one day, when she might be able to cheer...

March 2083 (mini-update) - Stephanie Day is 23, Tyler Jackson is 19, Jeremiah Day is 26.

One day, while Stephanie was out walking, she picked up a sad and lost little puppy dog. His name was Tyler Jackson. He saw her first actually, walking past his house. She's still working off that last ten pounds of baby weight, which her mother has informed her might not ever go away. She was always such a tall and slender girl. She's become a woman now. It can't be taken back.

She and Tyler just missed each other last summer, when she moved back to Lakeside Heights, and he moved out to the city for college. But he saw her walking down the street past his parents' house, pushing Willow in a stroller, and he ran out to them. Since he's trying not to smother Summer too much these days, he's happy to reacquaint with an old friend.

He couldn't have come along at a better time. She should have figured a college student might be available to hang out when most grown people are working. She begs him to grant her a game, but she doesn't have to beg. He helps her carry out Willow's bouncy swing.

"Now, don't hit my baby," Stephanie says.

"Maybe we should put her behind the net," Tyler says.

"Are you that bad?"

"My game's been a little distracted lately," he says.

"It's easy," she says. "Just kick towards the net."

She can't believe it's been almost five years since she saw him last, but they fall into their places easily.

And their places were, of course, that she kicks his ass! She's still got it! Even ten pounds heavier and feeling sorry for herself. It almost makes her feel like a human being again.

"Not bad, little girl," he says.

"Don't forget who taught you to play, little boy," she says.

He might have gotten taller, but he's hardly changed a bit.

"Score!" Stephanie yells, thrusting her arms up into the air.

Willow does the same.

"Look," Tyler says. "You have a cheerleader."

Stephanie looks at her little girl, wide crystal-blue eyes beaming. How could she not go to her?

So she goes to her, drawn as if she were a beacon, a lighthouse in the night. She lifts Willow from the seat.

"She's not a cheerleader," she says. "She just knows a good goal when she sees one." She's still smiling at her baby as she asks him, "Do you want any of these things?"

"I asked Summer that once," he says. "And she just about had a panic attack."

"She probably should," Stephanie says. "They're harder work than they seem."

"But look at how much she loves you," Tyler says.

"You think?" Stephanie says, holding the child in front of her. She understands that babies don't love - they can't love. They just need. Love comes later, years later maybe. Love has to be grown between people, even mother and child. This is something else, this attachment, it's instinctual, it's biological. Not love, but something else. Something necessary.

She tried to tell her mother once about this sadness, and what her mother did was bring home aromatherapy candles. It said right on the box, "for soothing relaxation." Her mother said, "It's fine, it's normal. You just need a long hot bath," as if some warm water, bubbles, and the soothing scent of chamomile might simply wash everything away. As if each day, and the next, and the next, wouldn't be exactly the same.

"I'll put her down for you, if you want," Tyler says as it starts to rain.

Stephanie looks at him questionably.

"Don't worry," he says, just about taking Willow from her arms. "I babysat a little in high school. I never even dropped one on its head."

Stephanie makes grilled cheese for lunch. She's half-listening to his problems as she shoves molten cheese and tomatoes into her mouth. People tend to do this to her, spill out their problems. She's a good listener, they say. She's a sponge.

"I'm just so bad at this," he says. "They all have boyfriends, or think I'm all baggage, or whatever. It doesn't even matter because I don't really want to be doing this anyway. I wanted to marry her, you know."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he says. "I'm distracted, Coach Collins says I need to shape up or I'll lose the scholarship and get kicked off the team."

Stephanie hates talking about this kind of thing, but the problem is painfully obvious. "She was your first," Stephanie says. "You need a little more experience, if you know what I mean."

"Experience," Tyler says.

"You've got her idealized right now, that's all. Trust me, real women are not idealized. She's not perfect. And once you give yourself a real chance at somebody else, you'll be able to see her more clearly."

"Hey," he says. "The baby's sleeping. You wanna give it a go?"

"Uhhh," she says.

"God, I was kidding," he says. "You're married! Sorry, I was just trying to make you laugh."

"Thanks," she says. "For trying to make me laugh."

"So how do you like it?" he asks. "Being a mom?"

She hates that question. She never knows how to answer. Nobody likes to hear the truth anyway, that it's hard, or smelly, or that some days she can barely find time to brush her teeth. Or that some days, the awful ones, when Willow does nothing but cry, then Stephanie does nothing but cry in return. And then she has this crying baby, when she herself has become an even bigger crying baby, when she's supposed to be grown-up and mature and is instead red-eyed and babbling like an infant.

And it's these moments, these awful red-eyed moments, that she honestly wonders if this was the biggest mistake of her life. What kind of a mother would think of this beautiful crystal-eyed girl as a mistake?

Nobody wants to hear that, not even herself. "It's fine," she tells him.

They're still chatting in the kitchen when Jeremiah comes home from his training. Stephanie winks at her husband, and then says to Tyler, "Oh, he's the jealous type. And he has a bit of a temper."

Tyler's face washes pale. He says, "Well, it wouldn't be the first time I caught hell from one of your boyfriends."

"Husband," Jeremiah says, standing solid and stern-faced in the doorway.

"I'm gonna go take a shower," Stephanie says.

Jeremiah says, "So what's your story, Tyler?"

"Oh, no worries," Tyler says. "I'm good and taken, screwed up beyond repair! Her name's Summer, she's got me branded or something."

Tyler has seen Jeremiah before, around with Stephanie, in passing. He's bigger in person, and Tyler isn't even a small guy himself. "And Steph says you're in the military. Are you going to break my arm or something?"

"Did you do something to deserve it?"

"Nah, I didn't do anything," Tyler says. "I'm a good guy. I'm a lover, not a fighter."

Jeremiah raises an eyebrow at that, as he's just spent the afternoon with his wife.

"No, I mean, not so much a lover lately." Tyler says. "I can fight though. I've been in fights before. I'm a lover and a fighter, I guess."

Jeremiah says, "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter with me," Tyler says.

"You don't have problems, you have non-problems. I'm going to war! Did she tell you that? People are going to war! People's husbands are going to war! There are these things out there, in the sky, who want to eat us or something?"

"They want to eat us?" Tyler says.

"The point is, you need to get it together," Jeremiah says. "Like me, I've made some mistakes, sure. I've gone and messed things up before. But now I've got things to fight for, a wife, and a child. It's scary, but you just have to buckle down and fight for something. You have a mom, a dad, a dog. Fight for something."

Tyler sighs. "I could use something to fight for."

Stephanie comes down from her shower, happy to find that nobody has been beaten to a pulp, even if they both seem a little frazzled.

"It was nice to meet you, Tyler," Jeremiah says, taking his hand, squeezing it hard. "If you don't mind, I'm going to take my ladies back now."

This is better, Stephanie thinks, and maybe they're even growing up a bit. In high school, Tyler used to get noogies from her boyfriends.

"You know I don't want to leave you," he says.

"I know," she says.

He's scared. But she doesn't know how to be his cheerleader right now, as much as he needs one, because she's too scared. She has so many things to be afraid of, one piled on top of the other. She feels like she's woken up from a beautiful dream to live in a nightmare. Maybe he senses that, even if she tries to hold it in.

"You be okay," he says, as if it were an order. "I want to know you'll be okay while I'm gone."

He's going off to war. If he's spending his energy worried about her, he could make a mistake. If he makes a mistake, he could die. So even if her words feel like fluff, she tells him, "I'll be fine."

She'll put herself on autopilot, so they can coast through to the other side. And one day she might be able to cheer for him, but for now she can give them both this illusion. They'll just imagine that it's all going to be okay, until they reach the day it actually is.

*******

notes: this was actually meant to be a part of the Nova/Day family update, and I broke it off to keep things concise. This is probably one of those pieces that doesn't feel like it's doing much, but it is ;)

And since I wrote you such a somber update, I'll now give you some funnies...

He really did invite her over to his parents house once, lol! I seem to have been missing the plugin that forces ACR rules on Maxis interactions, because I've been having a lot of oops lately, that I never seemed to have before v.2, and I couldn't figure out why, lol! They actually did oops-kiss, which I'm not going to show you because I'm pretending it didn't happen, since it's my fault and not theirs.

It's not really a big deal, they already had love flags when they were teenagers and oops-kissed a couple times, lol! But they're both very much in love with other people, so there's no point, really. I have them set to friends only on ACR now.

Of all the people Alice could have brought home from work, she brings home her husband's once mistress, lol! Too funny! :)

Holly is like, "I could go for some of that again!"

Alice is like, "Do you know this woman?"

And Jeremy is like, "I think I can hear Willow crying, get me the hell out of here!"

Who knew there was such steamy drama on the school board? :)