Nothing Really Matters

Andy had gotten a broken lip from me punishing him but it had been my heart that had really gotten broken. It was sentimental as hell, but it was the truth. I wasn’t complete without her. I hated that she had left me, but this time I knew the reason for it was to make things work for us. She had to deal with her demons on her own. This was something I couldn’t help her with. I just hoped I had given her something to come back to, that I had given her the tools to understand that she was loved and worth of loving someone else. I threw myself into work and it wasn’t really hard to keep myself occupied. If I wasn’t filming, I took on every possible PR assignment the network handed me. I ended up catching much of my sleep while flying and getting through the days consuming coffee. I was so physical exhausted that I had no room over to dwell on what London was doing or when she was coming back again.

I’m going back to New York. We’re premiering season 6 in Madison Square Garden.
Congratulations. That’s huge!
I wish you could be here with me. When are you coming home, London?

I was at the terminal, waiting for my flight to New York when I texted her for first time since she left. She had been the one texting me earlier. I got a picture back after my question. It was just an image taken from a bedroom and out through a window but it meant so much more than any words could ever have described. She was home already. She was in New York. She was in my apartment. There really wasn’t any time for me to do anything about that fact, I was already cutting it too fine to actually make it to premier. It was just another way to keep myself from thinking too much. I had no time off any more, no time to stop and think about everything that had happened. Cause if I did, I know I would break down and I wasn’t sure I could get up once I fell. Not if she didn’t come to rescue me. I had been her knight in shinny armor once, but now I needed her to be mine. I needed her to start living again. This wasn’t really living what I did at the moment. It was just getting by, day by day. It was a good thing I was such a good actor. I had to put on a face for the fans, pretending everything was fine, that I was excited to be there, posing for photographers and signing autographs. Andy pulled me through it, always keeping close by, almost like he showed me how it was supposed to done and for that I was thankful.

“Are you ok?”
“Yeah… I really just want to go home…”
“We need to do this, Norman.”
“I know. I can do this.”

We were getting ready to enter the stage, well I was actually riding the bike up on stage but he was there with me, just making sure I was ok before he had to be at the other end of the arena.

“Have you heard from her?”
“Yeah… She’s here.”
“Here?!”
“In New York. She’s in my apartment.”
“Then what the hell are you doing here?”
“We’ve to do this.”
“Norman…”
“No, Andy I have to do this. I need to get through this. She asked me to, remember?”
“Ok.”
“You need to get going, or I’m gonna run you over.”
“Fine. See you up there.”

There were so many people. So much noise. And I actually enjoyed it. It was this we had all worked for. I allowed myself to feel happy about the fact that we had filled Madison Square Garden with crazy fans and that I was a part of it. I know I hadn’t been all that easy to be around for ether cast or crew since London entered my life. But that day it seemed everything was like it was suppose to be. They had stuck it out. They had put up with my ups and downs and above all, they were still there. And so was she. She was in the audience, first row, looking like any other fan there, with a Daryl Addixon hoodie I knew she most have stolen from Mingus and my favorite black hat. I spotted her first when I sat down next to Andy. I shouldn’t have been able to make her out, but I was so used to her. I knew every inch of her face, but it was the eyes that caught me. She smiled and blew me a kiss and I actually laughed. It felt strange, because it had been almost 2 weeks since I laughed. Andy looked over at me, raising an eyebrow. When I pointed her out to him, he seemed ready to leave his seat, but he never had time before the interview began and both of us were forced into working mood. But now that was easy to do. It was a good life again. She looked different. Happy. Relaxed. When I wasn’t forced to look at the hostess I kept my eyes on her, not wanting to lose her from sight, but she seemed to feel the same. I don’t remember much of the event, my mind where with her. What had she been up to? Where she here to stay now? Million questions went through my head and the time seemed to be dragging. I just wanted it to be over so I could have her in my arms again. When the lights finally came on in the arena and I realized both fans and cast started to move I followed Andy at first, leaving the stage. He had just turned back to me, when I changed my mind. I could hear him call after me as I rushed back out to find her. At the corner of my eye I could make out a security guy following me. She was waiting for me behind the barrier, beaming when I came to a halt in front of her.

“Hey.”

It was like I had gone deaf and blind to everything and everyone else then her. The yelling from the fans stopped and it felt like we were the only two people in the world at that moment. Like I had always wanted it to feel like.

“Hey.”

I replayed and flung myself at her, kissing her hard and deep, noting even stop to think about what I was doing. She kissed me back and that surprised me a little, but not enough to make me stop. I helped her over the fence and I could hear the questions and shocked gasps from people around us, but I didn’t care. I cradled her to my chest once we were on the same side of the barrier and walked backstage, not letting her go until we were well away from flashing cameras and screaming questions. Then Andy was suddenly there. Grabbing her and pulling her into a tight hug. She chuckled when he kissed her full on the lips.

“Hi, Andy.”
“Hi, London.”

Andy hadn’t been the only one to stay behind. Chandler was there as well, but other than that it seemed they others hadn’t noticed her. I was thankful for that at the moment, not wanting to share her with too many people. There would be time for them to say hi to her once we got back to Atlanta again. We were supposed to be at an after party close by the arena but there was no way I was going to go.

“Are you ok?”

Chandler asked as they hugged.

“Yeah, I’m good. You looked great up there.”
“Thanks. How did you get in?”
“I’ve my ways…Do you need to be somewhere?”

She turned back around to me. I was still a bit shocked to see her, making my mind blank at the moment.

“There’s an after party… But you need to go home. I’ll take care of it.”

Andy spoke.

“Thanks, man.”
“See you Monday?”
“Yeah. See you Monday, Andy.”
“Take care of him, Lo.”
“Always.”

She shared another hug with the two of them before they walked away. My hearing was back to normal when I could feel her hands on my face. It was still so much noise from the crowed.

“Hey, are you ok?”
“I am now. Can we go home?”
“Yes, please.”

I closed my eyes when her hands found their way into my hair.

“Look at me…. I’m right here.”
“If you do this to me again, I’m going to kill you.”
“I’m not leaving. Not unless you want me to.”
“Want you to? Of course I don’t want you to leave. I can’t live without you, London.”
“Good. Cause I can’t live without you ether.”

She kissed me then and it was like the first time all over again. I had fallen in love with her more time then I could count and I prayed it would never end. We might as well have been back in my apartment the first couple of days a lifetime ago, when we kissed again. It was so overwhelming and confusion to handle so many emotions at once. It was passion like I had never experienced with anyone else before. There was the love that even then, the first day, ran so deep inside me the closest I could come to describe it was the day Mingus was born. It was two different kinds of love, but they were still the same. Now, after everything that we had been through, what she had put me through in less than 6 months, that hadn’t changed. My feelings for her were still the same and there were no stopping it. Nor was the kissing. I could’ve taken her right there and then, but she had always been the more reasonable one and pulled away when I had pinned her to the closest wall.

“We need to go home.”

She said. I just groaned and buried my face in her neck, kissing it lightly. The only thing that could possible made me give in to her wish showed up then. Her eyes got caught on something and she called out.

“Mingus!”

I released her when I turned and found my son running towards us, followed by his much slower mother.

“London!”

He had gotten taller than her, or maybe he had always been taller than her, I just hadn’t noticed that before. He almost knocked her to the floor when he hugged her and from nowhere I felt the tears build up in my eyes. They were happy tears but it still felt stupid to cry about them hugging. He had really been worried about her though. Every night he would call me just to know if I had heard anything from her. I wasn’t even sure how they had gotten so close. They had just spent a few weeks together, but I was happy they had. It made things so much easier.

“When did you get back?”
“Yesterday.”
“Are you ok?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“I am now.”

She laughed when my son repeated my words. Helena finally came to join us then and I suddenly remembered that they hadn’t actually met yet. She had been unconscious the last time they had been in the same room and Helena had left before London had woken up.

“Mom, this is London. London, this is my mom, Helena.”

Mingus introduced them to each other and when she held out a hand to London I wasn’t sure she would take it at first, but she did, smiling even.

“Nice to finally meet you.”
“You too. We have actually met but you weren’t conscious at the time.”
“Yeah, you were at the hospital?”
“Yes. You probably need to be alone for a while so we will be going home.”
“Do I’ve to…?”

Mingus complained a little, making all of us smile.

“Why don’t we have dinner tomorrow night? You can stay until we go back to Atlanta. Unless you’ve other plans?”

I turned to Helena, who shook her head.

“No, no that’s fine. I will drop him off tomorrow afternoon.”
“Great. Alright?”
“Fine.”

Mingus sighed but agreed to the terms for once.

“I will see you tomorrow then.”
“Yeah. It’s great to see you again, Mingus. I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Lo. Try to stick around, will you?”

He said when they began to walk away.

“Promise.”

We snuck out the back of the building to a waiting cab, avoiding both press and fans effectively. She cuddled up in my arms once the doors closed and silence finally fell around us. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head. We sat in silence the entire rid, she only spoke when we left the cab, handing me my cap.

“Do you want it back?”
“No, it suites you.”

I put it back on her head, backwards. She beamed and took my hand before pulling me with her towards the building. There would be time to talk, but once we entered the elevator both of us knew that wouldn’t happen that night. I had her up against the back wall before the elevator had started to move, lips and tongue on her mouth. The passion between us had been there from the start, at least from my side. I knew it hadn’t been the same for her for obvious reason but when she had finally given herself to me, she had done so completely and without any limitations. The passion was still there, it might actually have gotten a bit worse because of all the times we had been apart. It was like both of us tried to make up for lost time together.

“Who knew you looked so hot a suite….?”
“Shut up and get it of ff me”
“Yes, sir.”
“Should I be jealous?”

Her fingers stopped opened up bottoms on my shirt half-way through and she looked up at me, mouth slightly open and breathing hard.

“Of what? Andy kissing me? You know it wasn’t like that… “
“I know that, I was actually thinking about your outfit.”
“Oh…”

She smiled a little when she looked down on the print across the hoodie, before returning her gaze to mine and her quick fingers began their work again.

“Yeah… You should. Not much beats a dirty redneck with a crossbow saving the world on a motorcycle.”
“Really? Not even this monkey suite?”
“Hell no. I prefer the dirty redneck every day of the week. He’s so much hotter… With one exception of course.”
“What’s that?”
“This.”

She had me completely naked within the next minute and she stepped back slightly to look at me.

“There’s nothing hotter than this.”
“Well, if you could get out of those cloths, I think I can show you something hotter.”
“What could that possible be?”

She asked and tossed the hoodie away from her body, having lost the cap already at the front door. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

“You. Me. Naked. On the floor. Fucking.”
“Now that does sound hot.”

I walked up to her and put both hands on her hips, not taking my eyes off her. She moaned softly as I stripped of her jeans, falling to my knees in front of her. She lifted one foot at the time, allowing me to let her jeans joined her hoodie on the floor. When I leaned in to kiss her thigh her hands gripped my hair tightly and she moaned.

“Fuck, Lo I’ve missed you so much.”

I could hear she was about to give some type response but whatever it was, her words got stuck in her throat and she gasped when I ripped her underwear away from her body and kissed her sex. Her grip in my hair tightened further as I started to work towards her realize. Her legs began to tremble and she forced my head away from her when her orgasm pulsed through her body, making her breathless. I pulled her down into my lap and she leaned her head to my chest, breathing heavily.

“I’ve missed that.”
“I’m sure you have.”
“And I’ve missed you too.”

She suddenly moved, slowly but deliberate, wrapping both legs around my waist, costing me to slip inside her with ease.

The sun was raising and we were bed, but ether of us had been sleeping during the night. Her head was resting on my chest, both of us trying to recover for yet another steaming love make session.

“Can we talk now?”
“Yeah… I think so.”
“Good. “

I waited for her to begin talking but she never did.

“You are suppose to be one talking, not me, baby. I know what I’ve been doing for past 2 weeks.”
“Right, sorry… You already know I went back to Boston.”
“Yeah. What did you do there?”
“Went back to the house. I was going to burn it down.”
“Burn it down?”
“Yeah…”
“Did you?”
“No… We had it torn down instead. Legally. You should be proud of me.”
“I am. But you’re gonna need to give me a little bit more than that. How the hell did you tear it down?”
“When I got there some people where there, attorneys. Caroline… She’s been around since I was a kid, helping out with the finance and stuff.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the money?”
“Cause it has never made any difference. I’ve never been part of that family.”
“But you are. Your blood says you are.”
“Maybe, but nothing else. My mother confessed to Caroline about me.”
“What do you mean?”
“That I was still alive. What they had done to me, what he had been like. She left me everything, all the money and the house…”
“How much money are we talking about here, Lo?”
“Well, Mr. Reedus are we starting to like the money?”
“Shut up!”
“It’s close to a 10 digit number.”
“Holly shit…!”
“Yeah, thank God for the oil crises in the world, huh?”
“Lo… I …”

I didn’t know what to say. It didn’t matter of course but I couldn’t wrap my head around the numbers. I had never been the material type but not having to worry about being able to pay the bills every month was a pretty good feeling. It made things easier.

“I’m not keeping it.”
“Ok…?”
“Not all of it. I’ve already donated my father’s half.”
“To what?”
“Different charities. UNICEF, RSPCA, some hospitals, your son.”
“My son?”
“Yeah. I stole his money, remember? I put it back into his collage found.”
“Ok… But how…? I don’t get it. You’re dead. London Richardson is dead. How could you inherit anything?”
“Caroline had me declared undead.”
“How?”
“Did I ever tell you I was arrested for beating up a classmate when I was 13?”
“No.”
“Well, I was. London Richardson was arrest on May 4th 2000 by Boston finest. My criminal records go way back… They took my fingerprints and DNA that day, I guess they had a feeling they might need to keep track of me or something.”
“They were allowed to that? You were a kid.”
“My dad was pretty pissed at me, told them to do whatever they had to, I guess he hoped they would beat me up and luck me away somewhere.”
“So they had your DNA. So what?”
“All Caroline had to do was match my blood to that old sample to prove I was who I claimed to be.”
“Couldn’t you just have compeered your DNA to your dad’s?”
“Yeah, but since he was cremated while I was still in the hospital it got a bit complicated doing it that way.”
“And your mother?”
“She’s already been buried so…”
“So you’re legally London Richardson again?”
“Not really.”

She sat up and left the bed before I had the time to even protest. She was back only seconds later, having collected something from the backpack from underneath the window.

“Did you break in through the window again?”
“Yeah, you really should put lucks on them.”

She climbed back into bed, crossing her legs next to me and pulled the covers around her before handing me a passport.

“What’s this?”

I sat up and took it from her. For some reason she looked nervous, even biting her lower lip. I flipped it open and my eyes were drawn eminently to her picture. But as I started to read it through one word stood out. Reedus.

“You changed your last name?”

I looked at her, my eyes widening slightly and I could feel tears started to build up. She nodded, waiting for my response. It was only a name, my name, but it meant so much more than anything else she had ever said or done. And I had no idea how to let her know what it meant to me. I just grabbed her face in both hands and kissed her hard and long, trying to put as much into the kiss as I possibly could. I think she understood, because when I pulled away both of us were crying.

“What the hell have you done to me….? Fucking hell, Lo this is… Insane.”

“There’s no other surname I want.”
“So you want to get married?”

The question came out before I even had time to run it through my head.

“What…? No…I mean… Well… No….? Do you?”
“I don’t know. I want you.”
“You already have me. But I guess… I guess we could.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
“Are you popping the question, Mr. Reedus?”
“I guess I am… Yeah, I am.”
“Oh… Shit… Yeah, well… Ok.”
“Ok?”

I raised an eyebrow at her, grinning when she blushed.

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“Now.”
“Now?!”
“Yeah. I want you to be mine now.”
“I’m already yours, idiot.”
“We can go to Vegas.”
“We were having dinner with Mingus tonight, remember?”
“We can bring him.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, ok. Let’s do it.”
“Fuck… Really?”
“Yeah, really. Let’s get married.”
“Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“Probably close to how much I love you.”

I knocked her to the bed then, attacking her mouth with mine. She shrieked in laughter and kissed me back. We were both too occupied with the kissing that it took us both by surprise when the bed suddenly vanished under us and I landed hard on my back on the floor, pulling her with me. It probably hurt but I couldn’t care less that we had just fallen out of the bed, she was on top of me laughing and still kissing my face.

“I love you, Mr. Reedus.”
“I love you too, Mrs. Reedus.”
“Shit, that’s going to take some time getting use to.”
“I will keep on reminding you.”
“If we’re actually going to get through with this, we need to get moving. You’ve to be back in Georgia Monday morning, right?”
“Yeah… We need rings.”

I got to my feet, pulling her up with me.

“We need breakfast. I’m starving.”

She kissed me again before collecting a shirt from the floor and left for the bathroom. I stood there, looking after her for a second, trying to get into my head what the hell had just happened. She was going to marry me. We were going to get married. Today! It was only 7:10 am but I picked up the phone and called Mingus. He answered after the 4th ring, obvious I had just woke him up.

“What, dad?”
“Do you wanna come to Vegas with London and me?”
“What? Now? Why?”
“Do you wanna come or not?”
“Yeah, sure…”
“Great. We’ll pick you up around noon. Need to find a flight. Love ya.”

I was still on the phone, on hold with the airline, when she came out from the bathroom, kissed me as she past, then continued to the kitchen where I knew she would be preferring breakfast.

“There’s a 3 o’clock flight from JFK.”
“Ok, great… I want Andy to be there.”

I took a bit of the scrambled eggs she had just put in front of me. I hadn’t really expected that.

“Ok…Do you wanna call him?”
“Do you mind?”
“Of course not. He might be hung over though…. Just tell me why.”
“Because he would beat us up if he didn’t get to be there. And I kinda think I love him….”
“He kinda loves you too.”
“I just think it would mean a lot to him if he got to walk me down the aisle or whatever it is…”
“What the hell happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Only 2 months ago you wouldn’t have given a shit about what he wanted or what he felt. How did you come this far?”
“You know why… Because of you… And I saw a shrink in Boston. 24/7 for a whole week. I’ve never talked so much in my entire life. I’m going to keep seeing her.”
“Good… Why are you doing bacon?”
“It’s turkey bacon.”
“Really? I didn’t even know there was turkey bacon… Where are you going?”

She had grabbed her plate and walked back towards the bedroom.

“I need to call Andy.”