Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: The first of my mini-Halle chapters. Let me know what you think!

Also, I didn't proof-read. Sorry, I'm busy with updates! :) Hehe.

Slumber Parties and Relaxation--2003

"Mo-om!" Halle whined, and I glanced over my shoulder in moderate irritation. Halle was having her first big slumber party of middle school. She'd been so nervous to move into the new, bigger school, and we figured that having her friends over for a girls' night of pizza, movies, and make-up was the perfect way to ease the transition. She could invite new friends and old and it would be… fun.

The problem was that I hadn't had many slumber parties growing up—and by 'not many' I mean none. You didn't have sleepovers in the foster homes I'd been in. So I'd gone online with Halle, looking for good ideas—and had somehow agreed to spend a day and a half baking so that they would have an ample variety of snacks to choose from. I was pulling my final batch of cookies from the oven when I heard her calling me, and frankly, I was irritated. …I could have pulled a triple and not batted an eye, but ask me to bake for my daughter and her five friends and it exhausts me…. What was that about?

But Halle rarely whined, so I set the cookies far back, to be sure that Andy wouldn't reach up and pull the hot pan down on himself, turned the oven off, and took off for Halle's room, realizing as I did that I had no idea where Andy was. …Gil wasn't home yet, and the last time I'd seen my two-year old monster, he'd been watching Nemo with Hank. I sped up—if there was anything I knew about my son, it was that he was often the cause of Halle's rare whines.

When I reached her bedroom—the one which had been Gil's just over two years ago—I saw the problem: Andy on the floor in front of her long mirror, covered in the brand-new make up kit we'd purchased for her and her friends to do silly makeovers, tonight. My jaw dropped, and then I was in action. I moved over the the child—brown ringlets and a devious smile—and lifted him roughly from the mess. I picked up the cover of the kit, which was no longer attached, and passed it to Halle.

"Go call Dad, tell him he needs to stop at Wal-Mart and pick up another one of these. Make sure you tell him exactly what you need… the brand name and the colors and everything, okay?"

She nods and runs out of the room, still wiping the tears from her face. If Halle had been a little less kind, she probably would have been screaming her anger at her little brother. Instead, she had called me and then stared at him in disbelief, angry tears streaking her face. I sighed, glancing at the mess. Well, there was nothing on the floor that couldn't be cleaned up in ten minutes as well as it could right now. I pressed my little boy to my hip and a moved into Gil and I'd bedroom, stomping to the bathroom and scolding him as I went.

"Andrew…" He looked away from me—we rarely used his full name unless he was in trouble. "You know it's not okay to play with Halle's things. You made a mess in her room, and you made her sad."

"Halle sad?" He asked, his dark blue eyes showing his honest remorse—he was a trouble maker, but he and Halle were very close.

"Yes." I said sternly. "Halle is very sad. You wrecked her makeup set."

His full bottom lip puckered out, and I wavered. "When we're out of the tub, you need to tell her you're sorry and give her a big hug."

He nodded, sadly, and I deposited him into the empty garden tub fully-dressed. He put his arms above his head and I grinned, stripping off the makeup-covered clothing and depositing it directly into the laundry hamper before having him sit his diaper-clad bottom on the edge of the tub while I checked water temperature and added bubble bath. He was sliding into the warm water when Halle returned.

"Dad wants to talk to you." She handed me my cell phone and I groaned in frustration.

"Hello?"

"Now what am I supposed to get?"

I tuck the phone into my shoulder and fill my hands with shampoo, soaping up the mop of hair on his head that I am certain is coated in lipstick. "It's a make-up set, for her slumber party. Andrew decided he wanted to wear it first…"

"Okay… so she told me the brand name, but there's… six different versions here. She had no idea what she wanted…"

"Okay, well… Andrew, lean back so Momma can rinse your hair… describe to me what's in them… like colors and things?"

This is not something you ask a scientist to do—he couldn't say, 'this one is mostly pinks' or 'blue eye shadow, red lipstick, pink blush.' No, no. It was far more complicated than that.

"Well, the first one has… let's see, three lips sticks. I would say… magenta, vermillion, and… scarlet. And the blushes are all pinkish… like, bubble gum, and… Barbie pink. And then there's the… eye stuff, you know? There's a really really dark blue—navy, almost, and then a brown… but not like a chocolate brown, it's more a cinnamon-y brown… and then…"

This was just one of the six sets. I was draining the tub and wrapping a towel around our son by the time he'd finished… and there was no way I could keep it all straight. "Buy one of each, Gil. And since you're out, did you want to stop and pick the pizza up? I was going to, but you won't be home in time and the girls will be arriving shortly…"

He grumbled, but agreed. Five minutes later and Andrew was pajama and diaper-clad and confined to his crib (which he'd been known to climb out of, on occasion), with Halle on guard. If he escaped, she was supposed to yell… because I just needed a minute to scrub her floor, Andy-free.

I finished as I heard the front door open and Hank bark just once, belatedly, before Gil's voice traveled up the stairs. "Sara…?"

I groan, taking my pail of water into Halle's bathroom to dump it out. "Up here, Gil!"

I listen to him move into the kitchen, probably setting the pizza down, and then move to head up the stairs. I reach the hallway in time to see him top the stairs and Halle abandon her guard post to run to give him a hug. He hugs her and hands her the bags of make-up and I immediately instruct her to put them in her room. Once she's out again, I close the door firmly to keep out two-year-olds just as Andrew swings a leg over the top of his crib.

Within seconds he's run out to give Daddy a big hug too, and I let out a frustrated breath. "Can you watch them while I change clothes quick? Girls are going to be arriving—" Ding-Dong! I sigh, "…any minute."

He kisses me softly. "I'll get it. You change." He scoops up Andrew and follows Halle—who is already running down the stairs—to answer the door.

Replacing makeup-strewn clothing with a clean pair of jeans and a tee shirt does wonders for my mood, and I'm smiling again as I step into the kitchen, where Halle and three other little girls are sitting around the table, sleeping bags and overnight bags strewn haphazardly across the kitchen tile.

"Hi girls!"

"Hello Mrs. Stevens." Said a girl I didn't recognize—which meant she was either Alex or Courtney.

"Just Sara is fine. What's your name?" …It's easier to let Halle explain, when she wants to.

"Alex." I smile. "It's nice to meet you, Alex."

I glance at the other two—one is Melissa, Halle's best friend from elementary school. She practically lives here, in the summer time. The other I don't recognize. I smile at the pair.

"Hello Melissa. How's your mother liking the book I lent her?"

"She says it's a hippie book." She giggles then. "But then she told me not to tell you that…"

I grin. "And you must be… Courtney?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sara is just fine, honey… do you girls want to wait to eat until Jess and Michelle arrive, or start now?"

Ding-Dong!

Gil laughs. "It's probably both of them… they arrive in packs."

I grin and turn to answer the door while my hilarious husband starts passing out plates and sodas. …Where was Andrew now? …Gil hadn't been holding him.

I open the door and let the girls in… tell them to help themselves to pizza, and chat with their mothers for a moment before closing the door… and then go on a search for my little monster. He's under the kitchen table, sprawled across Hank's back—and Hank looks a little indignant at this—eating pepperoni that the girls have dropped. I throw Gil an exasperated look and drag him out to sit in his booster chair and eat a clean piece of pizza.

The night proceeded very much like that… Gil's only responsibility was Andrew, and yet I kept finding him.

For example, after pizza, the girls ran outside to play on the swing set, and I started cleaning up the pizza, and the kitchen, and loading the dishwasher. Gil was watching Andrew… but then, he wasn't. He was pushing the girls on the swings—they're twelve, they can push themselves—and Andrew was sliding in the muddy garden with Hank.

They moved inside and put in a movie while I took Andrew upstairs for his second bath of the night, and Gil kept Hank outside for a bath with the hose.

When Hank was dry, he moved into the living room to act as a pillow for the gigglers, while I brought out a stack of generic pre-teen games… all of which seemed to involve discovering who your crush was. Gil was supposed to Andrew his bedtime snack, and put him to bed… I left the room to go to the bathroom, and when I returned, both boys were sitting in the circle of girls, and my husband held a pink cell phone to his ear, trying—apparently—to discover whether Chad or Jarred had a crush on him.

The girls were giggling madly, and Andrew was laughing because they were, and Gil was grinning because Halle was happy… even Hank had on a doggy smile. But I was not happy.

I took Andrew upstairs and put him to bed. He was so worked up, however, that instead of lying him in his crib and leaving him, I had to sit and pat his back to get him to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, I came downstairs to find the game all over the living room floor, the girls eating cookies and milk in the kitchen… messily.

I drew in a deep breath, attempting to quell my frustration, and cleaned the game up. When they trekked back into the living room, Halle was telling them about the make-up kits and then they were rushing up to her bedroom to put make-up on in front of her big mirrors.

"Don't wake your brother!" I warned feebly, before moving into the kitchen. Gil was watching a baseball game. And the place was trashed.

I rolled my eyes and cleaned the kitchen, Tupperware-d the cookies, and started the dishwasher that was now full. By the time I'd finished, the girls were shrieking and rushing down the stairs to put in another movie… their faces looking much more like showgirls' or… clowns' faces than I'm sure they intended. And then there was crying—Andrew was awake. I warned them to be quiet and rushed up to pat him back to sleep… and it was nearing ten o'clock when I came downstairs.

Now, I know the idea of these sleepovers is to stay up all night… but I was already sick of the idea. So I got the girls to get their sleeping bags and spread them out so they could all see the television and change into pajamas… and then informed them that it was quiet time… for the rest of the night, they needed to stay in the living room, unless they were getting a pop from the fridge, a pre-made treat of some kind, or using the bathroom.

…That should at least contain the mess.

Gil and I headed up to our bedroom, leaving the door open so we could hear if they were misbehaving, and I collapsed—exhausted—on the pillows. I fell asleep immediately, but awoke when one of the little girls was crying that she'd had a nightmare, because they'd decided they wanted to watch a scary movie before bed. Gil didn't get up—I got up, trekked downstairs, calmed her down, talked her out of calling her mother, as it was 3 am, and soothed her back to sleep.

When I woke up, the next morning, I could smell pancakes and bacon and my bed was empty. I showered and dressed and moved down to the kitchen, which was now trashed again… all the girls were taking turns at the bathroom to change into clothes, half of them were still eating, and Andy was so covered in syrup he might as well have been swimming in it. Wordlessly, I handed him to Gil. He could give him the bath this time.

I cleaned up the kitchen, helped the girls clean the living room and find all their missing socks, and roll up their sleeping bags. I helped smiled and chatted with mothers when they picked up their children, and could have cried with relief when Melissa's mother—raving over the 'hippie' book I'd lent her—invited Halle over for the afternoon to give me a break.

When they were all finally gone, I sighed deeply and went to work doing the real cleaning—not just picking up, but scrubbing and vacuuming and wiping up coke spills from my carpet.

By the time I'd finished and made it upstairs to see what Gil and Andrew could be doing that was taking so long, he was sound asleep in his crib, and Gil was sitting on our bed, waiting for me. When I entered the room, he smiled.

"Hey… how about a foot rub?"

I glare at him, perhaps a little more meanly than necessary. He looks baffled.

"…Is something wrong, Sara?"

"No! No… No. Nothing is wrong. …I have just spent the last twenty four hours preparing for this sleep over, scrubbing this house, corralling pre-teens, and bathing a two year old… and you… you washed a dog, you watched a baseball game, you cooked some pancakes, and you got your dream-guy to take you to the prom!" I'm screaming. ...Maybe I should stop screaming.

He raises an eyebrow. "…Sara… I was just trying to have fun with the girls."

I let out an exasperated breath. "Fun! I wanted to have fun with them too! …But I was too busy making sure the house didn't fall apart!"

He looks remorseful and tugs me into bed. And I'm too tired to offer and resistance when he rolls me onto my stomach and straddles me, slowly rubbing the tension from my back. And truly—it is so relaxing and gentle and wonderful that I find myself forgetting exactly why I was so mad at my lazy, inconsiderate husband.

…Well, almost forgetting.

And when I was completely relaxed, he pulled my shirt off gently, following his massaging hands with gentle kisses, up and down my back, until I'm shivering and my breath is coming faster and I can feel the smile on his lips every time they touch my skin. He gently lifts my hips and reaches in front to unbutton and unzip and slide my jeans from my limp legs and I groan, turning and opening a single eye to look over my shoulder at him.

"What, you think a back massage makes up for last night enough to get you laid?" He chuckles, knowing that I'm grumpy and not really serious—a glance at my panties told him that much.

"No, honey… this is going to be all for you…"

I shiver in anticipation at the rough, husky tone of his voice as he unlatches my bra and pulls it out from underneath me. I move to roll over, but he presses me down gently, shaking his head. "Just relax, Sara…"

And so I go limp, reveling in the feel of his fingertips and the scratch of his beard up and down the length of my back and the expanse of my shoulders and the hidden recesses of my inner thighs. I'm so lost that I hardly notice when my underwear slide down my legs and off, and I find myself strangely surprised when he lifts my hips again, gently spreading my legs and pressing himself snugly to me, his breathing ragged.

Lethargically, I try to move up onto my hands and knees to facilitate the encounter, but his palm to the center of my back stops me and his low voice comes again. "No, honey… just relax. I'll do everything…"

He pushed forward slowly—and though he couldn't go very deep, in this position, the feeling was still amazing and a low moan escaped my throat, my fingers gripping the sheets beneath me. "Shh…" he warned softly, as Andrew was still asleep in the room beside us, and allowed himself to slip inside as far as he could, before lowering us both down to the bed. He laid across my back and, other than arching my hips back to allow him access, I laid completely still, reveling in the feel of him inside me and the soft kisses he was placing on my neck.

Good lord, but I loved this man.

And when he started to move, it was like nothing I'd ever known. The thrusts were shallow, but he pushed against my g-spot with every movement, and slid his hand around my hips to press between my curls insistently, until I was writhing beneath him, my toes curled and my head tossing—I was completely out of control of my own body, simply reacting to the weight of him and the press of him and the utter bliss that came every time he moved inside me.

He had hardly done anything, and yet I found myself shuddering and shivering and then clenching my teeth and digging my nails into my pillow as an orgasm hit me hard and fast, ripping through me and leaving me exhausted and breathless.

Gil chuckled softly as my surprise made itself evident—a soft, panting 'Oh' in between each ragged breath. …And then he was moving again, and it was too soon… I was so sensitive I almost couldn't stand it, but I had no control over what he was doing to my body, nor over how it reacted… it was primal and mindless and so-fucking-unbelievable that I wasn't even aware of what had happened until I was tipping over the edge again, desperate and boneless and completely incoherent.

He nipped my ear softly and chuckled against it, laying soft, wet kisses across my shoulders and neck until I had come down some. "…What do you think, can you handle one more?"

I shook my head no, but my hips arched further back against him and he chuckled, pumping into me faster this time, brining me to the brink and keeping me there until I could tell from his moans behind me that he was close… and then the hand between my legs began to move again, and the whole logical world flew out the window and all I could even comprehend was the pulsing pleasure coursing through me, and the pulsing of him within me, a deeper and more profound pleasure because it was shared.

I don't know how my screams didn't wake up Andrew, but I was exceedingly glad that Halle was gone.

He rolled off me, when he'd caught his breath, and I turned to him with eyes out of focus, still breathless. He chuckled again. "…Did I redeem myself?"

I nod, slowly, forcing mobility into my limbs so that I could roll and rest my sweaty head to his equally sweaty chest. "…But… next time…"

He grinned, fully aware that if he did this again, there would be no way I would stay mad at him, but he nodded just the same. "Next time, I will help more and play less…" He dropped a kiss to the top of my head, grinning. "…as long as I don't have a date with Chad."

I nudge him exhaustedly, a reluctant smile breaking over my lips. "…You're such a good daddy, Gil."

He ducked his head down to capture my lips. "You're a good mommy, Sara." He pulled me tight to his body and sighed contentedly. "Sleep now… I'm sure you're exhausted after last night…"

And though his words were innocent, it was clear he meant that he had exhausted me, not the pre-teens. I opened my mouth to protest, and instead a question fell from them, unexpectedly. "…Where on earth did you learn to do that?"

He laughed out loud. "I dunno… it's kind of been playing itself out in my mind for weeks… I figured now was as good a time as any to try it out… let you relax."

I laugh again—a delicious, languid sound. "Yeah, well, I am relaxed…"