Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

62. Sweet Surrender, Part Two

Julia

When I didn't answer right away, Freddie's eyes drifted out toward the rink once more. All was calm for a minute or two, before he said a bit wryly, "In case you've forgotten, the question was, what happened to Danny's father?"

"Dammit, I was hoping you'd forgotten," I chuckled. "Would you mind first telling me why it's so important that you-"

"No," Freddie popped back, an unmistakable note of triumph glowing in his tone.

A small cloud of white vapor left my mouth as I sighed in defeat. "The man is on to me."

"Mm. I'm afraid there's no getting round it this time, my dear. I know you and your tricks far too well."

"Yes, I know. I'm quite a predictable animal."

"I didn't say that. I said- well, you heard what I said. I'm not going to say it again, it's much too cold for me to keep repeating myself this way."

But still I hesitated. For this was a serious matter, one I should have handled much more delicately in the beginning. Regardless of how much less damaging a lie had appeared in the moment, when Freddie first struggled in even uttering the words to ask whether he had fathered my boy, this move of convenience had only served as another insurmountable barrier that strained our interactions countless times, and more often than not kept what peace we found needlessly superficial.

As long as he doesn't touch me, or yell, or cry, I'll be okay, I tried to bolster myself. Basically, all that has to happen is for him to have absolutely no emotional reaction to the news- and everything will be fine. Because that is totally the most probable thing to go down. Freddie Mercury, the most emotionally turbulent man I have ever met in my life, being completely unaffected by the news that the nine-year-old boy he's grown so fond of this last week is his child. What could be more likely?

For an instant, I had the idea of throwing niceties to the wind and just stating point blank that Freddie and Danny's father were in fact a single entity, just to get this exhausting charade over with at last. And in retrospect, that's probably what I should have done.

But, then again, it would not have been appropriate to just randomly blurt out, "You are Danny's father, he is your son, and while I'm at it, you are still and always shall be the love of my life. There. How do you like them apples?" As deliciously concise as that seemed on the surface, such an approach dripped with insincerity and cheapened the gravity of the situation. If we were taking this fall, I wanted to let us down easy, allow the idea to insinuate itself a little more smoothly into his mind rather than let it blow up in his face. I had waited this long to tell him; I figured I might as well do it right.

Which was why, before I launched into any kind of response, I needed clarification on one crucial detail that would determine how I crafted every other sentence that followed.

I said to Freddie, "First, I need you to explain what 'yes and no' means."

He squinted. "What?"

"At the restaurant, when I asked you about wanting children yourse-"

"What does that have to do with anything?" he scoffed, suddenly defensive.

"Because it was a non-answer."

Freddie rolled his eyes. "Oh my God-"

"Look, if I'm going to be honest with you- and I will- I need you to be honest with me," I told him, "and 'yes and no' is nothing more than a cop-out unless there's some kind of reasoning attached. This is a two-way street we're walking here after all."