Well, here's chapter 4! Thanks again to Zickachik73 for being so awesome and that she feels better soon! But hey, there are perks. Vicodin is awesome. (nods)

Disclaimer: Well, pointless. I own my stuff, Hinton owns her stuff, and if there's any confusion we can duel to the death over it. That could be fun.

On with the shoe!

Chapter 4

Turns out my fourth grade teacher was right when she said you should never ask how bad things could be. It was only Sunday.

I groaned at the realization and Layne glanced over at me curiously. I knew she was getting suspicious. Not only had it taken me an hour to find my way home from the DX, but I had apparently forgotten to pick up the milk and the mail, again. I apparently forgot it yesterday and it was a recurring thing. Now she thought my mind was slipping. I think it was just the future me's way of getting under Layne's skin. I didn't blame him with the way she ordered things instead of asking. You'd think I was the wife in this relationship or something. Still, she'd made me go out and get the milk and the mail along with ice cream and pickles with peanut butter and jelly for toppings. I had never been that disgusted in my life, but I knew better than to say anything. If she had taken me down a couple pegs over not knowing I went to the DX once a month, then mocking her pregnant cravings was going to end with my balls hanging on the wall or something worse. I had never thought there could be something worse, but from the look in Layne's eye when I told her there was no caramel sauce to go with the pickle; I became sure there were worse things.

Like I said, it was only Sunday and I had no idea how I was going to handle this. This whole near death hallucination bit was a little new to me, if you hadn't figured that one out. I knew I was fucked the first time I slipped up over breakfast. That was in the first five minutes and now I had a whole week to fuck things up. I wasn't this Mike and someone was bound to notice. With my luck, it was going to be someone with authority enough to lock me up somewhere with a red stamp on my hand and padded walls to keep me company.

If I had any brains, I would have thrown a couple bags in the back of that shitty Buick and taken off for New York or San Francisco where no one would notice I wasn't me. Unfortunately, I had no brains and to top it off, I was reluctantly curious. This whole situation frustrated me and scared me all at the same time and here I was staying because I was mildly interested in seeing how this all turned out. Fuck if I wasn't in deep over my head. I failed Drama enough times to know that much. But what else could I do but try or run? I was so fucking screwed.

With all this shit on my mind, it was no wonder that by the end of the day, even if it wasn't my bed, I was looking forward to going to it. Layne got the boys rounded up around nine and read them stories until the youngest crashed and Dan yawned widely. I watched this nightly ritual from the doorway of their room and marveled over how good she was with kids. I don't know why that surprised me; she practically took care of everyone already full grown. Not that that had changed over the years. She tried to mother the hell out of me and after babysitting West for years kids would have been easy. I shook my head then and tried to keep myself from a frustrated outburst. Ten years was too damn much time. Too many people had moved on and lived their lives. Starting to wonder about what I should know about one only led to the realization that I knew nothing about any of them and that wasn't a path I wanted to go down. It was fucking aggravating.

So I stood in the doorway as Layne kissed their foreheads and brushed the hair from their eyes. She struggled to her feet under the weight of her stomach and flicked off the light before motioning me out of the room. She sighed tiredly and made her way down the hall. I hadn't done much exploring, but this is what I got out of just being in the house. You walked though the front door and into the living room. There were stairs off the living room and two entryways out of it. One led to the dining room and the other to the kitchen where the back door was. Upstairs was a little more laid out. There were three bedrooms. The boys shared the one to the left of the stairs beside the bathroom. The room across the hall was a mystery to me, as was the one at the end of the hall. Seeing as how Layne was making her way to the one at the end of the hall, I figured this was her…our room. That meant the empty room had to be for the baby. At least I hoped that was the case; shy of bunk beds there was no fitting another kid in the boys' room, especially if it turned out to be a girl.

Layne sighed when she walked in and proceeded to shuck her shirt. I was transfixed with the size of her. She was Layne, but with another person in her. I couldn't get over it. I knew I should have been looking anywhere but her, but I couldn't help it and as far as she knew, we were married.

"Wanna hand me that nighty?" she asked, pointing at the green one on the bed.

Seeing as how she was already undoing the tie on her pants, I decided I should probably do what she wanted. She slipped the nightshirt over her head before kicking away her pants and sighing slightly. Next came the ponytail and it was like Layne was seventeen again. Fat and seventeen, but who was taking notes?

"Set the alarm, will you?" she asked, leaving the room.

Now, what time was I supposed to set the damn thing for? Normally I would have yelled down the hall for an answer, but with the kids sleeping – at fucking last – it was better just to wait. I mean, she had to come back here, right? She left her clothes.

Get a grip, Garren. If she's pregnant on number three, she can obviously stand to sleep in the same room, hell, and the same bed.

A nagging little voice in the back of my head was asking why I woke up on the couch if that was true. I growled at it and decided it didn't matter. There were enough things screwed up with this reality that one little detail wasn't worth it.

A minute later, she was back, stretching her back and groaning happily at the effects of the stretch. I thought it made her look bigger, if anything, but I knew enough to not say anything. You tell a non-pregnant girl she looked fat and you got your head bit off. I didn't want to find out what happened when you said something like that to a pregnant one.

"I swear, Garren – next house we buy has to have two bathrooms. One more toothbrush or bath toy and that whole counter is going to collapse."

Notice she was Mrs. Garren, but she still called me Garren. I didn't get it, so I was another thing I let slide instead of thinking about it.

"Ok."

"Did you set the alarm?" she asked and I shook my head

"I didn't know what time you wanted to get up."

"Well, Two-Bit will be here at 6:30, so we usually set it for 6," she said like she was explaining it to one of the kids. "Why? Planning on sleeping in?"

"Nah, guess not," I answered, turning the knob on the alarm. "Why does Two-Bit come so damn early?"

"Well, you seem to get to work on time when he comes that early," she answered with a shake of her head. "That and he likes breakfast here. Rachel always has been a hopeless cook."

"Speaking of cooking, Steve's wife said to bring potato salad on Friday."

"Good to know," she replied. "I'll touch base with her tomorrow."

Layne groaned and sighed before she settled back against the headboard and picked up a book from the side table. It hit me then that I hadn't seen any of her books. She carted those treasures half way around the country. I glanced at the one in her hands and felt a little more reassured.

"How many times have you read that?" I asked and she looked up at me over the pages.

"'The Man Who Would Be King' is a classic. You don't count how many times you've read a classic."

I just shrugged and shucked my own shirt and jeans before crawling into bed. That made me wonder, again, why I woke up on the couch that morning. I mean, it's not like I didn't have a bed here. And the bed wasn't uncomfortable. Fumbling on my own bedside table, I found a magazine and picked it up for lack of anything else to do. It was one on appliances.

"Do we need any of this shit?" I muttered.

"Unless you want to find a way to do what the repair man couldn't, then yes; we need a new fridge."

"I'll take a look at it after work tomorrow," I sighed and she looked at me out of the corner of her eye. "What? Don't think I can do it?"

"I know you can do it. I just don't want you to start anything you won't finish."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"It means that we had a funeral for the old stove and the new stove is going to be three this year," she answered, turning the page.

I glared at her and put the magazine down, pulling the covers up over my chest. So I couldn't fix anything mechanical around here. So fucking what. She didn't have to rub it in my face like that.

"If you think I'm waking up on the couch again, you've got another thing coming," I told her, rolling on my side so I was facing the closet.

"You woke up on the couch because you can't take the heat," she replied and I rolled over to look at her.

"Can't take what?"

"Me, up and down all night because the baby bounces on my bladder," she explained. "What I wouldn't give to be able to sleep on my back. But,I'll pick getting up half the night to pee over not being able to breathe, though."

"Sorry," I apologized lamely and turned over again.

"What are you apologizing for?" she asked and I shrugged.

"Sounded better than 'serves you right for letting me touch you,'" I muttered. "Or something else just as brilliantly stupid as that."

We were quiet for a few minutes before I heard the telltale sounds of sniffing. I groaned. Random crying. Why, oh why, did it have to be random crying? There was no reason for this shit.

I bit back my growl of frustration and turned back over. Layne was trying to hide behind her book as she batted tears from her cheeks. She gave up on that and put the book down so she could use both hands to press away the tears from under her eyes. She turned her face towards the other side of the room and I sighed before sitting up and turning towards her.

"It's not your fault. You don't have to cry," I told her. "You know me. I'm just being a jerk about this whole pregnant thing."

A right jerk. If she had have told the future me to keep my hands to myself, none of this would have been an issue right now and I could be asleep.

Apparently trying to make her feel better was the wrong thing to do. She turned furious eyes on me and gripped the bed sheet.

"You think I am crying because I want to? I do not cry!"

"No, you don't," I agreed, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do now.

Fuck, there should be a manual around here on how to deal with this shit.

"I just…" she took a hitching breath. "I hate this. Hold me."

I looked at her for a moment before slinging an arm around her shoulders and she curled into my side the best she could with that big stomach of hers. It felt awkward. We didn't do much as friends besides wrestle and hit from time to time. If she needed a hug, she went to one of her brothers or Darry. Well, looked like I fucked over that last part and this was my punishment.

"It was never this bad with the other boys. Finn just figures he'd better get my attention before he's born."

"Finn?" I asked, confused.

We called Layne Finn for a while because it seemed like the thing to do. It stuck until Aries came to Tulsa and started calling her Layne all the time. Well, there was one plus about this life – no Aries. I didn't know or care about what happened to him. There was no Sevrin, either. It was the two of us again, plus a couple kids who seemed to be well enough behaved. It wasn't so bad, I suppose.

"We are not calling him Gordon," she told me. "Or Chester or Bjorn or anything else you suggested. You suck at picking out names."

"Wait, so you named both of the boys?" I fished.

"Well, you kind of helped. Daniel Grey sounds much better than Grayson Daniel. And Gabriel Michael sounds much better than Gabriel Amery. But you're letting me down this time, Garren. I like Finnian Flynn. It has a ring to it."

"Finnian Flynn Garren." The name sounded weird. "Ok, then."

"If it turns out to be a girl, I leave it completely to your discretion because he is a boy," she informed me. "Let's hear your girl names."

Did I even care? Fuck. I looked down and she was waiting with an expectant look. I shrugged and came up with the only girl name I knew.

"Jillian Laura."

"After your mother. Alright, if it's a girl, Jilly."

We sat like that for a few minutes and I came to the conclusion that this bed was a hell of a lot more comfortable lying on than sitting on. It dug into all the wrong places. How could she stand it night after night?

"I'll be right back."

That's when I found out first hand that she wasn't lying when she said spent the better part of the night up and going to the bathroom. I was bound and determined to prove I could handle the heat and sat up to sleep, like she did, until an hour later when she shoved a pillow at me and told me to get some sleep on the couch.

The next morning I was off and out of the house before the kids even started stirring. Layne was up, but didn't do much beyond lay out some clothes for me and cook toast before sitting down in my chair and relaxing. I wasn't surprised. She had to have been on her feet most of the night. But this seemed like it was a routine for them. Yeah, them. I knew I was going to be in trouble the moment I thought of it as her and me. So it was them. I was in his routine. His routine sucked ass.

After a six AM wake up call, I took a shower in a tub full of bath toys in a cramped bathroom overflowing with every towel Layne'd probably ever owned. And it was just my luck that they were all damp from bath the night before. Who would have thought two kids could drench the bathroom? Next was dressing in the clothes Layne set out. Now, this could have been worse. Apparently I didn't wear anything fancier to work than a t-shirt, a button up shirt and clean jeans. I could deal with that. It made me wonder what I did for a living. I never did bother to ask. I was a mechanic through and through. I couldn't imagine myself doing anything different. But apparently, I was a pansy assed freak in ten years. Lord only knows what my addled mind thought was acceptably safe…

"Morning, Garrenses!"

I sighed. Well, at least something around here hadn't changed a bit.

"The kids are sleeping," Layne yawned, shooting Two-Bit a warning look

"Ah. No school. Gotcha. So, what's for breakfast?"

"Toast," I answered and he grinned at me.

"Is it burnt?" I shook my head. "Then toast sounds awesome!"

"Real compliment to your wife," I said, recalling Layne said something about him being married.

"I didn't marry my wife for her cooking. You've tasted it; you should know."

"You're awful," Layne informed him and he smiled.

"And you know you love me. Come on, Mikey; we'll eat in the car!"

I glanced at Layne as she smiled and got nice and comfortable in my chair. Oh, she'd get hers. I hear childbirth is pretty fucking painful…

"Have a good day, sweetheart," Layne called drowsily and I scowled.

"Yeah," I replied, closing the door behind me and following Two-Bit down to his Ford..

I spent the first few blocks trying to memorize the route before giving up on it. Two-Bit was the one who did the driving to work in the mornings, so there wasn't any good reason to learn where I was going. I'd be gone at the end of the week anyways.

I glanced over at Two-Bit and bit back a sigh. He was humming along to some random tune in my head and it was getting pretty damn annoying. Normally I would have smacked him and told him to shut the hell up, but it was just plain common sense not to hit the driver. It looked like I was going to have to make conversation instead. It wouldn't be nearly as satisfying, but at least it would do the job.

"So, Two-Bit…How long have we worked together now?"

Two-Bit smiled, his scaled-down sideburns twitching in amusement.

"Seems like forever, but man…I dunno. Coming up on eight years or something."

Eight years of working side by side with Keith Mathews. It was a miracle I hadn't taken my own life - I dunno, eight years ago or something. But I could see some changes in Two-Bit that would have made him more bearable over the years. He hadn't started the morning off asking for a beer, he hadn't taken any corners on two wheels, and he most definitely hadn't started cackling like a hyena at his own jokes. God, just like Steve and Culry, he'd grown up. There was hope after all.

"Why? Gonna throw me an anniversary party?"

"No. Just wanted to know how long I made it without killing you."

"Come on, Mike. You and Chely love me! We're the best team in Oklahoma."

Chely…As in Steve's wife Chely, I would presume. Lord, I couldn't get away from people who knew me…wait, that made no sense. I couldn't get away from people who knew me like family would. It was going to be hard to try and pretend this was all just a bad week.

"I doubt that."

"Ratings don't lie, Garren," he assured me and I frowned.

Ratings?

Did I really want to know?

I sighed. It was likely I'd know soon enough. Not that anything Two-Bit said ever made any fucking sense, but ratings? If I got stuck in a clown costume at little Johnny's ninth birthday, Two-Bit was going to wish he was dead. I didn't even want to think about how Chely fit into the picture. I didn't even know Chely.

Looks like it was going to be another long day. And no, I was not going to jinx myself by asking how bad it could get. I think I learned my lesson on that one. I was going to take it like a man and hope for the best in a shitty situation. And if it turned out costumes weren't optional, well could I really be responsible for my actions?

I didn't think so, either.


Well Mike's off to work! Should be an interesting experience... ;)

Any comments at all are welcome and flames are accepted.

See ya in the funny papers!!!

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