Ella Dean is a (chanteuse) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-10-15 21:22:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | batman, rose red, white rabbit |
Who: Ella, Max and Luke
What: Terrible attempts at socializing with children. It goes predictably, horribly.
When: Recently.
Where: Max's new place
Max's new townhouse was tall and skinny. It was nestled in the residential area behind historic downtown Vegas, where the buildings all reached for the sky, and where everything was slightly reminiscent of the neon city's heyday of mobsters and prohibition. It was, without a doubt, a fixer-upper, but that's what Max liked about it. Being idle was something she was terrible at and, even thought mobility was still something of a challenge, a project was precisely what she'd wanted when she picked the place. She'd been renting since the firebomb at her old place, and it was time to quit throwing away money every month.
Max had picked the place out while she was visiting Amanda in New York, and her daughter had immediately demanded that the topmost room become hers, while Brandon had frowned and declared the place a bad investment. Brandon's opinion had sealed the deal, and Max had returned from New York with two children and an appointment for a house closing.
Now, a week into Max's return, there were still boxes everywhere, but she wasn't in any kind of hurry. Amanda had been ordering Gus to unpack the towels and blankets since sun-up, and Max had managed to get the kitchen mostly situated. On top of the aches and pains that came with moving and taking care of two kids, she had the new school to worry about. She kept meaning to call HQ up and try to steal him, because her current office manager was a nightmare, and they were slated to receive their first batch of students in two weeks. Life was chaotic, and it was almost chaotic enough to make her not worry about McKendrick. Almost.
At eleven-thirty, Amanda reminded Max that Ella and Beth were coming for lunch. After a ten-minute debate, during which Amanda informed her all the reasons that pizza was not a healthy lunch option, Max ordered a large pie with extra cheese, along with a bottle of soda. Amanda promptly emailed her father, while Gus asked if he could "have two slices, pwease," and when the knock came at the door, Max just hovered in the archway to the kitchen (with Gus hiding warily behind her denim-clad leg), while Amanda ran to answer in her pink galoshes and zombie footie pajamas.
Ella hadn’t thought long and hard about fixer-uppers, or money thrown away each month before deciding to move. She’d thought about the acid taste of fear against her lower teeth, about the way walking across the carpet prickled the hairs on the back of her neck or how a place empty of Laura’s quiet living in it, cradled her and Beth like an egg curling around a membrane. She’d thought about how it held echoes, and she’d watched Beth get steadier on sturdy, fat little legs across the carpet without smiling, her chin in her hand and nothing but the sound of the air whirring.
She'd almost called to back out. Ella had packed up half her things (they’d been unboxed, hopeful-sharp of something, like snow melting in thin sunshine but it hadn’t, not enough) and they sat around the townhouse, small stacks of things labeled in clean black Sharpie. She’d picked up the phone and she’d listened to the dial-tone, the long yawn of nothing on the line and she’d set it back down in its cradle, carefully. Max didn’t like her one bit and the last time she’d gone anywhere at all expecting to see her sister, Max had dodged out, the remnants of another relationship like the smell of something good left lingering, hanging clear in the air. But Max was clever and Max was capable, and both these things, they mattered when the person who relied on you most was small and incapable and would need people, sometime along in her small life. Ella had given up hope that Coop’s people would come out of the woodwork, would make themselves known along with Vegas and the lights, and the drawings, sweeping-soft reality pinned down on paper, from someone who’d never seen Beth at all but on TV, scared her enough to go.
Ella had cut her hair after. She’d cut it until it didn’t look like the picture, didn’t look like the way a man who’d paid to have pieces of her thought it still looked. It wasn’t long, now, and it didn’t need pinning up and she’d looked at herself in the bathroom mirror with hair scattered in the sink and she’d thought she’d mind, all those memories of Coop winding his hands into it, gentle, like it was something to enjoy - but there was nothing, just the buzzing lack of anything at all. It was at her collarbones, now, soft blond curling over the collar of the thrift-worn shirt over jeans. Beth on her hip was struggling, as she turned into the residential road, and she’d put her down on her own feet in scuffed shoes when she knocked on the door.
The little girl that answered had to be Max’s. She looked like Max, all eyes and heart-shaped face and the kind of smile that pulled at the corners of Ella’s own mouth. “Hi,” Ella said, and she stooped, to catch hold of Beth before Beth could fall and it put her on eye-level with the girl who had to be Amanda.
Amanda stared, all quizzical and intelligent, every bit her father's daughter. She didn't immediately greet the woman at the door. First, there had to be examining, and her light brown eyes scanned the little girl first, then scanned Ella. "You don't look like me," she said, a question hidden in the statement. At seven, Amanda was extremely curious about everything, and she was too bright for her own good; a trait she inherited from her father, and not from her mother. She turned, and she looked at Max, and then back at Ella, and then she pointed at Gus, who had peered out from behind Max's leg curiously when he saw Ella and Beth. The little boy waved his fingers, but Amanda pointed and used him as an example. "He looks like my brother," she said possessively, and Max finally stepped forward, before the conversation could become more complicated.
Max tugged Amanda against her, her hand clamping over the little girl's mouth playfully as she backed up. Amanda, at four feet, was tall for her age, and Gus switched his grip from Max's leg, to Amanda's zombie footie pajamas.
"Who's that?" Max asked Gus with a ruffle to his messy brown hair, as the little boy looked at Beth with wide grey eyes.
It was Amanda who answered, tugging her mother's hand away from her mouth. "That's Ella. She's my aunt," she said with certainty, small fingers pointing at Ella. "That's Beth, and she's my cousin." She looked back at Ella, once she was sure Gus has listened sufficiently, though Gus seemed familiar with both the woman and the little girl, at least marginally. "I'm Amanda, and I'm precocious," she said proudly. "That means I'm smart."
"Come on, precocious," Max said, rolling her eyes and moving aside. "Let Ella and Beth come inside. I ordered lunch," she told her sister. "It should be here soon. Sorry about the mess."
No, she did not look like Max. Ella had looked in the mirror for a long while after the flitters of long, blond hair curled against the sink and maybe she’d managed, years before New York, to see how her father blended with her mother and produced Max, reed-thin and tense as piano-wire and the soft, straight dark silk of her hair and not notice exactly how it was she was her mother again and again and not a bit of her father in her - but she noticed now. Ella’s face had been translucent as glass, the things she thought sifted up to the surface as easy as the way rain slid down the pane of windows but there was nothing there now. She looked as if there might be something on her lips and then it went nowhere, and she listened instead to the family tree sketched out by a seven year old who was precocious, even as she tugged on Max’s hand like loving was something Max did freely, easily.
“Sure are,” Ella told Amanda, and she let Beth stand on her own two feet. The baby was wide, wide blue eyes and a startled kind of look beneath dandelion-fluff blond hair, as if she wasn’t quite sure if she was happy with other people or not yet but was still deciding. Beth’s thumb was tucked into her mouth, and the other hand clutched at a scrap of what had been buttercup-yellow fabric, now a faded cream. “You got it exactly.”
Ella straightened with a smile all warmth toward the little boy she recognized from the park, and she hitched the diaper bag on her shoulder a little higher up. The warmth was brief and it flickered out to nothing once Gus’s eyes slid past her to Beth, and when she looked at Max it was calm and nothing and she nodded just the once. Max’s place wasn’t mess, it was the clutter of a place that looked like it was roots, and things, material and real and she didn’t say one thing about the boxes, about the house that was high, strong walls and felt like it was holding something. “Can I get a glass of water?” Polite.
I'll get it," Amanda offered of the water. "Mom has bad hips," she added in the sage way of children, and she disappeared a second later. Gus, curious about all that blonde fluff of hair on Beth's head, was just peering, fingers twitching at his side as he tried to decide if he could touch, and Max was left to close the door, trying to figure out what to say as she did.
Dhaka hadn't helped Max's gait at all, and the uneven lurch wasn't anything that was going to win her work as a runway model, but she'd figured out how to work it so that she could be on her feet (without the cane) for hours at a time now. And running was a pain in the ass, but she'd managed to get back into the routine of a very short, very slow run at sunrise, which helped her demeanor immensely. Her office manager at the school said having been wounded would impress safety upon new recruits, and maybe that was true. She was just glad she wasn't chairbound and constantly on narcotics, and McKendrick had been right, in the end, about needing to find a new career. She just hadn't expected it to be so soon.
In the end, movement seemed like the best option, and Max nodded toward the bright kitchen. "There's a closed in yard out back they like," she said of the visibly open kitchen door. "There's nothing out there yet, and it's all walled in, so it's safe if she wanders," she said of Beth, because Gus was already trying to get her to go in that direction, silently, of course.
As they entered the kitchen, Amanda appeared with the plastic cup full of water, bright flowers decorating the transparent surface. "We're going to capture lizards. Can she come?" Amanda asked of Beth, giving Ella her sweetest, most intentionally harmless smile.
Ella took the cup as carefully as she could, both palms sliding over the bright painted flowers and a smile for Amanda who, she figured, would grow up to be the kind of role model that was Max all over again, given the way Gus was looking at her like she hung the stars. “Thanks, honey.” The kitchen looked like it might be a nice place too and Max would have child-proofed all over, until it was more family home than the family inside it, outfitted ready enough for ten instead of the two. Unless Gus lived here. The little boy, with his mop of brown hair and the serious look that made her heart squeeze just a little, she’d noticed all that nudging going on, did Max watch him often? It made her wonder just how far Max and Luke were intertwined, how much overlap there was.
And then came the request and fear was bitter and acid and bright on Ella’s tongue. She looked at Max - Mom has bad hips - because yards could be walled in, but that wasn’t watching, that wasn’t right there, and her eyes flicked back to Amanda and her breath came in a sharp little shudder. Max wouldn’t let them out alone if they weren’t safe? But her hands curled over the plastic until her fingers wove together and the smile she was trying to give Amanda was shaky. “She’s real little still, honey, she’s not walking all that well yet,” and she looked at Gus who looked like any second he was going to reach out to play with all that hair Beth had, “I guess you can. So long as you keep coming back.”
Lizards weren’t anything. Ella remembered chasing after those kind of games, legs too small to keep up. It wasn’t anything, there was nothing here. It was strange, and the smell of the house was clean and unfamiliar but there was nothing wrong to it, and for a minute she wanted to be back on the couch at home with Beth’s toys all over the rug and Beth too.
Max sat down at the table, the open door right over her shoulder and the children in view, with Amanda waiting expectantly in the open doorway, not understanding why Ella had any problems with lizards or enclosed yards. "You'll be able to see her the whole time," Max told her sister, assuming Ella was worried someone would snatch Beth away. "And the entire perimeter has a state-of-the art alarm. If anyone touches the fence, we'll know." Max reached back and opened the fridge, grabbing herself a beer and popping it open, as if military grade alarm systems existed in every old, historic townhouse in the world.
As for Gus, time had just synced up right a few times, and Gus' stays with Brandon had coincided with Max's own stays in New York. She and Brandon might not be together anymore, but she never bothered with hotels when she was in New York, and it wasn't like Brandon was seeing anyone that would mind. Gus followed Amanda outside, with only a small detour to grab a stuffed penguin as he risked a curious, two-finger touch to Beth's blonde hair before hurrying ahead.
Outside, Amanda pointed and gave orders, and the sound was like white noise to Max these days. "How's the new place?" she asked her sister, trying to find some common ground to discuss that wouldn't end up in someone throwing their beverage. "Have you heard from Laura since she's been gone?"
But the still only lasted a few seconds, because Gus came barrelling through the kitchen and stopping with a skid at the front door, where he stopped and pressed his cheek to the wood, like he could possibly hear what was on the other side. Either the kid really liked pizza, or...
"Luke's here. We saw him through the fence," Amanda said from the doorway, tailless lizard hanging from between her fingers. "The pizza's here too," she added, a familiar disapproving scowl on her lips.
Military-grade alarm systems aside, Beth had not left the vague perimeter of Ella’s reach since she’d been returned by a willowy woman, all bruised eyes and the remnants of what had been Ian’s life. There was still the low-down fear that Cerise might return, might take back Beth as she had returned her, with not a bit of the police search or the officers who’d said kind, bland things to her with sad eyes, able to find her. Ella didn’t sit, she hovered, but her fingers reached to touch the back of the chair, and as Beth toddled toward the ruckus outside, she followed that progress with her eyes.
Ella was saved from answering the questions - no, there had been nothing from Laura and the new place was smaller and less pretty than the townhouse but it felt more like she could breathe there - as the children came running back into the room. Ella looked toward Amanda with that lizard between her fingers, and she said, “You don’t like pizza?” as she walked toward the front door herself, Mom has bad hips and reached for the latch.
Luke had thought now was as good a time as any to pick up Gus. In the aftermath of the prison break, which he personally thought had been just short of a disaster, Bruce didn’t need to be there to plan and so things had returned to normal, or at least as normal as they could ever be with Gotham, Selina, and Bruce to contend with. Max had told him to take his time, yeah, but it already felt like Gus had been gone for an eternity and he was anxious to have his son back where he belonged-- with his parents. He didn’t think to let Max know in advance, and truth be told he was looking forward to seeing his little boy again. Sometimes, just sometimes, he thought all this traveling back and forth might make Gus not want to come home, but that hadn’t happened yet and he prayed to whatever deity might exist that it never did.
He could hear voices from the yard as he pulled up to the curb and parked, Amanda’s most prominent and Gus’s quieter, more shy contributions trailing behind. His heart squeezed in his chest at the sound, and he had to take a few deep breaths before he got out of the car and made his way up to the door. Coincidentally, his arrival matched up with that of the pizza delivery guy, who he smiled at but intentionally quickened his step in order to pass so he was ahead; pizza was all well and good but he wanted to see his son. He could hear movement from within, and a grin spread over his features, unbidden, as he raised his hand to knock, but apparently his presence was already known as the door opened before he could and the first thing he saw, what his attention fixated on entirely, was Gus, face lit up and an exclamation of Daddy! before he threw himself at him and Luke barely had enough time to crouch before his arms were full.
“Hey, kiddo,” he whispered. “I missed you.” His hug was as fierce as the little boy’s was, and he was entirely oblivious to the pizza guy hanging back over his shoulder, uncertain, and everything else for that matter. He only lifted his gaze after a long, long moment, and his expression became one of surprise when he saw Ella. “Hi,” he greeted, moving to stand as Gus clung stubbornly to his neck and babbled about pizza and lizards.
"You might want to let that pizza guy through, kid, unless you want to pay him," was Max's grin-quipped statement from the archway into the kitchen. "Amanda," she said, a second later, waving enough money for the pizza, soda and tip at the little girl, and handing it over when Amanda ran over, the lizard getting dropped to hide beneath the furniture and live another day. "He missed you," she added, with a nod to Gus and his death-grip on Luke's neck, as Amanda dragged over the pizza and soda. "How about you teach him something other than French, huh? I never bothered with French. Brandon can have a whole conversation with him, but I'd prefer some Russian," she teased, taking Amanda's offerings and encouraging the little girl into the kitchen. "We were just about to eat, if you want to join us."
Amanda, of course, had other ideas, because Amanda always had other ideas. She didn't let herself be encouraged into the kitchen. Instead, she stopped and belatedly answered Ella's question about pizza. "Pizza will clog your arteries and give you a heart attack," she said, and then she considered Ella for a moment, trying to decide how much she needed to clarify. "Do you know what arteries are?" she asked, obviously deciding it was better to ask. All this was posited as her fingers slid into Luke's, and she tried to tug him into the kitchen, obviously making the decision for him about whether or not he would be staying for lunch.
Max glanced back from the kitchen, and she rolled her eyes. Brandon obviously let Amanda get away with everything, and she was pretty sure the kid had ended up with the bossiest set of personality genes in existence. "Amanda, let Luke walk himself into the kitchen, so he doesn't trip while carrying Gus, and come help me set the table," she called, which Amanda begrudgingly did. Max ruffled her hair, tickled her, and then set her to work setting out the plastic place settings.
Luke was here, and Ella was grateful, the quiet fractured kind that was finding some kind of peace that could be placed between Max and herself, something that would keep it from ugliness, a handful of children and someone who was at ease, didn’t feel the tension like the air before rain. She lifted her hand, a wiggle of fingers that was a dissonant greeting, watching too much the exchange between little boy and father, the wilful exuberance of a hello that felt like there might have been too many goodbyes. She watched, and then with both Luke and Amanda in the kitchen, she looked, startled for Beth - and saw her sat peaceably by the door to the yard, thumb in her mouth and observing the chaos like an imperious queen not quite sure when anarchy had set about.
“I know what arteries are,” Ella said, solemn as church to a little girl who seemed like she ran the show, even if she didn’t like pizza (and that, that Ella decided was as much Max as it was the ever-distant Brandon, the man who spoke French with the little boy who hugged his father as fiercely as if he’d never let go). “But you can have a little pizza. Before the heart attacks.” And Max spoke Russian - Ella didn’t hold onto it, let her fingers uncurl from the fact as if it were air.
Luke blinked, momentarily uncomprehending, until he turned to look over his shoulder and laughed at the sight of the pizza guy’s uncertainty. “Sorry,” he said, stepping inside and giving Amanda room to pay him. He ruffled Gus’s hair when Max said that he’d missed him, and the little boy nodded as though confirming that it was true. “We missed him too, and I’m not the one teaching him French. I don’t know a word of it. That’s all his mom.” He smiled at the thought of Thomas and the boy conversing in French, while Gus brightened at the mention of his mother. “My maman knows lots of French,” he lisped, trying to look over his shoulder as though she might be coming up the walk next. “She didn’t come with me, kiddo,” he whispered in his ear. “But you’ll see her soon.” Mollified, Gus nodded, and buried his face against his shoulder again. “You’re welcome to teach him Russian if you want, Max,” he added with a grin. “He’s good with languages, something he didn’t get from me.”
There was a moment of hesitation, but in the end he decided that staying for lunch couldn’t hurt. Besides, the last time he’d talked to Ella her relationship with Max had seemed pretty rocky, and he thought it might be a good idea to stick around just in case. He laughed when Amanda tried to tug him into the kitchen; apparently he didn’t have much of a choice. “Hey, you. And yeah, I’ll stay. I like pizza.” The little spiel about arteries and heart attacks was so Thomas, and he just shook his head, amused. “Ella’s right,” he told the girl as he made his way into the kitchen and managed to sit with Gus firmly in his lap. “A little pizza won’t hurt.” His gaze found Beth by the door and his smile softened; he was glad she’d been found safe and sound in the end, and he was glad Ella had her back.
"That kid," Max said, pointing a fork at Gus, "I'd have to teach him how to say animal names in Russian to even get him to listen," but there fondness there, gruff and in the joking. Gus reminded her of Luke before Brandon got his hands on him. The little kid didn't have Luke's hopefulness, but he had that shy uncertainty that she always associated with Luke, even now that Luke was older and that uncertainty had turned to something that felt like anger beneath the skin.
And that's as far Max she got before Amanda took offense at being corrected twice about her superior nutrition knowledge. "A little pizza can hurt," she said, hands moving to her hips and the table setting completely ignored for the moment. "It's filled with trans-fats, and those are bad for your heart. Even the zombies won't want you if your heart is bad, and then you die anyway," she said with the somberness that only a child could manage.
Max handed Amanda a stack of plastic cups, and she tucked a strand of brown behind the little girl's ear. "What did we have for dinner last night, which you ate all of, and even stole some of Gus'?" she asked.
The question earned her a glare, before Amanda muttered, quiet and beneath her breath, "chicken wings," and Max tickled her for the admission, which resulted in a few seconds of actual childish laughter, before the cups were all set out.
Max poured, and she let Amanda portion out slices, and she waved her fingers at Beth, entertained by the little girl's curiosity. Amanda had never been that type of quiet, not even when she'd been Beth's age. Max took a seat, and she patted Amanda's chair, and she hoped for someone to fill the silence. Talking to the kids was easy. Talking to her sister, not so much.
It moved around Ella like the kind of organized chaos that came with learning how things worked, the syncopy of Luke and Max working together around the children like they knew the notes of the song before it started singing. She sat, with the diaper bag at her feet and Beth was close enough by that she didn’t need to watch her, not just then. Amanda’s laughter was bright and pretty, a peal of it ringing over plastic plates and the pizza and maybe that was why it worked, Gus and Amanda, and she looked toward Beth who was pushing herself up ready to walk on over.
“I can’t believe Amanda got so big,” Ella held out her hands for Beth to walk into, reaching into the diaper bag for the kind of food that came mushed up in a jar, “She’s real pretty, Max.” It was sincere, the compliment, directed at the little girl across the table rather than Max herself - Ella’s gaze stayed close to the children, to watching them eat. If she didn’t talk at Max, if she didn’t look, not really, then maybe it would be okay, it wouldn’t be another argument to shred everything that was left over.
“Gus loves his animals,” Luke agreed with a proud glance downward at the boy, who had reluctantly loosened his death grip on his father’s neck to turn, just a little, enough to watch as the table was set and the pizza was divided with wide-eyed anticipation. Amanda’s fervent insistence that pizza was bad made him smile, a mixture of Thomas’ influence no doubt with her own-- he doubted her father had ever incorporated zombies into his lectures. “Somebody likes chicken wings a lot, huh?” The question was coupled with a teasing grin in Amanda’s direction, and Gus giggled quietly behind his fingers, which were occupied sooner afterward by slices of pizza that he eagerly, and happily, chewed on.
There was no lingering sense of heavy tension in the air, but even so the atmosphere wasn’t as casual and relaxed as they were making it out to be. The kids were fine, Amanda and Gus and even little Beth, but he felt caught in the middle of Max and Ella, like if he didn’t say something they were doomed to silence or, worse, horribly forced conversation. He thought of mentioning Wren’s pregnancy but decided against it; he wasn’t quite sure he was ready for Max to know and either she or Amanda would carry it back to Thomas, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for him to know either. But what was he supposed to say? “She is big,” he ventured, agreeing with Ella’s observation to carry the conversation. “Gets bigger every time I see her.” Which, admittedly, wasn’t often, but he was edging around that particular detail.
"It's more important that I'm smart," Amanda said of being pretty, and it was obviously something she'd picked up somewhere, but the solemnity only lasted a few seconds before she stuck her tongue out at Luke's teasing about chicken wings, and added her assertion that she'd be bigger than him soon. And luckily, Amanda was fine at monopolizing conversation, because she started babbling about the zoo she and Gus were going to buy when she was ten (which required a show of all ten fingers), and that took up lunch, without any of the adults needing to do anything but nod in the right spots, while she and Gus laid out a masterplan that would require liquidating every single asset Thomas Brandon had to come to fruition.
But as soon as Amanda took the last sip of her water ("Soda is bad for you."), she bounded out of her chair in search of lizards, her commanding little voice insisting that Gus join her for a few minutes. For good measure, she turned her attention to Luke, and she gave him a sweet smile that included batted lashes. "Just for a little bit, big brother?"
Max watched Amanda run out the door a second later. "I feel sorry for the lizards," she said, leaning back and grabbing a beer from the fridge, offering one to both Ella and Luke, before popping it open and taking a sip from the longnecked bottle. "I feel sorry for everyone she ever meets, actually," she amended fondly, her gaze turning toward the open door for a moment. Her attention returned to Luke and Ella a second later, and she shook her head. "I'm terrible at awkward small talk, so someone else is in charge."
Yeah, it was more important Amanda grew up smart. Ella’s face drew closed, like a door shutting after that thought taken in and made at home, given tea. The little girl was pretty in the same, long-legged way as Max was pretty - Ella had thought of her sister as the definition of ‘pretty’ right up until her momma had pulled her pigtails and told her she looked like the illustrations in the books - Amanda was active and healthy and sun-brown. But she was whip-smart, even if Ella knew nothing about zombies, she could tell that, and when Max offered the beer she considered it, and finally (silently) reached out and accepted it.
There hadn’t been much in the way of alcohol in the last year. She’d stopped feeding Beth that way a couple weeks before getting to Vegas but alcohol at the clubs or bars had been a real stupid idea when she was working, and she was never drinking when she wasn’t working. She held the bottle between her hands, cool glass against the spread of her palms and her thumbs notched against the long neck, and she watched the kids race on out after lizards without a thought for dresses that would stain, hair ribbons that could be lost. Beth leaned against her knee like she’d be away too, and Ella reached for a napkin to mop up her face before letting her go, too.
“It’s awkward,” she said, twisting the bottle so the label was covered by her hands, and taking a swallow, fuzzy on her tongue, shrugging like ‘awkward’ was true now, normal. “But the kids like each other. I haven’t seen her try keeping up before.” Beth was out of the door by now, little legs determined. “It’s a nice house.”
Kids, bless them, didn’t get caught up in awkward silences and tense pauses like adults did. With Amanda spearheading the conversation it was easy to sit back, eat pizza, and laugh and nod at the appropriate parts of her and Gus’s master plan to achieve their dream of owning a zoo. Gus was particularly enthusiastic about it, which wasn’t surprising considering his love of animals. It was something he wanted to encourage, just like he encouraged everything the little boy showed interest in; he never wanted him to feel like his parents were shoving him in one particular direction. He wanted him to follow his passions, as cheesy as that sounded, even if the rest of the world told him he was impractical or silly.
He was more than willing to let Gus go off with Amanda, but he smiled nonetheless when Gus paused before sliding off his father’s lap, glancing up at him as though waiting for permission even as Amanda batted her lashes. “Just for a bit, little sister,” he laughed, nodding and nudging his son to “go off and play”; the little boy wasted no time before hurrying off to join his playmate in her search for lizards. Luke’s expression was fond as he watched, and he took the beer without thinking, though he turned the bottle slowly in his hands and didn’t take a sip at first. “They do,” he agreed, of the little ones getting along. “Gus is quiet. Shy. It’s nice to see him playing with other kids.” He just hoped he started making some school friends soon; maybe he’d like going better then.
Awkward small talk was no more his forte than it was Max’s, and he nodded about the house, relenting and taking a sip of beer as though that might make the words flow more easily. “How long is Amanda here for?” It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Max watched Beth wobble her way after the older children, and she was glad her niece was alright. It was like she'd told Corvus; any debt Cerise owed her had been paid when she ensured Beth got home safe. She watched through the open doorway a few seconds longer, and then she took a sip of her beer as she looked back at Luke and Ella. Awkward was an understatement, but she didn't have any idea how to fix it. She was fairly sure that any real conversation would lead to an argument between her and Ella, and not even Luke's presence would be able to prevent it.
"It needs some work, but I like keeping busy," Max said of the townhouse, figuring that was safe enough, and glad that Luke filled in the next bit of silence with talk of Gus. "I don't think he minds the kids," she said, just a bit of insight after a week in New York, and then a week back in Vegas. "It's the adults he doesn't like," she added, wishing again for a cigarette. But the topic of how long Amanda was staying, that was easy, safe. "She's staying through the weekend. Brandon wants her back for school on Monday, and I have my new job starting then." It felt strange, being able to actually refer to her job without secrecy. But she was officially on the roster now, no more undercover and no more secrets. Well, unless Davis needed her to consult, but no one needed to know about that. "The CIA is opening a facility to green train field agents. I'll be running it," she explained. No address, because that was confidential, but it was more honesty than she'd had about her work in years; she thought she might be able to get used to it.
Max's attention drifted back to the children, and she nodded toward Beth. "She looks like she's doing fine," she commented.
Before, whenever there’d been an argument - a fight, call it what it damn well was - there’d been energy, tension, fizzing on around them. Maybe it was work where Max was, that shadowy thing that couldn’t be named (and Ella blinked, at it being dragged back out of the dark, at Max giving a name to something that had always been nameless, faceless, something with teeth to take her apart in the darkness and leave her spat back out but saying nothing as to how and why) or maybe it was the clients Ella had had, the feeling-adrift sense of small boat on rocky water, bills in threatening swells. There was no energy now, but there’d been no energy then at the market and it had been nastier for it - Ella thought maybe that was how it was, when you carved them both to the bone. All that sweetness her mother had encouraged, all that fair-fight crap, it got stripped away. Maybe they were nothing at all. Maybe they weren’t even family. She said nothing then, just a look upward, startled at Max, because maybe Max was allowed to talk about it now but they weren’t. It felt odd, the light on something that had never been lit before.
“The adults at school?” Ella said, looking at where Gus had disappeared through the door, and worry sharp in her voice. Adults could do all kinds of things, with kids, and call it what they wanted to. It didn’t make it different. And she looked at the table, pleating the napkin in her lap with her fingers.
“Yeah. I took her to the doctor,” Ella’s eyes drifted around the kitchen, anywhere but Max - and Luke - because saying it out loud was like touching a snowflake, dissolving something that remained static, apart. “She’s okay. Nothing… wrong.”
Luke’s gaze had been drawn outside, where he watched Gus smile and laugh with unmistakable adoration, before it snapped back to the table at the worry in Ella’s voice. The little boy had always been wary of adults, ever since his time with the Johnsons; he knew every single adult Gus came into contact with now and had run background checks on all of them. If anyone so much as touched his son, he’d know. “No,” he said, before Max could answer, meeting her gaze for a moment to confirm as much. “The people he was with before we, Wren and I, got him-- before I had custody-- they weren’t very nice people. They abused him,” he explained, and his expression darkened. Had they not died in an accident, it was likely he would have killed the pair himself and made it look like an accident. “He’s come a long way since then, but with people he doesn’t know, he’s suspicious. Scared, even. It takes a while for him to warm up to new people.” He didn’t say as much, but sometimes he thought Gus’s wariness wasn’t such a bad thing. People were capable of horrible things, he knew that all too well, and being too trusting could easily get you killed. He smiled, belatedly, as though to assure Ella that it was fine, before turning his attention back to Max. “Sounds like a good job,” he ventured. “Are you looking forward to it?”
Hope had become a slippery thing these days, but he’d hoped that Beth would be found and she was, and he’d hoped she would be fine, and she was. He was grateful for that much, that good things could still happen. “I’m glad she’s okay,” he said, his voice going a little quieter, and he took another sip of beer.
Max had been trained in all the kinds of things good spies were trained in, including reading people. Unfortunately, Max was terrible at reading herself, and she was no better at reading anyone else, even with the training. She could put some of the training to use, but there was a reason she'd spent her entire career as a solo specialist; people just weren't her strong suit. But she could tell that Ella was looking everywhere but at her, and she stood, her gait horribly uneven as she began clearing the table. Dhaka and moving and getting the new school ready, it had taken its toll, and sitting for any length of time just made it worse, but the look she shot Luke and Ella said they shouldn't even consider offering to help. She listened while Luke talked, already knowing that story from beginning to end, and she didn't say anything until he was done. And as much as she blamed Wren for everything that was wrong in Luke's life, she wasn't about to say anything about it in front of Ella. "It's unconventional, but you might want to see if his teacher will let you hang around the classroom for a few days, or maybe go to the zoo with the two of you. He kept hiding from Amanda's nanny, so Brandon took them all to the zoo together."
The question about the job was an easy one, and Max leaned back against the counter and nodded. "I thought it sounded like Hell at first, but now I'm looking forward to it," she said truthfully. Dhaka had changed her outlook, but she couldn't tell them that. Instead, her gaze slid over to Beth for a few seconds. She finished her beer immediately after, and she set it in the sink and looked at her sister, tired of the awkwardness and the elephant in the room. "You don't need to stay, Ella. I understand. Thanks for coming by. I'm glad Beth's alright, too."
Ella had been wide-eyed calm at the story of the little boy who chased after Amanda like he had no more worries than lizards and pizza; the world was not one, Ella knew now, where being a child entitled you to childhood, to a lack of care. She’d folded one arm up beneath her chin and settled her elbow on a corner of the table, drawn in just enough that it felt like an anchor. Maybe that was why Luke had been there any time she was at the station, uniforms and radios blurring into one, maybe that was why he knew how it went, when kids lost pieces of what they were supposed to have. She looked up as Max rose, unsteady but straight, the do-or-die kind of look to her that said you sat there until she was done and you didn’t lay a finger on anything or you might get shot for it and Max’s advice sounded like the kind of thing parents knew - real parents, the ones with years of experience stretched out behind them and years ahead. Maybe it wasn’t the way things were - when you didn’t have a job training CIA folks and the husband you’d married wasn’t real quiet and real somber and uninclined to being friendly - but maybe, Ella thought, her lower lip between her teeth, it was the way it could be, should be, when all those things were true. And if she wanted to ask Max’s advice - about the walking, about sleeping through the night instead of waking up in the middle - it was shut off.
And then the air fractured, like a balloon’s rubber sides subsiding, and Ella's shoulders fell too, the posture sagging like maybe disappointment but possibly understanding too. “Oh. Yeah, okay. I can go.” Come so the children could spend time together, leave before it broke into an argument. That was how it was supposed to go. Ella’s voice was real quiet, like disturbing things by saying anything, “Congratulations on the new job. I’m real pleased for you.”
Ella set that beer bottle - half-drunk and not quite done - on the edge of the table, glass still warm from sitting between her palms, and she straightened up, jeans sliding over her sneakers, because if Max didn’t want her there, then she wouldn’t stay, impose on her sister any longer than she needed to. The smile she slid Max was tentative, like surface tension on a bubble, a shiver and it wouldn’t be there but it was there, last bits of hope stuck on to the sides. “Thanks for inviting us. Real nice to see you, Luke.” She reached for Beth.
Luke’s first instinct was to rise and help Max clear the table, and he’d already began to push out his chair when she shot both him and Ella a look that clearly stated no. He hesitated, but eventually sat back down and watched instead. The prospect of hanging around Gus’s class or going to the zoo with his teacher did seem unconventional, but then again, he was willing to do whatever necessary to make life easier for his son. “I’ll talk to his teacher about it,” he said, after mulling it over for a few moments. It couldn’t hurt, at least.
Before he could say anything more on Max’s new job, she was giving Ella an out and the other woman seemed to be willing to take it. He looked between the two, brow furrowed, but he didn’t know what to say. Fixing things definitely wasn’t his forte; not for himself, and not for other people. He’d tried that too many times and failed to think otherwise. “Yeah, it was nice seeing you too, Ella.” He set his beer down on the table and stood, chewing on the inside of his lip as he tried to think of ways to smooth over the awkwardness that obviously existed between herself and Max. But nothing came, and so he offered a tentative smile instead. “Beth, too.”
Max hadn't actually expected the out to be taken. Or maybe she had. Or maybe she'd expected something more than the small talk that stuck in her craw, because she was so terrible at it. Either way, she didn't take back the offer that Ella didn't need to stay if she didn't want to. Instead, she called for the kids to come inside, which they did reluctantly, one captive lizard seeking a home coming along with them. "We'll go look at geckos," she promised Amanda, figuring those would be easy enough to keep alive, even after Amanda had gone back home. And she could just replace them before the next visit if they died. Geckos couldn't be that unique in appearance, could they? Regardless, cleaning up did her in, and she just leaned back against the counter and let Amanda play hostess and offer to show everyone out, as she rubbed at her temple and tried to figure out why she even bothered making the attempt.
Hesitation. Luke looked like he’d walked on into a warzone in the gap between gunfire and didn’t know which way was out and Ella’s heart squeezed sore, embarrassment twinging cleanly through shame. It wasn’t Luke’s business that Max disliked her and it wasn’t Luke’s business they couldn’t hold a conversation before Max was saying she was done. Ella forgot uncomfortable talk as the flurry of Amanda, hair streaming and a fistful of a companion who looked darn unhappy to be there came drumming into the kitchen, but Max - leaning back against the counter like maybe all that moving around that looked painful had felt it too - was quiet, and maybe that wasn’t so mad that she wanted to evict her. Ella paused, squatting down beside Beth and trying to scoop her up at least.
Beth wasn’t all that happy on leaving, and Ella couldn’t blame her, the kitchen was wide, wide space and the yard beyond was filled with curiosities but baby-stubborn manifested itself in Beth going stiff and rigid and when that did not immediately work, turning bright red and starting in on the ‘no no no’, that was clear as a bell, even if the toddler had been quiet the whole time they’d been here. And wasn’t that die-on-the-spot embarrassment, even Beth thought Max’s place was a better place to be? Ella flushed and tried to pick up the squirmy, wriggly body.
Gus was no more pleased to be called inside than the other children were, but he was quieter about it, wide eyes and uncertainty as he made his way over to Luke, who held out his arms for wordless comfort. He ruffled the boy’s hair as he pressed the side of his face against his shirt, watching as Ella tried and failed to collect Beth. Of course the little girl didn’t want to go, Gus didn’t either, but he would never struggle or say no; maybe one day he’d be that kind of child but not today.
He didn’t know how to help. He smiled as though to say oh, kids but after a moment Gus tugged free and padded over, childish solemnity on his features. “It’s okay, Beth,” he lisped at the squirmy baby, “we can play again soon.” He looked back at Luke, who smiled and nodded, because hell if he wasn’t going to encourage his kid and he liked the way his eyes lit up like he’d just accomplished something great.
Max just stayed where she was as Amanda demanded a hug from her brother, as Amanda reminded Gus that they had a zoo partnership planned, and as Amanda politely said goodbye to Ella and Beth. Max let the little girl lead the party to the door, the lizard slipping from small fingers and gone to safety as soon as the front door opened, and Amanda was all proper hostess as she emulated Brandon's doorman, stodgy accent and everything. Max considered leaving the safety of the counter, but she opted not to, in the end, for everyone's benefit. She just stayed where she was until she heard the door close, and then she suggested Amanda go get dressed, so they could go gecko shopping, which was readily agreed to.
This had been a mistake, and Max didn't even know why. She missed New York just then. New York was hard truths and no attempts at things that had never worked, and she knew the lines there better than she cared to admit. But there was nothing to do about it, and she wasn't a woman prone to introspection and regrets. Amanda would be back home in a few days, and she'd have work to bury herself in. That would need to be enough. She wasn't cut out for families; she never had been.
Luke was still accustoming himself to the idea of being a big brother, but he returned Amanda’s hug with only a hint of uncertainty and told her to tell your dad I said hi. It wasn’t much, a minor concession, but he was trying not to let that bridge, which had been destroyed once before, come apart when it was still tentatively being mended. As for Gus, he nodded as though the zoo was something that would actually come to pass, and the excitement in his eyes kept Luke from correcting him just then. Why not let the kid dream big? He waved to Max, a silent goodbye, before letting himself be escorted outside, where he scooped Gus up and turned to Ella. Gus lisped his good-bye before burying his face in his father’s neck, and Luke smiled, almost apologetically, as though silently apologizing for not being able to fix things between her and Max-- or at least make them better. “See you,” he said, before dropping his gaze to smile at Beth and, as Gus began to ask muffled questions about his mama, turned and made his way to where he’d parked on the street.
It was not better. It could not have been made better at all and Ella knew that now, Beth having tantrum-ed herself to exhausted stillness on the way home, as the bus jolted past the houses, the air sticky. It was not going to be better and she was surprised she'd cared even a little bit, even if Max's new job sounded like her life wouldn't be closed off, doors shut on all the things she didn't know about her sister. It was still a door, it was still sealed tight, just for her, and she knew that now, laid out as obvious as the ease Luke and Max had, as family should.
No, she'd wish her sister well and maybe she'd be glad she wasn't off dying somewhere every second but no more. There was no more that was to be done. Ella turned her face to the passing city-scape and she let all thoughts of Max and of Luke be subsumed beneath the rattling of the broken air-conditioning and the bus.