I Wanna Sing You a Sunrise

Chapter 9: Wings of an Angel

A/N: I sound like a broken record but again, a huge thank you to everyone who reads, votes and comments! I appreciate each and every one of you, so much.

Here is the final part of this "trilogy" (but no worries, there is a LOT of this story left). I want to say that I do not in any way think that cheating is okay, or acceptable, and when I started to write this story, I was planning to actually have them wait a lot longer before ending up in intimate situations, but... somehow this is the way it wrote itself out. I hope everyone is okay with that.

This chapter is also M-rated (you didn't really think they'd be able to leave it there, did you?:) It is also pretty damn long, but I decided to not break it into two parts.

Lyrics:
The Cure (Songwriters: Stefani Germanotta/Lukas Nelson/Mark Nilan/Nick Monson/Paul Edward Blair)
Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Songwriters: E.Y. Harburg/Harold Arlen)

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She woke to her sister poking her finger into her ribcage, twice, rolled away from her with a loud groan. "God damnit, Natali. Give it a rest."

"Good morning." The brunette gave her a grin when Stefani finally managed to open her eyes. "Time to get up. We need to be at the airport in about three hours."

"Ugh. Right." She flung an arm over her face, sighed deeply. Airport. Flying back to LA. Saying goodbye to Bradley again for God knew how long.

After their incredible encounter late Wednesday evening and the subsequent conversation, they had retreated to their respective bedrooms and had managed to mostly stay out of each other's way since; he had been out all day yesterday exploring London while she had spent the day first with her parents before they had departed for New York and then with Bobby and her UK-based publicist Thomas, trying to put out the fires and the not-so-nice press brought on by the tour cancellations. Everyone had reminded her once again that no matter how much better she already felt, she was nowhere near healthy enough to do a full show and any nasty comments should just be disregarded. In the evening, to resist any possible temptation, she had decided to sleep in Natali's room, not really giving her sister any explanation, something that judging by Natali's expression was now clearly due.

"So." The brunette placed a pile of shirts into her suitcase. "Why exactly did you want to sleep here and not in your own super suite? Not that I minded some sisterly cuddling, but..."

Stefani clambered out of bed, reached for her clothes. "None of your business."
Her sister's eyes widened at her harsh words; they usually shared everything, were as close as it was possible to be. "What? Stef..."

"I'm sorry." She tugged a tank top over her head, joined by pajama bottoms. "I shouldn't have said that, I just... I can't talk about this right now."

"Okay." Natali reached to touch her shoulder. "I'm assuming it has something to do with Bradley. Did you guys have another fight?"

Stefani yanked her long blonde hair onto a tight ponytail, not saying anything and naturally her sister arrived at the correct conclusion a moment later, probably able to clearly read it from her face.

"Oh my God." She lowered her voice to a whisper, as though there was someone listening. "Did you sleep with him?"

A tear escaped the blonde's eye, of course confirming Natali's words; she sighed a little, pulled her older sister into a comforting hug. "Oh Stef."

She buried her face into Natali's shoulder for a brief moment, then stepped back, collecting herself. "I'm okay. It happened, we agreed it was never going to happen again. End of story."

"You can't say that. You don't know what's going to happen in the future." Natali sat down, holding onto her hand. "Stef, he loves you. He told me that when you were still at the hospital."