Garden Lodge, Christmas Eve, around 7:30pm

"Phoebe! Phoebe, Oshiro just wished me a Merry Christmas from Japan!"

Roshni was in her parent's lamplit office, jumping up and down in front of the household fax machine in delight as she clutched a paper document sent from her faraway school friend.

"He did, did he? That's very nice of him..." Mr Freestone uttered distractedly as he sat at the office desk, scouring a couple of the local newspapers for job adverts.

"Look, he sent me a drawing too!" she rushed over and grabbed Phoebe's elbow, tugging it violently, "He says that it's Japan's version of Santa Claus and that it's a bald man with eyes at the back of his head."

Phoebe tried to interject, "That's very interesting, but-"

Still, Roshni cut across him enthusiastically, "He uses the eyes to spy on children being naughty when his back is-"

"Roshni! Now is not the time!" he raised his voice in agitation.

Her face fell, and she retreated from behind the desk as a twinkle of joys left her blue eyes, filling up with tears instead.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you," Phoebe sighed remorsefully, lifting his reading glasses off of the bridge of his nose, "It's just that... oh, come here."

Roshni tearfully obeyed, allowing him to haul her up and sit her on his knee.

He began to kindly explain to her, "It's just that I only have a week to find another job. And I haven't had time to look and apply for anything since we came home from Ireland because all that I've had time to do is look after your mum and prepare for Christmas tomorrow. Do you understand?"

Roshni morosely nodded, and what must've been the thousandth time that week she pleadingly told him, "Then why can't you just stay with us? Don't go!"

"But I have to go," Phoebe regretfully insisted, "Your dad and I think that it's for the best."

She snivelled, rubbing her wet eyes with the sleeve of her aran knit jumper, "Why do adults have to be so unfair?"

Phoebe took a tissue out of the box of kleenex sitting on the desk, gently dabbing her wet cheeks dry, "It'll seem unfair now, but one day when you're older you'll understand."

"But what if your replacement isn't as good as you? What if they're really mean to us, or don't like our cats? What if they're like a personal assistant's equivalent of an evil stepmother?"

"An evil equivalent of me, eh?" Phoebe chuckled, and assured her, "I doubt your mum and dad would let that happen to you and Johnny."

"...I'm going to miss you when you go, Pheebs."

In return, the man simply hugged the girl and rested the chin on his shoulder as he tried to hold back his own tears, clenching his eyes shut.

"And I'm going to miss you too. But I'm sure that it's all going to be alright."

Roshni pulled away, "Promise you'll call us?"

"I'll try, it depends if Headfort will let me onto their line as well. It mightn't seem appropriate to them."

"Well, why wouldn't they let you talk to us?" she asked innocently, "It'd just be Pheebs calling"

"Maybe it'd be a better idea if I write to you or send you postcards of wherever I go on holiday. Deal?" Phoebe held his hand out to her.

"Deal." Roshni shook it in return.

"Now," He set her back off of his knee, and suggested, "Why don't you go find your brother, and you both go downstairs to the kitchen, pour out a glass of milk and place some ginger nuts from the biscuit tin on a plate, and then leave them out next to the fire place for Santa Claus in the Piano room?"

The black-haired girl added excitedly, "And a carrot from the fridge for Rudolph too?!"

"But of course, how could I forget Rudolph's carrot?" Phoebe chuckled.

Seemingly pacified, Roshni skipped out of the office as she called for her twin brother, "Johnnyyy!"

"Keep your voice down, your mum is still resting!" Phoebe demanded.

"Johnny, where are you?" she asked as she stood in the middle of the unlit corridor, a little more quietly this time.

Light footsteps treaded closer to her from around the corner behind Roshni, getting louder and louder each time.

But they weren't that of her twin brother's.

A shadow of a kimono-ed man appeared behind her, and paused in front of her.

Roshni greeted him timidly over her shoulder, "Hi, dad."

Freddie stared at his daughter flatly for a few seconds, dark circles still on his bare, shaven face from yet another sleepless night and raven hair wet having emerged from his routine after-dinner bath.

He wordlessly stepped past Roshni and continued to walk down the corridor.

The poor girl watched on, downhearted and bewildered at being ignored by her father yet again, as she had been not just all day but for most of the week as well.

Nevertheless, she pursued searching for her brother throughout the house as she gently called out again, "Johnny?!"

Freddie's ears blocked out his daughter's voice as he continued glumly treading down the steps that were dimly lit by the overhead chandelier.

He paused outside the door of the guest bedroom on the halfway level of the staircase.

Behind that bedroom door was a bedridden Monica Brannigan, who had been convalescing in there ever since they came home from Dublin.

As he stood there for a few seconds, Freddie fought the temptation to barge into the bedroom and scream and yell at her about how stupid and selfish she was for what she had done.

"But why bother?" he thought each time, taking a step back, "It'll only create more unnecessary shit"

On that fateful day last week it all started with one alcoholic drink at her son's play, then along came another and another for the next few hours to follow until Monica was inebriated beyond control. And things went downhill very quickly the moment she jumped into the Dublin Hilton swimming pool wearing just a hotel bathrobe, despite Johnny's best efforts to stop her, thus almost drowning in her intoxicated state whilst endangering her son's life under her care and drawing public attention in the process.  

Consequently, Monica spent the night alone in a Dublin hospital getting her stomach pumped round-the-clock, having been diagnosed by emergency doctors with severe alcohol poisoning and instructed to get plenty of rest when she flew back home.

Needless to say, she had single handedly ruined Christmas for everyone in the Garden Lodge household in such a short space of time. 

And by now a ghastly, tense shadow had sunk upon the house ever since they had returned to London after the incident. Its sole owner Freddie Mercury, having been emotionally drained by one unfortunate event in his personal life to another, was understandably avoiding everybody else living under its roof... except of course, his beloved cats.

As for the rest of its inhabitants himself and Peter "Phoebe" Freestone only ever interacted if Freddie wanted something. Otherwise Phoebe was too busy looking for employment elsewhere in between nursing Monica, minding the twins and preparing for Christmas the next day. Monica's friend Paula was also dropping by on most days to keep her company at her bedside for a couple of hours, as well as distract Johnny and Roshni with fun and games, but she and Freddie were still on frosty terms since their argument at the 24 Game competition.

Then there were the twins. Freddie dared not make an effort to communicate with either of his children, for each time he took a look at Johnny's petite face and Roshni's blue eyes he saw their mother in them. And he could barely bring himself to even look at Monica, for the pain she'd caused him was unforgivable. Freddie had not yet visited her once during her recovery either, nor was he able to feel any sympathy towards her; he saw her suffering as the price to pay for her careless actions.

Yet Freddie also knew in the back of his mind that ten years ago when Monica was still young and childless he would've looked at the situation rather differently, and that alone was enough to terrify him:

"You know damn well that would've panicked and acted on your feelings straight away the moment you saw her," he reflected, gripping the mahogany stair rail as he descended, "You'd have probably shed a tear or two and jumped onto that ambulance with her like the lovesick fool you were back then so that she wouldn't have to go through all that suffering alone... then you would've laughed about it later on and called her a silly goose..."

In spite of everything that was happening in Mr Mercury's life, from the miscarriage and the HIV test to Christmas in shambles and Phoebe leaving him, Freddie could see in the back of his mind that the love he had for his Irish flower was somewhat wilting. 

And that was a reality that he was not ready to accept.

He was about to go into the piano room with the intention of aimlessly watching some television in order to pass the time of yet another deathly slow and long evening, perhaps even tonight's episode of Eastenders, when the intercom within the entrance hall buzzed.

Freddie paused and waited a few seconds for Phoebe to answer it from upstairs, for he certainly was not in the mood to talk to people.

But to his misfortune it buzzed again, this time a few seconds longer and seemingly more impatiently.

"For fuck's sake," Freddie uttered under his breath, trudging to the intercom wall, "who could be calling by this time of night..."

After all, the only visitors within the last few days had been Paula, whereas the Brannigan family regularly telephoned the house to check how their Monica was recovering. Otherwise nobody else had known about the Dublin incident.

He pressed the button labelled 'talk', and inconspicuously greeted the mysterious visitor through the microphone in the best manner that he was able to muster at that moment in time:

"Hello? This is Garden Lodge speaking. Who is this?"

"Hello there," A woman's monotonous, gentle voice crackled through the speaker, "It's just Mary here"

"Mary... what are you doing here?" he heard himself ask in surprise.

"I've got a christmas card to give you" his ex girlfriend's voice replied.

"A Christmas card..." he mused, then queried, "Why didn't you post it to me like I did?"

"I decided to hand them out rather than post them this year," Mary answered, almost insufferably, "You see, I wanted to make an effort to wish to my loved ones a happy Christmas face-to-face"

"I can't let her in, not like this!" Freddie panicked internally, looking at the cursed household behind him.

But surely she or himself would want to stand out in the cold for too long anyway.

"Stay there, I'm coming out now" he curtly ordered.

He lifted his finger off the button before she could protest, and unlocked his front door before quickly stepping outside.

Freddie cursed even more as the chilly breeze bit his bare ankles whilst he carefully shuffled across the frosty garden path that sparkled in the moonlight, trying not to slip and fall.

"At least it's not snow," he pondered, "Although maybe a White Christmas would brighten things up a little. If only..."

He opened the green gate into his front garden, and there Ms Mary Austin stood in a bright red knee-length puffer jacket waiting for him, hood up to shield her elfin face from the low winter temperatures.

The former couple courteously kissed one another on the cheek, as did always.

"That felt different," Mary remarked his lack of a moustache on his upper lip, and coyly added, "In fact, it felt like it used to all those years ago"

Freddie chose not to comment, and instead cut straight to the small talk:

"How are you doing? How are you and, uhm, 'what's his name'? Peter? Pierre?"

"Close enough, Piers is doing just fine," she answered, rubbing her leather-gloved hands together,  "He's taking me to Tuscany in February, it's his early Christmas present to me"

"Glad to hear your love life is going so well," Freddie spoke through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to sarcastically quip, "Unlike mine..."

His ex-girlfriend then automatically asked, "How are Monica and the twins? Have they come home for Christmas?"

"Yes, yes. They- they only came back from boarding school yesterday" he lied.

"Oh, okay..." Mary trailed off, almost as if she was expecting a different answer.

They both stood across from each other for a moment of awkward silence, before one of them mustered up the courage to speak.

"Well, this is your card" she handed Freddie a small white envelope that had been tucked under her arm the entire time.

"Thank you, dear," Freddie forced a grin as he took it from her, "I won't keep you standing out here in the cold any longer"

"Okay then, well, have a merry Christmas." Mary slid her hands into her coat pockets.

He chortled, and told her truthfully, "I'll try, you have a good one too"

They exchanged their goodbyes, and when she turned on her heels and was about to walk away Freddie remembered something business-related.

"One more thing, Mary"

"Yes?" The woman stopped and turned around.

"I'm not sure if Phoebe told you the news himself, but he'll be leaving me in about a week's time" Freddie sheepishly stared at his Adidas sliders on his feet.

Mary inched back towards him, "Really?"

He nodded, "So you don't have to do this right away, but after Christmas expect to strike him off my payroll and add somebody new"

"It's because he got the date of your doctor's appointment wrong, isn't it?" she presumed out of nowhere.

Freddie's brows furrowed in peculiarity, "Yes, actually"

"Perhaps you should hire somebody who's more careful when it comes to handling dates in your diary, eh?" Mary turned her back to him for the final time, and said, "Goodnight, then"

He didn't respond, and instead he watched her walking further down the lamplit pavement along Logan place.

"That's funny," he thought, "I don't remember ever telling Mary about what had happened..."

But then again, everything that happened the past few days had been a blur. Perhaps Phoebe himself must've told Mary about his HIV test coinciding with his morning flight to Dublin at some point, but not about the consequential dreadful aftermath either.

But for whatever reason why?

Freddie set Mary's envelope down on the table in his entrance hall once he went back inside, ready to open when he felt more settled or perhaps in a more festive mood. 

The only thing that was on his mind was getting his daily fill of what was going on in Walford, "Perhaps I'll see Anita on tonight's episode" 

But when Freddie entered the festively decorated piano room, he found that his television set already had an occupant in front of it.

Monica's friend Paula, who had come over to help Phoebe with the dinner, was now sitting alone on his Louis XIV sofa with Goliath the black cat curled up on her lap and watching the screen.

Paula acknowledged the man with a silent glower as he stepped into the tall room and made himself apparent, and glanced back at the TV.

"That must mean that Monica is still asleep if Paula's down here and not upstairs. Thank God for that" Freddie thought.

Needless to say, Freddie was going to have to sacrifice tonight's episode of Eastenders out of politeness.

He cleared his throat, and asked, "Mind if I join you?"

"Sure," Paula told him coolly, shuffling in her spot, "even if you should be the one nursing Monica upstairs right now."

Freddie quietly sat down and didn't answer, and looked at what she was watching.

Indeed there was his son's unmistakable little face on the screen, green hat and all.

"Is this the video recording of Johnny's play from last week?"

"No it's the Queen's speech, it's come a day early" Paula murmured sarcastically.

Freddie drew in a sharp breath through his nostrils, doing his best to concentrate on the home video all whilst keeping his cool.

However he found Monica's increasingly shaky camera work distracting, for it was a reminder as to when she must've started her drinking bender that fateful day in Ireland.

"I can't believe it, she was drunk at our own child's play... at their school too!" He thought, feeling almost betrayed again, "How could she do this to me? To her own child as well!"

Yet the longer he watched and focused on Johnny as Peter Pan, standing in the middle of the stage with a painted backdrop of a tropical location and a group of several scruffy-looking boys draped in animal skins standing around him, the less that he saw red again.

With his hands on his hips Johnny proclaimed in character, "I declare that we build a house around the Wendy Bird!"

The scruffy boys all cheered and cleared out of the way, revealing a faired haired little girl lying unconscious in the middle of the stage floor.

Although Freddie was clueless as to what was happening in the narrative, he didn't dare ask Paula for answers, for everything that had come out of her mouth during those last few days had been short.

After paying attention to Johnny's acting for a good minute or so, he remarked aloud in awe, "My god... he's really talented, isn't he?"

"You're his da, you should know already" Paula muttered in response.

Suddenly, a black and white glitchy lines appeared on the screen followed by a fizzling static noise.

"Oh shit!" she lifted Goliath off her lap and leapt off the settee, towards the television set, "I think the tape has run out"

"Do you know if there's more left?" Freddie pondered, brows furrowed.

"I think the video camera still must have one inside it, the thing is I haven't owned a TV in years so I don't know how to use these bloody things..." Paula trailed off as she opened Monica's camera bag by the VHS set.

Freddie used the opportunity to pat Goliath on the head as the woman took out the camcorder, thinking, "At least my darling fur babies weren't dragged into any of this shit. Lucky them..."

But even old Golly must've sensed that something was going on, for the black cat gave a yawn and a good old stretch before hopping away from his side and slinking elsewhere.

Freddie's internal monologue couldn't help but think, "Everything I touch turns to shit"

After carefully putting the camcorder back inside its bag, Paula finally slid the backup VHS tape into the VCR.

"This button down here with the two triangles means play, doesn't it?" Ms McIntyre tinkered with the unfamiliar apparatus, "Oh no, that was fast forward!!"

Freddie watched helplessly as the footage on the television screen rapidly sped through several different moments of the play, until Paula frantically pressed a button to stop the whole thing altogether.

She sighed, "We'll just have to watch it from here I'm afraid, I don't know how to make it go back to the start"

Feeling indifferent, Freddie shrugged and watched on...

Now Johnny was alone on stage, still with the tropical backdrop, only this time there was a khaki hammock that he was sitting in and a small glass with a mysterious dark red liquid in his hand.

Now that Paula seemed a little less abrupt towards him, Freddie saw fit to make a joke, "I didn't know that Peter Pan drank Ribena"

"It's meant to be poison, from Captain Hook" Paula responded flatly.

He sucked another breath in, "Good to know..."

Just as Johnny/Peter Pan brought the glass to his lips, a small light accompanied by a tinkling sound swirled around the stage.

For context, Paula pointed out, "That light is meant to be Tinkerbell, by the way"

"That's the kindest she's been to me all week" Freddie thought.

He watched as the light flew into Johnny's face.

"He's got Monica's face," he sadly contemplated once again, "the nose, the cheeks, everything but the eyes..."

The boy pretended to cough and splutter as the light flew into his face, and dropping the glass of red liquid he yelled in outrage, "Tink?! You drank my medicine!"

Tinkerbell rang in response, and the light fell to the ground before it slowly started to fade.

"Tinkerbell, your light is going out!!" Johnny as Peter said, falling to his knees in front of the fading fairy's light.

Tinkerbell twinkled faintly in response, and the two adults remained quiet as they intently watched, as did the audience on screen.

"What was that? ...You say that Hook poisoned my medicine?" Peter exclaimed, looking around him in a panic.

Then Peter appeared to pick the light up off the floor and he slowly stood back up. He walked to the middle of the stage with the faded little light following his cupped hands, giving the illusion that he was holding poor Tink in his hands.

The stage lighting also dimmed as a spotlight on him emerged, just as joy slipped away from the boy who never grew up.

Alone Johnny stood as out poured his small yet powerful voice:

"There's time for us, there's no place for us... what is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us..."

https://youtu.be/OTKjISlQOhs

"Oh god..." Freddie felt his blood run cold when he realised that it was a Queen song his drama teachers had chosen to use.

Naturally, the song that the band's guitarist Brian May had penned for the A Kind Of Magic album was a rather fitting and creative choice to utilise a play about a boy who stayed young and, well, lived forever.

"Who wants to live forever" Johnny sang in acapella, his controlled vocals projecting across the stage perfectly, "Who wants to live forever..."

Somehow the boy's poignant performance struck something, somewhere deep inside his father as he watched on. Immediately a million thoughts started to overwhelm Freddie's mind, much faster than they ever had within the last couple of days:

"Oh, my beautiful, talented boy... What if I don't get to see him grow up? What if I don't get to apologise for all the mean and horrible things that I've said and done to him? Would he ever forgive me when I'm gone?"

Paula, who was moved by Johnny's acting, was immediately overcome with tears welling in her eyes.

But she snapped her red-eyed gaze away from the screen the moment she heard loud and uncontrollable sobbing beside her.

"Freddie, are you okay?"

Freddie was shrunken on the edge of the sofa and crying into his hands, a far cry from the captivating and energetic man that she'd seen sprinting across the stage on TV, belting out that powerful and unmistakable singing voice. Now, that same voice looked as though he didn't belong to him...

She stood up, "I can turn it off if you like"

"It isn't that... I'm just sick of holding it all in!!" He blubbered.

Paula stopped in front of the TV set, "Holding what in?"

"I don't want other kids in the school playground excluding Johnny and Roshni or calling them a f****t or fairy, JUST BECAUSE OF ME!!" Freddie waffled in despair, "Or to wake up every day and see their father sitting in the front room with a nasal tube connected to an oxygen tank, scars and lesions forming on a different part of his face from one day to the next as he wastes away... "

"Nasal tubes? Scars? What on earth are you talking about?"

Freddie rolled his red, wet eyes at her and pulled up the sleeve of his Kimono to show her the small, faded yellow bruise on the fold of his elbow where the butterfly needle had gone into his vein.

"That bruise from the appointment that made me miss my flight the other morning," He glumly elaborated, keeping his voice down so that nobody else in the house but her could hear, "It wasn't for nodes... it was a blood test for HIV."

Paula's green eyes softened at the mention of those three letters.

Freddie dropped his Kimono sleeve back down, "I asked for it to be booked no later than on the 18th of December so that I could visit Johnny and Roshni at their boarding school, but there was some bloody mix-up with the dates and obviously Roshni's maths competition was already complicating things enough."

Paula felt a little more remorse than she did before, especially about the way she had talked to Freddie so passive-aggressively within the past couple of days.

She lifted a box of tissues off the coffee table nearby, and sat down closer beside him as she wordlessly thrust them in his direction.

"Thank you" Freddie meekly took one out, and started patting his red cheeks dry.

Paula instinctively asked him, "Does Monica know about these concerns of yours?"

"No. Monica doesn't know, not even Phoebe either and he was the one who booked the damn appointment for me under the 'guise of a general blood test"

Ms McIntyre's brows furrowed at that, "Blood test? Thought you said that it was for nodes a second ago" 

"I had to think of something to tell Phoebe too, you see," he snivelled into his damp tissue, "doesn't matter because he possibly caused that bastard mix-up too anyway" 

"Are you absolutely sure it was Phoebe's error?"  Paula asked him.

"I don't know!" Freddie snapped slightly, then caught a hold of himself as he confessed calmly, "As a matter of fact, the only other people in the world who know about this are you, myself, my doctor, and some poor Lab Rat somewhere in the world who has to test my blood for me"

"Then why are you sharing this with me, of all people?" she asked him seriously, "I mean, I know that I'm an art therapist who happens to be gay and therefore stigmatised by this AIDS crisis happening around us. But you're Freddie Mercury, surely there are other people for you to confide in"

"I'm sorry," he whimpered, snivelling into his tissue, "I just... I just wanted someone else to know who isn't a doctor, someone who seems much more 'human' about this sort of thing."

"It's normal to feel that way when you're scared or anxious Fred, but it's illogical that you haven't opened up to Monica any of this"

Freddie rambled, "If Monica knew that I had HIV I don't know what she'd do with herself... Say for example, she accuses me of doing things, like drugs or cheating behind her back with another man. That's what I did to my last female ex before her, you know."

"Well, have you cheated on Monica since you've been with her?!"

"Not really." he took out another tissue.

"What do you mean by 'not really'?" Paula pressed, folding her arms.

Freddie sheepishly admitted, "The closest that I've ever come to infidelity since Monica and I have been together was getting pissed on her 24th birthday and then admitting to having a crush on her brother Lenny."

She exclaimed in disbelief, "You did what?!"

He fully expected Paula to be disgusted and outraged at him, but instead she sniggered gently.

"I know, and I'm not proud of it dearie, believe me. But that's all ancient history now."

"Well, if I am honest I don't know what would possess you to like Lenny in that way. I mean, you've never ever seen the poor fucker go through puberty!" she chuckled.

"It still constitutes cheating, doesn't it?"

Paula shrugged, "If that's as close as you've gotten to cheating then I don't know what it is that you have to worry about."

"You must be kidding, my life is already turning into shit!" Freddie scoffed.

"How is it shit? You've got so many wonderful things in it, a fantastic career for a start... and two lovely little children"

"Two lovely little children that I've poisoned against me with my cold selfishness!" he went off again, "And in case you haven't heard already, Phoebe's leaving me for being such an arsehole to him and my family which means that I have to find a new P.A..."

Paula tried to interject, "Wait, Phoebe's leaving? Because of the mix-up?"

"And Monica! She drinks like a fish nowadays and is failing university with no will to change, even if she puts our children's lives in danger!" he nagged, "And did she ever even tell you about the time she got so pissed in front of Cliff Richard and Laurence Olivier at an A-lister party earlier this year that she didn't even bloody recognise who they both were?!"

Paula brought her hand to her mouth in surprise, "Mo did what in front of them?!"

"I know!" Freddie nodded in agreement, "And Monica's not even wearing her engagement ring anymore. Call me soft, but it did hurt to see that."

Paula tried to reassure him, "There could be another reason Monica took it off, it may not be what you think."

"Still, it made me wonder if she still sees me as the same man that she fell in love with before."

Now that she was within closer proximity to Freddie, she could see the hopelessness and vulnerability in his dark eyes as they blinked away tear by tear, visibly plagued by something deeper.

Finally, he let out three little words that would diminish any disdain that Paula felt for him.

"I-I miss her."

"But she is right upstairs-"

"No, I miss the old Monica," Freddie explained, "and I miss the way things used to be."

Paula silently listened as the despaired man continued to yearn:

"I miss that woman I saw across that foggy, crowded dance floor all those years ago when she was still just a girl. That same woman who brought me back down to Earth and built a life with me, the woman who loved me in a way that made me learn to love myself again, the woman who gave me my children... and if this damn HIV test comes back positive then I've failed her, and I've failed Johnny and Roshni too."

He blew his nose on another tissue, and there was a short silence to follow.

At last, Paula broke it, "Then, you should just tell her."

Freddie lifted his head, "What?"

"Don't waste all of your feelings on me. Tell Mo about the HIV test before it's too late and it burdens you even further!" she persuaded quietly, "Maybe not while she's recovering from alcohol poisoning obviously, and not during Christmas day. Just tell her whenever you think that she's ready."

He tucked his arms around himself, "I don't think she will ever be ready, nobody ever is ready for that sort of news."

"That's true," Paula agreed, then reasoned, "But if Mo really loves you and has faith in you, and she knows that you love her and the children, then you'll be just fine."

At that, Freddie held his tongue, "Monica doesn't have faith in me, she has faith in alcohol."

When he didn't respond, Paula earnestly confessed to him, "By the way, I'm really sorry for the way that I spoke to you back in Dublin, Fred. Really sorry."

Freddie didn't like it much when other people besides his closest friends abbreviated his name, but now he was too emotionally drained to even care.

In return, he apologised, "And I'm sorry that I called you a cow, Paula."

"It's okay, I kind of was being one," she chuffed, "But I guess I just wanted you to feel something because I care about Monica. She's my best friend and I owe her a lot for just being there and accepting me as I am, you know? Especially with my new sexuality."

"I know you care. Thank you." he replied quietly, staring at his hands in his lap as he let out one more dry sniffle.

"...You're welcome."

Paula awkwardly started rubbing soothing and reassuring circles into Freddie's upper back. Goodness knows that the man deserved it, especially now that the deathly tension between them both was gone and replaced with an ease.

Freddie also felt an almost calming sense of relief to have at least told someone about the HIV test, let alone shared his deepest concerns. For the first time in a while, he felt that he was not alone.

Paula then spontaneously reminisced, "Remember around the time when we first met, and I was at your old flat in Holland Park one morning and then you walked into the living room naked, and I was standing there the whole time?"

"You're never going to let me forget, are you?" Freddie took out yet another tissue as his cheeks reddened, this time with embarrassment.

"Not many people can get to say that they saw Freddie Mercury naked" Paula jokingly bragged.

He added simperingly, "Makes no difference if you're a lesbian anyway" 

They both chuckled, and stared back at the television screen to watch the rest of Johnny's play.

This time, this play was in a completely different narrative stage. Freddie's son and the scruffy group of boys, as well as three children in nightgowns, appeared to be jumping up and down in victory.

He thought aloud monotonously, "My god darling, I think we talked through the whole thing"

"Johnny was the only good thing about it anyway, that girl playing Wendy was doing my head in," Paula got up with a sigh, brushing cat hairs off her lap, "I suppose I best be off home now, Max will be wondering where I am"

Freddie offered, "Do you want me to get Phoebe to call you a taxi?"

"I can get the bus or tube, but thanks anyway" Paula declared, pressing the standby button on the TV set.

Now that the television was off, they heard two familiar small voices in the kitchen loudly squabbling with one another:

"But I want to pour Santa's milk!"

"No, let me! I got it out of the fridge first!"

"Give it back, Johnny! You're making a huge mess!"

"For fuck's sake," Paula muttered under her breath, heading straight for the door into the kitchen, "Better see what that's all about first."

"At least they're having fun, I suppose" Freddie chuckled to himself.

The woman swung the door adjoining the piano room and kitchen open wide, sternly asking them, "Okay!! What the ruckus in here, lads?"

He listened to his daughter tell whine to her, "Auntie Paula, Johnny snatched the milk bottle off of me and caused it to spill it all over the counter!"

He then heard his son argue, "She's lying, I got it out of the fridge first!"

"Alright, alright!! Let's clean this mess up before your dad or Phoebe comes in," he heard Paula silence them both, and suggest, "Perhaps Santa would prefer chocolate Nesquik anyway. We'll make two more cups of it for your bedtime supper, alright?"

Freddie could hear the twins both loudly cheer in triumph in the next room.

At that he smiled ear to ear for the first time in what felt like a long time, and absentmindedly stared at the two large Christmas stockings hanging on the mantelpiece that was draped with boughs of holly and tinsel.

He read the names stitched and embroidered onto each of them: one was labelled Johnny, and other Roshni.

The sight altogether was a bittersweet reminder that tomorrow's festivities were almost four hours away, and that everybody was still in low spirits except for the ever-faithful twins.

Then Freddie realised that, as long as his children were both happy amidst the chaos, perhaps Christmas at Garden Lodge would still be salvageable after all.

"Just tell Monica, you damn fool."

And so it was decided. Freddie's newfound sense of encouragement brought him onto his feet, which then carried him off up the settee, out of the Piano room, up the dark stairwell...

Before Freddie knew it he was standing in front of the guest bedroom again on the halfway level.

He stood and listened closely, and could hear Monica's soft snores behind it as she continued to rest.

Slowly he turned the door knob open, not once worrying about whether or not to wake her.

Fortunately, the entire guest bedroom was unlit and therefore Freddie couldn't see her face very well in the dark. That was going to make it easier for him to confront her.

He left the door open just a crack and tread towards her bed as his heart began pounding faster and louder, for he was about to interact with her for the first time in days.

Now that he was closer he could see the faint outline of her head and body laying on its side and facing away from him under the plain sheets of his guest bed.

Now his feelings of rage towards Monica weren't so strong. Instead he felt the urge to reach out and feel for her body, pull her warm mass up off the mattress and into his arms, caressing her curves and kissing her tenderly in the crook of her neck as he'd make love to her once again...

But Freddie knew that their problems would still be waiting for him if he did that.

So kneeled down beside her, and put his hand on what must've been her shoulder or upper arm as he gently started to shake her awake.

"Monica?" He whispered repeatedly, "Monica..."

The sheets rustled as the woman rolled over and stirred, groaning slightly.

"Paula? Phoebe?" Monica's dry, cracked voice asked.

Taken aback by hearing her speak for the first time in a while ever since their phone call in Dublin on the morning of the incident, Freddie didn't answer.

She pressed again, "What's the matter? Which one of you is it?"

Finally, he broke the barrier of silence between them, "It's only me."

Monica wasn't expecting to listen to that velvety voice of his anytime soon.

"F-Fred? Is that you?"

He nodded in the dark, "Yes, it's me."

He heard her sit up keenly and ever so slightly.

"Why are you here?" Monica mumbled, "Is-Is everything alright?"

Freddie took a deep breath, and professed, " Monica, I have to tell you something."

"Okay," she prompted hopefully, "Is it about Phoebe? Did you find someone to replace him yet?"

"No no, it isn't that." he responded.

Monica quizzed innocently, "Luke and Leia knocked the Christmas tree over again, didn't they?"

"Shit, she's got far too many preconceived assumptions of what I'm about to tell her," he feared suddenly, "She's definitely not ready to hear that I may or may not have AIDS..."

And so, in a moment of panic, he diverted from confessing his feelings towards her and lied instead:

"Why, yes. I hope that the loud clatter of it falling down below didn't wake you up, dear."

"Those silly kittens," He heard Monica chuckle sweetly, and lie back down again as she told him hesitantly, "I didn't hear anything...Thank you."

Freddie automatically asked, "Whatever for?"

She did a long yawn, then answered him earnestly, "For coming up to check on me, of course"

Enamoured at this point, Freddie was instinctively about to reach for her hand in the dark and tell her 'you're welcome'.

Until he heard loud whispering coming from outside the bedroom door.

Without saying anything he curiously crept closer, craning his head over to listen. He saw the shadows of two figures, one smaller than the other, at the gap at the bottom of the door.

He recognised the first voice as his son Johnny's, "Will Christmas still be happening?"

Then, he heard Phoebe tell him, "Of course it will. Why?"

"Because mum's sick, nobody's coming to visit this year" Johnny answered.

"Well, that's because she needs time to rest, doesn't she?" Mr Freestone explained.

"But what if Santa Claus doesn't come to our house, Pheebs?"

Phoebe laughed gently, "Now, why wouldn't Santa come to your house?"

The poor boy fretted, "Well, what if I get put on Santa's naughty list for not stopping mum from drinking and jumping into that swimming pool?"

Freddie could just about see Phoebe's shadow kneel down to Johnny's level.

The man asked the child, "Is that what this is about, Johnny? Are you blaming yourself for mum's accident?"

Freddie didn't hear Johnny answer, but could already imagine him nodding sullenly.

"Listen, Johnny," Phoebe began assuring him, "You didn't know that your mum was going to do any of those things, did you? Even if you did, there's no way that they could've been your fault."

"But even dad's still not talking to me," Johnny morosely disagreed, "or to Roshni, and he almost always talks to Roshni!"

He then heard Phoebe let out a complicated sigh, and tell the boy, "Come on... you and your sister both have to get ready for bed, otherwise Santa is never going to come at this rate"

"Nesquik is ready!" he heard Paula call from the kitchen downstairs afterward, "Come on Johnny, where are you?!"

Temporarily appeased by hot chocolate, Johnny called back, "Coming, Auntie Paula!!"

Freddie saw his son's shadow flash past the door gap on the right as he listened to the taps of his small bare feet scurrying down the wooden staircase excitedly. Phoebe's shadow went in the opposite direction on the left, and back up the staircase at a slower steadier pace.

Alone at last, he looked back over to his guest bed.

By now Monica was gently snoring in the dark again, quickly sinking back yet into another peaceful, comatose slumber.

"Forget it, you fucking fool. You had your chance." he told himself, dismayed.

Freddie concluded that it was probably best if he carried on being The Great Pretender after all, even if it was breaking people's hearts.

Including his own...