"Phil, where on earth are you going?"

Phil jumped and let out a gasp as he placed his hand on his chest as I asked him this. He then looked over at me and replied, "Nowhere. I'm just going out on a walk."
"Can I come with you?"
"No." Phil replied hastily as he basically threw open the door.
"Why?" I asked as I raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"I'm not going to be gone for very long." Phil tapped his foot, obviously anxious that I was questioning him about wanting to leave so suddenly. "Besides, it's my birthday, so I can therefore do whatever I please."
"But don't you want to open your presents and spend time with me?" I asked sadly as I looked over at Phil's unopened presents, which were lying unopened by the TV. "You've been avoiding me all day."
Phil sighed softly as he opened the door, muttering out, "I won't be long very long," and completely avoiding my statement and also not even giving me a chance to respond as he stepped outside, quickly closing and locking the door behind him.
I let out an extremely heavy and sad sigh as I looked at the door, part of me hoping that he was going to walk back inside, say that he was just joking, finally open the presents that I spent quite a long time picking out and wrapping, and tell me something that he would like to do for his birthday so that we could actually spend time together for once.
What the hell is happening to him?
That thought couldn't help but cross my mind, even on a day like today.

Phil was always excited about celebrating his birthday. He always looked forward to me waking him up and leading him out to the kitchen where the birthday cake I had made for him laid in wait on the table with candles and a party hat next to it. He was like a child in a man's body, but it was okay with me since it was one of the many things that I loved about him.

But now, the birthday cake was resting on the table, unopened and uneaten, the candles were still in their original packaging, and the party hat was still in its original packaging as well. Even the presents remain untouched, still lying in wait wrapped with Phil's favorite wrapping paper for the birthday to open them and squeal in delight.
Unfortunately, the birthday boy was anything but happy.
Even on his birthday, the guilt and sadness over losing Ellie was unrelenting and continued consuming him.
It seems as if a part of Phil Lester left with Ellie that day.

~~~~~

Leaving was much harder than I thought it would be.

Almost as soon as I walked out, every part of me ached to go back, to go back and desperately try and get my husband's attention and beg him not to go out yet again, to go back and try just one more time to put Phil Lester back together.
But I knew better.
There was only person that could fix Phil, and that person was Ellie.
That's why I had to leave and go and find her, regardless of how difficult it would be not only to find where her new family lived, but to convince both of them to come back and live with Phil and me, especially after the pain the two of us inflicted onto Ellie after deciding against adopting her.

*****

Even though I knew exactly where Ellie's new family had lived and how to get there since I had done a fair amount of research on them before choosing them as the perfect candidates to adopt Ellie, I ended up getting a room at the hotel that was closest to where Phil and I lived and just sitting alone in the room while thinking about how everything had deteriorated over the past eleven months, how Phil had gone from his normal, cheerful self to hardly ever genuinely smiling and choosing to drown his sorrows in a bottle of beer rather than allowing himself to feel them and/or talk to me about how he was feeling, how Phil and I were so stupid to think that allowing another family to adopt Ellie was the best possible decision we could've made for her, and how because of that decision, we may have lost Ellie forever.

Speaking of Ellie, how much I actually missed her didn't completely dawn on me until I actually sat down and allowed my thoughts to run wild rather than just have them worry about Phil the entire time. Upon coming to this realization, I gained a better understanding as to why Phil had changed so much in the span of less than a year. Although he hadn't known her for very long, he had grown to become extremely attached to her, especially since he had been the one to find her out in the cold and take her in. He had also been the one to spend more time with her and therefore had more of an opportunity to become close with her, something that was mostly my fault since I didn't exactly always step up when I really should have since I had preoccupied myself with finding a family that would adopt Ellie and had almost never bothered to spend quality time with her as a result. Upon realizing this, I truly felt guilty for doing what did and wished that I could just go back to last Christmas and take everything back.

*****

As I kept on dwelling on everything, I started thinking about how Phil might've not wanted to have another family adopt Ellie and just wasn't telling me. Hell, he might not have been aware that he wanted to keep Ellie since I was constantly planting the fact that I wanted to allow another family to adopt her into his mind and constantly talking about it. Even though I didn't think it was possible, this realization made me feel even worse about everything that has happened over the course of these long eleven months.
However, this realization also made me much more determined to get Ellie back.

*****

Where the hell are you?

Phil texted me as I was about to finally force myself to get out of my hotel room, which was actually the same hotel room Phil had pretty much permanently rented out since he always went to stay at a hotel after the bar he frequented closed for the night, and since I had found out that, for some reason, Phil had also signed the hotel room in my name (which he had probably done when he was much drunker than usual), I had gotten it for free.

I had gotten up to leave the hotel room so that I could started on getting Ellie back once and for all and was pretty annoyed when I had gotten a text from Phil. I sighed as I sat back down, refusing to leave until I was free of distractions, even though I stated in the note I had written to Phil that I wouldn't respond if he texted me.
I really should've known that I wouldn't have been able to resist...

Didn't you read the note?
Yes, of course I read the fucking note! That's how I knew that you were gone! You never even said where you were going!
Yes, I did.
No, you didn't! I've read the note quite a few times now, and I can say with one-hundred percent certainty that you did not say where you were going!
Well, that just goes to show that you didn't read the note carefully enough.
What the fuck does that even mean? I read it word for word numerous times. Of course I read it carefully!
It's clear to me that you didn't read it the right way.
Dan, you're officially drunker than me.
It says where I'm going, trust me.
No.
It.
Doesn't.
Goodbye, Phil. I have stuff I need to get done.
Goddammit.

With that last message sent, I placed my phone into my pocket and finally left the hotel room.

*****

Since the next bus to Canterbury, which is where Ellie and her new family resided, wasn't scheduled to leave for a couple of hours, I decided to pass the time by going into the nearby shopping mall and trying to distract myself before I started dwelling on everything again. Thankfully, there was actually a grand piano next to the giant Christmas tree that was located in the very center of the shopping mall. Without even a second thought, I made my way over to it and sat down on the seat. After making sure that it was tuned, I lightly played a few keys as I tried to figure out what song I wanted to play. As I was thinking, my mind suddenly went back to the time where I had given Ellie some piano lessons and even played a few songs for her. Surprisingly, the memory didn't make me sad, not even slightly. Instead, it made me really happy to think back to the time where I actually got the opportunity to share my hobby with someone that was genuinely interested in watching me play (while Phil liked watching me play as well, it was obvious that his impatient nature wouldn't allow him to be engaged for very long,) especially since Ellie wanted to learn how to play at such a young age.

Thinking about giving Ellie piano lessons suddenly gave me the inspiration to play Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, which was Phil's favorite Christmas song. I smiled softly as I looked down at my hands as I played the Christmas song that slowly became my favorite as well due to the fact that I had a lot of good memories associated with the song, such as hearing Phil listening to many, many different versions of the song (although I didn't appreciate it at the time since I didn't truly start loving Christmas until almost two years ago) and, of course, teaching Ellie how to play it.

As I was playing, I heard someone in close proximity to me begin singing. I raised an eyebrow and felt a look of confusion fall on my face. Nonetheless, I shrugged it off and continued playing since I was approaching the end of the song anyways. However, it was extremely hard to focus since the voice sounded so familiar to me, and I had no idea why.

Immediately after the song came to an end, I threw my head up and had to blink a few times to make sure that my mind wasn't playing tricks on me.
The person who had been singing along was Ellie.
"E-Ellie?" The name felt so foreign now that she was standing right in front of me, especially since she had barely changed since the last time I saw her. Well, in terms of appearance, at least. She still had long, curly blonde hair and the same bright green eyes that would sparkle when she smiled. She was even wearing the jacket that Phil had bought for her the day he found her and the jacket she wore the day she left and inside the pocket, I could see the music box that Phil had gotten for her last Christmas, which was the only thing she had taken with her when she left, sticking out of it.
"H-Hi, Dan." She sounded just as nervous as me and she kept looking around her surroundings as if she feared that someone was going to see her.
"How've you been?" I asked gently, surprised that not only was she here, but that she was actually talking to me. I had been under the impression that it would be nearly impossible to get her to talk to me once I went to her new family's house, so it made me extremely happy not only to see her after almost a year had gone by, but to converse with her as well.
"I've been okay, I guess." She mumbled as she looked down at the ground, seeming like she was going to burst into tears at any given moment. "How have you been?"
"Good." It was a lie, of course. It wasn't a great idea to drag a now eleven year old into the marriage problems you've been having since her absence, so I saved her the possible worry and just kept my mouth shut.
"That's good." Ellie said as she looked around again. "Where's Phil?"
"He's at home." This was probably true since he wasn't a day drinker and only frequented the bars at night.
"Oh." She sounded disappointed when I said this, and I wasn't surprised. She had been much closer to Phil than to me since the two of them had spend much more time together and he had been the one to bring her home and out of the freezing London winter. "Well, I'm sorry that I bothered you. I was walking by and I heard you playing the song you taught me when you gave me piano lessons and I just couldn't help but come over and sing it."
"Oh, you didn't bother me at all." I reassured her. "It's always nice when someone accompanies me when I play on the piano."
Ellie smiled ever so slightly, but that smile quickly faded away when she looked behind her and saw a couple walking towards her. Upon closer inspection, they were the couple that I had chosen to adopt Ellie.
"I have to go." She said hastily as she dropped quite a lot of money on top of the piano. "It was really nice getting to see you again, and please never stop playing, okay?"
Before I could even articulate a response, she ran off towards the lavishly dressed man and woman. After a few moments, the three of them walked by me with Ellie trailing behind them. It wasn't until they had disappeared from my sight when I finally looked away and looked over at all of the money that Ellie had left on the piano. Even with just a glance, I could tell that there were at least a couple hundred pounds in the pile.
"Why does an eleven year old have this much money?" I asked aloud to myself as I put all of the money into my wallet before someone had the chance to come by and steal it. "When I was her age, I barely had an allowance, let alone at least over a hundred pounds."
For now, I shrugged the matter off and pulled my phone out of my pocket so that I could check the time. I sighed as I saw that I still had an hour and forty-five minutes left until the bus to Canterbury arrived at the bus stop as long as London traffic wasn't horrendous, which, especially at this time of year, was probably extremely unlikely since it was Christmas season and everyone had Christmas shopping and/or traveling to do. Nonetheless, I set a timer for one hour and thirty-five minutes on my phone so that I would have a ten minute time frame to make my way out to the bus stop.

*****

The time passed by much quicker than I would ever imagined.

It felt like I had only just started playing some more Christmas songs when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. Thankfully, I was just finishing up playing Silent Night when the one-hour and thirty-five minute timer I had set went off so I played the last notes of the song, collected the money people had periodically left while I was playing, and began making my way out to the bus stop.

Much to my surprise, the traffic in London was actually fairly decent and as an added bonus, the bus was right on time and I managed to get on without having to silently vent my frustrations about people moving at a snail's pace. Placing my money into the jar as I stepped onto the bus, I looked around for a seat. While I was too late to snag one, I wasn't going to complain, especially since the bus had been on time and the traffic was amazing compared to what it usually was during this time of year, so I was very content with having to be one of those people standing and holding onto the harness that was hanging from the ceiling.

*****

After having to deal with a grueling nearly hour long bus ride that was full of screaming infants, toddlers running around the bus as their parents failed to watch them, and having to stand next to a man that smelled and looked like the last time he took a shower was about two months ago, I was relieved when the bus finally arrived at its Canterbury stop. Needless to say, I got off that bus at the speed of light and got as far away from that bus stop as I possibly could.

Once I deemed myself to be in the clear, I began looking around for a hotel to stay in since it was starting to get late and therefore starting to get to become a bad idea to show up at Ellie's flat. Because of this, I figured that it was a good idea to just find a hotel room to stay in (even though I was allowed to use a free hotel room in London) since having a hotel room here in Canterbury rather than in London would mean that I wouldn't have to waste time tomorrow taking a bus to Canterbury since I (obviously) would already be where I needed to be, and that meant I had a better chance of allowing Ellie's new family to visit her since I would have more time. Plus, because I would have more time tomorrow, that meant that I would have more time to spend with Ellie if I was allowed to visit her, and I would also have more time to try and convince not only her to allow Phil and I to officially adopt her, but her new family as well.

*****

Luckily for me, I managed to find a hotel with an available room after spending about two hours wandering around in the cold and going from hotel to hotel only to find out that every single one of their rooms was taken, so you could imagine the relief I felt when I finally found a hotel that actually had a room available.

Upon going into the hotel room, I realized that I had left all of my bags back in the hotel room in London, but it didn't really make me freak out since it finally gave me an excuse to go out and buy some new outfits tomorrow, something that I really needed to do since it's been quite some time since the last time I bought any sort of new clothes. With a shrug, I kicked off my shoes and practically jumped into the bed, falling asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.