Noortje’s POV

I was 18 weeks pregnant and it was the last week of tour; my last tour for quite a while. The fans had been noticing something about me. Some were saying that I was getting fat, those people were obviously didn’t like Pierce The Veil or me, but there were tonnes of fans defending me. It was actually pretty funny seeing all the conversations whenever a new photo that included me was posted. I didn’t let all the hate comments get to me; I knew what was going on, while they didn’t. If they wanted to bring me down, they could try, but it wouldn’t work.

Tony and I hadn’t told his mom and sister yet. We decided that it would better to tell them personally than over the phone. Because we wanted to make sure that we would tell as soon as we could, Tony and I arranged for us to come over a day after we got back home from tour. I really was excited to tell them, but I was kind of bummed that I couldn’t do that for my brother, Ewout. He didn’t know either, but I was probably going to facetime him soon and tell him. Why only tell my brother, you might ask. Well, I didn’t want to tell my parents or sister until the baby was born. I was too afraid they were going to try to do something, especially Annika. She had this weird thing that because she was the older sister that she also had to be the first to get married and start a family out of the two of us. When I had gotten a job before she had, she went ballistic, I could only imagine how bad it was going to be if she found out about me being pregnant. She would get on a plane as soon as possible, fly over, and make sure I wouldn’t have my baby. I wasn’t competitive, but she definitely was even though she already had approval of my parents and was their favourite child.

In case you were wondering, yes I was now wearing maternity clothes. Luckily I was able to find things that looked normal and didn’t make it obvious that I was pregnant. These clothes were a lot more comfortable and I no longer felt like I was going to pop out of my jeans. I didn’t buy much. Tony was with me and all I did was literally chose a couple of things, quickly tried them on and bought them. My back was hurting so I didn't feel like shopping anyway. I was out of the store in 30 minutes. Pretty impressive, am I right?

I was lounging on the couch and was desperately trying to get comfortable. Every position had been tried: knees pulled up to chest, lying down on the entire couch, curling up into a ball, and I even had my feet up on the backrest. But nothing was working. I wasn’t far along, but I could definitely feel that I was pregnant. This was only going to get worse.

“Oh my god, Noortje, can you please stop moving!” Mike groaned from his seat at the desk in the corner.

“I can’t get comfortable. Don’t get mad at me!” I whined and rolled over onto my side.

“Please don’t start crying, not again. Tony, your girlfriend is all hormonal, take care of her. There’s been enough crying and fighting the last couple of days.”

“I’m not going to cry!” But that was totally a lie. I could feel the tears wanting to come out and my lips starting to tremble. What made it worse is that I felt bad about it. I was being a burden and didn’t have any control.

Tony got up from his seat and started walking towards me, but not before making a joke, “If you think this bad, you should see her trying to get to sleep.”

“Tony! That’s not funny,” I moaned, “you know I barely get any sleep. At least the baby hasn’t started kicking yet.”

“I know, baby, I’m sorry,” he picked up my feet and sat down before putting my feet back onto his lap, finally making me comfortable, “And the baby has been moving, I can literally feel it.”

“You still call your bump ‘the baby’?” Jaime asked in a very confused and judgemental tone, “shouldn’t you think of a nickname? It might be easier to use. Do you know the gender yet, you should know that by now, right?”

I nodded and put one hand on my stomach, “The gender could have been found out 2 weeks ago, but we decided to keep it a surprise. That way we won’t feel like we need to buy gender oriented things. And no, no nickname.”

“Well, why don’t we think of one then.”

Tony agreed while Mike and Vic decided to join in. I didn't mind. Nicknames were always fun, and if I was still allowed to lie down, I was fine with anything we did. Many names were thrown around, but nothing felt exactly right. Sure, there were a couple that seemed deemable, but it would take a while to get used to. That was until Vic finally decided to say something. He had been talking a bit more when I was around since he had said sorry. But I still didn’t know why he had said it. Was he sorry for everything? Actually sorry for kissing me? Sorry for calling me out when finding my pregnancy test? Or sorry for me being pregnant? I wouldn’t get to know for a long time, but he was making some progress already.

“How about Spud?” He joined in.

I thought about it for a while when I suddenly felt a fluttering feeling that was different from all the other things I had felt. It was probably nothing, so I shrugged if off, but it happened again. I moved my hand and felt something softly bump up against it.

“Ok, that was definitely the baby,” I thought out loud.

“What?” Tony snapped his head towards me.

“I just felt the baby after Vic said Spud,” I clarified, “it was like a kick, but a lot more gentle,” there was another movement, “right over here.”

I took Tony’s hand and placed it exactly where mine had been. We waited for a minute or so and nothing happened. I slowly lowered his hand and suddenly there were many different kicks and punches. Tony looked at his hand in astonishment and then up at me before grinning widely. Even though Tony had claimed to have felt movement before, he was still always surprised if he did feel anything.

“Spud definitely knows it’s you,” I chuckled.

“Spud?” Jaime questioned.

“Well, yeah. It was probably a big coincidence and totally cliche, but this was the first time I actually felt him/her, whatever the gender is. And I’m already used to it, so I guess that’s good as well.”

“Spud it is then,” Tony took his hand off my stomach and gave it a quick peck instead.

Conversation kept going after that. We talked a bit more about Spud, some about tour, and about other random things. Vic sometimes joined in. It was nice knowing he was starting to become a bit more normal, I only needed to know how he still felt about me. I just hoped he was either getting over me or already over me; I was ready to be friends, and only friends, but was he?

Tony’s phone buzzed and after quickly checking it and texting something in return, he announced that he would be coming back soon. We all gave him confused looks, but he ignored them and walked out anyway. Everybody then turned to me.

“Where’s he gone to?” Mike nodded his head towards me.

“How am I supposed to know?” I gasped.

“He’s your boyfriend.”

“Yes, I know, but that doesn’t mean I know where he’s off to. If I knew, I wouldn’t be so confused right now.”

“Ok, I’m sorry,” Mike raised his hands and rolled his eyes.

“Ok, no,” I stopped him, “you complain about me being bitchy, yet you are the only one getting that out of me. Don’t you think there’s something wrong with you instead of with me?”

“You’re the pregnant one here.”

“I think we already established that, unless you have something to tell us, idiot.”

“Guys, that’s enough,” Jaime interjected before it could get any worse. What I said was totally true. I was never hormonal and didn’t have mood swings unless I was around Mike. There was just something about him that pissed me off. Maybe it was the way he always started a conversation with me, maybe it was the way he always blamed me being pregnant on all of my actions and words. I just didn’t like it. There would be shouting across the bus at least once every two days, if not more often. We would sometimes still be very close, but it would always end up in us two fighting.

“Fuck you,” I mumbled and stuck my tongue out at Mike.

“Fuck you too,” He raised his middle finger at me.

“No, fuck you!”

“No, fuck you!”

Tony came walking back in and chuckled, “are they fighting again?”

“It’s all his fault!” I whined, “he’s being a fucking asshat, that stupid son of a bitch.”

“I did not know you used that kind of language,” another voice came from the door. I immediately perked up and snapped my head towards the source of the sound. There stood my brother grinning at me with a duffle bag in his hands. I didn’t take my time to run up to him and wrap my arms around his tall body. His chest rumbled as he started laughing silently.

“Wait, hold up,” He pushed me off of him, “Stand back,” I slowly did what he told me to and felt his eyes scanning over me, but he wasn’t satisfied enough, “turn around,” I did a full 360 turn in small steps as my face scrunched up in confusion. As I was facing Tony, I raised my eyebrow, but he just shrugged in return.

“I knew it!” Ewout suddenly exclaimed, “You’re pregnant!”

“How did you know?” I chuckled, “and how do you know now?”

“I mean, look at that, I can so see it,” He pointed to my small bump, “and I may or may not have been stalking you on all your social media with Ties and inspecting all your photos…”

I laughed. That totally sounded like something Ewout and his husband, Ties, would do. They wouldn’t do it if they were alone, but when the were together they could go completely crazy. Crazy in a good way of course. I loved both of them, they were my best friends in high school and still were.

“So how far along are you?” Ewout was jumping up and down in excitement.

“Too long,” Mike muttered under his breath, probably hoping I wouldn’t hear.

“Stop being a such a dickhead!” I growled back.

Mike raised his hands up in defense as if he didn’t know what he did. That fucking asshole. Now that I think about it, it started as him having some fun by annoying me, but then I started talking back. If this was still supposed to be for fun, I really didn’t think it was funny anymore.

I turned back to Ewout, “18 weeks.”

Ewouted squeaked, “I’m going to be an uncle so soon. Oh my god! You do know that Annika is going to kill you, right?”

I suddenly noticed Tony was sat behind me because he pulled me into his lap by pulling on my arm and wrapping his arms around me protectively, “Nobody’s going to touch this weird girl that’s carrying my baby.”

“How do you know it’s yours?” I teased.

Tony gasped over dramatically, “How dare you!”

“That would actually be really screwed up… What if this baby wasn’t yours but I haven’t cheated on you. That would mean somebody drugged me and raped me.”

“Ok, you’re going all depressing and morbid again. We can’t have that,” Tony placed butterfly kisses all over my left shoulder and neck.

“You guys are totally the second cutest couple ever,” Ewout gushed.

“Who’s first?” I asked, knowing exactly what the answer is.

“Me and Ties, duh.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Tony shrugged.

The door opened once again and Jay walked in he saw Ewout and smiled, “Good, you’re here. I cleared out one of the bunks for you.”

My mouth opened wide, “He’s coming with us?”

“Of course,” Tony grinned, “do you really think I would organise for him to come here for just tonight?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged before beaming at him and kissing him.

“PDA!” Mike groaned.

“Oh shut up, if Alysha were here you would be all over her. Which reminds me, Vic, when’s Daniella coming, I thought she would have visited last week?” I inquired.

“Oh, umm, she’s been too busy with work,” He excused.

I looked at him skeptically, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, “Ok, well, tha’s too bad, I’m sorry.”

“It’s no problem.”

“Guys, before I forget,” Jay interrupted, “You’re on in 5.”

We all quickly jumped up from our seats. Nobody had given us any warning and we still had to go and get our instruments. Jay was never disorganised like this. I pulled Ewout along with us side stage and gave him some ear plugs.

“You’re going to watch us, right? Put these in, it will be loud,” I laughed at the weird face he was making.

“Make me proud,” He pushed me towards me guitar tech.

“Always.”

Notes

So Ewout knows now, who will be next?

-DSN