A/N: To the reviewer who tried to post a video clip – unfortunately this site doesn't allow that, so I'm not sure which clip you posted. Connie actually did 2 African Children's Choir benefits and sang with Chip at both. It's my understanding, from people who were there, that Patty was not at the first one. In any case, I thought it was cute that she would only perform on stage if Chip performed with her.
It was two days after the Nashville for Africa event when he saw Connie again. They had a scene together in Rayna's kitchen. When he walked over to the set, she wasn't there. He wondered if she was still in hair and makeup.
"Chip, Chip, Chippy!" He turned at the sound of Maisy's voice and grinned. She rushed up and hugged him, then looked up at him. "You look all messy," she said, a frown on her face.
He laughed. "Well, I think I'm supposed to look like I just rolled out of bed or something."
She twirled around with a smile. "I get to pretend to be asleep," she said, looking smug.
"You and your sister definitely have the easiest parts of this scene, that's for sure." Lennon came wandering up then and he smiled at her. "Ready, sleeping beauty?" he asked. She smirked and walked straight over to the couch. He frowned. "Y'all see Connie in hair and makeup?"
Lennon shook her head as she plopped down on the couch. Maisy raced over and jumped on the couch next to her. "Nope, she wasn't in there," she said.
"Well, I guess she'll be here soon enough," he said, mostly to himself. He paced a little, wondering where she was. He'd texted her when he got to work, but she hadn't responded, and now she was late to set. Well, she really wasn't late, but he did wonder where she was and why she hadn't answered him.
She showed up just as they were getting ready to block out the scene. She smiled at him, but it was not a joyful smile. It was the kind of smile you'd give a co-worker just to acknowledge him or her. It made him feel a little apprehensive. When she was like this – standoffish and quiet – it usually meant something had happened that had annoyed her and that she was rolling it around in her head. She would tell him eventually, but it would likely be something they'd end up having to work through and it made him feel uncomfortable.
They ran through the scene once. They had one hug and one kiss in the scene and it felt like to him she was just going through the motions. He just didn't know why and he knew better than to pepper her with questions, not that she would answer them on set. It took four takes to get the scene the way the director wanted it. Deacon and Rayna were supposed to be tired, so the low key delivery was appropriate, but it somehow felt off. Connie was a pure professional and he knew it wouldn't show on screen, but he needed to talk to her. They needed to talk.
She was walking off the set and he called after her. She turned and looked at him as he approached. "Is everything okay?" he asked, when he reached her, keeping his voice low.
She looked at him and then shrugged. "I don't know." She started to walk off and he grabbed her arm.
"Connie," he said, and she frowned at him, then gently pulled her arm away. "What's going on?" he asked. "Talk to me."
She hesitated, then sighed. "Okay." She continued to walk off set and he followed behind her until they got to her trailer. She surprised him by sitting on the top step, forcing him to sit on one of the steps below her. He hoped they weren't outside long, as it was a chilly, windy day. She hugged herself and tapped the heels of her boots on the step below her, leaning over slightly. "Jessie showed me the newspaper from over the weekend," she said.
He closed his eyes for a second. Of course. That article on the front page, of all places. "It wasn't a big deal, Connie," he said. "Patty arranged it. You know that. And it was all just about a first date." He knew he was kind of babbling, but he really didn't want her to make more of it than it was. Patty had scheduled it and there was no way around it. It was a Valentine's-themed article, running on Valentine's Day. It could have been worse though, or so he'd thought.
"It just sounded…cozy, or something."
"Cozy? It was just a recap. I couldn't very well be nasty about it."
She nodded, but didn't look at him. "I know. But…." She trailed off.
He held his breath. "But what?"
She looked up at him then, her eyes sad. "'I'm the luckiest girl in the world. I'm married to Deacon.'" He could hear the hurt in her tone. She hugged herself a little tighter, looking down at her feet.
His heart ached. "I'm sorry, baby," he said. "But you know, it's one of those things. We've talked about this."
She looked up, her eyes a little steely. "I know we've talked about it, Chip, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. It doesn't mean it won't hurt to hear it. She believes it's real, even if you say you don't."
He frowned. "I don't believe it, Connie. I'm not just saying it, I mean it." He breathed out. "You know how I feel about you. And I'm sorry, baby. I don't wanna hurt you. You know that."
"But it still hurts, Chip." She bit down on her lip. "I know, you told me this would happen. It just doesn't mean that there isn't a little part of me that just wonders, you know? I mean, couldn't a little bit of it be true? Couldn't telling the story of your first date bring back some of that old feeling? Make you miss it?"
"I'd rather talk about my first date with you." He tried to smile. "How you were planning to cook dinner but your son wouldn't go to sleep and you were a little frazzled and we ended up eating Chinese takeout instead."
She stared at him, then finally gave him a tiny smile. "You think of that as a date?" she asked.
He smiled more broadly then. "I do. It was when I first thought maybe you liked me." He could see her shiver then.
She lifted her legs up one step and put her arms around them. "I did like you then," she said, with the hint of a smile. Then she took a deep breath and the smile faded. "I just need a minute, Chip," she said. "I mean, it hurts." She held her hand up when she saw he wanted to say something. "Sometimes our heart has a hard time listening to our head. And right now I need to work through that on my own. Can you understand that?"
He had this feeling of déjà vu, and not so much between the two of them, but how Chip and Connie's lives were so entangled with the lives of their characters. It was complicated and they were both complex people, just like Deacon and Rayna. It was simple, but it was not. As much as he wanted to put his arm around her and try to talk her through it, he knew he needed to give her the minute – or longer – that she needed to wrap her mind around the complexity of their lives.
He nodded. "Okay." He stood up then and she looked up at him. "I'm here. When you're ready." He put his hands in his pockets and hunched forward. "I love you," he said, his voice low.
He saw a warm light in her eyes then and a very tiny smile on her lips. "I know," she said.
He breathed in deeply and then he turned and walked away.
It was probably a good thing that he didn't have any more scenes to shoot that day. In fact, he had a writing appointment with Steve Mandile, his friend and member of the band that backed him up when he performed. He needed a creative outlet, something to focus on while he waited on her. As he drove, he thought about their conversation. Early in their relationship, talks like these left him feeling panicked. He would worry that she would walk away, that she would tell him she couldn't live her life this way. He still worried about it, truth be told. He supposed it was normal, in relationships like the one they had.
He felt a knot in his chest and pressure behind his nose and eyes, as though he wanted to cry. They never used the words 'affair' or 'mistress' or any of the other words that suggested this was something tawdry. There was an old song, from the 60's or 70's, that he couldn't quite remember the name of or the words to, about finding your true love when you were with someone else. Maybe he'd look for it sometime, but he wasn't sure it would make him feel better. But that was what this was. This was the love he'd always wanted – and thought he'd found back in college with Patty – only the timing was all wrong.
Maybe, he thought to himself, if they weren't people in the public eye, it would have been easier to figure out. But they were. What he didn't want to do was put her in a bad place, have people believe she was someone who would break up a marriage. She wasn't that person and he knew, although not being together was hard, she would never demand it. What he didn't know, for sure, is if she'd be able to wait it out. She'd been antsy, off and on, about the length of the seasons, the lack of time off to pursue other projects, the feeling of being tied to a role because of a contract. And maybe because of him.
He felt like he'd been kicked in the gut, a little bit. Is she staying because of me? Is she putting up with this because of me? She'd been happier, the last few weeks, knowing that, even though the show was still a little over the top on drama-filled stories, Deacon and Rayna would have a storyline again together, and that was something she wanted to play. They have such a rich history, you know? They've known each other practically all their lives and they can be real with each other. They don't have to pretend, because they've seen the worst of each other and they've been able to put the pieces back together. He smiled a little to himself, because they were so much on the same page with that. And it felt, sometimes, like he and Connie were the same. They hadn't known each other forever, of course, but there was something between them, from the beginning, that made the complications worth dealing with.
When he got to Steve's, they spent some time working on a song they'd started the last time they'd gotten together, but he wasn't really feeling it and ended up working through some lyrics on his own. He used Steve as a sounding board as he jotted down words, reorganized them, started over, and finally started making some progress on the first verse.
"You thinking this is a ballad?" Steve asked.
He screwed up his face and thought about it. "It sounds like it, doesn't it?" Steve nodded. "I think I want it to be more raw than that, you know? Something I can pound on onstage. More energy."
"You can do that with the melody. Why don't you try something like that, see how it feels?"
He grabbed his guitar and started trying out different chord sequences, not sure if he wanted it to be more straight up country or a little more rock and roll. He finally got the energy he was looking for in the music and then tried the lyrics with it.
She's a wave in the moonlight
She's a red stick of dynamite
A warm fire on a cold night
She's around, and I'm alright
Where she is is where I wanna be
I ain't nothing without my baby
She's everything to me
He looked at Steve. "How did that sound?"
Steve smiled. "I like it. You wanna keep working on it?"
He nodded. "I do. But I think this is one I want to write myself." It was a song for Connie, that he knew for sure. She's everything to me.
Steve nodded. "That's cool. I'm glad to hear it out with you. Then maybe we can get back to the other."
He grinned. "Sounds like a plan."
When he finally drove home, he had his song for Connie finished, plus the other one completed with Steve. Most of the melancholy that had settled on him as he'd driven away from the set had lifted. He'd finished two songs and was proud of them both, feeling reenergized and renewed. He and Connie had a scene to shoot in two days and it was one that would come towards the end of the episode, a quiet scene between Deacon and Rayna, where they came back together after a day filled with drama and frustration, much of it having to be handled without the other. But the scene had that sense of coming together and taking strength from each other, knowing that they were finally on the same path together. He was looking forward to doing it and he thought she was too.
He was sitting in Deacon's living room waiting for the next scene to set up. He looked up at the sound of footsteps to see Connie walk in. She sat on the coffee table and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped in front of her. "I feel like we should talk," she said.
He felt a quiver of anxiety. "That sounds like it's gonna be something I won't like."
She frowned. "Does it? I don't mean it that way."
He breathed in and rubbed his face, sitting forward. "You seemed unhappy the other day and it felt a little like you didn't really believe me. Actually, it felt a lot like you didn't."
She looked surprised. "I do believe you, Chip. I don't know why you don't know that. If I didn't believe you, I'd end this."
He sighed. "What do you want me to do?"
She sat back. "I want you to be with me." She looked down. "And that feels selfish. And like I'm putting pressure on you, which I am absolutely not." She looked back at him. "I never thought I'd live my life like this. Waiting. And I don't say that to hurt you or make you feel guilty." She raised up her shoulders, then lowered them with a sigh. "I was thinking the other night that I'm kind of like Deacon. I'm watching you live another life. And I know it's not exactly the same, but, as hard as it was, he waited. And as hard as it is, I will too."
He breathed in. "I'm the one who should feel selfish. I'm asking you to put your life on hold and I probably have no right to do that to you."
She raised her eyebrows and smiled a little. "I'm a big girl. I've got my eyes wide open." She smiled a little more. "If I didn't think this was the real deal, it would be easier." She leaned forward. "I mean, when I'm not with you or around you or I go too many days without seeing you, I feel empty. You're my best friend, Chip." She reached out and took his hand. "I wouldn't trade this for anything. Even if I don't have enough time with you, even if I take moments when I get them, even if the only time I have with you is here on the set – I wouldn't trade it."
He squeezed her hand and smiled. "I wouldn't either."
She slid her hand from his, knowing someone could walk up on them. "Why don't we go and do that lovely scene between Deacon and Rayna and just relax in it, because you're here and I'm here, and that's what matters."
He was sitting back on the couch on the set of Rayna's house, pretending he was asleep. He heard footsteps and opened his eyes, seeing her walk around, pulling her scarf from around her neck. She sat next to him and then curled into him, putting her head on his shoulder and her hands on his leg. He let his fingers tangle in her hair as they went through the scene. As he gazed into her eyes, it felt like the words they were saying meant more. And when she said 'thank you for today', he knew, by her expression, that it was more than Rayna thanking Deacon for handling the home front while she managed everything else. It was also Connie thanking Chip.
They were good. They could do this. They would do this.
He found her sitting in Rayna's den and walked over. "Hey," he said. She looked up and smiled. "Mind if I join you?"
She gestured towards the place beside her. "Please do." She put her script down on the arm rest. "I was just looking through my notes on my next scene." He frowned, not sure which one she had coming up. "With Lennon." She rolled her eyes and smirked. "Being a mom." Then she laughed. "What's it like having teenage girls, especially when they start dating boys?"
He widened his eyes. "I have absolutely no idea," he said, with a teasing smile. "I didn't let my girls date boys. Still don't, actually."
She laughed again. "I don't believe that, which tells me you probably are worse at it than Rayna."
He laughed as well. "I think you're probably right about that." He pulled out his phone and ear buds. "So I got something I wanted you to listen to."
She looked intrigued. "Really? Something you wrote?" He nodded and she smiled. "For Rayna?"
He shrugged. "Could be. But I really wrote it for Connie."
She bit her lip gently. "Then I really do want to listen." He inserted the ear buds and handed one to her, putting the other in his ear. He watched her put the one he'd given her in her own ear, then opened up his phone and found the recording he'd made at Steve's. He hit play and watched her face as she listened.
She's a wave in the moonlight
She's a red stick of dynamite
A warm fire on a cold night
She's around, and I'm alright
Where she is is where I wanna be
I ain't nothing without my baby
She's everything to me
She's a day in the sunshine
A deep vein in a gold mine
Ooh, she's so fine, so fine
That's fine, she's all mine
Where she is is where I wanna be
I ain't nothing without my baby
She's everything to me
Where she is is where I wanna be
I ain't nothing without my baby
No, I'm nothing without my baby
There's just something about my baby
That girl's everything
Yeah, she's every little thing to me
I'm talking 'bout my baby, said that's where I wanna be
Talking 'bout my girl, I ain't nothing without her
Yeah, yeah
When the song was over, she took out the ear bud and handed it back. "That's kind of different for you, isn't it?" she asked. "The melody, I mean."
He nodded. "Kind of. I just wanted a different kind of energy and a different sound."
She smiled and breathed in. "I can't even tell you how special it is to have you write songs for me. I keep imagining that it's the way Rayna feels when Deacon wrote for her, about her. I feel like I don't deserve all that, but I'm so ridiculously happy that you do." She rubbed her hands on her thighs. "When did you write it?"
"After you told me you needed a minute," he said quietly.
She drew her leg up and shifted slightly so that she was facing towards him. "I don't want you to doubt how I feel about you," she said. "It wouldn't keep me awake at night or pull at my heart the way it does if I didn't love you." She kept her voice low. "You're everything to me, too," she said with a tiny smile. "Thank you for sharing it. Will you send it to me?"
He nodded. "I want to put them all together for you, burn 'em on a CD. The ones I wrote for you."
"I would love that." She looked around the set, then back at him. "How long are you here today?"
"I got a couple scenes with Hayden. Actually one in a few minutes, because the baby will be here."
She smiled. "Oh, you get to work with a baby?" He grinned and nodded. She laughed. "Better you than me then." She put her hand on his arm. "Can you stop by later? My trailer?"
He nodded. "Sure."
"Just wait for me if I'm not there."
He smiled. "Okay, I will." He stood up. "I gotta get going. See you later then." He walked off, looking forward to some time with her.
They were sitting on the bench in her trailer. She was curled into his side. "So, I'm worried," she said.
He frowned. "Worried about what?"
She looked up at him. "I'm worried that Rayna's not worried enough about Deacon's cancer. It feels like it's written like she just thinks everything's going to be fine and dandy, even though all they're doing is waiting for something to happen." She rubbed his leg with her hand. "I know you've been through that, as the person watching someone else go through that. Is her reaction normal?"
He thought about that. Addie's cancer had been different. There had been a plan and treatments, a feeling that they were proactively doing something, and not just waiting. But Addie's situation hadn't been dire – not really – even though it was certainly scary. He breathed in. "I think it is. I think it's very Rayna for her to sort of put it into a box, put her will on it, I guess. Like if she puts it out in the universe, that a liver will appear."
She wrinkled her nose. "I'm pretty sure Rayna doesn't subscribe to the 'put it out in the universe' thing." He smiled. "I guess I keep going back to how she was all 'let's do this, let's call Vanderbilt, let's try that', when she first found out."
"Well, that's because Deacon was shutting her out and she was trying to be the take charge person she always was with the two of them. I think it's part of their DNA. Now that he's kind of let all that go and let her in, she doesn't have to be so forceful about it. But I'll bet it comes back around."
She reached for his hand, linking her fingers with his. "How did you feel, with your daughter?"
He took a deep breath. "It was scary. First, because it was cancer. Then, it was our daughter. And because she was so young, it felt like it could go all sideways or it could be fine, because she was so young and didn't have enough life experience to be scared."
She looked up at him again. "What did you do?"
He looked down at their hands together. "We tried to keep things as normal as possible. Tried not to go to the worst case scenario. Tried not to let our lives get consumed with it." He rubbed her fingers with his thumb. "We weren't so successful with that last part." She was quiet. He wasn't sure exactly how much to share with her. How much he wanted to share with her. "It can be tough. It's easy to fall into a trap where you focus so much on pulling that person through it, that you lose everything else. I guess in some situations it pulls people closer together, fighting it together, leaning on each other. It didn't happen that way for me."
"I worry that Rayna will smother Deacon. But I hope she gives him the chance to deal with it himself. I did kind of like how they wrote the whole part where he walks out and she didn't go crazy on him, like she would have otherwise."
He looked back at her and smiled a little. "That's true. She was respectful and I think that helps him get okay with the idea that he can talk about it. It's easy not to be respectful."
She nodded. "Is that what happened? You know." She shrugged.
He rubbed his leg with his free hand. "Yeah. Part of it was that. And on both sides, to be fair. But it also just widened that crack that had already started. It's too easy, once you're parents, to let that define you, to change the dynamic."
She squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to make you go through this stuff…with me."
He looked at her and shook his head. "Nah. I think it's good for you to know that it started a long time ago. I know I told you it didn't start with you. And it didn't. This has gone on a long time."
She raised her head up and he leaned in and kissed her. She reached up her hand to his cheek. "I know. But thank you for telling me." He kissed her again. "I love you, Chip."
"I love you too." She turned and sat on his lap, taking his face in her hands and kissing him, letting her lips linger on his, as he slid his arms around her waist. It felt good to be with her. It felt healing to be with her. He really didn't want to let her go and he tightened his arms around her.