A/N: I wrote this a while back, but never posted it up at this site. So, enjoy!
Written for the Minor Characters/UC Couple ficathon; Minor Character of choice: Morey.
I'd like to thank my wonderful betas, chickflick/greeninprods, and sosmitten. They were a tremendous help with this fic.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership or credit of creation of Morey or Babette.
As Morey's long, aging fingers touch the ivory keys of the magnificent instrument, he is taken back in time. His mind wanders, fingers playing on autopilot as his mind goes back. First to when he was fourteen, in a dusty, stuffy practice room, corners of the ceiling never devoid of a cobweb, his youthful fingers danced over the keyboard, hour after hour. After his friends had all gone home for the day, Morey was still trying to get the song right. He didn't mind, enjoyed it actually; loved the feeling given to him by the floating timbre of the strings. It relaxed him. When he stumbled over his own fingers, he started again from the beginning, lulling himself into a trance. Even as his friends returned in search of him, pounded on the door with their childish need to be out doing anything that defied their parents' hopes for them, Morey barely noticed, never skipped a beat.
As his fingers touch that high C-sharp chord, his mind is teleported to a different time in his life. He can practically feel the breeze on his face as he arrives in his senior year of high school. He remembers that same practice room, except his feet could reach the pedals more easily and the stretch of his hands had greatly improved over his high school years. That one particular song he used to play would carry with it all the bittersweet feelings of being a senior in high school. Even at the beginning of the school year, he knew he'd be at a loss after graduation without his daily music classes, without the access to his own tiny sanctuary every afternoon where he could spend as much time as he wanted playing that piano. He'd miss the janitors and the soft sweeping sound of their brooms on the tiled hallway floor of the New York City High School for the Performing Arts as he practiced until after dinner time when most of the school was closed, and he should have already gone home.
Senior year was also the year that he joined the band, beginning one of the best times of his life. His friend Roger- the guy who always wore those jeans with the holes in the knees and the red bandana on his head, the crazy drummer who was always running around, hair a mess, doing things with his sticks that would probably be considered unsanitary- was the best drummer Morey had ever heard, and he suggested starting a band. Completing the band were Stan the trumpet player, never without a thermos full of Ovaltine and a bottle of valve oil, compulsively keeping his trumpet oiled; Bruce the saxophone player, known around school for his different-girl-every-week philosophy, going along with his new-reed-a-day philosophy; and Mandy the guitar player who was the best in the school at jazz improvisation scales but wouldn't admit it herself. News of the new jazz band spread like wildfire around the school. Their smooth, skillful, big band, jazzy sound eventually became the talk of the city.
Playing without a name wasn't the most professional thing to do, so as they sat down to choose one, each member would throw out anything they could think of. They'd always settle on something for a few minutes and then decide they didn't like it after all and give it up, moving on to the next suggestion. When Stan suggested "Morey and the Eels", Morey was the only one to object, reasoning that the band was not anyone's band in particular, so no names should be used in the title. It took a bit of convincing that they weren't singling him out, just trying out a clever name, before Morey agreed.
Morey and the Eels had somewhere to play every weekend, making it so that their lives were nothing but shows and school. And because of this, the remaining part of senior year sped by in a blur of instruments and crowds and math class and unfamiliar classmates.
One particular night after a show, after everyone had gone home, Morey chilled out, sitting on the edge of the stage, sipping his root beer. He was approached by a short, energetic, blonde girl about his age. Laying a hand on his knee, creating an air of familiarity, she raved on in a loud, New York accent, frequently calling him things like "honey" and "sugar". She went on about how great the band was, and how the music threw her into some sort of trance where if she hadn't snapped herself out of it, her bra would have ended up on stage, possibly on Morey's head. Morey chuckled at this, slid his sunglasses from the top of his head onto his face, thanked the girl for her enthusiasm, and apologized that he had to go. She yelled after his retreating form that her name was Babette, and that as long as Morey and the Eels was playing shows, she'd be there.
Morey liked the idea of seeing this girl again. Something about her was intriguing. He thought that normally, he'd be bothered by such a boisterous person, but she also seemed warm, friendly and like someone he'd like to get to know. It wasn't just hyperactivity, it was a zest for living, he thought, and he also thought that he needed that in his life. These thoughts rushed through his brain within the first two minutes after meeting her, and it overloaded his brain just a little. He needed to go home to his piano and play something to ease the tension in his mind.
Morey hits that E-flat chord, and feels it resound within him just as those first few encounters with Babette had.
She had kept her promise, showing up at every gig, eagerly approaching Morey after each show, chattering on about the music, her life, and anything she could think of. He wasn't much of a talker, but he was a listener, and he couldn't get enough of this girl's stories and enthusiasm about life. When he did talk, they mostly ended up in deep conversations about music. Babette was an avid music fan like Morey, and they could carry on many conversations about things like the last four minutes of Eric Clapton's "Layla" and whether it went along with the rest of the song or not. Morey thought the piano and slide guitar was an interesting transition from the tough guitar and vocal-driven beginning of the song. Babette loudly disagreed arguing that the "end" of the song was longer than what was supposed to be the main part of the song, and that that was just weird.
At the key change, Morey is again thrown into another flashback; this time, landing somewhere in time shortly after graduation.
What he remembers most about that time in his life was the freedom. Morey and the Eels was doing so well and playing so many gigs in the city that he was able to afford an apartment of his own. He played shows almost every night—being able to sit at that keyboard and let his fingers run away on the keys like ten little feet stomping all the stress out of his life was a wonderful feeling. He spent every evening after the show with Babette, and things were getting serious with her. He enjoyed spending time with her even more than he enjoyed playing with the band, which was a thought that scared him a bit, but nothing he couldn't handle. He'd figure it out. He just loved how her loud, boisterous nature complemented his quiet, easy-going temperament perfectly. She was one of the few people in his life that he felt he could really talk to, and it was just what he needed, especially now when his life was otherwise filled with craziness, schedules, and crowds of people.
As the tempo of the song slows down, he remembers touring with the band; five friends and all of their equipment packed like sardines into a Volkswagon Bus, complete with carpeting on the floor and curtains on the windows. It was a hot, sweaty summer, beads of sweat always present on skin as the van traveled up and down New England. Morey was an easy-going guy, but he was getting tired of it; tired of the heat, tired of the close quarters, tired of Mandy yelling at Roger time after time for using his drumsticks like chopsticks in her hair as if he was eating Chinese noodles, and tired of not being able to unwind with Babette after each show. He missed her. Only being able to call her once every few days wasn't cutting it. After a year and a half of knowing her, he knew it would be her, and if he was going to do anything about it, it couldn't be while he was on the road, 350 miles away in a stuffy Volkswagon with a bunch of childish musicians.
With the crescendo, he remembers the day he quit.
It was January of 1975. He had toured with the band through the summer, they were in negotiations for a record deal, and with the cold snap of winter, he had broken the news to his bandmates. They protested. They groveled, they begged him to stay. They said they'd have no band without him. He was the band. He was the front man for goodness sakes! But Morey knew what he wanted in life, and that wasn't traveling the world with a band. It wasn't making albums and only taking home a fraction of the money. It was living in the suburbs, perhaps Connecticut. It was finding a permanent job that he didn't hate, where he'd make enough money to possibly support a family someday, and where he'd be able to just sit down and write music when he wanted, the only deadline being that thing in his head that made that slight cracking sound when something wanted to be let out—feelings into song. And most of all, he wanted his life to include Babette, the girl he'd met through his music, and who had become and would remain the inspiration for his music.
At the end of his song, Morey looks over and sees Babette in her favorite chair, eyes still closed, absorbing the resounding tones of his music. After a few moments of silence, she moves to sit next to her husband on the piano bench. "It's too bad that band of yours broke up way back when, sugar," she says in her gravelly voice with that accent that still hasn't left after all these years, "You could have made it big out there in the music world." She pats his arm.
He wraps an arm around her shoulders. "Don't worry about it, babe. There's no place I'd rather be than right here."