Inspired por link and a challenge on the Huli FF Challenge Forum

All Along

He walked to the front door as he contemplated how he would tell her. She deserved the utmost respect as she had been his wife for over 20 years now. But how do you tell someone something that will surely crush them with the utmost respect? Even the British, who are gentle por heart, hadn’t invented a way to gently crush someone. It was just not possible.

He considered looking for his key for a few seconds, but decided to ring the doorbell. The house might have been financially his, but in contrary to his wife and children he didn’t call it início anymore, and he didn’t want to intrude.
He heard the footsteps in the hallway coming closer before a woman around his age opened the door. ‘Hugh?’, she asked surprised. Hugh nodded, ‘Can I come in?’ Jo frowned at him, ‘Of course, this is our house… Why didn’t you just use your key?’ While speaking these last words her voice softened, she knew Hugh had a reason for everything. And as if him unexpectedly flying into Londres wasn’t enough of a sign, this strange entrance only emphasized something being incredibly wrong. ‘Hugh? What’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?’, Jo asked worried. Hugh’s muscles had tensed for just a segundo at the word ‘home’, but it was long enough for Jo to notice. ‘I-…’, Hugh sighed and stared at his feet, ‘We… Can we please sit down? We need to talk.’ As Hugh spoke these words Jo could feel a faca plunge trough her heart. For years she had lived in fear that one dia he would come início and say these words. She knew what they meant, this was it, after 20 years their marriage would end.

He sat down at the cozinha mesa, tabela as Jo quickly busied herself por making some tea, trying to postpone reliving the most painful moment in her life. After a few minutos they both sat down, both afraid to speak. ‘So.. who is she?’, Jo asked wanting to get this over with. Hugh looked up to meet her eyes, ‘I’m not having an affair.’ Jo gave him a confused look, ‘You’re not sleeping with anyone else?’, she asked almost unbelievingly. Hugh sighed, ‘No… I-I…’ Hugh rubbed his face with his hands, ‘I want to be Lisa’s sperm donor.’ At this Jo’s eyes grew wide as she tried to say something but couldn’t, ‘Wh-what?’ ‘I-..’, Hugh started but Jo interrupted him. ‘You’re not sleeping with another woman but you want to have a baby with one?’, Jo hissed. ‘I know it’s a little weird, but…’ ‘A little weird? Hugh, we’re married! We are married and you want to have a baby with Lisa!’ ‘It would not really be my baby, it’s just that… it’s her biggest dream to have a baby and well…’ ‘If it’s her biggest dream than why do you have to fulfill it? Did she ask you this, because I’ll…’ ‘She didn’t ask, she doesn’t even know I’m considering this.’

‘So this is all you?’, Jo asked anger taking her over now. Hugh’s face reddened, ‘I’m sorry…’ ‘Like hell you are! You want to fulfill another woman’s biggest dream, while your own wife lives thousands of miles away from you for years!’ ‘You said you wante-‘ ‘Of course I didn’t want that! But I have nothing in LA and after that thing in ’97 I wasn’t about to go and give my whole life up for you! That doesn’t mean I wanted us to live apart for years.’ Hugh sighed, ‘You wanted me to give it all up?’ Jo closed her eyes and turned away from him. ‘I hoped you would, but after all these years I know you can’t. I guess there’s not much left for us now.’ Hugh sighed, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t. You deserve better than me.’ Jo nodded and swallowed her tears, ‘Can you please do me a favor and leave?’

Hugh briefly closed his eyes as he nodded and walked back into the hallway, ‘I’ll be at Stephens house, if you’d want to talk.’ ‘There’s not much to talk about anymore, Hugh. You either go to LA and have that baby with Lisa or you stay here in Londres and try to heal your marriage of twenty years.’, Jo said but in the back of her mind she already knew she had lost him.

Stephen was already waiting for Hugh as he arrived. ‘Jo call you?’, Hugh asked. ‘Yes and it seems you’ve made a pretty big mess of your life once again.’ Hugh sighed and walked into Stephens house, ‘It’s different this time.’ Stephen quickly closed the door behind them and followed Hugh into the living room. Hugh sat down in one of Stephen’s bigger chairs and sighed hard as he put his head in his hands. Stephen just left his friends sitting there for a minuto as he got them some beers. Hugh didn’t even notice Stephen leaving the room as he was too caught up in his own thoughts.

‘Here you go. I assume you can use this.’, Stephen handed Hugh a beer. Hugh gave him a weak smile, ‘Thanks.’ ‘Now before your swallowed por your own depressive thoughts, tell me, what is going on?’, Stephen said. ‘Jo didn’t tell you?’, Hugh asked grumpily, he wasn’t really in the mood to have the same talk all over again. ‘Well she did tell me something, but I don’t know if I heard her right.’ ‘You did.’, it was all Hugh said. Stephen sighed, ‘You want to have a baby with Lisa?’ Hugh nodded briefly, ‘I do.’ ‘But why? Where is this sudden urge to have a child coming from? And don’t tell me that it is because it is her biggest dream.’ ‘But it is.’, Hugh said looking up at Stephen for the first time. ‘I know and she’s one of your dearest friends, but even for you that isn’t reason enough.’ Hugh closed his eyes and swallowed. ‘It’s not about the baby.’ Stephen observed him curiously, ‘Than what secret are you protecting so passionately?’

minutos of silence passed, before Hugh opened his eyes again. ‘It’s her, Stephen, it’s Sarah.’
‘Sarah?’, Stephen was startled. He hadn’t heard that name in a very long time. ‘You met Sarah?’, he asked again. Hugh nodded, ‘Lisa is Sarah.’ ‘Wha-what? How?’, Stephen asked. ‘You remember that night?’, Hugh said his eyes sparkling at the mere mention of it. ‘Yeah… 1986.’ ‘The 11 of June, my Birthday, we celebrated it in New York City that year...’

‘Do we really have to go here? This música is way too loud!’, a young Stephen screamed to his friend. ‘A little bit of noise never hurt anyone, plus you said I could pick the club as it is my Birthday.’, Hugh answered. ‘O alright then, I’ll be over at the bar, going to get us some drinks.’, Stephen screamed back as Hugh observed the people dancing. As he tried to mingle into the crowd he accidentally bumped into a girl who spilled her drink over herself. She turned to see what fool had bumped into her, but the anger quickly left her eyes as he apologized. ‘O, o my god I’m terribly sorry!’, Hugh said in his natural British accent as he saw the beautiful woman in front of him. ‘Don’t worry, it happens all the time. You’re not from here are you?’, she asked as she looked up into his ocean blue eyes and smiled brightly.

That moment, that particular segundo had changed both of their lives forever. As her sparkling grey eyes met his gentle blue ones, they both just knew. It seemed minutos before their eye-contact broke and they both took in the rest of each other. She was like no one he had ever met before. Her wavy brown hair, gorgeous smile and beautiful eyes, accompanied por a body that had curves in all the right places. ‘I’m from England.’, he answered as she nodded. ‘My name is Hugh por the way.’ She smiled, ‘I’m ….sa….’, was all he heard over the loud music.

He smiled at her as she smiled back and even though they had merely said one sentence to each other it already felt like they had spoken thousands of words. ‘Would you like to dance?’, Hugh asked as Lisa wrapped her arms around his neck in response.

They danced for hours, their dance growing mais intimate over the evening. At first his hands were comfortably resting at her waist as her arms were wrapped around his neck. But soon their foreheads were touching as they could stare into each others eyes better that way. His arms pulled her closer against him.

‘Where’s Sarah?’, they heard somebody scream as Lisa turned around to look who had said that, that’s when Hugh’s mind connected two dots and had registered her name as Sarah. Lisa had quickly been back in Hugh’s arms and it had only been minutos until they had shared their first kiss.

Their kisses grew mais passionate and before they knew it they were almost thrown out of the club. ‘Would you like to go outside?’, Lisa asked him as she didn’t really see the point in staying there anyway. Hugh nodded and quickly scanned the room for Stephen, noticing him sitting at the bar talking to someone. He signed to Stephen he was going outside and Stephen just nodded as he saw his friend with the girl.

They went outside and Hugh immediately scooped her up into his arms beijar her happily. ‘You’re so beautiful.’, he whispered. Lisa blushed, ‘You’re not that bad yourself.’ ‘Would you ehm… I ehh… I don’t really know if this is appropriate or not but... ehm..’, Hugh stammered, blushing. Lisa smiled, ‘It’s okay.’, she softly stroke his face.

She usually wouldn’t go to someone’s place the first night she met him, but this man was different, so extremely different. ‘Would you like to accompany me to my hotel room?’, Hugh asked. Lisa kissed him in response, as she held a cab. Hugh quickly mumbled the address of the hotel before they got lost in each other again.

They had a night full of amor and passion and after that he watched her sleep as he mumbled a faint ‘I amor you’. Lisa hadn’t been asleep though, when he said it and even though she had never felt the way she felt right then about a man before her twenty-year old mind couldn’t handle the ‘I amor you’ yet. So after she was sure he was fast asleep she left, with tears in her eyes. She told herself it would never work anyway. In a few days he would leave to go to England again and she didn’t want to be completely heartbroken.

‘Almost 20 years after that we met again in Vancouver. We were the first of the cast to arrive in the hotel lounge, no one else was there yet. The first thing we did was kiss. We both couldn’t believe we saw each other again. But quickly after our kiss she saw my wedding ring and she told me she was also seeing someone, so again it couldn’t work. It was only when David introduced us too each other that I first new her real name. Later she told me that Sarah had been her roommate and that when someone screamed Sarah’s name she had turned around to see if Sarah was in trouble again with her ex-boyfriend Ricardo being an ex-prisoner….’, Hugh explained.

‘So the past 7 years…you’ve had 'Sarah' close to you?’, Stephen asked. Hugh nodded, ‘We had been far away from each other for far too long.’ ‘Do you have a relationship with her?’, Stephen asked curiously. Hugh shook his head, ‘No, something always got in the way…’ ‘But you… do you amor her?’ ‘I’ve loved her all along.’ ‘All those twenty-something years?’ Hugh turned his head away and blushed, ‘Yeah…’ ‘But… what about?’ ‘I searched for her for 2 years, but then… I settled for the mais secure thing I had with Jo and then when Charlie was born I realized I actually had it all, a loving wife and son, who was I to complain? Even if I would do it all over again, I would do it just the same, I wouldn’t want to miss my children for the world.’

‘So you didn’t think about Sarah anymore?’ ‘I kept dreaming about Sarah, but she was reduced to a mere fantasy…’ ‘A fantasia you wrote a book about.’ ‘The thought of her got stronger over the years. I don’t know why, but it felt like there was still a hole in my coração and I tried to fill it with anything. It didn’t work though, I almost lost everything because of it.’ Stephen nodded, ‘What about now? Is that hole still there?’ ‘Not as much, as I see her most of the year. But the longing to be with her… to have the family we’ve dreamed of since 1986… it has gotten stronger. I’m at the point that I can’t lie to myself anymore. I want to be with her. I need to be with her. I’ve dreamed of her for 24 years. I’ve loved her and missed her for all of those. It’s been far too long, I don’t want to wait until it’s too late also.’ ‘Then don’t and as you Americans say it, ‘go get your girl’.’, it was the only thing Stephen could say after Hugh’s story. Stephen knew that despite the hurt it would cause some other people, this was what Hugh should do. ‘Sarah’ had always been the amor of his life, staying with anyone else wouldn’t be fair to them either.

In the weeks after Hugh and Jo put the divorce in progress and told their children about ‘their common decision that it was better this way.’ Three weeks later when all forms where signed and Hugh didn’t have to be in England anymore until the divorce would be finalized, Stephen dropped him at the airport. ‘Go get her and never let her go.’ ‘I will, I promise.’, Hugh said and hugged Stephen.

Hours later Hugh arrived at Lisa’s house, it was 2.30 am in LA, but he couldn’t wait any longer. After 24 years he just wanted to be with her again. He would do anything if he could just hold her hand. He rang the doorbell and could hear someone stumble down the stairs. ‘It’s the middle of the nigh-‘, Lisa said as she opened the door, but just like that first time the anger disappeared when she saw the man standing in front of her. ‘Hugh?’ ‘Liz…’, he mumbled as he pressed his lips against hers. She wanted to give into his kiss immediately, but her brains kept her from losing herself in this man again, it knew she could never recover from another one night stand with him. That one night so many years atrás had had a major impact on her life. It took her years to realize that she had indeed loved him and still did, her amor for him had never faded. ‘What are you doing here?’, she asked. ‘It’s okay Liz, I went to Londres and… my marriage is over. We filed for divorce. I couldn’t live like that anymore. Besides hurting myself I was also hurting the ones that are the dearest to me.’ Tears had formed in her eyes, ‘So…?’, she said looking into his ocean blue eyes for confirmation that this was really their time. He nodded and smiled at her, ‘I amor you Liz, I missed you and I would do anything to just have a last chance for a last dance with you. I’ve loved you all along.’ She smiled brightly, ‘I amor you too.’ He swept her off her feet into his arms and carried her up to her bedroom where 24 years after that passionate first time, they found true amor again.


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