Happy Easter my dear friends! Whether you celebrate Easter, I hope you all had a few wonderful and relaxing days!
I’m happy you guys liked the little drabbles I did for Eaden’s third birthday – they were a lot of fun to write.
But now to more important matters – I have a surprise for you 😀 Actually, @allyinthekeyofx and I have one for you, because Ally made a dream of mine come true. And I just know you guys will love it as much as I do! Just keep your eyes open 😀
Thank you my dear @justholdinghandsok for the beta again – what would I do without you?! ❤
Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension. – Joshua L. Liebman
As a highly independent person who liked to stay in control, and one who was prone to be stubborn, it was the worst thing that, once your emotions had gotten the best of you and you basically overreacted to the point of crying, there was nothing more needed than someone else coming over and putting you out of your misery.
How pathetic, Gillian thought. And so hard to accept that sometimes, when emotions and hormones were running high, you needed another person to provide some of the confidence and stability you weren’t able to muster yourself.
While this feeling was so familiar to her, had accompanied her for the major part of her life, Gillian despised it, and would probably never make peace with it. The loss of control, no matter how small and insignificant it might’ve seemed to others, was unbearable and, for her, almost entirely intolerable.
It almost felt like falling into a million little pieces, losing one by one on her way through life. The thought that other people could somehow see all those lost pieces and judge her for the sheer amount was terrifying, even though Gillian knew that this was one of the most ridiculous illusions she had. Yet it was one that stuck in her mind for decades now. One she wasn’t able to get rid of.
No one had come after her when the sobs slowly started to subside. Sitting on that hard, closed toilet lit, her butt was beginning to hurt, and she needed to check if there was anything she could do about that smudged mascara or if her makeup was completely ruined by now. Which would mean she had to let her stylist re-do everything. How fucking embarrassing.
With a deep, hitched inhale, she reached out and ripped off another couple of sheets of toilet paper and blew her nose.
She needed to go back. They were probably ready to shoot the next scene. She just had to pull herself together one last time and get it over with for the sake of her son, who was needing her by his side. Nothing else mattered in this moment.
Getting up, she opened the lit and flushed the crumpled tissues down the toilet before turning around to unlock the door and stepped out.
And then she saw him, leaning against one of the sinks with his arms crossed in front of his chest and gaze fixated on his shoes. His expression was thoughtful and serious, his teeth were gritted tight enough that his jaw muscles flexed rhythmically.
He must’ve sneaked in at some point, and had waited patiently for her to regain some control on her own without ever leaving her completely alone.
He was always there in case she fell apart, but giving her the privacy and time she needed. There was no smothering and no pressure. David was like a silent rock. Always there, but never imposing. She could always rely on David, even when she’d been a total bitch to him.
But as much as she wanted to to go to him, and as desperately as she was yearning for his arms around her, she just couldn’t move. She was frozen in place and unable to say a word. It felt like she’d suddenly lost the ability to speak. Neither her brain nor her mouth seemed to know what to do.
She should apologize. She should explain herself. Do something to let him know she didn’t mean what she had said. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t do it.
In her mind, she was desperately begging him to be the first to break the silence. To be the stronger one and tell her he forgave her, and that everything would be okay. She hoped he knew how grateful she was that he was there, and that he understood why she couldn’t say it.
Time was standing still as they stood there facing each other, and waiting for the other to make the first move. To say something, anything at all. Even the slightest attempt to move towards one another or a glance would be enough to break the spell, to bring her some relief.
But it didn’t happen.
Instead, his shoes made a loud, squeaky noise on the tiled floor as he turned around and, before she realized what was happening, pushed the door open and walked out of the restroom. Leaving her alone.
Once Chris and Glen had gotten wind of the ‘little incident’ with Gillian, as it was making its round, it seemed like that, all of a sudden, they had everything they needed from her for the second episode and they could give her the green light to go home to London.
David didn’t see her around for quite some time, but now spotted her, almost two hours later, taking a picture of Piper, who was quite bashfully holding a tray in front of her, apparently showing her proud mother some of the props she had made for the episode.
Gillian wasn’t wearing her wig anymore, but was now clad in a blue summer dress and her face was already scrubbed free from the heavy makeup she had to wear for the part. She looked like she was ready to leave any minute now.
He just wondered if they’d get a chance to talk before she left for over a week.
When he’d left her in that restroom, it hadn’t been because he’d intended to hurt or punish her. He was hurt, yes. And also sad. But he wasn’t particularly angry. It wasn’t that hard for him to understand what she was going through. She was a mother, and, unlike other men he knew, David was convinced that, even if there was an active, devoted father around, she was the most important person in most kids lives. And if a kid was sick, there was nothing that he needed more than his mother. And a mother didn’t want anything more than be by her child’s side to love and care for him.
That it had to be hard to leave another one in order to be with the sick child was also very understandable. Mother’s guilt was a huge topic in Gillian’s life ever since Piper had been born. Finding a balance between work and motherhood had always been a struggle for her. And with the increasing number of children and them becoming somewhat of a patchwork family, it hadn’t gotten any easier over the years. It was okay when everything was working out according to plan. But the reality was that it rarely did. And he bowed his head to everyone who was able to deal with these things in an organised, mature way. Because they surely hadn’t figured out how to do that by now.
And yet… he had enough of hearing the same things from her over and over again. He thought of himself as a supportive, patient partner. But his patience wasn’t endless, and Gillian knew her ways to reach his limits.
He would do everything for her. Absolutely everything. The problem was that she had always been too proud and at the same time too insecure to accept his help. Or anyone’s, for that matter.
Instead, she tended to use it against people. Accused them of having ulterior motives, wanting to threat her and to make her look weak and incompetent.
And that wasn’t something he would ever accept, especially not from her.
He was her partner. Her confidant. They were family.
And the one thing he really wished her to be was accepting of his support and unconditional love and to allow herself to rely on him.
He would do do anything in his power to stop all those self-doubts and the insane pressure she put on her own shoulders from ruling their lives and their relationship. And the only way he knew how to make her understand that was by giving her the opportunity to find out herself.
Which was exactly why he’d walked out of this restroom earlier.
He’d desperately wanted to hug her. Wanted to tell her that everything would be alright. That of course she could take Eaden with her, if that was what she wanted.
But he didn’t do any of those things. Despite the way she’d been looking at him, with all the confusion, desperation and sadness in her watery blue eyes, he’d made a decision he wasn’t entirely sure had been the right one.
“David!” someone suddenly called him, pulling him out of his reverie. His gaze fixated back on Piper and Gillian, and he noticed that her oldest was looking at him expectantly, neck craned and eyebrows raised high. She definitely wanted him to come over.
Gillian on the other hand seemed to avoid looking at him while he approached them, busying herself with straightening Eaden’s dress and unruly hair.
“What’s up?” he asked as blithely as possible and put his hand demonstratively on the small of Gillian’s back.
“You’re going to pull these off your shoes later, don’t they look super gross?” Piper chuckled, proudly looking down at the armada of gooey band-aids neatly lined up on a cardboard. They were in fact very, very gross.
David pulled a disgusted face. “Yeah… they’re… pretty realistic. Ugh.”
“You think you can handle it?” Piper asked, making her mother snort in amusement.
And then, to his great surprise, Gillian leaned herself against his side, and he slung his arm completely around her waist to pull her a little closer. He could literally feel the tension leaving her body.
“I don’t know, what do you think?” he prompted Gillian, grinning down at her as she lifted her gaze to meet his eyes.
“I think you can handle it just fine,” Gillian said with a nod, and he thought he could detect a tiny, sly smirk on her lips. Yeah, it was definitely there. His belly tingled in relief and anticipation. And before he could think about it twice, he leaned down and kissed her softly.
***
“Alright slugger, do you promise me not to make a mess while I’m in the shower? Can you do that for Daddy, hm?” David kneeled down in front of his little daughter, who was sitting on the warm bathroom floor, tiny toothbrush in hand and a mischievous spark in her eyes that usually meant nothing else but trouble.
“Five minutes, okay?” he added and tickled her sides with his index finger, making her squeal in delight.
Eaden, the master in making messes in the shortest amounts of time, was also widely known to always find something somewhere to destroy or hurt herself with, even when the door was closed and the lower cupboards baby-proofed as it was the case right now.
“Otey,” Eaden replied with a big grin, sounding almost like she’d understood his request and was actually taking it seriously, but David was sure that his sweet, innocent looking girl had already made up a plan on how to spend the next five minutes differently from what he’d asked her to.
“I don’t believe a word that’s coming out of your mouth, young lady. Which is concerning since you only know eight of them yet.”
“Mwah Dada, nononono,” she babbled and shook her head almost frantically.
“Yeah, exactly, no messes, alright? Daddy’s right back! Daddy hears and sees everything!” David said pointedly and patted his daughter’s head before he got up and walked over to the shower and started to run the water.
“Are you going to tell Daddy a story while he’s in the shower, baby?” he asked while shedding his boxers, and with one last glance down on the floor, where Eaden was occupied with her toothbrush and completely ignoring him, stepped under the refreshing spray of water.
The day Gillian left for London wasn’t completely forgotten. After their chaste kiss, they had a brief, not particularly uncomfortable but awkward conversation in her trailer in which she told him that she had purchased a ticket for the last flight out to London this evening and that Eaden would stay with him just like he’d wanted her to. He had to swallow a harsh comment on that reproachful undertone that she used to make clear that she wasn’t happy with that at all. He so badly wanted to tell her to just take the baby with her and look how she got along if she really needed to have it her way to feel better. Of course he hadn’t.
There were no further exchanges of affection between them, only Eaden got showered in kisses and hugs before Gillian placed her little daughter in David’s arms, gave his arm a squeeze while saying goodbye and that she would text him before she hopped into the cab to the airport.
The next day, he heard from Piper that Gillian had called to tell her that Oscar was out of the hospital and that she’d been able to take him home. David got a text message later that day, and another one each day, but nothing more. Which wasn’t really that surprising, yet disappointing that she was still falling back into these old musters of hers. He’d thought that they were over that by now. Apparently, that wasn’t the case.
On Friday evening, he flew back to Los Angeles, but not alone as he’d originally planned, but with Eaden. David was very aware of how lucky they were to have such a resilient, overall content and happy baby. If she wouldn’t be able to cope with the fairly regular separation from one of her parents or the traveling as well as she did, they would’ve been in some serious trouble given the circumstances.
Their Saturday was lazy and relaxed. After running some errands and getting fresh green smoothies and food for the weekend, David laid out some blankets and pillows in the garden, creating a comfortable little space for them in the shadow of a tree by the poolside. They enjoyed sandwiches and avocados for lunch, cuddled while listening to the birds and eventually fell asleep with Eaden sprawled out on David’s chest. In that respect, father and daughter were very much alike. Both were able to enjoy the simplest little things for hours without needing more than each other. Gillian was usually a little more restless in that respect, struggled with enjoying the moment and just let things be. It would’ve been so easy for him to wallow in his hurt and sulk in self-pity and loneliness only caused by the way they’d parted. He could be angry about how unnecessary this stupid fight was, just like almost every other they ever had. Instead, David did his best to enjoy what he had – a lot of free time with his youngest daughter – and to trust Gillian to come back to him whenever she felt ready.
When he opened the glass door and stepped out of the shower a couple of minutes later, his first glance went down to the floor where Eaden sat earlier, but wasn’t anymore.
With a shake of his head and a grin, David grabbed a towel off the rack, quickly dried himself and slung it around his waist.
“Eaden?” he asked in feigned concern and started to wander around, pretending not to know where she was hiding. “Where is Eaden? Where is my little girl?” He looked around the corner of one of the counters. “Oh no! She’s gone! What am I going to do without her?” he whined, and heard a soft giggle and suddenly, she appeared within the bathtub, grinning widely at him.
“Hi!” she squealed delightfully, jumping up and down with excitement while holding tightly onto the onto the tub.
“Oh, hi! There you are, thank god! Come here, sweetie,” he said affectionately and scooped her up, kissing her little cheeks before she put her head on his shoulder and let him rub her back. “You’re funny, you know that?” And so much like your mother, he didn’t say, sure that she would only get upset remembering that her favorite person wasn’t around at the moment and wouldn’t spend the day with them.
Burying his face into her soft, blonde hair and inhaling her sweet scent, he instead whispered,“I love you, slugger. Let’s get ready for the day, okay?”
For this beautiful, sunny Sunday in Los Angeles, David had dressed Eaden in a black little onesie that said “peace, love and naps”, and which was, in his opinion, just as perfect as his orange “pumpkin” shirt. But unlike Eaden’s, David’s outfit didn’t get a lot of compliments from West and her friends. For no apparent reason, they seemed to be quite amused by it instead.
Their stroll through the farmer’s market with eight teenagers and their parents, all old friends from the time they lived here as a family, was a comfortable one. When the kids were younger, and him and Téa still together, they used to do these meet-ups with other families quite often. But since they separated and had moved to New York, there weren’t a lot of opportunities to catch up anymore, but it was important to both David and Téa to keep these friendships alive, not only for the sake of the kids.
By the time they arrived back in Malibu, bellies full with burgers, fries and ice-cream, the sun had already Set, West and her boyfriend had left to spend the night at a friends house and the two remaining kids, Eaden and Miller, were fast asleep on the backseat of David’s car.
Together, they managed to wake their exhausted teenager – a task almost impossibly hard these days – and even got him brush his teeth before he went to bed. Bringing the baby to bed was easy compared to that. While Téa was with their son, David changed Eaden for the night and tucked her into his bed with her favorite stuffed animal, where she continued her peaceful slumber.
“Is she still sleeping?” Téa asked when he closed the bedroom door behind himself and walked into the kitchen while she poured herself a glass of red wine. Noticing his confused expression, she shrugged her shoulders and filled a second glass. “Sorry,” she nodded her head towards the bottle, “but I felt like we could both take one.”
“Or two,” David said with a sigh and took the glass from her. “Thanks. To our kids?”
“Yeah,” Téa nodded and clinked her glass with his. “To our wild, independent daughter and our sleepy son. And no, before you start again, he’s fine. The doctor checked his blood and told me that we should start to accept that our sweet son will do exactly three things in the next two to three years – sleep, eat and complain.”
“That sounds just wonderful,” David stated wryly.
“Yeah that’s exactly what I told him, too!” She took a big sip out of her glass before grabbing the bottle. “Come on, it’s so nice outside, let’s not waste this beautiful evening by staying in here!” she waggled her eyebrows and led the way out of the living room and through the back door.
It was indeed a wonderful night to sit outside, listen to the soft waves of the ocean near by and enjoy the pleasantly warm air.
If only he could really enjoy it. If only he wouldn’t miss her so much.
“So,” Téa prompted once they were seated on one of the loveseats on the patio. She was looking at him expectantly, and he knew exactly what it was she was dying to know.
“So?” David asked cautiously and nipped at his wine.
“Is everything alright? How’s Gillian? And how’s filming?”
“Ohhh,” David groaned and closed his eyes while letting his head fall back on the backrest of the couch. “It’s stressful. Can’t we keep talking about our sleepy, grumpy son?”
She gave him a perplexed look, but chuckled to keep the mood light. “Three weeks and you’re already stressed?”
“You know how it is! You just forget how exhausting it is and how insane the hours are… Seriously though, it’s hard, especially with a baby and all that kind of… stuff.”
Téa nodded understandingly. “I bet it is, being away from home must be especially hard for Gillian. How’s she taking it?”
David took a deep breath, closed his eyes and went quiet for a few moments.
Given everything that had happened between them in the last eighteen years, he thought they both couldn’t be more grateful for what they had right now. They genuinely loved and deeply cared for each other, yet the reason why they weren’t a couple anymore was more apparent than ever. They were both the happiest with somebody else. And loneliest without them.
However, the friendly relationship he now had with Téa was based on trust and mutual respect. They knew each other for such a long time, he couldn’t fool her into believing that everything was alright. And there was a time when it had been easy for him to go to both women and tell them about the problems he had with the other. And it was one of the most selfish things he’d ever done. Extremely unfair and disrespectful to both Téa and Gillian.
And he wouldn’t do the same mistake ever again.
“It’s harder than expected,” he nodded thoughtfully and looked at Téa before adding, “but we’re doing our best to make it work.”
David climbed into his bed little after midnight.They had emptied the first bottle of wine while he told Téa what he had planned for West and Miller during their stay in Vancouver and the second bottle while they discussed when they would start looking at colleges for West.
That was the nicest part about their relationship – being able to be the parents of two kids who were aware of their joint responsibility for them. And who liked to raise them together despite everything.
Eaden’s still sleeping soundly beside him on Gillian’s spot, her little lips making sucking-like motions as if she was dreaming of milk and, which was an ongoing joke between them, Mommy’s boobies. Although for entirely different reasons, he certainly couldn’t blame her for that.
With a soft chuckle, he pulled the light blanket over her little feet and ran his thumb down her soft cheek before rolling onto his back and turning his head towards the nightstand to his right, where his phone was blinking repeatedly.
He wanted to take a look, but he also wanted to prevent himself from yet another disappointment.
He took a deep breath and eventually reached over, grabbed his phone and squinted his eyes to the bright light as he pressed the home button.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw her name appearing on the screen. She had finally called, and even left him a four-minute-long voicemail.
His fingers were literally trembling when he started to play her message.
“Hi, um… it’s me,” there was a slight pause, and he couldn’t suppress a relieved chuckle. It felt so good to hear her voice again. “I know you have someone over and I don’t even know why I’m calling now,” she paused again, and by the way her voice was trembling he figured that she’d been crying. “Well I know why… it’s because I’m too much of a coward to talk to you and I was thinking that while you had guests over, I could finally give you a call without actually having to talk to you, which is…” she sighed, “… which is stupid because I really want to talk to you. Um, god, why is this so fucking hard?” she asked and then blew her nose. “Sorry,” a soft, bashful chuckle followed. “I um, I’m meeting a friend today, because I feel like this is growing over my head and while it’s you I need to talk to and tell what’s going on, I understand if you don’t feel like that at the moment. Yeah, um… I’m seeing Jennifer today so… god, I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”
“I don’t care,” David said to himself and closed his eyes. She could read the phonebook to him and he would still enjoy listening to her.
A familiar wave of warmth and love flooded his body, replacing the pent-up anger he’d felt in the last couple of days.
“l just wanted to tell you that I wish I could go back to that kiss and just… do everything differently from that point on. I mean, obviously I can’t, but… I would do everything for that kiss right now. Or a hug…” her voice broke, and it was so hard to listen to this without being there. Without being able to reassure her that he felt the same way.
“I love you, David,”
she said in a whisper, but her words were loud with longing. “And I miss you very much.”
Just Holding Hands 