Chapter Text
Billy
After spending a few days in LA, Billy and Camila took Julia to Pittsburgh for a week. They stayed with his mom and visited Camila's parents everyday, allowing Julia to spend time with her grandparents, aunts and uncles. Billy found it to be a good distraction from work. A good diversion to get his mind off how the Aurora sessions had ended. It had to say something that he preferred his father-in-laws cold, silent stares to being in his own head, thinking about the music or the band.
Whenever he thought about how they had ended the Aurora sessions, he felt a wave of anger wash over him, remembering Daisy on the hillside yelling at him, Daisy tripped out on acid and laughing with Warren, Daisy sitting on the stool, singing Regret Me, with a smirk on her face. Over time, the anger was replaced with a feeling of emptiness, a pit deep in his stomach of nothing, hollow and unwielding.
The only solace he had been able to find was with Jules. He found himself picking her up and hugging her close often, revelling in her chubby little hands hugging him back. He entertained her, played games and took her places in Pittsburgh that he had gone as a kid.
Unfortunately, the talk of Dissey Jone, Daisy Jones to anybody above the age of three, had not gone away. Julia continued to chatter on, telling her grandparents, her aunts and uncles, anyone who would listen, about Dissey Jone and how pretty she was. Although it had irritated him at first, he was now starting to find comfort in it, comfort that he could think of Daisy without guilt whenever his daughter brought up her name, think of her as Cami stood by, eyes on him, knowing that he wasn't the one to have mentioned her.
After a week had gone by, in which Billy had still not managed to make any sort of headway in thawing the frosty relationship he had with his in-laws, he made plans to head back to LA. He still hadn’t listened to all of the tracks they had recorded and he wanted to get a chance to listen alone, and make any necessary tweaks, before the band got back.
“Do you have to go?” Camila asked as they lay in bed the night before he was due to fly out. She had decided to stay an extra week in Pittsburgh, taking Julia from Billy’s moms house to stay with her own parents.
“You know I do,” he said looking over at her and smiling. “I have to work.”
“I bet nobody else is working. Graham told me he isn’t.”
Billy shrugged his shoulders loosely. Graham didn’t need to work. He had done his bit.
“Is Daisy going to be working?” Camila asked.
He fought the urge to press his hand to his neck. In truth, he didn’t know whether she would be there.
If anyone from the band was going to go into the studio to work on the mixing early, it would be Daisy, he thought.
He wouldn’t put it past her to be there already. To have foresaken her break and persuaded Teddy to get back in the studio immediately.
Maybe that’s why she had checked out of the hotel, he mused, to stay with Teddy and have the chance to work on Aurora non stop.
He had dreamt about it every night since the day he had knocked on her hotel room door to find a maid refreshing the room for the next guests. Dreamt about where she might have gone and with whom.
In his worst nightmares, she had moved in with that fucking photographer, or was OD'ed somewhere, cold and alone, with pale skin and blue lips and lifeless eyes. In his best dreams, vivid and surreal, she was at the studio waiting for him, asking him where he had been and telling him she’d missed him as he walked through the door, reaching out her hands to him and dragging him somewhere private.
The truth was he had no idea where she might have gone. He turned to Camila now, she was waiting expectantly for a reply, “I don’t know. I don’t know what she’s doing.”
Camila nodded, lay back pulling the sheet over her chest and turned on her side away from him. They weren’t back normal, after the comment she had made back in LA;
If you love her, thats when this ends
He could tell there was a change in her. And maybe she could tell there was one in him.
He leaned over her now, put his hand round her waist and kissed her shoulder, “hey,” he said, laying his nose into the crook of her neck, “you okay?”
She turned to look at him. She looked tired. “Of course,” she said.
He leaned down to kiss her lips, testing to see whether she would open herself up to him. She turned her body towards him, and he moved so he was hovering over her, “I love you,” he said, leaning down once more to kiss her.
“You too,” she said, reaching her arms up to pull him closer.
**
Back in LA the next evening, Billy found it strange to be sleeping in their bed alone. He knew Camila had done it many times, when he had been on his first tour, or out late recording, but she had always been there for him, there was nowhere else for her to go. He found himself reaching out to her side of the bed, finding nothing but space.
When he woke up, fresh from a nightmare of Daisy running from him, stumbling and tripping as he chased her, he headed straight to the studio. He had already told Teddy to expect him and he smiled to find him waiting in the control booth. He looked around quickly, anticipating a flash of red hair to appear.
“Its just us,” Teddy said, handing him a cigarette.
Billy turned to him, “okay,” he said, trying to keep his tone light.
“Okay Billy, there are a couple of songs you haven’t heard yet, two,” Teddy said. He had the same face he had been sporting for a lot of the recording sessions, the face he put on when he knew someone wouldn’t be happy.
Two?!
He knew about Regret Me. But there wasn’t another song. Apart from More Fun to Miss and Regret Me, everything else had been written by Billy and Daisy together.
He raised his eyebrow at Teddy.
Teddy looked at the controls, hit a button and sat back, resting his hands on the sides of his chair and steepling them under his nose.
It had been less than two weeks, but when her voice came flowing from the speakers, he felt his heart skip a beat and his neck tingle. He put his hand to it as he listened.
The track was just Daisy, accompanied by guitar and a smattering of keys. Her voice was hypnotic; rich and sweet and comforting. He could hear it catch as she sang the verse, could imagine her standing in the studio in front of him, eyes closed as she gave her performance.
It seems you have a choice to make
This shell is white and yours to break
He closed his eyes as he listened, pictured her singing, her face open and vulnerable, begging him to come in.
“What do you think?” Teddy interrupted his reverie.
He swallowed sharply, “its - uh - well, its-”
“Its phenomenal,” Teddy said, breaking off his stuttering.
“I know,” Billy said, staring at the controls in front of him.
“Well?”
“Well what?” He looked up at Teddy.
“We’re keeping it in.”
He knew they had to. There was no way this song could be omitted from the album.
He nodded, took a drag of his cigarette. “Who’s on guitar?”
“Uh, that was Eddie,” Teddy admitted. “We recorded it on the day you were out.”
At Disney, Billy thought. Running.
He played over the lyrics in his mind. Who were they about? She would never admit it, and he would never ask. The thought made his stomach flip slightly.
“I want to record the guitar for it,” he said, assertively.
“Billy…” Teddy elongated his name, a warning.
“Eddie is the bass player. It should be me or Graham. And Graham isn’t here,” he stood up. "It doesn't make sense for it to be Eddie."
Besides, he needed to be in the song, be a part of the song, something that clearly meant so much to her.
“You know,” Teddy said conversationally, “this was the first song I heard her sing. And play.”
What?
“Yeah,” Teddy tapped his cigarette into an ashtray, “at the Troubadour.”
So, she had written it before she had met the band. His neck tingled as he contemplated that. Who was she singing about?
He grabbed his guitar case and strode into the recording studio, “I’m going to record the guitar track,” he repeated to Teddy.
Teddy shrugged his shoulders and settled down, ready to record.
Billy opened his guitar case, pulled his guitar out and dropped the strap over his head. An envelope fell out of the case and he picked it up. He knew exactly what was in that envelope. He held it in his hand, felt a physical strain as he willed himself not to open it.
“Ready?” Teddy said.
He threw the envelope back into the guitar case guiltily. He felt like a teen hiding their porn stash. “Okay, I’m ready,” he said.
When they had finished, he headed back into the control room. “You know, there’s another song you haven’t heard,” Teddy said.
Regret Me
He wasn’t sure he could handle two in one day. He sat down heavily in the chair.
“Maybe we could listen to that tomorrow,” he suggested. “Lets work on some of the other tracks now.”
“Okay then,” Teddy said with a smirk.
When he got home that night, he called Camila, said goodnight to a sleepy Julia and then sat out on the deck. The envelope was on the table in front of him. He didn’t even remember bringing it out here, taking it from the guitar case. He placed his hand on it, sat looking at the view.
He sighed.
His hand twitched and he picked the envelope up, sliding his hand in and pulling out the contents. There were three photos. He held them in front of him, gazing at the top photo.
She was smiling at him, deep blue eyes glistening, looking directly at the lens of the camera. The sun was up high in the sky and she had her arms above her head, her thick fur coat flowing around her body. He rested his finger on her face. She was radiant.
He flipped to the next photo. It was her side profile. She was looking out into the horizon, arms wrapped around her body, puling the coat into her, in the manner he had seen her do before, when she had been defensive. The sun was just as high in the sky. It had clearly been taken in the morning, before everyone had arrived. When it was just her and the photographer. The photographer that she had fucked. He had a sudden urge to throw the photos away, burn them.
But when he focussed back on them, all he could do was draw them closer to him, he studied her side profile, traced the shape of her jawline, down her neck to her coat. The sun glistened off her hair.
The last photo was a close up. Only her face and neck were in the shot. She had her tongue out, laughter in her eyes and her nose scrunched up. He smiled. He liked this one best.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat on the decking, staring into space, or studying those photos. Long after it had gone dark, he pushed himself up from the chair and took himself to bed, Camila’s empty side goading him.
That night, he dreamt of red hair and blue eyes, she stuck her tongue out at him as she ran down the hillside, looking back at him, calling for him to chase her. He ran after her, laughing brightly as she twirled around before sinking into his arms as he caught up with her.