In the Year of the Cat (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

68. The Mess I Made

I couldn't put it off any longer.

After picking my way through dinner and ardently assuring my parents that I felt much better now (a little white lie now and then never hurt anyone), I washed the dishes and started for my room.

"Don't forget your phone," Scott reminded me.

I whirled.  "It came in today?"

"Uh-huh," he said.  "Same kind as before?"

"Yup.  Exact same."

"You could have gotten an upgrade, you know," Scott pouted.  "You're phone's already a year old!"

"It doesn't make any difference, it's the same setup.  I remember the days when they didn't even have cell phones, or the Internet."

He frowned.  "How?"

"Life didn't begin in the nineties, Scott," I said simply. 

"Yours did!"

I made myself laugh at that, then disappeared into my bedroom and shut the door, phone tucked under my arm.  Farnsworth, my conure, stopped gnawing on his cuttlebone and greeted me with half a phrase I'd been trying to teach him for a year. 

"News, ev'un!"

"Good news, everyone!" I corrected him, rubbing his bright green belly.  "You'll get it one day, you're a smart bird."

"News, BIRD!" he squawked.  "Farnsie, BIRD!"

"Something like that," I mumbled.  I took him out of his cage and put him on my shoulder, where he hid in my hair and nibbled ferociously on my earlobe.

"Hey, hey, take it easy, I know I cheated on you with a cat, but that's no reason to eat my ear," I half-smiled. 

But I wasn't smiling for much longer.  I reached into my backpack and drew out the ultra-sensitive pregnancy test.  Taking a deep breath, I set Farnsworth back on top of his cage while I slipped quietly into the bathroom.  My stomach was wringing itself with anticipation.  This was just a precaution of course, it was so improbable, so unlikely.  But I had to find out. 

The box said it would take a few minutes for the result to appear, so I took the test into my room and laid it on a piece of wax paper on the window sill.  Perhaps I could have left it in the bathroom, but at this time I did not need Scott's confused inquiries or, heaven forbid, my parents' demands to know what this filthy thing was doing in their house.

So I set my mind on my new Magic Mirror.  I took it out of the package, about to insert the new SIM when I remembered the old SIM and SD I still had.  A few snaps and cracks, and I'd replaced the blanks with those of my old phone, the one Freddie had allegedly pulverized.  Then I plugged it in to charge the battery.  Hopefully the pictures had saved to the card and not to my phone itself. 

I wondered exactly what Freddie had done when he discovered I was gone.  Clearly he was livid, and had taken his rage out on my belongings, but what all had he felt?  Was he just angry that I had betrayed him?  Was he sad?  Was he relieved?  Did he miss me, or did my memory drown in the bottomless depths of his past?

I think he got over me- and fast, I tried to tell myself, desperately grasping for my old, comforting cynicism.  After all, he never mentioned me- no one did, in fact.  Freddie probably considered me just another flash-in-the-pan traitor- one that helped to send him over the edge, but again, I was likely only one of many factors.  I need to stop assigning myself so much importance.  Anyway, I'm sure seeing David that night helped to ease the pain of abandonment.  Maybe it's good to have backup lovers; that way, losing one doesn't seem so devastating.  There's always more where that came from.