That night I decided to sleep in bed with mama…I guess I needed her comfort. I felt her get up in the middle of the night…at least it felt like the middle of the night, and run to the bathroom.

"Mama, you okay?" I ask groggily when she gets back in bed next to me.

She pats my arm. "I'm fine."

"You feeling sick?"

She turns so that she's facing me. "Not anymore," she laughs softly.

"Daddy's right, maybe you aren't getting enough to eat or something…"

She stops me by touching my cheek. "I'm fine. I'm sleeping and I ate."

"Okay," I nod.

We both fall back asleep and just as the alarm woke us up, mama goes running into the bathroom again. I sit up this time and wait for her to come back. But she doesn't so I knock on the door.

"Mama…are you okay?"

"I'm fine honey. I'm going to take a shower…you should do the same."

"Okay."

I am still worried about her.

I go into my bedroom and get ready. When I walk back into her room she's sitting in the bed, talking on the phone.

"Oh, here's Adriana now so we should be leaving pretty soon. Is there anything I should bring?" She nods. "Okay. Yes, I got plenty of rest. Tell her I love her. I love you too," she laughs and hangs up the phone.

"How's Ash doing?" I ask as I plop down next to her.

"Your daddy said she got a lot of rest and she's talking up a storm right now. Cody was getting so annoyed that your daddy sent him down to the cafeteria to get something to eat," she laughed.

"Sounds like she's feeling better."

Mama nodded and looked down at her hands.

"She's going to be okay, mama."

"I know," she whispers. "I can feel that everything's going to be okay."

She quickly stood up and ran into the bathroom again.

"Geez. Mama," I yelled. "When we go back to the hospital I think you need to see a doctor."

In a couple of minutes she came back out of the bathroom. "You ready to go?" she asked as she picked up her purse.

My mouth fell open. "Mama, you've thrown up how many times already today? Maybe you should stay here…if you have something contagious you don't want to be around Ash."

She shakes her head. "I'm fine. Let's go."

I stand up and follow her down the hall.

"Okay, the way you're acting you'd think you were pregnant and having morning sickness or something."

We're walking down the stairs now and she hasn't said anything to my comment.

"Mama," I say touching her shoulder when we reach the bottom of the stairs. "Are you?"

She smiles at me. "I'm not contagious."

I put my hand on my stomach. "Oh my God. You're going to have another baby?"

She smiles and nods. "Yes, but I'm still not far along and your daddy and I were going to wait to tell people."

"I'm not just people mama, I'm your daughter."

"There's risks…"

I throw my arms around her and hug her. She laughs into my hair.

"So you're happy about this?" she asks.

I pull away and look down at her stomach, which is still flat.

"Well yeah. It doesn't really matter if I am or not though, does it?" I laugh.

She shrugs. "Well not really," she winks at me. "But we don't want you guys to feel weird about it."

"Why, because you have sex? Mama, I told you, I know you do."

She puts her hands up and laughs. "Okay, let's not get into that discussion again."

"Was it a surprise?"

We're walking to the car now. "Not really. We had been thinking about it so I stopped taking birth control and let nature take it's course. Adriana, please don't mention this to anyone yet. We're going to wait a few more weeks before we tell the rest of the family."

"Okay," I say getting into the car. She gets in as well and turns to me. "That includes Brad."

"I won't tell anyone mama, I promise."

When we get to Ashleigh's room daddy's reading her a story as Cody watches TV.

"Hi baby," mama says going over to Ashleigh and giving her a hug.

"Hi mama. Guess what?"

"What?"

"Daddy says we can go visit Adriana on tour again when I get out of here."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," she says.

As I walk over and say hi to Ashleigh I see mama out of the corner of my eye kiss Cody and make her way over to daddy. He stands up, pulls her into a hug and kisses her. She rests the side of her head on his chest as she watches Ashleigh and I.

"The doctor was just here. They took a little more blood and are going to run a couple more tests. He thinks it’s a virus called Karpa's something or other."

"Is it…"

Daddy shakes his head. "There's an antidote for it and she should be fine in a few days."

"Thank God," mama says squeezing daddy tighter.

"Did you hear me?" Ashleigh asks me, bringing my attention back to her.

"No, what did you say?"

"I said daddy snores."

I laugh. "Does he? I wonder how mama puts up with that, huh?"

She giggles.

"My toes are feeling tingly."

"It feels like it does when your foot goes to sleep?"

She nods.

"Daddy, did she tell the doctor this?"

"What?" he asks as he and mama walk over to us.

"Her feet are feeling tingly."

He nods. "Yeah she woke up this morning saying that. He says he'll keep it in mind but that it's most likely because she had been lying there for so long. So we went for a walk."

"Where did you go?"

"There's a waterfall outside, mama."

"Is there?"

She nods.

"Maybe you can show it to me later."

"Sissy don't you have any concerts to do?" she asks looking back at me.

"No…I'm going to stay here until you get better."

I decided to take a walk later and see this waterfall myself. I had grabbed my cell phone and dialed it when I reached a bench outside.

"Hey," the voice on the other end answers.

"Hi."

"How's your sister?" Brad asks.

"We still don't know. It's so scary."

"I bet. What are the doctor's saying right now?"

"Well they're still narrowing it down. He thinks he knows what it is but they're still running tests. I think the nurse said he was going to be stopping by pretty soon though."

"How does she feel though? She isn't in pain is she?"

I start to bite my nail. "No, I don't think so. She just gets really tired. Her feet were starting to get tingly too. I don't know what that means. Sometimes I feel like they're keeping things from me."

"Who, your parents?"

"Yes…no…I don't know. I'm just confused, I guess."

"I think I would be too. I'd be scared," he said softly.

"I am," my voice starts to crack. "And you know through it all…she's the same peppy little girl. She's so optimistic about everything."

"Everything's going to be fine. They're going to find what they can do to cure this and she'll be running around again before you know it."

"I try to keep telling myself that."

"Good. I miss you."

"I miss you too. I'm so sorry I'm going to miss the show tonight."

"You need to be with your family…we know that."

"So, what are you guys doing then?"

"Well we're going to travel to the next city and wait."

"To see if I show up?"

He laughs. "You make it sound like you ran away. We'll see if your sister is better and you feel like doing the show."

"I have to get back there soon. We're going to have those meetings for the Concert Network thing soon."

I start rubbing my temple. The thought of doing that special now makes my head ache.

"Yeah…true. Don't worry about the stuff going on here, okay? Just spend time with your family. You guys need to be there with each other."

"I really do need to be with them right now."

"You'd go crazy if you weren't."

"I know."

"How are your parent's holding up?"

"Pretty well. Mama has her moments when she just stares at Ash. Like she'll disappear or something."

I look up and see Uncle JC walk by.

"I should get back now. I just wanted to say hi."

"I'm glad you called. I was just thinking about you."

I smile. "Good. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Yeah let me know when you find something out."

"I will. Bye."

"Bye."

I hang up the phone and go back up to Ashleigh's room. When I walk into the room I see Aunt Kristen and Uncle JC sitting on either side of Ashleigh's bed and Cody still watching TV.

"Hi," I say coming into the room.

"Come here you," Uncle JC says standing up and pulling me into a hug. "It's good to see you," he says.

"You too. I saw you walking down the hall while I was outside. I saw the waterfall you were talking about," I tell Ashleigh.

"Isn't it pretty?"

I nod.

"Where's mama and daddy?"

"They're talking to the doctor. I guess he took them to a private room," Aunt Kristen says.

I feel my heart fall to my feet. I give a fake smile and walk over to Aunt Kristen.

"Hopefully he's telling them good news."

She nods and puts an arm around me.

"How do you feel?" I ask rubbing her slightly bulging stomach.

"Good," she smiles at me. "Hardly any morning sickness and that stage should be over with."

"I bet mama wishes she could say that…I mean have said that. I think she used to get really sick with Ash."

I can't believe I let that slip.

"Aunt Kristen?"

"What honey?" she says turning around so she's facing Ashleigh again.

"The tingly feeling is moving up my legs more."

I bite my lower lip. God, what is happening?

"Can you still move your legs for me honey?" she asks.

Ashleigh moves them with no problem.

"Maybe if she walks again," I say.

We help her stand up but she can't stand on her own. She looks into Uncle JC's eyes pleadingly. He picks her up and holds her.

Suddenly I'm really scared and I loose the battle to hold my tears back so I excuse myself and go into the bathroom…and cry.

"Sweetie, can I come in?" Aunt Kristen says as she lightly knocks on the door.

I open the door and let her come in. She's always been a source of comfort for me. Probably because she's a psychiatrist. She holds me and lets me cry.

"I'm so scared for her. I don't know what this means. Did you see the look in her eyes?"

I feel her nodding.

"She's so little and so young."

"Honey, we don't even know the news. It might be good news. They can give her the medicine she needs and the tingly feeling will go away. The doctors and the lab are working very hard on this."

I sniff. "I know."

We hear the door to the room open and close.

"That's probably your parents. You want to come out?"

I shake my head. "I can't."

She touches my face. "Okay. I'm going to go find out, okay?"

I nod and sit down on the lid of the toilet and put my face in my hands and cry some more. In a few minutes there's a knock on the door and mama pokes her head in.

"Adriana?"

I don't look up. I feel her arms around me, which makes me cry harder.

"Oh baby," she says as I wrap my arms around her neck and cry into her hair. "She's going to be okay. They're going to try something today."

"She can't even walk mama," I say in between sobs.

"I know, JC told us. The doctor was informed. The nurse is in there injecting the medication into her IV right now."

"Okay," I sniffle. "How long will we have to wait to find out if it's working?"

She pulls away from me and looks at my face and starts wiping my tears with her thumbs. "The doctor is going to check on her one more time before he leaves for the day. Maybe a few more hours."

I nod.

"Come here, wash your face, you'll feel better."

She helps me stand up and I splash some water on my face.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

She's behind me looking at my reflection in the mirror.

"For doing that," I nod my head to where I was just sitting.

She puts her cheek next to mine.

"Don't be sorry. You love your sister."

I smile and nod.

"I talked to Brad."

She smiles. "Did you? How is he? Bored?" she laughs.

I giggle. "Yeah probably. He's fine. He told me to take my time getting back. As long as I need to be with my family."

"You need to decide when you're ready to go back though. You can't stay here forever."

"Mama…"

"When we find out if this medication works then maybe you can think about going back on the tour."

"You trying to get rid of me?"

She shakes her head. "Honey there's nothing you can do here at that point. As soon as Ashleigh's strong enough we'll join you again, okay?"

"Okay."

I turn around and give her a hug again. "I love you."

"I love you too, baby."