A Night In

[singingdrummer]

 It all started with Ben tugging Meredith onto his lap, lips pressed against hers in a heated kiss. His hands roamed on her figure while his desire for her grew. He had wanted her ever since their first encounter at the bar but Ben never imagined something would actually become of it.

"I want you to know you're not some groupie to me, Meredith. I really want this with you."

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[highfidelity]

"Hi." She was sitting by his bedside just sad and disappointed more than anything else. "You overdosed on something. You could have died," she told him. Unable to resist the dig: "I guess getting back to me wasn't that important."

[singingdrummer]

He deserved that.

"Meredith.. I should've stayed with you. Going there was clearly a bad idea."

This hadn't happened before. Ben was becoming one of those rock stars he always read about, and it was a scary thought.

"I'm sorry. I ruined our night.. I did a messed up thing to you."

[highfidelity]

"Don't apologize," she said softly. "It doesn't matter. I can't see you again."

She stood then, heartbroken but determined. She didn't want to be part of this world, and she couldn't afford to have his reputation pull her down. She could lose her job if anyone thought she was mixed up in something.

"I'm just sorry I wasn't enough for you," she replied as she grabbed her coat. "You just turned out to be one of those same idiots I hoped you weren't."

[singingdrummer]

"Wha..? Babe, it's not that. You're more than enough."

He watched helplessly as she walked out, realising that she was right about one thing; he was an idiot. An idiot who needed to do something, to fix this before it's too late.

"Fuck. That's the last time I'm going near that twat and his 'good stuff'.. I can't lose her like this."

[highfidelity]

If only he knew how much it hurt Meredith to leave him there. But all she thought was that she had been right about him all along. She had taken a huge risk by asking him to be her first, the person she wanted to fall in love with. And then he'd gone and blown it like this. In her eyes if he had really cared about her, he wouldn't have gotten messed up. He would have remembered she was waiting for him.

But she just went home and cried, feeling like a fool for wasting herself on a man who had sweet-talked her and she'd fallen for it.

[singingdrummer]

The same day he got discharged, he packed his bag and said his goodbyes to the band. He couldn't live that life anymore, not after it cost him the first thing that had actually meant something to him. The woman he had fallen in love with.

Ben wouldn't be seen in that town for the next month or two.

[highfidelity]

Meredith didn't notice he was gone. She didn't say anything about it to anyone, and she didn't date either, too ashamed to allow herself to get close to someone like that anymore. She kept her head down and kept to herself, until she got home one day to find him on her doorstep. So shocked she dropped her bag.

"...What are you doing here?"

[singingdrummer]

"Hello, Meredith."

He had changed his hair to a shorter style and said bye bye to eyeliner. Ben Lacey was Ben Sergeant again.

"Is it alright if I come in?"

[highfidelity]

"I suppose."

Since he was between her and the door anyway. She was shocked but also guarded. Picking her bag back up and moving past him to unlock the door, letting him follow as she moved to put her groceries into the kitchen.

"What do you want, Ben?"

[singingdrummer]

"I wanted to see you. To talk."

He closed the door behind him, following her with slightly unsure steps. This was the first time he'd seen her since his massive mistake.

"I left town.. and the band. That night made me realize what I had become. And seeing the hurt and sadness on your face.. Losing you, the love of my life. I couldn't live that life anymore."

[highfidelity]

Meredith stopped halfway through unpacking her groceries and just stared at him. It was everything she wanted to hear him say, but she wasn't sure she could trust him anymore.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" she said softly. "I gave you everything I had and you still didn't keep your word to me. I don't know if I can believe you."

[singingdrummer]

"I had a career but I chose to go away and fix myself.. At the end of the day you were the most important one. I couldn't live with myself after I watched you walk away.. Our first night haunted me every single day. The feeling of utter happiness.. for the first time in years."

Ben sighed, running a hand through his hair. No one hated him more than he did.

[highfidelity]

"That's all just words, Ben." Meredith sighed, putting her groceries in the fridge before she leaned up against the counter and looked at him. "You said a lot of nice things to me that night too, but they weren't enough to keep you from getting high."

She exhaled. She didn't want to humiliate him but she needed him to understand how much he had hurt her.

"Do you know how worthless I felt? How humiliated? I wait for the right man to be with my whole life and then you don't even care about me enough to not make such a stupid bloody decision? I felt like you used me."

There were tears in her eyes just thinking about it. She was still too nervous to be physically intimate with anyone anymore.

"I loved you. Maybe I still do."

[singingdrummer]

"I know I'm not exactly worthy of your trust right now, and I don't blame you. You gave your virginity and your heart to me, and I threw it away with one fucking stupid decision."

Ben understood exactly what he had done to her. How much she had been hurt.

"I love you too, Meredith. If I could take back what happened, I'd do it in an instant. That twat of a man is gone now.. I left him behind."

[highfidelity]

She looked at him for a long moment. Looking into him. Trying to find the sincerity in his words. It saddened her to know that her first memory of being with someone would always be tainted by what happened afterward.

"Do you need somewhere to stay?" she asked quietly after a moment. "What are you doing now?"

She wasn't going to throw him out especially when he said he'd left the band. She didn't know if he had any place else to go, or anyone to turn to. And her apartment wasn't much, but she could offer.

[singingdrummer]

Knowing that he'd tainted something so important to Meredith would stay with him for the rest of his life. He didn't feel like he deserved forgiveness.

"I've been doing some singing.. I still play the drums but not in any band." He nodded at her question. Ben didn't really have a place at the moment. There's no way he'd go and stay with his old mates, with their wild habits.

"If it's okay."

[highfidelity]

"It's fine. I've only got the one bedroom, but you can use the couch."

She didn't want him in the bed with her, at least not now. It was highly likely that once she forgave him they'd end up gravitating toward each other. But how to explain to him that she just didn't want to be touched? It was a hard subject to broach.

"Listen, I've got to take a shower and clean up for dinner," she said instead. "Why don't you unpack your stuff and...figure out whatever it is you're going to do."

Not recalling that when she left, since she'd pulled everything out after he left, he'd find her guitar and all of the music she'd been trying to write. She'd stopped hiding it when she didn't have anyone to hide it from.

[singingdrummer]

"That's fine. I've slept on couches before."

Ben smiled, watching her go. He wasn't going to push her into anything after what he did.

He looked around until the guitar caught his eye. A little surprised, he approached it and spotted a pile of papers with lyrics and notes.

"Is this hers? This stuff is brilliant.."

[highfidelity]

Meredith was oblivious. She'd showered, changed and emerged from the bathroom with a pillow and some blankets for him to use. Not realizing what he'd stumbled into. "I'll leave these for you, and you can just use my bathroom," she said before she kept going into the kitchen. Time to make dinner. And try not to think about how awkward this was.

[singingdrummer]

"Okay. Thanks."

By then he had picked up the guitar, strumming to get a feel of it before he began playing one of the songs he'd found, singing softly.

[highfidelity]

The sound caught her attention from the kitchen, where she was putting dinner on, trying to portion it for the both of them. She was going to be a good host if nothing else. She paused and walked back into the living room, looking at him.

"You weren't supposed to ever notice that," she said, cluing him into the fact that she had never wanted him to know about her talents.

[singingdrummer]

"You'd want to keep all this hidden away? This is so much better than the stuff I've heard.. Your lyrics too."

Ben was both amazed and impressed at this revelation. No wonder she understood music so well.

[highfidelity]

"I tried, but never really went anywhere." She shrugged. "And once I got into the paper, I didn't want anyone saying I was only a critic because I was upset about my own career."

She settled on the arm of the couch. "It's been months since I've played, anyway." Hard to feel up to it or much of anything. She needed to heal that broken heart and to do that she'd have to open herself up to him again. She needed him even if she was scared to admit it.

[singingdrummer]

"Yeah.. I didn't have much of a motivation either."

Ben began to play something of his own this time. A song he wrote during his time away, once his inspiration returned. A song written for her.

[highfidelity]

She sat there and listened, ducking her head slightly to hide the blush. Her feelings for him had never died, but she was just so scared about being hurt again. Not sure what part of him was real and which was that rock star facade. "I thought you'd forget me," she said quietly after a moment. "I tried to forget you. Didn't really work."