Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

25. Rick and Roxie, Part One

Freddie

I took a quick drag, coughed a little, made a few scratch marks on the paper, then tried again.

"Da da do da, di di da ya di doo, doo doo doo- no, that's rubbish.  Wait, uh- Da da di doo, doo di doo doo do di da da da... oh, fuck it."

It sounds ridiculous, I know, but that's basically what I had been saying to myself for the past hour or two, using different melodies but the same flat syllables while I fooled around on the keys. 

Behold, my creative process. Spectacular, don't you think?

Of course I didn't really complete anything yet, though I gave it a noble effort.  There was too much working against me, what with Farnsworth squawking at random intervals, Fry swimming around the bench and even jumping up in my lap once or twice until Danny came down and put him outside (and just in time, too; I was close to putting the hyper little sausage on a stick and roasting him over a fire had he tried it but once more).  All the same, I had expanded on things that I and the rest of the old ladies had started putting together back in Munich, plus a handful of scattered new ideas, some of them quite promising indeed. 

Despite not really having made a lot of progress, certainly not at the level I was used to, I felt pretty good.  Now I had something I could work on in whatever time remained that I had to stay here, and then Julia and the boy could do what they wanted with the half-finished products.  For I had no use for what I wouldn't remember in the end, certainly not for things I was too distracted to finish in the first place.

Speaking of distractions, Julia was on her way back from university; this I knew because she had called a little while before, and sounded just as stunned to hear me answer the phone as she had looked upon seeing me in her office doorway earlier.

"Are you going to kill me if I bring home Chinese or something?" she had asked over the phone.  "Because we'll be decorating the tree tonight finally, and I don't think I'll have time to cook."

"Darling, Chinese takeaway - that actually sounds wonderful," I replied, and it honestly did- although I really just wanted her to sort of take a break, she'd been burning the candle at both ends this entire time.  Running on empty was my job, not hers.

"Good, because that's the only takeout I can think of that doesn't come in paper bags, so we should be covered."  Her voice had been ever so cool, too, if memory served.  "What do you guys want?"

"Well- what do they have?"

"You can have Danny pull up the menu online, or ask Mo- oh, yeah, you don't like Modo either.  Forget that.  Uh- oh, right, there's a drawer in the kitchen with a menu, so go look at that if you want, and I'll pick it up on my way home, if that's okay with you."

"Um, all right, sure," I agreed, while to myself I was saying, Some housewife I am, I can't even cook.  I should be helping her out, not just creating a bigger problem. 

Nevertheless, I had called Danny (who was only the slightest bit disappointed that we weren't resorting to White Castle hamburgers for dinner) into the kitchen with me and we relayed our desired choices to Julia. 

"Great," she murmured.  "Thanks.  Sorry for bothering you."

"Julia, you aren't bothe-"

Click.

And now, sitting there at the upright, I found myself thinking about it all over again.  I had been trying not to let it interfere with my concentration, but I couldn't help it.  For I had a fairly good idea why she had spoken so aloofly then.  And it had everything to do with that afternoon's "driving lesson."