Every time you make a move

...The Morning After

Monica slept through the night, only to wake up to a queasy hangover.

She squinted in the bright morning light to read her brass alarm clock on her bedside table.

Half-nine in the AM. At least two hours later than she would normally wake up to get Johnny and Roshni ready for school. Thankfully, today was a Sunday.

"Mrrrowwww..."

Luke and Leia Skywalker were sitting on the pillows on Freddie's side of the bed, watching Monica intently as she lay on her stomach under the covers, half-asleep and half naked as she struggled to open her eyes.

"Getting their hairs all over the place, the best form of revenge," she thought with a smile, then with bitterness, "Not that Freddie cares, of course... yet he doesn't even like me taking the twins into mummy and daddy's bed when they're sick!"

As Monica reached over to gently pet the two calico kittens her stomach and mind started to churn with too much alcohol and regrets from her indistinct and murky recollections of the night before. Her meeting with Cliff Richard and Sir Laurence Olivier at the party was the first faux pas she had in a long time that she wasn't going to forget in a hurry, especially when she didn't recognise whom the latter was.

"Oh, I'm getting cat kisses now, am I? How nice" She giggled gently as Luke and Leia Skywalker affectionately licked her face and scrambled around her head.

To tell the truth, Monica didn't remember much of her final moments when she was last awake except that she was arguing with Freddie one minute and getting bundled up into the back of a taxi by him the next. Everything else after that was a blur, and in her mind it was not worth dwelling on.

But at that moment in time, she was stuck between getting up to get a glass of water, for her sore throat craved some form of liquid that wasn't alcohol. Or continuing to lay under the warm cocoon of her blanket both suffering and recuperating until somebody came to her rescue.

So she was relieved when she heard a knock outside, and the sounds of small voices outside the master bedroom.

The slider doors whirred open, followed by both Johnny and Roshni quietly calling for her, "Mummy... mummy!!"

Monica propped herself up onto her elbows, and looked her shoulder at her beloved children's small faces peeping through the gap, "Yes?"

"Wake up!" The twins suddenly burst in through the slider doors, still wearing their pyjamas, "We've got a surprise for you!"

Phoebe appeared and followed behind them, donning the kitchen apron and presenting a sumptuous-looking breakfast on the wooden fold-out bed tray that he carried.

"Oh, for me?!" Monica exclaimed in delight, forcing a smile as she sat up and held the duvet covers up to herself, "Mother's Day isn't for another few weeks!"

"Phoebe let me crack the eggs into the mixing bowl and flip the slices of bacon myself!" Johnny bragged as he and his sister clambered up onto the mattress of their parent's bed.

"He did, did he? How kind" she opened her arms to them both as Phoebe placed the tray on her lap.

"And he taught me how to make porridge in the microwave on my own!" Roshni added proudly, snuggling into her mother's side.

"Oh, aren't you a big girl!" Monica leaned down to kiss both of their heads, and sincerely told them, "Thank you... and to you too Phoebe for supervising them"

"Ce n'est pas un problème, madam" Mr Freestone bashfully said in French.

The mouth-watering aromas of the feast below her wafted into her nostrils; a small bowl of porridge oats with a spoon of honey, a few slices of bacon and scrambled egg, buttered toast cut into triangles, fluffy and misshapen pancakes that had clearly been made by a child and drizzled with maple syrup, and a pint-sized glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice.