Hello everybody! I am so, so sorry it's taken me so incredibly long to update this story. But hey, I survived my first year of college! Anyway, I apologize for the long wait, and hopefully you won't have to wait as long for the next update! Forewarning, this will probably seem out of character, as I'm a bit rusty with these characters. :3 I'll be better next time! Huge shoutout to the one I started this story for, as she inspired most of this chapter. Reviews are always welcome.
Enjoy.
"Sorry mom, can't visit today. Rehearsal is going late so I won't have time."
Leigh sighs as she turns off her phone. The dull click is unsatisfying.
"She's avoiding me," she says. Henry hums sympathetically.
"I'm sure she just doesn't know what to say."
"I'd appreciate an apology," she mutters. "You deserve one too. We may have our issues, but she shouldn't take it out on you."
"It'll be ok, sweetie." She leans down to kiss him, grinning as she straightens and starts to push his wheelchair down the hall.
"You're just lucky you're sickly, otherwise you might have not been forgiven as quickly as you were."
"The only thing I'm sick of is the hospital food... And possibly the beds."
Her teasing smirk softens.
"Good thing you're being released today."
"Indeed. Let's go home."
"It'll be ok," Derek murmurs against the creamy ivory of Ivy's neck.
"It's like you haven't even met my mother," Ivy groans. "I can practically see her disapproving moue through the phone."
His chest rumbles against her back as he chuckles, arms wrapping around her slightly protruding stomach, fingers tapping a soothing rhythm that both comforts and tickles.
"It'll be fine. You'll talk to her later, play the pregnancy card, and she'll be too busy cooing over our future baby to remember this tiny little blip that's already in the past."
"Again, it's like you haven't met my mother," Ivy snorts. He simply kisses her neck again.
The rehearsal's hallway echoes approaching feet, Derek pays no mind, intent on distracting Ivy from her stress, or at least get her to blush.
"I swear, you two are like hormonal teenagers," Tom grumbles as he passes them, evidence of a coffee run in his heavy-loaded arms. "Always the PDA with you."
Ivy dances from Derek's arms to unload a few of his burdens.
"It's my kind of comfort," she says with a wink, pulling the door open for them. The room's appreciation for the caffeine comes in hums and chatter and grabbing hands.
"What do you need comfort for anyway?" Tom asks, all busy hands as he disperses the proper coffees to the proper people.
"I accidentally told my mom about the baby over the phone, made it worse by letting it slip I told dad before her, then promptly hung up at the first hint of a screech."
Hands still.
He turns to her rueful cringe, tries to be understanding, to be calm.
All he can muster is incredulity.
"What? You didn't. You did? That's bad, Ivy. That's really bad." He walks away from her to lean against the director's table, arms crossing in deep thought.
She plops gracefully next to him, knowingly waiting to hear the plan sure to come.
"Well, we've got to do something," he muses, his long pianist fingers tapping calculations against his upper lip. "It can't simply be a grand gesture, she holds grudges longer than I do," he gives Ivy a significant look, she grins sheepishly. "It'll have to be one elaborate plan... Because otherwise, of course, there's going to be hell to pay."
He stands, break's over, and dancers are called to center.
"Oh," Tom says as Ivy walks to position. "Let's go over the plan before you leave for your dinner with her."
"Ah, yes," the rueful cringe is back. "I had to cancel that. Not enough time today, but I'll talk to her soon."
The incredulity is back as well.
"Ivy! Did you at least set up another day?"
"I texted an apology for canceling?"
Eyes roll and hands are thrown heavenwards in exasperation.
"My god, Ivy. What a colossal catastrophe you've created."
The room titters.
Pink colors her cheeks like an embarrassed sunset.
Tom calls for five, she checks her phone.
"Your father is home now, disappointed you're not coming to see him today. He's managed to eat a little, choked three times."
Ivy rolls her eyes. Only Leigh Conroy could portray both concern for Henry and curt passive aggressiveness in twenty-three words.
Derek calls for her next number. She shakes her head, shrugs it off.
The show must go on.
Karen notices the raising eyebrows when Ivy misses her cue.
Ivy never misses her cue.
Karen holds her note for two beats too long before Ivy steps in. Her jaunty smile and sassy tune is flawless, as always, but there's now a kink in her normally steady flow.
If Karen was a smaller woman, there'd be no way to suppress her vindicated glee.
Even a Tony winner makes mistakes.
Maybe Derek will finally lay off singling out Karen's fumbles.
Ivy misses a step, slightly bumping into Jessica. Karen barely holds back a smile. In her defense, it had been in a comical scene.
"Concentrate, Ivy," Derek says. She nods, brow furrowing with thought, then smoothing because Karen's character Kate (formerly Julia) is the one who's supposed to be frustrated, and Leah's supposed to be calm.
Derek's brow furrows too, but his stays. He corrects her blocking, then Karen's, then changes everything.
His frown only deepens.
It's only when Ivy flubs a line that Tom finally calls for a break.
The normally brilliant blonde slumps in her chair, two seats away from Karen, but the distance does nothing to hide her exhaustion.
"Ivy, darling, are you ok?" Derek asks in hushed tones, a hand on her shaking thigh as he sits next to her.
Karen pretends there's something absolutely enthralling on her phone, though she's positive her eavesdropping, as well as the eavesdropping of several hovering dancers, is recognized and simply ignored.
"I'm fine."
Ivy may be a good actress, but the reply is feeble at best.
"Ivy."
"Ok, I'm a little stressed. But just a little." She pinches her index and thumb together in demonstration, Derek grabs them, kisses the trembling fingers, holds tightly as he leans forward, inspecting the soft knuckles and deep green nail polish.
"You would tell me, wouldn't you? If it's not just stress?"
His words are much quieter, softer, worry laced in between every vowel and consonant.
There's actually maybe even a hint of something else too, Karen would call it vulnerability if she didn't know better, and suddenly she regrets listening in. Based on the shuffling of dance shoes, she's not the only one.
Maybe Derek's stopped noticing or truly doesn't care, because his eyes are only for Ivy, only focused on trying to decipher what's going on in those baby blues.
Cherry lips open, hesitate, Karen waits for the reply that doesn't belong to her with baited breath—
"All right, everybody," Tom says. "One more scene before we're done."
Many sighs of relief, except one.
Derek's sigh is something else entirely.
She hates getting the mail. It's a weird and mundane thing to hate, but she does nevertheless. When it's not the rare and cherished letter from Jimmy, it's bills.
Usually it's just bills.
She should really make Ana get the mail, but she really hasn't seen her, truly seen her, in a while.
They're both busy.
It's a weak excuse, but it's truth.
Karen quickly flips through the envelopes.
Bill. Spam. Coupon—she's keeping that one, Asiago bagels are her weakness. Spam. Spam. Bill—not a bill.
A letter, from Jimmy.
He's keeping busy, writing music when he's allowed, missing her.
Loving her.
"No matter what I'm doing or where I am, my heart is never far from yours."
Karen's chest aches, a hollow loneliness seeps through her body like a bad cold.
She's trying hard to not get used to his absence, doesn't want to get used to it, but the result hurts and leaves her empty.
She shoves the mail back into the silver box, leaving it for Ana or at least till tomorrow.
She's going to drink tonight, and damn it all, she's going to drink a lot.
Karen's glad she decided to drink at a restaurant's bar. In a real bar she'd be hit on and she's just not in the mood.
Plus, she can never resist their fries.
She's halfway through her second martini—she doesn't know why she ordered this, it's disgusting and nowhere near as addicting or tasteful as Eileen makes it look—when she's greeted by an unexpected vision in black and tawny curls.
"Leigh—I mean Ms. Conroy—what are you doing here?"
"Hello Karen, nice to see you."
"Wonderful to see you too, of course." She's flustered as the actress sits next to her. She's not exactly prepared to attempt conversation with this legend turned human turned Ivy's mom.
She doesn't have anything to say anyway, except incoherent gibberish.
"I'm waiting for Ivy and Derek," Leigh says. "But they seem to be running a bit late."
She signals the bartender with a friendly wink and orders a gin and tonic.
It's stronger than Karen would expect of Leigh but she doesn't bat an eyelash.
Can't embarrass herself in front of the Leigh Conroy, even as her mind processes that Ivy and Derek will soon be here and things will soon be less than peachy.
She has a second to think it, then they're here.
They walk through the glass and wood doors, tall and glamorous and armed with a shield of lifted chins and thick, theatre skin.
The moment smells of trouble.
Oh well, Karen hadn't really been enjoying her pathetic attempts to get plastered anyway.
At least this promises entertainment.
"Hello Ivy."
It's fake and sweet and colder than the greeting Karen got. She holds back a shiver.
"Mom. Where's dad?"
Definitely chilly.
"At home. He was too tired to come, someone's sitting with him. I'm sure he would have loved a visit from his starlet daughter… but that's showbiz, I suppose."
"I'm sure you know the drill, mom. After all, in showbiz, you're an old pro."
Karen might just be the slightest tinge of tipsy, always has been such a lightweight, but the biting tone in such neutral sentences makes her want to cringe from the ensuing frost-fight.
"Speaking of showbiz, how is yours? Not too draining is it?" Leigh laughs lightheartedly, teeth blinding and glaring white. Ivy's reply is quick, spoken through a clenched and brilliant smile.
"Oh it's nothing I can't handle. After all, I'm still young, I can afford the energy."
"Meow," Karen mutters under her breath.
It's a mistake, because suddenly Ivy's icy glare is locked and loaded onto her unprepared form.
"What are you doing here?" Karen can't breathe, doesn't till the accusing gaze shifts back to the woman beside her.
"Why are you sitting next to Iowa?"
Karen would roll her eyes at the tired old name if she could. But she can't move. Deer in the headlights, paralyzed in the future of a crash. At least Derek seems as bewildered as she feels. Mouth slightly agape and eyes wary, he's powerless in this conversation, his jaw works to keep hidden, probably sarcastic, words in.
Now Leigh's turned to her, grinning conspiratorially at her nervous expression. Except she's nervous ramped up times ten.
"Isn't the paranoia adorable?"
It's rhetorical, Karen doesn't even have to stutter a comment because she's already forging on. She leans in and Karen automatically responds.
She smells like the spotlight and vanilla. And vaguely like gin and tonic.
"It's the hormones," Leigh stage whispers. "She's pregnant, you know."
"I know."
Another mistake.
"Oh... another person you've told before me, Ivy. How flattering."
"I can't... I can't do this tonight. I'll see you and dad later, but I need to go."
Ivy turns, grabbing Derek's hand as she takes tight steps away from the bar.
Karen nearly sighs with relief before Leigh calls after her retreating daughter.
"Does later mean the next time your father's in the hospital? Because it seems that's the only way he can get your attention."
Yikes. Anger falls like a veil over Ivy's entire being. First, the lifted shoulders, then the slow turn on heel, a dark twist of pale lips, a hurricane forming in sky blue eyes.
"Don't you dare pretend this is about dad. It's about you. Always about you. When you found out I was pregnant, the first thing out of your mouth wasn't congratulations or even simply acknowledging that I'm carrying a life inside me, but how I didn't tell you immediately.
"And yes, I should have told you sooner, in fact you were the first person I wanted to talk to when I found out, but I knew I couldn't. Recognize that I said couldn't. Because I knew that when I did, it would be about you, how you responded to the news, if you told other people, how you told other people, how you'd get to be Grandma Leigh, and I'd be shoved to the side like always because I'm just Ivy, just the mother. I needed this to be about me, and for a short, glorious time, it was. But then this happened and it was all about you. Again.
"God forbid I turn out like you, or my kid will be gone by the time they're 12."
With that she's gone, Derek too, leaving a shattered silence in her wake.
Karen's still frozen, not daring to move when Leigh is a statue beside her.
It's like watching a Michelangelo crack and crumble inside itself, though nothing changes at all.
It hurts.
"Miss Conroy—"
Leigh ignores her attempt at comfort, tips the rest of her forgotten drink back in the most broken elegance, slips away without a word.
It's not even Karen's world, but she's fragmenting.
She signals a waiter and orders a coffee.
She's barely had enough and yet too much alcohol for one night.
She doesn't need it anyway, she's already numb.
She's not crying and that worries him.
Dry-eyed and staring straight ahead, her hand is cold and limp in his.
She's still angry, he knows it, knows better than to address it, but there's hurt there too.
She's never been good at showing when she's hurting. Then again, neither has he.
"Ivy—"
"What was your mom like?" She asks abruptly. He's taken aback.
"I don't rightly know, she died when I was very young."
They're both silent as they walk up the stairs.
The second they're through the apartment door, she's on him.
He'd been expecting it.
Hot lips insistent against his, cold hands tugging clothes, bodies moving a familiar and exciting tango. He's certain she's going to have a nice bruise in the morning, the painting in the hallway fared better than her shoulder during their distracted hurry to the bedroom, but she's undeterred.
"Ivy."
She swallows his words, hands roaming and nails digging in just right—it's enough to make the most moral man falter.
But he knows the pattern, he knows her, and he wants to help.
This is just distraction.
"Ivy."
She wriggles against him, and god, she shouldn't be allowed to do such things with her tongue, but she's too urgent. As much as he'd like to continue, it would be a mistake.
"Ivy, darling, stop." Gentle words, bullets nonetheless.
He knows the hurt clouding her eyes isn't just from him alone, it's not much of a comfort.
He kisses her once more, in apology, in caring, in empathy.
More understanding in his muttered "sweetheart," than a long blown out speech that wasn't him and wasn't them could ever convey.
"I just want to be a good mom. I want to do better."
It's a whisper, a secret, and it's sad.
He wraps her up in his arms, let's her hide the vulnerability he knows she hates, and waits.
Slowly, silently, she shudders.
She doesn't break.
He almost wishes she would, because any moment could be the one to fracture her.
He would rather it be a moment when he can pick up the pieces.
It's early in the morning, too early, and Karen's cranky.
After coming home from the most unsuccessful and awkward attempt at getting drunk last night, several red wines had called her name and she hadn't resisted.
Now she wishes she had, because the ungodly sun is too bright and the streets are too loud and she really doesn't want to be conscious right now but when Eileen calls you in for a meeting you go to the meeting, regardless of the short notice.
She's not going to fool anyone with her sunglasses, it's painfully obvious she's hungover, but it was her decision to get drunk so she'll handle it like an adult.
A groaning, irritated adult with a pounding head.
When she gets to Eileen's office, trepidation in her every footstep, she's surprised to see Tom and Julia, Derek too, glowering from his slouch on the hard wooden chair.
She smiles half-heartedly, and Eileen chuckles, immediately guessing her apprehension.
"Don't worry, Karen. You're not in trouble."
Her relief is palpable.
"I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Ivy."
Derek's scowl deepens.
Karen internally sighs.
More trouble.