Hotel De Ipanema, Rio De Janerio, Brazil, January 10th 1985

The year was new, but once the christmas holidays were over, the four members of Queen had been whisked back into what was the normal, hectic way of life for one of the world's greatest rockbands of the time. The continuation of The Works tour was taking place halfway across the world in South America, the newly established Cidade do Rio being their first stop in 1985.

The first thing that Freddie Mercury saw when he woke up and lifted his head from the pillow was the rising sun hanging low above the South Atlantic to the east of the morning sky, its light spilling on his wife-to-be Monica sleeping across from him.

Gently, he slipped his arms around her limp body, cradling her head against his bare chest as she started to stir.

"Mmphhh, too bright!" she grunted, rubbing her eyes with the ball of her hand.

"Welcome to the tropics," he giggled into the top of her head and whispered, "How was your sleep?"

She slung her arm across his chest and around his shoulder, "Good, but that machine is far too noisy"

"Indeed," He looked at the AC on the wall, then grabbed the bottom of her cotton pyjama shirt, "We could turn it off then it'll be like an inferno in here and we would have to sleep au naturel-"

"Nice try Freddie, but we stopped being a childless couple about six years ago" she pushed his hands off as she sat up and reached over to her bedside.

"What are you doing?" he croaked, turning his head to watch her.

"Putting in my contacts" she answered as she fumbled about with her back to him.

"Why? Because you better not be leaving this bed or else I'll be cold" he stretched his arm across and put his hand on her upper back.

She slowly put the next lens on her eyeball, and blinked a few times into it settled over her pupil, "How am I suppose to look at your beautiful face if I can't even see it?"

He felt his heart flutter, "God, I love you so fucking much"

She shivered at the way he said that, rolling back into his arms, "I love you too"

He pulled the duvet back over her as she got comfortable again, resting back against  his chest as his heart beat in her ear.

"Freddie" she whispered his name, and she felt his thumb caress her cheek as she stared into space.

"Yes?" he whispered back, shuffling down a little lower and pressing his forehead against hers.

There was something she'd been longing to mention to him in the previous week or so, a topic that not only needed consideration and planning but also she knew that he was sensitive about. And it frustrated her that she found it harder and harder to take off her mind since the New Year had began, and she found out that Queen probably weren't going to be carrying on anymore after The Works tour ended.

"Maybe Deaky was right after all... maybe that's what I have been wanting" she frequently told herself day by day.

But she missed her opportunity to discuss it as she felt his lips softly against the tip of her nose and begging for a kiss.

So she oblidged, her eyes fluttering closed as she kissed him back, waiting for the next break of air.

He broke away as she started to giggle, "What is it?"

But even then, she whimped out of telling him what she wanted to for days as she traced a finger on his cubid's bow, "Your moustache needs a trim"

He growled, "It's not very easy being Freddie Mercury, you know"

"I don't know, you do a pretty good job at him when I'm there" she teased as she rolled onto her back again, disappointed in herself.

He didn't fire back, just sighed and stared at the ceiling as he found her hand under the duvet, pondering if this was what retirement would be like if he was to quit his day job...

...Until the sound of crashing piano keys below broke the serenity throughout the hotel suite and diminishing her chances. It only made matters worse that due to the floor plan the suite's grand piano was situated across the wall.

"For heaven sake, Johnny!" Freddie muttered under his breath.

"Well, at least he actually got out of bed for once" Monica screwed her eyes shut under the sun shining through the window.

"Why can't he play something uplifiting like Wake Me Up Before You Go Go or... or even my Don't Stop Me Now?!" He complained, "I started teaching him the beginning of that after christmas!"

She was about to answer when their young daughter suddenly burst into the room, hands clasped over her ears and whining, "Too louuuudddd!"

Monica lifted the covers as Roshni scrambled up onto the mattress on her side of the bed, letting her climb over her legs.

"Now I understand all the suffering that mum and dad had to endure in Feltham... but my god! Surely I wasn't that bad" Freddie thought as his daughter burrowed underneath the duvet and in between them.

"Should I get up and tell him to stop?" Monica sat up, rubbing Roshni's head affectionately.

Freddie stared up at the ceiling fan for a few hesitant seconds, then shook his head, "There's no use. Phoebe will come and tell him to go have breakfast, he'll stop for the sake of food"

"We can't rely on Phoebe for everything... I don't think that he is even here yet" she settled back down on her side to face the rest of her family as she lay through the sound of indistinguishable and improvised piano melodies.

Freddie didn't even follow up what Monica had said, just grabbed Roshni with a smirk and rolled across the mattress as the little girl let out a squeal.

"Seriously, I don't know how much longer I can take this" Monica tried to plead over his doting coos on their daughter in his arms. He was in a giddy, lovable mood, not one to impose authority.

She looked at the clock on her bedside table that read 8:30pm and gave in with a huff, swinging her feet onto the ground, "You always leave it to me"

She was about to stomp out of the master suite when Freddie's irresistably syrupy voice stopped her, "Monica, darling?"

She halted and slowly turned around, speaking through gritted teeth, "Yes?"

He looked back as he cradled his daughter to his chest as she sucked her thumb, "Any chance of a cup of tea? Twinings, if they have any in Brazil"

"Only if you get up and get it yourself when it's ready" she called back flatly as she exited the bedroom.

She was about to turn into the luxurious main space of the suite, its glass window for a wall overlooking the pool and the mouth of the city's natural harbour as awful music poured out of the piano Johnny was sitting at.

But before she had a chance to scold him, Phoebe came rushing over, still in his towel bathrobe as he wore an expression of chaos.

"I know, I'm going to ask him to stop" she shouted over the piano.

"Your mum's on the phone!" he said loudly.

"You heard the phone ring over that?!" She mouthed the last word as she pointed at the source of ruction behind her.

He shrugged, "Never mind that! She says that it's urgent!"

"Urgent?" Not even beginning to imagine what the bad news was, she pushed past him to the waiting reciever hanging down from the phone on the wall.

Phoebe shrugged, and walked over to Johnny on the piano, "Right, you! Stop playing that!"

He shook his head as his fingers danced across the keys to his tuneless song.

"Well, please play a little more quietly then! Mummy's on the phone to Granny"" he pointed to Monica behind him.

Barely noticing a decrease in volume across the space, she picked up worriedly, "Hello, mum?"

"Oh Mo, thank god you're awake over there!" Panicked, but relieved, Mrs Brannigan answered, "I wasn't able to call for hours and I didn't know when you'd land!"

"It's morning here, don't worry!" she assured her, putting her hand over her free ear to cut out the background, "Mum, what's wrong?"

"Oh, well, your dad and I don't want you to panic, but..." she heard her struggle.

Despite the piano music finally coming to a halt, Monica could feel the dread cause havoc in her stomach, "Mum, what is it?!"

She didn't notice Johnny's bare, apporoaching footsteps as he complained, "You didn't come and admire my nice music!!"

It was hard not to fret. Her worry grew with each passing second that she waited for her to speak, pushing her son's small hands off of her.

Finally, her mother confirmed, "...A petrol bomb got thrown and smashed through the window of your dad's store last night."

Johnny stopped trying to catch her attention when he saw the fear slowly filter across her face, her eyes expanding and mouth gaping in horror as thoughts of the worst kind raced through her mind.

"Mummy!!" he grabbed her arm as she slid down on the wall and landed on the carpeted floor with a thud.

"Step back a bit" Phoebe grabbed a fold-out stool from the kitchenette as he rushed over.

"What's happening?" Johnny watched on as his dad's assistant helped his mummy back onto her feet and onto a seat.

Monica barely got a thank you out, and when Phoebe took her son away by the hand she stammered ino the handset, "Dad... is he-is he alright?"

"Well, yes. But very shaken... the linoleum flooring was flammable, so the flames reached the storeroom at the back... the stock got burned" Mrs Brannigan calmly explained.

"Monica, where are you?" Freddie strolled into the space, tying his towel robe, "I was thinking that since I'm not free tomorrow, all five of us could take a dip in the beach..."

He trailed off  when he saw the woman he loved sitting still against the wall, gripping onto her stool with one hand, clenching the reciever in the other, her face hard to read.

She was numb but devastated inside that she was halfway around the world and not within a fifty minute plane ride to Belfast. If there was one thing she feared most of all about living away from home it was knowing that her family were living in a shadow of chaos and her being unable to do anything to help...

*****

1 hour later...

"Is it like that time when mummy burnt the chicken in the oven?"

Phoebe was now dressed in a simple white shirt and cropped trousers that he always brought out for the summer weather, sitting at the coffee table by the window overlooking the bay, trying to study the production schedule for the day ahead...

Only Johnny, who was dressed in only his small navy swimming trunks and orange arm bands, was pestering him with questions about fire.

"No, this was much bigger than that" he kindly explainedto the boy.

"Like when Roshni burnt her hand on the electric kettle in school and had to go to the nurse's office in the middle of numeracy hour?" Johnny's curiosity only grew.

"Far worse... nobody got hurt but there was almost nothing left," Phoebe continued, "And granny and granddad are very upset now because that's how they make money... selling and trading things with shop owners and other people who make money the same way that they do"

The boy sat down on the carpet next top him, "Why can't they just sing and play an instrument like daddy... or make movies for the television like mummy?"

Phoebe chuckled a little, setting his pen and the documents down, "Because they might not be very good at any of those things, Johnny"

"How come daddy only pays me when I help around the house? Why can't he pay me for playing the piano?" Johnny mused as he stubbornly folded his arms.

Avoiding having to tell him that he wasn't a very good piano player (yet), Phoebe looked out the window to the pool. His boss Freddie was laying in his small white trunks on the sunbed by the pool, a pair of sunglasses to block out the equatorial sunrays as Roshni was in her neon pink costume with its large bow on the back, running around the deck with an unfamiliar long object in her hands.

He knocked on the glass with warning when he realised that she was playing with the pool cleaner's net, loudly ordering, "Roshni, put that back where you found it!"

The little girl stopped running, turning back around and obeying.

"But why can't daddy pay me for playing piano?" Johnny suddenly grabbed his forearm and shook it, his brows furrowing as he grew impatient.

"I don't know" Phoebe lied.

"Okay," he got onto his feet, "I will ask him then"

"Wait! Don't annoy him!" Phoebe called after Johnny as he slid the glass door open, "He's tired after yesterday, and he's got an upset mummy to deal with!"

But he was already outside, speeding over to his twin sister to join her in another one of the make-believe games she was playing.

With a shake of his head, the man lifted his mug of coffee and took a sip as another interruption sounded, "Sorry Phoebe, was he annoying you? I was in the shower"

He lifted his head as Monica strolled into the space wearing a bathrobe, towel-drying her hair.

"A little," he lifted the papers in his hand for her to see, "But a child's curiosity about fire is endless"

"Oh! Have they got factor 50 suncream on?!" she stopped by the window in concern when she saw her two children running around the pool.

"Don't worry," Phoebe reassured her, "They have their sun hats and shirts in their suitcase for when midday rolls around"

"Good... they might have to wear a shirt swimming like you and I" she giggled as she pulled a chair out.

Like their parsi indian father, Johnny and Roshni tanned into an olive brown colour rather easily, but because of their irish mother they were still prone to sunburn.  Monica went a pale gold if she was lucky and out in the sun often enough.

"How are your folks doing about the fire?" Phoebe watched as she sat down.

"My sister and brother-in-law, and my nephews, are staying with them for the next few days," she shuffled in her seat as she got comfortable, "They've told Lenny not to worry and just focus on his college work"

"Do the police know who did it yet?" he stopped again to listen.

She shook her head as she adjusted her towel robe across her knees, "They think that it may have been a member of the IRA... even if there were witnesses they would've been wearing a balaclava to mask their identity"

"Aaahh... of course," He pushed the coffee pot towards her, "Try it, it's good!"

"Thank you" she gave a small smile as she poured some into a nearby empty cup.

"Have any other security measures been taken out?" he handed her a small aluminium jug of milk.

"I don't know, but from now on there will probably be even more british troops stationed in the part of town I grew up in" she dropped in a brown sugar cube from the ceramic bowl.

"Even more?" he set the documents down to listen.

She nodded as she picked up a teaspoon to stir, "I'd been living in London for about a year when there was a shoot-out at the post office nearest to where I grew up, and the amount of army tanks on the streets increased apparently"

"Blimey! Sounds like when you left for London you took the peace in the area with you" he tried to play on words to lighten the mood.

"I don't know about the peace, I had my fair share of unrest at the time" Monica giggled lighly and sipped her coffee.

"Is that so?" he lifted a napkin to dry his hands, clammy from the tropical heat.

She nodded as she swallowed a gulp, "I was four months pregnant with Johnny and Roshni when mum and dad rang to tell me that it happened," she stared at her lap and crossed her legs as she reminiced, "they told me not to worry, but the way mum's voice wavered in that phone call said enough... I didn't ever hear it waver again until now"

"What will they do then? Will your dad's company buy up another stockroom?"

"I think they might move," she continued, her voice almost breaking, "ever since the violence started to escalate and the city grew unsafe they were always talking about moving out of town when I was growing up," she set her cup down, "but Lenny and I were already settled in high school so I suppose they didn't want to hinder that"

He watched as she ran an anxious hand through her damp, brown waves, "Do they know where they would want to move?"

Monica shrugged, sullenly resting her head on her elbow "Probably the countryside... maybe up to the North Coast where Lenny is studying... They probably can't afford it, but loads of dad's business partners have holiday homes in the seaside towns. I'm sure they will rent them out to him"

"Well, I really do hope that they find something, eh?" he optimistically concluded as he picked the production shedule up again to study it more.

"Me too... goodness knows how helpless I feel here," she looked out the window at the limestone pool deck that Freddie was lounging on as their two children were running around, with the large granite islands in the background caked in lush flora and fauna that rose out of the blue atlantic across the bay, "Here I am in paradise wondering what I ever did to deserve the life that I have been given."

Phoebe chose not to say anything, for he didn't have anything helpful to say, and the distance in her eyes was enough to tell him that she was feeling conflicted. He was never the civilian of a country torn apart by politics, and therefore didn't know what it was like to live in terror, let alone away from home and going to bed wondering if his family were even dead or alive or not. And he knew that his nationality was on one side of the argument where she lived. As for her, a lump formed in her throat and a dreadful ache had settled in her stomach, and it only grew the more she talked about the bad news from home.

"Well, I didn't mean for this coversation to take such a depressing turn," she picked her coffee up again and brought it to her lips, "But I'm glad you asked, it helped me let off some steam"

He smiled, "I'd rather you had a smile on your face than a frown throughout the this trip"

"You already have Freddie for that" she remarked.

"You irish have such a harsh sense of humour, but I agree," he stood back up, documents in hand, "And he will be frowning even more if I don't get this right!"

She chuckled, "I'll leave you to it while I enjoy my first coffee of the day then, deal?"

"Deal." he sounded, nose down in the papers as he paced back and forth.

She wore her new smile as she took another sip from her cup, the invigorating aroma of brazilian beans filling her nostrils.

"Uh oh, this doesn't look good" she heard Phoebe murmur.

"Uh oh, what? Did you forget something on the schedule?" Monica lifted her head to see that he stood frozen at the sliding door, looking out in concern.

In panic, she got up and rushed to his side, following his gaze out to the pool where Johnny and Roshni were now creeping up to their reclining father with something in their hands, both grinning from ear to ear in mischeif.

"What are they holding?" she whispered as they got closer and closer until they were standing by his side.

They were blocking out the sun from where Freddie lay, so she was surprised that he didn't seem to notice. She heard Phoebe hold his breath as they lifted whatever was in their hand above his torso.

In the last second Monica realised that was the family size bottle of suncream, "Oh my god!"

But it was too late.

She watched helplessly as Freddie shot up and threw his aviators off in response to the shock of having the cold white liquid squeezed onto his stomach, erupting a bellowing shriek that was enough to make the birds fly out of the canopies of the amazon rainforest.

"God, Phoebe, I wish I had my camera" Instead of intervening, they laughed and spectated as Freddie growled and flailed his arms towards the squealing pair as they sped away around the sharp pool corner.

But he was too fast and athletic for them, grabbing them and taking them into the water with him as he cannonballed into the deep end.

"I'll go grab some towels" she heard Phoebe mutter behind her as her motherly instinct dragged her out the glass door in a flash.

The three reemerged from below the surface, Freddie chortling in vengance as Johnny and Roshni violently coughed up and splurted chlorinated water. At that moment each smile she saw made her anxt fade ever so slightly.

"Again! Again!" They chimed and splashed.

Monica stopped by the deck and bent down to speak to them, "Since daddy is not busy today, why don't we all go down to the beach later on? And find somewhere for lunch afterwards?"

They cheered, and Freddie hauled them out of the water and back over the edge one by one.

"Oh, those two are as thick as thieves" she thought with laughter, Phoebe running after them with an white fluffy open towel as they darted back indoors, "Wait! Don't run in all over the dry carpet!"

But as they ignored his orders, she turned back to the pool to meet Freddie's figure haloed by the morning sun behind him as he strolled toward her, dripping wet.

"God, she's so damn adorable when her white face squints and smiles in the sunlight like that" he grabbed her by the waist before she could escape.

"Woah, Freddie!! Don't throw me in!" she screeched as he swooped her off her feet with a smirk on his face.

"That's not where I will be throwing you, dearie" he walked away from the pool edge.

She held onto his wet torso as he carried her back indoors, pulling away to look back into his sensual brown eyes that were just too irresistable to say no to.

A kiss was all it took to make her worries disappear... for now.

To be continued...