This chapter touches upon a delicate topic and contains some graphic content that some readers may find upsetting. There are resources available in the previous update for those who may need them.

Brompton Public Library, sometime in February, 1986

"I'm sorry, but you have lost the baby"

It had already been one month today, and the doctor's words still replayed in Monica's head. 

It didn't matter where she was or what she was doing, for the intrusive flashbacks from that long night and day would not leave.

In an attempt to take her mind off of it, Monica lifted her head from the pile of different university prospectuses in front of her and looked over to Johnny and Roshni. 

They were both sitting at the group study table nearby, silently and obediently doing their homework without a care in the world.

"Good," she thought, "They're distracted".

As long as her children could not see what she was looking at then that was fine. But that didn't matter, for none of the information that she was looking at was going in properly today anyway. 

With a sigh of defeat, Monica quietly stood up and gathered the pile of prospectuses in front of her neatly, and went to put them back in the careers guidance file cabinets. In the past week she developed a habit of attending local libraries, taking the twins with her after school, in order to look up information on further education courses related to media or the arts of any kind that she was able to find. After all, it was the only experience that she had developed since she left high school and moved to London on a whim. 

There were just too many types of courses available; long-term ones, short-term ones, finer art ones, academic ones, industry-heavy ones... but Monica wasn't going to give up easily. After all, her job was currently unstable and she was close to being made redundant. Margaret Thatcher's regime hadn't been too kind to her boss Theo's production company, or towards British arts and culture in general; her colleagues were dropping like flies in search of work elsewhere, and so Monica was going to need a back-up plan for the future. Besides, her friend Paula was the one her encouraged her to finally get a university degree when she visited last summer.

But deep down, Monica hoped that taking Paula's advice about developing herself would help her move on from the heartbreak and grief that the miscarriage caused her. Every day was getting to be a constant reminder of her baby that was never to be and how her body failed her.

When she got back to her table her daughter was standing by her empty seat, pen and paper in hand.

"What do you want, love?" Monica whispered as she sat down beside her.

Roshni handed her her numeracy exercise sheet, "Can you please help me solve problem number seven?" 

Monica read the exercise brief at the top of the page. All of the sums had a missing number that equaled a value, and the task was to calculate the missing number. In this case, the sum was 4 + 5 + ? = 20.

Monica asked, "Right, what does four plus five equals?"

"...Nine?" Roshni answered hesitantly.

She nodded, "...And to find the missing value here, what do you do next?"

The girl looked at the page, completely lost. 

She encouraged her daughter, voice hushed, "Well, what do you do with the twenty?"

"Take nine away from it!" Roshni said aloud.

"Very good!" Monica gestured her to be quiet, handing the sheet back to her, "What next?"

The girl counted in her head, and quickly wrote the answer down onto the sheet, "Thanks, mum."

"Odd. Roshni is normally the one that is good at maths" Monica thought as her daughter went back to her seat. 

Johnny, on the other hand, was doing better in school than ever before. Ever since the miscarriage happened he was working harder in class and catching up with his sister. It was almost as if the boy feared that his grieving parents would not notice or forget about him if he wasn't the best child that he could be.

She looked at the clock, which read four. 

"I will have to start making dinner by the time we walk back," she stood up, and quietly spoke, "Alright you two, time to pack up your things"

"But I am almost finished!" Roshni complained.

"You can finish it when you get home, now put it in your book bag and get your coat on" Monica ordered, this time a little more firmly.

"Are we getting a taxi?" Johnny asked.

"No, we're walking. I need to get to the shops before they close." she explained to him, internally thinking, "If only..."

"Why can't Phoebe get them?" Johnny asked again as she helped him loop his arm into the second strap of his colour-block school backpack.

"Because he's in the studio with your father practically all day every day now" she sighed, for it was the truth after all, "Now are we ready?"

The librarian at the desk shushed her across the room.

"Alright, the sooner we get out of here the better" Monica whispered, taking them both by the hand.

She walked them down the stairs and out the glass slider doors and onto the old Brompton road, returning to what felt like the same dreary cycle that she had been stuck in the past few weeks. Suddenly, the three of them were hit by a gust of cold wind.

"My hat!" Johnny's favourite denim cap immediately blew off of his head and onto the pavement ahead.

"I'll help you get it" Roshni chased after him.

"Don't go too far ahead!" Monica called after them both, trusting them enough to not run out onto the road.

A kind woman up ahead with a baby pram that was passing by in the opposite direction carefully bent down and picked it up for them both.

"Thank you!" Johnny smiled when she handed him his hat back.

Monica nodded at her in acknowledgement as she passed by, concealing the same pain and envy that she often did whenever she saw new mothers in public, especially in front of Roger's partner Dominique who was almost 6 months pregnant with their second child.

"I should've been showing by now... maybe I could've felt the baby kicking as well" she thought sadly, wincing as the chilly wind blew against her face.

"Mum?" Roshni joined her back by her side, playing hopscotch on the paving stones.

"Yes" Monica acknowledged her.

"Why are you taking us to the library after school if we can do our homework at home?" 

She shrugged and excused, "You see, the library has more books that we don't have at home, and-"

"But it's called homework for a reason," Johnny interrupted, "We are supposed to do it at home!"

His mother changed the subject with a slight smirk, "Well you don't even like doing your homework anyway, mister smarty pants"

Johnny scoffed in defeat, and skipped ahead.

Monica daren't tell anybody, not even Freddie, about her sudden ambition to finally go to university. She knew that he would be insistent about financially contributing towards her tuition fees when she was really determined to have some independence from him and somewhat prove to herself that she was braver and stronger than before in spite of everything that the last month had spat out at her.

"What would he care anyway? He didn't even shed a single tear over the baby," she thought with anguish and bitterness yet again as the three of them turned around the corner and onto the Earl's Court Road, "Yet he was the one who pushed to have another child in the first place!"

After all, the way Freddie grieved their loss was, if at all, puzzling and devastating to her. As soon as she was discharged from hospital a few days after he immersed himself in his work, flying to Switzerland one minute and then to Munich the next to record the new album with the band. And whenever he was recording in London, like he was currently, he was getting up to go to the studio at 7am every day before he even got to say goodbye to his children and coming home at 11pm, all the while carrying on as though the miscarriage never even happened or as if the baby never even existed. 

Needless to say, Monica was longing for some form of acknowledgement of the loss, for she felt that there was an unstable wedge growing between her and him that was going to collapse on top of them at any second if either of them didn't confront the reality of the situation-

"Mum, look!" her children both squealed.

They broke away from her and ran to the front of the street's pet shop a few meters ahead. Johnny and Roshni both pressed their face against the window, cooing at two kittens in a cage behind the glass.

Freddie hadn't gotten a new cat in a few years, so she didn't blame them for getting overexcited at such a sight. She watched as they mewed their fluffy heads off at the twins; both of them were calico, but one of them was a white and ginger mix whilst the other one had darker brown colouring.

"Come on now, you two," Monica giggled uneasily, trying to tug them away, "We need to go"

They both begged, gushing, "Can't we take them home? Please?!"

"We can't take them home, they'll miss their mum," she dragged them away from the window gently, "Now come along"

"They don't have a mum, ma'am," the old man shopkeeper interjected, standing at the door way with his hands in his tweed jacket pockets, "They're rescues"

"They are?" Monica looked at them both again.

"Oh yes, brother and sister from the same litter, they are... twins, in fact, you could say! 'Ave had their vet checks and everything"

Oh, how Johnny and Roshni were already in love with the two kittens, and they were both begging to have pets of their own for months. Besides, Monica felt as though they had both been well-behaved this past month and deserved a treat, and that Freddie might take interest in spending time with his children at last...

*****

Freddie Mercury had so many reasons to be happy in front of him, but they failed him.

 Live Aid had been a blessing for Queen, and the Sun City dilemma of yesteryear felt like a bad dream. The band were working on their new album, the songs of which was also going to be included in the soundtrack for an upcoming blockbuster named Highlander. Additionally, Freddie's solo career was enjoying a new high. He filmed a music video for one of his debut album's tracks on his birthday, and then Bob Geldof's Fashion Aid. The sight of him strutting down a runway in a regency-style Uniform with the beautiful actress and model Jane Seymour who wore a lavish wedding dress was enough to make Monica envious, for she was waiting to be wed to her fiancee.

Then, soon enough after a turn of events they were going to be far too occupied to plan a wedding. He was in such a good mood after Live Aid that he kept his words to Monica, and they decided to remain open about trying for a baby. She got off the pill not long after, and as they hoped, one day in October she learned that she was expecting.

Everyone was excited, even Monica's own parents. Roshni was looking forward to having a little baby brother or sister, meanwhile Johnny eventually warmed up to the idea. It was all rosy until one cold night in mid January when Monica decided to go to bed early thinking that she was suffering from indigestion, but it was too late.   

Freddie was finding it hard to believe everything that had happened to him before the miscarriage. Even one month later when sitting in a black London cab on his way home after another unproductive day at the studio, Monica's panicked and tearful voice still echoed in his mind, "I-I don't know what's happening... why is there so much blood!?!"

Peter 'Phoebe Freestone peered at his boss sitting behind his seat and staring numbly out the car window, as always. 

"We should be home soon..." he cautiously said to break the deathly silence, "I'm sure Monica has made you something nice"

"Mhmm," Freddie noised, then half-heartedly replied, "I'm not hungry anyway... I feel more like a cup of tea and a cigarette when I get in through the door"

"As you wish" his assistant hesitantly granted.

Phoebe felt both pity for Freddie, yet disapproved his actions towards his family. And he thought that every day at the studio in one place or another was all for naught. What was the point of going into work if his boss wasn't motivated enough to write anything new except go over the tracks he wrote months ago when he could've been spend a little time off with his family in order to confront the reality that he was in? Monica was distraught, and Phoebe only knew that his own support towards her could go so far.

"Just here, yeah?" the taxi driver spoke up the moment he pulled into Logan Place.

"Yes, just at the top of the road please" Phoebe informed him.

"Oh god, now we are back to walking on eggshells" Freddie thought with dread.

The true reasoning behind Freddie's overworking for as long as he could was because watching Monica suffer alongside his own memories of the miscarriage felt like torture. He longed to talk about it with her, but he didn't want to approach it for fear of making himself or her cry floods of tears all over again. 

"The lights are still on in the piano room" his assistant remarked as they walked up the path from the front gate into the house.

On the other hand, Freddie refused to let his family see him shed a tear. The last time that he remembered crying in front of his children was when he screamed at Roshni for accidentally smashing one of his antique vases. And ever since then he associated crying with vulnerability, and vulnerability as a sign of failure.

But when he walked into the kitchen in Garden Lodge at around 10pm that night he had very little to cry about, for he walked into a sight that he would least expect.

Johnny and Roshni were both sitting on the bare kitchen floor in their pyjamas, giggling and delightfully playing with a pair of one-month-old kittens that Freddie had never seen before in his life, with small cat toys scattered across the black and white chequered floor.

"Why are you two still up?!" Phoebe asked in bewilderment in the doorway, "It is way past your bedtime!"

"Pheebs, look what mum bought us after school!" Roshni answered excitedly, picking the ginger calico one up to show him.

Johnny followed, "The one with the brown ears is called Leia Skywalker and the other is called Luke"

"Yeah, from Star Wars!" His sister added.

Without greeting his two children, a dumbfounded Freddie furrowed his brows and silently took a lonely seat at the table and watched as Luke and Leia Skywalker both pounced and scrambled and even tumbled over across his kitchen whilst his children both played with them. 

He was so engrossed at such a sweet, innocent sight that he barely noticed the footsteps approaching.

"Oh good! You're home..." Monica appeared at the doorway into the piano room, wearing her kimono-like dressing gown and holding an almost empty glass of brandy in her hand. 

Phoebe looked at her up and down perplexed as she slouched against the sideboard and downed the last drop of alcohol without greeting Freddie, who was still vacantly staring at his children endlessly teasing the kittens.

 "There's some leftover macaroni cheese and Cumberland sausages for you in the oven." she bent down to switch it on.

"What am I, a toddler?" Freddie thought in repulsion.

"So, the kittens... Where did you buy them?" Phoebe asked her.

"At that pet shop on Earls Court road, the one we never really go into" she burped a little, and almost slurred as she lifted a few plates out of the drawer.

He continued to ask, "And did the other cats get along with them?"

"Well, Oscar and Golly had a literal hissing fit... but Tom and Tiffany weren't interested," she laid two plates onto the table, "Will you be having any, Phoebe?"

"Oh, no thanks. I will head home soon, provided that Fred doesn't need anything else" he went to put the kettle on to make his boss's cup of tea, as promised.

Monica was thankful that there was at least some alcohol in her system, for it made the rest of the night as well as being in the same room as Freddie much more bearable. 

She looked over and quietly watched as Johnny threw a stray ball that rolled under the kitchen table. Luke sped after it, and went in between and around Freddie's legs whilst his sister Leia followed. 

Then slowly, he bent down to pick one of them up gently into his large hands.

"At least cats stay small and cute forever," Freddie thought, nuzzling the kitten as it mewed loudly, "Unlike children... my god, why did Johnny and Roshni's baby phase have to be so messy and hard?"

He reached down to also pick up the other one, and he held both kittens close up against his brown leather jacket as they started to contently purr.

And for the first time in days, Monica finally saw him smile.

"DaaaAAAd?!" the twins both whined, "Stop hogging them, they're ours! You have your own cats!"

Freddie ignored his children whilst Phoebe interjected, "Now now, you two. It's nice to share your things with others"

"I'll be getting ready for bed upstairs," Monica flatly interjected, wiping the corners of her mouth, "You two should go up soon and brush your teeth. It's a school night."

She made herself scarce as Johnny and Roshni groaned again. 

"Come on, listen to your mum and say goodnight to Luke and Leia. You'll see them again tomorrow" Monica heard Phoebe encourage them as she went into the dark hallway, followed by their little voices as they both obliged.

She climbed up the mahogany staircase in the dark, feeling utterly disheartened. Seeing Freddie smile in so long should've made her smile as well, but it hurt as much as the context did. It hurt that he was so distant and didn't even speak a word to her or their children, yet he was willing to pour love into two animals that weren't going to give him any love in return.

As Luke and Leia mewed loudly in his hands Freddie felt a little disappointed at Monica's sudden departure upstairs without giving him a good evening kiss like she always did when he got home, let alone even making eye contact. Yet as the same time it was almost as if he did not recognise her anymore. He was the one who often spoiled the twins on impulse, not her. 

"And since when did she start drinking before bed?" He stood up gently, handing the kittens back to Phoebe gently, "Well, now I know why my bottle of brandy in the liquor cabinet was disappearing ever so quickly"

A carefree Johnny and Roshni scrambled ahead of him and up the steps; at least they didn't have to go through the pain of losing the baby as hard as he and Monica did... or so Freddie thought. 

When he did find Monica in the master en-suite bathroom she was hunched in front of the bathroom mirror, aggressively brushing her teeth whilst her other hand tensely gripped the sink. 

She paused momentarily when he stepped into the room.

They gazed at each other in the reflection of the mirror for a few seconds, then she broke away and continued to scrub her back molars. 

Freddie leaned against the bathroom doorway and stared at her figure from behind. Oh, how he when Monica's wavy brown hair was longer past her shoulders, like it was in the old days. Why did she have to cut it short?  And how he wanted to slip his hands around her waist from behind and start slowly kissing her elegant neck...

"But you know it'll be the same old routine," he doubted, "She will sink into your arms and you'll carry on the silent chore of making love to her... besides, she looks far too on-edge to be approached right now"

She happened to be standing next to the very spot where he had found her only one month before in the middle of the night collapsed on the en suite bathroom floor with a pool of blood in between her legs, her stained hand outstretched towards him as she tearfully pleaded for him to call an ambulance. The scene was enough to shake him out of his sleep and into a real-life nightmare again.

He winced and shivered slightly in response to the vividness of such a memory, scolding himself, "There you go again hurting yourself, you damn fool!"

Freddie finally stepped into the room, unzipped his jacket, and cautiously began, "Interesting namesake".

"Mmmph?" Monica grunted, despite feeling the hairs on her arms prick up suddenly whenever he'd speak to her.

"The kittens" he said.

"Oh,  yeah," she took her toothbrush out of her mouth, spat into the sink and explained more clearly, "That was Johnny's idea." 

"It was, was it?" he gave her a side glance as he walked back into the bedroom to hang his jacket up.

She nodded, staring at her reflection as she raised her voice a little loud enough for him to hear, "The worker at the shelter told us that they were rescued from a hoarder's flat when they were just a day old..." she paused to give a half-suppressed laugh as she stared at her feet, "Apparently their dad was an aggressive black tomcat that killed their mother. Tragic really, I shouldn't be laughing, but Johnny decided that he was a bit like Darth Vader because of what he did."

"Really? Well, that certainly is one of our son's more cleverer ideas" Freddie nervously jibed when he returned and sat down on the toilet seat, watching as she filled the glass at the sink with water.

Monica stopped, and asked cooly, "What's that supposed to mean?" 

His face fell slightly. 

"Let's face it darling," he nonchalantly stated, "Johnny wasn't always the brightest bulb in the chandelier, was he?" 

Monica couldn't believe what she was hearing. 

She slammed the glass onto the marble counter and turned to face him, refusing to flinch under his brown-eyed gaze as she began, "If you paid attention to them both for one second... if you even cared, then you'd see that he's working harder in school lately"  

"What makes you think that I don't care about them?!" He too also grew firm as he stood back up.

"Even the teacher says he's doing better!" Monica's voice wavered with hurt, saying what she had wanted to say for ages, "But you wouldn't know, you don't even bother to look at their school reports anymore. Ever since I came out of the hospital you've been in and out of-"

"Can we not talk about this?!" Freddie suddenly snapped, for he knew where the argument was going to lead . 

They both heard tumbling sound coming from their bedroom, near the doorway. 

Freddie sighed, "Show yourself, whoever you are"

Johnny and Roshni crept out of the darkness and into their parent's en suite bathroom.

"How long have you two been hiding there?" Monica asked, growing a little flustered.

"Since dad called me a not very bright bulb" Johnny pouted, and Freddie looked at his feet remorsefully.

Roshni then asked her mother, "Are you arguing about us?"

"No no," Monica lied as she tightened the turquoise silk sash around her waist, "Now out you go..."

Freddie watched as the two of them reluctantly went out the bathroom door. Monica paused to lift the laundry basket that had toppled over by the doorway. 

As Freddie approached she turned to him and firmly whispered, trying to ignore the growing lump in her throat, "You underestimate them, Fred... you underestimate the both of them"

He stood there aghast as she turned her back to him. 

She didn't mean it, did she? Who paid for Johnny's piano lessons, or rewarded Roshni being at the top of her class with a games console? 

But Freddie couldn't come up with any more ways. Monica must've been right.

Slightly ashamed, he lagged behind the three of them as they went down the dark corridor. 

"Can we bring Luke and Leia in for Show And Tell on Friday?" he heard their daughter ask.

Monica chuckled in the dark, "Don't be silly, they might escape or get lost"

"But everyone will think that they're so cool!" Johnny pleaded as they reached their bedroom door.

"And my answer is still no" Monica said a little more sternly as she switched their light on.

Freddie didn't know if it was the mess of their toys strewn across their hardwood floor or the yellow-striped wallpaper, but he felt as though Johnny and Roshni had both outgrown their bedroom and that soon enough one of them was going to have to move out.

"I suppose that one of them is going to have to take the spare room across the hall... the one that was supposed to be the baby's nursery" he thought sadly.

He watched as Johnny shuffled over to his unmade bed on the other side of their bedroom and sat on his mattress. He knew that he'd upset his son just by the way that the boy had hung his head sullenly, as he always did.

"Mum, you know when I asked you to help me with my maths homework earlier?" Roshni asked suddenly as she climbed onto her mattress.

"W-Why yes, I do," Monica hesitantly sat on the edge of her bed, holding back her covers for her, "Why do you ask?"

Roshni confessed, "Well, I lied about not understanding it... I didn't need any help with it at all."

"Oh sweetheart, why would you lie about that?" her mother had slight disappointment in her tone.

She shyly admitted, "I thought that you would notice if I was doing bad at maths because everybody says that I am good at it"

"Of course I noticed," Monica intently ran her fingers through her daughter's black curls, "Why wouldn't I?"

Roshni shrugged, and stared vacantly into space as she didn't answer. 

But Monica knew the exact reason; the girl was afraid of being forgotten and abandoned just as much as her twin brother was as well.

"Well, you don't fool us that easily, baby..." Freddie appeared by Roshni's bedside, and pinched her cheek gently with a smirk before tucking her duvet up to her chin. 

Of course, Monica felt that it was all keeping up appearances. 

"Yes, you've both been very good children this past month" she added, and leaned down to kiss Johnny on the forehead so that he too felt included.

Freddie also approached their son's bed, to which the boy pulled his Thunderbirds print duvet up to his face and rolled away from his father to face the bedroom wall.

"Great, now I feel even more like crap" Freddie thought, but respected his space.

He made a swift exit from the bedroom then, brushing past Monica.

She tried not to take notice, and went to the windowsill to lift down their music box from their Granny Jer that played their father's song You Take My Breath Away in the hopes that'd help them settle down and go to sleep.

But when started winding it up gently one of them tiredly protested against it, "We're too old for it mum" 

"Okay... what about a bedtime story?"

"We can read on our own now, we're seven!" Johnny said proudly.

His sister followed, "Yeah, we're not babies anymore" 

Those words, and the way that Roshni said them, had hurt her. 

"Alright then..." Monica placed the music box back on the windowsill gently and gestured her wristwatch, "Lights out in fifteen minutes, alright?"

The twins both nodded. Only a couple of notes of the song's chorus twinkled from the box, but its sound and significance combined with the fact that her children were growing up so fast was still enough to make her heart ache. It was bad enough feeling like everybody in her family was shutting doors in her face.

Freddie was waiting for her at the top of the staircase, looking almost as if he didn't know what to do with himself. He looked over his shoulder when he heard her gently close their bedroom door after.

She turned around, and started heading back to their master bedroom.

"Is that it?" Freddie thought, watching her, "You're not going to let the sun set on another bloody awful day, are you?"

He blurted out involuntarily, "Darling, I'm sorry"

Monica stopped walking, but didn't turn to face him. 

"...I'm sorry too, Freddie." was all that she said back.

Freddie knew that she really meant for the situation that they were both stuck in. 

They both stood silently for several seconds, parallel from one another.

He uttered, "Why did it have to happen to us?" 

"...I know." Monica numbly replied, looking over her shoulder.

Her blue eyes were kind, but the rest of her sobered up face was saddened, as was his. 

"Don't forget," She calmly reminded him, "Your dinner is in the oven"

She continued treading back down the corridor, and he waited until he heard her shut the slider doors after herself. 

"Good for you, you made it through the day without crying" Freddie congratulated himself with a slow sense of relief.

He trudged downstairs to the macaroni dinner waiting for him in the kitchen, thankful that at least Monica's cooking was warm and comforting... even if she wasn't anymore. 

And although he felt as though they were further apart than ever before, at that difficult moment in time the two lovers were actually much closer to each other than they thought...