Disclaimer: Anything familiar to you, I don't own. This is a work of fanfiction for personal amusement, fulfillment and a bit of self-therapy. I make nothing from any of it.

Chapter Forty-Nine: Métér

February 9th, 2012 4:19 PM

Rachel didn't care much for the filthy old carpet that lined the halls of the apartment building her biological mother lived in. Maybe it was a reminder that a woman she had come to care a great deal about was still living in a small apartment in a, frankly, shitty building. Whatever Sera might have been guilty of in her life, Rachel thought the woman deserved better, especially given how dedicated she was in her day to day life and at work that would have made Rachel seriously consider gouging her own eyes out at the tediousness. Just think of it this way, Rachel, she counseled herself as her hand wrapped once at the pale door of Apartment D3. She's come a long way from Bargain Zee's Budget Motel. Somewhere behind the door she heard the familiar tones of her mother's voice. She's come a long way from the Old Mill, too. While Sera repeated herself, still too far into the apartment to be really clear and audible, Rachel considered exactly how long it had been since the woman walked into her life. Almost immediately the math struck her as a bit of a pain in the ass and she set it aside.

"It's Rachel," she called, when she thought that Sera might be close enough to the door that conversation would be reasonable. For her part, Sera had closed the distance, as she came through loud and clear when she announced that the door was unlocked. Rachel turned the knob and found Sera standing a step or two into the kitchen working a towel through her hair. I don't think I'm early, but... "I got mixed up on the time?" Rachel asked as she stepped in and stripped off her jacket first thing. Sera kept her apartment on the warmer side.

"No, I just lost track of time," her mother explained, setting aside the towel as Rachel shut the door behind her. The woman approached and Rachel quickly embraced her before stepping away. The first time there had been any kind of familial affection between them had been a couple of months ago. It should not have surprised Rachel that it had come after a tense situation in which she had finally asked Sera why she had left in the first place, why she had let Rachel go as an infant. Most days she was even satisfied with the answers she received that evening. Most days. "Well, how was school?"

"I'm not going to lie, today I wanted out of there almost as soon as it started. Kind of just want this week over with." That was the truth. It was strange how different she felt giving Sera the truth, versus any given conversation with her mom. "But I think I knocked out a good grade on a history test. How was your day?""

"It was good, but I don't take days off very often and I think I liked sleeping in a little too much. There goes my sleeping schedule." At that, Rachel was ushered through the kitchen into the living room. Sera's apartment was relatively unchanged after all of this time. Most of her furniture was pretty old, still very much second hand and in places looking threadbare. The good news was that she had gotten a small, if modern television. Secretly, Rachel suspected the woman had only done so to stop her from worrying about all of the time Sera must spend alone. As far as Rachel knew, there weren't any particular friends and certainly no partners in Sera's life. Not a fan of that, but not my business. "Proud of you for keeping it together during a crappy week, though." Not so much crappy as, just a little stressful. The party on Saturday loomed ahead of her and while she would normally find the idea of a party fun, there were roadblocks: first, she was involved in making sure it went off without a hitch and second, her presence there was, at least in part, an excuse to spy on a classmate she knew to be a sexual predator. That was not exactly her idea of a great Saturday night, even if she, Chloe and Max had agreed to find some way to enjoy themselves at the same time.

"What all have you been up to today?" Rachel prompted. The woman shrugged and reached across to the table by her end of the couch, freeing a brush which she used to begin taming her hair. "Slept in a bit, worked on my secret project. You know, a bit of the usual." Uhuh, Rachel thought, narrowing her eyes slightly at the woman, who actively refused to notice. Rachel gave her a second to pretend to be ignorant to the girl's probing and then spoke. She had not particularly come to bother Sera about her 'secret project' but she was very suddenly curious.

"So, when am I going to learn about this secret project?" she asked, making an effort to sound as casual as she could. Truthfully, she firmly expected the same response as usual, which was-

"Oh, I'll tell you when it's done," Sera promised. "That's what makes it secret."

"I'm just curious," Rachel told her, feeling a little defensive.

"Well, that's alright, too."

"Oh, but curiosity killed the cat." Sera chuckled as she finished with the hairbrush and sat it aside.

"Rachel, don't you know the rest of that saying? Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back snap-ass happy. Just wait and see. Now, your text said you had some things on your mind. What's been going on, Rachel?" Sera was adept at this, talking her way around exposing some fact or another about herself that she was not interested in explaining. Normally, Rachel would at least put up more of a fight but the honest truth was that the Vortex Club party on Saturday was not the only thing weighing on her mind. In fact, there was something that at least competed with it for the top spot in her 'I've got a bad feeling about this' contest.

"It's mom," she admitted, leaning forward and clasping her hands together between squeezing kneecaps. "Later on today, mom wants to talk to me about going to see James in Oregon State Penitentiary." Sera made a noise in the back of her throat that Rachel took to mean she was paying close attention to what Rachel was saying. "That's a whole can of worms I don't know how to react to. For some reason, the girls want me to do it and they're usually pretty smart about this crap. But I'm also worried about something else mom's been saying and I think she might be right." This part she had not yet found a way to voice to Chloe or Max. Every time she tried, her stomach dropped until it rested somewhere firmly in the soles of her feet.

"What's that?" Sera prompted, apparently seeing that Rachel was experiencing more difficulty with this than even the concept of seeing the man who had put out a hit on her mother.

"I, um- I keep thinking about what's going to happen after school. I mean, yeah I'm going to have an extra year of it here at Blackwell, but-" she sought out the right words and finally, lamely, settled on, "it's not that far off." Strangely, while this seemed like the even heavier topic to Rachel, Sera brightened up slightly and leaned back in her seat. All Rachel could do was work her two hands against each other and hope that the excess energy of nerves faded away with this simple action. Sera gave one quick nod.

"I was the same way. Started getting antsy early on about figuring out what to do." There was a pause, brief but just long enough to be notable. These usually suggested that Sera was weighing the intelligence of a comment she was about to make. Rachel had long since invited Sera to speak her mind around her, though. "The fact is, overplanning or overstressing is pretty fucking stupid. Even about this. You also don't want to wait until the last second and then run around like a chicken with his head cut off, though, do you?" Rachel immediately shook her head. It was nice to have these two conflicting thoughts put into words by someone else. Hearing someone else say it made it at least sound more reasonable. I really don't.

"Mom used to tell me she has a friend at UCLA who could get me into the theater department there. That means moving to Los Angeles, though, to pursue acting. Yeah, it's something I love doing but aren't people always telling their kids to choose more practical shit?" There was another difference: if she had let her language slip around her mother in that manner, at best she would have received a disappointed frown. Sera didn't blink. It was nice to be able to speak freely.

"Listen, kid, you're gonna hate to be told you're young until you're old enough you'll hate being reminded, so bare with me but: you're young enough to fuck up a few times in life, you get that?" Rachel shook her head to answer honestly: she did not 'get that.' "Frankly, fucking up can be as beneficial as succeeding, sometimes more. Might as well take the risk of going out there and trying your luck now." Rachel pondered the logic of that silently until she felt one of Sera's hands come to rest on her left arm. The woman pulled lightly, and Rachel let go of her other hand and allowed Sera to pull her left up and pat it. "Is acting what you want to do with your life?"

"What I want to do with my life is be happy," Rachel answered immediately. She sighed. "I also want to be near Max and Chloe." At this Sera patted her hand again and Rachel saw a look of sympathy on the woman's face, which seemed a little unusual to her. It certainly didn't seem to fit this part of the conversation. "What I can't decide is what, other than acting, I would want to do. I have interests and everything. I might even study one of them in college or something along with acting if I do what mom wants me to. I just have trouble imagining anything that I would enjoy doing any better, but fucking up sounds scary." When Rachel quieted down Sera released her and, looking pensive, drew one leg up to cross it over the other.

"Look," Sera started, slowly, "As much as you might love the hell out of your girls, take it from me: you cannot plan your life around them and they cannot plan their lives around you." Rachel felt that sinking feeling again in her stomach. That was when she realized that Sera had hit on the real issue. It hadn't been fear of failure that made her hesitate. It had been the idea that maybe Max wouldn't want to come to the City of Angels given her non-past/non-future with it and Chloe wouldn't be able to. It had been the idea that going to UCLA might mean the end of her, Chloe and Max. She felt ill and almost like she wanted to cry at the thought. "Don't get me wrong, kid. I'm not telling you not to be together if you can all find a way. Hell, I can say honestly I've only had one or two relationships in my life that have fulfilled me in the ways yours with those girls seem to do you. This isn't me saying that's not important, just that you need to focus more on what you want to do with yourself. I made the mistake of not doing that and I'll[ tell you something. Only one good thing ever came from it and that's you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me and I wouldn't change it for the fuckign world, kid, but before you came a long I regretted every day that I didn't chase my goals in life."

Rachel thought they were treading on thin ice, unfamiliar ground, unfriendly territory. She wasn't sure how to steer the conversation away. This got way out of control. That was the truth of taking honestly with people, though: it very quickly gets out of your control if you allow it to be a real, genuine two-person conversation. Still, she could see where this was going as if a road map was laid out on her lap and the route had already been marked for her. Next stop, James fucking Amber.

"Your fa- I mean, James," Rachel had to bite the inside of her lip, but she wasn't entirely sure against what. "James used to accuse me of having incurable wanderlust. He liked to pretend that because I'm sure it cured him of any hand in things. Honestly, not as much of it was his fault as I liked to pretend either but, he was wrong. Sure, I used to like to travel but, before I fucked up and got involved with shit that I shouldn't, before I started hurting the people that mattered, it wasn't travel I was thinking about. It was regret. I had goals and I let myself put them aside for love. You know what? Maybe that's okay for some folks. I don't particularly recommend it, though and I don't recommend it for you Rachel." Still a bit put off by both the 'best thing that ever happened to me' line and the frank discussion of the things that led Sera to the heroin to begin with, Rachel took some time to reply.

"Do you, uh, do you think I should go to school to act?"

"You said it was your passion, just now. Is that what you think? Set aside Chloe, set aside Max, set aside your mom. Is it what you want to do for yourself?"

"Yes," Rachel answered when she sure that the woman's dark gray eyes had matched her own hazel.

"Then yeah, kiddo, I'd say do it. If your mom's on board, more's the better."

"You being on board matters too," Rachel told her, though she felt embarrassed giving voice to that honest fact. Sera's crooked grin, so Chloe-like simultaneously comforted her and simple increased that embarrassment. Rachel looked away. "Chloe and Max would support me. Even if they were upset about me moving so far away."

"That's the thing," Sera broke in. "They're allowed to be upset about it, and so are you. The world's full of bittersweet and shades of grey. Besides, like I said before, I'm not saying not to try to find a way to make things work if these girls are important to you, so don't forget that part. Just, in the end, if you're faced with maintaining these relationships and pursuing your dreams, take a long, deep fucking look, because, and I hope you don't mind me saying, you have your father's rash decision making, but you have my head of steam and that is a potent fucking combination." Rachel begrudgingly smirked. They had not particularly spoken about James in any detail in quite a while. As far as Rachel was concerned it had not been long enough.

"Now I've kinda got to figure out how to tell Chloe and Max."

"Yeah, that's always the rub, isn't it? Not the conversation itself, but starting it. Now, you hungry?" Originally, Rachel hadn't been comfortable answering positively to that question on Sera's part. It was pretty obvious that Sera did not make much money and she was working to save up to move away from Oregon when Rachel graduated. The passage of time had made her more comfortable with Sera and at that point, Rachel couldn't deny that she was. The fact that there was a dinner with her mom a few short hours into her future did nothing to quiet the fact that she was hungry and it certainly didn't stop she and Sera from eating the better part of eight hundred calories in pizza from the nearest little pizzeria.

All-in-all the air in the apartment calmed and she spent a couple of hours with her mother in relative peace. Conversation was only interrupted by food and the occasional moment or scene of note on television. It felt like, all told, a strangely normal experience. She could recall doing this kind of thing over and over again with Steph, Chloe and Max but before that no one had ever really told her it was okay to spend a couple of hours vegging out on a couch, having a meal that didn't take place around a kitchen table. Not to mention has almost no redeeming nutritional value. That being said, Rachel felt nothing akin to relaxation when she sat opposite of her mom in her childhood home a few hours later.

Rose Amber had something on her mind and that much had been obvious from the moment Rachel walked in. Save for breaks, Rachel spent as little time as possible at home. Summer, in particular, was an absolutely pain in the ass. Everywhere she turned in the house was some reminder of James Amber. He was still present in pictures all over the house, his study remained mostly intact and in fact, her mom had done her level best to restore it to how it looked before the investigation Rachel herself had kicked off. Save for the lack of the man who had tried to have her mother executed day drinking and glaring at her, everything might as well have been how it was before Chloe and Max had come into her life at all. Being within these walls set her on edge in a way she was not sure she could put into words and the worst part of it all, Rachel thought as she settled into her seat, was that her mom knew it.

And that's why we're meeting here, she couldn't help but think. Rachel raised the glass of water in front of her and took a long drink. She loved her mom, but the woman wanted to get her own way on things and she didn't have too many compunctions about how she did so. Throwing Rachel off balance like this was the surest way to override her self-determination, her will. I'm going to be seeing James in no time, Rachel told herself. The tactic wasn't as common in the past. It used to be a thing that didn't work, especially because Rachel had been so angry at Rose for such a long time. Recently, though, she had been easier to guilt into things.

Rachel put the water down and instead of digging into the meal in front of her wrapped her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair, feeling the padding that was the dark leather jacket she knew her mom hated her wearing. Judging by the sudden frown on her mom's face, this action was interpreted as hostility. Begrudgingly, Rachel uncrossed her arms and leaned slightly forward, toward the table as if she were ready to have a meal. As expected, the greasy pizza from earlier did little to dull her appetite, but the fact that her mom was waiting on her to start eating so she could let loose with her 'let's go see dad' agenda did.

"I just want us to talk about what I proposed last week," her mom insisted, perhaps deciding Rachel was not going to eat until the topic was broached. The woman's severe frown did not lessen and Rachel decided meeting her halfway was going to be the best way to get things to progress. She seized one fork unceremoniously and dug into the salad on her plate. It was probably best not to fill up on everything else, given the meal earlier. Okay, let's try this tactic.

"I know what you want, mom, but there's nothing else to talk about." There wasn't a chance in hell that this was going to work. When Rose Amber wanted something, she did not just let it drop after a rebuttal. Rachel wasn't entirely certain her mom knew the real definition of the word 'no'. She seemed to think it meant, 'no, but keep bothering me about it'. Quite suddenly Rachel thought that it would not have been so bad, after all, to have Chloe or Max with her. Part of her felt silly about having rejected their offers to accompany her. Just think in this situation, WWCD?

"You owe it to your family, but most of all to yourself to see him again and try to talk to him."

"I find the idea that I owe James anything more than spitting in his face fucking offensive, mom." The woman's face slowly shifted from a disapproving frown to a blank, stoney shell. Rachel felt like even a year ago she would have been able to say with complete certainty what that meant. Now, though, that remained not entirely clear. "And if you think that sounds hostile, you're right." Speaking a bit frankly with her mom was likely to backfire and get her into trouble, but Rachel did not shift her eyes away when she stabbed her fork once more into the salad in front of her. Watching, she realized that the transformation of her mom's face was because she was going to be too busy pressing for Rachel to agree to try to bother her about her hostile attitude. She's learning, Rachel thought with some disappointment. She knows what buttons to push. "What is it you actually think is going to happen, mom?" Very quickly Rachel wished she had not asked that question.

Almost sickeningly sweet, her mom painted a picture with her words of mutual understanding, of reconciliation and of a happy family. It was, as Chloe would put it, more of that good bullshit. For a moment Rachel thought of interrupting her to suggest she seek a psychiatrist for the hundredth time, but her mom was not being delusional today. Rose Amber was self absorbed. It's okay, Rachel. It's gonna be okay. I'm going to be 18 long before he has a fucking chance of getting out of the can. This whole meal was going to be a wash if she did not find a way to use it to her advantage. There was no way in hell that she was walking out of the house without agreeing to go see James, even if she could stall it out happening for a little while longer. Make a deal with her.

"I'll make you a deal," she said, and she did not feel bad at all about the idea.

"And what are your terms?" her mom asked her. Rachel watched the woman's eyes. They told the story of someone so disconnected from her feelings (whether as a survival mechanism or not, Rachel did not know, she only hoped she could continue to fight off the habits which tried to lead her to the same fate) that she didn't realize how calculating she was being. This was why Rachel had to do the same. She loved her mom, but their relationship had become, at best, a wreck.

"First, I'll go with you to see James. Second, I'll take your advice and attempt to get into UCLA," at this last, some surprise showed on her mom's face. The most disturbing thing about it was that Rachel knew it was manufactured, artificial. "But, on my end, I can choose whether I am done with or not after the visit and you will have to agree not to push me to visit him." The real, genuine emotion came as her mom heard this: Rose's lips pursed as if she had taken a bite into a fresh lemon. "And second, this summer is going to be really hard on Max and I think Chloe, too. I normally would never ask this of you, but if and only if we can afford to do it, I want to go with the girls somewhere for spring break." This was the bigger request, the one she actually felt guilty about, to a degree, but this was for the other two as much as it was her. The question is, will she take the bait and fall for the bluff or just tell me to get my ass over it and go see James? Rachel put down her fork and folded her hands in front of her.

Her mom thought for a moment, a hard, intense thought, judging by the way her brows tilted downward and her eyes hardened. Then, face giving away that she thought the situation mildly offensive to her, Rose nodded. Rachel did not mind: quite frankly the whole situation was moderately offense to her, too. What Rachel hoped was that the distaste did not come from her mention of her partners in the less than strictly traditional relationship. And it's time to start planning Spring Break. I'll need to call Veronica and Ryan.

Over the next few minutes Rachel agreed to go but stressed they will need to pick a weekend when school is being relatively kind and light to her, which it currently most assuredly was not, especially with the rapid approach of the spring play. Rachel decided to sit on her conversation with Sera for a while when it came to the girls. Rachel foresaw enough instability in the coming weeks she thought, as she stuck her fork into a bit of salmon. Rose continued to watch her across the table as if trying to read a particularly frustrating book. That look was, all told, more gratifying than either conversation either with her mom or with Sera had been.

Note:

I hope you enjoyed this one, I felt like this one was incredibly important for Rachel and it has far reaching consequences for all three of the girls. Also, I'm now on twitter at LiSTheOV. I would welcome you to follow it to keep appraised of updates, also, I'll probably just be nerding out there.