"We can't avoid the subject forever." Darren dipped his toast into the runny egg on his plate.
Issey pointed her cantaloupe covered fork at him, "I'm not avoiding it, I'm just saying we have other things to get through before we worry about it."
"Such as?" he raised his fuzzy eyebrows with the question.
"Such as tonight being the last show I'll get to do with you guys before you leave, the fact that you're going to do those London shows after the tour ends AND my getting through the time after my surgery."
"We'll have a great show tonight, I have no choice about the leaving or you know I'd stay. I've already told you I'm cancelling the London shows because there is no possible way I'm staying away that long while you're in recovery and I thought you said you were okay with your Mom coming to help until I get home."
"I just meant that rather than dwell on decisions we don't have to make yet I'd rather enjoy being with you for the two days before you have to go, and you are sure as hell NOT cancelling those London shows, your fans there have been going crazy online about them forever and you can't disappoint them just to come home and watch me puke."
"I'll reschedule, we'll go after the baby is born."
"No, you'll do them now. I'll be in good hands with my parents and Soph said she'd come help out too if Mom makes me too crazy."
"I wish I could stay home and take care of you." He dropped a kiss on her head while he cleared the table from his breakfast.
"Me too but that's not reality, plus when you think about it, it's such a short time compared with the rest of our lives together."
He looked over his shoulder at her from the sink and smiled, "I like it when you talk about the rest of our lives, a few weeks ago you were talking like the rest of your life wouldn't be that long."
"Happiness increases your life expectancy." She held her dish out to him, too lazy to bring it over.
"Then I am going to live forever." He kissed her and took the dish to the sink. "But I still want to talk about the living arrangements in the fall."
"I'm buying a house, it's that simple. I don't want to live in apartment when I'm sick and I have a baby, I've never needed the space before but the baby means having a real home, not a home base."
"I fit into that plan where? Why isn't it we'll buy a house? It makes me nervous that you don't want me as a part of this."
"Darren sit down." When he did she took his hands in hers. "If you want to live with me I would love that. If you want to stay in your apartment with your friends to have your own space I'm okay with that, but the plain facts are that I have the money to buy the house I want and you don't. If you want this to be OUR home then fine, we'll look together, we'll make the decisions together but I draw the line at you contributing financially to it. Your career is just taking off, and I know you're going to have a very long, very lucrative career, but for now you need to be fiscally responsible."
"I know I don't have the money you do, but I'm not exactly broke."
"I'm not saying you're broke. I'm saying I'm older than you, I've been at this longer than you and I've been spending next to nothing for years. I'm also saying that I'm thinking about our future, I'm not going to work as much as I did. Sure I'll do Glee for now but that won't last forever and we'll have our baby, I won't want to live on the road all the time with her. I'm starting a new part of my life, I don't want to work as hard as I used to anymore, I think I pushed my body so hard it rebelled and I 'm ready to give it, and my psyche a break."
"So what you're saying is we're going to use your money now because you're going to want us to have my money later, so you can stay home and be a mom and a wife and let me take care of you?"
She laughed, "Did you just use the word wife?"
He looked at her sideways "What's funny? Would you say no?"
"We're getting ahead of ourselves here, weren't we just talking about whether or not we'd live together?"
"Some people actually get married, then move in together and THEN have a baby. I mean, it's not unheard of."
"Is that what you want?"
"Not necessarily, but the way you reacted was like us getting married was off the table."
"It's not, I just don't want it to be something we do because you feel like we have to. And for the record I would not say no, but the point is, yes, if that doesn't scare you too badly, I'm not saying I'm going to stop working entirely, but I would like to be home, take care of you and our kids and live off of your big time celebrity paycheck."
"And if I'm not a big time celebrity?"
"Then we get a little place in a college town and become professors."
"I'd actually really love that."
"Me too, I don't care what we do, or how much money we make, everything about my vision of the future has changed in the past week, all I care about now is our family being together and happy."
He kissed her softly and whispered, "Kids?"
"You want to stop at one?"
"I want a million little carbon copies of you. Let's get the house together, you can pay the majority if you want but let me contribute so I don't feel like a transitory guest in our home, let's make it ours and start our lives together as a family."
"Fine, settled, now are we going to work or what?"
"You haven't done your yoga yet."
She stood and stretched "You just want to watch my ass."
He came up behind her and squeezed her butt laughing, "Guilty."
She started the yoga and gave him a little kick when he settled onto the sofa to watch, "Participate or get out."
"I want to watch you. I'm not going to see you for weeks, I need to memorize you."
"You've spent plenty of time on the study Pal, besides, by the time you come back the whole thing will be completely the different." Her stomach dropped a little as she said it. She hadn't given much thought to losing her breasts, it was a non issue, she was in survival mode, for herself and her baby, but Darren watching her the way he was brought it home.
She gave up on the yoga and sat beside him, squinting slightly as she spoke, "It's going to be very different. We haven't talked about that."
"We've known that since we found out the diagnosis, this is the first time you've mentioned it. Your body is going through so much; I don't think you can be ready for it all. I hate that I won't be here for you while this happens."
"I'm kind of glad; I'd rather you not have to deal with emptying drains and changing bandages."
He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm tougher than I look."
"It's not that, I just, it's not very sexy."
He blew out a breath and sat back. "I…wow, okay, give me a minute cause I just almost said something guaranteed to piss you off."
"Like?"
"No, not walking into that trap. Look, I love you, I love making love to you and yes, you're incredibly sexy to me but Christ Is, I hope you get that I'm in love with you, your brain, your heart, your humor, no scar, no drains, no amount of physical change could alter the way I think of you, the way I feel when I look at you, except to make me love you more when I see your strength through it all."
"Intellectually I believe that, but can you understand how difficult it will be to feel sexy to someone who has to do the dirty work of caring for me that way?"
"Of course I can, I just want to reassure you that, wait, if the tables were turned, if I had testicular cancer and you had to do all those same things for me, would it make me less desirable to you?"
"Of course not!"
"Well then…I can understand if you're not feeling sexy, and I'll need help with drawing the line between when you need me to reassure you that I still want you and trying to help you realize how sexy you are and times when you not feeling sexy really means that you love me but want me to back the fuck off. Just be direct with me and I'll do my best to help in whatever way I can, but can I tell you when I knew you really loved me, needed me, wanted me in your life?"
She just nodded, she had started to tear up again.
"The night on the bus, when you called me upstairs. The fact that you let me see you like that, let me take care of you, and wash you and then clean up after you, it may seem insane, but that was when I knew for sure that you were coming back to me and when you did it was forever. Don't shut me out of the ugly stuff, I'm honored to be the guy you trust with it."
They stay snuggled together on the couch for a bit and then she offered, "Do you know when I knew you were mine forever?"
"Tell me."
"It happened when we weren't together, you were sitting in one of the backstage rooms, just playing your guitar, messing around, I was around the corner and you thought you were alone and I heard you singing. You still haven't played it for me but I know the song you were singing was for me, the lyrics were so gorgeous I think my heart literally cracked just listening to you."
He hung his head, "You weren't supposed to hear that."
"But it was beautiful."
"And angry and filled with pain."
"Pain you don't feel for someone you don't love to the very depths of your soul. I'm sorry I made you feel that way, but I knew when I heard those words that it was just a matter of time before we were together and that when we were I would never let you feel that way again."
That evening they set out for the last show of the US portion of the tour. Issey tried to give everyone a little time to just make last minute reminders and touch ups, but other than that she had told everyone she didn't want a big deal made. It would be one thing if she were ending her time with the tour to move on to something else work wise but she didn't want any tearful good byes with mentions of her illness to dim the celebration of this final night. They would go on to do a kick ass UK tour and she wanted lots of presents brought back to her, but most of all she wanted them all back, safe, sound and ready for work when Glee restarted shooting.
That said, she couldn't help the prickle of tears behind her eyes as the show began.
(for additional, more mature portion of this chapter please see isseys road tumblr dot com slash post 44818782228 slash 29a)
