FIC: Inevitable (The Bold & The Beautiful, Taylor/Brooke)
Title: Inevitable
By: parisintherainx
Fandom: The Bold & the Beautiful
Pairing: Taylor/Brooke
Rating: PG:ish
Word count: ~3800
Spoilers: Probably, although damned if I even know what season this is.
Warnings: Since I don’t follow B&B with any particular dedication, I hope I’ll be forgiven if I accidentally mess up a canon detail or two. I haven’t really tried for any real continuity with the episodes that this is set around, either, so there’s probably no point in looking for such.
Notes: Thanks to the wonderful redscribe for taking a quick look before posting!
Disclaimer: I don’t own B&B or any associated characters or situations, no copyright infringement intended.
*
Everything Taylor ever loved belonged to Brooke first, and in the end, everything Taylor ever loved keeps gravitating back to Brooke. First Ridge, Taylor’s husband for more years than she wants to count, the father of her children, the man she always thought was her soul mate, her life partner, the man she’d spend the rest of her life with. Now, when he has long since left her and is getting married to Brooke again, Taylor cannot see how she could possibly delude herself into thinking so. He was Brooke’s first, he will always be Brooke’s and he always was, even through the years when he was married to Taylor. Theirs is the love story of the tabloids, and out in the country people cheer at the news - as if it would work out between them this time, as if Brooke’s marriages ever work out.
And now Nick did, too. Nick, whom Taylor fell in love with on the same jaded premise, knowing fully well Brooke had him first and thinking, the way she does, that maybe it won’t matter, that it can work out anyway, that they can work it out and that she won’t mind too much if the thinks of Brooke occasionally, that it is unrealistic to expect that a man’s heart can belong fully to one person, anyway. That is the way Taylor is: She tries. As a psychiatrist she has counselled countless couples on the subject, as a psychiatrist she knows everything in life and love takes work, that a marriage can never be only in sunshine and health, for richer and never for poorer. But that is what one does: one tries. One doesn’t give up, one doesn’t go off running after some other man, pursuing momentary passions on the premise that it will better with someone else, that the grass is infinitely greener on the other side of a fence one never quite reaches.
That is what Taylor cannot quite get about Brooke: The way she never stops believing. The way she can, every single damned time, stand there and look them all in the eye with complete honesty and say that this… This is the one, this is the one man she has waited her whole life to meet, that this is why it never worked out in the past, because it was never quite right previously, but this time… This time, this time like all the other times justifying wrecked homes and broken marriages left once again in Brooke’s wake, it will all be worth it. Yet when the dust settles it always turns out that Brooke isn’t happy after all, always turns out that her gaze again wanders to those far off horizons, to men she absolutely cannot have but somehow always manages to have anyway, no matter the pain she causes in everyone involved.
What the hell is wrong with you, Brooke?! Taylor has shouted the question at her, shouted it and whispered it in despair, Taylor and many others through the years. Why can you never be happy? Why can you never just settle for one man and be happy and leave everybody else’s husbands damn well alone?
Yes, they’ve asked, Taylor has tried desperately to understand because it just doesn’t make sense, but they’ve never received a satisfactory answer, none of them. And the answer Taylor thinks about occasionally, the answer that sometimes eat its way through her stomach, she has never suggested to anyone, least of all to Brooke herself: Maybe because a man is not what you want.
Hell, if she ever suggested it, people would laugh. Brooke? Brooke Logan? Don’t be ridiculous! Do you know how many men she’s been with? Too many to count! Yes, exactly, Taylor wants to say.
But homosexuality is just a word in one of Taylor’s textbooks, applicable only to shadowy existences far beyond their own sphere, existences to be pitied, perhaps, but best avoided. It doesn’t happen here, could not possibly happen to any of them, because they’re not, could never be, like that.
*
So there Taylor is, sitting on her couch in her empty house, drinking her one glass of wine (or perhaps it is her second or third, but the bottle is not quite empty yet so it is not quite a problem, yet). Nick has left and that is for the best, really, because no matter what she told herself in the end she could not stand it, could not stand the jealousy and bitterness and every time she looked at him thinking that perhaps he, too, would rather be with Brooke than with her. So she’s ended their marriage herself rather than waiting until he does it for her, and it would all be well and good, if it wasn’t for little Jack. Little Jack, sleeping peacefully in his cot now, Taylor’s heart twisting when she looks at him, knowing that by ending her relationship with Nick, she has also ended any certainty of getting to be a mother to him. Knowing that if Nick indeed goes back to Brooke (if Brooke once again breaks off her relationship with Ridge), they will make sure little Jack becomes exactly what Taylor has feared all along he would be, no matter what Nick kept insisting: Brooke’s child, not hers.
Not hers, even though she has carried him in her womb for nine months, even though he came into this life through her body and looked into her eyes when he took to her breast for his first meal. Not hers, because the eggs planted in her were not hers like they were supposed to be, not hers, because those eggs were Brooke’s and this child that was supposed to be some sort of symbol for the relationship between herself and Nick, of new beginnings and possible futures, has turned out the opposite: Nick’s child with Brooke, a reminder of a past that they will never escape from, that they will always have to live with now.
And she hated it, when she found out. She was sick with the feeling in her stomach for days, it drove her crazy, that such a thing could happen, that her enemy could penetrate so deeply into her own body, that it was Brooke’s child she’d carried. For a long time, when she looked at Jack all she could see was Brooke in him, in her, in all of them, inescapable like Brooke has always been inescapable, unavoidable like some freakish force of nature having its way with all of them, not caring for the consequences. Taylor hates Brooke, hates her so much she wants to be sick with it to get it out but it never quite gets out - not long ago, in a dizzy memory, she shouted at Brooke to leave Nick alone until the panic became too much for her and she started hyperventilating and her head started spinning and her knees gave in, and the gentle touch of Brooke’s hands and the worried tone of Brooke’s voice right before Taylor fainted was almost the most unbearable sensation of them all.
Yet, this she has learned to live with like she has learned to live with everything else, and now, now that Taylor has come to love little Jack, when she has come to be his mother, when she has come to want more than anything to be his mother, Brooke will take him, too, away from her. Make him once again her child, hers and Nick’s, cement of a relationship Taylor has nothing to do with. Disregard how Taylor has carried him, held him when he cried, fed him and nursed him and loved him, disregard how she has come to believe what Nick told her again and again, that he is her child, Taylor’s, that she is his mother in every way that matters. Because apparently, that is not the way of it after all; apparently, the single, final thing that counts in the end is that those eggs were Brooke’s, not Taylor’s.
The wine doesn’t comfort her, doesn’t numb her, like it once did; now it is just another enemy she is surrendering too, knowing all too well she shouldn’t. She looks at little Jack and rubs at her forehead with her palm, gets dizzy with the despair of knowing that Brooke will win this, too, in the end, just like she has won every damn battle Taylor has ever fought with her, has taken from her everything she ever cared about. It is just not fair. Taylor has been a good mother and a good wife, she has been faithful and true to every man she has ever been involved with, no matter how hard it has been she has kept trying, to make the marriage work, to hold the family together; she has done everything right in her life or as close as she possibly could, and everyone has respected her for it - even Stephanie - and yet, much good it ever did her in the end, because in the end, Brooke always wins anyway, because apparently the rules of life, love and even plain decency just fail to apply to her.
And yet, Brooke would claim herself to be little Jack’s mother, as if the pure biology of the case would make her more fit to be so than Taylor. The idea is ridiculous: Brooke Logan, scandal-queen and seductress and home-breaker, the woman who has made more headlines than everyone else with the company combined. Brooke, who has posed semi-naked in front of the entire nation, insisting on promoting that terrible line of lingerie of hers by herself, when there were thousands of models who could have done it for her. Brooke, who always insists that no matter everything else she is a good mother to her children, then sleeps with her daughter’s husbands, not only one of them but two, first Deacon and then Nick, and Bridget, poor girl, that second time giving up just like Taylor gave up and saying that Brooke could have him, leaving her husband because she knew fully well that she could not compete with Brooke, she as little as anyone else - and of course it turned out that once Brooke could have Nick, she did not want him either… Brooke, who seems to know no other rule than the strange passions she always lets seize her when they come upon her, following with only a mimicry of protest to whatever catastrophe they lead to, then innocently protesting with large tear-filled eyes that she cannot help it, cannot help the way she feels.
Cannot help the way she feels. Well, that is just bullshit, as far as Taylor is concerned. It is not like Taylor herself has never looked twice at another man during her own marriages - there was Hector, for example - but she has never done anything, because that is how it is and what Brooke never seems to get, that one does not have to follow every whim of one’s stupid, confused heart. Taylor has felt passion too, of course she has, she like everyone else, but she has never let it consume her, has always done her best to quench the flames instead of encouraging them to grow into a reckless, all-consuming fire; she has clenched her teeth and made it work.
Or maybe she hasn’t, felt that sort of passion, that is. Somehow, that thought is all the more depressing, and Taylor drinks deeply from her glass of wine. Maybe she hasn’t, maybe her life has been just as pitiful and small and pointless as she has always suspected, maybe for all that she always tried she tried for nothing in the end, because one single mistake and she fell from the pedestal, was no longer the perfect mother and wife after all, the one single mistake shattering all those longs years of maintained perfection like glass. What does she have left now, an empty house and another broken marriage, a bottle of wine and a child that is not quite hers, Brooke’s laughter in her ears?
Surely, if she had ever felt the way Brooke always seems to feel, it would have been just as unstoppable, just as dangerous, not that easy to turn away and quench. Taylor pours herself more wine and wonders - not for the first time - what it feels like, to be like that, a woman of grand passions and scandals, caring for nothing and no one but the will of her heart. Whether Brooke, in the end, feels better about herself than Taylor does.
And then the doorbell rings. Taylor swears over it silently because that is what life is always like here, never a moment’s peace, friends and enemies and relations all ringing at each other’s doorbells at every opportunity, and when she gets up on her feet to answer it, she is surprised that her head is spinning and her walk not quite steady because after all she only had two or maybe three glasses of wine and there is still almost a centimetre left in the bottom of the green bottle. When she opens the door and it is Brooke, Taylor cannot even muster the energy to be surprised.
Whatever Brooke has been meaning to say falls away when she catches sight of Taylor, the look of forced pleasantry giving way to a disapproving frown, Brooke’s eyes narrowing in scrutiny.
“Have… have you been drinking, Taylor?”
“No”, Taylor lies instinctively, and then, because Brooke can tell anyway and the first symptom is denial; “Yes. A little.”
Brooke breathes out, a condemnation she out of all people should have no right to dish out, and when she speaks, the sharp undertone is there for all that she tries to hide it under false concern:
“Nick told me that you’ve been having some problems.”
Nick told me. “So you’ve been seeing him?” Taylor retorts sharply, the rage in her igniting with the alcohol swirling in her blood: Nick has been seeing her, already, and his side of their bed upstairs has barely gone cold yet.
“It is not like that!” Brooke defends herself tiredly for all that her cheeks flush a little, and, after a moment: “Can I come in?”
Taylor sighs, steps out of the way, gestures towards her living room because it is meaningless to protest, isn’t it? And besides, she has yet to begin disregarding the basic premises of social life. She has yet to fall that low, at least.
Brooke walks in and past her, and Taylor can see her taking in the almost-empty wine-bottle, the stained glass on the table next to it, little Jack sleeping in his cot; can see her pursing her lips in disapproval.
“So what do you want?” Taylor demands before Brooke can make any comment of it, because attack is the best defence after all, and closes the door with more force than she intended.
Brooke turns around, looks at her.
“I just wanted to talk”, she says, her voice the very picture of calm and agreeableness, a frown sitting on her brow. “I am just concerned- Both Nick and I are concerned-”
“Well, I’m fine”, Taylor lies, even though she knows perfectly well that neither Nick’s nor Brooke’s concern is for her, and the way Brooke’s eyes wander over to little Jack in his cot bears this out.
“Are you sure?” Brooke asks, as if seeing the lie, looking back at Taylor, looking back at the wine-bottle and the glass. “You told Nick that you’ve started drinking again. You even admitted yourself that you need help!”
“So you’ve been getting together to gossip about me?” Taylor says between clenched teeth, walking over to the middle of the room where Brooke is standing as if she owned the house, and crosses her arms over her chest as if it could protect her, as if the force of hers arms alone could keep the pain in: She told Nick and Nick told Brooke; the betrayal claws in her. Never trust a man again. Never, ever, she tells herself, needlessly. “Are you going to get together with him now, Brooke?” she asks, bitterly. “Are you going to leave Ridge again?”
“No!” Brooke protests, with just a little more force than needed. “Don’t be ridiculous! I love Ridge! Nick and I are just good friends, he came to me because he was worried, he needed someone to talk to…”
But the faint flush of Brooke’s cheeks, the way her eyes wander of to the walls, cannot quite meet Taylor’s, tells Taylor that she is not quite speaking the truth.
Maybe it means that she could get together with Ridge again, Taylor thinks idly, sweeping down to sit in her couch because it is all making her dizzy: She doesn’t want Ridge, not now; it just makes her sick, all of it, the very instability of it, the way nothing ever lasts, the way their relationships keep spinning and changing and gyrating and there is no longer any stability left to hold on to, no certainty, no values, nothing: Even Eric and Stephanie, the heart and core of the family and the company and this entire universe for as long as Taylor can remember, getting divorced, Eric getting together with, out of all people, Brooke’s sister. The pattern is there, inescapable.
Taylor senses Brooke sitting down on the couch next to her, senses the change in the air when she cannot quite manage to breathe.
“We’re both worried about you, Taylor”, Brooke says softly, as if the soft tone of her voice could fool her. “We both know that you haven’t been feeling well lately, and we just think that… Maybe you would need some time to yourself.” Her voice is almost pleading. “Some time to just concentrate on getting better, without having to worry about little Jack…”
“So just because I have a glass of wine now and then I’m not fit to be his mother, is that what you’re saying?” Taylor asks, resentfully.
Brooke breathes out. “Well, let’s face it, Taylor”, she says, much less softly, “you do have a history of a problem-”
“The only problem I have is you”, Taylor says bitterly.
“Taylor…” That is all Brooke says, half pleadingly and half beratingly, and Taylor hates her for that, too, for taking the high road as she has been wont to do lately, hates her for being so cool and in control and just so damn untouchable; misses, suddenly, the screaming fights they used to have, misses how satisfactory it would be to just grab a tress of Brooke’s blonde hair and yank.
Maybe Brooke considers herself too old for those fights, now. And maybe Taylor is, too. What would that solve, after all; what did it ever solve?
“I don’t want to fight with you”, Taylor hears herself saying, as if her voice came from far away, resting her forehead in her hands, closing her eyes and seeing only darkness. “I am so sick and tired of fighting with you”, she says then, very slowly. She is, tired to the bone, because they have been fighting for so long and because no matter what she does Brooke wins in the end, doesn’t she?
“That’s… good, Taylor”, Brooke says, somewhat cautiously, yet the happiness, the hopefulness, creeps slowly into her words: “There is no reason we should fight. I mean, we both want what’s best for little Jack, don’t we?”
Little Jack has two mommies, Taylor thinks, absurdly, and laughs.
When she looks up, Brooke is regarding her strangely.
“Well, don’t we?” she says.
“I want to kiss you”, Taylor says.
There is a moment, and there is two, and the total shock and incomprehension on Brooke’s face is almost, almost worth it.
“What did you say?” Brooke demands after a moment.
Kiss you, Taylor thinks, but she doesn’t say it, only does it.
She leans forward and puts her hands of Brooke’s slender shoulders, feels the warmth of Brooke’s skin radiating onto her palms through the thin fabric of her blouse, and she closes her eyes and leans forwards and kisses Brooke on the lips, her heart racing suddenly, unexpectedly, at the sensation: Brooke’s lips are soft and warm and still half-open from the shock; Taylor breathes in the gasp that escapes her and kisses her again, tasting her expensive lip-stick and the scent of her designer perfume, tasting the promise of a strange, hot fire deep in the pit of her stomach.
Then she draws back, and looks at Brooke, her heart beating strangely in her chest. Well?
Brooke’s mouth opens and closes and she shakes her head, her eyes are very wide and radiate nothing but chock and horror and disgust at Taylor.
“I- You-” She swallows. “God!” Breathes out sharply, stares at Taylor as if she’s never seen her before. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Taylor? What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Taylor says nothing, only looks, and looks, and wants to say something but doesn’t know what, the very idea of the words she possibly could have said flee her in the face of Brooke’s outrage, mounting with every word she says:
“God! You need help!” Brooke is retreating now, as if suddenly remembering that she can do that, remembering that she can move, getting up on her feet now and recoiling towards the door with an almost unbelievable speed: “Nick said that you were unstable but I never thought- I… you’re crazy. You’re actually crazy.”
And with that, a last look of horror and outrage and disgust, Brooke opens the door and slams it shut and is gone.
Taylor breathes out, closing her eyes and fighting the lump in her chest, too big now for any words. Tries to feel as if she has somehow won this one, tries to find some sort of vindictive pleasure in the fact that at least she managed to throw Brooke off balance, managed to drive her away, leaving Taylor alone.
But it is hard to make it feel like a victory, especially when Brooke never mentions it again. Not even during the trial, not even when mentioning it could have been the final nail in Taylor’s coffin when Brooke is called in to testify just how unstable Taylor is, how unfit to care for a child. Not even then, because if you don’t speak of it, it might as well never have happened, and these things don’t happen here.
By: parisintherainx
Fandom: The Bold & the Beautiful
Pairing: Taylor/Brooke
Rating: PG:ish
Word count: ~3800
Spoilers: Probably, although damned if I even know what season this is.
Warnings: Since I don’t follow B&B with any particular dedication, I hope I’ll be forgiven if I accidentally mess up a canon detail or two. I haven’t really tried for any real continuity with the episodes that this is set around, either, so there’s probably no point in looking for such.
Notes: Thanks to the wonderful redscribe for taking a quick look before posting!
Disclaimer: I don’t own B&B or any associated characters or situations, no copyright infringement intended.
*
Everything Taylor ever loved belonged to Brooke first, and in the end, everything Taylor ever loved keeps gravitating back to Brooke. First Ridge, Taylor’s husband for more years than she wants to count, the father of her children, the man she always thought was her soul mate, her life partner, the man she’d spend the rest of her life with. Now, when he has long since left her and is getting married to Brooke again, Taylor cannot see how she could possibly delude herself into thinking so. He was Brooke’s first, he will always be Brooke’s and he always was, even through the years when he was married to Taylor. Theirs is the love story of the tabloids, and out in the country people cheer at the news - as if it would work out between them this time, as if Brooke’s marriages ever work out.
And now Nick did, too. Nick, whom Taylor fell in love with on the same jaded premise, knowing fully well Brooke had him first and thinking, the way she does, that maybe it won’t matter, that it can work out anyway, that they can work it out and that she won’t mind too much if the thinks of Brooke occasionally, that it is unrealistic to expect that a man’s heart can belong fully to one person, anyway. That is the way Taylor is: She tries. As a psychiatrist she has counselled countless couples on the subject, as a psychiatrist she knows everything in life and love takes work, that a marriage can never be only in sunshine and health, for richer and never for poorer. But that is what one does: one tries. One doesn’t give up, one doesn’t go off running after some other man, pursuing momentary passions on the premise that it will better with someone else, that the grass is infinitely greener on the other side of a fence one never quite reaches.
That is what Taylor cannot quite get about Brooke: The way she never stops believing. The way she can, every single damned time, stand there and look them all in the eye with complete honesty and say that this… This is the one, this is the one man she has waited her whole life to meet, that this is why it never worked out in the past, because it was never quite right previously, but this time… This time, this time like all the other times justifying wrecked homes and broken marriages left once again in Brooke’s wake, it will all be worth it. Yet when the dust settles it always turns out that Brooke isn’t happy after all, always turns out that her gaze again wanders to those far off horizons, to men she absolutely cannot have but somehow always manages to have anyway, no matter the pain she causes in everyone involved.
What the hell is wrong with you, Brooke?! Taylor has shouted the question at her, shouted it and whispered it in despair, Taylor and many others through the years. Why can you never be happy? Why can you never just settle for one man and be happy and leave everybody else’s husbands damn well alone?
Yes, they’ve asked, Taylor has tried desperately to understand because it just doesn’t make sense, but they’ve never received a satisfactory answer, none of them. And the answer Taylor thinks about occasionally, the answer that sometimes eat its way through her stomach, she has never suggested to anyone, least of all to Brooke herself: Maybe because a man is not what you want.
Hell, if she ever suggested it, people would laugh. Brooke? Brooke Logan? Don’t be ridiculous! Do you know how many men she’s been with? Too many to count! Yes, exactly, Taylor wants to say.
But homosexuality is just a word in one of Taylor’s textbooks, applicable only to shadowy existences far beyond their own sphere, existences to be pitied, perhaps, but best avoided. It doesn’t happen here, could not possibly happen to any of them, because they’re not, could never be, like that.
*
So there Taylor is, sitting on her couch in her empty house, drinking her one glass of wine (or perhaps it is her second or third, but the bottle is not quite empty yet so it is not quite a problem, yet). Nick has left and that is for the best, really, because no matter what she told herself in the end she could not stand it, could not stand the jealousy and bitterness and every time she looked at him thinking that perhaps he, too, would rather be with Brooke than with her. So she’s ended their marriage herself rather than waiting until he does it for her, and it would all be well and good, if it wasn’t for little Jack. Little Jack, sleeping peacefully in his cot now, Taylor’s heart twisting when she looks at him, knowing that by ending her relationship with Nick, she has also ended any certainty of getting to be a mother to him. Knowing that if Nick indeed goes back to Brooke (if Brooke once again breaks off her relationship with Ridge), they will make sure little Jack becomes exactly what Taylor has feared all along he would be, no matter what Nick kept insisting: Brooke’s child, not hers.
Not hers, even though she has carried him in her womb for nine months, even though he came into this life through her body and looked into her eyes when he took to her breast for his first meal. Not hers, because the eggs planted in her were not hers like they were supposed to be, not hers, because those eggs were Brooke’s and this child that was supposed to be some sort of symbol for the relationship between herself and Nick, of new beginnings and possible futures, has turned out the opposite: Nick’s child with Brooke, a reminder of a past that they will never escape from, that they will always have to live with now.
And she hated it, when she found out. She was sick with the feeling in her stomach for days, it drove her crazy, that such a thing could happen, that her enemy could penetrate so deeply into her own body, that it was Brooke’s child she’d carried. For a long time, when she looked at Jack all she could see was Brooke in him, in her, in all of them, inescapable like Brooke has always been inescapable, unavoidable like some freakish force of nature having its way with all of them, not caring for the consequences. Taylor hates Brooke, hates her so much she wants to be sick with it to get it out but it never quite gets out - not long ago, in a dizzy memory, she shouted at Brooke to leave Nick alone until the panic became too much for her and she started hyperventilating and her head started spinning and her knees gave in, and the gentle touch of Brooke’s hands and the worried tone of Brooke’s voice right before Taylor fainted was almost the most unbearable sensation of them all.
Yet, this she has learned to live with like she has learned to live with everything else, and now, now that Taylor has come to love little Jack, when she has come to be his mother, when she has come to want more than anything to be his mother, Brooke will take him, too, away from her. Make him once again her child, hers and Nick’s, cement of a relationship Taylor has nothing to do with. Disregard how Taylor has carried him, held him when he cried, fed him and nursed him and loved him, disregard how she has come to believe what Nick told her again and again, that he is her child, Taylor’s, that she is his mother in every way that matters. Because apparently, that is not the way of it after all; apparently, the single, final thing that counts in the end is that those eggs were Brooke’s, not Taylor’s.
The wine doesn’t comfort her, doesn’t numb her, like it once did; now it is just another enemy she is surrendering too, knowing all too well she shouldn’t. She looks at little Jack and rubs at her forehead with her palm, gets dizzy with the despair of knowing that Brooke will win this, too, in the end, just like she has won every damn battle Taylor has ever fought with her, has taken from her everything she ever cared about. It is just not fair. Taylor has been a good mother and a good wife, she has been faithful and true to every man she has ever been involved with, no matter how hard it has been she has kept trying, to make the marriage work, to hold the family together; she has done everything right in her life or as close as she possibly could, and everyone has respected her for it - even Stephanie - and yet, much good it ever did her in the end, because in the end, Brooke always wins anyway, because apparently the rules of life, love and even plain decency just fail to apply to her.
And yet, Brooke would claim herself to be little Jack’s mother, as if the pure biology of the case would make her more fit to be so than Taylor. The idea is ridiculous: Brooke Logan, scandal-queen and seductress and home-breaker, the woman who has made more headlines than everyone else with the company combined. Brooke, who has posed semi-naked in front of the entire nation, insisting on promoting that terrible line of lingerie of hers by herself, when there were thousands of models who could have done it for her. Brooke, who always insists that no matter everything else she is a good mother to her children, then sleeps with her daughter’s husbands, not only one of them but two, first Deacon and then Nick, and Bridget, poor girl, that second time giving up just like Taylor gave up and saying that Brooke could have him, leaving her husband because she knew fully well that she could not compete with Brooke, she as little as anyone else - and of course it turned out that once Brooke could have Nick, she did not want him either… Brooke, who seems to know no other rule than the strange passions she always lets seize her when they come upon her, following with only a mimicry of protest to whatever catastrophe they lead to, then innocently protesting with large tear-filled eyes that she cannot help it, cannot help the way she feels.
Cannot help the way she feels. Well, that is just bullshit, as far as Taylor is concerned. It is not like Taylor herself has never looked twice at another man during her own marriages - there was Hector, for example - but she has never done anything, because that is how it is and what Brooke never seems to get, that one does not have to follow every whim of one’s stupid, confused heart. Taylor has felt passion too, of course she has, she like everyone else, but she has never let it consume her, has always done her best to quench the flames instead of encouraging them to grow into a reckless, all-consuming fire; she has clenched her teeth and made it work.
Or maybe she hasn’t, felt that sort of passion, that is. Somehow, that thought is all the more depressing, and Taylor drinks deeply from her glass of wine. Maybe she hasn’t, maybe her life has been just as pitiful and small and pointless as she has always suspected, maybe for all that she always tried she tried for nothing in the end, because one single mistake and she fell from the pedestal, was no longer the perfect mother and wife after all, the one single mistake shattering all those longs years of maintained perfection like glass. What does she have left now, an empty house and another broken marriage, a bottle of wine and a child that is not quite hers, Brooke’s laughter in her ears?
Surely, if she had ever felt the way Brooke always seems to feel, it would have been just as unstoppable, just as dangerous, not that easy to turn away and quench. Taylor pours herself more wine and wonders - not for the first time - what it feels like, to be like that, a woman of grand passions and scandals, caring for nothing and no one but the will of her heart. Whether Brooke, in the end, feels better about herself than Taylor does.
And then the doorbell rings. Taylor swears over it silently because that is what life is always like here, never a moment’s peace, friends and enemies and relations all ringing at each other’s doorbells at every opportunity, and when she gets up on her feet to answer it, she is surprised that her head is spinning and her walk not quite steady because after all she only had two or maybe three glasses of wine and there is still almost a centimetre left in the bottom of the green bottle. When she opens the door and it is Brooke, Taylor cannot even muster the energy to be surprised.
Whatever Brooke has been meaning to say falls away when she catches sight of Taylor, the look of forced pleasantry giving way to a disapproving frown, Brooke’s eyes narrowing in scrutiny.
“Have… have you been drinking, Taylor?”
“No”, Taylor lies instinctively, and then, because Brooke can tell anyway and the first symptom is denial; “Yes. A little.”
Brooke breathes out, a condemnation she out of all people should have no right to dish out, and when she speaks, the sharp undertone is there for all that she tries to hide it under false concern:
“Nick told me that you’ve been having some problems.”
Nick told me. “So you’ve been seeing him?” Taylor retorts sharply, the rage in her igniting with the alcohol swirling in her blood: Nick has been seeing her, already, and his side of their bed upstairs has barely gone cold yet.
“It is not like that!” Brooke defends herself tiredly for all that her cheeks flush a little, and, after a moment: “Can I come in?”
Taylor sighs, steps out of the way, gestures towards her living room because it is meaningless to protest, isn’t it? And besides, she has yet to begin disregarding the basic premises of social life. She has yet to fall that low, at least.
Brooke walks in and past her, and Taylor can see her taking in the almost-empty wine-bottle, the stained glass on the table next to it, little Jack sleeping in his cot; can see her pursing her lips in disapproval.
“So what do you want?” Taylor demands before Brooke can make any comment of it, because attack is the best defence after all, and closes the door with more force than she intended.
Brooke turns around, looks at her.
“I just wanted to talk”, she says, her voice the very picture of calm and agreeableness, a frown sitting on her brow. “I am just concerned- Both Nick and I are concerned-”
“Well, I’m fine”, Taylor lies, even though she knows perfectly well that neither Nick’s nor Brooke’s concern is for her, and the way Brooke’s eyes wander over to little Jack in his cot bears this out.
“Are you sure?” Brooke asks, as if seeing the lie, looking back at Taylor, looking back at the wine-bottle and the glass. “You told Nick that you’ve started drinking again. You even admitted yourself that you need help!”
“So you’ve been getting together to gossip about me?” Taylor says between clenched teeth, walking over to the middle of the room where Brooke is standing as if she owned the house, and crosses her arms over her chest as if it could protect her, as if the force of hers arms alone could keep the pain in: She told Nick and Nick told Brooke; the betrayal claws in her. Never trust a man again. Never, ever, she tells herself, needlessly. “Are you going to get together with him now, Brooke?” she asks, bitterly. “Are you going to leave Ridge again?”
“No!” Brooke protests, with just a little more force than needed. “Don’t be ridiculous! I love Ridge! Nick and I are just good friends, he came to me because he was worried, he needed someone to talk to…”
But the faint flush of Brooke’s cheeks, the way her eyes wander of to the walls, cannot quite meet Taylor’s, tells Taylor that she is not quite speaking the truth.
Maybe it means that she could get together with Ridge again, Taylor thinks idly, sweeping down to sit in her couch because it is all making her dizzy: She doesn’t want Ridge, not now; it just makes her sick, all of it, the very instability of it, the way nothing ever lasts, the way their relationships keep spinning and changing and gyrating and there is no longer any stability left to hold on to, no certainty, no values, nothing: Even Eric and Stephanie, the heart and core of the family and the company and this entire universe for as long as Taylor can remember, getting divorced, Eric getting together with, out of all people, Brooke’s sister. The pattern is there, inescapable.
Taylor senses Brooke sitting down on the couch next to her, senses the change in the air when she cannot quite manage to breathe.
“We’re both worried about you, Taylor”, Brooke says softly, as if the soft tone of her voice could fool her. “We both know that you haven’t been feeling well lately, and we just think that… Maybe you would need some time to yourself.” Her voice is almost pleading. “Some time to just concentrate on getting better, without having to worry about little Jack…”
“So just because I have a glass of wine now and then I’m not fit to be his mother, is that what you’re saying?” Taylor asks, resentfully.
Brooke breathes out. “Well, let’s face it, Taylor”, she says, much less softly, “you do have a history of a problem-”
“The only problem I have is you”, Taylor says bitterly.
“Taylor…” That is all Brooke says, half pleadingly and half beratingly, and Taylor hates her for that, too, for taking the high road as she has been wont to do lately, hates her for being so cool and in control and just so damn untouchable; misses, suddenly, the screaming fights they used to have, misses how satisfactory it would be to just grab a tress of Brooke’s blonde hair and yank.
Maybe Brooke considers herself too old for those fights, now. And maybe Taylor is, too. What would that solve, after all; what did it ever solve?
“I don’t want to fight with you”, Taylor hears herself saying, as if her voice came from far away, resting her forehead in her hands, closing her eyes and seeing only darkness. “I am so sick and tired of fighting with you”, she says then, very slowly. She is, tired to the bone, because they have been fighting for so long and because no matter what she does Brooke wins in the end, doesn’t she?
“That’s… good, Taylor”, Brooke says, somewhat cautiously, yet the happiness, the hopefulness, creeps slowly into her words: “There is no reason we should fight. I mean, we both want what’s best for little Jack, don’t we?”
Little Jack has two mommies, Taylor thinks, absurdly, and laughs.
When she looks up, Brooke is regarding her strangely.
“Well, don’t we?” she says.
“I want to kiss you”, Taylor says.
There is a moment, and there is two, and the total shock and incomprehension on Brooke’s face is almost, almost worth it.
“What did you say?” Brooke demands after a moment.
Kiss you, Taylor thinks, but she doesn’t say it, only does it.
She leans forward and puts her hands of Brooke’s slender shoulders, feels the warmth of Brooke’s skin radiating onto her palms through the thin fabric of her blouse, and she closes her eyes and leans forwards and kisses Brooke on the lips, her heart racing suddenly, unexpectedly, at the sensation: Brooke’s lips are soft and warm and still half-open from the shock; Taylor breathes in the gasp that escapes her and kisses her again, tasting her expensive lip-stick and the scent of her designer perfume, tasting the promise of a strange, hot fire deep in the pit of her stomach.
Then she draws back, and looks at Brooke, her heart beating strangely in her chest. Well?
Brooke’s mouth opens and closes and she shakes her head, her eyes are very wide and radiate nothing but chock and horror and disgust at Taylor.
“I- You-” She swallows. “God!” Breathes out sharply, stares at Taylor as if she’s never seen her before. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Taylor? What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Taylor says nothing, only looks, and looks, and wants to say something but doesn’t know what, the very idea of the words she possibly could have said flee her in the face of Brooke’s outrage, mounting with every word she says:
“God! You need help!” Brooke is retreating now, as if suddenly remembering that she can do that, remembering that she can move, getting up on her feet now and recoiling towards the door with an almost unbelievable speed: “Nick said that you were unstable but I never thought- I… you’re crazy. You’re actually crazy.”
And with that, a last look of horror and outrage and disgust, Brooke opens the door and slams it shut and is gone.
Taylor breathes out, closing her eyes and fighting the lump in her chest, too big now for any words. Tries to feel as if she has somehow won this one, tries to find some sort of vindictive pleasure in the fact that at least she managed to throw Brooke off balance, managed to drive her away, leaving Taylor alone.
But it is hard to make it feel like a victory, especially when Brooke never mentions it again. Not even during the trial, not even when mentioning it could have been the final nail in Taylor’s coffin when Brooke is called in to testify just how unstable Taylor is, how unfit to care for a child. Not even then, because if you don’t speak of it, it might as well never have happened, and these things don’t happen here.