Author's note:

Since Johnny's parentage is not established, (some things indicate that Rita Chase is his biological mother and other things indicated Vince and Johnny have the same father, but different mothers) I've decided that they have the same alcoholic, absentee father and that Rita is not Johnny's biological mother.

Story titles and chapter titles are song titles from One Night Only.

Chapter 1: Start over

Eric's phone rang and he read the name on the display. It was Vince and he told Sloan so. Immediately, she made a face. It was that familiar expression of faint annoyance that lately came over her when anything involved his friends. Whenever Sloan made that face Eric tried not to look, because she was a beautiful woman and that face made her look ugly. Jealousy is not a pretty emotion; that was the lesson Sloan's face was trying to impart. He couldn't understand why she was so negative about his friends. She liked them well enough. What she didn't like was their close friendship. He kept trying to tell her that when they were both retired she would be relieved to have his friends keep him out of her hair some of the time, but she never responded to that joke.

'Yes, Vince?'

'E, Johnny and I wanted to inform you that our mother has died yesterday. She's going to be buried tomorrow afternoon and it would be nice if you could come to the funeral.'

Vince was sounding incredibly weird, which was to be expected under the circumstances. How were you supposed to sound if your mother died? Eric didn't know, but still, apart from the understandable weirdness, Vince's voice was off. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was, but something was not quite right.

'Of course I'll come. How are you and Johnny doing? Are you holding up?' Eric asked and Sloan managed to look concerned. He really shouldn't say 'managed,' because she did care. It was just that he didn't care anymore. Eric turned away from her and focused his attention on what Vince was saying.

'Johnny is pretty shaken up. I'm ok,' Vince said. Eric told Vince he was sorry and that he had loved their mother, while Vince made noncommittal noises on the other end of the line. They said goodbye soon afterwards. Naturally, Eric remembered only after they had hung up that he should have asked how she had died and that he probably should have asked to speak to Drama. Too late now, he thought, as he left the beach and headed for the hotel. He didn't even look to see whether Sloan was following him.

They had spent three weeks in Hawaii. It was a sort of pre-honeymoon vacation, before they would get married. Sloan had made him promise to only talk to the guys for half an hour a week on Monday. The measure seemed ridiculous and reminded him uncomfortably of crazy Ashley, but he had given in nonetheless. Epic mistake. What if he hadn't taken that forbidden call just now and missed the funeral of Vince's mother? It was time to face the facts: they brought out the worst in each other. Sloan made him act like a jerk and he made her act like a bitch.

In the hotel room he immediately started to pack. He would call the airport from the cab. That meant he might have to wait at the airport for a few hours, but right now he would rather be stuck there than here with Sloan. A couple of minutes later Sloan entered the room. She said nothing as she watched him throw his underwear, shaving kit and toothbrush into the suitcase.

'Vince's mother is dead.'

Eric turned around and watched Sloan's face fall. She opened her mouth, he assumed to apologise, but he waved whatever she had to say away. He shouldn't focus on Vince. Even though Rita was not Drama's biological mother, she had raised him as her own and Drama certainly regarded her as his mother. Man, this sucked. To his surprise, Sloan took her suitcase out of the closet and started to pack too.

'I'm coming,' she explained. Well, this was awkward. He didn't want her to come. He didn't want to go anywhere with her at this moment. Searching for the right words, he rubbed his neck.

'I don't think that's such a good idea,' he finally said and she stopped packing to look at him. Her hands were on her hips. It was her bossy pose and he hated it. She only ever did that pose with him. At least, he had never witnessed it being used on anyone else. What did that say about their relationship? She was always acting as if she was his mother instead of his girlfriend. Telling him to 'grow up.' The implications made him shudder.

'Why not?' she asked and Eric mimicked the face she had made when he took the call. Sloan sighed in exasperation, 'How was I to know his mother had died?'

'That's not it. The last three weeks have been all about us,' Eric said as he sat down on the bed and started to empty the drawer of the nightstand. Three phone calls, that's the only connection he's had with his friends those weeks. Come to think of it; he'd only spoken to Turtle and Drama. For some reason Vince was never there when he called.

'Yet, you feel it is necessary to make that face when I take a call from one of them. I have a right to talk to my friends. And I would have taken that call even if it was just Vince talking about a chick he banged last night,' he continued.

'Eric...' Sloan feebly interjected, but he didn't let her finish.

'No. They're an important part of my life. Last year I bored them to death talking about you and they mocked me and gave me bad advice and laughed at me, but they were there. Why the fuck is it so hard for you to do the same?' Eric asked. He had to force himself to stay calm and refrain from yelling. They were breaking up, he suddenly realised. He was breaking up with Sloan.

'I'm your fiancée,' she stated and she seemed about to go into her spiel of all the things she deserved as his fiancée. Fiancée: just thinking the word was making him nauseous.

'And you think my attachment to them is unhealthy or whatever. You think you deserve to be number one. Well, there is no number one. There are number ones, and they're called Vince, Drama and Turtle and you would have been lucky to be up there with them. I'm done. We're done.'

He snapped his suitcase shut and left the room without looking back.

(***)

Later on the plane, after Eric had called Turtle and made sure someone was picking him up from the airport, he realised he hadn't been entirely fair to Sloan. Perhaps the person you were going to spend the rest of your life with did deserve to top the list. Either way, he had lied to her. Something had clicked when she reacted the way she did to Vince's phone call, but things had been sliding into place ever since he had asked her to marry him. Thinking back now, he knew that had been a stupid idea from the start. They hadn't been together for years and her instant irritation when he had confessed he still loved her should have told him enough.

Anyway, the truth was that he couldn't give the top spot to her. It was Vince's. Not Vince his client, because that Vince could be a total douche bag, but Vince his best friend. Turtle and Drama were close, but they weren't up there. Maybe there was something wrong with the way the list was structured, but he couldn't do anything about that. It had been the same list for as long as he could remember.