| ...ally... Well, this was it. Today was the day he was going to find out all about Dylan. "Sit down." I said to him and pointed to a chair. He noticed the pushchair and looked inside and saw Dylan sleeping. "Are you babysitting?" He asked, still looking at him. I looked over at him sleeping, "ummm, yeah." I answered, as Dylan sneezed and woke himself up. "Hey!" I said to him, and picked him up. I looked down at him, as he looked up at me sleepily, and felt guilty for denying he was mine. "Ummm, actually Derek, I'm not babysitting. He's mine." "What?" Derek said, shocked. "I didn't know.ummm, congratulations, I guess." "Thanks," I said. "How old is he?" "He's nearly 6 months old." I answered, and watched as Derek added up the months in his head. "Oh my God, is he?" I nodded my head. "But, you never said. Why didn't you tell me?" He answered. "You were away, I tried to tell you, when I called you, but it seemed like you'd already moved on... and then me and Bryan were together, and he said he'd be his father..." I explained. "What's his name?" He asked, still shocked by the revelation. "Dylan." I said. "Here, you can hold him if you want." I handed Dylan to him. "Geez, he's heavy!" Derek laughed, and made a funny face at the baby, Dylan laughed at him. "I think he likes you." "He's so cute! I still can't believe it." "Look, Derek, we need to talk about everything," I started, and Derek looked up at me. "Yeah." "Look, as far as everyone is concerned, Bryan is Dylan's dad, he's been there since before he was born, he's the only father he knows." I blurted out. "Please, don't take him away from him." "I'm not going to... but I do want to see him, sometimes." He answered, still playing with Dylan. "Yeah, I'm not going to try and stop you, but just not as his dad, as, I don't know, Uncle Derek." I said. "Just as long as I can see him. He is my son." "I know, just, don't go telling him you're his father. Bryan is, ok?!" I replied, nearly shouting. "Fine!" Derek was almost shouting too. "I don't want to upset anyone, especially not him, I just want to spend a little time with him." "Ok. How about we start now?" I suggested, Derek looked up again, "I've got to go and see where Bryan is with Dylan's dinner, can you keep him for a couple of minutes while I go see?" "Yeah, of course I can." He said. I walked over and gave Dylan a little hug. "You be a good boy for your Uncle Derek, ok?" "He will be." Derek said, as I walked out the door. ...bryan... We were all in the canteen, getting something to eat, Nat and Michelle had come in a few minutes earlier and told me that Derek was talking to Ally, with Dylan there too. I figured that by now, he'd already know the truth. I didn't know if I should go over to the room, or just leave them to talk. I was just getting Dylan's food from the kitchen bit when Ally came walking in the canteen, alone. "Where's Dylan?!" I asked her. "Calm down, Derek's got him," she answered, "he knows." "And...?" "He's ok about it. He's happy for you being his dad, he's not going to rock the boat."Ally answered. "Did you get his dinner yet?" "Umm, yeah." I handed her the bowl and the bottle. "Should we give them a couple more minutes alone?" "Yeah." After a few minutes, I decided that we should go back to the room, and see how things were going. Ally ran on ahead of me, and ran back down the corridor towards me. "THEY'RE GONE!" She yelled. "He's taken him!" "What?!" I shouted, and ran back to the room. Sure enough, the room was empty. "Maybe, he needed a nappy change..." I said, hoping that was what had happened. "All the stuff's here, he's not away changing his nappy!" "Or maybe he was crying and he's taken him for a walk to calm him down." "He'd have brought him down to us if that happened." She cried, "I shouldn't have left him, it's all my fault!" She started sobbing, so I hugged her. "We'll find him, ok?" We walked along the corridors, asking everyone we seen if they had seen them, but no one had. "He'll be hungry now." Ally said, "we've got to find him!" I thought about where he could have taken him, when I remembered a playground, not far from the place where the awards were being held. By now, all the others had joined us in a search. I told them about the playground, and they agreed it was a good place to look, so we all took off towards there. When we got there, we saw Derek sitting on one of the swings, with Dylan. Ally started to run towards them, but I held her back, in case it would make Derek run off with the baby. "Derek.." I said, and walked towards them slowly. Shane grabbed Ally and held her back. "Hey Bryan!" He said, " I - I was just showing him the playground." "We were worried, we didn't know where he was!" "Sorry, I didn't think..." He started. " I just wanted to spend some time with him." Just then, the sky opened up, and it started to pour with rain. Dylan started to cry as the rain soaked through his clothes. "Derek....we need to get back inside." I took another few steps towards them. "Look at him. He's soaked through, you don't want him to get sick." When I said that I heard Ally cry more behind me, as Shane grabbed her back again. "Derek, please!" She yelled. He didn't say anything, he just stared at Dylan. Dylan cried louder when he saw me walking towards him, I think he recognised me. He held his arms out for me to take him, I kept walking and took him from Derek, who never moved. I handed him back to Ally, who was still sobbing. "Shane, take them back to the room, and get them dried off, and fed too." I said, and Shane nodded, I took my jacket off, and placed it around Dylan to keep him warm. I watched as the rest of the guys and Nat and Pnut all walked back with them, leaving just me and Derek in the playground. "Derek?" I said, and walked over to him. "Bryan, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, say sorry to Ally for me." I nodded my head. "No hard feelings?" "No, no one was hurt, I can kinda see where you were coming from, I mean, if I had just found out... it's a shock I know." He just nodded his head. "Look, I'm sure that Ally's still going to let you see him sometimes." "Yeah?" "I'll talk to her." I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. I turned and started to walk away from him, when I heard him calling me back. "Bryan?" "Yeah?" "Look, take care of your son, he's a great kid. Look after him for me." He said, through his tears. "I will." And with that Derek walked away, never to bother us again. ...ally... ...4 months later... I was sitting in the living room in our house, watching TV while Dylan slept in the nursery. Bryan was still in the recording studio, and I hadn't even seen him today at all. It was like that everyday for the past few weeks or so, he would leave the house early to go into the studio, call maybe twice, and not get home until I was already asleep. It wasn't me not seeing him that bothered me so much, but Dylan wasn't seeing much of him either. He was almost 11 months old now, and nearly walking. The way things were with Bryan, he would probably miss the little important things like him walking for the first time. But pointing that out to Bryan would only cause us to argue, again. It seemed that anytime we did talk these days, we would only end up arguing about something. I was just getting ready to go to bed when I heard Bryan's key open the front door. I slowly walked downstairs, to see him. "Hey," I said "How was it today?" "Same old." He replied, and walked past me, not even attempting to make conversation. He walked over to the nursery and opened the door. "He's sleeping, don't wake him." I answered him, coldly, and followed him into the room, making sure he didn't wake him up. "Hey, little guy." He whispered over the cot "were you a good boy today, huh?" "He was, not like you'd know, because, hey, you weren't here, again!" I walked out of the door, not meaning to slam it, but it slammed closed anyway. Next thing, I heard Dylan crying. I stood at the door, wondering if I should try and stop him from crying. 'No' I thought, 'you handle it for a change Bryan'. After 10 minutes, he was sleeping again, and Bryan walked into the bedroom. I looked up from the book I was reading. "Is he sleeping again?" I asked Bryan, as he took off his jumper. "Yeah" he said, and I noticed a smile on his face, "He's sound asleep now. I was kinda glad in a way, that he woke up, because I feel like I've not seen him for ages, well not awake anyway." "Well, whose faults that, he can't stay awake 24 hours a day and wait for you to come home, IF you come home at all..." I answered him, sarcastically. I felt guilty for ending the first attempt Bryan had made a conversation in the past few days. He looked down at me, looking hurt. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that." "Why not, it's true. I'm sorry, but Louis and Ro are on our backs to get this album out as soon as possible." He said, getting into the bed. " I missed you, if that makes any difference." "I missed you too." I said, and put my book down on the bedside table. "So, did you get much done today?" "Yeah, we finished off two more tracks. Man, I thought we were never gonna get them finished." He sighed, but smiled at the same time. "What did you do today?" "Not a lot. Nat and Pnut came around for a while, we sat watching TV and just chatting about stuff. It's weird, they're married and they're still as mad as ever, I thought they might have calmed down a little, but no." I laughed. "Umm, Ally" Bryan said, sounding a little nervous. "I need to talk to you about something." I looked over at him, he just stared at the ceiling. "What's wrong?" I asked him, he looked over at me. "Well, the guys and me have to go away for 2 weeks, a promo tour, for the new single." "Oh, ok." I said, "where you guys going?" "Well, all over, it's a lot of travelling." He said, " I didn't know if you would want to go or not,..." "It's not just me, it's Dylan too, I don't know how he'd cope with all the changes, and travelling, he's a bit young for all that." I replied, and saw Bryan look a little disappointed. "Yeah, I thought so too.It's ok, I'll understand if you want to stay home." "Yeah, probably for the best." I said. "When do you have to leave?" "Umm," he muttered, "Tomorrow night." "What?!" "Yeah." "And you're telling me now?! Don't tell me Lou just told you today!" I cried, sitting up. "We found out a few days ago," I stared at him, in disbelief, because he hadn't mentioned it, "but, we haven't exactly been speaking to each other, have we?!"Bryan sounded annoyed. "Guess not, hey, you know what, maybe two weeks apart is what we need!" I yelled, and lay down, switching off the lamp. "FINE THEN!" Bryan yelled. "Yeah....." I said, quietly, still angry. Just then, I heard Dylan cry in the next room. I sat up, ready to go and see what was wrong, and put him back to bed, when Bryan got up. "I'll go" he said, walking out. "Yeah, because you won't be doing that for two weeks will ya?" I muttered, Bryan just kept walking, and I just went to sleep, not waiting for him to come back in. |