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[jettabug.livejournal.com]

Title: Of Love & Life (5/5)
Author: jettabug
Pairing: Monaboyd
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: It's my drug of choice!
Author's Notes: It's the end, I hope you've all enjoyed!
Summary: Orlando leaves a message.



Of Love & Life: Part Five
by Jenna

Dom shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable. He hated to fly, and hated it even more when he was flying alone.

He’d long since eaten his peanuts, and the packet belonging to the elderly woman sitting beside him, but that did nothing to quell the empty feeling inside his body.

He kept thinking back to the scene in his hotel room just three days ago. Billy crying, pleading, begging him to change his mind, to help him through all the crap he was going through.

Dom had to tell him no. That he couldn’t change his mind, and that even though it hurt like hell, it was the best thing for everyone. Except for him and Billy.

Through his tears, Dom reminded Billy that his baby was the most important thing. Billy left then, left the hotel room in a flurry of curses, flailing limbs and tears.

And Dom crawled into the hotel bed and stayed there for three days until the first available flight back to America.

Dom closed his eyes at the memory, trying to hold the tears off. He did not want to cry, not here, not in amongst all those people with their prying eyes and inquisitive questions.

He just wanted to sleep. Sleep away the long flight. But of course, God being so against him, his mobile began to vibrate in his pocket.

A message.

He dug the small black device out of his pocket and opened his eyes, trying to focus on the small glowing screen.

It was a text message from Billy.

Dom, Ali had the baby, nearly two months early. Little girl. Really wish you were here.

Dom couldn’t stop the tears now. They fell freely, streaming down his face like a waterfall, dripping onto the front of his black Radiohead t-shirt. Sobs escaped his throat and he leant forward, pressing his forehead to the back of the chair in front of him.

“Dear, are you ok?”

Dom shot up as if burnt and looked at the older woman beside him, who had a soft look on her face.

“I’m uh—ok…”

She frowned a little. “Doesn’t look like it, son.” She fished a pressed white handkerchief from her handbag and pressed it into Dom’s palm.

Dom took it gratefully and wiped at his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I woke you.”

She shook her head. “Not at all. I was just resting my eyes.”

Dom hiccuped and wiped at his face with the cotton material.

“I gather that message had something to with your tears,” the lady pressed, shifting in her chair to face Dom a little more.

“Yeah,” Dom confirmed. “It was from a…friend.”

She placed a wrinkled hand on Dom’s forearm. “Shouldn’t messages from friends make you happy?”

“My friend’s girlfriend had a baby.”

“Well, that should certainly be a good thing!”

Dom shrugged. “I guess it is, but the circumstances…they’re a little bit…”

“Fucked up?”

Dom looked over at the woman with a surprised look.

She smiled. “Well, I’m right aren’t I?”

Dom nodded. “It’s very complicated.”

“Well, spill the beans, love,” she said. “I’m not going to leave you alone until you do.”

Dom took a deep breath. “I’m kinda in love with my friend. But like I said, his girlfriend just had their baby.”

“Ah.”

“That’s where I was, Glasgow, to see him. To tell him he had to be there for his baby.”

“I understand the tears now.”

“But now I feel like I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life by leaving it like this. Because I love him so much, and he wants to be with me. But…this baby, his daughter…”

She squeezed Dom’s arm. “What’s in your heart, right now.”

“It’s screaming at me to be with him.”

“And your head?”

“To do the right thing and let him be a father.”

She smiled. “Follow your heart, but take your head with you.”

Dom smiled slightly. “My mum used to tell me that all the time.”

“Well, I’ve lived my life by it. All 76 years, and it’s done me well.”

“I don’t know, it’s just I told him we couldn’t be together, that he had to be a Dad. I’m afraid that if I go back on that, he won’t want me.”

She pat Dom on the arm. “You know him better than I do, love. You’re scared that he won’t want you, but do you really think it’d happen that way?”

Dom sat up on the couch and took a deep breath.

It was a regular occurrence these days. He’d fall asleep and the events on the plane would play over and over again in his head. But in his dream, he would go back to Scotland and Billy would refuse to see him.

He rubbed at his eyes and got up off the couch, moving into the kitchen where he made himself a strong cup of coffee. He downed it quickly, despite it’s scalding temperature.

It was the only thing that made him feel.

Pain.

That’s all he could feel. There was no happiness or joy left in him, he was a hollow shell of depression.

It had been three weeks since he’d gotten back from Scotland. Three weeks since he’d left his house, and three weeks since his conversation with the nameless wonderful woman on the plane.

He hoisted himself up onto the counter and listened to his phone ring. No doubt it was Orlando or Elijah, calling to check up on him. He had 74 messages on his machine (which wasn’t broken, unfortunately) all from them. He hadn’t checked them, but the flashing red numbers continued to increase.

The message clicked over and Orlando’s voice filled the house.

“Dom!” Pause. “Pick up the phone you dickhead!” Another pause. “Anyway, just called to see how you were. Billy called me last week and told me you still weren’t answering your phone. He wanted me to call and tell you that him and Ali broke up. Nearly three weeks ago. He really wants to talk to you. He’s staying with Margaret, and he’s got baby Evangeline with him. Supposedly she’s beautiful. Just…call him, Dominic.”

Dom didn’t move, just listened to the message. He was suddenly compelled to listen to it over and over again. Which is what he did. He jumped down off the bench and raced into the living room where he hit the ‘REPLAY’ button on the machine, and Orlando’s voice burst from the speakers once again.

Billy and Ali had broken up.

But why did that make Dom even more depressed?

**

Dom was nearly positive he’d played Orlando’s message over 600 times. But for some reason, it took that long for all the words to sink in.

It was as if he’d lost some of his brain capacity.

He got up off the floor where he’d been sitting next to the phone table. His back ached and he had a headache from listening to Orlando’s voice for so long. He was tired and irritated, and if it was possible, even more confused.

Billy and Ali not being together didn’t mean anything, did it?

Dom wasn’t sure, but he was used to being baffled, so it didn’t really matter.

He made his way back to his bedroom and collapsed onto his bed, burying his face in the pillows. He’d started sleeping during the day. For no reason, it was just better than being awake.

He felt his body fall asleep, but was suddenly jolted by a loud pounding at his front door.

“No,” he said into his pillow. “No visitors for Dom today…”

But the banging continued.

Dom tried his best to ignore it. He buried his head under a pillow, and mashed his hands over his ears. But it did nothing to muffle the insistent banging.

“Oh alright!” he shouted, and dragged himself out of bed and into the front entryway.

He pulled open the door to reveal Billy, a little baby in his arms.

“Hello Dominic.”

“B-B-Billy?”

Billy smiled and moved past Dom into the house. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?” Dom demanded, flabbergasted.

“Seeing you.” He jostled his daughter lightly in his arms.

“But…you…what?”

Billy sat down on the couch, dropping his baby bag on the floor. “You live like a pig, Dominic.”

Dom looked around at the mess in his living room. Empty food wrappers, pizza boxes lay all over the place. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting company.”

He sat down on the armchair across from Billy.

“This is Evangeline.”

Dom nodded and looked at the tiny baby girl. She was beautiful, Orlando had heard right. She looked like her daddy.

“She’s amazing.”

“Thank you,” Billy said. “I happen to think so.”

“Would you like some tea?”

“Shut up, Dom,” Billy said suddenly.

Dom’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“I said, shut up. I came here to say some very important things, and I’m not leaving until I do.”

Dom motioned for Billy to continue.

“You are a wanker, the biggest wanker I’ve ever known. You make me feel so much all the damn time, it’s hard to escape thinking about you. You make me think about all the right things, even though I feel differently. You make me see between the lines, you make things real.”

“Thanks, I think,” Dom said softly.

“But I hate you for that, sometimes. I hate that you’re so good at doing stuff like that. I hate that you make me feel so amazing when we’re making love, I hate that you can reduce me to a quivering mass of goo when you look at me.”

Dom frowned. “Where are you going with this?”

“I love you, you idiot.”

It took all of Dom’s self-control not to jump out of his chair and molest Billy.

“I’ve been through absolute hell these past three weeks, trying to understand what I did so wrong to make you not want to be with me. I started thinking I was a horrible person, that I wanted to be with my lover rather than my child. I started to think that maybe you didn’t want to be with me because I was so selfish.”

“Oh Billy…”

He shook his head. “No, don’t say anything. I just started to feel as though maybe there was a deeper reason why you didn’t want to be with me. I couldn’t sleep, life was as bad as it’s ever been. I was so upset all the time, and then Evangeline came along and I felt even worse. Because I would hold my daughter and think about you.”

Dom reached out and took Billy’s free hand, squeezing it in encouragement.

“I told Ali about us when she got home from the hospital. It was so strange, she didn’t even cry. Didn’t yell or scream or fight me. It was like she’d been expecting it. She told me that I needed to do what felt right. But that Evangeline was apart of both our lives, and that she’d be willing to work something out. I gained a lot of respect for her that day. She was upset, but she knew what it was like to feel something for someone, and not be able to get that across.”

“I’m sorry, Bill.”

“She told me to come here, to you. Can you believe it? Ali was the one who convinced me to come here, to bring the baby and see you.”

“Then I guess I owe a lot to Ali.”

“So now I’m here. I’m here and I’m offering my heart, my body and my soul to you. And I’m going to die if you say no again.”

Dom got up and moved onto the couch beside Billy. “I want you, Billy. Always have. Always will.”

He looked over at Dom with a look of amazement. “What?”

“I love you,” Dom said simply, like it was obvious. “So much that we have to find a way for this to work.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…I’ll move to Scotland. To be with you, so you can be with Evangeline. I’m not letting you sacrifice this beautiful little girl to be with me.”

Billy’s bottom lip quivered. “You’d do that?”

“I’d walk over broken glass to get to you, Bill. Don’t you know that? All you had to do was ask me to move there and I would’ve. I will.”

“You will?”

Dom nodded. “I won’t lie and say it won’t be hard, because it will be. But you’re worth it. Because you need to be her father.”

“I always thought I’d be able to walk away from Ali and the baby once she was born. But when the doctor put her in my arms, and she looked up at me with her green eyes, I knew there was no way I could ever leave her.”

Dom smiled. “And you won’t be. It’s time to make things right.”

Billy nodded. “I know. And now that you’re here, everything is right.”

“I wanna kiss you,” Dom said softly, suddenly.

“I want you to kiss me.”

Dom grinned and leant over, placing the softest of kisses on Billy’s lips. “I love you, Billy Boyd.”

Billy smiled back. “I love you, you big idiot.”

Cross posted to: jettabug, monaboyd & fellow_shippers