Downstairs Darren had locked himself in the studio knowing it was soundproof. He called Chuck who didn't answer so he texted him telling him to answer his phone. Two minutes later Chuck called him back.

"Little Bro, what's up?"

"Since when don't you pick up when I call you?"

"Since I was writing man, what's got you so riled?"

Darren's eyes found the photo on the wall, Issey's secret piece of them. "I need to talk. Can you give me a few minutes? I 'm sorry to interrupt your writing."

"Let me guess, Issey again." Chuck sounded unimpressed.

"Can we park the disapproval for a minute? I get it, you don't like her." He twisted the beaded bracelet on his wrist. Darren had always been able to talk to Chuck about whatever was going on in his life but his brother had taken a very dim view of Isabelle.

"I've told you, it's not that I dislike her, I haven't even met her. I've just never seen you like this over anyone. Not this fast anyway. She picked another guy Dude, you gotta move on. I think you should call Mia, talk things out with her."

"Chuck, can you just listen? I'm going to tell you something and I need you to promise you won't tell anyone, not ANYONE."

"Aw kid, you know you can trust me."

"Issey is pregnant."

It was quiet on the other end of the phone. Anyone else might have thought the connection had dropped but Darren knew his brother. He could picture Chuck, sitting on the floor like he always did when he wrote, and thunking his head against a wall. Sitting in a bus in the middle of nowhere he could read his brother's mind as easily if he were sitting beside him. Chuck was fighting to be supportive without choking Darren.

"Dude. I'm sorry, but she picked him. The two of you weren't together long. I know it hurts Bro but I'm gonna just say it, better Chris than you. I don't trust her."

"Wish you hadn't just said that."

"Oh, Fuck, Darren. No."

"We don't know. It could be either of us."

Chuck sounded defeated, "You're hoping it's you. What the hell has this chick done to you?"

"That's not all of it."

"Don't tell me there's another guy?"

"Suck me. She found a lump in her breast. She talked to the doctor about it just now and disappeared upstairs to call Chris right away. She said they wanted to do routine tests but her face didn't say routine, her face said she was scared."

"I'm sorry."

"Chuck I wish you'd come out and meet her. I know you're worried that she just likes keeping us all on a string or something but that's really not her."

"You are hoping it's you aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Darren, this is a lifelong commitment to someone you barely know, and I hate to keep saying this man but she picked someone else. Even if the baby is yours, she belongs to someone else."

"If I had been honest with her from the beginning she wouldn't be with him now."

"She tell you that?"

"She didn't have to, that's when we fell apart."

"And how long after was she with him?"

"That night."

"Yeah. See man, I don't understand how you don't get that she was already with him. You found them in bed together way back when and then she blamed you."

"You don't know her. Look, please come out here for a night. Meet her."

"You'll be in New York in less than two weeks. I'll meet her then. In the meantime how long do you have to wait to find out who the father is?"

"She said three weeks. Promise you'll be nice to her."

His brother was silent.

"Seriously. She's special. Promise me."

"I'm dying to meet this woman."

"Fuck Bro, what if I'm the dad?"

"There were go, now we're thinking."

"Stop it. I'm actually kind of losing it here. Christ Chuck I'm still waiting to find out if I'm going to be invited back to Glee next season or if I'm going to be back singing in restaurants when this tour is over. I need to be in Chicago to work on StarKid stuff. I'm an idiot. I can't be someone's father; I don't even know what I'm doing with my own life. Fuck. FUCK! Mom and Dad will shit bricks."

"Mom will be fine; she'll say "Oh Darren" and that will be the end of it until she has a baby in her arms. Dad will buy you a scotch and tell you he hopes the kid is just like you. Anyway I thought you didn't sleep with her, I can't believe you lied."

"I didn't. I wasn't with her until after we broke up."

"After she was with Chris?"

"Yeah."

"And just that once?"

"Yeah."

"The odds are in your favor man. I wouldn't panic just yet."

"Chuck there's no win here. If it isn't mine then I've really lost her forever to Chris. It's going to bring them so much closer together."

"They're already together. Has she given you any indication that she's thinking of you still?"

"I know she is. " He brightened a little, "Plus she said Chris has been pulling away from her." He heard the gloat in his voice and hated himself for it. He didn't' want to be that guy.

Darren went quiet for a while so finally Chuck spoke up. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"About her. Tell me, I won't judge, I won't say a word. You need to talk about this."

"I don't know how to explain it. I guess it starts with the music, she feels it the way we do. When we first started working together she did this stuff, this, sensory input stuff, it was incredible. We'd be working for hours out in the Vegas heat and she'd have me there, playing the piano and singing, just baking in the sun and she'd be fixing all this technical stuff then she'd switch it up and tell me to close my eyes, to smell the air, to feel the notes. Like, I'd be there, hunched over the piano, just trying to remember all the things she'd told me and the next thing I'd know she's dripping ice cold water down the back of my neck, telling me to keep singing through it. It's stinging it's so cold and it's this huge shock and yet, I completely get what she's trying to do and I connect to the sound on an entirely new level."

"Wow."

"That's not even the tip of the iceberg. She has me touch fabric and tells me to make my voice sound like this fabric feels, and fuck me if I don't do it. The craziest thing though is that's how she gets to me, because she just read it in me I guess, that this is what I relate to, but then she sits down with Lea and none of that comes into play. It's like the two of them get together and start talking another language that only they understand. She's so intuitive."

Darren allowed himself a moment to remember those first nights in Las Vegas, before anyone was there. He had her to himself and it was perfect. He wished he could go back there and tell himself right then to do whatever he had to do to not screw this up, to not let the crack happen that had allowed Chris to get between them.

"Stay with me, what else?"

"When she's working she's this powerhouse. I've seen her do 4 straight days without sleep. She doesn't back down from anyone and she knows exactly what she wants. I've never seen anyone so dedicated, so focused to someone else's success. I don't know how she does it, how she stays motivated. Naya said once that you can feel the energy in the room change when she walks in, and it's true. She just brings this complete control with her. Everyone just sort of goes, okay, now we're going to get somewhere, every pays attention. You know you're safe with her. She has making you look your best as her only point of business. She doesn't play favorites; everyone is going to work their asses off. "

"I'm hearing a lot of work stuff."

"It's knowing the work stuff that makes the personal stuff so special. When you work with her you trust her with anything, you start to believe there's nothing she can't handle. She's superwoman, she speaks in fucking tongues and is hard as a rock if you try to push back, but from the very first night she was different with me. She let me in, showed me where the cracks are. There's so much softness there, she's so desperate to be loved it makes me sad. I don't think she's felt safe with another person, I don't know, maybe ever. I ended up looking her up online shortly after we met, looking to see her reputation. She seemed too good to be true. You should do it. It might change your mind about her to read what other people who've toured with her have said."

"Like?"

"Like that she's like a Mother and a Slave Driver wrapped up in a vocal genius. That everyone hates her until they adore her but she's impossible to get close to. She really seems to keep everyone at arm's length but that very first night with me, maybe she was just over tired, maybe it was the wine, but she has to have been drunk and tired on other tours. We sat out on this balcony, all of Las Vegas stretched out in front of us, blinking below in the distance and she just told me about her life. It doesn't sound like much I guess but it was one of those nights where you feel your life change forever."

"Okay, so far this is all good, but then you guys got closer and you also started talking about how she was really close to Chris, so maybe the whole letting you in thing was a way of getting a great performance out of you? You said she uses different techniques with everyone."

"I don't know how get you to understand. She told me she couldn't be with me because it scared her how much she wanted me."

"That's just weird man."

"She's weird. I'm not denying that, it's part of what makes the personal stuff so personal because she's so in control when she's working but then when she's not it's like…I'll tell you what it's like, it's like she's in junior high and is just figuring out relationships."

"So she's working it out with her gay best friend because she's scared to work it out with a real boy?"

"Maybe. I never thought of it that way, the problem is her gay best friend seems decidedly less gay than previously believed. What the hell do I do man?"

"Right now, given all that's going on I say you just be her friend. Be there for her, she told you about the baby so she's obviously okay with you being a part of the process right?"

"I think so, she said I'd be welcome at the next doctor visit and all."

"So go, and be supportive and wait it out. You know I'll be here for you no matter what happens. If you're the dad I'll buy the cigars, if you aren't the dad I'll buy the beer for you to cry in. Either way it isn't the end of the world. If Chris is the dad it doesn't mean she's going to ride off into the sunset with him, babies don't fix problems in relationships. If they're going to stay together then they are, if they're going to break up they are. A baby might make their relationship last a little longer than it might have otherwise but it's not magic. If anything it can put more strain on people."

"And you'll be nice to her."

"And I'll be nice to her. "

"You're a good brother Chuck."

"You're a pain in the ass Darren."

"Love you."

"You too."

The disconnected and Darren clicked on the computer in the studio, the one that Issey used to store all the vocal work they did. He pushed the button to play the most recent recording, just to see what she'd been working on and the room flooded with her voice.

"Though I've tried, I've fallen, I have sunk so low…"

He switched the board to headset, blasted her into himself and cried.