And You'll Kiss Me In Your Living Room

by gilligankane

Where We Are On The Timeline: the 'My Two Mommies' kiss

AUTHOR'S NOTE: for shaych_03  who believes that " the characters don't need to shit rainbows... but it'd be nice if they had some love"

She never gets farther than the front porch; than the bench where she drops heavily after running from the house like her feet were burning up under her, like the Devil himself was trying to take away her morals.

She sits there until she loses track of the time and the sun has sunken into the sky, painting it red and pink and gold that sparkles across the tree tops: a picture perfect scene – something Frank would want to share with her, one of his annoying long arms draped across her shoulders, suffocating her in his embrace.

Olivia doesn't come out of the house after her, the way she thought the other woman would.

Olivia doesn't call her phone, rationally asking her to come back so they can talk about it , the way she thought the other woman would.

Olivia doesn't even seem to want to see her, the way she thought the other woman would.

(The way she hoped Olivia would.)

When the sky is littered with stars, lighting a path to her car, she weighs her options: she could go see Frank, an hour late for their date, and continue on with her life the way it was going, even if it felt like it was spinning into a black hole of regret and despair and confinement.

Or, she could go back inside and demand to know why the hell Olivia kissed her.

She wants to know why, but she's afraid that she already knows the answer.

Finally, as her feet start to go numb, she hears the door creak open behind her and she has to force herself to stay put, eyes facing forward. It's harder than she thought it would have been, because her body is desperately aching to spin around and catch just a glimpse of Olivia – just a tiny view before she convinces herself she needs to stop looking at the older woman altogether.

She's a disciplined woman, if nothing else, however, and her knees stay tightly locked together, with her hands gripping the fabric of her pants bunched around her thighs.

“You're going to catch a cold,” Olivia says from behind her, not coming out onto the porch entirely, just sort of hanging in the threshold. The lights of the living room spill out from the door, distorting the still night the way Olivia seems to have distorted her life these past few months.

She was okay before Olivia, content in her life with her son and boarding room house and her three jobs.

(If she wants to be honest, she was okay but she wasn't happy.)

“Yeah,” she says distractedly. “I'm coming,” but she doesn't move.

“You look like you're sitting still to me,” Olivia says, something of a scoff in her voice.

But that's always been the problem , a little voice in the back of her says at the same time that Olivia's unspoken words weigh down the air around her. She's always been sitting still, even with her hands moving, scrubbing floors that don't need to be scrubbed, and even with her legs carrying her, dragging trays she shouldn't be dragging. She's always been sitting still because she's comfortable – in this house, with this woman, and this little girl.

“Listen,” Olivia starts gently, when she still hasn't moved, both of them at an impasse. “Can you just come inside? Emma is worried about you and she won't let me read a story to you until you come inside and warm up. I can make you some coffee if you want, just, just come inside.”

She doesn't mean to say it, but it slips out before she can stop it and she sounds angry and spiteful. “Are you going to kiss me again?”

The response she gets is the door slamming shut.

It spurs her off the bench and into the house, slamming the door herself, her nerve-endings suddenly on fire and her eyes burning.

Olivia doesn't get to kiss her and walk away.

“Hey,” she hisses at the back of Olivia's head, her words dripping with anger. “Turn around and look at me,” she demands.

“I have to go read my kid her bedtime story, alright?” Olivia asks wearily.

“She can wait. This can't.”

And there's a switch that flips; she can see it physically make its way through Olivia's body: her eyes flash and her shoulders straighten for a fight and her fists clench and her hips rotate until Olivia is facing her and her feet press solidly into the first step of the staircase.

“My kid doesn't wait,” Olivia growls through clenched teeth.

She resists the urge to tell Olivia that, with a mother like her, Emma will probably do a lot of waiting.

“She does right now,” she throws back. “Because you and I, we need to talk. Without you running away like some wounded animal,” she adds hotly.

Olivia laughs a harsh and deep and fake laugh. “I'm not the one who ran away. You're the one who ran out of here like you couldn't stand to be around me for another second.”

It's a harsh and deep and fake laugh that's just a little hurt. 

“ You kissed me ,” she all but shrieks.

“Oh, get over it. Do you freak out like this every time someone kisses you? Because I'll tell you something, and don't take this personally,” Olivia says in way that means she should take it very personally. “You're never going to find Rafe a daddy if you get this twisted up over a kiss .”

“From you! ”

“Jesus Christ,” Olivia mutters.

“Don't you start,” but Olivia is already putting her hands up, already fighting off the lecture about taking the Lord's name in vain. “Olivia,” she pleads. “Please just talk to me.”

Olivia takes a step back. “What is there to talk about? You're one of the densest people I know when it comes to anything other than work or God, so I was just trying to show you what they were thinking, alright?”

“Do I have to hit you over the head with this?” Olivia shouts, grabbing her face with those hands that are so unlike her own, pulling her face towards bright green eyes.

“You kissed me,” she says gently.

“What are you? A parrot?” Olivia asks, loudly again. “Can you say anything else but ‘you kissed me' or are you stuck on stupid?”

Olivia uses sarcasm and anger and insults to block out the bad things, the heavy things, the possibly good things in her life and she knows this; she knows that Olivia is trying to push her away by insulting her and the old Natalia would have taken the bait – would have stormed out of the house and worked it off until she was calm again.

But the old Natalia had been erased the moment that Olivia's lips had slammed against hers, and the new Natalia just wants to understand why her stomach is flipping and her throat is tight and her palms are sweating.

Because it doesn't make any sense at all, this feeling she can't shake. It's Olivia Spencer – the vindictive bitch, the dying mother, the recover, insufferable patient, the woman who gave her money to see her kid and got back her eighty thousand dollars, her roommate, her best friend, the woman she shares a house with and a small girl's smile –

So maybe it does make sense.

“Are you done?”

Olivia glares. “Are you ?”

She sighs heavily. “Why are you so intent on not talking about this?”

“Because!” Olivia shouts. “Because it doesn't need to be analyzed to death; because you're making it out to be more than it was; because it was Just. A. Kiss. And as soon as you wrap your thick skull around that, I can go upstairs and say goodnight to Emma and then you can, alright?” Olivia's voice softens slightly. “You forgot to say goodnight before she went upstairs and she said she won't go to sleep until you do.”

But she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to break this moment, because Olivia's angry and breathing heavy and her cheeks are flushed a little and she can feel her entire body shake at the thought of sliding her hands through the messy ponytail of brown and blonde and pulling it loose.

Her entire body shakes at the thought of Olivia's hands gripping the edges of her waist.

She takes a step forward and Olivia raises an eyebrow slowly, like she's trying to figure out what's going on; what joke is being told that she's not a part of.

And she takes two more steps forward until Olivia figures it out.

“No,” the other woman says, hands extended, her feet shuffling backwards. “ No . You stay over there.”

But she can't – not anymore.

She's been staying over there for two long now; ignoring all the looks and the perfect moments and opportunities she could have had; pretending that her felon son and her non-existent life outside of the farmhouse were enough.

And now she wants to be here , with Olivia.

“I said stay ,” Olivia hisses, backing up the stairs.

“Well I'm not a dog,” she snaps. “And I don't sit when you say sit and I don't roll over and play dead.” She pauses, closes her eyes and breathes . “I'm not rolling over and playing dead,” she whispers gently.

“Could have fooled me,” Olivia says half-heartedly, because she was going to roll over and play dead, marching to Ms. Jennings the way she planned on doing.

But she never got past the front porch.

She never got past the front porch, because she had nowhere else to go; no one to explain to that she and Olivia weren't what people thought they were. She never got past the front porch because she had every reason (like Olivia) to stay and not enough reasons (like her pride) to go.

“I could have done a lot of things,” she quips.

She could have left to see Ms. Jennings; she could have kissed Frank back; she could have kept her money and worked to get Rafe out of jail; she could have let Harley have Gus; she could have ignored Emma's infectious laugh and her innocence; she could have said no and let Olivia die.

She could have done everything different, but she didn't and now she's standing in her living room, her eyes pleading with Olivia to just come back down the stairs and tell her again what everyone thinks they are.

“But I didn't,” she says out loud. “I didn't and now I'm happy , Olivia. I'm really happy. So,” she fumbles with her words, suddenly tongue-tied. “So, just come down here, please, and talk to me.”

Even if talking isn't what she wants to do.

“I already said what I needed to say,” Olivia dismisses. “You already heard it all.”

“So tell me again,” she breathes.

“I'm going upstairs,” the older woman says with a sigh. “I'm not coming back down,” she adds over her shoulder.

Her body moves faster than she gives it credit for; it always has. She's standing on the bottom step before Olivia can blink , pushing the other woman back into the living room floor space, pressing hands against her shoulders, taking advantage of Olivia's guard being down.

“Tell me again,” she commands in a whisper.

Olivia's mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water, like she's drowning and the air just won't get down into her lungs. And she wants to wrap her arms around Olivia and hold her close, they way that they fit together, but her hands are stuck to Olivia's shoulders, stuck like glue.

“They think, they think we're in love,” Olivia summarizes.

She breaks the contact, pushing Olivia back an inch or two as she brings her hands together at her own chest, pressing against the sudden ache that she feels.

They think.

Not they: not Olivia and Emma and her.

They : the parents and the teacher and the children.

“What do you think,” she hears herself ask.

She doesn't let Olivia answer though, leaning forward gently, swallowing the words and catching them in her throat, ignoring the way Olivia seems to whimper and fold and the way those hands – those smooth, un-cracked hands – try to push her away. She pushes forward even more, finally feeling those hands on her face, in her hair, fumbling for the zipper on her jacket.

Olivia pulls back, breath heavy and hot on her face, and rests her forehead against Natalia's, smiling with her eyes closed. “I think,” she starts, taking another deep breath. “I think I told you to stay over there.”

She smiles, despite the fact that she just kissed Olivia Spencer; despite that fact that she's going to over-think this and Olivia will under-think this; despite the fact that they probably won't talk about it and just keep kissing, like it'll make it disappear; despite the fact that Emma could stumble down the stairs at any moment.

She smiles. “When did I ever start listening to you?”

“I don't,” Olivia starts, the panic seeping into the edge of her eyes like spilled ink, darkening the rims and spreading into the center.

She pushes again and doesn't let the fear or the panic or the reasons why not come any closer to them, sating them all with her lips and her tongue and her fingers splayed under Olivia's t-shirt.

“You do ,” she whispers in assurance. “ We do.”

She can't say I love you yet, because Olivia looks like she's ready to run and her own heart is slamming against her ribcage and there's a little girl still upstairs waiting for a bedtime story and because it's too new, this thing they have between their lips and their words and their eyes.

So she kisses Olivia again, winding her fingers through her dark caverns of hair, and it's enough for now.

In the morning, maybe she'll say it, maybe she won't.

But at least she'll have the chance.