been in this room, our break up six months ago, the call that had forever changed my life, it had all happened in this very room.
"Tawni," I heard a guy yell from out side the dressing room, just seconds before the door opened, revealing the man I'd once loved. "Where's Tawni?" Chad Dylan Cooper wasn't happy, he hadn't been happy since their break up, but normal he wasn't this furious.
"She's gone for the break, Chad, what do you want?" I snapped.
"Tell her that she owes me a new phone," Chad yelled, causing Bridgett to flinch, I bent down and picked her up.
"It's okay, sweetie," I whispered to Bridgett, rubbing my hand up and down her back in a soothing way. "Chad, please don't yell."
"Why aren't you sunny today? Who caused you to lose your sunny attitude," Chad said, narrowing his eyes at me, pretty well making me flinch just as Bridgett had done.
"Chad, leave, this instant, if you can't be nice, just leave, I won't have you influencing my niece like that."
"Aunt Sonny, can we go, I wanna go home."
"Just a moment, can you go play with your barbie while I escort Mr. Cooper out of here?"
Bridgett nodded and went to the couch to play, I grabbed Chad's shirt and walked out of the room.
"Sonny, let go."
"Chad, you have no right to just waltz in and act like the ass that you are in front of a young child, I'm sure your mother raised you better than that. In fact, I know she did."
"Sonny, what has gotten into you, you just cursed me out and your stuff's in a box, what's going on."
"Aunt Sonny, are you fighting with him, he looks like that guy's picture you keep on your desk at home, Chad Dylan Stinker or something like that."
"Look, kid," Chad said to Bridgett, "run along and let your aunt and I talk, or didn't your parent's teach you any manners?"
"Bridge, go in the room, shut the door and don't come back out," I told a now wailing Bridgett.
"What's her problem?"
"You are the worlds biggest ass, Chad, I don't know what I ever saw in you. Ask me where I've been for the last week. Did you even realize I was gone?"
"Of course I did, Sonny, I always know when something's up with you," he was dropping the attitude and his concern for me was coming stronger, he was slowly showing that he still cared about me. "Where where you?"
"Planning a double funeral, for that little girl's parent's who where killed in a drunk driving, hit and run accident," I sobbed, Chad came up and threw his arms around me. "My brother, my twin brother was killed a week and a half ago and you stand there and ask a five year old if her parents taught her manners, right now, all she knows is that her parents are in the ground, six feet under."
"Sonny, I'm sorry, I didn't think," Chad muttered, still holding me as I sobbed into his leather jacket.
"You didn't, you never think, Chad, you didn't think when you kissed that other girl, you didn't think when you barged into the dressing room, just now. I'm ruining your jacket."
"I'll get another one, I'm sorry, Sonny. For all of it."
"Because of you, I can't sneak away, you know what happened, and I hate you for it," I sobbed harder, here was the man I hated, yet loved at the same time. I pushed back from him and walked back into the dressing room.
"If you are ever in Wisconsin," I said, wiping the tears from my eyes, "you should stop and say hi." I shut the door on him, grabbed what I needed grabbed Bridgett by the hand and walked out the other door, away from all that I'd known for the last four years.
The flight touched down and I carried Bridgett, who was sound asleep, off the plane, seeing my mother and walking over to her, she took Bridgett from my arms, I went to grab our luggage.
My mother and I made our way to the car with out talking, I was sure it was all over Tween Weekly that I'd walked away from the show that had made me a star for undisclosed reasons, and if Chad had anything to say about it, they'd know those reasons soon enough.
I helped my mother settle Bridgett into the back seat, in her booster seat and put the luggage into the trunk then slid into the passengers seat and set back for the thirty minute drive to my new apartment in Middleton.
I'd had enough saved up for a few months worth of rent, but I'd already found a job, at my old high school, where I'd be a secretary in the front office. I actually started Monday after I dropped Bridgett off at her own school.
"Thanks, mom," I said as I lugged my suitcase into the house, while mom was carrying Bridgett. "Just take her on to bed."
I took the luggage to my room then went back to the living room to find my mom making hot tea for us.
"Sonny, I know how hard all this is for you, you and Adam and Lacey where best friends, The three of you and Lucy where never far apart from each other after the moment you meet in kindergarten. Now you're by yourself, with Adam and Lacey gone and Lucy in the peace corps. You're raising Bridge alone, you don't even had Chad to lean on during this time."
"Mom, Chad and I where never meant to be. He wouldn't have been here for me, maybe physically, but not where I needed it the most, not emotionally."
My mother grabbed me in a hug and we clung to each other for a few minutes before she went to get the tea. I set down on the couch and flipped on the television to an entertainment channel, what it had been on the last time I was here. I muted it as my mom came back with the tea, she handed me my cup and I took a sip, feeling a soothing relief of the burn down my throat.
"Honey, Adam wanted Bridge raised here and by you, but this isn't where your heart is, you left it in California and Adam would understand that. Adam always said that as long as you where happy, he was happy, he'd be sick over how unhappy you are right now."
I didn't say anything, I couldn't, my mother, no matter how annoying she could be was right, my heart was still in California, with a certain three named jerkthrob. The man I'd liked and loved since I'd walked onto the studio lot when I was sixteen and four years later hadn't changed that at all, another hundred wouldn't either. I'd always love Chad Dylan Cooper and my heart would always be his first, but I could never get his.
My mom left some time later and I went to bed, where I cried most of the night, not asleep when Bridgett came and crawled into bed with me around three. I cuddled her that night, but while she was in dream land, I cried, over my brother and best friend's passing, over Lucy, who still didn't know, over Chad, who'd forever be the one to hold my heart, over Bridgett, who'd grow up living with her aunt, never getting to know her parent's like I did, I cried because my life, that had once seemed so perfect, had shattered so fast and hard that it couldn't help but cut me and destroy me in the process.
"What can I help you with," I asked the girl that stood in front of me, I had plastered on a fake smile for the last two weeks, just hoping to get threw them and then it would be holiday break for two weeks, maybe by then I'd be back to my sunny self.
"I need a tardy slip," she whispered, "may I also get your autograph?"
Ah... a fan, well that explains her nerves about talking to me. I got out the slips and filled on out and the grabbed a piece of paper and promised myself that this would be the last autograph I'd ever sign, but knew it would be a lie, I'd sign as long as they'd ask.
"What's your name."
"Hannah Micheal."
I filled out her slip and signed the paper before passing them to her, she did a small squeal and darted off, it almost made me want to smile, almost.
"Sonny," Tara Connery walked in, Tara was one a student teacher over at the kindergarten class across the street and a friend of mine from high school. "Lunch?"
"Please, I'm starved," I grabbed my purse, told the other secretary that I was going to lunch and left.
"So, have you heard?"
"What?"
"You, about leaving the show, speculations are running wild, they swear Chad Dylan Cooper knows something but isn't telling. I've heard you're pregnant, you got married, you're suicidal and you've just gone off the rocker after being funny for to long."
"Well, they are wrong on all accounts, though, I feel like I've gone insane, this world I've been thrown into."
"Look, we where all surprised when Lacey wound up pregnant at fifteen, by Adam no less, Adam wasn't publicly dating Lacey at the time, but they made the best of the situation, that's what you have to do, you have to make the best of your situation, you have to do right by Bridge, but by yourself first."
"Adam always said, Bridge come's first."
"To Adam, her and Lacey did, I'd never seen a man love somebody so much, but he always made time for himself. When he was on the football field, throwing that ball back and forth with Tim, that was his time. Your time is when you're funny, that's how you vent, just like Adam and that ball. Tim swears there where welts on his hand after each session."
"I can't, I have to care for Bridge, she's the last thing I have left of Adam, it's all I can do to honor his memory."
"Sonny, I can't tell you what to do, but after break, you really need to see what's going to happen, things are going to have to change, Bridge isn't happy because you aren't happy."
"Bridge and I are doing fine," that seemed to be my favorite words right now, but Tara shut up about it and started in on lighter subjects while we ate.
"Aunt Sonny, is mommy and daddy coming to tuck me in and read 'The Night Before Christmas'?" Bridgett asked me, she was really missing Adam and Lacey tonight, the one night that we where all missing them, Christmas Eve.
"Oh, baby, how about I read it to you, then we'll listen to Santa watch for awhile before you go to sleep."
She nodded and trudged off to her room, I followed her, ever time I stepped into this room, I hated the color pink for a while afterwords. Bridgett had insisted her room be pink, from the walls to the ceiling to the sheets to her pillows, that I'd had to dye, the pink had taken forever to get off my hands.
"'Twas the night before Christmas," I started, I keep going as her breathing became deep and regular, she'd passed out before I'd even finished the book, I'd have to ask Adam if that was normal.
Then it hit me, I couldn't ask Adam if something she did was normal, Adam wasn't with me anymore, Lacey and him where watching over us from above, but I couldn't communicate with him anymore.
I went to the living room and settled down with the television on low and a book, I read maybe a half hour, forty five minutes before the banging on the door started. I was curious as to who was knocking my door down. I went up to the peep hole, almost scared when I saw who it was.
"Chad," I swung the door open, "Bridge's asleep, you could have woke her up and Santa hasn't been here yet."
"It's Christmas Eve isn't it," Chad asked, he sounded like he didn't know the date.
"Yea, why aren't you at home, with your family, enjoying tonight?"
"Because Sonny, I haven't been to California in weeks, I've been flying around the country, staying away from the spotlight."
"That's what Tara meant when she said they figured you knew something, you disappeared."
"Yes, Sonny, because no matter how hard I fight it, I can't stand not being in your life, if nothing other than a friend, so be it," he said, stepping into the door and shutting it lightly. "When we where at the studio, even though we'd been broken up, I still got to see you everyday, do you really think I'd come to Random just to see those other losers? No, I came to see you, because deep down I knew even if I couldn't have you, I'd always love you."
"Chad, you kissed another girl, it made head lines."
"No, she kissed me, big difference, of course it made head lines, I'm Chad Dylan- fucking- Cooper, the greatest actor of our-"
"Generation, I know. Chad, it's Christmas Eve, go to your family, I'm sure they are worried about you."
"Sonny, in the last four years, we've never been apart on Christmas Eve, I love you, Sonny, I'm just the worlds biggest jerkthrob to make you fall out of love with me."
"Who said I fell out of love with you?"
"Your mom says you cry so much anymore," Chad said.
"Chad, I just lost my best friend and my brother, whom I was really close to, I lost my boyfriend six months ago, my career left when I made the choice to move home to raise Bridge, of course I cry, it's my only outlet."
"Then hit me, Sonny, I know you want to, hit me because I kissed another girl, because you hate the fact that girls throw themselves on me, because even though some girl did kiss me, it's you I dream about at night and your mad because you should have been the one in my arms at night, not my pillow that I pretended to be you."
"You make almost no sense, but okay," I slugged off and hit him in the arm, I'd say I did it lightly, but I didn't, I needed him to feel all the pain I'd been through in the last six months. "Feel better, Chad, you conscience is clear now, I've let you have it because yea I was pissed at the world after you kissed her. I'm pissed that my brother left me in charge of the worlds cutest girl, I'm pissed that Lacey went to heaven and Bridge will never understand what good Lacey was to this world," I said and started hitting him again, putting all my emotions into the hitting. "I don't know how to be a mother to Bridge, I don't know how to be a grown up, all I've done in my life was be a comedian, I don't know how I get by every day, knowing you kissed another girl and I'm still hopelessly in love with you."
Chad grabbed me and hugged me tight while tears ran down my face, finally everything I'd been feeling for the last six months had come out. He held me tight, we stood at my door for the longest time, him holding me, supporting me, soothing me, rubbing my back, while I cried everything I'd been feeling, out.
I finally started to slump in Chad's arms and he picked me up bridal style and carried me to my bed room, where I fell asleep, sure that the tears where done.
The next morning an arm was thrown over me and my eyes where swollen shut, things slowly came back to me, how Chad had shown up and I'd finally let everything I was feeling out. I figured the arm over me was Chad's, I snuck a peek.
Yep, I thought, Chad had crashed in here last night, he's so cute when he's asleep, a far cry from the jerkthrob he was normally.
Then a thought occurred to me and I set up, waking Chad up in the process.
"Bridge's presents," I said to nobody in particular.
"Already under the tree, it's only five, she won't be up for another few hours," Chad said, laying me back down.
"What if she come's in here and see's us, you should be on the couch."
"Chill, I checked on her a little while ago, she's still sound asleep, if she come's in, we'll tell her we are-"
"We are what, Chad, we aren't cut out to be boyfriend/girlfriend."
"Look, Sonshine, you are the reason I go to work every morning, the reason I love life, I've been saving this for the perfect moment, but six months ago, I thought I'd lost the chance, but this might be the last chance I get to ask," Chad said, pulling something out of his pocket. "Sonny Monroe, I love you and have loved you since we meet you in that fat suit and me, well looking as amazing as always, even then we where destined for great things, so will you marry me?"
He held out a simple band, a diamond that was maybe five karats, six at the most. The band it's self was white gold with tiny diamonds around the circumference.
"Yea, Chad, I will."
"Good."
"Good."
"Fine."
"Fine," I smiled, pulling his face towards me as he slipped the ring on my finger, I kissed him full on the lips.
"Now, we have to talk about where we are going to live, I know Adam wanted Bridge raised here, but don't you think he'd be happy if she was raised where ever made you and her both happy?"
"Yea, Chad, he would, let's move back to California after this school year, think you can wait that long?"
"Well, I do have to get the house ready, CDC's bachelor pad is becoming a home. Do I have to get rid of the air hockey and pool tables?"
"No, we'll make your basement into a game room, and turn your game room into Bridge's room."
Chad was tired of talking though, because his lips crashed down on mine. We'd finally drift back into sleep some time later, only to be disrupted my Bridgett at seven, it was time to open presents. Her favorite present, a picture of me, Adam, Lacey, Lucy and her, the day she'd been born. I cried at that. I knew then that time would heal the hurt that had been left by Lacey and Adam's sudden lose from our world, I also knew that with Chad by my side, everything would be fine.
Six Months Later
"The new Mrs. Chad Dylan Cooper, Sonny Cooper, went shopping today with six year old niece that she has guardianship of and Tawni Hart, the three where spotted looking at baby things, does the new Mrs. Cooper or the soon to be Mrs. Harris have a surprise in store for their significant others?" I laughed at the television reporter, Tawni and I had been out shopping for a new baby in my family, Lucy had come home just three months ago and informed us that she was getting married and on top of it, she was expecting.
"What's so funny, Aunt Sonny?" Bridgett asked as she came in from playing football with Nico, Grady and Chad.
"Nothing, just something on television."
"What are they saying we're pregnant already?"
"Me or Tawni."
"Oh, heaven help us all, how did you guess?" Nico asked, I looked at him, my eyes wide.
"You're kidding?" Chad asked.
"Nope, three months along."
Chad came over to where I was sitting on the couch and set down, giving me a kiss.
"Aunt Sonny, Uncle Chad, that's gross."
"There's cookies in the kitchen, Bridge, take Nico and Grady with you," I told her, I figured she do it and the other two would follow. "Now," I said between small kisses, "where where we."
"Right here," Chad said, picking me up and carrying me to the bed room, I shrieked the entire way. He throw me down on the bed. The laid down on top of me.
"Chad, I've got something to tell you," I said between more intense kisses.
"Not now."
"Okay, how about in six months?" I said, starting to strip off my clothes, let's just say I knew how to make my husband speechless.