The Devil with Angel Wings

A turbulent love story spanning the 60s–80s, Jimmy Page becomes entangled with pianist Lucy Miller, their bond deepened by music and passion. After a bitter breakup and six years of separation, a fateful reunion reignites their connection, but their struggles with love and the past, leave them torn between desire and the pain of parting.

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Chapter list. This list will be updated as new chapters get posted, to make it easier to find chapters.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 part 2

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 36

Chapter 35

Chapter 37

Please feel free to leave feedback. I would love to know what you guys think of the story!

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

This story is a dark journey that does have depictions of child abuse, has explicit sexual scenes, drug and alcohol abuse. You've been warned.

Also, sorry for any typos and grammatical errors.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

What Remains Chapter 4

Chapter 3

The final day arrived too quickly—but only because Rebecca had barely slept.

She'd lain awake most of the night, staring at the ceiling of her flat, watching shadows from passing cars slide across the exposed brick walls. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him. Saw the way he'd looked at her in that golden afternoon light, the way his fingers had almost—almost—touched hers. Heard his voice saying I don't want you to leave in that quiet, devastating way that had made her heart stop.

She'd replayed the moment obsessively. The weight of his gaze. The electricity in the air between them. The way he'd leaned forward slightly, as though pulled by the same magnetic force she'd felt. The restraint it had taken for both of them not to close that final distance.

Around two in the morning, she'd given up on sleep entirely and sat at her desk, staring at her phone. Willing it to light up. Willing him to text her—something, anything. Can't sleep either or Thinking about tomorrow or even just Hi. But the screen stayed dark, and she felt ridiculous for hoping. He wasn't going to text her. He was Jimmy Page. He didn't chase journalists half his age. He probably wasn't even thinking about her.

Except she knew—knew—that he was. She'd seen it in his eyes yesterday. Felt it in the way he'd looked at her when she'd gathered her things to leave, like he was memorizing her face. Like he was already missing her and she hadn't even left yet.

But what if she was wrong? What if yesterday's intensity had been a fluke, a moment of connection that would evaporate in the cold light of day? What if she arrived at The Langham this afternoon and found him distant again, professional, the walls back up?

The thought made her stomach twist with anxiety.

She checked her phone again. 2:47 AM. Nothing.

By three, she'd moved to the kitchen and made tea she didn't drink, standing at the window overlooking the quiet street below. A fox trotted past, pausing to look up at her window before disappearing into the shadows. The city was asleep, but Rebecca's mind was racing.

This is supposed to be an interview, she told herself firmly. You're a journalist. He's your subject. You have a job to do.

But the words felt hollow. She'd stopped being a journalist somewhere around hour three yesterday. She'd crossed a line—multiple lines—and there was no going back. She'd let herself feel things she had no business feeling. She'd looked at Jimmy Page and seen not a legend, not an icon, not a story to be written, but a man. A real, complicated, fascinating man who'd listened to her talk about Danny with genuine compassion. Who'd shared his own vulnerabilities. Who'd looked at her like she mattered.

And she' was falling for him.

The realization hit her like a physical blow, standing there in her dark kitchen at three in the morning. She was falling for him. After two days. After a handful of hours. It was absurd. It was impossible. It was unprofessional and reckless and exactly the kind of thing that could destroy her credibility as a journalist.

But it was also undeniably true.

She thought about Diane, about what her editor would say if she knew. Thought about her parents, about the judgment and disapproval that would rain down if they found out she was involved with a man more than fourty years her senior. Thought about the other journalists at Reverb, the whispers and speculation and accusations of sleeping her way to a good story.

She should end this. Should go to The Langham today, conduct a professional final interview, thank him for his time, and walk away. Write her article. Move on. Forget this ever happened.

But even as she thought it, she knew she wouldn't. Couldn't.

Because after today, it was over. After today, she had no professional reason to see him again. The interview would be complete, the article would be written, and Jimmy Page would go back to his private life while she went back to hers. Unless something happened. Unless he asked to see her again. Unless they both chose to cross that final line and damn the consequences.

The thought terrified her.

By four AM, she'd given up entirely and taken a shower, standing under the hot water until her skin turned pink, trying to wash away the anxiety and confusion and want that had taken up residence in her chest. It didn't work. When she stepped out and wrapped herself in a towel, she felt just as raw and exposed as before.

She checked her phone again. Still nothing.

He's not going to text you, she told herself. Stop checking.

But she couldn't stop. Every few minutes, her hand reached for her phone automatically, compulsively, hoping for something that wasn't coming.

At six, she made coffee and sat on her bed, staring at her wardrobe. What did you wear to the last day of an interview that had stopped being an interview? What did you wear when you were trying to look professional but also wanted to look good for someone? When you were dressing for a man instead of a job?

She pulled out outfit after outfit, holding them up, discarding them. The black trousers and cream blouse felt too formal, too much like she was trying to re-establish professional distance. The jeans and jumper felt too casual, like she wasn't taking this seriously. Everything felt wrong.

Finally, at seven-thirty, she settled on dark jeans, a crisp white button-down shirt, and a structured blazer. Professional enough to maintain some semblance of journalistic integrity. Casual enough to feel like herself. The blazer could come off if things got... if the afternoon went the way she hoped it might.

She left her hair down and applied minimal makeup. Just enough to hide the dark circles under her eyes from her sleepless night. Just enough to look put-together instead of falling apart.

When she looked at herself in the mirror, she barely recognized the woman staring back.

When had she become this person? When had she become someone who fell for her interview subjects? Someone who lost sleep over a man she'd known for two days? Someone who dressed for desire instead of professionalism?

The answer stared back at her from the mirror: when the interview subject had turned out to be more than a legend. When he'd turned out to be real. When he'd looked at her like she was something precious and terrifying and worth the risk.

She thought about texting Sophie, about calling for advice or reassurance or just someone to talk her down from the ledge she was standing on. But what would she even say? I think I'm falling for Jimmy Page and I don't know what to do about it? Sophie would think she'd lost her mind. Maybe she had.

By noon, Rebecca was pacing her flat, too anxious to sit still. She kept checking the time, watching the minutes crawl by with agonizing slowness. One o'clock. One-fifteen. One-thirty.

She left at one-forty, giving herself just enough time to get to The Langham but not enough time to spiral further into anxiety. The Tube was crowded with afternoon travelers, and she stood pressed against the doors, her bag clutched to her chest, her heart hammering against her ribs.

What if he's different today? The thought kept circling through her mind like a vulture. What if yesterday was just a moment and today he's back to being guarded and distant? What if I imagined the whole thing?

But she hadn't imagined it. She knew she hadn't. The way he'd looked at her, the way his voice had dropped when he'd said he didn't want her to leave—that had been real. She hadn't imagined the electricity between them, the magnetic pull, the sense that something inevitable was unfolding.

Had she?

She emerged from Oxford Circus station into grey afternoon light. The sky was overcast, threatening rain, and the air was cold enough to make her pull her blazer tighter around herself. She walked the familiar route to The Langham, her boots clicking against the pavement, her breath coming in short, anxious bursts.

The hotel loomed ahead, all cream stone and elegant windows, and Rebecca felt a wave of nausea wash over her. This was it. The last day. After today, everything would change—one way or another.

She pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby, and the warmth hit her like a wall. The familiar scent of expensive leather and polished wood. The soft murmur of conversation. The pianist playing something light and jazzy that she couldn't identify through the roaring in her ears.

The lobby was busy today—tourists checking in with rolling suitcases, businesspeople hurrying through with phones pressed to their ears, the usual elegant chaos of a luxury hotel. The white flowers had been replaced with pink roses that smelled like summer, incongruous against the grey November day outside.

Rebecca stood just inside the entrance, frozen, her heart pounding so hard she felt dizzy. The professional setting—the marble floors, the crystal chandeliers, the impeccably dressed staff—felt absurdly at odds with the emotional chaos swirling inside her. She was supposed to be here for work. For an interview. For journalism.

But all she could think about was him. About whether he'd be waiting in their booth. About whether he'd look at her the way he had yesterday. About whether today would be the day everything finally broke open between them or the day it all fell apart.

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked toward the bar.

It was two o'clock exactly.

Jimmy was waiting in the same corner booth they'd occupied yesterday. But today, there was something different about him. He looked... nervous. His fingers were drumming against the table, and when he saw her, he stood quickly, almost knocking over his water glass.

"Rebecca."

"Jimmy." She slid into the booth, and this time, she chose to sit on the same side as him, leaving only a foot of space between them. Close enough to feel the warmth of him. Close enough to be dangerous.

His eyes widened slightly, but he didn't move away. "Last day," he said quietly.

"Last day," she echoed.

They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of it pressing down on both of them.

"I don't want it to be," Rebecca said finally, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. "The last day, I mean. I don't want this to end."

Jimmy turned to look at her fully, and his expression was unguarded, vulnerable. "Neither do I."

"But it has to," Rebecca said, and her voice was shaking now. "After today, I go back to being a journalist, and you go back to being... you. And this—whatever this is—it can't exist outside of these three days."

"Why not?" Jimmy asked, and there was something fierce in his voice now, something that made her heart stutter. "Why can't it exist?"

"Because I'm twenty-eight and you're seventy-four," Rebecca said, forcing herself to be brutal, to be honest. "Because you're Jimmy Page and I'm nobody. Because the world will look at us and see something wrong, something exploitative, something—"

"I don't care what the world sees," Jimmy interrupted. "I care what I see. And what I see is a brilliant, passionate, fierce woman who saw past the mythology and found the person underneath. What I see is someone who makes me feel more alive than I've felt in years. What I see is you, Rebecca. Just you."

She felt tears prick at her eyes. "This is insane."

"Probably," he agreed. "But I've spent fifty years being careful. Being controlled. Protecting myself from exactly this kind of complication. And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being alone because it's safer. I'm tired of keeping everyone at arm's length because they might want something from me."

"What if I want something from you?" Rebecca whispered.

"Then take it," Jimmy said simply. "Whatever you want. It's yours."

The bar seemed to fade away around them. The other patrons, the soft jazz music, the clink of glasses—all of it became background noise. There was only him, only this moment, only the choice she was about to make.

"We should finish the interview," she said, but her voice lacked conviction.

"Yes," Jimmy agreed. "We should."

Rebecca reached for her recorder, pressed the button. The red light blinked on, steady and accusing.

"This is Rebecca Ashford," she said, her voice professional despite everything. "Day three of my interview with Jimmy Page. Jimmy, let's talk about legacy. What do you want Led Zeppelin to be remembered for?"

Jimmy was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass. When he spoke, his voice was thoughtful, measured. "I want people to remember that we were innovators. That we didn't just play rock and roll—we expanded it, pushed it into territories it had never been before. We brought in folk, blues, Eastern music, acoustic textures. We refused to be contained by anyone's expectations of what a rock band should sound like."

Rebecca was writing quickly, capturing his words. "And the influence? When you hear bands today citing Led Zeppelin as an inspiration—"

"It's humbling," he said. "Genuinely humbling. To know that something we created fifty years ago still resonates, still inspires people to pick up instruments and create their own music—that's the greatest legacy we could have hoped for. The music outlived the mythology. That matters to me."

She nodded, then asked the question she'd been curious about since the beginning. "What about your children? Are they interested in music? Are they fans of Led Zeppelin?"

A smile crossed Jimmy's face—genuine, warm, paternal. "They're aware of it, certainly. Can't really escape it when your father is Jimmy Page." He laughed softly. "But they've carved out their own paths. They're not trying to live in my shadow or replicate what I did. They have their own interests, their own passions. I'm proud of them for that."

"But do they listen to the music?" Rebecca pressed gently. "Do they understand what it means to people?"

"I think they understand it intellectually," Jimmy said carefully. "They see the reaction when we're out in public, they know the history. But for them, I'm just Dad. Not the guitar god, not the legend. Just the person who makes terrible jokes at breakfast and worries too much about them." His expression softened. "That's how it should be, I think. They shouldn't have to carry the weight of what I did. That's mine to carry."

Rebecca felt something tighten in her chest at the tenderness in his voice. She made a note, then took a breath before asking the next question. "What about Patricia and Jimena? Were they fans before you met them?"

Jimmy's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his body language. He set down his glass slowly, deliberately. "That's quite a pivot," he said quietly.

"I'm sorry, I just—" Rebecca started, but he held up a hand.

"No, it's fine. It's a fair question, actually." He was quiet for a moment, studying her face. Then he sighed—a long, measured exhale that suggested he was making a deliberate choice. "Patricia was aware of the music, yes. Jimena... less so, initially. She came to it through me, through our life together."

Rebecca pressed gently. "And the lifestyle? Being married to someone in the public eye, someone with the demands of touring and the music industry—did that contribute to—"

Jimmy held her gaze, and she could see the moment he decided where his boundary was. He didn't look away, didn't shut down the way he had on Day One. Instead, he simply shook his head, a small but definitive movement.

"I'm not going to talk about why my marriages ended," he said, his voice steady and kind. "That's not mine alone to discuss, and it's not fair to the women involved. What I will tell you is that I'm on good terms with both of them. We see each other regularly, actually. All of us—Patricia, Jimena, the children—we get together every Christmas. It's important to me that my children see their parents treating each other with respect, even after things have changed."

He paused, letting that settle between them. "But the reasons why things ended? That stays private. I hope you understand."

Rebecca nodded slowly, recognizing this for what it was: a boundary, but delivered with respect rather than anger. He was acknowledging what she was doing—pushing, testing, trying to get him to open up about the difficult things—but he was doing it without cruelty.

"I do understand," she said quietly.

"Good." He picked up his glass again. 

"The O2 concert in 2007," she said. "The reunion with Robert and John Paul Jones, with Jason Bonham on drums. Twenty million people tried to get tickets. It was one of the most anticipated concerts in rock history. Would you ever consider doing something like that again? Another reunion, maybe for charity?"

Jimmy's expression shifted—something guarded entering his eyes. "That night was... extraordinary. Emotional. We hadn't played together in years, and suddenly there we were, the three of us—four, with Jason—playing those songs again. The energy in that arena was unlike anything I'd experienced since the original band."

"But?" Rebecca prompted.

"But it was also a moment in time," Jimmy said carefully. "A one-off. We did it for Ahmet Ertegun, to honor his memory and raise money for his education trust. It felt right for that reason. It had purpose beyond just nostalgia or commercial gain."

"So you wouldn't do it again?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "Reunions are complicated. People want to recapture something that existed in a specific time and place, with specific people. Bonzo's gone. That changes everything. Jason is brilliant—he honored his father beautifully that night—but it's not the same. It can't be the same."

Rebecca watched his face, saw the conflict there. "But people still want it. They still hope."

"I know they do." His voice was gentle but firm. "And I understand why. But I'm not sure it would serve the music or the legacy to keep trying to recreate something that was perfect in its original form. Sometimes the best thing you can do is let something remain in the past, untarnished."

She nodded slowly, then asked the question she knew was most sensitive. "What about Robert? Your relationship with him—are you still in touch? Do you talk?"

Jimmy's jaw tightened slightly. "We're cordial. We see each other occasionally at events, industry things. We're not enemies, if that's what you're asking."

"But you're not close," Rebecca said quietly.

"No," he admitted. "We're not close. Not anymore."

"Why is that?"

He took a breath, choosing his words carefully. "Robert and I created something extraordinary together. Our voices—his literal voice, my guitar—they complemented each other in a way that was almost magical. But we're very different people. We always were. And after the band ended, after Bonzo died, we went in different directions. He wanted to move forward, explore new sounds, new collaborations. I wanted to preserve what we'd built, honor it properly."

"And those two approaches don't reconcile?"

"Not easily, no." Jimmy's voice was tinged with something that might have been regret. "Robert's made it clear over the years that he's not interested in being 'the Led Zeppelin singer' for the rest of his life. He wants to be seen as an artist in his own right, not just as part of our history. I respect that. I do. But it also means that the possibility of us working together again—really working together, creating new music—it's complicated."

"Have you asked him?" Rebecca's voice was soft. "Recently, I mean. Have you reached out about collaborating?"

Jimmy met her eyes, and she saw the vulnerability there. "I've tried. Over the years, I've reached out. Sometimes he's receptive, sometimes he's not. The O2 concert happened because the circumstances aligned—the charity, the timing, Jason's involvement. But trying to manufacture that again, trying to force something that doesn't want to exist naturally—" He shook his head. "I don't want to diminish what we had by chasing something that's no longer there."

"That must be hard," Rebecca said. "Knowing that something so significant in your life, something that defined you for so many people, is just... over."

"It is," Jimmy admitted. "But it's also reality. People change. Relationships evolve. What Robert and I had—musically, creatively—it was lightning in a bottle. You can't recapture that. You can only be grateful it happened at all."

Rebecca was quiet for a moment, absorbing his words. There was something poignant about this conversation—about endings and legacies and things that couldn't be reclaimed—happening while something new was beginning between them. The irony wasn't lost on her.

"Do you miss it?" she asked finally. "Not just the music, but the partnership. Having someone who understood your creative vision so completely."

Jimmy's eyes found hers, and the intensity in them made her breath catch. "I did," he said quietly. "For a long time, I missed it terribly. Felt like I'd lost a part of myself when the band ended. But lately—" He paused, and something shifted in his expression. "Lately I've been reminded that connection isn't just about the past. That it's possible to find understanding with someone new. Someone who sees you differently but just as clearly."

The air between them felt charged, electric. Rebecca's hand had stilled on her notebook, her pen hovering above the page.

"The fiftieth anniversary," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Does it feel like an ending or a beginning?"

Jimmy leaned forward slightly, his eyes never leaving hers. "I think it's both. An acknowledgment of what was, and a recognition that life continues. That there are still things to discover, still connections to make, still music to create—even if it looks different than it did before."

"And you're okay with that? With things being different?"

"I'm learning to be," he said. "I'm learning that different doesn't mean less. Sometimes it means more."

They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of his words settling between them. Rebecca looked down at her notes—pages and pages of his thoughts on legacy, on family, on the past and the future. But the most important things, she realized, weren't written down. They were in the spaces between the words, in the way he looked at her, in the understanding that had grown between them over these three days.

"I think," she said finally, closing her notebook, "that's everything I need."

"Is it?" Jimmy's voice was soft, knowing.

"For the article, yes." She met his eyes. "For everything else—"

"Everything else," he finished, "is just beginning."

An hour passed. Then another. The interview questions had run out, but they kept talking. About music, about life, about the strange paths that had led them both to this moment.

"I need to tell you something," Rebecca said finally, setting down her pen. "About Danny. About why this matters so much to me."

"You don't have to—"

"I want to." She took a breath. "Danny and I grew up together. We were the odd ones out in our family—the ones who didn't quite fit. Everyone else was so proper, so concerned with appearances and status and doing the right thing. But Danny and I, we were different. We wanted more. We wanted real."

Jimmy listened, his attention complete and unwavering.

"When he started using, I didn't see it at first. I was so caught up in my own battles—fighting with my parents, trying to prove myself as a journalist, trying to be taken seriously. By the time I realized how bad it had gotten, he'd been using for two years. And the family—" Her voice broke. "The family just wanted him to disappear. To go away quietly so he wouldn't embarrass them."

"But you didn't," Jimmy said quietly.

"I couldn't." Rebecca wiped at her eyes. "He's my person. The only one in that whole bloody family who ever really understood me. I can't give up on him. I won't."

"He's lucky to have you."

"I don't know if luck has anything to do with it," Rebecca said. "I just know I love him. And I'll do whatever it takes to help him survive this."

Jimmy reached out then, slowly, giving her time to pull away. When she didn't, his hand covered hers on the table, warm and solid and real.

"You asked me yesterday how people survive," he said. "How they come out the other side. The answer is this: they survive because someone loves them enough to not let them go. Someone holds on even when they're trying to push everyone away. Someone keeps showing up, keeps believing, keeps fighting. That's what saves people, Rebecca. Not rehab, not therapy, not any of it. Love. Stubborn, relentless, refusing-to-give-up love."

"Is that what saved you?" she asked.

"It's what saved the people I loved who made it through," Jimmy said. "And it's what destroyed me when I couldn't save the ones who didn't."

They sat like that for a long moment, his hand covering hers, the weight of shared understanding settling between them.

"The interview's over," Rebecca said finally. "I have everything I need for the article."

"Yes," Jimmy agreed.

"So there's no professional reason for us to keep sitting here."

"No."

"And there's no professional reason for me to want to stay."

"No," Jimmy said, and his thumb was tracing small circles on the back of her hand now, a gesture so intimate it made her breath catch. "No professional reason at all."

Rebecca turned her hand over, lacing her fingers through his. "I should go."

"You should," he agreed.

Neither of them moved.

"There's a terrace," Jimmy said quietly. "On the roof. It's private. Quiet. We could..." He trailed off, leaving the invitation hanging in the air.

Rebecca knew what he was offering. A moment away from the public space of the bar. A moment where they could stop pretending this was just an interview, just a professional relationship, just anything other than what it actually was.

"Yes," she said. "Show me."

They stood together, and the movement felt monumental—like crossing a threshold neither of them could uncross. Jimmy's hand was still holding hers, and he didn't let go as he rose from the booth, pulling her gently up with him. For a moment they stood there, facing each other, close enough that she could see the flecks of amber in his dark eyes, could feel the warmth radiating from his body.

He reached into his jacket pocket with his free hand and pulled out his wallet, extracting several bills—far too many for two cups of tea—and placed them deliberately on the table. The gesture was unhurried, almost ceremonial, as though he was buying them something more than just settling a tab. Privacy. Time. Permission.

"Come," he said quietly, and his voice had dropped to something lower, more intimate.

He released her hand only to place his palm at the small of her back, guiding her out of the booth. The touch was light, barely there, but Rebecca felt it like a brand through the thin fabric of her sweater. Every nerve ending in her body seemed to have migrated to that single point of contact, hyperaware of the warmth of his hand, the gentle pressure as he steered her through the bar.

They moved through the space slowly, deliberately. Rebecca was acutely conscious of the other patrons—the businessman still hunched over his laptop, the couple at the corner table, the bartender polishing glasses. Could they see it? Could they tell? The air between her and Jimmy felt charged, electric, like something visible and crackling. She felt exposed, as though everyone in the room must surely notice the way her breath had gone shallow, the way her pulse was hammering in her throat.

Jimmy's hand never left her back. His fingers splayed slightly, spanning the curve of her spine, and she could feel each individual point of contact like a constellation. When they passed between tables, he moved closer, his body nearly brushing against hers, and she caught his scent—something clean and masculine, with a hint of expensive cologne and something else, something uniquely him that made her dizzy.

They reached a side door she'd never noticed before, tucked discreetly near the back of the bar. Jimmy's hand slid from her back as he reached for the handle, and the loss of contact felt like a physical ache. He held the door open for her, and she slipped through into a narrow corridor, dimly lit and blessedly empty.

The door closed behind them with a soft click, muffling the ambient noise of the bar, and suddenly they were alone. The corridor felt impossibly intimate, the walls close, the lighting low. At the end was a private elevator, its brass doors gleaming in the half-light.

Jimmy walked ahead of her, pulling a key card from his wallet, and Rebecca followed, her legs unsteady. She watched the way he moved—graceful, unhurried, like a man who knew exactly what he was doing and was in no rush to get there. When he reached the elevator, he swiped the card and pressed the call button.

They waited in silence. Rebecca could hear her own breathing, could hear the faint mechanical whir of the elevator descending toward them. She was standing close enough to Jimmy that she could feel the heat of him, could see the rise and fall of his chest. Neither of them spoke. The air between them felt thick, heavy with anticipation and something darker, more primal.

The elevator chimed softly, and the doors slid open.

Jimmy gestured for her to enter first, and she stepped inside, her heart pounding so hard she felt lightheaded. The elevator was small, intimate, with mirrored walls and soft lighting that made everything feel dreamlike, unreal. She moved to the back wall and turned, watching as Jimmy stepped in after her.

The doors slid closed with a quiet hiss, sealing them in together.

The outside world disappeared. The bar, the hotel, the city—all of it vanished, leaving only the two of them in this small, enclosed space. Jimmy pressed a button for the top floor, and the elevator began its slow ascent.

He turned to face her, and suddenly the space between them felt impossibly small. He was standing close—not touching, but close enough that she could feel the pull of him, the magnetic force that had been building between them all afternoon. She pressed her back against the mirrored wall, needing the support, and he took a half-step closer.

Rebecca's pulse was racing. She could feel it in her throat, in her wrists, in the hollow of her chest. Her breathing had gone shallow, and she was hyperaware of every inch of her body—the way her sweater clung to her skin, the way her jeans felt suddenly too tight, the way her entire being seemed to be straining toward him.

Jimmy's eyes never left hers. They were dark, intense, filled with something that made her knees weak. He lifted one hand slowly, and for a moment she thought he was going to touch her face, but instead his fingers came to rest on the mirrored wall beside her head, bracketing her without actually touching her. His other hand rose to mirror the first, and now she was caged between his arms, surrounded by him but not quite held.

The elevator continued its slow climb. Second floor. Third floor. Each passing floor ratcheted the tension higher, wound the spring tighter. Rebecca could smell him now—that clean, masculine scent mixed with something warmer, something that made her want to lean forward and press her face against his neck, to taste his skin.

"Rebecca," he said quietly, and his voice was rough, strained.

"Yes," she whispered, though he hadn't asked a question.

His gaze dropped to her mouth, and she felt the look like a physical touch. Her lips parted involuntarily, and she saw his jaw tighten, saw the muscle jump in his cheek as he fought for control.

Fourth floor. Fifth floor.

They were so close now that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body, could feel the whisper of his breath against her face. If she leaned forward even an inch, they would be touching. If she lifted her hand, she could press her palm against his chest, could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingers.

But neither of them moved. The restraint was costing them both—she could see it in the tension in his shoulders, in the way his hands had curled into fists against the mirrored wall. Could feel it in her own body, in the way every muscle was taut, trembling with the effort of not closing that final distance.

Sixth floor. Seventh floor.

"When we get to the top," Jimmy said, his voice barely above a whisper, "when those doors open—"

"I know," Rebecca breathed.

His eyes met hers again, and the intensity in them made her breath catch. "Are you sure?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

Eighth floor.

The elevator slowed, and Rebecca felt her stomach drop—not from the deceleration, but from the knowledge of what was about to happen. What they were about to do. The moment the doors opened, the moment they stepped out onto that private terrace, there would be no more pretending. No more restraint. No more careful distance.

The elevator chimed softly.

The doors began to slide open, and the anticipation that had been building between them reached its peak, crackling in the air like electricity before a storm.

The doors opened onto a rooftop terrace that took her breath away. It was small, intimate, with comfortable seating and potted plants and a view of London that stretched for miles. The afternoon sun was beginning its descent, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink.

They were alone.

Jimmy walked to the edge of the terrace, his hands in his pockets, and looked out over the city. Rebecca joined him, standing close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

"I haven't done this in a long time," Jimmy said quietly.

"Done what?"

"Let someone in." He turned to look at her, and his eyes were dark and serious. "Let someone see me. The real me, not the myth or the legend or the carefully constructed image. Just... me."

"I like the real you," Rebecca said. "More than the myth."

"The real me is complicated," Jimmy warned. "I'm set in my ways. I'm private to the point of being reclusive. I have a past that will always be part of who I am. I'm not easy, Rebecca."

"I don't want easy," she said. "I want real."

He reached up then, slowly, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was tender, careful, and it made her heart ache.

"This will be complicated," he said. "People will talk. They'll make assumptions. They'll say terrible things about both of us."

"I know."

"Your career could suffer. People might not take you seriously anymore."

"I know that too."

"And I'm—" He hesitated. "I'm old enough to be your grandfather, Rebecca. That's not going to change."

"I don't care about any of that," Rebecca said fiercely. "I care about you. About this. About the way you make me feel like I'm finally seeing clearly for the first time in my life."

Jimmy's hand cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing across her cheekbone. "You're sure?"

"I'm terrified," she admitted. "But yes. I'm sure."

He kissed her then, soft and careful and achingly gentle. His lips were warm, and he tasted like tea and something else, something uniquely him. Rebecca's hands came up to grip his jacket, pulling him closer, and the kiss deepened, became something more urgent, more real.

When they finally pulled apart, both breathing hard, Jimmy rested his forehead against hers.

"What do we do now?" he asked.

"I don't know," Rebecca admitted. "I've never done this before."

"Neither have I," Jimmy said, and there was wonder in his voice. "Not like this. Not in a very long time."

They stood like that for a long moment, wrapped in each other, the London skyline spread out before them like a promise.

"We'll figure it out," Rebecca said finally. "Together."

"Together," Jimmy echoed, and it sounded like a vow.

The sun continued its descent, painting the sky in deeper shades of orange and red. The city below them hummed with life, with movement, with the constant forward momentum of millions of people living their lives.

And on the rooftop of The Langham, two people who shouldn't have fit together—who made no sense on paper, who would face judgment and scrutiny and doubt—held each other and chose to try anyway.

Because sometimes, the most important stories aren't the ones you set out to write.

Sometimes, they're the ones that write themselves.

Sometimes, they're the ones that change everything.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

What Remains Chapter 3:

chapter 2

Rebecca arrived at The Langham at 1:45 p.m., fifteen minutes early, her heart hammering against her ribs.

She'd barely slept. The night had been a blur of Danny's letter, Sophie's voice on the phone, the memory of Jimmy's cold disappointment. She'd changed her outfit three times that morning—first the black trousers and cream blouse (too formal, too much like her mother's expectations), then jeans and a jumper (too casual, too much like she didn't care). Finally, she'd settled on dark jeans, a crisp white button-down shirt, and a structured navy blazer. The combination felt like the truth of who she actually was—professional without pretense, put-together but genuine. Not playing a role. Not trying to be someone else. Just Rebecca.

The lobby was quieter today. The pianist was playing something different—Debussy, she thought, recognizing the dreamy, impressionistic quality. The white flowers still smelled like expensive funerals. The chandeliers still threw their careful light.

She walked through the archway into the bar area, her bag heavy on her shoulder, and stopped.

Jimmy was already there.

But he wasn't sitting in their usual booth—the one they'd occupied yesterday, the one where everything had gone so spectacularly wrong. Instead, he'd chosen a different spot, a corner booth near the window where afternoon light spilled across the dark wood table. And he wasn't sitting across from where she'd sit. He was sitting on the same side, leaving the opposite bench empty, as though making space for something different.

He stood when he saw her. The gesture was old-fashioned, courtly, and it made her throat tighten.

"Rebecca." His voice was quiet, careful. "Thank you for coming back."

She crossed the space between them, her legs unsteady. "I wasn't sure you'd be here."

"I wasn't sure you would be either." He gestured to the booth. "Please."

She slid into the opposite side, setting her bag down, pulling out her notebook and recorder with hands that trembled slightly. The silence between them felt enormous, weighted with everything unsaid.

Jimmy cleared his throat. "I owe you an apology."

Rebecca looked up sharply. "No, I—"

"Please." He held up one hand, a gentle gesture. "Let me say this. Yesterday, I was... cold. Defensive. You asked me questions I didn't want to answer, and instead of being honest about why, I shut you down. That wasn't fair to you."

"I pushed too hard," Rebecca said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I violated your boundaries. I asked things I had no right to ask."

"You asked things every journalist wants to ask," Jimmy said. "The difference is, you asked them because you actually cared about the answer. Not for scandal. Not for clicks. Because you needed to understand something."

Rebecca's breath caught. He knew. Somehow, he knew.

"Your cousin," Jimmy said gently. "Danny. He's in rehab."

She felt the blood drain from her face. "How did you—"

"I came back for my jacket last night. My phone was in the pocket." He gestured vaguely toward the bar. "You were sitting over there. On the phone. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I heard enough."

Rebecca wanted to disappear. Wanted the leather booth to swallow her whole. "I'm so sorry. I should have been honest with you from the beginning. I should have told you why I was asking those questions instead of pretending it was just for the article—"

"Rebecca." His voice was firm but kind. "You don't need to apologize for loving someone. For trying to help them."

The words hit her like a physical blow. She felt tears prick at her eyes and blinked them back furiously. "He keeps asking me how people survive it. How they come out the other side. And I don't know what to tell him. I thought if I could just understand how you did it, how you survived all of that excess and came through, maybe I could give him something to hold onto. Some kind of hope."

Jimmy was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer than she'd ever heard it. "I didn't survive it alone. And I didn't survive it cleanly. That's the first thing you need to understand."

Rebecca reached for her recorder, but Jimmy shook his head. "Not yet. This part—this is just for you. For Danny. Not for the article."

She lowered her hand, her heart pounding. "Okay."

Jimmy leaned back slightly, giving her space, his expression open and patient. Waiting.

Rebecca took a shaky breath. "Danny's my cousin. Technically. But he's more like a brother, really. We grew up together—family dinners every Sunday, holidays, all of it. We were the odd ones out in the Ashford family. Everyone else fit the mold perfectly. Lawyers, bankers, society wives. People who knew exactly what fork to use and never said anything that might cause a scene."

She could feel the words building in her chest, pressing against her ribs. "Danny and I... we didn't fit. He was obsessed with art, with beauty. Used to drag me to the National Gallery when we were teenagers and stand in front of paintings for hours. And I was obsessed with music, with words. We were the weird ones. The disappointments."

Jimmy's eyes never left her face. He didn't interrupt, didn't offer platitudes. Just listened.

"He went to Cambridge to read History of Art," Rebecca continued, her voice steadier now, though her hands were trembling in her lap. She could feel something opening inside her chest—something raw and vulnerable that she'd kept carefully locked away. The sensation was terrifying and liberating at once, like stepping off a cliff and discovering she could fly. "He was brilliant. Passionate. His dissertation was on the Pre-Raphaelites—Rossetti, Millais, Burne-Jones, all of them. He'd talk about their work for hours, about the symbolism, the rebellion against—"

"The Pre-Raphaelites?" Jimmy interrupted, and his entire demeanor transformed. He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly bright with genuine interest, almost excitement. "Your cousin studied the Pre-Raphaelites?"

Rebecca blinked, startled by the shift. "Yes. He was obsessed with them. Why?"

"I collect their work," Jimmy said, and there was passion in his voice now, the same intensity she'd heard when he talked about music. "Have done for years. Rossetti's Proserpine, Millais' Ophelia—I have a small Burne-Jones study in my library. The way they captured beauty and melancholy, the way they painted women as real, complex beings instead of idealized objects..." He paused, seeming to catch himself. "Sorry. I don't often meet people who understand them."

Something shifted in Rebecca's chest. She was seeing him now—not the legend, not the myth, but a real person with unexpected depths and passions. A man who collected Pre-Raphaelite paintings and spoke about them with the same reverence Danny did.

"Danny had this theory," she said softly, feeling tears prick at her eyes. "He said they were trying to capture something true beneath all the Victorian propriety. Something real and messy and human. He said that's what made them revolutionary—not just the technique, but the honesty. The willingness to show beauty and pain together, to refuse to sanitize human experience."

"He's right," Jimmy said quietly, his eyes locked on hers. "That's exactly what they were doing. Rossetti painted Lizzie Siddal over and over—his wife, his muse—and you can see the love and the tragedy in every brushstroke. She died young. Laudanum overdose. He buried his poems with her, then dug them up years later because he couldn't let the work go. That's the kind of messy, complicated truth they were after. Not the sanitized version. The real thing."

Rebecca felt something crack open inside her. He understood. He actually understood what Danny had been searching for.

"That's what Danny was looking for," she whispered. "Something real. Something true. And instead he found heroin."

The words hung between them, heavy with grief.

Jimmy reached across the table and took both her hands in his. The gesture was gentle, grounding. "Tell me the rest," he said softly. "Please."

So she did. And as she spoke, she could feel herself breaking open—all the careful walls she'd built, all the professional distance, all the armor she wore to prove she wasn't just a privileged girl playing at journalism. It all fell away, leaving her raw and exposed and terrified.

"Second year, he went to a party," she continued, her voice shaking now. "Someone offered him heroin. He was drunk, stupid, vulnerable. He said yes."

The words tasted like ash in her mouth.

"Then he said yes again. And again. For two years, he kept saying yes. Two years, and none of us knew. I was so wrapped up in my own battles—fighting with my parents about journalism, trying to prove I wasn't just a spoiled girl playing at a career—that I didn't see it. Didn't see him disappearing."

Her voice cracked completely. "His flatmate found him unconscious in the bathroom six weeks ago. Called his parents. That's how we found out."

Jimmy's grip on her hands tightened. His expression was no longer just attentive—it was devastated. She could see something shifting behind his eyes, some careful wall crumbling as he listened to her speak.

"My uncle—Danny's father—arranged for a private rehab facility immediately," Rebecca continued, the words tumbling out now, unstoppable. "Very discreet, very expensive. The kind of place where wealthy families send their problems to be fixed quietly, without scandal. Danny was there within twenty-four hours." Her hands were trembling in Jimmy's grip. "And then the family just... stopped talking about him. Like he'd never existed."

"What do you mean?" Jimmy asked, and his voice was rough now, affected.

"I mean they erased him." The anger surged through her grief, hot and fierce. "Three weeks ago, I went to a family dinner at my parents' house in Belgravia. Danny's name wasn't mentioned once. Not once. My aunt talked about her garden. My uncle discussed work. My mother asked about my cousin Emma's wedding. It was as if Danny had simply vanished. As if he'd never been part of the family at all."

She could feel tears threatening again and blinked them back furiously, but they came anyway. "I left halfway through the main course. I was so angry I couldn't breathe. They were ashamed of him. Ashamed that someone in the perfect Ashford family had done something so... common. So embarrassing. Addiction is something that happens to other people, you see. Not to us."

"But you didn't abandon him," Jimmy said, and it wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact, spoken with something that sounded almost like reverence.

"No." Rebecca's voice was fierce now, even through the tears. "I drove to Sussex the next weekend. To the rehab facility. It was raining, and the place looked like a bloody spa—beautiful grounds, tasteful architecture, everything designed to be soothing and discreet. I found Danny in the visiting room, and he looked so small. So young. Like a child."

She had to stop, had to breathe through the tightness in her chest. Jimmy's thumbs were moving gently across her knuckles, a small gesture of comfort that made her want to weep.

"He said, 'They're ashamed of me. They can't even look at me.' And I told him he was ill, that he was getting help, that he was brave. But he just shook his head. He said he didn't even have a good reason for it, not like some of the others in rehab. No trauma, no abuse. He was just bored. Sad. Wanted to feel something else. And now he's ruined everything."

A tear escaped, sliding down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away this time.

"Four days before I came to interview you, I got a letter from him. He's allowed to write letters, you see. Very therapeutic." Her voice was bitter now. "He asked me about musicians. About people like you, like Keith Richards, like all the rockstars who survived the seventies. He wrote, 'How did they do it, Becca? How did they come out the other side? Did they have some secret I don't have? Some strength I'm missing?'"

She looked up at Jimmy, her eyes bright with unshed tears, and saw that his own eyes were glistening. He was affected—genuinely, deeply affected. Not offering platitudes or professional sympathy, but actually moved by her story, by her pain, by her fierce loyalty to someone the world had abandoned.

"That's why I asked you those questions yesterday," she whispered. "That's why I pushed so hard. I wasn't hunting for scandal or trying to exploit you. I was trying to understand. Because Danny's in that facility right now, terrified and ashamed and convinced he's broken beyond repair. And everyone who's supposed to love him has turned their backs. Everyone except me."

Her voice broke completely. "And I don't know how to help him. I don't know what to say. I don't know if love is enough, if just showing up is enough. I thought if I could just understand how you survived it, how anyone survives it, maybe I could give him something to hold onto. Some kind of proof that people come through this. That he can come through this."

The tears were falling freely now, and she didn't try to stop them. "He's my family. He's my brother in every way that matters. And I refuse to abandon him like everyone else has. But I'm terrified, Jimmy. I'm terrified that I'm not enough. That I'll fail him. That he'll—"

She couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't say the words.

Jimmy stood abruptly, moved around the table, and slid into the booth beside her. He pulled her into his arms—a gesture so unexpected, so tender, that Rebecca broke completely. She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed, all the fear and grief and exhaustion pouring out of her in great, shaking waves.

He held her, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapped around her shoulders. He didn't speak. Didn't offer empty reassurances. Just held her while she fell apart.

When the storm finally passed, Rebecca pulled back slightly, mortified. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"Don't," Jimmy said firmly, his hands still on her shoulders. He looked at her with an intensity that made her breath catch. "Don't apologize for loving someone. Don't apologize for refusing to give up on them."

He reached up and gently wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. The gesture was so intimate, so careful, that Rebecca felt something shift between them—something profound and irreversible.

"You won't fail him," Jimmy said quietly, his voice rough with emotion. "Not by loving him. Not by showing up. That's what Danny needs to know—that someone refuses to give up on him. That someone sees him as more than his worst moment."

"But what if it's not enough?" Rebecca whispered.

"Then he's already braver than most," Jimmy said, his eyes never leaving hers. "Tell him that. Tell him that choosing to get help, choosing to face it—that's the hardest part. The rest is just time and work and showing up every day even when it feels impossible."

"Is that what you told the people you loved?"

"I tried to." His voice was heavy with old grief, but also with something else—something that looked almost like hope. "Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. But the ones who made it through—they all had someone who refused to give up on them. Someone who kept showing up, kept believing they could survive it. That's what Danny has in you."

Rebecca felt fresh tears spill over, but these were different—not just grief, but something else. Relief. Understanding. The feeling of being truly seen by someone who understood.

"You might not be able to save him," Jimmy continued softly, his hand still cupping her face. "No one can do that but him. But you can be there. You can be the voice that reminds him he's worth saving. That's not nothing, Rebecca. That's everything."

They sat there for a long moment, close enough that Rebecca could feel the warmth of him, could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. Something had shifted between them—something neither of them had expected or planned for. The careful distance of interviewer and subject had collapsed entirely, leaving something raw and real and terrifying in its place.

Jimmy's thumb traced her cheekbone gently, and Rebecca realized with a jolt that he was looking at her the way Danny used to look at Pre-Raphaelite paintings—like she was something beautiful and true and worth studying. Like she mattered.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"For what?"

"For seeing me. For understanding."

Jimmy smiled, and it was the most genuine expression she'd seen from him yet. "I think you're the one who's been doing the seeing, Rebecca. You've been looking past the myth from the beginning. Trying to find the real person underneath."

"Have I found him?" she asked softly.

"I think you're getting close," he said, and there was something in his voice—something warm and vulnerable and entirely human—that made Rebecca's heart skip.

They stayed like that, close and quiet, until the waiter appeared with their tea. Jimmy moved back to his side of the booth, but the intimacy remained, hanging in the air between them like something tangible.

The waiter appeared then, discreet and professional, and Jimmy ordered tea for both of them. Earl Grey for Rebecca, Darjeeling for himself. When the waiter left, Jimmy settled back against the booth and regarded her with something that looked almost like tenderness.

"Shall we start again?" he asked. "Properly this time?"

Rebecca wiped her eyes, managed a shaky laugh. "Yes. Please."

She reached for her recorder, pressed the button. The small red light blinked on.

"This is Rebecca Ashford," she said, her voice steadier now. "Day two of my interview with Jimmy Page for Reverb, discussing Led Zeppelin's fiftieth anniversary. Mr. Page, thank you for agreeing to continue our conversation."

"Call me Jimmy," he said, and there was warmth in his voice now, genuine warmth. "Mr. Page makes me feel ancient."

"You're not ancient," Rebecca said, and then blushed. "Sorry. That's not very professional."

"I think we're past professional, don't you?" He smiled, and it transformed his face—made him look younger, more open. "Ask me your questions, Rebecca. The real ones. I'll answer what I can."

So she did.

She asked him about the mythology that had built up around Led Zeppelin—the stories of excess, the legends of debauchery, the image of them as gods of rock and roll. And instead of shutting down, Jimmy talked about it with honesty and nuance.

"We were young," he said. "Talented, yes, but also young and stupid and drunk on our own success. We believed our own mythology for a while. Thought we were invincible. And the culture around us—the music industry, the fans, the hangers-on—they encouraged it. They wanted us to be larger than life. So we were."

"Do you regret it?"

Jimmy was quiet for a long moment, his fingers drumming against the table in that familiar rhythm. "Parts of it," he said finally. "I regret the people who got hurt. The ones who got caught up in our wake and couldn't swim out. I regret not being more careful, more aware of the power we had and the damage we could do."

He paused, considering. "But you have to understand—touring was incredibly boring. People think it's all glamour and excitement, but the reality is you're sitting in a hotel room for hours with nothing to do. You come off stage after two hours of pure adrenaline, thousands of people screaming, the music coursing through your veins—and then what? You can't just go to sleep. Your body won't let you. Your mind won't let you."

Rebecca leaned forward, her pen poised over her notebook. "So the parties, the excess—that was about filling the void?"

"Partly." Jimmy's expression was thoughtful, not defensive. "And partly it was just... available. We had Richard Cole—our tour manager. Brilliant at his job, absolutely brilliant. His job was to make sure we were never bored, never wanted for anything. Whatever we needed, whatever we wanted, Richard made it happen."

"Like what?" Rebecca asked carefully.

Jimmy smiled, but it was rueful. "Like everything. You've heard the stories, I'm sure. The shark incident?"

Rebecca's eyes widened. "The one from Seattle? I thought that was a myth."

"Not entirely a myth, though the details got exaggerated over the years." He shook his head. "We were at the Edgewater Inn—you could fish right from your hotel room window. Someone caught a shark, or maybe it was a mud shark, accounts vary. And then... well. Let's just say it got used in ways that were crude and stupid and seemed hilarious at the time."

He met her eyes directly. "I'm not proud of it. But that's what I mean about the culture. It was the late sixties, early seventies. Everyone was doing things like that. The Stones, The Who—Pete Townshend smashing guitars, Keith Moon driving cars into swimming pools. We threw television sets out of hotel windows. Bonzo rode a motorcycle up and down hotel hallways at three in the morning. I once watched him drive a car into a pool."

"And the hotels just... let you?" Rebecca was taking notes rapidly now, but she was also genuinely curious.

"We paid them," Jimmy said simply. "Paid them well. Extra money to the managers, compensation for damages. And here's the thing—they loved it. They absolutely loved it. Because they could file insurance claims, get the money to remodel, upgrade. We'd trash a floor and they'd renovate the entire wing. It was a strange sort of symbiotic relationship."

He picked up his teacup, took a sip. "The hotel managers would actually brag about it afterward. 'Led Zeppelin stayed here. Look what they did.' It became part of their marketing. The Continental Hyatt House in Los Angeles—they called it the Riot House because of us and other bands. It was a badge of honor."

"So it wasn't seen as destructive at the time?"

"Not really, no. It was just... rock and roll. It was expected. If you weren't trashing hotel rooms and causing chaos, you weren't really living the life. The music press wrote about it, the fans loved hearing about it. It fed the mythology."

Rebecca hesitated, then asked, "And the groupies? The sexual aspect of it all?"

Jimmy didn't flinch. "That was part of it too. And I'm not going to apologize for it." He met her eyes directly. "There were women—lots of women—who actively pursued us. Who knew exactly what they wanted and went after it. They weren't passive victims being taken advantage of. They were hunting us as much as we were hunting them."

He leaned back slightly. "It was a badge of honor for them. They'd talk about it—proudly. 'I slept with Jimmy Page.' 'I was with Robert Plant.' They'd compare notes, trade stories. There were women who made it their mission to sleep with every member of every major band. It was a game, and everyone knew the rules."

Rebecca's pen had stilled on the page. She was trying to reconcile this with her modern understanding, trying not to impose judgment on a different era.

"These weren't naive girls being deceived," Jimmy continued. "They knew exactly what they were doing. They wanted the experience, the story, the connection to something larger than their ordinary lives. And we wanted... well, we were young men with unlimited access and no one telling us no. It was mutual. It was understood."

"But surely some of them wanted more than just—"

"Of course some did," he said. "And we were clear about what we could offer. One night. Maybe a few nights if we were in town for a while. But not forever. Not commitment. And most of them were fine with that. They got what they came for."

He picked up his teacup again. "I'm not saying it was noble or particularly admirable. But it was consensual. It was celebrated, even. The sexual revolution, free love—all of that was real. Different era, different rules. Everyone understood the stakes."

Rebecca was writing again, but her hand was tense. She was struggling with this, he could see it—trying to understand without judging, trying to capture the truth of that time without filtering it through modern sensibilities.

"You have to understand," Jimmy said, his voice gentler now, "the culture was completely different. What would be considered exploitative now was just... Tuesday night in 1972. The women had agency. They made choices. And yes, we benefited from those choices. But so did they, in their own way."

Rebecca was writing quickly, trying to capture not just his words but the tone—honest, reflective, neither proud nor ashamed, just... truthful.

"The thing is," Jimmy continued, "at the time, it felt like freedom. Like we were breaking all the rules, living exactly how we wanted to live. No one could tell us no. No one could stop us. We had money, fame, power. We could do anything."

"But?" Rebecca prompted gently.

"But there was a cost." His voice was quieter now. "People got hurt. Not just physically, though there was that too. But emotionally, psychologically. Some people couldn't handle it—the excess, the drugs, the constant chaos. They got lost in it. And some of them never found their way back out."

He was silent for a long moment. "I watched friends spiral into addiction. Watched people I cared about destroy themselves chasing the high, trying to keep the party going. And I participated in it. I enabled it. I was part of the machine that chewed people up."

"But you survived it," Rebecca said softly.

"I did. Not everyone did." There was old grief in his voice. "And I don't know why I made it through when others didn't. Luck, maybe. Or stubbornness. Or just... I don't know. But I can't look back at those years and only see the fun and the freedom. I have to see the whole picture. The brilliance and the darkness. The creation and the destruction."

Rebecca looked down at her notes, then back up at him. "Thank you for being honest about it."

"You asked for the truth," Jimmy said. "That's the truth. We were young and talented and reckless. We did extraordinary things and terrible things, sometimes in the same night. We made music that changed the world, and we hurt people along the way. Both things are true."

He picked up his teacup again, and Rebecca noticed his hand was steady. "I don't regret the music," he said firmly. "I don't regret what we created. That was real. That mattered. That will outlast all the stories about sharks and motorcycles and hotel rooms. But I also can't pretend the rest of it didn't happen, or that it was all just harmless fun. It wasn't. And I'm old enough now to see that clearly."

Rebecca nodded slowly, absorbing this. She understood now—not just the mythology, but the reality beneath it. The boredom and the adrenaline, the youth and the recklessness, the culture that encouraged excess and the price that was paid for it.

"Tell me about the creative process," she said after a moment, shifting gears. "How did you write together? How did the songs come together?"

And he did, seeming almost relieved to return to safer ground. He talked about the way Robert would arrive with lyrics scrawled on scraps of paper, about the way John Paul would work out bass lines that were melodic and complex, about the way Bonzo's drumming would drive everything forward. He talked about the hours in the studio, the experimentation, the arguments and breakthroughs.

"We fought," he said, and there was affection in his voice. "God, we fought. Four strong personalities, four different visions. But when it worked—when we found that place where all four of us were locked in—it was transcendent. It was worth every argument, every compromise."

"Do you miss it?" Rebecca asked. "That creative partnership?"

"Every day." His voice was quiet, heavy with loss. "You don't get that twice in a lifetime. That kind of chemistry, that kind of understanding—it's rare. I've played with other musicians since, brilliant musicians, but it's never been the same. It can't be."

They talked through the afternoon, the light shifting and changing as the sun moved across the sky. Rebecca asked about specific songs—the inspiration behind "Kashmir," the evolution of "Stairway to Heaven," the raw power of "When the Levee Breaks." Jimmy answered with the kind of detail that made her journalist's heart sing, but also with genuine passion, genuine love for the work they'd created.

At some point, she realized she'd stopped taking notes. She was just listening, watching him, absorbed in the way his face changed when he talked about music—the way his eyes lit up, the way his hands moved, conducting invisible orchestras.

"You love it," she said, interrupting him mid-sentence. "You still love it as much as you did fifty years ago."

Jimmy paused, then smiled. "More, perhaps. Because now I understand how rare it was. How lucky we were."

"Not luck," Rebecca said. "Talent. Vision. Work."

"All of that," he agreed. "But also luck. Being in the right place at the right time with the right people. That's not something you can manufacture."

The bar was emptying around them. The afternoon crowd had thinned to almost nothing—just a couple in the far corner speaking in hushed French, a businessman nursing a whisky at the bar. The light coming through the window had turned golden, that particular late-afternoon light that made everything look softer, warmer, like the world had been dipped in honey.

Rebecca glanced at her watch and was shocked to see it was nearly six o'clock. They'd been talking for over four hours.

Four hours, and she hadn't wanted a single minute of it to end.

She looked up and found Jimmy watching her, his dark eyes steady and intent. The air between them felt different now—thicker, charged with something she couldn't name but could feel in every nerve ending.

"I should let you go," she said, though the words felt like a lie even as she spoke them.

"Should you?" His voice was quiet, careful, and there was something in it—a question, an invitation, a dare.

Rebecca's breath caught. "Do you want me to?"

"No." The word was simple, direct, devastating. "I don't."

The silence that followed was enormous. Rebecca was acutely aware of everything—the way the light caught in his silver hair, the faint scent of his cologne (something woody and expensive), the warmth radiating from his body across the small space between them. They were sitting closer than they had been at the start of the afternoon. When had that happened? When had the careful professional distance collapsed into this—into proximity that felt both dangerous and inevitable?

Her notebook lay closed on the table between them. Her recorder had been off for at least an hour. She'd stopped being a journalist somewhere around the third hour, stopped performing the role of interviewer, stopped pretending this was just work.

"Tomorrow," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "We have one more day."

"Yes." Jimmy's gaze didn't waver. His eyes were dark, unreadable, but she could see something in them—want, hesitation, the same awareness she felt thrumming through her own body. "One more day."

One more day, and then what? The question hung between them, unspoken but deafening.

Rebecca felt something twist in her chest. After tomorrow, there would be no professional excuse. No interview to conduct, no article to write, no reason to sit across from him in this bar and pretend they were just journalist and subject. After tomorrow, she'd go back to her life, and he'd go back to his life, whatever world he inhabited when he wasn't sitting in hotel bars talking to journalists who'd stopped being journalists hours ago.

The thought was unbearable.

Jimmy's hand was resting on the table, inches from hers. She could see the veins beneath his skin, the elegant length of his fingers, the calluses from decades of guitar strings. She wanted to reach out and touch him. Wanted it so badly her hand trembled.

He saw it. She knew he saw it because his own hand shifted slightly, moving closer to hers—not quite touching, but close enough that she could feel the heat of his skin, the magnetic pull of proximity.

"Rebecca." Her name in his voice was different now. Not the careful politeness of their first meeting, not the guarded distance of yesterday's disaster. This was something else. Something raw.

She looked up and met his eyes, and the world narrowed to just this—just him, just the space between them, just the terrible, wonderful knowledge that something had shifted and there was no going back.

"I don't know what this is," she said quietly. Honestly. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"Neither do I." His voice was rough, and she could hear the conflict in it—the same war she was fighting. Want versus wisdom. Desire versus consequence. "But I know I don't want you to leave."

Her heart was hammering so hard she was sure he could hear it. "Jimmy—"

"I know." He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, she saw everything—the complications, the impossibility, the age gap, the power dynamics, the inevitable judgment. He saw all of it. And he was choosing this anyway. Choosing her anyway. "I know all the reasons this is a terrible idea. Believe me, I've been listing them in my head for the past hour."

"And?"

"And I don't care." The words were quiet but absolute. "I should. But I don't."

Rebecca felt something break open inside her chest—something that had been locked away, protected, safe. She'd spent so long being careful, being professional, being the serious journalist who didn't make mistakes or break rules or fall for interview subjects. She'd spent so long proving she wasn't just a privileged girl playing at a career.

But sitting here, in the golden light, with Jimmy Page looking at her like she was something precious and terrifying, she realized she didn't want to be careful anymore.

"What happens after tomorrow?" she asked.

"I don't know." His hand moved again, closer still, until his fingertips were almost—almost—brushing hers. The space between them was electric, charged with possibility. "But I'd like to find out."

She should say no. Should gather her things and leave and write her article and move on with her life. Should remember that he was Jimmy Page, legendary guitarist, rock god, a man with a past as complicated as it was famous. Should remember that she was Rebecca Ashford, junior journalist trying to prove herself, a woman with everything to lose if this went wrong.

Should, should, should.

But when she looked at him—really looked at him, not at the legend but at the man—she saw someone who'd been honest with her. Someone who'd listened when she'd broken down about Danny. Someone who'd seen her, really seen her, in a way that felt rare and precious and real.

"I'd like that too," she whispered.

His fingers finally, finally touched hers. Just the barest contact—his index finger against her knuckle—but it sent electricity racing up her arm, through her chest, into every corner of her body. She felt it everywhere.

They sat like that for a long moment, hands almost-but-not-quite holding, the bar emptying around them, the light turning from gold to amber to the deep blue of early evening.

"Tomorrow," Jimmy said again, and this time it sounded like a promise.

"Tomorrow," Rebecca agreed.

She gathered her things slowly, reluctantly. Her notebook felt heavier than it should, weighted with all the words she'd written and all the words she hadn't. Her recorder, her pens, her bag—everything felt like an anchor, tethering her to a professional identity that no longer fit quite right.

"Same time?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

"Same time." Jimmy stood when she did, that old-fashioned courtesy that made her throat tight. "But Rebecca—"

She paused, looking up at him. He was taller than she'd realized, or maybe she'd just never been this close before. Close enough to see the silver in his stubble, the fine lines around his eyes, the way he was looking at her like she was a puzzle he desperately wanted to solve.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "For today. For listening. For seeing me."

The words hit her like a physical blow. Seeing me. Not seeing Jimmy Page, legendary guitarist. Not seeing the myth or the icon or the carefully constructed public persona. Just... him. The person beneath all of that.

"Thank you for trusting me," she managed, though her voice was unsteady.

"I do." He said it simply, but she could hear the weight behind it. Trust wasn't something he gave easily. She knew that now. "I trust you."

She wanted to kiss him. The urge was so strong it made her dizzy—wanted to close the distance between them, rise up on her toes, press her mouth to his and damn the consequences. But something held her back. Maybe it was the public setting, the few remaining patrons in the bar. Maybe it was the knowledge that once they crossed that line, there would be no going back. Maybe it was just fear.

So instead, she smiled—a small, genuine smile that felt like a promise of its own. "Tomorrow," she said one more time.

"Tomorrow."

She walked out of the bar, through the lobby, past the pianist now playing something melancholy and beautiful—Satie, she thought, recognizing the spare, haunting melody. The lobby felt different now, transformed by what had just happened. The chandeliers threw their careful light across marble floors that seemed to glow. The white flowers—no, pink roses now—smelled like summer and promises and things she didn't dare name.

She pushed through the revolving doors into the London evening, and the air hit her like a shock—cold and sharp and real after the warm cocoon of the bar. The street was busy with evening traffic, people hurrying home from work, the city alive with its usual chaos.

But Rebecca barely noticed. She was still back in that bar, still feeling the ghost of Jimmy's fingertip against her knuckle, still hearing his voice saying I don't want you to leave.

Her phone buzzed in her bag. She pulled it out, saw Diane's name on the screen: How did today go?

Rebecca stared at the message for a long moment. How did today go? How could she possibly answer that? How could she explain that she'd stopped being a journalist somewhere around hour three? That she'd fallen for her interview subject? That everything had changed and she didn't know how to change it back—didn't even want to?

She typed back: Better. Much better. One more day tomorrow.

The words felt inadequate, a lie by omission. But what else could she say?

She didn't mention the way her heart was still racing, hammering against her ribs like it was trying to escape. Didn't mention the way Jimmy had looked at her when he'd said he didn't want her to leave—like she was something precious, something worth the complications. Didn't mention that somewhere in the last four hours, this had stopped being just an interview and had become something else entirely.

Something dangerous.

Something inevitable.

Something she couldn't walk away from even if she tried.

Rebecca stood on the pavement outside The Langham, the cold London evening swirling around her, and felt the full weight of what was happening. Tomorrow was the last day. The last day of the interview, the last day she had a professional excuse to see him. After tomorrow, they'd have to make a choice—walk away and pretend this hadn't happened, or step forward into something that would be complicated and messy and probably judged by everyone who knew about it.

She thought about Danny, alone in that rehab facility in Sussex, asking how people survived. Asking how they came out the other side.

Maybe the answer wasn't about surviving alone. Maybe it was about finding someone who saw you—really saw you—and choosing to be brave enough to let them in.

Maybe that was the secret Jimmy had learned. Maybe that was what he'd been trying to tell her all afternoon.

Rebecca slipped her phone back into her bag and started walking toward the Tube station. The city moved around her—cars and buses and people and noise—but she felt separate from it all, wrapped in the memory of golden light and almost-touching hands and the promise of tomorrow.

One more day.

And then everything would change.

She knew it with a certainty that terrified and thrilled her in equal measure. Tomorrow, they would cross a line. Tomorrow, she would stop being the journalist and become something else—someone else. Someone brave enough to choose what she wanted instead of what she should want.

The thought should have scared her more than it did.

But as she descended into the Underground, surrounded by strangers and fluorescent lights and the rattle of approaching trains, all she felt was anticipation.

Tomorrow couldn't come fast enough.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

What Remains Chapter Two

Chapter 1

He arrived at 2:03 p.m.

Rebecca saw him before he saw her—a figure moving through the lobby with the kind of unhurried confidence that came from decades of being watched. Even from a distance, even through the archway that separated the bar from the main lobby, she recognised him instantly. Not from photographs, though she'd studied enough of those. It was something else. The way he moved. The way the space around him seemed to shift and accommodate his presence.

Jimmy Page was smaller than she'd expected. Not short, exactly, but compact in a way that photographs never quite captured. He wore dark jeans, a black button-down shirt with and a charcoal blazer that looked expensive without being ostentatious. His hair—silver grey—fell past his shoulders, and he pushed it back with one hand as he paused in the lobby, scanning the space.

He looked, Rebecca thought with a jolt of surprise, like someone who'd dressed carefully for this. Not flashy. Not trying to be the rock god. Just... present. Real.

Their eyes met across the distance.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Rebecca felt the weight of that gaze—dark eyes, sharp and assessing, taking her in with the same careful attention she'd been giving him. There was no smile, no acknowledgment beyond that brief lock of eye contact. But it was enough. He'd seen her. He knew who she was.

He moved toward the bar with the same unhurried grace, and Rebecca stood, smoothing her hands down her jeans in a gesture she immediately regretted. Too nervous. Too obvious.

"Ms. Ashford." His voice was quiet, careful—the words precisely enunciated but without the ease of someone born to command a room. There was politeness in it, the kind that came from decades of learning how to move through the world without drawing unnecessary attention. Beneath the refinement, she could hear South London in the vowels—not erased, but contained, held back like something he'd learned to manage. His manner was guarded, almost shy, the protective armor of a man who'd spent fifty years being watched.

"Mr. Page." She extended her hand, and he took it. His grip was firm, his palm warm and dry. The handshake lasted exactly the appropriate amount of time—professional, impersonal.

"Jimmy, please." He glanced around the bar, taking in the other patrons, the pianist's music drifting in from the lobby, the bottles glowing behind the bar. "Shall we sit somewhere more private?"

Rebecca gestured to the table she'd chosen, tucked into the corner near the window. He nodded and slid into the seat across from her with an ease that suggested he'd done this a thousand times before. Which, of course, he had.

The waiter appeared almost immediately, as though summoned by some invisible signal. Jimmy ordered a sparkling water with lime. Rebecca, her throat suddenly dry, asked for tea—Earl Grey, if they had it. The waiter nodded and disappeared into the warm amber glow of the bar.

The afternoon light filtered through the window beside them, softening the edges of everything—the polished wood of the table, the brass fixtures on the wall, Jimmy's profile as he settled back against the burgundy leather. Outside, London moved past in its usual grey blur, but in here, the world felt suspended. Intimate. The air smelled faintly of citrus and old wood polish, undercut by something warmer—whisky, perhaps, or the leather of the booths themselves.

When the waiter left, Jimmy regarded her with that same careful attention. Not hostile, exactly. But not warm either. Neutral. Waiting. His fingers rested on the table, and Rebecca noticed the calluses on his fingertips—decades of steel strings, of creation.

"Thank you for agreeing to this," Rebecca said, her voice steadier than she felt. "I know you don't do many interviews."

"I don't." He said it simply, without elaboration. A statement of fact.

"I appreciate it even more, then." She reached for her notebook, her pen—a fountain pen, the good one she saved for important interviews. "Do you mind if I record this? Just as a backup to my notes."

He glanced at the digital recorder she'd placed on the table between them, its small silver body catching the light. For a moment, she thought he might refuse. But then he nodded, a single sharp movement. "Go ahead."

She pressed record, and the small red light blinked to life.

From the lobby, the pianist shifted from Chopin to something more contemplative—Satie, she thought. "Gymnopédie No. 1." The notes drifted through the archway like smoke, melancholy and precise.

"So," she began, settling into the rhythm she'd practiced a hundred times in her head. "Led Zeppelin formed in 1968. Fifty years ago this year. When you look back at that moment—at the beginning—what do you remember most clearly?"

Jimmy's expression didn't change, but something in his posture relaxed fractionally. This was safe territory. This was the kind of question he could answer without giving anything away.

"The excitement," he said after a moment. "The sense that we were creating something new. John Paul and I had worked together on sessions before, and I knew what we could do together. But bringing in Robert and Bonzo—that was when it became something else entirely. The chemistry was immediate."

Rebecca wrote quickly, her pen scratching across the page: chemistry—immediate, not built. "What was it like, that first rehearsal? I've read you ran through 'Train Kept A-Rollin'' first—was that the moment you knew?"

"Loud." The corner of his mouth lifted—not quite a smile, but close. "Bonham was... he was a force of nature. The first time he sat down at the kit, I remember thinking, 'Christ, this is going to be something.' And it was. But it wasn't just the volume—it was the precision. The way he could be absolutely thunderous and still keep perfect time. That's rare."

She made a note: Bonham—precision within power. "The first album was recorded in what, thirty hours? Across multiple studios?"

"Thirty-six, actually." He seemed pleased she knew. "Olympic Studios, mostly. Some overdubs at other places. We had the material ready—we'd been playing most of it live already. It was just a matter of capturing it."

"Who paid for it?" Rebecca asked, her pen hovering over the page. "The studio time, the production—that couldn't have been cheap."

Jimmy's expression shifted slightly—not quite pride, but something close to it. A flicker of satisfaction. "John Paul and I did. We funded it ourselves."

"You paid for your own debut album?" She couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice, and she leaned forward, genuinely impressed. "That's—that's extraordinary. Most bands would never take that risk."

"We did." He took a sip of his water, and she noticed the way his eyes stayed on hers a beat longer than necessary. "We'd both been doing session work for years. We'd saved money. And we knew—we knew—what we had. The four of us together, the material we'd been developing... we weren't going to wait around for some record label to decide whether we were worth investing in."

Rebecca wrote quickly: Self-funded—confidence, not arrogance. "That's a hell of a gamble."

"It wasn't a gamble." He said it simply, matter-of-factly, but there was something in his voice now—a warmth creeping in. "Not to us. We knew we were going to be something. The question was just how big."

"And you produced it yourselves as well?"

"We did. John Paul and I handled the production. We'd both been in enough studios, worked on enough sessions, to know what we wanted. We didn't need someone else telling us how our music should sound."

She made another note: Artistic control from day one. "That's unusual, isn't it? For a debut album. Most bands don't have that kind of autonomy."

"Most bands don't have two session musicians who've already spent years learning the craft." There was no arrogance in his voice, just statement of fact. "We knew what we were doing. And we were willing to put our money where our mouths were."

"The first tour too?"

"The first tour too." He nodded, and now there was definitely a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "We funded that ourselves as well. Hired the crew, booked the venues, handled the logistics. It was our vision, our music. We weren't going to compromise it by letting someone else control the purse strings."

Rebecca felt something shift in her understanding of him—of them. This wasn't just a band that got lucky. This was calculated, deliberate. Artists who believed in themselves enough to risk everything. "That takes incredible confidence."

"It takes knowing what you have." Jimmy's fingers drummed lightly against the table—that guitarist's habit again. His eyes met hers, and she felt something electric pass between them. "We'd all been around long enough to recognize when something was special. And this was special. We just had to make sure the world heard it the way we intended."

She circled a phrase in her notes: vision + business savvy = control. "And it paid off."

"It did." The corner of his mouth lifted again—a real smile this time, and it transformed his face entirely. "Rather spectacularly, as it turned out."

Rebecca found herself smiling back, caught in the moment. Then she shook herself slightly and flipped to a new page. "But 'Dazed and Confused'—that wasn't just capturing a live performance, was it?" She leaned forward, her enthusiasm breaking through her professional composure. "The production on that track is layered. The violin bow technique, the way you used backwards echo on the vocals. Those were studio choices."

Jimmy's eyes sharpened with interest, and he leaned forward too, mirroring her posture. They were closer now, the space between them charged. "You've listened closely."

"I have." She held his gaze, refusing to look away. "The bow—that's not just a gimmick. It creates this sustained, almost orchestral quality. But it must have been difficult to record. How did you mic it?"

"Close," he said, and now there was genuine engagement in his voice, genuine pleasure. "Very close. We wanted to capture the texture, the friction of the horsehair against the strings. Eddie Kramer understood what we were after—he knew how to place the mics to get that intimacy without losing the power."

"Intimacy and power," Rebecca repeated, writing it down. "That's the whole album, isn't it? That tension."

Jimmy's smile widened. "Not many people hear that. Most just hear the volume."

"Well, I'm not most people." She said it without thinking, then felt heat rise to her cheeks.

"No," he said quietly, his eyes still on hers. "You're not."

The waiter returned with their drinks—Jimmy's sparkling water in a tall glass with a perfect wedge of lime, her tea in a delicate white cup with a small pot on the side. Steam rose from the spout, carrying the bergamot scent of Earl Grey into the space between them. The interruption broke the moment, but something had shifted. The air felt different now. Warmer.

She poured carefully, added nothing, and took a sip. The heat steadied her, but her pulse was still racing.

"The stereo panning on that album," she continued, setting down her cup. "It's aggressive—hard left, hard right. That was deliberate, wasn't it? To create space, to let each instrument breathe."

"Exactly." Jimmy picked up his glass, took a sip, his eyes never leaving hers. "We didn't want everything sitting in the middle, fighting for the same frequency range. John Paul's bass could sit in one channel, Bonzo's kick in another. It gave us room to be loud without being muddy."

She made another note: space = clarity within volume. "And 'Whole Lotta Love'—the middle section." She looked up at him, her eyes bright with excitement. "That's pure studio experimentation. The theremin, the backwards echo, the panning effects. Were you influenced by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop at all? It has that same electronic, almost alien quality."

Jimmy set down his glass with careful precision, and for the first time, she saw genuine surprise flicker across his face—and something else. Respect. Admiration. "Not many people make that connection," he said, and his voice had gone softer, more intimate. "But yes, we were listening to everything. Stockhausen, musique concrète, the experimental stuff coming out of the BBC. We wanted to push what rock music could be. It didn't have to be just verse-chorus-verse."

"It could be art," Rebecca said, and she heard the passion in her own voice now, the thing that had drawn her to music journalism in the first place. "It could be as complex and layered as anything coming out of the avant-garde scene, but still have that visceral power. That's what you did. You refused to choose between intellectual rigor and raw emotion."

Jimmy was staring at her now, really staring, and she felt the full weight of his attention. "Yes," he said simply. "That's exactly what we did."

The moment stretched between them, electric and charged. Rebecca felt her breath catch.

"You really do understand it," he said quietly. "The music. What we were trying to do."

"I do." She held his gaze. "That's why I wanted this interview. For this. For the work itself."

Something in his expression softened completely. The guardedness she'd seen when he first sat down had vanished. He was looking at her now like she was the only person in the room. In the world.

"Tell me more," he said, and it wasn't a command. It was an invitation.

Rebecca felt the interview settling into a rhythm now, but it wasn't the professional back-and-forth she'd practiced. It was something else. A conversation. A connection. She wrote: pushing boundaries—rock as experimental form. Then added: He's actually listening. Really listening.

The light through the window had shifted slightly, growing softer as the afternoon deepened. The bar around them continued its quiet hum: the clink of glasses, the murmur of conversation from the couple three booths over, the soft rustle of the waiter moving between tables. The pianist had moved on to Debussy—"Clair de Lune," delicate and shimmering.

"Your guitar collection," Rebecca said, flipping to a new page in her notebook. Her hand was steadier now, her confidence building. "The '59 Les Paul that became your main instrument—you bought it from Joe Walsh, didn't you? In 1969?"

"I did." His eyes actually lit up—genuine enthusiasm breaking through completely now. "That guitar... there's nothing else like it. The tone is perfect. Warm but with bite. It's been with me through everything."

"The Telecaster you used on the first album, though—that was different. Brighter, more cutting." She tilted her head, studying him. "Was that a conscious choice for those early tracks, or just what you had available?"

"Both," Jimmy said, and she could hear the pleasure in his voice at being asked something specific, something that showed she understood. "The Tele was perfect for the studio work I'd been doing—session work requires clarity, precision. But when we started Zeppelin, I wanted something with more sustain, more body. The Les Paul gave me that."

"Precision versus body," Rebecca said, making a note. "Session musician versus artist."

"Exactly." He leaned back slightly, regarding her with open appreciation now. "You're very good at this."

"At what?"

"Listening. Hearing what's underneath." He paused, then added with a slight smile, "Most journalists just want quotes they can use. You're actually interested."

"I am interested." She met his eyes. "Genuinely. This music—your music—it matters. It changed things. I want to understand how."

"Why?" The question was gentle, curious.

Rebecca hesitated, then decided on honesty. "Because I was nineteen when I first really heard 'Kashmir.' I mean, I'd heard it before, but I'd never really listened. And it—" She stopped, searching for words. "It made me understand that music could be architecture. That you could build something massive and intricate and beautiful, and it could still hit you in the gut. That's when I knew I wanted to write about music. To try to explain that feeling to other people."

Jimmy was very still, watching her. "That's the best answer anyone's ever given me," he said quietly. "To any question."

Rebecca felt heat rise to her face again, but she didn't look away. "Well, you asked."

"I did." His smile was warm now, genuine. "And I'm glad I did."

The moment held, stretched. Then Rebecca cleared her throat and looked back down at her notes, trying to regain her professional composure. "The acoustic work," she continued, her voice slightly unsteady. "The DADGAD tuning you used on 'Black Mountain Side'—that's a modal tuning, isn't it? More common in Celtic music than rock."

"You've done your homework." He said it with something close to delight now. "I'd been listening to Bert Jansch, Davey Graham. They were doing incredible things with alternate tunings. I wanted to bring that into what we were doing—show that acoustic guitar could be just as powerful as electric."

Rebecca made a note: Jansch, Graham—folk influence on rock. She glanced up at him. "It's interesting, though. Led Zeppelin gets remembered for the volume, the power, the electric bombast. But there's so much acoustic work threaded through the albums. 'Ramble On,' 'That's the Way,' 'Going to California.' It's like you were having two conversations at once."

"We were," Jimmy said quietly, and his voice had gone soft again, intimate. "Light and shade. That was always the idea. You can't have one without the other. The quiet moments make the loud ones matter more."

"Like life," Rebecca said without thinking.

"Like life," he agreed, and the way he looked at her made her breath catch.

She circled the phrase in her notes: light and shade. Then wrote: This is the key—the duality, the balance. Her hand was shaking slightly.

Thirty minutes had passed. The tea in her cup had cooled slightly, and she took another sip, needing something to do with her hands. The pianist in the lobby had moved from Debussy to something more modern—Ludovico Einaudi, she thought, recognising the minimalist repetition. The bar's amber light seemed to deepen as the afternoon wore on, making the bottles behind the bar glow like stained glass.

"The 50th anniversary," Rebecca said, shifting slightly in her seat. The leather of the booth creaked softly beneath her. "Does it feel strange, looking back at five decades?"

"Strange isn't the word I'd use." He considered the question, his fingers drumming lightly against the table—a guitarist's habit, she thought. Always moving, always finding rhythm. "It feels... significant. But also distant. That person I was in 1968—he's not who I am now."

"Who were you then?"

"Young. Ambitious. Hungry." He said it without nostalgia, without sentiment. "I wanted to make music that mattered. I wanted to be the best. I think we all did."

"And did you? Become the best?"

"We became something." He met her eyes, and she saw warmth there now, real warmth. "Whether it was the best... that's for other people to decide."

"I think you did," Rebecca said quietly. "Become the best. For what it's worth."

Jimmy's smile was slow, genuine. "It's worth quite a lot, actually. Coming from you."

The air between them felt charged again, electric. Rebecca made a note, circling the word something. Then added: Refuses superlatives—interesting. Humility or self-protection? But her mind was elsewhere, caught in the way he was looking at her.

She asked about his favorite memories from the touring years. He told her about a show in Copenhagen, about the way the crowd had sung along to "Stairway to Heaven" even though most of them didn't speak English, and his voice was animated now, his hands moving as he talked. She asked about the evolution of his live improvisations, how "Dazed and Confused" would stretch to thirty minutes some nights. He described the feeling of being in the moment, of following the music wherever it wanted to go, of the band being so locked in that they could communicate without words.

"That sounds transcendent," Rebecca said, and she meant it.

"It was." He leaned forward, his eyes bright. "It was the closest thing to magic I've ever experienced. When it worked—when we were all in that space together—it was like the music was playing us instead of the other way around."

"I wish I could have seen it," she said softly.

"So do I." The way he said it made her look up sharply, and she found him watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read. "I think you would have understood it. Really understood it."

She wrote: Live performance as conversation—band as single organism. Then: He's more animated now. Talking about the work itself, not the mythology. But she added a third note, just for herself: This feels real. This feels like connection.

"Do you still play it?" she asked. "The '59 Les Paul?"

"Every day." He said it simply, and Rebecca believed him. This was real. This was the truth beneath the legend—a man who still loved his instrument, who still found joy in the act of creation.

"Every day," she repeated, smiling. "That's—that's wonderful, actually. After everything, you still love it."

"I do." His voice was soft. "It's the one constant. The one thing that's never let me down."

The moment stretched between them, warm and intimate. Rebecca felt something shift in her chest, something dangerous and thrilling.

The waiter appeared then, materializing with the kind of perfect timing that only years of service could cultivate. "May I refresh your drinks?" he asked, his voice discreet and professional.

"Please," Jimmy said, and as the waiter reached for his glass, Jimmy did something that made Rebecca's breath catch. He unbuttoned his blazer and shrugged it off his shoulders, draping it over the back of the booth beside him.

It was such a small gesture. Such a simple thing. But it felt monumental.

Underneath, he wore a cream linen shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows in a way that suggested he'd done it deliberately, not carelessly. His forearms were lean and muscled, marked with the faint calluses she'd noticed earlier. There was something almost vulnerable about the gesture—the removal of that formal armor, the exposure of skin.

Rebecca found herself staring, then forced herself to look away, to focus on her tea as the waiter set down fresh glasses. But she could feel the shift in the air between them, the way the booth suddenly felt smaller, more intimate.

When the waiter left, Jimmy leaned back against the leather, more relaxed now, more present. He caught her looking at him and smiled—a real smile, warm and knowing. He rolled up his sleeves a bit further, a deliberate movement, and Rebecca felt heat rise to her cheeks.

"Better," he said simply, and she understood he wasn't just talking about the temperature.

She glanced down at her notes. She'd filled three pages with Jimmy's careful, measured responses, her own observations filling the margins. Good material. Professional. Exactly what Diane had asked for.

But not the truth. Not really.

She could feel Danny's letter in her bag, tucked into the inner pocket where she'd placed it that morning. She could almost hear his voice: How did they survive it, Becca? How did they come out the other side?

Her hand tightened around her pen. The nib pressed into the paper, leaving a small ink blot.

The warmth between them was palpable now. Jimmy was relaxed, open, smiling at her like they were old friends. Like they were something more than journalist and subject. The connection felt real, electric, precious.

And she was about to destroy it.

"Can I ask you about the 1970s?" she said, and even as the words left her mouth, she saw his expression begin to change. "The lifestyle. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll—it shaped the era, didn't it? The mythology around Led Zeppelin."

Jimmy's fingers stopped their rhythmic drumming against the table. The warmth in his eyes flickered, dimmed. He didn't tense exactly, but something shifted in his posture—a wall going up, brick by brick. "It's part of the mythology," he said carefully, and his voice had gone neutral again. Guarded. "Not necessarily the reality."

Rebecca felt Diane's voice in her head—Don't ask about the groupies. Don't ask about the drugs—but she pushed forward anyway, even as she watched the connection between them begin to fracture. "The groupies," she said. "Women throwing themselves at the band. That was real, wasn't it? Part of the scene?"

She was crossing a line. She knew it. Diane had been explicit. But she couldn't stop.

Jimmy studied her for a moment, and she saw the exact moment when he retreated completely. The man who'd been talking to her about magic and music disappeared, replaced by something colder. "We were rock stars," he said, his voice matter-of-fact now, all warmth gone. "There were women. Yes. That's what happened when you were famous, when you were on the road. They were part of the lifestyle."

"Some of them called themselves muses," Rebecca said, her pen poised above the page, and she hated herself for pushing but couldn't stop. "Claimed they inspired songs, that they were—"

"They weren't muses." Jimmy's voice was firm but not unkind. Yet. "Let's be clear about that. They were groupies. Part of what happened. But the music came from us, from the band. Not from... that."

Rebecca made a note: Doesn't romanticize it. Matter-of-fact about the scene. "Some of them have written books," she continued, and she could feel the moment slipping away from her, the connection they'd built crumbling. "Tell-all memoirs. Pamela Des Barres, the Plaster Casters. Some claim they were more than just groupies—that they were part of the creative process. What do you think about that?"

Jimmy's expression shifted—not anger, but a kind of weary resignation. The light had gone out of his eyes completely. "People tell the stories they want to tell," he said. "They remember things the way they need to remember them. I can't control that. I don't try to."

"But does it bother you? When they—"

"It's been forty plus years," he said quietly, and his voice was cold now, so cold. "What bothers me is when people reduce that entire era to just... that. The excess. The spectacle. As if that's all we were."

Rebecca felt her pulse quicken. She was pushing now, she could feel it. Diane's warning voice was screaming in her head. But worse—so much worse—was watching Jimmy's face close off completely, watching the man who'd been smiling at her just moments ago disappear behind a wall of ice.

"The sexual culture," she said, watching his face carefully, desperately. "It wasn't just groupies, was it? There were orgies. Multiple women at once. That was part of the lifestyle too."

Jimmy's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "I'm not going to discuss—"

"Some of them were very young," Rebecca pressed on, her heart hammering now. She could feel herself crossing into territory that was dangerous, exploitative even. But she couldn't stop. "The baby groupies. Lori Maddox was fourteen when she—"

"Stop." Jimmy's voice was quiet but absolute, and it cut through her like a knife. "I'm not discussing this."

"But it happened," Rebecca said, and she could hear the desperation creeping into her voice now. "The stories about what went on backstage. Band members leaving during Bonzo's drum solo—during 'Moby Dick'—to have sex in the dressing rooms. Getting blow jobs while he was playing. That's in multiple accounts—"

"Accounts." Jimmy's eyes had gone completely cold now, and Rebecca felt something die in her chest. "You mean gossip. Rumors. Stories people tell to sell books."

"Are you saying they're not true?"

"I'm saying," he said, each word precise and controlled, and she could hear the steel underneath now, "that I'm not going to sit here and let you turn my life into pornography for your readers."

Rebecca felt something twist in her chest. She knew she should stop. She could see the wall going up, brick by brick. The man who'd told her about magic and transcendence was gone, replaced by someone cold and unreachable. But Danny's letter was in her bag, his voice in her head: How did they survive it, Becca?

"I'm trying to understand," she said, and her voice was breaking now. "The lifestyle—the drugs, the sex, all of it—how did you function? How did you create in the middle of that? How did you survive—"

"I agreed to this interview to discuss the music," Jimmy interrupted, his voice still quiet but with steel underneath. "The anniversary. The legacy of what we created. Not to rehash old gossip and commodify my private life."

"It's not gossip," Rebecca said, her voice rising slightly. "The lifestyle influenced the music. You can't separate the art from the artist. You can't pretend—"

"I'm not pretending anything." His eyes were completely opaque now, and Rebecca felt the loss of his warmth like a physical blow. "I'm choosing not to participate in turning my life into entertainment. There's a difference."

Rebecca felt something crack inside her chest. She was losing him. She could see it happening—the wall going up brick by brick, the man who'd been enthusiastically discussing guitar techniques, who'd smiled at her like she mattered, disappearing behind something cold and unreachable.

"Everyone wants to know," she said, and she could hear the desperation creeping into her voice now. "Your fans, the people who love your music—they want to understand how you survived. They want to know—"

"What they want," Jimmy said, cutting her off with surgical precision, "is a story. A narrative that makes sense to them. But I don't owe them that. And I don't owe you that."

He glanced at his watch—a simple silver piece, elegant and understated. "I think we're done for today."

"Wait—" Rebecca's hand shot out, almost touching his arm before she caught herself. "Please. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"You have your job to do," Jimmy said, his voice completely devoid of warmth now. "I understand that. But you're doing it at someone else's expense. Mine."

He slid out of the booth with the same fluid grace he'd entered with. Standing, he looked down at her, and Rebecca felt the full weight of his disappointment. Not anger. Disappointment. Which was somehow worse.

"We're scheduled for tomorrow," he said. "Two p.m., same location. I'll be here because I'm a professional. But I'd suggest you reconsider your approach."

"Mr. Page—"

"Jimmy," he corrected automatically. Then, with a slight shake of his head: "Tomorrow, Ms. Ashford."

He turned and walked away, moving through the bar with that same unhurried confidence. Rebecca watched him go, her heart hammering against her ribs, her hands shaking slightly as she reached for her water glass.

The pianist in the lobby was still playing Einaudi. The couple at the other table was still laughing softly over their champagne. The businessman was still reading his Financial Times. The world had continued, indifferent to the small disaster that had just unfolded in the corner booth.

Rebecca sat very still, staring at her notebook. Three pages of careful notes about the early years, about the music, about the guitars. And then, at the bottom of the fourth page, her handwriting growing more frantic: Why won't he talk about it? How did he survive? What did he learn?

She'd pushed too hard. She'd revealed too much. She'd done exactly what Diane had warned her not to do, and she'd gotten exactly the result Diane had predicted.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Diane: How's it going?

Rebecca stared at the message, her thumb hovering over the keyboard. What could she say? I fucked it up. I pushed him on the drugs and he shut down completely. He thinks I'm just another vulture picking at his past.

Instead, she typed: First day done. Continuing tomorrow.

She pressed send before she could second-guess herself.

The waiter approached, discreet and professional. "Can I get you anything else, miss?"

"No," Rebecca said, her voice hoarse. "Just the bill, please."

He nodded and disappeared. Rebecca reached for her recorder and pressed stop. The red light blinked off, and she sat there in the sudden silence, feeling the weight of what she'd just done.

She'd come here to get the truth. To understand addiction through the lens of someone who'd survived it. To find answers that might help Danny make sense of his own struggle.

But all she'd done was prove that she was exactly what Jimmy thought she was: another journalist willing to exploit someone's pain for a story.

Her bag sat on the seat beside her, and she could feel Danny's letter inside it like a physical weight. She pulled it out, unfolded it with shaking hands, and read the words she'd already memorised:

How did they survive it, Becca? How did they come out the other side?

She didn't know. And after today, she might never get the chance to find out.

The waiter returned with the bill. Rebecca paid in cash, leaving a generous tip because she needed to do something right today, needed to be kind to someone even if she'd failed spectacularly at everything else.

She gathered her things—notebook, pens, recorder, phone—and slid out of the booth. Her legs felt unsteady, and she had to pause for a moment, one hand braced against the table, before she could move.

But she didn't head for the exit. Not yet.

She needed something to steady her nerves. Something to take the edge off the adrenaline still coursing through her veins, the sick feeling in her stomach that she'd just destroyed something precious before it had even begun.

Rebecca made her way to the bar itself—not the booth area, but the actual bar with its polished dark wood and glowing bottles. The mahogany surface gleamed under the soft amber lighting, worn smooth by decades of elbows and glasses, and she could smell the mingled scents of aged spirits, leather upholstery, and something floral—perhaps from the white roses in their crystal vases at either end of the bar.

She chose a seat at the far end, away from the other patrons, a quieter spot where she could collect herself. The leather stool was cool beneath her, and she gripped the edge of the bar to steady herself. Her hands were still shaking.

Behind the bar, bottles glowed like jewels in their backlit shelves—amber whisky, clear vodka, ruby port, emerald absinthe. The light caught the cut crystal decanters, throwing prismatic patterns across the dark wood. Somewhere, ice clinked against glass. The ambient noise was low, civilized—murmured conversations, the soft clink of silverware from the restaurant beyond, the distant tinkle of the piano still playing Chopin.

The bartender appeared almost immediately. He was perhaps fifty, with silver-grey hair combed back from a kind face and the quiet, observant manner of someone who'd spent decades reading people's needs before they voiced them. His movements were economical, practiced—the gestures of a man who knew his craft.

He took one look at Rebecca's face and his expression softened almost imperceptibly.

"What can I get you?" His voice was gentle, unobtrusive.

"Whisky," Rebecca said, her voice still hoarse, barely above a whisper. "Neat. Something good."

He nodded once—no judgment, no questions—and turned away. She watched him select a bottle from the top shelf with careful deliberation, pour two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal tumbler with the precision of a ritual. When he set it before her, the glass caught the light, glowing like captured sunlight.

"Glenlivet 18," he said quietly. "On the house."

She looked up sharply, but his expression was kind, not pitying. Perhaps he'd seen her leave the booth earlier, seen the way she'd been shaking. Perhaps he'd witnessed a thousand small heartbreaks in this bar and learned to recognize the signs. Perhaps he just knew when someone needed a drink and a moment of grace.

"Thank you," she managed, her throat tight.

He nodded and moved away, giving her space but remaining attentive—polishing glasses at the other end of the bar, close enough if she needed him, far enough to let her breathe.

Rebecca wrapped both hands around the glass. The crystal was cool and heavy, substantial, real. She focused on the weight of it, the way the facets pressed into her palms, trying to anchor herself in something concrete. Her breathing was shallow, too fast. She forced herself to slow it. In. Out. In. Out.

She raised the glass to her lips and took a sip. The whisky burned going down, sharp and clean and bright, and she felt some of the tension in her shoulders begin to ease. Not much. But enough to breathe without feeling like her chest might crack open.

Around her, life continued. Normal life. Other people's lives.

To her left, a businessman in a charcoal suit checked his watch for the third time, his gin and tonic barely touched, his leg bouncing with impatience. Waiting for someone who was late, perhaps. Or working up the courage to make a call he didn't want to make.

In one of the corner booths, a couple spoke in low, intimate tones—a woman in a burgundy dress leaning close to a man in shirtsleeves, their heads nearly touching. They looked happy. They looked like people whose worlds weren't imploding.

At the other end of the bar, an older woman with perfectly coiffed white hair nursed a martini, her posture impeccable, her expression serene. She wore pearls and a navy suit that probably cost more than Rebecca's monthly rent. She looked like she'd never made a mistake in her life.

Rebecca felt utterly, completely alone.

The bar was still beautiful. The bottles still glowed like jewels behind the polished wood. The leather stools were comfortable, the lighting warm and forgiving. But it all felt hollow now, like a stage set for a performance she'd botched. Like she was watching herself from outside her own body, a girl playing at being a serious journalist, failing spectacularly.

It wasn't that bad, she tried to tell herself. You asked difficult questions. That's your job.

But even as she thought it, she knew it was a lie. She'd crossed a line. She'd seen Jimmy opening up, seen the warmth in his eyes when he talked about the music, the way he'd laughed at her joke about Bonham's drumming. She'd felt the connection building between them, fragile and real and precious.

And she'd destroyed it. Deliberately. Selfishly.

The sexual culture. The orgies. The heroin.

God. What had she been thinking?

She took another sip of whisky, larger this time, and felt it burn all the way down. Her hands were still shaking. She pressed them flat against the bar, trying to stop the tremor, but it wouldn't quit.

He was right, she thought, and the shame of it made her stomach clench. I was turning his life into pornography. I was exploiting him.

She'd become exactly what she'd always feared: another privileged girl playing at journalism, willing to hurt people for a story, for a byline, for proof that she belonged in this world she'd fought so hard to enter.

Her phone sat on the bar beside her glass, screen dark and silent. She should call Diane. Confess. Admit she'd fucked it up beyond repair. But she couldn't bear to hear the disappointment in her editor's voice, couldn't face the confirmation that she'd wasted this chance, this impossible opportunity.

She should call her mother. But that was even worse—the inevitable I told you so, the suggestion that perhaps journalism wasn't for her after all, that perhaps it was time to come home, to accept that nice position at the law firm, to stop this foolish rebellion.

Then the phone buzzed in her hand, and Sophie's name lit up the screen.

Rebecca stared at it for a long moment, her heart hammering. She almost let it go to voicemail. But Sophie was safe. Sophie wouldn't judge. Sophie would understand, or at least try to.

She answered before she could think better of it. "Hello?"

"Becca?" Sophie's voice was warm, concerned, familiar as home. "How did it go? The big interview?"

And just like that, Rebecca felt her composure crack.

"I fucked it up," she said, her voice breaking. "Sophie, I completely fucked it up."

"What happened?" Sophie's tone shifted immediately—no longer casual, but focused, present. "Tell me."

Rebecca took another sip of whisky, felt it burn. "I pushed too hard. I asked about—God, I asked about everything. The groupies, the sexual culture, the drugs. I kept pushing and pushing even though I could see him shutting down. And he just... he ended it. Told me he wasn't going to let me turn his life into pornography for my readers."

"Oh, Becca."

"And the worst part is—" Rebecca's voice cracked again. "The worst part is, he was right. I was exploiting him. I was so desperate to get answers that I didn't care about his boundaries. I didn't care about him as a person. I just wanted the story."

"That's not true," Sophie said firmly. "You're not that kind of journalist. You never have been."

"But I was today." Rebecca pressed her palm against her forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache. "We were having this amazing conversation about the music. He was opening up, talking about the creative process, about what it felt like to be in the moment with the band. And there was this... this connection, Sophie. This real connection. And I destroyed it."

"Why did you push so hard?" Sophie asked gently. "What were you really looking for?"

Rebecca felt tears prick at her eyes. "Danny," she whispered. "I just wanted to understand... for him. He wrote me this letter asking how they survived it. How the rock stars who did all those drugs came out the other side. And I thought—I thought if I could get Jimmy to talk about it, if I could understand how he survived, maybe I could help Danny understand how to survive too."

"Oh, love."

"But I just made everything worse." Rebecca took another sip of whisky, her hand shaking slightly. "I violated his privacy. I proved I'm exactly what I was afraid of being—just another privileged girl playing at journalism, willing to exploit people's pain for a byline."

"You're not that," Sophie said. "You're not. You made a mistake, yes. But you were trying to help someone you love. That doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you human."

Rebecca wanted to believe her. But sitting here in this beautiful bar, with the taste of expensive whisky on her tongue and the memory of Jimmy's cold eyes still fresh in her mind, she couldn't.

"I have to go," she said quietly. "I just... I need to think."

"Call me later?" Sophie's voice was worried. "Promise?"

"I promise."

Rebecca ended the call and set her phone down on the bar. She stared at her whisky, at the way the amber liquid caught the light, and tried to figure out how she was going to face tomorrow.

Jimmy Page pushed through The Langham's revolving doors and stepped out into the grey London afternoon. The air was cold and damp, threatening rain, and he pulled his coat tighter around himself as he crossed the plaza toward Brook Street.

His driver was waiting exactly where he'd said he'd be—standing beside a black Mercedes S-Class, hands clasped professionally in front of him. Michael had been driving him for years now, knew when to talk and when to stay silent, knew all the routes that avoided traffic and paparazzi.

"Mr. Page." Michael opened the rear door with practiced efficiency.

Jimmy was halfway to the car when he reached instinctively for his inside jacket pocket. His hand found only fabric.

No phone.

He stopped, patted his other pockets—coat, trousers—already knowing what he'd find. Nothing. The phone was in his blazer. The blazer he'd taken off during the interview, draped over the back of the booth when the bar had grown warm, when he'd been relaxed and talking about music, before everything had gone cold.

The blazer he'd walked away from in his haste to end the conversation, to escape Rebecca Ashford's probing questions and his own rising anger.

Stupid. Careless.

"Everything all right, sir?" Michael's voice was carefully neutral.

Jimmy stood there on the pavement, traffic moving past on Portland Place, pedestrians flowing around him like water around a stone. He could have Michael retrieve it. One phone call to the hotel, and staff would bring it out, have it couriered to Claridge's within the hour. Simple. Efficient.

His hand was already reaching for his phone before he remembered he didn't have it.

"I've left something behind," Jimmy said. "My blazer. At The Langham."

"Shall I call them, sir? Have them send it over?"

Jimmy opened his mouth to say yes. That would be the sensible thing. The easy thing. He was tired, the interview had been draining, and he wanted to be back in his suite at Claridge's with a drink and silence.

But something stopped him.

Maybe it was the irritation at his own carelessness—he didn't like being sloppy, didn't like leaving pieces of himself scattered about. Or maybe it was something else, something he couldn't quite name. A pull. An instinct.

"No," he heard himself say. "Take me back. I'll get it myself."

If Michael was surprised, he didn't show it. "Of course, sir."

The drive back was short—barely five minutes through Mayfair's elegant streets. Jimmy sat in the back seat and watched London slide past the tinted windows: the Georgian townhouses, the exclusive shops, the carefully maintained facades. Everything in its place. Everything controlled.

He'd been controlling things for so long now. Controlling his image, his narrative, his privacy. Building walls so high that nothing could get in. Nothing could hurt him.

And today, when someone had tried to climb those walls, he'd pushed her off.

The Mercedes pulled up in front of The Langham again, and Michael came around to open the door. "Shall I wait here, sir?"

"Please."

Jimmy walked back through the revolving doors into the lobby he'd left less than ten minutes ago. The pianist was still playing—Chopin, the same Nocturne in E-flat Major, delicate and melancholy. The white flowers still smelled like expensive funerals. The crystal chandeliers still threw their careful light across the marble floors.

He approached the concierge desk, and the same young woman who'd greeted him earlier looked up with professional warmth. "Mr. Page. Back so soon?"

"I left my jacket," he said. "In the bar. The booth where I was sitting."

"Of course, sir. Let me have someone retrieve it for you."

She made a discreet gesture, and within moments, a waiter appeared—the same one who'd served them tea earlier—carrying Jimmy's blazer draped carefully over his arm.

"Here you are, Mr. Page."

"Thank you." Jimmy took it, checked the inside pocket. Phone still there, thank God. He shrugged the blazer on, feeling the familiar weight settle across his shoulders.

He was turning to leave, already thinking about the drive to Claridge's, when he caught sight of someone at the far end of the bar.

Rebecca.

She was sitting alone, hunched over a glass of whisky, her phone pressed to her ear. Even from this distance, he could see the tension in her shoulders, the way she held herself like she was trying not to shatter.

Something twisted in his chest. Guilt, perhaps. Or recognition.

He should leave. He should walk out, get back in the car, let her have her privacy. But his feet carried him closer, drawn by something he couldn't name.

And then he heard her voice.

"I just need to understand how they survived it," she was saying, her voice low and shaking. "How they came out the other side. Danny keeps asking me, and I don't know what to tell him. He's in rehab, Sophie, and he's so scared, and I thought—I thought if I could just get Jimmy to talk about it, about how he survived the drugs and the excess, maybe I could help Danny understand that it's possible. That you can come back from it."

Jimmy stopped breathing.

Danny. Rehab. Drugs.

"I know I fucked it up," Rebecca continued, and her voice was breaking now, raw and desperate. "I know I pushed too hard. But I just... I love him so much, Sophie. He's like my brother. And everyone else in the family has given up on him, but I can't. I won't. And I thought—God, I thought maybe if I could understand how someone like Jimmy Page survived it, I could give Danny something to hold onto. Some kind of hope."

The lobby seemed to tilt.

Jimmy stood frozen, his hand still gripping his blazer, and felt something crack open inside his chest.

She hadn't been hunting for scandal.

She hadn't been trying to sensationalize his past or reduce him to tabloid fodder.

She'd been trying to save someone she loved.

And suddenly, he saw it. Saw what he should have recognized from the beginning.

That fierce, desperate love in her voice—he knew that love. He'd been on the receiving end of it once. His mother, sitting beside his bed when he was seventeen and sick with pneumonia, her hand cool on his forehead, her voice steady: You're going to be fine. I won't let anything happen to you. That absolute certainty. That refusal to let go.

He'd seen it in his friends, too. In the dark years of the seventies, when things had gotten bad—really bad—and the people who truly loved him had refused to look away. Robert, showing up at his door at three in the morning, not leaving until Jimmy ate something, drank water, came back to himself. Bonzo, in those last years, when Jimmy had tried to help him, tried to pull him back from the edge, knowing it might already be too late but trying anyway because that's what you did for the people you loved.

You didn't give up. You didn't walk away. You burned down the world if you had to, just to give them a chance.

That's what Rebecca had been doing.

And he'd treated her like an enemy. He'd shut her down with coldness and contempt, had accused her of exploitation, of turning his life into pornography.

Christ.

"I should go," Rebecca was saying now, her voice quieter, defeated. "I need to figure out what I'm going to say to him tomorrow. If Jimmy even shows up."

Jimmy took a step back, his throat tight, his chest constricted.

He couldn't approach her now. Not like this. Not when she was raw and vulnerable and breaking down to her friend. It would be another violation, another intrusion.

But tomorrow...

Tomorrow, he would show up.

And tomorrow, he would do better.

He turned and walked back across the lobby, past the pianist still playing Chopin, past the white flowers and crystal chandeliers. His blazer felt heavy on his shoulders, weighted with more than just fabric and phone.

He'd built his walls so high, so thick, that he'd forgotten what real love looked like. He'd been protecting himself for so long—from journalists, from exploitation, from people who wanted pieces of him to sell—that he couldn't recognize genuine desperation when it was right in front of him.

She'd been willing to risk everything. Her career. Her pride. Her professional reputation. All of it, just for the chance to help someone she loved.

When was the last time he'd been willing to risk anything for anyone?

Michael was still waiting by the Mercedes, and he opened the door as Jimmy approached.

"Back to Claridge's, sir?"

"Yes." Jimmy slid into the back seat, and as the car pulled away from The Langham, he caught a glimpse of himself in the window's reflection—a man in his seventies, still handsome but marked by time, still carrying the weight of choices made decades ago.

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow he would tell her he understood.

Tomorrow, he would try to give her what she needed.

Not for the interview. Not for the anniversary piece or the legacy or any of that.

For her cousin. For Danny.

For the chance that maybe, just maybe, his survival could mean something to someone else's.

The car moved through London's streets, carrying him back to Claridge's, but the weight in his chest remained—the weight of understanding, of recognition, of something that felt almost like hope.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

What Remains Chapter one:

The email had arrived on a Tuesday morning, subject line: 'LZ 50th - You're Up. Rebecca Ashford had stared at those four words for a full minute before opening it, her coffee going cold in her hand.

Now, three days later, she sat across from Diane Mercer in the glass-walled office that overlooked the sprawling open floor plan of Reverb, the online music outlet where Rebecca had worked for the past two years. The office itself was a study in millennial startup aesthetics—exposed brick walls painted a trendy sage green, industrial Edison bulbs hanging from the ceiling, mismatched vintage furniture arranged in clusters meant to encourage "collaboration." It was the sort of space that looked effortlessly creative in photographs but felt chaotic in person: the constant hum of conversation, the clack of keyboards, the occasional burst of laughter from the social media team in the corner.

Diane's office was the only enclosed space on the entire floor, a privilege that came with her title of Senior Editor. The glass walls were meant to project transparency and accessibility, but they also meant everyone could see who was being called in for meetings. Rebecca had noticed the pattern over two years: the senior writers got longer sessions, more animated conversations. The junior staff—which included her, technically, despite her byline appearing regularly—got shorter, more transactional interactions.

Diane herself was in her late fifties, her silver hair cut in a sharp bob that somehow managed to look both elegant and intimidating. She'd worked for Rolling Stone in the eighties, back when print still mattered, back when a music journalist could make a career on a single legendary interview. There was something about her that belonged to that era—a certain gravitas, a way of speaking that suggested she'd interviewed people who mattered, people who'd changed music. She'd taken the job at Reverb five years ago, and Rebecca suspected it was partly out of necessity (print was dying, after all) and partly out of a desire to mentor the next generation. Though "mentor" might be generous. Diane was more of a gatekeeper—deciding who got the good assignments, who got sent to cover local open mics, who got taken seriously.

Rebecca had been fighting for her place in that hierarchy since day one.

"You understand what you're walking into," Diane said. It wasn't a question.

Rebecca nodded, her notebook open on her lap, pen poised. Professional. Attentive. She'd perfected this posture at Cheltenham Ladies' College years ago—the appearance of deference whilst maintaining perfect composure.

Diane leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled. "Jimmy Page doesn't do interviews. Not real ones. He'll give you the sanitised version—the guitar techniques, the recording process, maybe a charming anecdote about John Bonham if you're lucky. But anything deeper?" She shook her head. "Forget it."

"I've done my research," Rebecca said, her vowels crisp and precise. "I know he's private."

"Private." Diane laughed, a short, sharp sound. "That's a polite word for it. I tried to interview him in '83 for a retrospective piece. He showed up forty minutes late, answered maybe three questions with actual substance, and walked out when I asked about his relationship with Charlotte Martin. Just stood up and left." She paused, her eyes fixed on Rebecca. "You're twenty-eight. You weren't even born when Led Zeppelin broke up. Do you understand the kind of mythology you're dealing with here?"

Rebecca felt the familiar flutter in her chest—part indignation, part insecurity. She'd heard variations of this speech her entire career. Too young. Too posh. Daddy's connections. Never mind that she'd clawed her way up from unpaid internships whilst her university friends were summering in Tuscany. Never mind that her father had been furious when she'd chosen journalism over law. Never mind that she'd earned this assignment through her piece on the Fleetwood Mac reunion tour—the one that had gone viral, been picked up by three major outlets, proved she could actually write.

But people still looked at her and saw Knightsbridge. Saw the accent, the posture, the expensive education she couldn't quite shake off.

"I understand," she said evenly, refusing to let the defensiveness creep into her voice.

Diane pulled a sheet of paper from a folder and slid it across the desk. "This is a list of topics you should avoid. I'm not saying you can't try to steer the conversation in these directions, but if he shuts you down, you drop it immediately. Understood?"

Rebecca picked up the paper. The list was typed in Diane's precise formatting:

*DO NOT ASK ABOUT:*

- Aleister Crowley/occult interests

- Lori Mattix or any underage groupie allegations

- Specific drug use (heroin, cocaine, etc.)

- The "Shark Episode" or other groupie stories

- His relationship with Charlotte Martin, Patrica Ecker, Jimena Gomez (breakup, custody)

- Robert Plant's son Karac's death (unless he brings it up)

- Why Led Zeppelin really broke up

- Current relationship with Robert Plant (rumoured tension)

Rebecca read through the list twice, committing it to memory. Each forbidden topic was a door she wanted to open. Each warning was an invitation.

"This is for your protection as much as his," Diane continued. "He's been burned by journalists before. He doesn't trust us. If you push too hard on the wrong subject, he'll walk, and we lose the entire piece. The 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin is a huge cultural moment. We need this interview."

"I understand," Rebecca said again. She met Diane's gaze, her expression open and earnest. "I'll be respectful. I promise."

Diane studied her for a long moment, and Rebecca wondered if her editor could see through the performance. Could see the girl who'd been told all her life that things came easily to her, that she'd never had to work for anything. The girl who was bloody well determined to prove them all wrong.

But finally, Diane nodded. "You're a good writer, Rebecca. You've got instincts. Just... don't let your ambition get ahead of your judgement. Page has been doing this longer than either of us have been alive. He knows every trick."

"I'll be careful."

"Good." Diane stood, signalling the end of the meeting. "You've got three days with him, two hours each day. The first session is tomorrow at two p.m. at The Langham. He chose the location—probably because it's public enough that you can't ambush him, but private enough that he won't be bothered. Don't be late."

Rebecca gathered her things, tucking the forbidden list into her notebook. "Thank you for this opportunity, Diane. Really."

Diane's expression softened slightly. "Just get me something good. Something true. That's all I've ever wanted from any interview—the truth beneath the legend."

Rebecca nodded and left the office, weaving through the maze of desks where her colleagues hunched over laptops, headphones on, lost in their own deadlines. She made it to the lift before she let herself exhale.

The truth beneath the legend.

That was exactly what she intended to find.

---

The Langham rose above Portland Place like a monument to old-world elegance, its white Victorian facade gleaming in the October afternoon light. Rebecca stood on the pavement for a moment, staring up at it, her heart doing something complicated in her chest.

She'd been to The Langham before, of course. Her parents had taken her to afternoon tea here when she was sixteen, celebrating her A-level results. The memory surfaced unbidden, sharp and specific: the Palm Court with its soaring glass ceiling and ornate plasterwork, the way the light had filtered through in soft geometric patterns. She'd worn a navy dress her mother had chosen—something appropriately modest and expensive, from a boutique in Knightsbridge—and her hair had been blow-dried into the kind of polished waves that required effort and product.

She remembered sitting at a small round table draped in white linen, the three-tiered cake stand arriving with its cargo of finger sandwiches (cucumber with the crusts removed, smoked salmon, egg mayonnaise), warm scones with clotted cream and jam, and delicate pastries dusted with icing sugar. Her mother had ordered champagne—a celebration, she'd said, of Rebecca's excellent results. Three A's, which should have felt triumphant but instead had felt like the opening move in a larger game, a game whose rules Rebecca was only beginning to understand.

Her father had been in a good mood that day, she remembered. He'd actually smiled at her, had told her she'd made the family proud. It was the kind of approval that came with conditions, though—the unspoken understanding that these A's were meant to lead somewhere specific. Law school, probably. A respectable career, the kind that looked good in the Tatler announcements. A stepping stone to the right marriage, the right life.

She'd sat there, surrounded by the gentle clink of china and the murmur of other well-dressed people celebrating their own small victories, and she'd felt utterly trapped. She'd smuggled a copy of NME into her handbag and had read it surreptitiously under the table, her eyes darting between articles about Radiohead and Blur whilst her mother discussed the neighbours in Belgravia—who was divorcing whom, whose daughter had married badly, whose son had disappointed everyone by going into something creative.

Rebecca had been that dutiful daughter then, the one who wore the right dress and said the right things and pretended to care about the right people. She'd been seventeen years old and already exhausted by the weight of expectation.

Now, standing outside The Langham at twenty-six, she was someone entirely different. She'd fought for that difference, had earned it through two years of late nights and freelance work and the stubborn refusal to accept her parents' version of who she should be. She'd built a career on her own terms, had moved into a flat in Hackney that her mother had called "bohemian" with a tone that suggested it was a communicable disease. She'd cut her hair short, had stopped wearing the kind of clothes her mother approved of, had learned to speak with authority about music and culture and the things that actually mattered to her.

But standing here now, about to walk into this same building where she'd once been so carefully controlled, so perfectly groomed, so utterly herself—it struck her how much distance she'd travelled. Not just in years, but in becoming. The girl who'd hidden NME under the table would never have dared to ask Jimmy Page the questions she was about to ask. That girl would have been too afraid of disappointing someone, too concerned with maintaining the right image, too invested in being the kind of woman her family wanted her to be.

This version of Rebecca—the one standing on the pavement in her worn leather jacket and vintage band t-shirt, her short dark hair unstyled, her notebook already filled with the questions that would make her editor nervous—this version had nothing left to lose. Or rather, she'd already lost the thing that mattered most: her family's approval. And in losing that, she'd found something else entirely. Freedom. Purpose. The ability to ask the hard questions, to pursue the truth, to refuse to be managed or controlled.

She'd interviewed Norah Jones at The Savoy last spring, had met with a reclusive producer at Claridge's for a profile that never quite came together. But this felt different. This was Jimmy Page. This was the man who'd written "Stairway to Heaven," who'd made his guitar weep and scream and whisper secrets. This was a living legend, and she was about to sit across from him and ask him questions he didn't want to answer.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her mother: Good luck today, darling. Do try not to be too confrontational.

And unlike that sixteen-year-old girl in the navy dress, she was no longer afraid of the consequences.

Rebecca's jaw tightened. Even now, even after two years of published work, her mother still thought she was playing at journalism. Still thought this was some sort of phase before she came to her senses and married someone suitable—preferably someone from the right family, with the right connections, the right bank balance.

It had been the same when Rebecca announced, at eighteen, that she wanted to read English Literature at university instead of Law. Her father had gone very quiet, the way he did when he was disappointed. Not angry—that would have been easier. Just quiet, with a certain tightness around his mouth that suggested she'd let down centuries of Ashford family tradition. Her grandfather had been a barrister. Her father was a barrister. The expectation had been as solid and immovable as the family home in Belgravia.

"You're throwing away your future," her mother had said, not unkindly, which somehow made it worse. "What will you do with an English degree? Teach? Surely you don't want to teach."

The implication was clear: teaching was fine for girls without options, but Rebecca had options. Rebecca had a name that opened doors. Rebecca should use it properly.

When she'd started at university, her father had still paid her fees, still provided her allowance, but there was a brittleness to it now. He'd ask about her coursework with the tone of someone humouring a child's temporary obsession. When she'd come home for Christmas and mentioned she was thinking about journalism, he'd actually laughed—a short, dismissive sound that had stung more than any argument.

"Journalism," he'd repeated, as though she'd said she wanted to become a circus performer. "Rebecca, that's hardly a serious career. The pay is abysmal, the hours are impossible, and frankly, it's not the sort of thing people in our position do."

People in our position. As if her position was something fixed and immutable, something that should dictate every choice she made.

When she'd graduated and actually landed the job at Reverb, her mother had asked—with genuine confusion—whether it was a temporary thing. "Just until you meet someone nice?" she'd suggested hopefully. Her father had sent a brief email congratulating her, but there was no warmth in it. It felt like the kind of message you'd send to a distant acquaintance.

The worst part was the money. When she'd insisted on moving into a flat in Hackney instead of accepting their offer of a place in Knightsbridge, her father had cut her allowance. Not dramatically—he wasn't cruel about it—but enough to make a point. Enough to say: if you're going to insist on this ridiculous career, you can support yourself.

She'd done it, of course. She'd worked three jobs her first year out of university—the journalism gig, plus freelance copywriting and weekend shifts at a bookshop in Bloomsbury. She'd proven she could survive without their money, without their approval. But it had cost her something. It had made her harder, more defensive, more determined to succeed not because she loved the work (though she did) but because she needed to prove that she hadn't wasted her education, that she wasn't a spoiled girl playing at a career.

Another text buzzed through, this one from her flatmate Sophie: Don't forget to ask about the dragon suit. And try not to shag him, yeah?

Rebecca laughed despite herself, earning a curious glance from a passing businessman. The dragon suit. The elaborate stage costume Page had worn during the '75 tour, embroidered with occult symbols and mythical creatures. It was exactly the kind of question Diane would approve of—safe, nostalgic, visual.

It was exactly the kind of question Rebecca had no intention of asking.

But her mother's text still sat in her mind, that assumption of confrontation, that certainty that Rebecca would somehow embarrass herself or the family name. As if Rebecca's ambition was inherently reckless, inherently something to be managed and controlled.

Well. Let her be confrontational. Let her ask the questions no one else dared ask. Let her prove that she wasn't just another privileged girl coasting on her family name. This interview—this was her chance to show that she'd earned her place at Reverb, that she was a serious journalist, not a dilettante playing at a career before settling down.

This was her chance to prove them all wrong.

She silenced her phone and dropped it into her bag—a battered leather satchel she'd bought herself, not the Mulberry one her father had given her for her birthday. Then she pushed through the revolving doors into The Langham.

The lobby was a study in understated luxury. Cream marble floors stretched beneath her feet, cool and smooth, reflecting the warm glow of crystal chandeliers that hung like frozen fireworks from the ornate ceiling. The air was thick with the scent of fresh white flowers—lilies and roses, she thought—mingled with something more subtle: expensive leather, polished wood, the faint vanilla undertone of high-end air freshening. It was the smell of money, of spaces designed to make people feel simultaneously welcome and slightly out of place, even when they belonged.

A pianist played in the corner—Chopin, she recognised it now, the Nocturne in E-flat Major—his fingers moving across the keys with practiced elegance. The music was soft enough not to intrude, but present enough to fill the silence, to create an atmosphere of refined culture. Guests moved through the space with the hushed reverence of people in a museum or a cathedral. A woman in a tailored suit checked in at the desk. A couple sat in one of the plush velvet armchairs, speaking in low voices. A bellhop wheeled an expensive leather trunk toward the lifts.

Rebecca felt the familiar dissonance of moving through spaces like this. She belonged here, technically. She knew how to navigate these rooms, how to speak to the staff, how to carry herself with the quiet confidence of someone accustomed to such surroundings. Her mother had trained her well—posture, vowels, the subtle art of looking as though you'd never questioned your right to be anywhere. But she also resented it, resented that people assumed she'd always had access to places like this, that she'd never had to prove herself worthy of entry. That they saw her and thought: privileg, not work.

She'd discovered music journalism almost by accident, really. It had been during her second year at university, when she'd been drowning in essays about Victorian poetry and Romantic literature, feeling increasingly hollow despite the grades. She'd gone to see Radiohead at the Roundhouse on a whim—a friend had an extra ticket, and Rebecca had needed to escape her college room, needed to feel something other than the weight of expectation.

The moment Thom Yorke's voice had filled the venue, something had shifted inside her. It wasn't just the music, though that was extraordinary. It was the way the crowd moved as one organism, the way the songs seemed to articulate things she'd never had words for—anxiety, alienation, the sense of being trapped inside your own mind. She'd stood there, tears streaming down her face, and thought: This. This is what I want to understand. This is what I want to write about.

She'd started attending concerts obsessively after that, had begun reading music journalism with the intensity she'd previously reserved for literary criticism. She'd discovered writers like Simon Reynolds and Jon Savage, people who understood that music wasn't just entertainment—it was a lens through which to examine culture, identity, the human condition. She'd realised that you could write about music with the same intellectual rigour you'd apply to Shakespeare or Keats, but with the added benefit of actually caring about what you were writing.

When she'd changed her dissertation topic to focus on how music journalism had shaped the cultural narrative around the 1970s—specifically how the mythology of rock excess had been constructed and perpetuated—her supervisor had been delighted. "This is brilliant work," he'd said, reading her first draft. "You have a real gift for this. Have you thought about pursuing it professionally?"

She hadn't, not really. It had seemed impossible, impractical, the sort of thing girls like her didn't do. But his encouragement had planted a seed. And when she'd graduated and seen the job posting at Reverb, something in her had recognised it as an opportunity—not just to rebel against her parents' expectations, but to do something that actually mattered to her. To write about the music that had saved her, in a way, from the suffocation of her own privilege.

Stop it, she told herself firmly, pushing away the memory. You belong here because you earned this assignment. Not because of your postcode.

The bar was to the left, through an archway draped with heavy velvet curtains in deep burgundy. Rebecca pushed through them and found herself in a different world—dimmer, more intimate, more deliberately designed to encourage lingering. Dark wood panelling lined the walls, and the lighting came from brass wall sconces and the warm glow of bottles of spirits arranged behind the bar like a jeweller's display. The bottles caught the light and threw it back in amber and ruby and deep gold. Leather booths lined the perimeter, and soft jazz played from hidden speakers—Miles Davis, she thought, recognising the trumpet.

A few other patrons were scattered throughout the bar—a couple having a late lunch, their conversation punctuated by quiet laughter; a lone businessman in a grey suit nursing a whisky and reading the Financial Times; two women in business attire clinking champagne flutes in celebration of something.

Rebecca chose a table near the window, where natural light filtered through gauzy curtains and softened the afternoon into something dreamlike. She could see the street beyond—the ordinary London traffic, the people hurrying past—but it felt distant, removed, as though she were watching it through glass.

She ordered a sparkling water from the attentive waiter, then arranged her things with careful precision: notebook, two pens (in case one died), phone face-down on the table, digital recorder (she'd ask permission before using it). She smoothed her hair, checked her reflection in the window, and tried to calm the flutter of nerves in her chest.

Her hands were shaking slightly. She pressed them flat against her thighs, willing them to steady.

Why do you want to do this? her therapist had asked her last week, during their regular session. What are you hoping to get from this interview?

Rebecca had given the professional answer: It's a career-making opportunity. Led Zeppelin's 50th anniversary. Jimmy Page rarely talks to press. If I can get him to open up, even a little, it could change everything for me.

But that wasn't the whole truth.

The whole truth was in her coat pocket, folded into a small square: a letter from her cousin Danny, written on lined paper from the rehab facility in Sussex where he'd been for the past six weeks. I'm trying, Becca. I really am. But it's so fucking hard. Everyone here has a story about how they got here, and mine feels so stupid. I just wanted to feel something different. I just wanted to escape.

Danny was twenty-five. Three years younger than Rebecca, though they'd always felt more like siblings than cousins. Growing up, they'd been the odd ones out at family gatherings—Danny because he was too sensitive, too artistic, too prone to asking uncomfortable questions; Rebecca because she'd refused to play the part of the dutiful daughter. While the other Ashford children had sat politely through endless Sunday lunches, Danny and Rebecca had escaped to the garden, making up stories, talking about music, dreaming about lives that didn't involve trust funds and expectations.

He'd been brilliant, once. Truly brilliant. He'd gone to Cambridge to read History of Art, had written his dissertation on the Pre-Raphaelites with such passion that his supervisor had encouraged him to pursue a PhD. But somewhere in his second year, something had shifted. He'd started missing family events, started looking thinner, more distant. Rebecca had noticed—of course she'd noticed—but she'd been so consumed with her own battles, her own desperate need to prove herself, that she'd told herself it was just university stress. Just Danny being Danny, always a bit fragile, always a bit too much in his own head.

She should have known better. She should have seen it.

By the time the family found out—when Danny's flatmate had called his parents after finding him unconscious in the bathroom—he'd been using heroin for two years. Two years. And Rebecca had been so wrapped up in her own life, her own career, her own need to distance herself from the Ashford name, that she'd missed it entirely.

The family's reaction had been swift and brutal in its efficiency. Her uncle—Danny's father—had arranged for the rehab facility with the same brisk professionalism he applied to his work as a corporate solicitor. Private, discreet, expensive. The kind of place where addiction could be dealt with quietly, without scandal, without anyone outside the family needing to know. Danny had been deposited there like a problem to be solved, a stain to be removed.

And then they'd stopped talking about him.

At the last family dinner Rebecca had attended—three weeks ago, a tense Sunday lunch in Belgravia—Danny's name hadn't been mentioned once. Not once. Her aunt had talked about her garden. Her uncle had discussed a case he was working on. Rebecca's mother had asked about wedding plans for a distant cousin. It was as if Danny had simply ceased to exist, as if acknowledging his addiction would somehow contaminate them all.

Rebecca had excused herself halfway through the main course and hadn't been back since.

She'd gone to visit Danny the following weekend, driving down to Sussex in the rain, her stomach knotted with guilt and dread. The facility was beautiful, of course—all rolling grounds and tasteful architecture, the kind of place that looked more like a spa than a rehab centre. Danny had met her in the visiting room, and he'd looked so small, so young, despite being twenty-five. His eyes had been clearer than she'd seen them in months, but there was a rawness to him, a vulnerability that made her chest ache.

"They're ashamed of me," he'd said quietly, not meeting her eyes. "Mum and Dad. They can't even look at me."

"They're idiots," Rebecca had said fiercely, reaching across the table to grip his hand. "You're ill, Danny. You're getting help. That's what matters."

But he'd shaken his head. "You don't understand, Becca. I'm not like the others here. Most of them—they had reasons. Trauma, abuse, something that broke them. Me? I just... I was bored. I was sad. I wanted to feel something else. And now I've ruined everything."

That was what haunted her. The randomness of it. The way addiction had reached out and grabbed someone like Danny—someone loved, someone privileged, someone with every advantage—simply because he'd been vulnerable at the wrong moment. Because he'd been offered something at a party, because he'd been lonely, because the world had felt too heavy and he'd wanted to feel light.

His letter, the one in her pocket now, had arrived four days ago. She'd read it so many times she'd memorised parts of it:

They keep asking me why I started. Like there's supposed to be some big dramatic reason. But there isn't. I was at a party, someone offered, I was drunk and stupid and I said yes. And then I said yes again. And again. And suddenly two years had gone by and I couldn't remember who I'd been before.

The counsellor here says I have to forgive myself. But how do you forgive yourself for throwing away everything? For making Mum and Dad ashamed? For making you worry?

I keep thinking about all those musicians you love. The ones who did worse than me and survived. Keith Richards. Ozzy Osbourne. Jimmy fucking Page. How did they do it, Becca? How did they come out the other side?

That was the question that had been burning in her mind ever since. How did they survive? What did they know? What had they learned in the depths of addiction that could help Danny now?

The Ashford family didn't talk about such things. Addiction was sordid, shameful, something that happened to other people. But Rebecca couldn't afford that luxury anymore. She needed to understand. She needed to know how someone could fall that far and still climb back. She needed to believe that Danny could survive this, that he could become himself again.

And if that meant asking Jimmy Page the questions no one else dared ask—if that meant defying Diane's warnings, risking her career, confronting a legend with his own uncomfortable past—then so be it.

This wasn't just about ambition anymore. This was about love. This was about the only family member who'd ever really understood her, who'd ever seen her as more than just another Ashford daughter. This was about Danny, sitting in that facility in Sussex, trying to forgive himself for being human.

This was about finding answers that might save him.

The waiter returned with her water, and Rebecca thanked him, taking a sip to wet her suddenly dry throat. She checked her watch again: 1:53 p.m.

Seven minutes.

She opened her notebook to a fresh page and wrote the date at the top, then paused. What was she supposed to write? She'd prepared questions, of course—pages of them, organised by topic, cross-referenced with interviews he'd given over the years so she wouldn't repeat what had already been asked. But sitting here now, in this hushed and elegant space, all her preparation felt inadequate.

You couldn't prepare for mythology. You couldn't rehearse for meeting a legend.

Rebecca closed her eyes for a moment, centring herself. She thought about the first time she'd heard "Since I've Been Loving You," late at night in her room at university, headphones on, the blues-soaked guitar solo pouring into her ears like liquid gold. She'd played it three times in a row, unable to believe that a human being had created something so raw, so achingly beautiful. It had been a revelation—proof that there was something beyond the carefully curated world she'd grown up in, something real and messy and true.

That was who she was here to meet. Not the mythology, not the legend. The human being who'd made that music.

Get me something true, Diane had said.

Rebecca opened her eyes and picked up her pen.

She would get the truth. Even if she had to break every rule to find it. Even if it meant proving, once and for all, that she was more than just another privileged girl playing at journalism.

The door to the bar opened, and Rebecca's heart lurched into her throat. But it was just another hotel guest, an older woman in a Burberry coat, who glanced around and then left.

1:58 p.m.

Rebecca took another sip of water. Uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Checked that her recorder was ready, that her phone was silenced.

The pianist in the lobby had moved on to something else now, something she almost recognised. The melody drifted through the archway, soft and melancholic.

2:00 p.m.

Rebecca stared at the doorway, her pulse loud in her ears.

Any moment now.

Any moment, everything would change.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

I know it has been an extremely long time since I have updated this story. Its because I am having a hard time with the ending, its written, but I have been uphappy with it. In the meantime (as I debate whether to edit and post the last few chapters of The Devil with Angel Wings) I have started a different story and updating this page with the chapters written so far. It is called What Remains and its summary is To mark the 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin, journalist Rebecca Ashford secures a high-profile interview with Jimmy Page. While Page is known for strictly avoiding questions regarding his band's hedonistic 1970s lifestyle, Rebecca is determined to break his silence and uncover the truth.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 39

The argument started three days after the Devil left.

Three days of silence. Three days of Lucy bleeding and cramping and sobbing in the bedroom while Jimmy sat downstairs in the study, staring at nothing, drinking whisky straight from the bottle. Three days of them orbiting each other like ghosts, unable to speak, unable to touch, unable to reconcile what had happened with any version of reality that made sense.

On the third day, Jimmy finally climbed the stairs.

Lucy was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hair unwashed, her face gaunt and hollow. She looked up when he entered, and the hope that flared in her eyes made his chest constrict with something that felt like grief and rage and love all tangled together until he couldn't separate them.

"Lucy," he said, and his voice sounded foreign to his own ears. "I need you to explain it to me. All of it. From the beginning."

So she did.

She told him about the church in Mississippi. About her biological parents—the broken bones, the twisted hands, the beatings for playing the devil's music. About the Millers, who took her in. About Pastor Coleman, the only person who'd ever made her feel safe. About the day Michael came with the knife, drunk and broken and furious at God.

She told him about the blood. About the dying man in her arms. About the prayer that went unanswered.

And then she told him about the deal.

"I was twelve," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I didn't understand what a soul even was. I just knew he was dying and I couldn't—I couldn't let him die, Jimmy. He was the only person who'd ever been kind to me. The only one who made me feel like I wasn't—" Her voice broke. "Like I wasn't broken."

Jimmy listened, his face unreadable, his hands clenched into fists. When she told him about the Devil carving the mark into her arm, about Pastor Coleman's wound closing with that terrible, fleshy sound, about the taste of blood on the Devil's lips—Jimmy turned away, his shoulders shaking.

"So all this time," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "All this time, you were—you belonged to him."

"I thought he'd forgotten," Lucy said desperately. "I thought—God, I was so stupid—I thought maybe if I just lived my life, if I was good, if I didn't think about it, he'd—"

"He'd what?" Jimmy spun around, and there was something wild in his eyes, something broken. "He'd just let you go? Lucy, you made a deal with the Devil. The actual, literal Devil. And you thought he'd just—what, forget?"

"I was a child!" Lucy's voice rose, sharp with desperation. "I didn't know what I was doing! I was twelve years old and terrified and—"

"And now our baby is dead!" Jimmy shouted, and the words hung in the air between them, terrible and final.

Lucy flinched as if he'd struck her. "You think I don't know that?" Her voice was shaking, tears streaming down her face. "You think I don't feel it every second? That I don't wake up and reach for my stomach and feel nothing there? I know what I did, Jimmy. I know it's my fault. I know—"

"I can't—" Jimmy's voice cracked. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, his whole body trembling. "I can't unsee it, Lucy. I can't—every time I close my eyes, I see him. I see his hand going through you. I see our baby—" He choked on the word. "I hear you screaming. I was pinned to that fucking wall and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't protect you. I couldn't protect our child. What kind of man does that make me?"

"It wasn't your fault—"

"And I can't—" He was pacing now, his movements jerky, frantic. "I can't look at you without seeing it. Without seeing him. Without remembering that you're—that you were—"

"His," Lucy finished, her voice hollow. "You can't look at me without remembering that I belong to the Devil."

Jimmy stopped. He opened his mouth. Closed it. And the silence that followed was more damning than anything he could have said.

"I need—" He ran a shaking hand through his hair. "I need time. I need to think. I need to—I can't be here right now, Lucy. I can't—"

"Don't," Lucy whispered, but it was too late. She could see it in his eyes—the decision already made.

"I'm sorry," Jimmy said, and he sounded like he was breaking apart. "I'm so sorry, but I can't—I can't do this. Not right now."

He left that night. Packed a bag, called for a car, and walked out the door of Boleskine House without looking back.

Lucy stood in the doorway, watching the taillights disappear down the dark road, and felt something inside her shatter completely.

She'd lost her child.

And now she'd lost her husband.

One Year Later

A year. A full, agonizing year since the air in Boleskine House had thrummed with a malice so ancient and profound it had torn the very fabric of their lives. A year since the devil, true to his word, had taken what was owed, leaving behind not just a dead child, but two broken souls adrift in an ocean of unimaginable grief and terror.

Lucy remained at Boleskine, a ghost haunting the grand, desolate rooms. The silence was her constant companion, a heavy shroud woven from the absence of her child's future cries and the music that had once been her torment and salvation. The headaches were truly gone, a bizarre, cruel mercy. Her mind was clear, agonizingly so, no longer clouded by the rhythmic pounding that had dictated her every waking moment. But the clarity was a torment in itself, a wide-open vista onto the wasteland of her existence. She would sit at the grand piano in the drawing-room, her fingers hovering over the ivory keys, feeling nothing. No urge, no spark, no echo of the melodies that had once flowed uncontrollably from her. It was as if the devil, in severing the curse, had also severed the conduit to her soul. The music was gone, a talent she possessed but could no longer access, or rather, no longer wished to access. It was tainted, a reminder of the bargain, the cost, the monstrous transaction that had ripped her life apart. Her parents, in their rigid, fearful piety, had been right all along: music was demonic.

Sometimes, she would wander the grounds, the chill wind off Loch Ness whipping her thin nightgown around her ankles. She no longer slept much, haunted by the specter of what could have been. The scar on her forearm, the devil’s mark, was indeed gone. Her skin was smooth, unblemished, a perfection that felt like a mockery. It was as if the physical manifestation of her curse had been meticulously erased, along with any trace of the joy, the hope, the future she had once held. She was a tabula rasa, wiped clean, but with the indelible memory of the scrubbing process seared into her very being. She felt hollowed out, an empty vessel, free from pain, free from compulsion, free from everything but the crushing weight of her losses. The pastor was free, yes. But her child was dead, her husband a phantom of his former self, and the core of who Lucy was had been annihilated.

In the weeks and months that followed, Lucy moved through her life like a ghost. She attended meetings with her publisher, though she hadn't written anything new. She fielded phone calls from concerned friends—Frank, Steve, even Robert, his voice careful and sad—but she didn't tell them the truth. How could she?

The Devil took my baby and now my husband is dying from heroin because he can't forget what he saw, and I'm free but I've lost everything, and some days I sit in that music room and wonder if it would have been better if I'd just let Pastor Coleman die.

She didn't say that. She said, "I'm fine. Thank you for checking in. I just need time."

Time. As if time could fix this. As if time could bring back her child, or her husband, or the woman she used to be.

She heard about Jimmy through the grapevine. the news reports, the tabloids, the rumors of Jimmy’s spiraling descent. He's using. He's barely eating. He looks like a skeleton. Someone needs to do something. Each photograph, each article, was a knife twist. She knew the truth, the horrific, unspeakable truth that everyone else missed. He was dying, not from rock 'n' roll excess, but from the raw, unadulterated terror of a universe turned inside out. He was dying because of what loving her had cost him. And she, the catalyst, could do nothing but watch. Because every time she thought about going to him, she remembered the look in his eyes the night he left. The horror. The revulsion.

I can't look at you without seeing him.

So she stayed away.

And on the days when the silence became too much, when the absence of music felt like suffocation, she would sit in the empty nursery—the room they'd started preparing, with its soft yellow walls and tiny clothes folded in drawers—and stare at nothing.

The Devil had given her exactly what she thought she wanted. Freedom. And it had destroyed her.

Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, in the squalid opulence of a London flat, Jimmy was dying. The band, his friends, the handlers, the roadies – they all saw it. The gaunt cheeks, the haunted, dilated eyes, the tremor in his hands that wasn't just hangovers anymore. He was a wraith, fueled by a self-destructive cocktail of grief, terror, and the purest, most vicious shame. The public whispered about rock star excess, the tolls of fame, another casualty of the wild life. They saw the public Jimmy, a legend spiraling. But they didn’t see the true horror, the thing that had broken him beyond repair.

Jimmy hadn't slept for weeks, then months, after the miscarriage. The image was a loop in his mind, clearer than any waking thought: the sickly green glow, the devil's eyes, the chilling pronouncements, and the sudden, awful silence that followed, heavier than any scream. He had dabbled in the occult, yes. He'd collected Crowley artifacts, held seances, flirted with the arcane, believing it was a game, a path to deeper understanding, a rebellion against the mundane. But this? This was no game. This was real. The devil, manifesting in his home, a tangible, terrifying entity. Murdering his unborn child, in front of him. His entire understanding of the universe, of reality itself, had not just collapsed, it had imploded, leaving a black hole of cosmic dread.

The flat in London was dark, the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. Empty bottles littered the floor—whisky, vodka, gin, anything that could dull the edges. The air was thick with smoke, stale and acrid, from the countless cigarettes stubbed out in overflowing ashtrays.

Jimmy Page sat slumped on the sofa, a cigarette dangling from his fingers, his eyes half-closed. He looked like a corpse. His skin was grey, waxy, stretched too tight over his bones. His dark hair, once glossy and carefully styled, hung lank and greasy around his hollow face. His clothes—a wrinkled shirt, stained trousers—hung off his skeletal frame.

On the coffee table in front of him: a spoon. A lighter. A syringe. Heroin’s dark embrace.

He'd stopped pretending months ago. Stopped hiding it. What was the point? Everyone already knew. Robert had stopped by last week—or was it two weeks ago? Time had become slippery, unreliable—and stood in the doorway, staring at Jimmy with something that looked like horror and pity and grief all at once.

"Mate, you're killing yourself," Robert had said, his voice thick.

Jimmy had laughed—a hollow, broken sound. "Good."

He picked up the spoon. His hands were shaking—they always shook now—as he cooked the powder, watching it dissolve into liquid amber. The ritual was familiar. Comforting, even. The one thing that made sense in a world that had revealed itself to be a nightmare.

Heroin was the only balm. It didn't just numb the pain; it obliterated memory, or at least, muted it to a merciful whisper. He chased that whisper with every hit, every needle, every desperate drag on a cigarette. Three, four packs a day were a mere preamble to the main event, the ritual of escape. His body was a wasteland, his spirit a tattered flag fluttering in a toxic wind. He was fleeing, desperately, from a truth too horrific to contemplate. He was trying to erase the indelible mark of what he had witnessed, a mark that no drug could truly touch.

The needle slid into his vein with practiced ease. He pushed the plunger down, and within seconds, the world softened. The memories blurred. The screaming in his head quieted. For a few hours, at least, he wouldn't have to think. He leaned back, closing his eyes, letting the chemical oblivion wash over him.

In the darkness behind his eyelids, he saw Lucy's face. Not as she was now—wherever she was—but as she'd been on their wedding day. Smiling. Radiant. Full of hope.

I'm sorry, he thought, but he didn't know if he was apologizing to her or to himself.

The cigarette slipped from his fingers, falling to the floor, smoldering against the carpet.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 38

Boleskine House in late spring was almost gentle. The harsh Scottish winter had finally released its grip on the Highlands, and pale green unfurled across the moors in tentative waves. Inside, the fire in the great hearth still burned—more for comfort than necessity now—and the windows were thrown open to let in the sweet, earthy smell of heather and rain-soaked peat.

Lucy Page , as she constantly had to remind herself, stood at one of those windows, her hand resting on the swell of her belly, watching the light play across Loch Ness. At six months pregnant, she'd finally started to show properly—a gentle curve that Jimmy couldn't stop marveling at, his hands constantly seeking it out, his face lighting up whenever he felt the baby move.

She should have been happy. She was happy, mostly. But the headaches...

They'd started a few weeks after she'd learned she was pregnant. Small at first, manageable with rest and water. But as the pregnancy progressed, they'd grown worse. Sharper. More frequent. Some days she could barely lift her head from the pillow without the world tilting sickeningly.

But Lucy knew deep down, in the part of her that still bore the scar on her forearm, the part that woke sometimes in the dead of night with the taste of sulfur on her tongue, she knew.

He was coming.

Jimmy knelt by the record player, carefully placing the needle before returning to her side with a steaming mug of herbal tea, his green eyes soft with concern. He'd been so attentive these past months—almost obsessively so. Anticipating her needs before she voiced them, cushioning her with pillows, fetching her water, rubbing her feet when they ached. It was sweet. It was suffocating. It made her want to weep with gratitude and guilt in equal measure.

"Another one brewing, love?" he asked, his brow furrowed with concern, tracing a gentle line on her temple. His dark eyes, usually vibrant with life, were clouded with a quiet fear for her. "You get this look. Like you're somewhere far away. Somewhere dark."

She forced a smile, wrapping both hands around the warm ceramic. "Just thinking. About the baby. About... everything." She didn’t voice the deeper fear, the chilling, unspoken question that haunted her sleepless nights: what did this mean for the child growing inside her? What debt was finally being collected?

Jimmy set his own mug down and pulled her gently into his arms, his hands settling on her belly. "Everything's going to be fine," he murmured into her hair. "You're healthy. The baby's healthy. We're going to have a beautiful little—"

The pain hit like a lightning strike. Not a throb, but a searing, white-hot claw tearing behind her eyes, vicious and absolute. The gentle music warped, the firelight blurring into a violent, kaleidoscopic blur of red and orange. The mug clattered, unheard, to the stone floor, its contents splashing warm and forgotten. The room spun, threatening to pitch her into a black abyss. A gasp escaped her lips, choked and ragged, as her world tilted precariously.

Jimmy’s voice was a distant echo of alarm. "Lucy? What is it?"

But the words were meaningless. The pain consumed her, absolute and blinding. A blackness swallowed the edges of her vision, then the center. She felt the heavy, dizzying weight of unconsciousness claim her, her body slumping from the chaise, meeting the cold flagstones with a muffled thud.

"Lucy!" Jimmy's voice, sharp with panic, but it sounded so far away, muffled, like he was underwater.The thud was followed by the frantic scrape of Jimmy's boots on stone. He was beside her in an instant, his hands on her, patting, trying to rouse her. "Lucy, sweetheart, open your eyes! Are you alright? Is the baby alright?" His voice was a ragged blend of terror and desperate love.

Her knees buckled. She was falling, the floor rushing up to meet her, and then—

Nothing.

When Lucy’s eyelids fluttered, a heavy weight against her will, the pain was still there, a dull, throbbing presence behind her temples, but manageable now. Bearable. She was on the floor, the hardwood cool against her cheek, and someone was saying her name, urgent and frightened.

Lucy, please, love, please wake up—can you hear me? Lucy, the baby, is the baby—"

Jimmy. That was Jimmy. She blinked, trying to focus, and his face swam into view above her—pale, tear-streaked, terrified, his dark hair a disheveled halo around his pale features. He was crouched beside her, his hands hovering over her as if afraid to touch her, as if she might shatter.

"I'm—" Her voice came out hoarse. She swallowed, tried again. "I'm okay."

His hand moved to her belly, trembling. "Lucy, the baby—"

"The baby's fine." She could feel it—a small, reassuring flutter beneath her ribs.

And then she saw him. Standing behind Jimmy, just beyond his shoulder, as if he'd always been there.

Behind Jimmy, standing silent and impossibly still, was a figure that stole the very air from Lucy’s lungs. He was there. After all this time, a year and a quarter since her wedding, since her fragile peace had begun to knit itself together, he was back. And he was just as she remembered him: devastatingly, impossibly handsome, an unsettling grace in his stillness, his eyes like polished obsidian reflecting the fire’s hungry glow, holding an ancient, knowing malice. A tailor-made suit of the finest midnight blue draped his impossibly lean frame, a subtle sheen catching the light, his hands in his pockets, his expression one of amused curiosity.

Lucy's blood turned to ice. Her breath stopped. Every muscle in her body locked, rigid with primal, bone-deep terror. The fear that writhed on Lucy's face was not for her headache, not for the fall, but for him.

Jimmy, confused by the sudden, intense terror in her wide, unseeing eyes, followed her gaze. He turned slowly, his head swiveling, his body freezing rigid as his eyes landed on the exquisitely dressed stranger. "Who… who are you?" His question was a ragged whisper, laced with a fear he rarely showed, a fear that stripped away the rock star and left only a vulnerable man. Then Jimmy surged to his feet, putting himself between Lucy and the stranger, his body taut, protective. 

The Devil's smile widened, slow and indulgent, like a cat watching a mouse puff itself up. "James Patrick Page," he purred, his voice smooth as honey. "The legendary guitarist. The mystic." His eyes glittered with dark amusement.

Jimmy took a step back, his hand reaching for Lucy, trying to pull her up, away. "Get out. Get out of my house or I'll—"

"You'll what?" The Devil's tone was conversational, almost friendly. He tilted his head, studying Jimmy like a particularly fascinating insect. "Call the police? Throw a punch? Please, do try. I could use the entertainment."

"Jimmy." Lucy's voice was barely audible, choked with fear. She was trying to stand, her legs shaking, her hand pressed to her belly. "Jimmy, don't—"

"Oh, Lucy." The Devil's attention shifted to her, and his expression softened into something grotesque—a parody of affection. He took a slow, deliberate step forward, his gaze fixed solely on Lucy, ignoring Jimmy as if he were a nuisance. "Look at you. Even more beautiful than I remembered. Even more so now." His eyes dropped, lingering on the gentle curve of her belly. "And so successful." He began to walk toward them, each step measured, deliberate. His voice was a silken caress, full of honeyed venom. "An acclaimed composer. A rock star's wife. You've come so far from that broken little girl in Mississippi, haven't you?"

"Stay away from her," Jimmy snarled, moving to block him, but the Devil simply stepped around him as if he weren't there, his eyes never leaving Lucy.

"And pregnant!" The Devil's voice rose with delight, his gaze dropping to her belly. "How absolutely delicious. You're glowing, my dear. Motherhood suits you."

Lucy was shaking her head, tears streaming down her face. "Please," she whispered a desperate, raw plea that tore at her throat "Please, just leave us alone"

The Devil merely snickered, a low, guttural sound that raised gooseflesh on Lucy's arms. He bent, a predator closing in on its prey, his dark eyes never leaving hers. His hand, long and elegant, reached out. Lucy was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to scream. Her breath hitched in her throat as his cold fingertips made contact with the taught skin of her baby bump. An icy dread, colder than the deepest winter, spread through her, a terror that felt deeper than bone.

"Get away from her!" Jimmy roared, finally snapping out of his horrified stupor. Fueled by a husband's desperate love, he lunged, a wild, untrained attack aimed at the intruder.  "Get your fucking hands off my wife!"

The Devil barely seemed to notice. With a lazy flick of his wrist, a surge of unseen force slammed into Jimmy's chest. Jimmy cried out, his body hurtling across the room, striking the opposite stone wall with a sickening thud before collapsing in a heap, gasping for air, and when he tried to rise, he couldn't—pinned by some unseen force, his limbs splayed, his eyes wide with terror.

"Mettle in my affairs, mortal?" The Devil's voice was no longer silken but a low, dangerous growl, echoing with ancient, primal power. "You'd do well to remember your place."

As Jimmy lay trapped, tears streaming down his face, clawing at the stone wall but unable to move, a horrifying clarity dawned on Lucy. Everything she had built – her marriage, her fragile peace, the hard-won sense of autonomy she'd carefully constructed – it all shattered around her like glass.

He didn’t want her anymore. He had been waiting. He had let her fall in love, let her believe she could have something pure, something untouched by him. And now, he had come for the one thing she couldn't sacrifice, the one thing that would twist her soul more than her own damnation – her child.

"No!" Lucy screamed, trying to move toward Jimmy, but her body wouldn't obey. She was trapped, a prisoner in her own skin, as the Devil turned back to her.

His beautiful face was shifting now, the mask slipping. The golden hair darkened, the smooth skin cracking like burnt paper, revealing something underneath—something ancient and terrible.

"You made your deal out of love," he said, his voice a low, rumbling growl. "You sacrificed yourself to save someone you cared about. Noble. Pure. Nauseating." His hand pressed harder against her belly, and Lucy whimpered. "But I'm not interested in your soul anymore, Lucy. I've decided I want something better. I've been patient. I let you grow up. I let you build this beautiful life. I wanted to see what you'd become. What you'd have to lose."

He pushed harder against her bump, and Lucy flinched, but she couldn't move—her body was frozen, paralyzed by some invisible force. His hand, cold as death, pressed gently against the swell of her belly.

"Your child," the Devil said, and his smile was a thing of nightmares—too wide, too many teeth. "Innocent. Untainted. A blank slate. So much more valuable than a broken little girl who sold herself for a man."

"Please!" Lucy's voice broke into a sob. "Please, take me instead, take me, I'm begging you, just don't—"

"Take you?" The Devil laughed, a sound like grinding bones. "I already have you, Lucy. Your soul is mine. Has been for years. But this—" His hand moved in slow, deliberate circles over her belly. "This is a bonus. A little interest on my investment."

"No!" Jimmy's voice, raw and desperate, from across the room. He was struggling against the invisible bonds, tears streaming down his face. "Please, God, please, don't hurt them, don't—"

"God?" The Devil's head swiveled toward Jimmy, his expression one of mocking pity. "God isn't listening, James. He never does. Not to desperate prayers. Not to broken people. That's what they never tell you in church—God only hears the righteous. The rest of you? You're mine."

"Please," Lucy whispered, her voice barely audible. "Please, I'm begging you—"

"I know," the Devil said gently, almost kindly. And then his expression hardened. "But I don't care."

His hand, still pressed against her belly, began to glow—a sickly, greenish light that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Lucy felt it immediately—a wrongness spreading through her, cold and invasive, like ice in her veins.

"No—" she gasped, and then the pain hit.

Lucy's eyes flew open wide, a silent scream trapped in her throat as a searing, impossible pain erupted inside her. It was not the pain of childbirth, not a natural agony, but a tearing, a rending of flesh and life itself. It was like nothing she'd ever felt—worse than the headaches, worse than anything she could have imagined. It felt like her body was being torn apart from the inside, ripped open by invisible claws.

The Devil’s smile widened, a true, horrifying rictus of triumph. His hand, still pressed against her stomach, plunged, ripped through her abdomen with an impossible, sickening wet sound, like cloth tearing and meat rending. Crimson blood blossomed violently on her shawl, soaking into the floor around her. His hand re-emerged, slick and dark, holding something small, still, and tragically perfect, shrouded in nascent blood and tissue.

In his grasp, impossibly, was something small and glowing—a faint, translucent shape, barely formed, pulsing with weak, faltering light. The soul of her unborn child.

"No!" Jimmy's voice was hoarse, broken. "NO! GIVE IT BACK! GIVE IT BACK!"

Lucy couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. She collapsed, her hands clutching her stomach, feeling the emptiness there—the sudden, horrifying absence where life had been moments before. Blood was spreading across her dress, warm and wet, and she was sobbing, great heaving gasps that tore through her like knives.

The Devil examined the glowing shape in his hand with clinical interest, then carefully tucked it into the pocket of his suit jacket, as if it were a business card.

"There," he said, his voice returning to that smooth, honey-sweet tone. "All done."

He crouched down beside Lucy, who was curled on the floor, shaking, sobbing, broken. He reached out and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumb, then brought it to his lips, licking the salt from his skin.

"Delicious," he murmured. "Grief tastes so much better than joy."

"Why?" Lucy's voice was barely a whisper, choked with pain. "Why?"

The Devil tilted his head, considering. "Because I can," he said simply. "Because you're mine. Because I wanted to see you break." He stood, straightening his suit jacket. "But look on the bright side, Lucy—your debt is paid. The contract is fulfilled. You're free."

"Free?" Lucy's laugh was a terrible, hollow sound. "You took my baby—"

"I took what was mine," the Devil corrected, his tone patient, as if explaining something to a child. "And now we're even. You gave me your soul. I let you live your life. And when the time came, I collected what I was owed." He glanced at Jimmy, still pinned to the wall, his face streaked with tears, his eyes wild with helpless rage. "You'll take care of her, won't you, James? She's going to need you. This sort of thing... it leaves scars."

And then, with a final, mocking smile, he was gone. The Devil was simply gone, taking the impossible weight of his malice and the terrible, fragile evidence of their unborn child with him.

Jimmy collapsed forward, the invisible force that had pinned him against the far wall releasing him with the suddenness of a snapped cable. He hit the carpeted floor hard, scrambling instantly toward Lucy. His legs were useless, his mind a howling void of panic.

“Lucy! Lucy, oh God, no, no, no!”

Lucy was a tableau of profound, unnatural loss. She lay on her back, her torso twisted slightly, her eyes wide and fixed on the ceiling where the shadows danced in the afternoon light. The blinding white intensity of the headache had been replaced by a searing, internal emptiness—a coldness that started deep within her abdomen and spread through her veins, chilling her soul.

The wound was impossible, yet horrifyingly real. Her maternity dress—the soft, floral fabric she had chosen that morning—was soaked in a crimson tide that blossomed outward onto the floor. There was no clean surgical incision, no natural rupture. It was a violation of matter itself.

Jimmy reached her side, his hands trembling so violently he couldn’t decide where to touch her. The sight of the gore paralyzed him. He couldn't reconcile the beautiful life that had been moving inside her just minutes ago with this sudden, violent absence.

Lucy focus remained fixed on the spot where the Devil had stood, the corner of the room now empty, but eternally stained by his presence.

Paid for. That’s what he had said. Her debt, secured by the soul of a life she hadn’t even met yet, was wiped clean. He had not offered a transaction; he had merely issued a receipt, paid in agony and blood.

She felt the residual warmth of the Devil’s touch fading on her cheek, where his finger had wiped away her tears before he licked them clean. That moment of intimate, obscene possession was perhaps worse than the physical violation. He had savored her grief.

A small, high-pitched whimper finally escaped her throat, not of pain, but of profound, existential abandonment. “He took him, Jimmy,” she whispered, her voice a dry rasp, barely audible over the rush of blood in her own ears. “The baby. He took him.”

He looked down at Lucy’s face. The fear was gone, replaced by a terrifying, blank resignation. Her eyes were not looking at him, but through him, seeing only the horror of the transaction.

“Lucy, we have to move. We have to stop the bleeding. Talk to me, darling, are you in pain?” Jimmy pleaded, his voice thick with tears. He gently tried to lift her head, terrified of moving her torso.

Jimmy, ripped off his shirt, a heavy linen garment, and folded it, pressing it against the worst of the wound, ignoring Lucy’s involuntary groan of pain.

“I have to get you to an actual hospital,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, operating purely on adrenaline and terror.

He slid one arm beneath her shoulders and the other under her knees, gathering her weight. Her body felt unnaturally light, fragile.

Lucy’s head lolled back against his shoulder.

Jimmy carried Lucy blindly toward the main entrance, his breath ragged, his only focus the car keys waiting by the door. He looked down at Lucy, whose eyes were finally closing, slipping toward the dark comfort of unconsciousness.

"Hold on, my love," he choked out, the words tasting hollow. He knew the debt might be paid, but the nightmare had just begun. The Devil had taken their son or daughter, but he had left them with something far more devastating: a life sentence of shared, unspeakable memory and a void that could never be filled. He had ensured that even if she survived, Lucy would never find peace, and neither would he. The price of her freedom had been the ultimate sacrifice, turning their marriage into a monument built on blood and eternal grief.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 37:

Marriage, Lucy discovered, was easier when you weren't sharing your husband with the entire world.

The first few months had been blissful—a honeymoon period both literal and figurative. They'd spent February and March at Boleskine House, wrapped in each other and the quiet isolation of the Scottish Highlands. Jimmy had written music. Lucy had composed. They'd made love in front of roaring fires and walked the moors hand-in-hand, and for those brief, golden weeks, Lucy had allowed herself to believe that this—this—was what life would be like.

But then Led Zeppelin announced their 1975 North American tour.

"It's massive," Jimmy had said, his eyes bright with excitement as he showed her the itinerary. "Forty dates. We're playing arenas, stadiums. Lucy, this is what we've been building toward. The biggest tour we've ever done."

Lucy had looked at the schedule-June through August, crisscrossing America—and felt something cold settle in her stomach. "That's three months."

"I know." Jimmy had pulled her close, kissing her forehead. "Come with me. As much as you can. I don't want to be away from you."

So she'd agreed. She'd rearranged her own work, postponed recording sessions, and packed her bags. She'd told herself it would be an adventure. A chance to see Jimmy in his element, to understand this world that had claimed him long before she had.

She hadn't anticipated what that world would actually look like.

________________________________

The first concert Lucy attended was in Chicago, three weeks into the tour. She'd flown in that morning, exhausted from travel but excited to see Jimmy perform. He'd been over the moon when she called to say she was coming, had arranged for a car to pick her up from the airport, had left a backstage pass at will-call with her name on it.

"Mrs. Page," the security guard had said, checking her credentials, and Lucy had felt a little thrill at hearing it. Mrs. Page. She was Jimmy's wife. She belonged here. But the moment she stepped backstage, that certainty began to erode.

The first thing she noticed was the chaos. People everywhere—roadies hauling equipment, journalists with cameras, hangers-on with that particular glassy-eyed look that suggested they'd been indulging in whatever substances were being passed around. The air was thick with sweat, cigarette smoke, spilled cognac, and the cloying sweetness of burnt marijuana. It clings to Lucy’s throat the moment she steps through the heavy blackout curtains, her sensible boots clicking against the concrete floor like a metronome in a house of chaos. The roar of 20,000 fans still echoes in the walls, vibrating through the metal ducts overhead, but here, in the belly of the beast, the real show begins.

Fluorescent lights flicker above a long corridor lined with cracked mirrors and frayed cables.

She weaves through the throng—half-dressed bodies draped over equipment cases, giggling girls clutching backstage passes like golden tickets, road crew passing around vials of white powder like they’re trading baseball cards. A drum tech shoots up in the corner, sleeves rolled, arm bruised purple. Lucy turns away, her stomach twisting.

She weaves past more women. They were young—some of them looked barely eighteen. They wore tight jeans, tight shirts, and even tighter dresses, their makeup heavy, their eyes scanning the corridor with predatory intent. Lucy watched A girl in nothing but fishnet stockings and a torn Led Zeppelin t-shirt stumbles past, laughing too loudly, her lipstick smeared, her eyes glassy. A roadie, shirtless and grinning, guides her toward a broom closet. Lucy flinches. She’s seen it before—glimpses, fleeting moments during earlier tours—but now, as Mrs. Page, it’s different. She’s not just an observer anymore. She’s a participant in this world, whether she wants to be or not.

She made her way down the corridor, past more clusters of people, more women eyeing her with thinly veiled hostility when they noticed the backstage pass around her neck. When she reached Jimmy's dressing room, she knocked once and pushed the door open.

Jimmy was sitting on a worn sofa, his guitar in his lap, but the moment he saw her his face lit up like sunrise. "Lucy!" He set the guitar aside and crossed the room in three strides, pulling her into his arms. "God, I've missed you."

"It's only been three weeks," Lucy laughed, but she held him just as tightly. He smelled like cigarettes and the sandalwood cologne he favored, familiar and comforting.

"Three weeks too long." Jimmy pulled back, cupping her face in his hands, studying her as if memorizing her features. "You look beautiful. How was the flight?"

"Long. But worth it." She kissed him, soft and lingering. "I wanted to see you play."

"You're going to love it," Jimmy promised, his eyes bright. "The crowds have been incredible. The energy—Lucy, it's like nothing I can describe. It's—"

A knock at the door interrupted him. "Jimmy, you're on in twenty," a voice called.

"Right." Jimmy squeezed her hand. "I have to get ready. But stay here, yeah? After the show, we'll go back to the hotel. Just us."

Lucy nodded, settling onto the sofa as Jimmy began his pre-show ritual—stretching his fingers, tuning his guitar, that focused intensity settling over him that she recognized from their own recording sessions. She loved watching him like this, seeing the transformation from the man she knew intimately to the performer the world saw.

But then the door opened again, and a woman walked in.

She was stunning—long dark hair, legs that seemed to go on forever, a crop top that left little to the imagination. She looked at Jimmy with unmistakable hunger, completely ignoring Lucy's presence.

"Jimmy, darling," she purred, crossing the room. "I've been looking for you everywhere. I brought you a little something for after the show—"

"Who are you?" Lucy's voice was sharp, cold.

The woman finally seemed to notice her, her gaze raking over Lucy with dismissive assessment. "A friend. And you are?"

"His wife," Lucy said, standing. "And you need to leave. Now."

The woman's eyes widened, then narrowed. "His wife? Jimmy, you got married?" Her tone made it sound like an accusation.

"I did," Jimmy said, his voice firm. He'd crossed to Lucy's side, his hand finding hers. "Lucy, this is... I'm sorry, I don't actually remember your name. But she's leaving. Aren't you?"

The woman stared at them for a long moment, then let out a harsh laugh. "Your loss," she said, and sauntered out, making sure to brush against Jimmy as she passed.

Lucy's jaw was clenched so tight it ached. "Does that happen often?"

Jimmy had the grace to look embarrassed. "It's... part of the tour. Groupies. They're always around. But Lucy, you have to know—I don't—I would never—"

"I know," Lucy said, and she meant it. She trusted Jimmy. But watching that woman look at her husband like he was a meal she wanted to devour made her feel sick. "I just... I wasn't prepared for how blatant it would be."

"I'm sorry." Jimmy pulled her close, his arms wrapping around her. "I should have warned you. But I promise you, Lucy—you're the only one I want. The only one I'll ever want."

She believed him. But as the evening wore on, as she watched the show from the wings and saw the screaming women in the front row reaching for Jimmy, saw the way they looked at him with raw desire, she felt something she'd never felt before: possessive jealousy.

He was hers. She'd married him. But these women didn't care. To them, he was a fantasy, an object, something to be pursued and conquered. And Lucy was just an obstacle in their way.

The real explosion came three weeks later, in New York.

Lucy had been traveling with the tour more regularly now, determined not to let her discomfort drive her away. She'd grown used to the groupies, the chaos, the constant stream of people who seemed to think they had a right to Jimmy's time and attention. She'd learned to ignore the whispered comments, the looks from women who clearly thought she didn't belong.

But Richard Cole was another matter entirely.

She'd disliked him from the first moment they met—a wiry, sharp-eyed man who seemed to pride himself on facilitating every excess, every indulgence. He was the tour manager, the one who made things happen, and what he made happen, from what Lucy could see, was trouble.

That night, after the show at Madison Square Garden, Lucy had gone looking for Jimmy. She'd been held up in the hotel, dealing with a phone call from her music publisher, and by the time she made it to the venue, the concert was over and Jimmy was nowhere to be found.

She made her way backstage, navigating the familiar chaos, and was heading toward Jimmy's dressing room when she heard Richard's voice.

"Come on, sweetheart. He'll love the surprise. Trust me."

Lucy rounded the corner and froze.

Richard was standing outside Jimmy's dressing room, his hand on the small of a young blonde's back, clearly steering her toward the door.

"Excuse me," Lucy said, her voice ice. "What do you think you're doing?"

Richard turned, and something flashed across his face—irritation, maybe, or contempt. Bloody hell. Of course she'd show up now. "Lucille. Didn't expect to see you here."

Lucy frowned at the nickname that Richard gave her "Clearly." Lucy's eyes flicked to the girl, who looked uncomfortable now, uncertain. She couldn't have been more than sixteen, with that desperate, hungry look that made lucy's stomach turn. another child playing at being a woman, throwing herself at married men like it's something to be proud of. But beneath the disdain, Lucy felt a flicker of something else, pity. The girl probably though this was her ticket to something, that sleeping with Jimmy Page would make her special, memorable. She didn't understand that to men like Richard, she was just meat. Disposable. Forgettable. "You can go," she said to her, her voice softening slightly. "He's not interested."

"Now hold on—" Richard started, but the girl had already taken the opportunity to flee, hurrying down the corridor, her heels clicking rapidly against the concrete floor.

Good, Lucy thought. Atleast she has that much sense.

"What the hell do you think you're playing at?" Lucy demanded, turning her full attention to Richard, stepping closer. She'd disliked him from the moment they met, that smirking, self-satisfied expression, the way he treated women like party favors, the casual cruelty disguised as 'having a good time.' He represented everything ugly about this world, everything that treated her husband like a commodity instead of a person. "That's my husband's dressing room."

"I'm aware," Richard said, his tone dismissive. Wives. He's dealt with Maureen Plant a handful of times, but she knew better than to show up regularly. She understood this was the band's world, not hers. But Lucy acted like she had some kind of claim, like being married to Jimmy gave her the right to police what went on backstage. "I'm just trying to keep things fun. You know, like they were before you showed up."

Lucy's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Richard said, his voice dripping with disdain, "that Jimmy was a lot more relaxed before he got married. Before he had a wife trailing after him, judging everything, making him feel guilty for just living his life." Before you started acting like you own him. Before you started ruining everything.

The other wives knew their place. They stayed home, raised the kids, didn't interfere. But Lucy thought she was different, special, because she was a bloody composer or whatever. thought her fancy awards and prestigious career meant she could waltz into his tour, his domain, and start making demands.

"Living his life?" Lucy's voice rose, and she felt her hands clench into fists. His life. As if destroying yourself with drugs and fucking nameless strangers is living. "You mean doing drugs and sleeping around? That's the life you think he should be living?"

The casual acceptance of infidelity made her want to scream. these groupies, these hanger-ons, they didn't care about marriage vows, about commitment, about the sanctity of what she and Jimmy had built. To them, it was all just a game. A conquest. Something to brag about. I fucked a rock star. Never mind that he had a wife. Never mind that every time one of these girls showed up in his dressing room, it chipped away at something precious.

"It's the life we all live out here," Richard shot back. "It's rock and roll, love. Maybe if you weren't so uptight, you'd understand that."

God he was tired of her. The constant presence, the watchful eyes, the way she'd look at him like he was something she'd scraped off her shoe. The tour had been fun before she started showing up. The boys letting loose, the parties, the girls so beautiful, willing girls who understood this was just for a night, just for fun. No strings, no guilt, no wives hovering around making everyone feel like they were doing something wrong.

But now? Now Jimmy was always looking over his shoulder, making sure Lucy was okay, cutting parties short to get back to the hotel. Now the atmosphere was tense, like they were all walking on eggshells. And it was all her fault.

"Uptight?" Lucy let out a harsh laugh. He thinks I'm the problem. He thinks caring about my marriage makes me uptight. "I understand just fine, Richard. I understand that you're an enabler who gets off on watching talented people destroy themselves. I understand that half the trouble this band gets into is because you encourage it.

She thought of the hotel incident, the arrest, the stories that made it into the papers. And Richard's face in the background of it all, orchestrating chaos like it was his job, because it was his job. Keep the boys happy. Keep them high. Keep them entertained. Never mind the cost.

"And I understand—" she stepped closer, her voice dropping to something dangerous, "—that you're the one who stole that money from the hotel in '73. Everyone knows it. They just won't say it."

Richard's face went red. "You don't know what you're talking about—"

"Don't I?" Lucy's smile was sharp. " The Drake Hotel, Richard. July 1973, I was there, remember? Over two hundred thousand dollars, gone from a safety deposit box. And somehow, mysteriously, no one knows who took it. But everyone has their suspicions, don't they?"

"I didn't take that money," Richard snarled, his veneer of casual dismissiveness cracking. "The police investigated. The FBI investigated. They found nothing. No evidence, no proof, because there is none. I had nothing to do with it."

"Of course you didn't," Lucy said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "Just like you have nothing to do with all the other disasters that follow this band around. Just coincidence, I'm sure."

"You -"

" But that's not really what this is about, is it?" Lucy interrupted and suddenly something clicked into place. The way Richard looked at her with suck naked hatred. The way he kept trying to undermine her relationship with Jimmy. The desperate attempts to maintain the chaos, the party atmosphere, the world where Jimmy was available and unattached.

He's jealous, she realizied with sudden, startling clarity. Not romantically, but she took his playmate away. His partner in crime. The one who would stay up all night doing drugs and chasing women and living that rock and roll fantasy without guilt or consequences.

"You're jealous, Richard." Lucy said, and watched his face contort with rage at the accusation. "Jealous that Jimmy chose me. That he has something real, something you'll never have. So you try to sabotage it, try to drag him back down into your world of meaningless sex and drugs because the thought of him being happy makes you miserable."

"You're out of your mind—"

"And you can call me Mrs. Page from now on," Lucy interrupted, her voice cold as steel. "Because unlike you, Richard, I get to fuck Jimmy every night. I get to wake up next to him. I get to be the person he loves. What do you get? To clean up his messes? To enable his worst impulses? How fulfilling that must be. How sad."

"You bitch—" Richard started forward, his face twisted with rage, but a massive hand clamped down on his shoulder before he could take another step.

"That's enough."

Peter Grant had appeared seemingly from nowhere, his expression thunderous. "Richard, walk away. Now."

"Peter, you heard what she—"

"I heard everything," Peter said quietly. "And she's not wrong. Walk. Away."

Richard stared at him, then at Lucy, his eyes full of venom. "You're going to ruin him," he said to her. "You're a bad omen. Everything's been shit since you came back into his life. Mark my words—you're going to destroy him." He turned and stalked off, disappearing into the crowd.

Lucy stood there, trembling with adrenaline and rage, her hands clenched into fists.

"Are you alright?" Peter asked gently.

"Fine," Lucy said, though her voice shook. "I'm fine."

"For what it's worth," Peter said, "you're good for him. I've known Jimmy a long time, and I've never seen him as happy as he's been since you got married. Don't let Richard get to you. He's... he's good at his job, but he's not a good person."

Lucy nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"Jimmy's in there," Peter said, gesturing to the dressing room. "Go on."

Lucy found Jimmy sprawled on the sofa, a cigarette in one hand, his eyes closed. He opened them when she entered, his face breaking into a tired smile.

"There you are. I was starting to think you'd gotten lost."

"I ran into Richard," Lucy said, closing the door behind her.

Something in her tone made Jimmy sit up. "What happened?"

Lucy told him. All of it. The girl, the argument, the things Richard had said. By the time she finished, Jimmy's face was dark with anger.

"I'll talk to him," he said. "Lucy, I'm sorry. He had no right—"

"It's not just Richard," Lucy interrupted. She sat down beside him, suddenly exhausted. God, when did she become this person? This anxious, suspicious wife? But she knew the answer. It had started the first night she'd walked backstage and seen the chaos, the excess, the women who looked at her husband like he was prey.

She'd try to ignore it at first. Tried to be the cool wife, the understanding wife. But three weeks of watching groupies prowl the corridors, of smelling drugs in every dressing room, of seeing Richard orchestrate debauchery like i was an Olympic sport, it ahd worn her down. She'd been miserable, and she hadn't even realized how miserable until this moment.

"Jimmy, this whole tour—it's... it's an unhealthy environment. The drugs, the groupies, the constant chaos. It's taxing on me. On our marriage."

Jimmy's expression shifted, something defensive creeping in, his shoulders tensing. "This is part of the job, Lucy. We're giving the fans what they want. These people—they've supported us, bought our albums, bought tickets to our shows. We owe them this."

he's right, Lucy thought, feeling a wave of guilt. This is his job. This is what he does. What he's always done. She'd known what she was signing up for when she married him. Known that Jimmy Page wasn't a nine-to-five husband, she wasn't a nine-to-five wife. His life was the stage, the music, the constant motion of being in the biggest rock band in the world.

And she loved that about him. Loved watching him play, loved seeing him come alive on stage. That was Jimmy, the brilliant, obsessive musician who poured everything into his art. She'd never want to take that away from him.

But sometimes, too often, it went too far. The excess became dangerous. The hanger-ons became predatory. The thin line between celebration and destruction got crossed, and no one seemed to notice or care.

"I'm not asking you to stop performing," Lucy said carefully, trying to find the right words. "I'm just asking you to... to think about the environment you're in. The people you're surrounding yourself with. Richard, these hangers-on—"

It's not the music, she wanted to scream. It's not the touring or the performing or even the long absences. It's the poison that comes with it. The people who want to drag you down, who profit from your worst impulses, who see you as a cash cown or a status symbol instead of a human being.

"You want me to trust you, right?" Jimmy interrupted, and there was an edge to his voice now. "That's what you're always saying. Trust. Well, I need you to trust me. I know what I'm doing. I can handle this. And I need you to relax, to believe that everything is going to be okay."

Lucy felt something inside her crack. Relax. As if it's that simple. As if I'm being hysterical. But she looked at his face- earnest, defensive, a little hurt- and realized he genuinely didn't see it. Didn't see how Richard manipulated situations, how the groupies tested boundaries, how the whole machine was designed to consume people like him.

"It's not you I don't trust," Lucy said quietly and she meant it with every fiber of her being. She trusted Jimmy completely. Trusted that he loved her, that he was faithful, that he wanted their marriage to work. "It's them. It's Richard. It's all the nameless faces who see you as a commodity, not a person."

Jimmy pulled her close, kissing her forehead, and she could feel him relax against her, relieved that she understood. "I know. But I can handle them. I promise. Just... try to enjoy this, yeah? We're doing something incredible. And I want you here to see it."

Lucy nodded against his chest, breathing in his familiar scent. She loved him so much it hurt sometimes. Love his passion, his talent, his dedication to his craft.

But the knot of anxiety in her stomach didn't loosen. Because she also knew that loving someone didn't make you blind. And she could see, even if Jimmy couldn't, how close to the edge they all were dancing.

The tour ended in May with five sold-out shows at London's Earls Court Arena.

Lucy stood in the wings on the final night, watching Led Zeppelin command the stage like gods. The arena was packed—20,000 people screaming, singing, worshiping. The lights were blinding, the sound deafening, and in the center of it all was Jimmy, his guitar an extension of his body, his fingers flying across the frets with impossible precision.

Lucy had heard him play a thousand times. She'd watched him compose, record, obsess over every note. But this—this—was something else. This was alchemy. This was transcendence.

Robert's voice soared over the crowd, raw and primal one moment, achingly beautiful the next, hitting notes that seemed impossible for a human throat to produce. He prowled the stage like a lion, all golden hair and bare chest and sexual energy, his body moving with the music, his hand gripping the microphone stand as if it were the only thing tethering him to earth.

Bonzo's drums were pure thunder, not just sound but force, each strike of his massive hands against the skins sending vibrations through the floor, through the walls, through Lucy's chest until her heartbeat synced with his rhythm. He played like a man possessed, sweat flying from his hair, his face controlled with concentration and joy, his kit seemingly too small to contain the power he unleashed from it.

John Paul Jones, steady and solid at his keyboards and bass, was the heartbeat—the foundation upon which the chaos was built. His fingers moved across the keys with surgical precision, then shifted to the bass, laying down grooves so deep and hypnotic that the crowd moved as one organism, swaying, jumping, living and breathing with every note.

And Jimmy—Jimmy—wove it all together like a master craftsman. His guitar sang, soared, screamed with a voice all its own. His fingers flew across the frets with impossible speed and precision during the solos, then slowed to something tender and delicate for the quieter passages. He bent notes until they wept, made his Les Paul whisper secrets and roar declarations, created sounds that seemed to come from somewhere beyond the physical realm. The violin bow during "Dazed and Confused" produced tones so otherworldly, so haunting, that the entire arena seemed to hold its breath.

Together, they were alchemy. They were transcendence. Four men creating something greater than the sum of their parts—a wall of sound, a cathedral of noise, a religious experience disguised as a rock concert. And the crowd—20,000 people—lost their minds, screaming, crying, reaching toward the stage as if touching the hem of divinity itself.

Lucy felt tears prick her eyes. Because despite everything—the groupies, the drugs, the chaos, Richard's venom—this was why Jimmy did it. This was what he lived for. Not the excess, not the fame, but this. The music. The connection. The transcendence of creating something that made thousands of people feel alive.

And she loved him for it. Even as it terrified her. Even as she wondered if loving him meant learning to live with this world that would always try to claim him.

As the final notes of "Stairway to Heaven" rang out and the crowd erupted in thunderous applause, Jimmy turned toward the wings. His eyes found hers across the distance, and he smiled—that soft, private smile that was just for her.

And in that moment, Lucy chose to believe him.

Everything was going to be okay. It had to be.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 37 will be posted tomorrow! You can read all the previous chapters here.

Please feel free to let me know what you guys think. We are wrapping up the story, there is only 5-6 chapters left. And thank you so much for reading!

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 36 - The wedding

The January wind off the Moray Firth was sharp enough to draw tears, but inside the ancient stone walls of Aldourie Castle, warmth radiated from every crackling fireplace, every candle-lit alcove, every body pressed close in anticipation. The castle, perched on the shores of Loch Ness like a sentinel from another age, had been transformed. Garlands of winter greenery—pine, holly, ivy—wound up the grand staircase and draped across doorways. White roses, impossibly delicate against the medieval stone, spilled from silver urns. And in the Great Hall, where centuries of Scottish lairds had feasted and fought and loved, rows of wooden chairs faced a makeshift altar, its simplicity a counterpoint to the grandeur surrounding it.

Lucy Miller stood in a tower bedroom, her hands trembling as she smoothed the front of her dress for the hundredth time. The gown was cream silk, empire-waisted in the fashion of the moment, with long, flowing sleeves that gathered at the wrists. Delicate embroidery—pale pink roses and trailing vines—wound across the bodice and down the skirt. It was romantic, ethereal, utterly 1970s, and when she'd first tried it on in a tiny boutique in London, Jimmy's face had gone soft with wonder.

"You look like a dream," he'd whispered, and she'd believed him.

Now, staring at her reflection in the ancient, slightly warped mirror, she pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to calm the butterflies. Her hair, worn loose and long, cascaded over her shoulders in soft waves, a crown of baby's breath and white roses nestled at the crown of her head. Around her neck, the Celtic knot necklace Jimmy had given her years ago caught the firelight. On her finger, the engagement ring—its turquoise stone glowing—felt like a talisman.

A knock at the door made her jump. "Lucy, darling? May I come in?"

She turned, her face breaking into a smile. "Pastor Coleman, of course."

The door opened, and William Coleman stepped inside, looking simultaneously dignified and slightly uncomfortable in a dove-grey suit with a pale lavender shirt and a wide, floral tie that screamed 1974. His silver hair was neatly combed, his kind hazel eyes crinkling as he took her in.

"Oh, Lucy," he breathed, his voice thick. "You're absolutely beautiful."

She crossed the room in a rush, throwing her arms around him. He held her tight, this man who had been more of a father to her than anyone else, who had saved her in more ways than one, who had agreed without hesitation to fly across an ocean to walk her down the aisle.

"Thank you," she whispered into his shoulder. "For being here. For everything."

He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "There is nowhere else I would be, child. Nowhere." He paused, his expression growing serious. "Are you ready? Truly ready?"

Lucy nodded, her own tears threatening to spill. "I've never been more ready for anything in my life."

Pastor Coleman smiled, offering his arm. "Then let's not keep that young man waiting any longer. I suspect he's about to wear a hole in the carpet with all his pacing."

In a room on the opposite side of the castle, Jimmy Page was, in fact, pacing.

"Mate, you're going to make yourself sick," Robert Plant drawled from his perch on the edge of a heavy oak desk. He looked every inch the golden god—his blonde hair cascading over the shoulders of a pale peach suit with wide lapels, a cream silk shirt open at the collar, a fur-lined coat draped casually over the back of a chair. "She's not going to leave you at the altar. Relax."

"I know that," Jimmy snapped, running a hand through his dark curls for the tenth time in as many minutes. He'd dressed with unusual care—a suit of deep burgundy velvet, a ruffled cream shirt, a paisley silk scarf tied loosely at his throat. He looked like a Romantic poet who'd wandered out of the 19th century and stumbled into the 1970s. "I'm not worried about that. I'm just—I want everything to be perfect."

"It will be," Robert assured him, standing and clapping a hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "You've got the girl, you've got the castle, you've got me as your best man—what more could you possibly need?"

Jimmy shot him a look. "Your humility is overwhelming."

"One of my many charms." Robert grinned. "Listen, I need to run down to the car—forgot the rings in my coat pocket. I'll be right back. Try not to wear a trench in the floor while I'm gone, yeah?"

"Fine," Jimmy muttered, adjusting his scarf in the mirror for the hundredth time.

Robert slipped out, leaving Jimmy alone with his thoughts. He stared at his reflection, barely recognizing himself. In a few hours, he'd be married. To Lucy. The woman who'd haunted him for years, who'd become his anchor, his muse, his—

The door opened behind him.

"Forget something, Rob—" He turned, and the words died in his throat.

It wasn't Robert.

Jessica stood in the doorway, a vision in champagne silk that clung to every curve. Her blonde hair was piled high, her lips painted a deep red, her eyes assessing him with an intensity that made his skin crawl.

"Jessica." His voice was flat, cold. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," she purred, stepping inside and closing the door behind her with a soft click. "You look absolutely devastating, Jimmy. That suit..." She crossed the room slowly, deliberately, her heels clicking against the stone floor. "Lucy's a lucky woman."

"She is," Jimmy said, taking a deliberate step back. "And I'm a lucky man. Now if you'll excuse me—"

"Oh, don't be so quick to rush me off." Jessica's voice dropped to something that was meant to be seductive but landed somewhere closer to desperate. She reached out, her fingers finding his paisley scarf, playing with the silk. "We have a few minutes, don't we? Before you become a married man?"

Jimmy's jaw clenched. He'd dealt with Jessica's advances for months now—the lingering touches, the suggestive comments, the way she'd find excuses to be alone with him. Lucy had hired her as an assistant, trusted her, and Jessica had repaid that trust by pursuing Lucy's fiancé with the subtlety of a freight train.

He'd been polite. He'd been distant. He'd tried to make it clear he wasn't interested.

But apparently, she needed it spelled out.

"Jessica," he said, his voice tight with barely controlled anger. "Take your hands off me."

"Come on, Jimmy." Her fingers trailed up the scarf to his neck, and he felt his skin crawl beneath her touch. "You can't tell me you haven't thought about it. All those late nights in the studio, all those times we've been alone—"

"I said, take your hands off me." This time his voice was a snarl.

But Jessica just smiled, leaning closer, her breath hot against his ear. "Just one kiss. That's all I'm asking. Before you tie yourself to her forever—"

Something inside Jimmy snapped.

He grabbed her wrists, yanking her hands away from him with enough force to make her gasp. "This ends now," he growled, his eyes blazing. "I don't know what fantasy you've been living in, but I have never, never been interested in you. I love Lucy. I'm marrying Lucy. And I'm going to tell her exactly what you've been doing."

Jessica's face went pale. "You—you can't. Jimmy, please—"

"Watch me." He was already moving, his hand still gripping her wrist, pulling her toward the door.

"Wait!" Jessica stumbled after him, her heels catching on her dress. "You can't see her before the wedding! It's bad luck!"

"I don't give a damn about bad luck," Jimmy snarled, yanking the door open and hauling her into the hallway.

They made it perhaps ten feet before they nearly collided with Frank, who was walking down the corridor with a glass of champagne in hand. Frank stopped short, his eyes widening as he took in the scene—Jimmy, face flushed with rage, dragging Jessica by the wrist, Jessica looking panicked and disheveled.

"What the hell—" Frank started.

"I need to see Lucy," Jimmy said, his voice tight. "Now."

Frank's gaze flicked between them, and understanding dawned on his face. He let out a long, slow breath, his expression hardening. "Jimmy, mate. Calm down."

"I will not calm down—"

"Jimmy." Frank's voice was firm, authoritative in a way Jimmy had never heard before. "I understand. But you can't go storming into Lucy's room like this. Not today." He set his champagne down on a nearby table and stepped closer, his eyes meeting Jimmy's. "Let me handle this. I promise you, I will take care of it."

Jimmy's grip on Jessica's wrist tightened for a moment, his whole body trembling with fury. Then, finally, he released her with enough force that she stumbled backward.

"Fine," he bit out. "But if this doesn't get handled—"

"It will," Frank said quietly. He glanced at Jessica, who was rubbing her wrist, her face pale and tear-streaked. "Go back to your room, Jimmy. I've got this."

Jimmy stared at him for a long moment, then nodded curtly. He turned on his heel and stalked back down the hallway, his hands clenched into fists.

Jessica watched him go, then turned to Frank with a trembling smile. "Frank, I—"

"Save it," Frank said coldly. He gestured down the hallway. "Come with me."

Frank didn't speak to Jessica as he led her through the castle's winding corridors. His jaw was set, his shoulders tense, and Jessica found herself having to jog to keep up with his long strides.

When they reached Lucy's tower room, Frank knocked once, sharply.

"Come in?" Lucy's voice, muffled through the door.

Frank opened it just wide enough to slip inside, leaving Jessica in the hallway. Lucy was standing by the window, radiant in her wedding gown, Pastor Coleman beside her. Both turned as Frank entered.

"Frank?" Lucy's smile faltered at his expression. "What's wrong?"

Frank closed the door behind him, his face grim. "We have a situation. With Jessica."

Lucy's expression shifted immediately, her eyes narrowing. "What kind of situation?"

"The kind where I just found Jimmy dragging her down the hallway by her wrist because she'd cornered him in his room and was..." Frank paused, choosing his words carefully. "Making advances."

The room went very still.

Pastor Coleman's face darkened. Lucy's went completely blank, that terrible, icy calm that Frank had only seen a handful of times in all the years he'd known her.

"Where is she now?" Lucy's voice was quiet, but there was steel beneath it.

"Outside. In the hallway."

"Bring her in."

Frank opened the door. Jessica was leaning against the wall, her mascara smudged, her hands shaking. When she saw Lucy, she straightened, trying to compose herself.

"Lucy, I can explain—"

"Get in here," Lucy said flatly. "And close the door behind you."

Jessica stepped inside, and Frank shut the door, positioning himself in front of it. Pastor Coleman moved to stand beside Lucy, his expression one of quiet disapproval.

Lucy didn't speak immediately. She just stared at Jessica, her arms crossed, her face unreadable. The silence stretched, became oppressive.

Finally, Jessica broke. "Lucy, you have to understand, it's not what it looks like—"

"Really?" Lucy's voice was dangerously soft. "Then what is it, Jessica? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you've been throwing yourself at my fiancé for months, and today—on my wedding day—you cornered him in his room."

"He—" Jessica's voice cracked. "He's been giving me signals. Touching me, looking at me a certain way—"

Lucy actually laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Stop. Just stop."

"I'm serious!" Jessica's voice rose, desperate now. "He's been coming on to me since we started working together! Always finding excuses to be alone with me, always—"

"Jessica." Lucy cut her off, her voice sharp as a blade. "I've known you for five years. I've watched you operate. I've seen the way you flirt with anything in trousers." She took a step closer, and Jessica instinctively backed up. "You think I don't know what you've been doing? The late-night 'emergencies' that required Jimmy's input? The way you always managed to sit next to him at dinner? The constant touching, the suggestive comments?"

"That's not—"

"I gave you the benefit of the doubt," Lucy continued, her voice rising now, years of suppressed anger finally breaking through. "I thought maybe I was imagining it. Maybe I was being paranoid. But I wasn't, was I? You've been trying to seduce my fiancé right under my nose."

Jessica's face crumpled. "Lucy, please—"

"And then, today—today, of all days—you corner him in his room?" Lucy's voice broke slightly, emotion bleeding through the ice. "Do you have any idea how much Jimmy means to me? How hard I've worked to build this life, to be happy? And you tried to take that from me."

"I didn't mean—"

"You're fired." The words were simple, final.

Jessica's eyes went wide. "What? No, Lucy, please, I need this job—"

"You should have thought of that before you decided to throw yourself at the groom on his wedding day." Lucy turned to Frank. "Please have someone escort Jessica to her room to collect her things. Then take her to the airport. I want her on the next flight back to London."

"Lucy, no!" Jessica was crying now, mascara streaming down her face. "Please, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I—"

"You're not sorry you did it," Lucy said coldly. "You're sorry you got caught. There's a difference." She turned back to the window, her posture rigid. "Frank, get her out of here. Now."

Frank moved to take Jessica's arm, but she wrenched away, stumbling toward Lucy. "Please! You don't understand, I—I love him! I've loved him since the first time I met him, and I thought—I thought maybe if he just gave me a chance—"

"That's enough," Pastor Coleman said quietly, stepping between Jessica and Lucy. His voice was gentle but firm, the tone of a man who'd dealt with desperate people for decades. "Jessica, this isn't love. This is obsession. And you've hurt someone who trusted you, who gave you opportunities, who treated you with kindness." He paused, his eyes sad but unyielding. "Lucy's right. You need to leave. And you need to get help."

Jessica stared at him, then at Lucy's rigid back, then at Frank's implacable expression. And finally, the reality of what she'd done—what she'd lost—seemed to crash over her. She sank to her knees, sobbing, her whole body shaking.

"I'm sorry," she choked out. "I'm so sorry, I'm such a terrible person, I've ruined everything, I—"

"Frank," Lucy said again, not turning around. "Please."

Frank moved forward, gently but firmly pulling Jessica to her feet. She didn't resist this time, just let herself be guided to the door, her face buried in her hands, tears streaming through her fingers.

At the threshold, she turned back one last time. "Lucy, I—"

But Lucy didn't turn around. Didn't acknowledge her. Just stood at the window, staring out at Loch Ness, her shoulders rigid, her hands clenched into fists.

Frank led Jessica out, closing the door softly behind them.

The room was silent for a long moment. Then Pastor Coleman crossed to Lucy, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright, my dear?"

Lucy let out a long, shaky breath. "I will be." She turned to face him, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I just—I trusted her. I gave her a job, a chance, and she—"

"I know." Pastor Coleman pulled her into a gentle embrace. "But you handled it with grace and strength. You stood up for yourself, for your relationship. That takes courage."

Lucy nodded against his chest, allowing herself this moment of vulnerability. Then she pulled back, squaring her shoulders, wiping at her eyes carefully so as not to smudge her makeup.

"Well," she said, her voice steadier now. "I suppose we have a wedding to get to."

Pastor Coleman smiled, offering his arm once more. "Indeed we do. And nothing—nothing—is going to ruin this day for you. I promise."

The Great Hall was packed. Friends, family, bandmates, collaborators—all of them dressed in the glorious, slightly absurd fashion of the era. Pastel suits in shades of mint and lavender and powder blue. Floral blouses with exaggerated collars. Fur stoles draped over bare shoulders despite the cold. John Paul Jones sat near the front in a mustard-yellow suit, his wife beside him in a flowing maxi dress of pale pink chiffon. John Bonham, looking slightly uncomfortable in a robin's-egg blue three-piece suit, kept tugging at his collar.

At the front, beside the simple altar draped in white linen and winter roses, Jimmy waited. His hands were clasped in front of him, but Robert, standing beside him, could see the faint tremor in them.

Then the doors at the far end of the hall opened.

A hush fell over the room. A string quartet, tucked in the corner, began to play—a hauntingly beautiful arrangement of an old Scottish ballad, the notes rising and falling like the wind over the moors.

And there she was.

Lucy Miller, on the arm of Pastor Coleman, stepping into the flickering candlelight.

Jimmy's breath left him in a rush. His vision tunneled, the entire room falling away until there was only her—the flow of her cream silk dress, the roses in her hair, the way her eyes found his across the distance and held, unwavering, full of love and certainty and promises yet to be spoken.

She was smiling. That soft, radiant smile that she seemed to reserve only for him.

Pastor Coleman walked her down the aisle slowly, each step deliberate, his own eyes damp. Heads turned as they passed, whispers of admiration, but Lucy didn't see them. She saw only Jimmy—dark-haired, beautiful, her impossible rock-and-roll love, waiting for her at the altar with tears already streaming down his face.

When they reached the front, Pastor Coleman gently lifted her hand from his arm and placed it in Jimmy's. Jimmy's fingers closed around hers immediately, his grip tight, anchoring.

"Take care of her," Pastor Coleman said quietly, his voice for Jimmy alone. "She's the best of us."

"I will," Jimmy whispered, his voice rough. "I swear it."

Pastor Coleman nodded, then stepped aside, taking his seat in the front row.

The officiant—a local Scottish minister with a thick brogue and a kindly face—stepped forward, smiling at the couple before him.

"Dearly beloved," he began, his voice carrying through the hall, "we are gathered here today in the sight of God and these witnesses to join together James Patrick Page and Lucy Anne Miller in holy matrimony…"

The words washed over them, familiar and sacred. Jimmy couldn't stop staring at Lucy, couldn't stop running his thumb over her knuckles, marveling that she was real, that she was here, that she was his.

When it came time for the vows, Jimmy spoke first, his voice steady despite the tears.

"Lucy, I've spent most of my life chasing music—trying to capture something perfect, something transcendent. But the day I met you, I realized I'd been looking in the wrong place. You are the music. You're every melody I've ever written, every note I've ever played. You see me—truly see me—in a way no one else ever has. And I promise you, for the rest of my life, I will spend every day trying to be worthy of that. I love you. Endlessly."

Lucy's tears spilled over, but she was smiling, radiant. When she spoke, her voice was clear and strong.

"Jimmy, you once told me I was the ghost you couldn't shake. Well, you're mine too. You've been haunting me since the first moment I saw you, and I don't ever want to be free of you. You've given me safety, joy, a family I never thought I'd have. You've taught me that love doesn't have to hurt—that it can be gentle, and wild, and beautiful all at once. I promise to stand beside you, to make music with you, to love you through every high and every low. Always."

The officiant beamed. "The rings, please."

Robert stepped forward, producing two simple gold bands from his pocket with a flourish. Jimmy took Lucy's first, sliding it onto her finger beside the engagement ring, the metal warm from Robert's pocket.

"With this ring," Jimmy said, his voice breaking, "I thee wed."

Lucy took the other band, her hands trembling slightly as she slipped it onto Jimmy's finger. "With this ring, I thee wed."

"By the power vested in me," the officiant declared, his voice ringing through the hall, "I now pronounce you husband and wife. James, you may kiss your bride."

Jimmy didn't wait for a second invitation. He cupped Lucy's face in both hands, his thumbs brushing away her tears, and kissed her—soft and deep and full of promise. The hall erupted in applause, cheers, the stomping of feet, but Jimmy and Lucy heard none of it. There was only the two of them, lost in each other, the rest of the world falling away.

When they finally pulled apart, both breathless and grinning, Robert clapped Jimmy on the back with enough force to nearly send him stumbling. "Well done, mate! Now let's get to the fun part!"

The reception was held in the castle's grand dining hall, a cavernous space with vaulted ceilings and tapestries depicting ancient battles. Long tables groaned under the weight of roasted meats, game pies, bowls of winter vegetables, and an absurd number of bottles—whisky, wine, champagne. A band had set up in the corner, their instruments ready, and the air thrummed with anticipation.

Lucy and Jimmy entered to a standing ovation, their hands clasped, both of them laughing, giddy with joy. They were swept immediately into the chaos—hugs, kisses, congratulations shouted over the din.

"To the bride and groom!" Bonzo roared, raising a glass of whisky high. "May their love be as strong as Jimmy's guitar strings and as enduring as Robert's hair-care routine!"

The room dissolved into laughter. Robert threw a bread roll at Bonzo, who caught it with one meaty hand and took a deliberate bite, grinning.

The meal was a joyous, raucous affair. Plates were piled high, glasses refilled constantly, toasts given with increasing incoherence as the evening wore on. Frank, looking dapper in a pale blue suit, stood to give his speech as Lucy's best man, his voice warm and only slightly choked with emotion.

"I've known Lucy since we were kids," he began, his eyes finding hers across the table. "And I've watched her survive things that would have broken most people. But she didn't just survive—she thrived. She became this incredible, brilliant, beautiful woman who writes music that makes you feel things. And Jimmy—" He turned to Jimmy, his expression serious. "You better take care of her, or you'll have me to answer to."

Jimmy raised his glass in acknowledgment, grinning. "Understood."

Robert's speech, by contrast, was equal parts sentimental and bawdy, full of stories about Jimmy's antics on tour that made Lucy blush and Jimmy bury his face in his hands. "But in all seriousness," Robert finished, his voice softening, "I've never seen Jimmy happier than when he's with you, Lucy. You've given him something the rest of us never could—peace. And for that, we're all grateful. To Lucy and Jimmy!"

"To Lucy and Jimmy!" the room echoed, glasses raised.

As the meal gave way to dancing, the band struck up a lively Scottish reel. Jimmy pulled Lucy onto the floor, spinning her until she was breathless and laughing, her dress swirling around her legs. Others joined—Robert twirling Jessica with surprising grace, Bonzo attempting something that vaguely resembled dancing, John Paul Jones and his wife moving in perfect, elegant sync.

In the dim corners of the hall, substances were discreetly passed—joints, small vials of powder, pills exchanged with knowing glances. The energy in the room grew looser, wilder, the laughter louder, the dancing more uninhibited. Someone—Lucy suspected Bonzo—started a conga line that snaked through the entire castle, picking up guests as it went, until half the party was weaving through hallways and up staircases, singing at the top of their lungs.

Lucy, warm and flushed and gloriously happy, found herself pulled into a quiet alcove by Jimmy. He pressed her against the cold stone wall, his hands framing her face, his eyes, his eyes alight with mischief and desire, greeted her with a slow, deep kiss that left her breathless. "Mrs. Page," he murmured against her lips, his voice a low rumble that sent shivers down her spine. "I can't wait to get you back to our rooms."

Lucy giggled, her American accent tinged with a playful attempt at a British lilt as she replied, "Mr. Page, it is most improper for a lord to take his lady wife in the halls."

Jimmy stopped, his eyes widening in mock surprise before he burst into laughter. The sound was rich and warm, and it made Lucy's heart flutter. But soon, he composed himself, his expression turning serious, though his eyes still sparkled with amusement. "A wife should perform her duties wherever her lord husband deems it necessary," he declared, his hands already lifting the layers of her dress.

Lucy's giggles turned into gasps as his hands found their way to her thighs, his touch sending electric shocks through her body. She playfully swatted at his chest, her accent slipping back into her natural cadence. "Jimmy, we can't—oh!" Her protest was cut off as he pressed his thigh between her legs, the rough fabric of his trousers rubbing against her center in a way that made her see stars.

Jimmy's mouth claimed hers again, his kiss hungry and demanding. Lucy ground against his thigh, her body moving of its own accord, driven by a need she couldn't deny. She could feel his hardness pressing against her hip, and she eagerly undid his pants, her fingers wrapping around the thick length of his cock.

Jimmy groaned into her mouth, his hand pushing her dress up to her waist, baring her to him. "Fuck, Lucy," he growled, his voice hoarse with desire. "I can't wait, I'm going to fuck my lady wife right here against this wall and consumate our marriage."

Lucy's breath hitched, her heart pounding in her chest like a drum. She nodded, her body aching with need. "Yes, Jimmy," she gasped. "Please."

With one hand holding her dress up, Jimmy used his other to guide his cock to her soaked center. He pushed into her slowly, inch by inch, filling her completely. Lucy moaned, her nails digging into his shoulders as she adjusted to his size.

"Fuck, you feel incredible," Jimmy muttered, his voice strained. He began to move, his thrusts slow and deep at first, then faster and harder as Lucy met him stroke for stroke. The sound of their bodies slapping together echoed in the alcove, mingling with their moans and gasps.

Lucy could feel her orgasm building, her body coiling tighter and tighter like a spring. Jimmy's mouth found her breast, his teeth grazing her nipple through the fabric of her dress, and that was all it took. She cried out, her body convulsing as waves of pleasure washed over her.

Jimmy followed soon after, his cock pulsing inside her as he found his own release. He buried his face in her neck, his breath hot against her skin as he panted. "Fuck, Lucy," he muttered.

 Lucy grinned, her heart still racing. "But I think we should get back to the party before someone comes looking for us."

Jimmy chuckled, pulling back to look at her. His eyes were soft, his expression tender. "As my lady wife commands," he said, bowing dramatically. Lucy laughed, her heart swelling with love and happiness.

As they straightened their clothes and made their way back to the reception, hand in hand, Lucy couldn't help but feel that their marriage was off to a very promising start. And as the conga line swept them up once more, she knew that this was just the beginning of a lifetime of adventure and passion with her new husband.

The rest of the night was a blur of music, laughter, and stolen kisses. As the guests began to drift away, Jimmy and Lucy found themselves alone in the great hall, the fire crackling merrily in the hearth. Jimmy pulled Lucy into his arms, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Mrs. Page," he said, his voice low and husky. "I believe it's time we retired to our chambers."

Lucy grinned, her heart fluttering with anticipation. "Lead the way, Mr. Page," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

Hours later, as the party finally began to wind down, Lucy and Jimmy slipped away, leaving their guests to carry on without them. They retrieved their coats—Lucy's a luxurious white fur that Jimmy draped over her shoulders, his own a long, dark wool—and stepped out into the frigid Scottish night.

A car was waiting to take them to Boleskine House.

The drive through the dark, winding roads along Loch Ness was quiet, both of them exhausted but content, Lucy's head resting on Jimmy's shoulder, his arm around her waist. When the house finally came into view—dark and imposing against the night sky—Lucy felt a strange sense of homecoming.

This was where they'd reconnected. Where they'd found each other again after years apart. Where the music had brought them back together.

Inside, the house was cold, but Jimmy quickly set about lighting fires in the hearths, the flames casting dancing shadows across the walls. Lucy shed her fur coat, shivering slightly, and Jimmy wrapped her in his arms, pulling her close.

"Are you happy?" he whispered, his lips brushing her temple.

"Deliriously," she whispered back, tilting her face up to kiss him. "I love you, Jimmy Page."

"I love you, Lucy Page," he replied, and the name—her new name—sent a thrill through her.

They made their way upstairs, to the bedroom with the wide windows overlooking the loch, and there, in the quiet darkness, they began their life together as husband and wife—two souls bound by music, by love, by a promise to face whatever came next, together.

Outside, the wind howled across the moors, and the dark waters of Loch Ness whispered their secrets. But inside Boleskine House, wrapped in each other's arms, Lucy and Jimmy Page were home.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

There was a massive update yesterday. Two chapters got posted! You can click this link to read all the chapters to Jimmy and Lucy's story.

Please let me know what you guys think of the story! There will only be about 6-7 chapters left.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 35:

The year was 1974. Halloween. Lucy and Jimmy had been engaged for a few months. Lucy was back in England again and Jimmy was taking her to a party that was being thrown by the new record label the band put together, Swan Song.

The Bentley eventually slowed, then stopped. They were in the middle of what felt like nowhere, but a peculiar sight began to resolve itself from the twilight. An avenue, stretching into the gloom, lit by flickering, spitting Tiki torches. And guarding this fiery pathway? Men. Big men. Enormous men, actually, dressed in full, period-accurate medieval Yeoman’s outfits. Helmets, tunics, the works. It was less a security detail and more a feudal army waiting for a skirmish. Even from here, you could see the glint of what looked suspiciously like battle-axes, though hopefully they were purely for show. The chill of the October night, sharp and invigorating, bit at Lucy’s exposed arms as she stepped out of the sleek, black Bentley. Above them, the ancient, gnarled trees of Kent clawed at the moonless sky, their skeletal branches rattling a welcome. Below, a discreetly lit sign, almost swallowed by ivy, read ‘Chislehurst Caves’.  Tonight, was not just any party it  was for the launch of The Pretty Things’ Silk Torpedo album on Swan Song Records, and   Lucy knew it was destined to be anything but ordinary.

Jimmy, a dark silhouette against the faint glow of the entrance, turned, a mischievous glint in his eyes that even the dim light couldn't quite extinguish.He was wearing something vaguely vampiric, all velvet and lace, but somehow it just made him look more like a ridiculously handsome, slightly unkempt aristocrat who’d misplaced his monocle.  “Ready for a descent into… well, let’s just call it the underworld, shall we, love?” His voice, a low rumble, was laced with an almost conspiratorial amusement.

Lucy shivered, a thrill of anticipation shooting through her. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose. Just promise me there aren’t any actual demons down there.”

He chuckled, a sound like dry leaves skittering across stone. “Only the ones we bring with us, darling. Follow me.”

“Right then,” Jimmy announced, opening his door. “Welcome to Chislehurst Caves. Try not to lose a limb.”

They plunged into the mouth of the cave, the air immediately growing cooler, heavier, smelling of damp earth and something else… something sweet and musky, like anticipation. The path narrowed, leading them to a spiral staircase, its wrought-iron steps seemingly suspended in the void, a dizzying helix disappearing into the gloom below. Lucy, despite her bravado, felt a flicker of unease. The open-tread stairs, the sheer drop visible between her feet, made her stomach lurch. She gripped the cold railing, a silent prayer that the dim lighting would obscure her subtle wobble. Jimmy, oblivious, or perhaps just used to such grand entrances, practically skipped down, his velvet jacket a blur of deep crimson. Lanterns were strategically placed, cast dancing shadows that stretched and warped, making the descent feel endless.

It was, as Jimmy later put it, “like a f—ing Fellini movie.” The air thrummed with the bass of music, the murmur of hundreds of voices, and the clinking of glasses. Dim, coloured lights cast long, dancing shadows on the damp cave walls, highlighting intricate tapestries and gaudy gilded furniture that seemed entirely incongruous in a subterranean dwelling.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they emerged into a vast cavern. The air, thick with the scent of mulled wine, exotic spices, and something vaguely illicit, immediately enveloped them. Lucy’s jaw practically hit the damp floor.

“Bloody hell, Jimmy,” she breathed, her voice a whisper lost in the thrumming cacophony.

Led Zeppelin never did things by half. This wasn’t a party; it was a living, breathing, baroque fantasyland ripped from the pages of some ancient, debauched fairytale. Flickering torchlight cast a golden, shifting glow over everything, making shadows dance and colours deepen.

Her eyes, still adjusting, immediately snagged on a sight that made her snort with delighted disbelief. In the center of a bustling alcove, an extra-wide, opulent coffin, draped in velvet, served as a stage for two figures. “Are those… nuns?” Lucy squinted, then gasped. Indeed, two women, clad in what appeared to be genuine nuns’ garb, were frolicking in an extra-wide coffin, their habits hiked up to reveal fishnet stockings and suspenders. They were  frolicking , in a manner that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, their limbs entwined, their faces flushed, their pious attire doing very little to disguise the explicit nature of their activities, their laughter echoing, high-pitched and uninhibited. One had her leg hooked over the other’s shoulder, habit askew, revealing a surprisingly muscular thigh.

Jimmy, ever the connoisseur of the outrageous, merely grinned, a knowing glint in his eyes. “Ah, yes. Sister Mary and Sister Agnes, I believe. Very devout.” He winked.

Everywhere Lucy looked, there was something new to behold. Fire-eaters spat plumes of flame that briefly illuminated the cavern ceiling, their faces contorted in dramatic masks of concentration. Jugglers, impossibly agile, kept a cascade of glowing spheres in the air. Very scantily-clad girls, draped in little more than strategically placed ribbons and body paint, weaved through the crowd, offering trays of what looked suspiciously like powdered sugar on tiny silver spoons. a troupe of midgets darted past, tumbling over each other, then forming a precarious human tower, one tiny chap balancing on the shoulders of another, who in turn was on the shoulders of a third, all while juggling flaming pins.

The whole evening dripped with decadence and sex, a heady, intoxicating brew. In the alcoves beneath the flickering torchlight, Lucy spotted naked male wrestlers, their bodies slick with sweat, grappling in a primal, grunting dance. It was all a bit much, and yet, utterly captivating.

Waitresses, their backs bare save for delicate lace straps, moved with an almost ethereal grace, their uniforms an audacious twist on the monastic: backless nuns’ habits with suspenders peeking out from beneath the abbreviated skirts. They served venison, rich and gamey, and mulled wine, steaming in pewter tankards.

Decadence,This whole evening is just dripping with it.

Jimmy grinned at Lucy. “Exactly the vibe we were going for. Come on, let’s find a drink.”

They pressed deeper into the throng. The caves were vast, a labyrinth of interconnected chambers, each one revealing a new, equally bizarre spectacle. In one alcove, beneath flickering torchlight that made the shadows dance like ancient spirits, were two naked men. They weren’t conversing. They were wrestling. Not playfully, mind you, but in a full-on, grunting, sweaty grapple, their bodies slick with effort, illuminated by the primal glow. Lucy averted her eyes quickly, or tried to. It was hard to escape the pervasive aura of raw, uninhibited sensuality. Or perhaps that was just the mulled wine.

They found themselves in a larger chamber, where a stage had been erected, carved into the natural rock, George Melly, the jazz and blues singer, was holding court. He was dressed, quite magnificently, as a Mother Superior, complete with wimple and rosary beads, though his booming voice and bawdy lyrics quickly dispelled any notions of sanctity. His band, the Feetwarmers, were tearing through a jazzy, bluesy set, their music somehow perfectly at home amidst the chaos. The crowd, easily 200-strong, were swaying, laughing, and shouting along to the more risqué passages.

Jimmy, sensing Lucy’s wide-eyed wonder, took her hand. “Come on, love. Let’s dance.” pulling her onto the makeshift dance floor. The air was thick with flashing lights, the strobe effects strobing against the damp cave walls, making everything feel like a dream, or perhaps a hallucination. They swayed to the bluesy rhythm, lost in the swirling mass of bodies, the heat of the crowd, the humid air thick with the scent of bodies, wine, and something else… something sharp and chemical. Lucy noticed the subtle movements, the quick, furtive gestures. There was “a lot of sniffing and rubbing of noses,” as Jimmy had so eloquently put it, and the occasional glint of a small, mirrored surface. The air vibrated with a wild, unbridled energy. Everyone seemed utterly captivated, thoroughly entertained, and not at all disappointed with the scale of the drama unfolding around them.

As the night wore on, the air in the caves grew heavier, not just with the scent of mulled wine and human bodies, but with something else. It was subtle at first, then less so. A lot of sniffing. A lot of rubbing of noses. A lot of flushed faces and dilated pupils. The energy in the caves became almost manic, a joyous, unhinged revelry.

Then there was the jelly. Oh, the abundance of jelly in those lamp-lit caves! Small bowls of it, shimmering under the lights. Larger vats. And then, the piece de resistance: two more open coffins, placed strategically at the very feet of George Melly’s stage. And in them? Naked girls. Not just frolicking this time, but wrestling. In jelly. The translucent, quivering substance shimmered with every slap, every splash, every slide of bare skin. It was like a medieval orgy, only stickier. I found myself staring, mesmerized and slightly horrified, as a girl, her hair plastered to her face with a sheen of red jelly, giggled maniacally and dunked her opponent’s head into the quivering mass. Melly, from above, merely beamed, like a proud matriarch overseeing her chaotic brood.

It wasn’t just a dessert; it was an architectural marvel, a performance art piece. In the main chamber, beneath the stage, a colossal, glowing sculpture dominated the space. Peter Grant had had the Swan Song Record label’s new logo of Icarus, the mythical boy who flew too close to the sun, cast in a vast, quivering jelly mould. It stood, monumental and shimmering, a wobbly, translucent god.

And then, as Melly’s band launched into a particularly suggestive number, the crowd parted. Lucy watched, utterly mesmerized, as Nesuhi Ertegun, co-chairman of Swan Song’s distributor Atlantic Records, was lifted, protesting good-naturedly, by a group of burly roadies. Nesuhi, bless his heart, was protesting, but with a good-natured laugh. He was clearly in on the joke, or at least, resigned to it. With a final, collective heave, the men flung him. Not into a soft armchair. Not into a pile of cushions. But directly into the vast, quivering, Icarus-shaped jelly mould. He landed with a muffled squelch, the jelly rippling outwards in seismic waves. His suit, once impeccably tailored, was now coated in a thick, iridescent layer of… well, Icarus. His glasses were askew, his hair plastered, but he emerged, sputtering, with a wide, incredulous grin. The men who’d thrown him slapped him on the back, roaring with laughter.

 “Just boys being boys,” Jimmy murmured, a wry smile playing on his lips, taking a sip of his mulled wine, as though witnessing a revered industry titan being thrown into a giant jelly mould was an entirely everyday occurrence.

As the hours progressed, the edges of the evening began to blur. They finally managed to secure a relatively quiet booth, carved into a natural alcove, away from the main melee, though "quiet" was a relative term in this madhouse. The table they occupied was a chaotic still life of the night’s excesses: lipstick-stained glasses, puddles of spilled stout, and a small, mirrored shard still sporting traces of fine white powder near a crumpled cigarette packet. The air, thick with stale smoke and the faintest hint of Moroccan hash, felt heavy and slow. Paul Rodgers and Mick Ralphs of Bad Company joined, and the conversation flowed as easily as the wine. Paul had just congratulated them on their recent engagement. JImmy had informed them that he was planning on having the wedding in Scotland, where he and Lucy were able to reconnect with each other after years apart.

Mick Ralphs, took a long drag from his cigarette before tapping the ash into an overflowing saucer. His eyes, slightly hooded with exhaustion, settled squarely on Jimmy.

“Scotland, eh? Good man,” Mick drawled, his voice gravelly. “Just make sure you get the honeymoon in before the stadium runs kick off, Jim. We’re hearing the whispers about the Zep schedule. The machine never stops, does it?”

Jimmy grinned, a slow, slightly wolfish expression that seemed to promise much and reveal little. He looked impossibly vital, fueled by sheer internal voltage despite the hour.  He reached across the table and loosely covered Lucy’s hand with his own—a gesture that was simultaneously protective and possessive.

“The machine certainly churns,” Jimmy confirmed, letting the question of the touring schedule hang tantalizingly. “But we’ve got a record to drop first. Physical Graffiti,” he announced, pronouncing the title with an almost reverent quality. “Two years of material we had to get out, and I’ve been buried in the mixing desk. The layers, Paul, the absolute layers of sound we’ve built up... It’s been madness. Lucy here,” he squeezed her hand gently, “has been the only thing keeping the equilibrium steady.”

Lucy, whose hair was now slightly mussed and whose eyes held the weary sparkle of someone who’d seen the sun rise from the wrong end of a party too many times, offered a weary but genuine smile. She was clearly accustomed to the intensity that surrounded Jimmy.

Paul nodded slowly, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. He was a contrast to the high-strung intensity of JImmy; soulful, grounded, and radiating a quiet confidence born of success both with Free and Bad Company.

“I get that, man. It’s hard work, the recording. It takes its toll,” Paul commented, his voice resonant even softened by fatigue. “We kept ours simple this time around. Straight to tape, minimal fuss. But two years’ worth? That’s dedication. That’s going to be a monster of an album.”

“It is,” Lucy agreed, leaning forward slightly, her engagement ring catching the weak light from a nearby candelabra. 

Paul, ever the charmer, regaled them with tales from the road, his booming laugh filling their little sanctuary, “We were booked into this godforsaken barn outside Tulsa,” Paul was saying, his voice a low, melodic rumble that suited the cavern’s acoustics. He leaned back slightly, a flicker of torchlight catching the condensation on his tumbler of whisky. “The promoter hadn't paid the local crew, so the stage monitor looked like it was held together with hope and duct tape. I couldn't hear a thing, not even the drums. I was singing strictly by muscle memory.”

Mick chuckled, a dry, guttural sound. He was nursing a dark ale, his gaze distant, likely seeing the broken scenery of that specific gig. “And the audience took exception to the lack of volume. They started throwing things. Mostly plastic cups, but then someone launched a shoe.”

“A proper, leather boot,” Paul corrected, shaking his head with fond exasperation. “Landed right near the bass drum. I looked over at Boz, he’s just grinning at the chaos, keeping that foundational beat going, completely oblivious to the footwear flying past his head.” Lucy, feeling the effects of the wine and the constant buzz of the party, found herself laughing more easily, her inhibitions steadily eroding.

She accepted a discreetly offered line of powder, then another. The world sharpened, colours intensified, the music seemed to vibrate in her very bones. She felt witty, incandescent, utterly alive. 

“It’s always the chaos, isn’t it?” Jimmy murmured, tracing the rim of his glass. “The moment everything is trying to fall apart, yet somehow, you’re still connected to the rhythm. The audience sees the fire; you just see the wood that’s burning.”

Lucy squeezed his arm gently, feeling the vibration of the conversation settle into the low hum of their surroundings. She found herself fascinated by the shared, unspoken language between these titans—a language based on grueling travel schedules, shoddy equipment, and the relentless pressure of performance.

Paul nodded thoughtfully, his eyes softening as he looked from Jimmy to Lucy. “It's what makes the quiet moments count. You spend so long living in the eye of the storm, that when you find someone, or something, that just is—stable, real, no spotlights—you grab onto it." He raised his glass slightly toward them. "That's the real gig, isn't it? Figuring out how to keep the rhythm when the music stops.”

Mick lifted his ale in silent agreement. The shadows deepened around them, momentarily swallowing the details of the room, leaving just the four figures, illuminated by the ancient, persistent glow of the fire. The air smelled of damp earth and the peaty scent of the drinks, a perfect, subterranean setting for the honest confessions of men who lived their lives in the bright, blinding light above ground.

“You know,” she slurred, leaning forward precariously, “I think the jelly is sentient. It’s watching us. It’s judging us.” she punctuated this with a wide, unblinking stare at a particularly large, wobbling heap of red jelly nearby.

Jimmy just smiled, his eyes twinkling. He’d seen her like this before. He'd had actually been like this before. A lot.

Then, a sudden, explosive cheer erupted from the main cavern.a new sound erupted from a nearby table. A distinct thwack! followed by a collective gasp, then a roar of laughter. They poked their heads out of the booth just in time to see John Bonham, Bonzo, a force of nature in human form, He was also, by this point, likely fuelled by enough substances to power a small rocket. launch a half-eaten venison pie across the room, splattering a horrified-looking PR executive. Suddenly, the room erupted into a full-scale food fight. Bread rolls became missiles. Venison chunks became projectiles. Someone launched a handful of jelly, which splattered gloriously across the baroque tapestry. Bonzo, clearly in his element, was laughing so hard he was practically weeping, lobbing potatoes with the precision of a seasoned cricketer.

Jimmy, ever pragmatic, surveyed the escalating food battle, the flying debris, the general eruption of uninhibited chaos that was swiftly turning a fancy party into a pigsty, and with a resigned sigh. “Right,” he said, his voice laced with amusement. “I think that’s our cue, darling. Before we end up wearing the main course.” He looked at Lucy, whose face was smeared with grease, and eyes probably a little too wide and shiny with makeup smeared.  “And I think someone’s had a little too much of everything.” He exchanged a knowing glance with Paul. “it might be time to make a dignified exit.”

Lucy giggled, a little unsteadily. “Nonsense, Jimmy. I’m just getting started!” But her head felt light, her vision a little blurry around the edges.

Paul, bless him, stood up, shaking his head with a good-natured chuckle. “I’ll come with you. Seems like the sensible thing to do before Bonzo decides to turn this into a full-blown pie fight.”He clapped Jimmy on the back.

Stumbling out of the booth, Lucy's legs feeling strangely rubbery, she clung to Jimmy’s arm as he navigated them through the increasingly chaotic throng. The midgets were now attempting to form a pyramid on top of the jelly coffin with the naked wrestlers. George Melly was leading a singalong that sounded suspiciously like a chant. And the Yeoman guards, were now attempting to break up a brawl between two men dressed as medieval jesters, using their presumably ceremonial battle-axes as intimidating pointers.

As they began their ascent up the spiral staircase, Lucy’s earlier unease returned with a vengeance, amplified by the copious amounts of blow and drink sloshing around inside her. The open steps, the dizzying drop visible through the gaps, suddenly seemed to mock her. She’d never admitted her fear of see-through stairs; it was embarrassing, an irrational phobia she kept hidden. But now, with her senses heightened and her balance compromised, it was all she could focus on.

Her stomach lurched violently. A wave of nausea washed over her, followed by a sudden, alarming faintness. She gripped the railing, her knuckles white, her breath catching in her throat.

“Whoa, easy there, love,” Jimmy said, his voice laced with laughter, though his grip on her arm was firm. He was just behind her, Paul a few steps ahead. “Everything’s going to be alright. Just focus on Paul’s back, alright? One step at a time.” He was trying to reassure her, but the laughter bubbling up from his chest didn’t quite help.

Lucy looked up, her vision swimming. And there it was: Paul Rodgers’ ass, perfectly framed in front of her, a magnificent, denim-clad target. In her disoriented, drug-addled state, a mischievous impulse, born of pure, unadulterated hedonism, seized her. Without thinking, she reached out, her hand finding its mark with surprising accuracy. She gave it a firm slap, then, just for good measure, a rather enthusiastic squeeze.

“YEEOW!” Paul yelped, jumping a full two steps, his body jerking in surprise. He spun around, his eyes wide. “What the-!”

Jimmy, who had witnessed the entire, glorious interaction, roared with laughter, a booming, unrestrained sound that echoed through the stairwell. He grabbed Lucy’s hand, pulling it away from Paul’s backside, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “Lucy! You menace!” he admonished, though his tone was anything but serious. “Honestly, love, control yourself!”

Lucy, despite her nausea, couldn’t help but giggle, a high-pitched, slightly hysterical sound. “He just… he had such a lovely… target!”

Paul, recovering from the initial shock, started to laugh too, shaking his head. “Bloody hell, Lucy! You’re a wild one!”

The rest of the ascent was punctuated by Paul’s good-natured grumbling and Jimmy’s continued chuckles, while Lucy tried to suppress her giggles and focus on placing one foot in front of the other without plummeting to her doom.

Finally, they stumbled out into the cool, crisp night air, the sounds of the party now a muffled thrum beneath the earth. The moon, was a cool, serene disc in the inky sky. The Tiki torches still flickered, casting long, dancing shadows, but the air felt crisp, clean, and blessedly free of jelly. The Bentley was waiting, a dark, welcoming silhouette. Lucy took a deep, shuddering breath, the fresh air a welcome shock to her system. She was still lightheaded, but the immediate threat of transparent stairs and public vomiting had passed.

Jimmy, still grinning, put an arm around her. “Well,” he said, looking back at the entrance, “that was certainly a night to remember, wouldn’t you say?”

Lucy leaned into him, a weary but triumphant smile on her face. “Definitely. Though I think I’ll stick to solid ground for a while.” She glanced at Paul, who was still rubbing his backside with a theatrical grimace. “And maybe keep my hands to myself.”

Paul just laughed again. “Somehow, Lucy, I doubt that.”

As they collapsed into the plush leather seat, Lucy's head lolling against the window, she looked back at the illuminated maw of the caves. The distant echoes of music and raucous laughter drifted out. It had been, without a shadow of a doubt, the most insane, decadent, and hilariously over-the-top Halloween party she had ever, or probably would ever, attend.

“Remind me to send Peter Grant the dry-cleaning bill for my brain.” her voice a little hoarse, a little slurred, but entirely satisfied.

Paul chuckled from the seat beside her. “You and me both, Lucy. You and me both.”

And as the Bentley pulled away, leaving the mad medieval orgy behind, she closed my eyes, a single, profound thought surfacing through the lingering haze of mulled wine and whatever else: she needed a very, very long nap. And possibly a shower. A very, very long, very hot shower. Maybe even a full decontamination. But damn, it had been a good laugh. A very, very good, very, very mad laugh.

A/N: I literally only wrote this chapter because I was so amused by this article. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/led-zeppelin-swan-song-party-debauchery/

Fun fact, I actually do get nauseous walking up stairs that have spaces in between the steps.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 34

We are jumping ahead of time, this is around late summer of 1974.

After Jimmy's visit to Mississippi, his relationship with Lucy became stronger than either of them could have hoped for. They both travel back and forth to see each other, called each other all the time. It was on one of these visits to England that Lucy found herself meeting little Scarlet.

The late afternoon sun poured through the tall windows of Plumpton Place, casting golden rectangles across the Persian rug in the drawing room. Jimmy stood in the doorway, a cup of tea cooling in his hand, utterly transfixed by the scene unfolding before him.

Lucy sat cross-legged on the floor, her light brown hair falling over her shoulders as she leaned forward, entirely absorbed. Scarlet, nearly four years old now with her halo of blonde curls and those impossibly bright eyes, had emptied an entire basket of toys across the carpet—a chaotic sprawl of wooden blocks, a stuffed rabbit with one ear, and what appeared to be an entire miniature tea set.

"And this one," Scarlet announced with the gravity of a tiny monarch, holding up a chipped porcelain cup, "is for the queen."

"The queen!" Lucy gasped, her voice full of theatrical wonder. "Well, we must serve her only the finest tea, mustn't we? What kind shall we brew?"

Scarlet's little brow furrowed in concentration, a gesture so reminiscent of Jimmy's own thoughtful expressions that it made his chest ache. "Um… flower tea!"

"Flower tea! Brilliant choice, Your Majesty." Lucy pretended to pour from an equally tiny teapot, her movements delicate and deliberate. "And perhaps a biscuit? I believe we have some excellent imaginary shortbread."

Scarlet dissolved into giggles, the sound bright and clear as bells. She threw her small arms around Lucy's neck, nearly knocking her backward. "You're silly, Lucy!"

"The silliest," Lucy agreed, wrapping her arms around the little girl, her eyes crinkling with genuine delight. She pressed a kiss to Scarlet's blonde curls. "But that's what makes tea parties fun, isn't it?"

Jimmy's breath caught. The cup in his hand trembled slightly, the tea finally sloshing over the rim, but he didn't notice. He couldn't look away. There was something about the way Lucy held his daughter—careful but not tentative, playful but utterly present—that reached into his chest and squeezed. Hard.

Charlotte had never looked like this with Scarlet. Oh, she loved their daughter, fiercely, in her own way. But there had always been an edge of exhaustion, of resentment toward Jimmy for the life he led, the absence his career demanded. Their interactions were dutiful, occasionally warm, but never… joyful. Not like this.

Lucy caught sight of him then, still frozen in the doorway. Her smile widened, her eyes sparkling. "We're having a very important tea party, Mr. Page. Would you care to join us? Though I'm afraid the guest list is quite exclusive."

Scarlet's head whipped around. "Daddy! Come play!"

He set the cup down on a nearby table, his heart doing something complicated and wonderful in his chest. "Well, if the queen commands it," he said, lowering himself to the floor with exaggerated formality, "who am I to refuse?"

Scarlet shrieked with delight, immediately shoving a wooden block into his hand. "You're the dragon!"

"The dragon?" Jimmy raised an eyebrow at Lucy, who was barely suppressing laughter.

"I'm afraid you've been typecast, darling," she said, her eyes dancing.

They played for nearly an hour, the three of them building castles and staging elaborate rescue missions, Scarlet's imagination a whirlwind that swept them along. Lucy never once checked her watch, never seemed impatient or distracted. She was fully, completely there, her laughter genuine, her attention unwavering. When Scarlet climbed into her lap, showing her a drawing she'd made earlier—a chaotic scribble that she solemnly declared was "Daddy on his guitar"—Lucy studied it with the seriousness of a museum curator.

"The detail is extraordinary," she murmured, tracing a crayon line. "You've really captured his essence. See how wild the hair is? Very accurate."

Jimmy watched them, his throat tight. This. This was what he wanted. This ease, this joy, this glimpse of a future where Lucy wasn't just the woman he loved, but part of his family. Part of everything.

When Scarlet's energy finally flagged, her eyelids growing heavy, Charlotte appeared in the doorway to collect her for an early supper and bath. Lucy rose gracefully, pressing one last kiss to Scarlet's forehead.

"Sweet dreams, little queen," she whispered.

"Will you come play again?" Scarlet asked, her small hand clutching Lucy's.

Lucy's eyes met Jimmy's, a question in them. He nodded, almost imperceptibly, his heart full to bursting.

"I will," Lucy promised. "Very soon."

After Charlotte left with Scarlet, the house fell into a comfortable quiet. Lucy stretched, working the kinks from sitting on the floor. "She's wonderful, Jimmy. Truly. You must be so proud."

"I am," he said, his voice rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat. "And you… you were wonderful with her. She adores you already."

A faint blush crept up Lucy's neck. "She's easy to adore."

He wanted to say more—wanted to tell her that watching her with his daughter had fundamentally shifted something in him, had made abstract futures suddenly concrete and necessary—but the words stuck. Instead, he just reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers.

"Fancy a walk in the gardens?" he asked. "The light's beautiful this time of day."

The next afternoon, Jimmy slipped away with a mumbled excuse about needing to pick up some strings for his guitar. Lucy, absorbed in reading a manuscript she'd brought for a potential film score, barely looked up, waving him off with an absent smile.

He drove into the village, his mind singularly focused. The antique shop, a cramped, cluttered space that smelled of dust and time, was one of his favorites. The proprietor, an elderly man named Mr. Ashford, knew him by sight now, nodded in greeting.

"Afternoon, Mr. Page. Looking for anything in particular today?"

"A ring," Jimmy said, his voice low. "Something… old. Delicate. Celtic, if you have it. With maybe a stone. Turquoise, ideally."

Mr. Ashford's eyebrows rose, but he said nothing, simply gestured toward a locked glass case. "Let's see what we have, shall we?"

It took twenty minutes of careful examination—discarding pieces that were too ornate, too modern, too impersonal—before Jimmy saw it. Nestled on a velvet tray, almost hidden beneath a brooch, was a ring that made his heart stop.

The band was white gold, aged to a soft, warm patina. The metalwork was exquisite—an intricate Celtic knot that wove around the entire circumference, the same endless, interlocking pattern as the necklace he'd given her years ago. Set into the center, cradled by the knot's embrace, was a small, perfectly oval turquoise stone, its blue-green depths catching the light.

"That one," Jimmy said, his voice barely a whisper. "May I?"

Mr. Ashford carefully extracted it, placing it in Jimmy's palm. It was delicate, feminine, but the craftsmanship was undeniable. The knot wasn't just decorative—it was meaningful, eternal, a symbol of something that had no beginning and no end.

"Victorian," Mr. Ashford offered quietly. "Likely a betrothal ring. The turquoise is Persian. The craftsmanship is Scottish, I'd wager. You don't see work like this anymore."

Jimmy closed his fingers around it, feeling its weight—slight, but significant. "I'll take it."

The gardens at Plumpton Place in early evening were a study in controlled wilderness. Ancient oaks cast long shadows across manicured lawns, while winding paths led through bursts of late-summer blooms—roses still clinging to their last flourish, lavender humming with bees, and patches of wildflowers that Lucy had once called "delightfully unruly."

Jimmy had suggested the walk after dinner, his hands shoved in his pockets, fingers brushing against the small velvet box he'd been carrying for two days, waiting for the right moment. Lucy walked beside him, her hand occasionally reaching out to brush the petals of a particularly vibrant rose, her face serene in the golden light.

They reached a small clearing near the edge of the property, where a stone bench sat beneath a sprawling oak. The view stretched out before them—rolling hills, the distant spire of the village church, the sky painted in shades of amber and rose.

"Let's sit for a moment," Jimmy suggested, his voice a little tighter than usual.

Lucy settled onto the bench, tilting her face up to catch the last rays of sun. "It's so peaceful here, Jimmy. I can see why you love this place."

He sat beside her, close enough that their thighs touched. His heart was hammering now, a wild, erratic rhythm that seemed absurdly loud in the quiet garden. He'd faced fifty thousand screaming fans without breaking a sweat, but this—this—had his hands trembling.

"Lucy," he began, then paused, his throat suddenly dry.

She turned to him, concern flickering in her eyes. "Are you alright?"

"I'm…" He laughed, a short, nervous sound. "I'm terrified, actually."

Her brow furrowed. "Terrified? Of what?"

He took a breath, pulling his hand from his pocket. The velvet box felt impossibly small, impossibly heavy. He held it for a moment, then opened it, the hinges giving a soft creak.

The ring caught the fading light, the turquoise glowing, the Celtic knot gleaming.

Lucy's breath left her in a rush. Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes going wide, shining suddenly with unshed tears.

"I'm terrified," Jimmy continued, his voice steadier now, the words he'd been rehearsing for days finally finding their way out, "because I've never been more certain of anything in my entire life, and that certainty is… overwhelming." He reached for her free hand, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. "Lucy, watching you with Scarlet the other day… I've known I loved you for a long time. Years, really. Even when we were apart, even when I tried to convince myself I'd moved on, you were always there. The ghost I couldn't shake. The music beneath everything else."

A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away.

"But seeing you with my daughter," he continued, his voice growing rough with emotion, "seeing how gentle you were, how present, how utterly natural… it wasn't just love anymore, Lucy. It was certainty. Bone-deep, absolute certainty that you're the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. That I want to wake up beside you every morning, argue with you about terrible American coffee, watch you play piano in the middle of the night when you can't sleep. I want to have children with you. I want to build a life with you. A real one. Not stolen weekends or transatlantic phone calls, but a life."

He slipped from the bench, kneeling on the soft grass before her, the ring box still open in his hand. Lucy's tears were flowing freely now, her hands trembling.

"You're the only person who's ever truly seen me, Lucy. Not the guitarist, not the mystical eccentric, not the persona. Just… me. Jimmy. And I see you too. All of you. The brilliant, complicated, beautiful woman you are. And I don't want to spend another day without you."

His voice dropped to barely a whisper, his eyes locked on hers. "Will you marry me, Lucy? Will you let me spend the rest of my life loving you?"

For a moment, she couldn't speak. Her hands covered her face, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Then she lowered them, her face radiant despite the tears, her smile so wide it looked like it might split her face in two.

"Yes," she breathed, the word barely audible. Then louder, stronger, certain: "Yes, Jimmy. Yes, of course I'll marry you."

He let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, his own eyes shining now. With trembling fingers, he extracted the ring from its velvet cradle and reached for her left hand. She held it out, steady despite the tears, and he slipped the ring onto her finger.

It fit perfectly.

The Celtic knot gleamed against her skin, the turquoise catching the last rays of the setting sun. She stared at it, then at him, then threw her arms around his neck, nearly knocking him backward onto the grass.

He caught her, his arms wrapping tight around her waist, burying his face in her hair. They stayed like that for a long moment, kneeling together in the gardens of Plumpton Place, holding each other as if they'd never let go.

When they finally pulled apart, both of them laughing through their tears, Jimmy cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away the wetness on her cheeks.

"I love you," he whispered. "God, I love you so much."

"I love you too," she whispered back, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. "I love you too, Jimmy."

They kissed then, soft and sweet and full of promise, as the sun slipped below the horizon and the first stars began to appear in the darkening sky. The gardens around them seemed to hold their breath, bearing witness to a moment that would change everything.

When they finally made their way back to the house, hand in hand, Lucy kept glancing down at her ring, the Celtic knot catching the lamplight from the windows. She touched the necklace at her throat—the one he'd given her all those years ago, the one she'd returned, the one he'd kept and given back—and felt the perfect symmetry of it.

Two Celtic knots. Two promises. One love, unbreakable and true.

Jimmy squeezed her hand, and she looked up at him, her heart so full she thought it might burst.

"Mrs. Page," he said, testing the words, a wondering smile on his face.

"Not yet," she laughed, "but soon."

"Soon," he agreed, pulling her close as they stepped into the warmth of the house. "Very, very soon."

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 33:

This chapter is incredibly important to what the rest of the story will entail as we head into the late 70s, and Jimmy's drug addiction and come full circle. There will be a few more fluff chapters that help propel their relationship.

Flashback to Scotland.

The late afternoon sun, diffused by the ancient leaded glass of the library windows, cast long, dusty golden shafts across the room. The air hung thick with the scent of aged paper, leather, and a faint, sweet hint of stale tobacco. Inverness was a place of quiet, brooding beauty, a world away from the clamour and roar of the concert halls, and this old house offered a sanctuary. Lucy, curled deep in a wingback armchair, was lost between the crumbling pages of Alastair Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice. The book had been left carelessly on a side table during a previous delve into occult esoterica, and Lucy, ever the curious one despite her more grounded nature, had picked it up. She found its dense prose both fascinating and disturbing, a window into a mind that challenged and repelled in equal measure. Her brow was furrowed slightly in concentration, tracing the intricate lines of a particularly complex sigil with an idle fingertip, her mind grappling with concepts both arcane and unsettling.

Beside her, sprawled in a less formal but no less proprietorial manner, Jimmy was coaxing a mournful, almost spectral melody from his acoustic guitar. His fingers, long and elegant, danced over the fretboard, drawing out notes that seemed to hang in the air, resonating with the heavy silence of the room. It wasn't a song she recognised, but one of those spontaneous, improvisational pieces he often created, a stream of consciousness in sound. It was beautiful, haunting, a fitting soundtrack to the Inverness Gloaming, the fading light outside painting the sky in hues of bruised purple and grey. Lucy had felt herself lulled by the music, the drone of the old house, and the dark wisdom seeping from Crowley’s pages. The quiet hum of the guitar had been a comforting constant, a soft, familiar anchor in the otherwise unsettling world of the book.

Suddenly, the music ceased. The last note, a lingering vibrato, faded into the silence, leaving an unexpected void that seemed to echo in the sudden quiet. Lucy’s head snapped up, her eyes, accustomed to the dim light reflecting off the page, blinking in slight disorientation. Before she could voice a question, a hand, warm and firm, settled on her shoulder, and then another on her waist. Jimmy, with a fluid grace that belied his often languid posture, had deposited his guitar carefully against the arm of his own chair. In the next instant, he was leaning over her, his dark eyes sparkling with a mischievous glint, a wide, boyish grin splitting his face, dispelling the brooding atmosphere that had settled around them.

"Lost in the infernal realms, are we?" he murmured, his voice a low rumble close to her ear, a breath feather-light against her temple.

Before she could answer, he scooped her up from the depths of the armchair with surprising ease. A small, startled "Eep!" escaped her lips, half-choked by surprise, and the heavy leather-bound volume of Magick slipped from her grasp, thudding softly onto the thick rug below, a testament to the suddenness of his action. Lucy giggled then, a breathless, joyful sound, as she found herself suddenly suspended in his arms, his strong hands supporting her. She wrapped her own arms around his neck, burying her face into the soft fabric of his shirt – a deep, rich emerald green – the scent of him – patchouli, cigarettes, and something uniquely Jimmy, an electric, musk – filling her senses. She could feel the steady beat of his heart against her chest, a reassuring rhythm against her own, which had momentarily sped up with the surprise.

"Careful!" she laughed, her voice muffled against him, still giddy from the sudden playful attack.

Jimmy chuckled, his chest vibrating against her. He held her for a moment, swaying slightly, his gaze lingering on her face, a complex emotion flitting through his dark eyes that Lucy couldn't quite decipher in her state of playful distraction. Then, slowly, he settled her back into the armchair, not releasing her entirely. Instead, he remained close, his face serious now, the playful glint in his eyes replaced by an intense, almost unblinking gaze that felt remarkably focused. His left hand, still around her waist, tightened imperceptibly, anchoring her to the seat, while his right hand, the one that had just been weaving magic on the guitar strings, reached for her left arm.

His touch was light, almost a feather-light brush, as his fingertips glided over the long sleeve of her knitted cardigan. He began to trace a pattern, slow and deliberate, just above her wrist, moving upwards towards the crook of her elbow, his eyes never leaving the fabric. It wasn’t a caress, not exactly. There was something else in the movement, something investigative, almost clinical. It felt like mapping, like he was following an invisible line beneath the cotton. A shiver, cold and unwelcome, snaked down Lucy’s spine. The touch felt intrusive, probing, stirring a deep unease she couldn’t quite name. She stiffened slightly, pulling back a fraction, but his grip was firm, his gaze fixed on the spot his fingers explored.

The air in the room, which had been light and playful moments before, suddenly grew heavy, charged with an unspoken tension, chilling the warmth that had just enveloped them. Lucy felt a knot begin to form in her stomach.

Lucy shivered, a faint tremor that ran through her. It wasn't from external cold, not in the comfortable warmth of the library. It was the quality of his touch, the way his fingers moved, precise and unwavering, over a specific area of her arm, that sent a strange prickle down her spine. A sudden, cold unease bloomed in her stomach, an instinctual clenching. She didn't quite like the way he was touching her, not like this. It felt less like affection and more like an examination, a probing. She tried to pull her arm back subtly, a tiny, almost imperceptible tug, but his grip on her waist, though gentle, was firm, holding her in place. Her breath hitched. The blood in her veins seemed to cool.

Jimmy, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort, or perhaps choosing to ignore it completely in his single-minded focus, continued his tracing. His gaze remained fixed on her arm, his brow subtly furrowed in concentration. The silence stretched between them, becoming taut, almost brittle, each second feeling like an eternity. Lucy could feel the blood thrumming a frantic rhythm in her ears, louder than any guitar.

Then, his voice, low and surprisingly gentle, broke the quiet. "I’ve always been curious, you know." He paused, his thumb still making small, repetitive circles over the fabric of her sleeve, directly over the scar beneath. His eyes remained on her arm, as if he could see through the knitted wool. "Always wondered, but never quite figured out how to ask."

Lucy’s stomach clenched tighter, a cold dread twisting in her gut. She knew immediately where this was going, a place she hadn't visited in years, a memory she kept under lock and key. Her body stiffened in his embrace, the playful warmth that had enveloped her moments before evaporating, replaced by a sudden, internal chill. Her throat felt dry, her heart rate accelerating. This was a place she never went, a door she kept firmly bolted shut.

"Ask what?" she managed, trying to keep her voice light, nonchalant, as if this was merely idle conversation, but it came out a little too strained, a little too breathless. She attempted a small, reassuring smile, but it felt frozen on her lips, a brittle mask. She hoped he would just drop it, distract himself, move on to something else. He was often like that, flitting from one intense focus to another, never lingering too long on any one subject. She prayed this would be another instance of his capricious nature.

But not this time. Jimmy’s eyes, dark and piercing, finally lifted from her arm to meet her gaze. There was an insistent, almost demanding quality in them, an unwavering resolve she hadn't seen directed at her in this particular, unsettling way before. "The scar," he said, his voice softer now, almost a whisper, as if acknowledging the gravity of the subject, "on your forearm. How did you get it, Lucy?"

The question hung in the air, heavy and inescapable, a physical weight between them. Lucy’s carefully constructed composure crumbled around her. Her mind raced, searching for an easy out, a quick deflection, anything to escape the trap she felt closing around her. "Oh, that old thing?" she said, trying to sound dismissive, waving her free hand vaguely as if brushing away a trifle, a mere childhood scrape. "It’s nothing. Just an accident when I was a child. You know how children are, always falling, hurting themselves." She tried to pull away again, wriggling slightly, wanting desperately to break the physical connection that felt so constricting now, so exposing.

But Jimmy didn’t release her. His eyes didn’t waver, holding her captive. He simply held her gaze, a deep, unsettling stillness about him that was far more intimidating than any aggression. "No," he said, his voice firm, refusing to be put off by her feigned nonchalance. "No, it’s not just 'nothing,' Lucy. I’ve seen it, glimpsed it over the years, when your sleeve might ride up, or in certain lights. It’s… distinct." He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping further, as if sharing a secret, or perhaps making sure no one else could hear. "It looks like a specific design, actually. Almost like a figure."

Lucy swallowed hard. Her heart started to pound a desperate rhythm against her ribs, echoing in her ears. The colour drained from her face, leaving her with a stark, pale pallor that felt cold to her own touch. This wasn't going to be easy. He had seen it, properly seen it. The specific design. Her stomach churned violently, a sick wave washing over her.

Jimmy continued, his fingers still tracing, though now with a slower, more deliberate pressure, as if trying to re-etch the image into his memory, to confirm his long-held suspicion. "It’s… well, it’s semi-ghoulish, wouldn’t you say? A strange sort of shape. I've always thought it was a person, or meant to be a person, but I could never quite decipher it completely. Is it? A person?" He looked at her, his expression a mixture of profound curiosity and a dawning, almost morbid fascination. There was no judgment in his tone, only an intense, almost insatiable desire to understand, which felt, in that moment, like a terrifying force.

Lucy felt a cold dread spread through her, seeping into her very bones. The air suddenly felt thin, hard to breathe, suffocating. Her vision seemed to narrow, the edges of the room blurring, the rich tapestries and towering bookshelves fading into an indistinct haze. She wanted to scream, to push him away, to run from the relentless intensity of his gaze and the devastating precision of his questions. His words, "semi-ghoulish shaped person," echoed in her mind, a stark, unwelcome reflection of a past she had painstakingly buried under layers of time and conscious effort.

"Look, Jimmy," she grunted, the polite veneer shattering, her voice rough with sudden, barely contained emotion. She tried to squirm out of his hold again, with more force this time, a frantic struggle, but he held her fast, his fingers now digging ever so slightly into her waist, just enough to prevent her escape. She could feel the muscle in her jaw clench, a knot of anger and fear tightening almost painfully in her chest. "You know I had a rough childhood. A really rough one." Her eyes pleaded with him, a desperate, unspoken plea for him to let it go, to respect the invisible boundaries she had erected around that period of her life. Her words were laced with a raw, unspoken pain that hung heavy in the air between them, thick and palpable. 'A rough one' was an understatement, a lifetime of veiled trauma in three terse words. "Please," she whispered, the single word loaded with a lifetime of unspoken hurt, of secrets she had sworn to herself she would never utter. "Please, just… drop it."

The directness of her plea, the sudden, raw vulnerability that stripped away all her defences, seemed to finally penetrate the wall of his intense curiosity. His gaze softened, the demanding spark in his eyes dimming, replaced by a flicker of understanding, and perhaps, a touch of regret. He held her for another long moment, his grip slowly loosening, the tension in his fingers easing. He met her troubled gaze, his own dark eyes searching hers, a silent battle playing out between his profound desire for knowledge and his sudden, acute awareness of her pain.

Finally, a slow, heavy sigh escaped his lips. It was a sound of relinquishment, of reluctant concession, heavy with unspoken thoughts. He leaned forward, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to her forehead, right between her eyebrows. His lips were warm against her skin, a familiar comfort, a vestige of the affection that had begun their interaction. He pulled back slightly, his eyes still holding hers, but the intensity had lessened, replaced by a quiet pensiveness, a deep consideration.

"Alright, Lucy," he murmured, his voice a low, almost regretful tone, conceding defeat for now. He finally released her, his hands dropping from her waist and arm, breaking the unsettling connection. "Alright. I'll leave it for now."

But the words 'for now' hung in the air between them, an unspoken promise that this conversation, this delve into her past, was not truly over. It was a reprieve, not an absolution. The tension, though momentarily diffused by his surrender, still lingered, a phantom presence in the quiet library, an uncomfortable secret unearthed and then hastily reburied, waiting for another day, another opportunity to claw its way back to the surface. Lucy, still trembling faintly, watched him, her heart still pounding, knowing that he would remember, and given his nature, he would eventually circle back. They both knew it.

__________________________

Flashback to Lucy when she was a little girl.

The little church on Elm Street wasn't much to look at—white clapboard siding that could've used a fresh coat of paint, a modest steeple that listed slightly to the left, and windows of plain glass that let in the harsh Mississippi sun without the grace of stained colors to soften it. But to twelve-year-old Lucy Miller, it was a sanctuary in the truest sense of the word.

She'd started attending with her adoptive parents, the Millers. They were gentle people, soft-spoken and kind, who'd taken her in after the incident with her biological parents—the broken bones, the twisted hands, the night the neighbors finally called the authorities. The Millers didn't push. They didn't pry. They simply offered her a place at their table, a bed with clean sheets, and on Sunday mornings, an invitation to come with them to this little church.

At first, Lucy had been terrified. Church meant rules. Church meant sin and damnation and the God her biological parents had screamed about while they beat the devil's music out of her hands. But this church—Pastor Coleman's church—was different.

Pastor William Coleman was a tall man in his early fifties, with kind hazel eyes, silver threading through his dark hair, and a smile that crinkled the corners of his face into deep laugh lines. He didn't scream. He didn't condemn. He spoke about God the way one might speak about an old, trusted friend—with warmth, with humor, with an ease that made the divine feel approachable rather than terrifying.

The first time Lucy had sat in his congregation, she'd gripped the edge of the pew until her knuckles went white, bracing for the fury, the condemnation. But it never came. Instead, Pastor Coleman had spoken about forgiveness. About grace. About how God's love wasn't conditional on perfection, but freely given to the broken, the hurting, the lost.

Lucy had cried through the entire service, silent tears streaming down her face, and afterward, Pastor Coleman had knelt beside her in the empty sanctuary and said, simply, "You're safe here, child. Whatever you've been through, whatever you're carrying—you're safe here."

In the years that followed, Lucy found herself drawn back again and again. Not just on Sundays, but on Wednesday evenings for youth group, and then on Tuesday afternoons when the pastor's wife, gentle Mrs. Coleman, hosted Bible study in their modest home behind the church. And then, slowly, she began staying after services to help—folding bulletins, sweeping the fellowship hall, organizing hymnals.

Pastor Coleman never pushed her to talk about her past, but he was always there—a steady, quiet presence. He taught her how to plant flowers in the church garden. He showed her how to tune the old piano in the fellowship hall, his hands gentle and patient as he explained the mechanics of hammers and strings. And when she finally, haltingly, told him about the music in her head—the constant, relentless symphonies that had once brought her parents' wrath—he'd simply smiled and said, "That's not a curse, Lucy. That's a gift. God gave you something beautiful. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise."

For the first time in her life, Lucy felt safe. Pastor Coleman became the father she'd never had—not the distant, biological stranger who'd abandoned her, nor the monstrous zealot who'd raised her, but something she'd only ever read about in books: kind, patient, unconditionally loving.

It was a Thursday afternoon in late September when everything shattered.

Lucy had come to the church after school to help Pastor Coleman paint the storage room. The small space, tucked behind the sanctuary, had become a dumping ground for old hymnals, broken chairs, and boxes of Christmas decorations. Pastor Coleman had decided it was time for a proper cleaning and a fresh coat of paint—"A little resurrection project," he'd called it with a wink.

Lucy, in paint-splattered overalls, her hair tied back in a messy ponytail, was carefully edging the doorframe with pale blue paint, her tongue poking out slightly in concentration. Pastor Coleman, on a stepladder, was rolling the ceiling, humming an old hymn under his breath.

"You've got a steady hand, Lucy," he said, glancing down at her work. "Much better than mine. I'm liable to get more paint on myself than the wall."

She grinned up at him. "That's because you're impatient. You try to go too fast."

"Guilty as charged," he laughed. "Patience has never been my strong—"

The church's front door slammed open with such force that the sound reverberated through the small building like a gunshot. Lucy jumped, nearly dropping her brush. Pastor Coleman froze on the ladder, his head turning toward the sound.

Heavy, uneven footsteps echoed through the sanctuary. Then a voice—raw, ragged, thick with rage and something else, something darker.

"COLEMAN! WHERE ARE YOU?"

Pastor Coleman's face went very still. He climbed down from the ladder slowly, deliberately, setting the paint roller down. "Lucy," he said quietly, his voice calm but firm. "Stay here. Don't come out."

"But—"

"Stay here," he repeated, and there was something in his tone—a quiet authority that brooked no argument—that made her nod, her heart suddenly pounding.

He stepped out of the storage room, pulling the door partially closed behind him. Lucy stood frozen, her paintbrush still in hand, paint dripping unnoticed onto the drop cloth.

"Michael," Pastor Coleman's voice drifted back to her, carefully measured. "What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" The man's voice was a snarl, slurred slightly. Drunk, Lucy realized with a cold twist in her stomach. "You're supposed to be a man of God, Coleman! You're supposed to help people!"

"Michael, you're upset. Let's sit down, talk about—"

"Talk?! I've been talking! I came to you! I asked you to pray, to counsel us, to save my marriage! And what happened? She left anyway! Took my kids, took my house, took everything!" The man's voice cracked, veering between rage and something that sounded horribly like grief. "Your God didn't help me! Your prayers didn't do nothing!"

"I'm so sorry, Michael. I know you're hurting—"

"Hurting?! You don't know anything!" There was a crash—something being knocked over, glass shattering. Lucy flinched. "I prayed like you said! I went to your stupid church, I tried to be better, and God didn't do a damn thing! So if God won't listen, maybe He needs to feel what I'm feeling!"

"Michael, please—" Pastor Coleman's voice was steady, but Lucy could hear the edge of fear beneath it now.

She shouldn't go out there. She knew she shouldn't. But her feet were already moving, pulling the door open wider, peering around the doorframe.

The sanctuary was a mess. Hymnals scattered across the floor, a vase of flowers shattered near the altar. And in the center aisle stood a man—tall, disheveled, his face blotchy and red, his eyes wild. In his right hand, glinting in the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows, was a knife.

Pastor Coleman stood between the man and the storage room—between the man and Lucy—his hands raised in a placating gesture.

"Michael," he said again, his voice impossibly calm. "Whatever you're feeling, this isn't the answer. Put the knife down. Let's talk."

"I'm done talking!" Michael lurched forward a step, the knife trembling in his grip. "You're a fraud, Coleman! A liar! You fill people's heads with hope and then God spits in their face!"

Lucy couldn't stop herself. The words burst out before she could think. "He's trying to help you!" Her voice, high and thin with fear, cut through the tension like a blade.

Both men's heads snapped toward her.

"Lucy, no—" Pastor Coleman started, his face going white.

But Michael's wild gaze had already locked onto her. "Who the hell are you?" he snarled, advancing toward her. "Another one of his little sheep? You think he's so good? You think God cares about—"

"Please," Lucy said, her voice shaking but determined, stepping fully out of the storage room. "Please, he's just trying to help. God didn't make your wife leave. That's not—"

"Shut up!" Michael roared, raising the knife.

Everything happened so fast.

Pastor Coleman saw the blade arc toward Lucy. His body moved before his mind could catch up—a purely instinctive, paternal lunge. He threw himself between them, his arms outstretched, his body a shield.

The knife, meant for Lucy, plunged into his abdomen instead.

For a single, terrible moment, the world went silent.

Pastor Coleman's eyes went wide. His mouth opened, a soft, shocked exhale escaping. Michael staggered backward, his face draining of all color, staring at the knife now buried to the hilt in the pastor's gut.

"Oh God," Michael whispered, his voice strangled. "Oh God, oh God, I didn't—I didn't mean—"

Blood, bright and obscene, bloomed across Pastor Coleman's white shirt. Michael stumbled backward, the knife still buried in the pastors stomach, Michael's hands trembled, and then he turned and ran, his footsteps pounding through the sanctuary, the door slamming behind him.

Pastor Coleman swayed, his hand pressing against the wound, blood seeping through his fingers. His knees buckled.

"No!" Lucy lunged forward, catching him as he collapsed, her small body barely able to support his weight. They sank to the floor together, her hands immediately pressing against his stomach, trying desperately to staunch the flow. But there was so much blood—too much blood, hot and slick, soaking her hands, her overalls, pooling on the worn floorboards.

"Pastor Coleman, no, no, no," she sobbed, her voice breaking. "Don't—you're going to be okay, you're going to—"

His face was already going pale, his breathing shallow and ragged. His hand, trembling, reached up to touch her cheek, leaving a smear of red. "Lucy," he whispered, his voice thin. "It's… it's alright. You're… safe."

"No!" Lucy screamed, tears streaming down her face. "No, you can't—please, God, please help him!"

She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands still pressed against the wound, her whole body shaking. She prayed with a desperation she'd never known, the words tumbling out in a frantic, breathless torrent. "Please, God, please, I'm begging you, save him, please, I'll do anything, I'll be good, I'll never complain, just please—"

Silence.

No divine voice. No rushing wind. No warmth of answered prayer. Just the terrible, wet sound of blood and Pastor Coleman's labored breathing growing fainter.

Lucy's eyes snapped open, and something inside her—something that had been holding on by a thread—shattered. Rage, hot and bitter, surged through her.

"You don't care!" she screamed at the ceiling, at God, at the empty air. "You never cared! You let them break my hands, you let them hurt me, and now you won't even—"

Her voice broke. She was sobbing now, great heaving gasps that shook her entire frame. "Fine," she spat, her voice raw and venomous. "Fine! If God won't help, then—"

She didn't even know where the words came from. Spite. Fury. Desperation.

"Satan," she hissed, the word foreign and terrible on her tongue. "If you're real—if you're listening—please. Please save him."

The temperature in the church dropped.

It wasn't gradual. It was immediate—a sudden, bone-deep cold that made Lucy's breath fog in the air. The candles on the altar flickered, their flames bending at impossible angles. And then, as if the air itself had split open, a figure stepped into existence beside her.

Lucy's breath caught.

He was beautiful.

Impossibly, devastatingly beautiful. Tall and lean, with golden hair that fell in perfect waves to his shoulders, eyes the crystalline blue of a summer sky, and a face so finely sculpted it looked like something carved by a master artist. He wore a simple, impeccably tailored suit, and when he smiled—a slow, curious curve of his lips—it was the kind of smile that could make saints reconsider their vows.

He looked down at Lucy, then at the dying man in her arms, then back to Lucy. His head tilted slightly, like a predator assessing prey.

"Well," he said, his voice smooth as honey, faintly amused. "This is an interesting scene."

Lucy's mouth opened and closed. She couldn't speak. Couldn't process. This wasn't—he didn't look—

The beautiful man crouched down, graceful as a cat, his eyes flicking over the wound, the blood, Pastor Coleman's ashen face. "A man of God," he murmured, almost to himself. "How deliciously ironic. And you—" His gaze returned to Lucy, sharp and penetrating. "A child. A desperate, broken little child."

"Please," Lucy finally managed, her voice a choked whisper. "Please, he's dying. Save him."

The man's smile widened, but there was no warmth in it. "Why would I do that?"

Lucy stared at him, uncomprehending. "You—you're—"

"The Devil, yes." He said it so casually, as if discussing the weather. "And you summoned me. How quaint. But you see, little girl, I don't typically go around saving pastors. Men like him?" He gestured dismissively at Pastor Coleman. "They're my enemies. They spend their entire lives trying to keep souls away from me. Why on earth would I help one?"

"Because I'm asking!" Lucy's voice cracked, desperate. "Please, I'll do anything, anything, just don't let him die!"

The Devil's eyes gleamed. "Anything?" He leaned closer, his gaze raking over her—not lasciviously, but clinically, as if he were dissecting her very soul. His head tilted again, and for a long, terrible moment, he simply stared.

Then his smile turned sharp. Predatory.

"You," he said slowly, "have something interesting about you, little Lucy. Something… rare. A spark." His eyes flicked to her trembling hands, still pressed against Pastor Coleman's wound. "Such devotion. Such purity. And so much pain already." He straightened, brushing invisible dust from his suit. "Very well. I'll save your precious pastor."

Lucy's heart leapt—

"In exchange for your soul."

The words hung in the air, heavy and final.

Lucy blinked. "My… soul?"

"Your immortal soul," the Devil clarified, his tone almost cheerful. "The very essence of you. The thing that, according to your little book, determines whether you spend eternity in bliss or torment. I save him. You give that to me. Simple transaction."

"I—I don't—" Lucy's mind was spinning. She was twelve. She didn't fully understand what a soul even was, not really. But she understood life and death. She understood that Pastor Coleman was dying in her arms and this man—this thing—could save him.

"Lucy…" Pastor Coleman's voice was barely a whisper. His eyes, glassy and unfocused, found hers. "Don't…"

But Lucy wasn't listening. She looked at the Devil, tears streaming down her face, and nodded. "Yes. Yes, take it. Take my soul. Just save him. Please."

The Devil's grin was immediate, wide, and utterly lecherous. It transformed his beautiful face into something obscene, a wolf's grin on an angel's features.

"Done."

Before Lucy could blink, his hand shot out, gripping her forearm with bruising strength. She yelped, trying to pull back, but his hold was iron.

"A contract must be sealed," he purred, and with his free hand, he grabbed the bloodied knife from Pastor Coleman's stomach, reaching it from him, the pastor releasing a tormenting scream.

Lucy's eyes went wide. "Wait, what are you—"

He pressed the blade to her forearm, right above her wrist, and dragged it down.

Lucy screamed.

It wasn't a quick cut. It was deliberate, methodical, the blade carving into her flesh with horrible precision. Not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to scar. The pain was white-hot, blinding, a searing agony that obliterated thought. She thrashed, trying to wrench her arm away, but the Devil held her fast, his grip unyielding, his expression one of focused concentration as he worked.

The shape he carved was intricate—twisting lines, a figure, something almost human but distorted, ghoulish. Pastor Coleman's blood, still wet on the blade, mixed with Lucy's own, staining the wound dark.

"There," the Devil said finally, releasing her. Lucy collapsed backward, clutching her arm, sobbing, the pain radiating through her entire body. "A lovely little signature. You're mine now, Lucy Miller."

She could barely see through her tears, but she watched—horrified, disbelieving—as the Devil's beautiful face began to shift.

The smooth, golden skin rippled, darkening, cracking like burnt parchment. His perfect features twisted, elongating, the bones beneath pushing outward at wrong angles. His eyes, once crystalline blue, turned black—not just the pupils, but the entire eye, like voids leading to nothing. His smile widened, too wide, revealing rows of teeth that were too sharp, too many. Horns, small and ridged, pushed through the golden hair. His voice, when he spoke again, was no longer smooth. It was layered, gravelly, like a thousand voices speaking in unison from the bottom of a well.

"Your soul is mine, child," he said, and the words seemed to echo through Lucy's very bones. "I will come to collect when the time is right. And you…" He turned his monstrous gaze to Pastor Coleman, who lay gasping, barely conscious. The Devil reached down, his clawed hand hovering over the wound. "You, I'll fix. For now."

He pressed his palm flat against the pastor's stomach. Pastor Coleman convulsed, a terrible, strangled scream ripping from his throat. The wound beneath the Devil's hand began to close—not gently, not with divine grace, but with a sickening, fleshy sound, the torn skin knitting together, forced back into place. When the Devil pulled his hand away, the wound was gone.

But the scar remained.

The Devil brought his hand to his mouth, licking Pastor Coleman's blood from his fingers, his black eyes rolling back in something like ecstasy. "Delicious," he hissed. "So pure. So righteous. I can taste your devotion, your faith." His grin widened impossibly. "I'll have your soul too, Pastor. Not today. But someday. You taste far too good to waste."

"No!" Lucy lurched forward, clutching her bleeding arm. "That wasn't the deal! You said—"

The Devil waved a clawed hand dismissively. "I said I'd save him. I did. The rest?" He chuckled, a sound like bones grinding together. "Semantics, darling. You should have read the fine print."

He straightened, his monstrous form already beginning to shimmer, to fade. "Enjoy your borrowed time, Pastor. And you, little Lucy—" His voice dropped to a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Don't forget our deal. I'll be watching."

And then, as suddenly as he'd appeared, he was gone.

The temperature snapped back to normal. The candles steadied. The oppressive weight in the air lifted. It was as if he'd never been there at all.

Except for the blood. The scar on Pastor Coleman's stomach. The raw, weeping wound on Lucy's arm.

And the two of them, collapsed on the floor of the sanctuary, staring at each other in mute horror.

Pastor Coleman moved first, dragging himself toward her, his hands shaking as he reached for her wounded arm. "Lucy," he choked out, his voice hoarse. "Lucy, what did you—"

She threw herself into his arms, burying her face in his blood-soaked shirt, and they clung to each other, sobbing, two damned souls holding each other in the empty sanctuary as the sun set and the shadows grew long.

Later, after the bleeding had stopped, after Pastor Coleman had wrapped Lucy's arm in clean bandages, after the police had been called and statements given (an attack by a disturbed parishioner, they said—Michael was never found), they sat together in the small church office.

Pastor Coleman held Lucy's small, bandaged hand in both of his, his face drawn and pale. "You shouldn't have done that," he whispered, tears streaming down his face. "Lucy, you shouldn't have—"

"You were going to die," Lucy said simply, her voice hollow. She looked down at the bandage, already seeing the mark beneath it. "I couldn't let you die."

"But your soul—"

"I'd do it again," she interrupted, meeting his eyes. And she meant it. Even now, even knowing what she'd done, she meant it. "You're the only person who's ever been kind to me. The only person who made me feel… safe. If saving you means I go to hell, then I'll go."

Pastor Coleman's face crumpled. He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight, and they wept together—for what had been lost, for what could never be undone, for the terrible, beautiful, damning act of love that had bound them both to darkness.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 32:

The Mississippi sun, a lazy, golden orb, was already climbing high, promising another sweltering day. Jimmy, still half-asleep and smelling faintly of whiskey and last night’s cigarettes, squinted at the bright light filtering through Lucy’s kitchen window. He’d woken up in a bed that wasn’t his, in a town he barely knew, with a woman who was quickly becoming the center of his universe.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Lucy’s voice, a soft, melodic hum, drifted in from the living room. She appeared in the doorway, already dressed in a simple, floral-patterned sundress, her hair pulled back in a practical braid. She looked fresh, innocent, and entirely out of place in his usual rock and roll landscape. And yet, here he was, willingly subjecting himself to her whims.

“Morning, love,” he grumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What’s on the agenda for today?"

Lucy’s smile was infectious. “We’re going to church.” Sunday morning in Mississippi was a sacred thing—not just in the religious sense, but in the way the entire world seemed to slow down, the heat less oppressive, the cicadas quieter, as if even they were observing a day of rest.

Jimmy froze, mid-stretch. Church. The word hung in the air, heavy and unfamiliar. He hadn’t set foot in a church since… well, he couldn’t even remember. Childhood, probably. His world was one of screaming guitars, smoky venues, and late-night revelry. God, if he existed, was a distant, perhaps even disapproving, entity.

“Church?” he repeated, a distinct note of skepticism in his voice. “You serious, Luce? Me? In a house of God? I might just spontaneously combust the moment I cross the threshold. Think of the mess. And the smell.” He forced a grin, hoping to lighten the mood, to deflect.

Lucy walked over,  and gently took his hand. Her touch was warm, reassuring. “Oh, Jimmy,” she said, her voice soft but firm. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just for a few hours. Pastor Coleman is a wonderful man. He’s like family to me. And I’d really like you to meet him.”

He looked into her eyes, those deep, expressive pools that held so much warmth and, he was beginning to realize, a quiet strength. He’d seen her navigate the chaos of his life with an unnerving calm, a steady presence that was both grounding and exhilarating. He loved her, truly. And when Lucy asked for something, especially so sweetly, it was damn near impossible to say no.

“Alright, alright,” he sighed, running a hand through his perpetually disheveled hair. “But if I burst into flames when I walk through the door, I'm blaming you"

She laughed, a genuine, joyful sound that echoed through the quiet house. “Deal.”

The little church on Elm Street looked exactly as Lucy remembered—white clapboard siding that could've used a fresh coat of paint, a modest steeple that listed slightly to the left, windows of plain glass that let in the harsh Mississippi sun. As they pulled up in Lucy's car, Jimmy stared at it with something between amusement and apprehension.

"This is it?" he asked.

"This is it."

"It's so... small."

"Not everyone worships in cathedrals, Jimmy."

He'd grinned at that, squeezing her hand. "Fair point. Well, let's see if I make it past the threshold without combusting."

They walked up the steps together, Lucy in a simple floral sundress, Jimmy in dark trousers and a button-down shirt—the most conservative thing he'd packed, and even then, he looked wildly out of place among the modest churchgoers filing in. Heads turned as they entered, whispers following in their wake, but Lucy just smiled and nodded, her hand firmly clasped in Jimmy's.

"Still intact," Jimmy murmured as they crossed the threshold. "That's a good sign."

Lucy elbowed him gently. "Behave." The air inside was thick with the scent of old wood, dust, and something else… hope, maybe? He wasn’t sure. He sat beside Lucy, his long legs cramped in the pew, trying his best to look inconspicuous.The service was, as Lucy had promised, typical. There were hymns, sung slightly off-key, with a fervent passion that surprised him, a few readings from the Bible,  the rustle of programs and the occasional cough echoing through the small sanctuary. and then Pastor Coleman took the pulpit. He was a man with a booming voice and kind eyes, his words echoing through the small church with an authority that commanded attention. He spoke of faith, community, and perseverance. Jimmy, surprisingly, found himself listening, not because he believed, but because the man’s conviction was undeniable. He spoke of struggles and overcoming them, of finding light in the darkest places. It was a message that, in its raw human truth, resonated even with a hardened rock star.

After the service, as the congregation filed out into the bright morning sun, Lucy grabbed Jimmy hand, her grip surprisingly strong, and pulled him through the mingling crowd, toward the back of the church instead of toward the exit.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

 "Pastor Coleman usually goes to the back room for a moment after the service. I want you to meet him properly." she whispered, her eyes sparkling. They navigated the throng of smiling faces, Lucy exchanging greetings and hugs with various parishioners. Jimmy, a stranger in a strange land, felt a pang of something akin to admiration. He was used to being the center of attention, but here, he was simply Lucy’s companion, and that was a new, interesting experience.

She led him through a narrow hallway to a small office at the back. The door was ajar, and through it, Lucy could see Pastor Coleman hanging up his vestments, his back to them.

"Pastor Coleman?" Lucy knocked lightly on the doorframe.

He turned, and a wide, warm smile spread across his face as he saw her. "Lucy! Oh, my dear girl, it's so good to see you." He crossed the room quickly, pulling her into a warm embrace. "You look wonderful. Absolutely wonderful." Jimmy watched, a silent observer, feeling a distinct sense of their shared history. This wasn’t just a pastor and his congregant; this was family.

"Thank you." Lucy pulled back, turning to gesture at Jimmy. "I wanted to introduce you to someone. This is Jimmy. Jimmy, this is Pastor William Coleman."Jimmy extended a hand, feeling a bit awkward in the small room. “Pastor. Good to meet you.” "Lucy speaks very highly of you."

"And she of you." Pastor Coleman's gaze flicked between them, and something knowing passed over his face. Pastor Coleman’s grip was firm, his eyes assessing. They were sharp, intelligent eyes that seemed to take in more than just his outward appearance. Jimmy felt a flicker of unease, as if the man was peering directly into his soul. 

"Lucy?" A voice called from the hallway. "Lucy Miller, is that you?"

Lucy turned, her eyes lighting up. "Oh! That sounds like Mrs. Henderson. I'll be right back—" She squeezed Jimmy's hand, then disappeared into the hallway, leaving the two men alone.

The silence stretched for a moment, comfortable but weighted. Pastor Coleman gestured to a chair. "Please, sit."

Jimmy sat, suddenly feeling like a teenager called to the principal's office. Pastor Coleman settled into the chair across from him, his expression gentle but serious.Finally, he spoke, his voice lower now, more serious. “So, Jimmy. You’re with Lucy.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy replied, feeling a strange urge to be respectful, something he rarely felt with anyone outside of his bandmates or a few revered musicians.

“She’s a good woman, Lucy,” Pastor Coleman said, his gaze unwavering. “A very good woman. She’s been through a lot in her life. I hope you’re taking care of her.”

Jimmy nodded, a bit defensively. “I am. I know she’s had it rough.” He did know, or at least he thought he did. Lucy had hinted at a difficult past, a childhood that was far from idyllic. He’d seen the quiet sadness in her eyes sometimes, the way she flinched at sudden loud noises, the way she cherished small kindnesses. He knew enough to know she deserved better.

But the way Pastor Coleman looked at him, a slight shake of his head, told Jimmy that his knowledge was superficial, a mere scratch on the surface of Lucy’s story. That look, that knowing sadness in the Pastor’s eyes, conveyed a depth of pain that Jimmy hadn't even begun to fathom.

“You know a little, perhaps,” Pastor Coleman mused, his voice laced with an old sorrow."But Lucy has a way of... minimizing her pain. Of making it seem smaller than it was." He leaned forward slightly, his eyes never leaving Jimmy's. "When I met her, she was just a child, no older than ten, maybe eleven.  She'd been living with the Millers after being removed from a home where she was beaten regularly." He paused, his voice thickening with emotion. "Her… her biological parents, they were not good people. Not good at all. They had no love for that girl. No care. They were… monsters, in their own way.”

Jimmy felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. Monsters. The word hung in the air, chilling him despite the Mississippi heat. Lucy had told him about the abuse, but hearing it from someone who'd witnessed it firsthand made it horrifyingly real. To imagine her as a child, subjected to such cruelty, was almost unbearable.

“She came here, scared and broken,” the Pastor continued, his voice softer now, tinged with a deep affection. "Terrified of people, of church, of kindness because she'd been taught that kindness always came with conditions. But even then, even through all that pain, there was a light in her. A resilience. A spirit that refused to be extinguished.  But she was also one of the bravest, kindest souls I've ever met. She had every reason to become bitter, angry, cruel. But she didn't. She chose softness. She chose to love."

"She's remarkable," Jimmy said quietly, his voice rough.

"She is." Pastor Coleman's gaze sharpened. "But life has taken advantage of that softness, Mr. Page. Life has hurt her in ways that—" He stopped himself, seeming to catch something before it spilled out. "She's been through more than most people could survive. And she's survived it with grace. But that doesn't mean she doesn't carry scars."

Jimmy sat there, speechless. He’d always known Lucy had a past. But Pastor Coleman’s words painted a picture far grimmer than anything he’d imagined. He thought of the quiet moments, the sudden silences, the way she sometimes seemed to retreat into herself. It all made a terrible, heartbreaking kind of sense. Jimmy thought of the scar on Lucy's forearm—the one she'd refused to explain, the one that had caused such tension between them in Scotland. His chest tightened. 

"I love her," Jimmy said, meeting Pastor Coleman's eyes. "I don't know everything she's been through, but I love her. And I'll spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of that."

Pastor Coleman studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "I believe you. And I hope—" He stopped as footsteps sounded in the hallway.

"Jimmy!" Lucy appeared in the doorway, holding a large cake tin, her face flushed with delight. "Mrs. Henderson gave me her famous coconut cake! There's no way we can eat this whole thing by ourselves. We should bring it back to the house and get Frank and Jessica to help."

Jimmy stood, forcing a smile even as Pastor Coleman's words echoed in his mind. Life has taken advantage of that softness. She's been through more than most people could survive.

What didn't he know? What was Lucy still hiding?

"That sounds perfect, love," he said.

Lucy turned to Pastor Coleman, her expression soft with affection. "Thank you for the service today. It was lovely."

"Anytime, my dear." Pastor Coleman embraced her again, then shook Jimmy's hand once more. "Take care of her, Mr. Page."

"I will," Jimmy promised.

The drive back to Lucy's house was quiet, the cake tin resting on Jimmy's lap, the windows down to let in the warm afternoon breeze. Jimmy kept glancing at her, trying to reconcile the woman beside him—confident, successful, radiant—with the terrified eleven-year-old Pastor Coleman had described.

She's been through more than most people could survive.

Life has taken advantage of that softness.

What did that mean? What was he missing?His mind  kept drifting to the scar on her forearm. The way she'd pulled away when he'd asked about it in Scotland, the fear in her eyes, the way she'd shut down completely. but her reaction had been sharp, a sudden withdrawal, a curtain falling over her eyes. She’d mumbled something about an accident, a childhood mishap, but the way she’d flinched, the way she’d pulled away, had told him it was far more than that. He hadn’t pressed, not wanting to push her away, but the memory of her pain had stayed with him. He'd respected her boundaries then, hadn't pushed. But now... 

Now, Pastor Coleman’s words gave that scar a new, darker context. Lucy had more secrets, deeper wounds than he’d ever known. He felt a fierce, protective surge within him, a desire to shield her from a past that still haunted her. But he also felt a frustrated helplessness. How could he protect her from something he didn’t even fully understand?

Now he wondered if there were depths to Lucy's pain that he couldn't even begin to fathom.

"You okay?" Lucy asked, glancing at him.

He forced a smile. "Yeah. Just thinking."

"About?"

"About how lucky I am," he said, and it wasn't a lie. But it also wasn't the whole truth.

Lucy smiled, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "I'm the lucky one."They arrived back at Lucy’s small, charming house, the scent of magnolias heavy in the air. Lucy immediately began bustling around the kitchen, humming a tune as she started preparing dinner.

He watched Lucy, moving with a grace and ease that belied the pain Pastor Coleman had spoken of. He saw her smile, heard her gentle voice, and a profound sense of protectiveness washed over him. He knew he loved her, that was undeniable. But now, his love was tinged with a deeper understanding, a quiet promise to himself. He would be there for her, no matter what her past held. He just wished he knew what that past was. He knew he couldn't ask again, not after Scotland. He would have to wait, to observe, to be patient. To simply be there. For now, he would just watch her, this strong, beautiful woman, and try to make sense of the pieces of her life he was slowly, painfully, beginning to uncover.

When Frank and Jessica arrived, the mood lightened immediately.  The easy camaraderie, the smell of cooking food, the familiar sounds of domestic life – it was a stark contrast to the heavy thoughts churning in Jimmy’s mind. Frank took one look at the cake tin and let out a low whistle. "Is that Mrs. Henderson's coconut cake?"

"It is," Lucy said, grinning. "And we're not touching it until after dinner."

"You're cruel, Miller," Frank said, but he was smiling.

Beyond the kitchen doorway, Jimmy felt the hallway walls press in like stale breath. Jessica’s perfume – something cloying with amber and vanilla – trailed after him, as his hand had her wrist in a vice grip. Since he first met her. Little comments, glances, brushing against him when she thinks no one’s looking. and then tonight… tonight she took it too far. he had to pull her aside. He stopped abruptly near the bedroom corridor, the worn carpet muffling his steps. He watched the shadowed end of the hall where a vintage movie poster hung crookedly. Jessica's fingers brushed the small of his back, tentative but insistent. That was it.

Jimmy’s jaw was clenched so tightly he felt the muscle twitch near his ear. His fingers, which had clamped down on Jessica’s wrist with surprising force, trembled slightly. He shoved her hand away from him as if it were contaminated, ignoring the sharp, predatory gleam in her eyes. His hand shot out, clamping hard around Jessica’s upper arm. He spun her bodily, shoving her shoulders flat against the floral wallpaper. The impact rattled a framed photo. She gasped, eyes widening with astonishment rather than fear. Before she could speak, Jimmy leaned in, his voice a low, furious rasp inches from her face. 

“Listen carefully, you stupid cow,” he bit out, his voice a low, perilous rumble that contradicted the domestic sounds of simmering food emanating from the kitchen doorway fifteen feet away. “You misunderstand everything. I don’t like you. The next time you touch me, or give an innuendo, or even look at me like that when I’m in this house, I will have Lucy fire you." His thumb dug into the leather straining over her bicep. "you will be clearing out your locker at that bloody record shop by morning. All those promo vinyls, the free tickets, the guest lists, gone. Nothing.”

Jessica blinked, her painted lips parting. A flush crept up her neck. She tilted her chin defiantly. "You don't mean that." Her hand slid down, quick as a striking snake, cupping him boldly through his denims. "I Feel how hard you are already. "

Jimmy recoiled violently, a sharp intake of breath hissing through his teeth. He wrenched her hand away, twisting her wrist just shy of pain as he slammed it back against the wall beside her head.  "Christ! You think this is a fucking game? I have never," he ground out, his face taut with disgust, "hit a woman. But right now? You're a hair's breadth from changing that." Jimmy didn't wait for her reply. He spun on his heel and walked swiftly back toward the kitchen, adjusting his shirt and trying to wipe the residue of her touch from his mind. He forced a bland expression onto his face before rounding the corner.

Jessica stood alone in the dark hallway, the cool paint pressing against the hot leather of her bodysuit. She ran a hand over her tight thigh, a slow, self-satisfied smile spreading across her face. Hit a girl? The thrill of danger only amplified her excitement. He was trying to resist. He needed to be dominated, and she was more than happy to oblige. Pulling her shoulders back, adjusting the cleavage that her outfit so aggressively displayed, she decided to follow him. He wouldn’t be able to stay away.

She sauntered into the brightly lit kitchen. The air was thick with the scent of garlic and simmering sauce, a jarring domestic contrast to the raw tension she carried. Jimmy was leaning against the counter, ostentatiously ignoring her while finishing his glass of wine. His posture was rigid.

Dinner continued, a strained and quiet tableau beneath the warm glow of Lucy’s antique chandelier. The clinking of silverware against ceramic plates seemed to echo louder than any conversation. Jimmy, having returned to the kitchen to finish his wine, now sat at the head of the oak table, his posture stiff, his eyes occasionally flicking towards Jessica who sat across from him. He watched her through narrowed slits, a cold, hard anger simmering beneath his otherwise composed exterior. Her smile, he thought, was a viper’s coil, her eyes gleaming with a triumph he couldn’t fathom, a sickening misunderstanding of his stark rejection in the hallway.

He could still feel the phantom grip of her hand, the audacious press against his trousers, and a fresh wave of disgust washed over him. He’d never been one for violence, especially not towards women, but Jessica had pushed him to the precipice of a primal, unthinking rage. The thought of striking her, even in self-defense, was abhorrent, yet the impulse had been undeniable. It shamed him, soiled his sense of self. He took another gulp of wine, letting the rich, dark liquid numb the edges of his fury.

Jessica, however, seemed utterly oblivious to the depth of his revulsion. She picked at her chicken, a smirk playing on her lips, confident in her misguided belief that she had somehow ‘won’ this round. In her mind, Jimmy’s anger was merely a precursor, a passionate resistance that would inevitably melt under her relentless charm. She had seen it countless times before with other men – the initial protest, the feigned disinterest, only for them to succumb to her allure. She glanced at him again, a suggestive glint in her eyes, deliberately letting her foot ‘accidentally’ brush against his under the table.

Jimmy flinched, pulling his foot back sharply as if burned. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to breathe slowly, to keep his composure for Lucy’s sake. He stole a glance at his girlfriend, her beautiful face currently furrowed with a slight concern. She was observing the hushed atmosphere, her brow subtly creased. Lucy was a woman who lived for warmth and honest connection; this quiet tension was anathema to her joyful spirit.

“Everything alright, darling?” Lucy asked, her voice soft, directed at Jimmy. She reached across the table, her fingers gently brushing his hand. Her touch was a balm, a stark contrast to Jessica’s unsettling familiarity, and for a moment, the anger in him receded, replaced by a fierce protectiveness.

Jimmy managed a tight, almost imperceptible smile. “Just a long day, love. Good food, though,” he added, trying to sound nonchalant. He squeezed her hand reassuringly, a silent promise that he was okay, or at least, that he would be. He couldn’t bring himself to talk about Jessica, not now, not in front of her. The crude details of her advances felt too ugly, too demeaning to speak aloud in Lucy’s gentle home. He didn’t want to tarnish Lucy’s evening, or worse, her trust in her employee.

Frank, ever the quiet observer, was the only one at the table who seemed to truly grasp the undercurrents. He sat opposite Lucy, his gaze darting between Jimmy’s rigid posture and Jessica’s unsettling smirk. Frank had known Lucy for years, long before Jimmy came into her life, and he saw the way Jessica behaved around any man who showed even a fleeting interest. He’d witnessed her brazen flirtations with delivery drivers, with customers. He liked Jimmy, saw the genuine affection the musician had for Lucy, and a silent, protective anger brewed within him too. He cleared his throat, directing a pointed look at Jessica that went entirely over her head.

“The chicken is superb, Lucy,” Frank offered, trying to lighten the mood, a subtle attempt to redirect attention away from the simmering tension between Jimmy and Jessica. He knew Lucy’s cooking was always a source of pride for her, a labor of love.

Lucy brightened slightly. “Thank you, Frank. Jimmy always loves my roast chicken.” She smiled at Jimmy, a genuine, loving smile that pierced through his anger and settled into his heart. He loved this woman with a fierce intensity, and the thought of Jessica’s predatory advances aimed at him, an attempt to disrupt their peace, made his stomach churn.

Small talk ensued, mostly driven by Lucy and Frank, covering mundane topics about the shop, the weather, and a new shipment of records. Jessica interjected occasionally, her comments laced with a forced casualness that still managed to hint at something deeper, always trying to bring the conversation back to Jimmy or herself. “Oh, Jimmy, you should really come by the shop more often. We have some new records that you'd fine… inspiring,” she’d purr, her eyes locked on him, ignoring Lucy’s presence.

Jimmy would offer a curt, “Perhaps,” or a noncommittal grunt, focusing intently on his plate, willing the dinner to end. He felt as though he was suffocating, trapped in a polite charade while a venomous creature slithered beneath the table.

Finally, the meal drew to a close. Lucy, ever the gracious hostess, refused to let anyone help with the dishes, insisting they relax. Frank, understanding her need for routine and control in her own space, merely thanked her again and began to prepare for his departure. Jessica, however, saw an opportunity.

“Don’t be silly, Lucy, let me help,” she cooed, following Lucy into the kitchen, her movements deliberately exaggerated, her hips swaying under the tight leather bodysuit. She knew Jimmy would be watching.

Jimmy watched indeed, his jaw clenching so hard he thought his teeth might crack. He saw Jessica lean in close to Lucy, whispering something he couldn’t quite catch, but he saw Lucy’s head tilt in confusion, and then Jessica’s gaze snap back to him, a knowing, wicked gleam in her eyes. He knew, instinctively, that she was trying to sow discord, trying to plant a seed of doubt in Lucy’s mind.

He stood up abruptly, making his way to the kitchen doorway. “Lucy, darling, I’ll help you clean up later. You rest,” he said, his voice firm, his eyes fixed on Jessica, a silent challenge in their depths. He was staking his claim, reaffirming his bond with Lucy, shutting Jessica out.

Jessica’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second, but then returned, even more confidently. “Oh, Jimmy, always the gentleman. But I’m sure Lucy can handle it. After all, she’s so… capable.” The last word was imbued with a subtle, condescending tone, implying Lucy was too ‘capable’ to need a man like him.

Lucy, oblivious to the underlying venom, simply laughed. “You both spoil me! But really, go relax. I enjoy the quiet of the kitchen.”

Jimmy didn’t relax. He retreated to the living room, picking up a magazine, but his eyes never left the kitchen doorway. He could hear the clatter of dishes, the low murmurs of Lucy and Jessica’s voices. He debated going in there, pulling Lucy away, but he didn’t want to cause a scene. Not yet. Not without definitive proof that Lucy would believe.

When Jessica finally emerged, she made a show of saying goodbye to Lucy, giving her a quick, almost dismissive hug. Then she turned to Jimmy, her eyes raking over him from head to toe.

“Well, Jimmy,” she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness, “it was… an interesting evening. I look forward to seeing you again. Perhaps at the shop?” She winked, a brazen, unapologetic gesture that made Jimmy’s blood run cold. She even reached out, her fingers just barely brushing his arm as she passed him to get to the door.

He recoiled involuntarily, making a sound like a stifled growl. Jessica only smiled wider, evidently enjoying his visible discomfort, mistaking it for passion.

Frank, who had been waiting by the door, shook Lucy’s hand warmly. “Thank you for dinner, Lucy. Always wonderful.” He paused, then gave Jimmy a brief, knowing nod, a silent communication of shared concern. Jimmy met his gaze, a flicker of understanding passing between them. Then Frank was gone, pulling Jessica out with him, her flirtatious laughter echoing back into the quiet house.

The immediate silence that descended upon the house felt heavy, thick with unspoken tension. Lucy turned to Jimmy, her slight smile giving way to an expression of worry. “Jimmy, darling, are you quite alright? You’ve been so quiet all evening.”

Jimmy sighed, running a hand through his hair. He walked over to Lucy, pulling her gently into his arms, resting his chin on her soft, fragrant hair. She smelled of lavender and home. “I’m fine, love,” he murmured, holding her tighter. The truth was, he wasn’t fine. He felt a deep, unsettling unease, a sense of having allowed something toxic to invade their sanctuary.

He wanted to tell her, right then and there. To pour out the vile details of Jessica’s behavior, the aggressive advances, the blatant disrespect. But the words caught in his throat. How could he explain it without sounding melodramatic? Without making it seem like he was exaggerating, or worse, inviting it? He knew Lucy was fiercely loyal to her staff, especially Jessica, who had been with her for a couple of years and who, Lucy believed, was a valuable asset to her shop. He also knew Jessica was a master manipulator, able to twist any situation to her advantage.

“Just… tired,” he finally managed, his voice muffled against her hair. He knew it was a cowardly evasion, but he needed time. Time to think, to plan. To figure out how to protect Lucy without causing her undue distress or disrupting her business. He kissed the top of her head, a silent promise forming in his mind. Jessica had to go. One way or another.

Lucy leaned back, looking up at him, her eyes searching his. She seemed to sense there was more, but she didn’t push. She trusted him, and that trust was a heavy burden on Jimmy’s conscience. “Alright, my love. Let’s get you settled then.” She took his hand, leading him back to the living room, to the worn comfort of their favorite armchair.

They spent the rest of the evening in companionable silence, listening to records, Lucy occasionally resting her head on his shoulder. Jimmy, however, couldn’t truly relax. His mind raced, replaying the events of the evening, the hallway confrontation, Jessica’s defiant eyes, her inappropriate touch. He felt a growing sense of urgency. Jessica wasn’t just flirting; she was actively trying to disrupt their relationship, to undermine Lucy’s happiness. And that, Jimmy knew, was something he absolutely could not tolerate. He loved Lucy too much to let her be hurt, or to allow this manipulative viper to stay in her life, poisoning everything they had built. The quiet evening was a fragile peace, a temporary reprieve before the storm he knew was brewing. He would have to tell Lucy, and soon. He just needed to find the right words, words that would make her understand the true nature of the predator she unknowingly housed in her employ. The thought of confronting Lucy with such an unpleasant truth tied his stomach in knots, but the alternative – allowing Jessica to continue her insidious campaign – was simply unthinkable.

[the-devil-with-angel-wings]

Chapter 31

The Mississippi morning air, thick with the scent of dew and coffee, filtered through Lucy’s kitchen window as she set down her half-empty coffee cup with a gentle clink.The news Frank had delivered earlier – Jessica’s sudden illness forcing the record shop’s closure – had initially been a minor inconvenience. But then, a spark of inspiration ignited. It was perfect, really. A whole day, just her and Jimmy, dedicated to one of his dearest passions. With a renewed sense of purpose, she picked up a clean mug, its porcelain cool against her fingertips, and poured a fresh, steaming cup for her guest. A fresh mug, still warm from the rinse, waited. She poured Jimmy a generous stream of the dark brew, the rich aroma filling the quiet space. 

Carrying the mug carefully, Lucy made her way down the short hallway to the guest room, where Jimmy was staying for his visit. She raised a hand and gave a gentle rap on the door, not waiting for a response before pushing it open. He was perched on the edge of the bed, a chaotic jumble of clothes and papers spilling from his open suitcase, his brow furrowed in concentration as he rummaged through its contents.

"Everything alright in here?" she asked, her voice soft, not wanting to startle him.

He looked up, a lock of dark hair falling across his brow. a slight frown still gracing his features. "Oh, Lucy. Yeah, everything's fine. Just trying to find something, you know how it is." He offered a sheepish smile.

Lucy walked further into the room, extending the warm mug towards him. "Well, I brought you a peace offering, then. Fresh coffee."

He took it, his fingers brushing hers briefly, a grateful smile replacing his earlier frustration. "Oh, you're a lifesaver, Luce. Thanks." 

"Don't mention it," she replied, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "And speaking of lifesavers, I think I've found us the perfect way to spend the day." She paused for dramatic effect. "Frank called this morning. Jessica's sick, so the shop's closed."

Jimmy’s expression shifted from mild curiosity to a flicker of disappointment. "Ah, that's a shame. Was hoping to browse a bit."

"Precisely!" Lucy exclaimed, a wide grin spreading across her face. "But that doesn't mean *we* can't browse. It means we have the entire shop to ourselves, without the distraction of customers. Think of it, Jimmy. A whole day, just us, and every single record in that place."

Jimmy’s eyes, usually a thoughtful, deep blue, widened instantly. A slow, delighted smile spread across his face. Record collecting, after all, was more than just a hobby; it was an obsession, a sacred ritual that connected him to the very soul of music. The thought of having Lucy’s treasure trove of vinyl all to himself, with her as his guide, was like Christmas morning and his birthday rolled into one. "Lucy, you're a genius! That sounds absolutely perfect."

With a shared sense of excitement, they quickly gathered themselves. Jimmy tucked away the remnants of his search, and both changed into comfortable clothes suitable for a day of exploration. Soon enough, they were stepping out into the warm Mississippi air, heading towards the heart of the small town.

Soon, Lucy, in a simple but elegant denim sundress, and Jimmy, in well-worn jeans and a casual shirt, were making their way into town. The sun was climbing higher, dappling the tree-lined streets with gold. Lucy pointed out landmarks, weaving tales of her childhood – the chipped bench where she’d first shared a milkshake, the ancient oak she’d climbed countless times. Then, her tone shifted, a touch of wistfulness in her voice as she recounted how much the town had changed since she’d moved back in ’67, how some of the old shops had disappeared, replaced by newer, less charming facades. Jimmy listened intently, his gaze lingering on her as she spoke, finding a quiet beauty in her storytelling.

Finally, they reached their destination. The record shop, nestled between a dusty antique store and a faded general goods merchant, it looked a bit derelict. The once vibrant blue paint on its exterior was now peeling in large, curling flakes, revealing layers of older, forgotten colors beneath. The sign, hand-painted with whimsical, flowing script, was faded, but still legible: "The Vinyl Dust."

"Don't let the outside fool you," Lucy said, sensing his unspoken observation. "It’s a work in progress, always. But the magic's inside."

She pushed open the heavy wooden door, and a symphony of familiar scents greeted them: old paper, vinyl, dust, and a faint, sweet hint of incense. The interior was a revelation, a stark contrast to the unassuming exterior. Shelves, lovingly crafted from reclaimed barn wood, stretched from floor to ceiling, groaning under the weight of countless albums. Rows were meticulously dedicated to different genres, a labyrinth of musical history waiting to be discovered. The air hummed with the ghosts of forgotten melodies, the scent of old paper and vinyl a rich perfume. In one corner, a built-in alcove, softly lit, beckoned with a vintage turntable and a plush armchair, a sanctuary where one could truly *listen*.

Jimmy's eyes widened, taking it all in. Jimmy was in his element, a wide, boyish grin plastered on his face as he walked up and down the aisles, his fingers gently tracing the spines of albums, a reverence in his movements. He knew Lucy collected records, of course; it was one of her defining passions. But to see the sheer scale of her collection, organized and curated with such obvious love, was truly awe-inspiring. "Lucy," he breathed, his voice laced with genuine admiration, "this is… this is spectacular. A music lover's dream, truly."

Lucy beamed, her heart swelling with pride. "It is, isn't it? My little slice of heaven."

Hours melted away as they delved deeper into the sonic treasures. Jimmy, a connoisseur of rare finds, was amazed at some of the gems Lucy had managed to unearth. He pulled out a few albums he wanted, carefully balancing them in his arms. Then, he paused, a sudden gasp escaping his lips. "Lucy!" he yelled, his voice echoing slightly in the quiet shop.

She hurried over, a soft laugh escaping her lips, curious about his latest find. He stood there, holding up a record with a look of pure exasperation mixed with a strange fascination. It was a rare Led Zeppelin bootleg from ’71. Lucy braced herself. Jimmy detested bootlegs, found them egregious, a raw deal for the artists. They’d argued about it before, his principled stance clashing with her collector’s pragmatism.

“You’re not actually moving these, are you?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

“It’s a rarity, Jimmy,” Lucy said gently, anticipating the lecture. “People want them. Besides, I just collect, I don’t condone, but I also don’t police every single record that walks through the door if it’s a genuine piece of history.”

“It’s stolen art, Lucy,” he countered, his voice firm but not unkind. “The artists don’t see a penny.”

“I know, I know,” she sighed, picking up a dusty jazz record from a lower shelf. “Look, if it bothers you that much, you can have it. Consider it a peace offering. It’s just a record, after all, and I just collect them.” She gave him a soft, understanding look. He still looked conflicted, but his grip on the bootleg loosened slightly.

As if to cleanse his palate, Jimmy then unearthed another treasure: a Jill and the Boulevards album, one Robert Plant had been searching for for years. “Oh, Robert will be absolutely chuffed about this one!” he exclaimed, his earlier annoyance forgotten, replaced by delight at the thought of surprising his friend.

“Good,” Lucy said, smiling at his enthusiasm. “I’m just going to slip down to my office in the basement for a moment, grab a few things. Be right back.” 

She disappeared down a narrow, creaky staircase at the back of the shop, leaving Jimmy alone amidst his piles of vinyl. He was still admiring his finds when the bell above the front door jingled, announcing an unexpected visitor. Jimmy blinked. The shop was supposed to be closed. He wasn't sure what to do – should he tell them? Or wait for Lucy?

The decision was swiftly taken out of his hands. A woman, impossibly blonde, with a cascade of hair that seemed to defy gravity and a figure that left little to the imagination, sauntered in. Her eyes, a striking shade of blue, scanned the rows of records before landing on Jimmy, standing amidst the rows of vinyl, and paused, a slow, predatory smile spreading across her lips.

"Well, hello there," she purred, her voice a low, husky drawl that was both alluring and slightly unnerving.

Jimmy mumbled a “hello” back, a flicker of discomfort in his eyes. He watched as she sauntered towards him, her hips swaying until she was standing much too close. Her hand, with its perfectly manicured nails, reached out and lightly touched his arm, a touch that lingered a beat too long. “Well, what brings you to our humble little establishment, handsome?” she asked, her tone dripping with seductive insinuation.

Jimmy tried to subtly shift away, his hands full with the stack of records.   "I'm... I'm obviously here buying records," he said, trying to keep his voice even, though a blush was creeping up his neck.

The woman chuckled, a husky, knowing sound. "Oh, there's no better place to get them than here, darlin'. Lucy's got the best collection this side of the Mississippi." Her eyes appraised him, a glint of something cold and calculating behind the flirtatious facade. She was beautiful, undeniably so, but there was a certain sass, a rough edge to her that made Jimmy uneasy.

She moved closer, her perfume, heavy and sweet, filling his space. Jimmy took another step back, trying to create distance, but she simply followed, her gaze never leaving his. “Lucy will be back any minute,” he said, hoping to deter her.

She merely shrugged, a dismissive flick of her shoulder as if Lucy's imminent return was of no consequence. "Plenty of time for us to get acquainted, then." Her fingers, long and slender, snaked through his hair, a light, teasing touch. Then, they trailed down his arm, over his bicep sending a shiver of discomfort through him. "You know, you have the most wonderfully expressive eyes."

Jimmy’s hands were full, making it impossible to physically push her away. He felt trapped, his discomfort growing with every touch. He just wanted Lucy to come back. He even found himself missing Frank’s calm, straightforward demeanor.

Just then, a faint creak on the basement stairs announced Lucy’s return. She emerged, her arms laden with yet more records, and her eyes immediately landed on the scene unfolding before her. Jessica, her blonde assistant, was practically draped over Jimmy, her hand now resting provocatively on his lower back, her face too close for comfort. Lucy’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Lucy’s lips thinned. "Jessica, what are you doing here? I thought you were sick." Her voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy, flirtatious atmosphere.

Jessica straightened up, a dazzling, unrepentant smile on her face. "Oh, Lucy! I was, I truly was. But then I started feeling a lot better, and I just had a hunch I should pop in. And I’m certainly glad I came in,  just to see such a handsome man gracing our humble establishment." Her gaze flicked back to Jimmy, a blatant wink accompanying her words.

Lucy rolled her eyes, a familiar exasperation settling over her. This was typical Jessica. Any rock star, any attractive man who walked through the door, and Jessica would be on him like a moth to a flame. It was tiresome, predictable, and frankly, a bit unprofessional.

 “Right,” Lucy said, setting her own stack of records on a nearby counter with a decisive thud. “Well, if you’re feeling so much better, why don’t you take those records from Jimmy’s arms, put them at the register, and then get the shop properly opened. And these ones, too.”

Jessica sighed dramatically, but complied. She reached for Jimmy’s stack, her fingers deliberately brushing his chest as she took them. Jimmy gave Lucy a wide-eyed, incredulous look that screamed, ‘What is wrong with your assistant?!’

"Honestly, Lucy," he muttered under his breath to Lucy as Jessica sashayed towards the front, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I prefer Frank. Maybe you should consider a less... sexually aggressive assistant."

Lucy burst out laughing, a genuine, hearty sound that momentarily dispelled the tension. "Oh, Jimmy, they both do their jobs very well, in their own unique ways. You just happened to catch Jessica on a particularly 'enthusiastic' day."

She stepped behind the counter, ready to check him out. As she tallied up his purchases, she pulled out a few more records from beneath the counter – some rare singles, a couple of promotional EPs. "And these," she said, pushing them across to him, her eyes twinkling, "are for the rest of the boys. Since Robert's getting his Jill and the Boulevards album, I didn't want the others to feel left out."

Jimmy smiled,  genuinely touched by her thoughtfulness. "Lucy, you're the best. They'll love these."

With their records in hand and the shop now officially open, Lucy and Jimmy made their way out, leaving Jessica to her duties. The fresh air felt like a welcome relief after the intensity of the past few minutes. The day was still young, and the promise of a hearty meal at the town diner beckoned, a perfect, comforting end to their unexpected, and eventful, record-hunting adventure.