On With The Show (Original Series Part 4)

I Never Doubted Your Beauty, I've Changed

*An important message to my fellow Buckingham Nicks fans:

You're probably going to be mad about this, no matter how well it's handled...but trust me...I am #TeamLindsey in this budding love triangle, so don't give up! <3

Christmas Day, Thursday, December 25, 2014

Maui, Hawaii

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The Roman Catholic church that was just a few miles up the beach from Mick's house began ringing its bells as the clock stuck midnight on Christmas Day. Mick was the first to become aware of the sound of the bells, walking arm in arm with Stevie on the sand, each of them holding their shoes in their free hands as their toes combed the damp sand along the shore of the part of the Pacific Ocean that Mick had called home for many years. He came to a stop, which prompted Stevie to stop as well, and their arms unlinked as he turned to face her and said, pointing into the distance in the direction of the bells, "It's midnight." He smiled at her. "Merry Christmas, Stephanie Lynn Nicks." He gave her a chaste kiss to her cheek.

"Merry Christmas, Michael John Kells Fleetwood," she said, smiling back at him. They stood there for a moment without saying anything more, and when Stevie broke their stare by looking downwards towards their toes in the sand, Mick took that as his cue to take her arm in his again and continue their slow, purposeless stroll along the shore.

Stevie had been talking about Sulamith before the bells had started ringing, and she returned to the subject, saying, "She's the actual love of my life, you know. I can't believe I've been this lucky to have her sixteen years! But we're on borrowed time now...she isn't the Sulamith I know. I mean, she's still got her little spirit, but she's like her mom...old and tired."

"I'm not going to dignify that one with a response, Stevie," Mick said. "You are not old...maybe you're tired right now...but it's a lot, you know? We're not accountants or plumbers here...this lifestyle is hard when you're thirty-six let alone sixty-six. Cut yourself some slack."

"It's not the touring that's tiring me, Mick..." She trailed off; he knew what was tiring her without her having to say it.

"Would you ever give him an ultimatum?" Mick looked over at her, and this time it was Stevie who stopped them from walking on, looking visibly angry and shocked.

"No! I'm not that kind of person, Mick! How long have you known me? I never gave you an ultimatum when you were with Jenny, did I?"

"Stevie, I say this knowing fully well how it sounds, and with no ego at all - I loved you, you loved me...but I'm not Lindsey. People who really want things fight for them whether they consciously do it or not."

"Mick..." She hardly knew what to say from the hundred different responses in her head. She chose, "I am not an ultimatum giver, okay? I never asked him to leave her for me, not once. My problem is not that he's married to someone else."

"If that's not what's wrong, why are you so upset?"

Stevie shrugged. "I guess because he's so unhappy but I can't help him...I am not the right person to give him marital advice because no matter what I say it'll look like it's because I'm jealous, which I am not. I told him to go and do this! I had to practically push him out my door years ago..." Tears welled up in her eyes, a sudden flash of her last night with Lindsey in 1997 coming to her memory - the tears, the desperate lovemaking, the whispered confessions of love and longing and her promising him she'd always be waiting if he truly wanted out. She didn't share those details with Mick; some story details, even Stevie knew, were better left unsaid.