A soft, gentle breeze blew into the room from the open balcony doors, refurnishing Roger and Lena's bedroom of its unlived-in smell and replacing it with fresh night air. Lena watched Roger's sleeping form, thankful to finally be back home in their own privacy, in London, in a place where gigs were local and the community of people around them more or less stayed the same. She let her breathing fall into the same rhythm of Roger's as he slept, trying to calm her nerves enough to join him in sleep.

The last couple months of touring around the world had been a delightful and harrowing adventure but this return to normalcy was much needed. In the year they had lived in the little house nothing was ever perfectly normal, there was never 'normal' with Queen, but life had consisted of a predictable chain of outrageous events and occasions. Finally Lena could go back to being woken up by phone calls from band members at all hours of the night with song ideas or with random arrivals of those same lovely people and setting up half the band's equipment in her living room for a quick demo of that same song. And these nights where the street below was all but silent and the world was careful not to disturb her as she drifted off to sleep next to this love of her life.

The next morning Lena woke alone in bed, but to the smell of breakfast and coffee. Sweet, delicious coffee. Homemade coffee. In her favorite mug. And Roger's morning voice. And a little good morning kiss on her forehead.

But that would mean getting out of bed and the warmth that the blankets brought her. But coffee. And Roger.

Fortunately for her, only moments later the latter arrived in the doorway of their room, the old floorboards creaking to announce his presence.

"Lena love? Breakfast is ready. And coffee."

"Hmm," she hummed, barely pulling back the covers to reveal her face and meet Roger's eyes.

Roger crossed the room and crawled onto the bed, hovering over her, his nose almost touching hers.

"You have to get up love. We have things to do today."

"Do we really though?" Lena mumbled.

"Yes love we really do."

Lena shifted herself up on the pillows to touch her lips to Roger's, her mouth moving against his in slow, perfect rhythm. The weight of his body fell against her own as she reached up to knot her fingers in his hair. With slow, languid movements he held her face in his hands, stopping for a moment to look at her.

"You know I love you right?"

"Not as much as I love you," she whispered back.

After a few more moments of slow kisses that began to cascade away from her mouth and down her neck Roger pulled away reluctantly.

"We really do have places to be going today. We told Fred we'd host his post-tour dinner party. So we have to go shopping. Because the only food we have in the house is that which is waiting for you downstairs."

"And coffee?" Lena grinned.

"And coffee. Now come on."

Lena allowed him to pull her out of bed, but not before another long kiss ensued, halting their progression toward breakfast even longer.

Breakfast was exactly reminiscent of the last time they had eaten together in their own kitchen, those may months ago before this tour. There were lazy kisses on hands and chatting of everything and nothing all at once. There was the drawing out of second cups of coffee in order to stay seated pleasantly doing nothing for just a few minutes longer.

But duty called and they were soon on their way out the door for a shopping date in preparation for Freddie's post-tour party. Lena had previously made him swear that it would just be them, the band and spouses, no exceptions. Aside, of course, from John's son that they had seen so little of recently, Lena thought smiling.

Shopping of any sort with Roger was always an adventure whether it be perusing for the latest fashions or their almost weekly shopping dates. This time was no exception. Lena had a vision in mind as to what she wanted their first home cooked meal back would be, but Roger's distraction levels prohibited them from completing their shopping in any timely manner. This Lena had no quarrel with this, in fact she quite enjoyed his outrageousness and somewhat childish behavior.

But what she did not enjoy was the attention of everyone else. Several times throughout their outing, in various different locations they were stopped by fans. And it was not in the way that it used to be where when stopped, only Roger or the others would receive attention, but now she too had fallen into the spotlight. The entirety of the outing consisted of Lena swallowing her panic and smiling widely at the people who greeted them. All of the people they met were really quite lovely she thought, it was just her inability to stop her hands from shaking and her chest from constricting.

Of course Roger was his delightfully exuberant self who was practically bouncing on his toes as they walked home. Lena knew that it was the effect of the tour that they had just concluded that they encountered so many people whom wanted to meet them, and she was happy for Roger that the he could experience this success, but as hard as she tried she still could not silence the little whispers in the back of her mind that told her that she wasn't fulfilling expectations, that she should not be sharing this spotlight at all, that people disliked her. The more people they met the more she found that the fans were just as loving and supportive toward her as they were of Roger, but this still did not quell her hands from shaking.

And of course adding to this was the occasion of seeing her face on a magazine cover. She had to admit that it was a good photo of herself, despite the big round sunglasses she had been sporting that day. However, just seeing her photo so blatantly plastered on the cover, as if she was a commodity to be sold gave her an uncomfortable set of shivers. Even at this point she wondered why the world was so blatantly obsessed with her, but could come to no more than the usual conclusion of the fact that it was Roger whom she was dating, the notorious, up until two years ago ago at least, as one magazine had put it, 'playboy'.

By the time they arrived back home Lena was thoroughly exhausted compared to Roger's jazzed and excited mood. She supposed that she was going to have to get used to that, otherwise any outing they ever took together was going to be miserable. Roger offered to start the cooking so she could relax for a while before helping him with the one dish that he had never made before. Lena was again eternally thankful that Roger was actually quite a good cook.

Lena headed upstairs to change into clothes that Freddie would approve of as being 'dinner party friendly'. She sat in front of her mirror, adjusting her makeup and repainting one of her fingernails that had chipped. The wet, red polish glistened like blood on her fingernail as she screwed the cap back on.

While waiting for her finger to dry somewhat, she studied herself in the mirror. There were her eyes and her nose and her lips and her blonde hair that now fell past the bottom of her ribs. Looking just as they always did. The way her eyes looked did not change and she kept her face steady in the mirror and allowed any anxiety and stress to be completely imperceptible.

Then she screwed up her face and pretended that her eyes looked sad and let her shoulders drop and let her hands shake. But the mirror still did little to fully reflect the anxiety she felt.

So she let her face fall slack and everything back to its resting position, and just stared, unthinking at herself while her brain swirled tremendously.

Finally she rummaged through a bedside drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and took them with her out onto the balcony. She had forbade Roger from smoking inside, so she figured that she should at least somewhat follow her own rule.

The wind blew just barely, hinting that there might be rain later that day. Otherwise, everything was moving at its normal frequency, a quiet din of noise. She clicked her lighter several times before it sparked and she was able to light the cigarette. Her first inhale of smoke left her coughing tremendously. She heard Roger chuckle behind her.

"I thought you didn't smoke."

"I don't anymore," Lena said, this time expertly taking a drag of the cigarette as Roger joined her on the balcony.

Roger studied her face without saying anything else. She offered him a smoke, which he accepted before returning it to her.

"Are you okay Lena?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah."

"Are you sure? Because I feel like you're not."

"I'm fine," she whispered.

"It's okay if you're not. You don't have to be okay with everything the world throws at you."

Lena looked at him and she could see his eyes filled with concern. She ducked her head and looked away into the distance, exhaling from the cigarette dramatically.

"It's just my brain being stupid and not handling the public attention well."

"It's not stupid. You never signed up for that-"

She turned to look at him, her cheeks taking on a red flare.

"But I did Rog! I did! The moment I accepted the job to manage that tour!"

"You didn't know that-"

"But I did!" her voice broke, "I did! How else would I have ever known that you were supposed to be a playboy? Or who Veronica was? Or when Kashmira was born? Or the names of Brian's parents? All before I even met you!"

"Lena-"

"No Rog," she said as she turned her head away to hide tears, "it's stupid, and-"

"It's not stupid Lena. Not at all."

"But it is Rog. It is."

"No Lena it's not. What's stupid is that the world thinks that it should know all of that information. It's stupid that the fans want to know every single little detail of our lives. It's stupid that we can't just enjoy spending time together out of this house without interruptions. Not you."

"But Rog, that still doesn't change anything. I'm still having these stupid issues and have a stupid reaction every single time we go out."

"It will just take some time love."

"It's been two years!" Lena gasped, "Two years and I still-".

"It's okay. Lena? Look at me."

She looked at him with bloodshot eyes as she attempted to avoid bawling in front of him.

"You don't ever have to be okay with all the attention. You are no under no obligation to please anyone, nor do anything they expect you to."

Lena looked at him, her heart breaking a little. He was looking at her so earnestly, desperately wanting her to believe him. But he could tell her those things over and over again and she could fully believe that those things were true, but she could not stop that little set of whisperings in her head that said otherwise. No matter how much she wanted to believe that it was fine and it genuinely didn't matter what other people thought, or what other people knew, there was an endless cycle whirring through her brain telling her to that she was not enough and that she must live up to every expectations. And that made her feel even less worthy, because she was failing at doing the one thing that the only person that mattered believed her to be; strong.

Be strong. Be strong. I can be strong right? Just get it together. You've had your cry for today. Now moving on.

She wiped her eyes and sat up straight. Taking a last drag on her cigarette, she went back inside and smashed it into the ashtray a little too aggressively.

"I'll be fine," she said with a little smile towards the balcony.

Roger stepped back in, closing the little french doors behind him. Before she could dash out of the room in a feigned need to go check on the food, he stopped her, his fingers resting lightly on her wrists, just barely preventing her from rushing away.

"Lena, I want you to know that whatever happens, whatever crazy collection of paparazzi and fans we encounter, I will always be here. No matter what."

"Thank you," she said her eyes looking into his, knowing he was telling the truth.

"And if we are ever somewhere and you need to just get out, let me know and we will go. Right away. No questions asked."

She slowly smiled at him, still holding down a shame that that would happen. "Hell" she thought, "that has already happened too many times to count."

"No matter what Lena. I promise."

She did not say anything but wrapped her arms around his waist. He followed suit by wrapping his arms around her, enveloping her in a strong hug. He rested chin on her head while she buried his face in his chest. Even with ghastly looming in the recesses of her brain, still causing her to want to break down and cry, she had to admit that this was without a doubt her happy place.

Suddenly the doorbell rang followed by a loud hollering.

"We've arrived darlings! The party can begin!" Freddie's voice called, echoing through the house.

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