More Than You, More Than Me

No King Kev

2020

This chapter is based off a chapter in FAE called 'Incredible' it's Stacey and Connie's conversation. I believe it was suggested by someone so if that's you I hope you enjoy, if it wasn't... I still hope you enjoy. This was actually quite a struggle to write because when I wrote incredible I didn't entirely have an idea what Connie was going to tell Stace, so it took a bit of getting into but I'm satisfied with the result. It's only short but I hope it satisfies your five-year-old Connie cravings.

p.s. we're only a few chapters off being past the timeline of the book and I'm so excited for it.

Sitting in the Birmingham Arena, the last thing you'd expect to see run through your dressing room door is an excitable five-year-old dressed in an unkempt school uniform, consisting of a mucky pinafore, blue shirt, a tie and a jumper bearing a logo that read 'Battersea Primary School' but that's exactly what Stacey Dooley saw. The little one had masses of curly brown hair and was clutching a teddy bear in one hand and the hand of a crimson headed dancer with the other.

"Where's my favourite five-year-old?" She cheered, holding her arms out.

The little one scrambled quickly climbing up the redhead's limbs to get to her lap grinning wildly.

As she babbled, leaning into Stacey's well-placed hands, the journalist looked at her friends who both seemed tired but very much in love, something which she made a point of pointing out. Joe, who stood taller than the girl on his arm looked the worse out of the pair, she guessed it was because he had been looking after a rambunctious five-year-old but also, she mused, it may have been because he had missed his girl. Stacey herself had managed to witness the tidal changes that the girl, who was now almost attached to his hip, even when miles separated them, had caused. She saw her new friend grow in confidence, share secrets she was certain he didn't share often, one being the little girl balanced on her lap, and learn how to love too. One of the first conversations she and Joe had was about partners and love. She learnt that when it came to love he was a bit of a relationship phobe. She knew that before the redhead, he had never had a long-term relationship, that is to say he had never even called someone his girlfriend. Yet Dianne had crawled past the obvious barriers and awkwardness to claim his heart as her own and help with Connie too. And Stacey had managed to witness this from a far.

The pair did look as though they needed a moment or two to themselves, whether just to kiss, Stacey smirked, or catch up, so when Connie informed her she had so much to tell her she was happy to play Auntie Stacey for ten minutes and entertain the lovable five-year-old who captured every heart of every person she came across, just so that the parents could have a second. Plus, she was certain nothing was more exciting than five-year-old gossip.

"Stacey! How did you know Dot's my Mummy?" The little one was referring to her quip about 'mummy and daddy time'.

"Mummy told me."

"She did!"

"Yes, how do you feel about that?"

"Happy. Mummy made me feel better when I wasn't feeling well. I'm allergict to diary you know?"

"I didn't, does it make you ill?"

"Bery poorly, I have to stay off school and eberything."

"Oh dear, that's not good is it, so do you like having a Mummy?"

"Yep. Epescially because my old Mummy, Louise, died last year in January. I didn't really know her vough, just an ikle bit whend I was a baby."

"Oh right," the redhead nodded, though this was the first time she was getting an insight into how Joe's situation came to be. She knew he had missed tour, and Dianne as a direct result, due to family reasons and she now found herself wondering whether his daughter's mum's passing had been the reason.