A Man For All Seasons (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

38. Worlds Collide

Freddie

"Was it too much, do you think?" I asked abruptly.

"Hey, Santa, Santa, I wish with all my migh-" Julia stopped singing a moment, turned down the volume on some pop Christmas song I had never heard before and likely would not have enjoyed as much without her accompaniment. "Too much?"

"With Roger, the, um... the way I was talking, I saw your face and uh- just wondered if you thought it got a bit bitchy toward the end."

"I wouldn't say you were bitchy. Suspicious, yes, and a little on the acerbic side, but you earned the right to be both this afternoon."

"Mm."

"Do you think you were too bitchy?"

"No, because I am always the perfect amount of bitch. I just-" I paused, feeling a satisfied grin spread across my face when she began to laugh, "I just wanted your sort of opinion."

All jokes aside, though, I couldn't help believing that I had indeed gone a bit too far, telling Roger about Danny just so he could feel even more left out. That seemed rather mean-spirited, even for me, especially after watching how dramatically he reacted to the news. He took it so hard, the poor man- and so personally.

Don't be ridiculous, it was fine, I assured myself. Besides, that's nothing compared to some of the things I've said to Julia.

Somehow I found very little comfort in that idea. With immense effort I shoved it all down again, doing my best to put the thought and the connotations it carried out of focus. But still it lingered, beckoning me further within myself to visit all the evidence it had gathered over time, while the image of that gruesome scar flickered quietly in the background.

Stop thinking about it. We each have our share of skeletons and scars, after all - and Julia never hammers at me about mine. Then again, she's never really had to anyway, but that doesn't matter. John's right, that's all in the past now; nothing left to do but move forward.

Then again, moving forward, moving on, really was not the issue here. On the contrary, Julia and I both had made it our lives' work to face the sun and leave the shadows of our past far behind us- and to varying degrees of success, we did. But that scar indicated more than one memory, one (to use her own gross understatement) mistake, one night of total despair. This was Julia's identity, an indelible part of what made her, her. It had been there all the time.

Why had I only noticed it this afternoon?

Julia spun the steering wheel too sharply to the left, turning onto a gravel road that was so well obscured by the trees that we could very easily have missed the damn thing altogether. The yellow car tailing us did not follow, instead slowing to a stop just outside the neighborhood entrance. But this much, we expected. Before we left the beach, Rudy had politely declined to set foot in the house, stating that although he would still be close by in the event of trouble, this time around he would take a back seat to the action.

When pressed for a reason, he offered none, other than a somewhat vague remark of "I'm content with the stories."

"All right, chums, word of warning," Julia said. "As soon as we get inside, it's going to be chaos."

"And the last couple of weeks haven't been?" John replied, who had insisted on cramming himself into the tight space behind our heads, thus cementing his role as the self-appointed, model in-law.

"Point taken. But this will hopefully be good chaos, the happy and noisy kind rather than, you know, our current waking nightmare." After a beat, Julia added, "We don't have to stay long, we can just pick up Danny, trade out the cars, and then slip back on out if you want."