20

Her face flinches at the pressure that presses against her temple. Her hand drags along her forehead and hits her glasses, I must've fallen asleep while reading, she reasons, as she's not yet used to the habit of removing them nightly. The blonde removes her glasses, leans up with her opposite hand and squints into the empty darkness beside her, did she not come to bed? She rolls halfway onto her back to get closer to her nightstand, places her glasses on the flat surface and hits the home button on her phone to illuminate the twin belled alarm block on the nightstand, 02:37. She has this déjà vu moment- where she asks herself why she used the light from her phone to brighten up the face of her alarm clock when she could tell the time by looking at the home screen of the phone in the first place. It never seemed like a logical thing to do, when she woke up in the middle of the night. She steps outside their bedroom door that must've been closed by Alex as she doesn't remember closing it. She sees the light coming from their office but peaks her head into Jamie's room to check on him. She sees him sprawled out diagonally with his lower extremity hanging off the edge of the bed. He sleeps under the neon green stars that are projected around his room by his light up stuffed creature that was gifted by his uncle Cal for his second birthday. Piper is momentarily jealous of both her son and her wife's ability to be able to fall asleep on demand, anywhere, anytime, any place, and all the while continue to have the ability to sleep through a stampede of tuba players, never mind a door closing or the flush of the toilet. She takes a moment to stare at him, and briefly contemplates cuddling up beside him but resists the urge knowing that once she lays down she won't get back up. She hears the printer spit out a piece of paper, followed by another and reluctantly pushes herself off his bed and drags her feet towards the sound of the printer adjusting.

She shuts her eyes tightly at the bright light from the office but then readjusts her focus to the floor, blinking rapidly. Alex is sitting at the nucleus of a large disassembled cardboard box and has dozens of photos, some of which are still printing, mounted along with diagrams, notes, and sketches on this makeshift display that's the size of a small African nation.

"Oh my God, it's like I'm in Good Will Hunting."

"Shit, did I wake you up?"

Piper finishes yawning, "Uuuuuuhno."

"Check it out," she comes up onto her knees, about to gesture, when she's interrupted.

"Isn't it a little late for 'check it out'? Where did you even get a box that big?"

She threw her glasses onto her head and shrugged a single shoulder, "produce stand."

"You walked down to the produce stand," she said trying to process.

"Can you please focus?"

Piper blinked hard again and widened her eyes leaning into the doorway, "Mmmhmmm."

"So for my presentation I need to cover some architectural history before I suggest any new ideas and present my designs but I'm over the redundancy of PowerPoints, after 20 minutes. everyone's attention span starts to wither," she starts gathering her hair and the twists it around her finger, secures it into a bun with a gnawed pencil and replaces her glasses," so I thought I'd do a 3D, interactive presentation with hard copies of photos and things to hold their attention."

"And this needed to imminently emerge at 02:30 in the morning?," she said sardonically as she was more than amused at this hot librarian vibe that her wife exuded while expressing her enthusiasm for her upcoming presentation in her newly appointed position.

Of course, read the look Alex shot her. "I was literally just clicking through photos when I started getting inspired and I didn't want to lose it... and then I couldn't stop," she looked around at her work all over the floor, "and then this happened."

She stood up and looked around taking a large step over one of the corners. She ran a hand through her hair and scratched her head before lowering her hands to her hips and taking in just how much she managed to do in a single evening, while still judging herself slightly. Piper just stared at her, wide eyed, with eyebrows raised.

"I know I'm a freak."

"That you are, but it's also one of my favorite qualities about you," she said letting her fingers dance along the nape of the brunettes hairline. "You just haven't slept much in the last few weeks."

The brunette's mouth pulled at the side and she nodded slightly in understanding.

"I know it's technically still a 9 to 5 but in reality it isn't." Alex's back straightened at Piper's words, her mouth opened ready to pounce in defense, "and I know you have to jump when those creative juices start to flow, just don't go too hard, too soon, alright?"

Alex's shoulders relaxed in relief, "I won't... I'll try not to."

"I don't want to sleep alone."

The brunette's hand returned to her hair , she knew this wouldn't be over that quickly. She pulled her hand from her hair and reached it out ready to pull Piper into her arms and tell her that she would always come home to her at night, to sleep by her side, no matter how late the hour, when the blonde beat her to the punch, "I already did that enough with the last job you had."

She felt her fingers curl into a fist, "I said I won't!,"she shouted back with a raised voice to the blondes back. She felt irked by the mention of her past failure, and had to curl her toes into the floor to keep her grounded to that spot instead of following the blonde as she turned around and walked out of their office. Instead she splayed open the fingers of her hand and drew it downward in a vertical line as if lightly spackling the crack Piper had made in the rampart she naturally put up. Her blood was on the verge of boiling over, she still would really never forgive herself for neglecting her on so many occasions all those years ago. She had stood stationary for a while, to allow her body to calm before she knelt to return to her creative process, when Piper returned with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and handed Alex a cup of tea.

Alex cocked an eyebrow at the gesture.

"So what do you have here exactly?," she asked through another yawn while kneeling down carefully, ready to be immersed in Alex's world of inspiration.

"That's it?" Piper looks herself over, and around the room a bit before the brunette continues, "you have no retort to my commitment?"

"I thought bringing you the tea meant, I understood... that you won't leave me to sleep alone on the regular."

Alex pouted out her lower lip and shrugged her shoulders, accepting her response.

"I have to pick my battles, or I don't have the energy right now, I haven't decided yet," she said playfully shoving her wife, hoping the tone would change the mood, as she almost instantly regretted letting old feelings resurface so easily.

"Okay so I thought I'd start it off by..." she was interrupted again by the blonde, "sorry and if while you're taking me along this ride on the crazy train if it starts spiraling, can I get off at an earlier stop? Because it actually is the middle of the night and there's only so much I can take when you're like this."

Alex laughs, "yeah."

Piper listens as Alex rambles on about what she's worked on all night. She unbends Alex's leg slightly, and pushes her icy toes into the warm crease behind the brunette's knee and curls up next to her, tightening the blanket around her shoulders. Despite the octave that the brunette is hitting, after almost thirty minutes of Alex's voice, Piper can't keep her eyes open any longer and she's soothed by the familiarity, she wiggles lower, resting her cheek against Alex's lithe, pale thigh and drifts away.

"I still don't understand why you're insisting on doing this so early."

"Did you watch the documentary?"

"No, I didn't. Sorry, what, with all the ample time I have?"

"Well you'll have time today."

"There are over a hundred pre-schools in Manhattan alone, Piper."

"Yeah, and the quarter of a million kids that need to attend them we're signed up to receive application packages last year."

Piper crouches down to the floor and shoves another two envelopes into her backpack and zips it up. Jamie coughs, into her face twice, "please cover your mouth when you cough," she demonstrates by bringing her elbow up to her face. She then walks briskly into the kitchen and starts filling up a water bottle.

"He's not even three years old!," Alex exclaims thinking over everything Piper has told her about applying to good pre-schools when their child was nearly a year away from having to start school in the first place. James holds his hand up to his face, holding three fingers up to himself before reversing his hand to show Alex. She encases his hand within hers and kisses it. "Good job."

"Okay so I'm doing this, I should be back by noon, so we can get ready, and head up to my parents'. Can you just get a bag ready, with stuff for him to do in case he gives them a hard time?"

"A hard time?," Alex questions, and squishes his cheeks together with one hand, "this face? Never."

"Mmmmm. And you're gonna take your cough medicine right? So grammy isn't sad that you're sick?"

"I'm not sick."

"Well your cough says otherwise," she says to him bluntly. "Alright I gotta go," she kisses them both and heads out the door on a mission.

Alex helps him pull out his huge container of wooden blocks and they build towers in his room. After a while she feels herself starting to doze but catches her head before her neck snaps downward. She feels around for her phone to set an alarm to just take a short nap but she cant find it, so she draws out "11:30" on a piece of paper and puts it by the digital clock.

"When the clock says one one three zero, like this, wake me up, okay?"

She can hear him singing "The Wheels on the Bus," but it feels like he's in another universe. He's in the middle of his fourth verse, "the wipers on the bus go swishy swish swish, all frew da tooooooown." She feels the "wind" behind his hands making the "wipers" blow air past her face; she smiles with her still eyes closed but finally starts waking up. She sees his smile when she opens her eyes, and then he looks up at Piper who's standing behind their couch, whos been watching him try to wake her up via song, the way shes done so many times throughout the years.

"Hey," she says to Piper, not knowing how long she's been standing there witnessing his serenade. "I was just resting my eyes for a minute. I still only need about,mmm 5 minutes or so of beauty rest, to keep this up," she says making a circle around her face.

"Well Hello Gorgeous," Piper says in her best Barbara Streisand Funny Girl impression, while leaning down to press her lips against Alex's full lips, beauty rest my ass. "So this number written on this paper in quintessential Vausian scripture, was not written by you to have him wake you up so I don't see you sleeping on the couch when youre supposed to be watching him?"

She flashes her famous smirk, "busted."

Alex pulls the peanut butter, jelly, and bread from around the kitchen to start making sandwiches for the car ride. Piper digs out half a dozen application packages that she managed to obtain during her marathon around the West Village and places them on the kitchen table beside Alex. Her eyes peer over the top rim of her glasses, and she stops mid spread of peanut butter, puts the knife down to glance briefly at the bulleted notes among the applications, before becoming irritated. When Piper returns with a sippy cup from the other room and rinses it out, she asks, "um, why did you even put this next to me right now?

"So you could take a glance at them? Do you not care at all?"

"Some of these cost more than half my year's salary."

Piper makes a face and nods, "I know, it's crazy."

"Are you?! We're not paying all this money for him to go to elementary school for seven fucking years to party with Donald Trump's kids while we simultaneously fall below the poverty line."

"But what if he gets in to one of those?"

"We're not applying to those. There are a kazillion accelerated public pre-schools he can attend for free."

"He has to 'get in' to one of those too Alex, it's a process. You can't just walk in and register him in September. There are limited spaces for great programs like that."

"Then we'll do what we have to do, to get him into one of those. I'd rather him go to public school anyway, it's more diverse."

Piper sorts through the packets on the kitchen island and pulls the bottom application, for the "Gifted and Talented" program throughout the New York City Pubic School system and whacks it on the top of the pile.

She returns with Jamie running behind her, moments later, having found his cough medicine in the same spot she left it that morning. "Did he take his medicine?"

Alex lowers the packet down beside the sandwich fixings and looks over her shoulder, with a fuck look.

"You know, Alex!"

"Pipes, he'll take it now, can you just relax?"

She shakes her head no, "it's too much," her eyes start filling up with tears.

"Babe, he's..." she lowers her voice as he's within earshot, "he's not even sick, it's just a cold."

Piper leans her forehead into her shoulder, "I didn't know I was supposed to get all these applications last year."

"Pipes, he's a smart kid. We'll get him into a good program, and you're going to look back at this and realize how ridiculous this mass hysteria is over the freaking alphabet Olympics, alright?"

"I just want him to be happy, he's going to spend his whole day in school. I want him to be able to take advantage of all the opportunities that are out there." He holds onto the edge of the counter and jumps up and down repeatedly trying to get a glimpse of the snack Alex is packing for their car ride lunch, but he's too short.

"He is happy," she turns Piper's head toward's their kid who's been a jumper since he was just a few months old, eliciting a chuckle from Piper as she wipes away her tears.

"And we'll get him in somewhere good. I'll help you on your scavenger hunt and make sure he behaves like a normal three year old to pass whatever test he has to pass to get into a great school. I promise."

"Kay." Piper exhales and gathers all the packets off the counter and walks passed him, rubbing her hand quickly over his head, "medicine."

He looks up at Alex, with a do I have to expression. She unscrews the cap of the dark brown bottle with the purple liquid, "c'mon bud, gotta get rid of that cough."

"Nooooooo," he yells and runs away.

She follows him from one room to the next trying to explain to him that "it's not the one that tastes yucky when your ear hurts, it's the one you like. Smell it."

He's willing to smell the medicine, but still decides he's not taking it.

"In the car then. I'm bringing cupcakes, but you need to take your medicine before you can eat one, do you understand?" He nods and scampers off.

It was a beautiful day, the leaves reflected the New England autumn season as they drove up the Merritt Parkway. Crisp, fresh air filtered through the car, and after about 30 minutes, he asks for the third time if he can have his cupcake now.

"I already told you twice, you need to finish your sandwich and take your medicine," Alex said toward the back of the car.

He raised the first half up to show her he finished.

"Okay, but you need to eat the other side."

"But I'm full, I don't want anymore," he said kicking Piper's seat with his left foot.

Alex turned around and held his foot still, "do not kick the-back-of-the-seat. If you're full then you don't have space for a cupcake then."

He whined and carried on in the back for a few minutes, while they did their best to ignore his negative behavior.

"I'm finished," he said putting whatever remaining crust was left into the re-usable sandwich wrap and handed it up to Alex.

She handed him the medicine cup with the purple liquid and he started whining again. "I don't understand why this is such a big deal. It doesn't even taste bad, just take it."

He starts crying in the back seat, and she starts to become frustrated, wanting to just give him the cupcake, but she didn't want to be taken advantage of.

"Al just give him half," Piper pleaded with mild desperation in her voice, not being able to stand his cries when he was upset.

Alex gave him half the cupcake and told him he could have the other half after he took his medicine. She hated bribing him, but felt it wasn't worth the argument and was limited with what she could do in the car as it was.

Piper caressed her thigh in the car and gave it a gentle squeeze in unspoken thanks. Alex turned around after a bit to see the medicine cup still full sitting between his legs. "Please take your medicine, I don't want to have to ask you again."

He saw the cupcake in her hand, and held the cup to his mouth with both hands. Piper tries to glance at him through the rearview mirror and whispers, "he's taking it," to Alex. Alex looks out onto the road taking in the foliage, when she sees something shining off the side of the car. She narrows her eyes and looks into the side view mirror to see what it is. She still cant figure it out, so she pulls the seatbelt away from her chest and leans forward some, sticking her head out the window slightly and sees a streak of peanut butter and jelly smeared across the side panel of the car.

She swung her head around to the back seat, "did you throw the other part of your sandwich out the window?"

His eyes go wide, and starts blinking fast before he starts crying again. "What?," Piper asks clarifying what she's asking him.

She feels the anger building in her body, "did you throw the sandwich out the window?" He doesn't answer but just starts crying harder and breathing fast.

"James!," she yells, "that is not okay. You can't throw anything out of the window, it's absolutely not okay."

"How do you know he did that?"

"Piper, it's on the side of the car, I can see it and he's not answering me! James, I am so upset right now. When we get to grammy and gramps' house, you are sitting in a chair and looking at the wall. Not okay. For-a-cupcake!"

"Alex, stop, he's already upset."

She breathes in deep and blows the air through the small hole she makes with her lips. She turns around and tells him to stop crying and to calm down. He's hyperventilating, and mucousy through his cries and just cries louder when she tells him to stop. He's never heard her tone like this, nor has she ever caught him deliberately lying to her to get what he wants.

"Look at me, you need to stop."

He whines further, and kicks his legs back and forth, kicking Piper's chair again. "James!," her voice is raised higher, setting him off even further. "Piper, pull the car over, I can't."

"Alex just calm down."

"I can't, and its not safe, just pull over."

Piper listens to her and slows the car down, the frustration in Alex's voice is getting to her, and the noises are too distracting.

When he sees the car slowing down and Alex unbuckling her seatbelt, he breathes even faster, and throws up all over himself and the backseat of the car.

Alex briefly scans her eyes over the explosion in the backseat, gets out of the car, and rubs her finger along the peanut butter and jelly. She shows it to Piper, before closing the door and taking a few steps away from the car. Piper gets out and goes to the back to undo him from his car seat and take him to the side of the car away from the highway. She looks over at Alex, who has her hands over her eyes. Piper did her best to clean him off and put a change of clothes on him, wiping away whatever excess vomit was visible in the back of the car.

Alex walks back over toward the car and looks at him, still reeling inside but tries to keep her cool. Piper gets him buckled back in and continues down the highway in silence. They get off the highway near the Chapman's house,

"Mommy?"

"Yes?" Piper answers back.

"Can I have my cupcake?"

Alex just bites her tongue and looks up to the heavens stitched into the roof of the car, Piper does everything in her power not to laugh, and lighten the situation.

"No Jamie, we're both very upset right now."

"Sowwy."

"I'm glad you're sorry, but you still need to sit in time out when we get there."

Alex looked up in the mirror and saw him crying again, but to himself. Piper caught the tears in Alex's eyes and rubbed her leg again and whispered, "this is been a little too much today."

They pulled into the long driveway at Piper's parents house. Piper got out his bag with all of his clothes from the trunk while Alex removed him from the back seat. He was still crying, but she tried to stay firm with him and limit their conversation. Piper walked up the few steps and rang the bell.

"Hellooo," her mom said opening the door, "what happened to you guys? Why is he crying?," Carol Chapman asked planting a kiss on top of his head, fighting the urge to ask about the smell. She kissed her daughter and her adopted daughter hello and went to take Jamie from her arms, "please don't, he needs to go to time out," Alex said walking into their dining room. She stood him up and brought a chair over to the corner and sat him in it.

"I'll be right back," she said walking back toward Piper and Carol shaking her head feeling horrible. Piper slipped an arm around her waist, "it was bound to happen sometime." They could all hear him sniffling in the other room.

"Hey, where's my grandbaby?," Piper's father inquires coming down the stairs, which causes the domino effect of Jamie crying louder, Alex's eyes go wider as she questions the type of torture she's putting their son through and Piper to pull her aside.

"Pipes, what if he's too young to understand what he did?"

Piper stares at her, "you're always going on about how smart he is. You can't use it only when it's flattering. Think about how mad you just were, he needs time outs, and we have to be consistent." Alex nods, knowing she's right. "Mush, mush, mush."

"Yeah wait til he does something to purposely piss you off and see how you feel, knowing he hates you."

"He doesn't hate you, stop being melodramatic. Go get him though, we're only supposed to keep him there for the amount of minutes, equivalent to his age."

Piper pulls her dad into a hug and walks with him to the dining room table while her mother goes off to get towels so he can take a bath.

"Hey babe," she says squatting down, and ends up sitting on the floor beside him when he avoids eye contact with her. She turns the chair toward her, "do you know why you needed to sit in time out?"

He nods, still sniffing back. "Why?"

"Because I throwed out my sandwich and I throwed up cause I was mad," he says through heavy breathing.

"And that's not acceptable behavior. If you do those things again, you're going to need to sit back here again."

"Awight."

"Can I have a hug?"

He scooted off the chair and hugged her hard around her neck.

He releases the tension around her body, "alright Jamie, let's go get you cleaned up."

"I can give him a bath Alex, you look like you could use a break," Carol gently gestures holding up a pile of folded towels.

"It's fine, I don't want you to do this while he's all pukey."

"I'll meet you guys in there in a little babe," Piper says with her head cocked to the side, resting on her father.

Carol sits back down in the chair at the dining room table and hands the pile of towels to Alex and continues to converse with Piper and her father while Alex walks their grandson down to the bathroom.

"Tomorrow I'll take my medicine and you won't be mad," he says leaning onto the ceramic of the tub while she turns the nobs.

Alex just peers at him, she's more than calmed down now, and realizes he doesn't want to make her upset. "Show me tomorrow then."

She slips his shirt over his head, finds some bath gel and lets its run under the faucet to make him a bubble bath. She slips off the rest of his clothes, and walks back out to toss them in a plastic bag to wash later as these too managed to absorb the vomit smell. She gets him in the tub and after a few minutes of splashing around, he looks bored. "There's nothing to play with."

"What do you usually play with when you take a bath at grammy and gramps' house?"

He points to the stack of towels. "You play with towels?"

He starts to giggle, "no, you have to put it here," and he points to the edge of the tub and waits for Alex to lay out a towel neatly where he pointed. He gets up and sticks his butt in the corner of the tub and slides down, spilling water all over the edge. Alex's mouth drops down, and he starts laughing as he sees all the water that spilled over the edge.

"This is what you do here?"

"Uh huh!," he goes back up and slides down the corner again. Alex pulls out her phone and starts recording the madness that he gets away with among the people who she used to regard as uptight and pretentious. After the first towel is soaked, and half the bathwater is gone, she mutter's "I think you've done that enough now, yes? Where is your mother?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "Are you ready to get out?"

He looks at his fingers and though the bubbles have all evaporated in the water, he shakes his head, no.

"Okay, so now what?"

He looked around the bathroom, and spotted an empty toilet paper roll in the mini trash. He pulled it out and looked at Alex.

"Go for it."

He dunked it into the bath, making water fall in and out the sides, until it disintegrated into pieces around the tub.

Piper walked into Alex filming their son, with little brown flecks floating throughout the water, "what the heck is that?," she asked alarmed. Alex turned her phone toward her, "a toilet paper roll."

"why does he have a toilet paper roll in the tub?"

"Because he wanted it," she laughed at the insanity.

Jamie stood up and pulled a clear shower cap from the caddy and sat back down shoving his foot against the plastic until his skin was stretched through.

"What're you doing now?," Piper started laughing. They were all beyond delirious from the day. Carol popped her head in and took in the sight of the bathroom.

Piper bit her lip, "sorry for the mess, we'll clean it up."

"It's fine Piper, he always does this. Anything to make those giggles."

Piper looked at her mother strangely, where were you 30 years ago? "You girls ready? Better get going before it gets late."

"You guys aren't coming? We came out here to have dinner and spend time with you and daddy."

"We'll go out and have a nice breakfast in the morning, you both could you use a night alone, I'm sure. But go now before everywhere gets busy."

"It's," Piper stops to look at her watch, "6:30. Oh my God, it's only 6:30? It feels like 9:30. C'mon Al, lets get."

They headed out to the car, "ugh, it still reeks in here!" They rolled down all the windows and started heading into town toward a nice restaurant in town. Piper parallel parks the car and pulls down the sunvisor, "I think the Beetlejuice hair may be frowned upon."

"And the vomit smell, will definitely speed the wait time to be seated," Alex added. "D'you wanna just hit a drive thru?"

"Not really," Piper whined slightly, wanting to take advantage of some of the free time. "I don't really know what's around here Pipes."

Piper pulls into the grocery store parking lot, and tries her best to smooth out her hair by raking her fingers through the blonde strands and making a low side ponytail. "I'll just grab us something from here, be right back," she says jumping out the car before Alex has a chance to even say what she wants.

She returns with a cheap bottle of screw top Chateau Diana with some already made pasta and chicken cutlets from the deli counter. She drives them down a dark road that winds, until they get to a spot with some park lights. She gets out and pulls a blanket from the trunk and doesn't bother to roll up the windows, for anyone who was interested in stealing their car, would quickly leave it behind after having to deal with the smell.

She links arms with Alex's arm and walks up the hill. She can just see a piece of the crescent moon that's in the sky. She lays down the blanket on the grass, slips off her shoes and sits on the blanket, placing the grocery bag just off to the side. Alex joins her and leans propped up on her elbows taking in the sounds of the crickets, her eyes catch the green flicker of the few lightening bugs that hover above, before she lays flat on her back and starts chuckling to herself.

"Have you actually gone mad? Because I'm essentially on the verge."

"Oh without a doubt, and I'm pretty sure it's irreversible," she pulled Piper close against her and shut her eyes, "I just need to lie still."

"No arguments there," she says laying her head against Alex's abdomen.

She starts chuckling again, making Piper's head bounce around. She's torn between a mix of insanity and exhaustion, "I feel like...like I just turned on a blender, but forgot to put on the lid."

"Sounds about right, and starts all over again tomorrow. See you then."