a/n: This one's kinda stoopid. Enjoy...

Chapter Five

It was much later when Marco, Ellie and Jesse gatecrashed into their evening, as they lay contently entwined on the couch, hypnotized by the TV.

"Hey, hey, we got chips!" Marco began, throwing a bag of tortilla chips at them as he sloshed his way through to the kitchen.

"Great," Alex deadpanned back, manoeuvring her arms around Paige so she could rip into the bag.

"And movies," Ellie chimed, waving some dvd cases in their general direction as she freed her feet from her soggy boots.

"Where'd you park your canoe?" Paige muttered, raising her head from its comfortable Alex cushion to glare at the drenched bodies encroaching on her quiet night in.

"Yeah, I know," Ellie continued with a laugh of acknowledgement, for once not rising to Paige's sarcasm as she continued to liberate herself from her dripping outer garments.

The procession of sodden bodies was rounded out by Jesse's saturated form, as he followed his girlfriend into the living room.

"It's raining up a storm out there," he announced, to no one in particular.

"Really? A storm? With rain?" Alex responded, not missing a beat. For a journalist she always thought Jesse had a particularly obvious way of expressing things. But she also thought she wasn't really in a position to comment on stuff like that, so reserved most of her Jesse-judging for her internal concourse.

Marco re-emerged from the kitchen with an assortment of dips, immaculately presented in the ramekins Paige had inherited from her mother as a moving-in present. The Michalchuks evidently had different priorities when it came to the practicalities of student living.

"Dips for the chips!" he announced, setting them on the coffee table and swiping the bag from out of Alex's foraging fingers.

Paige carried on staring numbly at the television, feigning interest in the mindless gameshow they had somehow ended up watching as she asked half-heartedly, "What movie did you get?"

"One for every season," Jesse began, holding up each box for inspection. "What do we have?… Saw Three…"

"Ugh!"

"Casino Royale…"

"Oooh," went Paige, a hint of brightness flickering across her eyes.

"I wouldn't mind seeing that," agreed Alex.

"Mmph…my choice," Ellie indicated with a mouthful of chips, pointing at herself.

"And…The Queen," Jesse concluded, smacking his lips together to keep from any obvious expression.

The girls fell into a temporary stupor, as the information washed over them.

"Yeah," Jesse affirmed to their questioning eyes.

Confusion evolved into to accusation as heads turned as one, to stare at the strange boy settling himself contently into the armchair in the corner. Eventually he became aware of the collective eyes focused upon him.

"What?" he asked self-consciously.

"You do know it's about the Queen…of England?" Alex needled, getting a slap on the ass from Paige and a laugh from the other two.

"Thank you Alex, I know," Marco mugged back, by now well acquainted with his housemate's acid tongue.

"So put one of them on," Jesse pointed to Ellie, who was nearest to the dvd player. But Alex held out her arm, snagging her friend's sleeve.

"Wait. The Closer's on in five minutes, I wanna watch that first."

"The Closer?" Ellie twisted back to look at her, surprised that Alex had any partiality towards a television programme, so infrequently did she watch the box.

"It's because of Kyra Sedgwick," Paige offered by way of an explanation.

"Paige! It is not. It's a good show."

"Isn't she kinda old?" Jesse began, unwittingly setting himself up for a lifetime of Alex death stares.

"She ain't old enough to be your mother, that's for sure," Alex shot back.

"And you gave me a hard time for renting the Queen," Marco chuckled into his bag of chips.

"She's not really that old," Paige agreed diplomatically. Provoking her girlfriend was always fun up to a point. A cold abyss of mattress space between them - not so much.

"So you're okay with Alex loving her?" Ellie pressed on, amused by the brief spot of Alex-baiting, usually such a rare occurrence.

"I do not love her! Jesus!" Alex denied, a little too emphatically for anyone to give up the fight. "I just said I thought she was a really good actress."

"Hun, come on, you totally said you thought she was hot," Paige relented, unable to resist taking up the baton.

"Oooh!" the others laughed, pointing to emphasise the total callout Alex had just suffered at the hands of her own girlfriend.

Alex rolled her eyes and bit her cheek to stop from laughing. "I said I thought Detective Brenda Johnson was hot," she clarified, which only exacberated the trio into further fits of giggles.

"Alex!" Ellie exclaimed, "Stop! You're making it worse!"

Alex pretended to pout which prompted a kiss from Paige.

"It's okay hun," Paige reassured her girlfriend, indulging her charade of indignation while addressing the others, "Alex has Kyra and I have Gordon."

The trio shot back looks of confusion as Jesse asked the inevitable, "Who's Gordon?"

"Ramsey," Alex explained, rolling her eyes, prompting an unrestrained chorus of Ew! From both Marco and Ellie.

"What is it with you two and old people?" Ellie broke down again, practically convulsing.

"It's the torso," Paige replied serenely, plopping her head back down against her girlfriend's chest, "It's yummy…"

"It's a chef thing," Alex declared. "Paige sees power in the hand that feeds her." This prompted a contented grin from the girl in her arms. "As do I," Alex added as an afterthought.

Marco barely managed to conceal a knowing grin at this, having the misfortune to share a wall with the two girls and their incessant faux-power struggle. He knew Alex was a badass when she wanted to be. He also knew she was a pussycat under the superior dominance of Paige. But most of it all, he knew that should he ever openly acknowledge this, the consequences weren't worth thinking about. Marco just wanted a quiet life. He tried.

"Yeah, well, I don't get it myself," Ellie murmured, noticing for the first time that she'd managed to chip her scarlet rose nail polish. She frowned at the thought that it might be several hours before she had the satisfaction of reapplying it.

"I mean, he's just some swearing old British guy at the end of the day. In terms of silver foxes he's not exactly…Ed Harris."

"Ooh, I like him!" Marco perked up at the mention of a subject he was interested in.

"Not much in the hair department to technically be classed a silver fox though," Paige pointed out.

"I don't care," Ellie reaffirmed, while inspecting her fingernails for any further offenders, " He could have Absolute Power over me any day."

"Oh really?" said Jesse, draping both arms around his girlfriend and giving her an affectionate squeeze.

"Only in my dreams," she gazed back at him, her mouth oscillating between a cheeky grin and total paradisiacal abandonment.

Alex, always one to unhesitatingly display her own devotion regardless of others discomfort, coughed nervously to break her friend's trance.

Ellie responded by raising her eyebrows at her boyfriend. "Besides, who's your celebrity crush Mr. Cool stuff?" she asked, poking him in the ribs as he tried to play it down.

"I don't think I have one."

"Yeah right."

"No seriously," he persisted, attempting an air of nonchalance. "Famous girls, they just all seem really fake to me."

Alex and Paige shared meaningful glances from their position on the couch.

What a bullshitter, thought Paige.

You went out with this asshole? thought Alex.

"Come on," Ellie would not let it go now. Aware that her boyfriend was a reflection on her and eager to appear as normal as everyone else, she tried prodding him into submission.

"C'mon Jesse, there's gotta be someone."

He shrugged, raising his palms skywards.

"If you had to pick. Okay?"

"Er…" Jesse blew on the hair that was flopping in his eyes, then turned his attention to the ceiling with an expression of deep concentration.

"Mischa Barton," he said at last to audible groans from the room.

"What?"

"Honey, that's way too obvious," Ellie coaxed, desperately trying to redeem her boyfriend under the watchful eyes of the room, quietly judgmental in their smugness.

"You said pick someone."

"Yeah, but like, that's not like we've been doing…"

"What, so there are rules now?"

"Pick again, pick someone older."

Jesse, clearly now embarrassed from the attention this was drawing to himself, not helped by the fact he was dating his current persecutor while another ex was in the room, did his best to trawl the depths of his mind for the correct response.

Alex yawned loudly and checked her watch, while Paige offered an, "Anytime this year hun."

At last he blew his cheeks out with a sigh, raising his hands and letting them fall dramatically, slapping loudly against his thighs.

"Hillary Clinton."

The room instantly fell into a stunned silence. Ellie shot her boyfriend an unconcealed look of horror, shaking her head in disgust.

"No, just, no…" she promptly rose and retreated to the kitchen.

Paige smirked at Ellie's exit while Marco finally chomped down loudly on the chip that had paused midway to his mouth.

Alex buried her face against Paige's shoulder, desperately trying to smother the volcano of laughter that was threatening to erupt from within.

Jesse turned towards the peanut gallery, perplexity evident in every crinkle of his forehead.

"I don't get it, what did…"

"Sh!" Alex hushed him with a wave of her hand, "Closer's starting…"