Acquiesce

Sing

May 1992

Trix graduated and Alan McGhee got her a job. He kept his word. Which meant Trix moved to London. She didn't think she'd like it but she did. People thought her accent sounded funny and life down there moved faster than Manchester or Glasgow and the people weren't as patient or kind but it was a beautiful city. She liked living in Camden and absorbing all the hustle and bustle around her. Taking a tube packed full of strangers she would never know on her way to work each morning.

But it was lonely. She missed Manchester. She missed her dad, Peggy, Liam and Noel. She missed lying on Liam's bedroom floor listening to records until there was nothing but the scratch of the finished record playing and the feel of his arm brushing against hers. She missed lying in Noel's wrinkled white sheets and him holding her and looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

She was exhausted. Her days were filled booking bands and venues and getting Creation's events into papers and fliers put in scummy Camden toilets alike. She would spend her days on the phone taking no for an answer. In the office she became known as "The Chaser." She'd chase down Any act, venue or loose end until it was the way she liked and Alan was impressed with her progress already after only a year in the job he'd promoted her to head of the department. At night she would enjoy the fruits of her labour watching everything come together. She'd watch the shining happy, faces of the audience from the side stage then crawl home to bed for a few hours to do it all again.

It meant she had little time to visit Manchester and Noel likewise was becoming busier getting gigs around their home town. The world seemed to want to pull them in two different directions regardless of the fact that Trix's heart got broken along with it. It had been a mutual break up, and an unavoidable one, but she was still raw around the edges from it.

They'd lain together in bed in her London apartment one last time on a winter evening last year. He'd looked at her with the deepest, saddest blue eyes and she knew they couldn't keep holding onto each other like this when the force pulling them apart was becoming so painful.

"We can't go on like this can we?" She whispered.

Noel shook his head. He held her face tenderly in his hands and smiled sadly.

"I'm so proud of you. And I want to be someone you can be proud of too."

Trix frowned and shook her head.

"I've always been proud of you Noel."

Noel sighed.

"I know you have. But I know this band is good enough to make it. And I can't stop until we do. For me. For Liam. For you...for everyone back home."

Trix nodded.

"I know you are. And I'm going to help you get there if I can. I already tell him about you all the time. Demos aren't enough he has to see you. Because there's something you and Liam have that you can only feel when you're there in the room with you. It's so...powerful. And he's going to see what I've seen all along."

Noel flushed beneath her gaze.

"I don't know how to stop loving you Trixie." He whispered quietly.

Trix nodded feeling a lump of emotion form in her throat.

"I think I'll always love you Noel Gallagher and maybe that's alright. Maybe feeling the pain of you being gone is worth it. Because then I remember that you were even here at all. And I wouldn't trade that pain for never having you."

Noel brushed his thumb against her lips.

"Maybe one day we won't have to hurt each other like this."