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Tea For One	By : TheFairyWithBoots Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Led Zeppelin Views: 188 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own any of these characters. Tea For One is my favorite Led Zeppelin song, and I felt the creative urge to use this couple as a muse for this piece. No disrespect is intended towards any real person mentioned in this fic.

Chapter List
- 1-Tea For One
- 1
October 1975
The silence in Robert Plant's bedroom was deafening as he sat alone in his wheelchair. The soft lapping of the waves on the shore could be heard outside, but he took little comfort in the sound. The villa Jimmy had rented in Malibu, California, had been buzzing with noise as the four of them sought inspiration for songs for their next album.
The sunny weather of the day seemed to mock Robert, for nothing could ease the longing he felt in his heart. His wife was on the other side of the Atlantic, far more seriously injured than he was from their car wreck in Greece two months earlier. He longed to be in England with her, but instead he was confined to a wheelchair. And the British tax authorities would most likely arrest him if he set foot in Wales again.
Robert's notebook was open on his desk as he rolled over to the kettle by the fireplace where he'd left it to boil some tea. He poured himself a cup. He wished more than anything that he were home with Maureen right now, pouring two cups of tea instead of one. Lost in her familiar, intoxicating embrace while Carmen and Karac slept peacefully in the next room.
Robert set his cup of tea down on his desk and picked up his pen before adjusting a small photograph he had leaned against the desk lamp where he had been writing in the dim light. It was a photograph of him and Maureen at Jennings Farm. It had been taken when their daughter was just a toddler. Maureen had her arms around his waist in an almost possessive, territorial embrace. He closed his eyes and felt tears burn his eyes as his heart yearned for happier times.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. The minutes passed agonisingly slowly. He took his pen to his paper and continued writing the lyrics he had been working on:
“How come twenty-four hours
Sometimes seem to slip into days?
Oh, twenty-four hours
Baby sometimes seem to slip into days
One minute seems like a lifetime
Oh baby when I feel this way”
The car wreck was not something Robert liked to replay in his mind. But in the dead of night, his brain ran away from him. The sense of horror that he felt as he looked over to see his wife lying motionless next to him, with blood running down her face, and the cries of Carmen, Karac and Scarlet in the background piercing his ears. The children were traumatised but physically unharmed. The brief moment when he thought his wife was dead was with him late into the night, an invasion of his dreams. Often he would wake up in a cold sweat. He felt the urge to pull his wife's small frame close to him, to hold her protectively to his chest. But then he remembered: He was alone in his bed, thousands of miles away from her, with a broken leg.
It was bad enough that he was away from home so much on tour and that he hardly ever got to see her. He blamed himself for being unable to return to the woman and children he loved, even though his broken leg and the tax exile he and the rest of the band were in made it physically impossible. Not to mention that he was told he would not be able to walk in six months, and even then, it was never guaranteed he’d make a full recovery.
He had memories of the way her eyes would light up when he came home from a long tour. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him close, as if afraid he would drift away again. She was much smaller than him - almost a foot shorter. She would bury her face in his chest without bending down, while he buried his face into her thick dark hair and inhaled her familiar scent. Their two small children would be calling for him and running towards him with their arms reaching for him.
“To sing a song for you
That I recall you used to sing
Baby this one’s for we two
Which in the end is you anyway”
Robert continued to scrawl away in his notebook. Maureen had been transferred back to England, but he couldn't stay more than a few days at a time because of British tax laws. He would have been at risk of heavy taxation and possibly even arrest. In spite of this, he felt a pang of guilt that he had not stayed by his wife's side while she was in hospital.
It had been his choice to leave her there, he realised, the guilt growing inside him. His heart felt like it was being squeezed by a giant fist as he imagined her waking up alone in the hospital room and realising that he was not there. She had always been there for him, taking him in when he had no other place to go. And when she had needed him the most, he had fled to another continent.
He felt as if there was a barrier between them that was far larger than the vast ocean and the thousands of miles that separated them at that very moment. As if the memory of holding her in his arms with their children on either side of them felt like years ago.
He became more and more morose as he sat alone at his desk, wondering if this rock'n'roll thing really meant anything at all.
“There was a time when I stood tall
In the eyes of other men
But by my own choice I left you woman
And now I can’t get back again”
Maureen wouldn't want him to blame himself. He knew that. But for now, he didn't care about his tax exile, he wanted his foot to heal so he could catch the first plane back to England. He wanted to see the beautiful, shining faces of Carmen and Karac again, to hold his three-year-old son in his arms and to hear him laugh.
He also wanted this damn leg to heal so that he could once again be the strutting rock lion that he had once been.
Robert closed his notebook before looking back at the photograph on his desk. After all the years they'd been together, Maureen's beautiful features were etched in his mind. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, possessing all the power and radiance to rid his mind of all rational thought.
He felt a weight lift from his chest as he turned off the lamp, leaving him in the dim moonlit room with the soft sounds of the waves lapping at the shore outside. Only now the sound brought him a peaceful sense of solitude. He felt less lonely now. It was as if he had been communicating with Maureen through space and time during his writing session. It was almost... a spiritual feeling. He wondered for a moment if she was feeling the same way at this very moment.
Crawling into bed from his chair, he settled into the pillows, being careful not to lie on his foot. He placed a pillow under it, following the doctor's instructions to keep it elevated while he slept. He hoped for a time in the future when he would be able to lie beside Maureen again, and they would be lost in their reunion. But for the time being, he found himself falling into the peaceful realms of a much-needed sleep.
- 1
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Tea For One