Chapter Text
Camila
Maybe time can heal everything. Maybe it won’t take her years to get over Billy and the life she was supposed to have. Maybe in just a year- she’s nearly there. Or maybe her life is so full there’s no room for him anymore.
The tour manager is a strung out, balding man who may have had a full head of hair before he started managing the four-piece rock band. Camila can already feel the egos, and the drama. The drummer is mad that the front man isn’t there yet, and the bassist keeps grumbling about the clothes someone else picked for their photoshoot, while the keyboardist stares at the ceiling, whatever he’s on making the water stains swirl above his head.
“I’m sorry,” the manager says, flustered for the third time. “I said 3:00 but — well you know how rock stars are,” he laughs but she can see the sweat pooling down his neck because his guitarist is late to the shoot.
“I really do,” Camila replies, and she looks at the members of the band that are already there for their photoshoot, in her studio, that Karen and her band mates helped paint the sign for, that has been surging with so much business Camila can barely keep up. All it took was telling people she photographed Daisy Jones and the Six.
She’s booking engagement shoots, family photos, pet pictures, album cover shoots, and then there are the days she goes to industry events, and concerts and take photos — a regular at Karen’s performances. Camila has found new music she loves, music she can’t stand, and new bands that sound nothing like Billy’s. She did a few weddings in the summer, because they paid well, and she’s an expert at seeing love between people, but then she stopped for a little while. The money wasn’t worth the reminder of her past wedding, and his impending one.
She’s so used to this now, she knows how to work with screaming babies, and fighting parents, and the rock stars and their egos to always get the perfect shots. And these days, when she hears Daisy talk about being on stage like she was made for it, Camila knows exactly what she means. Camila feels the same way in her studio.
“Let’s get some shots with your drummer,” Camila replies. The tour manager dispatches the woman who has dark eyeliner around her eyes, a fringe of straight hair that nearly reaches her eyes.
The radio plays in the studio, and as Camila sets up the shoot; a familiar tune starts.
“And here it is, the new number one song from Daisy Jones and the Six - Forgive Us!” the radio announcer shouts happily. Camila supposes the raw solos, sweet licks and upbeat tempo disguise that it’s a song about begging for forgiveness. Sometimes, on a good day, Camila can listen to it, and hear all the things that Billy didn’t have the strength to say. It is her song, after all, just not the one she ever expected.
Billy (Daisy)
I was your caged sparrow, and you set me free
Without you I can’t think of where I’d be
But there’s no going back to before,
and though I don’t deserve it,
You’ll forgive me.
(Forgive us)
But then again, weren’t you always more?
I always let you down (always letting you down)
You were always more
(always more)
Daisy (Billy)
So forgive us (forgive us)
We can’t go back to before
We can’t fix what’s broken (I don’t want to be broken anymore)
I don’t want to be broken
You were always more (We Can’t)
Oh, no matter how much we want to (ache to)
Need to (crave to)
We can’t go back to before (you were always more).
Both (Daisy)
So I hope there will come a day
When the love is gone (the love we thought was here to stay)
And you’ll be able to think of me and maybe (even though it’s undeserved)
I hope you can forgive me too (forgive us too)
Camila reaches forward to turn off the radio. She knows the chorus by heart, anyway. Those harmonizing, anguish filled lines dedicated to her.
“Do you have a copy of your album?” Camila asks the drummer, who has been distracted ever since the front man arrived. He’s a stretched out, long-haired man with large sideburns down the sides of his tanned face, but Camila can see the strength of his jawline from where she stands. Camila saw him enter from the corner of her eye, and the look of his displeasure when he realized the shoot had already started without him.
The tour manager has disappeared, maybe finding the rush of a high somewhere now that his job is done.
“I’d love to put it on and hear your sound as we shoot,” Camila adds, and that’s how that tradition starts, the one that makes her so goddamn good with photographing musicians. They think it’s because she’s pandering to their egos, or that she wants to make them feel comfortable. But it’s actually selfish. It’s all for her. She doesn’t want Billy’s voice in her head; she doesn’t want to close her eyes right now and see her future; the shared Christmases, Julia as the flower girl at their wedding, alternating vacations, split custody, tour hopping with the band as Julia grows up on their music until she’s old enough to go herself. It’s all part of a life Camila never pictured for herself. She wants to build her own.
The drummer yells at the keyboardist to get the record and looks back at the camera, as if willing herself not to look at the lead guitarist.
The keyboardist disappears to find the manager and request a copy of their record, as the front man joins the drummer in front of Camila’s lens. There’s an icy tension between them and for a moment Camila wonders if there’s a love story there. For years, she won’t be able to help to wonder when she watches bands sing together, if there is something under the surface there. Something strong enough to break up hearts, marriages or bands. Maybe that’s always the risk with artists who bare their souls to each other, putting everything into the music. Maybe it’s so powerful it’s impossible not to fall in love.
As the keyboardist returns and puts on the record, the tension in the room simmers. The band assembles in front of the backdrop and Camila listens to their sound as she takes their photos. It’s so different from Billy’s band, but so similar too. There are lyrics of wanting, and anguish. There are long drum solos, and there’s a moment when the front man’s voice is serenading someone with love, and his eyes meet the drummer’s. Camila captures the exact second their souls meet and bore into each other. Yes, she’ll think later when she’s developing the photos. There is something there. Maybe there always is.
Camila doesn’t know what’s coming. There is so much she can’t picture yet; the success of Alvarez Studios, the milestones in her daughter’s childhood, a house full of laughter with Karen, and then her own house in the woods, with winding stairs. And this time when photographers take photos on her lawn into her home, it’s because she’s invited them in, and the architect Norman Foster is there, talking about the design.
And that one part she talked about with Karen, drunk, in a square in the middle of the night in London will come true too.
She will find an ordinary man who can’t carry a tune (she’ll love that about him). He’ll over share, and tell her too much. He won’t hide anything from her (if there was anything to hide) and she doesn’t know how fast she’ll fall in love, and how much they’ll love each other.
And with that equal devotion, they’ll build a life. She’ll find she didn’t know it was possible to be loved that much, and to match it.
Life has a sense of humour, because it’s only because of Billy that she’ll be back in LA that weekend, that in a cafe in Laurel Canyon she’ll meet a man who has never been married. Who’ll say he was waiting for his true love- which later, he’ll say was Camila. And they’ll buy that Norman Foster house and split their time between London and LA. When she’s too busy with work, he’ll take Julia to watch Billy and Daisy’s shows and stay in the audience because Camila can’t, until eventually she can again.
She doesn’t know how much her life will change, yet. Because right now, all she knows is that focusing on her career, her daughter, and her friendship with Karen in London is the closest thing she’s felt like flying in a long time. She loves her life.
After the band leaves and the shoot is done, she’s processing the photos in the dark room, and the catchy tune from Forgive Us is still playing in her mind, and she knows, someday soon, she will.
Billy
There’s an anniversary Billy hates but can’t help thinking of, as Daisy lies asleep in his arms on their tour bus. The lights are speeding across the highway and there’s only the sound of her breath — so familiar now.
He thinks about this time last year, and finding her on the floor of the bathroom. And how terrified he was, shit, he still is.
And he thinks back to a few months ago when she relapsed and hadn’t come home from the party. One night without her was agony. But, she’d done that before. She’d needed space, or she’d gone to New York, or she’d stayed out late, but she had always called. And she had never stayed away more than three nights — that pull between them so strong.
So Four? Five? It felt like a fucking eternity. It gave him enough space to imagine all the most terrible things happening to her.
In his mind she was gone, she was in a ditch; she was on some bathroom floor he couldn’t find, eyes lolling back, her body sticky, pale and small. And when he found her, he was sure he’d be too late. It was not fun to miss her so much he felt like he would break.
So, he had dropped Julia off with Graham and searched for Daisy. It felt like he looked everywhere. The studio, Teddy’s, the beach they visited their first night, the club where the party had been nights before.
He went into crowded clubs, looking for that mane of red, for the eyes he’d long since memorized, trying to think where she would be. He went to bars in the middle of the day and found alcoholics, and was tempted to take his seat at the bar among them to ignore the gnawing thoughts of imagined tragedies. He called Simone, Bernie, and members of the band who had been at that party. But he knew it meant nothing - Daisy could be in freaking Laos already. She could’ve taken her passport and left, or she could be in the hospital morgue, waiting for him to come identify her.
Billy went to house parties where people knew his name, and asked Where’s Daisy, Man! And he wanted to yell at them; that’s the fucking problem, I don’t fucking know! And he wanted to use, he wanted to use so goddamn badly. But he had to find her. If he didn’t find her soon, he was going to use. He knew he was. Fucking ironic, that. If he had been in a better place, he could’ve written about it. Maybe he will one day.
He knows her so well. So why then, couldn’t he find her? He had been terrified she left, and thought back to the last week, excavating conversations, looking through the rubble of arguments like an archeologist looking for a clue that had he done something. Did she have any doubts that he loved her? Was that stupid drama with Camila getting in the way? He couldn’t think of what he had done (because he had done nothing.)
And Rodd was supposed to tell him, but Rodd was high out of his mind, so how could he be expected to tell Billy that Daisy went out into the desert? That she, Rodd, Clarissa, Warren and some groupies drove just to watch the stars and taste every color in the world. It was supposed to be one night. Somehow it turned into five.
So when they came home in the morning — still high — but in the good parts of it their laughter echoed through the house and he ran to the front door.
“DAISY?” Billy yelled. “Oh fuck, baby you’re ok.”
He hadn’t slept, and he was so worried this was just part of those fever dreams he’d been having. So, before she even closed the door, he was pulling her into his arms, and then falling to his knees, holding her tightly, face pressed against her, arms wrapped around her as if to prove to himself that she was real. She was back.
They had found it funny, all of them, until they’d really understood.
Her reaction was a laugh at first, too, until he hugged her too tight. Until she could feel his body shake with fear. He remembers begging her with tears in his eyes to get clean. He recalls saying; Baby, I can’t lose you, please, please, please don’t do that to me Daisy.
“Shit,” Rodd had said.
“We were just in Mojave,” someone said. No wonder he couldn’t fucking find her. She was just among sand.
“We got a bit lost,” someone else laughed.
“I tried to tell him,” Rodd added. “But he’d left the studio by the time I—“
“— I thought you called him,” Clarissa accused someone.
“I did!” Warren said. But he didn’t. He’ll remember later that he didn’t have quarters. That he went back into the party to find some and instead he had gotten some more coke, and then something as small as telling Billy had faded away. They had piled into a car and planned to go for one night to the desert. And Daisy? She had been fucking performing on the sidewalk, thinking she could trust Warren with something so small. She had been serenading a crowd from the party, eyes closed, feeling as if she was on top of the world. And man, it was just supposed to be one night, so really if she didn’t call - it would be fine, right?
“I’m so sorry Billy,” Daisy had said, but it hadn’t been enough. “It was supposed to be one day. I’m so sorry, baby. I thought you knew.”
Billy knows deep down, that there’s a part of her that felt so much shame and guilt that she relapsed, that it made her use more. She knew he would worry, or get mad at her, or judge her, so she hid out in the desert a little longer. Maybe that’s really why one night turned into five. And maybe that’s why he’s so scared, and angry, and wrapped up in his own guilt he begs her to get clean.
Nothing ruins a party like that. Nothing brings down a high like something so serious. And once the others had left — he had still been holding her. Still hugging her, afraid to let go. Maybe part of him was afraid he had taken something, and he was imagining her. Maybe he was dreaming.
“You have to get clean Daisy. You have to do that. Please. I can’t lose— “And he hadn’t been able to finish the sentence.
“Ok.”
Only her touch had quieted him, had remedied him. She had pulled him against her and when she’d kissed him he had tasted the smoke, and the drink. For a split second, he thought he could just join her there. Because he didn’t want to feel this scared anymore, and wouldn’t it just be so much easier to give in? If he hadn’t still had the fear of the last six days, he’s sure he would have.
And she held him tight, her fingers combing through his hair, whispering promises. He couldn’t really breathe again until he was checking her into center and she had looked at him and just said;
“Is this what you want?”
“This is what I need, Daisy. I need you to be ok,” he had said, tasting the salt on his lips from his tears. He had pulled her into his arms and they had stood there, holding each other, never wanting the moment to end as the receptionist watched, patiently. Somehow, he had let her go.
And he knows everyone else thinks he overreacted- but for him- the response to the idea of losing her is pretty fucking appropriate.
He’s sure the band hates him, and he’s surprised Camila doesn’t. Rodd did, and probably still does. Daisy did. That wasn’t the right way to love her.
But he doesn’t really care because the idea of losing Daisy — well if he thought it could kill him a year ago, he can’t even think of what it would do to him now.
So he moved the entire tour, and cancelled their vacation and he begged her to go to the center, and she agreed.
And he had mentally prepared himself to live the next month at Graham’s, without her, because he would have done whatever it takes to get her better. He would’ve moved fucking entire planets for her. Being without her for a month was nothing compared to the idea of being without her forever.
She came home early because it wasn’t really that bad.
“I’m coming home,” she had told him over the phone.
“Daisy.”
“I’m good, I’m clean. Hell, Billy. It’s harder to withdraw from you,” she had replied. He doesn’t know it yet, but that phrase will make it into a future song on their fourth album.
“So come pick me up already.”
So he got there early and waited outside, leaning on his car, remembering how he did that months ago, full of hope for the future.
It wasn’t a cry for help. It was a stupid spiked drink at a party that reminded her of the feeling of it and it took over. There’s an uncomfortable piece of guilt lodged in his ribs like a popcorn kernel in between his teeth that he just can’t reach. He should have kept her from it.
Afterwards when she realized he had postponed everything, she had been angry; she said she’d must have been high if she let him do that. But the anger had only simmered for a day; before they made up the way they always did. They made love, and he realized the last time had been before the rehab, and before the party and that it was way too long since he’d had her touch. And that’s probably what they were actually fighting about.
They drove out to the same desert and lay on their backs on their duvet because they couldn’t find their camping blanket, and they looked up to the stars that kept her away from him.
And as the universe spilled out onto them, he took her hand. He’s said it a million times before, but he told her again. He’ll never tire of telling her.
“I love you, Daisy.”
And he caught himself thinking that anything is possible when she’s beside him. That when she’s in his arms, it’s as if the universe was made for them.
And then, finally, they started their tour.
Touring with her is everything he ever wanted. Having breakfasts in diners before soundcheck, writing new music together, fucking in their hotel room before the show, kissing backstage as they listen to the fans’ thundering screams, fighting and making up on the tour bus, clinging together as they walk into new stadiums and imagine the crowd the coming night. He even loves wading through crowds to find her, as they greet their fans outside stage doors, trying to get to their bus through the swarm screaming their names. It’s so good it can’t actually be real.
He never used to pray for anything — but now he does, and most of the time it’s for her. He just wants to be strong enough for her, because he knows their life will be tested.
He doesn’t even know that one day soon her mother will show up amongst the screaming fans outside a stadium. She will ask for an invitation to the wedding, and then for a handout, and then will hurl abuse at them until she needs to be escorted away by security.
Daisy moves beside him; and he wonders if she’ll wake in his arms, but she just continues dreaming. And he doesn’t need to dream anymore, because all he’s ever wanted has already come true. He needs to stay awake and watch guard over them, so that he never ever loses them.
A week later it’s 2:00 pm on a sunny day, and the rest of the band is sleeping off their hangovers from a wild night of partying. Billy is strolling through a carnival with Daisy and Julia, in some town they’ve never been in before where half the people know their name. Paparazzi actually take photos of them as they walk through the carnival, trying to keep Julia away from the tantrum that’s brewing because she’s not old enough for most of the rides alone.
And he’s trying to hold himself back from approaching the photographers and smashing their cameras on the ground and screaming in their faces — mostly because he knows they’d love that shot. He nurses his coffee as if it was something stronger. But since that anniversary, he doesn’t have cravings anymore.
“No, I don’t want to,” Julia whines. “Noooo!”
“Come here sweetie,” he moves to pick Julia up, but she shakes her head and moves away from him, clinging to the hem of Daisy’s coat. And he remembers it; the feel of it, from the first time he kissed Daisy. He stops in his spot, swaying, as if reminding himself what he’s seeing is real. So as Daisy picks up Julia in her arms, and Julia combs her small fingers through Daisy’s bangs, and kisses her cheek before pointing to the cotton candy, Billy can’t move.
Daisy is humming, making up a song on the spot about the food options at the fair to amuse Julia. She steps forward towards an array of glutinous and unhealthy but delicious options. She looks back moments later, realizing Billy is stuck in his spot.
“Billy, babe, come on,” she calls happily.
“Come on Daddy,” Julia adds and as Billy steps forward, Daisy asks.
“Do you think your daddy would like cotton candy?” Julia nods aggressively, all signs of the tantrum banished. How the hell did she do it? Fuck, Daisy really does make everything better.
And suddenly nothing matters but this. Not the set list for that night, or that Daisy is getting over a cold and there’s a croak in her voice when she sings. The husky crackle turns him on, while simultaneously filling him with a fear that if she sings through it tonight, it could cause damage.
He’s thinking about it still when Julia runs towards the carousel, pink sugar staining her teeth, the chaser to the corn dog she started but didn’t want after two bites. He sacrificed and finished it for her. He helps her onto a gilded unicorn and stands beside her.
The carousel starts with a series of melodic chimes and Julia waves to Daisy. Billy follows, waving before she spins out of view at a snail’s pace with the soundtrack of an annoying melody that’ll be stuck in Billy’s head all day. And every time they circle round, he looks for Daisy’s eyes, and finds them, and watches as her smile gets bigger. She waves happily each time.
He rejoins Daisy on land, taking her hand and kisses her hard. He swears he can hear a shutter crackle from outside of the carnival fence.
“I love this,” he tells Daisy. “Being here with you and Julia.” He says. Julia is running towards a stage, taking a seat amongst other kids, waiting expectantly for a puppet show. The parents stand in the back, and Billy can spot a housewife out of the corner of his eye who recognizes them, and another man who might recognize Daisy, or might just like her knee-high boots.
“Well, you’re sentimental as shit,” Daisy laughs before she feeds him a piece of blue raspberry cotton candy that tastes like sugar, with notes only of food colouring. He laughs and he’s about to say something but then she steals the words from him.
“Now you’re gonna say— “and she actually mimics him, making her deep, croaky voice even deeper “it’s just for you Daisy.”
And maybe it’s because she remembers in the early days when she mocked him about being romantic, and he had breathed well, you seem to like it, just before he’d given her what he already knew she liked, her body a fucking tuning fork for pleasure he stoked with every touch. Until she was saying his name the way he liked.
Yes, she definitely remembers that, because there’s some red in her cheeks and she looks away, like looking at him will fill her with a longing they can’t satisfy right now. Maybe back stage after their show tonight. If they make it until then.
“No, actually I wasn’t going to say that,” he lies.
“Oh, yeah?” She teases. She doesn’t believe him.
“I was going to say we should have a baby.”
“Billy,” he turns towards her and meets her eyes. “What about the tour? Our third album? The band? December in London? Christmas with Camila? Going to Dehli for three months?”
“Yes,” Billy responds with a shrug. “All of it.”
“How will that work?”
“No idea,” he admits with a laugh. She mirrors it, in that husky deep voice and he thinks about how in a week Camila and Karen will join the tour and pick up Julia for a few months. While it breaks his heart, part of him can’t wait to have Daisy all to himself.
“I want it all. I want everything Daisy. With you, I want every single thing.”
He holds her for a moment before he pulls her against him, into his arms, kissing her hard. He feels the familiar fabric of her coat, the strands of her hair in between his winding fingers, as he kisses her breathless. And for a moment after he’s pulled away, he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against hers, floating in the moment's perfection. His arms cradle her delicately and he leans forward and plants a tender kiss on her cheek.
She smiles in response, snakes her arm around his and leans her head on his shoulder, as they watch the puppets on the stage. Julia turns back, to make sure they’re still there and waves happily. They wave back.
“We could start a family band,” he says. Daisy laughs.
“Billy?” He nods his head against hers. “I want everything with you too. I always have.”
Daisy
It’s been a year since their show in Chicago. They’re back here again. Repeating the same tour date, the same stadium, as if to apologize for the fans — picking up where they left off. Rodd hated the idea. He said it made no sense to tour half the US, then South America, then Europe and then back to the US again. But he’ll do anything for them.
The crowd is deafening. Daisy closes her eyes, listening to their screams, and when she steps towards the microphone they hush. They follow her every command, and they wait, watching her.
She looks to her left, meeting Billy’s eyes.
“We’ve had such an incredible night together. And we just have a few songs left for you — ” and the crowd wails. “And I wanted to thank you- “ their fans lose it at that.
“It was here last year—“ she says, looking out at the familiar stadium- and isn’t it crazy how everything can change. How a year ago it was on this same stage she was letting him go. She was sure he’d never be hers, and that she might never see him again, and she was feeling lost. She didn’t know what would happen with her music, or the band. She thought she might have gone to live with Bernie, and hidden how she felt again. She’d hated Nicky- not only for what he’d done, but because he’d become a physical representation of her heartbreak. And she’d hated that Billy had found her that night. She’d really really hated that. And the words let’s be broken together had fucking hurt, but they’d been fucking tempting for a second too.
She was terrified all the stuff her mother had said was true. And she was so broken she was addicted to keeping it away, with anything and anyone she could, Nicky just another thing she used not to feel her heartbreak, and she didn’t know anything except she loved Billy, and she thought it might kill her one day. She had thought if she could only tell him once, sing to him once, maybe he would get it, maybe something would change.
Somehow, it had. And now she doesn’t want to use anymore. She doesn’t want to be broken. She wants to make music and experience everything with him by her side.
And she feels the burning of lights on her face, and the heat under her long silver kimono, and the discomfort of her mic pack attached to her back as it chafes her skin between the crimson crocheted bralette and matching shorts. And even clean, this is the best feeling in the world. Her back is cool with sweat, and her bangs are wet and plastered to her face, nearly touching the electric blue eyeshadow she put on for that night. She’s never been more uncomfortable. She’s never felt more fucking alive.
She can still taste his lips, from when he pulled her against him backstage; from when he held her and they kissed to the sound of the crowd screaming for them.
“You guys ready or what?” Graham had scolded them and they had to pull apart, to get on the stage. They had laughed, because they’re so full of joy now it comes out constantly.
And it’s wild to think that was just an hour ago.
And there was screaming when Graham went on stage, and then Clarissa, and then Quentin, and then Warren. And Billy looked at her.
“Ready, Daisy?” he had asked. She had nodded, and he’d spun back to face her, grinning at her as he walked onto the stage backwards, love in his eyes. The crowd’s cheers were ear-splitting. She waited for a moment only; to hear as the crowd chanted her name. And then she had followed.
And that was a whole set list ago, and they only have two songs left before the encore, and she doesn’t want tonight to end. She looks back out at the crowd.
“And if it weren’t for you Chicago— “she says “Billy and I would’ve never happened. So I need to thank you,” the crowd absolutely loses it at that. She steps back from the roar, meeting his gaze, laughing.
She waits one whole minute for the crowd to settle.
“So,” Billy speaks now, “we wanted to thank you the only way we know how.” And the crowd screams, because they think they know what’s coming. And Daisy sees a girl in the front row literally shake with excitement. And it might be the reflection of the lights — but Daisy’s sure she sees tears on the girl’s cheek.
“And Daisy? I need to tell you something,” Billy says, and she looks back onto the stage and finds his eyes. And suddenly there is no crowd, there’s nothing but the two of them.
“Yeah?” she asks.
“When I first heard you sing, I knew—“
“— what did you know, Billy?” she asks.
He smiles, moving closer to the microphone. And she grins back. And no one is telling him to say this, to be like this. They all have it wrong, she doesn’t make him do anything — he’s just finally doing everything. It just happens to be for her and she just sits back with the rest of the world, in awe of him.
“That it was always you.”
“Well, I was just going to say the same thing,” she says, but she’s not sure the audience even hears it, they’re screaming so loud.
She looks to the crowd, and basks in the rush, but it’s nothing compared to how she feels when she meets Billy’s eyes. He comes towards her as the lights behind them dim, and the spot shines on them and they share a microphone, singing that song to each other. That one that he heard for the first time a year ago. And the way that he looks at her — as she strums and she meets his gaze, well, shit, if he wasn’t hers it would break her heart.
As the song ends, and his eyes are boring into hers, she knows this is just the beginning of the rest of her life, and she is thinking about their wedding and their future, and she feels so alive, and so happy she never knew she could feel this way, she never knew she could — that she deserved this.
She watches him as he moves back to his microphone, ripping on his guitar and he sings the last line into the microphone as the song ends.
And he turns towards her and meets her gaze, smiling.
She takes her guitar off and puts it down before she runs across the stage barefoot and flings herself into his arms. She hears the clatter of the guitar as he drops it to catch her, his arms wrapping around her tightly. She hears the feedback from the guitar as it lands on the stage and he’s kissing her hard.
She locks her legs around his waist, and feels his powerful arms wrap around her body, urging her closer. And then he pulls away and starts to spin them. It’s dizzying to feel this good. The crowds screaming might actually break her ear drums.
And he twirls her, holding her in his arms as the lights spin around them, she lifts her arms up into the air; she thinks she might feel like her fans do; they’re shaking and screaming with so much love they feel as if they’ll explode. They’ve never felt so alive, and they never want this moment to end. She doesn’t either. And she knows it won’t. She knows it’s one moment that will have a million repetitions in her life. That somehow — this is not an anomaly, it’s not one moment amongst a sea of nothingness, this is her life now.
And it might be Graham who starts it; playing an instrumental version of their chorus of Always You. Until the whole band has joined in, as Daisy and Billy are in each other’s arms.
The photograph of that moment — captured by their tour photographer — will hang on an empty wall that will fill up with photos of their wedding, of future concerts, album covers, travel, photos at award shows, and their family. The photos will hang beside framed records, floating shelves full of awards, and together, it will make up the moments of their life.
One day, decades from now, they will sit on a couch together in front of that wall. She will lean her head on his shoulder and he will take her hand in his. And they will look back on the life, that like almost every song of theirs, they wrote together.
End