Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

12. Something's Gotta Give

Julia

I took a deep breath. "Amen."

I peered down the hall from where I stood in the kitchen, waiting for Freddie to come back from "freshening up". Farnsworth ground his beak against his kitchen perch and shook his feathers. Breakfast, and a very nice one too, if I do say so myself, awaited us as soon as he materialized.

I needed something to do with my hands, besides lighting another cigarette or rubbing Farnsie's head. Danny's yo-yo was sitting on the counter, from where he begrudgingly laid it earlier when I caught him trying to take it along. With another heavy sigh, I took it and began to play with it while I sang a gentle Eagles tune. I had just finished a prayer for strength in maintaining my patient counselor facade, and thanksgiving that Danny was already on his way to church when Freddie woke up. "Say a little prayer, sing a little song," was what I often told Danny to do if he ever felt scared or anxious. And since I was feeling both those things now, I decided I'd better be my own advisor and practice what I preached.

Before I could finish "Peaceful, Easy Feeling," however, my Android rang- but not with the typical, peppy Earth, Wind, and Fire music. Instead, I heard Simon and Garfunkel begin in mournful accents, "Hello, Darkness, my old friend..."

I frowned and looked at my phone- then rolled my eyes. It was the same picture of my dear Stuart, but the ring had been personalized to "The Sound of Silence" and the caller ID altered to say "Stuart Little."

Danny, really? Haven't I told you before not to mess with the settings?

For some reason, Danny thought it was the funniest thing to give Stuart (and only Stuart) a specific ringtone, using the most depressing songs he could think of. Last time, if I remember correctly, he had downloaded and used "For the Damaged Coda" from that old, creepy cartoon called Rick and Morty, of which he had seen a few snippets thanks to his classmates' smartphones. Danny had an oddly dark sense of humor sometimes, especially for his age; he got that from his father, too.

My son's jokes aside, I sighed with relief. After tasting Freddie's barely latent rage a little while before, I yearned to talk to someone who didn't obviously hate my guts.

"How's it going down there, Jules?" Stuart greeted me.

I sighed. "About the way I expected."

"How so? Is he being a jerk? Or what?"

"Yes- but I mean, part of that is, right now, his filter has yet to kick back in, I think. It takes at least a day for things to settle down in the brain after time-traveling. I remember."

"Did he ever have a filter?"

I sort of chuckled, and shrugged. "That is the question."

"How did he take it?" Stuart asked, referring to Freddie's reaction to having been whisked forty-two years into the future.

"Again, I don't think it's sunk in yet. And I'm really not looking forward to the moment it does, if this is how he's acting now."

"Listen, Jules," Stuart said. "I'll tell you again. If he turns out to be too much to handle, you can still take him back up to Princeton. There's a team there 24/7. They'll take him back and keep him there if you need them to."

"I'm not there yet," I said. "It's a little less than an hour since he woke."

Stuart cleared his throat, asked cautiously, "So he hasn't, uh- tried to put the moves on you or anything yet?"

My eyes narrowed. "As my son's friends would say: #jimhutton, #maryaustin, #nothistype, and therefore, #hakunamatata."