AN: Lyrics below are from Cold play's "The Scientist". As always, all replies and constructive criticism are appreciated! The following flashback is a little bit of what went on before the Polish Troll decided to interrupt Bianca and Mags' baby bonding… have I mentioned that she really is a weenie?
Stand By Me
Chapter Eleven
"Are you sure you're not lost?"
Maggie shot Bianca a peeved look, studying the brunette and putting as much consternation into the look as she could. However, seeing the bulge that would one day be a sweet girl made being annoyed with Bianca just slightly difficult and her fingers itched to reach out and pat the belly.
"I am not lost," Maggie insisted, focusing her eyes on the road and ignoring Bianca's amused snort. "I simply can't yet find what I'm looking for. Maggie Stone doesn't get lost, not on a trip like this and, believe me Mommy, I'd never get lost with a baby on board."
Another snort, this one paired with a blush and Bianca again found her hands smoothing across her stomach, and loving the movement that answered her touch, a rolling movement within her of life and it brought an almost dopey grin to her face. Maggie really really loved that almost dopey grin of hers.
Pregnancy suited Bianca Montgomery and Maggie found herself enjoying it, even when she had been awakened in the morning by Bianca yakking and staggering to hold her hair while she enjoyed that lovely not-so-morning morning sickness. It was extremely strange to be feeling so damn lovey-dovey for Bianca when she was puking her guts out.
Thankfully, the morning sickness was fading away and it had yet to rear its ugly head again. Maggie turned again, searching for the building, wherever it was, and her sharp eyes finally fell on the massive shape looming in the distance and she gave a triumphant albeit childish "hah!", coasting into the large parking lot.
"I still don't get why you got so excited about a clearance sale," Bianca murmured, brushing hair from her face as she watched Maggie coast through the lot, searching for the empty parking space she knew was there, waiting for her and her precious cargo. "We can go shopping all the time… and this mall is so far away."
"Yeah… but it's a baby clearance sale!" She turned the car again, grinning excitedly and having an insane urge to bounce in the driver's seat at just the thought of a clearance sale for baby stuff. "All those baby clothes and stuff and items just waiting for us to grab up! We have to get these things for the baby because she wants them!"
"Maggie, shopping should not include you running gaily through a baby store, throwing rattles and bottles into a basket and then go running back and forth between me and the shelves, holding up pink dresses against my stomach and giving commentary on how my daughter will no doubt have my eyes and how she'll look so adorable in purple!"
"You know you love it," Maggie snickered and was awarded by another blush, this one deeper and Maggie felt immensely proud of herself and her ability to make Bianca beam like that. "Besides, our girl here is gonna need all the clothes she can get, right? After all, she's a Kane right, and we all know how many clothes a Kane woman needs. Even you," she added with a slight laugh and got a playful huff in response.
"I do not get nearly as obsessive over my clothes as the rest of my female family… I mean, have you seen Kendal with her shoes? She goes running around, rubbing her heels and whispering 'My precious, my precious, my precious' in this weird little whisper and stroking them in this way that makes Ryan's eye twitch erratically."
Thankfully, Maggie finally pulled into a parking space, cutting the ignition and observing Bianca with a wicked grin. "I've seen you sitting in front of your closet and stroking that new top I brought you… you were whispering to it like it was some precious item and, let me tell you, Kendall probably doesn't have anything on you."
Bianca snorted, watching in amusement as Maggie got out of the car, closing the door and walking around the car to open her door and kneel, grinning even more as her eyes danced with amusement. "Are you seriously telling me that you don't enjoy my spoiling?" Bianca just stared and Maggie chuckled, cocking an eyebrow.
"See?" Maggie laughed, "You love my spoiling and we both know that our girl here is having a ball where she is, probably pulling a Homer in there…"
"I'm sorry… what!"
"Come on, a Homer?" At Bianca's blank look, Maggie resisted the urge to roll her eyes, reaching out to smooth a hand across the stomach. "You know, that episode when Homer's in the womb and he's doing a little swimming dance and there's that music playing and he looks so happy and settled?"
"You're a disturbed woman," Bianca laughed but when Maggie took her hand and helped her up, she didn't fight, straightening beside Maggie and watching the shorter woman lock the car and then turn back, carrying Bianca's purse like some loyal male who had been dragged through shopping hell.
"Come on, we have outfits for the baby to try on," Maggie giggled and started dragging Bianca towards the mall happily, almost skipping herself and enjoying how easy it was, once again, to make her bets friend grin like that.
Maggie realized half-way to the Martin home that she had no idea where Dixie Martin was and found herself dazed by the sudden jolt of awareness, something that made her feel stupid and rather idiotic, and she regretted her burst of giddy excitement. Amy had fiddled with the radio for a good fifteen minutes before finally settling on a Mix station.
Amy was a known music nut, at least to Maggie, and she could spend an hour listening to old opera and then switch to Johnny Cash and spend an hour shaking her head to classic metal before switching over to something else. Eclectic, thy name was Amy 'Aimless' Cohen. Now, with a huge grin, she started rocking her shoulders in tune to the tune that began to play through Maggie's car.
It was a strong sound and Maggie glanced at the radio for a moment before looking out the window and studying the slowly passing world outside the glass. She suddenly hated the damn song and her fingers, gripping the steering wheel, itched to change the channel but Amy was enjoying herself and who said that Amy deserved to be as miserable as she was?
Come up to meet you
Tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start
Running in circles
Coming in tails
Heads on a science apart
She squirmed in her seat, turning and considering ways to get a hold of the newly re-living Dixie Cooney. She paused, frowned, and wondered if Amy had somehow made a mistake… wouldn't the Cortlandts and the Martins already be running through town, throwing confetti and singing in helium voices?
The thought of Tad Martin swaying in a barbershop trio with Adam Chandler and David, all three singing in high pitched voices was utterly absurd but she wasn't able to stop the smile that it caused and she bit the inside of her cheek, fighting the erase the ridiculous but wonderful mental image.
At her side, Amy was nicely settled, nodding her head to the music, not knowing the words and for that Maggie was a little bit grateful. Amy, at her best, sounded like an albatross being strangled while being drowned. At her worst, she made the roots of Maggie's molars ache.
She simply could not sing and the fact that she had decided not to try was wonderful for Maggie. At least she could trust Amy not to make everything even worse than it was now…
Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start
But it didn't change the fact that she had no idea where to find Dixie Cooney but had some idea of where she was. There was no way that JR Chandler, right now grieving for both 'Bess' and his son, would simply let his mother, who he had, according to what Maggie could piece together, apparently tracked her down in Switzerland, go running around town without mounted artillery with her.
It should have made her head spin, shouldn't it? Dixie Cooney shows up, right at the same time as Amy; glides into town within the same month? It was almost too much and yet, here she was, easily absorbing all of this with a shocking amount of grace and skill, and it was no doubt due to the fact that she had spent the last few years in Pine Valley, AKA, Lazarus central.
And here she was, running, or at least, driving around town, wondering how to track down a woman who, just a few days ago, had been dead and constantly being mourned and, hey, she's not actually dead anyway… Maggie wondered why people in Pine Valley even held funerals anyway… after all, nobody really died clearly, except for Frankie and how fucked up was that anyway?
I was just guessing
At numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science
Science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
Tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles
Chasing tails
Coming back as we are
Wait… Maggie turned in her seat the smallest bit, glanced out the back and then turned back to the wheel, gripping it hard and considering. Okay, so she couldn't find Dixie and didn't like the idea of confronting JR just to see her and ask her about Del Henry. While she did feel sorry for him, she highly doubted he'd believe any condolences she offered, no matter how honest they were.
Frowning, she contemplated this new idea, nodding to herself a few times before performing a U-turn and increasing speed, skirting around a smaller car and settling back as she tried to ignore the way the idea made her heartrate kick up a notch or so. Besides, what if she was still going to ignore her like she was the last few… well, year or so?
Okay, fine, the dry period of their friendship wasn't exactly a year long. More like nearly a year or so… All Maggie knew was that the only safe place she'd had in her life, the only thing that she had at least partially trusted in her life had dumped her like a broken pump, and run off to play protector to Saint Babe of the Blonde Bitch Nation.
Bianca had stopped the worship when it had been revealed that Babe had been playing mommy to the wrong baby fgor months and known about it. Still, it still felt like there was a blonde presence in the room and it was making it difficult for Maggie to give Bianca anything other than a chilly shoulder.
Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
She understood what had set Kendall off so badly that she'd get into a fight like that with Bianca. Maggie didn't know exactly what it was but she'd seen the Kendall and JR friendhsip once or twice and, while she thought the idea of the two them strating boinking anytime soon was a bit on the 'ick' side, she knew loyalty when she saw it.
And she knew that something had happened between Miranda being given to Bianca in the hospital and the happy mommy and daughter going home a few days later. She didn't know what it was but had a bad idea of what it could be and she could all too easily it going down in her head and Kendall holding onto her friendship with JR like a rabid dog.
Friendship was something that Maggie understood, at least partially and, while she'd had very few good relationships in her young life, the one that constantly haunted her was the one she had abandoned because she was too much a coward to put up for one day what Frankie had dealt with for years.
She knew, all too well, how difficult it had been to be loyal to Bianca through all of the hell lately and she knew, at least on some level, what was straining Kendall so badly. She could remember all too well walking in on that fight between Bianca and Kendall about what had happened in Vegas, the all too brilliant plan to see if JR trusted Babe.
For some reason, Maggie got the idea that that plan, whether or not Bianca had thought it up, was inanely stupid. You test your husband's trust for you by making him think you're cheating on him with the girl you share weird vibes with? And, of course, you know he'll trust you because you've been so loyal in the marriage before all this, right?
She'd never admit it, especially not to Bianca, not even now, but she'd been cheering JR's dark side on most of the time and had been, sometimes, insanely grateful that she was not the only one to see through Babe's lies and pretty smiles. God knew Jamie was the lapdog… as always, the thought of her former roomate brought up a silent ache, and she had a fleeting moment of wondering what he was doing with Babe and Krystal out there.
Thankfully, Amy was there to get her mind and heart out of the ditch, asking curiously, "Where are we going now?"
"To Bianca's… we need to tell her about everything and see what she thinks about this all."
"Why?" Amy asked in bafflement and Maggie's only answer was a slightly confused shrug of slim shoulders.
Nova Scotia…
Ken stared nervously at the other man who sat across from him, beer at his side, studying him with sharp dark eyes and with his bare feet up on the table in front of him. There was a careful blankness in his gaze that was too empty and Ken fiddled with his tie again, annoyed at how well the intensity was freaking him out.
He was Lavery's brother, one of the three and he had always gotten the idea that this was the only one who at all cared about the redhead. Now, he had no doubt. Her house was shockingly bare of anything personal, nothing like pictures of keepsakes to decorate the walls and tables and Ken had found himself the smallest bit chilled by the emptiness in the house.
The only picture, anywhere, was on the table next to the couch, beside the phone, an older picture of her and her brother, when her hair had been longer and before he had come to the company and he was only barely able to keep from grabbing it up and huddling with it, escape out of this shockingly empty place.
When his cellphone went off, the other man, Jonthon, his name was Jonathon, gave him a look that a cat would have given a canaray, throwing off casually, "I have to take this call. It's my girlfriend." He stood and Ken leaned away as he passed, pressing himself deeper into the chair and not relaxing until the male was out of sight.
Usually, Maggie's calls, which he had received at least twice a day since getting to his sister's place caused him great joy. Now, however, his focus was on the slimey bastard out there that had been giving his little sister enough attetion to last a lifetime. Erin had never gone around and bragged about her sexual decisions and god knows there was just enough of the little left to get ill at the thought of his little sister getting it on with anyone, much less like that…
Still, he had learned that she was one of the most responsble women in the world and had learned it early on. And, while she could flirt with the best of them, she didn't like people like Ken; they tended to make her hiss and blow fire, not to mention ever so elegantly do something to their nether regions that would make it difficult for them to breed.
And he knew, without a doubt, that he violently hated that slimy bastard.
Maggie had been talking for a few minutes before he realized that he wasn't listening all that well and he gave her more of his focus, stepping forward to lean agaiunst the door and watch the slimey bastard sit there and cower, not quite realizing why he was so freaked out by Jonathon.
Jonathon was used to freaking people out and he had learned that he could use it and he had, many times in the past few years because his survival intincts were honed by nightmares and hell, and were nearly as strong as Erin's, which were pretty damn magnificent really.
"Jonathon?"
"I'm sorry, baby. I'm just having a bad day. There's this guy from Erin's work here and I don't like him…" He watched, and then straightened when he spotted Erin coming down and Ken's slimy bastard kind of reation, a smoothness coming over as he stood and welcomed her a seat at his side.
She took a seat opposite him, noticing her brother and snatching the folders from where Ken had set them when he had entered. "Sorry… I just really don't like this guy… have you ever met anyone so slimey you just… you just hate them immediately?"
She sounded edgy when he answered and he noted it absently, narrowing his eyes as he watched the attempts by Ken to get his hands near her legs, leaning forward and closer every few seconds until Erin finally snapped and stood, circling around to put the couch between the two of the. "You have no idea, Jonathon."
"Are you okay? You sound a little bit pissed."
"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you're stupid enough to think that talking to a worshipper of a cult can do some good. It's like talking to a wall, Jonathon, I swear to God and I don't even know why I even tried, seriously."
"Who are you talking about?"
A long silence before Maggie's voice came back and he recognized the quality there all too well from hearing it. Bianca… Bianca Montgomery. Every time she came home from trying to deal with the Kane ended in her voice getting that odd and slightly hollow tinge to it that made him want to tell Bianca off for good.
He listened silently as Maggie explained how an attempt to get some kind of talk going between Bianca and someone else had ended in a battle between her and the brunette and he physically winced when Maggie brought up the B-word, which, as always these days, came up in conversation.
It made no sense to Jonathon why Bianca Montgomery continued to act the way she didn, why she had gone out of her way to get the Chandler patriarch to stop his manhunt of the blonde baby-swapper who had so hurt Maggie and everyone that Bianca 'said' she loved… clearly, she didn't know the meaning of the word.
At the end, her voice was defeated and he closed his eyes at the emptiness that he knew was on her face when she asked him, very softly, "We can go right? We can go to the casino with Amy and have a night out?"
"Of course," he murmured, nodding to himself. "We can go out and you can have some fun with Amy. I think you need it huh?"
"Yeah…" She paused and he listened to muffled words with another female, no doubt Amy… Amy, who had kicked so badly he was still sore even with the marks fading. "It's a date then. You, me and Ames, not having to worry about anyone else but us… Boy, does that sound good."
"Go shopping, find something you like… I'll be home tomorrow morning, and we can have a few hours before we head over to the casino… be carefuly okay?" He waited for her reply and nodded and then she ended the call and he put the cell down, stepping out of the kitchen and once again scaring Ken so badly he went a few shades paler.
At least did that well…