mcfly-slash .. Return
even tho it might be boring to you .. yes, i am still ill! ;)
but my birthday-week is saved and it's gonna be the best ever, like, in history of birthday-weeks probably.
and yesterday i met the oh so pamazing jared leto again and bloody hell and everything else, the hero of my teenage-days fucking remembered me! can you see i was slightly over the moon? ;)
however, i have not forgotten about you guys and wrote the sequel to the sequel to "the hardest part of this is leaving you" and since i've taken it as a trilogy this will be the lastest part of it so please do enjoy ...
Title: Return
Author: me
Rating: PG
Chapter: 1/1 … Standalone
Genre: Romance
Pairing: Poynter/Judd
Summary: So much has changed (no pun intended here … okay, maybe a little one)
Disclaimer: nope, no true either
Dedication: my Cazzabum and those who read the past part of this little trilogy and made me feel on top of the world because for some weird reason they think i am actually a decent writer .. ichnal, stfoosa, ktandtf4life, man_10_az, looweehse, __penetration and kirstini
Author’s note: Okay, this would be the follow-up to "The hardest part of this is leaving you" and "Realisation". Funny that I wasn’t even sure to make one sequel and that’s me doing even two. This is set about five years after the first two stories.
The hardest part of this is leaving you.
I’ve really lost count on how many times I’ve read that line already.
Every night of the past five years, before I switched off the bedside lamp, I’ve read his letter. Every night the sadness of of the whole situation washed all washed over me again.
I’ve tried often to understand him but I still can’t get my head around it. Everything still seems so stupid to me like it did when I read the letter for the first time. I still see no sense in him leaving and doing all he did.
I wonder every day what has become of him. Where he’s living now, what he does for a living … How his family-life is going, that’s what I think about most of the time.
I broke off contact with his family and friends. I never was in close touch with any of them anyway. But I thought it was kind of wrong to still keep talking to them after he left. I didn’t want to raise suspicions that I was the reason for him to leave. But then, me not talking to them … wasn’t it just as suspicious? But if I called his parents or mates and asked if they’ve heard of him they’d be wondering why I was asking them because, after all, I was his friend too. So anyway, I had no sort or form of contact with anyone we both had known.
After he left I quickly turned into a loner. Without him, I just had nothing left. All I did was go to work and sit at home. I moved out of my flat and bought a house. Why it had to be a house, I don’t know. I just had to get out of that flat where every corner and inch told me a story about him.
A couple months after he was gone, I had told my mum about the whole relationship him and me had been having. I gave her a nice little shock there. But she didn’t lecture me about it at all, instead she took me into her arms and let me cry about my broken heart.
He had been right in his letter. I really did cry a lot. Even these days, so many years after it all, I still find myself crying when I remember certain things about him, things we had done together.
In all those years, I couldn’t bring myself and my heart to love again. And it isn’t because I am scared to be left again. It is because he was the only person I loved. He is the only person I still love. And he is the only person I ever will be loving.
So, today isn’t much different than all those other days in the past. It’s a Sunday and I am sat in my living room with the TV on. I don’t care what’s on though. I have an acoustic guitar placed on my lap. I’ve never been interested in learning to play but after he left, I wanted - needed - something to take the pain away so I bought that guitar. By now I can actually play quite good. The pain never left though.
There is a faint knock on the front door. Careful and silent. I wouldn’t have heard it if I were in any other part of the house other than my living room.
I wonder who it is. I’m not expecting anyone. Or well, it could be my mum. She hasn’t checked up on me in a few days. She calls me every other day and once a week she by for comes for a visit. So yes, it must be her.
“Coming.” I say.
I put my acoustic down onto the floor by the couch and move to get the door.
The silouette I can make out through the milky glass of the window of my front door isn’t the one of my mum, I can immediately tell. Maybe it is one of my neighbours who ran out of milk, sugar or whatever. Not that they will have much luck with me. I tend to have only so much in my house that it’s enough for me.
I open the door and for a second I am blinded by the bright lightening from outside. It’s an actual summer day and the sun is burning down without mercy.
It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness and when they have and I see and recognise the person on my doorstep, everything stops.
My eyes open wide in shock, my mouth is agape and my heart misses a beat, picking it up with triple intensity and speed. My grip on the door handle grows stronger, it being the only thing to hold me straight up.
He is standing outside my door.
Harry, he came back.
I look him up and down. He hasn’t changed much. He took out his eyebrow-piercing. Shame, it always suited him. His hair is dyed darker which makes the blue of his eyes only come out so much brighter. He’s still going for the casual look of jeans and a simple t-shirt with trainers.
I am being pulled out of my daze when he speaks.
“Hey.”
His voice hasn’t changed either. Still a little raspy and low.
“Hey.” I reply, my voice on the other hand shaky and I’m sure a notch or two higher than usual.
I step aside to let him enter and when he moves I notice he isn’t alone.
Hidden behind his leg, holding tightly onto his hand, is a little girl. She looks up at him with bright blue eyes. Her brown hair is done in pigtails and she is dressed like your normal little girl on a summer afternoon. In her arm she holds a teddy-bear.
When they are in my living room they stop. He looks around, taking everything in.
“Nice place you’ve got yourself here.” he comments.
I look around as well, as if I wouldn’t know my own house. “Thanks.” I say.
The little girl is looking up at me with her bright eyes that so much look like his. I kneel down so my eyes are on the same level as hers.
“And who do we have here?” I ask, smiling at her.
She looks at me a little frightened and holds onto him even tighter, hiding behind his leg again. He picks her up on his arms and I raise again.
“She’s a little shy sometimes.” he explains, looking at her face lovingly, “Why won’t you tell him your name, sunshine, eh? He’s a friend.”
She contemplates that for a second before looking at me again. I smile at her, hoping that will change her mind.
“Lily.” she then says silently.
“It’s nice to meet you, Lily.” I say, “My name is Dougie. And who is he?” I ask, pointing at the bear in her arm.
“That’s Mr Teddy.” she says, already a bit more confident, showing me the brown bear.
“Well then,” I take one of Mr Teddy’s paws, shaking it like a hand, “it’s nice to meet you too, Mr Teddy. Welcome to my home.”
She smiles at me, she has the same smile like he does, and I can tell the ice is broken. She wriggles, a sign that she wants to be let down. He lets her and as soon as she is free from his grasp she walks over to my guitar and pulls the strings, letting out a joyful squeak at the sound filling the room.
“Lily!” he warns her, “What did I tell you about other people’s things.”
She looks down, ashamed. “Ask before you play with them.”
“Exactly. And have you asked Dougie if you can play with his guitar?”
She shakes her head, still ashamed.
“It’s okay, really. I don’t mind.” I assure.
I look at Harry again. I had been glad for Lily distracting me from the fact that he is actually here, standing in my living room. But now that she has found something to play with, it is suddenly like there is no one else but him and me.
“You want a coffee or tea or something?” I ask him.
He looks from Lily to me, his eyes studying me. “Coffee would be nice.”
“Okay.”
I go to the kitchen rumaging through the cupboards getting our coffees ready. From the living room I can hear Lily still playing with my guitar and his warnings to be careful with it.
While the coffee is running through the machine I go back into the living room asking Lily if she wants some biscuits. She jumps up immediately, nodding her little head, before taking my outstretched hand and walking with me into the kitchen, Harry on our tracks.
I set a few biscuits on a plate and pour her a glass of milk. She takes both and sits down at my kitchen table.
“You can take it to the living room with you if you want.” I tell her.
Again, she looks at Harry, asking for approval. “Go ahead.” he says, motioning his head towards the other room.
And there we are, him and me, alone in my kitchen, looking intensly at each other.
“How have you found me?” I ask after a moment of silence.
“After some old lady opened the door to your old flat I called your mum. She wasn’t too pleased. But I told her I desperately need to see you so she gave me your address.”
“You need to see me?” I raise my eyebrows.
He nods. “I have to explain some things.”
I pull back a chair from the table. “Sit down and go ahead then.”
I don’t know why I am being so on my guards towards him. I’ve always wanted him to come back and now that he really is here I am that defensively.
“Erm … do you have something for Lily? You know … dunno, a DVD or something? So we can talk … alone.”
“Sure.”
I wander back into the living room, him following me again. I have a few kiddie movies in my collection as my little cousins come to visit every now and then with my mum. I make Lily choose a film and put it on for her.
Before we go back to the kitchen, he crouches down by the couch. “Sunshine, Daddy and Dougie will be in the kitchen. If you need anything, just call, okay?”
She nods, already being engrossed in the film.
I watch him kiss her forehead. And I notice that he had referred to himself as ‘Daddy’. I mean, obviously, Lily is his daughter, they look too alike for her to not be. But it still brought a warm feeling all over me when he actually called himself ‘Daddy’ and treated her so lovingly.
When he enters the kitchen I am just setting our mugs with coffee on the table. “Still two sugars?” I ask him.
He nods. “You haven’t forgotten.” He smiles lightly.
“How could I? You’re keen on your two sugars. You could always exactly tell when I tried to trick you by putting just one in. ‘Dougie, it’s two! One isn’t enough, three to many. Two it is!’.” I mock him, grinning for the first time since he had arrived.
He grins as well as he sits down by the table.
Silence falls on us, the only sound coming from the film playing in the living room, mixed with Lily’s giggles every now and then.
“She’s adorable.” I find myself saying.
He sighs. “Yeah, she is.”
“How old is she? Five?”
“Yes, she turns six in November. Guess when her birthday is.”
I shrug.
“November, 30th.”
I smile at the resemblance of our birthdays. “She chose a good date.”
“Yeah, funny isn’t it?” he sighed, “The date made me choose her name as well.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What does her name have to do with the date?”
He stares down at the coffee in his mug. “I’ve named her after you.” he speaks silently.
“What?” I ask stunned.
“Yes. There is no female form of ‘Douglas’, neither of ‘Lee’. But ‘Lily’ sounds a little bit like it’s coming from ‘Lee’, doesn’t it? So Lily it was. Lily Christine Judd.”
“Christine coming from Christopher, I suppose?” I guess.
Again, he nods.
I smile. I’ve never had a child named after me. And the fact that it was his child and that she had his middle and family name actually makes me proud.
I notice he isn’t wearing any ring. No sign of him being married to the mother of his cute little daughter, his girlfriend or whatever she is these days.
“Where’s Lily’s mum?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. We’ve split up last year.”
“Oh?” I ask surprised.
“Yeah. Well, we never split up technically. One day she just left. She had something going with some older guy for a while. You know, that typical ‘young woman getting with old rich man’-thing. Anyway, one day I came home from work and there she was, suitcases packed and everything, saying that life had bigger things to offer for her than Lily and me. I haven’t heard from her ever since.”
“Bitch!” I blurt. On realising what I just said I add a half-hearted, “Sorry.”
He waves it off, “She is actually. Ever since Lily was born it was going downhill. I basically raised Lily alone. I’m just so glad I never married her mother. Made it less complicated when she left. She always wanted to get married but I could always pull myself out of it until she stopped asking.”
I study him for a bit. He seems comfortable with things the way the are. Unlike the person he was when he wrote that letter, when he left.
“What happened to ‘I want my child to grow up with both parents.’?”
A knowing smile appears on his face. “Yeah, you got me there. I don’t know really. I always figured that a child should have a mum and a dad. But even though Lily had both she still always came to me when she had a problem or wanted something. She’s just a proper Daddy’s girl and I have to admit that I love it this way. Honestly, she’s shown you more love earlier than she’s ever shown to her own mother. She seems happier without her mum anyway. I guess it’s like you can’t miss what you never had in her case.”
“I could’ve told you that before.” I mutter sarcastically.
“I know but even if you had I don’t think I would’ve listened.” he admits.
He then takes a sip of his coffee and looks me up and down.
“What?” I ask, squirming under his intense gaze, just like I used to do when we were younger, his intense looks still making me nervous.
“How have you been?” he asks interested, “What have you been up to?”
I shrug. “Nothing really. The biggest change for me was buying the house shortly after you left. I couldn’t stand the flat anymore, you know. It held just too many memories.”
Now it’s his turn to squirm uncomfortably, which I take as a slight victory. “I guess I have a few things to explain, eh?” he asks.
“More than a few actually. But I take it that’s why you are here.”
“I am in fact. I just … I don’t know where to start.”
“I can help you with that. First thing, why did you leave me a bloody letter? You could have spoken to me about it and we would’ve found a way to solve the whole thing.” I say in a calm voice.
“If I had told it to your face it only would’ve made me stay.” he reasons.
“Which, in retrospect, isn’t really the worst thing that could have happened.”
“How was I supposed to know that she was going to leave me?”
“Oh I don’t know. Maybe because everyone who spent two minutes with her could have told you that?”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Dougie.”
“It’s hard not to be. You knew that she was a bitch, you knew before she was even pregnant.”
“I thought that being a mother might change her.”
“And it took you what … four years … to figure out that it didn’t?”
“No, it didn’t take me this long. But what should I have done? Grab Lily, leave and have everyone giving me the famous ‘I told you so’-speech?”
“Yeah well, would’ve saved you from years of living with a woman who gave a shit about you and your daughter. From what I can tell you aren’t exactly sad that you’re a single parent. Lily is a wonderful child and I’m sure you’re a wonderful father. So why for goodness’ sake did you stay with that woman for so long?”
He opens his mouth to reply but then shuts it again, taking a deep breath. “I guess I didn’t want to be alone.” he says silently.
“You wouldn’t have been alone, you have Lily.”
“I meant alone as in without … you know … a partner. Sure, I love Lily, she is my everything. But … I don’t know … the love that you share with a child is different that the love you share with a partner.”
“You’re not trying to tell me Lily’s mum actually loved you or that you loved her, are you?”
He shakes his head. “You’re just not getting it.”
“Then explain it to me.”
He takes a deep breath again. “I stayed with her, Lily’s mum, because I rather was with someone who didn’t love me, and who I didn’t love either, than being alone. Because being alone would’ve just made me realise that I made a huge mistake when I left you.”
I have to admit, that catches me off guard.
He uses my silence, my shock, to continue, “I wasn’t even fully gone when I realised what a big mistake I had made by leaving. But I was just too proud to come back and admit that I had made the wrong decision. Besides, after what I’ve done to you, I didn’t know if you would even speak to me, let alone have me back. I had no idea if you maybe have someone new in your life, if you have long forgotten I even existed.”
I smile at him slightly. “Same could be the case today, you know.”
“Well, point one, you clearly haven’t forgotten about me. Point two, you are still talking to me, and I might add that I do appreciate it that you’re not even angry. And point three, which good looking young man in a happy relationship sulks inside his big empty house with his acoustic guitar on a summer Sunday?”
“I wasn’t sulking.” I mumble, not being able to fire anything else back. He is right after all. He still knows me too well.
“Then why do you have an acoustic guitar right by your couch sitting alone in your house?”
“Maybe because I’ve decided to become the next big god of rock n roll? And all the great gods need to feel miserable to be really worshipped.”
Harry laughs lightly. “Yeah, keep fooling yourself there, Dougie.”
I laugh as well.
I can’t ignore the whole feeling I’m getting from this conversation. Five years have passed but it seems like it hasn’t even been a day. I know I should be mad at him for leaving, requiring answers to all the questions I came up with in the past years. But now that he’s sitting right across from me, all those questions are forgotten, erased from my mind.
I love sitting here with him, talking like we used to do. Of course, our conversation is more serious than those we used to have before he left. But I guess that just comes with the fact that we both matured in all the years.
I get up from the table and pour myself another coffee. “So, what are your plans, then?” I ask while watching the dark liquid filling my mug.
“I don’t know really. At the moment I’m living at a hotel with Lily. She starts preparatory school after the summer holidays and by then I wanna have a place for us and a job. I’m already working my way through ads in the papers and all.”
“You’re back here, then?”
He nods. “Yes. I want Lily to know where her Daddy spent the best years of his life. Besides, here I have everything I love and care about.”
When he said the last part I could feel his eyes burning holes in my back and I tense immediately. I know what he means with his statement. And it takes me all I have to not turn around and jump him.
“You know, if you ever need a babysitter for Lily, bring her over.” I turn back around to him and sure enough, there are his eyes, fixed on me. “And if you get tired of your hotel room … there’s plenty of room for you two here.” I say, locking eyes with him, the intensity of our eye-contact immediately raising the temperature of the room, if not of the whole house even.
“Be careful what you wish for. I might take you up on that offer.”
“Anytime you want.”
I smile at him and he smiles back. And then, in the blink of an eye, he stands from his chair and literally throws himself at me, his hands cupping my face, his lips attacking mine.
It takes not even a second for me to react and let go of my mug on the worktop. I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him closer to me, returning his kiss, increasing its passion.
As our lips touch and our tongues battle with each other, all reminders of the years we spent without each other are washed away immediately. Forgotten are nights of crying, endless days of agony. All that matters now is that he is here, with me.
We are back together again.
We break our intense kiss and look at each other, lazy smiles on both our faces. He reaches his hand to my forehead and flicks back a lock of hair that has fallen into it.
“I’ve been so stupid.” he whispers.
“Wise words.”
“Oi!” He pokes my ribs. “I’m trying to be romantic here!”
I giggle. “Sorry. Please continue then.”
He keeps studying my face, stroking his thumbs over my cheeks and pecks my lips. “I don’t know how I made it all those years without you. Without holding and kissing you. Sorry I left, I won’t do it again, I promise.”
“You better not. And if so, I’ll keep Lily. You told me already, your little sunshine loves me.”
“She got that from her Daddy then.” he smiles.
“Did she?”
He nods. “Apparently, you got us both hooked on you.”
“Funny you say that. Because I think the feeling is well mutual there.”
“I consider Lily and me very lucky then.”
“Not as lucky as me though. You get only me but I get you and her.”
He smiles at me, his blue eyes filled with all the emotion I came to miss in the past years. “I love you, Dougie.”
I mirror his smile. “I love you too.”
We kiss one more time, not being able to let go off each other already. When we break apart again, slightly out of breath, I look into the general direction of the living room where the film and Lily’s faint laughter is still heard.
“What do you say we go and join your daughter?”
He takes his hand into mine. “I guess you can make that our daugther.” he just says before grabbing his coffee mug and leading the way to the living room.
I grab my own mug and let him drag me into the living room. Lily is still on my couch, watching the film. Upon seeing us enter, she smiles happily and pats her little hand on the spot next to her on the couch. Harry and I sit down on either side of her and immediately she lays down across both our laps, causing us to scoot closer to each other.
When Lily focusses her attention back to the film, Harry and me look at each other one more time. We share a smile and Harry slings his arm around me making me rest my head on his shoulder as we watch the rest of the film with Lily.
The End
Comments are appreciated
A/N 2: This would be the real end by the way, no more sequels, hehe!
PoynterJudd Standalone
but my birthday-week is saved and it's gonna be the best ever, like, in history of birthday-weeks probably.
and yesterday i met the oh so pamazing jared leto again and bloody hell and everything else, the hero of my teenage-days fucking remembered me! can you see i was slightly over the moon? ;)
however, i have not forgotten about you guys and wrote the sequel to the sequel to "the hardest part of this is leaving you" and since i've taken it as a trilogy this will be the lastest part of it so please do enjoy ...
Title: Return
Author: me
Rating: PG
Chapter: 1/1 … Standalone
Genre: Romance
Pairing: Poynter/Judd
Summary: So much has changed (no pun intended here … okay, maybe a little one)
Disclaimer: nope, no true either
Dedication: my Cazzabum and those who read the past part of this little trilogy and made me feel on top of the world because for some weird reason they think i am actually a decent writer .. ichnal, stfoosa, ktandtf4life, man_10_az, looweehse, __penetration and kirstini
Author’s note: Okay, this would be the follow-up to "The hardest part of this is leaving you" and "Realisation". Funny that I wasn’t even sure to make one sequel and that’s me doing even two. This is set about five years after the first two stories.
The hardest part of this is leaving you.
I’ve really lost count on how many times I’ve read that line already.
Every night of the past five years, before I switched off the bedside lamp, I’ve read his letter. Every night the sadness of of the whole situation washed all washed over me again.
I’ve tried often to understand him but I still can’t get my head around it. Everything still seems so stupid to me like it did when I read the letter for the first time. I still see no sense in him leaving and doing all he did.
I wonder every day what has become of him. Where he’s living now, what he does for a living … How his family-life is going, that’s what I think about most of the time.
I broke off contact with his family and friends. I never was in close touch with any of them anyway. But I thought it was kind of wrong to still keep talking to them after he left. I didn’t want to raise suspicions that I was the reason for him to leave. But then, me not talking to them … wasn’t it just as suspicious? But if I called his parents or mates and asked if they’ve heard of him they’d be wondering why I was asking them because, after all, I was his friend too. So anyway, I had no sort or form of contact with anyone we both had known.
After he left I quickly turned into a loner. Without him, I just had nothing left. All I did was go to work and sit at home. I moved out of my flat and bought a house. Why it had to be a house, I don’t know. I just had to get out of that flat where every corner and inch told me a story about him.
A couple months after he was gone, I had told my mum about the whole relationship him and me had been having. I gave her a nice little shock there. But she didn’t lecture me about it at all, instead she took me into her arms and let me cry about my broken heart.
He had been right in his letter. I really did cry a lot. Even these days, so many years after it all, I still find myself crying when I remember certain things about him, things we had done together.
In all those years, I couldn’t bring myself and my heart to love again. And it isn’t because I am scared to be left again. It is because he was the only person I loved. He is the only person I still love. And he is the only person I ever will be loving.
So, today isn’t much different than all those other days in the past. It’s a Sunday and I am sat in my living room with the TV on. I don’t care what’s on though. I have an acoustic guitar placed on my lap. I’ve never been interested in learning to play but after he left, I wanted - needed - something to take the pain away so I bought that guitar. By now I can actually play quite good. The pain never left though.
There is a faint knock on the front door. Careful and silent. I wouldn’t have heard it if I were in any other part of the house other than my living room.
I wonder who it is. I’m not expecting anyone. Or well, it could be my mum. She hasn’t checked up on me in a few days. She calls me every other day and once a week she by for comes for a visit. So yes, it must be her.
“Coming.” I say.
I put my acoustic down onto the floor by the couch and move to get the door.
The silouette I can make out through the milky glass of the window of my front door isn’t the one of my mum, I can immediately tell. Maybe it is one of my neighbours who ran out of milk, sugar or whatever. Not that they will have much luck with me. I tend to have only so much in my house that it’s enough for me.
I open the door and for a second I am blinded by the bright lightening from outside. It’s an actual summer day and the sun is burning down without mercy.
It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness and when they have and I see and recognise the person on my doorstep, everything stops.
My eyes open wide in shock, my mouth is agape and my heart misses a beat, picking it up with triple intensity and speed. My grip on the door handle grows stronger, it being the only thing to hold me straight up.
He is standing outside my door.
Harry, he came back.
I look him up and down. He hasn’t changed much. He took out his eyebrow-piercing. Shame, it always suited him. His hair is dyed darker which makes the blue of his eyes only come out so much brighter. He’s still going for the casual look of jeans and a simple t-shirt with trainers.
I am being pulled out of my daze when he speaks.
“Hey.”
His voice hasn’t changed either. Still a little raspy and low.
“Hey.” I reply, my voice on the other hand shaky and I’m sure a notch or two higher than usual.
I step aside to let him enter and when he moves I notice he isn’t alone.
Hidden behind his leg, holding tightly onto his hand, is a little girl. She looks up at him with bright blue eyes. Her brown hair is done in pigtails and she is dressed like your normal little girl on a summer afternoon. In her arm she holds a teddy-bear.
When they are in my living room they stop. He looks around, taking everything in.
“Nice place you’ve got yourself here.” he comments.
I look around as well, as if I wouldn’t know my own house. “Thanks.” I say.
The little girl is looking up at me with her bright eyes that so much look like his. I kneel down so my eyes are on the same level as hers.
“And who do we have here?” I ask, smiling at her.
She looks at me a little frightened and holds onto him even tighter, hiding behind his leg again. He picks her up on his arms and I raise again.
“She’s a little shy sometimes.” he explains, looking at her face lovingly, “Why won’t you tell him your name, sunshine, eh? He’s a friend.”
She contemplates that for a second before looking at me again. I smile at her, hoping that will change her mind.
“Lily.” she then says silently.
“It’s nice to meet you, Lily.” I say, “My name is Dougie. And who is he?” I ask, pointing at the bear in her arm.
“That’s Mr Teddy.” she says, already a bit more confident, showing me the brown bear.
“Well then,” I take one of Mr Teddy’s paws, shaking it like a hand, “it’s nice to meet you too, Mr Teddy. Welcome to my home.”
She smiles at me, she has the same smile like he does, and I can tell the ice is broken. She wriggles, a sign that she wants to be let down. He lets her and as soon as she is free from his grasp she walks over to my guitar and pulls the strings, letting out a joyful squeak at the sound filling the room.
“Lily!” he warns her, “What did I tell you about other people’s things.”
She looks down, ashamed. “Ask before you play with them.”
“Exactly. And have you asked Dougie if you can play with his guitar?”
She shakes her head, still ashamed.
“It’s okay, really. I don’t mind.” I assure.
I look at Harry again. I had been glad for Lily distracting me from the fact that he is actually here, standing in my living room. But now that she has found something to play with, it is suddenly like there is no one else but him and me.
“You want a coffee or tea or something?” I ask him.
He looks from Lily to me, his eyes studying me. “Coffee would be nice.”
“Okay.”
I go to the kitchen rumaging through the cupboards getting our coffees ready. From the living room I can hear Lily still playing with my guitar and his warnings to be careful with it.
While the coffee is running through the machine I go back into the living room asking Lily if she wants some biscuits. She jumps up immediately, nodding her little head, before taking my outstretched hand and walking with me into the kitchen, Harry on our tracks.
I set a few biscuits on a plate and pour her a glass of milk. She takes both and sits down at my kitchen table.
“You can take it to the living room with you if you want.” I tell her.
Again, she looks at Harry, asking for approval. “Go ahead.” he says, motioning his head towards the other room.
And there we are, him and me, alone in my kitchen, looking intensly at each other.
“How have you found me?” I ask after a moment of silence.
“After some old lady opened the door to your old flat I called your mum. She wasn’t too pleased. But I told her I desperately need to see you so she gave me your address.”
“You need to see me?” I raise my eyebrows.
He nods. “I have to explain some things.”
I pull back a chair from the table. “Sit down and go ahead then.”
I don’t know why I am being so on my guards towards him. I’ve always wanted him to come back and now that he really is here I am that defensively.
“Erm … do you have something for Lily? You know … dunno, a DVD or something? So we can talk … alone.”
“Sure.”
I wander back into the living room, him following me again. I have a few kiddie movies in my collection as my little cousins come to visit every now and then with my mum. I make Lily choose a film and put it on for her.
Before we go back to the kitchen, he crouches down by the couch. “Sunshine, Daddy and Dougie will be in the kitchen. If you need anything, just call, okay?”
She nods, already being engrossed in the film.
I watch him kiss her forehead. And I notice that he had referred to himself as ‘Daddy’. I mean, obviously, Lily is his daughter, they look too alike for her to not be. But it still brought a warm feeling all over me when he actually called himself ‘Daddy’ and treated her so lovingly.
When he enters the kitchen I am just setting our mugs with coffee on the table. “Still two sugars?” I ask him.
He nods. “You haven’t forgotten.” He smiles lightly.
“How could I? You’re keen on your two sugars. You could always exactly tell when I tried to trick you by putting just one in. ‘Dougie, it’s two! One isn’t enough, three to many. Two it is!’.” I mock him, grinning for the first time since he had arrived.
He grins as well as he sits down by the table.
Silence falls on us, the only sound coming from the film playing in the living room, mixed with Lily’s giggles every now and then.
“She’s adorable.” I find myself saying.
He sighs. “Yeah, she is.”
“How old is she? Five?”
“Yes, she turns six in November. Guess when her birthday is.”
I shrug.
“November, 30th.”
I smile at the resemblance of our birthdays. “She chose a good date.”
“Yeah, funny isn’t it?” he sighed, “The date made me choose her name as well.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What does her name have to do with the date?”
He stares down at the coffee in his mug. “I’ve named her after you.” he speaks silently.
“What?” I ask stunned.
“Yes. There is no female form of ‘Douglas’, neither of ‘Lee’. But ‘Lily’ sounds a little bit like it’s coming from ‘Lee’, doesn’t it? So Lily it was. Lily Christine Judd.”
“Christine coming from Christopher, I suppose?” I guess.
Again, he nods.
I smile. I’ve never had a child named after me. And the fact that it was his child and that she had his middle and family name actually makes me proud.
I notice he isn’t wearing any ring. No sign of him being married to the mother of his cute little daughter, his girlfriend or whatever she is these days.
“Where’s Lily’s mum?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. We’ve split up last year.”
“Oh?” I ask surprised.
“Yeah. Well, we never split up technically. One day she just left. She had something going with some older guy for a while. You know, that typical ‘young woman getting with old rich man’-thing. Anyway, one day I came home from work and there she was, suitcases packed and everything, saying that life had bigger things to offer for her than Lily and me. I haven’t heard from her ever since.”
“Bitch!” I blurt. On realising what I just said I add a half-hearted, “Sorry.”
He waves it off, “She is actually. Ever since Lily was born it was going downhill. I basically raised Lily alone. I’m just so glad I never married her mother. Made it less complicated when she left. She always wanted to get married but I could always pull myself out of it until she stopped asking.”
I study him for a bit. He seems comfortable with things the way the are. Unlike the person he was when he wrote that letter, when he left.
“What happened to ‘I want my child to grow up with both parents.’?”
A knowing smile appears on his face. “Yeah, you got me there. I don’t know really. I always figured that a child should have a mum and a dad. But even though Lily had both she still always came to me when she had a problem or wanted something. She’s just a proper Daddy’s girl and I have to admit that I love it this way. Honestly, she’s shown you more love earlier than she’s ever shown to her own mother. She seems happier without her mum anyway. I guess it’s like you can’t miss what you never had in her case.”
“I could’ve told you that before.” I mutter sarcastically.
“I know but even if you had I don’t think I would’ve listened.” he admits.
He then takes a sip of his coffee and looks me up and down.
“What?” I ask, squirming under his intense gaze, just like I used to do when we were younger, his intense looks still making me nervous.
“How have you been?” he asks interested, “What have you been up to?”
I shrug. “Nothing really. The biggest change for me was buying the house shortly after you left. I couldn’t stand the flat anymore, you know. It held just too many memories.”
Now it’s his turn to squirm uncomfortably, which I take as a slight victory. “I guess I have a few things to explain, eh?” he asks.
“More than a few actually. But I take it that’s why you are here.”
“I am in fact. I just … I don’t know where to start.”
“I can help you with that. First thing, why did you leave me a bloody letter? You could have spoken to me about it and we would’ve found a way to solve the whole thing.” I say in a calm voice.
“If I had told it to your face it only would’ve made me stay.” he reasons.
“Which, in retrospect, isn’t really the worst thing that could have happened.”
“How was I supposed to know that she was going to leave me?”
“Oh I don’t know. Maybe because everyone who spent two minutes with her could have told you that?”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Dougie.”
“It’s hard not to be. You knew that she was a bitch, you knew before she was even pregnant.”
“I thought that being a mother might change her.”
“And it took you what … four years … to figure out that it didn’t?”
“No, it didn’t take me this long. But what should I have done? Grab Lily, leave and have everyone giving me the famous ‘I told you so’-speech?”
“Yeah well, would’ve saved you from years of living with a woman who gave a shit about you and your daughter. From what I can tell you aren’t exactly sad that you’re a single parent. Lily is a wonderful child and I’m sure you’re a wonderful father. So why for goodness’ sake did you stay with that woman for so long?”
He opens his mouth to reply but then shuts it again, taking a deep breath. “I guess I didn’t want to be alone.” he says silently.
“You wouldn’t have been alone, you have Lily.”
“I meant alone as in without … you know … a partner. Sure, I love Lily, she is my everything. But … I don’t know … the love that you share with a child is different that the love you share with a partner.”
“You’re not trying to tell me Lily’s mum actually loved you or that you loved her, are you?”
He shakes his head. “You’re just not getting it.”
“Then explain it to me.”
He takes a deep breath again. “I stayed with her, Lily’s mum, because I rather was with someone who didn’t love me, and who I didn’t love either, than being alone. Because being alone would’ve just made me realise that I made a huge mistake when I left you.”
I have to admit, that catches me off guard.
He uses my silence, my shock, to continue, “I wasn’t even fully gone when I realised what a big mistake I had made by leaving. But I was just too proud to come back and admit that I had made the wrong decision. Besides, after what I’ve done to you, I didn’t know if you would even speak to me, let alone have me back. I had no idea if you maybe have someone new in your life, if you have long forgotten I even existed.”
I smile at him slightly. “Same could be the case today, you know.”
“Well, point one, you clearly haven’t forgotten about me. Point two, you are still talking to me, and I might add that I do appreciate it that you’re not even angry. And point three, which good looking young man in a happy relationship sulks inside his big empty house with his acoustic guitar on a summer Sunday?”
“I wasn’t sulking.” I mumble, not being able to fire anything else back. He is right after all. He still knows me too well.
“Then why do you have an acoustic guitar right by your couch sitting alone in your house?”
“Maybe because I’ve decided to become the next big god of rock n roll? And all the great gods need to feel miserable to be really worshipped.”
Harry laughs lightly. “Yeah, keep fooling yourself there, Dougie.”
I laugh as well.
I can’t ignore the whole feeling I’m getting from this conversation. Five years have passed but it seems like it hasn’t even been a day. I know I should be mad at him for leaving, requiring answers to all the questions I came up with in the past years. But now that he’s sitting right across from me, all those questions are forgotten, erased from my mind.
I love sitting here with him, talking like we used to do. Of course, our conversation is more serious than those we used to have before he left. But I guess that just comes with the fact that we both matured in all the years.
I get up from the table and pour myself another coffee. “So, what are your plans, then?” I ask while watching the dark liquid filling my mug.
“I don’t know really. At the moment I’m living at a hotel with Lily. She starts preparatory school after the summer holidays and by then I wanna have a place for us and a job. I’m already working my way through ads in the papers and all.”
“You’re back here, then?”
He nods. “Yes. I want Lily to know where her Daddy spent the best years of his life. Besides, here I have everything I love and care about.”
When he said the last part I could feel his eyes burning holes in my back and I tense immediately. I know what he means with his statement. And it takes me all I have to not turn around and jump him.
“You know, if you ever need a babysitter for Lily, bring her over.” I turn back around to him and sure enough, there are his eyes, fixed on me. “And if you get tired of your hotel room … there’s plenty of room for you two here.” I say, locking eyes with him, the intensity of our eye-contact immediately raising the temperature of the room, if not of the whole house even.
“Be careful what you wish for. I might take you up on that offer.”
“Anytime you want.”
I smile at him and he smiles back. And then, in the blink of an eye, he stands from his chair and literally throws himself at me, his hands cupping my face, his lips attacking mine.
It takes not even a second for me to react and let go of my mug on the worktop. I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him closer to me, returning his kiss, increasing its passion.
As our lips touch and our tongues battle with each other, all reminders of the years we spent without each other are washed away immediately. Forgotten are nights of crying, endless days of agony. All that matters now is that he is here, with me.
We are back together again.
We break our intense kiss and look at each other, lazy smiles on both our faces. He reaches his hand to my forehead and flicks back a lock of hair that has fallen into it.
“I’ve been so stupid.” he whispers.
“Wise words.”
“Oi!” He pokes my ribs. “I’m trying to be romantic here!”
I giggle. “Sorry. Please continue then.”
He keeps studying my face, stroking his thumbs over my cheeks and pecks my lips. “I don’t know how I made it all those years without you. Without holding and kissing you. Sorry I left, I won’t do it again, I promise.”
“You better not. And if so, I’ll keep Lily. You told me already, your little sunshine loves me.”
“She got that from her Daddy then.” he smiles.
“Did she?”
He nods. “Apparently, you got us both hooked on you.”
“Funny you say that. Because I think the feeling is well mutual there.”
“I consider Lily and me very lucky then.”
“Not as lucky as me though. You get only me but I get you and her.”
He smiles at me, his blue eyes filled with all the emotion I came to miss in the past years. “I love you, Dougie.”
I mirror his smile. “I love you too.”
We kiss one more time, not being able to let go off each other already. When we break apart again, slightly out of breath, I look into the general direction of the living room where the film and Lily’s faint laughter is still heard.
“What do you say we go and join your daughter?”
He takes his hand into mine. “I guess you can make that our daugther.” he just says before grabbing his coffee mug and leading the way to the living room.
I grab my own mug and let him drag me into the living room. Lily is still on my couch, watching the film. Upon seeing us enter, she smiles happily and pats her little hand on the spot next to her on the couch. Harry and I sit down on either side of her and immediately she lays down across both our laps, causing us to scoot closer to each other.
When Lily focusses her attention back to the film, Harry and me look at each other one more time. We share a smile and Harry slings his arm around me making me rest my head on his shoulder as we watch the rest of the film with Lily.
The End
Comments are appreciated
A/N 2: This would be the real end by the way, no more sequels, hehe!
PoynterJudd Standalone