24

Alex steps through the door of her hotel room. She turns on the lamp on the desk, leans back a little, there's not so much as a fingerprint gleaming off the desk. She half turns around the room and takes in just how clean it really is. She lifts the folded card on the bed, well, thank you Ana for cleaning my room to one notch shy of sterilization. Her home hasn't been neat or even clean for that matter since the day Piper slowly moved herself into her place. She sets her suitcase on the luggage stand, pulls out her pajamas and her toiletry case and gets ready for bed.

She shoots Piper a text, "is his schedule clear? Can his people call my people?"

Alex swipes across the face of her phone to answer Piper's incoming call, "hello?"

"Hi!," he screams from the other side of the phone, forcing her to pull it away from her ear. She paces around the room and talks to him about his day. He hands the phone to Piper when he's done and they make a date for the following night.

On the third night she sets her things down, and heads into the bathroom to take a shower. She pulls the comforter back before collapsing on the bed and peruses the room service menu. While she's ordering, she reads over the kids' menu in the lower right hand corner and thinks of what she'd order Jamie if he were here with her.

Like she'd done the last two nights, she sends Piper a text asking if he was ready. A few minutes later the bing bong music from Skype chimes off of the walls in the office. The brunette figured this would be better after Piper said he was asking each morning if he was "going to see her today?" Piper sets him up at the desk. He kneels on the chair at the desk and waits.

She pops up puffing out her cheeks and pulling her ears to make him laugh. When he sees the image he laughs and tries to do the same but he can't because he's laughing so hard. She waves and asks how he's doing.

"Good mama!," he answers and pulls at the edges of the screen, "I drew a picture of a plane today."

"You did? I didn't even know you knew how to draw a plane. Did you bring it home?"

"Yeah, it's in my backpack! And it has red on it and I have a sticker on my paper from my book."

"Well okay then! Can I see it?"

He nods and goes to pull the laptop with him as he has seen them do to show things to his grandparents and people his moms knew from a long time ago.

"No no no, get them and bring them here, I'll wait," she tells him just in time before he dropped her on the floor. She sees him get down and jog away. A minute later she hears paper wrestling and Piper's voice talking to him.

She takes the papers from him and puts them on the desk before helping him back onto the chair. She sits on the desk for a moment before he pushes her off, saying she's not to sit on tables. She leaves the office and sits on the floor outside, leaning against the wall. If she can get over the white noise and bit of static it's almost as if her wife is right inside.

"And black hair and glasses!," she hears him describe his drawing to Alex. She smiles at his description of his art, his squiggles aren't exactly obvious but he's been drawing them for years and while she had no neck and her arms were coming out of her face, the person he drew in the big red bubble in the sky was unmistakably Alex.

"Are you coming home tonight?," he asks her.

"No baby, 4 more sleeps."

"Is that a lot?"

"It sure feels like it." Pipers wipes her nose with her thumb, it sure does.

"Hang on baby," she answers the door for room service for dinner and brings it back over to the desk. "And what'd you have for dinner tonight?"

"I didn't," he says shrugging his shoulders.

"You didn't eat yet?," she says irritated, but then looks at the clock and realizes it's only 6:30pm. He shakes his head no. "We had chicken and broccoli yesterday."

Piper nods her head. And that's what we're having again, this isn't a restaurant.

"Did it come from outside like this," she lifts the plate with the tin plate warmer, "or mommy made it?"

Piper's mouth drops.

"Mommy made it. The house smelled like farts, but it was yummy."

Piper makes a face, damn right it was! And what if I did order out Alex Vause? Such a pain in my ass.

"Can I eat with you?," he asks causing Alex's laughter to halt, a serious expression in its place.

"Uh," Alex hesitates, hating how horrible the scenario was. People left their family for work all the time, why did this feel so wrong? Because it was voluntary you heartless giant.

"Why don't you eat with mommy tonight and maybe we can have dinner together tomorrow?"

"I'll see you tomorrow?," he asked excitedly.

"No, well you can see me on here, like today."

"Nooooo," he runs out and steps back once he sees Piper on the floor and asks to have dinner in there. She tells him he can but just while Alex isn't home, it's not his fault they couldn't get it together, and their family dinner is being separated into two locations around the country, she reasons.

He returns and stands in front of the desk, Alex can only see him from the nose up, until Piper sets a plate on the desk, and helps him up into the chair, adjusting it so he's centered.

Piper comes in when she can hear him ask "how much longer?" again. They say goodnight and end the chat. She shows him the days on the calendar- starting when Alex left, they start making "x's" on the days that have already passed, ending with a circle on the day she'll be back.

"Let's start getting ready for bed, okay? I need to clean up the kitchen but you go pick out a book."

"Will you do the voices?," he asks. She knew he meant the way Alex did. She always was the best reader.

"I'll try my best, okay?" He seems satisfied and pulls two books from his shelf and put them on his bed. She supervises his teeth brushing before curling up into his bed and reads both stories as she doesn't have the heart to tell him "no" right now. When she's done he is still wide awake. She turns on his night-light, and tells him to just lie still for a bit, that he'll fall asleep soon before she closes his door halfway.

In the southern region of the country Alex lays on her back in bed. She extends her arms out to the sides but all she feels is the expanse of the bed with her arms against the cold white sheets. She hadn't slept in a bed alone in close to a decade, never mind a king sized bed without a foot or an elbow poking her in the middle of the night, or the incessant wiggling of their boy in between them. She positions all the pillows around her body to make her feel like someone was beside her before she even felt the least bit drowsy. After a while, she pushes herself off the bed and retrieves the dirty clothes of her family that she swiped before she left, Jamie's light blue shark t-shirt and a pair of Piper's shorts. She lies back on the bed and lays them over her face. She deeply inhales through the fabric, re-positions the pillows and falls asleep.

About an hour later, the blonde gets into bed, and set her own glasses onto the bridge of her nose to read for a while. She leans over to put her book away and turns the frame with their photo in the opposite direction, before turning off the light and flipping over onto her stomach. Her hands press under the pillow and she can feel Alex's night shirt under her pillowcase.

She wouldn't let herself pull it out, she decides when she hears the door creak open, and Jamie's feet on their floor.

"Still up?," she asks, feeling around for his head in the dark. She hits Alex's light on,

"wanna sleep in here?"

She doesn't have to ask twice, as he tries to climb up into their bed. She helps him up and by the time she has straightened the blanket and settled back ready to turn off the light, his face is pressed into Alex's pillow. He rubs his cheek all over it before turning his other cheek away from Piper and presses his butt back into her space. She hits the light off and settles her head between both of their pillows until her face is against Alex's night shirt and goes to sleep.

"I can't find that shirt Jamie. Please we're going to be late, just pick another one."

"But I want that one," he says referring to the light blue one with the shark.

"I don't know where it is. I think it's dirty."

"I looked there!," he says pointing to his hamper and runs off.

Piper sits on his floor sorting through the shirts that he wore that week, looking for the light blue one that he just had to have. They were already running late, if she found it, she'd let him wear it, how dirty could the shirt be? She finds a similar one and walks out of his room to find him.

"Get out of the linen closet, it's not going to be in there, I'll look for it tonight. Can you wear this one?," she says holding up another one he liked. He throws his head back but settles. She opens the cupboard, and holds up a blueberry and a strawberry cereal bar for him, he picks the strawberry one like he does any time she asks him to choose between the two.

"I don't know why I bother asking you when I know what you're going to pick," she says. They run out the door and down into the subway. Fifteen minutes later, they run up the subway steps and down the block to school, barely on time. And she wants another one? This isn't enough?

When she returns to pick him up after school, his teacher asks to speak with her while Jamie sits with his backpack on ready to go.

"It's nothing serious. I had to talk to him several times today and ask him not go to his cubby. He got up and went over there while we were reviewing community helpers, then when we broke out into learning centers and again at snack."

"I'm sorry he was disruptive."

"Then at rest time I could hear him making a clicking noise and I thought he was playing with toys that were within his reach. So he was moved into time out, and I took away a star," she says pointing to his chart.

Piper looks over at him, and he drops his head and looks away.

His teacher moves Piper over to the side and lowers her voice, "most kids get really upset when they lose a star that they earned but he continued to sit in the chair, and behaved. He apologized but then I heard this clicking again. I confiscated this," she shows Piper a rectangular container with something white inside, "and that's when he got upset."

"What is that?," Piper asks her curiously.

"I was hoping you could tell me," she hands it to her.

"It's not his," she says turning it over in her hand.

"Well I didn't know what it was either and didn't think he should be inhaling it."

"He was smelling it?," she says confused. She opens the white lid of the plastic container and smells it, lavender dryer sheet and wintergreen tic tacs: "Alex."

"I'll talk to him. I'm so sorry he gave you a hard time. His mom is away for the week, he's never been away from her for this long."

After Alex tells Jamie a story through Skype, Piper talks to her for a bit. She catches her up on what happened at school and while Alex is disappointed that he didn't listen, she is touched that he tried to re-create her scent.

"I've been sleeping with his shirt and your shorts over my face at night," she confesses to Piper.

"His light blue shirt?" she asks leaning closer to the computer.

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"He was looking for it this morning," she laughs looking down. She looks up slowly, "he misses you... we both do...a lot."

"I miss you guys too... too much."

"He's been sleeping in our bed, hogging your pillow. I have to push him aside so I can fit my head onto it too.'

Alex laughs, "I won't be able to kick him out when I get back...well at least not the first night anyway."

"Don't ever leave us again," Piper tells her softly.

"I won't, not like this."

Piper nods, believing her whole heartedly as she can see Alex aching as much as they have been.

"What time does your flight get in on Saturday?"

"Around noon, but I can just take a car and bill it to the company, don't worry about it."

"And know you hit the tarmac in New York and wait two hours longer to see you? He'd never forgive me if he found out."

"Mmmm."

"I love you Al."

"I love you too Pipes."

"See you Saturday."

They wait for her by the baggage claim in the airport. He spots her coming down the escalator and pulls hard at Piper's arm.

"Wait Jamie, wait til she gets closer."

He jerks her arm, breaking his grasp and runs over to her; she scoops him up and he just lays into her, he doesn't move. She walks back a few steps and puts her stuff down and nudges her bag with her foot out of the way of the other travelers descending from the escalator. His smell, his grip, the heat from his face against her neck, she takes all of him in, in a deep breath, her head leans back against the wall and she exhales, jaggedly in nature. Her baby doesn't let go, she sees Piper through the wisps of his hair that are partially blocking her sight, the blonde raises a hand to say hello. Piper gives them space to continue their love affair, before wrapping her arms around the two of them and rests her forehead into Alex's shoulder. They get out to the car, he knocks out before they pay the toll for parking.

"He hasn't really slept well," Piper fills her in.

"I don't think any of us have," she says, stretching her hand back and caresses his face.

"We have a lot to talk about," she says looking in the rearview and then looks at Alex.

Alex extends an upturned palm toward Piper, the blonde intertwines the pale hand into her own and brings it up and kisses the back.

Alex presses her head back into the headrest and looks out the window, "we do."