She's laying in bed, trying to do the math over in her head for what seems to be the hundredth time that day.
When was her last cycle? Okay, it had been exactly 26 days ago, it's still a little early so you're overreacting. But usually she starts feeling the beginnings of it around this time. Two days of cramping followed by two days of flow, and another two days to recover. Right?
But she wouldn't be freaking out over this had he not brought it up as an effect from their last heated session, when she miscalculated and shoved a little too hard at an odd angle, injuring herself. She had been hurting the whole day and he brought it up seemingly out of nowhere, throwing her off.
"When do you usually get your, well, you know." he asked her, his hands waving off the word he tried not to say out loud, leaning into the kitchen island as she moved her way around to wash the dishes from dinner.
"Oh, uh, on the fifth. Two more days... Why?" she asked back, arching an eyebrow and looking at him pointedly over her shoulder, drying her hands on a hanging dish towel.
"Ah, uh-hum, well, I just," he coughed out the words while swinging his arms about, finally settling on wrapping his long, slender blue limbs around his chest. "I just think it would be in our best interest if, well, there was no 'end result' from our, uh..." he waved out his hands again, a deep blush spreading down from the tips of his ears and across his cheeks when he gripped one hand onto the short-sleeved forearm of the other. She was pretty sure it was from embarrassment, but from what he was embarrassed about she questioned herself.
And now she's in bed staring up at her bedroom ceiling, counting the bumps of popcorn texture on the stucco wall. She looks over to her nightstand where the electric clock gives out the time in a slow, rhythmically pulsating green glow; 3:15, 3:15, 3:16, 3:16, 3:16.
She reaches her left arm out towards him, laying there beside her in the shadows of the night, and she grips firmly when she finds his wrist.
Wake up- she urges him silently, without making so much as a shaking movement to stir him.
WAKE UP. I need your re-assurance. I need to know everything is okay. I need yo-
As silently as she had gripped him, he moves his arm up and scoots over to her, placing it gently across her chest and pulling her in. She falls asleep that way, leaning her head into the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent.
The next four days are hell.
She goes through her daily tasks in an fog, burning through the motions of typical routine mechanically, then not really being there for the rest of it. Her stomach still gives out little aches and resistance when she moves a certain way, and even through all the pains, none of them resemble her usual PMS.
And still no sign of spotting.
Even at work she tries to hide her inner battle from her co-workers, shortening the encounters she has and excusing herself from conversations if they go any longer than a couple of minutes. Her thoughts eat her up and she can't get a grip of what is going on around her. She's not sure what is going through her mind, because it's in bits and pieces, as clouded up as her emotions.
You're thirty-five for crying out loud, it's time to stop messing around an settle down, you won't have an opportunity like this for long. If anything this is one of your last chances-
NO, WAIT.Do you hear yourself right now? This was supposed be a fling, a fun, one time thing that got too far (four months too far) and now you're thinking of settling in with him, starting a family? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW? MEGAMIND for crying out loud, the criminally insane bad guy that runs the city's organized crime!-
Yeah, but if he was so bad how the hell did I end up in bed with him? All those patents he showed me of the tools he put into the medical field, not to mention the improvised method he developed to take a bone marrow biopsy in an almost painless way-
Oh Don't kid yourself Roxie, it still doesn't change the fact that he's a blue alien with a giant head, how are you going to explain that to the sonographer when they do the ultrasound? Better yet, how will you explain to your own MOTHER after telling her your relationship with Metro Man was going nowhere? She's going to be expecting a raven haired, blue eyed child, not a bald headed, blue skinned thing-
She gives a final thought of -Well maybe what she wants for me is not what I want for my life- to finally silence the argument going on inside her own head as she frustratingly punches at her keyboard, her co-workers keeping a distance around her small office.
Her assistant exits the printing room and makes a beeline through the bullpen layout of the editing floor towards Roxanne's cubby, shoved into the corner of the level where she has full view of her editing team (and the city skyline, perks of being the city's damsel) but is too busy re-typing the same sentence for the ump-teenth time to notice her standing at the door-frame, her usually perky smile wavering away at the sight of the frustrated reporter, who's generally in a good mood herself.
"Hey, boss? I think we should call it a day. There's that Italian place just around the corner I've been meaning to take you."
Sitting in the booth behind the swinging kitchen doors, away from prying eyes and ears, Roxanne casually chewed on the bread rolls that were brought out with a olive oil dip, showering her share with pepper and Parmesan. Kristen, her assistant, watches her over the rim of her water glass when the server comes around with her glass of wine. After he makes a second attempt to get a possible order of wine from Roxanne herself, she waves him off with their orders.
Oh, so now you're gonna avoid alcohol all together? C'mon, you can't pull this over yourself. All the previous scares before you still went on your usual habits and never strayed from the norm. What makes this so different?-
I, I don't know, I just have a feeling-
OH YOU SAID THAT EVERY OTHER TIME- "Roxanne, are you okay?" cuts in from across the table, pulling her back from her thoughts.
"Huh? Oh, I'm so sorry, I've just been, stressed, lately. Thing's've been getting pretty distracting outside of work hours." She replies, giving a pensive look while bringing the piece of torn bread slowly back up to her mouth.
"Is it about Megamind?" Kristen asks, and Roxanne chokes on the little amount of bread she was attempting to swallow.
Patting herself on her chest, she clears out her throat and blurts out "God, no! It's about my mother!". Well, not exactly a lie...
"Oh, goodness, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to impose..." Kristen fans her fingers out in a stop right there motion, trying to apologize with her body language.
"It's, okay, really. Just surprised me, that's all. She just keeps going over how she's desperate over a grandchild, and I'm not getting any younger, and blah-blah typical nagging mother stuff, you know?" She laughs, motioning the words out with what's left of the roll.
Still not lying, technically.
Kristen laughs in agreement, the locks of her dirty blonde hair bobbing with the nodding motion of her head. They settle down as the server brings out their dishes and settles both plates in front of them. Roxanne picks at her food as the awkward silence stretches over them again.
Every time I ask for baked Ziti, I get Penne, why? She wonders, and realizes that's not what's bothering her right now.
"Hey, Kristen?" she breaks the silence, looking up to meet her friend's eyes. Brown locked on blue, and she asks "Why did you think it was Megamind? I mean, he's always been a problem for me throughout the years, obviously. Anything, change, from your perspective? Something I might've missed?" she adds cautiously, hoping to all that was good (and ee-vil, her mind adds without permission) that their chemistry wasn't too obvious on screen.
"Nothing much really, other than I couldn't help but notice things get a little more tense after the 'Caverns of Chaos' thing he had going a few months ago. I mean, who barricades themselves inside a copper mine during the middle of a blizzard?"
Roxanne gives out a snort of agreement; it wasn't his brightest idea to hold his kidnapee hostage inside the abandoned mines, but to his defense Michigan is known to have fluctuating temperatures and crazy unpredictable winters. The afternoon he took her into the mine the temperature outside was still in the double digits, but come evening and it dropped drastically below freezing, to the point he had closed off the cave entrance not just to hide from Wayne but to shelter themselves from the unforgivable bitter wind.
Hours had dwindled by before they realized help wasn't coming, and it shouldn't have taken him much to realize the signal wasn't going through to the outside from the cables being frozen over, never mind using satellite; they were too deep in the cave to have the digital signals reach through the rock, and the uplink he had wired was, evidently, outside the entrance. That was blocked by snow and melted ice.
So for the sake of humility, he untied her and had her sit near the heater he had brought along, painfully aware of her vulnerability to the cold, and kept his distance.
At first.
He had been pretending to be preoccupied with the computers and trying to send out a signal to Minion, who was waiting back at the lair with the proper tools for a rescue in case of what was happening now, happened. It wouldn't have done well for all three of them to have been stuck inside with no one to safely dig them out.
But they forgot about a back-up signal plan.
Waiting for Minion to get the hint from the dead man's switch that might've been sent out by then, he slowly (almost agonizingly) made his way towards her, talking about seemingly nothing, until somehow he was sharing the blanket she was on, sitting on the floor right next to her, shoulder to shoulder, laughing about something
(Funny? Confusing? A joke? Some Story?)
she couldn't remember. Everything was a blur up to that point, the only thing in her memory that stood out sharply was the moment they stopped laughing; her head was on his shoulder as she had gripped his knee to stable herself, his head completely thrown-back and tears at a stand still from the chuckling, and he brought his face over and down to look at her eyes,
and for a split second everything had paused,
nothing seemed to matter anymore,
they were cold, they were tired,
they were lonely,
and they were tired of faking it.
So they didn't.
Realizing she had paused for way too long to reminisce, Roxanne brings her head up with a thoughtful look and hesitates before speaking.
"I just think, things've gotten a little uneasy between us since then (yeah right, I'd say too easy) and he's been getting worse with the intensity of his kidnappings lately, so I've been holding back less when we're in the same room (Oh sweet, sweet Roxy, could you be any more transparent?) and we just, go, at it." she finishes off, praying she isn't blushing as hard as it feels she is.
Kristen gives a thoughtful nod, and says "Yeah, you're right. I've noticed the action has been getting pretty heated between the two of you lately-"
(Dammit, why am I not the only one with poor wording choices?)
"-but the last kidnapping, you guys were practically having a yelling match. Has it been that bad?"
Roxanne looks off to the side, feeling a bit guilty about not being able to come out, especially to her assistant, who should be able to help her and take care of her problems when they get out of hand.
Sure, lately they've been fighting a lot more than usual, but only because he had promised to lessen the frequency of kidnappings. Instead, he increased the fear factor of each one (without forewarning), the last having her in a reinforced glass box that was cramping into itself, giving her less and less moving space.
Even with all the fail-safes in place-"When he goes as far as to try to crush me to death, well, yeah of course I'm gonna pitch a fit and fight back."
But I'll be dammed if the make-up sex isn't worth it every time.
Just as the two smile at each other and proceed to pick up their forks to continue eating, a loud crash comes in from the front of the restaurant, where screaming and clattering dishes draw their eyes to the source.
"And speak of the badly timed devil." Kristen mutters as she lowers her spoon back into the minestrone. "I'm so sorry about this Rox, if you like we can come back tomo-"
Roxanne fans her off "No, no-no it's okay. Just box mine up to go and leave it in the break room for lunch tomorrow, It'll be fine."
She wipes the non-existent tomato sauce off her face with the napkin cloth before folding it neatly and placing it next to her plate, then scoots off the bench seat to stand up and straighten her slacks.
Turning around swiftly expecting to be able to snap a quick quip, she couldn't help give a look of dismay as she was beaten to the punch when she realizes it's just Minion this time, and opts to let him spray her instead (make it look like you didn't have a chance to fight).
Typical evil plot (hanging from a crane over vats full of robo-piranha).
Typical back and forth banter (You can't escape the death-grip from the jaws of ee-vil, Metromahn! Well maybe justice is covered in a liberating wax of freedom, preventing it from being gripped!) after which she groans each time.
And typical fighting.
Followed by a typical passionate make-up session.
Yup.
Typical.
She's back in bed, same thoughts buzzing through her head as they were the previous nights, except this time he's in bed with her, as per usual after a kidnap. It's routine that he comes over on nights like this one, chalking it up to Minion that he has to lay low from Metro Man for a few hours (which extends into the next morning), however when it comes to Minion both Megamind and Roxanne know he's not as simple minded as most of Metro City make him out to be, and he can't possibly be blind to the elephant in the room.
Especially since the last time he buzzed over the watch, a couple of weeks into their first meet-ups to put a time stamp on it, she accidentally walked into the room talking, unaware he was mid-conversation with Minion. Upon hearing her voice, he excused himself to "go check on the wreckage to see if anything was salvageable, and I'll see you in the morning, Sir." and clicked off, hardly ever interrupting him during their Rendez-vous from there on out unless it was an actual emergency.
She listens in to the steady rhythm of his breathing, staring up at the same stucco-ceiling (god, I need to re-plaster that crap, I don't need to be reminded of the cheap apartment I left behind when I decided to move out on my own) and running her thumbs across each other in tempo with her heart-beat.
Looking over at the flashing time on the bedside clock (2:06, 2:06) she sits up and kicks her feet over the side of the bed, not needing to be too gentle because she can tell by Megamind's sleeping patterns he's in a particular stage of sleep that not even a grenade going off outside could wake him up.
As if I would want to test that theory right now.
Heading over silently to her closet, she stands in front of her shelf and pulls out some socks, a bra and a tee. After a few "sleep-overs" she'd gotten used to going to bed in only shorts, or a top. Most of the time nothing at all.
Probably why you ended up in this dilemma- the snarky voice tries to berate her, and instead she stomps her foot into her tennis shoe to shut it up, but just as she was stomping the other one in she stopped herself short; hearing him take in a deep breath scared her back to reality but when she didn't hear his voice she continued on, slipping on the other shoe carefully before heading downstairs and picking the keys up from the kitchen island just as carefully.
She drives. Not exactly sure to where but she does. She goes to the outer city limits, taking back roads and unmarked paths that take her where the road starts hitting hills, and pulls over to the side to rest her head on the handles of the hoverbike.
He might get angry with her if he wakes to find her gone and his bike missing, but he might end up being more worried than anything. As much as he is bad to everyone else, he's too good to her. He even went as far as to gift her one of his brainbots to help her with household chores and minimal tasks, and today after she wouldn't stop droning on about the Italian lunch, he had asked it to bake her a proper baked dish (I made sure he uses the tagliati kind).
Tears start to stain her cheeks, and she wipes at them furiously.
Why the hell does he have to be so good? So kind? Always taking care of me, putting me over himself for anything (and might as well be everything). Just when I thought I was getting the hang of being by myself, just when everything was going gray, and ordinary, and, predictable...
She lets it all out, frustration and grief, the pent up anger and pain she's held back all these years and the fear and confusion she holds for the future. Time wasted fighting and arguing, time spent consoling and loving. The life that her mother, her peers and her city had shaped her out to have, and the one she was fighting to own.
The child she yearns for, and the one she can never bear.
She screams until her throat scratches, she cries until she gets a headache, she sobs until she's hiccuping into her fingers, her other hand fisted at her temple.
After a moment of steady breathing, she looks out to the city and its twinkling lights and realizes she just screamed her head off like a banshee at half past two in the morning on the outskirts of the city. Looking around with wide eyes, she contemplates how long she has before Wayne shows up to check out who he has to save and/or kill.
Before over-thinking it, she revs up the engine and drives off into the night, still following closely to the beaten paths seldom taken by others.
It's now three thirty in the morning, and she's back in her own bathroom, hunched over the toilet holding a stick.
Before making her way back completely to
(Megamind)
her loft, she had stopped by quickly at a 24 hour pharmacy to pick up a bottle of acetaminophen, a pack of pregnancy tests, and a bar of dark chocolate. King size.
She glared over the counter, daring the cashier to look up but she seemed to be in such a daze she barely had registered the fact that Roxanne was there, let alone who she was, to Roxanne's relief. The graveyard shift does wonders to people.
As she was walking out she noticed the cashier had taped up post-it notes to anything displaying the time, including the big wall clock directly behind her head. She almost fought an urge to yell out "It's 2:55!" from fear that clerk would look up and recognize her in the middle of getting angry, and recall what it was exactly that she bought.
Next time. I'll let the little Megamind on my shoulder have his ways next time.
But now, back at her place and staring at the unopened test and all the bravado knocked out of her, she contemplated if she was really doing this, could she handle what the result was to come, regardless of it's outcome?
Is she really gonna go through with what this stick would say? On one side, it's a negative, and she has to go out and get herself checked, because never in the history of her ordinary life had her cycles mistimed. Her life (and body) was, ordinary that way. She would go back to her normal life, and keep her normal job, still have normal friends, and everything would, be, normal.
On the other, it's a positive. And Megamind made it clear he wanted no part of it if it does happen
(did he? are you sure about that?)
because he said "our best interest" meaning only his.
Only.., she wasn't stupid, and she knew he meant only hers. He's being mindful of her, since, of course, it is her life on the line, not his.
HIS life wasn't going to be ruined if this, what they are doing right now, were to come to light.
HIS life wasn't the one that would drastically change if she were to become pregnant.
SHE would have to make way for an unexpected baby (their baby), would have to set aside any upcoming holiday plans or getaway trips she had in mind, would, most likely, be...
... shunned, by not only her city, or peers, but her mother.
The woman who brought her into this world and raised her. The person who taught her what to do, and say, and how to act, and to know right from wrong
(wrong, wrong, this is so wrong Roxanne and you know it)
and she would be heartbroken. Devastated. She wouldn't be able to see or understand why her own daughter would make such a life-changing decision for herself. What it is that she sees in this villainous being, and how she could fall for someone so terrible
(terribly kind, and loving, and misunderstood, no one sees the real him but me)
who obviously has nothing but the worst intentions for people and can't do nothing but raise
(a child, a loving blue baby with sparkling blue-green eyes that will be a part of both of us)
hell when he gets an itch to do so, he's nothing but bad news and she's raised her daughter to know better.
And she does, Roxanne knows better than to expect it to be smooth sailing if it turns out she was expecting a bald, big headed blue baby from not just anyone, but an alien on the top five of the most-wanted list. She knows better than to expect to have an easy life if she was walking around the zoo with the baby (her baby, their baby) and have everyone gawk and stare and flare her up, knows better than to expect an easy life for the kid (baby,baby) themselves when they have to deal with all the bullying and harsh words on their own too.
(shh-shh, it's okay, momma's got you sweetie, no one's gonna hurt you when momma's around)
She knows better.
But as she tears the package open and places her hand underneath her, she's not sure if she wants better.
She lets the steady stream hit the tip of the stick, and when she thinks she has enough for a clear reading, she pulls it out and places it on a strip of folded toilet paper she had resting on the edge of the tub.
After cleaning herself and washing her hands, she grips the sides of the sink and stares into her reflection, thinking it strange and unfair to be doing this while he was sleeping, unaware on the other side of the very door she was now sliding down. She stares at the test resting on the tub's edge and thinks. Thinks long and hard. She could just shove the thing away and try to get a decent nights sleep, look it over when he's left for the morning.
But then what if he somehow finds it before she does? How'll she explain that to him?
Well then better hide it where he can't find it, if he's not really looking it for it, that is.
Standing up, she has another inner argument before grabbing the thing, making sure her hand is wrapped around the screen as to not prematurely reveal anything to herself, and goes into the dark bedroom to shove the evidence into the even darker closet, underneath her winter-wear on the bottom shelf.
She climbs back into bed but still finds it hard to be able to sleep, with that thing that could change her life in a blink underneath the ugly Christmas sweaters and those scarves her aunt Troy keeps knitting her each year.
Rolling back and forth she finally settles on her side, and stares into the clock unwillingly, waiting for the painstakingly slow night to crawl along and give her the freedom to look, to know.
It seems to be that every time she blinks, the time has passed by in hours. But if she closes her eyes too long, only mere minutes pass.
Damn you, watched pot.
Slowly but surely the sun starts rising over the railing, letting her know that he's leaving soon
(soon, too soon you didn't even get to enjoy his last moments with you before he's gone, leaves forever)
and she should probably get his things ready to make it easier (and faster) for him to leave.
Once he actually gets dressed, and leans over her side to kiss her on the forehead she shoots out her hand and holds his tightly, oh god, don't leave me please don't leave, you won't come back if you knew, if it says what I'm afraid it says- she holds back, and instead gives him a sleepy smile as she whispers "Good morning", then lets him go.
She waits five minutes after hearing the bike distance itself from her building, then bolts out of bed into the closet, throwing everything winter related out of the way before settling her eyes on the test.
She grabs it and brings it out into the room, where she stares out to the sunrise outside her living room windows, and sits at the edge of the bed, test on her lap.
She tries to breathe, she tries to focus, her mind feels like a white room covered in graffiti and she's finding it hard to look for the white spot that will let her focus, until it's there, she finds it, a little square on the side of a door but it's there.
On one hand, you get your normal, uneventful grey life back.
On the other, you don't. But you will always have him. And your world will forever be blue.
She looks down at the stick, reading the lines on it.
And she cries.
It is four in the morning (and the tears are pouring and I wanna make it worth the fight). And I'm not sleepy. But I guess I should hit they hay as soon as this is up because I'm quoting Gwen Stefani songs.
I'm sorry, my pretties I know you guys-n-gals were expecting a comeback chapter of broken pieces but I do seriously feel tapped out at the moment for that one. After I posted the last chapter last Wednesday, my car broke in half the next morning.
As in, one of the axles snapped clean off and the tire rolled off onto the street as I was exiting a chick-fil-a for free breakfast. And it was the first time in two years I had gone to get free breakfast.
I never wake up before noon.
Anyway, with the tooth cap that fell out (did I forget to mention that? I had a filling fall out while at work last week) and then getting fired the next day, and THEN my car breaking down two days after, I just feel like my whole life is a disaster waiting to be written off.
Sadly, there's a lot connecting me to Roxanne in this story at the moment, from the "little Megamind on the shoulder" moment to the insomnia, I felt I could really relate in more ways that one.
Bout of inspiration I wish not to express too much, other than I need to drink more water.
Side notes;
Apparently, "Popcorn texture" is the actual name of the texture on the walls, I looked it up just to double check since I knew I heard it before.
The "ask for Ziti and I get Penne" happens to me every so often (more times that I'd like to experience) so I thought to fit it in, seeing as though my sweetheart actually bothered to look up the kind I was always looking for and make it for me (other than to just shut me up. with food in my mouth, at least).
I did look up the caves to make sure I was correct in Michigan having abandoned copper mines and sure enough they're just around the area where (in my universe) Metrocity would be located. Looked up satellite signals and even though we're in the future, they still can't penetrate through rock very well, so if you got stuck in the caves during a blizzard, unless someone knew beforehand where you were, you were stuck (starts rubbing hands back and forth maniacally, exceeellent...)
You have no idea how long it took me to come up with the terrible piranha puns (three hours and 24 minutes actually) and I know they're terrible but if you come up with better feel free to share. Hell, I'll even re-type it if It's that much better.
Roxanne knowing Megamind's sleeping pattern like it's second nature just seemed natural to me, seeing as though I can tell what stage of sleep the people under my roof are in just by hearing them breathe. It's something I've gotten accustomed to and found it kind of, a thin balance between need-it-and-useless to put in. So I put it in.
Also driving in the middle of the night to clear up thoughts. Some should be able to relate.
Post-it notes over clocks and time. Got it from a British movie I watched during my first Christmas living on my own, called Cashback. It's about an insomniac who takes up a graveyard shift at a local grocer to use up the time he isn't sleeping. His somewhat love interest covers anything that shows time with post-its and tape to try to make the shift go by faster. I thought it was funny and fitting, so I slipped it in.
To my non-natives, watching the pot is a common English saying that goes "A watched pot never boils" simply meaning impatience gets you nowhere, hence how when Roxanne is trying to make time go by faster it seems to slow down.
And the name. Again, from a movie, but French, about a young teen girl questioning her sexuality and falling in love with an older teen with blue hair, who shows her who she truly is and teaches her to be herself, even when it might not seem right at first (she hides it from her own family).
I thought, Blue, why not? Roxanne has obviously been struggling with her not-so-exciting life and can't see it going any other way without Blue in her life.
Alright. I'm going to bed. Love you lots, please review, I feel like I'm falling down a deep well at the moment and hell honey do I need a pick me up.
Or at least some floaties. Can someone toss me some floaties?