Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Who dares to live forever? Oh, when love must die?

Molly hums along to the song as she brings her scarf tighter around her neck. Despite the lack of snow, the air was still crisp with winter. She curses not for the first time the odd hours her residency has her working. On a whim, she decided to take a different way to avoid going home to an empty home. Being lonely is certainly no way to spend the week leading up to Christmas but she can’t make it home for the holidays without killing her budget or fighting to get the time off from her boss.

She’s got a year left and then she can go back to the states for the first time since she was eighteen.

“But touch my tears with your lips, touch my world with your fingertips!” She sings softly.

The song holds a soft spot in her heart as the movie Highlander was the first time she had ever heard Queen. She jumps up on the stone wall along the sidewalk, balancing precariously just as the song hits it’s last few notes. One of her earbuds falls out as the cord gets tugged slightly. Falling water reaches her ears. Molly frowns, she doesn’t remember this park having a fountain near the road, but it’s been a while since she came this way. She glances at her watch: 11:43.

She shrugs and hops off the wall just as Too Much Love Will Kill You starts to play. The park gives off an almost magical feel to it, with the moon being so bright and the older trees curling around at fantastic angles.

“I wonder why the path lights are off?” She glances at the post.

Molly tilts her head when the path splits to hear where the fountain is coming from. She hums along to the song. The path gets a little brighter at the end and she readjusts her bag before entering the little clearing. It’s pretty. The fountain is white marble with carvings of crabs and other sea life, the top of the fountain looks like a swan spitting water.

She grins. Her hand automatically goes to her pocket where she keeps a few pence. There’s a placard a few meters away from the fountain.

You'd give your life, you'd sell your soul, but here it comes again. Too much love will kill you. Molly hums along to the last few notes before she steps forward to read.

Wishes have a funny way of coming true.

Dedicated to those who leave us too early.

All donations go to the Children’s Hospital.

The dedication is a little strange, she decides, but the sentiment is nice. Stranger still is the fact that she hadn’t heard about a new fountain going up that donates directly to the hospital where she a resident at, she thought there might have been a news blast. Molly shrugs, it helps the kids either way. She slides a fiver into the box on the post and digs out a penny.

There are a few other scattered coins, and she’s happy to see that she won’t be the only one throwing a coin. You’re My Best Friend is playing now, and Molly nods to herself. She turns. The penny is placed to her lip.

“I wish Freddie Mercury is alive,” she kisses it and tosses it over her shoulder.

Plunk.

Molly smiles and puts the earbud back in. She digs out her phone. There’s no texts or notifications. Suddenly she doesn’t feel in the mood to listen to something so upbeat, or Queen, so she swipes through her music until she finds something suitably angsty.

We both lie silently still in the dead of the night.

The bed is way too warm. Molly whines and pushes the covers down. She can feel the sunlight hit her face. It’s way too early for this, thank god this is her day off. The room is silent sans her breathing and the other person in the room’s breathing.

Wait.

Molly turns over and screams when she sees there’s a man in her bed, apparently asleep. She shoves herself off the bed and picks up the desk lamp. The man shouts in surprise and places a hand to his chest and pants. He’s rather handsome and for some reason, she thinks she knows his face.

“Excuse-”

She throws the lamp.

It hits the man on the top of his head. He yelps in pain and rubs the spot. Molly feels bad for a second. Then again, this man had apparently broken into her apartment and slept with her, which is creepy at the mildest.

“Why did you throw a lamp at me?” The man sounds offended.

“Because you broke into my house!” Molly yells.

“I did no such thing,” the man raises his hands, “although I’d like to know why I’m in your bed.”

“Who even are you?”

“If I broke in shouldn’t you be calling the cops instead of asking who I am?” The man raises an eyebrow.

Okay. Fair. She raises a finger to explain. There’s a second where she almost knows the man in front of her. It’s like he’s a celebrity or something. But she doesn’t know of any celebrities that would want to break into her house. Also, where is her phone so she can call the cops as he suggested. Does this guy want to get arrested?

“And how do you not know who I am? I’m Freddie Mercury.”

Huh. I threw a lamp at Freddie Mercury.

“Oh my god, I threw a lamp at Freddie Mercury!”

She tugs her hand through her hair, “I threw a lamp at Freddie Mercury!”

“It’s not the end of the world, dear. Just explain-”

“I’m hallucinating. Awesome,” she starts pacing, “I had those headaches last week, and the day before they started, I hit my head. Oh no, I have a TBI. I’m going to die.”

“I don’t think you are,” Freddie Mercury stands up.

“Nope. Pretty sure I am.” Molly steps back.

Freddie Mercury places a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s a tactile hallucination!”

Okay, okay, okay. Molly think it through. What do I do? Mental illness isn’t my field. Uh.

“Can I take a picture of you?”

Freddie Mercury looks confused, “what?”

“I want to see if you show up in the picture. If you do this might not be a hallucination- Who am I kidding, you’re a hallucination. Which means I’m hallucinating since dead people don’t come back to life.”

“While true, I am very much alive.”

Molly presses her hands to her eyes, “no. You’ve been dead for thirty years. And I shouldn’t be feeding into the delusion.”

“Dead for thirty years?” Freddie frowns, “that’s impossible I’m barely thirty-five.”

“No, you died in 1991.”

“It’s only 1982.”

Ooooh, fuck me. Molly drops to the ground. This is impossible, a really bad dream. The pain in her backside from where she fell tells her that she’s awake. Hallucinating hasn’t been ruled out, but why a 1982 Freddie Mercury? That doesn’t make any sense. If anything, she’d rather have an early 70s Fred. So. That might be part of the reason she needs to go to the hospital, she shouldn’t have preferences about hallucinations.

“1982?” Molly whispers.

“Yes. Are you alright?”

“No,” Molly scrambles to her phone on the table, “they didn’t have these in 1982!”

“What is that?” Freddie carefully takes the device and manages to brighten the screen.

He jumps, and Molly barely manages to catch the phone before it hits the ground, “it’s a phone.”

“That’s a phone?”

“It’s also a computer, record player, bank, so on so forth,” Molly says.

She drops her head into her palm, “again why am I feeding into this delusion?”

“It appears I’ve somehow ended up in the future.”

Molly groans.

“Tell me-”

“No. No. No. No more telling. I’m going to the hospital to make sure I don’t have a TBI or something else. Freddie Mercury died in 1991 so he can’t be in my bedroom.”

She grabs her bag from the floor and looks back at the still mostly confused man, “stay.”

Molly pops her head back into her room, “uh, there’s frozen waffles in the fridge and maybe honey in a cabinet?”

Brian wakes up feeling surprisingly good. His joints aren’t protesting the cold for once. He goes through his to-do list and marks all the things that he should do before his joints get too achy again. Slowly he swings himself out of bed. Truthfully, he could probably get away with spending the day playing Red Special and taking care of the hedgehogs, there’s really nothing pressing to do today.

He passes the mirror. Then takes a step back and looks again.

Well, he thinks, this is different.

Instead of his 70 year-old-self, he’s staring at a version of his 30-year-old-self. He’s not entirely sure how to react. It’s nice to look young again (and feel young) but he’s not convinced that this isn’t a dream. Just as he’s about to start trying to wake himself up there’s knocking at the door. He shrugs, it this is a dream it’ll stop making sense at some point or he’ll just naturally wake up. So he’ll enjoy it for the time being.

Brian slowly walks to the door.

“Brian May! I swear to God if you don’t-”

See, he tells himself, angry Roger Taylor at his door at nine a.m. Doesn’t make sense.

Or rather, it doesn’t now that they’re older and Roger can just call him to complain. Roger being up at this hour and being up long enough to be angry is the part that makes the least sense. He hasn’t seen anything that would upset his old friend.

He opens the door just as there’s a pause in the knocking. Brian blinks at his friend and then slowly closes the door. Then he opens again, and yep. Roger looks all of thirty and completely baffled. The red of his anger is slowly fading as his jaw drops open.

“Okay, so it happened to you too,” Brian comments mildly.

The words shake Roger out of his stupor and he still looks confused. Brian steps to the side in a wordless invitation. Roger steps inside and immediately toes off his shoes. Knowing that his friend knows his house by now Brian dips into the kitchen to start the coffee. He prefers tea, but he thinks they might need something a little stronger. It's too early to start drinking no matter how out of his depth he feels. This dream stopped making sense a while ago, and after a swift pinch to his arm, he decides that he might possibly be awake.

It doesn’t answer any of his questions, but at least Roger is in the same boat.

Roger is already sitting in his favorite armchair. Brian notes with some surprise that the tattoo sleeve is gone, and he’s not sure why he’s surprised but he kind of misses it.

“So, Philomena is healing nicely,” he sets the cup down.

“That’s nice,” Roger says distractedly.

He has no idea what to say. Things haven’t been this awkward since ’95. Brian winces at the reminder of the time and it seems like Roger is on the same page.

“Well,” Roger says.

Brian nods, “well.”

“How likely is this that we’re in a dream?”

“Likely,” Brian nods, “but also everything does feel like we’re awake.”

“But it’s impossible for us to have…deaged…right?”

“Based on current technology, yes.”

“Well.”

Brian isn’t sure what to do either. He’s never heard of this happening, despite the random theories about some celebrities being immortal. It shouldn’t be possible, except here he was evidentially awake and almost forty years younger with his best friend in the same predicament. If he were anyone else this would be a time to start over. Although he can’t just vanish considering how much he’s been in the public eye recently and in general.

That’s…going to be a hard thing to explain to the press.

“What do we do?”

“I genuinely have no idea,” Brian says.

Roger’s phone rings and they both jump. Brian leans back to give the man some semblance of privacy. He frowns at Roger’s raised brows.

“It’s Deaky.”

“You don’t think this happened to him too?”

“There are few other things he would call about without warning,” Roger says with a shrug and answers the phone.

“Hello? Yeah. I’m at Brian’s. No, it’s fine. Come over, Bri doesn’t mind.  See you in a while.”

“So, this happened to John too,” Brian guesses, “why us?”

Roger looks towards the unlit fireplace. He’s miming the motion like he’s stroking a beard. Brian half hopes that he doesn’t try to grow one out now that he’s back in his younger body. A feeling of melancholy settles over the room.

“Probably some kind of curse,” Roger half mumbles.

“Rog,” Brian warns.

“Think about it, we get age and we’re doing fine, but suddenly it looks like we’ll have to go through another forty years!”

“Why is a curse and not a blessing?”

“Because it’s forty more years without Fred.”

The thought hurts. As much as they’ve healed over the years, the wounds always ached at the back of their minds. He knows at one point they all half hoped that there was an afterlife to be with Fred in.

“I don’t think it’s either, it’s just something odd.”

Brian can’t believe it is some kind of curse because magic doesn’t exist and he can’t think of anything they’ve all done collectively that was bad enough to warrant something like eternal life.

“It might as well be a curse,” Roger grumbles, “we can’t do anything without the world losing it’s collective shit because we’re all young again.”

They’d have to figure that out if this turns out to be permeant.

“Well, you know what they say,” Brian shrugs.

“What do they say?”

“I don’t know, I thought you’d have the answer.”

Roger sends him a mildly annoyed look but then they both burst out laughing.

Molly pushes the door open and wrinkles her nose. It smells like burnt waffles. There’s no smoke and the apartment looks intact, so she can’t complain much. She kicks off her shoes and heads further into the apartment. Sobbing reaches her ears as well as the abrupt cut off of sound as something was paused.

“Right,” she whispers to herself, “the not-hallucination.”

The noise is coming from her living room. To her surprise, the TV is on and its paused on a clip from one of the Queen documentaries, judging by the older Roger. She reads the subtitles and only then did she realize what happened when she left the apartment. Considering she thought he was a hallucination (and she’s not overly convinced that it isn’t true) she hadn’t told him how he died. She makes a little more noise to announce her arrival to the room.

Freddie’s sobbing stops and after a minute or so his head pops over the side of the couch. He did a poor job of covering up the fact that he had been crying. Molly bites the inside of her cheek and wonders how to handle this. Give her a Trauma Level One and she knows exactly how to address the situation, give her a person crying and she suddenly forgets how to human. It’s worse when the person is practically a stranger.

“Er,” Molly clears her throat, “good news is that I don’t have a TBI or indications of anything else. My boss also gave me a week off because they think the episode was all stress related.”

She doesn’t get a response, not that she was expecting one, “but, uhm, why does my apartment smell like burned food?”

“I tried to make the waffles in the pan.”

He sounds absolutely miserable. Molly walks a little closer to the couch, “they’re meant to be heated in a toaster.”

“That’s not how you make waffles…”

“These days it is.”

The room goes awkwardly silent and Molly briefly wonders if she can backtrack out of this conversation and pretend that Freddie Mercury isn’t in her living room. Then she gets a crushing wave of reality as she realizes that he’s currently all he’s got considering everyone in the world think he’s dead.

“Do you want me to make something?”

“Are-how,” Fred clears his throat, “I need to see them.”

Them? Queen? Molly glances up at the image of Roger holding back tears and drums her fingers on the back of the couch.

“I’m not entirely sure how to get ahold of them… They’re not really known for answering fan messages on social media… and they’ll probably block me for sending a picture of you…”

“I have to… see them. Apologize to them. I’ve hurt them it seems. Now I have a chance to apologize. I just… I miss them.”

Fred sinks back in the couch. He looks crushed. Molly wants nothing more for them to be reunited, she’s just not sure how to do that, it’s not like she can just call up Roger Taylor and say that Queen’s frontman is burning waffles in her apartment. Except she’s never been good at not caring. All she can do is support him and maybe find someone that can get them in contact with Queen. It’s basically hopeless, but Freddie looks so sullen and wistful. They have to try.

She bites her lip in thought and then mentally kicks herself at her next thought.

“But we can strategize after I make dinner!”

If she doesn’t get arrested for stalking it’ll be a miracle. Although she can’t deny the thrill that runs through her at Freddie’s beaming smile (and the thought of meeting her long-time music heroes). It’s crazy enough that Freddie Mercury is in her living room.

“Perfect darling!”

She heads to the kitchen.

“Wait, I’m afraid I don’t know your name?”

“Morgan Young,” she replies, “but most people just call me Molly.”

“Thank you, Molly.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s no big!”

Brian looks at John. John who he hasn’t seen in person for at least a year and he wishes this was in better circumstances. He’s used to young John’s surprisingly constant energy between bouncing around or playing riffs on his bass guitar. The John that’s sitting in front of him is much calmer and almost melancholy.

“Did you two switch personalities at some point?” Roger mutters loud enough he knows they were meant to hear it.

He has to give the blond that, out of everyone in the band Brian knows he was the most prone to isolate himself, but John’s songs always showed a hidden sadness that none of them commented on. In hindsight, they probably should of and maybe John wouldn’t have completely removed himself from the band. Brian knows it mostly has to do with John taking Fred’s death the hardest, but he wonders if it was also the fault of him and Roger. It’s in the past now, and no matter how young they look it’ll never be 1975 again. This conversation might be easier if they had said in consistent, non-business related, contact over the years.

“It wouldn’t be the oddest thing to happen to this band considering, we’re all young and thirty again,” John sighs.

“We’ve established that,” Roger says a touch annoyed.

Brian raises his eyes skyward. This argument’s been circular for the past four hours. If he changes the room a little, into a recording studio, it almost feels like they’re Queen again and arguing over music. It’s impossible to completely feel like Queen when Fred is so completely absent, but it’s the nearest he’s gotten since November of ’91. Figures it would take a universal mishap to get that feeling again.

It took a lot of universal coincidences to get Queen heard in the first place.

“What are we going to do about it?”

“What can we do about it other than hope we wake up as our seventy-year-old selves?”

He can’t stop the snort that leaves his nose, “sorry Rog, I just never thought I’d hear you say you want to be older.”

“It still doesn’t explain how this happened?” John looks at Brian.

“Time isn’t really a subject I know anything about, and everything that could explain this comes from a science fiction story.”

“So just the three of us wake up young again, and we just have to accept it happened?” John pinches his nose, “why? Why us and why not… Led Zeppelin?”

“It could’ve happened to them,” Roger points out, “they just didn’t post on Twitter.”

“We didn’t,” Brian seconds.

“Time just wants to mess with old rock stars? That seems… a waste of time.”

Roger rolls his eyes at the wordplay, “Let’s just… go with it for today and figure it out tomorrow if we’re still young.”

“Why not figure it out now?” John counters.

“Because it might be a waste of time now if we wake up old again.”

Brian rubs his temples at the brewing argument. He probably should step in. Roger’s technically right in this case. If it was just a one-day thing, then what’s the point of worrying about it. Although John has always made it a point to deal with things head on, for the most part.

John throws his arms up, “you’d rather just wait and see what happens?”

“That’s all we can do!” Roger’s voice goes up in volume.

“Last time we waited, we lost Fred to Germany for years!”

Oh no. Brian flounders for a second. He hates when that particular part of their history gets brought up. They didn’t handle it well and neither did Fred. It’s never been said aloud but they all know that’s when his death sentence was signed and sealed. The wound feels like its fresh, and Brian thinks it’s the young faces because they had this fight before. John had wanted to reach out to Fred in person and Roger said that Fred can come crawling back when he realizes this mistake. Brian never thought that it would take years for that to happen, but he had agreed with Roger at the time.

History repeats itself.

“Oh, come off it!” Roger yells, “just because you have a guilt complex about that damned situation doesn’t mean you get to fling it back in our faces every time it gets brought up!”

“If we had done something then! Then maybe… he wouldn’t…” John’s anger deflates.

“You don’t know that, do you? Paul might have already- it might have already been too late!”

Brian panics for something to interrupt Roger because now the blond has momentum and someone (John) is going to get hurt.

“And you keep saying that we needed to do something, then why didn’t you? Why didn’t you go? Why did it have to be Mary?”

“Roger, stop it!” Brian says. It’s too late.

“You didn’t want him to reject you! You had a feeling that you weren’t important enough to get him away, so you were too scared to even try!”

“And bring him back to a band that still hated him?” John snaps back.

“Enough!” Brian tries again.

There’s a break in the argument and Brian forces himself in between them as best he can when they’re all at a table.

“Enough! We never hated Fred, you know that. We were hurt and angry and bitter, but we could never hate him! He is-was family!”

Roger and John stare at him in disbelief.

“Roger is right, there’s absolutely nothing we can do about being younger, all we can do is figure out how to handle the situation, that is if it last longer than today. We are going to figure this out John, but let’s not make this worse than it has to be until it is worse.”

Roger bites his lip, “Sorry, John. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I wasn’t taking this seriously.”

“Yeah,” John coughs, “sorry I brought up Fred, that was immature of me.”

It’s Brian’s turn to stare in disbelief. Maybe being young again might be a good thing with all the life knowledge they had with being seventy. Regardless of what tomorrow brings, he’s happy to see his friends acting like they did when they were younger. He didn’t realize how much he missed this.

If Fred were alive it’d be more perfect than it already is.

Chapter Text

Molly makes a semi-successful meal of rice flavored with a ramen packet and a can of mushrooms she sautéed. It’s not exactly fine dining and some of the rice is still crunchy. She’s almost embarrassed to serve it. Freddie comes into the kitchen after a few minutes of her calling out that food was done.

“Sorry, it isn’t much…” she looks down at the plate again.

Her Christmas bonus is going to end up going to food. It’s not like she can help it, but it looks like she’s going another year without a new piano keyboard.

“It seems lovely,” Freddie smiles, “I remember a time when the band and I only had packets of sauce in the cupboards.”

She doesn’t know how his smile can be so comforting, Molly hasn’t been smiled like that since she was a kid and her dad was still alive.

“Well, then,” she smiles back, “here you are!”

It’s still a little embarrassing because she would never serve anything like this to a guest. Granted she usually expects guests. Her first bite is taken only after Freddie’s tried his.

“How did you get the rice to taste like chicken?”

“Ramen flavor packet,” she shrugs, “best flavoring life hack on a college budget.”

“You’re still in college?”

“I’m finishing up my residency,” Molly grins, “hopefully I’ll get my fellowship, or a job offer next year.”

Freddie raises an eyebrow, “a doctor?”

“My specialization is pediatric critical care.”

“That seems like a… taxing job.”

“It can be, originally I wanted to stay with just emergency medicine… but I had that one patient, so I switched.”

Molly clears her throat, “I see you figured out the TV and Youtube.”

“Is that what it’s called? It’s a very impressive collection of videos.”

“If it’s a video, it basically ends up on Youtube.”

“They aren’t yours?”

“No,” Molly laughs, “they’re everyone’s! Anyone can see them, and anyone can post one!”

“Fascinating,” Freddie looks at the TV.

Molly takes another bite and thinks, “let me show you how to use my laptop, so you can catch up on everything you missed.”

“Finally admit that I’m not a hallucination?”

“I’m assuming I’m haunted now,” Molly sticks out her tongue, “it’s kind of cool to talk to you.”

“Are you a fan of Queen?”

“Yes!”

Freddie grins, “so Queen is still popular even today?”

“Bohemian Rhapsody is the most streamed song in history!”

“Truly?”

Molly nods, “let me show you how the laptop works now?”

Freddie tosses his plate into the trash. Molly notes that he ate most of it, which she’s pleased about. The last thing she needs is Freddie fainting on her because of low blood sugar. She tosses her own empty plate away and grabs the laptop from where it’s charging at the dining room table. Freddie is already at his claimed spot on the couch. After a second of debate she grabs the mouse.

“Okay,” she holds up the bulky machine, “this is a laptop. It’s a portable computer.”

“Like your phone?”

“Yes, but it’s a little more powerful,” Molly shrugs.

She sits down, and flips open the lid and quickly makes an account for Freddie, “what do you want your password to be?”

“Delilah.”

Molly tilts her head, “wasn’t she one of your cats?”

“Yes, she was a sweetie,” Fred smiles fondly, “do you have any pets?”

“No, but I’d love a dog.”

Fred nods.

“Okay, so once you type in the password, here’s where you go to go on the web.”

“Web?”

“It’s where you find everything from social media to movies and music.”

Molly types a few websites into the browser bar and bookmarks them explaining as she goes. She shows Freddie how to use Hulu and Spotify and lets him explore Wikipedia and use google.

“This is incredible!”

“Isn’t it? Everything you could ever want to know, just a click away!”

She hesitates and then opens her Instagram and Twitter. Freddie watches curiously as she signs in.

“These are my accounts, so please don’t send people anything or comment, but you can use them to look up things.”

“Thank you for this.”

“Er. One more thing…” she doesn’t know how well this will go over, but she ends up typing in two usernames, “these are Roger and Brian’s accounts.”

“Wait, they use this?”

“Brian is pretty good at it too!” She laughs, “but yeah, this is them.”

Freddie’s eyes look a little glassy and Molly looks away and rubs the back of her neck.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” she stands, “I hope you don’t mind sleeping on the couch tonight?”

“So long as it prevents more lamps from being thrown at me.”

She laughs, “sorry. But you did startle me this morning.”

Freddie makes a gesture like I’ll give you that. Molly heads to the closet where she keeps her spare sheets and blankets. Then she snags a pillow from her bed before dropping them on the armchair in the living room. Freddie is focusing on the computer in front of him and she figures that she’ll leave him alone to discover and cope.

“If it dies, the charger is in the dining room.”

Distantly Freddie can make out the sounds of a shower. He’d like one, but he didn’t know where he stood with Molly after this morning’s discussion. She probably wouldn’t have complained considering how quickly she acclimated to him going from a hallucination to what she terms a ghost. Clothes are going to be a problem soon, he can’t meet his family as underdressed as he is. If it had been a shorter time then possibly these clothes would be fine, but it had been thirty years.

He scrolls through Brian’s account on what Molly termed Instagram. It’s easy to see that Brian hasn’t changed much from his younger years, no matter how jarring it is to see the mane of dark curls turn practically white. Freddie can’t help but laugh at Brian’s multiple hedgehog posts, he remembers their countless arguments over their preferred pets and which are better. Roger’s Instagram is less enlightening, but unsurprisingly he’s aged gracefully. John doesn’t appear in any photos, and for a second Freddie fears the worse.

It takes him a second, but he figures out how to open and new tab and googles John Deacon. To he great relief John has only just retired. He’s scared to look up anyone else like Mary or Miami. To learn their fates, he needs a little more support and as nice as Molly is, he doesn’t know her.  Instead, he starts looking at performances and songs they did after ’82. It’s a little surprising to see that they stop individually accrediting songs, there had to be a reason for that. He starts to listen to the A Kind of Magic album but gets distracted at the mention of the Live-Aid Concert.

As always, it’s a little surreal to see himself on the screen. Odder still to tell that he’s aged. The others look the same as they always have when performing, Deaky bouncing around the stage with his bass. Brian concentrating on Red Special but occasionally glancing up with a warmth that Freddie didn’t know he missed. Roger is hidden behind the drums, but no less breathtaking with his concentration. Even not having done this concert (yet?), he can tell that there’s still a lot of love between them.

His throat tightens at the thought. Since he’s been back there’s been a longing buried behind his heart. It’s like his spirit knows that he’s been away for so long. The longing digs in deeper as he watches the set. To him, it’s only been a day, but he can’t imagine not seeing any of them for over thirty years. He knows based on the research he did earlier that his death hadn’t been unexpected and that it cut the band deeply when he died. There’re only a few times that Freddie can remember Roger obviously holding back tears, he doesn’t think he ever saw the man genuinely cry in front of him.

Freddie is afraid of how they’ll react to him. He’s not sure whatever hurt he caused them will go away with him showing up on their doorstep. There’s no way he can do this unexpectedly either. That’s the quickest way to get him a punch to the face or a violent lashing of words. Molly has a point with the fact that reaching out on social media would be the wrong way to go about it. The biggest obstacle currently is the fact that they have no idea how to get ahold of them.

Deaky would’ve been his first choice with his slow-burning anger and willingness to hear him out, and the least chance of a punch to the face, but he’s gone completely off the radar. Brian and Roger won’t interact with anything they don’t know is genuine. Hell, he doesn’t know anything about Mary (and after a quick google search he still doesn’t know much more than she’s alive).

He’s curious to learn more about Jim, apparently, he had tracked him down after all.

Freddie hates that the world knows more about him than he does. After all he did to keep his life secret and away from the press. It seems that the people in his life spilled the details. He can’t fault them for it, dead people don’t come back to life, and it seems to have helped them heal. That’s something he can’t be mad about, and there’s a part of him that’s relieved to see the confirmation of some of the rumors didn’t hurt Queen for very long if at all.

Now, to figure out how to get in contact with them.

Roger ways up with a knot on the top of his shoulder, but no other aches. Brian’s guest beds are firmer than he prefers, but he knows that when he looks at a mirror, he’ll see his young self again. Which means that they’ll have to figure out what their plan is. Part of him has already resigned himself to the fact they’ll have to deal with the media storm that will occur once word gets out. They’ll figure out how to deal with their relatives and friends too, they should probably figure that out first.

He rolls out of bed and lands ungracefully on his feet. The vanity mirror confirms what he already knew, that he was still thirty-three in body. He’s going to have to spend time and tame his hair into a manageable look, but for now, he decides that he might as well look as rough as he feels. To no one’s surprise, both Brian and John are already up and preparing breakfast. There is a clean bottle on the counter and Roger frowns when he realizes he slept in late enough that Brian could take care of his hedgehog.

“Coffee in the pot, tea in the kettle,” Brian greets.

“You’re composing tweets?” Roger snorts.

He pours himself a cup of coffee and then spoons a generous amount of sugar into the mug. Brian sets his phone down after a second.

“Had to post something, since I post daily.”

“You wouldn’t if you didn’t use it religiously,” John comments.

“I like seeing what people say and keeping them informed about the hedgehogs and badgers.”

“Heaven forgive us if we forget the badgers,” Roger sips the coffee and grimaces when it was sweet enough.

Brian glares at him.

“Kidding, kidding.”

“As important as badgers are,” John returns to the kitchen, “I think now we have to figure out exactly what we’re going to do?”

His coffee is sweet enough now, but he doesn’t like the aftertaste it leaves. Roger sits at the table and drums his fingers. Brian joins them a second later. He’s not sure how they can even begin to address this. People are going to know who they are no matter how long they go underground, and it’s unfair to their fans and family to just vanish.

“I think, we’ll lay as low as we can until people start asking questions,” Roger breaks the silence.

“We’re waiting again?” John says with a deep furrow between his brows.

“Do you have a better idea?”

John doesn’t say anything. Brian looks exhausted.

“There’s still a chance that this could be temporary,” Roger shrugs, “I doubt it, but stranger things have happened.”

“Maybe, but what do we tell people? We can’t just vanish,” Brian mutters.

“Something about tour prep?”

“That works for you and Brian, but me not so much,” John says, “besides we all have kids?”

“They’re adults, I don’t like it but-”

“It’s the holidays Roger,” Brian explains.

“Oh, I guess it is.”

They fall silent. Their family is going to be asking questions soon about where they’re at. Roger knows his kids are used to him vanishing with a minimal word (not that it says much about his parenting style, he wasn’t absent…just not around as much as he could have been). Brian is closer with his kids, but neither of them has anything on John and his family. At the very least they’ll have to explain this to them.

“Can we say it’s an emergency having to deal with the band?” Roger suggests, “I don’t know what can possibly be an emergency considering we’re not active enough to have emergencies.”

“At least one involving me,” John sips at his tea, “that’ll buy us a few days, but not an excuse when it comes to Christmas.”

“That’s days more than we currently have.”

Brian is tapping his finger on his lip. Roger stops talking when he sees it. That motion usually means that Brian is thinking through something. Considering he’s been mostly silent throughout the conversation Roger thinks that he may be onto something. John looks up after a couple of seconds of silence.

“I know we’re trying to figure out how to deal with it, but what if there’s a reason for this?”

“What do you mean?”

Roger rolls his eyes at the question. He knows that there’s probably no cosmic reason this happened because this doesn’t happen, but if it were it’s because they’re just cursed. Cursed to suffer for some unfathomable reason. Freddie’s death may have been due to years of not limiting the risk to himself, but it still feels like he was ripped away so early as a punishment. There are people who were twice as bad as Fred that managed to survive the crisis. That isn’t to say he wants them to die, he just wants Fred back.

“I mean, there has to be a reason for this. If it was an anomaly then it’d be one of us, not all of us.”

“That’s wishful thinking, Bri.”

“There would be a panic by now if this was widespread,” Brian counters, “so without a global crisis of deaging and the fact it targeted us specifically, there has to be a reason.”

“I don’t think so Bri,” John says sadly, “if this were a second chance… well, there’s no point to that, yeah?”

“There’s always a point to things.”

John shakes his head, “this isn’t ’39, no matter how much it feels like it is. If this were a second chance, for Queen or us personally, it wouldn’t be when there’s another Queen tour. You know it as well as I, that if this were a second chance, then Fred-”

Roger slams his hand down on the table. There’s an uncomfortable mixture of guilt and anger in his gut. It’s been there since Fred told them, and it doesn’t help that his names been brought up more in the past two days than an entire decade.

“He’s gone, John! Let him go! Maybe he would’ve gotten this whatever too! But he’s dead and no matter how much we-” wish for it. Pray for a miracle of just one more day. Want to say goodbye. Need to have a chance to say everything still locked away. “it won’t happen. Miracles like that don’t happen.”

Believing otherwise is to willingly eat the poisoned apple.

Brian sighs, “Roger.”

“I’m tired of it! Tired of John thinking that we could have changed things! Fred was he own damn man, he was an adult. He made his bed and look where that got him. We tried to reach him. That didn’t fucking work!”

His voice cracks at the end. John’s eyes narrow letting him know that the man is well and truly pissed. Brian’s face is unbearably neutral. He hates this. Hates that this is why Queen barely survived without Fred. They all were hurting after they got that call, but Brian refused to even try any tributes until his arm was sufficiently twisted and John fucked off to who knows where after they finished Made from Heaven. For the longest time, it felt like he was the only one who cared about Queen.

“You don’t think I’m angry?” John says.

It’s the neutral coolness to his voice that makes Roger’s next words die in his throat.

“You don’t think I’m mad that I watched one of my best friends wither away in front of me, to have him leave me with worries and questions, only to find out that he’s got a death sentence over his head? That every day I’m not pissed I didn’t catch it sooner? Get off your high horse Roger. You didn’t see Paul for what he was either until it was too late.”

Roger opens his mouth.

“And yeah, I am furious that Fred gave me this incredible world of music and then took it away when he died.”

He closes his mouth at John’s words. John and Fred were closer in some respects, but it always felt like he didn’t mourn enough of hurt as clearly as he did.

“Let me rephrase. This isn’t a second chance, because if it were, we’d be able to see Fred and grow old with him!”

Brian suddenly leaves the room. His clogs making obnoxious noises against the tile. Roger stares John down. He deflates. This isn’t the time to be picking fights. The only people they can turn to right now until they tell others is each other. John stares at his tea and a door opens and closes in the distance.

“We left this for too long didn’t we?” Roger feels like he’s seventy again, “we should have talked, really talked about this years ago.”

John nods, “we all hurt when he left us.”

“Didn’t mean we had to leave each other. That’s the time we should’ve stuck together.”

“We have the time now.”

Roger doesn’t think that’s exactly why they were given back their youth. It could be a part of it. Brian might have a point about there being a reason for it. He can’t believe that they’re so important to the world that they need to be around. All they’re getting is more time to like their own wounds and hurt each other. Queen might not have broken up, but there were times when it was more fights and arguments than music making.

Molly somehow stops herself from jumping when she sees Freddie asleep on her couch. The laptop is still open and she closes it and carries it to the charger. She then heads to the kitchen. As she thought last night, she needs to go shopping today. There’s a third of a bottle of honey and three frozen waffles left and a single egg in her fridge.

“At least I can make breakfast,” she mutters.

“And tea!” She exclaims after two bags fall out of her cabinet where she was reaching for the remainder of the honey.

Breakfast is finished in a couple of minutes and she wonders if waking Freddie up would be a good idea. The food would be cool, but she could keep one plate in the microwave… but she isn’t sure which one he’d prefer. Personally, she’d rather have the waffles, but Freddie might want the honey for his tea.

Her problem is solved when Freddie walks into the dining room.

“I thought I smelled food.”

“Yeah,” she gestures to the plate, “take which one you would prefer.”

Freddie grabs the one with the egg and gestures toward one of the cups.

“All I have is honey…” she shrugs, “and not much of it.”

“That’s all right dear,” he pokes at the waffle, “so this is what it’s supposed to look like.”

Molly laughs, “they look better not burnt.”

“I always was a rubbish cook.”

They eat in silence. Molly finishes her plate quickly before she remembers that she has the week off. Yay for her stress levels, less so for her paycheck.

“I need to go out and get more food,” she says after a moment, “I hope you don’t mind being left alone?”

“I’d rather go with you.”

“That’ll cause a bit of an issue,” Molly smiles apologetically, “I’m not sure what exactly people would do if Freddie Mercury is walking around…”

“If I disguise myself decently people might think I just look like him.”

Molly chews her cheek. The chances that anyone would think that its Freddie Mercury is slim. She does feel bad for keeping him locked up in her apartment.

“We don’t have anything to disguise you with!”

“I just need a scarf and sunglasses.”

“Did that work?”

“No, but people were looking for me.”

True enough.

“Besides, you promised that you’ll strategize with me, after dinner no less.”

“I’m sorry!” Molly rubs the back of her neck.

“It’s okay, I got caught up chasing memories that I don’t have.”

“Okay, but at the first sign of trouble, we leave.”

“Agreed.”

She knows this isn’t a good idea, but she doesn’t want to leave Freddie alone in her apartment. That’s a feeling she knows all too well. It might be fun to shop with someone again.

“Okay, but you do need to shower,” Molly tilts her head, “I’ll see if I can find you anything to wear.”

There are a few pieces of clothing left from ex-boyfriends. They were meant to be donated, but she just never found the time to drive them to the shelter. She ushers Freddie to the shower before quickly doing the dishes in the sink. Thankfully she has enough for a semi-decent outfit, and the modern clothes will help with the disguise. Now that she’s thinking about it, the clothes Freddie was wearing did scream the 70s.

Molly knocks on the door, “I hope this fi- Oh god you’re just in a towel.”

Freddie looks down as Molly looks away.

“Someone is shy,” it’s said lightly.

“Just please get dressed.”

She waits in the living room after she gets ready to leave. Freddie enters and she takes a moment to look him over. The clothes don’t fit as well as she would have liked, but they don’t look bad, a tight beige jumper and loose fitting stone-washed jeans. It’s drab and Freddie would never wear something like this in a hundred years.

“Do I look as boring as I feel?”

“You look,” Molly tilts her head, “hip?”

“I still look outdated?”

Molly grimaces, “well! I think we should get started on the shopping and strategizing!”

“That doesn’t answer my question!”

“Sorry can’t hear you I’m out of the door!”

Chapter Text

John doesn’t chase after Brian when he leaves the table. He thinks it’s unfair that Brian gets to run away from everything and no one judges him. Truthfully, there was a time when all he wanted was to be able to play with Queen again. Made from Heaven took all the music he had left from him. Queen to him meant so many things: music, happiness, friends, family, but it also meant Freddie. No matter how much he wants to shy away from the truth, its true. Freddie was gone, and he won’t come back.

They get their youth back, but all it means is they get to watch each other grow old again. The only one who gets to stay young is thirty-years dead.

Roger might be right that they should’ve spoken about this. They have the time now, but all they’ve done is bicker about old wounds. It would have been so easy to bury the hatchet, but they wield words like weapons. No matter how many love songs and ballads they’ve written, it doesn’t change the fact that words are bitter to them. Queen is the only thing that can kill Queen.

Most bands break up. He thinks with some bitterness. What happens to the bands that don’t break up and don’t fail, but there’s nothing left for the world to take from them. Do they get things given back to them just to have it stolen once more?

It’s cynical in a way he hasn’t been since the years after Hot Space.

Roger may also be right in the fact that he’s held on for far too long. John’s kept himself away because he never wanted to be a rock star, or that’s what he’s told himself. If that were the case he wouldn’t have snuck away to finish his finals because he was worried the band would kick him out or he wouldn’t have stayed with Queen after they went big time. He wants something to hate because there’s nothing to hate. Sure, Paul may have led Freddie to that life, but there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t have ended up there anyway. Fred would be so easy to hate because it was his actions and his recklessness and his choice, but that would make missing him a more bitter pill.

Why hate Roger and Brian? They were hurt, and they dealt with it the best way they knew how. John? He just hid because he was too scared to want to know what that meant for him now that his career, family, home, was gone. He had been too fatigued to care about how it would look.

He looks up at Roger, who’s anger flushed face has faded back to the golden-pale of youth. All he can see in this Roger is the years they spent together making music, it’s so different than when he looked at seventy-year-old Roger who only reminded him of what they had been. John doesn’t know what to do. There’s nothing he can tinker with until the answer falls into his head. Hell, this might not even have an answer.

“I’m going to check on Brian,” Roger says finally.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

John knows Roger will go to Brian because that’s where his loyalty is.

“I don’t know.”

“I get that,” Roger claps him on the back, “we’ll talk about this. It’s about time you yell and throw things at us.”

“That’s what you do.”

“It works.”

Roger’s ever masterful grasp of emotions always eluded John. He could never understand how a man could live with his heart on his sleeve and not be stripped raw. Fred was the same way, but he had been stripped raw.

“It’s okay to be angry,” Roger says as parting wisdom.

John nods weakly. Today was the first time that he admitted that he was angry. He knows there have been some circles that say that he didn’t care about Freddie because he quit music after he died. The opposite is the case, he only played like that because it was Freddie. It’s a life he didn’t know he wanted until he was thrust into the spotlight. There’s no guarantee that Queen would’ve been active in the 90s past what they were already doing.

There’s a very good chance they would all be making music until they physically couldn’t play their instruments or write the songs.

He can imagine arguing over chords or lyrics with their hair more silvered than ever. The idea is so warm John can bask in it. Reality is much colder. They might be young again, but their glory days are years behind them still.

Fred would call them all a “bunch of mopey bastards.”

He thinks hearing those words would be even warmer than making music together well into their twilight years.

Molly is pleasantly surprised when their trip doesn’t go to shit in the first ten minutes. They pass her neighbors; a middle-aged couple and they nod with strained smiles. She grins back at them.

Freddie frowns, “they seemed… not too friendly.”

“I’ve gotten enough church invites in my mailbox to know where they stand,” Molly shrugs, “you’d think I bring home a train of partners with how they act.”

They get to the carpark with no further interruptions. She rarely drives because the traffic in this city is unbearable at the best times, but holiday traffic is the worst. It’s not worth the risk to walk, and she’d rather limit their exposure to the public.

“Say, where are we anyway?”

“You’re just asking?”

She clicks her fob and follows the chirp.

“I imagined I wouldn’t be too far from London, but I’m just realizing you have an American accent, but it’s faint.”

“We’re in England,” she unlocks the car, “Manchester to be exact.”

“Why?”

Molly laughs, “I went to uni here.”

They climb into the car, and she notes happily that she doesn’t have to worry about gas. Walking everywhere does have its benefits.

“Why not America?”

“Tuition in the states is horrifying. My dad attended the University of Manchester, so it was a little cheaper at the time.”

Freddie nods, “I never understood the need for university.”

Molly carefully pulls out of the car park. The store she wants to go is only fifteen minutes away, so they’ll probably arrive in half an hour. Traffic just seems terrible, even for a Sunday.

“Do you have any way of contacting Queen?” Molly asks.

“No.”

“Okay,” she blows out a long breath.

“Well, if you know what town they live in?”

“Not really, maybe Surrey?”

A kid darts out in front of her car and she slams on the breaks quickly. Freddie is flung forward, and she makes an apologetic gesture.

“Maybe you should wear your seatbelt?”

Surprisingly Freddie doesn’t complain. Molly turns the radio on.

Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be. There's a shadow hanging over me .

Molly taps along to the rhythm and Freddie hums. It takes her a second to process this is really happening. Freddie Mercury is humming in her Prius to a Beatles song. How did her life take such an odd turn?

“Let’s see, who could you contact from your old life?”

Freddie’s humming pauses, “I’m not sure. The best person would maybe be Miami.”

“He works as a producer.”

“Where?”

“London, probably?”

“I bet you he’s in the same flat.”

“Considering the housing market- No! That’s stalking! We’re going to get arrested!”

“It’s not stalking if you know them,” Freddie chuckles.

“Trespassing then? Breaking and Entering? I really can’t afford to be arrested. Neither can you… can you even legally prosecute a dead guy… maybe if you got them declared legally alive?”

“Molly, dear, you’re rambling.”

“Sorry! My point is that it’ll be weird…” Freddie raises an eyebrow and she backpedals, “okay… it’ll be weird either way. But we should probably do this as legally as possible?”

“Once we explain thing Miami won’t press charges.”

Molly pulls into the parking lot, “but he’s in London!”

“You have a week off!”

She wants to argue that she can’t just go to the other side of the country on short notice, but the thing is she can. Work won’t call her, her family won’t randomly drop by, and her friends all work on opposite shifts than her. Part of her wonders how long it would take someone to realize she was missing in an actual emergency. The thought isn’t a pleasant one. Besides, how else was she going to spend the holidays?

Eating take-out and playing on her guitar between the holiday movies she cares about.

Oh, what the hell. Molly parks the car and throws her hands up into the air, “I guess we’re buying supplies to go to London!”

“Now dear- Wait. Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

They climb out of the car and she locks it as they head to the store. Her mental list changes from what she should buy for home to things she’ll need for the car trip: snacks, blankets, an emergency kit. Freddie moves to the clothing section almost immediately and starts rummaging through the selection.

“If it isn’t too much trouble, may I get something to meet the guys in?”

Molly does the math. There’s room in the budget so long as he doesn’t go insane. The prices are reasonable here so it’s nearly impossible, but after the two days she had, she’s given up on putting stock in the impossible.

“That’s fine.”

It takes an hour for him to find something he deems suitable. Molly spends it going through Twitter. She notes that Brian May is spending the day with “old friends” and she thinks it’s hilariously ironic. Part of her wants to retweet it with something vague, but that will make her seem creepy and if they do need to do a “legal trespass” she would rather them not think she’s a bigger creep than she currently is.

“No officer, I was just trying to reintroduce Freddie Mercury to his former bandmates. I swear.”

“Oh, so you admit to kidnapping Freddie Mercury?”

“Can you be arrested for kidnapping a dead guy?”

“I think that might be grave robbing,” Freddie replies from the dressing room, “I think I’ve got the perfect outfit.”

“Fantastic, now let’s go get the other things we came for!”

“Groceries?”

“No, what we came for when we decided on going on an impromptu road trip.”

“We’re going now?”

“It’s a four-hour drive?”

“Oh, but don’t you have to plan?”

Molly slides the phone into her pocket, “not so much. It’s basically a weekend trip… in the middle of the week.”

Freddie shrugs.

They manage to get the emergency kit with only a few second glances from other shoppers. Freddie does look like Freddie after all, they can’t change the teeth or face. Her heart stops when an older man approaches them. This is it. They figured it out. Oh god, the press is on their way right now. Oh no. I’ll really be fired! Or arrested. Or I could-

“Has anyone ever told you, you look like that guy who sang in Queen?”

“Roger Taylor?”

Molly ducks her head to hide her laughter.

“No, that Freddie guy!” The man snaps his fingers.

“Ah, yes, all the time in fact.”

“I see,” the man smiles, “well sorry for bothering you.”

“It’s quite alright!”

The man walks to rejoin the woman he was shopping with. Both continue down the aisle as if nothing happened. Molly lets out a breath of relief.

“I’m surprised it took this long for someone to ask,” Freddie comments.

“Well, I hope that’s the last one.”

It wasn’t. No one pressed it beyond a similarity which Molly was grateful for. There’s always the chance that someone who believes in conspiracies would see him and flip. She’s a terrible liar and would give up the game. What would people even do? It’s not like the government can do testing on them without their consent. She shivers at the thought and drops a bag of sweets into her basket.

“You should grab something for the road,” she comments.

Freddie picks something and drops it into the basket. They quickly move to the register. Molly is rolling on the ball of her feet while they wait. This is the longest they’ve been stationary in public. To her luck the cashier doesn’t spend glance at her more than is necessary and they leave they leave the store. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“Okay?”

“That was a little more nerve-wracking than I thought.”

“Well, we’ve managed.”

Molly nods. They toss the bags in the back seat and she sets up the GPS on her phone.

“Do you know the address?”

“Well, yes, but wouldn’t that be more helpful once we’re in London?”

“I can just put it into the GPS now,” she pokes at the phone, “it makes no difference.”

“That’s not stalking? A device knowing where people are?”

Molly rolls her eyes, “it just knows the address not who or what lives there, unless it’s a business.”

Freddie rattles off the address and she types it in.

Four hours and fifteen minutes. Not the worse drive. Freddie looks at the number a little apprehensively.

“It’s not too bad of a drive.”

“That’s because you’re American.”

Brian here’s the soft knocking on the door. He wonders why it’s John that came after him.

“Bri? Can I come in?”

No. It’s just Roger.

“Yeah,” he answers softly.

Roger steps into the room. He’s strangely soft-footed in comparison to how he usually is. Brian frowns. The blond slides next to him on the couch. They sit in silence and Brian’s hands itch to play Red Special who is carefully displayed across from them.

“Are you okay?”

Brian shrugs. Roger leans against him. The weight and warmth are comfortable and familiar, but he doesn’t want that right now because everything is too familiar again. He presses his head into his hands.

“I feel like we’ve gone back in time.”

Roger wraps an arm around his shoulder, “but we haven’t.”

“We haven’t but,” Brian sighs shakily, “but we’re at each other’s throats as if there weren’t decades between the first time we were this age.”

He gets tugged to Roger’s chest, “I wish we would stop fighting about things in the past.”

Brian makes a noise, “it’s just John said everything I’ve thought. I always knew, knew that he cared about Fred but part of me really wondered because Fred’s legacy is Queen and John left that behind. Maybe I should’ve talked to him, but I couldn’t.”    

Roger rubs his arm, “I know. I thought something similar. We should talk about this now, though.”

“I want this to be done. Being back in these bodies is bringing back too many memories and too many emotions.”

Brian relaxes into the grip finally. The one impossibility he’s always wanted is just a chance to have one more day with Freddie, the Freddie before he got sick. Roger’s right in the sense that they may not have been able to stop it, but Brian always wonders if they had made it clear enough that they loved Fred. They were always family, but they took for granted that they would always be together and unbeatable.

There’s another soft knock, and it’s John on the doorframe. He looks like a kicked puppy. Brian glances down at Roger who also mirrors the look. John opens his mouth and then closes it. Brian nods and John enters the room and takes one of the armchairs. No one is sure how to break the silence. Roger’s body is slowly tensing beneath him and John’s lips are pressed together tightly. He doesn’t know what to say. This would have been the time that Freddie would waltz into the room, and it’s weird to think about him now. Brian shakes his head. Now isn’t the time to get lost in memories but rather talk about them.

“I’m sorry for snapping earlier,” John says quietly.

“It was a long time coming,” Brian matches the tone, “you’re forgiven, John.”

Roger nods, “and I’m sorry for doubting you.”

“It’s not hard to understand why. You both are fine with still playing and I,” John trails off.

“I wasn’t at first. It took you two starting the album for me to come back.”

John blinks as if he forgot that fact. Roger gently squeezes Brian again. The room goes silent again and Brian sighs heavily. He’s not sure if it’s the topic that doesn’t lend itself to a discussion or if it’s just been too long to repair eroded bonds. Just as he’s about to call attention to it, he realizes that Roger is tapping a familiar rhythm against the side of the couch. Now it’s impossible to fight the urge to play and he stands abruptly. Both John and Roger watch with some apprehension as he moves across the room to where Red Special rests. He strums it to check to see if it was in tune and after a few adjustments, he counts in his head and starts playing. Roger tilts his head but then grins.

This is his music room, and he does have a drum kit, which isn’t as impressive as Roger’s own but its passable. Roger moves towards it and pulls a pair of drumsticks out of seemingly nowhere. John snorts.

“Where were you hiding those?”

“Same place I always have them.”

Soon enough Brian is joined by perfectly timed drumming. They get lost in the familiar music. Brian adlibs a series of chords and the throaty hum of a bass joins them. He looks up in surprise, John’s hands are unusually hesitant on the neck of the instrument. Roger slows the beat gradually and John catches up and they all fall into the music. They’re all acutely aware of who is missing, but they don’t feel the need to stop. Minutes pass and they start a new song lead by Brian. He notices that Roger changes the rhythm randomly and while he fumbles for a few beats to match, but unsurprisingly John notices only a beat after Roger changes.

The game is on. It’s something back from their early days where Roger or John would suddenly switch up the rhythm to try and throw the other off. Freddie hated it because it would go on through every song. He called it their form of telepathy. More often than not, if the rare occurrence arose that one of them lost their place, it saved the song because it seemed more deliberate.

Brian stops playing just to watch the other two try and trip each other up. Eventually, they notice that there’s no hum from a guitar. Roger laughs. They haven’t played like that in years. It feels good. Even John is grinning widely.

The mood is dashed as John’s face fell.

“I thought about quitting Queen after Freddie left us.”

It’s raw and open, more honest than Brian is prepared for. Except that’s what they wanted. He bites his lip.

“I think we all had doubts,” Roger says.

“I said he killed Queen.”

They had been harsh that day, but all of it was true. Fred had sprung this on them when they had no chance of even having a proper reaction to it. John sets the bass down on the guitar stand. Brian swallows. He moves to set Red Special down. They can reconnect through music but now it’s back to being awkward.

“But, I think I’m ready to talk about it.”

Small blessings, Brian thinks.

Freddie has never been a fan of traveling by car. It’s just something about being boxed in for hours. He never minded it much when they were on a tour bus, but cars. No matter how much he and Roger jived Freddie never could get his love of going out and driving. There was a reason he wasn’t fond of I’m in Love with My Car originally.

Although, it seems as traveling has improved in the years he’s been gone. There’s a refreshing lack of expectations. Molly seems happy enough to concentrate on driving with the occasional comment.

“If you want to listen to music all you have to do is hit the little green circle on my phone,” Molly comments after half an hour.

“Aren’t you using it?”

“We stay on the M6 for the majority of the trip.”

Freddie carefully navigates the phone and taps the circle as she indicated. Several more square boxes popped up.

“Now go to the double squares and select songs.”

A list of titles pops up. He doesn’t know half the songs or what he presumes are the artists' names.

“What do I do now?”

“You can look for a song or hit shuffle and something will play.”

Molly changes lanes while Freddie scans through the available songs. The only one he knows is American Pie. It’s not his preference but at the very least he knows it.

A long, long time ago.

Freddie leans back in the seat. Molly reaches down to tap a button. Her eyes only leaving the road for a second. They ride in silent while the soft tones of Don Mclean trail through the speakers. It doesn’t sound as bad as he remembered originally.

“So bye-bye, Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry…” Molly sings softly.

His attention focuses on her soft singing voice. It was surprisingly pleasant.

“You sing much?”

Molly cuts herself off and her cheeks flush slightly, “not too much. Really when I’m by myself.”

“It’s nice.”

“Thank you.”

They fall silent again. Freddie almost feels bad for commenting on Molly’s voice. He doesn’t think that she was offended by his comment, which was truthful. It was pleasant to listen to.

Piano Man starts up after the song ends.

“You like a lot of… old,” that was a sad statement, “music.”

Molly jumps, “I guess. My dad listened to it a lot and he was in a cover band, so I heard it a lot. That’s what he taught me to play.”

“You play?”

“The guitar mostly, and I can play the piano well enough,” Molly laughs, “music is a big part of my life, but it's not all of it.”

“Well I’m sure he’s proud of you,” Freddie doesn’t know that, but Molly finished medical school so that had to be a prideful moment.

“I would like to think that he is.”

Freddie makes a noise of confusion.

“He died when I was ten.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I am too,” Molly again fiddles with the phone to hit a different button a new song starts playing in the middle.

Freddie’s never heard this one before.

“Hey, finally something semi-modern! Although this one isn’t much better so far as a happier tone.”

Johnny Cash just be a loner without those songs? Hm. Would Buddy Holly have disappeared? Or would Lennon still be here without those songs?

He listens to it quietly. Freddie is usually good at conversing and making friends, but for whatever reason, he just can’t find a topic that won’t lead back to Queen or make him feel bad for bringing it up. Molly doesn’t seem offended, now happily singing along again. He watches the other cars from the window. A few more songs play, most of which he was unfamiliar with. This drive was completely boring.

Is this the real life?

His eyes fly open and Molly is glancing at him. A wide grin breaks out on his face and he can’t help but start to sing along. Molly turns the volume down slightly. She’s glancing between him and the road, she’s careful to not have her eyes stray too long, but he can’t tell she’s excited by the way she sits up straighter in her chair.

“Too late my time has come, send shivers down my spine,” he sings.

Molly joins in finally, “Mama ooh.”

She cranks the volume during the operatic section. The song is practically the same, but there are some things that sound off about it. His mind derails when Molly hits Roger’s falsetto. He picks up his own slack and continues to sing along.

Bohemian Rhapsody ends. Freddie can’t stop smiling at hearing his song again.

“That was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced,” Molly says a little breathless.

Freddie laughs, “this is certainly a once in a lifetime experience. Although I must ask, did they change it?”

“A lot of Queen’s songs were remastered a few years ago. Nothing was changed, they just sound better on speakers.

“Why?”

“It was an anniversary collection.”

“I am happy to see that Queen is still so loved.”

“It’s really something,” Molly merges lanes, “and more impressively we’re halfway to London!”

“Already?”

Freddie glances out the window, but he can’t see anything that seems familiar. Not that he was expecting anything different.

“Do you have any ideas how to… explain this?” Molly tilts her head, “because I still don’t know how or why this happened.”

“I figure we’ll just knock on the door,” Freddie presses his lips together, “or you can, and I can be properly dramatic.”

“How are you going to get him to believe you?”

“You didn’t have a problem believing me.”

“I don’t know you, but I don’t think any imposter would cry that hard at a Queen documentary and not mean the tears for the band.”

It was strangely insightful. In a way, it reminded him of Roger and the tiny bits of wisdom he would spill when too drunk or too sober in the morning. Freddie also didn’t think about people impersonating him, he supposes if it happened with Elvis it could happen with him.

“How would you convince someone of a truth that belays all the truth they know?”

“Tell him something only you two or only a few people would know?”

“I don’t know what’s become public knowledge.”

“What about a gift you got him if there’s anything particularly memorable? Or a strangely personal conversation?”

Freddie isn’t sure if he has either of those or if he remembers any of them. He’s spent the past year alternating between being drunk and high and increasing frequency. Paul was usually in charge of that type of thing… his skin crawls and he’s unsure why. It feels like how his spirit misses the band despite him only remembering he hasn’t seen them in a few days.

“Well, at least you have a couple hours to figure it out.”

He hopes that he can think of something.     

Chapter Text

Jim Beach isn’t exactly sure why someone is knocking on his door late afternoon on a Sunday. It might be his neighbors asking for a favor or more likely someone soliciting. He slowly makes his way to the parlor. Claudia is in the garden, so he doubts she hears the door. There’s a tirade building in his head as he swings the door open. There’s a young woman on his door, her gray eyes darting towards his face and then away.

“May I help you?” The tirade vanishes immediately.

Her eyes widen as if she hadn’t expected to be addressed. He glances around for anything out of the ordinary but sees nothing. Jim doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Not me, exactly,” she’s rubbing the back of her head, “but, yeah. He kind of wanted to be quote, properly dramatic.”

Jim frowns, “I’m afraid I don’t understand, now if-”

She waves his hand as if in a beckoning motion, “please don’t slam the door, sir.”

That makes him want to do that even more. Then a man steps into the view of the door. Jim supposes he was staying just out of sight. It takes him a second to take in the man’s appearance. Short dark hair and neatly trimmed mustache and an overbite.

“Is this a joke? Do you think this is funny?”

“Not at all, sir,” the woman waves her hands wildly and turns to the imposter, “help me out here!”

“You’re looking older than ever, Miami.”

“Dear God.”

It’s a voice he hasn’t heard in almost thirty years and he hasn’t heard his nickname said that way for an even longer time.

“You’ve gone too far!”

The woman recoils at the volume and carefully elbows the imposter.

“I gave you a bottle of Riesling back in ‘81 with a custom label that said the sun always sets behind you at Miami Beach.”

Jim nearly falls to the ground. He still has that bottle, tucked away on one of his bookshelves. Freddie had arrived late to the gathering and given him the gift in private. The only people that know about it…

“I don’t believe it.”

“I know the feeling,” the woman mutters, “maybe you should sit down? You look pale.”

He stands to the side and Freddie Mercury waltzes into his house. The scene isn’t anything new but it’s still new. Tears rise to his eyes.

“Please tell me this isn’t some kind of death vision.”

“It isn’t,” Freddie assures him.

“Let’s get somewhere private to talk? This is a pretty big shock.”

They slowly navigate to the office and his eyes are drawn to the bottle. It’s holding up his small collection of records, but he can make out the album cover of A Day at the Races. The woman helps him to the chair behind the desk, and then rather interestingly settles herself across from him like a schoolgirl about to be scolded. Freddie sways around the room taking in the décor and photos. Any doubt of an imposter faded with the wine comment, but he knows this presence almost as well as his own. There’s no mistaking that this is Freddie Mercury. A very much alive Freddie Mercury.

“How?”

“No idea,” Freddie spins and then sprawls in the other chair, “I woke up in Miss Molly’s bed a yesterday and here I am.”

He turns to Molly whose tugging at a strand of hair that’s fallen loose from her hair tie. She looks as bewildered as he feels, and she’s had much longer to deal with this.

“I woke up with him in my bed. I thought it was a hallucination, so I went to the hospital, and they said I didn’t have any illnesses.”

It feels so implausible, “it’s like a wish or a dream.”

Molly sits up straighter, “oh I just realized how this happened!”

Freddie jumps in surprise, “how?”

“Oh man, I’m going to be arrested because I broke the laws of the universe.”

Jim half expects this to be some new-aged witchcraft gone wrong (gone right, so very right). Although he doesn’t think that she looks the type to dabble in something like that.

“You can’t be arrested for breaking the laws of the universe,” Freddie says.

“Not directly! But it’s like how having sex with a tree isn’t exactly illegal, but there are a lot of laws that make it basically illegal? You won’t get arrested for having sex with a tree but like public nudity? That’s illegal. Indecent exposure? Illegal. Child pornography if there’s a child nearby, illegal.”

Jim looks at Freddie who looks as though he’s biting back a laugh.

“She has a thing about not being arrested.”

“No one wants to be arrested! It’s reasonable to have a thing about that.”

“I’m not going to have you arrested,” Jim says calmly.

He doesn’t even know what’s going on enough to say something illegal has occurred.

“And I can’t argue with you on those points, but how exactly did you cause this?”

“I made a wish in this super weird fountain, that was basically asking for Freddie to be alive again.”

“Why?” Freddie asks.

Jim knows Freddie is much more shocked than he shows. There’s soft disbelief in his eyes.

“I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to wish for, and I was in a little bit of a nostalgic mood.”

It’s a simple answer. Jim knows his daughter made enough silly wishes to know that no one expected anything to come of them. He has how, and he didn’t need one, nor did he need to know the reason behind the wish in the first place. There’s nothing he’s currently more grateful for than seeing the man in front of him healthy and alive again. Clearly, this isn’t the same Freddie that left them, he’s younger and he’s not nearly as troubled as the Freddie he heard after Germany.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Jim says softly.

He doesn’t want to break the magic in the room.

“Yes, well. Touch of the heavens and all that.”

Molly excuses herself. Jim pays her no mind, too enthralled with seeing Freddie’s chest rise with ease. He nearly can’t believe the man he saw that day in November was the same on in front of him, he barely believes this is the same man who sung at live aid.

“Does anyone else know?”

“That’s why we’re here actually,” Freddie ducks his eyes down, “I need to reconnect with the mothership and I don’t know how to do that.”

“Queen?” Jim pulls a pen from the cup on his desk and fiddles with it.

The phrase is eerily like the one that Fred used when coming back from Germany, but Jim is certain now that this Fred isn’t the one that left the band.

 “I only speak with them, Brian and Roger, a few times a year. I don’t know if they’ll answer me and John won’t. He deals with the brand and the money but beyond that…”

“I know all of that, but. Please.”

He sounds like the Freddie that asks to come home after the fight.

“What year do you remember it being?”

“1982.”

The start of the decline. This Freddie never nearly broke Queen, but it sounds as though he knows what he did. Jim never planned to say no to the request. He just doesn’t know how he can make it happen.

“I’ll try to contact them.”

Freddie’s shoulders relax, and he allows himself a small smile. Jim takes another moment to take in Freddie. He never was a part of the band the way they were with each other. Honoring Freddie had seemed to be the only thing that he could do after his death. There was a void he didn’t know how to fill because Freddie was gone. He saw what his death did to the band. Brian and Roger stepping up, grieving and exhausted to defend Freddie. John giving up music.

“Do you have a place to stay?”

“In Manchester.”

“You had that girl drive you all the way here?”

“She didn’t exactly say no!”

“Freddie…”

“How else was I supposed to get here? No one would give a random girl your number or to someone claiming to be Freddie Mercury. The band wouldn’t even indulge that thought!”

Jim supposes there’s a point. He does feel for Molly but at the same time, he’s indebted to her for making a nostalgic wish despite what trouble it may have caused for her.

“You’re staying here for the night,” Jim will explain it to Claudia soon, “and Molly is welcome to stay as well.”

“Thank you.”

Jim doesn’t know why Freddie would think that he would be turned out into the cold. The boys… they’ll be ecstatic.

“Of course.”

“I have some questions if you’re willing to answer them?”

“If I know the answer, yes.”

Brian leaves to start dinner. Roger waves at him from where he resumed his position on the drum kit. The conversation had been emotionally taxing on all of them, but he feels lighter. John looks as though he’s eaten a sour lemon, but it was the hardest for him. He and Brian had multiple reminiscing sessions, but never about Freddie’s death as the focus. The thought is always in the back of their head buzzing like a wasp’s nest.

“Rog?”

“Hm?”

“What’s the one thing you’ve always been afraid of?”

Roger blinks. He didn’t expect that question. The answer doesn’t immediately spring to mind. There are a lot of things he used to be afraid of and some things he became afraid of.

“I guess… car crashes.”

John looks surprised.

He shrugs. Cars are something he loves, but he’s always been aware of what could happen if he isn’t careful. His reckless driving only happened when he was sure he could get away with it and there was no one else in the car with him. Even then his high-speed flights were few and far between.

“What about you?” It’s only fair.

John shrinks back and bites his lip, one of Roger’s own nervous ticks. They’ve all spread habits around like their clothes in the 70s.

“Illness and death.”

It’s an enlightening answer and it makes Roger’s heart twist. John had stayed with Freddie the most (outside of Jim of course) even though he must’ve hated every minute of it beyond what Brian and himself felt. He never thought that he could feel more humbled by John than he always is, but here he is once again feeling like John is the best of them. Roger regrets his visits becoming shorter and shorter as the end grew nearer and nearer. Part of him didn’t want his memories to always be overshadowed by how weak Freddie had been at the end when he had always been so full of life.

“Deaky.”

He doesn’t know what else to say, so he just moves from the drum kit and wraps his friend in his arms. John leans gratefully into him. There’s no need for words right now. Roger feels the soft trembling form John but he doesn’t feel any indication of anything else. They sit in silence, keyed up and emotions raw, but it feels as though they’re back on Ridge Farm, just trying to comfort each other in the idea that they could do this.

It’s becoming clear that this deaging is both a blessing and curse. They feel as close as they’ve ever been, but they have to deal with things they’ve buried for decades. Roger doesn’t feel the need to push John away in his own misery and instead John pushes himself nearer. He dozes lightly, exhausted from the past two days.

Brian comes in a little while later, “dinner is finished.”

John simply grumbles and tries to bury himself deeper in Roger’s chest. He makes a helpless gesture and Brian simply raises an eyebrow. The position is surprisingly comfortable despite the pillow folded awkwardly against his lower back. John is warding off the chill of the room better than any blanket, and it’s probably because Roger has always loved human touch more than any synthetic contact. Brian slides his phone out and takes what sounds like several photos.

“You two getting up anytime soon?”

“I’d be up if John weren’t on me.”

The bassist grumbles his displeasure of the noise. Roger lets a rumbling chuckle leave his chest. One green eye opens and glares at him with very little heat.

“Dinner.”

John looks at Brian and then very slowly and reluctantly pushes up from the gap he’s created between Roger and the couch. His hair slightly skewed to one side and the imprint from Roger’s shirt on his face. Brian takes another photo, which is made even funnier because John is trying to be irritated by only looks like a cat woken from a nap.

Roger snorts and Brian huffs out a near laugh. John just rubs at this face and pushes past them muttering.

Molly leans against the wall outside of Jim Beach’s office. She’s not sure where else to go, but that was a conversation she wasn’t meant to be a part of. As exciting as this is, it only reminds her that she just made the wish and that’s the only reason she’s involved in this at all. Meeting her idol is a dream, but since he’s alive again he’s entitled to the same respect everyone is.

“Oh! Dear!”

She spins and sees an older woman that Molly assumes is Mr. Beach’s wife.

“You frightened me, I didn’t think Jim was expecting anyone today.”

Molly rubs the back of her head and laughs awkwardly, “it was a little bit of a last-minute emergency.”

“Are there first-minute emergencies?”

“I guess not,” Molly relaxes, “sorry for barging in like this, I’m sure you like to keep your public life away from the private.”

The woman bustles past her, “an emergency is an emergency, my dear.”

Molly follows her at the woman’s tilted head. She glances around the house unsurprised to see the photos were a mix between art and some of the more famous musicians that Mr. Beach worked with. The house itself is spacious and well maintained. Her head hurts at the thought of the rent of the place. She got by because of the inheritance from her grandma and dad, which she refuses to touch except for major expenses.

The woman gestures to an open stool at the kitchen island and then moves to the tea kettle. Molly can’t stop her as fast as she switched into hostess mood.

“What’s your name, dear?”

“Morgan Young,” she answers, “but I usually go by Molly.”

“Molly, what a pretty name,” the woman smiles, “I’m Claudia Beach and none of that Mrs. Beach nonsense.”

“It’s a pleasure,” she sticks out her hand.

Claudia takes it and shakes it gently, “the pleasure is mine.”

Molly fidgets in the chair. Small talk isn’t her thing, but she knows that's usually done in these situations.

“Where are you from?”

“Manchester,” she replies, “but uh, originally Detroit.”

“I thought you sounded American,” Claudia has a little twinkle in her eye, “I hope you don’t mind me starting on dinner.”

“Of course not! We’re the intrusions, please don’t worry.”

“Wonderful, now, is there anything you can’t eat?”

“I’m sorry?” Molly tilts her head.

“You’ll, of course, be staying for dinner?”

“Uh…”

“Of course, you are!”

Molly is reminded of her grandmother’s requirement they stay for dessert on Saturday dinners. She blinks and shrugs, “I don’t eat pork.”

“I thought you were wearing the Star of David, that is a lovely necklace.”

“Thank you, it was my grandma’s,” her hand goes up to the necklace on reflex.

Claudia smiles and turns to gather ingredients. Molly sips at her tea and wonders how the woman is going to take the news that Freddie Mercury eating dinner with them. She had seriously thought that Jim would have a heart attack out of shock the way his color drained from his face and the automatic grab for the door to keep himself steady. She supposes the take away is that there needs to be a warning for Freddie, and he must’ve guessed that rather than just him being dramatic.

Well, it probably helps that it’s “suitably dramatic.” As if coming back from the dead isn’t enough drama for one lifetime.

“So what emergency brings you here on a Sunday?”

Molly chokes on her tea. She spends the couple seconds coughing and then thinks of a reasonable answer that isn’t going to get her thrown out for being crazy.

“We were out and realized that we needed to get into contact with a mutual associate of ours and Mr. Beach, but we must’ve misplaced or lost the number.”

Claudia hums and begins cutting vegetables. Molly pats herself on the back for the explanation, and she didn’t lie. She hears a door open and presuming that there’s no one else in the house, that must mean Mr. Beach and Freddie are done with their discussion.

“I guess they finished,” she would have thought they would spend hours catching up.

That’s what she would do if it were her dad.

Claudia looks up from the peeled carrot just as Mr. Beach enters the kitchen. Molly’s happy to note that he doesn’t look like he’s about to pass out again, but his eyes are a little puffy.

“Honey, you may want to sit down.”

“Why?” She still moves to a stool.

“Maybe a chair with a back?” Molly suggests.

Claudia gives her an odd look but still sits on one of the stools. Molly automatically stands. She doesn’t move yet, fearing that her presence may cause more stress than is needed.

“Our guest is an old friend,” Mr. Beach begins, his voice is neutral.

Molly inhales. This is being drawn out far too long and she knows who’s hiding in the hallway. Although that’s a hilarious thought, she manages to keep her face neutral.

“Oh really? Who is it?” Claudia smiles warmly.

“It’s… better for him to introduce himself.”

Freddie appears in the doorway. Claudia grips the counter and Molly goes behind her to catch her if she topples backward. Thankfully she doesn’t have to because Claudia stands up steady.

“What is going on Jim? I’d swear that man is Freddie Mercury himself.”

“That’s because it is, darling,” Freddie says.

This time Molly does move forward to catch Claudia as she stumbles back in shock. She watches the face, but it doesn’t seem as though the woman has fainted from the shock. Which is good, because that would make things even more awkward than they already were.

“How? How is this possible?” Claudia rights herself, “he’s dead, Jim. This joke has gone too far, one I would have thought that you-”

“It’s the truth, we’re not exactly sure on the specifics of how, but” Jim shrugs, “it’s a gift.”

“A bloody miracle, more like.”

Molly blinks in surprise and so does Freddie. Jim seems nonplussed by the whole thing. It took her a day and a hospital visit for her to come to terms with the idea, Jim had thirty minutes in an office.

“They’ll be staying the night.”

“Naturally.”

“We are?” Molly glances to Freddie for confirmation.

“Yes, we still have to tell-”

“Do the boys know? Of course, they don’t! They would be attached to your hip like unweaned puppies.”

That was a… very vivid description, and it made Freddie bark out a laugh. Molly smiles.

“Ah, yeah,” she shrugs, “I guess we would have to drive to see them or wait for them to come here.”

“It’s best not to have the reunion so late in the day, so all parties can properly enjoy it,” Mr. Beach says.

“Oh, dear, are you being taken away from anything important?”

“No, my job gave me the week off because I went to the hospital because I thought he,” she points at Freddie, “was a hallucination.”

“Well, I suppose that was a reasonable reaction,” Claudia says.

“Throwing a lamp at me wasn’t reasonable at all,” Freddie pouts.

“Again, I thought you broke into my house. Which isn’t a lie!”

Claudia laughs, and Mr. Beach’s lips quirk up.

“Still uncalled for.”

Molly raises her eyes to the heavens and then her phone chimes. She excuses herself to check it and allow the old friends to have more time to themselves.

Lauren Ross: Heard you’re sick? Major bummer around the holidays.

Lauren Ross: But you would not believe the shift I just had.

Lauren Ross: Needed an intensivist of your quality on hand. Triplets!

Lauren Ross: Complications every fucking ten minutes. Miracle the mom survived.

Lauren Ross: One of the kids had a collapsed lung and looks like CF. Waiting for tests.

She waited a few seconds to see if Lauren would text again. The woman had strong disbelief for sending a single text, and she got excited half way through and sends them. It’s been that way since she gave Lauren her number in their Kinesiology 210 class in undergrad.

Sounds interesting. Was that your entire shift? And yeah, stress got to me, I guess.

Lauren Ross: She came in at 8 am, we just finished.

Lauren Ross: Why did I think this was a good career again?

Lauren Ross: Well! Not surprised. You cover shifts like crazy.

Lauren Ross: I still have two hours left. Fuck me.

Lauren Ross: Feel better doll!

Molly slips the phone back in her pocket and pauses when she hears a chorus of laughter from the kitchen. Once again, she’s unsure of what to do, so she slips out to stand on the front porch. She hides out in the same little alcove that Freddie had before they reintroduced him. Honestly, her part of this is probably done. Mr. Beach would be more than happy to set Freddie up and take him to meet the band. As much as she wants to see this through (and really, she wants to also meet Queen because who wouldn’t) she won’t begrudge them that outcome.

At the very least she’ll stay the night. Driving eight hours in one day sounds horrible even for her “American driving endurance.” She wraps her arms around her to ward off the cold and blows out a stream of air.

The sun has completely set by the time Freddie sticks his head out to call her for dinner.

“Thank you,” Freddie says once she’s back inside.

“It’s no big,” Molly shrugs.

“It is. You dropped everything to help someone you only know through media.”

“I help people, it’s what I do,” Molly shrugs, “it certainly helps that I’m a fan of yours, but even if you weren’t Freddie Mercury I’d still help.”

Maybe not to the same extent, but really these aren’t exactly normal circumstances.

“And you haven’t been the normal type of weird about this.”

“Are you saying I’ve been unusually weird?”

“Your first hundred words to Miami included the legality of tree fucking,” Freddie raises a brow.

“Fair enough,” she flushes.

“But you haven’t been the weird that would expect to be a part of this, and you only asked for a photo to prove I wasn’t a hallucination.”

Molly puffs out a breath of air, “I don’t think it would be very decent of me to stay after I’ve made sure everything has gone well. You don’t need another crazy fan right now, just a friend if that’s not too presumptuous. And the media storm, should you…ah tell the world about this will be bad enough.”

“I would be glad to call you friend,” Freddie claps his hands and the serious Freddie vanishes, “and Claudia’s managed to cook a rather tasty looking meal!”

“Tastier than my chicken-flavored mushroom rice?” Molly cocks an eyebrow.

“Hopefully.”

Chapter Text

John tosses and turns in the bed. Not because it’s uncomfortable, touring for so many years left him with the skill of sleeping in any position on any piece of furniture, but because he couldn’t turn off his thoughts. First, he missed his wife and kids. They don’t mind that he currently isn’t around, but that’ll change in a few days’ time. It’s an unfortunate habit from the decade after Fred’s death, he went on so many trips to be by himself and just think. Second, all they’ve managed to accomplish in the two days they’ve had this…condition… is argue and make up with each other (it’s something, but not a solution). Third, he’s got post-show adrenaline pulsing through his blood and all he’s done is play a four-song set.

It felt as good as it always has.

He sighs and flips over. They need to figure out what they’re going to do. John has a feeling in his gut that this is permanent and all there is to do now is to accept it and plan. Although, he can’t stop the feeling that there’s something else at play. It’s similar to how he knew that there was something wrong with Freddie before he said anything, except the feeling is… lighter somehow.

Sleep is a long way off, so John carefully slides out of bed. He doesn’t know Brian’s house well, but two days have acquainted him to it well enough. Roger’s door is ajar, and he glances in to see the blond only partly covered by blankets, and the rest on the floor. John moves past it and down the stairs. There are no lights on and he’s afraid to turn one on in case it wakes up either Brian or Roger.

The music room sings a siren call, and he hesitates to enter it when he hears a sound from further down the hallway. Near Brian’s room and where he keeps the hedgehogs that can’t go into the habitat yet. John walks that way, careful to not make any noise. While the door is closed, John can see a band of light from the gap between the door and the floor in the hedgehog room.

He knocks softly.

“Yeah?”

John opens the door and squints at the warm glow. Brian is holding a hedgehog on a towel in his lap.

“Is that Phil?”

“No, this is a new one, he came in the night before all of this happened,” Brian pushes the bottle up to its mouth.

It makes a noise but doesn’t take the nipple.

“The mother was killed by a predator, and he’s too young to be weaned properly.”

John doesn’t really know much about hedgehogs, but he can tell Brian is a little distressed by the fact that once again the bottle is rejected.

“He suddenly won’t drink, and I can’t figure it out.”

“Maybe he’s just fussy?” Lord knows all his kids were fussy enough when they got to the bottle stage, “may I try?”

He can tell that Brian doesn’t want to make the hedgehog any more distressed than it already is, “you can keep him on your lap, he likes you.”

That makes Brian nod automatically. John takes the bottle, and he figures its warm enough (he knows human babies, not animal babies), he shakes it a little more. Hedgehog makes a noise at the sound of sloshing formula. Then keeping it in its field of vision he squeezes the nipple and lets some formula drip out, he puts the drip near Hedgehog’s mouth. He laps at it. The process is repeated a few more times. Finally, it seems to figure out how to latch or that the bottle had its food, but it starts suckling happily.

“Thank you.”

“Sure,” John sits back on his heels.

Brian focuses on baby Hedgehog while it finishes the bottle. Soon enough the formula is gone, and it’s settled in Brian’s lap and seems to be drifting off.

“This one have a name yet?”

“I was thinking Basil, they found him in a patch of it.”

“Works well enough,” John tilts his head.

“Poor thing, he’s still so scared,” Brian picks up Basil and sets him back in the enclosure, “and he was born so late in the season.”

John nods, “how old do you think he is?”

“Only a few days, they wean fast.”

He accepts that as fact, again hedgehogs aren’t exactly anything he’s well versed in. It took him forever to figure out Fred’s cats. Dogs are easy enough to understand. Brian stands and double checks Basil one last time before setting an alarm on his phone.

“Sorry,” Brian says, “what are you doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” John shrugs, “decided to wander around.”

“Wander to the band room, that is?”

John smiles slightly, “perhaps, but then I figured you’d need my expert hedgehog feeding skills.”

“Expert, you say?”

“I fed him when you couldn’t. So, yes.”

Brian lets out a soft laugh. The one where he doesn’t want you to know he thought something was funny when it is. John is pleased that he can still annoy Brian like that. They head in the opposite direction of the band room. He doesn’t know where he is, but he can sense the excitement that Brian has.

“Where are you leading me?”

“Just follow, you’ll see.”

John rolls his eyes but shuts his mouth. They head to the enclosed porch, and then John sees the telescope set up and an unusually clear night.

“There’s going to be a meteor shower in a few days,” Brian says, “but tonight there’s a clear view of the moon.”

Brian spends a few seconds fiddling with the telescope to set it in a decent position.

“Want to look?”

“I can see the moon just fine with my own eyes,” John carefully keeps his face neutral.

“But it isn’t the same!” Brian turns and looks distinctly offended.

They’ve had this conversation many times. Usually because of Roger who for some unknowable reason acts like he has zero cares about space. John knows he does because he knows for a fact that Roger meticulously planned a trip for the “four” of them to catch a rare sight of a comet for Brian.

“Big white rock in space,” John squints, “yep. It’s right there.”

Brian huffs.

“It’s not just a big rock!”

“It’s big and a rock, ergo big rock.”

He can’t keep his composure and burst out laughing because Brian looks so distressed. It takes a second but Brian catches on that he had been joking. The indignant look he sends John just causes him to laugh harder. Several minutes and an aching back later John finally brings his laughing under control.

“You looked as though I tossed Basil in the air.”

“No!”

John started laughing again.

“What the hell is so bloody funny at 3 am?” Roger screeches from somewhere further in the house.

Brian chuckles and then it goes to a full belly laugh which only makes John laugh harder.

“Shut up!” Roger’s voice climbs an octave.

Freddie bolts up in bed. His heart is racing as though he had run a sprint. The last residue of the dream slips away, but the terror is still spider-webbed in his head. There’s no chance he’ll be able to go back to sleep. He sighs. Next to him the alarm clock reads 4:38. At least it was a semi-decent time to be up. There were times he wouldn’t be going to sleep until this time.

Quietly he walks towards the kitchen. Dim blue light filters from the open doorway and he raises an eyebrow in curiosity. Turning the corner he sees that Molly is sitting at the island with a half drunk bottle of water.

“I know why I’m up,” he says, and it makes her jump, “but why are you?”

Molly shrugs and sets down her phone, “I’m usually up at this time.”

“Willingly?”

“I’ve been working eleven to seven at the hospital.”

He settles down next to her and begins to trace shapes on the marble countertop.

“Why are you up?”

Freddie debates on whether or not he should give an honest answer. The dream does bother him, because of how real it felt. He shrugs.

“Bad dream.”

“Want to talk about it?”

It doesn’t sound like a platitude that some of his partners have offered him on the rare nights he dreamt of his life before London. There’s a genuine concern for him.

“It was like I couldn’t breathe, and even if I could, I would be too weak to do so. I was in a hospital with people that I didn’t know.”

Molly frowns, “that sounds horrible.”

“Honestly? It felt real.”

She arches an eyebrow and looks to the backsplash. Freddie shudders at the recollection of the dream.

“I wonder if you’re getting your memories?”

“What?”

Molly swallows and once again glances away, “memories that you don’t have.”

“Don’t be cryptic so early in the morning, even I know better.”

She leans back, “well if it didn’t feel like a dream then by proxy it felt real?”

“I said that.”

“But you don’t have any memories of being that ill?”

“None, I was fairly healthy.”

“Except for the last few months of your life,” Molly winces, “what I mean to say is that what you’re describing to me sounds very similar to an acute case of pneumonia… and well…that’s what technically caused your death.”

Freddie shakes his head, it doesn’t sound real, “how would I get memories that I’ve never experienced? I’m still a decade younger than when I died.”

“But you have,” Molly raises one finger, “not this…part of you, but Freddie Mercury did have a life beyond 1982. Since the past didn’t change, that means everything that happened to you still happened.”

“So, I’ll eventually know everything that happened to me?”

“Or a majority of it at least.”

Freddie had read some of what happened between the time he remembered and the time he died. None of it sounded overly pleasant to remember. In theory, he likes the idea of it but in practice, well, he rather dislikes the results.

“It looks as though it’ll be a long process if you’re just starting to have these…flashbacks?”

“I’ve had impressions of things,” Freddie admits, “it felt like I’ve been away longer than I can reasonably remember, and some people just don’t seem the same to me as they did when I knew them.”

Molly purses her lips, “I don’t think we can stop it. The memories seem to be acting like sand or water through a channel.”

“I wouldn’t want to stop it… I just don’t get why I should be able to remember them.”

“That’s far too big of a philosophical question for this morning,” Molly takes a sip of water, “and I don’t even know that what I think is happening is. I’m not a neurologist nor a phycologist.”

“You think this is rooted in something medical?”

“Not physically? It’s almost mirroring symptoms? I think it’s acting like when a patient has repressed memories and the longer they stay with something familiar to the memories they come back, or that’s the theory at least.”

Freddie hums, “so things will trigger this…memories?”

“I have no clue,” Molly glances away, “you’d have to talk to someone who's specialized in the brain be its physical aspects or emotional. It’s just my guess based on what I saw during my rotations.”

“So, this dream could just be nothing? A weird coincidence?”

“I guess I’ve started to look for zebras when it could be horses, considering the past few days,” Molly lets out a slight huff, “but that’s entirely possible!”

Freddie turns away. There’s a good chance Molly is right. He doesn’t know much about himself in this world, but he does know when something is just a thought he’s had and a memory of something. It’s as though he has a ghost over his shoulder, but the ghost is him.  Molly turns her attention back to her phone and Freddie stares out toward the sink. Part of him is starting to feel crippling loneliness despite having a friend next to him and an older one asleep down the hall.

Eventually, he does wander out of the kitchen and back to his assigned room for the night. With any luck, today will be the day that they get something set up with the band. He hopes they can meet today, but it’s a Monday, and he doesn’t actually know if they do anything that requires a schedule. The panic nearly freezes him, and he wants to call the entire thing off but he desperately wants to be with the band again. It’s all a confusing muddle but he’s able to fall into a fitful sleep.

He wakes up at a more reasonable time. The clock tells him it’s only eight minutes past nine. Someone has cooked breakfast, so he heads back to the kitchen. It looks as though Molly hasn’t moved from her spot, but she’s still bright-eyed despite already being up for five hours.

“Good morning!” Molly chirps.

Claudia turns and jumps, some of the still runny egg sloshes over the side of the pan. Freddie is glad that Molly doesn’t seem inclined to follow up on their previous discussion.

“Oh you’ve given me a fright, I half thought I imagined the whole thing until I saw Molly.”

Freddie smiles wanly.

“I’ve already made your breakfast, it’s in the warmer.”

He moves to the warmer to see that he’s been served an omelet and a bagel.

“I’ve told you, you don’t need to worry about the dishes!” Claudia says primly.

“You’ve been so kind,” Molly counters from where she’s moved to the sink, “allow me to at least clean up after ourselves.”

“You’re a guest.”

Miami walks in and expertly avoids the argument and pours himself a cup of tea and settles next to Freddie. They watch the arguing move back and forth until Molly is forced to relent and sit back in her stool.

“She never would win that argument,” Miami says.

Freddie laughs.

“I’ll call the boys after breakfast and see what we can set up.”

His heart jumps to his throat, “do you think it’ll be today?”

“Likely. They live in Surrey which as you know isn’t much of a drive.”

He doesn’t know that, but he’ll take Miami’s word. Claudia serves Miami his omelet and then pours her own cup of tea. She enters a conversation with Molly about, what Freddie is assuming, her work at the hospital. Not having much choice Fred digs into his own food with a slightly nauseous stomach. The tea does help his nerves somewhat, but he leaves a good portion on his plate when Miami declares he finishes.

“Don’t you dare,” Claudia snaps.

Molly slinks back into her chair.

“Shall we move to my office?”

Freddie gets up quicker than he thought. He’s still going back and forth in his head, but his desire to see the band is winning over any anxiety he might have. It might be some impression of his life beyond what he knows, but he shouldn’t be this anxious about meeting them. They’re family.

Miami leads the short walk to the office, where again Freddie notes the familiarity of the room. It’s as if he hasn’t changed it in all of the years they’ve known each other, there are a few more trinkets and photos on the wall, but he knows the layout and could walk it with his eyes closed.

“I think Brian might be our best bet,” Miami says mildly.

Freddie would typically say that Deaky would be, but he’s not so sure with how the man has retired from the spotlight. Roger has always been flighty and hard to track down until he wants to be seen and wants attention. He always made fun of Roger being like a cat which would only make the man spit and hiss like a cat. It was hilarious, and Roger was never truly offended.

“Perhaps.”

“If Brian is willing, then Roger is sure to agree,” Miami points out.

That’s true, Freddie concedes. The arguments between the two are few and far between and whereas Deaky would side with him more Roger would side with Brian. It was never a sure thing, but you could usually guess which way both were going to lean.

“Let’s do this.”

There’s a distinct lack of drama when Miami just pulls out his phone and taps on it a few times. Freddie finds that he misses the spinning of a dial or presses the buttons. Miami sets the phone down on the desk and the ringing fills the room.

“Hello?”

Freddie lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Brian, how are you?”

“I’m fine, sorry, is there something you need?”

He frowns, Brian is a little more courteous on the phone. Something must be going on.

“Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a favor,” Miami says casually, “I have a surprise that I would like you and the other two to see.”

Freddie bites his lip and ducks his head down.

“Er, I’m afraid I don’t have the time today, but Roger might… actually, I think he told me he’d be busy.”

There is something going on. It’s taking all of Freddie’s willpower to not blurt something out because he knows that Brian would just hang up. He gets the impression that anything that could be taken as a knock to his legacy is one of the faster ways to piss the usually docile man off. If the documentaries are to be believed.

“It’s no trouble, I’ll just have someone bring it out to your house if that’s okay?” Miami says it a little awkwardly.

“Well,” Brian hesitates there’s mumbling from his end and then his voice is clear again, “I suppose that would work.”

“Fantastic, it’ll be by later today.”

“I look forward to it.”

They exchange a few more pleasantries then end the call.

“I wish I could have been more direct, but then I imagine there would be more issues with you two getting ahold of them. The truth of the matter is that they simply won’t believe me if I say you’re alive and they’ll hang up before you can explain anything. They’re loyal like that.”

“You’re not coming?”

“No, I have a meeting this afternoon that I simply can’t miss,” Miami looks regretful, “but I’ll be in touch. Molly won’t mind?”

“I’m sure she’s already accepted that this might happen.”

“She’s a strangely easy-going girl.”

“I wouldn’t call her easy-going at all,” Freddie laughs.

His anxiety which had dissipated is worse than ever. He wants to expel all of his nervous energy, and the best way he knew how to do that was partying or playing the piano or smoking.

“You don’t happen to have a cigarette on you, do you?”

“No, I stopped years ago.”

Freddie sighs.

“One more thing,” Miami pulls out a slim box.

He opens it a little cautiously and is surprised to see a phone, “what?”

“Everyone has one, it’s pretty much a necessity.”

Freddie nods, a little confused.

“It’s already loaded with my number, Claudia’s, and Molly’s.”

“Does Molly know this?”

“She gave it to me when I asked.”

Freddie figures it must’ve been sometime last night when he left the room. He pulls out the phone and turns it on to see the cover is the cover of A Night at the Opera.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Miami waves his hand, “make sure to get the boy’s numbers. I do believe you should be leaving soon if you want to make it to Surrey at a reasonable hour.”

Freddie glances at the wall and sees that it’s already well into eleven. Time seems to move faster these days. He stands and so does Miami. As he goes to leave there’s a hand on his shoulder and Miami pulls him into a hug. It’s a little surprising, he doesn’t think Miami had ever hugged any of them before.

“It’s so good to see you,” the words are watery and quiet.

He hugs back as tight as he can, “well, I’ll be around for a while yet.”

Miami pulls away, “I dare say you will.”

After that, it’s a whirlwind of preparing for the short car trip. Molly greets him in the living room. She’s wearing an emerald green turtleneck and soft looking black pants. He doesn’t know where she got them from.

“Claudia was planning to donate these, and they fit well enough,” she says in response to his questioning gaze.

“Now, Molly dear,” Claudia comes waltzing in, “feel free to come back here after Surrey if it’s too late to make the drive back to Manchester.”

Molly smiles at little bashfully, “thank you. I’d hate to wake you up.”

“And I’d hate to learn you were in an accident because you couldn’t see or fell asleep at the wheel.”

Freddie tilts his head in agreement with Claudia’s point. Molly doesn’t argue further, but if he had to guess she’s already planning the earliest she can leave to avoid imposing on anyone. It hurts him a little, but he supposes it only makes sense. She had her own life she’s neglected for nearly three days on his account.

“Let’s go meet Queen!” Molly beams.

He can stop himself from grinning.

Molly thinks she might hyperventilate, and she can’t tell if it’s from the idea of seeing the guitarist of Queen up close or from the idea of bringing Freddie to see Brian May. She imagines it’s the latter but can’t deny the feeling of excitement as they pull up to the gated mansion. The gate is closed, but Freddie seems unperturbed by it.

“There’s a keypad,” she comments as she pulls closer.

“It’ll be 3975,” Freddie says airily, “that’s been his combination for years.”

With nothing else to do, she presses the numbers in. The gate unlocks and she jumps.

“Maybe he should change that, it’s kind of obvious when I think about it.”

“Obvious but no one would guess it.”

Freddie’s tone is getting a little clipped. Molly can’t blame him. The number of nerves she would have in his situation. It makes her sick just thinking about it. Although, he has paled since they pulled through the gateway and were inching up the driveway. Even the trees feel unwelcoming, as though she’s intruding on something sacred.

“Maybe we should turn back.”

She slams the breaks, “Freddie?”

“I mean. What if they don’t want to see me? Or it goes bad because we can’t get a word in edgewise. I think it may be best to wait for Miami to be involved.”

“Freddie Mercury,” she uses her best firm tone, “we’re literally at the doorstep. Come on, you’ve spent nearly every day you’ve been back wanting to see them again. I’m certain they’d absolutely love to see you again. No one gets the chance to see the ones they’ve lost again.”

Freddie inhales shakily, “but what if they haven’t forgiven me?”

“Ask for it?” Molly shrugs, “c’mon Freddie, be bold!”

“That’s the easy part darling,” Freddie smiles, “it’s the actions that come with it that are difficult.”

Molly continues down the driveway, “I’ll still be here, so if it does go bad we can leave… hey, there are other people here?”

She sees Freddie narrow his eyes, “Roger and Deaky if I had to wager, Rog has always loved that registration plate and Deaky’s is the same as well.”

Oh, all of them are here. That might actually be worse. Could be good but… Molly brightens, “at least you don’t have to wait to see all of them?”

It takes almost ten minutes to coax Freddie out of the car. They walk to the front door to only be greeted by a note.

“I can’t read this,” Molly frowns.

“It says to leave the surprise on the enclosed porch, around back.”

Molly shrugs, “he did say he’d be busy, right?”

Freddie is looking back towards her car. Nope. Can’t have that.

Molly tilts her head in thought, “they’re still on the property. There are three cars here. We can’t wait for a bit.”

To Freddie’s credit, he doesn’t pass out even though he’s looking a minute away from that. They walk around the house, and Molly can’t help but admire the winter foliage. She wouldn’t have taken Brian May to be the type to tend plants so meticulously. Could be landscapers, considering his age.

That also might be why Freddie is so apprehensive. He’s young and beautiful whereas his best friends are at the upper ends of the years. It’s a cruel twist of fate she thinks, and for the first time, she has doubts about this. They’ve come this far, and she knows (well it’s an educated guess) that Queen would want to spend their remaining years together. She likes to imagine they all joked about being old when they were making music together.

“I hope the porch is unlocked,” she shivers.

She bounds up the steps as Freddie follows at a more sedate pace. The door slides open, “after you.”

Freddie enters and then promptly and gracefully falls onto the seated bench. Molly admires his courage before she takes her own leap of faith and enters. Now it’s a technically illegal entry, but Brian’s given her this much permission. She can see where Freddie’s hands are shaking.

“Hello?” She calls, “uh, if you’re actually in the house, uhm, I can’t really leave the, uh, package alone?”

“Smooth,” the word is laced with nerves.

“Hey, you bring a dead legend back to his best friends and not be nervous,” she replies with a smile.

“Coming.”

Molly inhales and Freddie situates himself directly behind her.

Oh my god. Here we go.

Chapter Text

“Coming.”

Behind him, he hears muttering from Roger that this a bad idea. He’s pretty sure it is, but the girl sounded nervous and it’s not hard to imagine that she might get in trouble for not actually guaranteeing the delivery. Slowly he walks through his house and pauses at the spot where he can see onto the porch. There’s a woman, she looks older than the barely-twenty intern he imagined, and she’s fidgeting. He doesn’t see any package, but he also doesn’t see how this person can do him any serious damage considering the 15 or so centimeters he has on her.

“Hello,” he greets.

The girl’s eyes widen, “oh, hell.”

He supposes that’s a fair reaction, but a little unexpected. Three things happen at once. One, Brian notices that there’s a second person in the room hidden behind the woman. Two, the woman sways to the side. Three he feels unquenchable anger at the man in front of him.

“What is this?” He growls.

The woman backs away quickly at the look he sends her, palms up and eyes darting to him and then away and back again. She opens her mouth and closes it. Brian rounds on the man who has the audacity to- to. He’s so angry, he can’t think over the blood rushing in his ears. There’s never been a time he’s been so angry. The urge to punch the man is strong. What the hell was Jim thinking- it could be a weird fan, but they’d have to know about the delivery and how to get onto his property.

“Anger has never suited you, dove.”

Brian freezes. The anger rushes out of him filled with a toxic mixture of disbelief and grief. Words get stuck in his throat and he looks over at the man. He’s dressed in a yellow jumper and black shirt underneath with white trainers and light blue jeans. It’s something he would imagine that- but no. It’s impossible. The hair and the mustache and the presence, it all screams one thing. He wants to believe so desperately and yet he wants to shield his heart.

Even the pet name had to be luck because there’s no way that-

“Early night, dove?”

Brian glances over the side of the couch, Freddie is dressed as though he plans to go out when it’s already well past ten. He’s a little tipsy and a lot lonely, his latest girlfriend broke up with him in a rather vicious way.

“I’m in aren’t I- Dove?”

“Yes, I think it rather suits you.”

He snorts, “how?”

“Your hair tends to look like a bird’s nest,” Freddie saunters over to him.

“Thanks, Fred.”

“But also, you’re as gentle as one,” Fred drapes himself over Brian.

The fight he puts up to get Freddie off of him is more for his own pride than anything.

“And your head is always tilted up as though you want to be in the sky, flying.”

“That’s what you call a lover,” Brian says softly.

Freddie as always seems undeterred. He’s known him for a couple years now, and Brian knows better than to really fight whatever insane urges come across the enigma that is the singer’s mind.

“Well,” and Fred’s voice drops to a quiet unsure pitch, “things don’t always have to be as they’ve always been.”

Brian knows it to mean that Fred knows it’s a name for a lover, but he wants it to be a name for a person that he loves. His heart twists in a happy little staccato.

“Suppose you have a point.”

“I always do, dove.”

The nickname was theirs. A private thing between them when things got to be too much, and they’ve drifted too far. He so desperately wanted to hear it in these past few years because the last time he heard it was when Fred was nearly gone.

“Don’t cry, dove.”

Tears rise to his eyes. He sees the gentle love that Fred’s always given him with the only favor asked is to return it. It’s all there in front of him, and he wants to reach out and touch but he’s half afraid this is a desperate wish of his heart making him see things. Then the man gives him the unsure smile showing hidden bravery.

Brian can’t fight against it anymore.

He steps forward at the same time that the man does.

Oh. It's him.

Somehow, on this tiny little porch in Surrey, a star has been reignited. The scent is still the same, clear and present without the taint of years of smoking and booze. Brian closes his eyes against the tears but still some slip. They dampen the jumper. He doesn’t care because he’s feeling a warmth he hasn’t felt in three decades. Brian is brought closer by his own doing as he hugs tighter. His limbs feel disconnected from his head.

Everything is the same. He’s stuck on the idea. His brain is looping between the smell, the warmth, the voice.

“Crying doesn’t suit you either, dove.”

The voice is shaky and vulnerable, and Brian just tries to bury himself deeper. It’s impossible and the crying as turned into the gross sort where his nose is running, and his face is uncomfortably hot.

“Freddie,” he breathes.

What else can he say? There are a thousand different words that he could combine in a hundred different ways but none of them could even begin to convey what he’s feeling. Music might not be able to cover the enormity of the feelings. It’s like he is overwhelmed by his own emotions that all he can do is hold tight and pray that Freddie doesn’t slip away again.

The only things grounding him is the hand splayed between his shoulder blades and the hand nestled on the back of his head. Without those two things, he’d feel like he’s adrift in space. No force to react against him to stop his momentum.

Dimly he’s aware of the concept of time passing, but time also seems to stop as he takes another deep inhale of the scent his currently enveloped in. Vaguely he wonders what the other person must think of this, but again his mind is still looping through the same three thoughts.

He eventually works up the courage to unwind himself from the little space of safety he’s created in the yellow jumper. Brian keeps on hand on Freddie’s arm. The thought is still enough to make him doubt his own sanity, but he knows for a fact that he’s never seen that look on Freddie’s face before. It’s so new that he doubts his mind could create something like that. He knows all of Freddie’s expressions. Although removing the hand would make this disappear, a small part of him thinks.

And it sinks in that Freddie Mercury is standing on his porch. The idea is less like a fevered prayer and it becomes his reality. There’s so much evidence to prove to his own scientific mind that this is the truth and he has to believe in what his heart is feeling.

“Look at you,” Fred tuts, “you’ve made yourself a mess.”

Brian laughs, and his voice is so uneven he didn’t know that it could come from him. It’s Freddie in front of him as though there hadn’t been thirty years and death between them. Young and healthy. The weight of those years pile on him, but he can ignore it in favor of the elation he feels.

John grows confused at the twenty-minute mark of Brian’s absence. Roger doesn’t seem too perturbed despite his strong resistance against the idea. At the thirty-minute mark, John heaves himself from the armchair.

“I’m going to go see what’s happened.”

“Probably the heart attack of the delivery girl,” Roger replies caustically.

John rolls his eyes. Roger hasn’t exactly forgiven him and Brian for waking him up last night. Something about “a pleasant dream ruined by two laughing idiot schoolboys at a slumber party.” His insult game hadn’t exactly been primed after an undisturbed sleep. As usual, John’s way of dealing with Roger is to ignore him until he’s no longer in a mood or there’s something more pressing.

He makes the familiar trek to the porch. The soft sounds of crying reach his ears, and his frown deepens. It is a gift from Miami and John half wonders if it’s the cassette tape that Brian lost with the solos Freddie mixed for him. John hopes that’s the case, Brian has always hated himself for losing it and John is curious to see how Freddie heard Brian.

Fred’s mind worked in wondrously mysterious ways.

John pushes open the semi-open door. He glances up and he feels his brain misfire. The sight of the young Brian is something he’s grown used to but crying younger Brian is something he’s only had to deal with once in his life. For a second he disregards Brian’s state to see what caused it and- his brain misfires for the second time.

His first coherent thought is that the surprise of Brian crying’s caused him to have a stroke.

Then he notes the differences his rather unimaginative mind wouldn’t be able to create. Of course, all doubts of his confusion and fear fade when his eyes meet oh-so-familiar caring eyes. The fondness swirls around the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. It’s the edge of protectiveness in the irises that rise at his inaction that confirms it.

“Freddie!”

John stumbles forward. He nearly falls but two strong hands catch him and haul him closer. He hugs automatically and tightly. Brian’s crying makes sense because John can’t hold back the tears and he’s audibly crying. It turns to hiccupping laughs quickly, because the happiness he’s only felt on a handful of occasion bubbles through him like champagne. He’s drunk on it, and he can feel a similar vibration in the chest he’s pressed up against.

His chest aches like a tendon that’s been stretched too far as he remembers the things, he hadn’t realized he’s forgotten. There’s a place on Freddie’s shoulder that’s corded muscle but soft enough it’s the best place to pillow your head. He’s forgotten that Fred doesn’t like to bury himself hugs, he likes to keep an eye on the room, John can feel Fred’s chin digging into his shoulder. John could lean all of his weight onto Fred and they would still stay upright because Fred is steady.

Part of him hates that he’s forgotten these things, but now it’s like experiencing the hug for the first time again. Fred has a sort of rumbly laugh that isn’t as loud as usual, but it sounds better than anything they’ve ever played to John’s ears. He’s still laughing and crying, the combination of emotions isn’t something he knows how to process. There’s a bundle of joy sinking into his skin, but still hidden among that is a little grief in bitterness.

He has so many questions but for once he can think those can wait because he just wants to feel.

“There you are,” he whispers.

“Here I am,” Fred whispers back.

John gets his feet under him and stands a little surer than when he first entered the room. He pulls back enough to look at Freddie’s face and he can’t fight down the grin. Freddie takes one hand and wipes at the tears. The movement is so familiar that John nearly starts weeping again. After a few seconds of valiantly fighting back tears, he’s able to keep them at bay and step a little further out of the hug. He doesn’t break contact, and apparently, Brian is in the same situation judging by the hand that wraps around Fred’s shoulder after John’s given him space.

It feels so much like a dream that he knows it’s real. John wants to say everything that he’s wanted to over the past thirty years: stories about his kids, fears he’s had, the grief and depression, the good times that they shared. He’s so overwhelmed that everything feels gummy in his mouth. All he can do is just smile and stare at Freddie like he hung the damn moon.

So really, the way John knows he looked at Freddie the first few months after he joined the band.

“Hi,” he says because that’s the only thing he can squeak out.

“Hi,” Freddie's voice is boomingly quiet.

He’s used to the man being extravagant in everything he does, but John finds that he likes this change. Quietness brought on by happiness rather than loneliness. He wonders at what Freddie is thinking and how he feels about being back and in their presence again. John’s impressed that he hasn’t turned into a blubbering mess like Brian, who’s still crying. There’s so much he can do but his emotions are raw in an entirely new way.

John swallows once, “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, Deaky.”

It’s the nickname that breaks him. There’s no pronunciation difference from anyone in the world, but it’s the way he says it that can’t be replicated. He’s forgotten that too. The memories his cherished the most are the moments that there wasn’t any discussion. Forgetting Fred’s voice would be kin to forgetting his own name, but he’s forgotten how Freddie says things. He goes back to the hug and lays his cheek on that spot of Freddie’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

It hurts to know how much he’s forgotten in the attempt to keep himself from hurting.

Roger huffs and shoves off towards the porch. Brian has been gone for nearing forty minutes. Whatever is on the porch better be worth exposing the situation Queen is into to whoever was tasked with the delivery. He stops down the hallway to make sure that everyone knows his displeasure.

“Seriously? What’s so great about whatever-

He stares and blinks. His mouth opens then he closes it. Both Brian and John have been crying. There’s no package on the floor but there is a- he’s not sure he’s understanding what he’s seeing. Anger and offense blend together and he opens his mouth to yell. Then he stops again. He’s seen Brian get beyond angry at people who’ve done this before. John wouldn’t stand for it. So, the only remaining conclusion is that it’s not some ill-conceived joke.

But that would also mean that he is alive.

Roger’s mind rebels violently from the idea. He feels himself close off because he can’t have this ripped away from him again. Wishing for it and knowing that it’ll never happen is one thing. Having it and losing it again, he barely made it through the first time. How could he manage to face that loss a second time? He urges himself to turn and leave, protect what little strength he has but he can’t. It’s the same magnetic presence that got him to agree to give him a shot at Smile’s lead singer.

John steps away but remains near. Brian is in a similar position but across from John. He can see it so easily. All of them folding together, feeling like he’s home and breathing fresh air for the first time again. Roger forces himself to remain rooted even if those same eyes look at him a little expectant and a little hurt but with the same spark of life.

He has to bite his lip. His walls are crumbling, but he doesn’t want to hurt like that again.

“Don’t bother coming, he’s gone.”

Tears he doesn’t want anyone to see slip down his cheeks. He wants to be happy and he doesn’t want this to happen at all.

“I know what I'm doing, gotta feeling I should be doing all right,” Freddie sings softly

“Doing all right,” Roger harmonizes just as softly, automatically.

They’re back in the parking lot almost fifty years ago, lost but hopeful for the future. Roger doesn’t want to open his heart again, but at the same time, he’s spent the past thirty-years yearning for the chance to see his friend again. The roots fade away from his feet and he launches himself towards Freddie.

They collide and Freddie tips backward. Roger feels the soft exhale of air, and he can’t believe it. Freddie is below him and breathing. He’s not entirely sure if he’s laughing or crying but he’s wrapping himself fully around Freddie. Everything is the same and he’s not sure why he expected the anything to be different. He focuses on the breaths and the laughter from the man underneath him. Roger curls into it like the cat Fred always accused him of being.

Freddie is talking to him, but he can’t be bothered to make out the words. He can feel Fred’s heart thudding wildly against his chest. Roger notes the bones, blood, skin, and warmth beneath him. Freddie is alive.

How can anything compare to that?

Roger is always aware of the ache in the shape of his best friend. He hadn’t exaggerated when he told the one reporter that he would think of Fred every day, maybe for a moment but maybe all day. Instead, he buries his face into the soft cotton of Freddie’s jumper. It’s already damp, and he’s aware he’s just making it worse. Not that he cares too much, because right now it’s the only way he can hide his emotions from the onlookers.

He’s never had a problem with people seeing his emotional states before, but this is far too private a moment for him. Roger feels a hand run up and down his back and focuses on the warmth it spreads through his body. It’s a cold state of numbness. He knows he’s feeling emotions, but he doesn’t know what to call them. The whole this is overwhelming. The chest beneath him rumbles and it vibrates his heart.

How did I ever manage without him? He thinks to himself.

Now that he’s wrapped up in a hug again, he doesn’t know how he didn’t know he missed this so much. He figures that this is something that he would’ve missed the most considering he’s the most tactile of the band. Roger just lets himself lay on top of Freddie as he sorts through what he’s feeling and tries very hard to ignore how much this is going to hurt when he wakes up.

“Roger, please don’t fall asleep on me.”

The voice is the right amount of fond and disgruntled and it finally wedges his way through the emotions running rampant. He sits up, straddling Freddie, but for once it lacks the teasing or drunk nature that usually accompanied it.

He smiles a little cheekily, and he imagines it’s not half as charming as it should be considering how messy he must look. Roger rubs a sleeve over his eyes and it only makes them itchier. Freddie looks at him as though he expects an answer, but Roger can’t be bothered to find the words and instead cups Freddie’s face between his hands to memorize it, he does his best talking through touch. There are plenty of photos of Freddie, but none capture the different shades of brown or the very slight skin blemishes. They’ll always be grainy in a way that doesn’t do real life.

Freddie is smiling up at him and Roger’s smile grows wider. He ghosts his thumbs over the bridge of his cheeks.

“Fucking hell Fred.”

Freddie tosses his head back and laughs, hearty and melodic. Roger joins in. He’s not sure that what he could say could even begin to explore the depths of what he’s feeling. Roger isn’t even sure what he’s feeling.

“Agreed.”

They fall over each other trying to stand up. Roger steps to be in line with Brian and Freddie slings an arm around John. He can’t help himself and slides under the other arm and closes his eyes. John’s arms winds around Freddie’s back, and tugs on Roger’s sleeve. Brian smiles and Roger beckons him forward, and he comes.

It’s a Queen hug, through and through. And fuck it if this isn’t the best thing he’s felt in a long time.

Freddie, by some miracle, hasn’t turned into a bawling mess. He is certain that he should be looking like Roger or Brian or John, with blotchy tear-stained faces but only a few tears have fallen. Not for a lack of trying. Each time he’s been about to bawl, another one has entered, drawing his attention temporarily away.

This has gone better than he imagined it could but there are so many questions. The biggest is why everyone looks like they’re thirty when they should be seventy. He won’t ask about it too afraid the magic will fall apart. Except now they’re all wrapped around each other and this is what he’s been craving, desiring to do, since he watched those documentaries. They’ll have time later to work out issues he knows have been shoved away.

The tears are welling up again and he clears his throat and ducks his head further into the embrace. His forehead gently knocks against Brian’s.

“Even though you’re balling like babies, I still love you.”

John goes rigid under his arm, and Roger somehow gets closer to him. Brian’s eyes flick up hazy with tears but clear quickly. It’s not bravado that’s keeping him from crying, he just doesn’t want their first memory of him back to be him sobbing. He’s shed tears because he felt the sheer relief from Brian and the sheer joy from John and the sheer pain from Roger.

If he had made bets on their reactions, he would have lost.

They stay wrapped together against the passage of time, but there’s an ache in his legs from standing and emotional exhaustion he wants to spend hours sleeping off. He doesn’t know how long the hug lasts, but there seems to be a mutual agreement of breaking apart. This time he steps away, just to observe them.

The three hugged him before he could get much out of his lips when they came individually. He wasn’t hallucinating when he thought they looked longer, and as Molly reacted to that as well, he knows he’s not hallucinating now. Actually…

He glances past him, but Molly has once again stepped out when things became intimate. He’ll have to find her and thank her for what feels like the hundredth time. Right now, he can only focus on his family in front of him. Brian has the kind smile he always wears, and John is beaming but Roger still looks as though he’s in shock. Freddie knows that’s going to be a long conversation, but he just wants to sleep in a Queen puppy pile and deal with all of this shit later.

Just as he’s about to suggest it, John speaks.

“How is this even possible?”

“I’m Freddie fucking Mercury!”

Chapter Text

While Freddie finds his answer hilariously outrageous the others are nodding along to it as though it’s the truth. He’ll chalk it up to shock making them a little susceptible. There’s still the tiny bit of them being younger than they should be.

“Why are you all not old?” Freddie asks.

“We aren’t entirely sure,” John says slowly.

He thinks they still don’t believe that he’s alive. Right now, he’s too happy to see them again that he’ll forgive them for a distinct lack of curiosity about their situation. They won’t solve anything until the novelty of his resurrection wears off, and he doubts that won’t be for a while yet.

“Oh, one second loves!”

Freddie ducks out of the porch faster that the protests can form. He feels bad because he can see an edge of panic to Brian’s eyes. It takes him a minute or so, but he finally sees who he’s looking for.

“Molly, dear, come help explain things.”

Molly drops the frond she was examining in surprise. She walks a little closer, “are you, uh, sure I should be in there right now?”

“We’ve had the initial reunion, but questions are bound to happen.”

Her nose his red and there’s a little shiver to her body.

“Come inside and warm up, how long were you out there anyway?”

“About two hours, give or take.”

“Sorry.”

“No need, this property has enough to explore!”

Freddie turns back to the three now looking distinctly confused but again relieved that he’s come back into the porch. Molly enters a few seconds behind him and she offers a tiny wave.

“Boys, this is Molly,” Freddie gestures between them, “Molly, you know who they are.”

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you all, despite,” Molly purses her lips, but they widen into a brilliant smile, “the weird circumstances.”

Brian looks to Freddie for an explanation.

“Let’s move inside and have this little meeting?”

They agree, and Freddie ignores the stares he gets from both John and Roger. Brian seems to be the most recovered either because he’s the most level-headed or simply because he’s had the longest to accept that he was alive. Fred figures he’ll have to get used to the hovering, which he won’t mind too much, and he can’t blame them. If one of them had died and came back years later, he wouldn’t leave their side for a month at least.

They settle around the kitchen table. Molly looks a little loss for words and the others seem mostly confused with the situation.

“Long story short, I woke up in Molly’s bed and now I’m here.”

Brian frowns, “you just woke up in her bed?”

“That’s barely a sentence,” John comments

“Yes. She threw a lamp at me.”

Molly waves her hands wildly, “again, I thought you broke into my house, which is still true!”

“Then you started a conversation instead of calling the cops,” Freddie counters.

“Well, yeah. Your tone sounded conversational.”

John looks as though he wants to say something. Freddie laughs because they’ve had this conversation a few times prior and Molly still can’t explain why she didn’t call the cops.

“But yes, I woke up in her bed,” Freddie says smoothly.

Molly takes this as her cue, “and after I confirmed I didn’t have a TBI and a brief explanation of the internet, we went to Mr. Beach’s home so that he would hopefully help us get into contact with at least one of you. I didn’t think you would have appreciated a random person sending random pictures of Freddie.”

“Good call,” Roger mumbles.

“So, what have you been doing? How long have you been back?”

“Three days.”

The three of them look at each other. Molly tilts her head and Freddie pouts at being left out of the private conversation.

“We woke up young three days ago.”

This time Freddie glances at Molly whose laying her forehead against the table and letting out a very long sigh. He waits to see what issues she’s going to bring up this time. She’s muttering something along the lines of never using a wishing fountain again. The other three watch her warily.

“She does this,” he says in explanation.

Molly lifts her head and has one palm pressed against her eye, “so you all being young again is probably somehow related to Freddie being alive again.”

“We kind of figured that part out,” Roger says.

John elbows him, “let her finish.”

“What I think happened, is that I used an actual wish granting fountain,” she pulls the hand away from her face, “and since my wish was specifically vague, it kind of compounded wishes involving the same figure?”

“I’ve never used a wishing fountain to wish for that,” John frowns, “but really you wanted to meet us that badly?”

“Huh?”

Roger is scowling, and Brian is tapping his lip. Freddie wonders what he’s thinking about and why he’s so quiet.

Molly holds her palms up, “wait. Wait. That’s not what I wished for. Don’t get me wrong I’ve always wanted to meet you all but… I just thought it would be neat for Freddie to be alive. I was listening to Queen when I found the fountain and I was in a nostalgic mood.”

 “You used a wish like this for a person you’ve never met?” John asks.

“To be fair, and no offense,” Molly shrugs, “I didn’t think it would happen.”

Freddie leans back in his chair. He doesn’t think anyone would think that this would happen again.

“If that’s the case,” Roger is thoughtful, “it explains why he’s alive, but none of why we’re young.”

“That’s what I mean by compounding wishes,” Molly raises a finger, “probably from you three.”

“Like we all wished we had more time,” Brian says.

“Basically, and since again, it was a vague wish this happened.”

“And what do we do if someone wishes this away?” Roger asks.

“I don’t think they can,” Molly bites her lip, “I checked the city records last night after I realized the wish came true, and there was nothing about a fountain being built in that park or for it to donate to the Children’s Hospital.”

It’s Freddie’s turn to frown, “so this fountain happens to appear when you’re in the right mood to make a wish and to get you to make the wish it promises a donation to where you work?”

Molly opens her mouth and then closes it.

“Hey!” She yells, “the fountain robbed me! I donated to it!”

Freddie laughs, and the outburst earns a smile from John and another doubtful glance from Roger. Brian is watching this with interest.

“It does seem odd,” Brian concludes, “there’s a lot of chance that went into it.”

“What’s odd is the girl thinking the fake fountain robbed her,” Roger mutters.

“That’s fair,” Molly shrugs, “but I guess the universe wanted it to happen as much as you all did?”

“You wished it,” Roger points out.

“Yeah,” Molly twirls her hand, “because I was a nostalgic fan that night. I won’t even begin to claim I’ve missed Freddie near as much as you all must’ve.”

Freddie hides a smile at the other’s looks of surprise. Molly’s reasonable personality never seems to end, and out of the people that could have wished him alive that night, he’s glad that it was Molly. Of course, he would never complain if it had been someone he knew from his previous life, but he’s always liked meeting new people.

“But that’s the gist of the story,” Molly continues, “there’s not too much to tell without going into crazy speculation.”

She cast her eyes over the other three rock stars, “and I’m guessing you have a lot of catching up to do rather than look a gift horse in the mouth. I should probably leave because I have to drive back to Manchester tonight.”

Molly stands and so does he. They hug briefly.

“Thank you for everything.”

“You’ve said that already,” she smiles, “take care of yourself.”

She squeezes his hand then heads towards the door with Freddie following behind her. Molly waves one last time. He waves back and makes a mental note to try and figure out how to message her later. If he knows his bandmates, which he likes to think he does, he’s not going to be able to do much alone for the foreseeable future and Molly would be at least some relief from Queen’s special type of crazy.

Brian isn’t exactly sure how to process everything. He’s gotten used to waking up and seeing his younger self because he’s had days to adapt to it, but he doesn’t think he’ll get used to the sight of Freddie Mercury waltzing back into his kitchen in 2018. It’s never going to be just another fact of life again. He took it for granted once. A glance to John confirms a similar look of disbelief and joy, but Roger’s face is neutral.

He can’t really blame Roger if he’s in shock. No one says anything. The room isn’t exactly awkward, but there’s a gap of thirty years and there doesn’t feel like there will ever be enough time to fill in the gaps. Brian doesn’t even know where to start. Say how much he’s missed him? That was obvious by the reaction on the porch. Usually, he can depend on Roger or Freddie to break the silence. Roger doesn’t look like he’s going to be talking for a while, so that means it’s up to Freddie.

John opens his mouth.

Freddie shushes him, “I perhaps should have led with this, but I don’t know anything that’s happened past 1982.”

It’s not the most surprising fact of the day. Brian’s mentally going through numerous theories about time-travel but considering nothing’s changed in his own memory it means that it’s not time-travel in the sense that it creates paradoxes. Maybe if this more science-fiction he would think there’s a parallel universe where Freddie Mercury vanishes in 1982. He doesn’t want to dwell on that universe.

“Nothing?” John asks.

“Not really,” Freddie shakes his head, “Molly thinks that I might get my memories back, but for right now…”

Brian is grateful for that in some ways. It means Freddie doesn’t remember getting sick or feeling as though Queen abandoned him, but if they do come back Brian doesn’t know how Freddie will react to those memories. They’ll have to take that scenario one step at a time, unlike everything else that’s happened in these past three days they can’t do anything until Freddie remembers things.

“But you do know what happened?” Brian asks.

“Yes, I watched the documentaries and read articles,” Freddie replies, “but they aren’t my memories.”

They’re spared explaining his death then. The day Freddie died is the one day that he could never cope with, he’s not even spoken to Roger about what happened after he got the news.

Roger stands up and storms out of the room. Freddie and John jump in surprise, but Brian was half expecting it. He doesn’t know what set the blond off, but he does know when he’s about to see an infamous Roger temper-tantrum. They hear glass shatter from upstairs. Freddie looks heartbroken and John tilts his head as if he’s trying to determine the reason.

Brian doesn’t want Freddie to leave his sight, because there’s not enough proof that this won’t disappear, but he knows that if Roger is breaking things he should try and limit his warpath.

“I’ll go check on him,” he says after he hears a heavy thud.

He slowly and cautiously makes his way up the stairs. There’s no telling when Roger snapped, and he’d rather not step on any glass. The hallway is untouched except for a knocked over a vase, which explains the shattering noise. Muffled yelling alerts him to Roger’s location: the bedroom he’s claimed as his own.

Brian approaches cautiously and knocks on the door before he opens it. The room is (unsurprisingly) wrecked. A few of the decorations lay in shards on the floor and the bed is torn up. He doesn’t see Roger immediately, but after a few steps into the room, he sees the blond. Roger’s wedged himself in the space between the wall and the vanity. He’s sure the vanity was pushed into the corner, but then he sees where it’s left scrapes on the wood floor.

The approach is slow, he’s been a victim of Roger’s temper tantrums enough to know the blond would throw (or spray) whatever he has handy if he’s not careful. Alarm bells are ringing, because he’s used to seeing Roger’s usual energy turning into pacing and yelling and throwing things. Not complete stillness. As he gets closer, he can see that Roger is shaking, but he can’t determine the cause.

“Rog?”

No response.

“Roger, what’s wrong?”

This time the blond bites his lip. Brian sighs and sits on the floor across from him, carefully avoiding contact.

“You can talk to me.”

Roger sobs. He opens his mouth and then closes it. Brian has known Roger longer than he’s lived without him, and he’s never seen Roger’s anger turn to tears. What he does know is that Roger likes to get into tight spaces to make himself feel secure when he doesn’t feel like his bravado can match up. Instead of trying to pull Roger out of his spot and into a hug he moves so that his back is against the wall and basically gates Roger’s only way out.

It takes several minutes but the sobbing subsides, but the trembling remains strong. Roger ducks his head into his knees and his hands are buried in his hair. Brian watches for any signs of more escalation. He wants to ask why but he doesn’t want to see Roger break down again. They’re supposed to be happy for fuck’s sake. Their best friend just returned from the dead. They got their second chance.

“Freddie’s back.”

Brian barely hears the words.

“Fred’s back and he doesn’t fucking remember,” his voice is a little stronger, “he doesn’t remember ditching us for Paul Fucking Prenter or how we had to watch him die a little bit more every day.”

He’s not sure what to say, because it might be a good thing that Freddie doesn’t remember.

“Why the fuck couldn’t we lose our memories too? Why do I have to…to remember?”

Roger starts crying again. He takes long heaving breaths. It breaks Brian’s heart to hear.

“He doesn’t remember the good times either. Like Live-aid or seeing our kids for the first time.”

Brian hesitantly reaches over and puts a hand or Roger’s shoulder, “we’ve got him back.”

“Yeah,” and Roger lifts his head, the blue eyes are brightened by the red-rim and the still falling tears, “but we can’t really talk about things if he doesn’t remember what he’s done.”

He’s not sure he understands Roger’s side of things.

“We didn’t talk about the things that hurt and nearly broke us, because Freddie didn’t want to spend time in the past, but we didn’t get closure. We didn’t get to know if it was Paul that drove the wedge or if it was us.”

Now Brian gets it. He’s had the same thought before, never frequently because he didn’t want to know the answer. It was always easier to blame it on bad luck and a lack of information and heightened risk. Statistics were comforting despite how grim they were. Roger though… it makes sense that he’d be stuck on it. Roger who used to drop everything in their early days to play scrabble with Freddie and Roger who spent night after night partying with Fred just to keep an eye on him and Roger who Jim claims was Freddie’s soulmate.

Roger who was the only one who didn’t stop playing music after Freddie’s death (short as Brian’s break was, he still stopped) and the Roger who fought through his grief to make sure Freddie was properly honored.

No wonder he was crying now.

Brian doesn’t know how to help because this is something entirely between Freddie and Roger. He can’t even say for Roger to talk to Freddie about this because Freddie isn’t going to know anything about what Roger is talking about.

“And now we’re risking losing him twice.”

Brian knows that feeling too well, his skin is starting to tingle with that fact.

“I don’t know if I can do it again,” Roger is back to barely speaking above a whisper.

“We just have to make sure we have fewer regrets this time. No matter what he says, we won’t stay silent like we did the first time when he told us to not give him an ounce of pity.”

Roger looks up, “what will that change?”

“We’ll have more years that we already had,” Brian shrugs, “more memories. Happier times.”

“Yeah,” Roger bites his lip.

“Ready to go back down there?”

He’s silent for a second, “yeah. I am.”

Roger stands on still shaking legs. Brian doesn’t say anything and lets him use the bathroom to try and make it look less like he’s been pushed to the edge. He uses the few tricks he’s learned to make himself look less hungover, and they work well enough. It’s not one hundred percent perfect, but the others think he had a temper tantrum, so he uses that leeway.

He still sort of feels like he’s standing on the edge of a rather large fall, the logical part of his mind is telling him to back away from it, but his heart is saying at least it’ll be a beautiful way down. There’s no reason to stop listening to his heart after he’s done so his entire life. If he let logic rule, he’d probably be a dentist in some suburban area.

What a depressing thought.

Brian stays near him as they head back to the kitchen. Hearing Freddie’s laugh is haunting. Roger can’t help but grin after the initial discomfort passes. He glances at Brian who is also smiling but grows wider as John’s own laugh joins the chorus. They enter the kitchen and John tilts his head when his eyes meet Roger’s. Roger nods. The smile his back full force, and it’s been years since he saw a true Deaky smile, the one that shows the small gap between his teeth and crinkles his eyes so much they’re nearly closed. Brian puts a hand on Deaky’s shoulder while Roger plasters himself to Freddie.

Freddie tries to squirm away, but he just holds fast. He laughs and it’s loud, but Roger doesn’t mind that it makes his ears ache. Eventually, the other two start pouting at his prolonged contact and by some mental agreement, they moved into the living room. John tosses a blanket on the floor and Roger pulls both Freddie and Brian to lay on top of it.

Another blanket covers them. Roger lets out an “oof” of air as Deaky lands on top of him. Then Deaky burrows under the blanket and forces Roger over closer to Brian who’s trying to avoid getting hit by flailing limbs. Things settle down and Roger figures out exactly what’s going on.

He’s on top on Brian but his legs have been pinned by Freddie who has John drawn to his chest. Roger himself is pressed against the singer’s side, and Brian is holding his hand seemingly content about the space he’s managed to procure for himself. It’s a pile of musicians and reminds him of a few nights on their early tours when they had to drive through the night to make their next stop on the tour.

Freddie’s tracing the tendons on Brian’s hand with feather light touches. Brian’s eyes are drooping but he’s managing to stay awake. Roger notes that John is as wide-eyed as himself. He steals a glance at Freddie’s whose eyes are closed but he knows the man is far from asleep. They still haven’t said anything, and Roger doesn’t mind that. He has thousands of words to say, but none of them seem to be fitting for today.

Today when they all got what they’ve desperately wanted for so long.

Freddie moves on to tracing his hand, one hand was still holding onto Brian’s hand. Roger closes his eyes as he feels the finger trace down to his wrist and then around it before skating back up his middle finger. It’s something Freddie liked to do in the early days, always wondering how they were able to make such good music.

Their silence is broken by the chime of a phone. John jumps and reaches for it. Somehow he manages to wiggle his arm free and pull the phone up to his face. The light blinds all four of them. Roger notes that they must have been under this blanket for hours if they need to turn a light on inside. Freddie tries to steal a glance at John’s phone.

“You all have those?” He asks.

“Yes,” Roger answers, “we should get you one.”

“Miami already got me one.”

“Ah,” Roger says, and then the words sink in, “you have a phone?”

“I just told you that dear.”

“John, are you alright?” Brian asks.

Roger glances at John and sees that the other has gone pale.

“Veronica is coming over tomorrow to talk.”

Freddie looks excited at seeing Veronica and then realizes that no one else is. Not even John and he loves his wife.

“I’m guessing you haven’t told anyone yet? About your uh, sudden youth?”

“It’s a little hard to bring up.”

“Looks like our time is up,” John sounds annoyed.

Roger doesn’t blame him. They never came up with a contingency plan for this even after John told them they need to think of something. To be fair, the first day was valid to not have a plan and the second day they got distracted and today… well… Roger glances at Freddie. He’s not surprised their families have reached out. Truthfully, he’s surprised that John’s family waited this long.

“Well, I guess she’s going to figure this out,” Roger says encouragingly.

“Currently the only people that have seen this have taken it well,” Brian counters.

“Yeah,” John nods, “because one has been gone for thirty years and the other seem perpetually unbothered by impossibilities.”

That was a fair assessment. Molly seemed to have taken everything with a grain of salt, and Roger’s not sure what to make of her. He’s grateful to her but she is a strange one.

“I’m sure it won’t end horribly,” Brian says.

John winces.

Roger elbows him, “what he means to say, is Veronica has been pretty accepting of your lifestyle.”

“Yeah, when she was young too,” John says, “but it’s different considering how much younger I am and the fact that Freddie’s back.”

There’s a story there that Roger knows he’s never heard. Veronica and John have always been the epitome of a perfect relationship to Roger (Fred and Jim too, but he often wonders at the potential sappiness if the relationship had been given more time). He’s not surprised to hear there might have been arguments, but he is surprised to hear that they might have caused a permanent sort of tension.      

“Well,” Freddie says with some finality, “all we can do is wait.”

“I hate waiting,” John sighs.

Roger is beginning to agree with that sentiment.

Chapter Text

John sleeps better than he has in a long time. He wakes up curled around Freddie, and there’s a heel digging into his back. After a little bit of maneuvering, he deduces that it belonged to Roger. The blond looks like he’s twisted in an uncomfortable manner. At least they don’t have to worry about anything more than early morning pain. John sighs and rubs his eyes. Part of him wants to ignore the situation and go back to sleep, pretend like this is forty years ago and they’re on tour and he can reasonably ignore his responsibilities.

Veronica is coming over at ten.

Through a great force of will and excitement to see his wife, he pushes himself up. Freddie grumbles (he’s not going to be used to that for a long time) and Roger whines. John blinks in surprise to see that Brian is already awake. Rather, it looks as though he hadn’t slept at all last night.

“Morning,” Brian whispers.

“Good morning. I’m going to get ready for Veronica.”

“I’ll get these two up soon.”

John nods and makes his way to one of the guest showers. He turns the heat up and hopes that it’ll wake him up more. There’re so many thoughts in his head, that despite the sleep he got last night he still feels exhausted. Although he supposes it might have to do with the fact that he cried out his own body weight yesterday when he saw that Freddie was in front of him. The shower scalds him when he steps in, but he quickly gets used to it.

He works his way through his shower routine slowly and methodically. Way back when he replaced his body water with alcohol, this was the best trick he found to get over a hangover. It isn’t a surprise that this tick is coming back, he feels strung out on an adrenaline high. His mind is spinning but he can’t keep a train of thought going.

No matter how many different ways he spins the situation in his head, he can’t think of a good explanation. The steam of the shower gives him no guidance either. He can’t exactly call and as for help from Veronica as he usually would. The way he sees it he has three options (four, but he refuses to run away from this).

One: he blames everything on Molly and pretends that he didn’t want this to happen. This one falls apart quickly because it doesn’t feel right to blame Molly when she’d been nothing but kind and helpful and more importantly given them the chance to be with Freddie again. The second way this falls apart is Veronica would never believe that he didn’t want Fred back or to reconnect with the band.

Two: he makes this a public discussion, and they all share the burden equally. Brian would be able to explain all of his theories and John knows from experience that it’s hard to maintain anger while looking at Roger’s pretty blue eyes (it worked with Miami). Explaining Fred would take a good portion of time and it would derail everything else by simply breathing (that might currently be a Queen thing, experiments pending).

Three: his least favorite, he sits Veronica down and they talk about it one on one. He loves his wife, always has, but marriage is hard. All of them learned that lesson. John knows how this conversation will go. They’ve had similar ones before, and he knows that this won’t be ended smoothly or simply by a promise to stay around more when things with the band clam down.

Things never did until Queen ended.

Veronica knew it would be unfair to make him choose between Queen and his family when Queen was also family.

It’s unfair that he might have to make the choice now.

John turns off the shower and quickly towels off. As much as he wants to rely on the others, he knows he has to do this himself. He’ll take the others help of course, but Veronica needs to hear it from him.

They don’t have a plan, but they all know what’s going to happen. As sure as a pull from one of Brian’s black holes and as steady as a beat from Roger’s heart and as bright as one of the sparks from his circuits and they’ve all drunk from Freddie’s endless passion. There’s never been any doubt.

“John? It’s half nine!”

He dresses in the best fitting outfit he can scrounge from Brian’s closet. It’s ill-fitting but it almost feels wrong to be wearing something so modern on this body. John hadn’t expected to need fancy dress, but now he feels like maybe he should find something else. No. This is fine, it’s just a talk.

The walk downstairs makes his knees shake. There’s nothing to worry about. He’s done nothing wrong, but it feels like a betrayal. Freddie smiles at him and the nerves fade to the backburner. And lo, the power of Freddie Mercury’s confidence. After thirty years of not experiencing it first hand, it’s somehow become more potent.

If this is a dream, he needs to wake up now.

If this is a dream, he’s going to hate waking up.

Brian has prepared tea and cheese toasties. John is grateful, even though his stomach has coiled so tight he couldn’t force down a glass of water. Thankfully no one brings up his lack of appetite. Neither Brian or Roger are touching their breakfast. When Freddie reject the food that’s when John feels the dam begin to break.

“I’m simply not hungry.”

“You should eat,” Brian says.

The argument might be more convincing if Brian didn’t have two uneaten sandwiches and a cold cup of tea in front of him. Freddie’s raised eyebrow says much of the same thing.

“Then you three have to eat as well.”

John should have expected the comment. It’s predictable and something Fred has done a hundred times before. This time, however, reminds him of the time when Brian was ill with hepatitis.

Brian had eaten less than usual in the week leading up to the episode that sent him to the hospital and after the surgery, he was eating even less. The doctors at the time feared a relapse of infection because Brian wasn’t getting and stronger. John remembers the day particularly well because Roger had finally passed out from exhaustion (scaring them half to death when they were already half there) after ignoring his own body in attending to Brian’s. It’d been a secret blessing because the doctors were talking about admitting Roger.

John himself had gone through at least five packs of cigarettes since they arrived at the hospital. He was blissfully numb to the events which earned him more than one anger-fueled comment from Roger. At least he had been level headed enough to make decisions as Brian’s medical proxy while on tour. His hatred of hospitals was cemented during those two weeks.

It’d been Fred that makes the memory particularly clear. Freddie had been nothing but optimistic and comforting, despite the growing dark circles and waxy pallor and greasy hair. While John leaned against the wall in the cot that the staff had supplied with an unconscious Roger, Freddie finally lost his composure, because Brian had slept the entire day, too weak to do much else.

“Dove,” Freddie coos, “please eat something.”

Brian had been awake or Freddie had enough. John still isn’t sure to this day.

“Can’t,” the voice was wispy light.

It felt like there was a ghost with a hand round his throat.

Freddie hushed and soothed like a mother, “you have to eat something.”

They all had that argument. John caught Roger crying in the bathroom more than once after another tray was taken away, full except for the food that they’d taken in an effort to make Brian eat.

“The doctors are worried you won’t be able to fight off the infection a second time.”

The first time had nearly killed him. There’s no reason to elaborate on what a second time would do to him. John figures he learned more about Brian in the lack of a response than if the guitarist had uttered words.

“Please,” Fred’s voice cracks.

They were all too close to breaking.

“I don’t think that I can,” Brian had said, “Fred, I’m-”

“Don’t say you can’t. This hurts. I can’t watch you waste away.”

John is surprised by the amount of truth in that statement. Fred’s leaving his heart open to be hurt.

“You were already too thin before you got sick.”

Fred inhales a shaky breath. John rubs a hand up and down Roger’s arm. He’s thankful the blond isn’t awake for this moment of Brian giving up.

“We’ll eat what you do with you. Dove, please try. For me or for John? At the very least try for Roger, he’s at his wit's end.”

“I’ll try? Tomorrow morning. I’ll try.”

John never asked why Brian hadn’t eaten before then or agreed at that moment. He was grateful and thrilled the next morning when Brian ate and kept down half a bowl of oatmeal. That, to him, has always been the confirmation that Queen wouldn’t be another band break-up statistic. They’d do anything for each other.

“John, are you going to eat?”

One sandwich is gone from everyone’s plate and another disappearing act from Roger. John smiles nervously and picks up the food.

“Sorry,” he takes a bite, “it’s good.”

The doorbell rings exactly at ten. John sends Brian and panicky look. He got lost in nostalgia rather than plan what he’s going to tell his wife.

“You can have this floor. Fred and I are going upstairs to find Roger.”

John almost wants to hide under the table. He shakes the thought from his head. This is Veronica, the love of his life, she’s going to be willing to listen at the very least. The doorbell rings again, and Brian gives him a look akin to a mother catching a child hiding a magazine in their textbooks. Freddie smiles.

“Come get us when you’re ready.”

It’s reassuring that he’ll have his friends upstairs. He walks to the front of the house, trying to flatten his hair and straighten his clothes. The result isn’t overly successful, but at least you can tell an attempt was made to be proper. Then knocking begins, twice, sharp and clear. John winces, Veronica must have worked herself into a bad mood already. He gets it, he’d be rather upset if Veronica vanished with a vague word and then zero contact beyond that.

John opens the door before the second round of knocking could begin. Veronica looks as beautiful as she always does. Gray hair pulled into a bun, ringlets having fallen loose. She hasn’t dressed up, but she looks like a celebrity attending the MET Gala and he a lowly college student.

“John Richard Deacon, you-“

The words die on her lips as her eyes go wide. Her finger which had been pointing at him drops down and her mouth opens. John rubs the back of his head and smiles sheepishly. He probably should’ve given her some warning.

“What on God’s green Earth has happened?”

“We should probably go inside.”

Veronica walks in carefully, and she glances down to her hands which remain wrinkled and marked with her age. She looks back up to John. He doesn’t think everything has sunk in yet. They wander into the dining room, John pulls out a chair for Ronnie before he plants a brief kiss on her cheek and sits across from them.

His hands automatically stretch out in front of him on the table. Veronica looks at them for a second before looking back at him. She places her hands in his, and then one of her fingers brushes at a callous.

“I missed these,” she says mildly.

John tilts his head.

“I missed hearing you play more.”

“I still play.”

Veronica gives him a withering smile, “when one of the boys talks you into it. Your playing hasn’t been the same since- Oh, its technically perfect I imagine, but I know the difference.”

John looks away. He feels his fingers get intertwined with Ronnie’s. What he going to say. Well, you can hear me play like that again, because Freddie Mercury is upstairs along with a young Brian May and young Roger Taylor. He doesn’t imagine that would go over very well. He also doesn’t know why everyone feels the need to ask about why he stopped playing after Freddie died. It was his own choice and it affected no one but himself.

“Want to explain why you’re thirty again?”

“I can’t explain the how,” John shrugs, “as for the why, magic?”

“John.”

“I’m not lying. A fan made a silly wish, and then I woke up like this.”

He looks up at Veronica who looks unimpressed. There’s not much more of an explanation that he can give her.

“You’re young again, and instead of talking to me you run to Brian?”

“I,” John doesn’t know why he did, “can’t explain that either. I just know when I saw what I looked like, I panicked and called the first person that I could think of.”

“Brian? The man you had the most creative differences with?”

“I actually called Roger.”

Veronica narrows her eyes, “Roger?”

“This happened to all of us.”

Veronica nods. John doesn’t know how she makes a nod sardonic, but she manages. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“So the three of you huddle in Brian’s house doing what exactly?”

“Figuring out what we’re going to do about this. It’s not something we can hide forever, and the public has been paying more attention to Roger and Brian.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, John? Did you think I would get mad?”

“No. I haven’t been in the right headspace, and then yesterday…” John trails off.

Yesterday he was given the perfect gift. Yesterday Freddie Mercury strutted back into his life as if he went around the corner to buy a pack of cigarettes. John makes a mental note to help kick Freddie’s habit if he has one. He’ll have to join Brian’s crusade because he’s sure Roger might take up smoking again.

“Yesterday?”

“We found out Freddie is back.”

Veronica looks at him skeptically, “Freddie? Freddie Mercury, Freddie? The Freddie that died three decades ago, Freddie?”

“The very same.”

“You’re joking.”

John feels the first welt of anger, “why would I joke about this? When have I ever given the impression that I would joke about this?”

“Being young, I have to accept because I see it. The dead coming back to life? It’s impossible John, this has obviously messed with your head.”

“Messed with my head?”

“You don’t talk to Roger or Brian for years beyond pleasantries, and then once you become young again you trounce off to have sleepovers with them again. John, you were pissed at what they were doing!”

John purses his lips, “they’re still family, Veronica.”

“I’m your family,” Veronica says, “your kids are your family. Queen is too, but. You can’t just abandon us.”

“I wasn’t planning to!”

“No?”

“I swear.”

“Think about what it looks like John,” Veronica sighs, “this is what always happens.”

“Getting deaged thirty years?”

“No, you nonce. You, running off with Queen.”

“I was part of the band! That was my job!”

“And if Freddie is really back? When were we going to see you again?”

John’s original plan had been to go back on Christmas if they didn’t have a plan. He hadn’t thought about what his plan was when Freddie came into the picture. It had been a breath of fresh air and then the fear that this was a dream that would come crashing down.

“Christmas day, I swear.”

Veronica nods, “and now?”

“Veronica, what do you want me to say?”

“That you aren’t going to be dragged across the world again because your boyhood is back. That you won’t be gone for months on end creating an album or touring.”

“We never discussed-”

“So, you can’t say it?”

“Veronica,” John closes his eyes to prevent a growing headache.

“I love you, John. I love the music you made. I loved that I knew the boys were looking after you and that I could trust you,” Veronica says, “but you must admit, you were gone a lot.”

“I’m not denying that,” John says, “it’s just. I haven’t connected with the band like this in years. Freddie died and now he’s back, and I can’t just ignore that.”

“So what?” Veronica crosses her arms, “what is your plan?”

“I don’t, we don’t, have one.”

“You don’t have one?”

“How can we? We just learned Freddie was alive yesterday!”
Veronica drops her shoulders, “John, I love having you at home, the kids do too. I know you love us, so why did you really go to Roger with this?”

John opens his mouth to say I wasn’t thinking straight again, but an unacknowledged part of him knows why he did. He hates himself for it, it makes him feel like an awful father and an awful husband.

“I missed them,” he says first, it’s the simple easy to swallow the truth, “but I also missed Queen.”

“Thank you,” Veronica leans forward, “John, I’m upset you didn’t tell me, but I would have understood if you explained things to me.”

John nods, “I don’t know why. I was scared I guess?”

“Scared?”

“That you would freak out and leave. That the kids would freak out and leave. I think I knew on some level that this just wasn’t me, so I assumed Roger and Brian wouldn’t push me away.”

“Why would I leave you, John?”

“There’s now a very large age gap between us,” John points out, “I love you, but I don’t know. I thought this might be too much for you.”

Veronica lets out a raspy laugh, “John, I raised six children while my rock star husband toured the world. There are very few things that would be too much for me.”

John smiles, “I forgot how incredible you are.”

“Things would be rather dull if I didn’t surprise you every now and again.”

“Things are never dull with you love.”

John leans over the table.

“I heard Ronnie was here?” Roger’s voice carried down the hallway.

He glares in the direction the voice came from. The fact that his friends are always a cockblock will never cease to amaze him. Sure enough, Roger’s golden head peaks through the doorway. Veronica smiles and arches an eyebrow.

“So that’s true, then.”

John shrugs. Everything sounded far fetched in his explanation.

“Yep,” Roger says.

There’s something off about his stance. John wonders idly what the conversation upstairs was about. He knows the signs of Roger not wanting to talk about something but not wanting to be alone. Freddie probably tried to get him to talk, something that rarely ever works.

“Brian and Fred are coming down in a minute.”

Veronica pulls her hand away from his, “I still can’t imagine he’s back.”

Roger shrugs and steals one of the now cold sandwiches on the counter. There’s a beat of awkward silence when Brian walks into the room. He waves at Veronica who waves back. His wife’s composure is always impressive. Then two more seconds pass, and the room tenses as Freddie Mercury strolls in. This does make Veronica react.

“Huh.”

John shrugs.

Freddie almost looks offended, “that’s all?”

“John told me you were alive, and he doesn’t lie, I just didn’t really think it was possible.”

“It still is impossible,” Brain says, “this is an experiment that can’t be replicated. We’ll leave you two alone. I think we’ve interrupted.”

John wants to have them stay, but he can’t force the words out because he knows what Veronica would ask. He knows what the answer from the others would be. He’s worried what his answer will be.

“Sorry, I know I promised space, but then I realized that I needed to feed Basil,” Brain says in parting.

“Basil?”

“Hedgehog.”

“I see,” Veronica says.

John fidgets. The room has grown slightly awkward against and it’s doing nothing for his nerves.

“That really was Freddie I can’t believe it.”

“Nor can I,” John says, “and I keep thinking that he’s going to vanish again.”

It feels surreal. John realizes that this must be what his younger children felt like when he told them that Uncle Freddie wouldn’t be visiting them anymore. The looks on their faces had broken his heart, and he didn’t think they really understood death. Not in the way that adults become tragically familiar with. He prays that they never learn how heart-wrenching it can become, as he had.

“John.”

He looks up and Veronica is looking at him with a soft smile. It takes his breath away, even after all the years he’s known her.

“I understand. I’ll explain things to the kids. Take the time you need to settle yourself again.”

The statement hurts, that Veronica has just accepted that John needs to be away from his family to figure things out. Granted his behavior doesn’t leave much room for questions, and it’s true. He’s always needed to view thing from an outsider’s perspective.

“That’s not fair to you or the kids.”

Veronica raises a hand, “it’s also unfair to make you leave when you’re not comfortable with it. I know how you’ll be: jumpy, snappish, and tense. It was the same after Freddie was in Germany and stopped contacting you regularly.”

John shakes his head, “I can explain myself, and I shouldn’t leave my family hanging with questions. I’ve done that enough.”

Both to Veronica and the kids and Queen. John promises that he’ll try to explain himself better.

“Then what do you propose?”

“I’ll come back for Christmas and Boxing Day, and explain everything.”

“Okay,” Veronica hums, “why don’t you invite the others? Everyone will be thrilled to see Freddie. Brian and Roger have always been welcome.”

They’ve done this all before. John thinks it might be the best push to solve all their current problems. The main one being is that he knows for a fact that Brian and Roger both haven’t reached out to their own families. The irony isn’t lost on him that when they spent Christmas together in the early days it was because they couldn’t afford to go home or there had been a fight in the family that would make things awkward, and now history is repeating itself in a way.

“I’ll ask.”

Veronica watches him quietly, “call them back in, we might have a lot of catching up to do.”

John smiles. God, he loves his wife.

Molly wonders if there’s a worse way to spend the holidays than in the ER. There probably is, but it still hurts her to see families in the waiting rooms after something happened during a traditionally happy time. It’s worse on Christmas Day of course, despite her not celebrating the holiday her stepmom’s family had and those nights had always been joyous.

Working in the ER isn’t much better, especially when you have to give bad news. Thankfully, the worse news she had to deliver today is that a kid is going to have to wait just a little bit longer to ride the new bike he got as a present.

“Back and in full force already?”

Molly smiles, “well, I can’t exactly ask for a warm up.”

Lauren leans against the counter, she’s surprisingly bright-eyed for the early morning. Molly hates working day shifts.

“What are you doing here?” She signs off on a form, “I thought you had the day off?”

“With the condition that I’d be on call,” Lauren shrugs, “that and one of my patients has been labor for about two hours, and they just realized. So, Christmas baby delivery!”

“Joy to the word,” Molly jokes.

“I’m sure my patient is feeling anything but, it looks like she’s going to push out a watermelon.”

“Gross. Call me if you need any help.”

“Oh, they’re still about forty-five minutes out,” Lauren suddenly grins, “and I have one question.”

Molly closes her eyes, “and what is that?”

“What’d you during your week off?”

“What?” Molly feels her stomach spin, “nothing much.”

“So why was your bitmoji saying you were in the London area?”

“Huh? Oh! I went there for a change of scenery. To relax you know.”

Lauren waggles her eyebrows, “did you meet anyone?”

Molly glances at her phone when it buzzes. Her lab results are finished and being faxed up, “huh, yeah. A few people.”

“Molly!” Lauren gasps, “did you Mama Mia yourself?”

“Did I what?”

She reaches over when the fax machine starts spitting out the paper.

“The hit musical movie Mama Mia? With songs from ABBA? I guess your soundtrack would be to Queen, oh! It could start off to I Want to Break Free, that was the drag video right?”

Molly ignores Lauren’s prattling. Her patient had a lot of white blood cells, which wasn’t good considering the tiny mass imaging found.

“You aren’t wrong,” she says distractedly.

“Morgan Young! Details!”

“Doctor Ross! Your patient is in the loading bay!”

Molly hurries down the hallway as Lauren curses and sprints the other direction.

Chapter Text

Brian blinks the eyedrops into his eyes. It washes away some of the graininess of his past sleepless nights. He glances up at his reflection, the impression he gets is exhausted. Thankfully, the eyedrops cleared some of the redness. It doesn’t help with his waxy skin or bruised under-eyes.

Sleepless nights aren’t new, but they have grown less common as he grew older. The nights being consecutive hasn’t been a problem since college. He’d like to tell himself the cause of the stress is him being young again or that it was the unfamiliar beds of John’s home. Both would be lies.

Freddie’s voice seeps through the walls of his home. Brian can’t fight down the smile as he makes out the words of Somebody to Love. He hums along as he splashes water on his face. It helps but he still looks like he’s lost five nights of sleep.

Considering the past five days, he doubts anyone will notice, much less call him out on it.

The chorus of Somebody to Love reaches him and he figures that he’s hidden in the bathroom long enough. He shuts the faucet off, wincing at the waste he’s caused. Freddie’s voice clearer now that the heavy oak door isn’t muffling it. Brian falls into the power of it. For a second, he forgets about the long and lonely decades. It feels like they’re all waking up after a jam/brainstorming session for an album.

Then the bubble pops violently when he hears a soft whine. Brian tilts his head and tries to track where it comes from. Just as Freddie runs through the last notes, he hears the noise again. It’s coming from the room that’s become John’s room over the past week. Brian is surprised by how unsurprised he is at this development. The door is ajar. He comforts himself with the idea that he’s not violating John’s privacy because the door isn’t fully closed.

Gently he swings it open further. Brian makes out a large mass in the middle of the bed. Brian, admittedly, isn’t as familiar with John’s moods as the others. This time he knows he’s probably the best one to provide comfort. Roger has been strangely aggressive and moody while Freddie might make things worse before he’s able to calm John down.

Having Freddie back is its own emotional struggle.

“John?

Hazel eyes meet hazy green.

“Brian?”

“Are you alright?”

John shrugs.

“Do you need anything? Need me to do anything?”

“No. Thank you.”

Brian can see the erosion happening, but he’s afraid to push. This is why the fights turned brutal and personal. John is always more vicious if forced.

“I’m here if you need me.”

He must trust that John will work it out himself or that he’ll decide to talk to someone. Brian needs to believe they’ve learned from their mistakes. He knows they have but putting the lessons into practice is undoubtedly a different experience. Instead of feeling entitled to help he steps out of the room and reaches for the door handle.

“Wait.”

Brian does.

“Can we just… not talk? I don’t want to be alone.”

Brian steps back into the room and then over to the bed at John’s beckoning hand. He slides over the duvet and settles a foot away from John. He grabs the hand John extends. They listen to the final notes of Freddie’s voice, Brian wonders what he had been singing, but otherwise, there’s no sound.

Ten minutes later Freddie steals the spot between them, trapping their hands under him.

Another ten minutes pass and Roger wiggles his way on top of Brian and next to Fred.

There’s a string of restless tension along Roger’s spine. Brian rubs his back. They’re all just trying to find their footing again. Their life is completely different than it was at the start of the month and they’ve only had a week to comprehend it.

He doesn’t have a reason to think that they can’t make it.

Eventually, silence and tension wrap them into a blurry form of consciousness. Brian, on his back, has no choice but to stare up at the ceiling and recite names of stars and galaxies in his head. Next to him, he hears a quiet snuffle from Fred, who has buried his face into the pillow. His arm has gone numb and he can barely feel John’s fingers twitch against his. Brian’s eyes flick to Roger who appears to be asleep, but his face is scrunched in the signs of an unpleasant dream; lacking any outward signs of a nightmare, Brian doesn’t say anything because it looks like Roger needs the sleep.

Somehow, he does fall asleep, and when he wakes up again, only an hour later judging by the light patterns on the ceiling. Brian is getting tired of sleepless nights. He tilts his head and frowns when he sees the space that was previously occupied by Freddie. Soft undefinable noises reach his ears. Once he figures out how to dislodge Roger’s sleep-heavy body, which turns out to be as simple as Roger rolling off him and on top of John who only grunts and rolls over.

Brian connects Freddie to the sound.

Oh.

He stands and avoids the creaking floorboard and moves into the hallway. The sound is still faint, but he knows where Freddie would go. As he draws closer to the music room, he can determine the noise is piano keys. Brian hears sniffling in the spaces of sustained notes, and he staggers against the wall. It’s jarring to hear No One but You played in Fred’s style.

The first question he has is when had Freddie heard the song and studied it long enough to play it? Brian leans against the door, hesitant to intrude and spares a glance down the hallway (he should check on Basil). Then his gaze is drawn to Freddie’s fingers dancing on the ivories. It’s new and familiar at the same time. A heavy feeling curls in his stomach and then crawls its way up his throat.

Only once the last whole note was played did Brian invade the room. He keeps his hands folded at his sides, no matter how much he wants to comfort Freddie he won’t until Freddie wants to be comforted. There’s enough sadness in the air that it only makes the clawing sensation in his throat worse.

“You wrote such a beautiful song for me,” Freddie says.

Brian resolutely ignores the damnation in the tone.

“And the video! John looked devastated.”

He sits down on the ebony bench. Brian’s hands stay at his sides, Freddie still hasn’t given him complete permission and he’s not entirely sure he wants to commit to this conversation. Instead, he plays the right-hand intro Spread Your Wings. Freddie’s eyes are watching him, and Brian can’t hide behind the music, not at this moment.

“It was hard after you died, still is,” Brian says.

Freddie died, even though he may not remember it, the world and Queen do.

“John wasn’t- isn’t- the same. He took your death hard than even me or Rog.”

Freddie hides his face in Brian’s shoulder. He guesses this isn’t about a tribute song.

“I was awful to you three. I just left you with harsh words and lies.”

“I thought you didn’t remember?”

“I get flashes and impressions, but any memories of substance I get while I sleep.”

Brian tilts his head back in thought. He supposes it shouldn’t be surprising, but a selfish part of him wanted to skip all of this. Roger and John probably want to address it, but for once Brian is happier not knowing the answers to his questions.

“I know that it may not seem like it to you, but it’s in the past. Decades even. We’ve moved on, you can too.”

A little white lie never hurt anyone. They aren’t angry over it, but there’s always looming what if over their heads. What if they stopped him that day? What if they went to him sooner? What if, what if, what if.

Freddie shakes his head, “but how could you forgive me? Much less write such beautiful songs as tributes to me?”

“Fred, you- we- we love you. Yes, you made mistakes. Yes, you hurt us. Then you apologized. You asked us for forgiveness which we gave freely and willingly.”

He can tell that Fred doesn’t believe him completely.

“When you came back, you did that because you missed and needed us. Not because of any malicious intentions. You could’ve said that you thought you were sick to earn our pity and forgiveness, but you didn’t.”

The conversation stalls between them and Freddie lifts his head from Brian’s neck and joins in with the left hand of Spread Your Wings. When the left-hand starts falling out of sync Brian spares a glance at Freddie. Freddie looks up at him.

“I don’t know how I missed what Paul was doing.”

“We didn’t see it either, he didn’t want anyone to see it.”

“But-”

“Freddie,” Brain warns, “you just got all these memories at once. What he did took years. We have the benefit of hindsight. It wouldn’t have worked if he was obvious about it, yeah?”

Some of the tension eases from Freddie’s form. He doesn’t know what else to say, he doesn’t know why Freddie remembered. It seems, to Brian at least, that the memories being recalled are the worst of Fred’s life. He wants to know why and hates to think that it’s because those negative moments left more of an impression than their good times.

Freddie flicks his forehead, “stop overthinking things.”

He laughs, “someone has to think about things in this band.”

“I thought that is Deaky’s job.”

Again, it feels like they’re back in the late 70s. This is the kind of thing that he imagined doing in the 90s when part of him still thought that Freddie would come strutting into the studio and clapping his hands while teasing him about crying over him.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Freddie whispers.

“I know.”

What else can he say? Brian can’t deny the hurt, but he won’t make Freddie’s guilt worse. Instead, he wraps his arms around Freddie and hums along to ’39. Freddie leans into him and they both pretend to not notice the growing wet spots on their shirts. The room darkens as evening fades into night. He wonders if the others have woken up yet.

Judging by the silence of the house they haven’t, or they’re still in John’s room.

Roger jumps awake. He frowns when he realizes that he’s hugging John’s arm. Brian and Freddie are gone, and that makes his heart rate pick up. The dream is clinging to his heart and mind. Quickly, but carefully as to not wake John, he climbs out of bed. All he has to do is make sure that Fred is okay. Still alive.

Although he has no idea where they could be his feet carry him to the music room.

Brian is humming a distinctly familiar song, and Roger barges in the room. Freddie -thank god- peaks out of the nest he’s made from the wrinkled fabric of Brian’s shirt. Their eyes meet and Roger feels like he’s being stripped raw. The humming stops and Brian catches his eyes.

“Something wrong?”

“I’m starving.”

Roger thanks years of demanding the guitarist to fall to his whims that Brian just looks long-suffering but detangles himself from Freddie.

“I’ll get something started.”

Now he’s left alone with Freddie. Roger isn’t sure what he wants to do, or what he can do. The last thing he wants is for Fred to start prying and learn about the dreams, but then again Roger has never been able to hide from Freddie.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Roger shrugs, “an odd dream, s’all.”

Freddie narrows his eyes but then opens his arms. Roger dives into the embrace and then manages to curl himself into the space provided.

“Glad to see you can still become pocket size.”

Roger huffs. The anxiety is still a nasty wasp in the back of his head, but the longer he can feel Freddie’s breath and beat the more the buzz quiets. This is a mess. All he can think about is how Freddie may not be real. They may have proved this reality, but his mind tells him about how this could be a coma dream or a vision before he dies. He hates that he doesn’t know which theory is the least believable.

“Rog, darling, where’d you go?”

There’s no point in lying, and it’ll throw Freddie off the trial at least for a little while longer. Enough that he can figure his thoughts out first.

“I’m still in shock this happened. Brian called it our mental carpet or furniture or tapestry or whatever. I just have to get used to it again.”

And then the nightmares may stop, he prays.

“I understand. I wish I knew how I could help.”

“Don’t leave,” Roger says vehemently, quickly.

“Roggie,” god he hasn’t been called that in decades, “I won’t. I swear. I know it seems hard to believe but trust me.”

He’s never had a second of doubt in Fred, or perhaps whatever infractions Fred made against his trusts are being shoved into the ground by the impossibility of the situation given to him. The other thing that’s keeping himself from falling into this reality wholeheartedly and gladly (he’s going to fall, he knows he is) is that both Brian and John seem to have been taken in with no repercussions. John is steady, but even this must be beyond his endless emotional control. He’s more surprised about Brian because Brian should be asking a thousand and one questions and not happy until he has the formula to prove this truth.

Instead of voicing anything he curls further into Fred’s chest. He taps a random rhythm on Freddie’s stomach, which is the easiest place that he could reach. He feels the muscles jump under his barely-there touches. The room is dark enough now that it worsens his vision. Right now, it works for him because it makes the world he has to worry about that much smaller. Freddie’s hand rubs up and down his rib cage leaving sparking warmth in its path. Roger tilts his head up and his nose bump against Freddie’s throat. He doesn’t want to leave this space, even as the smell of Brian’s cooking fills the house.

There’s a soft sound of a creaking floorboard. John must be awake and moving. Roger wouldn’t be surprised if it’s because John smells the food. Freddie attempts to shift, and it feels like he’s pulling away. He tightens a fist into the soft cotton shirt, it belongs to Brian, and Freddie stills. Once he’s sure the movement has stopped then he replaces himself against Fred’s chest. It’s clingy and slightly unbefitting of a man his age (either one) but Roger has never really cared about what people thought about him.

Society’s expectations have always been too stuffy for him anyway.

Brian pokes his head back into the band room, “dinner is done.”

Roger is loathed to do it, especially because it tips his hand to Freddie too much, but he quickly leaps out of the embrace.

“Finally. I was withering away.”

He saunters past Brian, who looks tired. Behind him, he can hear Freddie grumbling about the loss of warmth. Roger stops long enough for Freddie and Brian to catch up to him and then heads into the kitchen. John is already situated at the table poking at a pasta dish of some sort. Freddie drapes himself over John, who grumbles gently in protest. Roger frowns, John’s eyes are redder than he would expect after a restful sleep.

Well, he supposes it might have been difficult to adjust to three other people in a bed after having only slept with one for nearer three decades. He fills his own bowl and hesitates to ask what Brian’s prepared. Brian knows their tastes and allergies, so Roger knows it’s safe to eat, he just doesn’t want to think about eating some weird plant-based meat-substitute again. At least he can get away with eating like shit again. John seems to be enjoying it if he judges by lack of complaints.

The meal lacks their usual banter at the start of it. Obviously, something has happened between both Brian and Freddie. He thinks there might have been something going on between John and Brian before they joined them for an impromptu nap. Roger knows that he’s going to have to be lowkey around Brian, and as he’s distracted it should be easier. Freddie is going to be a bloodhound to a badger, but Roger’s deflected about worse things than a couple of bad dreams.

John, as usual, is the enigma. Somehow, he knows everything that happens and doesn’t have a clue as to what’s going on.

Freddie clears his throat and they all jump.

“Conversation always makes a meal more palatable,” it’s a careful warning.

Roger usually has a hundred different things that he could talk about at a moment’s notice, but the only thing he wants to talk about are the things that matter. He doesn’t even want to talk about those, opening his heart over a bowl of ziti isn’t his idea of fun. John simply keeps eating and watching. Brian won’t speak, he’s rarely the one to feed into their desires to bury what they need to talk about. Freddie’s eyes dart between them and then he sighs.

“What happened to you three?”

The answer should be obvious. Roger stabs a noodle harder than is necessary.

“We’ve talked around worse things.”

Worse for who? Freddie doesn’t remember the six long months of suffering leading up to that horrid November day, and whatever memories he has can’t compare to the two years of distance. Roger bites his tongue. They don’t need that fight at the dinner table. That’s the problem though, Roger thinks, they don’t need the fight now they’ve always pushed it away until propriety is dammed, and it explodes in the middle of something worse.

“We haven’t,” Roger settles on.

Brian looks up sharply, “Roger?”

“He wants to have the conversation.”

Roger locks eyes with Brian and he can see the will to fight draining out of them. He spares a glance at John who is still preoccupied with the food in front of him. Freddie is still watching curiously, dark eyes focused on his face. He figures out the game then. This is Freddie’s bait for him. For all of them really.

“What do you want to talk about?”

Freddie opens his mouth and then closes it. He sits back against the chair, still watching. Roger tilts his head and waits. Brian also leans back, trying to get out of the blast zone. John looks up from his meal. Somewhere in the distance, Roger can hear thunder.

“Depends on what’s bothering you lot?”

John shrugs. Brian starts tapping his lip. Roger shrugs a shoulder.

“So, we’re not going to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about, you’re reading into things Fred,” Roger declares.

Freddie turns to Brian, “am I?”

Brian lets out a long sigh, “depends on what you’re looking at.”

“What I’m seeing is my three best friends, my family, suffering for no good reason. I had assumed that this would be a better time. I know I’d be nothing short of exuberant if-”

He waits for the rest of the sentence and scoffs when Fred can’t say it.  Roger feels a thrill of vindication surge through him. They don’t need to have this conversation so long as Freddie doesn’t remember what’s causing them all to start fraying at the seams. Freddie holds eye contact with him, and then when it’s clear that he’s not getting a line he huffs and stands up. John looks like he wants to say something. Brian keeps his eyes on the table.

Roger watches Freddie march out of the kitchen. He’s familiar enough to know that this a different strategy for someone to come to him and then talk. Freddie hates being kept out of the loop and Roger has a feeling that he’s the only one that isn’t affected by the past currently. Maybe they should talk about it, but Roger isn’t about to open his heart to someone that doesn’t have a clue. It’d be as helpful as talking to the statue he has in his backyard.

They hear a loud thud. Brian is first on his feet followed by Roger. John trailing behind them. He curses loudly and springs past Brian to the prone form of Freddie. There’s no reason for Freddie to have fallen, given that the floor is even and clear of objects. The good news is that there doesn’t look to be any damage from the fall. Roger is about to relax when the convulsing starts.

 His head is flying through the first aid that he knows, and he brackets Fred’s head but otherwise doesn’t touch him. The convulsing only lasts for twenty seconds, and Roger’s heart only returns to his chest forty seconds after that when the rigidness ebbs out of Freddie’s form. Brian is crouching by Freddie’s feet but John nearly is as rigid as Fred had been three feet away.

“What the hell?” Brian asks.

“Seizure,” Roger answers.

Freddie never had a problem with them before. He wonders if this is a sign of the magic, either it fading or just a transitive property of good things not being free. Although when he sees Freddie’s eyes flutter open, the tension eases out of Brian.

“Why? Will it happen again?”

Roger shrugs. He just knows the signs and symptoms, anything else is out of his knowledge, considering the only reason he has the knowledge is due to a CPR class he took years ago.

“Should we call someone?”

“Who? We can’t exactly call an ambulance or a doctor.”

John shakes his head and comes to Roger’s side, watching Freddie slowly come back into the world of consciousness.

“We could call Molly?” Brian suggests.

Chapter Text

Roger frowns, “why?”

“She’s an ER doctor,” John replies, “and she’s at least be familiar with what’s happening.”

“But if she can’t help?”

“She can make the determination at least.”

It’ll give them more information to work with. Roger thinks he can live with Freddie having seizures if that means he gets Freddie for the next several decades, at least three to make up for the time they were robbed of. Longer is preferable.

“Fred’s phone probably has her number. I’ll go find it.”

“No need, it’s in his pocket,” Brian reaches in and pulls out the device.

Freddie’s eyes are clearer now and it’s obvious that he’s putting the pieces together in his head. Knowing him, he’s probably going to come to the wrong conclusion. Brian looks down at the phone when it fails to connect.

“Call the hospital, the children’s one in Manchester.”

Brian tosses the phone to Roger who narrows his eyes. Gently he presses Freddie back to the ground when he tries to sit up, still mostly dazed. He follows along with the prompts and is nearly prepared to throw the phone when he is finally connected to the proper department.

“Emergency room, if this is a medical emergency, please hang up and call 999. Otherwise, how may I help you?”

Roger panics, he doesn’t think they’d just give away a staff member’s schedule to someone randomly calling, “I’m looking for a doctor that treated me recently.”

“Oh certainly, may I ask the reason?”

“I have a question about follow up care?”

There’s an odd beat of silence, “do you remember the attending’s name?”

Shit. What was her last name?

“Molly… Young, I think.”

“I see! She’s with a patient right now, but if you can wait, I can get her. What’s your name so she knows?”

“That’s fine, it’s Roger Taylor.”

Brian takes over holding Freddie down. Roger is certain that they can let him move, but he’s not entirely confident. He prays that he’s going to talk to the one person that won’t immediately figure out who he’s talking to.

“Thanks! I’m going to put you on hold.”

Well, what do you know? Freddie is looking annoyed at being held down, clearly, he’s recovered from whatever spell hit him, or at least is acting like he’s recovered. Roger holds up the phone. He’s more surprised that he did get away with the kid not asking any questions, although he is a little offended that they didn’t recognize his name.

“I’m on hold.”

John snorts.

Molly wrinkles her nose and discards her gloves into the bin on her way out of the room. Oh, the joys of her job, at least the kid will have a story to tell when he gets older and not have to worry about the cut on his arm getting any worse. She sometimes wonders why parents occasionally forget not ever alignment can be treated at home.

Marco waves at her from the nurse’s station. She rolls her eyes and one of the Nurses, Ellie, wiggles her eyebrows at her. Molly b-lines towards him and tucks her hands into the pockets on her lab coat.

“Do you have another kid with a “minor” scrape?” She smiles.

“I have a teenager with a compound fracture, but they just took him up for surgery,” Marco replies.

“Poor kid,” Molly leans against the desk, “so what can I do for you?”

“One of your patients called, he wants to ask about follow up care,” Marco reaches for the phone, “a Roger Taylor?”

Molly chokes on air, “Roger Taylor?”

“Yeah! He shares the name with the guy you like from Duran Duran, that’s cool, even cooler that I knew that.'”

“Points for trying,” Molly laughs, “wait did you seriously google Roger Taylor and end up with the guy from Duran Duran?”

“There’s another Roger Taylor?”

Molly blinks, “yes. From Queen?”

“Queen?” Marco frowns.

“There’s a lot to unpack here,” Molly holds up her finger, “but let me take this call first.”

Marco shrugs and hands her the phone after taking it off from hold. He then moves away to give her some privacy. She nods gratefully and holds the receiver up to her ear.

“Hello? Doctor Young speaking.”

“I hope so,” Roger sounds annoyed, “that’s who I called for. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Molly purses her lips, “because I’m working?”

“At 4:30?”

She bites back the automatic response that she answered after he called the hospital.

“I got swapped to day shift for the next few weeks.”

Roger is silent. Molly looks around to make sure that her supervisor hasn’t noticed that she’s on the phone very obviously not talking about follow up care

 “So can I help you?”

“We’re having a bit of a,” Roger pauses, “minor emergency.”

“I’ve heard that at least 40 times tonight. What’s wrong?” She taps the counter nervously.

There’s only one reason that Roger Taylor would call her.

“Freddie collapsed, it looks like he had a seizure.”

Molly speaks before she can think, “take him to the hospital!”

“We can’t! He is supposed to be dead remember?” Roger snaps

“I’m so glad hospitals can’t record calls,” she mumbles so that the receiver can’t pick it up, “is he still having one?”

“No.”

“Did he sustain any injuries during the fall or during the seizure?”

“A bruise, but I don’t see anything else.”

That’s good at least. She doesn’t know why he would’ve had a seizure. At least, she’s pretty sure that Freddie never suffered from them before. It’s possible he could have had one and no one notice, or he might not have even noticed.

“Is he conscious? If he’s conscious is he lucid?”

“Yes, he is conscious and mostly lucid.”

Another plus. There was probably no damage to the brain then if he’s recovered so quickly. It doesn’t explain the cause.

“How long was he unconscious?”

“Two minutes maybe.”

“How long did the seizure approximately last?”

She sees a nurse look up at the question and glances to the pager. Molly shakes her head and holds up a finger as if she’s trying to determine if the patient needs to come in. There’s a strong chance that he’s not going to come to this hospital at the very least.

“A minute, maybe? Why are you asking me all of these questions?”

“Because I’m trying to figure out if it’s life-threatening!” Molly bites her lips and reins in her tongue, “Sorry. I’m just trying to figure out if you do need to go to the hospital, uh identity crises not withholding.”

“Can’t you just come here and check?”

“I’m working! I’m not off for an hour and then that’s a four-hour drive.”

“Take a plane.”

Molly lowers her voice, “with what money? I can’t just spontaneously book a plane!”

“Deaky! I need you to buy a ticket under Molly’s name!”

“Don’t!”

“Too late.”

“It’s literally been thirty seconds,” Molly drops her head into her hand.

“Plane leaves in two hours.”

“Fine.”

She hangs up and lets out another long sigh. When did her life take such an odd turn and why is she surprised that the world’s most famous rock stars (Marco not included) are demanding? It’ll take her thirty minutes to make it to the airport, and after the text is texted to her under Freddie’s number, she realizes that she’ll have to leave work early.

Her supervisor is walking towards her. Molly crosses her fingers in hopes that she didn’t hear any of that conversation.

“Doctor Young, are you alright?”

Think fast, Molly.

“I just got a call saying that a close is in critical condition after a car crash,” Molly bites her lip.

Not a blatant lie. Good job.

“Oh dear,” Victoria frowns, “do you need to take off for a couple of days?”

“If it isn’t too much trouble? I’m sorry I’ve been so flaky recently.”

“Some months are harder than others, and it isn’t like you haven’t pulled your weight this entire residency. Go on, dear.”

“Thank you so much,” Molly smiles, “I really appreciate you being so understanding!”

Victoria waves her off and Molly briskly walks towards the lockers. She texts Freddie’s phone.

OTW.

Molly hikes her bag higher on her shoulder. It had been hard enough getting her trauma kit through airport security. Not that there was anything that was banned from air travel, it’s just one of those things that raise a lot of questions. She doubts she’ll need it, but having it eases some of her nerves, she’s worked in the medical field long enough to know that being prepared saves lives.

“Ms. Young.”

She jumps at the voice and then smiles sheepishly when she sees that it’s Mr. Beach. Some people send confused looks.

“Mr. Beach, how are you?”

“Concerned, but otherwise well enough.”

Molly nods, “so I guess you’ve been caught up on the situation?”

“It seems Freddie’s had a seizure. At least that’s what Roger is calling it.”

“It’s impossible to tell without an EEG or blood tests specifically geared towards an epilepsy diagnosis,” Molly replies, “I’m not doubting that’s what happened, but I can’t confirm it.”

Mr. Beach starts walking, “I’m sorry for calling you out this way again.”

“I’d rather be called out than something else happen.”

They jog across the street and Molly winces as a car drives by nearly clipping her. Mr. Beach raises an eyebrow.

“I’m fine!”

Molly fiddles with the straps of her bag and bites her cheek, “did they tell you about anything else?”

Mr. Beach tilts his head, “no just the seizure. Is there something else I should know about?”

“Probably,” she says.

“And you know what it is?”

“I don’t think you’ll believe me if I tell you.”

Again, Mr. Beach raises an eyebrow. She realizes that he’ll believe whatever she says given that she delivered Freddie Mercury to his doorstep not to long ago. It’s not really her problem to tell, but it’ll make things go a lot smoother.

“It’s just that… Brian, Roger, and John-”

“John’s talking to them again?”

“I guess? But anyway, they’ll all deaged to their thirties.”

“Is that all?”

Molly offers him a sheepish smile, “sorry.”

Mr. Beach looks up to the sky and rolls his eyes, “nothing is simple with these boys.”

She nearly feels offended on Queen’s behalf, but she hears the fond exasperation in his tone. It must be nice to have a bond like that. Molly shakes her head and clears that thought away. Mr. Beach opens the door to a shiny black car. After tossing her bag int the back seat she climbs in and tries to not look so awkward.

Mr. Beach doesn’t speak until they’re out on the main road.

“This isn’t going to get you into trouble?”

“No, my supervisor approved it,” Molly shrugs, “it isn’t like I’m known to be flaky.”

He nods, “well, if it does, then you can give them my number and I’ll clear things up.”

“Thank you for the offer.”

They drive in silence for several minutes.

“Do you think Fred’s alright, not just with this incident but with coming back?”

“I can’t really answer that,” she sighs, “I’m sure between the shock and the lack of memories, there might be some anxiety. It’s not my realm of expertise.”

Mr. Beach shakes his head, “I mean with his illness.”

Molly blinks. She considers the question carefully, “I… imagine it depends on when he initially contracted the virus. Without knowing that I have to operate under the assumption that it’s possible.”

“Can a blood test be done?”

“Yes. As early as one week after exposure.”

Mr. Beach nods.

The rest of the drive is uncomfortably silent. Molly doesn’t think she’s ever been happier to treat a patient. She grabs her bag and rushes up to the door. Mr. Beach is much slower than her getting up to the door. John opens the door.

“You look distinctly unsurprised,” John says.

“Ms. Young told me already.”

“Where’s Freddie?”

“In one of the guest bedrooms,” John replies, “he was complaining about being kept on the floor.”

Molly nods, “as long as there wasn’t a neck or back injury sustained during the fall, you can move seizure patients, or rather have them move the moment they’re lucid.”

John stands to the side and lets Molly slip in through the door. She heads down the hallway to where she thinks the guest bedrooms must be. Molly turns the corner and nearly runs into Brian.

“Oh! Sorry!”

Brian smiles warmly, “I thought that might be you at the door, Fred’s in the room on your left when you first go up the stairs.”

“Thank you,” Molly dips her head, “is Roger with him then?”

“We figured someone should watch him in case it happens again.”

“Not a bad idea. I’m going to go check on him?”

“Go ahead, and sorry for calling you out here so suddenly.”

“Helping people is why I became a doctor.”

Molly runs up the steps and the spots the room she thinks Brian was talking about. The door is open slightly and she can make out quiet conversation. She knocks on the door and waits for her to be acknowledged.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, sorry to disturb you,” Molly says as she enters.

“Dear this is a home, not a hospital,” Freddie smiles.

“I’m making a house-call,” she replies.

Roger watches her set her bag down. Molly digs out both the trauma kit, happy that it’s closed full and her own standard kit. Freddie picks up one of the tongue depressors and waves it around.

“I don’t think any of this is needed.”

“Well, we didn’t need you passing out, but here we are,” Roger shoots back.

Molly looks between them and wonders if she would be strong enough to stop a fight if one were to break out. She decides that she probably couldn’t and bites her cheek.

“Do you want me to do the exam in private?”

Roger looks more annoyed if that’s even possible.

“Technically, this falls under patient-doctor privacy laws. I have to ask,” Molly raises her hands.

It doesn’t at least without any official paperwork indicating that Freddie is her patient, but she’d rather give Freddie the option of keeping this private. Maybe give Roger a chance to cool down, which is what it’s looking like he needs. Not that she’s ever going to say that aloud.

Freddie shrugs, “you heard her.”

Roger narrows his eyes at her but then sighs.

“Sorry,” he says as he passes her.

Molly frowns.

“He’s alright. When he feels an emotion, he doesn’t like, he turns it to anger,” Freddie waves the tongue depressor again.

“I see,” she starts organizing her tools.

“So, don’t take it personally, he’s actually quite cuddly.”

“I didn’t, I’ve had worse said to me.”

Freddie purses his lips. Molly finishes with her tool organization and turns to focus completely on Freddie.

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine.”

Molly nods, “can you walk me through what happened?”

“Well, I the three of them and I had a fight. So, I left the kitchen. My head went fuzzy and then I woke up with Roger hovering over me.”

Molly grabs her pen and writes down the symptoms, and chews on the tip, “when you woke up, how did you feel?”

“Like I had done a show.”

“I wonder if your blood pressure just dropped,” Molly taps the pen, “did anyone see any convulsions?”

“All three of them did.”

Molly writes that, “and do you have a history of seizures?”

“No.”

“Do you mind if I check a couple of things?”

Freddie shrugs, “we called you for a reason.”

Molly grabs the light and shines it into his eyes. The dilation looks normal. She checks his ears and throat and sees no obstructions or injuries. Once that’s done, she checks for any cuts or bruises on his head, neck or back. There is a bruise on his shoulder but nothing else.

“Good news is, I don’t physically see anything that caused you to have a seizure,” she says, “but without any scans or blood work, I can’t identify if this will be a problem in the future.”

“Do you have any idea what could have caused this?”

Molly bites his bottom lip, “no, none of the usual triggers of a seizure sound like they were present at the time.”

Freddie frowns.

“I’d love an EEG, but I doubt you’re going to the hospital.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Seizures can be indicative of an underlying medical problem, and providing you didn’t just develop epilepsy, that might be the case.”

“Is there anything less… extreme?” Freddie raises an eyebrow.

Molly purses her lips, “what were you arguing about?”
“What?”

“You and the others, you said you were arguing just before the seizure happened,” Molly scans her notes, “what was the topic?”

“I don’t see how this has anything to do with anything, but I was worried about how they had all been acting distant and depressed. We fought because they didn’t want to talk about the fact that I, well, you know.”

Molly tilts her head in thought, “did you remember anything?”

“No?”

She writes that down.

“What’s with this line of questioning?”

Molly shrugs, “another fanciful idea. Which I do recommend when you do finally come out… poor choice of words, that you go to the hospital if this ever happens again.”

“What’s this fanciful idea, I’m sure it’s better than there being something wrong with my brain.”

“There still is something wrong with your brain,” Molly’s lips quirk up, “but nothing as severe as a tumor or chemical imbalance. What also could have happened is a neuron firing to recall the memory but the memory doesn’t exist so the brain misinterpreted the signal and caused a seizure.”

“Fanciful indeed.”

“I still think it might be rooted in something more scientific,” Molly replies, “but until I can do actual tests, and you go to an actual specialist, you may never know. This might just be a freak occurrence and never happen again.”

“Shouldn’t you know these things?” Freddie teases.

“I do, to some extent. Usually, I’m the last person you want to see.”

“I imagine it’s very reassuring to see you.”

Molly gives a slightly sad smile, “there’s nothing reassuring about having a pediatric intensivist in your room.”

Freddie nods, “I suppose not.”

She takes off the plastic bit from her light and tosses it in the trash, “I’m going to go get the others. I wouldn’t exert yourself for the next few days, however.”

“I imagine Deaky isn’t going to let me go much further than the restroom.”

Molly laughs, “well you can tell him to shove it in forty-eight hours.”

Freddie laughs with her, “I don’t imagine that will go over well.”

“Doctor’s orders, but I really do need to bring them in before Roger accuses me of an assassination attempt or something of the like.”

“That’s why you’re so worried about being arrested, you’re an assassin!”

John leans against the furthest wall of the foyer. Miami, for whatever reason, is in the kitchen preparing sandwiches and tea for them. Roger has a cloud hanging over him and Brian is anxiously tapping his lip. He closes his eyes and counts to ten. This isn’t going to work. They aren’t going to work if they won’t talk.

That’s a path they’ve been down before.

He opens his mouth.

“I hate this,” Roger says.

John closes his mouth.

“We’re all acting like we’re waiting for Fred to be gone again and not celebrating the fact that we have him back,” Roger spits.

It’s strangely insightful, if aggressive. John leans back, half expecting Roger to blow up. He’s not disappointed.

“I haven’t had a full rest since Freddie came back, because I keep having the same damn nightmare. The one where I’m at his funeral, and I can’t leave, and they just keep chanting that he’s dead.”

Brian clearly knows about the dream, but John feels a pang in his chest. He left the band emotionally years before he did physically. Roger hadn’t felt like he could turn to him, and they had been best friends at one point. Roger leans towards Brian, and Brian allows him to wrap around his middle. John’s throat tightens.

“Shh, Rog, you’re okay.”

He notices the bags seconds before Brian speaks.

“Actually, I haven’t slept more than five hours since Christmas?”

“The insomnia is back?” Roger asks with a watery voice.

John looks towards the front door. He hates that he doesn’t fit in with that little picture. Roger and Brian have always been close, the two years or so that they have together with no one else always shows in moments like this. Roger turns his head away from Brian’s chest.

“John, are you okay?”

He blinks, “maybe?”

Brian waves his arm as if to indicate the other side of him as open. John greedily takes that invitation. Once he’s burrowed into Brian’s lithe frame Roger reaches over and interlaces their hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“I keep thinking that I’ll wake up and this will be gone,” John whispers, “not just that Freddie will be gone, but you two as well. That we never… fixed things.”

Brian hugs him tighter, “you know we wouldn’t leave you, John.”

“I left you.”

“We were all hurting, you needed space,” Brian replies.

Roger squeezes his hand, “ as I said. Let’s stop thinking about what we can lose and start cherishing what we have back.”

John’s lips quirk, “back to the live for today mentality?”

“It’s served me well.”

Brian rolls his eyes and John has to bite back a laugh. Miami enters the room with a tray laden with tea and sandwiches, which Roger dives for. John glances back to the hallway in time to see Molly take the last step down. She appears relaxed, but with doctors that won’t mean much. Upon seeing his distraction, Brian turns around.

Roger continues to shove slices of sandwiches down his throat.

“Well?” John asks when Molly is closer.

Molly jumps.

Roger turns around. Molly glances away and John has to fight back a sigh. He wonders how a girl this nervous could ever be a doctor.

“Right,” she clears her throat, “there’s no sign of injury from the fall, and without any tests, I can only partially say that this is a one-time thing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does continue. If it does, I recommend finding a specialist.”

John squeezes Roger’s hand in warning.

“Is there anything we should avoid?” Brian asks.

That might be good to know.

“Well, flashing lights at a certain frequency. Tiredness, stress, alcohol, and a lack of sleep are all common triggers. They vary person to person.”

“How do you suggest we get a specialist to treat us without leaking our condition all over the internet, at least Fred’s?”

Molly glances to Roger, “well, doctors do have laws about patient confidently, so suing them would be how you handle it.”

“That doesn’t stop the story,” Roger points out.

“Why don’t you drop the story yourselves?” Molly shrugs, “just post a band photo on Brian’s Instagram and let it marinate for a day.”

John purses his lips. That might not actually be a terrible idea. It would keep the heat off of them for a little while. Brian looks at them and shrugs.

“It’s possible,” Brian says, “but we should wait until we’re sure Freddie is okay.”
“And we have a plan for what we’re doing once the picture drops?” John suggests.

Roger shrugs, “it’s a little obvious isn’t it?”

John supposes that it is.