When We're Together (Damon Albarn)

Chapter Eighteen

Saturday 9th December 2006

I followed the sounds of gleeful laughter into the kitchen where my eyes fell upon the three children sat on the worktop with Damon prancing around the kitchen trying, and seemingly failing, to make them all breakfast.

"Ah you're just the person I wanted to see" Damon exclaimed cheerfully, causing all three children to turn around and look at me "Do you know where that waffle machine is?"

"Oh bloody hell Damon" I laughed loudly, shaking my head as I thought back to the waffle iron he had bought when I was pregnant with Missy and had a constant craving for waffles "I've not see that for years"

I took a seat at the breakfast bar, watching as his waffle mixture seemingly turned into pancakes. We'd agreed that we'd be as normal as possible around the children, we didn't want them to worry about anything. But as Damon placed a cup of coffee in front of me and a kiss on my forehead I knew that it was going to be tricky to keep up with him. I could tell that he was planning on milking just about everything he did.

"What's the plan for today then guys?" I asked as we were all sat eating our breakfast, well everyone else was eating, I was just picking at mine.

"I would like to go swimming" Foxton told me, I looked up at him and nodded my head. That was nice and easy and would, hopefully, show Damon that the hot tub was worth the money.

"I think that we need to write our letters to Father Christmas" Damon told them all, his eyebrows raised as he widened his eyes. I laughed at their gasps of excitement, I was glad Damon had remembered as I had completely forgotten that we were slowly creeping up to Christmas. It was bad enough that we had to make an emergency stop at the supermarket on the way here as I had forgotten their advent calendars.

"I would really like snow for Christmas" Primrose told us, a big smile on her face as she thought about what she was saying "Can I add that in my letter?"

"Erm" I trailed off, looking across to Damon for some help but he looked just as confused as I felt "Well Father Christmas makes toys, he can't really control the weather"

"I thought he was magical?" She questioned, her smile disappearing as a frown appeared on her face.

"He is! He just can't be magical with everything so he can't control the weather" I told her, hoping she'd stop questioning it as I was a bit confused myself at what I was saying.

"So we can't have any snow at Christmas?" Missy now asked, I sighed inwardly before answering.

"Well, I suppose we could" I paused to look across at Damon, to see if he was thinking the same as me, I presumed by the nod of his head he gave me, that he was.

"We could go to Iceland for Christmas, you'll get your snow then" He told them, I smiled at his words, that was exactly what I was thinking.

The three of them gasped loudly, excitedly looking between us both as smiles took over their faces.

"Really?" Missy asked, a toothy grin appearing on her face, I nodded my head.

"Really" Damon told her "we could probably fly out in the next few days, spend a couple of weeks out there"

I'd left Damon to clean up the absurd amount of mess he'd made in the kitchen and had taken the children upstairs to get them clean and dressed. Though, all three of them had refused to put anything on other than their swimming costumes and their dressing gowns, so that they were ready to go out into the hot tub as soon as we were.

I sat down on the edge of my bed, I was intending to shower and get ready, but I'd had such a bad nights sleep that I was incredibly tempted to climb back into bed. I'd spent all night tossing and turning, worrying about if I'd been too easy on Damon, I still had a thousand questions swirling around in my mind that I wanted, no needed, him to answer.