A/N: Hello! Your lovely reviews have made me write another chapter from Julia's POV, and since we've already started I thought I might as well get this done in Leo's and Michael's voices as well. I'll post them when I finish writing them! Thanks so much again. I love to read your reviews, and you guys have just been so kind :)

She was still reeling from what had happened in the morning. Julia stood at the balcony, looking into the dark sky. It was just dark. A piece of blank nothingness. No moon. Not a single star. Frank's words echoed in her head, swimming around and blending into each other. It had become a mess of a melody, haunting her thoughts.

You liar.

It was Michael, wasn't it?

Total betrayal!

That's disgusting.

Disgusting. That was her. That was what her actions were. She had to have expected some sort of confrontation to happen eventually. Frank knew her too well. It was by some sort of odd chance that he didn't notice her affair with Michael all those years ago. The fact that he was still teaching then probably had something to do with it.

But the moment she saw him playing that song on their piano, she knew. That he knew. He was the one person who could always read her emotions through the things she wrote. She couldn't remember what had possessed her to leave that on her bedside.

But she didn't know that this was coming. That he would just walk out.

It was a storm of guilt and hurt, and pain and anger. A tornado hurtling through her being. Leaving in its wake a mess that would take forever to clean up.

Her life was now a mess that would take forever to clean up. Frank deserved to know the whole story, she decided. She would tell him. And she would ask him to forgive her. Give her another chance. It had, after all, already stopped. She had stopped it. She knew she was the one who had screwed this up. Succumbed to Michael's beautiful charming voice, and his lovely eyes, and…

"Dad's here."

Julia's eyes widened at the sound of Leo's voice, her thoughts abruptly stopping dead in their tracks. Frank was back? "He's here?"

"I talked to him, Mom. He told me that you told him."

"What did he say?"

"What do you think he said? Why did you tell him? We were fine! I knew, you said it was done, and we were fine." Leo was beyond hurt; he was distraught. Julia could see that, and it pained her to know that she was the cause of this. "It is done, it's over," she asserted, "it'll never happen again."

"Too late, Mom. He's leaving."

"What?" she asked, Leo's words not completely sinking in yet.

"He's packing up, and leaving." Oh shit, this was worse than she had thought. Frank must be really angry. Frightened, and at the same time armed with sudden bravado, she rushed into their living room.

"Frank, no. No, come on, come on, don't. We're still a family." He wasn't even listening to her.

"Okay, I made a terrible, terrible mistake, but that doesn't mean that…" She had to get him to stop walking and listen to her. Running in front of her husband, she raised her voice, "Frank! Hold on a second! For heaven's sake! Just stop it! We have to talk about this!"

He put his bags down, anger and utter disappointment evident in his voice and his eyes, "Okay, let's talk. Tell me the whole story. Tell me about when it started. Tell me how long it went on."

Her bravado suddenly disappeared, along with the resolve that was just there seconds ago. "I…"

"Tell me about before!"

"Before?" Julia repeated, confused. What?

"Yeah, before! About how it happened. Before." He… But I haven't even… She was distracted for a second, spotting Leo behind Frank. Oh, God. She wanted to tell Frank, but Leo… Leo couldn't know. Leo would just go into a complete meltdown if he knew.

"Leo, your father and I need some priva–"

"No! You don't get to decide how this goes! Whatever you thought, before, was wrong. You thought that this would be okay. You thought that cheating is nothing. You thought 'he'll never find out', you thought 'he'll forgive me'. You thought 'it doesn't mean anything'!"

"Please don't tell me what I think. And please, please, please don't go. We need, we need…" Julia gestured to her son, words failing her, the truth of what Frank had said breaking her.

"Don't go, dad. Please."

She saw Frank turn, facing Leo instead of her. Their life was falling apart. Mistakes from before, with consequences that were only surfacing now. She loved Frank. She still loved him. And their family. She repeated Leo's words silently, Don't go, Frank. Please.

But he still left, in cold silence, swiftly and angrily, their son's simple plea lost in the sound of the door swinging shut. Julia stared at the door, still in shock and denial.


It had been an easy friendship, with a little bit of flirtation, no less. Harmless, she had thought.

She was wrong. She had become increasingly attracted to Michael. The way he sang, the way he spoke, the way he looked at her… It didn't help that he provided an escape from the hell that was Leo's teenage angst and the quarrels they would have at home.

"Come down for dinner, Leo!"

"Just a while more…"

"How long more am I supposed to wait? You've been saying that forever!"

"Just a while more! Can't you just wait for me to finish this up?"

"Let him be, Julia. It's the rebellious phase."

"But he has to have dinner! And he hasn't even bathed!"

"Oh shut up, Mom!"

Day after day, it was the same conversation. Not always about the same things, but it always ended the same way. So she had thrown herself into their musical then, Ready Money. And Michael was so wonderful in the show.

The attraction grew, and like all forbidden fruit, when the kiss finally happened, it felt good. More than good. It felt right. It fit. Like Michael was supposed to be the one. And somewhere deep inside her, she knew that she did love Michael. Sometimes perhaps more than she loved Frank.

Is it possible to love two people at the same time?

Is it possible to think you love someone so much that you can never fit anyone else in your heart anymore, only to have another man come along and prove you wrong?

Does love have an expiry date?

Julia sighed, a long draught of breath released from its prison. "Leo, I'm going out for a walk," she called.

Silence.

She took that as permission.


It was raining outside. Like the sky was crying for her. For the convoluted mess that she had landed herself in. She would have laughed, if she wasn't feeling like the worst person on earth.

She had called Michael. "I need to talk to you," she had said. They had to resolve this once and for all. If she was going to get her family back, she had to make sure that they both understood that what had transpired could never happen again.

No matter how right it had felt it had been wrong. It was so much worse the second time round. Back then, she was the only one cheating. Now, they were both cheating.

They already had their families, and their responsibilities to return to. This couldn't go on anymore. This would be the last time she would meet…

"Michael!"

"Wh–" he turned away from the door of Westway Diner, looking confused, and walked towards her.

"Thanks for meeting me," she said quietly, not really knowing how to do this.

"Here?"

There were bruises at the side of his mouth, obviously new. Concern pushing away the reason why she was here, she asked, "What happened to your face?"

"You didn't hear?"

She shook her head. Why would I have heard?

"Frank threw a punch at me," he replied, matter-of-factly.

Ah. "Well he didn't just throw it."

"No."

Julia cleared her throat, gathering her thoughts before saying, "Is your family okay?" When he didn't respond, she started to clarify, "Your wife, is she…"

"No, she, she doesn't know," he replied hurriedly.

"That's good."

"I'm sorry." Oh, he would say that. She knew he would say that. But she wasn't going to dump all the blame on him. It always took two hands to clap.

"Don't apologise to me. It was me. I…"

"No, I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have–"

"I'm serious. Don't apologise," she repeated. Michael just looked at her, hands shoved in his pockets. "What we did, we did together. And it exploded my whole life. Like a bombshell. But I'm not letting anyone say that it's not my fault."

He was shaking his head, and looking away. A world of words and emotions communicated between them, with just the slightest of movements. It was only when he finally nodded, that she turned, to walk away from the love of her life. Forever.


"I like it."

She didn't respond.

"Did you hear me?"

More silence.

"I really like it!"

Tom sighed, when she continued her vigil at the window. "It's a good title. Bombshell."

"Bombshell," she echoed softly, staring out through the open blinds.

"I like it." She heard Tom's voice in the background, consumed by her thoughts. She hadn't yet told him about what had happened, an odd conviction that if she didn't talk about it, it wouldn't really be real. She was holding on to her last piece of hope, that Frank would come back once they had all calmed down. One step at a time. I'll get through this. We'll get through this.

I need to talk to Frank.

I need my family back.