First, the disclaimer stuff. Obviously these characters do not belong to me. This is for entertainment purposes only.
This story take place in the present or close to it. In my virtual world, Blue Moon never closed and Maddie and David eventually came to their senses and got married.
The Stevie Nicks quotes are from her CD, Trouble in Shangri La, which I listened to a lot while I was writing this.
This is my first stab at this fan fiction thing. I hope you enjoy it.
I also realize it's hard to picture Maddie in a minivan, but she has kids now and can you really picture her in a Suburban?
Play Moonlighting For Me
Part I
Well once more I tell the shadows of my soul to stay back
Everything has changed now
And I don't want to go back
--Stevie Nicks
The scene is an upscale suburban neighborhood in Los Angeles on a sunny summer morning. The camera pans down a wide street showing expansive green lawns, manicured landscaping and plenty of SUV's parked in driveways. We zero in on one house in particular. It is a two story Tudor, with ivy climbing up the chimney and landscaping right off the cover of House Beautiful. It is tastefully appointed and immaculate inside and out, the only hint of habitation a child's bike laying on the lawn and a Town and Country minivan sitting in the circular drive.
Inside the front door we hear voices and the sound of a Nintendo game being played very loudly, one of the voices getting shriller by the moment.
"Grace Virginia Addison! Turn that thing off before I throw it out!"
Madelyn Hayes Addison appears, coming into the living room from the kitchen, not quite the glamour queen any longer, but still gorgeous, of course. She is in modest white walking shorts and a sky blue sleeveless cotton blouse tied in front. Her silky blond hair is styled in a short blunt cut now because she doesn't have much time for primping in the morning. She can curl it if she wants or just wash it and go like she's done today. She has put on a few extra pounds, of which she is very self-conscious, but she hides it well. She is pushing 50, but still vibrant, healthy and beautiful.
"Do you want to go on a picnic with your little brother and me or do you want to sit around all day playing these silly video games... no wait, don't answer that. I am not giving you a choice, young lady. Turn that off and get your shoes and let's go. Agnes and the kids will be here any minute," Maddie demands.
"Jeez, Mom, chill! Let me just finish this level and I'll be ready. Agnes isn't even here yet," Grace responds.
The child hasn't taken her eyes from the game and is contorting her facial expressions and moving her entire body with the controller. Maddie looks at the screen and sees she's playing some skateboarding game. Well, at least she's not killing anything.
Maddie returns to the kitchen mumbling under her breath, "Remind you of anyone else you know and love, Maddie?"
Even though she is frustrated with her ten year old daughter right now, she can't help but smile as she thinks how much this child resembles David in so many ways. She has her mother's icy blue eyes and patrician features but has David's dark hair, definitely his sense of humor and personality, and that smirk of a smile.
We see Maddie remembering back to Grace's birth...
As soon as Maddie and David were able to hold her, that grin came over her face. Maddie had laughed and loved her child with all her heart from that moment, no matter what all the prenatal books said about bonding taking "a few weeks". David had said that maybe the grin meant gas, babies weren't supposed to actually be able to smile at birth. But as Maddie had looked up at her husband and seen that same grin on his face, she knew it wasn't gas. And she also knew her life was never going to be uncomplicated again. Not with two Addisons in her life.
She stops her reverie and starts packing a large picnic basket with sandwiches, juice, carrot sticks and fruit.
Just then, Grace walks into the kitchen, whistling. She stops when she sees what her mother is putting in the picnic basket.
Pleadingly, she says, "Mom, is that all healthy junk? Can't you just forget for once that you're a mom and put some Oreos in there? Please? Children have needs!"
Maddie gives her a stern look, then relents.
"OK, honey, if you go get your brother up from his nap and get him dressed for the picnic, we'll stop for ice cream on the way home. Fair enough?"
"Now you're talking, Blon.....Mom. OK, I'll go wake up the munchkin," Grace says as she exits the kitchen running, whistling again.
"And thanks for not calling me Blondie," Maddie yells after her. Grace is definitely David Addison's daughter, no doubt about it.
This leads to another walk down Maddie's memory lane. When Grace started kindergarten, Maddie and David had attended "Meet the Teacher" night at her school. Grace had walked into the classroom like she owned the place, her parents in tow. The teacher had been a little flustered as she had been a fan of Maddie's in her modeling days and she also thought David was hot. As Maddie looked at her ogling David, she felt proud to be his wife, but somewhat miffed that this woman was fawning all over her husband. Then Grace had introduced her mother to the teacher as "Blondie". After David's laughter died down, he explained to his little girl that mommy's name wasn't Blondie, it was Madelyn. Grace had looked at him in total irritation and said she knew mommy's name but she just wanted to "lighten things up a little".
The doorbell rings. Maddie brushes her hands off and leaves her spotless professional kitchen (which she takes much pride in the fact she can actually use now) to answer the door. This house is decorated in a much more casual style than her showplace from her modeling days. It is warm and leans toward being French country. There is sophistication in her color choices of blue toile and yellow and cream accents. But the house looks comfortable, lived in, nothing cool and contemporary in sight.
She hears Agnes talking to her two boys on the other side of the front door, 11 year old Bert Jr. (how original) and 5 year old Mikey, who Maddie has always thought looks an awful lot like Magillicuddy.
"Will you two stop fighting! I'm going to go back to work and put you both in daycare for the rest of your lives!"
Maddie opens the door to Agnes holding both boys by their collars, attempting to divide them. She's very frazzled even for Agnes.
"Hi, we're here!"
Maddie looks disapprovingly at the boys. "Would you two please be nice to your mother and not fight this afternoon. She deserves a break."
Both boys eye each other and sneer.
Maddie shakes her head, feeling a very weird case of deja vu.
Maddie ushers them all into the foyer. "Come on in. We're almost ready."
Just then Grace comes bounding down the stairs, saying hi to her friends and doing her best Yogi Bear impersonation for her little brother.
"Hey Boo Boo, would you like to go on a pic-a-nic?" 3 year old A.J. (Alexander James) follows her, carefully holding the handrail and watching his step. His blond curls bounce with every step he takes. He's concentrating too hard on getting to the bottom of the stairs to be amused by his sister. He gets to the bottom, and goes to Maddie's side, grabs her leg and sticks his thumb into his mouth. Maddie picks him up and kisses his cheek.
"Hey, big guy. How was your nap? Are you ready to go on a fun picnic?"
He nods sleepily and puts his head on his mother's shoulder.
"Well, I can see he's pretty excited. Let's get this show on the road! Oh, don't forget sunscreen."
Everyone piles into Maddie's Town and Country, as Maddie and Agnes pack food, blankets, beach umbrellas, baseball stuff, Frisbees, a soccer ball and roller blades into the back.
They arrive at a neighborhood park, the kids scrambling out of the side of the van, with Maddie and Agnes right behind them pouring sunscreen in to their hands and pleading frantically for their children to come back and put some on. The children are, of course, ignoring them completely. They lay a blanket under a large tree and sit down, giving up on the kids for a minute.
"Oh well, at least the playground is shaded.
I wish we'd known about sun danger when we were kids. It's amazing we don't all have skin cancer. I remember actually putting Crisco on my skin to get a darker tan," Maddie exclaims.
Agnes is shaking her head. "Not me. I stayed indoors where it was dark and cool."
Maddie gives her a look like what a totally Agnes thing to say.
"Well that's why your skin is so lovely now, Agnes. You never fried it!"
"Well, you're one to talk Maddie. You still look like a cover girl".
"Thanks Agnes. We're both holding up pretty well. Must be all that clean living over the years."
"Yeah, right. And our simple, undemanding spouses!" Agnes laughs.
They giggle, as they sit crossed legged on one of the blankets, watching their children play on the playground. Sometimes Maddie can't believe she and Agnes are such close friends now. They're so different. But they also have a great deal in common. A LOT of shared history; no one has more insight into Maddie and David's relationship than Agnes. They also have children of similar ages; going through pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and potty training together has really bonded them.
Maddie stretches out and lies down in the shade. Agnes looks down at her and asks,
"What's with you today? You are so quiet."
"You know, Agnes, I've been taking an inventory of my life. And I still can't believe it. You know, the way we live our lives now. So sedate, so conventional. I never thought David and I were capable of this. When I think about how crazy we used to make each other..."
She frowns, shaking her head. She's remembering back to another time, which seems like another lifetime ago. Standing in a laundromat in the middle of the night telling David, If this is love, I'll live without it. She shivers, thinking how awful life would be if they hadn't given each other a second chance, without these two children that mean more to her than anything else ever could.
She knows she could have married worse. She definitely could have married better. But she doesn't think there's another man on the face of the planet who could live with her and who she could live with on a day-to-day basis. Their relationship is still complicated, but lately there has been a truce of sorts and things are on a much more even keel. OK, so every night isn't spent making love, every day's not exciting, so life is routine now. The kids need stability. I need stability, she thinks to herself.
"Yeah, those were crazy times, way back when. But once you have kids everything changes," Agnes agrees.
Maddie doesn't respond. She just sits beside Agnes, watching the kids, enjoying the brief quiet.
Agnes kept working at Blue Moon for a few years after Bert Jr. was born. Maddie herself had quit coming in to work soon after she became pregnant with Grace. Since her first pregnancy had ended so tragically, she and David didn't want to take a chance this time, and after Grace came along she found she had no interest in going back to work. Besides, she has very strong feelings about children being raised in day care. She knows there's no substitute for having strong, loving parents at home with a child. She had great role models for parents, and her children deserve the same.
After Maddie left the agency, David had been very disappointed with her decision, but he eventually adjusted. He started depending on Bert so much that he ultimately made him a partner and gave him his own office. He even let Bert start calling him "Dave". Now Bert called him "Dave" every chance he got. That had been more than Magillicuddy could handle and he quit shortly after that.
Agnes had quit working when she became pregnant with Mikey, even though she told Maddie that Bert had a low sperm count and chances were they wouldn't have more children. Maddie looks at fair haired, fair skinned Mikey playing on the swings, sticking his tongue out at his brother. The thought that he sure doesn't look like either one of his parents has been nagging her for years. She looks at Agnes innocently sitting beside her...
Naaaah, she thinks.
"So, what do you think our boys have been up to at work lately? I've hardly seen David for the last month."
Agnes looks confused. Not an uncommon sight. "I don't know. Actually, Bert has been home every night in time for dinner. Maybe they're working separate cases."
Maddie nods. "I suppose." Come to think of it, he's been somewhat stressed and distracted when he is around the house. I think I'll plan a special evening for us tonight. She mulls over asking him about what he's working on that would take up so much time away from his family.
Pretty soon, the children are hungry and crawling over each other trying to be first in the basket. They have lunch, more play time, then pack everything back in the minivan and head for ice cream.
Later we see them driving home. Maddie observes that all her passengers are nodding off, even Agnes. She hits a button on the steering wheel which turns on the cd player, turns the volume down low and hits the selection button until she finds her current favorite Stevie Nicks song. A small smile comes to her as she listens and hums along:
Don't keep me hanging on a string
Tell me what I feel is no big thing
Don't turn away I'm listening
Over and over again
Don't give me visions to explain
There are no doubts I feel the strain
Of all my senses yearning
Over and over again
Every day I see you
Every day I need you
Every way I breathe you
On and on and on and on again
It's not important to wonder why
What is just is no more to imply
This simple thought repeating
Over and over again
Every day I see you
Every day I need you
Every way I breathe you
On and on and on and on again
Imagine all the ways to cope
I close my eyes that gives me hope
It cures the silence
Every day...
As the refrain continues, Maddie contentedly drives down the road in her minivan, thinking how happy she is with her life.
***
David pulls into the driveway of their house. He doesn't kill the engine right away. He's got the stereo blaring 60's R&B music, but at least today, he's not belting out the songs. Just then, Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Her" starts, and he appears to be listening to it very intently, with a sad wistful look on his face, staring at the house. His face has aged to a rugged handsomeness, and he's got a few wrinkles and a lot less hair. But he's still hot.
"I was made to love her, build my world all around her..."
"Yeah, you got that right, Stevie," he whispers as he gazes at the gold wedding band on his finger. "So, what's the problem?"
Slowly he turns the key, turns off the radio and turns to retrieve his briefcase.
Next we see Maddie and Agnes arriving home. After saying their goodbyes, Maddie notices David's new racy red BMW roadster in the drive. He's home early she thinks. She shrugs, opens the side door of the minivan, and looks in at her sleeping, filthy children. They have the remains of everything they've eaten today on their faces and the fronts of their shirts. She smiles that same contented smile again, and carefully, lovingly removes A.J. from his car seat and closes the car door leaving Grace in the minivan. As she carries him into the house, he barely stirs.
She sees David standing in the living room with a beer in his hand. He looks up at her and moves across the room to take the sleeping toddler from her.
"Hi!" she whispers, kisses his cheek and notes a look of irritation on his face as she does so.
"What's wrong, David?" she asks.
"Nothing's wrong, Maddie. I was just hoping for a better hello kiss, that's all."
"Kind of hard to grope you and stick my tongue down your throat when I'm holding a sleeping 3 year old," she says.
"Mmm, sarcasm. Haven't heard much of that lately. Where's Gracie?"
"Still in the car, sleeping. They really wore each other out today. With any luck, they'll both be in bed by eight."
David ignores the implication that they might actually be able to spend some time alone tonight. "God, Maddie any one could come up and take her!"
"They'd bring her back once she opened her mouth," Maddie replies cynically.
"Maddie, I'm serious. You hear about this kind of stuff on the news all the time. Go get her and I'll take care of this one."
Maddie stomps out of the house and approaches Grace in the minivan. What is with him? She wasn't going to leave her out here all night. Just until she got the baby inside. Even though stuff happens, you can't live your entire life being so paranoid about your kids. He really needs to lighten up. She feels very peculiar about this last thought. David Addison needs to lighten up?
She shakes Grace gently to wake her, but Grace doesn't wake up. Maddie keeps shaking her and speaks her name. Grace still doesn't wake up. Maddie starts to feel a little panicky, till she sees that familiar smirk start to make it's way across her face. Grace opens her eyes and looks at her mother.
"Got ya!" she grins.
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Well, I'll get you if you don't get out of this car and march upstairs and climb in the tub."
They both start laughing and tickling each other.
A few minutes later we see Maddie entering the house with her arms full of gear from the car; blankets, toys, and on the bottom of the pile, the picnic basket. She is walking awkwardly toward the kitchen when she hears David's soft voice behind her.
"Hey Blondie. Need some help?"
She turns her whole body toward him, unable to move just her head in case she drop something.
"How chivalrous of you. I wouldn't turn down a helping hand right now. Even from a grump like you."
David smiles and starts unloading her arms. "Sorry. I just never like to take chances when it comes to them."
"That's what makes you such a good father. I really don't see what the problem was, though. Is everything ok?"
"It's just been another long, boring day at Blue Moon Investigations." He frowns. "Never thought I'd be saying that," he mutters as he follows her into the kitchen.
"What's so boring about it? You seem busy. You go to work early every day and come home late practically every night. You're always out on business when I call. Work must have something going for it if it keeps you away from home so much."
They start putting things away.
David puts down the picnic basket, and trying to make a joke he says, "Really, I'm just hanging out there until something good opens up in the fast food industry." He looks for her reaction and she doesn't appear to be listening or she doesn't think he's funny. She's busy puttering around the kitchen. He shakes his head, laughs half-heartedly and rubs his hand over his face.
"I don't know, I guess employee background checks and insurance investigations can't compare with a good murder mystery and a nut ball chase."
"Like in the good ol' days, huh," Maddie says as she moves toward him.
"It just seems that we haven't had an exciting case in years. I think the last interesting thing we did was the Anselmo case, even though we never solved it." he says tiredly.
Maddie looks thoughtful. "That was my last case as an investigator. "
"Be honest, Maddie. Don't you ever miss it?"
"Miss what? Being up all night, having guns shoved in my face, protecting leprechauns and hit men, climbing up the sides of buildings, hijacking milk trucks and throwing milk bottles at escaping murderers, bowling for brunettes. What's to miss?"
David, I like our life now. It's so normal. We're like other people who go to work and raise families." She moves close, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"I do miss working with you though. All the arguing, the banter; it was pretty exhilarating."
He looks at her sadly, then pulls her into a hug and a long soft kiss.
She breaks the kiss a little hastily he thinks and resumes putting things away. "Seriously, David, you seem, I don't know, restless, unhappy lately." She hesitates, then asks, "It is only about work, right? Or is it the seven year itch a few years late?"
David eyes her warily, not wanting to hurt her or worse yet, start an argument. So he does what he always does when he doesn't know what to say. He clams up. Of course, Maddie has seen this many times and she really hates it.
"I want to discuss this. I want to know why you're hardly home at all lately. This is the earliest you've been home in months. If you hate work so much why are you spending so much time there?" She starts counting on her fingers. "You have lost your weird sense of humor. You've lost interest in your work. You buy that expensive new sports car. You ignore me when you are here. This looks like a classic midlife crisis to me."
He takes hold of her hand. Now he's getting angry.
"Midlife what? I ignore you? Is it time for your medication, Maddie? Do you think all that dull paperwork that you used to love doing so much just does itself now? That's why I'm never here. Besides, you spend all your time cooking and cleaning, going to PTA meetings and soccer games and ignoring me. I can't believe you even noticed I wasn't around. Honey, you've turned into a genuine Stepford Wife!"
Maddie glares at him. "A Stepford wife, huh. You don't seem to mind the way we live, the way I keep things running around here. I do this for you, to make your life easier. God, sometimes I wish I could trade this job for what's behind door #2. But this is a choice I made for my life, for our life, and for better or worse, I'm stuck with it." As soon as those last words leave her mouth, she regrets saying them.
From upstairs we hear a child crying. Maddie and David realize they have been yelling.
Maddie sighs, David shrugs and offers to go up to check on A.J..
"I'll start dinner," she scowls, turning away.
David exits the kitchen as Maddie starts looking in the refrigerator.
"After all these years, that man still drives me crazy!"
She wonders how she could be so out of sync with his feelings. Here she was this morning thinking their life was perfect. She sees now she's wrong about that. Something's wrong with him, she decides. She promises herself that she will try to change things for the better. But how?
The wheels are turning in her head as she prepares a healthy pasta salad for dinner.
Upstairs, David enters A.J.'s bedroom and sees him standing in his crib, crying. He thinks to himself that his son should be in a real bed by now, but just because he was a premature infant Maddie babies him too much. He picks up the child who instantly stops crying and says, "Hi, Daddy!"
"Hi, Bud," David smiles and kisses his head. Every time one of his children says the word "Daddy", his heart melts.
He has taken to fatherhood completely. Anyone who had known him in his misspent youth never would have believed this was the same David Addison. But being a father was something he always knew he wanted. Sometimes Maddie thought he would have breastfed if he'd had the right equipment.
He reflects that this is at least one thing of which he and Maddie can always be proud. They have two great kids. Even if their marriage is less than great right now. He rocks his son and thinks about what he can do to improve that situation as he listens to her slamming things around in the kitchen. "Well, I guess I opened another can of worms," he whispers to himself.
He and A.J. sit down in a rocking chair in the bedroom. Out of the corner of his eye David notices Grace standing in the bedroom door with a towel wrapped around her head, and he puts his arm out to her.
Grace has a frown on her face as she confronts him with her mother's blue eyes. Those eyes are going to break some hearts some day, but for now she is his tomboy and totally unaware of how beautiful she's going to be. And that suits David just fine. He remembers what Alexander Hayes first thought of him and how protective he was of Maddie. He knows that is exactly how he will be when the time comes.
"Hey Sweetie. Heard you had a fun day," he says as he pulls her close.
"Sounds like you didn't," she responds.
"You shouldn't listen in on private adult conversations, Gracie."
"Pretty hard not to when you're yelling at each other," she replies.
"Don't worry about it. Just a little disagreement."
"What's a 'Stepford wife'?"
"Just a really bad movie from the seventies. Look, this isn't about you. Mom and I are just--"
"Fighting!"
"Honey, if you thought that was a fight, you've never seen us at our best... or worst...or whatever..." his voice trails off.
She sits on his lap and he slowly rocks both his children, a distant look on his face.
***
After dinner, we see Maddie and David silently cleaning up the dinner dishes (yes, he is a man of the new millennium). The children are in the family room watching TV, except when Grace looks back at her parents worriedly every few minutes.
Maddie wonders, what the hell did I do, as she watches David distractedly putting leftovers into the refrigerator. He's so angry at her for something. She decides that the silent treatment has gone on long enough and approaches him to share her plan with him.
"David, I called my mother before dinner and asked if she'd mind taking the kids for the weekend. Of course, she said yes. She even asked to take them longer. Any chance she can get to spoil them rotten." She puts her hand on his arm to make him face her. "Maybe we could get away, go somewhere, just us. What do you think?"
"Yeah, sounds great. I'm just not sure that what's going on with us can be fixed in a weekend," he blurts out.
She looks at him very seriously, her eyes filled with alarm. "What is going on with us, David?"
He didn't mean to say that out loud. The last thing he wants to do is hurt her although sometimes he feels that's all he does.
"Ok here it is, Maddie. Maybe I am having a mid life crisis. Maybe I'm just a whiny-ass cry baby. I mean look at my life. I own my own detective agency. I have a beautiful home, a beautiful wife, two terrific kids, what's wrong with any of this? I guess I'm finding life to be just a little too predictable right now. The most exciting thing that happens around here is when Grace hits a home run in Little League. Maybe..."
"Maybe you need a break...from us," she says coldly, looking in to the family room at the blue glow from the TV.
"What are you saying, Maddie?"
"I'm just saying that if you are so unhappy here, maybe you don't need to be here. If we bore you to tears, go back to hanging out at bars every night. You haven't been around much anyway so maybe they won't notice you're gone." She throws down a dish towel on the counter, preparing to leave the room.
David is just about to respond when the phone rings. Maddie wipes a tear from her cheek and picks it up.
"Hello!" she barks into the phone.
Her expression changes in an instant to happy recognition, and she turns her back on David who is now very intrigued.
"Oh my God! Of course I remember you, Paul. How are you? Are you in LA on vacation?"
David is trying to remember who Paul might be. An old flame of hers, possibly. Someone from Chicago. Paul... The only Paul he knows is that talk radio guy, Paul McCain. The one who faked his own death and David and Maddie proved innocent of murdering his girlfriend's husband on one of their first cases together. He grins as he recalls how he baited her by telling her he thought she was in love with a dead guy. He was, in fact, kind of jealous of that guy.
He remembers spending a drunken night in a bar telling anyone who would listen and many people who wouldn't, all about Maddie's crush on this dead DJ. That was a pretty pivotal point in his relationship with her. It was the first time he recognized just how important she could be in his life. Well, anyway, it couldn't be him. They hadn't heard from him since they solved his case. That was over 15 years ago.
Just then, Maddie turns around. Her face is no longer happy.
David is still watching her closely. Why is she looking so concerned and not saying anything? Who is this Paul and what could he be telling her that's making her look like that?
"Alright, Paul. Do you want to talk to him now? He's right here... He lives here... We're married... Yeah, me either. Ok, we'll set something up for tomorrow. Try to get some sleep and I'm so sorry. I know how you adored Laura."
Maddie slowly hangs up the phone, and looks at David with tears welling up in her eyes again.
"David, that was Paul McCain. His wife, Laura, was murdered and the police suspect him. He wants our help!"
END PART I