For all that Lola's played the villain, she's never done it quite like this, never so deliberately, and never with such good intentions. Relatively speaking. Maybe she should have told Tommy her plan beforehand, but all considered, she knew the hopeless romantic wouldn't let her fall on this grenade alone.
When she asks Tommy to visit, she insists he bring Heather too. Heather wasn't exactly thrilled, but at least she agreed to come; small miracles.
After the initial greetings and obligatory small talk, Lola asks to speak to Heather alone. Both Tommy and Heather are hesitant to agree, but Lola is imploring and pregnant and there's still the faintest guilt the pair feel regarding her OD's proximity to their wedding, so finally they oblige.
So Lola, sober and with years of second hand PR training in the back of her head, and having vastly expanding her lexicon after months of actual therapy, tells Heather about the night she slept with Tommy, less than a month before their wedding. Lola twists her words and implications with hindsight, weaving a story and a web of lies where she'd seduced Tommy intentionally by playing the victim, that she'd preyed on his good heart in her own time of weakness, and the regret Tommy had felt in the aftermath. Lola's own regret and guilt were left out of the retelling; she was not looking for forgiveness for herself, she simply wanted to cause one of the few people she truly loved as little pain as possible, and that meant she had to be the villain of this story.
"Why the hell would you tell me this? I know he loves you, okay?" Heather hisses with tears in her eyes. Lola's had this fight before; Heather even looks a bit like Sharise.
"Tommy loves everyone, that's my point," Lola fires back sharply, "and I used that against him, knowing-" Lola's voice catches for a moment and her gaze drops; Nikki's voice is an old echo in her head but she fights to ignore it, "knowing how happy you make him. I was jealous and alone and- and- and I think I missed before, when I had the whole band wrapped around my little finger. I knew it would hurt him but I didn't- at the time I was so fucked I didn't care. I'm sorry; you are well within your rights to never forgive me, but I still owe you an apology."
A long silence fills the space between them both; Lola can't look up from her hands.
"Your kid is his, isn't it?" Heather's betrayed tone is watery, crying silently across from Lola, "that's why you're telling me all this shit."
"He doesn't know," Lola murmurs faintly, "and I didn't want you to hate him for it."
"He's a fucking idiot but you're a fucking monster," Heather spits, tone so sharp Lola actually flinches. Her fidgeting fingers curling into themselves reflexively and grow still, "but it's still his kid." Heather stands sharply, hands braced on the table. After a beat, she sighs deeply and heads to the door of the side room Lola'd been graciously given for the visiting time.
At the door Lola hears her call for Tommy, and tiredly informs him that she was heading back to their hotel, and that they'd need to talk once he got back. But she kisses him with a kind of tenderness that sets Lola's anxious heart to rest for the time being, at least until Tommy closes the door behind himself and asks what Lola had said to his wife.
And Lola is honest in a way that makes Tommy look ill, stating candidly that she had told Heather about how they slept together a month before his wedding. He's in the seat across from her practically whining, asking why she would do that, and Lola takes a moment and a deep breath.
"I told her I seduced you, that I was lonely and played the victim and manipulated your good nature -"
"Lols, that night you didn't- you said -"
"I know," unlike with Heather, Lola can't break eye contact with Tommy; he's always been safe, even now, she'd never cut herself on a look he's given her, "I know what I said, and I promise I never wanted any of this, I never wanted to do something that would end up causing you any sort of pain-" Lola insists, "and if there was any other way I could have kept that between us I promise I would have -" her words catch, truth feeling like it was about to choke her, "I'm tired of being a homewrecker, Tommy, but this was the only option I could think of where- where- where-"
"Where she didn't end up hating me," Tommy's voice is so soft and rich with sudden understanding, it's enough to set off Lola's waterworks.
"Stop looking at me like that," Lola's voice trembled as she finally ducked her gaze, "you stupid motherfucker stop looking at me like you still love me!" Lola sobbed loudly now, hunching in on herself, arms wrapped around her bowed head, shaking and shuddering as she cried, "Heather makes you happy!"
"Lola," his voice is so gentle, as is the way he carefully rests his hand on one of hers, "you make me-"
"Don't you fucking dare," Lola grits her teeth and looks up; there's a heartbroken fury in her eyes, in her razor sharp words, "after everything that's happened and everything we've been through, after you followed through and married Heather, can you fucking please not keep stringing me along like this?"
Tommy let's her go. His expression falls; he stammers out half-apologies but Lola cuts him off with a deep, loud sigh.
"I'm okay with being your friend, but I'm Heather's villain and if you love her you can't keep loving me, or letting me love you like this; if things were different I'd probably try and let you go completely, but I can't," and finally Lola sits back, looking Tommy in the eyes with her cheeks tear-stained, "because this kid is yours."
"Oh."
Tommy is unreadable.
He's looking her in the eyes, but for the first time since she's known him, Lola has absolutely no idea what he's thinking or feeling in this moment.
And he leaves without another word, and one of the nurses finds Lola at the end of visitation, still in the side room, crying her eyes out.
It's a new and horrible kind of radio silence that follows, the kind where she's been allowed to do the business side of the band's management from her rehab, and Zutaut has hired a stand in manager to go with the band on their upcoming tour. With all that she knows about what they're doing, the contact with them is sporadic at best.
Nikki calls the most, but his calls are always brief. Vince's calls are always late, when Lola's awake but his own daughter isn't, and Lola will let him vent about the band and the tour like the others won't put up with. Mick will only call if he has a professional question or concern, but he always asks how she is.
And she's getting better day by day, but Tommy never calls.
Her stay at the facility last the entirety of her pregnancy at her own request, stable and self aware enough now that she wasn't to be trusted in these last few months. It means that despite the life Lola had chosen to live before, her daughter is born miraculously healthy.
Lola calls Athena, Tommy's sister, and asks if it would be appropriate, if Tommy would hate her for it, if the family would be okay with it-
She's got his eyes, just as Tommy was born with his father's before him, and Tommy's mother, Vassiliki, cries with joy the first time she holds her granddaughter, Vassilisa Carlotta Lee, named in her honour.
YOU ARE READING
Run to Paradise {Nikki Sixx | The Dirt}
Fanfiction" the girl is crafty like ice is cold. " Nikki and Lola met before they were Nikki and Lola, before Motley Crue, before they were even eighteen; they were just two shitty teenagers, looking to escape their shitty childhoods. So together they turn in...
