AN: Here is the beginning of the much asked for sequel. It's a different thing entirely. John and Sage are watching the same video, Cam is dreaming! You may need tissues enjoy!—MM
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John has known the ache of being lonesome before but this is different. Nikki is gone because she hadn't wanted to join him in the hole he'd dug himself after Luca had died. Luca died, it still doesn't feel real after all this time it's like the words are spoken in a foreign tongue he'll never learn.
The lonely, that's on him. He'd built his life his way with no allowances for attachment until Luca.
The thing tying him into a passable human being is gone. His child, and for lack of a better term his wife too.
He flips on his phone and finds the thing he seeks, he hits play. "Dad last minute advice?"
"Don't do it. I'll give you the Maserati." Luca's laugh floats frozen in time through his empty kitchen.
He lifts the caramel liquid to his lips. He doesn't even bother anymore with a glass; it's too much ceremony for the pain. He just tilts the bottle up and back, downing a large gulp of the whiskey that burns going down. The pain is nowhere near what his heart feels as the Jack coats and numbs his throat. It's his second bottle today. He backs the video up and hits play just to hear the laugh again, Cam's smile reflected back at him Luca's face.
If he just keeps hitting replay maybe in the land where his dreams and his past collide he will get his life back again. It's doubtful but he lives for those unconscious moments where Luca's still alive. Moments buried amongst John's regrets and broken heart.
-/-/-/-
"Mama, no matter the promises I make today, you'll be forever be my first love." He smiled down at her fixing his tie.
She retorted fiddling with his pocket square now. "Is that right? What if I object, I could…." She pointed out
"You won't just…remember you were first." Luca gave her a lopsided grin.
"Hmm, well…"
He kissed her cheek. "If you love me let me go. I got it Mom."
"Mama!" her mattress quakes.
"Jonah… its Saturday." She mumbled into her pillow.
"Nope Monday." She cracked open her eyes to find her five year old was right.
"Holy shit! We're late…" She sat up. "Where's Tessie?"
"Makin' my cereals." He plopped down beside her putting his head on her pillow.
"Put on pants Jo." She ordered patting his Batman covered bottom as she got out of bed.
"Ugh, Mommy you need pants too!" he points at her she's wear and old shirt of Joe's and boy cut undies.
She muttered as she sat the boy on his feet. "Shit!"
"Swear Jar Mommy." He said seriously.
"Uh uh," She watches him walk off to put on pants.
"Bubba laughin'…" he said upon return as he handed her the hairbrush. She sweeps his long dark curling at the ends hair into a squat pony tail.
"What?" She asked while making sure his hair is straight in its tail.
"Bubba's laughing at you in heaven. You gotta pays swears monies and he always laughs." He explained.
Jonah's words paused her movements. She took in a shaky breath and smiled at her little one. "You think?
He nods. "Daddy pays fivers for F bombs always don't let him gip. Bubba said."
"That's right He did! Tessa! Are you ready Baby?" she kissed his cheek as he nodded at her.
She gets Jonah ready and down stairs.
"Mommy?" Tessa calls out as her feet land on the last step.
"Yes Tess."
"Where are your pants?"
Cam groaned and ran upstairs. She came back down. "You don't match." Her daughter said imperiously.
"Its car pool lane Tessa not a red carpet event." She retorts and her daughter rolls her chocolate colored almond shaped eyes in disgust. Sometimes Cam wonders if her daughter is only truly seven years old.
In the car she calls Joe. "Say good morning Daddy!"
"Hey guys, I'd love to have morning talk but I'm busy." Joe tries hurrying off the phone.
"Mommy forgot her pants!" Tessa tattles Cam doesn't need to see the smirk to know it's there.
"I didn't forget, I slept late!" Cam defends huffing as she slams on the blinker to turn at the light.
"Again Cammie?"
"You know what Joey? Until you fucking show up for me you don't get to judge my coping skills." She snarled the condemnation in Joe's tone pushing her buttons.
"Swears jar!" Both Tess and Jonah shout with a giggle after.
"Your coping skills is that what you call that? You ain't coping Cammie your hiding baby."
"Yeah well so are you, you just get paid for it." She honks irritably at the bad driver in front of her.
"I'm not having same goddamn argument over the fucking phone Campbell!"
"Fine!" she hung up. "Fucking idiot thinks he's ." she said bitterly.
"Swears jar!" Again the kids yelled. It had become a game to them lately as the bickering between Joe and Cam worsened and Joe would conveniently be gone on longer road trips and house shows. Cam swore he volunteered for it rather than a storyline and putting on a good face for the company called for.
She shrugged and muttered a sarcastic reply. "Yeah I get it I owe thirty bucks."
-/-/-
She hung up on me!" Joe looked to the buxom brunette next to him. Nikki is totally not his type but she'd been his confidant and only friend as of late. If misery loved company his was Nikki.
"Sounded heated." She said sitting on one of the gear trunks littered about the arena.
"Yeah well, seems like lately the only thing Cammie can truly feel anymore is pissed. I get it I do, I just-I don't know where my wife went you know? He said glancing at her and then quickly away before she saw too much.
"I know… trust me I know, I wished I could help but I'll listen if you need it. I feel like no one sees me as it is. My non official step mom status. The not official thing never bothered me before, now though it's like the right to grieve belongs solely to John."
Joe shook his head grimly. "Cammie, it's not like that… we're gutted and…"
"And your nose to the grindstone makes it avoidable." Nikki said knowingly.
"It makes it bearable…"
-/-/-
Cam drives to San Diego mostly because it'd keep her awake. She likes the beach house they'd kept that's up the beach a pace from John's. She walks down the beach just to have something to do and finds John asleep, cuddling a bottle of Jack on his deck. She kicks him lightly.
"Wake up Lushy." She cracks her gum. She really wants a cigarette but she hasn't smoked since high school and she feels no need to give Joe further ammo in the verbal warfare they're currently waging on one another.
He jerks awake. "Nicole?"
"Nope just me Princess." Cam said bitingly looking him over.
He muttered sitting up/"What're you doing here?"
"Tired of moping at home. Thought I'd do some here. See if it helped. Funny thing? When your kid donates his body to science you have place to visit." She took a deep breath.
She plops down next to him. "I say this because well I kind of love you… you smell."
"You have peanut butter in your hair. So shut up."
"Then lil Jo has hair in his PB and J." she puts her sketcher bedecked feet on the coffee table in front of them.
He kicked an empty Chinese carton of the table and propped his feet up too. "Eww, so does being here help?"
She made a sour face and shook her head. "Nah, God I'm so pissed at Luca."
"I wished I could feel something useful like anger…I just feel crushed. Nicole left me you know? Can't blame her honestly, but I don't wanna fill Luca's hole with someone else."
"But pickling you liver, that'd he'd be fine with?" she gave a dry chuckle and side eyed him. He was equally dishelmed and tired looking and dare she say a little fat. He seemed to have more gray at his temples than she remembered.
"Don't judge me!" he said haughtily.
"I'm not, pass the hooch alkkie." She said making grabbing hands.
"Hooch?"
"I watch a lot of Locked Up. I identify with their impotent rage." She knocked back a slug of whiskey.
"Last time it was just me and you and a bottle it led to happier things."
She fiddled with the whiskey cap not meeting his eyes. "Ain't happening John and if it did? It wouldn't be the same seems like a life time ago I was playing hard to get and your charm worked on me."
"Fair enough." He agreed.
-/-/-/-
When three thirty rolls around she hasn't moved she's sitting in silence dipped in alcohol and dosing beside John. Her phone ringing wakes her.
She answered and before she can get out a hello Joe is tossing questions at her. "Where are you? Why is Maclaren picking up the kids? Why haven't you been answering your phone?"
"Hello to you too baby, I'm at the beach house, Maclaren has helped me raise my kids for the past twenty years, she can pick them up I haven't answered my phone because unless it's the school I didn't want too." She answered plainly.
"Maclaren's not their mother you are! What are you doing at the beach house?" He said unintentionally accusatory.
"I felt like a drive Joe, had a drink with John. It's not the end of the world Joe." She grumbled restlessly running a hand through her hair.
"Real responsible Campbell." He muttered.
What does that mean? I had one Joe. The kids aren't with me." She said watching john get to his feet and leaves her in privacy.
"Just skipping out Cam. You check out more than usual. I'm busting my ass." He growled in her ear.
"I know this is so far beyond you but I just wanted to try and take one breath and not be surrounded by him. You know nothing about that because you haven't been home in four months. Suck it up and shove it down right joey?" she shouted. Getting to her feet and pacing the deck.
"Fuck you!" He spat at her.
She laughed dryly. "Gladly baby, but unless you're going to do it with the power of your mind you have to be home for that too!"
Campbell, I'm working. Something you've been out of touch with. I've been home." He justified.
No, Joe, twenty four hours or less doesn't count."
"You wanna drown in misery Cammie? Fine but you are not taking Tessa and Jonah down with you."
"How dare you threaten me! You think I like feeling this shit? I can't fucking think, I can't breathe, I don't eat! It takes every ounce of energy I have to smile at Jonah and Tess. I hate it! It's where I'm at now though!" She yelled
She looked out at the ocean and fought the urge to cry. "And another thing Joe? The man I married would never leave me to drown he'd pull me out. I guess we've both changed." And she hung up.
"Sounded intense even for you." John said returning from the kitchen.
She shrugged. "Seems like somewhere between Joe carrying him into the hospital that final time and now…we've lost each other. The only thing we know how to do anymore is fight. Joe compartmentalizes always has. I can't my life it explodes into being…whatever shit storm, joy, love, it all explodes. He used to have my back, no matter what we did shit together and now. We're on different planets." She sniffled.
John stood behind her with his hands bracketing either side of the rail. To an outsider they'd look like a loving couple. It seemed odd that they took comfort in each other but they did. "Nicole and I well we aren't even a thing anymore so even if I had advice to give you, you shouldn't take it."
I'm sorry about Nicole I mean." She turns to face him and for the first time in ages they're sharing space and not fighting. He moved away from her obviously struggling with something.
He clears his throat and puts distance between them. He wants to touch her. To feel human contact a connection. There is only one kind of connection they're good at so he shoves his hands in the ratty pockets of his work out shorts. "Don't be with Luca I gave her the shiny little life she wanted and now I can't so she's done."
She goes around the deck cleaning up his mess. "That's still shitty. Joe and I fight but he won't leave. He loves me at least I hope he still does and I know I still love him. You deserve love John everyone does."
"And I had it. It just doesn't last forever. Fairytales aren't real Cam you know that."
"Just don't tell Tessa that… she still has a soft spot for her Bubba Daddy." Cam smiled at his softly pitching the Chinese takeout cartons in the fire pit. "I know this might sound crazy, but did you push her away? Because I know how you get. And she seemed pretty fine with what arrangement you had?" she pushes him just a little.
"You explode and I implode." He allowed.
She lightly shiver him toward the kitchen "Hmm, come on I'll make you some dinner to soak up the booze and call a cab. You do have food right?"
"Yes I have food. Bread and baloney is food."
"That is not food. We'll order out… no Chinese. "She said firmly.
=/=/=
She turns on the video but leaves off the captions. Somehow it makes it more real. Like he's there with her in their tiny apartment sitting on his mom's old couch.
Off camera someone asks him a question. "When did I know I wanted to marry Sage? At the end of the first date. One of my Dad's is half Samoan and in Samoan culture you treat your woman with an almost revered respect. I used to watch the way he looked at my mother…like she was and still is everything that holds beauty in his world… like he's utterly awed by her. The first time I caught myself looking at Sage like that I knew. I'm in awe of her every day and that's when I was all in until I had no more time left." Only Luca could so easily embrace life and accept the shortness of it. It makes her smile even as she's crying. Everyone thought she was crazy to love someone who she knew she would outlive but Luca's zest to fully live life was contagious and made you forget ant obstacle.
He's there in fully lively color in his suit his tie done and a careless smile on his face and her heart stutters.
There's a tap at her shoulder. She turns to see her best friend Lucy. Lucy looks all wild with black fading to blue hair flowing down her shoulders. Lucy's Cupid's bow piercing glints in the light as she speaks. "You've gotta stop watching that video Sage. It's like waterboarding your soul."
"It's my only connection to him." She signs quickly once her friend sits down.
"No, it's not and you know it you're just afraid of the truth." Lucy advises patting her knee.
"I miss Luca; he was the best friend who knew when to shut up." She signs with an eye roll thrown in.
"I love you so I'm going to let that one slide on account of your grief."
"I watch it because I miss watching him as he says my name. There's something about the way he formed the word that was so different, so personal and deep that when he said it I felt like that part of me… the living in silence piece of me found some way to be heard… when he said my name I felt it, I heard it and I'm afraid to let it go." She sign and Lucy hugged her.
Lucy said after letting her loose. "Why? He'd want you to let him go."
"Because Luce, I will never find it again."
"I wouldn't be so sure. Light seeps through the cracks of the most broken heart Sage." Lucy said holding her and shutting off the TV.
AN: I own nothing but Cam, Luca, Tessa, Jonah, Maclaren and Lucy. Tell me if you liked it, tell me if you hated it!-MM