AUGUST 22nd, 1992, LOS ANGELES, CA

     "I'M CONFUSED," DAVE said, massaging his fingertips into his chin. "Why exactly are we here again?"

"Because Kurt is our friend, that's why," Reagan replied, though even she could not deny the level  uncertainty in her voice. Her arms felt rubbery from having held Gracie for so long — the five-month old had proven to hate car rides and the journey from Dave and Reagan's Los Angeles hotel to Kurt and Courtney's Alta Loma home had been punctured with endless minutes of screaming.

It was a surprise that with as much as Gracie hated cars, she'd made it through the flight from Seattle to L.A. without so much as a peep. She'd slept nestled against Dave's chest while Reagan had anxiously drummed her fingers on the extended tray in front of her, wondering what in the world was awaiting them in California.

Courtney's call had been sudden, to say the least. At first, Reagan had not understood precisely why her and Dave were so badly needed by the Cobains. Courtney had rambled on about Kurt's heroin use over the phone, but with a regretful sadness, Reagan had still wondered to herself why that matter involved her and her husband.

She would never get used to it. It was too difficult, trying to shrug her shoulders and feign expectance when she heard about Kurt's ongoing drug abuse. Nothing about it was the same as when he'd huffed out of aerosol cans in Olympia or took tabs of acid like candy. That had been harmless compared to what it was now, and even then Reagan hadn't seen cause for concern. A lot of the Olympia-based musicians were clean-cut when it came to drugs, but she'd only ever viewed Kurt taking them as another metaphorical 'fuck you' to society. She'd laughed about it once.

Now, it seemed like the plot of a story that had taken a horrible, dark turn. She felt helpless, standing by while Kurt knowingly ruined his life, but Dave had told her that there was nothing that they could do. Kurt would have to help himself.

So why were they there? Why had Courtney called?

Reagan supposed that there was another specific reason for Courtney's plea for help, though she couldn't have possibly predicted it back on the sixteenth — Kurt and Courtney's daughter, Frances, had just been born.

Reagan had never picked up a single tabloid in her life, but from what she had gathered during the four days since Frances's birth, it had not been a happy time. The press was hounding the Cobains, lapping up the notion that they weren't fit parents, all because of a spread Courtney had been a part of in the next month's Vanity Fair. The details of it all were murky, mostly because Reagan and Dave had sheltered themselves away from the bubble of fame and all things Nirvana since he'd been home, but Reagan knew it was bad. It must have been for Courtney to demand that she and Dave fly to Los Angeles.

The house had an air of a funeral home. It was a train-wreck for starters, with Kurt and Courtney's belongings piled high in every corner, but that didn't blanket the unmistakeable feeling of depression that hung around. Cigarette butts and dirty ash trays were littered everywhere along with scraps of half-eaten food. The carpet looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in days, maybe weeks, and not a sound rang throughout the house. No music, no television playing. It gave Reagan the creeps. The only solitary sound that pierced the silence every now and then was the phone ringing.

"Where the fuck did she go?" Dave muttered.

"She said she was going to find Kurt," Reagan said, adjusting Gracie again in her arms.

How it took so long to seek out Kurt in the dimensions of one house, Reagan did not know. Courtney had answered the door in a robe with tear-stained cheeks, addressing Reagan and Dave with a sob, and then hurried off to find her husband.

With every passing second, Reagan began to feel like she'd landed a starring part in a horror film. She'd been living in Seattle, in her own happy existence. Not for a second had she assumed that things were this out of sorts in Kurt's life.

She held Gracie a little tighter. She was Reagan's anchor, keeping her firmly planted amongst what little shreds of calm that she had left.

Her and Dave stood awkwardly in the living room, waiting. Somewhere down the hall, they both heard Courtney's cry-laden shouts of Kurt's name. She appeared back in front of them suddenly, holding a burning cigarette between her quivering fingers. Reagan had seen Courtney look messy before, but never this wholly unkept, her hair sticking out every which way and her face a mask of bright red.

"He's not seeing anyone," Courtney said, sniffing back more fresh tears. "He's devastated."

"Courtney," Reagan began carefully, "what's going on?"

"Like you don't know!" Courtney wailed. Dave flinched next to Reagan. She didn't have to look at him to imagine the cringing expression on his face.

"I only know a little," Reagan said. Her displeasure for Courtney hadn't receded yet since the early summer, but she still wanted to make sense of her distress. That damned motherly instinct, the one that had grown even stronger since Gracie had come along, was reeling her in.

"They're taking Frances," Courtney trembled. "That stupid fucking cow got them to take Frances from us!"

"What . . . er, cow?" Reagan winced.

"Hirschberg! Lynn Hirschberg!" Courtney screeched. She stabbed her half-smoked cigarette into an ash tray. "She ruined my life. She ruined Kurt's life."

"We haven't read the article, Courtney," Dave intervened. "We just know that it wasn't pretty."

"Pretty," Courtney scoffed, rolling her pink-tinged eyes to the ceiling. "Yeah, good one Grohl, glad to see you've got a brain."

"Can you just tell us what's going on?" Reagan snapped. Courtney's dig at Dave electrified her defense mode and abruptly, Reagan was reminded of all the reasons as to why she'd come to dislike Kurt's wife so much. They'd been friends for half a second before Courtney had started her antics, bullying those that she thought were beneath her.

Well, she certainly wasn't going to bully Dave. Not with Reagan present.

"They're going to take her away," Courtney explained. She was starting to cry again, choking out her words. "Child services came to the hospital and said that we can't have Frances to ourselves. We're going to court in two days."

"What did the article say?" Reagan questioned.

"Read it yourself," Courtney shot back icily.

"I'm going to assume it was bad," Reagan said with impatience bluntness. "Really bad."

"We're good parents," Courtney mumbled, leaving Reagan unsure if she was talking to herself or to her and Dave. "We can take care of her. She'll be fine."

"Where is Frances?" Reagan asked, though she wasn't positive that she wanted to hear the answer. If the baby was already in custody of someone else, then there was no doubt that Courtney's reaction would be explosive. Reagan didn't want an ash tray being hurled at her head when she had Gracie in her arms.

"The hospital," Courtney said. She dug the heel of her hand into her forehead and closed her mascara-streaked eyes. "They're observing her for any problems. Like they expect her to be some . . . some crack baby."

Dave pinched Reagan's arm. When she glanced at him sideways, his eyes were offering every warning signal that they'd just stepped into an even more uncharted territory. The situation was a far cry from anything else that they'd found themselves involved in since their first meeting, back when their worlds had been a little simpler.

"I'm sorry, Courtney," Reagan said. "I know this is a really difficult time."

"Well, if isn't that the fucking understatement of the year."

God, Reagan wanted to punch her. If it had not been for Gracie pressed against her chest, she would have taken the opportunity to deck Courtney right in the center of her pouty mouth. No amount of sympathy that she mustered for her situation could entirely blot out the rage she'd felt towards Courtney since May. Crisis or no crisis, Reagan was convinced that she still owed her a brutal ass-kicking for being so capable of pissing people off.

"What do you want us to do?" Dave asked over Courtney's whimpering. Reagan swiveled her head to the side and gave him a look.

Not tactical, David, she thought. Courtney might have been a pain, but they had to tread more delicately than that.

"Can't you say something?" Courtney moaned, reminding Reagan strongly of a child in the midst of a temper tantrum. Nonetheless, the sight of Courtney looking so broken down did leave her heart twinging with a bit of remorse.

"Say what?" Reagan asked.

"I don't know! Make a statement, tell the press that Kurt and I are good parents. Back us up! We need fucking help! People aren't going to believe our word against that stupid bitch."

"Are you sure that would help?"

"It might. We're going to our first court hearing tomorrow to decide what the custody situation will be."

"You want us to go to court?" Dave ogled in disbelief, leaning forward as if he had not heard Courtney correctly.

"No!" Courtney snapped. "Talk to the press. Have something released. Anything."

The phone started ringing again and Courtney screamed in frustration.

"Ugh! Fuck you! It's been ringing all day!" she shrieked, stomping out of the living room and into the kitchen. As soon as she was gone, Dave gripped Reagan's elbow into his hand and tugged.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked hastily. "Outside?"

Reagan didn't have time to respond before Dave was dragging her and Gracie through the front door. She stumbled out onto the loping pathway as Dave steadied her by her shoulders. Courtney's voice, loud and booming, could still be heard from the nearest window.

"What do we —," Reagan began.

"I don't like this," Dave said, cutting her off. "This is bad."

"Of course it's bad, Kurt might lose custody of his kid. That's awful."

"No, I mean Courtney wanting us to say something. I don't think it's a good idea."

Reagan blinked, feeling like her brain had suddenly short-circuited. "But Kurt is your friend. Shouldn't we help them? I mean, I don't particularly like Courtney but Kurt . . ."

"I know, he's a different story," Dave inserted. "That doesn't change the fact that I don't think we need to say anything publicly about this."

"I don't understand. You guys leave for England in four days. Don't you want him to be happy, or at least cognitive enough to go on stage?"

"Of course I do, but I still think that us talking to the press would come back to bite us in the ass."

"How?" Reagan demanded, thinking only now of Kurt and the brotherly love that she'd always harbored for him. Her need to protect him was arising, the same as it always had been. He was like a helpless soul, one that Reagan wanted to piece back together with her own hands.

"What if this is necessary? This whole thing?"

Reagan's gasp of shock was big enough to make up for her own sense of betrayal as well as what she imagined Kurt's would be.

"You think Kurt deserves to have his baby taken from him?" she cried.

"Sh!" Dave hissed, holding up a hand. "I didn't say that! That's not gonna' happen. I'm sure they'll wind up with supervised visitation rights or something."

"Imagine if we only got supervised visits with Gracie, Dave. That's no way to live with a newborn baby, it's ridiculous —,"

"Imagine if I was hooked on needles and getting high every day," Dave said, silencing Reagan. "Would you want me to be around Gracie then? Would you trust me to care for her?"

Reagan didn't know what to say. Dave had found access to her Achilles heel with the one rational thing that she could relate to, which was protecting her own child. The experience of being a mother now made it inevitable to not consider what he'd said.

"No," she said after a deep breath. "I guess I wouldn't."

"Exactly. How do you expect me to make some big public statement about Kurt being a fit parent, then? We both know he hasn't kicked his little habit, yet."

"It's still terrible. It shouldn't have gone like this. Not with the whole world watching."

"I know," Dave said bitterly. "Trust me, I think that that Lynn Hirschberg bitch should go to hell. Kurt's like my brother, Reagan. It's not like I agree with what's being said about him. I don't take pleasure in watching this happen."

"But you won't defend him to the press," Reagan added, closing her teeth down inside the corner of her lip.

"I'll defend him by being there for him. Helping him get through these next few tour dates. But you can't ask me to get wrapped up in someone else's custody battle. I know Kurt will be a good dad, but he's got to get his head out of his ass and stop the shit before that can happen."

"I can't believe this," Reagan murmured. She cupped one hand to the back of Gracie's head and pressed her closer into the crook of her neck. She didn't want to even entertain the idea of what it would be like to have her baby taken from her. Just having Gracie stuck in the hospital for all those weeks had nearly ripped her soul at the seam.

"Me neither," Dave said, frowning. "Nothing good is going to come out of it. We leave for Reading soon."

"If I could magically fix it for them, I would."

"Even though it's Courtney you'd be fixing it for?"

"Kurt too," Reagan said irritably. "But yeah, I'd fix it for her. I may not be her biggest fan, but this whole thing is terrible. I'd hate to see what the tabloids are saying about them."

"I'm not gonna' abandon Kurt, Reags. I'll do what I can."

"I hope you're not insinuating that I follow Courtney around with a box of tissues while you tend to Kurt."

"No, you stay put. Take care of Gracie. We promised each other that this stuff wouldn't affect us, right?" Dave said, placing one hand on Reagan's arm and the other on Gracie's back.

"Right," Reagan whispered.

Behind them, the front door opened and out walked Kurt, looking thoroughly bedraggled in torn jeans and a t-shirt. He slipped his arms into a dirtied flannel as he joined Reagan and Dave on the doorstep, but this didn't stop Reagan from seeing how bruised they appeared. She looked away quickly.

"Kurt," she said, filled with a melancholy pain to see him. With one arm, she wrapped him into a hug. He smelled like stale sweat and cigarettes, which only pained her more.

When she stepped back to appraise him further, Kurt's eyes zeroed in on Gracie. They narrowed slightly, enough that Reagan could see their change from a deadened state to something that closely resembled resentment.

"Aren't you guys just one big happy family?" he said. He didn't even have to inject his question with any sarcasm. The irony was not missed upon Reagan and Dave.

Dave wasn't fazed by Kurt's sour greeting as he stepped forward and clapped his friend on the shoulder. Kurt wobbled on his feet.

"Hey man," Dave said gently. "We're really sorry about all this. It's a shitty place to be in."

Kurt didn't offer a response to Dave. He instead looked back at Reagan and then to Gracie, who was squirming after having been held for so long.

"She's bigger than when I last her," Kurt said lifelessly. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the baby that reminded him so much of his own.

"She's still small for her age," Reagan said. "I don't know if you remember, but she was —,"

"Premature," Kurt finished. "Yeah. I remember."

They all stood in silence, Dave and Reagan watching Kurt while he watched Gracie. In that moment, Reagan would have given anything to restore Kurt to the person she'd once known. It shouldn't have been like this — he should have been happy and smiling, proudly showing off his own baby girl. Reality had left him empty-handed and battling the agony of addiction.

The rosy, warm colored world that had first enveloped them all when Nirvana had struck the fame gold-mine was wavering. Reagan couldn't help but to feel guilty knowing that after all those weeks, she'd been contented in her new house with her new baby and relishing in a love so wonderful that it almost hurt. Meanwhile, Kurt had been suffering. The hard truth was that it was his own hand that contributed to some of that suffering, but Reagan wondered how he was to blame in the end.

He was a product of his own misery and it was obvious that even though the lure of self-destruction was powerful, he was desperately trying to claw his way out of it.

"Do you want to hold her?" Reagan asked gently.

Kurt looked surprised. "Me?"

"Yes." Reagan unlatched one of Gracie's hands from her locket and held her out towards him.

Kurt hesitated, his hands still buried in the pockets of his jeans, before finally, he unveiled them and held them out.

"Okay," he said.

Reagan situated Gracie into Kurt's arms, relieved that her baby didn't mind being passed over to someone else besides her parents. She fussed momentarily before settling, finding new purchase with her first on the neckline of Kurt's flannel. With her big grey eyes, she looked up at him and let out a string of babble, shaking the little hand that was balled around fabric.

Kurt's eyes, trained curiously upon Gracie's face, watered immediately. Reagan studied them for only a second before seeing how they glazed over with a sheen of tears. She looked away, knowing that she might cry too if he did.

"Come on buddy," Dave said, touching his hand to Kurt's shoulder again. "Let's talk."

Reagan watched them both meander down the driveway, Kurt holding Gracie in his arms while Dave leaned in, talking quietly to him. She inhaled sharply, feeling the sting of tears and the hitching way her chest quavered. A barrage of happier memories came to mind, all from a time in which everyone had been younger, more positive about the future ahead. The image of Kurt genuinely laughing at something Dave had said, a rare moment for anyone who knew him, entered the forefront of her thoughts.

As she continued to stare at them until they lingered at the edge of the driveway, she confronted her relief in knowing that Kurt had a friend like Dave in his life.