stories from the city; damon albarn

2001

After a three month long break, the release of Moulin Rouge and the agreement to go see a marriage counselor, Ewan McGregor and Chloe Erlich were living in the same house again. Things weren't exactly perfect, but it wasn't as bad as how things had ended a few months ago.

Chloe had packed up and fled to London after she and Ewan had gotten in another fight, this one being more Damon-Centric. Not wanting to get into the context of the argument, she just left, leaving practically all of her belongings in LA, and leaving Ewan without anyone.

It had been rough.

Ewan felt miserable, knowing that he'd honestly partially driven the most important part of his life away, and Chloe felt bad, knowing that she'd played a role in wrecking her perfectly stable marriage.

When Chloe and Ewan had finally started to talk on the phone again, it was to let Ewan communicate with his children. Which slowly turned into the two talking again, discussing how the other was doing, and eventually these confessions turned into talk of how they missed the other.

Which was true, Chloe did miss his constantly upbeat personality, the way he was willing to do anything to make his family happy, the way he kissed, the way he held May and Della.

And he missed his wife. Oh god he did. It felt so empty, and he found himself constantly going to her photo archives in LA and looking over them extensively, just staring at the photos she was in, or the ones she'd taken, wishing he could call and apologize.

When they eventually did, Ewan made the first flight over to London, and Chloe herself was the one to pick him up.

It wasn't awkward.

It was loving.

And they seemed to hold one another for a few solid minutes, just trying to figure out if everything was real, and if they were genuinely in love with the other.

Within a week- things were back to normal.

Kind of.

They'd ended up seeing a marriage counselor.
Which was turning out to be a bit messy.

Pin-pointing their issues had been difficult, as neither of them really wanted to say what they were thinking out loud, let alone work on it/address it.

So when she'd asked them "why are you here?"

They'd said a handful of things

"We just took an extended break."

"We're having issues with work and distance."

"Jealousy problems."

Their counselor had chosen to hone in on the last one. Seeing as it was the largest problem they seemed to have. Especially how it had come up in their individual sessions- prior to when they'd come together for the first one.

Ewan had largely complained about Damon Albarn and how the presence of that man always made him feel like he was replaceable, or how he just felt second, or like she'd leave him for Damon. He knew that was his own problem, but also that there was some truth to those claims, seeing as he knew about their past, and recent history.

Chloe, had talked about how she hated his new found codependency with Hollywood, and how everything seemed to be about selling images, promoting films- even if it meant taunting your marriage and the boundaries you'd spent years trying to establish. She felt like she was dealing with a whole new person at times.

Their therapist found that the two were largely jealous of the other and their relationships with other people, but were much too polite to ever say it.

When their counselor had asked if they were experiencing parenting, intimacy, communication or distress issues, the two seemed to laugh it off.

They parented on the same page, and definitely did not have problems with sex. Even their reunion had been quite plentiful. And they felt like they communicated fine.

With goals, it became more complicated-

Chloe's goal was to move forwards without any bumps in the road, and Ewan's was similar to that except he felt like he needed to work on himself more.

Did they feel like their relationship was worth fighting for?

Ewan thought so. Chloe did as well.

And within a few months, things started to heal up between the two. It was slow and tedious. But things felt closer to 1995- especially with Ewan clearing up his plate a little bit, not wanting to fuck things over with major amounts of filming at the time.

In fact, they credited that to part of the healing. They'd thrown themselves around and stretched themselves thin for far too long. And so now- in a place of radio silence and steady home life, they seemed to be doing better.

It was exciting, watching their second child start to talk and walk, even more so that they were preparing to send their eldest to school for the first time.

Even so- that the couple felt steady enough to attend the premiere of Moulin Rouge together. Which had ended in a frenzy of good publicity, rather than a series of tabloids talking about how the pair were most definitely going to split up.

They were focused on themselves and not the onlooking thought of some imaginary force tearing them apart.

Speaking of which-

Damon Albarn was booked and busy.

With Gorillaz first album coming out and all, the Blur frontman was busy being a father, making music and sitting in a relationship to think about whether Chloe Erlich was wanting to be his fuck buddy at the moment.

Sure, part of him did pick up a tabloid in the grocery store and read it, hoping to hear that she had divorced her miserable cunt of a husband, especially after he'd spoken to her right when the two went on break.

But whatever.

He was making money. All thanks to an animated band.

Between flying to award shows, dropping 20K to make acceptance speeches for awards that his band might not even win, threatening photographers outside of shows- he was trying to find more time to be a stable father.

He was used to putting music before everything else in his life, his relationships, family, friends, everything. But now with a daughter, a gorgeous one mind that, he needed to place more focus on her.

So ultimately, he pushed all thoughts of everything else to the side.

Sometimes he saw Chloe and Ewan around their shared Notting Hill neighborhood, but they never stopped to say hello, only a short wave or eye contact would be established.

Word on the street was that the two had finished up marriage counseling a few weeks prior and were actually surprised and happy with the results. Good for them. He'd also heard that his name had come up a few times.

That had made him smirk a little, the idea of him causing trouble for Ewan without even being there usually did that for him.

Either way, things were changing.