A/N: I meant to get this posted yesterday, but things got busy. Sorry for the delay. I'm enjoying the feedback from y'all, and wanted you to know I hear you about your concern over Amanda's treatment of Liv in the last chapter. Without giving too much away, I will say there's more to it than what meets the eye in this fic. It's not an excuse, and I agree she was being harsh, but that's what I intended. Both ladies have been through a lot in the span of time between "A Bridge in Disguise" and "Goo Goo Muck" + this story; you'll see what I mean in the upcoming long fic. Amanda's got some trauma she's dealing with too, in her way. One of my favorite things about writing her for the Devilishverse has been exploring her anger and how it's her defense mechanism. Amanda is fight and Olivia is usually flight or freeze or fawn, depending on the situation. I think it's really interesting, too, how Amanda identifies a lot with her abusive father, whom I get the sense she really admired at one time, and occasionally struggles with compassion for certain abuse/assault victims (aka, her mommy issues). It's not a pretty side to her, I know, but it is one I think came through often on the show, and unfortunately, one of Liv's traits is giving people a pass for treating her terribly, as long as it's someone she loves. Rest assured, I am aware it's an unhealthy dynamic, but I think it's a very small part of their relationship that only tends to show up when they're both really, really stressed or triggered, and not a reflection of how much they truly love each other. Hope that helps!
5. To the Moon and to Saturn
. . .
Two PB&Js (Jillian only liked grape—NOT strawberry—jelly, which was what they had, thank goodness), an apple, a couple fruit snack pouches, and a bag of Cheetos Mama brought home from work oughta do it. Jesse smooshed the top slices of bread down with her fist and stuffed the sandwiches into a Ziploc baggie. That, she put inside her outer-space lunchbox with the rest of the food, alternating between zipping the bag shut and licking peanut butter and jelly off her fingers. They were super sticky but pretty darn delicious. She kind of wished it was time to eat now, but they needed to save their provisions for later.
With dinner covered, it was bus fare that would be the real problem. Jesse knew you had to pay to ride, just not how much for how far. Hopefully the ten dollar bill she'd borrowed from Noah, a gift in his last birthday card from Grammy Beth, would be enough. She had risked life and limb to get it, tiptoeing into Noah's bedroom while he was playing Minecraft on the iPad, his back turned and headphones on. Only after she was safely out in the hall, easing the door shut behind her, did she realize she wouldn't be coming home to pay him back.
Well, maybe she could send him money in a card like Grammy had done, she reasoned. And though she had never sent anything through the mail in her entire life, nor did she have any idea how to go about it, she was satisfied with the plan. She and Jillian could figure it out together, surely.
They had, after all, come up with this plan to run away together, hadn't they? Both of them were really smart, their teacher always said so—usually following up with a comment about Jillian needing to speak louder and participate more in class. Mrs. Mason didn't know that Jillian had lots of good ideas that she shared with Jesse all the time. For instance, it was Jillian who had thought to take the bus to Coney Island, instead of trying to walk there. Secretly Jesse had wanted to suggest sneaking the keys from one of her mommies' purses and driving them to the amusement park herself, but her practical friend (and wife!) probably wouldn't have agreed to that.
Jillian had also been the one who remembered that the rides and things wouldn't be open for another month or so—sometime in April, according to Mama—but they couldn't wait that long. If they didn't go now, they might never, ever see each other again, ever. That's what Jillian thought, at least, and Jesse had felt too sorry for her to disagree. Besides, Jillian had moved to lots of different places already and knew more about it than Jesse, who had only moved into a new apartment once that she could remember, and even that was kind of fuzzy.
Why her friend had to move at all, she didn't understand. At first she was worried it might be her fault; maybe Jillian's mommy didn't like them being marriaged, so she was taking Jilly away. Then Jesse overheard her own mommies talking about Jillian's daddy doing something bad to Jillian, and that's why she and her mommy were moving. That made Jesse really mad (she had smashed up the little garden of wheatgrass and chia she'd grown herself, in the light-up terrarium she bought with her own birthday money from Grammy Beth, and she wrote a bad word on the bottom of her shoe, where someone could only see it if she kicked them: Bam! Assholl!) because no one should hurt her friend. Good thing she had two moms and no daddy to do bad touch things to her. Daddies were kind of weird, in her opinion.
Jillian had said her daddy didn't do anything wrong when Jesse asked, but then the girl started to cry right there on the playground during recess, and the only way Jesse could make it stop was by promising they would run away after school. "Can I tell my mommy so she doesn't worry?" Jillian had asked, looking uncertain. She always looked a little bit like that, though, and Jesse couldn't blame her for not wanting her mommy to be upset. Jesse hated it when her mommies got upset, too, especially Mommy because she usually cried.
Still, it wasn't running away if you told where you were going, and they probably wouldn't even make it out the front entrance of the building on their own if anyone found out what they had planned. With Mommy working quietly on her laptop in the bedroom and Mama asleep in the rocking chair beside her, baby Sammie napping on her chest, the girls would be lucky to get past the front door of the apartment. But they had to try, otherwise Jilly would be living in some other neighborhood, going to some other school, where the kids were just as mean and Jesse wasn't there to protect her.
"Come on," Jesse whispered when they got the front door open without Noah, Tilly, or Frannie spoiling their escape. Gigi, on her big fluffy pillow in the living room, did raise her head and make a snuffling sound, like she was about to bark but didn't. That was a little too close for Jesse's comfort, and she grabbed Jillian's hand, tugging her out into the hall, and eased the door shut so carefully even Supergirl wouldn't have heard it. "Don't be scared," she said in her normal voice as they headed for the elevator, backpacks jogging against their backs.
She was actually sort of scared herself, but no way did she want her friend to know that. Sometimes Mama pretended things didn't frighten her, too, if she knew they frightened Mommy; that's what wives did for each other—be brave, act silly to make the other one laugh, and play kissing games. And hold hands, of course.
They stepped off the elevator that way—hand in hand—and were tiptoeing across the lobby when the doorman, Martin, appeared behind the front desk as if he'd poofed himself there like a magician. Jesse liked Martin a lot (he always called her "J-bird" and gave her and her siblings candy from a basket he kept under the desk), but she didn't want him to see her and start asking where her mommies were.
The sidewalk was almost close enough to touch, and Jesse was so focused on getting there, she forgot that Jillian had what Mrs. Mason called sensitivities and Mommies called sensory issues. Jesse pulled too hard and heard her friend yelp, then stumble and bump into her. They practically went splat right there in front of the glass double-doors, and Martin looked their way. At the very same moment, the lobby phone rang loudly, drawing his attention back to the desk and away from the girls' escape route
"Run!" Jesse said in a harsh whisper. Again, she was being too rough with Jilly, but she didn't have time to feel bad about it right then.
Right then they needed to R-U-N.
"Slow down, Jesse, I can't keep up," Jillian cried when they reached the corner that turned onto the bus stop. Luckily there were no streets to cross, because Jesse wasn't allowed to cross the street without an adult, and Jillian always covered her ears and wouldn't go anywhere near the curb if the traffic was too scary. This time she was panting too hard to object as Jesse led her around to the bench inside the little shelter. A few people were already waiting there, but they didn't look up from their phone screens, just scootched over for the girls to sit. They were only seven and didn't take up much space, after all.
Now that they were settled and knew a bus would be arriving sometime soon, at least, Jesse ducked her head to peek at Jillian, whose chin was tucked to her chest. She did that a lot, especially when there were lots of people around who she didn't want to look up at or talk to. "I'm sorry I got mad," Jesse said, wondering if she should stroke Jillian's long brown hair like she often saw her mommies do with each other. But just thinking about it gave her that weird fluttery feeling in her belly, and she got too embarrassed to try it. "I didn't want Martin to see us leaving. Are you okay?"
At first Jillian held her arm at the elbow like it hurt, and didn't answer—almost didn't seem to hear. Finally, though, she glanced sideways at Jesse, keeping her voice low as she leaned over and whispered, "I'm okay. But I don't like it in here. It smells funny. Maybe we should go back."
It did kind of smell like the trash chute in Jesse's building inside the shelter, and maybe one of Sammie's poopy diapers too, but that's how most of the city smelled, and Jesse couldn't do much about it. "Nah, let's keep going," she said. They had come this far; it was too late to turn back, and they'd get in way too much trouble if they did, now. "Coney Island will smell better, I promise. Like popcorn and cotton candy."
She didn't know for sure if it smelled like that or not, but for Jillian's sake she hoped so. Personally, she was eager for her first real Nathan's Famous hot dog, but hot dogs made Jillian gag, so Jesse was keeping that one to herself. Forgetting about the butterflies, she put her arm around the other girl's shoulders and gave her a great big smile to show her everything was okay.
After a few moments, Jillian returned the smile, although hers was smaller and a little bit shaky. If she started to cry right then, one of the grownups might notice and ask what was wrong—the lady with the Bluetooth headset in her ear had finished her conversation, and she kept eyeing Jesse and Jillian over a folded copy of The New York Times—and that could lead to trouble. At the very least, it would require Jesse to lie, a thing she was not supposed to do around adults, even though she was really good at it. Mama and Mommy both said. She always listened as best she could, because she hated disappointing them. But sometimes it was just so hard to be good.
In the end, Jesse managed to keep Jillian smiling and giggling by making silly faces (she made the best faces in her whole second-grade class, everyone said), and no lies were needed by the time the bus rolled up to the curb, all hissing brakes and grinding gears. "Too loud," Jillian declared, covering her ears with both hands. Jesse was afraid that meant her friend would put up a fuss about boarding, but Jillian followed along, surprisingly compliant, when Jesse led her toward the open bus door. Tilly followed Jesse around like that, too, and Mama said it was because the little girl trusted Jesse, loved and looked up to her. Her little sisters were her responsibility—she'd learned that word over the summer, while visiting her grandma—and now she realized that Jillian was, as well.
That was a little scary, especially when they got up to the platform and she prepared to give her money to the bus driver. The steps were really high and the driver looked kind of mean and grumpy when he glanced down, sizing them up, from his big seat behind the great big steering wheel. For a second, Jesse wondered if city bus drivers were able to contact police dispatch on their CB radios, to report things like bad guys and delinquent children. She was about to grab Jillian's hand and run the other way, but the man looked from them to the sandy-haired lady who had just paid ahead of them, and waved both girls on. He must have decided the lady was their mommy, and Jesse wasn't about to tell him different.
After all, that wasn't a real lie, now was it? Just letting someone think they had it right? It was sort of like doing them a favor, if you really thought about it.
Jesse stuck close behind the pretend mommy until she took a seat next to an old man asleep with his chin on his chest. Jillian definitely wouldn't be comfortable sitting near that guy (he gave Jesse the heebie-jeebies too, to be honest), and if they hung out in the aisle much longer, the driver might notice and figure out that they were alone. There were a couple of empty, outward-facing seats behind the lady they had followed in, and Jesse dodged into those, keeping Jillian in tow. The last thing they needed was to get pulled apart by a rush of adults who were in a hurry to return home from work. Grownups got crazy about that stuff. Even Mommy said it was okay to yell at people for getting too pushy in public. And if it got really bad, Jesse was actually allowed to shout bad words at them! Scream, kick, bite, punch, whatever it took.
Okay, so the last part might only have been approved for use on kidnappers, but she still liked to imagine kicking, clawing, swearing and spitting at (she came up with that idea all by herself) anyone who got in her way. Grammy Beth called her a feral child, and although Jesse didn't know exactly what that meant, she liked the sound of it. She was a feral child roaming the City with her quiet sidekick, and no one better mess with them, or she would scratch their eyes out and call them a poophead!
It was a little disappointing that almost everyone ignored them, except for a boy about Tilly's age who kept peeking at them over the back of his seat, then ducking behind it when they caught him looking, and the tiniest dog you ever saw, who probably didn't weigh as much as Frannie and Gigi's fur balls. Jesse really wanted to pet it, but she would have had to ask the owner—an old lady with a serious expression and more wrinkles than the raisins Jesse refused to eat from her school lunch. And everybody knew that old ladies whose faces looked like they had cracked the one time they tried to smile were the nosiest, bossiest ladies of all. She and Jillian settled for grinning and waving at the dog whenever its owner's head was turned.
They were both so entertained by their new friends, little boy and canine alike, that Jesse forgot to watch for their next stop. In fact, she was so caught up in the thrill of being out on her own in the City, no adult supervision whatsoever, for the very first time, she had also forgotten to ask which routes this bus took. Twenty minutes later, when they were still circling Central Park and showing no signs of heading over the bridge to Brooklyn, Jesse began to feel the first true pangs of apprehension, and maybe, just maybe, a tinge of regret.
. . .
Don't panic, she told herself, even as her heart started to race, her hands to quake. She felt sick to her stomach too, but she couldn't focus on that right now. Not with all the horrible sights and sounds crashing around in her brain: skinny, undeveloped bodies covered in dirt, and naked from the waist down; the piercing cry of an Amber Alert, almost as unnerving as the wail of an actual child; the gutted screams of the parents, of whom she was one; darkness, misery, unimaginable grief and pain. She had watched these things play out enough times to know there was rarely a happy ending, even when the victims were recovered alive.
Jesse and Jillian were missing. She'd checked the girls' bedroom three separate times, issuing warnings that, if Jesse and her best friend were hiding, they had better come out or face punishment. That should have been threat enough to roust Jillian, who lived in mortal terror of getting into trouble, but neither girl had appeared. Nor were they in the kitchen, living room or dining room. No seven-year-olds were that good at hide and seek, even the ones as sneaky as Jesse; she inevitably got the giggles and gave her hiding spot away. With Sammie asleep in the master bedroom, Tilly spending some quality time with Aunt Daphne, and Noah playing video games in his room, the apartment was far too still and silent—why weren't they giggling?
"Noah," she whispered, padding hurriedly across the hall to rap on the boy's door. Before he could answer, she threw the door open and did a quick scan of the room like she was clearing it during a drug bust. A single occupant looked up at her, wide-eyed, his headphones only halfway off, like a disc jockey taken by surprise, mid song. "Is your sister or Jillian in here? Don't lie to me, son, it's really important that you tell me where they are if you know something."
"You can't find Jess and Jilly?" Noah asked, alarmed. He snatched off the headphones and pushed away the iPad, already on his feet without being asked to help. Maybe it was lingering memories—or, more likely, fear—from his own kidnapping at the age of five, but the boy was extra sensitive about people being taken against their will. Of course, there were more recent events that might account for the new worries . . .
No, she thought and said out loud at the same time. She refused to let her mind go there right now, at least not any more than it already had. Her daughter and another little girl were nowhere to be found, and she needed to keep her wits about her, or else she would be no good to anyone, least of all her wife. "No, I've checked everywhere. Are you sure they're not hiding in here?"
"I'm sure. I'd've heard them if they came in here. Jesse's loud." Noah watched anxiously as she went from his closet to his bed, shifting clothes and covers, even peering under the desk, where the girls would have to be contortionists or magicians to fit comfortably. "Did you look in the bathroom? Maybe Jillian's got a stomach ache again."
Jillian's gastrointestinal difficulties were common knowledge in the Rollins-Benson household, thanks to quite a few sleepovers interrupted by everything from a gurgling belly to moderate diarrhea. She practically had her own bottle of Pepto Kids chewables in the bathroom medicine cabinet, the poor little thing. But neither girl had been in the bathroom a moment ago, and Jesse knew that the room was for private (as in solo) functions only, not playtime. It was a rule strictly enforced when Jillian was visiting, and when Mommy needed some time to herself, but almost everyone else was fair game for Jesse's rambling, inquisitive nature.
"Good talk, kid," Amanda often said, gazing after the girl in bemusement as she wandered off, leaving the bathroom door flung wide, her mama bare-assed on the toilet.
"I just came from the bathroom, they're not in there." If her volume went any higher, she would be shouting. She tried never to raise her voice to the kids, particularly Noah, whose feelings were easily hurt, but sometimes you had to play bad cop when it meant keeping them safe. And she wasn't exactly in the best state of mind to be effectively mothering right then, with sheer panic fighting its way toward the surface, ready to overtake her at any moment. So this is what all those frantic parents who had absolute meltdowns in the station felt like. "Jesse knows not to go out of this apartment by herself, doesn't she? I've told her a thousand times it's not allowed, it's too dangerous. You don't think she and Jillian would actually sneak out on their own, do you?"
Noah shrugged his narrow shoulders, distress causing him to look even smaller than he already was. Too small for his age, she sometimes thought, before chastising herself for falling into the mindset that boys were supposed to be taller, more strapping. Tougher. He was only nine, for Christ's sake. He was nine and scared because his little sister was missing. She pulled him against her hip in a fierce side-hug that he returned with equal intensity, his arms flung around her waist.
It had to be done, no matter how badly she didn't want to do it. The longer she stalled, hiding out in her son's room, the greater the risk to Jesse and Jillian, if they really had left the apartment. (Oh dear Jesus, the things that could happen to a pair of seven-year-olds, alone in this city!) "Come on, bud," she said, ushering Noah alongside her, step for step. "We better go wake your mom up and tell her."
"Do we have to?" Noah balked at moving forward to the master bedroom across the hall. For a small guy, he was good at standing his ground. She urged him on with a hand at his back, the other holding his bicep where it curved around her middle. "She's gonna be really upset. Maybe we could just find Jess ourselves, and she'd never have to know?"
In a perfect world.
"We have to tell her. She'll be more upset if we don't."
Asleep on the bed, the laptop closed on the nightstand beside her, a scattering of papers on the covers behind, she was so peaceful-looking it was almost painful to reach down and shake her shoulder. Maybe Noah was right, and they didn't need to tell her; maybe they could search for the girls a bit longer and—
"Liv. Liv baby, wake up." Amanda pushed the thoughts away—it was her fear talking, and that bitch was never helpful—and gave Olivia's shoulder another firmer shake. "Hey. You gotta get up, something's wrong. We, um, we can't find the girls."
"What?" Olivia scrunched up her face without opening her eyes. When her lashes did finally part, slowly and with effort, as if they had been vacuum-sealed, she squinted through the dark slits in confusion. She felt around for her glasses and the laptop, both of which Amanda had carefully transferred onto the nightstand prior to tiptoeing off to use the bathroom and check on the kids, after waking from her own nap to find Olivia snoozing, with the readers sliding off her nose and the laptop sliding off the pillow. "Those poor girls, I didn't know they were right there, I should've—"
"Not those girls. Hey, look up here." Normally, Amanda wouldn't have dismissed the dream—or more probably the nightmare, considering the case Olivia was talking about—but she needed her wife lucid right now. She lifted Olivia's chin, drawing the sleep-clogged eyes up to her face. "It's Jesse and Jillian. I got up to pee, but when I went looking for them, they weren't . . . I can't find them anywhere, Liv. What do we do?"
Unfair as it was, part of her was relieved that Olivia, wide awake now and tossing back the sheets to scramble up from the bed, could take over, or at least shoulder some of the burden. She had been through this before with Noah, and she might have some insight or instinct that Amanda lacked. She might know the magic words to bring the two little girls back home. Then again, she might just freak the hell out and be an even worse mess than Amanda herself.
It turned out to be something slightly in between the two.
"What do you mean you can't find them anywhere? Someone took them? Jesus Christ, Amanda, weren't you watching them?" Olivia jammed her feet into the nearest tennis shoes, a pair of low-top Nikes that belonged to Amanda but fit them both comfortably, and snapped her fingers, casting around for something else—her cell phone, there at the end of the mattress, dangerously close to falling between it and the footboard. "Did you call 911?"
"No, I came here first, I—" Amanda wanted to explain that she hadn't called the police yet for fear that she was overreacting, or worse, because she would have to admit she'd failed to protect her family once again. But she was too overwhelmed right then to put it into words, and it was far easier to concentrate on anger and blame than to admit your own shortcomings. "I rocked the baby to sleep, and you said it was okay for me to take a nap too, that you would keep an eye on the kids. This ain't my fault."
If her tone didn't convey whose fault she thought it was, her heated glare surely would. Thing was, she didn't consider it Olivia's fault either, not really. The pain that flashed across Olivia's face—she literally winced from it—just made it worse, and Amanda would've given anything to take it back. Her wife had spoken out of fear and panic, just like Amanda snapping at Noah a moment ago. Hitting back in anger was only going to drive a wedge between them at a time when they needed to be working as a team.
"Maybe it's my fault," said Noah, interrupting both of his mothers at once, Amanda on the verge of apology, and Olivia opening her mouth for what looked like a denial—but a frightened one, as if she were afraid she really was responsible for the missing girls. "I should've played with them instead of on the iPad. I'm sorry. They kept talking about their honeymoon after school, and I didn't want to be in their married game again. You said it was better if I didn't play along last time, remember?"
"Yeah, kid. That's what we said." Amanda squeezed the boy's shoulder, gazing over his head at Olivia, mournful but not accusing. She had come around to Olivia's way of thinking, that it was better not to indulge the girls' marriage fantasy too much. As headstrong as Jesse was, and as literally as Jillian took everything, letting them believe they were in a serious relationship was a potential recipe for disaster . . . such as waking up to discover they had disappeared into thin air . . .
"It's not your fault, sweetheart," Olivia said, trying to smile at him, then at Amanda, but succeeding only in a spasmodic twitch of the lips that could have been another wince. "It's— it's no one's fault. I'm sorry, I'm just . . . "
"Scared," Noah said. "Like when Grandma Sheila took me."
Olivia hunched her shoulders as if he had taken a swing at her, but she nodded anyway, accepting the blow. "Yeah," she said, and swallowed thickly. Her voice came out weak, strained: "Mom's really scared."
Feeling helpless, Amanda looked on through a shimmery veil of tears (when had she started crying?), about to resume her silent self-castigation, when a thought occurred to her. "Wait a min— oh dear Lord, I think I know where they are."
"Where?" Olivia and Noah asked in unison. Under different circumstances they all probably would have laughed at the timing.
"They've been begging to celebrate their honeymoon at Coney Island for, like, two months, right? Noah, you said they were talking about their honeymoon after school?"
The boy's curls bobbed energetically as he nodded his head. "Jesse said something about taking PB&J sandwiches for lunch. Jilly wanted grape jelly, and Jesse laughed because Jilly and jelly sound kinda the same."
Amanda snapped her fingers like she had just made a scientific discovery. "The bread and peanut butter were open on the kitchen counter when I started looking. I put it away so the dogs wouldn't get at it, then searched everywhere else."
"So they weren't taken?" Olivia raked her hair back with her fingers, squeezing it against her scalp in a classic stress pose.
"No, darlin', nobody took them." And though Amanda had no way of knowing that for sure, she chose to believe it until she heard otherwise. She had to believe it if she was going to keep going; if she hoped to keep Olivia, who trembled and grew more and more pale the longer she processed the situation, thinking positively. Amanda went to her in a few quick strides, looping an arm around her waist just in case. "Jess probably got it in her fool head that they could find the park on their own. Don't worry, I'll warm her britches when we get her back home."
They both knew she would never do it—and that Olivia would never let her if she tried—but it heartened them to hear it, to distract themselves with planning their daughter's punishment, not her funeral. For a few seconds it distracted them, anyway. Then Olivia gave a despairing little moan, a sound she only made in the worst of moments, when she felt utterly helpless and hopeless. Amanda remembered hearing that sound when she'd been shot in the bank robbery, and during the hell that had visited them last year. She had never wanted to hear it again after that; made it her life's mission not to. Why did these awful things keep happening to them?
"I'm still calling the precinct," Olivia said, her voice and hands shaking as she scrolled through her contacts. She put a hand on Amanda's shoulder, as if she needed assistance staying upright, and looked searchingly into her eyes for the briefest moment, seeming to ask permission before sending the call. She deferred more now to Amanda on the bigger, more critical decisions than she ever used to, and it always caught Amanda off guard at first. "We have to have help looking for them. And we should contact the Brooklyn precinct too, in case the girls actually do make it there."
"I agree." Amanda returned the squeeze at her shoulder to Olivia's elbow, then she began pacing while she listened to Olivia relay the details of their missing kid and her best friend to Fin. She trusted the sergeant to handle the matter swiftly and professionally, but she was itching to get their own search underway. No one knew Jesse Eileen and her wildly creative—and sometimes just wild—imagination better than they did.
Ten minutes later, when they hit the streets in Olivia's Ford Explorer, Samantha and Noah strapped into the backseat, no force on Earth could have held them back from finding the little girls. Amanda had gone to great lengths to keep her family safe in the past, and if the universe thought it had her by the balls this time . . . well then, the universe was about to find out what happened when you messed with the people Amanda Rollins-Benson loved.
. . .