A/N: Making some headway on my chapters. My goal is to have season three finished by the start of the new semester. We'll see. (As a precaution, I'm rating this chapter "M" for language. And a scene near the end.)

Turning Tables

Old At Heart

"I'm really disappointed, son."

"Why? Because I'm making my own life choices?"

"Because you're making the wrong life choices."

"You were the one who encouraged me to do it."

"No, I presented you with an option because you were so persistent and upset about the rules I made. I had hoped that it would make you think like an adult and realize that you were wrong."

"I guess in the months and years that follow, you will be the one seeing that you were wrong."

"For your sake, I hope that's true." Leo followed his son down the stairs as the latter carried a large box full of Mercy's stuffed animals. He stopped suddenly and pressed his hand to his collarbone.

Ben got to the bottom of the stairs and realized his dad was still halfway up. He frowned. "Dad?"

Leo waved him off. "I'm going to go lie down, I'm sure you've got everything covered."

Ben grunted. "Whatever." He carried the box out to the driveway and loaded it into the back of his car.

A few minutes later George pulled up in one of furniture moving vans from his store and waved to Ben. "Is your dad here?" he asked nervously.

"Upstairs, why?"

"I just feel a little uncomfortable about all this. I want to help you out, but I know your dad isn't happy about you moving."

"It's okay if you'd rather back out, I'm not asking you to put Adrian and I before our friendship with my father."

George shook his head. "Nah, I'm already here. I did talk to your dad about this before and he said he was fine with it, even though his body language was saying something else. So what are we moving?"

"Basically the things in Mercy's room and everything that's boxed up in my room. We're not moving the furniture in my room since everything else is already set up at the condo. Henry and Alice are upstairs now, taking apart the crib."

"Alrighty," George said, performing a mock salute. "I'll go check with the troops then."

"Actually," Ben said, shutting his trunk, "I'm headed back up there anyway, so I'll come with."

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"So tomorrow's the day. Does that mean if I drop in at the food court, you'll have to feed me?"

"I'm not sure, there's some kind of new hire process I'm supposed to go through first. That should be fun," Adrian deadpanned.

"I still can't believe your uniform. Tell me the guys' are equally as hideous."

"I'd rather be wearing the guys' uniforms, at least they get to be in slacks. Lime and tangerine striped slacks, mind you, but slacks nonetheless. I just have to keep telling myself: 'This is for Ben and Mercy.'"

Grace ran a strip of clear packing tape over a box filled with Mercy's bottles, bowls, and plastic baby silverware.

"By the way, I almost forgot!" Adrian disappeared down the hall and returned moments later wheeling Mercy's old bassinet in front of her. "This is the one D.A. Enriquez sent me when I was pregnant. I was thinking, maybe you might want it?"

Grace exited the kitchen. "Oh, Adrian, it's still in pristine condition, I couldn't–"

"Babies aren't cheap, Grace, and I promise, Ben and I aren't planning on having another one. Not for years and years anyway, so it's yours. If we ever do have need for it again, you can always give it back."

Grace sniffed and reached out to hug her friend. "I appreciate it."

"And if I come up with anything else you could use, I'll let you know."

"Thank you."

Adrian hugged her friend tightly. "Okay then, I think I've got everything boxed that we can stuff into our cars at this point, so anything left over will have to wait." She glided over to the portable playpen and lifted Mercy out, playfully spinning her in a circle. "You, Little Miss, might just have to ride on the roof!"

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"You're really not going to give me a ride?" Heather asked with her arms crossed.

"You have a bus ticket."

"Stop pouting, it makes you old like a grumpy old man."

"I'm not pouting," Ricky glared. "I'm just not going to waste my gas and time helping them move. Between George, Grace, and good old Asian Persuasion, I think they've got it covered. It's just three rooms."

"You're jealous."

"I think they're making a mistake, that's all."

"You think Adrian's making a mistake."

"Same difference."

"Ha!" Heather shrugged. "Fine, whatever, Underwood. I'll catch the bus then. You have a good Sunday afternoon wallowing in your feels. And no, that's not a euphemism!"

Ricky rolled over on his bed. His eyes super glued to the calendar on his wall. There was only a week left before the new school year started and it seemed way too soon. He picked his cell phone up and dialed his other best friend's number.

"You rang?"

"Yes, Lurch. Are you busy?"

"You're calling because Heather went to help with the move, aren't you?"

"Yeah. I'm surprised, you're not? You were pretty chummy there with Adrian for a while."

"You know why not."

"Because you're mad at your dad for moving in with the Bowmans?"

"So perceptive."

"You wanna hang out?"

"Not really. I have a headache right now, so I'm in bed."

"Oh." Ricky dejectedly returned to lying on his back. "Guess I should let you go then?"

"I just took some Advil, it should be kicking in soon."

"Hope you feel better," Ricky sighed. "Bye, Ash." He hung up but remained staring at his phone. Eventually he dialed in a second number and waited.

"Hello?"

"Hi, is Nora Underwood available?"

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"So are we ever going to see you again?" Henry asked as he knelt in the nursery at the condo, attempting to figure out how to put the pieces of the crib back together.

"Of course you'll see me, why would you even ask that?"

"I mean outside of school." Henry poked at one of the legs of the crib with a screwdriver. "What I'm trying to say is: I know that if I had an apartment with Alice, I'd never leave."

"We do have lives. And jobs."

"Making free time better spent in bed."

"Is sex all you think about?"

"Possibly."

"Well it's not for me. Granted, with a girlfriend like Adrian, it's hard to not think about, but it's not on my mind twenty-four/seven."

"Out of the way, out of the way!" Alice bellowed, pushing her way into the nursery. She nudged her boyfriend with her shoe and opened her hand: "Screwdriver. Clearly putting this back together is going to take a woman."

"My dad put it together the first time, but he's not really an option this time around."

"He was looking pretty bad when I saw him earlier."

"Bad mood. He's been like this all week, ever since we broke the news to him on Sunday night. I think he knew it was coming so he had all that time to stew about it. I wish he would've just gotten used to the idea. Adrian and I moving in together was inevitable."

"Like it or not, he had a valid point, Ben. You're lucky he's not going back on his word. You're still underage. If he wanted to, he could," Alice said.

Ben made a face at the back of his friend's head. "You wanna stay and work on this while Henry and I go pick up another load?"

"I can feel the annoyance radiating off you like a nuclear test site, so go, I'll have this done by the time you get back."

"Thanks, Alice."

Henry gave Alice a quick peck on the lips before leaving.

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"Heeeey, what are you doing back so soon?" Kathleen asked. "I thought you were gone helping Adrian move all day?"

Grace squinted suspiciously. "Did I walk in during the middle of something?" She chose not to add again.

"Nooo."

Grace tapped her foot. "I don't believe you, but since you clearly don't want me to walk any further into the house, is it an inconvenient time to bring you out to the guest house?" She shook her head. "My room; I have to get used to saying that."

"'Course not!" Kathleen eagerly pushed her daughter out the front door and followed her to the guest house. "Did Adrian drop you off?"

"No, she's out in the car." Grace opened the door and motioned to the bassinet beside the new bed that George had given her. The fact that the assault had happened in the previous one had been the primary reason she didn't want to move it down to her new room. "Adrian gave it to me. It was Mercy's; practically new. It was on the way, so she said we could drop it off. I just–" she shrugged "–wanted to show you. I don't know."

Kathleen touched her daughter's shoulder. "I know we haven't really looked into baby things that much–"

"I wasn't trying to guilt you into that, if that's what you're thinking."

"I wasn't. I know it's been hard for you to think about the future and I haven't wanted to push, but we both know time's closing in."

"Every time I look in the mirror I'm reminded of that. Babysitting Mercy a couple weeks ago really reminded me of it."

"You have another doctor's appointment on Thursday."

"I haven't forgotten."

"They said you can find out the sex of the baby, if you want."

Grace gave a wary nod. "I don't know if I do."

"It's completely up to you."

"I know." Grace contemplated the bassinet. "Adrian's waiting in the car," she said after a time. "I better get out there before she runs out of gas and comes looking for me." She hugged her mother a little more tightly than she meant to. "See you tonight!"

"I started the slow cooker after you left this morning, so it should be ready by the time you get home."

"Sounds great, Mom."

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"I remember coming here with you when you were little," Nora said, a nostalgic glaze in her eyes. "When you were a baby I used to push you around in the stroller for hours." She stopped to look across the park at a grassy area to the left of the jungle gym. "I got you this little plastic bat and ball for your third birthday and I'd bring you out here and throw the ball for you." She shook her head. "You probably don't even remember that."

Ricky looked across the park in the direction Nora was. His earliest memory was of choking on French fry from a McDonald's Happy Meal. It was vivid, but he suspected, only because it had been traumatic. The second earliest involved a plastic yellow bat. The latter was fuzzy though and he couldn't quite remember the setting or if it involved Nora, but using his imagination, he could step outside of himself: he could place his three-year-old self on that grassy expanse, waving his toy bat at some silly plastic baseball. "It was a long time ago," he admitted.

Nora nodded, saddened. "It was," she agreed. "I didn't expect you to remember." It wasn't said maliciously, it was simply a fact.

"What made you get me a ball and bat?"

She laughed. "You always liked the games. I liked to watch them. I dabbled a bit in softball when I was in high school, but it never went anywhere, obviously. Still, I liked to watch the games and so did you, always with your eyes glued to the screen from your playpen."

They resumed walking down the pathway that curved through the park. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"How – why – did you get with Bob?"

"Oh." Nora began to nervously play with the split ends of her hair. "It's a complicated answer."

"I'm smarter than I look." Ricky looked across the park and motioned to a pair of swings. "And we've got all day, if that helps."

Nora's chest inflated and deflated twice before she nodded. "It might take it." She followed her son over to the swings and sat down on one, smiling childishly. "I haven't been on a swing in forever."

Ricky dug the toes of his shoes around in the sand in the well under his feet. "Me too."

Nora gave a little push and let gravity take over, slowly swinging her back and forth. She began to play with her hair again. "Do you know who Harvey Milk is?"

"The first openly gay man to be elected to California public office."

"The first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States. Not to be confused with Kathy Kozachenko, the first openly lesbian woman to run and successfully be elected to U.S. public office in 'seventy-four, but in Ann Arbor, not California. I was seventeen and fourteen during their respective wins."

"Did you know them or something?"

"I wish!" Nora pushed the toes of her shoes into the playground sand. "But no. Harvey Milk was assassinated less than a year after he was elected, in 'seventy-eight. I was eighteen and I'd been in the closet ever since I was twelve and realized I had a crush on a girl, while all my friends were gushing about boys. I thought there was something wrong with me for a long time, then Nancy Wechsler came out and soon Kathy Kozachenko was elected. I started to think, 'Maybe I'm not so different after all?' But by that time, I'd already been pretending to be straight for so long that I didn't know how to tell everyone I'd been lying to them the whole time."

"And after the assassination, it felt safer to just continue that lie?"

"I didn't just continue it, I tried to make myself believe it! I tried to find the biggest, burliest, most 'masculine' men I could and I'd cling to them, trying to prove to myself and the world that it was right. It never worked out, of course. I even got the shit beat out of me a few times, but I always prided myself in being able to leave those bastards."

"Then why didn't you leave Bob?"

"Valid question," Nora sighed. "And the answer is, when I met him, he was a charmer. I know you can't understand, Ricky, but that lying sack of shit was good at making people believe he was something he wasn't. He was a bomb, but he only exploded when the time was right for him: in private. Back then, he seemed manly enough for the illusion I wanted and yet he seemed to treat me better than the others. Little did I know that he would turn out to be the deadliest of all of 'em."

"It started when I was five," Ricky spoke quietly. "What happened the first four years?"

"Well I married him and almost immediately got pregnant with you. We did well for a while. He got promoted: 'family values' and all that B.S. Looking back, I guess there were signs, but at the time I thought we were just going through the normal fights any couple has. He didn't actually start pushing me around until after you were born. But I didn't leave him because…"

"Of me."

"I barely finished high school, Ricky. I knew I was no single mother material. I thought I could take it; a black eye here and there, a bloody nose. It wasn't anything I hadn't experienced before and lived to talk about. When you were about a year old, I finally decided to get tough, I started pushing back. I gave him a black eye once. I think that shocked his ass. He backed off for a while, maybe a year, until he got laid off because of cutbacks. With him home all the time, drinking our savings away, I got pissed. We started fighting, usually at night, then it bled into the daytime. I remember you used to scream for hours listening to us. That only angered him more. He started breaking things: your toys, appliances, and finally a music box that belonged to my grandmother. I was so angry I could've killed him; I wish I had."

"Your retaliated?" he asked, thinking about the rage he'd felt the day he beat Bob up for kidnapping Adrian.

"I keyed 'asshole' into his car, all caps. I wasn't even drunk."

"And?"

Nora dug her feet into the dirt, pulling to a stop. "He broke my arm."

"But you still didn't leave him."

"The police were suspicious, but I lied. I lied because he was scared shitless about nearly getting caught and I foolishly thought that gave me the upper hand, broken or not. That whole incident put another delay on the abuse, during which time he went out and found his share of sweet things to keep him preoccupied. After my arm healed I got into the maid business for a while, just trying to make ends meet. But that meant daycare, because I wasn't going to leave you with him, and that was so expensive…"

"You stole?"

"I'm not proud of it. The more I did it though, the more confident I got that I could get away with it. Until one of the women I worked for walked in while I was dropping one of her diamond bracelets into my empty Four-O'-Nine bottle. I got slapped in jail for four days but the woman I stole from didn't choose to take it any further. I guess she felt sorry for me or something." Nora suddenly pushed herself off the swing. "You wanna grab a bite?"

"That's all?"

"No," she said, "but I'm starving, so if you can stomach anymore, I'll tell you over lunch, my treat."

"Can you afford it?"

"Remember that job I told you I was applying for last time I saw you?" At his nod she grinned proudly. "Well you're looking at the new part time librarian. It doesn't pay much, but it is on the straight and narrow."

"Sexuality not included?"

Nora chuckled. "See, you are my kid."

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"Ben, can I have a word with you?"

The winter chill of Camille's tone stopped Ben in his tracks. She'd always spoken to him in the way that a mother might speak to her children when waking them up for their first day of Kindergarten. Before his mother died, she'd been like an aunt in his life, someone he always loved to be around. Now, she sounded more like an angry school teacher. "About what?" he asked, setting his defenses on high alert.

"I've known you and your father a very long time, Ben, since you were just a baby, and this past week has been the most immature I've ever seen either of you."

"Well I'm sorry you think that, but frankly, it's really none of your business, Camille."

"I told Leo that he shouldn't have allowed you to do this, but he did it anyway. Can't you see what it's doing to him? Don't you see the stress he's under?"

"Can't you see how stressful it is to raise a child under two roofs? I'm sorry that I have to choose between my dad and my daughter, but I'm thinking of her future right now."

Camille shook her head. "Is that what you tell yourself?"

Ben gawked. "You've always been like family, Camille, but right now…you're not. You have no say in this, so you need to back off." He stormed out of the front door, slamming it behind him.

"Ben, what's wrong?" Henry asked as his friend got into the driver's seat of the car and slammed that door too.

"I'm sick and tired of people butting into my business!"

"Oh." Henry clamped his mouth shut.

Ben put his car into reverse. "I didn't mean you. I meant Camille. And my dad. And everyone else who keeps trying to tell me that moving in with Adrian is wrong. Screw them! I'm happy. Can't they see I'm happy? We're happy. Doesn't that count for anything?"

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Ricky picked at his sub sandwich while he watched his birth mother nibble on a sugar cookie.

"It's not very tree-ish, is it?" Nora asked, poking at the edges of a blob of off-white cookie dough that was in a vague triangle shape.

"Sprinkles!" The four-year-old helpfully held up a bottle of green sprinkles, oblivious to the misshapenness of the dough.

"If you think so," she laughed, motioning for her son to sprinkle the colored bits of sugar on top. "But be care–" But the sprinkles came out in a gush before she could finish, topping the dough blot with a fourth of an inch of green sugar.

Ricky grinned and licked his finger before shoving it into the pile of sprinkles. The sugar coated his left index and he proceeded to lick it all off in delight.

"What the hell," Nora shrugged. "You only live once!" She licked her finger and shoved it into the sugar crystals too.

"I remember helping you make a batch of those for Christmas."

"You remember that?"

"We smoked out the whole apartment."

"Never was much of a cook," Nora smirked.

"Yeah." Ricky pulled a slice of oil and vinegar covered tomato out of his sub. "And I remember what happened when Bob came home too."

Nora set the last bite of her cookie onto her napkin. "Hint taken," she sighed. She let her head roll back to gaze at the ceiling. "Where did I leave off?" She thought for a moment and then began, "One of Bob's little whores got him a job at her husband's construction business when you were four. It paid more than anything he'd ever had before, plus he was getting sex and drugs on the side."

"That's the one he lost when I was five," Ricky realized.

"Yeah. It was all rainbows and sunshine for him until what's-her-name lost interest and started screwing one of the other construction workers. She told him he wasn't a real man," Nora smirked. "He became so insane with jealousy and loathing that he went about trying to catch them in the act for a week and when he did, it came to blows. That's how he got fired."

"A real man," Ricky muttered. "Maybe that's what started it."

"He was never a real man." Nora put her head down. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I never took you away. I should have; I should've done it the first time he hit me. It's not an excuse, but by the time he started in on you I was done. It was like I just went on auto pilot. It doesn't even make sense, but that's it; that's all I can say."

"If you'd taken me away, I never would've ended up with Margaret and Shakur."

"They gave you a better life than I ever could have. But at an unforgivable cost."

"I used to think that – that it was unforgivable – but not anymore. It's – it's okay to have two moms." Ricky shrugged. "Or even three, you never know."

Nora smiled. "I gotta admit: Margaret did all right with you."

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Grace opened the front door expecting to smell the aroma of simmering beef mixed with soft potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. Instead, she heard a loud bark and felt a pair of off white paws land on her shoulders and a giant pink tongue lap at her face.

"Surprise!" George shouted.

Kathleen peeked out from behind her boyfriend with a nervous smile on her face. "What do you think?"

"I think…" Grace turned her face, trying to avoid the getting licked on the lips by the canine. "…he's very excitable."

"His name's Moose!" George said proudly.

"Moose?" Grace repeated, unimpressed.

"They come named, we didn't choose it," Kathleen explained. "The people who train them for the guide dog program name them."

"Right." Grace wormed her way out from under the pale lab and patted his head. "He seems friendly." She eyed her mother. "Was this what you were trying to hide from me earlier?"

"We wanted to surprise you."

"Has Tom seen him?"

"Not yet," Kathleen grinned. "Tammy's father is bringing him back home in an hour, so we'll see what he has to say then."

Grace eyed the exuberant hound and rolled her eyes, giving in to scratching Moose behind his ears. "Doesn't seem like much of a guard dog to me."

"They say he's very loyal," George said.

"I bet." Grace licked her lips. "Have you told Amy and Ashley?"

George looked down guiltily. "I tried to get Ash to come over, but she, uh, didn't want to. Ames was busy. She didn't say with what though. I didn't want to push."

"Well, one thing's for sure: Tom's gonna love him!"

"You think so?"

"Are you kidding?" Grace bent down and scrubbed Moose's neck, who eagerly returned the affection by licking her cheek. "Yeah," she laughed. "I like you too."

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Dusk had fallen across the sky, causing the deep cerulean to intersperse with splashes of violet and magenta. The sky looked a bit like cotton candy ice cream melting in a giant bowl. "So…"

"So…"

"Do you want to do the honors?" Ben asked.

Adrian dipped her hand down her collar and caught the chain around her neck. She lifted it over her head and produced the condominium key. As Ben held their sleeping daughter, she unlocked the door to their new home and let it swing open.

Ben offered his hand and smiled when Adrian took it. Together, he stepped inside with her and stood for a moment in the entryway.

"This is real, right?"

"It's real."

Adrian nodded and shut the door, locking it behind her. She walked with Ben to Mercy's new nursery and watched him tuck their daughter into her crib. A warmth was spilling over in the pit of her stomach; he'd never looked more natural.

"Sweet dreams," Ben whispered, leaning over to kiss his daughter's forehead.

Adrian kissed the tuckered out little girl as well and then slipped into the hallway, allowing Ben to click the door as he came out. Almost immediately she felt him take her by the arm and pull her towards him, kissing her heatedly. She felt her pulse speed up as she returned the kiss.

Ben kissed her all the way down to their bedroom and led her inside. On the nightstand their used box of Italian condoms sat, with one already sitting outside of the box on the corner of the table. He grabbed it. "I have been waiting for this."

Adrian grabbed the condom from his fingers and pushed her boyfriend down on the bed, straddling him. She carefully began to unbutton his shirt and peel it off of his body, tossing it carelessly to the floor.

Ben held his breath as Adrian then pulled her own shirt off, revealing a leopard print bra. He closed his eyes as her hair fell across his face when she leaned down to kiss his skinny chest. Several minutes later, when their clothes scattered the room and their bodies had merged into a swirling blur of color like the sky outside, he found himself lying on his back in the middle of the bed, head pressed into a pillow, and Adrian's heady eyes grilling into him. They were both breathless, but he managed to make out two words: "Welcome home."

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8:55 A.M. The night prior was still vivid in her mind, but ever since she'd left the warm bed that she could officially say she shared with Ben, their first night in new home was feeling more and more like a dream that she had desperately tried to not wake up from. It seemed too soon to be thrust into life already, but here she was, standing in the restroom at the mall, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

Tangerine, banana, and lime made up the colors of the fat stripes of her knee length dress. Two large green and yellow ornamental buttons were positioned below the swoop neck collar and two fist sized yellow hoop earrings poked out from her long onyx sheets of hair. Sitting atop her head like a hideous Christmas angel was an Irish beret with the same striping as her dress. Adrian shuddered at the sight, hoping beyond hope that nobody she knew would drop in at the food court today. Or ever.

Adrian checked her cell phone again. Three minutes left. She wanted to make a good impression for her first day, so she planned to walk in a couple minutes early. It was now or never. She looked down at her shoes. Not the high heels she was accustom to, but a pair of sunshine colored trainers with thick white soles. It felt so strange to be walking in flat shoes, but she pushed that to the back of her mind and walked out of the restroom, hurrying her pace to the food court.

As soon as she approached she could smell the scents of breakfast: fat cinnamon rolls from the Cinnabon, pancakes and sausage from the McDonald's, blueberry lemon loafs fresh out of the oven at the Jamba Juice. She, however, was not headed in the direction of any of those tantalizing numbers, she was headed for The Scoop. Essentially, it was an Internet café, but instead of coffee, they served ice cream, and for their guests who were not so technically inclined, they offered daily stacks of newspapers and a menagerie of weekly or monthly magazine subscriptions for free perusal with purchase: The scoop with a scoop!

The Scoop was pulsating when she arrived, but at that moment, nobody was in line, nor was anyone behind the counter, so she wove her way through the sea of bodies and cones to the door marked Employees Only and pushed her way inside. Adrian followed a whirring noise that became increasingly louder to an opened freezer and discovered the sound belonged to the freezer's double fans. Looking around she noticed the store's vast supply of extra ice cream tubs and other frozen goods, and, at the far end, a figure that was bent over, attempting to pull a tub of ice cream off the bottom shelf. Immediately she knew it wasn't her boss, unless Stanley wore the women's uniforms for the sole purpose of showing off his excellent set of legs. She cleared her throat. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Stanley?"

The woman stopped, grunted something that Adrian couldn't make out over the roar of the fans, and pulled herself up using the shelving. "Sorry, I didn't catch that," she said, turning around. "What did you–" Her voice died beneath the sound of the fans as soon as she locked eyes with Latina.

Staring at the women dressed identically to her, all Adrian could sputter was: "Amy?"