Santa Monica, California
Thanksgiving Day
Thursday, November 24, 2022
(11:30 pm)
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"It's the one with the guy who dreams he's on Death Row and has to convince the people it's a dream."
Lindsey sat in bed and, as usual, used the remote to find their nightly episode of The Twilight Zone to watch in bed together. Stevie turned out the bathroom light, grimacing first at her appearance in the mirror, and climbed into bed beside the man she'd been sleeping beside every night for twenty-five years...and so many times before that. There was a chill in the house, the first really cold night of the season, and Stevie pulled the comforter up all the way, covering up the navy blue silk pajamas she wore. She lay with her back to Lindsey, curled up for warmth, and he took her cue and turned over towards her, wrapping her in his arms from behind. They lay in silence, only the TV making a sound, as well as the occasional snore from one of the dogs. The silence felt worse than any argument they'd had in over fifty years of knowing each other, more emotional than any conversation they'd ever had, and Lindsey knew to wait. He'd made his decision, consented to be treated, and he knew that now Stevie was not quiet out of anger.
She was terrified.
"Do I tell you I love you enough?"
Her question came out of nowhere, and he responded with a kiss to the back of her head and, "Of course you do, angel."
Stevie turned around, shifting in the bed and forcing him to do the same. She propped herself up on her elbow. "I'm serious, Linds. I can't tell you how many grand gestures you've done in all these years to show me you love me - Jesus Christ, I don't think there are anymore Animal Crackers in California - but do you know I love you? Like, not that I love you for bringing me flowers or holding me while I'm falling asleep or telling me I'm pretty...but that I love you? You, Lindsey Buckingham, the person, the man who loves the Everly Brothers and pumpkin pie and won't give up the v-neck tee even at seventy-three and dances like a fool every time 'Brown Sugar' comes on and needs three pairs of glasses to function but always picks the wrong ones up when he needs them? Do you know that I love you?"
"Stevie...where is all this coming from?" He assumed her position, propping himself up on his elbow too.
"It's just that..." She looked down, her fingers playing with the part of his t-shirt that had a few small holes in it because he never threw away his t-shirts but repurposed them as bed shirts. "Look, I'm a lot, you know...Stevie Nicks is a big personality. I need you for a lot of things - I don't drive, I get scared of thunderstorms, I have epic nightmares and I know they wake you up and you're tired as hell when I ask you to hold me...and I never took piano lessons so you always have to flesh out my songs...and maybe sometimes you don't want Mexican food and you want chocolate cake instead of carrot and..."
Lindsey cut her off by pressing his lips to hers for a long, gentle kiss. When he pulled away, he could see she was starting to cry. He tucked a long blonde curl behind her ear. "Stephanie, listen to me." His tone was gentle but serious. "I know that you love me. I've always known. Even the day I left the signed copy of the Bella Donna album on the floor in the main studio, I knew you loved me. I never told you this, but about a week after Robin died, I was out shopping for records because I wanted to get myself a copy of the new Devo album...and I picked up a copy of Wild Things Run Fast by Joni Mitchell to cheer you up...and I bought my own Bella Donna. I listened from start to finish. Carol Ann wasn't home and I had the place to myself...so I got high and listened. By the time I got to 'Kind Of Woman' I was crying...because I knew I had fucked up the best thing that ever happened to me. I pictured Carol Ann coming home - which she did - and being all clingy - which she was - but I knew it wasn't genuine. I knew she was clinging to Lindsey Buckingham, the guy from Fleetwood Mac, not Lindsey Buckingham, the kid from Palo Alto with a guitar who liked to swim, screw around with his brothers, listen to the Clash and smoke a joint...real Lindsey. You are the only woman who ever loved me for the right reasons. Me, the idiot you let you go. So I cried."
"Baby..." Stevie had silent tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached out to touch his, the tips of her fingers tracing along the face she knew so well she could see it in her dreams, staring into the eyes that she could pick out of a crowded room instantly and know that she was seen, and she was loved. "I did love you for the right reasons...even when we had nothing and my feet hurt from waiting tables and my nails kept breaking from scrubbing toilets so we could eat...I remember Robin asking me one day if this 'starving artist' thing we had going on ever made me hate you...and yes, around the time of the whole Aspen disaster when my dad was sick and they wanted me to come home...yes, sure I resented you for getting to stay home all day with Richard and play with the tracks and get high...but that's because I was exhausted, not because I hated you! I could never hate you! I was too busy watching you fall asleep hugging a guitar next to Ginny and thinking that everything I cherished in the entire world - I mean, except for Mom and Daddy and Chris back home - was right there, sleeping on the mattress on the floor, and I would actually feel how much I loved you, like my heart hurt from loving you! And I would pry your fingers off the guitar..." She was crying as she stroked his fingers, the same fingers she was talking about from fifty years before. "...and I'd curl up next to you and you'd wrap me up in your arms and say, 'Good night, my beautiful Stephanie,' and I would feel like a lottery winner or something...so incredibly lucky that somehow, somewhere, the universe made us both listen to our friends and go to Young Life that night in high school...so that I could fall asleep next to the sweetest, most beautiful man alive...and that somehow he loved me too."
Lindsey gently swept a tear from her cheek and said, "We really fucked that up, you and I...but look at us now, angel. Married twenty-five years, a daughter who's amazing...and the way you love my son, Stevie..." Lindsey's voice cracked; he was starting to cry. "You took one look at that kid all those years ago in the nursery window and you knew it wasn't his fault his mother went crazy, that he was just an innocent baby boy...and you've loved him like he was your own son all his life."
"He's your son, Linds. He's your family...what comes from you is mine too...he's my Beautiful Boy no matter how old he gets...and I love him."
"I'm sorry I'm old and sick, Stevie, I really am," he said, the lump rising in his throat. "I don't want you to be frightened or have this burden on you or..."
This time it was Stevie's turn to quiet him with a kiss. She tasted both of their tears as she held his face in her hands, and her fingers slid into his hair as she kissed him with all of her might, almost sucking his soul into hers and stroking the gray and white curls that once upon a time had been longer and darker just as tenderly as she had all those years ago. Their lips parted, then touched again, and in between soft, sweet kisses he heard her whisper against his lips, "Liddy...sweetheart...sssh baby, you are nobody's burden...you are my life, baby...I love you so much..." She couldn't stop kissing him, drawn in by his breath at her lips and the connection that neither of them could explain but had been drawn to for so many years that they had all but given up trying to understand. There was a Stevie and a Lindsey, and each were okay alone, but they were missing a limb without each other and that was all. She felt him smiling against her lips and whispered, "What, baby?"
"Liddy," he said. "My God, it's been years since I heard that one."
She smiled too and whispered again, more drawn out this time, "Liddy..." Their lips met again, and this time as they kissed they slid together under the covers, where she formed herself around him completely and they held each other close in a tight little ball.
"I know you love me, angel," he whispered, his fingers in her hair as she burrowed into his chest. She would unzip him and climb inside of him if she could; they couldn't possibly get close enough.
"It's all going to be okay, baby," she assured him. "You'll go in, it'll get done, and I'll be there with you the whole time. You are everything to me, sweetheart...you won't be alone in this."
"I know," he whispered down into her hair. "It'll be fine...as long as I have my sweet girl."
"You're still my Silver Springs, sweetheart." She nuzzled him, gentle fingertips falling against his heart.
"And you're my only dream, my beautiful Stephanie...my shining autumn ocean crashing."
Somewhere between the nuzzling and the sweet kisses and the whispered words of love they both fell asleep, clinging to each other under the covers, two halves of a whole, ready to face what lay ahead of them together.
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YOU ARE READING
Silver Springs: A Holiday Love Story
Fanfiction***A sequel to Fall From Grace*** It's the 2022 holiday season and Stevie and Lindsey, after 25 years of marriage and family and music and loving, are met with a problem that threatens to destroy their holiday season and quite possibly their marriag...
