Hello, Stranger...

Never get away

~ 1985 ~

"I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing." Lindsey tried, but Stevie just glared at him, her puffy red eyes breaking his heart. 

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" She asked quietly, knowing her voice would break otherwise. "Besides, I think you'd know who you put your dick in no matter how drunk you might have been."

"There's no excuse, I understand that." He sighed, reaching to take her hand, but Stevie pulled away, scooting over to the other end of the couch. "All I can say is that I'm sorry, Steph. I'm so sorry..."

"Don't Steph me." Stevie had long stopped wiping away her tears, they kept coming. "Why?" She asked, looking at her clasped hands in her lap. "We were doing so well, Lindsey..."

"Because I'm an idiot." He shrugged. "Because apparently, I don't realize how good I have it at home. How good you are to me."

"So, the wise thing to do was go to a party, having promised me you wouldn't overdo it, get shitfaced instead and fuck a groupie in the bathroom?"

A moment of silence followed, Lindsey was running out of things to say and none of what he had already said did anything to win Stevie back. "I wasn't thinking."

"Not with your brain, no you weren't." Stevie shook her head, taking a glass of water she had put on the coffee table earlier. She took a sip, then faced Lindsey. "I thought this was it, you know. I honestly believed we would make it this time. You were the only person who was able to comfort me after Robin passed away, you were my Lindsey again, you showed me how much you still loved me and cared about me. You promised me things would be different, I let you back in to my heart again and..." A fresh wave of tears came over Stevie and she trailed off. "I'm done, Lindsey. I can't do this anymore."

"What?" Lindsey frowned, swiftly moving from the couch down to his knees in front of Stevie. "Baby, you don't know what you're saying. You-"

"Don't. Just..." Shaking her head, Stevie removed Lindsey hands from touching her and got up on her feet, making some much needed distance. "This showed me that no matter how well we're doing, something's always going to ruin it."

"I'll change! I swear to you, I-"

"Shut up, Lindsey! No! I don't want you to do anything!" Stevie exclaimed, tears rolling down her cheeks freely. "You can't grovel your way back to me this time. I'm tired. Loving someone shouldn't be this hard."

"So, that's it? You're just going to throw the life we've been building together for years away, because I fucked up?"

Stevie stood, staring at him in disbelief. "And that doesn't seem like a good enough reason to you? I... I choose to walk away now, so you wouldn't hurt me even worse, when we're actually married." She said with finality, slipping the engagement ring off her finger...

Lindsey disappeared for months after that. Nobody, not Stevie, no one from Fleetwood Mac, none of their mutual friends knew where he was. Just gone. Maybe it was better that way. Seeing someone everyday, whom you had just broken up with... It was painful the first time and it would have been even worse now.

Stevie wasn't exactly out and about either. She mostly stayed at home, staying in contact with her parents only for a while. She didn't ignore the members of Fleetwood Mac if any of them called or came over, but Stevie wasn't exactly the first one to pick up the phone. The only time she had actually left the house to socialize, where she was required to be her usual Stevie Nicks self, was when she attended an event that she had agreed to appear at months ago.

It was also where she met Joe Walsh. 

It wasn't the first time, no, but they had never really got past greeting each other before. Sure, she was around Eagles, when she briefly dated Don, but he didn't actually let her interact with others much, keeping her all to himself.

Eventually Joe asked Stevie out on a date. Everyone in the music industry knew everything about everyone else, so it was no secret that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham broke up. Again. That was the reason why Joe waited, even if only a little. Since Joe was nothing what she thought he would be like, Stevie said yes. The two were inseparable ever since. Joe also replaced Lindsey in Fleetwood Mac, because he left midway of recording a new album.

Lindsey returned from wherever as soon as he found out Joe had proposed to Stevie. And he was pissed. Boiling mad. What made it even worse was when he saw she was pregnant. 

"Get rid of the baby." He said, when he tracked Stevie down and showed up at her doorstep. "You know you still love me, you will never get over me." He went on and on, Stevie was too shocked to react in any other way besides standing there and listening to him. "Terminate the pregnancy, you won't love some other man's baby. You want my children." Lindsey yelled at her, reeking of alcohol. "I forgive you. Just come back to me." 

The man in front of Stevie wasn't her Lindsey anymore, he wasn't even any other Lindsey she had come to know over the years. 

The next time Lindsey made an appearance was at Stevie and Joe's wedding. Drunk, again, also most likely high, he barged into the church, crashing the whole ceremony that Stevie had so carefully planned out with her mother. 

Lindsey screamed in people's faces that he was the only man Stevie could ever love, that her marrying Joe was grasping at straws to have a family, because Lindsey wouldn't start one with her. He kicked things, he trashed the beautiful decorations looking like a madman, proclaiming his love to Stevie over and over again, saying she would never get away from him.

After that Stevie hadn't seen Lindsey for over twenty years and she had hoped to never see him again.