A/N: You will not be tested on these details. I will continue to use both sets of names in parallel.
Chapter Two: Holy Toledo
"I can't believe we're in Ohio," Angela said, staring at the bad art over Tony's head.
"We're in Iowa, Jess," Tony corrected her from his spot on one of the beds.
"Right, Toledo, Iowa. Well, it doesn't matter, because we won't be here long." Two weeks, give or take. They hadn't seen the town itself and couldn't even go for a walk. It was freezing outside anyway.
"You have to start using our new names, sweetie pie," Tony insisted. The last bit felt foreign. He and Angela hadn't landed on terms of endearment for each other yet.
"Yes, Bobby, honey," she said in an exaggerated fashion. It didn't feel that outrageous. She had years of experience calling a spouse by that pet name.
"What are your mother and Chris and Jen doing?" Tony asked, referring to Jonathan and Samantha.
"Eating chips and watching reruns." Angela had been unusually permissive during their stay, while Tony brought out his disciplinarian side.
"Oh, Cassie!" Tony called to Mona. He got up and went through the door to the adjoining room. "Chris and Jen need to study. So do you." The three of them were sitting on one bed watching the 19-inch box with the rabbit ears. There was no cable in this roadside motel.
Jonathan jumped to his feet and began reciting his new biography. "Christopher Robert Moretti Jr., born December 30, 1976. You can call me Chris. My mom's name is Jessica, and my dad's name is, well, the same as mine, but everyone calls him Bobby."
"Good job, Jonathan!" Sam said. She had finally gotten sick of crying about leaving her friends and decided to forge a new path as the dutiful big sister. "We're in this together," she had told her new brother. "You're the only other kid who knows what it was like before."
"Good job, Chris," Tony corrected. "We aren't on vacation. We have to use our new identities, even with each other. It's a matter of life and death."
"Sorry, Dad. I can still call you that, right?"
"Yes, of course."
"Can the kids call me Cassie?" Mona asked.
"It's best if they call you Grandma."
"Isn't it enough that they took my hair?" Mona's red bob had been cropped into a tight grey pixie cut.
"You're not the only one with hair issues, Mom," Angela reminded her. She was sporting a straight, light brown style.
"Both of you look fine," Tony said for the fiftieth time. He was doing his best to hold it together, but nobody else seemed to be taking their plight seriously. Well, at least Jonathan wasn't complaining about his crew cut, which had taken him from blond to brunette, just like his mother. It matched Tony's style, too.
"Dad's right, An-, um, Mom," Sam said. She was the only one to escape the barber's chair.
"Thank you, Jen, my dear daughter. What would I do if you hadn't been born to me on April 12, 1972?" she said for Tony's benefit.
"Are we sure I have to use 1931 as my birth year? I was thinking 1967 sounded good," Mona joked.
"Very funny, Cassie."
"I also have issues with my middle name. Ellen? It's so blah."
"I think it's a nice name, Mother. I mean Mom," Angela protested.
"It's a better middle name than Renee," Sam said. "Yuck."
"You two are complaining like I don't have to walk around with Dale on my driver's license," Angela grumbled.
There was a knock on the door of the adjoining room. Angela started toward it when Tony pushed past her. "I'll get it, Jess," he said. "You stay with your mom and the kids." He closed and locked the connecting door before opening the door to the room.
"Here's your pizza and salad," the WITSEC agent said, coming in from the cold. "Everything going ok?"
"Yeah, we're getting used to our new names."
"Don't forget to study your back stories, Bobby. We don't want to have to move you again because you've blown your cover."
"We're getting there."
"And I know it's uncomfortable, but you and Jess are going to have to share a bed once we get to your new house. It would be best if you started now."
"Can't we just wait until we get there?"
"You're the ones who decided to pose as a married couple. That means you sleep together. In one bed, I mean. I don't care if you're not having sex. There are millions of married couples who don't do that," the agent admitted.
"And there are millions of married couples who don't share a bed!" Tony argued.
"It arouses suspicion."
Tony wished the agent hadn't used that word. He thanked the man for their dinner and closed the door again, returning to the other room with their meal. He tossed the extra-large pizza box on the bed with Mona and the kids and started dishing the family-sized salad onto paper plates. They had been in these two rooms for six days, and they were starting to become slightly feral. When he turned back, half the pizza was already gone. He was really looking forward to getting a new kitchen set up so he could cook his family a nutritious meal.
"Jess, angel, could we talk in the other room?" he called to Angela. She hopped up and followed him, shutting the connecting door behind them.
"You can't call me that, Bobby. It's too close," she complained. "Besides, the guys who have called me that in the past have all been total dweebs," she said.
"Alright, Jess, sweetheart," he agreed. That was better. They would have to use the same terms of endearment they used for the kids instead of aiming for romantic nicknames.
"What did you want to talk to me about?"
"When Agent Miller dropped off dinner, he reminded me that we're going to be sleeping in the same bed once we're placed."
"Uh huh," Angela said in what she hoped was a neutral tone.
"He thinks it would be a good idea for us to start now," Tony said.
"What about the kids, To-, Bobby?"
"Jess, we're basically married. That's what all of our paperwork says, anyway. Isn't it better if the kids start thinking of us that way?" He watched her chew the inside of her lip and reached out to grasp her chin. Her heart started racing at his touch. "We can stay friends in the bedroom, but we need to look like husband and wife to the outside world."
"Oh, Bobby," she said. It felt fairly natural coming out of her mouth. She sat at the edge of a bed. "This is a big adjustment. I really wish they'd tell us what our new jobs are going to be."
"We'll know within a week, Jess."
"Can we go over our story again, Bobby?"
"Sure, Jess. We're both from Canton, Ohio. We started dating in our junior year of high school."
"Go McKinley Bulldogs!" Angela remembered, springing off the bed.
"Good job, dear." Tony was relieved that Angela was taking things seriously.
"I commuted to the University of Akron and studied business while you stocked shelves at the Giant Eagle grocery store."
"We got married on June 26, 1971, just before we both turned 21," Tony recited. "How is it that you get to be almost three months younger than me?"
"Oh, that's right. I was born on September 23rd and you were born on July 6th," Angela recalled.
"And Sam, no, Jen, came along a little more than nine months later."
"No honeymoon. We must have gotten right down to it, though." Angela instantly regretted voicing that thought. It was weird to think of an imagined past where she and Tony had made love and conceived two children together. She wondered how he felt about it.
"And Chris was born less than five years later. Probably best to say he was unplanned." Tony wanted to avoid mismatched stories, but if he traced back the result of an unplanned pregnancy, he couldn't ignore the cause. Jess and Bobby were having sex just for fun. He supposed they were in love, too. Somehow the love part was easier to think about.
"Yeah." Angela hadn't realized how physically close she and Tony had gotten to each other during their study session. They weren't even an inch apart now. She looked at his lips. "We have to kiss," she blurted out.
Tony stepped back in surprise. Why hadn't he thought of that? "Do we?" he asked. "I mean, yeah, if we're married, I guess we should. Did you want to…practice?"
"We're alone. So maybe we should try it now?" Angela ventured. She was full of nerves, but she didn't want to fail such a simple test in front of their new neighbors.
"OK, Jess. I'm going to kiss you now," Tony said in a stilted fashion. He could have kicked himself for being so awkward. Angela had set her lips in a stiff pucker, and her eyes were squinting nearly closed. He leaned forward and pouted until they met with a mutual flinch. It was terrible.
"Bobby, I'm going to sleep with my mom tonight," she said.
"Sure, ok," he said, eager for the moment to be over.
