There Is No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin - Hozier, "Take Me To Church".
-.-.-.-
Meet a nice Christian boy, get married and give me some grandkids is what Alison's mother had always told her. Meet a nice Christian boy that can give you a good life, then get married and give me some grandkids is what her father had always half-jokingly added. It had been the plan from day one, and even when Alison was seventeen and found out she wouldn't be able to have kids the plan hadn't gone too far askew – give me some grandkids simply changed to adopt me some grandkids and everyone carried on gently coaxing Alison down the good Christian path in life.
There'd been hurdles – Chad and his agnostic views, coupled with is desire to become and actor rather than do something sensible and financially viable with his life like going after a law or business degree – though in her senior year of high school she found the one.
Donnie was perfect. He went to the same church Alison and her parents attended, he had big dreams to take over his father's accountancy firm, at eighteen he was already on board with the idea of someday having kids and most importantly of all, her parents loved him.
By the time Alison shipped off to college with Donnie in tow and her parents sad smiles waving her off she was sure all the pieces of her life had finally materialised themselves – and with a comforting contentedness sitting snug in her chest she'd set about creating this new life for herself one piece at a time.
There was only one chink in the chain that was Alison's meticulous plan, and said disturbance was currently rat-a-tat-tatting on the door of Alison's dorm room at half ten on a Saturday night (were there not parties to go to or something?).
"Elizabeth," Alison greeted, giving the girl a withering look as she stood there with what appeared to be a schoolbag slung across one shoulder.
"Seriously Ali, call me Beth," the other girl replied with a grin, stepping into the room without waiting for an invitation, and peering around the area curiously. "Got the place to yourself I see… nice."
"I just got lucky I guess," Alison informed her curtly – though she did distinctly remember her elation when she'd found out she had a dorm room to herself.
"You should throw a party sometime, you know take advantage and all that," Beth suggested, throwing her rucksack down on Alison's single bed.
"I'd hardly consider that appropriate," Alison snapped. "I also hardly consider it appropriate for you to be showing up here unannounced this late in the evening," she added when Beth turned back to face her.
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," Beth hummed, apparently glad that Alison had bought up the topic. "You see we've had several interesting run ins since we started here, and ever since the party a few nights ago I keep seeing you around yet I find myself knowing so little about you," she explained.
"Maybe that's the way I like it," Alison didn't miss a beat though Beth merely laughed at her comment.
"Touché," Beth nodded, appreciating Alison's light jab. "Unfortunately for you though, I'm not so big a fan, so how about…" she sat down on the bed, and patted the mattress space beside her. "We take the evening to chill and get to know one another."
"I could have plans."
"Unless those plans involve wandering around campus in pink flannel pyjamas then I doubt that very much," Beth snorted, patting the bed more firmly this time. "Come on Ali, whaddya say?"
"I say only my friends call me Ali," Alison shot back, though even against her better judgement she finally shut the door of her room and crossed the narrow floor space to sit next to her intruder.
"Lucky we're friends then," Beth told her with a wink, and Alison couldn't help but blush.
"Friends?" Alison tested the weight of the word on her tongue as her hands absently moved to the cross that was in permanent residence around her neck.
"For now," Beth nodded, no innuendo behind her words, just a simple statement that Alison knew only too well was true.
This right here was where Alison's problem lay. Elizabeth Childs was far from perfect. She didn't humour the idea of there being a god, she dreamed of becoming a professional athlete, or if that failed maybe a cop, and she'd admitted that kids just weren't for her. Most importantly though, Alison knew her parents would hate her if they ever met.
Yet two nights ago when she'd allowed Donnie to drag her along to a dorm party after weeks of begging, only to have him pass out in a corner after an hour, it had been Beth that had come to the rescue of her night – she'd stood and talked with her for what felt like hours, eventually suggesting they go sit in the hall to get away from the noise. She'd also been the one to wrap her arm around Alison's waist and pulled them flush together as they watched people stagger one by one from the doorway across from them, shouting about the best party ever before stumbling off down the corridor. Even when Alison had eventually admitted to her own drowsiness it had been Beth and not Donnie that had walked her back to her dorm, and who'd kissed her goodnight in the doorway as if the chaste way their lips brushed together was the most normal thing in the world.
It was the imperfect Beth Childs that Alison felt herself falling for; not Donnie and the ideal life he symbolised, and for some reason she couldn't quite bring herself to stop.
"So," Alison offered up into the comfortable silence that'd fallen. "What exactly is your grand plan for this evening?"
"I have one or two things in mind…" Beth suggested coyly. "Though I suppose I should ask the host what she wants to do first," she continued politely.
"This was your idea as far as I remember," Alison fired back.
"Great, Twenty Questions it is!" There was a glint in Beth's eye that Alison wasn't sure about, still she gulped and nodded.
"You go first then," she sighed, mimicking Beth and repositioning herself so they were sitting facing one another on the mattress.
"First kiss?" Beth started into the good stuff instantly, not feeling the need to tip-toe around it with favourite colour and favourite book questions.
"Chad Norris when I was sixteen," Alison nodded, not at all deterred. "You?"
"Art Bell… fourteen." The way Beth worded it sounded almost like a challenge. "Did you date him?"
"No, my parents didn't approve," Alison replied with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "Did you date Art?"
"No, though we're pretty good friends now," Beth informed her. "Why didn't your parents approve?"
"They didn't think he was marriage material," Alison told her, the slightest notion of discomfort beginning to cloud around the edges of her brain as they slowly moved to territory she wasn't that entire cosy in. "First boyfriend?"
"Never had one," Beth barely replied before moving along to her next question. "Would your parents approve of me?"
Alison hesitated before she answered, though she knew the name of the game was honesty and it was the only reason she didn't appease Beth with a lie. "No. No they would not."
"Why?" Beth didn't give Alison a chance to come up with a question.
"You're not following the rules," Alison huffed, not all that eager about the topic they were steering into.
"I'm a rebel," the other girl jested lightly. "Now come on, I'm a pretty great girl, what could possibly be wrong with me?"
"I have a boyfriend," Alison told her? Reminded her? She wasn't actually sure if Beth had been aware of the reason behind Alison's presence at the party, and she was so rarely with Donnie on campus that she was almost certain she'd never seen them together before that.
"Does he make you happy?" Beth pushed, showing no signs of shock at the news.
"I'm…" Alison paused, long enough for Beth to ask again.
"Does he make you happy Ali?" And somewhere in the deep murky pools of Beth's eyes Alison could see the unspoken "like I do".
"I'm content," she settled on eventually. "Now can we get back to our game?"
"Sure, my turn," Beth agreed, asking her next question before Alison had the change to protest the fact that she'd taken the last five turns. "Have you ever read Brave New World?"
"Uh… no… I've not… why?" To say she felt whiplashed from the sudden change in direction would have been an understatement.
"There's a line in it," Beth explained, her voice oddly sincere. "Being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt."
"What does that ha-"
"Do you want to kiss me again?" Beth cut in, her voice still just as serious and her eyes just as intense.
"Yes," Alison found herself saying, without really letting the words run through her brain first for authentication.
"Then why're you letting contentedness get in your way?"
She didn't have an answer, so instead she closed the space between them. This wasn't at all like their first kiss; there was nothing chaste or fleeting about it. This time there was a permanence to it, as Beth's hands travelled to Alison's waist to pull her closer, and Alison's cupped Beth's jaw, with one slowly snaking to the back of her neck. Alison felt herself pushed back into the mattress and as she lay enveloped between the linen and the woman above her she let her tongue slide across Beth's bottom lip, sighing happily when her message was received and hot lips parted to allow her tongue room to explore.
They lay there, a flurry of hands and tongues and shedding layers, and Alison realised for one fleeting second as Beth's lips danced across her collarbone that the pieces of her life were quickly slipping through her fingers and she didn't quite have it in her to care.
-.-.-.-
"You know having a girlfriend's kind of a big deal for me," Alison hummed a few weeks later; lying on the floor with her shoulder knocking off Beth's and text books spread out around them as she toyed absently with the cross around her neck.
"Oh, so I'm your girlfriend now?" Beth teased, biting her lower lip when she looked into the set of eyes next to her.
"I dumped Donnie today…" Alison offered as a reply, cheeks colouring slightly as she watched Beth's eyes go wide.
"You what?" The other girl gasped, laughing when Alison gave a small nod of conformation. "I thought you were going to wait until after you went home for Christmas?"
"I was…" Alison agreed. "But then I realised that I didn't like sneaking about with you, and that I didn't want to spend the next two weeks doing it."
"How do you think your parents will take it?" Beth questioned.
"What, me dumping the man of their dreams or me having a girlfriend?"
"Both?"
"They're just gonna have to accept it… I mean they've really got no other choice," Alison shrugged, though even as she said it the alternative crept up in her mind and a wave of anxiety washed across her chest.
-.-.-.-
Beth was singing to herself as she walked down the hall towards Alison's dorm – she didn't sing often, though she'd gotten an A on her history paper today, and she'd set a new personal best when she was out for her run, so basically today was a good day and why the hell shouldn't she sing.
She knocked quickly on Alison's door out of habit at this point, before reaching for the handle anyway and pushing the door open. It jammed however, and Beth could feel the weight of another body push back from the other end as she tried to muscle her way in.
"Ali?" She questioned, squeezing her foot between the door and the frame to stop it from closing.
"You need to go," Alison whimpered, and panic flared up in Beth's chest at the sound of tears straining her girlfriends voice.
"Ali no, no I'm not leaving until you let me in," Beth told her firmly.
"Please Beth?" The other girl sniffled, still refusing to take her weight off the door.
"Ali honey, tell me what's wrong?" Beth pleaded; her voice soft but firm as she leaned against the door but didn't push back against Alison's weight. "Please?"
She was barely able to catch herself when the door was flung open a split second later, and she immediately regretted leaning against the door when she tumbled unceremoniously into the room. Alison's body caught her though, and in the same breath of air she felt two arms fly around her neck and Alison's head burrow into her shoulder. She managed to close the door awkwardly with her foot, and once she'd wrapped her own arms securely around Alison's waist she led them both back towards her bed where they hit the mattress with a gentle thud.
"Wanna tell me what's wrong?" Beth whispered; her words soft against the damp skin of Alison's cheek as she rolled herself so they were now lying side by side and face to face.
"Not right now, no," Alison admitted through whimpered sobs. "Can you just…" and she faltered, though Beth took the hint, pulling their bodies flush together and running her hands soothingly through her girlfriends chocolate brown locks.
It felt like hours before either of them spoke again – Beth thought about asking questions several times as they lay there, though in each case the words stuck in her throat and instead she only pulled Alison closer, still feeling tears stain the skin at the crook of her neck. Eventually Alison did speak though, her words small and frightened, like a child that'd just been caught drawing on freshly painted walls.
"My parents are coming." Her words were ominous and Beth knew the foreboding tone was no exaggeration. "Donnie saw you kissing me goodbye a few days ago after we had lunch together… he told them," she added when Beth didn't speak.
"I'll kill him," Beth's tone was low but grave, and Alison felt her body tense with rage.
"Please don't," she managed to joke weakly. "I could really use you out of prison."
"He can't do that though," Beth insisted more seriously now, her body going lax again and her hand resuming its motions through Alison's hair. "He has no right he can't just…"
"He's still mad I broke up with him," Alison explained to her. "And now that he knows I left him for a girl he's even madder so he told my parents I'm gay and now…" She hesitated and her breath stuck somewhere in her throat.
"God they're coming to take you to a Jesus camp or something, aren't they?"
"All they said on the phone is that they wanted to talk to me," Alison shrugged. "I don't… I don't think they believe it's true."
"That's what we'll do then," Beth nodded, seeming to have come up with a plan of action. "When they get here I'll just stay away for a few days and you can like… prove to them that you're still straight… I know a guy called Paul I could even rope into being your boyfriend for a few days and…"
"Beth no," Alison sighed, one hand coming to rest over her girlfriends chest. "No, I want you… I need you here with me when they get here. I need you here when I tell them."
"Tell them what?" Beth asked for clarification.
"When I tell them I'm in love with a girl."
-.-.-.-
In all the times they'd help hands, walking home from the library in the evening, or across the table at dinner, Beth's had never felt anything but natural grasped in her own. In the few months they'd been seeing one another she'd managed to map out every bump, groove, and crease in her girlfriends skin, and as a knock sounded on her door and she called for her parents to come in it was that familiarity that comforted her even as all else seemed lost.
When she stood from the bed she instinctually slipped her fingers free from where they'd been entwined with Beth's, and pulled a long breath into her chest as she watched the door open slowly. Her father entered first, his face completely neutral, and close behind was her mother, her face sharp yet just as emotionally ambiguous. Alison's hand moved instinctually to the cross around her neck.
"Gay." Was the first word her father said to break the tension; no word of greeting, no mention of how much they missed her since she'd been home last, just one word, one cold, empty word.
"In love," Alison corrected, with a confidence she knew would be short lived under the intense stare.
"With a girl," her father countered in a low snarl, as if daring his daughter to confirm her filthy accusation.
"Yes," Alison nodded, drawing in a shaky breath before she continued. "With Beth. I'm… I'm in love with Beth," she added, casting a fleeting look at the woman in question who was sitting on her bed, seeming to absorb the conversation unfolding in front of her.
"Then you're no daughter of mine." The words hung in the air between them for what felt like an eternity, and when Alison finally let the reality sink in it felt like an anvil had been dropped from her ceiling and landed in the centre of her chest.
"Daddy?" Even Alison was caught off guard by how child like the word sounded on her tongue, though her father didn't even seem to blink.
"You're no daughter of mine," he repeated, his voice leaving no room for emotion.
"Mom?" Alison turned to face the woman that had sung her to sleep each night as a child.
She was met with a blank stare though – a look that seemed to be directed through her rather than at her, and for some reason it hurt Alison worse than anything her father could ever say.
"Please?" She turned back to her father, though the rest of her sentence caught in her throat behind the lump that was rising rapidly.
"We're going to leave now Alison," her father explained, seeming to want to avoid any kind of emotional encounter. "Goodbye." He turned on his heel, grabbing his wife's hand – though he didn't quite make very far.
"To hell you will," Beth snarled, and all occupants of the room turned to face her, seeming to have forgotten she was there at all. "How could you?" She spat, rising from the mattress to make the most of her small, athletic frame. "She's your daughter!"
"No," Alison's father warned. "Not anymore… not with you corrupting her."
"She's your little girl!" Beth all but screamed, sounding more exasperated than anything. "She's the same little girl you taught to ride a bike, and whose soccer matches and school plays you went to. She's your little girl and when she was six years old and you told her you loved her there was no terms or conditions to that love, so why the fuck should there be now?"
"She chose…" Her father began, his face reddening – and Alison couldn't tell if it was embarrassment or rage.
"Fucking bullshit!" Beth screamed, and Alison realised there was tears in her voice at the exact same moment she realised she had tears of her own staining her cheeks. "You're the only one making a choice here. You're making a choice because you're afraid of something you don't understand, but you know what," her voice fell and if Alison had though the screaming had been frightening she was sure there was nothing on earth more terrifying than Beth's voice laced with this much hatred. "You're wrong, and it'll be you that suffers more for it, because nothing that we're doing is sinful, and if you can't see that it'll be you going to hell."
Alison felt Beth's fingers lace through her own, and she shuffled closer to her girlfriends side. She could feel Beth shaking with rage next to her, and she could see a similar fury radiating from both her parents across the room –she almost expected her father to scream something back and tear down the girl that had dared speak up to him. Instead though he was silent, and after a moment, with his hand still holding his wife's, he turned on his heel, this time leaving the room and closing the door behind him with such force it shook the single picture hung on Alison's wall.
Years from now Alison would still marvel at the fact that it was the same person that had torn chunks out of her father that spooned her that night, whispering soft words of reassurance against the shell of her ear and running strong fingers through her hair as she cried herself to sleep.
-.-.-.-
Beth was reading over case files at the kitchen counter when she felt a familiar pair of arms slide delicately around her waist and a set of lips kiss the way up the back of her neck towards her ear. "I'm home," a soft voice muttered as a chin came to rest on her shoulder.
"I can see that," Beth hummed, swinging herself around in the bar stool to face her fiancée. "How'd the fitting go?"
"Well my mother didn't show up," Alison informed her with a tight shrug, pulling away from the embrace to speak, though Beth caught both her hands in her own to prevent her from going too far. "Though your mom was there, and so was Sarah and Cosima so it didn't matter," she added; referring to the two women Alison and Beth had met in their second year of college and become quick friends with.
"I'm sorry Ali," Beth sighed, running her thumbs over the other woman's knuckles.
"Well you know, they sent back the wedding invite so she was hardly going to turn up at my final fitting," she tried to brush it off, though Beth knew only too well after years together that it was still a major cause of distress in Alison's world.
"Still though, you're their daughter… it's gotten to a point where they're just being fucking morons," Beth huffed, wishing there was a way she could just knock some sense into them.
"You know I hate it when you swear like that," Alison chastised, smiling when Beth rolled her eyes.
"Not relevant right now," Beth groaned.
"Always relevant," Alison corrected. "I'm trying to train you so by the time we have our five kids you'll automatically use words like frick instead."
"First of all, I'd rather just not swear than say frick," Beth snorted. "And second of all, two Alison, we agreed on two." It had taken a little convincing, but after enough walks past the playground, and evenings spent babysitting Sarah's young daughter Alison had converted Beth to the idea of motherhood.
"We'll talk about it after the honeymoon dear," Alison patronised, lacing their fingers together and leaning in to place a soft kiss on the tip of her fiancée's nose.
"I feel like I'm going to lose this argument anyway… so fine," Beth huffed, extending her neck when Alison went to pull away and capturing her lips in a chaste kiss.
"It's not an argument," Alison corrected, her forehead now resting against her fiancée's. "Though if it were, then yes, you would lose."
Beth laughed at her comment and the pair fell into comfortable silence for a moment, toying with one another's hands and stealing quick kisses when they felt like it. Eventually Alison's face changed – only minutely, but just enough for Beth to know there was something she wanted to say.
"What?" The cop hummed, her breath warm and fuzzy against Alison's cheek.
"Nothing, just thinking," Alison replied vaguely, pulling her forehead away and straightening her back as she released an airy sigh.
"About?" Beth prompted, letting her fingertips trace over Alison's palms.
"Just… about us I guess," Alison explained slowly. "And the fact that right from the very start, from the very first time we kissed, I never once considered pushing you away to make my life easier."
"Oh yea?" Beth tried to remain neutral, but a smile cracked the corners of her lips regardless.
"Yea, and it would have been so much easier you know," Alison continued, one hand freeing itself from Beth's as her fingers danced across the golden cross on her neck. "Everything would've been so much easier if I had, but it was never an option, not loving you was never an option."
"I'm glad," Beth whispered after a moment.
"So am I," Alison nodded in agreement, her hand falling away from her cross and back into Beth's palm. "I thank God every day for putting someone as perfect as you in my life Elizabeth Childs."