Sandfromoz and Guest-Thanks, that's a big compliment. I love some people's stories and then a character will do or say something and I'm like what? They wouldn't do that and it tears me out of believing anything else. I never saw Nicky with Lorna long term either. I think Nicky would genuinely take care of Lorna and love her monogomously but I think whatever we've seen from Lorna is based on what she needs at the time. And not in a selfish way, she just really wants to be loved (in a fairytale way and seems actually deprived of that in her pre-litchfield life) and she seeks that from Nicky but doesn't realize how bad Nicky has it for her. I was proud of Nicky in season 5, bc it could've gone in any direction (as we saw in S4) and she's not perfect and still had her moment in S5 ( a very hot moment) but long term she really loves her. "The junky philosopher" is a perfect tag for her, (suits what I gather from Natasha as well) she's fascinating and also fun to write.
VonZeppy- if only. Early retirement or id work per diem.
Trindadeca- I'm not doing anything w them now lol- but they spent a lot of time in my head and heart until I got what I wanted for them on paper- the good, bad and ugly.
i don't have plans on adding more lost chapters than what already exists but if there are some ideas I'll null them over. For those of you who haven't read them it's essentialy just pockets of time between Litchfield release and where this story leaves off (so like 5 years from now into the future.) This fic has 54 chapters and I think the lost chaps have 8 or 9. let me know what else you'd want to see- can't promise anything though.
42
Her daughter hangs onto her as she scoots around on the bathroom sink. She kneels on the vanity and checks out her sky blue hair streak with pride. Her eyes are wide, she blinks dramatically, admiring the winged tips of her mother's black eyeliner. She hops off, does a little dance, throws her hand in the air and says "rock on!"
Alex covers her face with her hands and laughs, "this is only for the house, alright?"
Harper nods enthusiastically and pushes her mother by her hips to have her sit on the lid of the toilet, "your turn."
"Ah no, I don't want a makeover."
"Moooooooom," she whines, "c'mon, just a little bit," she holds up her fingers showing just how little she means. She pulls the smallest piece of Alex's hair and shows her, "see, so little."
"Harps, then I'm gonna have to wash my hair in the morning, and I'm already going to have to wash yours."
"It'll only take five more minutes to wash your hair, now c'mon!," she says and kneels into the space between her mother's legs.
These are the times that aren't worth an argument. She's right, it'll only take a few minutes of additional morning prep. What she desires is some one on one pretend salon time, she isn't hurting anyone, she's deserving of your attention. When she picks up the pencil, you ask her what she's doing, as you thought this was just going to be her moment, moonlighting as a hair stylist. But she looks at you with plead in her eyes, to let her draw lines over your eyes, the way you've done for her. You exhale and try to hide your smile, whether her look is intentional or just her true emotions shining through, you can't say no. You hardly ever can. Who would've thought you'd be the one they could walk all over? You're tough when it matters, you reason, as you close one eye; she gently, manually, closes your other one and tells you to stay still. You crack an eye open, and catch her diligently trying to hold the pencil at a proper angle to do a good job. She sees you, and throws her hands down as she laughs, "mama! No peeking!," she tells you and manually closes your eye again.
Her face is so close to yours, she's breathing normally, but you can hear every breath. I love you so much, you think as you feel the makeup pen come off your lid so many times, you can only imagine what this is going to look like.
A few minutes later, she replaces the cap on the eyeliner, and starts stirring the toothbrush in the wet chalk mixture. You feel her small hands glide through your hair until she gathers a sizable piece to start painting your hair with. She holds her hand underneath the toothbrush each time she goes back and forth between the mixture and your hair, careful not to drip. Once it's coated, she allows you to stand up to see her masterpiece. The eyeliner is very jagged, but considering she hasn't done this before, it could be worse. She clamors up to look into the mirror with you and leans forward the way you're leaning, "twinsies!"
Not quite, you think, as she, like your son, looks nothing like you. But you don't mention it, as she hasn't, herself. She turns to you, her eyes track across your face as she's done many times with you and Piper, mostly while you're getting ready. She watches your process, the rituals of a female: the prodding of skin, the pluck of a random strand of grey that managed to get through your dark colored hair, the array of creams lined up in the medicine cabinet in tiny jars. She watches you apply your moisturizers, concealers, powders, blush, your eye makeup, lip balm and then color. She's seen the before and after, she's seen you sometimes before you've seen yourself in the morning, and she sees you at the end of the day, when the work of the day has worn off the mask you've applied. She can see the lines of age across your face, the scars of old blemishes, the oily skin beneath your lids, the stray eyebrows that you've neglected to keep shaped. So you look right back at her, while she tracks her eyes across your face in awe, like you couldn't be more perfect to her. You're everything she wants to be when she grows up, and while your son is on the verge of becoming a teenager and has yet to be arrested, when she looks at you like this, you can't help but be terrified of her desire.
You kiss her forehead, your lips stay pressed for a long while, she doesn't pull away, instead she wraps her arms around your shoulders and you lift her off the sink. "I love you," you tell her.
In her seven years, she's grown taller, her body is gangly like Piper's was, in photos you've seen around your in-law's house. Her hair is curly, but now that it's getting longer, the weight keeps it under slightly more control. Her weight in your arms, makes you realize how often you don't carry her around anymore. You wonder, is it because she doesn't need you to? But then she smiles at you with her jack-o-lantern mouth and you hear, "I love you too, can you tell me the story of how much you wanted me?" And just like that, she once again feels like the little girl who raced you around the coffee table, the little girl who literally ate from your hand and smushed food on your face while she tried to feed you back, the little girl who pouted in the sandbox and begged you for ice cream, the little girl who came running back into your room with a five dollar bill and pink glitter stuck to her hand, thrilled, that the tooth fairy didn't hold her inability to sleep alone, against her.
You walk into her bedroom and help her change into her pajamas as you tell her the same story you've told her before,
"and I just had too much love in my heart for Jamie, I would've driven him crazy. So I told your mom, we needed another baby."
"But mommy wasn't ready, right?"
"Right, because babies are a lot of work."
"But then she went to the doctor and then came home and told you I was coming!," she says while she raises her arms in the air.
Alex chuckles, "yeah, something like that," she says and pulls her daughter's pajama top over her head.
Harper bounces off her bed and runs out the door, always happy to hear her story. Alex finds her in her room, looking over her bureau at the different perfume selections when she lifts one up and sees her mother in the mirror. She raises up the perfume, asking her if she can put some on. Again, the brunette chuckles and nods. Her daughter spritzes the fragrance, once on her wrists, and rubs them together, "and you didn't know I was a girl right?"
"Nope, we didn't know til the day you we're born."
"And so you and mommy and Jamie called me 'Banana,'" she says spraying the perfume into the air and walks through it.
"That's enough," she says in regards to her perfume, before her daughter took a bath in it. She escorts her daughter out of their room, her hands on her shoulders, "and yes, your brother named you Banana, and we called him Mookie."
She always giggles when hears their baby nicknames. At the sound of "Mookie," Jamie sticks his head out of his door and sees his mother and his sister decked out with their makeup and hair and starts laughing, "digging the Cyndi Lauper throw back hour," he says sarcastically.
"You're just jealous Jamie," Harper retorts.
"Yeah, I'm really jealous."
"You should be," Alex tells him, "not everyday, you just walk around radiating awesome."
"Yeah so awesome," he scoffs.
"Go pick a movie," she tells Harper who sticks out her tongue and runs away moments before Jamie attempts to come after her.
"Do you ever think, what do I gain by making fun of her?," she asks him.
"Oh, I'm making fun of you too!," he clarifies. "And the sheer satisfaction of letting her know that she's a dweeb is plenty for me to gain."
"I don't like when you put her down."
"Ma, I'm just messing with her, she knows that."
She tries to look at him sternly, "she looks up to you."
He tries to be respectful but starts laughing, "I can't take you seriously with the...," he swirls his finger around his eye.
She laughs with him, "seriously though."
"I know I know...hey did aunt Nicky call?"
"No, why?"
"She just looked kinda nervous."
"She is really nervous."
"It's kind of weird that she's going on a date."
"Why's it weird?"
"I don't know, I just think of her as someone who does her own thing. Like she lives on her own and I don't know, she's not the family type?"
"She has a big heart," she says defensively.
"No, I know that. It'll just be weird to see her with someone."
"She's been hurt a lot in the past so she doesn't let people in so easily," she tells him and caresses his head before walking off to watch a movie with Harper.
His eyes sadden slightly, but he nods, not knowing details, he tries his best to empathize.
Later that evening, Piper comes home late after receiving shipments of inventory, Alex and Harper are curled up, fast asleep on the couch, the theme from Harper's movie is on a loop. She watches them for a bit, the way her wife's arm is around their daughter, her hand is cupping her head tenderly, protectively. She bites her bottom lip with wonder at how Harper managed to convince Alex to draw on her eye lids and color her hair.
She nudges Alex gently, and raises her index finger over her lips so she doesn't wake their daughter. The brunette's eyes open, the lights are on all around her, she hears the theme song from Harper's movie; she looks at Piper, then her daughter and laughs through her nose.
"Why is her hair blue?," she whispers questioningly.
"Because she wants to see me cry. I don't know whats so fascinating about the eye makeup and the blue hair."
"She's probably just admiring things about you, like we've all done at one point or another with our mothers."
"She can't admire this awesome sweater?," she says with a flick of her hand at her very plain grey sweater.
"Instead of the punky streaked hair and thick eyeliner? I don't think so." She comes down lower to lift Harper up.
"I got her, just gimme a few to get up."
"It's fine babe, just chill out here for a bit, I'll put her to bed."
"No really, just let her lay here a bit."
Piper lowers her brow just slightly.
"I... I've been so consumed by everything with Jamie, I cant remember the last time I just laid here, with her."
"She cuddles up with you all the time."
"Yeah, but not just like the two of us."
"Okay, well just come to bed when you're ready I guess."
She nods and watches Piper make her way down toward their room.
She turns her neck and looks at her daughter sleep, she can only see her partially, as her cheek is pressed against her shoulder, she has to pull her head back to see her eyelids. "Oh kid, if this is how you are now, what are you going to be like when you're Jamie's age?" She brings her free arm around Harper's back and rubs it in wide circles. She plays with the ends of her curls, and snickers at the sky blue tip. "You will not convince me to avoid a shower in the morning. This is coming out."
A few hours later, Alex wakes up on the couch, with a ping from her phone from Nicky asking "up?," only now both she and Harper are on their sides, Harper is her little spoon. Her movie's theme continues to loop in the background. She weighs staying here for the rest of the night but then knows her back will curse her in the morning so she pushes up off the couch, turns off the movie and picks up her not so little girl to put her to bed.
"Up," she confirms via text.
Her phone rings moments later.
"Are you just getting home now?," she looks at her clock, noting dinner would've been over hours ago.
"I'm in a cab heading home now."
"So I'm guessing it went well," she pokes her head into Jamie's room. Asleep, she closes the door.
"You could say that."
"Could I?," she pokes her head into their room, and sees Piper sleeping with a book over her stomach. She whispers "hang on," into the phone, removes the book and Piper's glasses from her face and turns their light off.
"I'm awake," Piper mutters as their door creaks closed.
"Ok continue," Alex says into the phone and comes into their room, and sits on the edge of her side of the bed.
Piper taps her, "who is it?," she whispers.
"Nicky," she mouths, while Nicky is talking at the other end. "So that's good that she can hold her own around you. I mean that has to give her at least twenty points right?"
"How'd it go?," Piper whispers again.
"Nick, I'm putting you on speaker," she says before her friend continues.
"No judgment Chapman," she says and waits for confirmation.
"Never," Piper says sarcastically, turning onto her side and leaning into Alex's pillow.
"I haven't felt this chemistry in a long while."
"Uh, huh," Alex mutters while changing her clothes, "so she can put up with your bullshit, which in turn makes her more appealing."
"Perhaps. Have you ever seen her hair down? It's really long."
Piper glances at Alex, her gaze is sweet listening to Nicky talk about Francesca.
"I can't say I have Nicks." The brunette pulls a tank top on and crawls underneath the sheet in that and her underwear. "So I know she commented on your mane."
"Yeah she did, but she also said she dug the natural bush whack too, so it's good to know I don't have to tame this shit every time. Shit's exhausting."
"She straightened her hair?," Piper asks Alex, who nods with wide eyes.
"Another ten points," Alex tells her.
"And I...showed her my sobriety chip," she says with some hesitation.
"Oh?," Alex answers while Piper's eyes open wider, "and she was cool?"
"Yeah, she was really supportive Vause, I'm telling you..."
"How'd it even come up?"
"I told you that dress you and cauliflower head insisted I wear was too low cut."
"Hey," Piper says in defense of her cauliflower head.
"Chapman honest, it's not slutty, but it leaves little to the imagination if you catch my drift."
"I think I need some photographic evidence of said dress," Piper tells her.
"When I'm home. It's too dark in the cab. Nah, really though, it was good to bring it up early, instead of worrying about how she'd take it on another date, you know?"
"Mmmhmmm. So, it's been established that there'll be another date?," the brunette asks sitting up.
"Definitely, for a multitude of reasons."
"Right, the chemistry."
"Yeah, Vause she's a dancer, I need to assess her bendy factors."
"Oh so you haven't yet? Was just about to ask you where you taking this cab back from exactly."
"From the restaurant! Chapman, control your woman."
"I have to say I'm impressed you kept it in your pants Nichols," her best friend snickers.
"Well... you know."
"Or did you... did you taint the restaurant? I haven't even had a chance to check that place out yet!"
"We may have kissed...a little...in the bathroom."
"Romantic," Alex says sarcastically, "I hope you had some gum or something, Jesus."
"Well it was the only private place! Until the lady who passes out the hand towels came in and interrupted us."
"There you go," Alex laughs out on the line, while Piper adds, "well you always did like bathrooms, eh Nicky?"
Alex looks at her wife weirdly, as the blonde cackles while Nicky tells her, "shut your mouth."
The second bang on his door came from Piper, as Alex has spent her morning chasing Harper through the apartment to get in the shower. The little girl only relents when Alex tells her that they will not be playing salon again if she doesn't wash the chalk out of her hair in "3...2..., thank you very much," she tells her as she clamors into the bathroom and starts undressing.
"Jamie, get up!," she can hear Piper's muffled shouts through the water of the shower. The slam of a door. The chalk washes right out, it's the eye makeup that takes multiple strokes of the washcloth to remove. She wraps a towel around her daughter and tells her to go get dressed.
"Jamie!," Piper shouts again at the door.
"I'm naked!," the brunette hears him shout as she walks past to get to their bathroom to take her own shower.
"I don't care if you're naked, I've seen that butt a thousand times."
"Mom!," he grunts back, sounding as if the shout is from underneath his covers.
"Jamie, I swear to God if I'm late, I will kill you. You better be in that bathroom in five minutes," she says as she smacks her hand on the door.
Morning's pass just like this, almost daily over the next six months. Weekend nights are either loud with multiple kids who are hanging out in either of their children's rooms, or completely silent when Harper has a play date or Jamie is at a friend's party, the movie theater, or bowling alley. So when he asks if he can go over a friend's house for a party one Friday night, some routine questions are asked and answered, and he's told to be home by 11PM. When Nicky calls to ask if she minds skipping NA tonight and possibly going in the morning, she welcomes the break of all sorts of responsibility. When the phone rings two minutes later she grumbles and answers,
"Nick, its not a big deal, enjoy your night, we'll talk tom..."
"Ma?," Jamie's voice comes through the phone.
"Oh, sorry kid, what's up? Everything okay?"
"Yeah everything's great. I was wondering if it would be okay if I just stayed over here tonight."
"Uh..."
"You have his mom's number," he tries to influence her decision.
"Yeah then, okay. Just let me know what time to get you tomorrow morning okay?"
"K ma, thanks," and she hears the phone beep indicating the call has ended.
"Wha-ha-hut?," his friends can't believe he can stay, as they pop a cap of the bottle of Smirnoff Ice and a bottle of beer and hand him both bottles. He passes one to Lauren and sits down beside her in his friend's basement.
She looks at her phone and sees his name and number on the screen of her phone, she hits the power button, blackening the screen and heads off to their bedroom.
"Your son is up to no good," she tells Piper.
"Now what?," she tells her, leaping over the questions that usually come along when Alex calls him her son.
"Not sure, but he just asked me if he could stay over this kid's house, so he's either smoking something, drinking something, or sneaking out somewhere."
"And you said yes?"
"Yeah, I'll just call him on the hour to bother him with some unimportant question, to conveniently interrupt whatever he's doing."
"You don't think we should go get him? We're going to knowingly let him to do something stupid? No..."
"Yeah let him do something so we can fuck with him."
Throughout the evening his phone goes off hourly, each time he answers, she can tell he's bent down in a corner, trying to block out the surrounding antics of his friends. Bless him, she thinks for continuing to answer his phone out of fear, she'll either call this boy's mother or worse, show up at this boy's house. The last time she calls is at midnight, the sounds in the background are still similar, so she knows they never left the house.
When the buzzer on the intercom goes off around 8AM, she confusedly pads over to the box on the wall. She buzzes Nicky up, who's ready to go to their meeting. Alex tells her Piper went for a run, that she can't leave Harper.
"Jamie can't stay with her?," she asks nervously.
"He slept over a friend's last night, doing God only knows what. Think it's too early to call him?"
"Yeah they were probably up half the night."
"Or he's messed up this morning, they were definitely partying."
"How do you know?"
"Just do," she shrugs. "We can go tonight," she reassures her, "just check the times. Want some breakfast?," she asks opening the refrigerator to pull out some eggs.
"If I don't have to make it, yeah."
Minutes later Jamie stumbles in and Alex looks at Nicky with a told you so look. She loudly speaks to her son, "you're home early, thought I was going to pick you up."
He grimaces, "didn't want to bother you. Hey aunt Nicky," he says trying to downplay the pounding in his head.
Nicky tries not to laugh, "how was your party Jamie?"
"Was fun. I'm gonna go to bed okay?"
"Didn't you sleep all night? C'mon, you don't want some breakfast?," his mother asks him near the stove.
The swirl of nausea passes through him, "I'm good really. We stayed up late, I'm really tired," he says trying to leave.
Alex cracks the shell of a hardboiled egg and starts peeling the white of the egg back, she passes it by his face, "you sure."
He dry heaves and hauls over toward their garbage can. She hits their radio on to elevate the noise level in their kitchen, until he comes over to turn down the dial and looks at her frustrated.
She turns off the radio, and pulls a chair back from the table and points to it, "sit down."
He does as he's told and rests his head on the table. Nicky dips a napkin into her water and leans up to place it behind his neck. He inhales sharply at the coolness against his skin, he opens his eyes and looks at her gratefully. Her lips frown some.
"I know you're hungover, ya brat!," she calls over her shoulder.
He groans, "how do you always know everything?"
"Cause I've been there, eat this," she says placing some toast in front of him. She mixes a spoon in some ginger ale until it's flat, "and drink this."
"Thanks," he says and takes a bite of his toast with his head still on his arm. "Is mom home?," he asks now worried about her wrath as well.
"No, she's out for a run, keeping up her tone incase we need to catch you and kick your ass." He snickers amusedly.
"Did you do anything else at this party? Smoke anything?"
"No, just had a few drinks."
"Nothing else? How many is a few?"
"I swear nothing else. I don't even know, too many I guess."
"Remember how you feel right now kid," Nicky tells him taking a bite of his toast, and putting it back on his plate.
"I will," he says looking up at her.
"Maybe we should take him with us," she says to Alex. Alex turns to look at her while she shovels the eggs on different plates and raises her eyebrows toward her. Jamie's head picks up.
She doesn't break eye contact with Alex, but talks toward her friend's son, "it's not worth getting all mixed up in this mess, you hear me?,"
He nods, "go where?," he asks either of them.
"I started off drinking at parties too, then one day someone passes around a blunt or two. And then you try some painkillers. All the while you tell yourself, you just do it socially. Until you start craving things outside the parties. And someone offers you a chance to forget all the bad shit that's happening in your life, and gives you something stronger, only you get to a point where you don't know how to get through the day without it. So it's the first thing on your mind when you wake up, but again you tell yourself you're not addicted, because you manage to shove breakfast down your throat before you shoot up."
He looks at her worriedly, "aunt Nicky, I'm not going to drink again okay?," he turns to look at his mother who's holding her and Nicky's plates in her hands behind him, "for a really really long time, I won't, okay?"
"It took rehab, blood transfusions, getting my chest cracked open, seeing God several times before being forced to quit cold turkey, and living through the worst withdrawal symptoms, feeling so sick that I was convinced I was gonna die, and it still took someone to take me under her arm and care about me, and tell me that I'd lose her care if I touched that shit again, before I finally had some will to fight against the urge."
Alex sets the plates down and squeezes Nicky's shoulder. Jamie's eyes are wide with fear.
"I still have to go to these meetings kid, to hear that other people, who have been off this mess as long as I have, still want it just as much as I do. And it takes people like your ma, to go with me and let me know that I'm not alone in this world, that I still have some people who care about me enough, and make me want to do better."
She takes a deep breath, and grabs the hand that sits on her shoulder. She squeezes.