Finding Family

Faye: Memories

Hello, flashback section in here in italics.

It wasn't until I made it home from dropping Evalynn at school and, for the first time since I'd decided to have Evalynn come home, I had quiet when I finally started to think about the negative consequences this might have. I hadn't considered it until now, but there was going to be interest from the media on the fact that I'd suddenly acquired a daughter from 'nowhere', which was quite a scary thing to imagine. I mean the media had been all over me with questions about it when I was pregnant with Evalynn (when they'd finally caught on) and I wasn't really sure if I was ready for that again because I was famous again now, whether I liked to admit it to myself or not. While I was pregnant with Benjamin I'd been far enough out of the public eye that no-one had really noticed, and those that had never particularly ended up making a big deal about it. I was worried about what it would do to me, to Evalynn and to my marriage if it did bring about the same amount of interest that there had been about the pregnancy. But that wasn't the scariest thing that occurred to me. If he ever found out that I had her back in my life, there was a possibility that her father would want to be involved. There was also possibility he'd be angry at me because he'd told me that I should never have kept the pregnancy in the first place, and if there was one thing I didn't want to put Evalynn through it was talking to her father when he was angry. If she ever wanted to talk to him I couldn't really do anything to stop her, he is after all her father, but it couldn't happen right now. And I couldn't help but wonder what him trying to be involved in my life again would do to me and Mick.

My relationship with Mick was better, healthier, than my relationship with Jasper had ever been. He made me happy, and unlike before there were never any arguments over silly yet important things like my job or me being away. We spent time together and when there were problems between us (which were rare) we'd talk about them and they tended to end up resolved without much arguing or particular unhappiness from either of us. It wasn't that Jasper had been abusive or controlling or anything like that, in fact he'd been amazing and as far from any of that as he could be, but we had very different ideas on what we wanted from our relationship and our lives. He'd wanted for me and him to spend more time together, which obviously wasn't exactly possible given at the time I was touring the world and nursing a pop career. He'd travelled and had a music career too, but neither to the same extent as I had, it just meant that our time together lined up more rarely than we'd of liked.
Mick on the other hand hadn't even realised I was famous until one of his friends had told him who I was. Until then he'd just thought I was 'a normal theatre girl'. And even then he'd struggled to fully believe it until I'd shown him some of the old Steps stuff I kept boxed up at home a month or so later. I was worried it would scare him away to be dating someone famous and I didn't want to be seen as that. At the time I'd met him 'Faye from Steps' was tucked away somewhere so deep I never thought she'd come back out. But it hadn't scared him off when he'd learnt and I loved him even more for it. He was my normality. A person I could come home to who loved me for being Faye. Not Faye from Steps or Faye who does musicals. Just plain old Faye. He loved me for the giggly, quiet and caring side of me, not for the side that the world sees, but he'd seen the other side properly now too and hadn't become obsessed with it like Jasper had, but also hadn't been scared away. He'd stayed, he'd kept me grounded and sane which was more than Jasper had ever achieved. I was so happy now with Mick and Benjamin (and Evalynn too now), and I never wanted anyone to take that happiness away.

#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*

Before I'd been away we'd argued. Quite a bit. Okay quite a lot. About the baby. He'd known for a while, it was beginning to get to a point where it was obvious, but I think it had just sunk into his head that he was going to be a father again in a few short months. He'd told me it wasn't right, that we couldn't be having a baby because he wasn't ready. He, the one already with a daughter, wasn't ready? Like I somehow had been when I'd found out? I'd told him in return that it was my body and my baby and that quite frankly I could do as I pleased because at the end of the day it had been my choice to keep her. He'd dragged in my career, telling me that I'd be the cause of Steps splitting up and he knew how badly that would ruin me. I knew without it being said that would ruin me, both my career and my life. So I'd dragged up his career, telling him it was horrible, and that it would never last and at least if Steps did split up we'd have a chance at making a comeback someday because we had fans. I'd then followed it up with some further particularly despicable comments about his band I deeply regretted almost immediately and he'd retorted with some similarly cutting remarks about Steps. I'd told him what I thought of his words and him less than politely, and he'd followed my last statement's advice, leaving me alone in the house.
But the problem was that I was now back from being away and I'd found that he had, in fact, followed it a little more strongly than I would have liked. He'd left me a break-up note on the side, expressing his unhappiness and how he planned to not come back, and moved out, having posted his key back through the letterbox when he was done. It severely inhibited my options for what to do with our baby. I didn't know what to do, so I didn't do anything. I didn't even cry. I just sat on the floor in the hallway, clutching the note he'd left and wondering why I'd ever said half the things I'd said. As I pieced myself back together I realised I needed someone to talk to. The first person to come to mind was Lisa. She'd been by my side throughout most of the journey of the pregnancy, and she'd spent the last few weeks putting up with me non-stop. She knew already what I was going through and about the fight, and as much as I knew she'd want to spend tonight with Johnny I needed a little company before I did anything irrational. I needed her to give me her hard questions and talk sense into me.