Title: He's changed
Author: Loz
E-Mail: loz06(at)yahoo(dot)com
Rating: T
Category: Neil.Philippa
Series: Stand alone. Not related to anything else I've done.
Spoilers: So minor it shouldn't ruffle any feathers.
Archive (if applicable): www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net(slash)loz06
Feedback: The good, the bad and the very ugly it's all appreciated.
Summary: Neil story based around episode 303 and his conversation with Philippa about their marriage.
Disclaimers: Time has changed, the need for a disclaimer has not.
He could be smart and count all the coins in his wallet to check all the change is there but all he wants now is to get out of here. Next to him his sister is organising bail, he hasn't rung Philippa who'd gone home to be there for Jake. She had the job of creatively explaining to Jake where his father was, not that either of them getting home past Jake's bed time was unusual.
"Neil?" He looks to his left, to see his sister ready to go; she has her own family to get home to and is just as keen to get out of here as he is.
Neil slides his wallet inside the pocket of his leather jacket.
"Get in; I'll give you a lift." She encourages him after they'd walked to her car in silence. He's about to accept only to have everything he's been thinking about in the cell come back to him. He can't go home yet.
"I'll get a cab; I'm in the opposite direction to you." He knows where he wants to go and it needs to be alone, without interruption, he needs to think.
"Oh come on Neil." His sister says thinking he's being ridiculous.
"You've done enough; I'll pay you back tomorrow." He smiles reassuringly. "Get home to your kids."
"What about your child, what about Jake?" She asks looking at him concerned. "What do I tell Philippa when I call and tell her you made bail?"
"I'm going home to see him and her now." Neil lies and reluctantly his sister gets in the car, he sees her off until the lights of her car disappear against the late afternoon sun.
Then he starts walking.
It's dark when Neil walks down his street, there's a light on out the front of his house, he's been expected home hours ago. He doesn't have his phone on him, left without any idea if anyone's been chasing him, worried or wondering where he's been all this time.
He heads into the kitchen, it's lit with a warm glow but it shows no other signs of human life. He puts his keys down next to the day's mail and a note with the crest of Jake's school on it.
Opening the door he heads upstairs.
He checks each room as he passes coming to Jake's last. He pauses for a moment in the last hours he's spent walking he'd thought a lot about Jake among other things. The door is ajar and he pushes it open further, a band of light illuminating Jake's sleeping form almost hidden under the duvet and Philippa lying next to him.
"Where have you been? Your sister rang and said you'd got bail hours ago." Philippa whispers as she sits up and then gets off the bed.
Neil looks over Jake, watching his only son and child sleep, "Just doing some thinking."
He continues to watch over Jake even after Philippa's gone, eventually stepping quietly into the room and kissing Jake on the forehead.
More than ever he realises the small sleeping child is the meaning in his life and has saved him from a life of total selfishness. He's the reason Neil wants to be a better person and have a better relationship with Philippa. He looks back at Jake once more before closing the door.
In the master bedroom Neil stands in the doorway watching Philippa take of the rings on her fingers. "I've never been so glad to be home," He confesses and Philippa smiles. When he was done thinking and the house came into view he couldn't help feeling some anticipation, comfort, relief and that wonderful feeling of safety and security that comes from being home.
He'd topped it off by seeing Jake. "You have no idea what it meant to me you know." Neil starts as Philippa squeezes out some hand cream. Feeling comfortable with the situation and the conversation he steps into the room they shared till not so long ago.
The night of the day she found out about Andrea she promptly told him his new sleeping arrangement was in the spare bedroom. He accepted that and from that point their conversations had been cold, functional and only ever out of necessity. Now with the events of the not to distant past she seemed to have thawed. Perhaps she was thinking whilst lying on the bed with Jake like he had been as he walked about, what life would be like if she were left with almost nothing.
"Well at least the McGowans will get tried again." She says having taken away all the hope he'd just gathered or her feeling the way he does and wanting to talk about it.
"Ever the professional," He comments and is the first to look at her, she meets his eyes.
He can't believe she so quickly headed off his appreciation of her and steered them back to professional grounds.
"I know you care about your work and I care about mine but there's got to be more to life than just being good at our jobs." Philippa looks to him with no visible reaction. It's one of the things he's been thinking about and he's partially responsible for, he buried himself in his career as much as Philippa did to the detriment of their relationship, even before Andrea.
What he didn't put effort into in his marriage he went looking for in Andrea.
"This is going to sound passé, but when you're facing the possibility of losing everything you start to think about what really matters and I want more for us, do you?" He'd spent a lot of time thinking about Andrea as he walked, he loved her he knows that for certain but she's gone and he's come to terms with that. She showed him warmth and intimacy, exactly what he went looking for and she changed him and he's realised what he wants with Philippa.
What's ironic is he once said to Andrea that big events in people's lives make them see what's important, it was then he decided he wanted her. Now down the track it's a different event that's made it clear to him he wants that same warmth and affection with Philippa.
There's something still there they can salvage in their marriage, the first step is done, she's forgiven him and he's willing to have another go as things change.
Philippa stops rubbing the cream into her hands and sits on the edge of the bed. "More what?"
"Life," He leaves a silence, Andrea had shown him life, and he prepares himself for what he wants to say next. "I know you don't want to talk about this but I want to tell you about Andrea." He sits himself on the side of the bed.
"It's finished with." Philippa says looking at him briefly, it's not so much letting him off the hook as it is her way of not wanting to talk about it.
"It still happened for a reason." He reminds her and leaves a silence. "I went to her for something that I wanted here." It's the first time since Philippa found out about the affair that he's been able to talk about Andrea – what attracted him to her and kept him with her, why he fell in love with her, why he was going to leave Philippa for her.
He recognises that it means he's moving on from her passing.
"Are you blaming me for your infidelity?" Philippa asks and the question irritates him, just when they're getting somewhere she runs back under the shield of work, of being cold or puts up her defences.
"Why does talking to you always sound like adversarial proceedings?" He accuses gently and turns to Philippa. "I'm not blaming you for anything…I'm just trying to explain how I feel." It irritates him she became defensive just them, that he's trying and she hasn't budged an inch.
"Oh that'll be a first." She comments and laughs once to herself. Neil feels it's unnecessary and leaves a silence before continuing his point.
"What I'm trying to say is, that intimacy, that warmth, we could have it… We're so busy chasing our careers and trying to advance ourselves there could be something left over for each other." Between them they glance at each other twice.
From where he sits now and what he wants Neil wonders why the man he used to be got married and started a family in the first place, he seemed to only have time in his life for one thing…career. Then again as Philippa was the same way they were a good match.
That was fine until Jake came along.
"Something like the warmth and intimacy you had with Andrea?" It's provocative and meant to remind him of the affair, which he wants to apply it to his marriage.
Neil shakes his head. "You're so tough Philippa." She looks at him. "You're successful and you're brilliant and you're well connected but you don't need me." Neil looks away and runs his tongue slightly along his bottom lip thinking. "And that's not how it should be." He looks back to her. "We should need each other."
It's Philippa's turn to be astounded. "You know you really put me through it Neil and this is your conclusion, what, that I should love you more?"
He's reminded by her he really doesn't have the right to ask anything of her after what he's done but he thought she'd welcome the change in him.
"You see right there, you could have said I do need you but you didn't, why?" She's not meeting his eyes.
"Because," And then she stumbles and it occurs to him she may come right out and bitterly say she doesn't need him…or love him. "I don't understand why you think we can suddenly have something that was never there." It's then Neil realises it's going to be her way or the highway.
"How about Jake..?" Neil brings up. "He's a reminder everyday that there's something more than the two of us." As he'd walked Neil had reminded himself that Jake is on the thing they did right in their lives. He saved them from a life of total selfishness and he should be paid more attention to. He's the reason they should be trying harder in their relationship.
"We are what we are and I'm not going to reinvent myself because you want me to be more like another woman, a romanticised dead woman to be precise."
Though she owes him nothing and he's the one that needs to make amends, Philippa's so cold, she knows full well he's not asking her to be Andrea. Philippa's still hurt and angry and has taken the opportunity to throw Andrea and her death back in his face.
She holds all the cards and she knows it, even the simplest and smallest requests she's going to refuse, mostly because she can.
Neil gets up and stands in the doorway again, looking back to Philippa, he feels as though he's been verbally forced to have one foot out the door anyway. She's won this argument, she won't negotiate or reason.
"See I'm saying we need each other and you come back with something so cold." He emphasises the word cold.
"Because it's the truth," Neil shakes his head, it's not, he's changed and so can she. "You know either you accept what we have, what we're good at or…" Neil knows how the sentence is meant to end.
"Or what?" He asks anyway, wondering if she'll say it.
"Or we should call it quits." He stares at her for a few moments and then walks out.
He makes his way slowly to Jake's room knowing Philippa has just made it clear she will make no attempt any time soon to change their relationship, she doesn't need to if she doesn't want to, she holds all the power.
She's only willing to have him back and forgive him on her terms, possible forever.
She has him caught, trapped and Neil realises as he looks in on Jake again, still sleeping soundly and peacefully, she would hold back Jake. The moment divorce proceedings start his affair will be used to stop him seeing Jake, Neil would lose him. Philippa's a barrister she knows the courts and the legal system, there's no way she wouldn't win.
He rubs his face in his hands, he has a choice, he can divorce Philippa and be free to find love again, only to have his infidelity used against him and possibly never see Jake again or he can see Jake everyday, living under the same roof, but living the way he was before Andrea came along…unhappily.
The End.