ON THE MORNING of Kurt and Courtney's wedding, Reagan awoke to the sound of knocking on her and Dave's hotel room door. She sat up in a sleepy daze, but Dave brushed her arm quietly, his silent way of telling her that he would get it. She watched him swing his legs over the edge of the bed with a sigh and pull on his boxers, discarded amongst the waves of messy sheets.

As Dave walked towards the door, Reagan sank low against the pillows propped behind her head. She pulled the swath of covers up around her face, unsure of what was awaiting Dave on the opposite side of the door. It was always a new surprise, though she didn't doubt that it could have been Courtney, demanding her help in preparing for her big day.

Dave opened the door and despite not being able to see his reaction, Reagan could hear his blatant confusion at being greeted by their visitor.

"Hey," Dave said, sounding perplexed. An upset response was returned in a voice that could have only belonged to Krist.

Dave leaned away from the door and grabbed the nearest one of his t-shirts draped over a chair. Reagan watched as he tugged it on wordlessly. He held up a finger to her, an indicative sign that she would have to wait, and she sat up again in concern.

"What is it?" she asked, wrapping the sheets around her bare chest.

"Hold on," Dave replied. He slipped out into the hallway and shut the door.

Reagan felt a spasm of fear in her heart. She swallowed against the tightness of her throat, wondering what kind of dire news required for such an early wake-up call. There was always the dreadful possibility of an accident involving Kurt and drugs, or at least that appeared to be the new norm, but it didn't seem possible. Courtney had just told Reagan that she and Kurt would be getting clean off of drugs for the sake of their baby.

Getting out of bed, Reagan grabbed the first articles of clothing she saw strewn across the floor, coming up with a t-shirt of her own and a pair of Dave's long-johns. She dressed herself and considered pressing her ear to the door, curious to see if she'd be able to hear Dave and Krist talking out in the hall. It would have eased her nerves to at least know what was going on and if there was anything she could do to help.

Before she made a decision on whether or not to eavesdrop, the door opened again and Dave entered the room. His face was passive and didn't give away any revealing information, though Reagan strode to his side quickly with a noticeable worry crease on her forehead.

"What's going on?" she prompted.

"Krist and Shelli are leaving," Dave announced soberly. "They're about to pack up and go to the airport."

"What?" Reagan cried, dropping her folded arms away from her chest. "Why? They can't leave! Kurt's getting married today!"

"Reagan," Dave began. He reached out for her, but she took a shuffled step backwards.

"I don't understand," she said, her voice stricken. "Why would Krist do that? Kurt's his best friend."

At the mention of Kurt being any sort of best friend to Krist, Dave looked away. Reagan knew why without questioning it. If he'd continued staring at her with such sad eyes, she would have spotted the truth in them.

It was no relationship of her own to examine given that it had always been a brotherhood strictly formed between Kurt and Krist, dating all the way back to their early teenage years in Aberdeen. A morose slideshow of memories crossed Reagan's mind as she remembered when she had first met them in Olympia, the two of them always latched at each other's side and equipped with their instruments. She visualized Krist towering over Kurt and Kurt standing diminutive next to him, wearing one of his rare but sweet smiles.

It could have only been a sick joke to say that Krist, Kurt's stand-in older brother, wouldn't be there to watch him get married.

"It's not Krist's fault. Kurt told him that he and Shelli were banned from the wedding tonight. So they're leaving," Dave explained.

It hurt Reagan even more knowing that Dave's admittance to what had happened sounded like the cold truth. Of course Krist, as kind-hearted and dopey as he was, wouldn't have abandoned Kurt like that without a reasonable motive. But Kurt, who could be as vicious as he was gentle, was a whole different story.

"Oh," Reagan said softly. It was all she could say as she sank down onto the foot of the bed with her hands laced together on her lap.

Dave easily read the mix of confusion and hurt on his wife's face. He wasn't at all surprised to see her taking the situation so personally. She had performed alongside those two inseparable men, who it turned out could in fact be pulled apart. He knew that as tough and gritty as she could be, Reagan loved his bandmates like family. It was her love for them that softened her to jelly when she witnessed them at odds, an occurrence Dave had already gotten used to.

"Baby, you haven't been around," Dave said quietly. He sat beside her and stroked away the pieces of her hair straying into her face. "I know you don't get it, but . . ."

"You do," Reagan finished for him. "You're not telling me something."

"I've told you everything that I know," Dave pledged. "I've filled you in as best as I can. But it's different when you're the one who is actually living it."

"So what? Krist and Kurt can't stand each other now? Since when?"

"It's not that. Krist and Shelli are just worried about Kurt and he doesn't want to hear it. They haven't agreed on much as of lately."

"Is this all because of Courtney? Because if it is, you all need to grow up and stop pinning your problems on —,"

"Reagan," Dave said, grabbing her arms and binding them to her side. "I'm just the drummer. I joined this band to drum and that's fucking it. I don't care about the dramatics."

"I know . . . but what if it all falls apart?" Reagan asked, dipping her voice down to a whisper. "What if it ends? What if it's over between you guys and you don't even know it yet?"

"Krist seems to think it is, but I think that's bullshit. He and Kurt are just fighting like stupid kids right now and they're going to eventually get over it."

Dave turned away with an irritated huff, shaking his head. Reagan could tell that over the last year, he had become accustomed to whatever he was going through with Kurt and Krist. There was essentially a neon sign hovering over his head blaring the words 'middle man.' It was obviously true that Reagan had not been there — she hadn't been present to watch the shadow of change creep between the three people she loved so very much. They had left her in September and returned as a very different band, at least to anyone who must have known them personally.

She thought about Nirvana's skyrocketing popularity and the way it had felt to see their record on store shelves or watch as their music video got airtime on MTV. She had spent so much time being proud of them that she hadn't stopped to consider what the actual reward of fame was doing to each of their mental states. Screaming fans, constant interviews and the promise of more to come had seemed to Reagan like the mark of a band that had finally earned their place in the world, but for her boys, it had taken the opposite effect. The world had chewed them up and spit them out and even if though they had lived to tell the tale of it all, the lasting effect was still there.

"Things are different now, aren't they?" she asked.

Dave got to his feet and paced the room, massaging his chin between his fingers. He was calculating, obviously trying to find a way to put the bad situation out of both their mind. Reagan knew that he didn't want to think about it, let alone discuss it. It was all part of the drama he professed to despise.

"Like I said, I'm the drummer. I'm going to do my job, as long as I still have one."

"It's sad," Reagan said faintly. "It feels like just yesterday I was up on stage with them, helping them out on that night when they needed me. And now I know things are different, but I can't even pinpoint how. It's like I just showed up and walked in on the wrong band or something."

"Am I different?" Dave asked. He dropped down to his knees and placed his hands on Reagan's thighs, wearing a serious and determined expression. "Have I changed?"

"No, but —,"

"Exactly. You don't need to worry about anyone else but me, Reagan. You, me, us. The baby. That's it."

"But Kurt and Krist are my friends. I've been here from the start."

"I know you have. This isn't the same as before, though. It's not just one long jam session in Olympia anymore."

"I don't even want to ask for the details behind what you're saying."

Dave released his grip on Reagan's thighs and stood to envelop her into a hug, kissing the top of her head. He rocked her in his arms and she closed her eyes, feeling caught in the middle of some altered state of reality. These were the times when she remembered that no one around her, nothing around her, was normal anymore.

"All I'm asking is that you not worry about anything. I know you love Krist, and I know you love Kurt. I know you care about the band. But you're right, things are different Reags. And they're out of your control."

"I feel like I'm about to be a bystander to an awful train-wreck or something," she murmured.

"Don't think that way," Dave urged. "Think about the next few months that we have planned together. Think about Gracie. She's gonna' be here soon and she's gonna' need us."

"You're apart of what's happening between you guys whether you like it or not," Reagan pointed out. "It's not like we can hide out in the apartment and pretend that you're not in the band."

"And that's for me to deal with. It's my burden to bear."

"And so it's mine too," Reagan said sadly. "Because you are a part of me."

Dave sighed. He continued to hold Reagan closer, smoothing his hands down the length of her hair as a silence consumed them both. Reagan tried to get into his head, imagining what it was like to be him. It must have been hard trying to explain his role in the whole situation to someone he loved so dearly and who was destined to worry about him until the end of time. She could see the lines he was trying to draw in the sand, the distinctions between his family and his work. His need for control was giving itself away and she presumed that it would be unfair to deny him the comfort that yes, he could return to her, his home, and not have to think about Nirvana in doing so.

"I'll butt out," she said. She resisted gritting her teeth. Never before had she sworn to butt out of anything; usually she was the one ring-leading the fastest solution. "If it makes you happy."

"You don't have to butt out," Dave countered. "Just . . . try not to stress about it, okay? Yeah, I know, this is my life now. But you're my life, too. I want that still. I want to be able to go back to Seattle with you and not think about this shit. I want to think about the fact that we're having a baby."

"Fair enough," Reagan said with a sigh. "I guess that's a pretty reasonable thing to want to think about."

"Hey," Dave said. He caught her chin between his fingers and steadied her stare to his. "If it makes you feel any better, you can go ahead and talk to Kurt. I know I said not to say anything, but you can hold your own against him, I know that. You're pretty mean when you're pissed."

Reagan smiled indifferently. "I don't think that I'm able to talk to him. It can wait. I'd rather just be with you right now."

"Good," Dave said with obvious relief as the subject was tucked away. "We are on our fake honeymoon after all, just like you said."

"True. We should probably be doing fake honeymoon-type things."

"We can go to the beach," Dave suggested. "Or the pool. We can sight-see or get something to eat. Whatever you want, we'll do it."

"You know what I want?" Reagan said, placing her hands on her knees and squeezing. She felt a familiar bur all the way down to her fingertips, the same yearning she got whenever she needed to release stress. "I want to play the drums right now. Do you think you could make that happen?"

Dave laughed and looked down at her lovingly. "Yeah. I think I can do that."

_______

The wedding took place later that evening on a gap of Waikiki Beach that was relatively empty, void of the usual milling tourists. The sun was setting behind a wall of clouds, casting a grayish blue hue across the shore and making the sand glow like moonstone.

Reagan stood by Dave in a sleeveless blue dress that brushed down to her knees, her hands clasped in front of her as she stared out towards the horizon. They both wore leis and just for the occasion, Reagan had encouraged Dave to smoke at least one cigarette. Everyone else — everyone being the entire Nirvana crew, that is — was doing it and she didn't want him to be left out. The only hard part was that she craved a cigarette too, needing her nerves to be steadied more than ever. Krist and Shelli's absence hadn't been verbally noted, but it was still being felt by everyone there.

Before the ceremony had begun, Reagan had found Courtney prepping with a tube of lipstick in hand in her room, appraising her reflection with her lips rounded.

"Be my maid of honor," Courtney had insisted, though Reagan figured that her say in the matter had been virtually eliminated.

"Do you need one?" she'd asked, observing that the only attendees of the wedding were the Nirvana crew members. Not even the newlyweds own families were there, though as crazy as her own family was, Reagan could understand that.

"Kurt's got Dylan, so I figure that I should have someone too. I mean come on, Dylan flew here just he could be Kurt's best man!"

"Among other reasons," Reagan had replied sourly. Dylan, as strange as he was nice, used heroin nearly as much as Kurt apparently did and would have willingly supplied it to his friend, even on his wedding day.

"Oh, stop. Just say yes and don't worry. You can still stand by Dave. This is just so we can tell people in ten years that this is how it all went down."

It was odd to think of herself as someone's maid of honor — technically, a matron of honor — as Reagan stood with her toes buried deep in the sand and her eyes trained on the sunset. She had sworn to herself that once she'd gotten through the wedding, she would focus on Dave and Gracie alone. She would go back to Seattle and try her best to live alongside the new world she'd been thrown into by mere association. She would close her eyes and pretend that the only rockstars around were the ones that they all had been in their early days, back when it was simply fun and no business and just the city limits to contain their talent.

She stole a glance at Dave, who lowered his sunglasses over his eyes and was sucking on cigarette number two. He was going to be her exception to that last rule. Dave would be permitted to sit on the throne of visible success in her eyes because he at least wore it well. His grip on reality hadn't faded and despite it all, they were still them, still the same Reagan and Dave that had met because of the whole ordeal in the first place.

Worrying about everything else would now be forbidden territory. Reagan had decided to concentrate only on what took up the most space in her heart. She would shelve everything else and attempt to live a normal life, or a somewhat normal life, though labels like that didn't apply with Dave. They could have probably lived amongst aliens on Mars and she would have been happy, as long as she was with him.

Courtney and Kurt finally joined the rest of their congregation on the beach, carrying armfuls of flowers and looking smitten, if not a little mutually out of it as well. Reagan managed to shoot Courtney a smile as she passed, to which Courtney returned sagely.

Reagan attempted to stay present for the entire thing, though she dazed in and out of her thoughts and what was going on right in front of her. It felt like history was being made, some corrupted yet magically destined part of it, and she was glad when Dave squeezed her hand every on and off to keep her aware.

The most she got out of it were the simple parts, though she was content to take away what she would only want to look back on in the future whenever she reminisced on either Kurt and Courtney and the strange kind of love that existed between them both, so different from the kind she experienced Dave. It was a wedding that was a blend of unique and normal and would stay forever etched into Reagan's memory.

The bride wore a vintage white dress (once a token of Frances Farmer's, Reagan had heard). The groom wore blue pajamas. The bride smiled proudly and the groom cried and they both happily recited their vows and sealed their fates, intertwining their names for the rest of forever as the sunlight sank away behind them.