The last chapter that is fraught with mommy-daughter angst. Kind of. Please review! :D
-Alivia
The Big Win.
Silence fell upon the jittery crowd.
The large auditorium smelled of musk and was cramped full of row upon row of Directors, Politicians, and other goverment workers. Tonight, though, they weren't any of those things.
They were parents.
All but the stage, casted in a single beam of white light, was dimmed. A young girl was seated in one of the wings, next to the other competitors. Discreetly, her pretty pink lip was released from the usual residence between her pearly white teeth. Her hands shook, folded neatly in her lap. Nothing else informed anyone of her distress, of her internal anxious battle.
"And the winner of a sleek black IPod and title of First Place is...Lilly Sheppard!"
The standing ovation made her heart claw at her throat and her mouth feel like cotton. Caroline pulled her up from her seat, the smell of flowers enveloping her as she was pushed towards the stage roughly. The blonde little girl wouldn't stop smiling. "Go, Lilly, go! You won!" she said.
"You're so cool Lilly!"
"Can you teach me how to draw as good as you?"
"Sit with me at lunch tomorrow!"
The compliments wouldn't stop coming as she made her way to the front of the stage. The eight year old girl's sparkly black dressed wooshed at her knees, which were unsteady. Blinded by the bright light, she couldn't see much past the first row, as the head mistress patted her back and whispered 'congratulations' in French in her ear.
Her face felt unnaturally hot.
She opened her mouth to speak, her blue eyes still squinting, her mouth still dry. Lilly's heart wouldn't stop pounding in her tiny chest.
The auburn haired little girl froze. Then, all of a sudden, the bright beam of light became dimmer, and the second row was clear, was instantly in her view, as she searched for the green eyes, the bright red hair, that would make her unfrozen and her lips move. That would make the words come.
The green eyes, the red hair, weren't there. All that was there was the pretty burgundy seat, the empty one, with a white piece of paper taped to the back of it. She could barely make out the black ink that she knew said 'Reserved: Sheppard'.
At her silence, the crowd was quiet. The words wouldn't come.
And then...then the laughing started.
And the tears wouldn't stop coming.
"Director Sheppard's office, how can I help you?" the dark haired woman said, her eyes blinking awake as she cleared her throat and rested her coffee cup on a plush mat. It was nearly seven-thirty in the morning, in DC.
"Hello. May I speak with her, please," a voice came, thickly accented. French, Cynthia decided.
"She's in a meeting at the moment. Would you like to leave a message?"
"Ah...yes."
Cynthia raised an eyebrow. "I could connect you to her private line shortly, I'll just need-"
"No. Thank you, however...please just tell her that Lilly is very upset." The woman sounded frustrated.
"Excuse me, Lilly?"
"Her daughter."
There was a pregnant pause, eyes unaturally wide, mouth falling open stupidly. "I'll do that, ma'am."
"Thank you." And then, there was but a dial tone. Cynthia placed the phone down a little harder than she usually did.
An insistent knocking rung in her ears. Her eyes stung. Her head pounded. Jenny Sheppard wasn't having a good day.
But then again, lately, nothing seemed too perky.
"Come in!" she snapped, clicking her pen and slamming it down on her oak desk.
Slightly taken aback it was the woman she'd told to tell anyone and everyone not to bother her, she paused a moment in the sure tirade that was to come. But the dark-skinned woman's hesitance to speak didn't shield her for long.
"Cynthia, what is it?"
It was then she noticed the dark look in the young woman's dark eyes. The glimmer of anger, of mistrust, there. Jenny sat back in her chair, redirecting immediatly.
"What's wrong? What happened?"
Shutting the door firmly behind her, toned ankles carried her body a few steps forward. The silence grew, as well as the feeling in the pit of the redhead's stomach that something was really really wrong.
"A woman called while you were in the meeting with SecNav," Cynthia spoke steadily.
Emerald eyes narrowed in the slightest, confusion passing through her gaze momentarily. "And?"
There was a snarky edge to the woman's tone. No way to speak to her boss. The boss she'd known for three years. The boss who had cared enough to buy her a scarf in Paris. An expensive one. No way to speak to a boss that she'd thought she knew well. Obviously, she was wrong.
"Apparently, Lilly, your daughter-" the words caught in Cynthia's throat "-is very upset at this moment in time."
Jennifer Sheppard's jaw went slack for all of two seconds. She looked a little pale. Like she'd been slapped, or seen a ghost, perhaps.
She didn't notice Cynthia's mistrusting eyes, or the questions everything posed.
"Oh god," Jenny whispered, so softly, so brokenly, Cynthia barely heard her.
In the next few seconds, she was out of her chair, her light coat thrown over her arm and her designer purse on her shoulder.
"Cancel everything. I won't be here," was all the older woman said as she left the office.
Earlier that day.
Aubrey made Madame Claira braid her hair because she wanted to look nice to see her mom. Aubrey had puckered her perfect little lips into such a pucker and allowed her sweet brown eyes to drop in such a way. It confused Lilly Sheppard to no end how just that one look could make a grown woman do something.
Lilly had wanted her hair braided too. But Aurbrey was the woman's favorite, she knew. Aubrey always got to have Fun Time first.
Her blue eyes wandered as her blond companion dressed in a purple dress similar to Lilly's. For some reason, she thought Caroline looked better in the style than she did.
"I think you are going to win tonight, Lilly," Caroline said softly as she held up the strings on the back of the dress, expecting Lilly to tie them for her.
"I don't really think so. You've seen Aubrey's oil paints, haven't you? They're perfect," she mumbled as her lithe fingers worked at the material.
"Your's are prettier," the blond girl said, matter-of-fact.
"We'll see, won't we?"
Lilly sat on the bed and sighed. Her tummy didn't feel good.
"I'm so glad you get to meet my mommy today. I've been telling her about you for a while. She really wants to meet you."
Her blue eyes lit up. "Hey, my momma's gonna be here today too."
Caroline nodded, and smiled a little at her best friend's sudden acknowledgment of the fact.
She didn't notice the way Lilly Sheppard started gnawing on her bottom lip after the subject was brought up.
"Where's your mom?" the dark brown haired girl said snottily.
In that moment, Lilly decided a day would come when she would wipe that smirk right off Aubrey's pretty little face.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you could see, Aubrey. She's not here yet. Do you need glasses or something?"
Aubrey scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
"Girls," Claira admonished, shooting the two eight year old's a look.
Caroline was off with her mother. Aubrey had left her mom and dad to come 'talk to her friend'.
Lilly Sheppard's mother wasn't at the airport yet. She wasn't on the plane most of the mommy and daddy's were on.
Lilly had decided that because her Momma was so important, she couldn't fly with regular kid's moms and dads.
She told Aubrey that, right to her stupid face. Now Aubrey wouldn't stop bugging her.
Claira knelt down beside Lilly, her tall, thin form complimented by the nice clothes she wore. Of the twenty five eight year old' s in her class, she thought Lilly was the most mature for her age. She was an old soul, as Claira had come to learn in the three years she'd known her.
"Lil, has your mom told you what flight she'd be on?" she asked hesitantly.
"No," Lilly, muttered, her eyes glued to the floor.
There was a small pause.
"But I think she'll be on one that'll come in a few hours. I think we should all just go back to school. She'll be here."
It made the young woman deeply unsettled that the little girl's eyes were so trusting, yet so guarded. Almost like she feared the worst. Like she knew what could go wrong, would go wrong.
Like someone who knew they'd placed their eggs in the entirely wrong basket.
Three and a half months earlier.
The conversation had been light, short, but as important as any report that she had to sign off on every night.
Early morning sun shone through the window of her Gorgetown home. The smell of food filled the air, as bacon sizzled lightly in a pan.
The just-eight year old had sat on a stool in the well furnished kitchen. Peace radiated from everything, rare in the case of the forty-two year old Director of NCIS-slash-Momma and her fiesty auburn haired daughter. There was no doubt their relatonship was anything near perfect, but it was Lilly's birthday, so a momentary pause in chaos was allowed, seemingly.
Jenny Sheppard was at the stove, her hair in a messy bun, a ratty old t-shirt clung to her curvy form.
It had been Jethro's. But she didn't think of him and all that jazz today, no.
Only the amazing little being they'd created, who currently sipped on a glass of orange juice and had a quiet look in her blueblue eyes.
"What are you thinking about, baby?" Jenny had said softly.
It took Lilly a moment to respond. "Well...there's this art comp...compet..."
"Competition?" she said with a smile.
"Uh-huh. That. And it's in December, and, well, I kinda wanted you to come. But you don't have to."
She ducked her head like she was embarassed for asking in the first place. It made Jenny's heart squeeze a bit.
"Lilly, of course I'll be there. You like drawing a lot, huh?" At that her messy auburn curls shook with the force of the nod.
The smile that enveloped the little girl's face felt like a breath of fresh air to her mother. Comforting. Normal.
It was the last they spoke of it, and they went about their morning without any fuss.
After the Big Win.
"Lilly, Lilly, it's okay. Please don't cry. I don't like it when you're sad," Caroline whispered fervently, her green eyes distressed and her eyebrows scrunched.
"They laughed," she wailed, her face red and puffy and her blue eyes tinged with tears. Caroline stroked her back in a comforting manner, unsure why she was left with the task of making Lilly not upset, but not opposing it, because this was her best friend. She didn't want her best friend to be sad.
Her best friend was the most awesomest person she'd ever met.
"They are stupid!" Caroline spat, her blond hair falling in a tumble around her neck.
"She wasn't there."
At that, Caroline didn't really know what to say. She didn't have that problem.
She didn't have a mom who said she was gonna be there, and who wasn't.
"I hate her."
The words were dark in the quiet room of the two girls. Ominous.
Wrong.
"I hate her so much."
They were as wrong as they were irrevocable.