'We might find a place in this world someday.' - High School Musical 2
For Alexindigo and Jurisprxdent- because I need a perspective other than Elliot's to show you what's been happening between the lines of Breaking The Cycle all along.
This is a companion piece to Breaking The Cycle, but you can read it as a completely separate story if you haven't read that one.
Potential multichapter if anyone wants more- I'm not giving up on Breaking The Cycle, I'm just open to using this as a way of exploring that perspective I know a lot of you have been wanting!
I apologise in advance for the mess this is so out of my comfort zone.
-IseultLaBelle x
November, 2029
She's bent over her desk, holding her hair over her shoulder with her right hand, highlighting with her left, thoroughly absorbed in her algebra homework when her mother knocks gently on her bedroom door.
"Yeah?" she calls absentmindedly.
She's tired.
She's tired, still has American lit notes and Spanish grammar exercises and a chemistry worksheet to get through tonight before she can sleep and none of it is due until Thursday, admittedly, but she's learned to cram her Thursday homework into Tuesday nights as best she can unless she wants someone to notice that she hardly ever manages to find the time for homework when she's at her dad's house on Wednesdays- and she doesn't, she's absolutely clear on that.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Yeah, okay."
"You still working on your homework?" Gentle hands stroke her hair, pull it back over her shoulder, fussing. "I don't remember having this much until junior year…"
"It's not that bad."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I'm just trying to get ahead on everything so I have less to get done before dance."
"Smart girl. Uncle Elliot's coming over tonight."
Penelope nods, gives in, discards her pencil on top of her algebra book to meet her mother's eyes as she moves to perch on the edge of her bed.
"We've got some things we need to go over together before we're due in court tomorrow morning," her mom explains. "He's going to drop by when Auntie Kathy gets in from work, bring us pizza…"
"I'm not eating pizza."
"I'm not cooking for you…"
"I don't want you to cook for me, I'm just not eating pizza. We've had, like, so much takeout this month…"
She's being awkward, and she knows it.
But her father's words echo in her mind.
"You need to eat dinner…"
"I'll still eat dinner," Penelope insists. "We have salad stuff…"
"Salad stuff isn't dinner…"
"You have…"
"That's different…"
"How…"
"Because you're fifteen…"
"Being fifteen doesn't actually have anything to do with it, Mom."
She's pushing her.
They're locked in a fierce battle of wills they've been fighting on and off for a year, now, so much hurt and anxiety and pain and loathing laced into the words neither of them are prepared to come out and say that sometimes, just sometimes, Penelope wonders if it would be easier to lay it all out in the open.
To tell her mother the truth she hopes she hasn't figured out on her own.
To tell her that her father told her she was built like her mother and he told her it as though it was a bad thing, told her there was a reason none of the boys at school were interested in her and she couldn't do anything about inheriting her mother's height but she could sure as hell do something about her weight…
"Will you let me finish?" her mom sighs. "Because you're fifteen, and your metabolism's still…"
"My metabolism's shit…"
"No, it's not. You get back to me on that when you're my age. High school cross country on top of all the dance you do is a lot…"
"The pizza places you and Uncle Elliot like always make everything so greasy and…"
"You want one slice?" her mom bargains. "That a compromise? You want me to ask Uncle Elliot if he can just pick up one…"
"I'm still not going to eat it…"
"You're allowed to eat takeout sometimes…"
"Your version of sometimes and my version of sometimes aren't the same thing, Mom, last week we had…"
"So you don't want pizza, then," her mom surrenders. "Okay. We've got avocadoes. Will you eat one of those, if I make you…"
"For fruit, they actually have a really high…"
"You need healthy fats, your body needs them to…"
"I'm not eating it."
"… Okay. Okay, you can come look through the fridge with me and tell me what you will eat before Uncle Elliot gets here, then. Did you eat lunch?"
"Did you?"
"Penelope."
"You either think intermittent fasting's good for you or you don't…"
"Alright. Alright, I hear you. We can have this conversation another time…"
"So I don't embarrass you in front of Uncle Elliot…"
"No. So he doesn't walk into this and decide he's never spending the evening with us again…"
"He's not going to do that just because we're…"
"We're not doing this in front of Elliot, Penelope. I mean it. We're not. Can you finish that come tell me what you will eat, please?"
"Okay." She reaches for her pencil, bows her head, but both of them know she's not concentrating.
"Thank you. You packed for your dad's?"
"I just need towels."
"Can you take the old ones from the back of the…"
"Yeah, I know."
"Okay. I'll drop you at school tomorrow, before I start…"
"You promised you were going to go see your dermatologist before work tomorrow," Penelope protests. "Mom…"
"And I will do. Right after I've dropped you at school. Okay? I've got an appointment. It's not as bad as it has been the last few times…"
"I thought it looked pretty bad when you showed me," Penelope worries quietly.
Sometimes she wants to ask.
Sometimes, she psyches herself up to.
She closes her eyes and breathes slowly, controlled, fights to pump oxygen in and out all the while she tries to come up with the words to ask, but she never makes it.
The question she wants to ask her mother, she's concluded, isn't the one that's most obvious, the one she worries that she's been expecting her to ask ever since she started seeing her dad when she was nine.
She all but knows the answer to that already, wishes she didn't, pretends it isn't painfully clear because everyone else does; her mom, Uncle Elliot, Auntie Amanda, Uncle Fin, her father…
She knows the answer to that question, wants to keep on pretending that she doesn't, but she does.
What she doesn't understand is why it's never occurred to any of them that she must know how her mother got the scars she doesn't allow anyone else to see.
Of course she knows.
She read about it online.
"It's been worse. Pia?" Her mom reaches out to place her hand over hers, softens. "Pia, look at me. It's been worse. It's been much, much worse than it is right now…"
"It's still cellulitis, Mom."
"I know. But I'm going to take care of it tomorrow morning. I'll be fine…"
"You're going to be on your own…"
"Just until you're back on Thursday night…"
"And then I'm at Dad's again at the weekend…"
"And while your concern is sweet, I can take care of myself. I've had worse…"
"Will you text me and tell me what your dermatologist says?"
"If that would make you feel better. I don't want you saying anything in front of Elliot," her mom warns. "Pia? Pia, you promise? I don't want him fussing."
Penelope decides it's best not to point out that Elliot would fuss an awful lot more if he knew her mother had been deliberately keeping her recurring cellulitis episodes from him.
It's from an old injury, her mom told her, the first time she asked.
An old burn scar that never healed well, got infected, flared up so many times that she stopped mentioning it to anyone else when it did because she's sure they got sick of hearing about it.
Penelope suspects there have been flare ups even since that first time her mom took her with her to her emergency dermatologist appointment, that first time she was old enough to understand, when she's kept it a secret even from her.
"Okay."
Her mother visibly relaxes, and Penelope wonders if Uncle Elliot finding out would really be so bad.
She's moved onto her American lit notes by the time the buzzer sounds.
She doesn't quite hear her mother answer the door.
Well, she does.
She hears their hushed tones out in the living area of the small flat even with her bedroom door closed, hears the clatter of one of them reaching into the crockery cupboard for the plates, squeaking of cardboard boxes.
"I don't know what to do with her, El," she hears her mother sigh helplessly. "I just… I just don't… I can't make her eat, can I? And she's so…"
"Shhhh. Lollie?" Elliot shouts, doesn't even bother knocking. "Lollie! Your mom and I are going to eat before our pizza goes cold! You joining us?"
Penelope sighs.
"I thought you had a trial to prep for," she complains sulkily- puts on the best act she can, at least, because she's stressed and she's frustrated and she knows he's about to try to sweet talk her into eating the goddamned pizza he'll inevitably have bought her back despite her insistence, but she'll never snap at him like she will her mother- at least not properly.
Elliot shrugs. "We do. Got time to eat first, though. You not hungry?"
"Not really," she lies, watches her mom at the kitchen countertop suspiciously. "I said I didn't want…"
"I know," her mom retorts. "Believe me. I know. Look. Lettuce, cucumber, carrot, radishes, tofu, tahini. Humour me. Please?"
She eyes the lone slice of pizza her Uncle Elliot transfers to a plate with all the suspicion it absolutely deserves. "I'm not eating…"
"Yeah, your mom told me that," Elliot agrees. "But I figured you still might change your mind. Eat it, don't eat it, whatever. Makes no difference to me…"
"You paid for it, though," she worries, meets her mother's eyes just long enough to take in her concern, too.
Because they're not family.
It's… complicated.
He's family.
As far as she and her mom are concerned, her Uncle Elliot is family, and sometimes, Penelope thinks they might be family to him, too.
Just sometimes.
Sometimes she allows herself to believe it, and then she gets a hold of herself.
She tries to ignore the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that surfaces whenever her friends talk about their dads.
It scares her.
She doesn't even want to admit to herself that her Uncle Elliot is the closest thing to one she's ever known.
She has a bedroom at his house that's been hers as far back as she can remember, not one that became hers only when family court intervened.
He has a nickname for her that no one but he and her Auntie Kathy and their grown-up kids and their families use and she's heard the story of how he settled on it when she was born because he thought she was too little to be a Penelope but her mom hated Penny a thousand times over, knows the reason for it, but still it makes her feel as though he's only ever called her by the diminutive he chose for her when she was a baby because he did the same for Rick, for Elizabeth, because it's his way of letting her know she's not so different to them.
When she's with him, he only ever takes her places she feels safe.
He's never left her alone in the house all weekend with a half-empty carton of milk and a box of life cereal and made her swear not to tell her mother.
He's never poured vodka into her glass and piled on peer pressure even the popular crowd who smuggled vapes into school last semester would envy.
He's never tried to make her choose between him and her mother, never lost it with her for wanting to call home on her weekends with him- because her mom's flat in Manhattan is home, unquestionably so, no matter how many custody petitions her dad might file.
He's never tried to be her dad.
That's the crux of it.
Her dad is someone she'd never want anyone to try to be.
"Doesn't matter," Elliot shrugs. "I bought you it, didn't I? Your mom made your feelings quite clear. It's on me. Eat it, don't eat it, it doesn't make a difference…"
"Can I cut it in half?" Penelope caves.
She doesn't have it in her to push him away.
"You can cut it in half," her Uncle Elliot agrees. If that's what you want. Then you can always come back for the second half if you change your mind, can't you…"
"I won't change my mind."
"Okay. You do whatever you want to do, honey. Up to you."
Penelope doesn't miss the way her mother mouths her gratitude to him across the kitchen area when she thinks she isn't looking.
She leaves them be to work on their trial strategy for all of an hour before he's knocking on her bedroom door.
"Lollie, can I come in?" he calls. "You decent…"
"Yes, I'm decent," she rolls her eyes. "Why wouldn't I be decent, it's like, 8pm…"
He always knocks.
Even when she was little, he always knocked, always asked if it was okay for him to come in before he opened the door.
Penelope can't decide if he does it because he's not her dad, or he does it because it's what dads are supposed to do.
"Well, I'm just checking, aren't I? Your mom and I are done for the night," he tells her, wanders through the doorway, forensically examines the new polaroid editions to her pinboard. "You going to tell me who this is?"
"Alexi?"
"That the boy you're with in half of these?"
"Yeah."
"Alexi, then. Who's Alexi?"
"Just a friend."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"Okay. You still got homework to get through?"
"Yeah…"
"For tomorrow?"
"Kinda."
"What's kinda mean?"
"For Thursday."
"I wish my kids had been half as studious as you are," Elliot remarks, misses the point entirely. "You want to come watch a movie with your mom and me? Have the rest of the night off?"
"I don't know…"
"Come on. You're allowed to take a break, Lollie. We'll let you pick? Why don't you come and…"
"Did Mom put you up to this?"
"Call it a joint effort. Come on. One night off isn't going to ruin your perfect GPA…"
"You're not going to make me sit through the original DC films again, are you?" she clarifies first. "Because they remade those for a reason…"
"I said you could choose, didn't I? We can pick up where we left off with Batman next time…"
"Or we could just watch the remakes instead…"
"You've got worse taste in movies than your mother. You going to come join us, then?"
"Fine."
"Knew you'd come round. Can I ask you something?"
"Sure?" Penelope flips the cap back onto the fancy Muji gel pen Elizabeth bought her when she stepped in to take her back to school shopping last summer, homework finally abandoned.
"Your mom okay?"
"Why?" She blinks, innocent as she can manage, struggles to ignore the worry in her godfather's eyes.
"She's holding her stomach like she's in pain."
"She's fine."
"You know I hate it when you two use that word."
"Actual fine."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Just girl stuff…"
"Girl stuff? At her age?"
"That's not the only kind of girls' stuff, Uncle Elliot," Penelope lies through her teeth. "She's fine…"
"You'd tell me if she wasn't?"
"Only if she wanted me to."
They hold each other's gaze for several moments, deadlocked, contemplating.
"I'm glad she's got you," Elliot murmurs at last, just loud enough that she can hear. "I mean that. Just… let me know if you need me? Yeah?"
"Okay."
"Okay. Come on, then. What we watching?"
"High School Musical?" her Uncle Elliot comments, dismayed, when she places the disc in the drive. "Seriously?"
"What's wrong with High School Musical?"
"Liv," Elliot protests. "Liv, help me out here…"
"What's wrong with High School Musical?" her mom echoes her. "It's a proper feel-good…"
"You've seen it?"
"Haven't you? You've got three daughters! At least Elizabeth must have been the right age when the first one came out…"
"We never had the Disney Channel. My kids were never exposed to forced humour, rot-your-teeth bullsh…"
"It's not Hannah Montana! It's… I don't know. How would you describe it, Pia? It's essentially Grease, but on Disney steroids- just not the comedy kind…"
"And who still has a DVD player? It's 2029, who the hell still has a DVD player in…"
"It's cheaper than paying for all the streaming services," says Penelope loyally.
She tries her best to disguise the fact that she's battling with a remote control that hasn't worked properly for years.
"Thank you! See? It's cheaper than your Netflix subscription, and your…"
"If you had Netflix, you'd be watching better movies than whatever this pile of…"
"Stop ripping it to pieces before you've even watched it!"
"Lollie would prefer a Netflix subscription, wouldn't you, Lollie…"
"I'm not getting involved," Penelope warns. "You guys can go get a room and work it out amongst yourse-"
She's never quite understood their dynamic, and how her Auntie Kathy fits into it.
"Nah, we don't need a room," her Uncle Elliot dismisses. "Your mom needs to join the twenty-first century, but we don't need a room to work that one out…"
"Oh, so you think she needs Netflix, does she? Have you seen the shows girls her age are watching on Netflix…"
Penelope decides it's not worth mentioning that she's seen them all at her dad's house anyway.
Her dad told her that her mom had been addicted to opioids too, when they watched Euphoria, and even though she knew he must be lying, the image he planted in her mind was so vivid, so desperate, so utterly unsettling, that she hardly slept until her weekend with him was over and she turned her mother's bedroom drawers upside down, just to be sure.
"We can always watch Teen Beach Movie instead," she offers brightly. "That's proper Disney channel sap…"
"No. Absolutely not. Don't get her going on Alycia Debnam-Carey, she won't shut up…"
"Maia Mitchell."
"What?"
"Alycia Debnam-Carey isn't in Teen Beach Movie. Maia Mitchell is. Don't you listen?"
"Yeah, Liv. Don't you listen to a word she says…"
"Penelope, just press play."
They don't even make it through to the end of the first song.
That's unlike her mother.
Not unlike her Uncle Elliot, admittedly- Penelope has spent enough time pretending to be a Stabler to know that his inability to stay awake through a movie he's not completely invested in is something of a family legend.
But utterly unlike her mother.
They were sat side by side on the couch when she emerged from her bedroom after she packed away the rest of her homework to take to her dad's tomorrow night, and there they stay.
Her mom pulls her legs up underneath her, settles in, and her Uncle Elliot spreads his arm across the back of the couch behind her, manages the odd comment about Disney channel stereotyping and how it's all oh-so-predictable before he falls into silence.
When Troy and Gabriella step out onto the decking to see the new year in and Penelope looks over to ask Elliot if it's as bad as he feared it would be, her mother is sound asleep on his shoulder and he's snoring loudly, one hand trapped beneath him, the other clutching her to his side the way she's only ever let him hold her- in front of her, at least.
Penelope turns the volume down low and leaves them to it.
'This could be the start of something new,
It feels so right to be here with you.'
- Start of Something New, High School Musical (2005)