Dedication: ALL OF YOU! ;)

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

A Duncan/Courtney Story

Written by Cereal-Killa

Published on Wednesday, July 24th, 2013

-All the Small Things-

Summary: When Courtney first told people that she and Duncan were having a child, they could only suspect that it was some type of sick, twisted joke.

Well you've done-done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks
and now I'm trying to get back
Before the cool done run out
I'll be giving it my bestest
Nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some

I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find love, love, love, love
Listen to the music of the moment people dance and sing, we're just one big family
It's our God-forsaken right to be loved, loved, loved, loved, loved...

So I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure

There's no need to complicate
Our time is short
This is our fate, I'm yours

Do you want to, come on, scootch over closer dear
And I will nibble your ear

I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and I laughed
I guess what I'll be saying is there ain't no better reason
To rid yourself of vanities and just go with the seasons
It's what we aim to do
Our name is our virtue

But I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find that the sky is yours
so please don't, please don't, please don't.
There's no need to complicate
'cause our time is short
This oh, this oh, this is our fate, I'm yours

Chapter Eight: No Need to Complicate

To say that Duncan was a bit tired would be the understatement of the year.

After vigorous work nights and paper work that somehow trailed home with him, he had just gotten out of the first shower he'd taken in the past four days, and for once, it wasn't just due to his not-so-balanced hygiene. This was the first time he'd been able to fit one in his schedule, and considering he was doing so at 4 a.m. only disgusted him more. He could be sleeping. He could be resting, holding his wife who was now more than halfway through her pregnancy, he could be...

His train of thought stopped immediately when the sounds of lurching and gagging hit him through the shower curtain. Swiping open the curtain, he looked down at the source to find Courtney hunched over the toilet, and- gross- upchucking like her life depended on it.

"Ah..." Duncan started, a bit awkwardly so, since she had been going on for about ten solid seconds now, "...Are you alright?"

Courtney slowly but surely stopped with her gagging and wiped her mouth with a hanging nearby towel. She coughed once more before looking up at Duncan, blushing slightly and then looking back down into the toilet. "Good lord, Duncan, get decent first. Hanging out like that, have some goddamned shame, will you?"

Duncan faintly blushed at this as well, but scowled at her anyway. "I would, but someone just wiped their puke all over my towel." A hand shot out with another, cleaner towel and Duncan hummed in gratitude, covering his bottom half and walking out of the bathroom.

Courtney looked down into the toilet with mixed feelings of disgust and embarrassment. She really, really liked the thought of having a kid, but being pregnant sucked. The way she had blushed at Duncan earlier... was he even able to look at her the same way anymore? Her stomach was huge, she was puking all the time, and she just didn't feel pretty when she looked in the mirror anymore... She felt a few tears prickle at her eyes before she felt a hand on her back.

She turned to see Duncan, coming down to her level by the toilet dressed in boxers and a t-shirt, handing her some Midol and Tylenol and a cool glass of water, as well as a ponytail holder and a headband. "Don't really know what kind of pill you wanted, that's what you always know, so I just got both... and you don't wanna get your hair all messy." Softly, Duncan took Courtney's short shoulder length hair in his hands and pulled it to the back of her neck, brushing her bangs as far back as her could and wrapping the pony tail holder around it. He handed her the headband and she put it on, keeping the remaining hair out of face.

Duncan smiled slightly at her when she got adjusted and shoved a toothbrush in her mouth to wash up. She shot him a dark look, eying him suspiciously. "What the hell are you smiling about?"

He blushed slightly. "Well, I'm gonna have a beautiful kid, my wife is a beautiful woman, and she still even looks hot even when she's having morning sickness." He chuckled. "Don't see why I shouldn't smile at that."

Courtney gave him a long look before breathing hard and continuing to brush her teeth. She tried to stop the small smile that kept twitching on her lips by brushing harder.

"...Adopted?"

For some reason, the word felt foreign on Gwen's tongue. She looked from Lindsay, to the kid, and to Cody, then back.

Trent interrupted her train of shock. "...How old is he...?"

Lindsay smiled brightly, rubbing Cliff's head and smiling brightly at her boy. "He's three years old, but we just adopted him about six months back..." She leaned forward to share a small Eskimo kiss with the toddler, giggling along with him. "He's gotten so big now, haven't you!"

Chuckling, Cody smiled. "Definitely gonna be taller than me when he gets older."

The blonde cooed at her child before turning to Gwen. "Do you want to hold him?" She asked, blue eyes wide and bright.

Gwen's eyes widen and she had to refrain from immediately shaking her head at the thought. She was about to make some excuse, but by that time, the small child was already in her arms.

Looking down at the little being was so foreign to her, the sensation of holding a warm bundle full of life one she had never had, not even with her own younger sibling.

She wondered if Cliff's look of curiosity was mirrored on her face. Gwen shifted him to a less awkward position in her arms, feeling her eyes light up as he smiled and let out a small giggle directed at her.

"It isn't your fault, you know."

Gwen's head snapped up, looking to Lindsay, who was now standing beside her, smiling sadly. Trent and Cody had left and begun talking about something in the living room, in hushed tones that made her a little suspicious. She couldn't believe she hadn't even seen them walk out, however. She realizes she was so caught up in cooing over Cliff she had completely blocked the rest of them out from her mind frame.

"I..." Gwen started, but she didn't even know what to say.

Lindsay nodded. "...I thought something was wrong with me when I wasn't able to have kids." She bit her lip, looking up at the ceiling with wetting eyes. "I mean, at the time, I really believed I'd done something to deserve it, you know?"

Gwen felt like she can't even breath. For some reason, she couldn't seem to register that this was the same person who had sat there and let Heather bully her. She couldn't understand how someone who was so pretty and perfect could have the same problem as her, believed that she had done something wrong.

It was weird, because all those times when Gwen thought Lindsay was being nice, she thought she was pretending.

"But it's not." Lindsay said, blue eyes looking determinedly into dark brown ones. "You've done nothing wrong- and you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. You aren't the problem. There isn't even a problem." She stared at her, the most serious frown Gwen had ever received in her life on the face of the girl she was sure didn't have all that great motor function in her brain. "You deserve to be happy."

That's when the tears start to fall. They are silent, hushed tears, cried into the shoulder of the small child who was still giggling at Gwen, his voice so tiny, the hands gently clutching at her so small. So fragile and innocent and yet so much more than perfect.

Lindsay's smile returned, and she giggled along with Cliff as she threw an arm around Gwen's shoulder. "I think we made a new friend today, Cliff!" Gwen didn't bother to correct her, because she was starting to see that the blonde was, for once, very, very right.

Geoff was a bit slow.

Ok, so Geoff was more than a bit slow. He was really slow. Like, really, really slow.

He just wasn't the brightest- he never had been. He'd almost always struggled in school, and don't even speak about math in front of him unless you wanted to see what he looked with drool spilling from his mouth and a lazy eye. He didn't like to think, if he was being honest. Geoff was his dreamer, his mother had said to people. He's a creative soul, with so many different things going on in his head at once that he simply couldn't afford to sit down and focus on one thing at a time, no, not with such a fantastic, brilliant, ever-going mind like his own!

She was dead wrong, of course. Geoff wasn't as 'dumb as a brick' as many people liked to claim he was. He was simply very simple minded. Geoff didn't think the way other people did.

While people had been worrying about college, Geoff had been wondering what type of beer he'd buy for the rad party he was going to host next weekend. When everyone had been trying to gain popularity in high school overall, Geoff was just busy making sure that Duncan, his best friend, was having fun with him and getting high.

Geoff's priorities were simpler than most people's. Therefore, his thought process and development was much less drastic than anyone else.

He didn't tend to see the bigger picture.

He didn't tend to catch things.

Like, ever...

This is why it was rare for Geoff to remember petty things such as this. It was 2am, and he was scheduled to get up in about six hours to go to work. Yet his brain has decided to hone in on the fact that there is only one roll of toilet paper left in the cabinet.

He thinks about this. Toilet paper is a necessity, not a leisure item. It's something they will always need, most especially when Geoff comes home from work after stopping for lunch at the burrito place downtown...

He headed to the store on a whim, and found himself standing in a wife beater and basketball shorts looking for the softest brand of toilet paper. He was wearing socks with his sandals for gods sakes. Fucking hell, I'm old as shit, aren't I? He said, before calming himself. 2am at a supermarket. No place to have an internal meltdown over your slowly narrowing path along the lines of humanity.

"Now see, why do they even bother with that?" He said, looking down at the plastic wrapping. "An ideal balance of softness and strength." He shook his head. "How exactly do they define ideal? It might not be my version of the ideal toilet paper. Even worse- it might not be Bridge's version of ideal toilet paper."

He sighed. "I'm talking to myself."

What a day to be alive.

He turned when he heard a girl squeal behind him. It was some couple, a young one, probably only eighteen or nineteen. The girl currently had her hands cupped over her mouth, tears spilling out her eyelids as the guy slipped a ring on her finger, both of them falling into each other in a clutching embrace.

He snorted. Really? At the fucking grocery store?

He turned back to the toilet paper and decided to go for the one with the puppy on it. Bridgette liked puppies. Plus, dog we're fucking badass, man.

On the ride home, he wondered about the couple. What had they done after that? Had they gone to hitched right there, like young, rebellious kids were prone to do? Had they even wanted to tell their parents, as many couples were wary to do?

He slipped into bed later, happy to once again have a satisfactory amount of toilet paper in their house. He throws his head back on his pillow, sighing. He felt tired. It was a long day, and now it would be a short night. He regretted going out but knew it would have bothered him for the rest of the day if he hadn't.

That was when Bridgette rolled over, smacking her lips sleepily and curling into Geoff's side, nuzzling his neck and going back to sleep, soft snores that made him chuckle silently falling from her lips with each breath.

It wasn't as though marriage had never crossed his mind before. It wasn't as though settling down with Bridgette wasn't something he didn't want to do.

It was just... scary.

He's seen Gwen and Trent, as well as Duncan and Courtney. They're happy, and that's absolutely great for them. He's glad that all of his best friends have found a significant other to make them happy; it's more than he could have ever asked for.

However, he's aware of what they are.

They're the fifty percent of marriages that do end well, that go somewhere other than a stack of divorce papers and a lot of filings in court. Marriage ruins people, it ruins families; worst of all, marriage ruins love. His parents had hated each other, and he remembered being taken into a room by a smiling lady at the courthouse, who sat him down and looked him dead in the eye, and spoke in her sweetest voice, "Now they me who you want to live with; mommy or daddy."

She was smiling. The whole fucking time.

He doesn't want that for Eliza. He doesn't want her stuck in the middle of what him and Bridgette have a fifty percent chance of becoming. He just doesn't want it.

He wants Bridgette. With all his goddamned heart and soul, he wants Bridgette and he doesn't ever want to fucking let her go.

He just can't afford to lose her. Not now.

Not ever.

Courtney looked over at her two friends.

She knows them both very well. Bridgette and Gwen are her best friends, through thick and thin, sickness and health, all that yada yada. She might as well be married to them right along with Duncan- they do as much for her as that pierced idiot does, anyway.

The point is, she deeply, deeply loves the two people currently sitting on her couch eating her chunky-monkey ice cream. She would never ever tell them that, due to the rules of Courtney, which is to never tell someone how deeply you love them unless a) you are held at gunpoint or b) you're near death and on some type of truth serum drug. Yeah, Courtney doesn't really believe in that ridiculous emotional bullshit. It's... well... bullshit.

Anyhow.

Being that these two are, as she had mentioned, her closest friends in the entire world, she knew them very well. She knew when they were happy, or angry, or sad. And right now, they were both definitely sad.

Probably on their periods as well, if the way that Gwen was sitting on the couch right now was any way to judge. Crouched over like a fucking contortionists; cramps, Courtney supplied as a reasonable answer to the demonic look about her. And Bridgette was a bit snappish that night, so she suspected it must be her time of the month too.

Ugh, Courtney thought. At least she wasn't having to deal with that right now.

Of course, she was still dealing with the six month old fetus growing right along inside her. She had thought of maybe checking the gender, but her and Duncan agreed it would best to leave it a surprise. Courtney due to the fact that, "It will be all the more magical when they are born," and Duncan because it "Might be one of those babies with two heads, then we can start a traveling circus just like I always wanted." Yeah, he sure had his priorities in order.

Bridgette and Gwen looked over to Courtney, and she realized she had been grumbling about her idiot husband out loud. "What was that?" Bridgette said quietly.

Courtney shook her head, sitting in between them both with a shrug. "Nothing." She stared ahead at the TV, sighing at the weight of the day. "I was just thinking about things. I still have so much left to do, you know? I still have to plan the baby shower, and-"

"I can do that!" Courtney looked to them both in stunned silence. What? It's a little odd when both of your friends smile so ridiculously at you like that while they both say the exact same thing in unison.

She shook her head. "No, you guys really don't have to. I know that most women have someone else do it, but I'm self sufficient and I can do it on my own, really..."

"Courtney, you're pregnant." Gwen said. "Face it. You're sort of handicapped, in a way."

Bridgette nodded, but shot Gwen a glare, which was shot right back at her quickly. "Yeah, sweetheart. Let someone else take care of you."

Courtney looked at them both with frustration, but finally let out a sigh of depressed relief. "I guess... I guess you're right. I have been having trouble just getting out of bed recently..." She made a face but then scoffed. "Fine. You guys can both plan it."

They made faces. "...Both of us?"

"Yeah," Courtney said. She then laughed quietly, watching the TV with interest. "Or, yanno, you could have a competition to see who can throw the more impressive baby shower." She laughed again, sleepily. "Now that would be interesting."

She completely misses the look of pure contempt thrown over her shoulders. Bridgette and Gwen both fought the urge to stick their tongue out at one another.

It was so on.

A/N: I would like to sincerely apologize for not updating this story for so long. It's by far one of my favorite stories to write and after the events of last year and the losses I experienced, I kind of lost my drive to continue it. However, I will finish this story. Don't be mistaken about that!

There are only about three or four more chapters, and then an epilogue! I'm still trying to figure out if I can write more after that, but how about I just focus on the plans I got set out right now, right? Lol.

Thank you guys for reading and sticking with me even with my shitty updating. I really love this story and I know a lot of people were disappointed in me for letting it fall so far off the wayside for so long. I won't take that long to update again, I promise.

Again, thanks for being the most awesome readers ever. Swear I couldn't be more serious when I say I love the stuffing out of you guys! *huggles you all*

'Til next time duckies! -Cereal