Occasion- Fall of 2020

Context- Julie is assigned a robot baby for a school project, hoping that the little girl will be good for the two weeks she is to spend with her. When it turns out that this isn't the case at all, Julie seeks help.

Idea Credit- Myself

Ships Set Sail-Minor Juke

Warning-None

Julie's POV

"Julie, come get your baby." Mrs. Martin called from the front of the classroom.

Julie exchanged a grin with Flynn, pushing out of her desk and walking over to her teacher who was holding out a robotic baby doll.

Her health class was doing a child care project where all of the students had to take home a baby for two weeks. The old standard of the 'mother' and 'father' pairing up had been done away with when kids actually started getting pregnant from spending so much alone time together, but from what Julie knew all the other rules were the same. The baby acted as a normal human, and if you neglected it's needs that would show up on a chart linked to the robot. She also knew that some of the robots were programmed to be worse than others, to cry more, or have to eat more often, and so forth. Julie prayed that her doll would be a wonder child.

Julie took her baby and it's bag of necessities back to her seat. She slipped into her chair, studying the little girl. Mrs. Martin had said she would try to pair the dolls as close to them as possible, and she wasn't kidding. The baby was practically Julie. Dark curly hair, dark eyes, and caramel skin. She was beautiful, Julie decided with a sudden motherly adoration. She swaddled her baby while Flynn rejoined her with her doll, a little boy that was also the spitting image of his 'mother'.

"Aw, our kids can grow up best friends and fall in love some day!" Flynn smiled.

"Sure." She said sarcastically. "All we would do is compete for favorite grandma."

"Oh honey there wouldn't be any competition." Flynn flipped her hair, making Julie laugh.

She helped Flynn brainstorm names, the other girl eventually settling on Jace, which she thought suited him. Julie, however, didn't need help. From the moment she saw her she knew her name was Rosie. She knew it wasn't a very popular name anymore, but she liked how it reminded her of her mom.

Mrs. Martin was going over the standard, and sometimes unnecessary, precautions, like "don't put the baby in the bath," or, "don't put it in the oven." When Jace started crying Flynn had a moment of panic before their teacher came over and showed her how to check off the boxes and determine what the baby needed. She even explained how they might learn to understand what they needed simply by the type of crying.

After school ended the girls walked home with their babies in hand, wondering if their kids were going to be the good or bad kind. Flynn was already predicting that Jace was going to be a handful when they said goodbye at her house.

When Julie walked into the garage she cleared her throat loudly to get the guys' attention. They all gave her small smiles and greetings before quizzical looks at the fact that she was hiding something under her shirt.

"Guys, I'm pregnant." She declared with dramatic effect.

Alex and Luke just gave her 'what the hell' kind of looks but Reggie took it too seriously, gasped, and stood up, staring at Luke outrageously. Julie backpedaled before anything got too weird, pulling the doll out from under her sweater.

"Isn't she cute?" She held Rosie out in front of her proudly.

Reggie gasped again, running up and grabbing the doll. Luke and Alex joined him, watching it cautiously.

"Is this one of those health class things?" Alex asked, and Julie nodded.

"Oh, we had to do this once, but it was a sack of flower." Reggie explained with a smirk. "Alex was the only one that passed because my mom baked with mine and Luke accidentally left his out in the rain."

"You guys sound very paternal." Julie set her book bag and Rosie's stuff on the couch, sitting down.

"Thank you."

The band sat and talked about Rosie for a while before getting into rehearsal. Eventually they had to stop because every time they put her down and really got into playing or writing, Rosie started to cry. Julie even ended up trying to hold her while she played, but for some reason the doll was either hungry, needed changing, or sleepy every five minutes. By the time Julie went to bed she was already wondering if she was going to hate this project. When she woke up the next morning after getting maybe three hours of sleep, she had her answer.

——————————

Julie's POV

Around a week later Julie dragged herself into the studio, flopping onto the couch and throwing her feet in Luke's lap.

"This child, never stops. She is going to be the end of me." She groaned, throwing an arm over her face as Rosie began to scream.

Luke chuckled wearily. Julie could tell that it was wearing the guys thin too. "Well she is your kid."

She laughed sarcastically and Reggie, who had been in one of the chairs, said, "aw, let me see her," and scooped up the doll.

Eventually he got her to stop crying, and when Julie looked up he was walking around the room, bouncing her on his hip and cooing things like "I'm your favorite uncle, aren't I?" If it was anyone but Reggie she would be a little concerned.

When Alex got back from his outing they all tried their best to rehearse, but with Julie half asleep and Rosie screaming her head off again, after a couple of songs Luke said, "Jules why don't you go on to bed? You need to rest."

"I can't. Not with my little angel crying all night either way."

"Why don't you leave her down here with us at night?" Alex offered. "We usually go to sleep pretty late, and if she keeps us up we can sleep through the day."

"Yeah it's a robot, how bad can it be?" Luke added.

Julie wanted to tell them exactly how bad it could be, but she was too grateful and tired at the moment. She simply agreed, gave them a brief overview of what they could do for the doll, and hugged them goodnight. As soon as her head hit the pillow not ten minutes later, she was out.

——————————

Luke's POV

The sound of screaming woke Luke out of his fitful sleep, and he threw his pillow across the room in frustration.

Why did I let myself feel bad for Julie and take on the responsibility of this demon child, he wondered as he scooped Rosie up for the fiftieth time that night. It was four in the morning and she was still crying so much that the guys were having to resort to taking shifts just so they could try and sleep. Even Reggie, who had been the most enthusiastic and involved didn't hesitate to wake them up and hand her off. Luke had already determined that the doll did not like him after a few shifts with her, and pondered the idea of leaving her outside as he swayed her back and forth, holding a bottle against the little gap of her mouth. A few minutes later he was basically asleep on his feet, and almost dropped her when she started screaming again, this time for a diaper change.

When it was Reggie's shift thirty minutes later Luke was still pacing, wishing that the intervals of silence would keep getting longer. Instead she began to shriek again.

"Gah, I swear this thing is broken Reg. And she never stops staring at me with those fathomless eyes, it's creepy." Luke said as Reggie leaned against his shoulder and closed his eyes.

"You just have to connect with her man." He yawned. "She can sense that you're not into it."

"I think she could care less."

"Get into it!"

"Okay, okay!" Luke held Rosie up and looked at her. "I'm going to get into it...next shift."

He handed her to a protesting Reggie, pushing them off the couch and pulling his blanket over his head.

——————————

Julie's POV

"Oh, you guys look..."

"Like the hottest guys you know? Thanks." Reggie shot her half-hearted finger guns, dark circles under his eyes.

Alex was propped up against the arm of a chair, half asleep, and Luke sat up on the couch all rumpled, his hair sticking up in every direction. She saw that Rosie had gotten to them too.

"Here's your little angel," Reggie brought over the doll and her things for Julie to take to school for the day.

"Guys, you don't have to watch her at night anymore, I'll take care of it. Besides, there's only a few days left of the project."

"No, Julie you need to sleep more than we do for school," Luke walked over to her, rubbing his face, "like Alex said, we can sleep today."

"But-"

"We got it girl! Trust us!" Alex said without opening his eyes.

She eventually conceded and started off to school with Rosie. She met Flynn halfway, who told her about how she had finally learned how to keep Jace quiet. Julie explained how she had also learned to manage Rosie during the day, but because of the over excessive tantrums at night the guys had begun to help her.

"Dude, it's like you have three baby daddies. Lucky. I'm a single mother."

They talked through the rest of the walk and endured the long, droning school day. Julie walked into the studio as always that afternoon and was glad to see the guys awake and songwriting for what seemed like the first time since they'd been blessed with the robot baby. She joined them for a while before Rosie went into another one of her series of fits. After twenty minutes of Julie constantly feeding and re-feeding her Luke offered to watch her for a bit.

After another twenty minutes of him juggling her needs, when Luke started complaining that she hated him, Alex took her, and she stopped with the tantrums.

Luke voiced his bewilderment and Alex said, "she knows a real man when she sees one."

When Julie eventually headed up to bed she made to thank the guys an extra lot. They waved her off good-naturedly but she didn't miss the weary look that passed between them.

——————————

Luke's POV

Seeing Julie well rested the that morning had made Luke realize that he wasn't going to be able to let her go through those sleepless nights again. A few more nights with Rosie wouldn't kill him if it meant that Julie was spared.

God when did he get so whipped?

He stared at the doll who stared right back. It was two in the morning and his shift, so of course she started crying again. Luke hurried over to her with the bottle, holding her gently while the noise ceased.

"We're bonding one way or another, whether you like it or not." He murmured to the doll, feeling kind of stupid. Suddenly an idea struck him. "Let's see if this will keep you quiet."

——————————

Julie's POV

The next morning Julie walked into the garage to see Luke as the only one awake, gently strumming on his acoustic, Rosie balanced in his lap. From this angle it seemed so much like he was sitting with a real baby that her heart almost melted. What got her even more is that he seemed to have figured out how to keep her quiet.

He glanced up and met her eyes, a small smile playing on his lips. "She likes music if it's quiet." He said.

"You didn't have to do that. Watch her, you know." Julie stood beside him.

He shrugged. "Even if I refuse to believe that she's real, unlike Reggie, she deserves to be taken care of, and I think you deserve sleep and a good grade."

"Thank you Luke. That's very sweet."

He eventually turned away from her gaze. "Anyways, I still haven't figured out what makes that thing tick. All I know is that if I ever have one, my child better like music."

"Oh, our kids are going to love music, whether they like it or not." Julie took Rosie and froze, realizing what that sounded like.

"I mean, not our kids together, I mean like your kids and my kids. Definitely not collectively ours...yah know?" she stumbled over her words.

He chuckled awkwardly, the air full of embarrassment and tension. "Yeah, I know."

After a moment of silence he finally looked up at her with a cheeky grin.

"We would have some pretty kids though." He winked.

Julie rolled her eyes and pushed his face away, ignoring the fact that she agreed with him.

——————————

Julie's POV

Two days later the boys said their goodbyes to Rosie before Julie had to take her to school and turn her in. Or in Alex's case it was good riddance.

"Who knew you were such a sleep diva?" Reggie said to him. "I thought Luke was the grumpy one when he didn't get his eight hours."

"Beauty like this does not come easily my friend."

Eventually the guys stopped joking and Julie was off to school. Later that day Mrs. Martin reported to her that she had gotten an A on the project, and Julie silently thanked her three ghostly band mates.

This chapter was a bit of a short spitball but it was fun to write. Hopefully the next one will be a bit more entertaining.