The Watering Hole, around 7:30pm

"You can stop polishing and take them back out now, Peter," Mr Harold Steinherr's round, pink face peered into the scullery from the swinging door that lead into his bar, shouting over the music to his new employee that was polishing an entire array of drinking glasses and arranging them on a drying crate in the back, "Any shinier and one would think that you were trying to blind us all!"

"Sorry sir, old habits die hard!" Mr Peter "Phoebe" Freestone casually defended, stepping away from the crate and tossing the dishrag into the sink.

"Who did you last work for anyway, a Magpie?" Mr Steinherr sarcastically joked as he held the door open for him, the thick alight cuban cigar wiggling between his yellowing teeth as he spoke.

Phoebe gave an awkward chuckle in return, lifting the crate full of glasses off of the shelf and carrying them towards the door back into the bar.

When Mr Steinherr said things such as that, it didn't help Phoebe move past the previous eight years he spent working for Freddie Mercury, simply because he became very good at polishing the amount of brass, silver and crystal his boss had acquired inside Garden Lodge.

"Maybe being a personal assistant is all that I know" he thought doubtfully yet again, setting the crate down behind the bar counter.

But this was a new job to prove himself wrong, and prove that he was more than just a doormat to Freddie. The bar man thing would only be temporary, then he'd climb back up to where he was as a wardrobe assistant before Freddie came into his life...

"And then, who knows?" Phoebe thought, beginning to arrange the wine glasses onto the hanging rack above his head.

Mr Steinherr, who was watching him from the other side of the bar counter through clouds of cigar smoke, asked him a question, "You want to know why I hired you, Peter?"

"Why?" Phoebe spoke loudly over the music.

"Soon enough the Watering Hole will be London's finest new haunt of 1987, and it'll be teaming with anyone who is anyone!" Mr Steinherr proudly bragged, "It needs workers like you who are efficient, polite, and above all dependable."

Phoebe blushed slightly, "You think so, sir? Thanks..."

"I know so. And best thing about you Peter is that you're trustworthy. Anybody would immediately take to you, and for that I have a special request for you to carry out."

The last part of that statement had caught Phoebe off-guard. He'd had one or two shifts so far and thought that he was trained in all that there was to know about working at the Watering Hole. What more could there have been?

"What kind of 'special' request, sir?"

"You see that gentleman sitting at that table over there, Peter?"

Phoebe followed where Mr Steinherr's signet-ringed finger was pointing, to someone whom was sitting alone and slouched at the table in the corner of the space.

"Yes sir, what about him?"

Mr Steinherr explained, "I've had my eye on him, and he's been here for some time since before your shift started."

"You want me to ask him to leave?" Phoebe was about to make his way out from behind the counter.

"God, no!" Mr Steinherr grabbed Phoebe's forearm to stop him, "I want you to take his order for me. And when you serve him you must then casually, and I mean casually, invite him back to my private booth upstairs later on to have a meeting with me personally."

Upon listening intently and processing his boss's rather unusual instructions, Phoebe simply asked, "What kind of meeting?"

"We shall see what happens tonight" Mr Steinherr gave him a knowing wink, running a hand through what was left of his greased greying hair.

Then Phoebe knew what he meant.

"No, you mustn't!" His moral conscience screamed out in his head, "That man sitting there is probably too drunk to make decisions for himself!"

Mr Freestone hesitantly looked back at the seated man once again, and he could see that the person already had two empty cocktail glasses and an almost finished alcoholic beverage in one hand whilst his head slumped onto the other as his elbow rested on the table's black granite surface.

"There's something familiar about the shirt he's wearing..." he thought.

It wasn't long before Phoebe came to the dreadful realisation that he had actually ironed that same button-up shirt many a time in his previous job. In fact, he was there in the shop when the man who was wearing it had bought it on one of his frequent shopping sprees. And with its distinct graphic pattern of black and white photographs and short tailored sleeves it was hard to miss. 

Mr Freestone then looked down at the shoes the man wore, which were a pair of white Tiger Mexico 66 trainers with the blue and red stripes that mismatched the man's entire outfit, and his unpleasant suspicions were immediately confirmed.

"Yep, that's Fred alright."

He desperately fumbled for excuses to get out of the situation, "Didn't you say you had a wife, sir?"

"Gretel's visiting family in Cologne," Mr Steinherr answered, before coyly adding, "or so she says..."

Phoebe started to panic internally.

"But does she know that you're here? Here doing, erm-"

"Doing what, adulterating?" Mr Steinherr slapped the bar top, "Gretel does the same thing all the time... with other men, of course. She thinks I don't know, but I do"

Phoebe looked at Freddie sitting on his own again.

"Sir," he said with a sense of desperation, "That gentleman really doesn't appear as though he needs another drink."

"It doesn't bloody matter!" His boss's voice rose slightly, now growing slightly impatient, "if he buys another drink then it'll mean more money for us and if you can't bring in money then you can't work here! Now go and serve him!!"

There was no convincing Mr Steinherr. Phoebe felt stuck between a rock and a hard place at that moment, especially when he needed the money to pay the rent on a bar man's salary which was significantly less than his previous income.

But he gave in to his new boss's unethical demands, dutifully rummaging though his apron pocket for his notepad and reluctantly making his way out from behind the bar counter.

Phoebe's insides twisted dreadfully as he drew closer and closer to Freddie, close enough to see that his black and white shirt was covered in crinkles and creases in the low light.

"He clearly hasn't found a replacement for me yet to do his ironing" 

He could also see that the man looked even worse for wear than he did from a distance. His raven hair was greasy and dishevelled, and from the side his face looked grey and sunken from what Phoebe only assumed could've been stress.

"Do I ask him what the hell happened to him, or do I warn him that my new boss wants to fuck him later?!" He pondered, lifting the one or two empty glasses at the table and stacking them together.

His trembled as he did so, for all the while he felt Mr Steinherr's waiting stare burning into him from behind.

"Are you ready to order something else, sir?" Phoebe finally, and courageously piped up.

"I'll have another vodka and tonic, thanks" Freddie garbled in response, not looking up but sensing somebody's shadow over him.

Phoebe knew exactly what to say that would blow his cover and catch the man's attention:

"And... will that be with Stolichnaya and Schweppes?"

At last Freddie slowly lifted his head. Then his blood-shot, blank stare widened in recognition.

The two looked back at one another for a moment, both stupefied.

Freddie sluggishly uttered, "What in God's name are you doing here?!"

"I might ask you the same thing!" Phoebe answered quickly.

Mr Mercury frantically looked around.

"Did you know that I was here?!"

Phoebe's face crinkled in confusion, "No, I work here now!"

"This must be some sort of fluke," Freddie mumbled, then quietly asked him, "I suppose... I suppose Monica doesn't have anything to do with this, does she?"

Phoebe sensed hope in the way that Freddie phrased his the second part of his sentence, but he couldn't understand why.

"Does Monica even know that you're here?" He asked the man sitting at the table in front of him.

"Don't know," Freddie numbly downed the last of his drink, "And wherever she's gone, she's taken them with her"

Before Phoebe could ask what Freddie meant, he was startled by his manager barking his birth name:

"Peter!"

He swung around, "Sir?"

"What's taking you so damn long?!" Mr Steinherr was now standing at the table with them, now wearing a scowl.

Phoebe fumbled, "Him and I were just talking-"

"I am paying you to gain his trust while he's easy, not make friends with him!" His boss hissed, grabbing Phoebe by the shoulder and pulling him aside.

"But sir, he's not that drunk! He's just... feeling miserable." Phoebe told him lowly.

"What's going on, Phoebe?" Freddie interrupted.

Mr Steinherr sounded, "Phoebe? Who's Phoebe?!"

"Is that man a journalist?!" Freddie spurned, rising from his seat.

"No he's not, he's the owner of this venue and my new boss!" Phoebe assured him, sensing things about to escalate.

"Your new boss? Him?!" Mr Mercury exclaimed slightly, doing a double take at Mr Steinherr.

"You're mucking this up, Peter!" Mr Steinherr quietly reprimanded Phoebe through clouds of smoke, "Just invite him upstairs already!"

"You might want to leave, Fred," Phoebe practically begged him, "Don't worry about the bill, I'll get it later"

"Invite me upstairs? Why?" Freddie asked perplexedly, having overheard.

Phoebe suggestively bugged his eyes at him in response, and watched as Freddie scornfully turned his head away at the mere idea of getting into bed with the the stout 5ft4 man with a scratchy red face and little to no hair left.

"If you can't get your bloody act together Peter then you can hang up your apron and leave, and don't ever think of coming back here!!" Mr Steinherr lowly threatened him.

Phoebe speechlessly gulped, unable to defend himself.

He reached behind and was about to untie the knot of the apron at the small of his back when Freddie said, "So let him leave."

Both Phoebe and his angry boss turned to him.

Mr Steinherr narrowed his piggy eyes, "I beg your pardon?"

Freddie walked over from his chair, and leaned into the man's personal space whilst Phoebe anxiously looked on.

"You heard me, you dirty old toss piece! Let. Him. Leave."

"How dare you speak to me like that!" Mr Steinherr's teeth were now grinding on his cigar with growing rage.

But Freddie carried on tearing him a new one as Phoebe watched on in astonishment:

"Peter 'Phoebe' Freestone is a good, hard-working and thoughtful man. A man who is so considerate that he will do things for you before you even need to ask him, almost like a mind reader. He's also a man with principles who will try to do the right thing and stop you from doing the wrong thing, even if it seems like he's being a pain in the arse because of it... and he didn't sign up to traffic innocent men for sex with sleazy, married b*stards with receding hairlines like you!"

"Fuck off, you f*g! Security!!" Mr Steinherr grew furious and flustered, gesturing the two burly doormen standing at the main entrance across the bar.

"Don't call me a f*g, you c*nt!" Freddie slurred back.

Phoebe snapped out of his stunned silence when he saw Mr Steinherr's clenched fist ball up by his side, ready to strike.

"Stop!!" He yelled, jumping in between the two men and grabbing his boss's arm before his knuckles could collide with Freddie's face.

Instead, Mr Steinherr started punching Phoebe in retaliation. Freddie flimsily tried to haul the small, angry man off his ex assistant in the scuffle, but to no avail.

Phoebe saw stars as he felt a pair of big hands pulling him away, trying to comprehend what was happening to him.

"Security, have them both escorted off of my premises!" He heard Mr Steinherr say one final time before getting dragged off against his will, possibly toward the nearest exit.

Within seconds the doormen shoved Freddie and Phoebe out the fire door so hard that they fell onto the hard, wet tarmac at the back of the building where the dumpsters were, throwing both their jackets onto the ground and slamming the doors after them with a thud.

The two men groaned in pain and confusion as they sat up, feeling for their belongings on the ground as they tried to regain conciousness.

Under the dim street lighting, Freddie could see a dark liquid oozing out of Phoebe's mouth and nose, staining his white bar uniform.

"Shit!" He sounded.

"What now?!" Phoebe gurned, one of his eyes beginning to swell up.

"You're bleeding!" Freddie remarked, patting down his leather jacket and trouser pockets for something dry and absorbent to soak the blood up.

Alarmed, Phoebe tilted his head back and pinched his nose, examining the blood all over his palm.

"It'll be fine, I'll just go to the toilet of a restaurant somewhere and clean up there." He said nasally as he climbed onto his feet.

"No, it isn't fine," Freddie forcibly held a napkin he'd found against his nose, "You should file a police report and sue."

"I can't afford a lawyer at this point," Phoebe dismissively pushed his arm away, then muttered, "Wait, hold on, I think..."

Mr Freestone coughed up and spluttered a bit more blood, and to Freddie's disgust he spat out a few bits of broken teeth into his own cupped hand.

"Oh, Phoebe..." 

Freddie pitifully watched the man wrapped what was once his pearly whites up in his napkin.

"Just leave me be and go home!" Mr Freestone turned away to leave, and began to march down the alley.

Freddie went quiet.

"...I can't go home."

Phoebe halted in his tracks, "Why not?"

Freddie looked down at the ground in shame.

"What happened?" Phoebe pressed.

"Phoebe, you'd be better off in a hospital than you would be out here." Freddie tried to change the subject.

Then Mr Freestone remembered Freddie's vague comment about Monica being 'gone' only a few minutes before they got thrown out of the bar, and it made sense.

"Did Monica leave you?"

"Phoebe, I've taken you for granted all these years and now I've cost you your new job," Freddie huffed, growing increasingly frustrated, "Just let me take you to a hospital, then I'll shut up and let you be"

Phoebe crossed his arms, "I'll let you take me to hospital if you tell me why Monica left."

Freddie sighed, and gave in, "I'll tell you, but only once your nose gets checked and your teeth get fixed."

Neither of them had any more energy left to continue standing in the cold, mid-winter night arguing with each other.

"Let's go, then."

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, around the same time

Paula McIntyre scurried down the dark corridor within an entirely new ward of the hospital, looking down at her hastily handwritten notes with Monica's instructions given to her over the phone only 20 minutes before.

They said, "Look out for the purple door across from the nurse's station".

But it wasn't easy, for there were several areas with desks that looked like some form of staff area and a couple of different doors painted purple nearby each and every twist and turn.

Paula hopelessly reached the dead end of the corridor when a man, dressed in a black shirt and clerical collar, was coming out of one of the rooms and saw how confused she looked.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" he offered kindly.

"You haven't seen a mother and her young son who has been admitted here, have you? I'm looking for them, both have brown hair. The mum's is shoulder-length and wavy and the son's is straight and bowl shaped" She explained, holding up the piece of paper with directions.

The priest read the vague, written-down instructions, "Hmm, yes. I think I saw them... follow me"

Paula followed the clergyman with a newfound feeling of apprehension, for she sensed that if Johnny was in a ward with a priest in it that was on hand to read bedside prayers then his injuries must've been a little more fatal than they seemed.

The priest stopped at one of many purple doors, "Is this the one?"

Paula looked at the sign on the wall that she hadn't seen until now. It had Johnny's name written on it in whiteboard marker.

"Yes, that's it! Thank you!"

"God bless you" he greeted one last time, before departing back into the shadows.

"Maybe it isn't me that you should be blessing" Paula held her tongue as she slowly opened the door handle.

The entire room was dark, except for the London street lights out the window and bar light on the wall above Johnny's bed. Its cool, bright glow illuminated Monica as she sat at her son's bedside with her back to the window, gently stroking the boy's bandaged forehead repeatedly as he slept.

She looked up as Paula entered, but not too abruptly, for there was a new padded brace around her neck.

"So, it was just a neck sprain after all?" Ms McIntyre said, referring to it.

Monica stiffly nodded, "The doctor told me to let someone know if it starts to feel sore"

She then pointed to the empty chair propped against the wall. Paula got the hint, lifting it up carrying it to the spot beside her friend.

"I met a priest outside," she then told Monica morbidly as she sat down, "does that mean Johnny's injuries are bad?"

"No, Johnny's still in observation." she whispered.

"So the pain in his tummy still hasn't gone away?"

Monica shook her head rigidly in the brace, "The doctor thinks it may be a rib or two got cracked on impact. He'll get X-Rayed tomorrow."

Paula looked closer at the dressing wrapped around Johnny's head, "Will he need stitches after all?"

"Apparently the windscreen glass didn't cut that deep, so the scars won't be that noticeable when they heal"

"Well let's hope that Johnny doesn't get his hair buzzed when he's older" Paula joked.

The two women giggled quietly and gently. And now that time had passed Monica had seemed a little more settled, but rather internally doubtful.

She finally asked, "Is my little girl doing okay?"

"The doctors managed to set and cast Roshni's arm just fine." Paula replied.

She perked up slightly, "Where is she now?"

"In the fracture ward of the children's unit. She and I will be spending a night there with nurses around the clock." Paula handed her another handwritten note from her bag with Roshni's ward and room number written down on it.

"And... how is she feeling?" Monica then solemnly asked.

"She's more annoyed at the inconvenience that it was her right arm got broken and not her left one because it means she can't write," Paula sniggered slightly, "I mean, she mightn't have to do homework for a long, long time!"

"Oh," Monica laughed softly, "I'll visit her in another few minutes"

Paula then pulled a brown paper bag out of her shoulder tote, "Brought you something. You should eat first"

"Thank you, but I'm okay for now," Monica placed the bag on the bedside table, "I'll save if for Johnny if he wakes up before I go to sleep"

"Perhaps this is a good time to break the ice" Paula thought, Johnny's gentle snores and beeps of the machinery and monitors he was wired up to filling the room.

"So," she started, "How did it happen?"

"How did what happen?" Monica naively asked.

"The car accident, of course!"

Noticing the severity in Ms McIntyre's facial expression, Monica then defiantly sustained, "I wasn't drinking at all in the car with them, I swear!"

"Why would I think that, Mo?! That was only once, and even if you were drinking and driving you'd be spending a night in a police cell right now!"

Paula watched as Monica's eyes glanced downwards, and she reached into the pocket of the pea green coat hanging on the back of her chair, and pulled out a crumpled-up piece of paper.

"Read it" Monica handed it to her.

Ms McIntyre unfolded what appeared to be a small, brightly coloured cut-out from a magazine, and she held it closer to the light so that she could see it better:

"'Big Disgrace, Queen Spouse's Drunken Plunge'..." Paula inaudibly read aloud to herself, "Is that meant to be some sort of crap We Will Rock You pun?"

Monica rolled her eyes lightly, "Just look at it more"

"This weeks winning Spotted In The Wild submission goes to Anonymous Teen, who claims to have witnessed a bizarre incident before Christmas that involved Monica Brannigan..." Paula lowered it in confusion, asking, "What is this drivel about, Mo?!"

"Keep reading"

And so Paula did read it all, just enough to know what and who the magazine column was about.

"Well, I think that made me lose about thirty brain cells" she hasty crumpled it back up and tossed it onto the ground once she was finished, not one to keep her mouth shut whenever she felt her blood bubbling with anger.

"Everyone is going to think that I was drink-driving with Johnny and Roshni in the backseat," Monica quivered with shame, "And honestly, I don't blame you if you think so too at this point. I don't know what's going to happen to us once we all get out of hospital, whether social services will get involved, or-"

"Mo, it's fine!" Paula's voice firmed, then softened as she revealed, "I think I already know what you were running from."

Monica's sad, blue eyes silently searched her for an explanation.

"Roshni already told me what Freddie did to you," Paula calmly confessed, "and anyway, you didn't even make an effort to hide that big, pink mark across your face either."

Monica's anxious expression fell as she reached up to touch the slap mark still printed on her cheek, beginning to feel a mixture of both shame and relief at the same time. 

"You... You must think I'm so weak and silly," she finally started opening up, "We were trying to get to your flat as fast as we could"

"Definitely not weak, but silly? Yes, one hundred percent!" Paula uttered, almost critically, "I mean, well done you for getting yourself and the weans out of the house, but I still don't understand why Johnny didn't have his seatbelt on and why Roshni wasn't sitting in her seat properly!" 

Monica then admitted, "He was reaching over to the backseat so that he could give my bag with my Motorola and phone book in it to his sister. We were trying to call you ahead of time"

"Oh..." Paula noised with a little more understanding, then revealed, "you could've just turned up, you know. I was in, it was my day off!"

"I wanted to make sure that you knew we were coming first," Monica elaborated, "I guess in that moment I was also just trying to set an example to them both that it's bad manners to turn up uninvited, as well as run from... from him."

"There's no such thing as manners and politeness when you think that you're in danger of being followed, Mo" Paula put her hand on her friend's forearm assuringly.

"You're right," Monica reluctantly agreed, "A mother is supposed to keep her children safe from danger, and even then I couldn't run from it and protect them, could I?"

"Mo, that isn't what I meant..."

"Oh, did I mention that I'm also failing uni, and myself!?" she began to fret, huffing slightly.

"Listen! Don't stress, you can turn it around!" Paula put her hand on her friend's back.

"How?!" Monica threw her hands up.

"Well, just start small for now. I have a fold-out sofa bed if you need," Paula offered, "You'll have to share my living room with Max the dog, but at least you'll have a roof over your heads and you can stay as long as you need until you figure things out." 

Monica hesitated as she felt her friend rubbing soothing circles into her upper back in a steady rhythm that started to help her calm down again.

"Thanks, Paula. But I'd hate to impose for more than one night. And anyway, it won't take... it won't take Freddie very long to figure out where we're staying" 

At last, Monica was brave enough to say his name again.

Now a bit more reassured and confident, she continued to muse, "When we're all discharged, we'll just get a hotel somewhere until we get back to Ireland."

"And where will that be?" Paula asked.

"Maybe Liverpool, that way we are far away from Fred and near a ferry that we can take across to Belfast... and hopefully by that time I'll have found a way to explain to mam and dad why we're coming back. Plus, their accent sounds a bit like ours, and it's full of us Irish."

"Wow, sounds like you have this figured out already!" Paula chuffed, then reflected, "It'll be a shame when you leave London though. I only just moved here!"

"It might be a while yet," Monica disclosed, "The only thing I haven't had a chance to think about is how I'll get a new car for a reasonable price at such short notice."

"Oh, that's easy," Paula declared with a smirk, picking up the crumpled magazine column cutout at her feet, "I'll write to every magazine and news publication in Britain and tell them how fantastic a friend and mother you are."

Monica scoffed, "Yea, sure! What's that got to do with getting me a new car?"

Her friend continued, "I'll give you the cash so that you can get your feet off the ground. Whether that's a new car, or a flat, or a school for the twins, whichever comes first."

Monica now smiled, "You always know how to cheer me up, Paula" 

"I'm serious!" Paula put her arm around her friend's shoulder affectionately, "Nobody writes about my friend like that and gets away with it, not even Rupert Murdoch"

Monica's thoughts then yo-yoed back to self-doubt, and her new-found smile faded.

Paula noticed, "You okay?"

"You were right anyway about him anyway, Paula" 

"What do you mean?"

Monica quietly reflected, "Remember when, all those years ago, we went to London at the end of the school year? And that morning when you were about to leave I told you that I was going to stay with him, and you tried to make me think twice?"

"How can I forget?" Paula shuddered, thinking about how she also got  an eyeful of the rock star fully naked with a hard-on.

"Well, you were right to warn me," Monica admitted,  "I should've listened to you and come back home. Then maybe I wouldn't be sitting here in this mess."

"Well, Johnny and Roshni probably wouldn't have happened either. Think about that." Paula reasoned.

"I know, but each time I take one look at them I'm going to see him in them," Monica thought aloud, staring absently at her dreaming son, "Every day I see him in Johnny's eyes, in Roshni's nose, in Johnny's stubbornness, charisma, and creativity. And Roshni's kindness, thoughtfulness and conscientiousness..."

After some time, Paula said, "I watched Johnny's Peter Pan play on Christmas Eve, did I tell you that?"

"You did?!" Monica perked up a little, "He was brilliant, wasn't he?"

"Yeah!" Paula excitedly nodded, "And Roshni... Flip me, that 24 Game reminded me that I can't even calculate my taxes! They're both wonderful kids, Mo, and you should be focusing what makes them great rather than what you think makes them both like their father."

Monica's brief simper of pride fell into that of sadness yet again.

"They're the most wonderful things to come out of my life, Paula. Out of me, even... and I fought hard for Johnny and Roshni to have as much stability and normality as possible, like I had. But what's the point if they already know that their mum is a miserable alcoholic and that their dad is emotionally unavailable and short-tempered all the time? And I know that Freddie isn't a monster, Paula. I'm not defending what he did to me today, or to us in the past, but I just..." 

She paused with difficulty.

Paula waited for her to finish, "Just what?"

Monica swallowed, trembling, "I just can't keep waiting for him anymore."

Just by the way she said it, Paula could tell that Monica had already forgiven Freddie, and the fact that it was over was a hard pill to swallow. 

"Because, she still loves him." she thought.

But Ms McIntyre also knew that out of the many things her friend deserved, it was closure, the lack of which was causing Monica to suffer constantly. 

And now, this was it. Paula couldn't find the urge to fight the truth any longer: 

"Mo, there's something I need to tell you about Freddie. And it's not my place to tell you, but you should know anyway"

"If it's about your honest opinion of him, Paula, then I think I already know what it is." Monica muttered.

"No, it isn't that," Paula contested irritably, "It's... it's something else."

"What could it possibly be at this point? I can see his true colours for myself now" Monica trailed off remorsefully.

"Listen!" Paula huffed, ready to get straight to the point, "I know Freddie wanted to be in Dublin that day."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because, he told me so himself. But the real reason he couldn't be there was because..." 

She stopped talking when her ears noticed that the monitors' bleeps in the background started picking up in tempo, getting faster and more frequent to the point where it was distracting.

Monica lifted her head suddenly at the commotion coming from the machinery, and the sound of her son's bedsheets rustling, causing her sprained neck to spasm.

"Johnny?" she winced. 

Paula flew off her chair and flicked the main light switch on the wall.

Johnny was in the bed in front of both women, his small figure distorting and shaking frenziedly under the white sheets. 

"Johnny, mummy's here. Can you hear me?!" Monica started ripping the bedding off of him and pulling machine wires out of the way.

Paula glanced at the boy's pale face, and his sunken eyes were rolling to the back of his head as he convulsed. 

"Johnny, stop it! JOHNNY!!"

"Get him on his side Mo, he's having some sort of seizure!"

"JOHNNY!" Monica tearfully howled the boy's name repeatedly in distress as Paula helped her roll the boy onto his side before wasting no time to run out the door for help. 

Medical staff filled the room within seconds, ripping an inconsolable mother apart from her child's bedside and frantically unplugging the wires from him so that they could swing into action.

"WHAT-WHERE ARE YOU TAKING HIM?! DON'T TAKE HIM AWAY!!" Monica cried as they wheeled Johnny out the door at lightening speed in front of her, fighting against Paula and the nurse who were both holding her back.

"You have to let them do what they need to do, Mo!" Her friend gripped her arm tighter.

"BUT I'M HIS MOTHER, HE NEEDS ME!" Monica lunged forward in resistance, her maternal instincts urging her to interfere.  

"He needs them!  His life is already in danger, and delaying them is a selfish thing to do!"

That alone made Monica stop struggling, and her lip trembled for answers.

"I'm sorry, but you have let him go..." Paula softly beseeched.

Monica's tearstained face contorted into anguish and her mouth let out a silent wail as she helplessly slid against the wall and onto the hospital floor, knowing that there was nothing left she could do.

Paula sat with her best friend and held her close in her arms as she wept, her own eyes starting to sting with tears again as she tried to imagine what it must've felt like having one's heart broken, finding out one's university course is failing and watching one's child suffer all in one day.

But she couldn't. What Monica was going through was just unfair, and unfathomable.

"Don't die, Johnny," Paula begged, rubbing Monica's back as she cried, "Your mother needs you..."

Somewhere else in A&E, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

"Just keep it there and try not to talk too much." The nurse instructed. 

Phoebe nodded, his fingers keeping the cotton gauze pressed against the bare part of his gum where his teeth had been knocked out, his nostrils crusted with dried blood.

Freddie was sitting quietly and sullenly beside him in the row of chairs in the corridor with his head hung low, now much more sober and wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses to partially disguise his appearance now that he was in a public hospital.

It was obvious to Phoebe that the man didn't want to be there, but they both made a promise to one another after all and he wasn't even sure if he'd have preferred being alone in hospital either.

He couldn't help wondering if Freddie's long speech towards his ex boss was true. 

"If it was, then maybe I should consider asking Freddie for a reference on my CV" he thought, somewhat proud.

The man uttered something incomprehensible next to him.

"What?" Phoebe asked through the gauze.

Freddie spoke a little more loudly, "I said that you should've just treated me like a normal customer and let me be, then maybe you'd still have some teeth left in your head and your nose would still be straight."

Phoebe took his gauze out to speak, "I'd hate to imagine what Mr Steinherr would've done to you."

"There's no way I would've said yes to that cretin!" Freddie uttered in disgust.

Phoebe was about to put the gauze back into his mouth when he then asked, "What on earth were you thinking, Fred, going out drinking alone like that?" 

Freddie raised his eyebrows in bewilderment behind his glasses as he deflected, "What on earth were you thinking, choosing to go work at a bar called the Watering Hole?!"

"You chose to go to a bar called the Watering Hole, and I want to know why you went there alone!" Phoebe retaliated with slight pettiness, their feud from December still not fully over.

Mr Mercury took a deep breath, and coolly replied, "Well, if you remember I got driven by the Watering Hole venue when it was being renovated many a time before when I was on my way to the studio, and it just looked like an interesting spot for a drink to pass time... Besides, if day-drinking helped Monica numb the heartache I caused her then I just had to try it for myself."

"A vague comment about Monica, yet again..."

"Then out of all the things you could've done to 'pass the time', why did you choose day-drinking?!" Phoebe chastised slightly.

Freddie casually answered, "I suppose I hoped that, by the time I'd gotten back to Garden Lodge, she'd be there with those two, packing up all of their things."

At this point Phoebe couldn't tell if Freddie was telling the truth or just being sarcastically contemptuous. And remembering the promise they'd made earlier, he was still frustratingly itching for answers as to what had happened between him and Monica.

"...Why did Monica leave, Freddie?"

Freddie's tone hardened a little, "We only just got here!"

Phoebe folded his arms testingly, "Wasn't that the deal? That you'd tell me what happened when we got to a hospital? Well, here we are, in a hospital."

"Don't be such a smart arse..." 

Mr Mercury got up off his chair to cowardly storm off, rummaging through his jacket pocket for his box of cigarettes like he always did when he got stressed.

Unfortunately, as if by chance, Freddie's path was blocked by a group of medical staff in scrubs running towards himself and Phoebe from one end of the corridor to the other with a hospital bed in between them, a person in a white coat with a stethoscope around their neck that appeared to be leading the way.

The rubber-souled footsteps on the linoleum and whirring of the bed's wheels echoed throughout the corridor, as did the staffs' conversation, loud enough for Freddie to hear what was happening:

"He was in the queue for an abdominal X-Ray when he started going into shock in front of his mother" said one breathless nurse.

Another nurse quickly added, "He may have internal bleeding!"

"Well, whatever it is we'll need to stop it!" the person in the white coat, who was a doctor, wheezed.

As the hospital bed wheeled past Freddie, he caught a glimpse of the patient's tufts of brown hair sticking out of the white bandages, a familiar snub nose stuffed with transparent oxygen tubing, and most of all the glassy brown, possessed eyes that where very much like that of his own.

"Johnny!?" 

Phoebe lifted his head, having heard Freddie mutter the boy's name.

"JOHNNY!!" Freddie cried out his name this time, suddenly whipping off his aviator sunglasses and chasing after the bed.

A few nurses slowed down slightly and turned to look behind them. 

Phoebe leapt up after the man in confusion as he started to chase after them.

"STOP! THAT'S MY SON!!" Freddie howled horribly, catching up quickly.

Mr Freestone caught up by Freddie's side and looked at the boy in the bed.

Indeed, it was his former boss's son, "Oh no..."

"Sir, please! If this boy is your son then we need to get him to the emergency theatre right away!" the startled doctor tried to pry Freddie's desperate, grabbing hands off the rails of his ailing son's hospital bed.

The nurse exclaimed with difficulty, "You'd think that this boy's parents don't want his life to be saved!"

"Parents?" Phoebe thought, now even more concerned and bewildered than ever.

Freddie, however, was too overcome with hysteria and grief to care about the possibility that Monica was in the same building, so much so that he had to be restrained by the nurse and doctor from going any further beyond the two double doors that led to the operating theatre.

Somewhere in the commotion, a set of staff had managed whisk the man away into a quiet room nearby and settle him down, with the help of Phoebe who was apologising profusely to them the entire time for the scene that Freddie was causing, for acting on his ex-boss's behalf and feeling responsible for him had become a force of habit.

Phoebe wasn't used to the dynamic between them that this situation had caused, despite the fact that he'd spent the previous eight years in the personal lives of Freddie and his family. Making his breakfast cup of Earl Grey every morning like clockwork, washing, ironing and folding their laundry, helping the twins with their homework and even changing the their nappies at one point...

But in those eight years, nothing prepared Mr Freestone to deal with the broken, troubled man father sitting in a chair beside him in a dark room with only a table and public health posters hanging on the wall, sobbing in a way in which he'd never seen him sob before, not even during the miscarriage only a year before.

"Even that was relatively easy to deal with," Phoebe reflected, "Johnny and Roshni needed kept out of the way, and Freddie and Monica just needed space to grieve their unborn child."

But for this, Phoebe had no protocol. All he felt that he could do was stay quiet and hold the gauze in his mouth until another nurse came frantically looking for him.

Out of the blue, after sitting for what felt like an age, Freddie broke the silence with a quiver.

"I caused this, Phoebe"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Phoebe almost snapped, thinking that he was just self-pitying, "You don't know what on earth happened! None of us even know what's going on..." 

"You're right," Freddie snivelled in defeat, "I don't know why my boy's here in this hospital, but I'm certain I have something to do with it".

"Then just tell me what you did, why Monica left you!"

Through his tears, the man finally admitted to Phoebe his dreadful wrongdoing under his breath:

"I... I slapped her. I slapped Monica."

In disbelief, Phoebe searched him for clarity. Freddie turned his head away in shame, and nodded.

"When?!"

"Today, when I tried to leave for Barcelona."

Phoebe's brows furrowed as he thought about it, for even he didn't see it coming. It opened up many more burning questions in his mind of what had transpired since he left for a new job, but now wasn't the time to push the poor man for more answers when his son was injured in hospital. 

So, he let Freddie carry on.

"...I wanted to go there early. I couldn't bear being in that house anymore, sitting around waiting. You know what I'm like. I have to be doing something..."

"Waiting... for what?" Phoebe quizzically asked.

Freddie shrugged, and continued to blubber, "Anyway, M-Monica saw me trying to leave. One minute we were at each other's throats, screaming at the top of our lungs like we've never screamed before. Words were exchanged, and the things she said made me so angry that I-well, I..."

Phoebe didn't even need to know the ending. 

Of course didn't approve of Freddie's actions. But he was sure that if he'd heard what Monica had said to him that made his blood boil hot enough to smack her across the cheek, then he wouldn't exactly blame him either.

And knowing how sweet and gentle Freddie's Irish flower tended to be, and the working friendship he'd formed with her too over the years, Monica's words must've been rather venomous.

Freddie sighed, his voice now exhausted, "I've lost her, my family, and now my son is dying. It was all a shitstorm waiting to happen, all because of me."

"Well, you haven't exactly been Man Of The Year, or father for that matter" Phoebe held his tongue, remembering what happened in Dublin, and the time he also announced that he was going to quit working for him.

He somewhat agreed with Freddie's statement; it was all a shitstorm waiting to happen, a ship ready to run aground at any given moment. He also partially suspected that Monica had played a part in the decline well, or at least her alcoholism did seeing as that was the last contributing factor he'd remembered before leaving Garden Lodge.

"And Roshni," Phoebe feared, "I wonder where she is and if she's okay"

It was sad though when an innocent child got hurt in the process, and now Phoebe was hoping that, whatever Johnny Bulsara had been through, the boy would survive.

"If he doesn't," he thought, "Goodness knows what Freddie's going to do with himself"

The door suddenly squeaked open, interrupting their thoughts.

Phoebe lifted his head first. Freddie slowly followed, understandably much more woebegone.

A plump, smartly dressed black woman walked into the room with a clipboard under her arm, and softly closed the door behind her. 

"You a'right?" her soothing, Jamaican-accented voice greeted the two men.

"Hello there" Phoebe replied, straightening up.

He felt a bit embarrassed and exposed with blood crusted over his wonky nose, stained on his shirt, and a few teeth missing, but the Jamaican lady didn't seem to bat an eyelid. She must've seen a lot.

She pulled a chair out in front of them both, and introduced herself with a slight but nonetheless warm and approachable smile, "Me name is Abigail, an' I am one of the family liaison officers here at this hospital" 

Phoebe watched as Abigail set her clipboard down on the table. Freddie keenly listened on beside him for any news of his son, his eyes still glistening with tears.

She addressed Phoebe first, for so far he was seemingly the most co-operative of the two, "Which one of you de father of," she glanced at her notes, and frowned as she tried to pronounce the child's name correctly, "Johnny Bulsara?"

He pointed to Freddie, "He is. I'm just a former assistant".

Abigail angled her seat slightly so that she was facing Freddie, "I heard you been having trouble comin' to terms with yer son bein' in hospital, sir. How can I help?"

"Actually, we only found out he was in this hospital just now, by chance," Phoebe explained, "We'd appreciate it greatly if you told us what's happening."

Suddenly, Freddie piped up, "Where's Roshni? Is she okay too?"

There seemed to be no mention or concern for Monica on his part, but then again Phoebe wasn't surprised.

"It's a'right, sir," Abigail assured him gently, "Yer wife and daughter are both safe now."

Phoebe looked at Freddie as he sucked in a breath and sunk into his chair again, not bothering to correct her as he eagerly listened on.

"Yer family were all involved in a car accident," she went on to kindly explain , "The boy's mother drive de car too fast, she lost control and her car slip pon de ice. 'Tis my understanding at the moment dat the mother injured her neck and your daughter broke her arm, but your son got the most hurt out of all of dem."

The bigger picture unfolded. Now things made sense.

"So she was running away..."

Freddie just stared at his lap in a mixture of deep thought, pain and concern.

"De doctor thinks that your son has sepsis from internal bleedin', possibly in de kidneys," Abigail continued, "They might've been badly bruised on impact during de crash. Right now, dey're trying to drain out him infected blood as fast as dey can." 

Freddie trembled, "Will he be alright?"

Abigail leaned forward slightly, and told him with seriousness, "Your son will be put in a medically-induced coma whilst dey drain him blood, den de doctor will see what is needed. Until den, we don't know."

Freddie stared into space behind her as he willed himself to absorb what she was telling him about Johnny. Meanwhile Phoebe quietly began asking Abigail questions about nearby hotels to stay in, what the best course of action was to take if the patient's father was estranged from his family and whatnot, even though he really didn't need to...

"Blood." 

That word repeated in Freddie's head a lot, yet it wouldn't sink into his mind.

All the while Phoebe and Abigail discussed formalities, he was distracted by the few of the public health posters of the wall. They were sinister, black and white monochromatic posters alongside it forebodingly telling him things along the lines of how not to catch HIV or AIDS, or advising him not to sleep around without protection...

Freddie felt relieved looking at them, having had his HIV test results phoned to him that morning, "At least I'm negative."

There were other posters, however, with their loud and bright white and red colour palettes, and bold-texted slogans screaming at him about blood donation.

Instantaneously, Freddie had an idea, a glimmer of hope in the immense darkness he was facing. A solution that made him feel somewhat useful for once. 

"I know what I'll do." he heard himself cry out.

He startled Abigail and Phoebe, who ended their conversation and both turned to look at him and await to hear his declaration:

"...I'll give Johnny my blood!"

To be continued...

I am sure you all heard the (now outdated) news that Mary Austin has decided to put our dear Freddie's items up for auction. Whilst I have mixed opinions and feelings on the matter, both good and bad, I have decided to make light of the situation in my own way. When I saw that Sotheby's posted this lovely, quaint photograph of the entrance hall into Garden Lodge, you know I just had to play around with a little bit of paint, pens and my amateur Photoshop skills. So, here's how I personally wish things could've been in that household. You may recognise one or two faces!!