muse_shuffle | March Disc One
Track 05. Now don't look at me that way
You know I just can't… take it
And no matter what they say
I know that we will…. Make it
Cause when we are good we are grand
But when we're bad… we are.. very bad (so bad)
But it has to go round
Cause the love that you are giving me is the best
I have ever had
[‘Turn on Billie’ - The Pierces]
Co-written with straight2point
[Follows THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS]
Marc felt like his eyes were hanging out of his head. He hadn't just been unavailable on the phone. He had been unavailable full stop due to an impromptu drive from New York to Toronto in Canada via Boston. Twelve hours on the road in a hire car for a four hour undercover interrogation and then a flight back to New York. To make matters worse, being undercover in a situation like this, he couldn't call Harri or receive calls from her, either. He wasn't even Marcus Fraser, he was someone entirely different again. This time a Russian corporate banker with an interesting coke habit. As soon as he got off the plane in New York, he had checked his voicemail and found all the messages from Harri but before he could call her back, Ali got him on the phone desperately begging him to babysit Jamie. Apparently the boyfriend had injured himself on the job (Marc tried not to laugh at the irony of a paramedic being injured on the job, but he wasn't overly successful) and he had been taken to the ER. She was going to take Jamie with her but didn't know how long they would have to wait and all in all, it was one big chaotic mess. When she started crying, Marc knew he couldn't say no. He owed her. One out-of-the-blue babysitting job of his niece wasn't even going to touch how much he owed her.
Which is what had him desperately banging on Harri's apartment door with an overstuffed Louis Vuitton pink baby bag slung over one arm and a baby capsule containing his wailing niece in the other. He had survived suburban shoot-outs, drug busts, car chases, hostage situations, but this? This made him feel like he wasn't going to come out alive.
Harri had been curled up on the sofa. Normally after the day she'd had, a bottle of wine might have found itself open and sitting on the coffee table, but she couldn't. The trip back with Kara had been incredibly quiet, Aiden the only one who knew about the baby. Kara had tried to talk to Harri about Alex, but it was clear Harri's mind was elsewhere. Harri wasn't even apologetic. She also wouldn't admit her mind had been back at the hospital with Baby Campbell, still thinking about what it felt like to have his little fingers wrapped around her index finger as she rest it gently on his chest.
The banging broke through her thoughts, and Harri cursed a blue streak from the sofa to the door. She was dressed in sweatpants and a grey v-neck sweater, the designer clothes long gone. Even if her casual clothes still cost a pretty penny. She opened the door, ready to tell whoever it was to fuck off, and actually felt her jaw drop at seeing Marc with Jamie. "Erm..." she started, and couldn't come up with any way to continue.
"I need your help!" Marc said desperately. His own appearance - albeit expensive too - was disheveled and still ruffled from the flight. He had a cap pulled down over his head because the dark dye had been washed from his hair and underneath was actually his natural blond with black streaks and he despised the look. His eyes weren't occupying brown contacts but green and he needed to get them out and then wash the crap black out of his hair. He hadn't even thought that this would be the first time Harri saw his natural blond hair. "I'm babysitting. Or trying to. Ali's bloke got hurt and she's at the ER with him and I couldn't say no to her because she was crying and I hate hearing her cry. This kid is my flesh and blood and I don't even know what to do to shut her up!"
Harri took in the cap and green contacts, but that wasn't what her mind was focusing on. "What do you expect me to do! I'm only good if they're already behaving. I'm not her flesh and blood, so what makes you think she's going to bloody like me any better?" Harri looked from him to the baby capsule and huffed out a breath as she stepped aside to let Marc in. Shouldn't she have been happy to see him? Shouldn't she be embracing a chance to try and see if her nurturing side kicked in? How was she even supposed to begin to tell him she was pregnant like this?
To many bloody questions.
She pushed her fingers through her long blonde hair and looked at him tiredly. "Does she need feeding? Changing?"
"I don't know!" Marc cried, only running on adrenaline himself now. He followed her inside and set the bag and capsule down on her large sofa. His hand went to his head helplessly and he paced back and forth a little. "She's been like this ever since she realised Ali was nowhere to be seen. Maybe I should put on a paramedic uniform? She seems to like him? At least, that's what Ali says. Shit, I need a shower. Can you just watch her for two minutes? I'll be as quick as I can. Then I'll try and figure it out. Holy shit, I have a degree in criminal science and psychology and I can't work out if a kid is hungry."
Harri pushed aside her annoyance for now, more concerned there was a wailing kid in her apartment, and about the only reason she moved to try and pick Jamie up was just to stop the noise from drilling into her skull and leaving her with a migraine. "Go wash," she told him. "I promise I won't suffocate her, or drop her on her head."
Marc nodded distractedly and was in her bathroom in a heartbeat. He stripped down, dumping all his clothes in a messy pile on the floor and throwing the cap into the sink with a snort. He looked at himself, shaking his head. Russian drug addict. Brilliant. He plucked the disposable green contacts from his eyes and threw them in the bin. It will have been a while since he saw himself au naturale too. He turned the spray on hard and stepped into the shower, already grabbing for the shampoo. What next? To try and be World's Best Uncle when he had seen the baby all of, what? Twice? If he fucked this up, Ali would kill him.
Harri was left in the living area with Jamie and she looked at the baby as she tried to craddle the kid in her arms so she didn't feel awkward. "Listen, kid... I know you probably want your mum, but she's not here. I have no bloody clue what I'm doing right now, and neither does your uncle, so here's the deal: you shut up, or at least give us a clue to what you need, and I promise not to spike your milk with vodka." Jamie kept on crying, and Harri sighed. "Fucking great... So does this mean I should spike your bottle? It's not going to be very nice for your mum to find out I'm turning you into an early alcoholic."
Harri started to walk around, and bounced Jamie a little in her arms, trying to think of what else she needed to do, or say. She was going to fucking have one of these apparently, and she was rubbish at looking after someone else's. She hated to think what she'd be like with her own.
When Marc got out of the shower, all hair dye was gone and he paused, looking at himself in the mirror and just seeing plain old James. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief before he dragged his trousers back on with the white wifebeater he had been wearing under the rest of the clothes, leaving it at just that. He towel-dried his hair and ran Harri's brush through it so it wasn't a disaster area. He could hear Jamie still crying out in the living room so he hurried back there, pausing near the coffee table to try and decide what he should do next. "I'm so sorry about this. I just didn't know what to do. I couldn't say no. I mean, the bloke must be hurt to need to go to a hospital." He started dragging things out of the bag and finally found a bottle, holding it up. "Do you know how to heat one of these and do you have any Advil?"
"It's fine," Harri said curtly, her eyes closed as she just tried to get Jamie to quiet down. She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath in through her nose before she opened her eyes to look at Marc. Even with his hair still a little damp she could tell it was his natural blond. She was used to his gorgeous blue eyes, but he still looked... different. She couldn't help but wonder if this was the man who cared about her, or if it was definitely Marc that cared about her. Too many lines were beginning to blur and she felt a lump suddenly make itself known in her throat. She figured there was enough wailing built up inside her to rival Jamie, but she pushed it all back down and finally gave a shake of her head. "No... I don't. The bottle, I mean. Advil I have bucketloads of. There should be some in the medicine cabitnet in the bathroom."
Marc looked at the bottle, as if hoping an instruction label would suddenly appear on it. He held his hand up and shoved the bottle under his arm to pull his PDA out of his pocket. "I'll Google it," he decided, tapping in a chain of commands with the little touch pen. "I'm sorry I didn't return your calls. I had to drive to Toronto... via Boston. I was on the road for twelve hours and then Ali got me on the phone before I could return my calls so I just picked Jamie up and came straight over." He glanced up at her apologetically, oblivious to the fact anything was wrong, his drying blond hair falling into his face. "I wasn't able to alert you to where I was."
Harri arched her eyebrow at the incredibly formal way he worded his last comment. "I bet you say that to all your girlfriends." She remembered something she'd seen a mother in the hospital and changed her grip on Jamie to rest the baby against her shoulder as she patted the little girl's back. There was the most promising moment of silence, and Harri had just been about to let out a sigh of relief when Jamie started up again. "It's fine, really. She needs to take care of Andrew. It's what partners should do for each other."
Marc frowned and shoved the PDA back in his pocket to pick the bottle up again. "It's nice to see you, too," he said evenly and stalked into the kitchen to try and work out how to heat this thing up. Jamie was absolutely screaming and it was drilling into his tired brain. Maybe next time he should just go to his personal assistant for help? The tension in the air could almost be sliced with a knife. He thought she understood about the fact he could disappear abruptly without notice just like he had done the past few days.
Harri growled in frustration, but stopped when it made Jamie's crying go that notch louder. "Please, for the love of my bloody sanity, just be quiet. What do you want? Do you want me to sing? I should warn you, I'm crap at it. Bollocks, in fact." Harri wet her lips and tried to stop cursing Marc in her mind with every breath. It was hard though, right now she just wanted to slap him for leaving her alone at the hospital to find out about the bloody rice grain inside her. Maybe she'd had Aiden, but that wasn't the same. Marc's absence meant she now had to explain it all to him instead of a doctor, and right now she didn't really feel like it. Not without wanting to punch his sexy lights out. "Can't you just make do with the soothing tone of my speaking voice? I don't even know any bloody kids' songs."
Marc dumped the bottle into the pot of water, splashing half of it over the cooker and sizzling on the element. He went back out into the living room and when he reached Harri, held his hands out. "I'll take her. She's my niece. You don't need to bother yourself with it," he told her, meeting her eyes. The crying was like a stab both to his sore head and his heart. As the words 'my niece' came out of his mouth, that guilt made itself known again. The crying didn't stop, though. He closed his eyes as if it would drown the distressed sound out and he shook his head. "Goddamnit, I'm never having kids! There is no way I'm made for this!"
Harri clenched her jaw as she glared at him. Without needing to be told again, she passed Jamie to her uncle as her lips curled back into a sneer. "Then it's a good thing I never told you I was fucking pregnant!" she hissed at Marc, not about to yell in case that made Jamie cry more. She turned on her heel and stalked off towards her bedroom, needing at least two minutes to calm down before she really did punch his lights out. Although right now she was more than content to leave him with a bawling Jamie. What did that say about her?
Marc stared after her in shock. What the fuck sort of comment was that to throw at him? Was she serious? He stared at the spot she had just disappeared from for close to a minute, trying to wrap his head around it but he soon blinked and looked down at his crying baby niece. He went through to the kitchen and shut the cooker off, picking up the still tepid bottle from the pan and then went back out to where Jamie's things were. He put her into the capsule, making sure she was secure in it and warm, then collected all of her things up and walked out of Harri's apartment, the cap once again hiding his head. Whatever the message was she had been trying to give him, he could read between the lines well enough. He was just going to have to take Jamie back to Ali and clock it up as a failure. So, what else was new?
All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe
Word Count | 2,459
You know I just can't… take it
And no matter what they say
I know that we will…. Make it
Cause when we are good we are grand
But when we're bad… we are.. very bad (so bad)
But it has to go round
Cause the love that you are giving me is the best
I have ever had
[‘Turn on Billie’ - The Pierces]
Co-written with straight2point
[Follows THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS]
Marc felt like his eyes were hanging out of his head. He hadn't just been unavailable on the phone. He had been unavailable full stop due to an impromptu drive from New York to Toronto in Canada via Boston. Twelve hours on the road in a hire car for a four hour undercover interrogation and then a flight back to New York. To make matters worse, being undercover in a situation like this, he couldn't call Harri or receive calls from her, either. He wasn't even Marcus Fraser, he was someone entirely different again. This time a Russian corporate banker with an interesting coke habit. As soon as he got off the plane in New York, he had checked his voicemail and found all the messages from Harri but before he could call her back, Ali got him on the phone desperately begging him to babysit Jamie. Apparently the boyfriend had injured himself on the job (Marc tried not to laugh at the irony of a paramedic being injured on the job, but he wasn't overly successful) and he had been taken to the ER. She was going to take Jamie with her but didn't know how long they would have to wait and all in all, it was one big chaotic mess. When she started crying, Marc knew he couldn't say no. He owed her. One out-of-the-blue babysitting job of his niece wasn't even going to touch how much he owed her.
Which is what had him desperately banging on Harri's apartment door with an overstuffed Louis Vuitton pink baby bag slung over one arm and a baby capsule containing his wailing niece in the other. He had survived suburban shoot-outs, drug busts, car chases, hostage situations, but this? This made him feel like he wasn't going to come out alive.
Harri had been curled up on the sofa. Normally after the day she'd had, a bottle of wine might have found itself open and sitting on the coffee table, but she couldn't. The trip back with Kara had been incredibly quiet, Aiden the only one who knew about the baby. Kara had tried to talk to Harri about Alex, but it was clear Harri's mind was elsewhere. Harri wasn't even apologetic. She also wouldn't admit her mind had been back at the hospital with Baby Campbell, still thinking about what it felt like to have his little fingers wrapped around her index finger as she rest it gently on his chest.
The banging broke through her thoughts, and Harri cursed a blue streak from the sofa to the door. She was dressed in sweatpants and a grey v-neck sweater, the designer clothes long gone. Even if her casual clothes still cost a pretty penny. She opened the door, ready to tell whoever it was to fuck off, and actually felt her jaw drop at seeing Marc with Jamie. "Erm..." she started, and couldn't come up with any way to continue.
"I need your help!" Marc said desperately. His own appearance - albeit expensive too - was disheveled and still ruffled from the flight. He had a cap pulled down over his head because the dark dye had been washed from his hair and underneath was actually his natural blond with black streaks and he despised the look. His eyes weren't occupying brown contacts but green and he needed to get them out and then wash the crap black out of his hair. He hadn't even thought that this would be the first time Harri saw his natural blond hair. "I'm babysitting. Or trying to. Ali's bloke got hurt and she's at the ER with him and I couldn't say no to her because she was crying and I hate hearing her cry. This kid is my flesh and blood and I don't even know what to do to shut her up!"
Harri took in the cap and green contacts, but that wasn't what her mind was focusing on. "What do you expect me to do! I'm only good if they're already behaving. I'm not her flesh and blood, so what makes you think she's going to bloody like me any better?" Harri looked from him to the baby capsule and huffed out a breath as she stepped aside to let Marc in. Shouldn't she have been happy to see him? Shouldn't she be embracing a chance to try and see if her nurturing side kicked in? How was she even supposed to begin to tell him she was pregnant like this?
To many bloody questions.
She pushed her fingers through her long blonde hair and looked at him tiredly. "Does she need feeding? Changing?"
"I don't know!" Marc cried, only running on adrenaline himself now. He followed her inside and set the bag and capsule down on her large sofa. His hand went to his head helplessly and he paced back and forth a little. "She's been like this ever since she realised Ali was nowhere to be seen. Maybe I should put on a paramedic uniform? She seems to like him? At least, that's what Ali says. Shit, I need a shower. Can you just watch her for two minutes? I'll be as quick as I can. Then I'll try and figure it out. Holy shit, I have a degree in criminal science and psychology and I can't work out if a kid is hungry."
Harri pushed aside her annoyance for now, more concerned there was a wailing kid in her apartment, and about the only reason she moved to try and pick Jamie up was just to stop the noise from drilling into her skull and leaving her with a migraine. "Go wash," she told him. "I promise I won't suffocate her, or drop her on her head."
Marc nodded distractedly and was in her bathroom in a heartbeat. He stripped down, dumping all his clothes in a messy pile on the floor and throwing the cap into the sink with a snort. He looked at himself, shaking his head. Russian drug addict. Brilliant. He plucked the disposable green contacts from his eyes and threw them in the bin. It will have been a while since he saw himself au naturale too. He turned the spray on hard and stepped into the shower, already grabbing for the shampoo. What next? To try and be World's Best Uncle when he had seen the baby all of, what? Twice? If he fucked this up, Ali would kill him.
Harri was left in the living area with Jamie and she looked at the baby as she tried to craddle the kid in her arms so she didn't feel awkward. "Listen, kid... I know you probably want your mum, but she's not here. I have no bloody clue what I'm doing right now, and neither does your uncle, so here's the deal: you shut up, or at least give us a clue to what you need, and I promise not to spike your milk with vodka." Jamie kept on crying, and Harri sighed. "Fucking great... So does this mean I should spike your bottle? It's not going to be very nice for your mum to find out I'm turning you into an early alcoholic."
Harri started to walk around, and bounced Jamie a little in her arms, trying to think of what else she needed to do, or say. She was going to fucking have one of these apparently, and she was rubbish at looking after someone else's. She hated to think what she'd be like with her own.
When Marc got out of the shower, all hair dye was gone and he paused, looking at himself in the mirror and just seeing plain old James. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief before he dragged his trousers back on with the white wifebeater he had been wearing under the rest of the clothes, leaving it at just that. He towel-dried his hair and ran Harri's brush through it so it wasn't a disaster area. He could hear Jamie still crying out in the living room so he hurried back there, pausing near the coffee table to try and decide what he should do next. "I'm so sorry about this. I just didn't know what to do. I couldn't say no. I mean, the bloke must be hurt to need to go to a hospital." He started dragging things out of the bag and finally found a bottle, holding it up. "Do you know how to heat one of these and do you have any Advil?"
"It's fine," Harri said curtly, her eyes closed as she just tried to get Jamie to quiet down. She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath in through her nose before she opened her eyes to look at Marc. Even with his hair still a little damp she could tell it was his natural blond. She was used to his gorgeous blue eyes, but he still looked... different. She couldn't help but wonder if this was the man who cared about her, or if it was definitely Marc that cared about her. Too many lines were beginning to blur and she felt a lump suddenly make itself known in her throat. She figured there was enough wailing built up inside her to rival Jamie, but she pushed it all back down and finally gave a shake of her head. "No... I don't. The bottle, I mean. Advil I have bucketloads of. There should be some in the medicine cabitnet in the bathroom."
Marc looked at the bottle, as if hoping an instruction label would suddenly appear on it. He held his hand up and shoved the bottle under his arm to pull his PDA out of his pocket. "I'll Google it," he decided, tapping in a chain of commands with the little touch pen. "I'm sorry I didn't return your calls. I had to drive to Toronto... via Boston. I was on the road for twelve hours and then Ali got me on the phone before I could return my calls so I just picked Jamie up and came straight over." He glanced up at her apologetically, oblivious to the fact anything was wrong, his drying blond hair falling into his face. "I wasn't able to alert you to where I was."
Harri arched her eyebrow at the incredibly formal way he worded his last comment. "I bet you say that to all your girlfriends." She remembered something she'd seen a mother in the hospital and changed her grip on Jamie to rest the baby against her shoulder as she patted the little girl's back. There was the most promising moment of silence, and Harri had just been about to let out a sigh of relief when Jamie started up again. "It's fine, really. She needs to take care of Andrew. It's what partners should do for each other."
Marc frowned and shoved the PDA back in his pocket to pick the bottle up again. "It's nice to see you, too," he said evenly and stalked into the kitchen to try and work out how to heat this thing up. Jamie was absolutely screaming and it was drilling into his tired brain. Maybe next time he should just go to his personal assistant for help? The tension in the air could almost be sliced with a knife. He thought she understood about the fact he could disappear abruptly without notice just like he had done the past few days.
Harri growled in frustration, but stopped when it made Jamie's crying go that notch louder. "Please, for the love of my bloody sanity, just be quiet. What do you want? Do you want me to sing? I should warn you, I'm crap at it. Bollocks, in fact." Harri wet her lips and tried to stop cursing Marc in her mind with every breath. It was hard though, right now she just wanted to slap him for leaving her alone at the hospital to find out about the bloody rice grain inside her. Maybe she'd had Aiden, but that wasn't the same. Marc's absence meant she now had to explain it all to him instead of a doctor, and right now she didn't really feel like it. Not without wanting to punch his sexy lights out. "Can't you just make do with the soothing tone of my speaking voice? I don't even know any bloody kids' songs."
Marc dumped the bottle into the pot of water, splashing half of it over the cooker and sizzling on the element. He went back out into the living room and when he reached Harri, held his hands out. "I'll take her. She's my niece. You don't need to bother yourself with it," he told her, meeting her eyes. The crying was like a stab both to his sore head and his heart. As the words 'my niece' came out of his mouth, that guilt made itself known again. The crying didn't stop, though. He closed his eyes as if it would drown the distressed sound out and he shook his head. "Goddamnit, I'm never having kids! There is no way I'm made for this!"
Harri clenched her jaw as she glared at him. Without needing to be told again, she passed Jamie to her uncle as her lips curled back into a sneer. "Then it's a good thing I never told you I was fucking pregnant!" she hissed at Marc, not about to yell in case that made Jamie cry more. She turned on her heel and stalked off towards her bedroom, needing at least two minutes to calm down before she really did punch his lights out. Although right now she was more than content to leave him with a bawling Jamie. What did that say about her?
Marc stared after her in shock. What the fuck sort of comment was that to throw at him? Was she serious? He stared at the spot she had just disappeared from for close to a minute, trying to wrap his head around it but he soon blinked and looked down at his crying baby niece. He went through to the kitchen and shut the cooker off, picking up the still tepid bottle from the pan and then went back out to where Jamie's things were. He put her into the capsule, making sure she was secure in it and warm, then collected all of her things up and walked out of Harri's apartment, the cap once again hiding his head. Whatever the message was she had been trying to give him, he could read between the lines well enough. He was just going to have to take Jamie back to Ali and clock it up as a failure. So, what else was new?
All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe
Word Count | 2,459