One moment, when she looked, they were there. Emma and Piper. In the sandpit. At the time, when she saw them, it seemed such a familiar sight. Beautiful, yes. But familiar. Now it was such a precious memory that the details had been engraved into her mind. Together, they had become something quite extraordinary.
Early that morning, they'd woken up tangled together, their arms and legs entwined after a night of sleep. Sunshine poured through a crack in the curtains, bathing them in warmth. Sometimes, as she held Piper sleeping in her arms like that, Alex was hit with waves of unexplained fear. Rationally, she knew that it was some left over psychological symptom of her time in prison….the Kubra effect. But often it caught her off guard, panicked her to the point of tears. This morning, the experience had started off no different. Breathing heavily, she had tightened her grip, closed her eyes to shut out the glow of Piper's golden halo as the sunlight intensified. Desperate to calm the thud of her terrified heart she squeezed her eyes shut, pulled her angel closer.
Usually, this closeness helped. Usually, Piper stayed asleep and the whole thing passed.
"Babe?!" Piper turned sleepily in her arms, her brow furrowed with concern as she turned to face her. "Al, you're shaking! What's wrong?" With delicate fingers, she pulled stray strands of brown hair from Alex's clammy skin, wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead. "Are you sick?"
"No…I'm ok….I'm just…" Alex lowered her gaze, her head bowing with the humiliation of being completely exposed. Refusing to be ignored, Piper scooted over to her pillow, lifted her chin with one finger and looked into her eyes.
"Alex…"
"Sometimes I just get scared. I can't shake the feeling that someone is out there to ruin things for me. To hurt you. To hurt Emma. To make everything go wrong."
Piper's face softened, her lips curling into a smile of affection. She pulled the rest of her body closer, until both of their frames were touching again. "We're ok Al. Nobody's going to hurt us. That's all behind us now. Everything's good." She took Alex's face in her hands and held her tenderly, like she was made of glass. Then, despite the fragility, she kissed her deeply, tried to promise security with her lips.
"It will kill me to lose you again." Alex's husky voice threatened tears.
"I'm not going anywhere. I promise you Alex." Piper kissed her again. "I promise you."
Emma had squealed with joy that morning when Piper carried her into their bedroom and pulled her under the sheets. Feeling guilty about leaving her alone for longer than usual in her crib while they fiercely made love, both women wanted her closer so that they could listen to the song of her babbling and press kisses into her skin.
"I swear to god she gets bigger every time she goes to sleep." Alex marveled, watching as Piper settled the squirming baby girl into her lap and smoothed her cornstarch blonde hair. Emma beamed, ramming her fists into her gummy mouth and kicking her feet.
"She get's heavier, that's for sure." Piper remarked, straightening Emma's pyjama's before wrapping her arms around the little body and blowing raspberries into her chubby red cheeks.
Sometimes, when they were all together like this, Alex thought she might burst with love. To Alex, Piper was perfect, she always had been. Not technically perfect, because they fought and they hurt each other and they drove each other crazy. But when it mattered, there was no one else who could compare. No one else even came close. And now there was Emma. Emma, who looked exactly like her biological mother but who had so many of the mannerisms mannerisms of her adoptive one. There has always been the fear, when Piper got pregnant, that Alex wouldn't be able to love the baby, that she wouldn't feel close to it because she had no connection through skin or by cell.
"Al, will you take her? She's going crazy down here!" desperate trying to attract her brunette mother's attention, Emma had tired of Piper's kisses and was stretching her arms towards Alex, trying to shuffle her bottom along the mattress unsuccessfully.
"Hmmm, let me see…" Alex scooted closer to Emma and dropped to her elbows, her head resting on top of her hands. Seeing her mother smile, Emma shrieked and copied her, her face lighting up just like Piper's did, with that bright, gorgeous warmth of emotion.
"Hey squirt," Alex smiled back at her, leaning closer still. "Come 'ere".
"Al don't tease her! She loves you so much, she just wants you to touch her. Look at her!" Emma was straining forwards now, her nappy hovering inches in the air.
"It really is like mother, like daughter then, huh?" flashing a devilish smile at Piper she reached forwards to catch the baby, who was seconds away from falling flat on her face.
Lying flat on her back with her head resting against the pillows, Alex had held Emma above her with her arms outstretched, drawing her close to her face to kiss her forehead and then pushing her back, giggling, into the air. That feeling, she realized, that her daughter so loved, that feeling of weightlessness, the addictive, heart racing tension of neatly balancing between safety and oblivion …that's what it feels like to be a mother.
"Al, can you make sure you wash her hair?" Piper's voiced carried into the bathroom, just audible over the roar of a hair dryer. On the hard, tiled floor of their bathroom, Alex was on her knees, stretched out over the side of the bath tub, her hands wrinkled from too long in the warm soapy water.
Flapping her arms around to create little waves, Emma slapped the water and paused, searching Alex's expression for traces of a delight that matched her own. "You know what kid," Alex locked eyes with her and smiled, "you're without a doubt the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life. Cuter than your mom, but we can't tell her I said that." Struck with affection, she took the little blonde's face in her hands and kissed her. "Now we have to wash your hair so close your eyes, ok?" Obediently, Emma squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palms over them carefully.
"Good girl." Alex poured the first cup of lukewarm water over her head and waited for the backlash. Emma hated having her hair washed. She was terrified in the pool when the water lapped against the back of her head. Alex guessed that somehow she'd inherited her own fear of drowning, the threat of having to surrender to something much bigger than yourself and being completely swallowed by it. When the last drops of water leapt from her cup she saw Emma, her shoulders tensed and her rosebud pink lips pouting as she tried hard to be brave. After the second cup however, she began to whimper.
"I'm here baby," Alex placed a hand on the top of Emma's head and smiled. "I'm always here. And hey, guess what?! We're all going to the park later, you, me and mommy." Suddenly, the whimpering stopped.