Jim Beach's office, around 2:30pm

"I don't understand... they were definitely in here before we left the house!"

Phoebe was rummaging through his black leather shoulder bag of Freddie's belongings as he quickly followed his boss down the corridors, looking for the wad of song papers with the lyrics of Freddie and John's new untitled song.

"Don't worry dear, it's too late to fuss about it now," Freddie was looking at signs on the walls that lead to any outdoor space, even if it was out of bounds, "I need to find somewhere for a quick smoke before the meeting starts"

"But you're already late" Phoebe gestured his wrist watch.

Shortly after Monica's friend Paula and her Great Dane left for Dover in their Fiat camper van, Freddie bit the bullet and telephoned Jim Beach to confirm that he wanted to participate in Live Aid after all. And thus a last minute business meeting was arranged with the rest of Queen and none other than the Boomtown Rats' Bob Geldof in attendance.

"I know I'm late, but it'd really calm me down first... as if losing that song wasn't bad enough! What do I tell Deaky?!"

"You never know, he might have the music scribbled down somewhere" Phoebe suggested hopefully.

"It's not necessarily the melody, it is the lyrics I'm worried about...." Freddie's hand instinctively reached into his pocket for his box of cigarettes.

His tastebubs were itching for tobacco at such a stressful thought. He was yet to confront Monica about her secret unborn twin and find his missing song, and with such worries on his mind he didn't know how he was going to sit still in a business meeting for an hour...

Garden Lodge

"You should've told me that the sink was blocked before you tried to fix it yourself, Johnny!" Monica reprimanded her son, trying to shine her small torch down into the blocked plug hole of the kitchen sink.

"But I thought that I could make it go down the drain!" He made the same excuse for what felt like the hundredth time in the space of ten minutes.

Not long after Freddie and Phoebe had left for the Live Aid meeting, Monica found Johnny stretched into the kitchen sink and shoving crumbled up Rich Tea biscuits into the plug hole. Instead of preparing dinner she was bent over with her hair scraped back and sweat building up on her forehead, her arms growing tired as she used all the elbow grease that she had to unclog the pipe with the plunger.

"There was no blockage earlier, I don't understand," getting exasperated, she frantically twisted the taps on in the hopes that more water would force the blockage out of the trap, "I've told you before that if something goes wrong you tell Phoebe or myself, alright? ...Or even dad if we're not there"

"I was only trying to help" Johnny muttered sullenly.

"I know that, love. But you know for next time" she softened her voice as she grabbed the plunger back off of the windowsill.

"Cool, a manipulator arm!" Johnny snatched it from her before she had a chance to use it.

"Johnny, give it back!" She ordered, even though she felt like she was pushing jelly up a hill whenever she used it.

Johnny ignored her demands as he took the clean saucepan off the marble sideboard and put it on his head so that the handle was sticking forward, and poked the plunger in his hands into his mother's side as he robotically repeated, "Exterminate, exterminate!"

"What-Johnny, what are you doing?!" She tried to snatch off of him, but he dodged her again.

"I'm a Dalek," He jabbed her in the side again, "From Doctor Who!"

"Oh... how could I not know that? I'm a '60s child" she gave up as she could feel herself losing her temper and gripped the edge of the sink, taking a deep breath.

She stared at the water level rise and clumps of crumbs and biscuits floating around. All the while Johnny was behind her still messing around with the plunger, making animated gunfire noises and breaking her train of thought, "Exterminate!"

"Mummy's too busy to be exterminated, sweetheart," Monica spoke with difficulty as she lifted the saucepan off of his head, "In fact, this sink is going to need a plan B."

"What's plan C then?" Johnny asked, following her as she headed for the utility room.

"Calling dad's friend Mary to hire a plumber, but you know he doesn't like strangers in his house." Monica switched the light on before taking the plunger out of his hands.

"What are you looking for?" Johnny watched as she bent down at the shelf to pick up the Garden Lodge tool box.

"I'm going to try fix it myself," she gave the shelf a few quick knocks for good luck.

"No! Mum, don't!!" Johnny grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Why?" She raised an eyebrow, growing suspicious, "Is there something that you're hiding from me?"

"Erm..." he hesitated, then answered, "You can't fix it yourself! You don't know how to do it!"

"Oh Johnny, don't be silly," She chuckled, switching the light off, "Your grandad showed me how to loosen a u-bend pipe when I was sixteen years old"

"B-But- What if you can't do it?"

"Well, at least I tried," She bent down to the cupboard under the sink, "Anyway, where is your sister?"

"Trying to train the cats to fetch in the living room" he dawdled behind her.

Monica chuckled at such a thought, "Roshni misses Max already, eh?"

"I already told her that it wouldn't work" he rolled his eyes.

"Well, there's some parcel string in that top drawer. Why don't you tease the cats with her until I get this sink fixed?" Monica pointed to the top drawer next to the fridge.

"Okay." Without protest, Johnny obliged.

"Well, that was easy," she watched him running to the sideboard and grab the scissors to cut a piece of string, "I don't understand that boy sometimes"

When he left the room, she opened the cupboard and peered in. To her relief, the trap of the pipe was screwed on and easy enough to remove.

"But fiddly to put back on afterwards" she thought, lifting the basin beside her and putting it underneath.

Regardless, Monica was determined to unblock the sink on her own before Freddie came home without having to clean up a mess or have an embarrassing telephone call with Mary Austin to send in a plumber last minute. He was already annoyed at her for having Paula and her dog visit only for the dog to ambush him next.

"But it's alright for her, she will be on a boat in the middle of the English Channel by the time I face Freddie's wrath" she told herself as she picked up a small dishcloth for grip, and started unscrewing the bolts.

Once again her thoughts returned to comparing the different directions in life that her and close friend Paula had taken, and she couldn't help but envy her slightly.

"And to think we were inseparable in high school," She thought, gritting her teeth as forced the first bolt loose, "Paula chose education, I chose to leave my life behind...She chose a camper van, I chose a rockstar. She chose a dog, I chose babies. And here she is travelling Europe solo while I'm trying to unblock his dammed kitchen sink!"

One end of the trap came away, and she was able to unscrew the second bolt off with ease as the crumby pulp fell out of the drainage pipe. Once the the trap was freed she tapped it against the plastic basin to empty it, and out flooded more soggy biscuit crumbs and a pulpy white substance.

"Is that... paper?" She thought aloud in puzzlement.

She knew that there was more to Johnny's reasoning for shoving biscuits down the drain; there was visible ink scribbled onto it. It didn't take a detective to work out that the paper had been deliberately ripped up either.

"Johnny must be hiding something," she assumed, pulling on her yellow rubber gloves, "But why on earth would he hide it down the sink?"

Monica scrunched her face up slightly as she started shifting through the mess. She was wondering what it could've been: a note from his teacher, unfinished homework, a complaint of his directed towards Santa or the tooth fairy....

But within a few seconds she didn't recognise it as her son's handwriting, but as somebody else's who she knew was not going to be pleased when he found out.

Ripping her yellow gloves off, Monica shrilly yelled throughout the house, "JOHNNYYYYY?!"

*****

The Rooftop

Freddie shielded the flickering flame of his lighter with his cupped hand as he lit his cigarette, the wind rising as the storm from the north approached. He inhaled the first puff with relief that he'd gotten a few moments to himself before the dreaded meeting. For now he didn't have to worry about Brian and Roger's slight bickering with one another over creative decisions or John's lack of input except for his usual "that's fine by me" or a nod followed by "go ahead". But just as the nicotine started settling into his system his mind started to question what Monica's twin would've been like:

"What if it was another girl?" He pondered, staring across the central London skyline as grey clouds started to gather above it, "Two Monica's, my god... or would it be in-identical to her? Would they be mixed, like our two?"

Then, his mind wandered into dangerous territory:

"Or what if it was a boy... and it looked like Lenny?"

He decided the and there that maybe it was good that Monica didn't have a twin after all and that it wasn't worth asking how such things could've or should've turned out. But that still didn't hold the answer as to why Monica would keep something so relevant to their own lives from him-

"Come up here to hide, have yeh?" A man's voice asked suddenly.

"S-Sorry?" Freddie glanced over his shoulder in surprise, barely hearing the door to the rooftop opening behind him.

He assumed that it was an office clerk, so he didn't bother looking.

"The Live Aid meeting. You've come here to hide from it" The voice repeated, this time with a more prominent Dublin brogue.

"How do you know about that?" Freddie spun around.

Before him stood a familiar but rugged-looking chap wearing a denim shirt and looked like he was in need of a shave and a haircut.

"Bob Geldof," the man stepped forward, "No need to introduce yourself, Mr Mercury"

"Nice to meet you at last," Freddie shook his hand briskly, forcing a smile amidst the pressure, "And to answer your question, I'm not hiding. You see, my fiancé won't let me smoke around our children at home"

"Fiancé, eh? Congrats," Bob was clearly perplexed but interested, "I didn't expect you to be the fatherly type though."

Freddie knew damn well that he was right, but still asked, "How so?"

The Irishman's words toppled out, "I thought you were, well, you know-"

Seeing where the conversation was going, Freddie flatly finished his sentence, "You thought that I was a f*g, didn't you?"

There was an awkward pause. Bob blushed, mouth slightly agape.

"Isn't he going to say something?!" Freddie waited, for this man seemingly had a loose filter like most Irish people he met.

Bob finally spoke with caution, "Well, doesn't everybody think that?"

Freddie retained a stiff upper lip, then let out a throaty laugh as he playfully smacked Bob's arm, "Don't worry, dearie. I like to swing both ways"

Mr Geldof chuckled and put his hands back into his pocket, "Grand.... w-would yer bird be anybody that I'd know then?"

"Monica? No, she isn't in the music business," Freddie put his cigarette to his lips, "You'll probably only know her if you read the tabloids."

"Ah, that bollocks. What about fashion... or T.V?" he listed off.

"Well, television yes. She works for a small production company that makes advertisements, but other than that she's a mother" he stared down at the street below, smoke escaping his lips as he exhaled.

"Anything I've seen?" Bob sat on the wall on the edge of the room, unalarmed by the height he was at.

"Probably not" Freddie lied.

Suddenly, he felt slightly guilty for his response knowing that Monica did value her job and her input to an extent. But he just wanted to go back inside and get this meeting over with.

Bob persisted, "So how did you two meet each other then?"

Freddie discreetly rolled his eyes, but stayed polite as he took one final drag, "Nothing too spectacular. She came with her best friend from Ireland to London to celebrate her-"

"Ireland, eh? She Irish too?" Bob interrupted.

"Northern Irish, actually" Freddie corrected him, hiding his growing agitation.

"The north? What a bloodbath. Can't say I blame her for coming over here then."

Freddie simply nodded, stubbing his cigarette out on the concrete wall and flicking the but over the side. He was about to head back to the rooftop door when he noticed small dark dots appearing on the concrete and felt water droplets hitting his face.

"Looks like rain," Bob stood back up, "We probably better get down to this meeting"

"At last!" Freddie thought, "Aren't you going to have a cigarette?"

Bob shrugged as he fixed his sleeves, "Too late now"

Now that he had met Mr Geldof himself Freddie thought that it'd be worth asking what Queen were getting into, "Care to share some spoilers with the frontman before we go in?"

"Sure. The plan is this: You perform the greatest hits within your slot which is thirty minutes max," Bob opened the door that leading to the stairwell for him, "That way the money will flood in, fingers crossed"

"What about staging?" Freddie hopefully asked.

"Jim [Beach] will tell you, although unfortunately stage visuals and spectacle exceeds the telethon's budget. It is a charity after all" Bob explained.

"Oh, god help us," Freddie muttered, feeling his stomach drop, "Our performance will be a bloody car crash then."

Bob followed quickly behind him, "But it is your stage presence that I want. Ethiopia depends on it."

"Why must he put it that way?" Freddie bit his tongue.

He stopped at the halfway level in the staircase and looked back up at Bob,I don't think you understand Mr Geldof, but our band depends on our image just as much too. Call it shallow if you must, but Queen is outrageous. We're showmen, entertainers just as much as we are musicians."

"And that's why people already love you. And I have a positive feeling that they will love you even more if you do this," Bob caught up with him, "It'll be the biggest event in music history since Woodstock, only it'll be making a real difference"

"No pressure on me then" Freddie snarled before he continued walking towards the elevator on the top floor, hiding his growing smile from such flattery.

Bob hit the button on the wall with the arrow pointing down, "What are you saying? You have it easy enough. I'm gonna have to fly over to Philadelphia right after"

Freddie watched the doors swing open with a deadpan expression, and joked, "I'd get on a plane too if my career was going to end"

The two men shared a laugh before they stepped inside the elevator. Even though Freddie had a lot on his mind he was already feeling slightly better than he did only a few minutes before.

*****

Garden Lodge, around 4:30pm

"Phoebe, look for my song notes in the piano room would you? I may have left them on top of it"

Mr Freestone nodded as he helped his boss step out of his brown leather jacket in the hallway.

Freddie was slightly disappointed when he walked in through the door. He'd hoped for the comforting smell of Monica's cooking wafting from the kitchen after coming home from the meeting at Jim Beach's offices. As pleasant as Mr Geldof was, himself, Brian, Roger and John were not pleased to find out that Queen's performance at Live Aid was to depend solely on their performance and overplayed greatest hits without the lighting effects or stage design that they, Freddie especially, put a great deal of their faith in. But what little faith they had in themselves at that time, for as he put it during the meeting that Queen were "royally fucked"...

Underwhelmed, Freddie strolled into his kitchen where he met the sight of the sink taken apart. Monica was standing looking solemn in the corner next to the dresser with her hands folded together, and Johnny was standing behind the island with his round, deep-set brown eyes peering across the marble surface. The plastic basin was also in an odd place; on the table where they ate their breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"My god, what happened here?" He then turned to Monica and referred to her greasy, frazzled hair, "Darling, you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards"

"Johnny has something to tell you," she brushed off his statement and turned to their son, "Don't you?"

Freddie looked over to the boy hiding shyly behind the counter. He hoped it was something nice, but he highly doubted it judging by the differing expressions on both of their faces.

"Well, are you going to tell him what you did?" Monica crossed her arms, her voice slightly firmer.

Nonetheless, Johnny shook his head as his tightly closed mouth squirmed into a cheeky smile.

"I'll give you a hint" Monica lifted a plastic basin from the kitchen island and placed it on the table, sliding it towards Freddie.

He ignored Johnny's quiet giggling as he peered inside and saw what looked like bits of ripped-up note paper floating around in a fatty pulp.

"Eugh!! Monica why are you showing me bits of dishwater and landfill?!" Freddie wrinkled his strong nose and pushed it away.

She looked at Johnny again, who was still hiding behind the counter smugly.

"The paper has your handwriting, Freddie" Monica let out reluctantly.

Freddie furrowed his brows at the plastic basin in front of him, and his stomach dropped in realisation as he remembered his missing song.

"Oh, god no..." At that second, Freddie stood up in panic and peered closer.

Monica wanted to speak up and intervene, but there was nothing to say. Freddie didn't care about getting his hands dirty as he salvaged what was so far left of his and John's upcoming masterpiece.

His narrowed eyes darted back to his son as he asked him, "Did you do this, Johnny?!"

The only sound in the kitchen was the whirring of the fridge and Johnny's nervous giggling. From the pair of his father's daggers staring him down Johnny could sense that he was in real trouble, but all that he and his sister had to do to get away with it was be their cute selves to win Freddie over again.

"Why would you do such a thing?!" Freddie barked a little more angrily, slamming his hand down which made only Monica jump.

"I did you a favour, dad. You were finding it too hard to write" Johnny stated his cause proudly.

"You do not take people's things without permission, Johnny" Monica firmly told him.

"But it was a very silly song anyway," Johnny said back, smugly staring back at her, "Daddy can make better songs"

With fury splashed across his face, Freddie leapt off the bench and made it for the boy. Johnny squealed and scrambled away.

"Monica, get him!" He ordered, but in a way that was menacing rather than vindictive.

Monica obeyed as they chased Johnny out of the kitchen and into the piano room where Phoebe was already in front of the television with Roshni, trying to coax her off of her games console once again.

Johnny was about to make it for the stepladder to the minstrel gallery, but before Pheobe and Roshni even had time to acquire what was going on Monica swooped him off of his feet.

"Bring him here" Freddie gestured her over coolly.

"No!" Johnny squealed loudly, struggling and squirming in Monica's arms like a fish out of water.

"Okay..." Monica was slightly confused as to what Freddie was going to do to him but nonetheless obliged, ignoring her son's shrieks in her ear.

Freddie sat down on his piano stool in front of his ivory keys as Monica placed Johnny on his lap.

"What's going on?" Phoebe finally mustered.

"Johnny ripped up Freddie's song notes and shoved them down the kitchen sink on purpose" Monica answered him.

"Ahhh, mystery solved then" he gave her a knowing wink.

Once Freddie had gotten Johnny stuck in a seatbelt lock, the boy stopped screaming and kept his mouth shut.

"Now," Freddie began carefully, his strong jaw locked and forehead creased in annoyance, "you lost my song, so you can stay here and help while I write it again. Is that clear?"

"Is that all, Freddie?!" Monica interjected, still annoyed at the time she wasted unblocking the sink.

"Would you rather I used a slipper or a wooden spoon on the boy, Monica?" Was all he said.

Johnny also tried to protest, "But dad-"

"No buts! You are sitting here at the piano with me until every note and lyric is accounted for, is that understood?" Freddie's tone became a little more forceful.

"It'll be fun, Johnny," Phoebe whispered encouragingly, "You enjoy playing piano"

"But how am I supposed to play my games if they're playing music in the background?" Roshni pointed to her beloved Atari at the television set.

"You have a nice voice, you can sing with them instead" Monica told her.

Roshni hesitated, then nodded and joined her father at the piano.

"Now that that's cleared up, I better put the sink back together and start cooking." Monica put her hand to her mouth, feeling a yawn coming along.

Sensing that she was too tired to either of those things, Phoebe suggested, "I could do that for you and we could order a take-away together instead"

"That sounds like a better idea, thanks Phoebe," she ran a hand through her messy chocolate waves as the twins both cheered at his idea, "I ought to take a quick nap and a shower."

She walked out of the piano room, and Freddie smirked and laid Johnny across his lap so that he could tickle him and wickedly tell him, "You're not going anywhere !"

Monica heard Johnny's squeals of laughter behind her as her feet dragged her tired body across the hall and onto the staircase, wondering how her son was going to be able to sit through a song if he couldn't even sit through a game of Scrabble.

To be continued...

Sorry that this update was underwhelming everybody. It was initially meant to be longer but you will find the rest of it in Pt 4 which will be finished soon. All the best and stay safe :)