Work Text:
Los Angeles-1982
When Daisy was little, she had loved airports. Something about the idea of leaving on an adventure to somewhere new where you could be someone totally new called to her.
Later, as she grew older, she realized it wasn’t simply the leaving that appealed to her but the duality of leaving and coming home. The welcoming hugs of parents and friends, the tears, and kisses of reuniting lovers, all so beautiful to witness. It used to fill her with a sense of longing. Daisy had spent most of her life uncertain she would ever have that, someone overjoyed to reunite with her, someone for who Daisy’s return was a much longed-for wish. Fortunately, she found a sister in her friendship with Simone, and she knew that she would always have someone to welcome her home and someone for whom her presence was equally welcoming. The much beloved lyrics of You’ve Got a Friend, ran through her mind unprompted, “And you know wherever I am, I'll come running, to see you again.” And she would, she would always come running to wherever her dearest friend could be found. Hence part of the reason Daisy found herself sitting in an airport terminal on a rainy Friday night. So now airports were still loved but that feeling was tinged with less melancholy and longing.
In the fall of 1982, Daisy found herself transiting through LAX on her way to New York. She had been back in Los Angeles for a week to show Teddy some early songs for what she was hopeful would become her second solo album. She had spent three days in studio with him showing him new material and he thought what she had so far was, “damn promising.” Daisy was thrilled that Teddy was pleased with her writing progress. She hadn’t released an album since 1979 so she was feeling the pressure to get back to recording after nearly three years.
In the wake of the dissolution of The Six in Chicago, Daisy’s spent the first several months drying out in rehab. It was one of the most painful things Daisy had ever done (that and letting go of Billy Dunne). The physical reality of detox was disgusting, the pain, sweat, tears, the shaking, and vomiting. The emotional fallout was worse- being forced to feel everything was awful. Daisy had spent years dulling her emotions and without her trusty pills, her favourite white powder, or a drink, it was just her alone with her emotions. She had oftened wondered if she could die from feeling too much.
Confronting her actions, confronting herself was excruciating. Through those painful weeks as she began to piece herself together, she could only hope the only person who would truly understand what she was going through was out there in the world piecing himself and his life together as well.
Living with the uncertainty of not knowing what she and Billy had been to one another was another sort of test. For her part, as she emerged from the haze of drugs, she thought that she’d had been desperately in love with him, had lived and died with each fleeting touch, hung on his words, craved his approval. His affections were opaquer. She knew he wanted her though he deeply resented that fact. He sometimes looked at her with tenderness or briefly touched her with infinite care. But Daisy could never quite understand what Billy saw when he looked at her. He ran away from her much more than he ever ran towards her and sometimes in the deepest crevasses of her heart she thought there was no way he could have loved her the same way she loved him and so consistently rejected her, even with the fucked-up circumstances in which they found themselves.
She had to learn to live with the uncertainty, to let it go to preserve her own sanity. She had almost convinced herself that loving Billy Dunne was just one of her self-destructive choices of that era in her life. Of course, she would choose to throw herself at a man both physically and emotionally unavailable. It was part and parcel of her own insecurity and self-loathing. She had cared about him, was deeply sexually attracted to him, musically they were amazing together, and he was the first man who truly saw her. Of course, she would fall for that. And maybe his unavailability was part of the appeal? Her therapist asked Daisy candidly if there was any chance, she had been, “in love with the exquisite pain?” Sometimes Daisy wondered if she had imagined the soul deep resonance that had lived in the space between them.
Fortunately, those lost days post-Chicago were long passed, and she had made it through the darkest hour of her life. She channelled her pain into something more productive, her story of survival into her first solo album, “Blood Letting.” Critics, and fans had gone wild for it.
Daisy was surprised how little the external validation meant to her. She was mostly happy that she had proved to herself that she could do it alone. She knew her work was damn good and that is what mattered to Daisy most of all. When she first picked up the pen to write without him, she had to relearn how to create by herself again.
Sure, she and Billy had each written pieces of Aurora by themselves, her with, “Regret Me,” him with “More Fun to Miss,” and “Aurora,” but mostly they’d written together, and she had become dependent on their collaboration. When she began to write again solo, she discovered to her horror that she was writing as if she still expected Billy to fill in her blank spaces. The process of learning to stop listening for that second voice, his voice, was another type of detox.
Now she was more confident in her work than ever and looking forward to whatever her next album would bring, hence the trip to LA for work. She’d been living in London for the last 12 months. What started as a short trip both for a break and inspiration ended in her falling in love with a British actor. Christian Oliver was tall, dark haired, and blue-eyed. His face was a study in contradictions, the beautiful eyes could turn shrewd and calculating, his mouth was full and sulky, his nose patrician.
Daisy had met him backstage at one of his shows, a production of Pinter’s The Birthday Party that Daisy had been dragged to by one of her few friends in London. Christian was one of the hottest stage actors in the West end and everyone was practically fawning all over him after the show. Daisy had been impressed with his performance but felt no need to rush over to him and drown him in compliments. Apparently, her seeming indifference was impossible to ignore and before Daisy knew it, Christian had made his way to her side and spent the rest of the evening trying to impress her.
Later that night, Daisy would find herself in his Chelsea flat where he would seek to impress her again, only this time in his bed. They ended up spending three nights in a row together and before she knew it, they were in a relationship.
Christian was smart, funny, sweet, calm, and was surprisingly foul mouthed. On the surface they had very little in common beyond being talented, sexy artists. He grew up in east London in a council estate, had never left Britain, and was so strait-laced that he never even drank yet alone did drugs, but they were a wonderful match. She found that his calmness grounded her, and she thought that she was good for him too, often pushing him from his comfort zone.
Letting him in had been a very big step and a very slow process for Daisy. Sex was easy but intimacy and trust was hard. She felt like she had placed barbed wire all around her heart with the express goal of keeping people away over the past few years. But Christian was persistent and non-threatening. He’d wormed his way past her defences to Daisy’s surprise.
They did long distance for six months before Daisy decamped to London. So far living together had been going well and Daisy suspected they might even be on a path toward a longer-term commitment.
She smiled to herself thinking of London, of her home with Christian and of sleeping (or not sleeping) in their bed upon her return. She missed him so much during their brief separation and she couldn’t wait to be back home. However, she had scheduled a brief three-day detour to New York to visit Simone and Bernie before flying across the Atlantic.
She knew she’d regret missing Simone if she didn’t travel to see her while stateside. She was looking forward to her time in New York and with her dearest friend even if it kept her away from her home just a bit longer. God, she wished she was in New York right now, instead she was stuck in the terminal waiting for her flight to board. She looked outside through the airport’s large windows. What had been light drizzle begin to morph into heavy sheets of rain. She heard thunder which was followed by a flash of lightening. Daisy sighed; it looked like her flight boarding may be delayed a bit longer.
Suddenly the airport's announcement system came to life, Daisy struggled to hear the muffled announcement. Due to the intense storm, all flights both domestic and international would be delayed.
She reached into her bag and retrieved the battered copy of The French Lieutenant’s Woman she had been slowly reading. However, she found she couldn’t concentrate and was fidgeting in her uncomfortable seat. She decided that she might as well walk off some of this anxious energy she was feeling, she was practically crawling out of her skin.
She made her way across the terminal humming a little tune to herself. She wondered if it could possibly serve as the harmony of a new song she was working on. Lost in her own mind, she strolled across the terminal. She was about 15 minutes from her original gate when suddenly she felt the energy around her shift. She looked around to see if anyone else had felt this sudden disturbance. All the other standard passengers were caught up in their own little dramas, annoyance at being delayed, managing unruly children, complaining to airport staff, frantically repacking luggage. No one else was looking around as if the world had been tilted off its axis.
Daisy scanned the space around her wildly finding nothing out of the ordinary. Until her eyes landed on gate 19, where under the unflattering airport lighting, in the lounge that stood before the gate sat a slew of bored looking passengers, including Billy Dunne.
He was slouched low in his seat, long legs crossed in front of him, hands tightly clasped in his lap, a low brimmed baseball cap covering his long locks and tipped downward to hide his face. Daisy knew it was him immediately. She would recognize him anywhere.
Her first instinct was to hide, to run away and keep walking. It seemed he hadn’t seen her yet. Maybe he didn’t share the bone deep awareness of her that she had of him? But then she noticed something in the line of his body was wrong, tense. He was stressed about something. Daisy wondered what it could be. In the few seconds Daisy stood ramrod still in the terminal aisle analyzing Billy Dunne’s body language, he must have felt her gaze. He looked up, their eyes met, and Daisy could swear everything around them fell quiet in that instant. She met his green eyes in an unwavering stare. His eyes were full of pain and sorrow.
She told herself to keep walking. Nothing good could come of this. Daisy had no interest in reopening closed wounds, but Billy was clearly in pain. And Daisy Jones could no more walk away from a Billy Dunne in pain than she could cut out her own heart.
She tilted her head in an acknowledgement of him. He offered a sad smile to her in return. And then Daisy slowly, hesitantly, made her way over to him to sit in the seat beside him.
They sit in silence for five minutes, side by side, not touching, each staring straight ahead into the distance before Daisy gathered up the courage to speak.
“You wanna talk about it? Or we could brood very poetically side by side for the next few minutes if that’s more appealing?” He huffed a quiet laugh.
He turned to look at her and pain was etched all over his face. He looked lost. She’d only ever seen him that lost twice, once after Teddy’s heart attack, and the other on a stage in Chicago. Whatever was going on with him was clearly something serious and terrible. Daisy felt her own eyes begin to water.
Without thinking about it, Daisy reached over the armrest that separated them, reached into his lap, and pulled one of his hands in hers. His large hand engulfed her smaller one entirely, gripping it, as if desperately seeking an anchor. She rested her head on his strong shoulder in response to his quiet despair. After another few minutes he began to speak.
“I’m going home to see my mom. She’s got cancer, the prognosis isn’t great. She's starting treatment next week.” The words tumble from his mouth slowly as if each word pains him to say aloud.
Daisy offers no empty promises or platitudes, simply humming in acknowledgement before replying. “She has Graham, you, Camila, and Julia, and all your crazy family in Pittsburgh. She has so many people fighting alongside her, for her. You will be there with her every step of the way. And we both know what a stubborn bastard you are. Are her doctors good?”
Billy nods, “the best.” “Well, there’s that then,” is the only reply Daisy offers.
Suddenly Billy let go of her hand, turning her palm upward in his lap and began playing with her fingers. “Distract me. What are you doing here Daisy?”
Daisy tries not to shiver at the absentminded intimacy of his touch. “I was out here visiting Teddy to show him some new stuff I’m working on. Now I’m on my way to New York to visit Simone and Bernie before heading home.” He takes the information offered at face value and asks no follow up questions as he runs his fingers across the lines of her upturned palm.
“That’s good, Daisy. I’ve missed hearing your voice on my radio.”
“Have you Billy? I didn’t think you would,” she murmurs in response. There’s no heat in her words, no recrimination.
Instead, his calloused thumb runs gently across the soft vulnerable skin of the inside of her wrist, and she swears that Billy can hear her breath hitch at the touch. They both try to ignore it.
“I do. I try not to, but I do.” Daisy knows what that admission probably cost him. Getting him to acknowledge anything about the two of them in the past had been like drawing blood from a stone. Maybe it’s this tiny sliver of vulnerability that makes her offer an admission in return.
“I miss your voice too. Sometimes I’m scared the only place I will ever hear your voice again is in my head. I’m happy now, really happy. I have someone who makes me happy. But Billy, why do I still miss the sound of your voice?” Daisy couldn’t mask the heartbreak in her tone. There was no way Billy didn’t hear it.
Billy makes a little wounded noise in the back of his throat in response, and it is all Daisy can do to keep herself from sliding into his lap and burrowing as close to him as physically possible.
So much for not opening old wounds. Here she is creating new ones! Daisy means to shift the conversation to safer ground, ask about Julia and Camila remind both him and her of the very real (and loved) obligations that mean that they can’t exists in a world where sitting next to one another and talking is a regular occurrence.
Instead, she says, “When I was little, I loved airports. Something about the coming and the going of them. That you could go away somewhere, be something new and then come home to the people who know and love you best. But now I think there’s something more about it. They’re spaces of transition. The exact space between coming and going. Like the time in the early hours of the morning between your dreams and reality. I think I love the fragile possibility of those spaces most of all.”
Billy nods as he listens attentively as if he is taking her ramblings seriously. “Some beautiful things can only exist in the in between,” he lifts his eyes from his lap where he continued to play with her hand. Their eyes lock and Daisy feels as if all the air has been knocked right out of her lungs. She felt pinned under his gaze.
Daisy knew in that instant that whatever was between them was one of those beautiful things doomed to exits in those in between spaces.
Both sat in quiet contemplation enjoying each other’s nearness content to let the subject drop along with all other things left unsaid. The peace of their little bubble was enhanced by the soothing sound of the rain which now had slowed to a trickle.
The airport announcement system suddenly sprang to life once more. Daisy knew this little reprieve from reality was coming to a close and soon she and Billy would go back to their separate lives once more like trains on parallel tracks.
The announcer apologized for the delay and explained that the flight schedule would resume shortly.
Daisy moved to reluctantly lift her head from Billy’s shoulder and move her hand from where it still lay on his thigh. Before she could remove it entirely, he held her by her delicate wrist and brought her upturned palm to his mouth where he placed a searing kiss in the very centre of her palm. Daisy felt branded by his touch. Weakly, she rose to her feet.
Billy released her hand with a rueful grin. When he spoke again, his voice was like gravel. “It was good to see you, Dais.”
Daisy felt entirely too thrown off by this encounter, emotions running high, but she would be damned if she let him know that more than he already could guess. She said nothing and began to walk away but just as she was about to leave the seated section in front of his gate, she turned around, “If you were still writing songs, this might make for one of your less shitty ones about a girl and the rain.” Then she raised her chin, nodded, and walked away.
She made it all the way to her gate before crying. On her flight to New York she uses the hours to piece herself together once more. Fortunately she had experience piecing herself together in the aftermath of Billy Dunne. She was an expert.
She buries that man and that encounter into the deepest parts of her soul and mind, puts a lock on the box and then mentally sets the box on fire.
By the time she deplanes in New York and leaps into Simone’s arms, she can pretend the whole thing was nothing more than a hazy dream.