I ran off the stage to find Ness and Lucas and meet up with Bobby and Mark.
I saw Ness almost immediately after coming offstage.
"Where's Lucas?" I asked anxiously to the sound guy holding Ness.
"Uh... I don't know where he went, he was running around here just a little bit ago. I'm sure he just met up with his Dad or something, nothing to worry about," he said as he handed Ness to me.
"Okay," I said with a deep breath, "thank you so much!"
I turn around and walk over to Bobby, who's talking to Mark and Jon - alone.
"Bobby?" I say as I tap him on the shoulder.
He turns around quickly. "Yeah?"
"Any chance you've seen Lucas running around here?" I asked and tried to hide the worry in my voice.
He glanced around before replying, "No.... is everything okay?"
"No..... Not.... Not really," I answered between deep breaths, trying to calm down.
"He was just back here while we were on stage right?" Bobby asked and I could hear the worry bubbling up in his voice too.
"Yeah, but now..." I took a deep breath, "he's not here anymore. Obviously."
"Crap. Crap crap crap," he said and turned around.
I stood with Lucas, trying to calm myself down as Bobby told Mark and Jon what was going on.
"I'm gonna go by the tour buses and look guys. You guys figure out where you're all gonna look." I said as soon as I heard they were all up for looking.
There was a crew packing everything up, we were supposed to move to our next destination tonight.
"I'm not leaving without him," I said before turning around.
The sound crew said they'd look and some of the tech people could too, so we had about thirty people out on the look for him. He had to be somewhere in the building. Unless someone saw him and took him with them or something like that. But as far as anyone knew, he hadn't left the backstage area.
I quickly came back to the tour buses with Ness pulled close to me. My vision got blurry and I knew I was losing it.
"Lucas?" I asked somewhat quietly as I came into our tour bus.
Slowly, my voice got stronger. "Lucas?!" I called in a wavering voice.
I wanted to leave Ness in his crib so he could sleep, but I couldn't just leave my five month old baby alone on a tour bus.
So I carried him with me onto Mark and Jonathan's bus.
"Lucas?!" I called again. Tears were streaming down my face and I knew I must look terrible, with all my make-up running down my face.
"Lucas?!" I heard not only me calling it, but people outside.
At least I knew I could count on everyone here to care about me and my family.
I searched each tour bus three times, carrying Ness along with me.
I didn't find any sign of him.
I came back to the arena, hurriedly looking for Bobby or Mark.
I looked around quickly, finding Mark looking through all the cases that he could possible fit in.
"Mark, where's everyone looking?" I asked quickly.
"Everywhere. Most are looking out where concessions and the bathrooms were. There are like five people downstairs."
Downstairs was the dressing rooms, I had one, Mark and Bobby shared one, Ellie had one, and the other opening band split and shared two rooms.
"Okay, I'll go help down there. Thanks Mark," I said and gave him a slight hug.
I turned away before I heard him, "Christina, wait!"
"Yeah?" I asked, urging him to hurry.
"Leave Ness with me. I can watch him and you've got some searching to do that he doesn't need to help you with."
I handed him Ness adding, "Thank you so much."
"And calm down a little. We'll find him. No one's leaving until we do."
I smiled at him weakly. "I know," I said in a whisper.
I turned and rushed downstairs.
First I went into my dressing room. I looked in the bathroom, the shower. I looked in all the cabinets in there and went out to the big mirror, looking in the closet across from it. I called out his name a few times and never received and answer.
I never saw his eyes and I never felt him by me. I started crying again, even harder than before. I was starting to think it was no use. We'd never find him. The tour would go on hold. This wasn't such a good idea after all.
I checked through my dressing room again, calling his name numerous times to get no answer.
Next was Ellie's dressing room. She probably wasn't in there right now, but I never knew.
I walked in to the sound of water running. She must've been showering? Maybe her mom was on their tour bus, asleep or something.
I first looked in her closet which was much smaller and called his name, getting no answer. I checked everywhere before knocking on the bathroom door.
I didn't get a reply to walk in, but I did anyway.
"Ellie, sorry for coming in here when you're showering, but we can't find Lucas anywhere and I just had to look in the dressing rooms. Have you seen him anywhere?"
There was no answer. Was anyone even in here?
"Ellie, do you know where Lucas is?"
"Mommy?" I heard his familiar voice.
I quickly opened the shower curtain to find my two year old, completely soaked and with the water running, but completely safe.
I didn't care how wet he was, I pulled him in close and gave him a tight hug.
I shut off the water quickly.
"We were all looking for you. Didn't you hear us?"
"No, I was taking a shower. Like big boys do! I was taking one without Daddy!" he said excitedly.
He probably couldn't hear us over the water.
"Okay, let's go tell everyone you're right here," I said and grabbed a towel, wrapping him in it.
We walked out of the dressing room.
"Guys!" I called as loudly as possible. "I found him! He's fine! Can someone get Bobby and Mark and send them here?"
Soon enough a bunch of people filed out of the band's dressing rooms and Jonathan came out of the dressing room he had with Bobby and Mark.
"You found him!" he said excitedly.
I forgot these walls were actually somewhat thick and they probably couldn't hear me when they were in there.
"Yeah, do you know where Bobby and Mark are?" I asked.
"No idea, I'd wait upstairs backstage for them," he answered.
"Okay, thanks so much! You can tell everyone you see that they can stop looking, I found him."
I picked up Lucas and took him back upstairs, backstage to wait.
I told everyone I saw to stop looking and tell Bobby and Mark to meet me up here if they ran into them.
In the meantime I tried to dry off Lucas as much as possible.
Suddenly I felt hands on my shoulders and a kiss on me cheek.
"Hello there, Daddy. I think there's someone here that you haven't seen for a while," I said.
He came next to me and took Lucas out of my arms, towel and all.
"Now," he said as he looked Lucas directly in the eyes, "what were you thinking?"
I heard Lucas start explaining "being a big boy" and "being just like Daddy" as I saw Mark come up the stairs to the side of the stage with Ness.
"Hey, everyone told me you found him. Also that you were looking for me and Bobby, I can see you found one of us," he said as he walked over.
"Yeah," I said with a sigh, "it was quite the adventure tonight."
He handed me Ness and I could see he was on the verge of falling asleep.
Soon enough we were back on the tour bus and tucking Lucas and Ness in. Lucas was still pretty wet, but he was in dry pajamas and there really wasn't a way we could quickly get him dry. I kissed Ness goodnight, whispering the usual "I love you, little guy."
Bobby and I did the switch and I said the usual, "I love you, my little munchkin. I'll see you tomorrow, and maybe you should try to stay away from the dressing rooms next time," and kissed him on the head.
We weren't being too extremely hard on him, mainly because he honestly didn't know any better and he didn't hurt anything. Other than the fact that I almost had a panic attack, that is.
I scurried off to our room and laid down on the bed, just thinking. Bobby walked in not a minute later.
He sighed and sat next to me, "Long night, huh babe?"
I shut my eyes, "I'll say."
After about two minutes of just lying there in complete silence, I finally got up.
I grabbed my pajamas and heard Bobby go to his side of the room, each of us changing silently. I hadn't showered yet but I was exhausted and didn't care right now. I heard him laying down in the bed and I quickly pulled my shirt over my head before turning around and laying next to him.
"Crap, I forgot," I said before pulling the covers over me.
"Forgot?"
"The light. We really need a lamp," I answered and got up reluctantly. I shut off the light and blindly made my way to the bed. I felt around the air before feeling the bed frame.
I slithered onto the bed and laid next to Bobby. I pulled the covers up to my chest and breathed deeply.
"Tonight the new baby is put off the table," I said. "I'm too exhausted to do anything tonight right now."
"Agreed," I heard Bobby's muffled voice. He must've been facing the other way.
I turned to face him, most likely being his backside right now.
"Can we talk for a little bit?" I asked, a twinge of worry coming out in my voice.
He turned around now and faced me. "Yeah, sure. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," I replied quickly, "But that deal with Lucas tonight... what would've happened?"
He grabbed my hand and I could feel him looking at me. "It's over, Christina. He's fine and we're fine, okay babe?"
I smiled slightly. "I know, but I just wanna know, you know, to let me know if it was a bigger deal, what would've happened?"
He squeezed my hand a little. "We all would've stayed right here until we found him, okay?"
"Yeah, but what if we never found him?" I asked nervously.
"Okay, that's enough, Christina. You're psyching yourself out. Just calm down and go to sleep. You know you don't like being stressed out, especially on tour."
"Yeah, I am quite tired. I guess I'm just stressing a little," I said and turned over.
He slipped his hands around my waist and I shut my eyes. I really was exhausted tonight. I put my hands over his and took a deep breath.
"I love you, no matter how stressed you are," he whispered in my ear.
"I love you too," I answered without comment.
•••
Author's Note:
You guys have me googling "what do five month old babies do" so be proud I do my research ;)
Okay I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH. 3 days till Must Be Love (you all better be excited)!
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Love you all
- thatsmyswift xx