the clubhouse.
october 20th, 2021
Los Angeles, Ca
note: this isn't following my storyline, it's canon.
Most people were spending the day doing different tasks, getting set up for their Halloween parties coming up, helping their kids with their homework, or maybe getting ready to go out for dinner and a date. Stevie Nicks was standing outside a warehouse, a star badge in her right hand as she tried to prepare herself to walk through the door. She had been here a million times before, being able to hear the music coming from within the walls before you even opened the door always proved to her she was at the right building, but the silence was louder this time than it ever had been. She couldn't come here, she made attempt after attempt in the last four years and she never could bring herself to. Even when Adria called about her wanting to be involved with a project she was doing and requested Stevie to come here so she could be a part of it she refused, because of her own selfish reasons, but when Mike called and said the band voted for her to be here to watch this with them tonight she knew she couldn't say no.
"Stevie, remember. You're the only girl in our band for a reason."
Stevie grabbed the handle and turned it before pushing the door in as a sea of emotions quickly slid their way deep within her soul. She could still feel him here, she was planning to walk down the narrow hallway to the open room and see the band sitting around the table playing cards or eating, Tom rolling up a few joints before they started a jam session whether it was for a recording, a tour or simply because it was a Wednesday afternoon and the band had nothing better to do. But, where there once was normal laughter and tuning of guitars was now silence, Stevie left in the room with her thoughts as her eyes scanned around and rested on numerous items in the room. A collection of guitars and basses from Tom and Mike, Lord only knows how much they spent over the years on them, the table folded up in the corner that used to be out so often for the band to play cards or eat on, a coat rack that had one of Tom's frayed leather jackets hanging on it as Stevie almost felt someone guiding her towards it. Before she knew it, her free hand was grabbing the frays on the back of the jacket while the feeling of the heavily used leather was something that was oddly soothing for her to feel within the moment. Her coming over here to feel something she knew he treasured so much was, in a weird way, almost as if he was telling her that he was glad she was here.
"Stevie?" the blonde was lost in her own thoughts, the frays on the back of the jacket dancing between her fingers. "She has to be here, Adria only came and unlocked it a few minutes ago just in case she was the first one to arrive. Stevie?" Hearing Mike's voice snapped her out of her thoughts, yet it was such a bittersweet feeling that made her almost have to choke her emotions back for a few moments. She knew that he sounded like Tom in a million different ways, but it was almost when he hollered Stevie she faintly heard Steph in the back of her head - and only one person ever called her that on the regular basis.
Turning around as Benmont and Mike walked in, the fray of the jacket finally falling from her fingertips, Stevie titled her head as she only saw them two, curious as to where Steve and Ron were. "We all thought it'd be easier if it was just us three, you know? The two original members and the honorary Heartbreaker." She nodded her head, Benmont walked over to the TV that was hanging on the wall and quickly put the DVD copy on the side of the television while Mike grabbed a few chairs and sat them near the television so they could watch the final cut of Adria's project - Somewhere You Feel Free.
"Adria worked hard to make sure clips involving you weren't involved because she didn't want you upset with her. I know she called you about doing the documentary, even though we all understood why you said no..." Stevie simply cleared her throat, the badge still resting between her fingers on her right hand. It's not that she didn't want to watch this, she wasn't sure if she could watch this, she has been avoiding watching anything involving him since his death, hell she barely spoke about him. But now, she has it sit and watch a documentary about an era of his life that which no one knew how much she was heavily involved..
As the opening couple minutes played on the television, a big birthday thing from fans and other artists alike, Stevie found herself standing up and walking back over to the coat rack, her free hand grabbing the brown, frayed leather jacket before she slowly slid it over her shoulders, As it rested on her body, she walked back over to the trio of chairs and sat down in the empty one and remained silent, her free hand gripping the jacket that had years of lighter burns from missing the top of the joint because he was too high to start with. Stevie sat and watched so many memories that she's replayed in her head a thousand times since the recording of Wildflowers, but it was as soon as his voice first came across the television speaker did she feel herself choke up on emotions, only pulling herself out of the moment when she felt Mike nudge her shoulder. Looking over, she saw a freshly lit joint resting between his fingertips.
"It's not rolled as tight as yours or Tom's are given you two were the rollers, but I figured it was fitting"
Grabbing it with her free hand and taking a couple of hits before handing it back to Mike, the trio sat for the next hour and a half watching the work Adria did on the documentary. Memories they had long forgotten about were freshly implanted, and every single time she heard his voice or saw certain scenes her heart melted, her mind remembering all the nights and times Adria didn't put into the film, the nights where they were the last two left in the studio and they worked and smoked until the sun came up. All the hook-ups, the big fight that she left right before the album was done.
Before she knew it, the documentary was coming to an end and, as Stevie, Belmont, and Mike talked about how they missed Tom, Stevie felt her right leg start to shake from the anxiety due to fighting her own emotions from overflowing out of her. And once again, much like she had when her fingertips first grazed the leather jacket when she arrived here, the overpowering sense of him having his arms around her just broke her, the emotion that she had been suppressing since she walked into the clubhouse as the band called it quickly slamming into the forefront. She felt the air escape her lungs while the faint sensation of feeling arms around her waist made her hands start to shake, the grip on the badge tightening while she sat there in silence. She was scared to move, scared to open her mouth to speak, realizing when Karen made a comment sometime last year that Stevie never truly processed Tom's death that she was indeed right.
"Stevie?"
"I miss him, it wasn't supposed to be like this..." Stevie spoke for the first time since she walked into the clubhouse, looking over at Mike and Benmont as tears freely rolled down her cheeks. "I couldn't do this because I miss him, I couldn't sit and talk about him like he's no longer here, because I have to trick myself into thinking he is so I get out of bed every morning. I miss him so much it hurts to breathe. It wasn't supposed to be like this..."
Stevie got up from the chair and walked over to the television, the ending credits rolling as it showed random short clips of Tom in a field while "Wildflowers" played, a song that he admitted during the recording of the album that it was about her. Taking her free hand, she placed it on the television as the DVD would somehow pause, Stevie, noticing the remote on a bookshelf and nowhere near any of the three, she'd take the tips of her fingers and press it against the television. Closing her eyes, it was almost as if her hand was resting on his cheek instead of the television as she all but feel the scruff of his beard tickling her fingertips.
"I'm always going to be with you, Steph. Don't live like a hermit forever, the world needs Stevie Nicks back on stage, and I'll be right there with you always. She's so proud of you, darlin', as am I. I love you, Steph, don't ever forget that - take care of the band for me, I'll be waiting at the gates when your time is up and we'll be together until we find each other in the next lifetime."
Stephanie 'stevie' nicks-petty
"you're finally somewhere where you feel free, baby"
