"Best. Gift. Ever." Maddie got up from her chair and walked around the table to hug her parents. "Thanks Mom. Thanks Dad."

It was a warm day of June, and the whole family was sitting around the patio table. Sue was sleeping under it, half-sprawled on Deacon's feet. Deacon was the one who complained the most about the puppy so, of course, the puppy had long decided Deacon was his favourite human. This amused Rayna to no end.

"You're welcome, sweetheart."

It was Maddie's 14th birthday, and this year, Deacon and Rayna had opted for something a little different; they had bought her studio time. She would have to write three songs that she would then be allowed to record. Her parents would stay out of it, and Watty had agreed to play producer for the occasion. Maddie would experience every step of the recording process. Every step short of actually releasing the songs, of course. Deacon and Rayna both agreed she was too young.

Maddie was still listening to them when they told her she should wait until pursuing a career in music. Maybe Deacon and Rayna were playing with fire with this gift. In a year or two, their daughter probably wouldn't be as receptive to their advice anymore. But, at the moment, all they'd thought about was that it was a gift Maddie would love.

"Alright," Deacon announced, "now I'm gonna need someone to help me bring the cake outside."

"I'll help!" Daphne volunteered. Sue, always the curious one, got up too and followed them to the kitchen.

Rayna and Maddie found themselves alone at the table, so Maddie used the opportunity to ask her mother, "Hey, would it be okay if Daphne recorded the songs with me?"

"Of course, honey."

"It's just... singing is our thing. I don't want her to feel left out."

This made Rayna a lot more emotional than it should have. "You're a great sister, Maddie Claybourne."

—

october 1998

—

It had been incredibly stupid. Rayna knew that. She'd gotten off the pill while Deacon was in rehab, and when he'd come back home, she'd just... stayed off the pill. What was she thinking? Except that maybe, maybe, she'd wanted it to happen. Because they had been married for five years, and if it weren't for Deacon's addiction, she knew they were at a point in their life where they would have started to talk about having kids.

The first time Deacon had gotten out of rehab, barely two months had gone by until he'd started drinking again. The second time, he'd bailed in the middle of it. But the third time, it had lasted a few months. It had lasted a few months, and it had felt like Deacon was himself again, and Rayna had allowed herself to have hope. It was until three weeks ago when his father had reappeared out of the blue, and after that, everything had gone to hell. The last time Deacon had seen his dad was on the day he'd left Natchez when he was seventeen. So to say it had been a surprise to see him show up on their porch was an understatement.

And now Deacon was drinking again, and she was sitting alone in her car with a pregnancy test in her purse. She wasn't sure why she'd bothered to buy the test because she just knew. On her drive back from the drugstore, she hadn't felt the courage to go home, so she'd decided to keep driving, and somehow she'd found herself parked on her mom's property. She'd cried for a good ten minutes, alone in her car. She was exhausted. She was physically and emotionally exhausted. She'd thought the third time would stick, and now they were back to square one again.

Once she'd calmed down, she decided to drive back to town. An hour later, she was parking on the side of the street at 619 Boscobel in East Nashville. She got out of the car, climbed the stairs up to the porch and rang the bell. Adria opened the door. Rayna's eyes were still red and puffy, and she looked like a mess.

"Honey, what's going on?" Adria asked as she let Rayna in.

"I didn't want to be alone to do this," she explained, and she took the test out of her purse.

"Oh."

Ten minutes later, when the stick turned blue as expected, Rayna didn't cry. She was done crying. She needed a plan. She sat at the kitchen's table while Adria made them tea.

"What are you gonna do?" her friend asked.

"I'm gonna tell Deacon, and he's gonna go back to rehab. Today. And it will have to work this time." This wasn't exactly a plan. This was more like wishful thinking, but it was all she got at the moment.

Adria put two mugs on the table, and she sat across from Rayna. She didn't like to be the pragmatic one, but she felt she had to ask. "What if, well, what if it doesn't work?"

"Then I'll leave him." Rayna felt the tears build up again. Maybe she wasn't all cried out after all. She wiped them off. "I won't let him anywhere near our child if he can't stay sober," she said, and she felt something break inside.

Adria reached for Rayna's hand across the table. "He will get better. I know him. For his child, he will."

Rayna wanted to believe her so bad. She wanted to believe that becoming a father would be the thing that would finally get Deacon rid of his demons, but she knew it wasn't how addiction worked.

They stayed silent for a while before Adria smiled and asked, "Boy or girl?"

"What?"

"What would you like it to be, boy or girl?"

It was when Rayna realized she hadn't even thought about it. From the moment she'd suspected she was pregnant, all she'd thought about was Deacon. She hadn't taken time to contemplate what it meant for her. And all of a sudden, it dawned on her. She was going to be a mom.

"Ain't I supposed to say it doesn't matter?"

"A girl, then?" Adria quipped.

Rayna smiled to herself. "A girl, yeah," she admitted. "I think I would like a girl."

"You know, we talked about it with Vince. It wasn't long before the accident, Deacon was still good then, and we talked about what it would be like when you and Deacon would have kids."

It made Rayna both happy and sad as it was almost always the case when Vince's name was mentioned. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. He had big plans for how we should transform the bus so you could take the baby on the road."

"This doesn't surprise me."

Adria chuckled at the memory before she got serious again. "You know you're not alone, right? No matter how... no matter how things will turn out, there are so many people who love you and will be ready to help. You know that, right?"

Rayna's voice cracked. "I do."

There was only one person she really wanted, though. That person was holed up at their cabin at the moment. At least, she hoped he was. It was where he'd told her he was going when she'd last seen him the previous day, and it was where she would go as soon as she would leave Adria's house. She decided she would call Cole first to tell him what was happening. She could need his help.

Rayna took a deep breath. "I think I should go," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'll go straight to the cabin, and..."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, I'll ask Cole, we... we've already done this, you know."

They got up then, and Adria set the mugs in the sink as Rayna put her jacket on. Adria saw her to the door, and they hugged. "Everything will happen the way it's supposed to," she promised.

How Rayna hoped she was right.

—

TBC