The Reality Show

Stacie and Joe were setting up all of the decorations for Cheri's return home from the hospital. There were so many cameras that Stacie was worried about getting too close to them or in the way (in her own home), but knew that she would eventually get used to them being around. They had been there a few days filming, already, but not much had happened on the homefront, because most of them were at the hospital, waiting out this arrival. Only certain areas in the hospital were the cameras were allowed, so she spent her time there while they were waiting on the newest Evans twins: Sherwood and Sheva.

Stacie was immediately in love with them and wanted to stay with Cheri to lavish them in affection and adoration…

But Jake and Stevie were hogging them, switching them off, taking their photos, selfies and such and falling to sleep with one each, while Cowboy stayed with Cheri, most of the time. One thing she had been very vocal about was not wanting him to feel replaced or excluded when they got here. Stacie was the one that felt left out. She hadn't been able to spend as much time with Cheri when she was pregnant because her college schedule became more demanding and they only really saw each other at work sometimes and minimally at home. Now, she was trying to make everything perfect for them and hoped and prayed she wouldn't say something on camera to make her look like a bitter, envious former friend who had been cast aside… because even if she was feeling that way, that wasn't a subject for the world, she didn't necessarily agree that any of their business was for the world.

Cheri came inside to a stunning display of flowers, balloons, all of the gifts that had been sent or brought to the hospital (Stacie collected, brought home, and made a presentation display of), and a 'Welcome Home' sign. "Awww, Stacie!" She cooed and went to give her a hug. The two held the hug for a while, with Stacie cradling Cheri's head longer than anticipated.

With a limp, as holding legs up while pushing from her pelvis and such, had made her bad knee start hurting again, Cheri headed away from the display that Stacie had taken hours to create. Stevie was right behind her with a double holster to hold both babies, and his hands up to make sure their necks were secure. Jake followed with Cowboy and Cheri's bags. Stacie greeted both men with hugs and kisses on the cheeks as Cheri vanished into the downstairs room that she was going to be nursing in.

"Is she okay?" Stacie wondered.

"She's in a lot of pain," Stevie said sadly. "It was a hard delivery and she hasn't felt well. Next time, she wants to do some type of all natural, standing in water such and such thing like Jane did. Yeah.. next time. Not even well and already thinking of more."

Stacie nodded, "Can I borrow one or more babies?" She wore a big smile.

"Oh! Yes… I just realized that you haven't even had any aunt time with them!"

"Yeah, your loverboy was hogging that," she said as she helped Sheva out of her holder, "Oh my God… They're so tiny! They're smaller than Cowboy was…" Stevie flinched. He hadn't been able to hold Cowboy at this stage. "She looks just like Cheri! Does he?" She snuck a peek of Sher, and surely enough, he did. They both had soft brown curls on their head and bright eyes with Cheri-like features.

"I think they look like me," Stevie said and started pointing out similarities.

"I definitely can see our genes at work, but their eye shape, their noses, the lips.. They look like little white Cheris."

"I thought that they were unusually pale, but Jake says that Cowboy was just as pale when he was born…" Another sensitive portion of the subject - Jake had been able to see Cowboy at this stage.

Stacie nodded her head, "Now, he definitely looked like you, like no debate, no questions. He even was more blond, at the time." She took that opportunity to give Cowboy a kiss, right before Jake set him down to let him topple around.

Stevie sat in the confession booth:

Whenever Cowboy was born, I was in a mental institution and I believed that I would be in there for the rest of my life. I broke up with Cheri, because her mom convinced me that I would be a burden to her and to him. She spent the last part of her pregnancy alone. I had my sister try to be there for her. They got close. She met Jake when she returned to high school. They got close. The two of them are in more photos with my first born son and my future wife than I was able to at that time.

Now, doing it all this way - together and with friends and them having the first time as reference for this time and me not having the references… I can't lie… Every little reminder stings.

.

Mercedes and Quinn discussed the details of the outfit of the day. "I understand that Tina and Kurt set it - if you forgot, I did this for years with great ease. It isn't the formula or the process that's different. It's that your body has changed a little bit since this was purchased…"

"Why am I so big, so fast? Should I see a doctor? I could've sworn that we tried it on last week!" Mercedes complained.

Quinn assured her, "We are going to make it work or figure something out and by we, I mean me. It's my job…"

"Hardly. It's hardly your job. In fact, you're going to end up fired from your job because you're doing this!"

"My office is in a firm, but for the most part, I work freelance. Don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing. There was no way that Tina, Kurt and I were going to let you go on the road with Sam while you still didn't have a solution to your assistant needs. I'm taking some time out from work."

"Time out from Cooper. Time out from work… Quinn… Are you sure that you're okay?"

Quinn was frequently pleased that her best friend could never see her face when she was concerned about her, though Mercedes was such an empath that she often could tell when something was off, anyway. "I'm as fine as I've ever been," was the most honest response that she could construct.

The past year, no… longer than that… For a while now, things had been off for her, but the time that she could pinpoint feeling cross with things was about a year ago, when she reactively punched Terri in the face. The backlash that followed was only a fine and a restraining order, which she didn't want to be or care to be around the woman in the first place, but Cooper seemed to feel some type of way about this.

He had worked so hard to get that family, or at least a portion of them brought to justice and if there was a vendetta between his partner and one of them, he worried that it might make some of his work seem personal. "Forget the fact that I had beef with that family before I even knew you existed," she had told him and they eventually got over it, but his attitude on the matter nagged at her.

She was distant from Mercedes and Tina, because despite their closeness, some type of shift occurred while she was in witness protection and while they forgave her, she always felt it beneath the surface - they wouldn't forget. They loved her, but she had broken their trust. She and Sam were civil, but in a way, she felt like he had taken her two closest friends. There was also the issue of not being able to be in the same room with Stacie Evans without hostility radiating off of her. So, Quinn skipped events that she might have been able to go to before her huge error in judgement - things like the premiere of that damned movie.

There was nothing that she could do to rectify her feelings about not being there for her friends at that awful time. Cooper tried everything to help her. She had been able to hang out with Kurt and Blaine a lot while dealing with it, but she couldn't be there for her friends as she wanted to. Even when she came to be around Mercedes, there was a huge disconnect and she felt like she wasn't helping anything. She threw herself into Emma's arrangements and tried to block out everything else.

When Mercedes thought she was pregnant, Quinn didn't know how to respond. It occurred to her for the first time in a long time… she didn't know Mercedes much anymore. She hadn't been involved enough to see and learn the changes and to be able to sense how the news was affecting her. She didn't know if having a baby was good news, bad news, happy news, sad news… She sat there, trying to remain neutral and not respond with anything solid, because she did not know how to respond.

Then, when Mercedes found out that it had been a false alarm and she was sad and confused and leaned on her friends… Quinn felt more validated than she had in a long time. She hated that it was still so crucial to her to be meaningful to Mercedes, but she also secretly had always known that this would be a part of her life for a long time, if not always. She was all too happy to eagerly join her in solidarity and to go through the motions with her trying to conceive. She was happy to be doing something real and good with Tina and Mercedes - not just lunches and planning weddings and doing casual things for a couple of holiday hours.

Cooper made it difficult. All she wanted was to get her friends back and do something sweet and important with them. She wasn't actually trying to have a baby or asking him to raise one. That is kinda how solidarity works. If she shaved her head for solidarity with a friend living through chemo, she wasn't going to have cancer. She explained this. His, "You're making my decision not to have a baby out to be more than what it is, then," was not what she had wanted to hear and since then, they hadn't been speaking much…

"That's not a level of fine that I am super comfortable with," Mercedes broke into her thoughts. She barely remembered what she had said to get that reply. Oh… "I'm as fine as I've ever been." Quinn smiled and said, "Hopefully, you'll just accept it anyway."

.

Sam had been on the road back & forth while The R Word blew up into an overnight success (probably due to the still popular conversation surrounding the movie premiere shooting and how vocal multiple members of the cast were about gun control concerns after experiencing it - despite the fact that most of them were already safely inside or had not yet arrived by the time the shooting occurred) and for Sam's promotional tour.

What Whiteness Weaned was getting ready to launch (not READY, but Marley thought that if he mentioned it as much as possible between now and December, when it would actually be launched to commemorate the movie release as well as the tragedy - both of which were fine tools for the motivation of the book, that it would sell more from association and curiosity.

The book wasn't ever spoken of as "a book of letters," despite that was exactly what it was. Instead, they described it as, "Reflection on how Sam was treated after everything that had taken place in comparison to how everyone else was treated," and Marley spent the time to send out the letters to the appropriate persons and asking how they felt about having this published (before they ever spoke with the publisher about it).

Far more people were on board than had been in support of the last book. Matt Rutherford even agreed to not cause a disturbance about the letter to him, but that came with an agreement to allow him to speak freely in a foreword.

"Let me start off by saying I do not like Sam Evans. This is not meant to be one of those ploys in which you see that even someone who doesn't like a person is in support of their work and therefore convince you to support the work too. No. This is a simple statement of fact. I do not like Sam Evans. I don't find him to be a likeable person. I don't find him to be funny or charming or any of the other attributes that he is commonly associated with, and it has nothing to do with his whiteness (although most of us know that he could have the same personality and look like me and not get the same kind of love)...

THAT'S what this is about. This foreword, the statement, and this book in general. This book tells people who are on the fence about whether or not privilege is real or whiteness is a commodity worth more than wealth in this country and some other places as well.

The things that you will read will likely sound like a waterfall of white tears, splashing on the rocks of white guilt. That can either be refreshing or annoying, depending on the audience. What I would like for anyone to take away from this experience is that it doesn't matter how bad a white man feels, or even that he is willing to acknowledge his privilege and highlight the ways that it has helped him. What will matter is how he behaves, acts, reacts, responds… What will matter is how he chooses to live his life, knowing what he now knows. That is also what will matter for anyone reading this book. (Looking at you, white people.)

I don't like Sam Evans, and I'm not here to promote his book or to praise him for finally seeing how the color of his skin was still a shield and a cape as he climbed to wherever he is in your heart for you to be reading this book. I am here because he allowed me the space to speak freely (something that many of you need to learn how to do with black people and other marginalized identities), and because even though I don't like him and I don't think that acknowledging one's privilege is necessarily brave; I think that this book will be good for somebody out there. There are lessons to be learned here. You don't have to learn everything from experience."

Sam repeatedly read the foreword, like on a daily basis. For him, it was Matt Rutherford's letter to him… One that didn't say "I forgive you," but one that said, "I don't have to forgive you, because you don't actually deserve it. But, I see that you are at least growing," and for Sam… That was more than he really thought was fair.

He began to call Aphasia more often and ask how things were going and what he could do to help. She usually directed him to Matt's website and told him that there was always someone or something that could use help posted there.

Mercedes tried to keep her pregnancy stress to a minimum, even though she seemed to be gaining more weight than she thought was normal and her stress usually heightened because of how diligently she was trying not to be stressed out. Jane returned to the blog by October and would regularly set up group chats to cheer her up. By that time, Sam's traveling for the show had significantly died down, but he had been invited to several events as a keynote speaker and to multiple churches, as well… So, the traveling didn't subside as the focus of the show fell more on the cast.

.

Dwight and Tanisha arrived at the kids' house around the same time that the Robinsons did. Almost immediately, Radja complained, to Tanisha, "Don't you think that by now, I should be allowed to see my own grandson without chaperones?"

Tanisha cocked her head back, surprised that she was the one that would be addressed about this situation, but replied, anyway, "I think that whatever his mother says is what should happen."

The woman retorted, "So, this is going to be fine for you when it's all three of them, too? We'll have to, as four adults watch three children, wherever we go."

"Well, they live with four adults right now, so it won't be that much of a stretch, Robbie," Tanisha said, already annoyed.

When she went into the confession booth, she spent the first few minutes just laughing to herself:

Okay, I understand that father-in-law's girlfriend is not an official family badge, but long before I ever began seeing Dwight socially, I was there for Cheri, when I could be. Before she got herself an apartment, when she was motel hopping and trying not to beg the Evanses for a couch, Jake extended ours to her. When she got her first apartment, Jake and I were part of her moving party. When she bought this house, Jake was one of the people she chose to be housemates. I've been default family for a while and I get it, I get it. It's hard to be somebody's mother and to see that they trust another woman around their child more than you. But, I don't know what to tell her. Take some of all that money and try to invest in time machine technology to go back and not make your daughter mistrust your ass.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

She came out and nearly ran into Dwight, "Oh… They ready to go yet?"

"Apparently, they're going to stay here today so that they can spend time with the new twins, instead of taking Cowboy out," Dwight told her.

Tanisha looked directly at one of the cameras with her lips pursed. "Basically, we could have stayed in bed."

"Basically." He pulled her in closely and rubbed his nose against the side of her face, "We could go back to bed."

She shyly pulled away from him, with the camera watching them. She wasn't too shy to speak directly at the camera or completely be funny as usual, but she was never really big on PDA. "I think I'll stick around. Radja seems in a mood and I want to make sure that she doesn't stress Cheri out. The girl's already having a harder time recovering than with she did with Cowboy."

He cuffed her chin and told her, "You're such a good mother to her." She fought off a huge smile and turned to go to Cheri's room without responding. He just smiled and watched her walk away. "With such monumental legs…" He noticed the camera on him and slightly jumped, slightly blushed as he left the room.

Stacie was at the adult dining table working on some homework while Jake and Stevie were getting ready to set up their webseries in the adjacent living room. Dwight joined her and observed, "Hardly see you at home at this time of day."

"No morning classes on Monday this semester," she told him and smiled. "I'm glad to see you, though. All of y'all get a girlfriend and you just POOF, vanish on me."

"Excuse me? How often are you ever actually here? Everytime Nisha and I regularly visit your house, you're at Joe's."

"Church. At Joe's church, where I often work, Daddy. I haven't been doing any kind of 'debonair freak' stuff," she said and blushed.

"Are you sure?" He asked, noting her change in color.

"I'm sure that my lovelife is nothing like yours…" She said and hoped he left that alone. He seemed to get it, because his ears turned red and he changed the subject. "What are you working on?"

"Trying to figure out if I want to try to research how pollution runoff affects botanical wildlife, or something like endophytes vs chloroplasts in plants… It's honestly… I have no idea what I am doing this semester. These cameras make it so stressful around here."

"You can always come to my office for quiet time," Dwight offered, not knowing anything about all of the things that she said. He had taught her how to garden and a little bit of farming, but her Internet and college had long since surpassed his little green thumb.

"You're never even at your office. I forgot that you even have a job," she teased.

"I can delegate from the comfort of my cell phone, so I'm never there - that'll make it more quiet for ya." He sat for a moment longer and told her, "You never have told me what you think about my current situation."

"I didn't think that it mattered," she said.

"I mean… I like to know how y'all are feeling."

She set her pen down and nodded her head, "Well, I feel like you're an adult man who is my father and you can do whatever you want. I would like to not hear about things so much, and also - I feel slightly disrespected, and a little deceived, that you always raised me to believe that I should wait for marriage and my body is a temple and all of this other stuff when whatever cackling is happening in Cheri's room right now is probably some comedic tale of fornication."

Dwight nodded his head, "Well… I understand that sentiment. I imagine I look like a real hypocrite in raising you one way and then doing something else. But, I was raised the same way and my daddy was too. Basically, we raise our kids like we think they ought to be, not necessarily how we are. And, in my defense, I kept this temple very clean for a long time."

"Me too. Longer, in fact," she said.

"Stacie, if you were sexually active, you're a grown woman and entitled to make such choices. I'd just remind you to be safe.."

"But I'm not entitled to make those choices. I have an obligation. To God, to Christ, to my future husband to not make such choices, as per my entire life teachings. The rest of you may not care about your souls or being obedient, but I do." She picked up her pen, "Thanks anyway for caring about how I feel."

Stacie sat in the confession room and smiled at the camera:

I already know that by the time all of this airs, we will all be different people. This thing will change us and maybe for the worst. I don't trust camera crews and reality shows. Everyone knows that they twist things around or only show certain angles of the story and Cheri did an entire academia grade level presentation on how I am most likely going to be the house villain. She laughed. Because, apparently having concerns and complaints equates to bitching.

Maybe it is. Maybe I am cramping everyone's style. But, I spent the past four years being everything I could be for all of these people. I was available in whatever capacity that they needed, moved into this house, which shortly afterwards became a madhouse - people are always here - our parents, Cheri's parents, Cheri's friends and their kids. This house has become the new and improved, bigger and better "Emma's house" where everyone gathers and sorts things out or hang out and have get togethers and all of that is fine, I guess. But, I do have school five days a week, a regular part time job, another job that I do when available - a small home business, extracurricular activities and yes, a boyfriend. Sooo, yes, I do want to be able to come home and not always have more than the seven people, three of them small children, here when I get home and I feel like that shouldn't be something that I should have to ask for.

I didn't want to do a reality tv show. I should have started out with that. People go onto those shows and the crews and casts tears their relationships apart and sometimes really put a strain on their lives. I didn't want that for us. Stevie, Cheri and Jake are three of the most important people I have ever held dear in my life. Jake and I might not be that close, but he has been there for my brother and my sister in ways that I'm not always available to be and in ways that I sometimes just don't know how to be. I love them so much… And not one of them asked me how I would feel about this.

As an afterthought, Cheri asked me, "You're cool with all of this, right?" But, I know that she was asking me because of my attitude. And I told her that I wasn't, but it was a little too late for that, because the guys had already agreed to it and she had already signed off, as owner of the house.

So, I am at this weird space in life where I get to decide if I think that I am able to for once actually carry myself - get an apartment, complete with bills and everything, or if I need to find a new, quieter, more calm place to stay with someone else. Shacking up is out of the question, and I know anybody that I move in with that's not Joe will hurt my current roommates' feelings. Or at least Stevie and Cheri. She blinked some tears away. Maybe I am bitching. Maybe I'm whining. But, I thought when we moved in here we were a family and going to make decisions together. I feel like while I was busy with my education, my friends, my family made this huge decision without me. And no matter when this airs or how this is spun, if it even makes it to the screen… By that time, we will have all already changed… for the worst.

Cheri told the confession booth:

Stacie had been feeling some kind of way for a while. I think it was because she's a very private person and we all spent so much time trying not to be seen or found, then suddenly, BOOM - we're all in front of cameras and stuff and that's a lot for anybody, especially somebody who is just out here trying to save the world through you know… plants and stuff. So, she had been feeling a way already and she's always had some very strong feelings about Miss Fabray. Add to that that Stacie is with Joe now and Miss Fabray used to date him or whatever they were and the fact that now Fabray is kinda always around because Sam and Babydoll are back and she's been kinda acting as her assistant since Marley is now doing too much to do it… It's honestly not that much of a surprise that this kicked off...