Chapter 286:

The alarm went off and it was two very tired people that dragged themselves out of bed. It was almost two hours before daylight and their bodies cried out for more sleep.

“Please promise me you'll come back and take a nap.” Seb asked as they dressed after a quick shower.

As much as it was torture to say goodbye to him at the airport, she wanted to be with him for as long as possible. This was going to be one of their longest separations since they had found each other again. She was going to drive the Escalade and Urs and Alex were going to ride with them.

Maman and Mary were waiting for them in the kitchen when they came down. Mary had fixed a light breakfast for them and had it set out on the table along with the much needed cups of coffee.

“Don't you worry about anything here, Seb. We'll all be fine. You just be sure to take good care of yourself while you're away. Make sure you eat right as much as possible and take your vitamins.”

“I will Maman.” Seb said, while trying to stifle a grin..

Mary took his hand across the table. “We're going to get all of this worked out for Lisa and the children to go with you. I know this first bit of time away will be hard but just remember that it will be over and then they will be with you.”

“I know, Mary. Thanks.” Seb smiled and sounded much less depressed than he had yesterday.

With all of the talking he and Lisa had done about the details last night, he was gaining more hope that things would indeed work out. They had six weeks to finalize all the details, arranging planes and tour buses for them as they followed him to many of the cities they would sing in.

He even thought that he would arrange surprises of some fun outings for them all when he had a day off here and there.

He wanted so badly to wake the children up and say one final goodbye but, he knew that it would only make things harder for him as well as the children. So he said goodbye to Maman and Mary and then loaded his luggage into the Escalade.

As usual, Jim was up and outside, waiting to be of help. Debbie came outside and joined them all in the front of the house.

“Debbie, you take good care of yourself and that baby.” Seb said hugging her and kissing her cheek.

“I will and you take care. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting to come to a concert when you hit the states in the spring and summer.”

“That will be great. I know they're working on setting some dates for Florida, not sure when though.”

Nobody had noticed that Hannah had come out and joined them.

“What are you doing up so early, young lady. You have to be up for school in a couple of hours.”

“I know, Mom but I wanted to say goodbye to Seb.”

“Alright but then you get back in bed and sleep for a while or you'll be exhausted in school.”

“Yes, Ma'am.” she said then turned to Seb. “Bye Seb. I'll help out with the kids while you're gone.”

“ I knew you would and I appreciate it, Hannah. Thank You. It helps me when I have to go to know that Lisa has so much help here. You take care and I'll see you when I get back.” He gave her a hug, noticing that she still blushed a bit when he did.

There had been no problems since Amanda hadn't been coming around. She had become a bit of a bad influence on Hannah and her parents hadn't even had to put a stop to the relationship. Hannah had done it herself. She spent her time with Jenny now, who seemed a much better influence on Hannah. Both girls studied hard and pushed each other to get better grades and this kept them both out of trouble.

“Well, I guess we'd better get going. We still need to pick Urs and Alex up.” Lisa said.

“Right. Well goodbye everyone. I'll miss you all.” Seb said sounding a bit choked up.

Everyone gave him one last hug before he held the door for Lisa to get into the passenger seat. He went around to the driver's side and waved once more before he slid into his seat.

No one saw the little girl standing at the window, waving as her Papa drove away.

*

Seb reached across the space in between them and took Lisa's hand as they drove through the woods. When they had gone about half way, he stopped the truck, turning it off completely.

“What are you doing, Seb?”

“I wanted just a few more mintues alone with you. We've got plenty of time.”

He leaned over and pulled her into his arms and crushed her to him before he covered her lips with his own.

“I love you, Ma Cherie. I know the tour will be better now but, this next six weeks will be horrible without you.”

“You'll be so busy, you won't hardly have time to miss me.”

“Nonsense! I'll miss you every minute I'm away from you. Don't you ever think anything different.”

“I know, Seb and I will miss you even when I'm up to my eyeballs in kids, toys and dirty diapers.” she said trying to inject some lightness into this hard task of saying goodbye.

It worked, as he laughed at the vision this created in his mind, knowing she wasn't exaggerating, too much.

They picked up Urs and Alex. Urs had quietly kissed a sleeping Aaron goodbye. He would stay with Mami this morning.

Luggage was loaded and both Urs and Seb kissed Mami goodbye with promises that they would take care of each other. Once they were in the car, Alex joked that it sounded like they were two boys off to summer camp and their Moms were having trouble letting them go off on their own.

*

Lisa and Alex got special passes to go to the boarding gates and stayed with the guys. They found their departure gate and saw that the gate that Vicki and the kids were waiting at with Carlos was just two gates down.

It was pretty quiet in the airport at this early time of the morning so the guys weren't too worried about running into a bunch of Divas. They were always prepared for one or two though. They all gathered together and Lisa sat next to Amelia and listened to her tell all about their trip to Spain.

“You are going to have a great adventure going to another new country. You'll have to tell us all about it when we see you again.”

“Ok I will, Aunt Lisa.”

It had been decided and discused simply with Amelia that she should call them Aunt Lisa and Uncle Seb since Carlos and Vicki were going to be her Mama and Papa. It was still taking some getting used to. Lisa hoped that this separation for a time might help them all adjust to the new arrangement.

The others were so happy when Seb and Lisa told them of the tentative plans for her and the children to be able to travel during the tour.

“You know you'll have lots of help. When Mami and I are there, we can help out too.” Alex said.

“Yeah Me too.” Vicki added.

“Yes well, you two have your own children to care for. It sounds like we'll have plenty of help along the way.”

“I'm really glad that Mom and Dad have decided to do some traveling now that he's retired. He's worked so hard his whole life. It's time he got to enjoy it for a while.” Alex said getting teary as she thought of almost losing her Dad.

Urs knew that Alex was already emotional with him leaving. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulled her close to his side and kissed her cheek.

As time grew closer for the guys to leave, they all spread out and said their private goodbyes, hugs and kisses were given and words of love were spoken.

All too soon, their flight was called. The guys hung back for as long as they dared before they finally said their final goodbyes and boarded the plane, taking Seb and Urs away from the girls for what would be the longest six weeks of their lives.

Carlos was the last to board after holding Carlito once more and then Amelia as he hugged and kissed her and promised that it would only be about a week before he would see her again. Then with one last kiss for Vicki and a wave to them all, he joined Urs and Seb just inside the walkway and they all turned and waved, blowing kisses before they turned and moved out of sight.

Lisa and Alex waited with Vicki, helping to amuse Amelia while she waited the final hour for their flight and then they left the airport and headed for home.

“I know you have Mami there for a while but, you need to keep busy these next few weeks, we both will. This is not going to be easy.”

“I know and Mami is going to leave for a month and then come back in time to fly to London with us in February. But we are really getting going with Aaron's therapy and I want to learn as many exercises for him as I can before we leave. So we'll be keeping pretty busy. But we don't have near the preparations that you do to go on tour. You let me know what I can do to help.”

“I will. I'm glad we'll be going but, after the trip to Paris, I know this is going to take some major planning.”

Lisa dropped Alex off then went home, intending to keep her promise to Seb about getting a nap before the day began. But when she went upstairs and passed Holly's room, she could hear muffled sounds of her crying.

She quietly opened the door and poked her head into the room and saw Holly sitting on the floor beneath her window with her head buried against her drawn up knees.

“Holly....Sweetheart...What's wrong?”

“Papa went away.”

“I know Baby and we will really miss him won't we.” Lisa said as she sat next to her and drew Holly against her side. This opened the floodgates and Holly cried harder.

Lisa pulled Holly into her lap and just held her close and let her cry until she settled down.

“Will he come back?”

“Well of course he'll come back, Sweetheart. He loves us very much and he was sad too that he had to leave us to go to work.” Lisa wanted so badly to tell Holly that they would definitely be going on the tour and would be spending lots of time with Seb. But she didn't dare to tell the children before more arrangements had been made and it was more certain that they would actually go.

“We''ll talk to Papa later. He's going to call us. We'll either speak to him on the phone or on the computer. Come on now. You lie down for a little longer and get some rest before it's time to get up for school.”

Holly stayed clinging so tightly to Lisa's hand that she wound up climbing into Holly's bed and falling asleep right next to her and that is where Mary found her when she came to wake Holly to get ready for school.

*

Although the first couple of weeks were very hard to adjust, they all fell into their routines. The guys were all busy with promotions and rehearsing.

At home, Lisa and Alex were trying to get as prepared as possible to go on such a long trip away from home.

They met at Lisa's, along with Mom and Dad to go over dates and all of the arrangements for each move to another city. They all knew they would need to have this worked out as much as possible long before the first actual flight to London in a few weeks.

Miss Eva Dupree, a distant cousin of Seb's, made several visits to the Izambard house to meet with the children so that she and the children could get accustomed to one another. She would be the tutor for Jeremy and Holly and beginning the following September, Sammy would officially begin kindergarten, although he was already learning first grade material.

Miss Dupree was very impressed with the children and at each visit she took time with Lisa and went over lesson plans for each of the children, including some simple lessons for Sammy and even Kayti, who was now beginning to recognise her letters and always wanted to be right in the thick of things with the other children.

*

Some days were harder than others as they waited through the long weeks of separation.

Lisa tried keep Seb from really missing any important happenings by numerous emails and short videos of the children. She continued the videos she had begun making on his last trip away, not filming every day but making sure to let him in on things like the teeth that Holly and Jeremy were losing and seeing Jessica rolling around the floor. Sammy always held up drawings he had done to show Papa and told them he would give them to him when he came home.

One video she made that really made him homesick was seeing Lauren walking across the kitchen floor into Lisa's arms. Lauren had the biggest smile on her face and showed that she knew it was a big deal.

He could hear how much more verbal Kayti was getting, now very able to hold a full conversation. How much she had changed from the baby he'd met less than a year and a half ago.

When it became clear that Seb and Urs would not make it home until just a few days before they would have to fly back to London, Lisa and Alex told them both to just go on to London and they would meet them there. That way the guys could spend a few days resting before the first concert on the twenty first of February.

Seb had balked at this idea, saying that he could be of help to her on the flight over but, she had won that argument in the end because he knew she was right. They were all tired from the promotions and could very well use these days of rest.

David and Grace would be in London and Carlos was going to go home to Spain and spend a few days with his family there and then meet them back in London.

The end was coming to their time apart and Seb could not wait to hold Lisa in his arms and to hug his children.