Prompt by - Brit10Brat

I've borrowed from, and therefore there are spoilers for Intoxicated (the episode), although its not completely canon.

References to 'History' (the moment)

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Vacation

"A vacation is like love - anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort, and remembered with nostalgia." ~ Author Unknown

Anticipated

Olivia looked into her wardrobe critically. Very critically. There was nothing in there worth wearing. It was so last year.

She glanced from her wardrobe, to her suitcase, laying open on the bed, completely empty. It was impossible. They were leaving in two days and there was no way she'd ever be packed in time.

She sighed, turning on heel and leaving the room, leaving both suitcase and wardrobe behind.

Her mother was in her own room, selecting clothes from her own wardrobe to pack. Olivia just stood watching her for a few moments, taking in how together she appeared to be. Steady on her feet, stable, not a tremor in sight. It wasn't exactly what she was used to. Not that she was about to get used to it or take it for granted. She'd been there too many times and been disappointed too many times in the past. She'd learnt the hard way that she just had to appreciate her mother's good days in the there and now.

Still, she was trying real hard but then that was hardly surprising given the threat Olivia herself was holding over her head. She'd been on and off of the wagon too many times in the last six months or so, with serious consequences on more than one occasion. Olivia's deal was simple. Sort it out, or lose her forever. She didn't want it to come to that, but if it had to, she had the tools at her disposal to do it and her mother knew it.

Hence the fact she was trying so hard.

"Olivia." Her mom suddenly became aware of her presence and smiled over at her, "How's the packing going?"

Olivia shrugged, "I don't have anything to take."

"You have lots of beautiful clothes." Her mother replied, but then a look of doubt clouded her face, "Don't you?" she asked, obviously wondering if her motherly neglect had spread as far as Olivia's wardrobe.

A different person, a more malicious one, might have claimed not and manipulated her mother's guilt, but Olivia had more about her than that. For all she was angry with her mom she also genuinely wanted her to get better and wasn't about to do anything to upset her.

"I have beautiful clothes for America mom, but we're going to Milan." she looked at her hopefully, "Can I get some new things? I can go to shops myself."

Her mom looked at her and then shook her head, crushing all her hopes until she spoke again, "No, I tell you what, I'll come with you. We can go shopping together. We'll have you dressed for Italy in no time."

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She wasn't trying to buy Olivia's love. Nor her forgiveness. But she knew she owed her daughter, and the shopping trip, like the vacation itself were just small steps in her grand plan to make amends.

She knew that all the new outfits in the world wouldn't change the fact her loser boyfriend had molested her daughter. The finest hotel rooms, Italian cuisine and sightseeing trips could never take back the night she'd attacked her with a broken bottle. But if she combined those things with being a proper mom and staying sober maybe it would be enough to save their relationship.

She hoped it would.

It wasn't easy, but what choice did she have? Especially since Olivia had taken it upon herself to involve some interfering law student who had filled her head with ludicrous ideas involving legal emancipation and the like. If she didn't watch her step, she could end up losing her daughter and she didn't want that.

She may not have liked where her daughter came from, but she still loved her.

After their shopping trip, they stopped at a chain pizza restaurant for dinner. It wasn't their usual kind of eating establishment but it seemed fitting given their destination and Olivia was keen to eat there. For Serena it all seemed a bit cheap, the service slow and the pizza not up to much, but Olivia was smiling and that was what mattered.

That was ALL that mattered now.

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Everything felt perfect. Too perfect. She had suitcase crammed with fabulous new clothes, and she was headed off to Italy for a fortnight with her mom. Her sober mom. Her sober mom who wanted to spend time with her.

Too perfect. Too perfect and too likely to go wrong.

As she sat in the cab on the way to JFK, her mom at her side, she desperately tried to push the thought to the back of her mind, so it was still there but not in the way spoiling the day.

The here. The now. That was what she had to concentrate on.

She was going to Italy. She was going to eat pizza and buy even more clothes and eye up gorgeous Italian men and…

Spend time with her mom.

She'd got what she'd always wanted. The point now was to enjoy it.

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Experience

She held back until the waiter had walked away, and then glared at her mother.

"Please don't."

They were in the restaurant at the hotel, it was only the second night of their holiday, and already… this…

Her mother knew full well what 'this' was. Olivia could tell from the way she closed her eyes and sighed heavily, obviously hoping that when she opened her eyes that her errant and irritating daughter would have disappeared.

Which she would, in the end, if her mother went through with this.

"Please." she said again, labouring her point, hoping above all hope that her mother would change her mind.

No.

"Darling, its one glass, with a meal. What else am I meant to drink?"

Olivia picked up the drinks list from the table, reading from it, "Coke? Orange juice? Mineral water?" her voice was getting louder and louder with each option but she didn't care anymore, she was hurting too much to care.

Her mother snatched the menu from her, "Olivia! People are looking!"

She pushed her chair back from the table getting to her feet, "Let them look. It's you they'll be looking at. I'm out of here."

Watching Olivia walk away, Serena felt a stab of guilt. She knew one glass of wine was unacceptable. She'd long since moved beyond the point where she could be an occasional drinker and have one glass. She was on the 12 steps and that called for complete abstinence.

But yet she'd seen the wine list and fancied a drink and made some crazy excuse to herself about wine and food and being on vacation and in doing so she'd once again ended up at odds with her sixteen year old daughter.

She was an idiot. An absolute idiot.

Sometimes she thought Olivia might be better off without her. Maybe becoming legally emancipated from her might be the best thing all round. And yet, even thinking it hurt her more than she'd ever been hurt in her life. She couldn't lose her little girl. She just couldn't.

She got to her feet, and without a word to the waiter walked out of the restaurant, looking around for Olivia, and not seeing her deciding to head back to their suite in the hope that she'd gone there.

Thankfully she had, although when Serena first saw her, hunched on her bed, sobbing uncontrollably she almost wished she had gone somewhere else, if only to spare her having to see just how much damage one glass of wine, that she'd never had the opportunity to drink, had done.

"Baby." she sat down on the bed beside her, reaching out to gently touch her back, "I'm sorry. I just felt like a glass of wine with my dinner, I'm sorry, I should have thought, I'm so sorry." Her words came out in a nervous rush but that was nothing compared to Olivia's response.

"You're sorry?" Serena found herself pushed from the bed as Olivia bolted before turning on her angrily. "I've said I'll leave mom. I've said I'll leave and NEVER come back if you don't stop! And yet you still can't do it! So what does that say about how you feel about me? You couldn't care a less whether I'm in your life or not. The bottle is all that matters to you!"

The words were like a knife to her heart and she told Olivia so, but her daughter had a pretty cutting comeback for her.

"Yeah. And you ordering a drink was like a knife to mine."

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She had said that it was never going to happen again. She was never going to let her mother get her into THAT state, where the tears were flowing and her heart was breaking, and yet there they were, in a hotel room in Milan, with her inconsolable and her mother failing to find anything helpful to say.

"You know the worst thing." she said, through her tears, "Is you can't even be honest about it. I could almost excuse it if you could be honest, but you lie… you lie all the time."

Her mother looked at her questioningly, missing the point, "But I didn't lie, I ordered the drink in front of you."

She shook her head, "You lie about why you do it. You didn't just fancy a drink with your meal mom. You've been wanting a drink all day. I've seen the signs." And she had. The sideways glances towards the pool bar, the longing stares at the wine list at lunch. Her apparent interest in the mini bar as they were dressing for dinner. "You've been desperate to drink since the moment you saw that man smiling at me by the pool at 10am."

She sat down on the bed then, waiting for her mother to deny it but to her surprise, she didn't, instead slowly nodding.

"I find it very hard when men take an interest in you. I don't like it."

It wasn't exactly news to her, it was a man taking an interest in her that had caused the drinking spree that had resulted in her mother coming after her with a broken bottle, but it was news to hear her mother admitting it. "Because you think they're going to rape me?" she said hesitantly.

Again her mom nodded, "Yes."

She understood, of course she did, she knew her mom's history, she knew what she'd been through. But she couldn't keep letting her hurt her because of it.

"He's not going to rape me if I'm sat with my mom is he?" Olivia pointed out, "But he might if I'm sat on my own because my mom is upstairs sleeping off a hangover."

Her mom smiled slightly, "Touche." She reached out, touched Olivia's arm, "I'm sorry. I should never have ordered the drink. You do matter to me more than the bottle does."

Olivia wanted to believe her, but it was impossible on the evidence she'd seen up to that point. "Prove it." she said coolly, "Last chance mom. I mean it."

Her mother reached out and hugged her gently, "I know you do. And Olivia, I didn't drink the wine. I came straight after you."

Somehow, in spite of everything, that really meant something to Olivia. It wasn't the same as not ordering the wine at all, granted. But it was a step in the right direction.

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Remembered

"Wow! Hot bikini bodies!"

"Elliot!" Olivia stopped what she was doing - opening a bottle of wine as it happened - and moved to Elliot's side to chide him, "That's my mother. A bit of respect please."

Elliot grinned slightly, "Fine. Hot bikini body. Singular. Yours. Ok?" He took the picture down from the fridge door where it was stuck and looked at it closely, "Seriously, it's a nice picture of you two. Where was it taken?"

"Italy." she replied, returning to opening the wine, "I was 16 going on 17."

Elliot hummed a couple of bars from the obvious number from the Sound of Music and then added, "Knowing you Liv, you were 16 going on 32." he paused, looking at her curiously, "One of your moms better times?"

Olivia shrugged, not really wanting to get into the story after a long day at work, especially since they'd been planning on just crashing out and watching a movie. "She was trying, put it that way."

"Did you have a nice holiday?"

"Yeah." She replied, "It was ok." Because actually, the first row aside, it had been. They'd spent time together, and they'd talked. She'd even managed to convince her mom to confide in her when she wanted to drink and why, which had helped them both in different ways. As vacations went, it had been a good one.

Her mom had even stayed dry. Not a single drink in the whole fortnight.

It was just a shame it hadn't lasted. Not that she wanted to get into that either. She was too tired, and just wanted to relax. She grabbed the bottle and two glasses from the counter, "Come on El, lets go watch the film."

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