Notting Hill, around 8:30pm

"Auntie Paula?"

Roshni cautiously pushed the door open into her caregiver's bedroom, and peered inside.

There was no sign of light, nor the sound of snoring.

"You know you shouldn't poke around other people's houses, it's rude!" She heard her mother's voice scold her.

Roshni then looked across corridor behind her. The front door was ajar.

"I better close it, otherwise Auntie Paula and I will get cold in the night" she thought, treading over to it quietly and carefully as cold draft that was blowing in nipped her toes.

But through the crack, the little girl saw none other than Paula McIntyre herself, sitting outside in her red silk night robe on the damp concrete basement under the outdoor light above the door step as she puffed on a cigarette.

The girl made herself known, "Auntie Paula?"

"Ahh, bugger!" Paula flinched, looking around for a plant pot or dish, "You caught me, eh?"

The little girl stepped out the door in nothing but her pyjamas and bare feet, "My teachers at school say smoking is bad for you."

"I know, they're right..." Paula frantically stubbed her cigarette out on the wall beside her, "Can't sleep?"

Roshni shrugged, and went over to sit on the gap beside her.

"I bet I know what it is! You're full of beans because we're going to the zoo tomorrow, aren't you?" Paula excitedly suggested.

Roshni hesitated for a second, and nodded, "It's a shame Johnny can't come tomorrow. He'd love to visit the reptile house."

Paula then asked, "What's Johnny's favourite reptile?"

Roshni pondered for a moment, and replied with a smirk, "Dinosaurs."

"Well, perhaps we should go to the Natural History Museum and see Dippy instead!" Paula joked with a cackle.

"Maybe it's good that Dinosaurs are extinct, otherwise they'd all be locked up in zoos nowadays and the carnivorous ones would eat all the other zoo animals," Roshni trailed off as she imaginatively pondered, "I wouldn't like to be locked up in captivity, would you?"

"I don't think anyone likes being locked up." Paula agreed.

"I bet that's how Johnny feels right now, being trapped in a small dark space where nobody can hear him scream. I know what that feels like."

The woman's brows furrowed, "You do?"

Roshni explained to her, "I got locked in a coal shed by some mean older girls at one of our old schools."

"Holy fuck! Kids are so cruel nowadays..." Paula thought, holding her tongue.

Instead, she said, "If I'd known that then I wouldn't have put you in my living room. It must be like a box in there!"

As ever, Roshni was looking on the bright side, "Not really. At least Max is in there beside me."

"Poor wee girl never complains, even when she is sleeping on a sofa." Paula thought pitifully.

"Max must be a smelly, loud snorer though." She jeered.

"It's no different to sleeping in a dormitory with ten other girls," Roshni told her, "There's a German girl called Irma Grüber in the bunk above me, and she farts in the night because her mum secretly sends her canned Bavarian sausages behind dinner lady O'Malley's back."

Paula's face scrunched in the dark, "At least you won't have to sleep below Irma Grüber for a while, eh?"

Roshni didn't reply. Instead she stretched forward and pretended to play with her toes, fidgeting in the same familiar manner that almost all of Paula's child clients at work did when they wanted to talk about something, but didn't know how or where to begin.

"Alright, what's bugging you pet? Are you worried about mum's operation tomorrow?"

"A little bit, but I'm worried you'll tell mum what I told you earlier at the hospital."

"About what?"

"...About missing dad and all." Roshni anxiously told her.

Paula slung her arm around the child's shoulders, "Don't worry. That's between you and me."

"She says it's bad to keep secrets and tell lies to friends."

"Well, not my secret, is it? It's yours," She affectionately tucked a black curl behind Roshni's ear, "And anyway, your mum and I have been friends and kept secrets from our own parents together long before you were born. She'll understand if I don't tell her."

"How long have you been friends for?" Roshni asked, interested.

Paula answered uncertainly, "Since we were about eleven I think, on our first day ever of big school at home in Belfast."

"What was she like when she was a girl? Did she like maths, like me?"

"Well, not really. Her and I both enjoyed going to art class," Paula fondly reminisced, "Your mum wasn't the strongest at it though. Mo always got Bs, I got As... but she still enjoyed being creative in some way or another. Her and I even ran Art club for the younger kids every Wednesday after school."

"An art club?"

"Mmhm. I came up with themes and fun ideas for projects each week, but it was your mum who came up with the structure for each term and kept the whole thing together. She even took photographs each week on her polaroid to advertise it in the school magazine. She's good at organising, you know."

"Did she look like me? I have one photo of her in my room when she was six... or at least, I used to have it" the girl said with slight sadness.

"Oh yes, only your hair is darker and curlier than hers. And you probably get a killer tan in the summer."

"True," Roshni giggled, "Mummy always turns pink if she's out in the sun for too long."

Paula then nostalgically told her, "I was there when she met your dad for the first time actually."

"You were?"

"Yep. We went to London on a trip at the end of our exams, and for my birthday we went to a disco. That's where he saw your mum sitting across the dance floor."

"I know, mum told me that's were they fell in love... do you think they'll ever see each other again?" Roshni asked longingly.

Paula didn't want to instil false hopes into a child, but didn't want to lie to one either.

So she told her, "It all depends on how Johnny's kidney transplant goes first, but I think they will."

She felt Roshni silently and limply lean against her side.

The woman warned her, "Don't get too comfortable, you! Otherwise your mum will be cross with the both of us if I'm not sending you to bed on time."

"Okay," The girl reluctantly stood up again, speaking through a yawn, "Night, Auntie Paula."

"Nighty night, pet. You want me to make you up a hottie?" She offered.

Roshni stopped at the door, "A what?"

"Oh, it's slang for a hot water bottle." Paula explained.

"No thanks. You've got funny words for things sometimes." the girl let out a gentle giggle.

Just as Roshni walked back indoors, Paula felt a fat, wet drop of water hitting her hand, followed by another.

Soon the whole step she sat on was getting covered in dark droplets, following the tiptap sound of them falling onto the leaves of her evergreen potted shrubs, thus giving her a sign to duck back inside for cover and lock the door as the heavens above opened...

Garden Lodge, Logan Place

"That'll be seven pounds, love" the driver gruffly told his passenger from the driver seat.

Kashmira Cooke grabbed a ten pound bank note from her coin purse, not even bothering to tell him to keep the change as she untied her umbrella and opened it outside the door into the bucketing London precipitation.

"Ugh, I hate London rain!" She thought as she stepped out onto the lamplit pavement, dragging her overnight bag off the seat beside her before slamming the door shut. 

The taxi sped away into the night, leaving her standing on the pavement. Across the road was the entrance into her older brother's property that was fronted by a green door with white plastic letters spelling out 'Garden Lodge' stuck onto it.

Kashmira stretched and balanced onto the tips of her toes to peer above the tall brick wall and into the property behind it, and the lamp sitting in the window of the master bedroom on the top floor was switched on, casting its warm glow into the dusky evening.

"So he is home after all!" She thought, crossing the road.

She pressed the intercom button by the green gate, her other sweaty hand gripping tightly onto the handle of her umbrella.

"For goodness sake!" Kashmira cursed the cold and wet as she waited for a response.

She pressed the button again, this time more firmly and impatiently. No matter how long she'd been living in England, or how accustomed she'd become to the climate, she'd never liked Great British downpours.

"Hello, Garden Lodge?" A man's voice crackled through the speakers.

"Hello, this is Kashmira Cooke! Mr Mercury knows who I am, I'm his sister." She practically shouted into the microphone over the rain.

"Kash?" The man on the other end spoke.

"Who is this?" She asked, surprised that the person knew of her informal nickname.

"It's Peter Freestone, Freddie's assistant."

"Phoebe? Fred told us over Christmas that you had resigned." She uttered confusedly.

"Why are you here, Kash?" He changed the subject.

"Because I'm his sister!" Kashmira answered, frustration in her tone.

"Didn't you and your husband get the fax I sent out to everyone? You know you weren't supposed to come." Phoebe said awkwardly.

"Come on, can't you just let me in?!" She begged across him, "Our mum and dad begged me to come here in the cold and wet to talk some sense into Freddie! Do you know how much a single train fare from Yorkshire costs nowadays?"

Phoebe sighed on the other end.

"Listen Kashmira, I really don't want to turn you away," he told her earnestly, "But a lot has happened to Freddie this week and he wants space, even if it isn't what he needs. I can put you up in a nearby hotel for your trouble, and I'll tell him you dropped by."

At this point Kash's heavy overnight bag starting to strain her shoulder and her index finger holding down the intercom button was growing stiff, and the rain was blowing below the shelter of her umbrella and into her face.

Defeated, she told him, "If you can't let me in then at least confirm to me what hospital my nephew is in so that I can visit him."

Before Mr Freestone could respond, a familiar and annoyed voice crackled through the speaker:

"Who are you talking to, Phoebe? I thought we agreed on no bloody guests or engaging in phone calls!"

After the sound cut off, Kashmira had her chance.

She firmly pressed the button again, "Hi, Farrokh, it's me."

There was a pause on the other end.

"Good God, Kash!" Freddie exclaimed, "What the hell are you doing out in the rain?"

"Swimming with the ducks, what else?" she wanted to say as she heard Phoebe quietly ask his boss, "Should I let her in?"

"She's my sister, of course you should let her in!" Her brother ordered in the background.

There was the mitigating sound of the buzzer, followed by the glorious metallic click of the lock on the gate undoing itself.

Kashmira pushed it open and let it slam shut behind her, scuttling up the wet stone-paved pathway on the lawn of the garden.

The wooden front door opened, and Phoebe stood waiting in the lowly lit hall.

As Kash stepped in and shook the water droplets off of her umbrella, she saw a yellowing bruise around Mr Freestone's eye and that his nose was bandaged.

"He must've been involved in the accident too" she mistakingly assumed.

"Sorry about all that back there," he apologised as he shut the door, and quietly told her, "I know it doesn't seem like it but I do appreciate you coming all the way down here, really."

"Don't mention it, I know how stubborn my brother can be," Kash lowered her damp bag onto the wooden floorboards, "I hope I wasn't interrupting you when I rang the doorbell."

"Just organising the upstairs office. Freddie fired Mary and I've had twice more admin to do until he employs someone else to do his accounts, on top of everything else." Phoebe giggled awkwardly.

"He fired Mary? Why?"

"I only know half the story. But it's all over now and that's what matters," Phoebe then offered, "Can I take your coat?"

"Please!" Kash started to unbutton her dripping wet anorak, and asked, "So, where's everybody else then?"

"Oh, well, erm..." Phoebe fumbled for answers, but was saved by the sound of footsteps treading gently down the stairs.

A kimono-clad Freddie stood at the halfway level of the staircase, having just gotten out of his evening bath when she'd called the intercom from the outside gate, with one or two of his cats chirruping around his bare ankles.

His face softened when he saw his sister shivering slightly, rain-soaked wisps of her raven black hair surrounding her face.

"There's a fire lit in the piano room," he told her, "Why don't we go in there?"

Kash muttered them both word of thanks, walking into the grand space with the tall windows and the mezzanine up above.

The room was warm and cosy with the curtains closed and a glow from the fireplace, and more of her brother's cats sleeping on almost every bit of furniture that it was hard for her to pick where to sit.

Phoebe and Freddie followed her in, her brother lifting the fat ginger tabby one that was tucked asleep in the corner of one of the settees so that he could sit down, and placing the cat on his lap.

Kashmira took a spot beside him, and folded her hands folded on her lap in the hopes that none of the other cats would try and sit on her, for the last thing she needed was Toxoplasmosis.

"Phoebe will be popping out to the nearby fish and chip shop for a humble takeaway dinner soon if you'd like something." Freddie offered whilst Phoebe stood in the doorway.

Kash wordlessly shook her head.

"Are you sure, darling? Nottingham's a long way away, you must be famished."

"Thank you Fred, but I shan't stay if you don't want me to."

Fred looked to his assistant still standing at the door, "Is the bed in the spare room made up?"

"Yes, made up and ready," Phoebe nodded, taking his notepad from his pocket and calling out the orders scribbled down, "So to be clear, that's one sausage supper, one small fish and chips, and seven cod fillets on the side?"

"Seven fillets?!" Kash exclaimed across him in puzzlement.

"For the cats, dearie," Freddie elaborated, and answered, "I think that's everything, Phoebe. Can you take Kash's bag upstairs before you phone the order in?"

His assistant nodded, and turned around to leave.

Now all that was left was the sound of the wood crackling in the fireplace and Oscar loudly purring on Freddie's lap as he got scratched in his favourite place, the spot underneath his furry little chin.

"I take it the moustache isn't coming back then?" Kash attempted small talk, referring to her brother's bare upper lip.

"Probably not, no." Freddie answered quickly.

Kash looked at the mantle piece, and the tables across the room, and noticed that almost all of the picture frames on them had been set face down, except for the odd few containing herself and their parents.

"What happened to all the photographs?" She asked.

"How are mum and dad?" Freddie nonchalantly changed the subject.

"Worried sick," Kash truthfully answered, "Why aren't you answering their calls? How do you think they feel, being ignored by their own hermit of a son?"

"How do you think I feel, not being able to see my children? Can't be much different!" He shot back, his raised voice causing Oscar's ears to flinch.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, fuck..." Freddie cursed under his breath.

"Fred, what's going on?" Kash asked in growing concern.

"Forget it." He stood up, placing Oscar back in his original snoozing spot.

"Freddie, just tell me what happened in the accident," she pleaded, "This is really upsetting for our parents, and me!"

"You won't understand. Nobody understands what I'm going through." Freddie paced back and forth across his 19th century patterned rug.

"Who couldn't understand better than your own family?"

"Kash, I took an AIDS test and Monica left me!" He let out.

Kashmira stared back at him in silence, trying to fathom what he just told her.

He sat down on one of the shadowy rococo armchairs, "She took them with her and... well...that's when the car accident happened."

"Oh Fred, I don't know where to even begin." She mustered up sympathetically.

"Neither do I! That's why I think it's best if I don't involve anybody else in this bloody mess," he threw his hands up, "The press probably already know about the accident, now that the fax is out. If the media catch wind of all the other shit that happened, they'll be all over you and mum and dad and that'll make things even more distressing than they already are!"

"Please tell me you're safe from AIDS at least." She cautiously asked.

"You mean HIV negative? Yes, I am."

"Thank heavens for that," Kash phrased her next question carefully, "That wasn't why Monica left you, is it?"

"We had a row the morning she left." Freddie shortly answered, choosing not to mention that he had also struck her.

"What a pity. I liked her." thought Kash.

Although Monica was a lot younger than him and a little quiet at first, she always thought she was a good fit for her brother and potential sister-in-law, and just what he needed at the time.

"Is Johnny in the hospital mentioned in the fax?" She then asked.

"I don't know. It's just so that everyone else can send him Get Well Soon cards if they wanted to, but mainly to keep up appearances."

Kash leaned forward, "Well, how do you know if they'll even reach him or not if you don't know where he is?"

"Because if Monica was in that hospital yesterday, he must be there."

Freddie didn't divulge any further into how he already saw Johnny being wheeled through the corridor into emergency surgery. The memory alone was too traumatic.

"So you met her already then?"

"Yeah. I anonymously donated my blood to Johnny, and she wanted to thank the donor for it... until she found out it was me all along, of course." Freddie pressed his teeth against the knuckle of his hand, staring into space.

Kash sat back, defeated, "You're right, this is so bloody messy that I can't make head nor tail of it!"

Out of the blue, Freddie gently chuckled to himself.

"What?"

"You sounded very Yorkshire when you said that, dearie. You've been living up north too long." he teasingly crooned.

Kash noticed that he was fidgeting with his hands more than usual, and that the crystal ashtray on the coffee table dividing them was missing its usual tobacco residue.

What this man needed was his usual nicotine fix, not to be waterboarded with questions.

"You can smoke if you need to relax. You don't need my permission in your own home."

"I quit cold turkey yesterday," Freddie stated as he hauled himself out of his rococo armchair, "I'll just have a drink instead. What would you like?"

"I'd love one, but I can't." His sister replied, settling back against the settee as he opened the little doors of his antique chinoiserie liquor cabinet.

"Go on, a little bit of bourbon or brandy will help you sleep after the journey you've had." He urged her, pouring a small amount of Hennessy cognac into one of his many crystal tumblers.

"Fred, I'm having another baby!" Kash finally announced.

Freddie paused to absorb her news, then marched to the bottom of the small wooden staircase up to his mezzanine behind her where there was an upstairs door open, nearly spilling his cognac on the floor.

"PHOEBE, YOU STUPID MAN! YOU NEARLY LET MY PREGNANT SISTER DIE OF PNEUMONIA!" He jokingly yelled out to his assistant.

"Really? Sorry, Kash!" the poor man peered his head through the door from the downstairs corridor, "I'm off to the chippy now. Back in ten!"

"Ah ah," Freddie stopped him, "don't you owe Kash something else before you go?"

"Oh yes, Congratulations!" They both heard Phoebe shout back as the front door unlocked, then slammed shut against the wind and rain.

Kash laughed as her brother reached down behind her to hug her and smooch her on the side of her head.

As he did so, she remarked, "That's the Uncle Fred I know!"

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

"It feels so odd..." Monica Brannigan thought aloud in a whisper, standing at the window.

Behind her, a nurse who was finishing up giving Johnny a sponge bath in his hospital bed, asked in her cockney accent, "What feels odd, ma'am?"

She told her, "Oh, just that this will be my last ever night having two kidneys."

"Better enjoy having both of them while you can, eh? Now that one of them's gonna be lonely forever." the nurse joked, squeezing soapy water out of the sponge and letting it drip into the plastic tub.

Monica smiled gently, and mused, "It's a silly thought, I know, but I wish I took better care of them."

"Eh, don't fret. Nobody's good to their own bodies nowadays," the nurse continued, "I mean, look at me. I smoke ten packs a day just to get me through working in this place. But life's too short to wallow in your own mistakes and bad habits, 'innit?"

"Yeah." Monica noised in agreement.

The nurse continued to chat, "Where'd you say you were from again? Glasgow?"

"Belfast." Monica corrected her.

"Ahh yeah, my son's troop is stationed over there at the moment. Says it's a right shit hole..."

Monica didn't respond, and just stayed silently looking out the window across the twinkling lights of the London skyline that reflected against the rain droplets on the glass, and at the moving traffic in the street below that illuminated the wet tarmac.

Even though it was one of the most bustling and sleepless capitals in the world, there was still something so serene and comforting about London at night time when it was lashing down with rain.

In some ways the city was still her home, even if she didn't want it to be anymore.

The nurse piped up yet again, "Which one do you think your son would like the most?"

"Which one of what, my kidneys?" Monica replied.

The nurse chortled, "The cards and presents, ma'am! Which one of them do you think he'd look forward to opening?"

Monica blushed a little, and blundered, "Definitely the biggest one."

"Boys, eh?" The nurse shook her head, "Thankfully the the rest of mine are girls. Girls are more sentimental about gifts, you know? They appreciate the thoughts put into things."

Monica knew the truthful answer to the nurse's question. Johnny would like the almost empty sachet of blood hanging from in the IV pole in the corner of the room more than something arranged on the window sill that was brightly coloured with a picture of Mickey Mouse or a Giant Bow tied onto it. And only she knew the reason why:

"Because it came from his father, of course."

"That's me off," the nurse declared as she plopped her sponge back into her tub of dirty, lukewarm water, "If you need us in the night, you know where we are?"

"Yes, thank you," Monica nodded, "Can you switch off the main light on your way out, please?"

The nurse obliged as she marched out the door and shut it behind her, and the room was dimmed except for the tube light above Johnny's bed.

Monica proceeded to pull the shutter blinds closed, careful not to knock off any of the cards and gifts down as she did so, and gradually started to undress down to her underwear. She then shimmied and buttoned herself up into the tight-fighting flannel pyjamas that her slim-framed friend Paula had lent to her, trying not to hurt her stiff neck, and went to the mirror above the sink to start brushing her teeth.

When her two minutes were up she looked at her clothes strewn across the floor, hesitating as to whether or not she should gather together all that she had with her before the move to Great Ormond Street in the morning.

"I don't have a lot to pack anyway" Monica made her mind up with a shrug, and grabbed the thin fleece blanket folded on the sofa arm rest as made her way to Johnny's bed.

She leaned down to wordlessly kiss her son goodnight on the only gap of skin visible on his bandaged forehead, which was the space right between his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose, and pulled the sheets further up around most of his torso to keep him warm before she tucked the Womble toy underneath his limp arm.

Monica then lowered herself into the chair, somewhat relieved that this would be the last night she ever have to sleep in it, and draped her blanket over herself before stretching up to pull the string light off, plunging the room into darkness.

Now she was alone with her thoughts and the monotonous bleeps of the life support machines, except that there was something small and hard digging into her head right above her neck.

"What in the-" she felt for it in the dark, and found that the plastic tubing linking the sachet of Freddie's blood to Johnny was overlapping the headrest.

Monica flicked it over and out of the way with a sigh, and reclined.

"And to think that a Queen fan would kill to have a vile of that blood..." she thought as she closed her eyes.

She could already hear her friend Paula telling her off for such an insensitive remark:

"What a bitchy thing to say, Mo! 'That blood' is probably what saved your son's life like the doctor said, and you know it."

"Fair point." Monica subconsciously agreed, eyes still closed.

Then Paula would typically reply, "Why wouldn't it be fair? You know what isn't fair? You not thanking Freddie for what he did."

"A bit too late now." Monica numbly responded in her make-believe conversation.

"Is it though?" Paula would probably say.

A thought then occurred to her, "Why does Paula have to be on his side more than mine?"

After all, Monica was half-expecting her friend to criticise Freddie for seemingly tracking her down to the hospital and label him something along the lines of a 'stalker' or a creep earlier, but instead Paula challenged her own morals when she did not thank him.

Deep down, Monica knew the reason, but she didn't want to admit it.

She also knew the reason as to why Freddie held her in his arms and consoled her the moment she started to cry yesterday, even after all the spiteful things she'd said to him on more than one occasion. Or why the thought of him not loving her anymore was still unbearable to her, even if she willed herself to move on. Or how their lips almost kissed for those few seconds towards the end of the meeting...

The immense pain of longing and regret seared through Monica's body as her airways tightened, and any feelings of pride and bitterness she once possessed were diminished as the floodgates opened up again.

Through her tears she could see the white plastic phone hanging on the wall, tempting her like the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden.

Monica finally succumbed, pulling the light switch back on and scrambling up off the chair. She lifted the receiver to her ear as the muscle memory in her trembling right hand dialled in the number to Garden Lodge...

Garden Lodge

Kash watched with disdain as several of the cats dined on their battered fish fillets directly from the hardwood floor of the piano room whilst Phoebe kneeled beside them with paper towels and multi-surface cleansing spray at the ready.

"Do you want help with that?" She offered him.

"No thanks!" Phoebe replied, hard at work as he wiped up the crumbs, grease and cat's saliva that stained the varnish.

Kash then looked at all the takeaway boxes and brown paper bags strewn across the coffee table.

"Then at least let me help clear this up for you before Freddie comes back in" she leaned forward, gathering all of the rubbish together into one pile.

Just as she did, Kash saw several stray chips left behind on Freddie's plate. Oh, how the tantalising aroma of salt and vinegar was too hard for her to resist...

When she thought nobody was looking, she quickly pinched one or two of them and scoffed them into her mouth.

"Oi! You said you didn't want anything to eat!" Freddie walked back into the room.

"But I'm eating for two, remember?" Kash patted small round belly to remind him, leaning back.

Phoebe chuckled as he walked out of the room into the kitchen with paper roll and spray.

"How far along are you?" Freddie asked, sitting back down beside her.

"About ten weeks, I think." Kash replied.

Freddie's toothy smile faded.

"What is it?" She worriedly asked.

"Just remembering how different my life was that long ago," he mused sadly, "For once, things seemed to be working just fine... I could never have imagined all the shit that would land on my lap so quickly."

"Oh Fred, I'm sorry. I should've waited another time to tell you my news." His sister remorsefully said.

"Don't fret," Freddie took her hand in his, "I really am happy for you both."

"Even after all you're going through?"

"You should treasure it, and the moments to come as well," He solemnly told her, "Sooner than you know it, they'll be gone. And no matter what you do, no matter how you try to fix it, nothing will get the good things back to the way they were."

Kash tried to decipher the last part of his sentence and where it came from. But there was no point in asking, she'd already pushed Freddie enough.

"Maybe I should leave," Kashmira brushed the skirt of her shirt dress straight, "I'll tell mum and dad that you need more time before they can talk to you."

"Don't go," Freddie pleaded, grabbing her arm, "I'm sorry I've been ignoring your calls."

"Okay, fine. I'll stay. Just tell mum and dad what happened and how you are." She implored, sitting back down again.

Freddie looked down into his glass of cognac, ashamed, "They'll think that I failed them if I told them."

"You didn't fail them." Kash tried to assure him.

"But I failed my own family. I called the mother of my children things I didn't mean, did things I shouldn't have done. I also said something about Johnny that I didn't mean when he was still alive, and he heard me... and I wasn't there for them when I should've been. That's against everything mum and dad taught us growing up. Good thoughts, good words, good deeds..." he repeated the Zoroastrian mantra in english.

Kash then reflected, "You know, sending you to a boarding school thousands of miles across the ocean for years at a time couldn't have been easy for mum and dad, neither was immigrating to a cold, wet and racist country and leaving everything familiar behind."

"It was really cold, wasn't it?" Freddie reminisced.

"It was," Kash agreed, "but I think what you're going through right now really takes the cake, don't you?"

"How so?"

"Well, not knowing where your kids are, especially if one of them is injured in a coma. And after all that if you still felt no concern for your children, or guilt for your words and actions, then that's what would truly make you a failure of a son. A parsee son, especially."

She waited for Freddie's response, watching the orange glow of the fire illuminate the side of his face as he stared at the glass on his lap in thought.

Just then, the phone in the kitchen next door started to ring, filling the silence.

"That'll be mum and dad," Kash stood up, "I told them to call your house around this time if I didn't call them first."

The ringing stopped, and they heard Phoebe faintly answer, "Hello?"

"...Kash?" Freddie stopped her.

"Hmm?" She sounded.

"Do you think that you could speak to our parents for me?" Freddie shyly proposed.

"Why me?" His sister folded her arms.

"Because you're clearly better at communicating than I am." Freddie complimented her.

Kash smirked, "Only in exchange for a few more of your chips."

"Oh come on, don't push it!" Freddie teased, snatching his plate of chips out of her reach.

"I'll tell mum and dad if you don't share with me." She playfully threatened.

The man sighed, setting the plate back down, "You always knew how to get your way, little sister."

Suddenly, as Phoebe took a small sip from his glass, Phoebe rushed into the piano room from the kitchen.

He announced the unthinkable, "Monica's on the phone!"

Freddie almost spat out his cognac as Kash asked in surprise, "What, why?"

"I can't get a word out of her, she won't stop crying." Phoebe told them confusedly.

"Oh, God..." Freddie panicked, leaping up off the settee.

Phoebe and Kashmira followed close after him as he frantically rushed into the kitchen, lifting the phone up to his ear.

Assuming the worst, he spoke her name, "Monica?"

"F-Freddie..." She quivered his on the other end.

"What is it? It isn't Johnny, is it?" He uttered immediately with dread.

Monica didn't answer, and incoherently sobbed down the line whist Phoebe and Kash watched on apprehensively.

"Oh god, no..." Freddie's voice trembled wish anguish, "Please tell me... he isn't, is he?"

"Nn-no, J-Johnny's still okay," Monica assured him through her stammers, "Well he isn't okay, but..."

He heard her trail off as she continued to cry, and an immediate relief washed over him.

"Darling, please," Freddie fearfully begged, "You need to calm down and tell me what's happening."

Monica took in a sharp breath, "They're moving Johnny to Great Ormond Street tomorrow." 

"Why?" He gently asked.

Freddie listened as her sobs steadied.

She answered, "H-H-He needs to get a new kidney. And I'm scared of what'll happen..."

Phoebe and Kash glanced at one another as Freddie looked down at his feet, brows unknotting and face softening as he tried to absorb Monica's words, and the surrealness of it all...

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

Monica anxiously waited for Freddie to respond, twisting the spiral telephone cord as she listened.

He muttered a rather simple, "Alright."

"'Alright?' Is that all he has to say?!"

Monica couldn't help it anymore. 

She broke the ice, "I miss you." 

Another silence followed, and the tension thickened as she could feel her heart rapidly beating out of her chest and her stomach churning with the nerves.

"If he doesn't say anything back within five seconds then I'll hang up and go vomit in the sink," Monica decided, "Five... four... three...t-"

"Tell me which ward you're on." Freddie's voice demanded suddenly.

"What?" she meekly chirped in disbelief.

"Tell me exactly where you are, darling," Freddie purred, "I'll be there in a heartbeat."

To be continued...