Multiplicity, or: Five Kisses in the Life of Niki Sanders
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Niki/Jessica
Title: Multiplicity, or: Five Kisses in the Life of Niki Sanders
Author: Julie
Disclaimer: Incest. Don’t own the characters or show.
Notes: Assumes Jessica has moments of being corporeal, just before and after the transitions, sometimes, as in 1.11 in the woods. Had to wank a little with the transitions, as we’re still in the dark about the mechanics of their power.
*********************************
11
Jessica says, “don't cry Niki, I'll take care of him. He won't hurt you.” Niki knows enough to believe her, but isn't exactly sure what she's being protected from. Niki knows it must be bad, but can't decide what's worse, whatever she's being protected from, or that Jessica came all the way back from the cold hard ground to take care of it. People aren't supposed to come back from the ground like that. Niki isn't sure of much, but she's sure of that. She doesn't say that to Jessica, though. She doesn't want to make her mad, mostly because she knows she isn't strong like Jessica, and needs her protection. But a little bit because she's scared of her, too. Jessica would never hurt her, though. She said so, and Jessica always does what she says. Niki wishes she could be more like that, but Jessica likes her just the way she is. Jessica told her so. Jessica says that Niki doesn't have to be strong, and tells her that she'll take care of her.
“He's coming,” Jessica says suddenly with a sharpness to her voice. Niki can't help but feel scared, can't help but see the change in Jessica as the footsteps get closer to the bedroom, where they’re hiding. Niki tries to imagine what's coming on the other side of the door, but scares herself too much to form any real ideas. Jessica laughs at her, but kisses her forehead. “Close your eyes tight now,” Jessica tells her, eyeing the door with a new urgency. “Just go to sleep. It will all be just fine when you wake up.”
Niki closes her eyes. She wants to sleep through the whole thing. She's scared, but she knows she'll be okay. Jessica promised, and Jessica always keeps her promises. She feels the world going dark, Jessica's kiss still tingling on her forehead.
**********************
14
Andy’s room has too many windows. Niki tries to close the shades, but Andy laughs, tells her nobody can see inside and besides, his parents don’t get home for two hours. Niki looks at the windows, and tries not to think about Jessica finding her here.
Jessica doesn’t like boys.
She’s warned her about them, warned her hundreds of times. Jessica’s boys have big sweating hands and hot breath and pushy bodies, but Andy isn’t any kind of boy like that. Andy smells like fabric softener and gum, and has cute hair that flops in his face. Niki doesn’t know a lot about boys, but she likes that Andy talks to her, and how cute he looks when he snaps his neck to flip his hair up out of his eyes. Andy makes Niki wonder if maybe Jessica isn't always right about everything, but just as fast she pushes that thought out of her head. Jessica wouldn't like it if she knew Niki sometimes thought those things. And Niki doesn't want to make Jessica mad. Still, Andy's letterman jacket feels good hanging loose on her thin frame, warm and heavy like arms, and Niki wants to have her first kiss. All the girls in her gym class have had theirs, and Niki wants to be like them, wants them to pay attention to her. Jessica says those girls are stupid and so is fitting in, but Jessica isn't the one who has to be in school with them every day, either.
Niki looks at Andy and wonders if she’s supposed to do something first, wishing that Jessica would tell her about things like this, instead. She scoots closer to him, slides her hand into his. He looks at her, surprise on his face, and then leans toward her, closing his eyes. She leans a little bit too. She knows this is the moment and tilts her head, and his breath is on her face and she closes her eyes but too late, too late to have missed the glimpse of movement in Andy’s mirror across the room and she shuts her eyes tight thinking leave me alone, leave me alone and let me just have this and Andy’s lips are soft bumps against her mouth and she want to be here, to feel it but her eyes are heavy, closing again and the world tilts more and grows dark, and she is falling, sleeping...
...and she is back in her own room, and its her own bed she's lying in, Jessica's lips on her lips, Jessica's forehead against her forehead, and it feels so good that she barely stops to wonder what Jessica did to Andy, or if tomorrow he's going to turn into one of those people who think she's weird and ignores her at school, or if she should feel bad about liking this because this isn’t how sisters are supposed to kiss each other.
Niki isn’t sure of much, but she’s sure of that.
The kiss ends. Niki looks up at her sister. “He said he liked me, 4-ever,” she says, because she doesn’t know what else to say, willing Jessica to understand, not to be mad not to kiss her like that again and never to stop kissing her like that again.
“I love you forever, Jessica shoots back. I do. Boys don't mean forever in the same way. He can't take care of you like I do. Like I always have.”
“He takes care of me FINE,” Niki tells her, not knowing where her angry voice is coming from but wishing Jessica would (kiss her) stop shouting at her. “He carries my tray at lunch and he keeps the football boys from picking on me and he calls me and writes me notes and he gave me his jacket to wear so everybody will know that he likes me. You've never given me your jacket,” Niki says, wondering where the words are coming from, why she misses Jessica’s lips against hers when she never even kissed anyone before today.
“I've given you everything, Jessica says, softly.”
*************************
19
Jessica looks beautiful with a beaten face. Niki shakes her head quickly, to shake that thought away. It’s Niki’s fault Jessica has a black eye, busted lip, bruises blooming across her skinny ribs. Jessica was right this time, just like every time, and Niki doesn’t even mind so much how Jessica is scolding her, saying her told you so’s and if only you would listen’s. Niki knows the bruises won’t last long, and she just wants to look and look as long as she can.
“Stay still,” Niki tells her, and for once, Jessica does. She holds still, and tilts her head into Niki’s palm and lets Niki wash her face, fan light fingers over her, tell her that she’s strong and brave and yes, yes Niki would be lost without her. Niki tells her, “I love you Jessica,” and means it. She watches the way Jessica’s eyes close at those words, Jessica’s breath catches and Niki doesn’t say different when Jessica huffs and acts impatient to hide the emotion Niki’s touch evokes.
Niki wishes this wasn’t the only time Jessica would let Niki take care of her. Niki doesn’t know much, but she knows Jessica, and she knows how Jessica needs this care, even if she never does admit it. Niki doesn’t mind. Jessica’s wearing her bruises. She may not have put them there with her own fists, but they belong to her just the same.
Jessica’s bruises make her feel safe.
“Is this what it was like before?” Niki asks, wringing out the washcloth. “When we were little?”
“No,” Jessica says, and her voice is flat, but without any accusation, and she lets Niki dab antibiotic ointment against her ragged knuckles and apply sticky, curling band-aids, even when they both know the cuts won’t last much longer than it takes to cover them. “You didn’t know what to do back then, you didn’t understand,” Jessica tells her.
“I know what to do now,” Niki tells her, sliding into her sister’s lap, wrapping her legs around Jessica’s waist, curling her arms under Jessica’s shoulders and resting her head on Jessica’s bare shoulder, nestling into the space Jessica likes between her chin and neck. Niki is careful of her sister’s body, her bruises, and she feels Jessica wince as she moves into her, but Niki doesn’t back away. She knows that Jessica likes this closeness, needs this intimacy. Niki understands that. She thinks that this is what home feels like, and wishes it didn’t have to be so fleeting, wishes Jessica’s time wasn’t counting down and it could be like this every day, every night, all the time.
“You stopped him,” Niki says, thinking about the casino, the close call, the groping hands and the sharp bluntness of the slot machine sticking in her back as she had been pushed into it, the smell of hot, alcohol breath that filled her nose.
“You’ll always save me, won’t you?” Niki asks her, knowing the answer, these words familiar between them, the unspoken things beneath what they’re able to say to one another.
“Somebody has to protect you,” Jessica tells her, rubbing her face into Niki’s hair. “I’ll always protect you,” she adds, and Niki knows the truth in the words. There will always be casinos, and men, and bruises. And Jessica. And Jessica.
Niki kisses her sister, and her sister lets her.
***********************
23
Jessica is going to make her choose. Niki knows this as sure as she knows the sky is blue. She thought things would get better after Micah was born, but Jessica has only become more pressing, more territorial since then. Niki doesn’t want to choose. Jessica says this is because Niki wants to have her cake and eat it too, but Niki doesn’t like cake. Niki likes having someone who sleeps next to her all night long, and is still next to her when she wakes up in the morning. And D.L. is strong, strong enough to protect her. And she needs protecting. Niki isn’t such of much, but she’s sure of that. Niki thinks this is what Jessica hates about him most of all.
“He’s a carpenter,” Jessica spits at her, the word like venom, like bad medicine in her mouth. “We can do so much better!” Niki is angry at this but bites her tongue. Jessica’s idea of “we” has never been a picnic. Jessica doesn’t concern herself with the details, details Niki has learned to get good at. Apartment listings. Roach spray around the baseboards. Learning by error how many seconds to nuke the baby’s formula. Keeping on her feet for 8 hours serving watered down drinks to men who gamble too much. Picking out which bills to pay this month and which can be juggled until next. Jessica likes to swoop in, likes to save the day, but never sticks around to see how the damsel does when she’s not in distress. If she gets lonely, if she struggles with her self esteem or hides vodka bottles between the clean towels in the bathroom cupboard. If she ever feels weak because she never saves herself.
D.L. sticks around.
“Sticks around for what?” Jessica yells at her, Niki cringing, not wanting her to wake the baby. Jessica is angry, angrier than she’s been in a long time. “The baby”? Jessica yells at her. “You mean our baby. Micah is mine just as much as he is yours and don’t you for one second forget it. I carried him, just like you. I grew him, just like you, hell for all you know he’s not even yours. We’ve got two sets of eggs in this body, you and me. And for that matter, maybe he’s not D.L.’s either. You don’t know what I do when you’re hiding yourself away, letting big sister save the day. You don’t know where I go, who I fuck. You and D.L. might just be nothing but glorified babysitters.”
Jessica is screeching now and Niki blanches at her words, at the implications behind them. D.L. would kill her if he even suspected that Micah wasn’t his. D.L. loves that little boy. And Jessica is out of control. Niki’s hands shake as she stacks dishes in the sink, willing herself to wait this out, reminding herself that Jessica is on a clock, counting down, counting down and she’ll be gone for now.
Jessica must see how she has scared her. She steps toward her, stops when Niki flinches, her eyes welling with tears. Jessica takes her hand and her voice is quieter when she speaks. Not kinder, but quieter.
“You think this is what you want right now,” Jessica tells her, “but it won’t always be like this. Sooner or later he’s gonna beat you, sooner or later he’s gonna fuck you, sooner or later he’s gonna use up everything he can and walk out, just like they always do. And then where will you be. You and Micah, do you want to put him through that? Do you want Micah go through what you did, with Hal? I would never lie to you Niki,” Jessica tells her, “and you know I’m always right. We don’t need him. We’re enough on our own. He doesn’t understand about us, he never will. We’re a family, the three of us, you and me and Micah. A family can’t have two heads, Niki, and D.L. can’t take care of you the way I can.”
Niki sighs. She lets herself be drawn into Jessica’s arms, lets Jessica tangle her fingers in her hair, and Jessica is hungry, kissing her neck, kissing her face, kissing, kissing, not noticing that Niki’s arms are limp at her side, her jaw slack as Jessica moves against her, devouring her and a thought forms in Niki’s head, one thought, and she says it to herself over and over and wants to stop, wants to stop the thought before she says it out loud, before Jessica hears and Jessica knows and Jessica punishes her like she should have been punished all these years because she’s weak and it should have been her to begin with and she’s ungrateful and bad and she feels her body start to heave with sobs and her vision blurs and the words are coming and she can’t stop them and Jessica is holding her and fucking her and telling her yes, yes we’re a family, yes I’ll take care of you and all Niki knows is “I choose him. I choose him, oh god I choose him, I choose him, I choose him,” and Jessica pulls away and grabs her arms hard and looks at her, hard but she can’t stop saying the words and Niki feels the snot running down her face and her body falling in on herself and Jessica’s hands digging into her arms, tightening, tightening and the world is getting dark and she’s afraid of what she’s done and what will happen and her eyelids are closing and she’s falling, sleeping...
Niki wakes up alone. She gets up, combs her fingers through her hair, can’t help but glance at the mirror. Nothing. She sighs. The baby needs to come up from his nap, and D.L. will be home soon.
********************************
30
There are no mirrors where Niki is, no windows, but Jessica is here anyway. Niki wonders how she got here, and thinks maybe it’s like a fairy tale, and she’s cried a puddle of tears to make a reflection for Jessica to come through. Jessica just tells her to get up, get herself together. Jessica is here, and she’s doing what has to be done, like always, like no time has passed at all, but Niki knows better. Jessica is different than she used to be. Harder. Angrier. But seven years is a long time, Niki thinks, long enough to test a person to see what they’re really made of, the webcam in the garage forming a clear picture in her mind. Niki shakes her head to clear away the image. She doesn’t want to think about the webcam. She doesn’t want to think about anything, especially that’s she’s 30 years old, and in jail for murder, and D.L. and Micah are gone, and Jessica was right, she was right all along.
Jessica will kill D.L. Niki isn’t sure of much, but she’s sure of that.
Niki is the one who fucked everything up, but D.L. is the one who will pay. He’ll pay for stealing her child, their child, but really he’ll pay for stealing seven years, a crime he doesn’t even understand he’s committed. Niki isn’t sure if she wants D.L. to die, but she knows she wants him to pay, too. If D.L. pays, maybe she won’t have to keep paying so much. Jessica will get them out of jail, and Jessica won’t care that she’s stupid and worthless and fucks up everything she touches including Jessica. Jessica will be happy just to have her back, to let her be weak Niki again, stupid Niki who gets herself into jams and needs Jessica to save the day. Niki who needs to be protected.
Niki wants to be that Niki again. She understands what Jessica’s been protecting her from all these years, and she doesn’t want her own bruises anymore. Niki closes her eyes. Jessica is standing up, screaming at the bars, and the guards are coming, and Niki knows that Jessica will take care of everything, will do what has to be done. She feels the world tilting, feels her eyelids growing heavy, sleep coming, and she is glad. She wants to sleep through the ugly parts. She's scared, but she knows she'll be okay. Jessica is here, and Jessica will take care of her, and she belongs to Jessica and Jessica belongs to her and when she wakes Micah will be with her again, and she will kiss Jessica and tell her yes, yes she was so lost without her...
*********************
Pairing: Niki/Jessica
Title: Multiplicity, or: Five Kisses in the Life of Niki Sanders
Author: Julie
Disclaimer: Incest. Don’t own the characters or show.
Notes: Assumes Jessica has moments of being corporeal, just before and after the transitions, sometimes, as in 1.11 in the woods. Had to wank a little with the transitions, as we’re still in the dark about the mechanics of their power.
*********************************
11
Jessica says, “don't cry Niki, I'll take care of him. He won't hurt you.” Niki knows enough to believe her, but isn't exactly sure what she's being protected from. Niki knows it must be bad, but can't decide what's worse, whatever she's being protected from, or that Jessica came all the way back from the cold hard ground to take care of it. People aren't supposed to come back from the ground like that. Niki isn't sure of much, but she's sure of that. She doesn't say that to Jessica, though. She doesn't want to make her mad, mostly because she knows she isn't strong like Jessica, and needs her protection. But a little bit because she's scared of her, too. Jessica would never hurt her, though. She said so, and Jessica always does what she says. Niki wishes she could be more like that, but Jessica likes her just the way she is. Jessica told her so. Jessica says that Niki doesn't have to be strong, and tells her that she'll take care of her.
“He's coming,” Jessica says suddenly with a sharpness to her voice. Niki can't help but feel scared, can't help but see the change in Jessica as the footsteps get closer to the bedroom, where they’re hiding. Niki tries to imagine what's coming on the other side of the door, but scares herself too much to form any real ideas. Jessica laughs at her, but kisses her forehead. “Close your eyes tight now,” Jessica tells her, eyeing the door with a new urgency. “Just go to sleep. It will all be just fine when you wake up.”
Niki closes her eyes. She wants to sleep through the whole thing. She's scared, but she knows she'll be okay. Jessica promised, and Jessica always keeps her promises. She feels the world going dark, Jessica's kiss still tingling on her forehead.
**********************
14
Andy’s room has too many windows. Niki tries to close the shades, but Andy laughs, tells her nobody can see inside and besides, his parents don’t get home for two hours. Niki looks at the windows, and tries not to think about Jessica finding her here.
Jessica doesn’t like boys.
She’s warned her about them, warned her hundreds of times. Jessica’s boys have big sweating hands and hot breath and pushy bodies, but Andy isn’t any kind of boy like that. Andy smells like fabric softener and gum, and has cute hair that flops in his face. Niki doesn’t know a lot about boys, but she likes that Andy talks to her, and how cute he looks when he snaps his neck to flip his hair up out of his eyes. Andy makes Niki wonder if maybe Jessica isn't always right about everything, but just as fast she pushes that thought out of her head. Jessica wouldn't like it if she knew Niki sometimes thought those things. And Niki doesn't want to make Jessica mad. Still, Andy's letterman jacket feels good hanging loose on her thin frame, warm and heavy like arms, and Niki wants to have her first kiss. All the girls in her gym class have had theirs, and Niki wants to be like them, wants them to pay attention to her. Jessica says those girls are stupid and so is fitting in, but Jessica isn't the one who has to be in school with them every day, either.
Niki looks at Andy and wonders if she’s supposed to do something first, wishing that Jessica would tell her about things like this, instead. She scoots closer to him, slides her hand into his. He looks at her, surprise on his face, and then leans toward her, closing his eyes. She leans a little bit too. She knows this is the moment and tilts her head, and his breath is on her face and she closes her eyes but too late, too late to have missed the glimpse of movement in Andy’s mirror across the room and she shuts her eyes tight thinking leave me alone, leave me alone and let me just have this and Andy’s lips are soft bumps against her mouth and she want to be here, to feel it but her eyes are heavy, closing again and the world tilts more and grows dark, and she is falling, sleeping...
...and she is back in her own room, and its her own bed she's lying in, Jessica's lips on her lips, Jessica's forehead against her forehead, and it feels so good that she barely stops to wonder what Jessica did to Andy, or if tomorrow he's going to turn into one of those people who think she's weird and ignores her at school, or if she should feel bad about liking this because this isn’t how sisters are supposed to kiss each other.
Niki isn’t sure of much, but she’s sure of that.
The kiss ends. Niki looks up at her sister. “He said he liked me, 4-ever,” she says, because she doesn’t know what else to say, willing Jessica to understand, not to be mad not to kiss her like that again and never to stop kissing her like that again.
“I love you forever, Jessica shoots back. I do. Boys don't mean forever in the same way. He can't take care of you like I do. Like I always have.”
“He takes care of me FINE,” Niki tells her, not knowing where her angry voice is coming from but wishing Jessica would (kiss her) stop shouting at her. “He carries my tray at lunch and he keeps the football boys from picking on me and he calls me and writes me notes and he gave me his jacket to wear so everybody will know that he likes me. You've never given me your jacket,” Niki says, wondering where the words are coming from, why she misses Jessica’s lips against hers when she never even kissed anyone before today.
“I've given you everything, Jessica says, softly.”
*************************
19
Jessica looks beautiful with a beaten face. Niki shakes her head quickly, to shake that thought away. It’s Niki’s fault Jessica has a black eye, busted lip, bruises blooming across her skinny ribs. Jessica was right this time, just like every time, and Niki doesn’t even mind so much how Jessica is scolding her, saying her told you so’s and if only you would listen’s. Niki knows the bruises won’t last long, and she just wants to look and look as long as she can.
“Stay still,” Niki tells her, and for once, Jessica does. She holds still, and tilts her head into Niki’s palm and lets Niki wash her face, fan light fingers over her, tell her that she’s strong and brave and yes, yes Niki would be lost without her. Niki tells her, “I love you Jessica,” and means it. She watches the way Jessica’s eyes close at those words, Jessica’s breath catches and Niki doesn’t say different when Jessica huffs and acts impatient to hide the emotion Niki’s touch evokes.
Niki wishes this wasn’t the only time Jessica would let Niki take care of her. Niki doesn’t know much, but she knows Jessica, and she knows how Jessica needs this care, even if she never does admit it. Niki doesn’t mind. Jessica’s wearing her bruises. She may not have put them there with her own fists, but they belong to her just the same.
Jessica’s bruises make her feel safe.
“Is this what it was like before?” Niki asks, wringing out the washcloth. “When we were little?”
“No,” Jessica says, and her voice is flat, but without any accusation, and she lets Niki dab antibiotic ointment against her ragged knuckles and apply sticky, curling band-aids, even when they both know the cuts won’t last much longer than it takes to cover them. “You didn’t know what to do back then, you didn’t understand,” Jessica tells her.
“I know what to do now,” Niki tells her, sliding into her sister’s lap, wrapping her legs around Jessica’s waist, curling her arms under Jessica’s shoulders and resting her head on Jessica’s bare shoulder, nestling into the space Jessica likes between her chin and neck. Niki is careful of her sister’s body, her bruises, and she feels Jessica wince as she moves into her, but Niki doesn’t back away. She knows that Jessica likes this closeness, needs this intimacy. Niki understands that. She thinks that this is what home feels like, and wishes it didn’t have to be so fleeting, wishes Jessica’s time wasn’t counting down and it could be like this every day, every night, all the time.
“You stopped him,” Niki says, thinking about the casino, the close call, the groping hands and the sharp bluntness of the slot machine sticking in her back as she had been pushed into it, the smell of hot, alcohol breath that filled her nose.
“You’ll always save me, won’t you?” Niki asks her, knowing the answer, these words familiar between them, the unspoken things beneath what they’re able to say to one another.
“Somebody has to protect you,” Jessica tells her, rubbing her face into Niki’s hair. “I’ll always protect you,” she adds, and Niki knows the truth in the words. There will always be casinos, and men, and bruises. And Jessica. And Jessica.
Niki kisses her sister, and her sister lets her.
***********************
23
Jessica is going to make her choose. Niki knows this as sure as she knows the sky is blue. She thought things would get better after Micah was born, but Jessica has only become more pressing, more territorial since then. Niki doesn’t want to choose. Jessica says this is because Niki wants to have her cake and eat it too, but Niki doesn’t like cake. Niki likes having someone who sleeps next to her all night long, and is still next to her when she wakes up in the morning. And D.L. is strong, strong enough to protect her. And she needs protecting. Niki isn’t such of much, but she’s sure of that. Niki thinks this is what Jessica hates about him most of all.
“He’s a carpenter,” Jessica spits at her, the word like venom, like bad medicine in her mouth. “We can do so much better!” Niki is angry at this but bites her tongue. Jessica’s idea of “we” has never been a picnic. Jessica doesn’t concern herself with the details, details Niki has learned to get good at. Apartment listings. Roach spray around the baseboards. Learning by error how many seconds to nuke the baby’s formula. Keeping on her feet for 8 hours serving watered down drinks to men who gamble too much. Picking out which bills to pay this month and which can be juggled until next. Jessica likes to swoop in, likes to save the day, but never sticks around to see how the damsel does when she’s not in distress. If she gets lonely, if she struggles with her self esteem or hides vodka bottles between the clean towels in the bathroom cupboard. If she ever feels weak because she never saves herself.
D.L. sticks around.
“Sticks around for what?” Jessica yells at her, Niki cringing, not wanting her to wake the baby. Jessica is angry, angrier than she’s been in a long time. “The baby”? Jessica yells at her. “You mean our baby. Micah is mine just as much as he is yours and don’t you for one second forget it. I carried him, just like you. I grew him, just like you, hell for all you know he’s not even yours. We’ve got two sets of eggs in this body, you and me. And for that matter, maybe he’s not D.L.’s either. You don’t know what I do when you’re hiding yourself away, letting big sister save the day. You don’t know where I go, who I fuck. You and D.L. might just be nothing but glorified babysitters.”
Jessica is screeching now and Niki blanches at her words, at the implications behind them. D.L. would kill her if he even suspected that Micah wasn’t his. D.L. loves that little boy. And Jessica is out of control. Niki’s hands shake as she stacks dishes in the sink, willing herself to wait this out, reminding herself that Jessica is on a clock, counting down, counting down and she’ll be gone for now.
Jessica must see how she has scared her. She steps toward her, stops when Niki flinches, her eyes welling with tears. Jessica takes her hand and her voice is quieter when she speaks. Not kinder, but quieter.
“You think this is what you want right now,” Jessica tells her, “but it won’t always be like this. Sooner or later he’s gonna beat you, sooner or later he’s gonna fuck you, sooner or later he’s gonna use up everything he can and walk out, just like they always do. And then where will you be. You and Micah, do you want to put him through that? Do you want Micah go through what you did, with Hal? I would never lie to you Niki,” Jessica tells her, “and you know I’m always right. We don’t need him. We’re enough on our own. He doesn’t understand about us, he never will. We’re a family, the three of us, you and me and Micah. A family can’t have two heads, Niki, and D.L. can’t take care of you the way I can.”
Niki sighs. She lets herself be drawn into Jessica’s arms, lets Jessica tangle her fingers in her hair, and Jessica is hungry, kissing her neck, kissing her face, kissing, kissing, not noticing that Niki’s arms are limp at her side, her jaw slack as Jessica moves against her, devouring her and a thought forms in Niki’s head, one thought, and she says it to herself over and over and wants to stop, wants to stop the thought before she says it out loud, before Jessica hears and Jessica knows and Jessica punishes her like she should have been punished all these years because she’s weak and it should have been her to begin with and she’s ungrateful and bad and she feels her body start to heave with sobs and her vision blurs and the words are coming and she can’t stop them and Jessica is holding her and fucking her and telling her yes, yes we’re a family, yes I’ll take care of you and all Niki knows is “I choose him. I choose him, oh god I choose him, I choose him, I choose him,” and Jessica pulls away and grabs her arms hard and looks at her, hard but she can’t stop saying the words and Niki feels the snot running down her face and her body falling in on herself and Jessica’s hands digging into her arms, tightening, tightening and the world is getting dark and she’s afraid of what she’s done and what will happen and her eyelids are closing and she’s falling, sleeping...
Niki wakes up alone. She gets up, combs her fingers through her hair, can’t help but glance at the mirror. Nothing. She sighs. The baby needs to come up from his nap, and D.L. will be home soon.
********************************
30
There are no mirrors where Niki is, no windows, but Jessica is here anyway. Niki wonders how she got here, and thinks maybe it’s like a fairy tale, and she’s cried a puddle of tears to make a reflection for Jessica to come through. Jessica just tells her to get up, get herself together. Jessica is here, and she’s doing what has to be done, like always, like no time has passed at all, but Niki knows better. Jessica is different than she used to be. Harder. Angrier. But seven years is a long time, Niki thinks, long enough to test a person to see what they’re really made of, the webcam in the garage forming a clear picture in her mind. Niki shakes her head to clear away the image. She doesn’t want to think about the webcam. She doesn’t want to think about anything, especially that’s she’s 30 years old, and in jail for murder, and D.L. and Micah are gone, and Jessica was right, she was right all along.
Jessica will kill D.L. Niki isn’t sure of much, but she’s sure of that.
Niki is the one who fucked everything up, but D.L. is the one who will pay. He’ll pay for stealing her child, their child, but really he’ll pay for stealing seven years, a crime he doesn’t even understand he’s committed. Niki isn’t sure if she wants D.L. to die, but she knows she wants him to pay, too. If D.L. pays, maybe she won’t have to keep paying so much. Jessica will get them out of jail, and Jessica won’t care that she’s stupid and worthless and fucks up everything she touches including Jessica. Jessica will be happy just to have her back, to let her be weak Niki again, stupid Niki who gets herself into jams and needs Jessica to save the day. Niki who needs to be protected.
Niki wants to be that Niki again. She understands what Jessica’s been protecting her from all these years, and she doesn’t want her own bruises anymore. Niki closes her eyes. Jessica is standing up, screaming at the bars, and the guards are coming, and Niki knows that Jessica will take care of everything, will do what has to be done. She feels the world tilting, feels her eyelids growing heavy, sleep coming, and she is glad. She wants to sleep through the ugly parts. She's scared, but she knows she'll be okay. Jessica is here, and Jessica will take care of her, and she belongs to Jessica and Jessica belongs to her and when she wakes Micah will be with her again, and she will kiss Jessica and tell her yes, yes she was so lost without her...
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