The next day, Monday, Nina is as close to perfect as she's ever been, in spite of having shorted her sleep the night before. The black swan is a tempest of seduction and by the looks on the male dancers' faces, Thomas' question of a few months ago would get a very different answer now. The white swan is as beautiful and tragic as ever, the final piece carrying such sorrow and grief that Lily momentarily has to look away, glad her mascara is waterproof. She's seeing Nina at the height of her powers, utterly magnificent, and even Thomas finds nothing more than a few tiny technical changes to make to her performance.
Monday night, they go out again. Nina's all over her in the cab on the way to the club, the black swan rising hot-blooded and eager, Nina herself not far behind. Lily has to remind herself that this is someone who's never admitted to being attracted to her no matter how much she shows it, never even said 'girlfriend' aloud, someone who not long ago honestly thought drugs were the only excuse for kissing a girl. She's not doing this if it's going to be denied later, if Nina is going to try and say it wasn't her. No way in hell will she let Nina have her under those circumstances. No way will she hand over the keys to her soul if the gift isn't going to be acknowledged later on. Lily's not that desperate, yet; she meant what she said Sunday night and stands by it. It doesn't make it any less difficult to say no, to keep Nina's hands from slipping under her blouse, and they arrive at the club already looking as if they've been dancing for hours, hair mussed and lipstick smeared.
That night Nina learns more about the power of confidence and tries out her newfound seductiveness on others. The black swan has her dancing with mostly men, but leaves all of them panting in her wake to return to Lily time and time again. When they dance together it seems to raise the temperature of the entire room, whether twined so close they're sharing each other's breath, or at arm's length daring each other to dance faster and spin tighter. Once again they stay late, and as they walk to the cab Nina slides her arm around Lily's waist. Both of them are exhausted and exultant in equal measure, buzzed from liquor and the admiration of the other club-goers, but the ride home is subdued in spite of the heady feeling swirling around them both. Nina's tired enough to be content with a few kisses, slow and searching, and once back in the apartment both of them can think of nothing but getting showered and going to sleep.
Tuesday, the sleep deprivation is beginning to show, and Thomas scolds. Lily's form is off too, once she realizes that they won't be going anywhere tonight – Nina promised her mother she'd have dinner with her tonight. The thought turns Lily's stomach with worry, and during lunch she picks at her food until Nina teases her gently. "I'm just worried," she finally admits. "I don't trust your mom."
Nina simply takes her hand and tells her, "I'll be home as soon as I can." That Lily's apartment has now become home to Nina reassures her more than anything else. It's no easier to watch her walk out, though. Lily does not mope around the place after Nina leaves; she orders Chinese and watches some television, trying not to worry.
Still, it's getting late on Tuesday night when Lily finally hears Nina's key turn in the lock. She's on her feet by the time it opens, having spent the past several hours worrying about this in spite of her resolve. Lily knows perfectly well that Erica Sayers has spent those hours either cajoling or haranguing Nina, most likely both, and that it's been hell. Her own therapist once told her, 'Parents always know how to pull our strings. They're the ones who tied them in place.'
The Nina who walks in is a shadow of herself, her shoulders slumped, her eyes downcast and haunted. Lily hates Erica then with a burning vitriolic passion; everything she's done over the past weeks to bolster Nina's confidence seems to have vanished in a single evening. But she's more worried about Nina than furious with her psychotic mother, so she gathers the older girl into her arms.
Wordlessly, Nina buries her face in the crook of Lily's shoulder, shuddering a little. They stand like that for long moments, Lily rubbing her back gently. "Wanna talk about it?" Lily murmurs after a while.
Nina shakes her head slowly, squeezing Lily a bit tighter. Clearly all she wants is comfort, to be held by someone who isn't trying to mold and smother her. Lily kisses her cheek and strokes her hair, but Nina can't seem to get enough, still not taking a step back. She's almost shivering now, and Lily can't bear to see her like this.
"Come to bed with me," Lily whispers, and that surprises Nina so much it breaks through her sorrow, making her snap her head up to stare with startled brown eyes. Lily quickly amends, "Just to sleep, I promise. But it's late, and I'll feel better with you beside me. You'll feel better, too. Come on, Nina."
With a long sigh, Nina nods, and follows her into the bedroom, stopping only to grab some pajamas. Lily gets changed quickly, not even trying to tempt Nina with glimpses of her body, and then slides into bed, folding the covers back for Nina.
In bed, Nina turns to her almost blindly, snuggling in with her cheek resting on Lily's chest, arms around Lily's waist. Lily holds her, sliding one leg over Nina's knee to pull her still closer. Entwined like that, Nina finally breathes a sigh of relief and stops trembling. "I'm so lucky to have you," she murmurs softly.
"So am I," Lily tells her, rubbing her back gently. "Nina, what happened?"
"She made my favorite dinner," Nina begins, and for a long moment doesn't go on. "It was nice, at first. It felt safe, almost like home again. I miss her, Lily. She's my mom; I love her, I miss her, even after everything she did."
Lily doesn't say she misses her own mother. She did, for a while, but eventually she came to think of her foster parents as her real parents and her biological mother as just that – a vessel of sorts, not really a parent at all. From what she knows of Erica, if she was in Nina's place she'd just walk away and never look back.
It doesn't matter though, now that Nina's started talking she can't seem to stop. "Everything was okay, and I was feeling pretty nostalgic I guess; I know you've only seen the worst of it, but Lily, she's my mom. We had good times together, we had fun, and she does love me. She does. Most of her problem is that she loves me too much. And then after dinner she started talking about wanting me to move back in, that things would be different, she wouldn't try to hold me back anymore."
Lily bites her lip before speaking, choosing her words carefully. "She probably means what she's saying, Nina, probably believes it would be like that, but…"
"It wouldn't. I know. She's like an addict, Lily. If I moved in right now it'd be like … like letting a pill junkie work in a pharmacy. She means well but she wouldn't be able to stop herself."
Lily smiles slightly in the dark; it's an apt comparison, but the one that leaps to mind first is 'letting an alcoholic work as a bartender', and she knows Nina chose another analogy out of deference to her past. "You've got it exactly right," she whispers. "Until she gets some help, she can't really be around you that much."
"And I told her no, this was home, I was staying with you," Nina murmurs, and nuzzles against Lily's throat.
Her lips brush the thin skin there, and Lily tries not to shiver; this is a serious discussion, dammit. It's not a good time to start getting turned on. She can't help it if her voice is a little faint when she replies, "So how did she take that?"
"Badly," Nina whispers against her skin, and shudders. Lily strokes her hair until she continues. "At first … at first she was angry. She said you were bad for me, you'd lead me astray, you'd get me into all kinds of wicked things, alcohol and drugs and God knows what else… She was hysterical almost, the things she said. And I told her … you were the best thing that could've happened to me, that you were helping me, and she laughed and said what kind of help, and I got angry too…"
Lily can imagine Erica Sayers in a fury, practically foaming at the mouth. It's all so much high school bullshit she thought she'd left behind a long time ago. She was that girl everyone's mothers warned them about, the one who smoked behind the gym, the one doing a lot more than just sleeping at sleepovers. And why the hell not? All teenagers were curious, and Lily had had a lot of therapy to bring her around to the belief that sex wasn't inherently evil and bad and hurtful. Besides, it made her feel good about herself, to be desired, to see the haze of lust in someone's eyes, to know she could make their dreams come true – or tell them no, it was her choice, no one would ever take that from her again.
Nina's quite still now, her voice soft. "I didn't turn on her, Lily. I could've, I wanted to, but I didn't want her to know she got to me. So I told her to leave it alone, if she was going to talk that way about you then I was leaving, and I got up to go."
Lily knows exactly what happened next. "Let me guess – she cried, said she missed you so much it was making her crazy, that she didn't mean those things she said. Only it's so hard without you, so hard being an old woman living all alone."
Nina leans back, meeting Lily's gaze. "How did you know?"
"I've dealt with manipulative people before," is all Lily will say. This isn't about her past now, it's about Nina's present.
"Yeah, she did all that, and I felt sorry for her, and I promised to come visit, but only if she would lay off trying to get me to come home. It's not going to happen and she needs to realize that. I'm happier with you. And … and you're safer, if something happens, than she is. I hurt her before, Lily, that night before I danced Swan Lake the first time, I hurt her on purpose, and she can't … she can't stand up to me like you can. I'm afraid, if nothing else, I'd be afraid of hurting her really bad, if I went back."
If anyone ever deserved a lashing-out, it's probably Erica Sayers, but Lily doesn't say that. She only strokes Nina's hair out of her face, and the older girl cuddles back into her with a small sigh. "She got mad again, because I wouldn't break down, so she yelled and said I wasn't her Nina, she didn't know me anymore. And I told her I wasn't her Nina, I'm my own person, and the sooner she realizes that the happier we'll both be. She said she hates who I'm becoming and it's all your fault, and I warned her again not to say anything about you…"
Lily snickers. "Let me guess. Was the phrase 'whore of Babylon' mentioned? Because I know she talks to Susie in the office, and thanks to Veronica my rep is totally trashed."
That at least gets a laugh out of Nina. "No, no – she just said you weren't a nice girl, with that look. And that you'd ruin me in the end. So I got up to leave. She started crying again, begging me not to go, apologizing for everything, promising not to say anything against you again. And then I left her, while she was sobbing in the middle of the living room floor, I walked out and I went down to the subway and rode back and forth for almost an hour because I was so furious and so hurt and I didn't want to come back here and just … completely freak out on you."
Lily's frozen for a second. She wouldn't have believed that Nina had the resolve to walk away from her mother, to turn her back on the tears. Not after Erica spent twenty-six years making sure Nina only danced to her tune. It's the kind of progress she hoped to see in months, not a few weeks. "Nina, you did what you had to do."
"I know. I know. She doesn't own me; I can't let her manipulate me. But God, Lily, it hurt to walk away from her." With that Nina burrows back into Lily's embrace, snuggling as tightly against her as she can, as if she'd climb inside Lily's skin and live there if she could, safe from ever having to be so hurt again.
For her part, Lily does her best to wrap herself around Nina, stroking her hair gently and murmuring reassurances until Nina falls asleep, her warm breath slow and even against Lily's collarbone.