Noel hadn’t been back to your place in a while—not properly. Not without a reason that came with a bag of excuses slung over his shoulder. Today, the excuse had brown eyes and a laugh that still caught him off guard.

Anaïs opened the door before You could get there, already halfway through a sentence about a drawing she’d made at Nursery.

Noel crouched instinctively, he smiled like this was the only place he’d ever want to be. “Alright, rock ’n’ roll?” he said, and she grinned because she knew it was their thing.

The flat smelled the same—coffee, something floral, the faint echo of a life he used to live. You appeared in the doorway, arms folded loosely, hair pulled back, expression unreadable but not unkind. Time had sanded the sharpest edges off you both.

“She’s been waiting all morning,” You said. “Course she has,” Noel replied, softer than he meant to be. You didn’t hug, didn’t need to.

There was an unspoken truce between you both now, built carefully out of shared responsibility and the mutual understanding that whatever they’d been, this—this—mattered more.

Anaïs dragged him toward her room, showing him toys, records You had let her touch, a picture she insisted looked like him (“It’s the eyebrows,” she said seriously). Noel laughed, really laughed, the sound surprising him. It felt cleaner than most things in his life lately. When she finally settled in front of the telly, Noel wandered back into the kitchen.

You poured him tea without asking, the way you always used to. Some habits refused to die quietly. “You alright?” You asked, not looking at him. He considered lying. It was an old reflex. But 2002 had stripped him down more than he liked to admit. Oasis was fractured, his confidence wasn’t what it used to be, and Sara—well. That door had closed with less drama than he’d expected, leaving behind a silence he hadn’t planned for.

“Yeah,” he said after a beat. “Getting there.” You nodded, like you understood the translation. You stood in companionable quiet, the past humming faintly between you both —not angry, not tender, just present. He looked at you then, really looked, and saw not the woman he’d fought with, or loved recklessly, or lost—but Anaïs’s mum. Stronger than either of them had been back then.

“You’re good with her,” You said quietly. “I’m trying,” Noel replied. “Didn’t come with a manual, did it?” You smirked. “Neither did you.”

Later, walking Anaïs to the park, Noel pushed her on the swing, higher and higher, her laughter cutting clean through his thoughts. For the first time in a long while, he wasn’t thinking about what he’d lost—or what came next. Just this moment. This small, grounding truth.

As the sun dipped low and you watched them from the bench, Noel felt something unfamiliar but welcome settle in his chest. Not regret. Not longing. Acceptance. Some love stories didn’t end neatly. Some transformed, shifted shape, found new meaning in unexpected places.

And as Anaïs leapt into his arms, demanding “one more push,” Noel Gallagher knew this—whatever had broken, whatever had failed—this was something he’d get right.